Trashy Tuesday 5/7/2013

Law of Physical Surfaces
“The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor, are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug”

Hard to believe isn't it? Good morning Drivelers and a Happy Tuesday. I imagine all of you have been out sprucing up the homestead now that the weather seems to be Springy for a while. Flowers blooming, bushes trimmed, yard mowed for the first, second or third time, new mulched added. Yes, we have been thinking about doing that also. Haven't sprung into action yet. I don't want to have to decide on flowers when there is a huge selection. I would prefer to let people pick them over so all I am left with are the scrawny ones that no one else wants. This is a good tactic because they are usually on sale to boot. 

 

I have been getting some blow back on the choice of mulch I used last year. The 35 bags of cedar chips seem to be destined for the dump. Replaced by some form of rock. Apparently, when cedar chips lay on a flat surface without any vegetation interspersed they tend to blow all over the yard. People smarter than me have urged me to use rocks instead. I plan on doing that as soon as my shoulder is rehabbed to the point where I can use it again. Apparently, last summer's activities and the cedar chips have caused some rotator problems. Now that I am 67, I am beginning to see how this year will go. Oh, and by the way, if anyone has plant and flower suggestions and would like to assist or advise, contact my current wife – she is in charge. Neither of us are horticulturally endowed, we are just under-tall.

Our lawn care guy stopped by yesterday to put some seed down. Nice young man. My current wife over saw the operation and noticed that we had some ants by our lilacs. The pair also decided we have moles back there too. Let me tell you – that brightened my day considerably. Dutifully, I got my handy dandy cheap 1 gallon sprayer out, got my insect stuff and mixed up a batch of stuff. Do you remember when we were younger our parents would buy tools of one kind or another relatively cheaply, made in the USA? They would last multiple years and you could get replacement parts as needed. You younger people won't remember that since the concept died sometime in the 70's, 80's or 90's. Now this stuff is made of plastic, imported from china and forget about finding replacement parts. So I pumped up my sprayer and noticed it didn't have a spray with a nice fan shape like I expected. I saw my problem was with the connection from the wand to the handle. No problem I just tightened the plastic nut around the wand with the plastic threads. Great! Well, not so great. You see the nut tightened just so far. Not quite far enough to have a tight, non-leaking, connection you see. Maybe ¾ of the way tight. Agonizingly close. When you hit that tightened spot, the next turn loosened it all back up. I managed to hit that sweet spot of tight and proceeded to splash the ground and ants with my spray. I couldn't really tell if it killed any of them or if they were just having a good time with the unexpected shower of smelly water. 

 

Today, after my morning duties of breakfast, bathroom pondering, blogging and workout, I will start my search for a replacement of the wand and handle. I know before beginning that the search will be useless and I will just get enraged but hey, its what you do when you are 67. I presume after a few days of searching at Menards, Wal-Mart, Lowes, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Do-It Best Hardware, garden supply stores and anywhere else who may potentially have a sprayer department, I will end up at the first store to purchase a replacement unit. All the guys out there know the drill. 

 

Yesterday morning, my current wife accompanied me on what turned out to be an all morning shopping trip. I first went to our solid waste agency landfill #2 north of town. It was a nice day for a drive. I had a few things to dispose of plus I wanted to introduce my Chevy Equinox to the landfill. The old girl had not been out there yet. I enjoy going out there because it is really a nice experience with pretty friendly and helpful people. This time was no exception. We did note that they are constructing a new building behind where we dump our trash. Too early to tell what it will be used for so will have to get another trip put together in a few weeks. We got the Equinox detailed after the landfill but not because of the landfill. The place was on our way to our next stop and she was a little soiled. 

 

A while back we changed from a cable TV service to satellite TV. Boy, it is hard to get used to. We have about 5000 channels and I can't remember the channel numbers. What has really surprised me the most though is the number of shopping channels. There must be a hundred or so shopping channels. I haven't even had time to check them out, probably a good thing. We have already made an upgrade to the service. The level we chose had all sorts of baseball channels. My current wife is the avid sports fan. She had been a lifelong Cubs fan but gave them up last year so when WGN (Chicago) was not included it wasn't a big deal. That was until this weekend. We upgraded the service so that we now get WGN. It appears as though we do need to get those CUB games after all.

We have had some sad news from our back yard neighbor. He has the “girls”. The girls were a pair of dogs that barked a lot but seemingly were in love with the pugs. At least Max was smitten with one of them. One of the girls has been getting more and more arthritic. They said she was 17 years old. They had to put to sleep yesterday. She was sweet but had a nice long life. She will be missed. They got a new dog a few weeks ago. We call her leaper because she jumps over our chain link fence. I think it is just youthful enthusiasm and will grow out of that I am sure. The remaining older dog is the one Max is smitten with. It will be interesting to see how they react when they notice the missing girl. Kinnick has met the new dog and doesn't seem to be very impressed with her. Of course, he was not too impressed with the others either.

I have to go now. Got to get ready for the gym, get this to my peeps for editing and start my sprayer repair parts. I will probably see some of you at the various hardware stores over the next few days. Be sure to say hello if I don't see you. I get into a Zen kind of trance when I am on a hunt like this and get really focused. As a friend of my always says and I say to you, “Stay thirsty my friends”. Here's a sip of French Roast to you. Have a good one. TA!

Hold on, I just got an email I need to share.

Hi all, if you are interested in getting an iPad I can get hold of them through a contact. These are legit, not off the back of a truck; they are from a cancelled Hospital contract due to the Government cutbacks. The numbers are limited - I have twenty iPads going for less than half price so its first come first served. I have already sold one (pic is attached below so you can see what you are getting). Get back to me as quick as you can if you want one. Full spec as shown to the right: