It finally appears to be spring around here. At least for a few days. The leaves are bustin’ out all over and the grass is growing. A lot. To that end, I got the mower on the tractor yesterday afternoon (always a painful process – I think the Japanese guy who designed the Kubota belly mower never quite got over WWII) and even cut the grass. Well, some of the grass – the part outside of the dog containment area. I was just gonna cut a swath to make sure I had the thing on and working OK, but then I figured I might as well carry on for a bit. I’d have carried on, but that would have required a serious dog hole and rock patrol (they like to pull rocks out of the sump pond so they can chew on them), and I wasn’t up for that. So I decided I’d spend some quality time sitting on the deck and not drinking beer. As soon as I got settled in, I had a work thing come up and that was the end of that. It was nice while it lasted.
The wife is rather thoughtlessly taking a few days off work, relegating me to public transportation like a common person for the next week or so. I don’t mind the bus, so much, but the late bus is almost always late, and even when it’s on time it means I don’t get home until damn near bedtime. But it’s supposed to be warm and sunny, so at least it’ll be pleasant hanging out at the bus stop. Especially if the pigeons haven’t managed to shit all over the picnic tables yet.
The only good thing about taking the bus into work is that I have a little bit more time in the morning before I have to leave the house. But I guess my time is up, so I better get going.
Oh, I almost forgot. Happy Birthday to my mom, who would have been 93 today. You can say astrology is bunk all you want, but you’ll never find a better example of Taurus the Bull than she was. Sorry to have been such a Scorpio to ya, mom.
Well, I haven’t been here in a while. Honestly, I don’t feel like I generally like posting here, though, it is a good place to vent even if I don’t like any of you. I mean, really, I’ve posted here for about a decade, and not one of you has ever written me an email to ask how my day was. Fuck you.
Lately I’ve been under some form of mind control, as weird as this seems. My dreams have been seemingly controlled by artificial intelligence, remote neural monitoring and programming. Think about people being abducted by aliens. It’s the same kind of deal, only I’ve been subjected to seeing arabic texts scroll over and over in my mind as I sleep. Of course, no one has ever really been abducted by aliens, only their minds have been fucked by remote neural weapons that implant false memories. It makes me very angry having to deal with this and not have anyone I can talk to about it. The FBI can go eat shit and die because it’s obvious to me they’re part of it, along with NSA and CIA — lying, fucking douchbags. The only semi-authority figure I have to talk to about this is my mom — and that isn’t all that helpful. I have way more examples of my mind, and other people’s minds around me, being hijacked by remote weapons, but I’ll keep that to myself for now.
Anyway, I hope your day was okay — and if it wasn’t, I really don’t give a shit.
Glad you got the tractor out, pj, but sorry you’re still not drinking beer. We’ve had a hell of a day since 3 am. A torrential storm came through and we were without power for about 15 hours. Some folks still don’t have power. The amount of tree damage and just general damage around here is astonishing. I hit the house with a gale force. Guess we had winds between 50 – 100. When I looked at the window at 3:00 it looked like a video on the weather channel. Our old maple lost a hefty branch. I’m not complaining, however, as our neighbor’s tree took out his front porch. Without the sump pumps running for 15 hours, it’s very wet in the basement. This train of storms is heading east so you might want to get prepared, guys!
The memorial marathon is tomorrow and it should be cold but not so stormy. They may get rain. I loved running in the rain and miss it. The race routes run through our neighborhood – we’re not far from the finish line – and we all have a bit of a neighborhood bash. I’m relieved we have power!
Glad you’ve got power again. I have three sump pumps im my basement and an underground river that’s been running high all year – Fritzi’s sump pond stayed full all winter. It’s damp and wet and stinky enough in our basement even with the sumps running. They’re hooked up to generator outlets, but I don’t have a standby one and I can’t keep the gas-powered portable one running while I’m not here. I’d just as soon not see how deep the water gets if everything stays off for a day. Not to mention I don’t really wanna go throw the transfer switch while I’m standing in six inches of water.
That weather shit can be pretty scary. But you know that better than I do, in your neck of the woods.
The black flies are really impressive this year. Somebody’s been giving them steroids, I think. They’re almost as big as house flies.
Lack of beer definitely makes Jack a dull boy. But not drinking and not eating much is a real money saver.
Our powerlines are on poles that get knocked down at every storm. The power goes out but is usually back on within an hour. The electric company has decided to replace the old poles with taller poles. How this will help I don’t know. I keep thinking, ” The bigger they are the harder they fall.” I hope I’m wrong.
The plumber wanted to put in a propane generator that would automatically switch on if the power went out. He also wanted to charge me $15,000 to do it. I thought that was a lot to pay for something that I would seldom use. I hope I’m right.
Propane’s fairly expensive, too, and burns pretty quick. So you’d need some bigass tanks (I have a couple of 100 gallon tanks for my pool heater, and I think the price last year like $2.50 a gallon, so it’s pretty painful to have those babies filled).
I have natural gas service here, so I’ve thought about putting a natural gas fired standby generator. But we don’t lose power all that often (probably shouldn’t have said that), so the portable generator has really been all we’ve needed, and even that I’ve only used a couple of times. We’ve had a few short weather-related outages, but only a couple lengthy ones that were related to cars taking down poles.
Plus, my power panel is on the opposite side of the house from where the gas comes in. So I’d have to either run the gas over to the other side of the house, or run wire over to there. And that part of the house (mostly the garage) is on a slab with no basement, so that would be a long run. None of that’s cheap.
Something that would come on automajically would be a nice luxury (especially when it’s pouring rain or a blizzard out), but there are too many other items in line ahead of it.
We’d have some water in the basement after a storm, but definitely not as much as we had. The water shorted our hot water heater’s ignition assembly and finding that part on a Sunday isn’t happening. While working on the water heater in the basement I heard water running. Turns out our 92 year old Veteran star boarder left the water on outside….for 2 days….while the storm hit and the sump pumps were off. Delightful.
Ah…llife is an adventure.
Oh, you kids!
I hope all Y’all and your beloved companions are doing well. I am monitoring my beloved NOLa JazzFest stormed of the calendar today and just hoping there are no twisters.
A nach’l disaster rolled through RVa years ago and my dad lost power for weeks and he had to move to a motel. My sister has a propane fueled generator for such eventualities. It does make it possible now and then to see her kids. 😉
I hope the weather takes a turn for the better down there. Lord knows it was a cold and shitty day here today. All weekend, really. Things look promising good for Monday, of course.
Worst we ever had was Labor Day, 1998. A “Derechos” (not as tasty as it sounds) came through and took out pretty much everything around here. Even cancelled the final day of the NY State Fair. We lost power where I was living at the time for 2 weeks. It was kinda cute and fun for a few days, but it got pretty old after that. We didn’t have a generator. Thank goodness for the gas water heater and old time radio. And a good assortment of camping gear I’d accumulated over the years.
Chainsaw got a good workout that year.
Sounds like I am being summoned again to go to RVa at the beginning of July. Always a great time of the year. 😉
If you have some time to waste and perseverance, I enjoyed this show.
https://youtu.be/9t7ssVY0zwk
Looks like I’m having a July trip thrust upon me as well, though mine’s at the end of July for a week-long training class. I could have chosen locations such as Chicago, Autin, San Fran, Sacremento, and DC. So I of course chose….
King of Prussia, PA. Yeah, I have a taste for the exotic.
Actually, I really despise flying (not the flight part, but the dealing with airports and TSA and all that). And any trip I’ve taken that’s been booked by our travel office has been on United. So, like, no thanks. K of P is about 4 hours from me, so I can drive and pocket the mileage (better I get it than some airline) and I figure flying is probably a four-hour ordeal between sitting and waiting and flying and all that. I’d rather drive and listen to music and podcasts and be able to get out and walk around once in a while when I feel like it. And the location is right next to Valley Forge, so I can go hang out over there (looks like rather a dull spot, to be honest). And it’s about a mile and half from both a Wegmans and a Costco. So, can’t go wrong there.
And, really, all I’m really gonna do is sit in a classroom all day and a hotel room all night by myself, and I can do that anywhere.
I bet these guys get laid all the time.
Well aren’t they special? Bless their letter hearts.
I really miss doing this. Although now that I’ve seen at least one milksnake slithering around on the basemnet stairs (no wonder the mouse traps have been empty lately), I might want to rethink my brewhouse setup.
Scottish wildcats (who knew).
I’m betting that this Clan Macpherson motto is actually a mistranslation of the original Scots Gaelic, and actually has something to do with safe sex. Good advice, either way.
Heart be still! Sp don’t they usually have 2 rather than 3?
So we seem to be on the verge of a consitutional crisis. How long has the orange beast at the helm? I don’t think our country will be recognizable in the near future.
The redtails in the city seem to have between 2 and 3 chicks at a time. But one pair had 4 one year and one pair had only one.
It feels as if we are in for a wild, scary ride with Trump.
Well, I’m about 4 episodes into the video preview of the future of life under Trump/Pence (aka, “The Handmaid’s Tale”), and I can tell you that we’re in for some really depressing and disturbing times. But if you’re a female that’s a good breeder, you do get ice cream, so there’s that.