How to Make Friends With the Neighbors

It rained big time yesterday. About eight-tenths of an inch in 15 minutes. Not at all typical for Utah. It was windy too. One of the big quakies couldn't stand all the excitement and dropped over -- right on the next door neighbor's house.

She's a lovely, seventy something widow. I really did not want to drop a tree on her house. She didn't answer her phone, and when I called her workplace she'd just left. Darn!

So I called my tree guy, who, because Murphy rules, had just been out the day before working on the trees.

"Rick! Tree emergency! One of my big quakies just fell on my neighbor's garage."

He was right in the middle of cutting a tree off of a poor squashed car, but when he was done, he sent his guys on over with the cherry picker.

Then my neighbor called me and said she'd gotten home a little bit ago. Her garage door was only partially blocked, so she'd driven on in and parked. She hadn't called until her work had called her cell phone and let her know I was looking for her because, "I wasn't worried, I knew you'd take care of it." She's a good (and trusting) neighbor.

While the guys were waiting for Rick, who had the chainsaws in his truck, they roped up the tree so it wouldn't do any damage while it was coming down and cut off as many branches as their loppers could handle.

They waited...

Patiently.





Then Macho Time!




I don't think this technique would be approved in chainsaw safety class.










Don't chainsaws bring out the testosterone in a guy?

Fortunately, the tree had toppled over slowly and there was no damage whatsoever to the neighbor's house.

The same can't be said for my tree. Here's all that's left of it.

The Dangers of Flying Large

I just returned from a week in Michigan visiting relatives and attending my high school reunion. I won't tell you how many years, but I did wonder where the heck all those middle-aged goomers came from.

Both directions on this trip were plagued by "weather." I arrived about four hours later than expected because heavy thunderstorms and wind in Detroit kept the plane circling until it had to go to Cleveland to refuel. On the way back, the "weather" was at Continental's Houston hub where my insane travel agent (the Engineer) had scheduled an eight (8!) hour layover for me.

The storm started about an hour into the infernal, eternal layover and boogered up the whole airport. By the time my flight was supposed to be boarding, the storm was over, but a plane going to Ontario was offloading at the gate. My flight was two hours late taking off, which meant the plane would be landing in Salt Lake City around 2:00 a.m. - unless it flapped its wings extra hard.

To add icing to that cupcake, the Engineer, who graduated from the same high school, the same year, so it was his reunion too, had booked himself a direct flight from Detroit to Salt Lake, arriving home at 2:30 p.m. His flight was on time. The candy sprinkles on the icing - I was to take a cab home so my beloved could get his "beauty sleep." (Actually, I didn't have a problem with that, it was practical, but when already annoyed by the way the travel was progressing...)

Now any of you who have been flying with any regularity know that airplane seats have been getting smaller every year. And my butt has been getting bigger. It's a bad combination.

I had booked the exit row aisle seat on the theory (confirmed by the gate agent) that since it's a non-reclining seat it is less desirable and that, therefor, the center seat in that row would be the last to fill. At original takeoff minus seven hours it looked like a pretty safe bet, there were eleven empty seats showing.

Of course, by boarding time, the flight was overbooked.

Don't know what the story was, but a whole herd of Polynesians must have booked at the last minute. It looked like several families with children of assorted ages and about a half dozen single men. The guy who sat next to me was built on a grand scale.

The guy who got the center seat in the row behind me was mammoth; probably about 6'7" and BIG. The two middle-aged business men bracketing him took offense and called in the stewardess.

After a lot of arguing and arm waving and trying to persuade someone, anyone, to exchange seats, it ended badly with the stewardess leading the resigned looking giant off the plane.

The big Tongan sitting next to me and I looked at each other, then sat in our seats very, very quietly until takeoff.

This Bloody, Bloody Foot

All I can do is look down at the blood welling from multiple holes and ask, "Why do I keep shooting myself in the foot? Am I really going to learn this time?"

This time...

I always partition my hard drive, it not only makes more efficient use of disk space, but it's part of my filing system, so I decided to give myself a generous C:\ partition for my system and associated file; 100 Gig should do. Then D:\Linux, E:\LinuxScratch, F:\Programs, G:\GeekStuff, H:\Temp.

Well, I set up the C:\System partition and as soon as I'd formatted it, Windows started installing itself. But, "I can deal with this, I have Partition Magic," so I let it go ahead with the install.

After installing Windows and the necessary drivers (after finally finding the CD's), I planned to download all the updates for Windows XP. Once that interminable process was over, I'd kill my Internet connection for safety's sake, install my actual programs and, only after all that was complete, install that major pain in the derriere, Norton Antivirus.

I have one of those love/hate relationships with Norton. I imagine most people who use it do. You've really got to protect your computer from the evils lurking on the Web, but, Dang!, performance sure takes a heavy hit when Norton's installed.

Since I'm still don't know why my hard drive crashed, I want to make sure that I have a prophylactic (Norton) on before I slave it to the new drive and go exploring.

Found the necessary drivers -- all neatly together in a CD rack. Nice, finding one meant finding them all. Installed my modem and network card then got on line. Went to Microsoft, started the upgrade downloads only to get the message, "Insufficient Disk Space"!!!

Huh?

Turned out I'd missed my decimal point and formatted 10 Gig instead of 100.

Evil Language!

Of course, you know which disk I can't find now... Partition Magic.

Me and Murphy. Joined at the hip and shooting at my foot.

After the Adventures

Had friends over for dinner Friday night. It was not one of those nights where everything goes smoothly. M hasn't yet gotten the hang of finding my house - the street signs around here are confusing - so it took a couple of phone calls and me standing in the driveway to guide her in.

My adventure had come about a half hour earlier.

When I was coming through the back door with the groceries, the cats were lurking behind the door. Their two-pronged charge took me by surprise and they both escaped. No biggie, I thought, set the cat door on "in only", and started cooking.

There really are times when I should pay a little more attention to what I'm doing.

I didn't check that I was getting all my dry ingredients for the cornbread right until it was time to add the liquids and I asked myself, "Is it two or three cups of cornmeal?"

Turned out it should have been one cup, but since I'd already put in two and mixed in the salt, baking powder, etc., it seemed to only way to save it would be to simply make a double batch. Except that I didn't have enough fresh milk.

No matter, I had a partially used can of evaporated milk on the top shelf of the refrigerator.

As I was taking the can from the fridge, an orange streak of lighting came flashing through the kitchen, screaming bird in mouth. She bolted between my legs and the fridge. I dropped the can of milk - upside down, of course - splattering viscous, sticky, evaporated milk everywhere.

I turned to chase Kitsu, and Sachi came running up the stairs with another bird in her mouth.

By the time I took Kitsu's bird away from her, Sachi (who is a little demon) had shredded hers all over the antique guest room floor. Kitsu's was still alive, though looking pretty shell shocked. I let Kitsu's bird go, locked the cat door, cleaned up the major bits o' birdie, washed up and returned to cooking, ignoring the feathers still drifting about. I was running late enough, I wasn't going to let a few feathers hold me back.

Turned out I needn't have worried about being behind schedule. Kate and KC, the Friday Afternoon Hiking Club, had decided to try a short cut and had a big adventure of their own. They arrived two hours late, wet, bedraggled and looking exhausted. You can read Kate's thoroughly expurgated version of it here. She left out all the really good (embarrassing) parts.

We all laughed until our sides ached and had a fine time. Good dinner too. KC brought the coleslaw and I provided the BBQ pork, pinto beans, cornbread, red wine and banana pudding.

GoodDog (who participated in some of the embarrassing parts of the Snowshoe Hike Short Cut Adventure) hid in Kate's car under two blankets and pretended that nothing had happened.

I'll bet he licked his aching paws a lot.

The Day's "Well, Poo!" Moment

Today was to be my 100th donation. I was stoked. I leaped into my trusty green Subaru and drove south, arriving at the Red Cross Blood Services a mere 10 minutes late for my 10:15 appointment. I was greeted at the front desk by KC, who volunteers there, with a card and congratulations. I read the educational materials. I went back with my blood sucker, had my mini physical and took my computer test. I passed everything. I walked in glory to my assigned recliner, spooled up my movie, "Hellboy II, The Golden Army" (I only watch the classics.) My pair of blood suckers awarded me with a "Centennial Certificate" and a fuzzy red blankie, then stuck needles into the crooks of both my arms and turned on the machine. Hosannas were heard from on high.

Then came the "Well, Pooh!" moment.

It was a bad stick in my persnickety left arm.

So the floor supervisor stuck me again.

No go.

What an anticlimax. All that hoohah and no donation.

I tried to give the certificate and blankie back, but they wouldn't take them. Said it was the effort that counted.

Next Monday, when I go back, it's a single needle donation for me. Takes longer, but that evil left arm won't be able to screw me up.

To make myself feel better, I went to Three Wishes and bought some yarn to knit a case for my new laptop. Mmmm... yarn.

Why Is It That I Never Have My Camera At The Right Moment?

I'm a fairly enthusiastic amateur photographer. I take pictures of my cats, nature, knitting projects, my garden, stuff that looks cool, whatever happens to present itself to me. Somehow, I never seem to have the camera at the ready when the really good photo ops appear.

Driving home, I see the most glorious sunset with glowing clouds and the lights in the valley below beginning to twinkle. So I drive like a bat, run into the house, grab my camera and drive at top legal speed back to the vantage point, but it's gone like it never existed.

Sitting in the woods, contemplating nature, and eagle lights in a nearby tree and stares at me. I quietly remove the camera from the bag, raise it to my eye and the eagle has flown with just the echo of a high keening cry to prove he was there.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I walked into the bathroom and a cute little kitten head popped up over the rim of the toilet bowl. A cat in the can, how funny. Camera, in the other room.

Or the time the sprinkler junction started leaking. I got home from the grocery store and found the Engineer head down in a hole, derriere in the air, covered with mud. By the time I got back out with the camera, he was done with the job. And, darn it all, he wouldn't replicate the pose for me.

Hate to admit it, but I'm warped enough that I regret the last two instances more than the first.

Maybe next time I'll have camera ready in hand.

Teamwork

Have you ever noticed how a road crew works?

There's always one guy with a shovel who's actually in the hole digging. The rest of the guys stand around watching and probably making raunchy comments about the digger's style. Everyone has an opinion on who should be in the hole and how it should be dug, but nobody wants to do the actual digging. It's rather amazing to me that somehow the hole always manages to get dug despite the workers. Why do I have these photos?

Last week AT&T installed a fiber optic line through the neighborhood. They installed it right through my sewer connection. Found out when I did the laundry Sunday and the basement drains barfed up unmentionable stuff.

I want to divorce Murphy. He's ruled this house way too long.

Murphy Strikes Again!

The Engineer went out of town this weekend. Poor fellow has to go to a Houston Astros game and sit in a corporate box. He's been getting a chuckle out of his ticket which specifies his seat as "barstool." And, of course, the box has its own private waiter to pour the beer and serve the food. Don't we feel sooooo sorry for him.

As soon as his plane took off it started to snow. First if was big globs of snow like loose snowballs going splat, splat, splat on my windshield, then it got down to business and snowed for real.

I had taken the frost blankets off the garden Monday, so I ran out and put them back on. It was lots of fun. I used an 8 foot garden stake as an arm extension to hook the fabric up and over the supporting poles and plants. It took me an hour working on my own and by the time I was done I was soaked and cold.

Since I'm a red head, I have no naturally visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Every morning, I goop myself up thoroughly with mascara to look like I have a face. Running around in soggy snow is not good for mascara. By the time I was finished with the plants, I looked like Alice Cooper.

I came in, pealed my dripping clothes off - amazing how hard it is to pull clothes off when they're that wet - and took a long, hot shower.

Aaaah!

A couple hours later, I realized that the warm and toasty after shower feeling was wearing off way too quickly, so I went to bump up the thermostat. It said 63, so I pushed it up to 68. No heat. Pushed it up to 70. No heat. I went to the basement and stared at the big furnace box and the ductwork and pipes and had no idea what to do.

Evil Language!

Called the Engineer to see if he had any ideas.

He said to turn the thermostat up.

Well duh! Like that's not the first thing I tried.

He had no ideas beyond that and, besides, the waiter was serving his dinner.

I found the power switch for the furnace and decided, what the heck, if rebooting works for computers, maybe it will work for a furnace. I turned it off and listened to funny noises. I turned it back on and listened to more funny noises, including water gurgling.

Water gurgling?

So I called the heating and air company that had been out last week to install a whole house humidifier and had left the job half done because of a faulty motor on the unit. After about an hour, the on-call guy called me back and we went through a bunch of diagnostics. The water gurgling turned out to be the clue he needed to diagnose the problem over the phone. The condensate drain was plugged - which needed a part from Lennox to fix and Lennox isn't open until Monday...

He suggested I try to blow out the obstruction. I blew until my cheeks popped to no avail.

To heck with that! Let's go postal on it!

I got out my trusty keyhole saw and cut a hole in the condensate drain trap. Smart girl that I am, I had a bucket ready for the spurting water.

Heat's back on and I've put in an order for a new drain trap cap that's spring loaded for easy clean-out to be installed when the motor for the humidifier blower comes in.

The bucket will work until then.

Contractor Hell

That's were I've been residing for the last 16 months. When the roof remodel began in June of 2006, Murphy moved in to stay. If it could go wrong, it has gone wrong and usually at the worst possible time.

I've been trying to get the electrician out to finish the job since May. In 4+ months his crew has been out for a total of about six hours. I truly appreciate that the boss pulled Pete off installing new Austrian crystal chandeliers in the Governor's mansion (second set in a year - my tax dollars at work) to rough in my swamp cooler when it was over 100 out, but I really would like to get the new service and panels installed before the snow flies. Pete and RePete do a good job when they're here, but, geeze, I wish their boss would send them on a regular basis.

I drew this totem pole to show where I figure I exist in the pecking order...

The Great Swamp Cooler Debacle

Highs are supposed to get up into the mid 90's in the next couple of days and there is no air conditioning in the house other than a portable, one room swamp cooler. Considering we are living in one room, I guess it's not as bad as it could be.

The Engineer and I had quite a tussle over how to cool our remodeled house. He wanted central air, I wanted a swamp cooler. I won.

My overly sensitive nose bleeds all heating season. If we had central air, it would bleed all cooling season too. That wasn't my only argument (though it was the trump) for a swamp cooler: they're cheaper to buy and install, less expensive to run, better for the environment, and they work very well where we live.

The Engineer decided that our new swamp cooler should not go in the usual place, on the roof, but rather be hung under the back gable.This necessitate buying a side draft rather than a down draft swamp cooler. I didn't think it would be too difficult to find one, all the swamp cooler manufacturers' web sites showed most models in both down and side draft configurations.

Was I ever wrong.

After searching the whole Salt Lake valley, I finally located one at a heating and air wholesaler two weeks ago. I drove all the way across the valley to pay for it, only to discover the only one they had in stock was in another city. Not a problem, I was told, they'd just ship it over and have it ready for me on Monday...

Today my general contractor was finally able to spare a couple of guys to come and install it. They picked up the materials to build the platform to hold the swamp cooler then swung by the heating and air place to pick up the cooler.

They were told no order had ever been placed and turned away. I called with the order number and date to try to figure out what was going on and was told that the Orem store had sold it out from under me, but that they had a scratch and dent special, same model, that they could sell me for $50 less. This was not what I wanted, but the Engineer told me to go over there with the digital camera and take some pictures so he could see if it would do.

When I got there, I went to the guy who had sold it to me, He said, "What do you mean they told you we don't have it? It's right in the warehouse."

So into the warehouse we went and, sure enough, not 20 feet from the scratch and dent special, was the still in shipping carton swamp cooler with my name on it. (The scratch and dent special, by the way, looked like it had been rolled down a hill and left to rust for a couple of years.) To make up for the run-around, they told me they would deliver it free of charge that very afternoon.

I drove straight home and not ten minutes later, the delivery truck arrived.

One little problem...

As you may be able to tell from this picture, the swamp cooler is wider than the access door to the back yard where the cooler is to be hung. Oops.
And, of course, Murphy ruling in all things, when the Engineer got home from work he examined the cooler crate on all sides including the bottom. Turns out that the bottom of the package was missing and the bottom of the swamp cooler was, well, more than a little dented. Which, of course, is totally unacceptable to the Engineer.

I feel like I've been visited by that old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."