Trashy Tuesday 2/20/2013

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist
leaves the skin. - Mark Twain

Sorry for the delay if anyone noticed. I started this yesterday but had all sorts of interruptions so here it is a day late.

Indeed it is a good morning to Drivel. Hello to my favorite and not-so favorite Drivellers. I hope all is well with each and everyone one of you. I may have to leave you for a spell since I have my favorite grass guy coming over to examine my lush dry lawn and get me setup for this coming year. I am going to try to negotiate with him a periodic watering plus fertilizer. Not sure if I can get that or not. Then after that I get to go see my CPA for a root canal. Oh, it just seems like a root canal. This is not my favorite thing to do, believe me.

As I anticipate going for the IRS root canal, I began to wonder what the difference is between an ocean and a sea. I'm trying to think of pleasant things. According to one dictionary an Ocean is the entire body of salt water that covers more than 70 percent of the earth's surface. Compare that to the definition of a Sea - The continuous body of salt water covering most of the earth's surface, especially this body regarded as a geophysical entity distinct from earth and sky. With that said, what's the difference? Those definitions seem to be about the same don't you think? Okay, enough of the mental gymnastics. The CPA says open your mouth this won't hurt too much. Ha, Ha, Ha! So the root canal begins. I drop off the shoe box of stuff and bolt for the door. Now I wait to see what the damage will be. Medicare or Obama Care won't cover this.

It is now 3:00 pm and I am finally back to working on the blog. Between then and now, I had an excited call from our Pastor. Some sound guys were at the church and had discovered a whole bunch of stuff and fixed it in 3 or 4 hours. I stopped by to get a firsthand look. These guys were amazing. I've never heard the audio system sound soooo good. The sound board had been balanced along with the equalizer. Our transient hum had been isolated and corrected. Wow! This is great.

It is kind of funny. The FCC made a change to the frequencies that can be used in microphones a while back. Our microphones are so old, they are at frequencies BEFORE the one that is outlawed. Ours are using a similar frequency as some cell phones so there is a huge potential for interference. We haven't had any problems yet but who knows. For those of you who go to our church, I hope you will be pleased. For those of you who don't go to Christ Church, come join us and hear how great it sounds. 

 

You remember my current wife, Sue? Well, she was telling me this story a friend of hers had told her. The friend started off, “This morning I went to sign my dogs up for welfare.” At first the lady said, "Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare." So I explained to her that my dogs are mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can't speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddy's are. They expect me to feed them, provide them with housing and medical care. So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify. Her dogs get their first checks Friday. Is this a great country or what?

Sue and I each have a computer room where we do our own things. Like, I write this blog in my “Man Cave”. She writes newsletters, organizes and plays cafe world in her “Mom Cave”. Each of us have a desk, nothing ornate but functional, we each have a laptop and nice leather office chairs. My desk was purchased in 1973 for $1.00. It was old then but it is a solid unit. Sue's desk is from her parents' house and is a nice cherry desk with a glass top. Very nice. Her chair had been mine. I gave it to her when the height adjustment started to malfunction. Wasn't that nice of me? It has worked very well for her. I, in the meantime, purchased a simulated leather desk chair from Staples that was on sale. It has been a very nice chair. That is until yesterday. As a lot of you know, both my current wife and I are vertically challenged. Yesterday, I was working away trying to pull together all of the stuff for the CPA when I noticed that the desktop all of sudden was about chin high. I had noticed that typing had become more difficult but I was so focused I didn't pay any attention until I began losing the feeling in my forearms. I stopped and looked around. Everything looked bigger and higher than I remembered. It was sort of like the Lily Tomlin character on “Laugh In” who sat in an oversized rocking chair to make her seem like a little girl. What was her name? Ernestine? I can't remember for sure. That is the way I felt. Your rear end has to be really down low for a short guys knees to be around his armpits. This blog may become a little disjointed. It seems to have been one of those days.

I received and email a while back purportedly showing the picture of the “Plumber of the Year” Award winner. Along with that photo were several others that many of the DIY people can related to.
AND THE PLUMBER OF THE YEAR AWARD GOES TO…

How does this even get past the planning phase?

Oops!

These photos remind me of the bar Fluffy built in his basement years ago. Fluffy is our audio guy at church. To put this in context, you need to know that Fluffy tries to be handy but power tools, ladders and etc. just don't like him. He's a good guy but tools have it out for him. Anyway, Fluffy's wife, Marcy the singer, told me about his finishing of the basement in their house. It seems like we all built a bar in our basement in the 70's, used them for a year or two and then let them collect dust. According to Marcy, Fluffy worked really hard building this bar. He did a really nice job on it I guess. Fluffy was really proud of his handy work as we all would have been until Marcy pointed out to Fluffy that the bar top was about chin high. Can we all say “Oh Crap, been there done that” in unison please. In Fluffy's defense this event occurred many years ago and all is better now.

I want to give a shout out to our wonderful Streets Department here in Cedar Rapids. They have almost single-handedly allowed our streets to deteriorate to the point of almost returning to gravel roads. Two of my friends, in separate incidents ruined tires and rims by hitting the same pot holes on the same day. The pot hole had been reported previously to the Streets Department but had failed to be repaired. Collectively, there was about $2,000 damage between the two. God only knows how much pain and suffering there was. One of those involved was Marcy, yes Fluffy's wife. He called AAA for help. He gets a call from the AAA guy in a town about 50 miles away. Huh? The AAA guy couldn't understand either and got a hold of someone in Cedar Rapids – situation solved. Both friends called the Streets Department to find out what they were going to do about the damage. The response was “Sorry about that” and hung up. OMG! Sensitivity training please. Since my Garbage Gestapo has backed off recently, I may have to take on the Streets Department. I will keep you posted on that.

At the gym today, I was working on the treadmill and the bike. In my hurry to get the root canal at the CPA's office, I forgot my workout towel and my water bottle. Sweat was dripping at an alarming rate. I grabbed a paper towel, got it soaked wiping off my head and had a couple of sips of water. I went down stairs to work on my bad rotator cuff. The gym has two machines that work pretty good for the rotator cuff. As it happens both machines were busy. For the first time in the 4 years I have been going there, I had to wait for one of these machines. Naturally, there were 2 guys on these machines. Each one oozing testosterone. I used some other equipment while watching them. They would do 5 or 6 reps, get off the machine, turn around and stare at the machine for a few moments. Then they would get on the machine again and repeat the procedure. They do this for about ten minutes and I am getting anxious. Finally, one guy moves on to another machine. Great, except the knot head did not clean the machine after he was done. It is a rule at this gym that you clean your machine so you won't transfer any of your sweat, flu, testosterone or whatever to the next user. Knot head was just too good to be bothered with such trivialities. I cleaned his mess, used the machine and cleaned it again. He is on my radar. I have ran into these types before. There are subtle ways guys get even without ever acknowledging it. 
 
Well, that is my last rant for today. I am sure you have been feverishly looking for the “TA” at the end of the blog. So here it is – TA!