Sam

Thursday was Sam's 11th birthday. Yesterday, most of his kinfolks gathered at Sandy and Slade's house to celebrate. We had a great time, ate barbecue, visited, opened gifts, and generally acted like a big family.

Jon and Missy, thanks for calling. I realize you are temporarily not in the state, but it was very good of you to call him at his party.

The best gift (after the cash and video game) was the mini RC helicopter. Tyler and Sam took turns flying it around the living room, antagonizing the cats, and annoying (not really) the adults. I went looking for a giant flyswatter. The thing is a giant dragonfly.

I need to get one. Gizmo needs something to chase. :)

At any rate, Happy Birthday Sam! We're proud of you, and love you a lot.

Gizmo

Gizmo has adopted me. I don't really know why, but she has decided that I am her person. Let me emphasize that, while I can tolerate cats, I'm really more of a dog person. Cats are OK to look at, but I would not pick one as a pet. They tend to scratch and bite when they require service. Someone very astute once observed that dogs have masters and cats have staff.

My duties as servant to the cat commence each morning when I come down the stairs. That's when she does her best giant slalom impression between my moving feet. This wouldn't be so bad, but I usually get up around 0500 and don't turn on many lights. A black cat weaving in and out of your moving feet on a dark stairway is disconcerting to say the least. It could be downright dangerous if she weighed more than 5 lbs.

Once she has tried, and failed, to kill me as I enter the den, we check her food bowl, fill it if necessary, and then try to visit our favorite internet sites. After she has eaten, she takes up her place on the back of the chair-and-a-half in the den, and stays there most of the day. Occasionally she will make a patrol of the various sinks and bathtubs in the house looking for a drink from a dripping faucet. When the squirrels start running around the back yard, she'll take up her post on the top of a hutch in the dining room, and watch the activity. About once a week, we need to clean the nose prints off of the window.

Another morning activity is to bedevil Wally. An ambush from under some dresser or other piece of furniture will generally generate a game of catch-me-if-you-can. Usually Wally comes up empty. If he does catch her, he doesn't play hard enough to break her. He's good people, too.

One of her other quirks was her desire to get to the greatest altitude possible. The picture is of her on top of a 7' china hutch. She has not been up there lately. I think she cured herself of mountain climbing when she tried to cross the curtain rod to another display cabinet in the living room. When the mounting hook tore out of the wall and dumped her 6' to the floor, I think her enthusiasm was bruised in the impact.

Like I said, I'm not much of a feline fancier, but Gizmo is OK, for a cat.

The Hyperbolic Kitchen

It's gradually approaching completion, but I don't think it is ever going to hit the finish line.

The cabinet installers were back for about the 37th time today to put the project to rest. Steve, their leader, nearly expired when he discovered that we a) had only one glass window that fit, b) one of the thrice-ordered corner cabinets had a flaw that should have never passed a quality control inspection, and c) the glass shelves for the display cabinet were the wrong size. After his fit of apoplexy, he lit out of here like a shuttle launch, intent on issuing a slew of new brains to the folks who took our money and have so far failed to get the order straight.

In their favor, the installers got the corner cabinets installed, the trim installed, the correct cabinets in place over the refrigerator, and it looks fabulous.

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When I got home from work, there were women everywhere. Marilyn, Laura, Gretchen, Missy, Sara, and Violet were all camped in the living room, generally doing whatever Violet wanted. Wally was protecting them from whatever he thought he saw wandering past the storm door.

After playing with Vi for a while, Laura, Sara, and Gretchen went their ways, and Marilyn, Missy, Violet, and I all went out to dinner. Our waitress spent most of the evening in a parallel universe, but the food and company were great. Violet can eat her own weight every 6 hours, fall asleep immediately after dinner, and still stay slightly underweight. If I ate like she does, two things would certainly happen. I would weigh 300 pounds, and my doctor would send her Sicilian cousin Guido to 'splain the error of my ways to me.

All things considered, it was a pretty good day.

Old Stinks...But It's Better Than the Alternative

You know you're getting old when the first page of the Contacts on your cell phone all start with "Dr". Mine has 4, and this week I was glad one of them was there.

Sunday morning, I walked out of the house on the way to Wal-Mart, and winced. The brightness of the morning caused a pain above my left eye. By Monday morning, I was convinced that my old friend Iritis had returned for a visit. It's an inflammation of the iris in the eye. Sometimes, the iris will stick to whatever it slides against. When a bright light causes the pupil to contract, the friction (stiction?) is painful. Biblically painful, as in "If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out". In the past 10 years, I've had two episodes, and know the symptoms fairly well. I called the ophthalmologist and made the first appointment I could...2:15 on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning dawned, and I sat in the dark. Any time my eye tried to dilate, the pain was intense. I sat in the dark until my appointment, unable to look at a computer screen, read, or do much of anything. I discovered that I could mitigate the pain by wearing my sunglasses in the house. After tripping over stuff for several hours, I showed up at the doctor at 2:15, and by 2:40, I was diagnosed as, indeed, having Iritis. I left with a bottle of eye drops and an appointment to come back in a week. The drops are a steroid, and a miracle drug. After two applications, the inflammation was gone, and the pain with it. The bad part of this is that even though it feels better, it takes several weeks to clear it up. Until then, I get to put a drop in my eye 4 times a day, and see the ophthalmologist once a week until he blesses me and tells me to go and sin no more.

Well, enough of feeling sorry for myself. I guess the good part of this is that I have the doctor and treatment, and am feeling well enough to write about it.

Another good thing is that tomorrow morning, Steve the Cabinet Guy will be here with his platoon of Meso-Americans to finally finish the kitchen cabinet installation. Marilyn is cautiously optimistic that they will actually complete the job tomorrow. I remain skeptical (I feel like Pope Leo talking to Michelangelo..."When will you make an end?"), but it might just be that I'm still a little cranky from being ill.

Whatever the outcome, I'm looking forward to having it done.

Keep the faith.

Life, Death, and Flying Potatoes

In an ever expanding effort to remain "Green" (and it was a lot easier than writing something new), I offer this recycled essay for those of you who have not seen it.

Life, Death, and Flying Potatoes


Back in the dim dawn of prehistory, some of our forebears discovered that you could kill an antelope by throwing a rock or a pointed stick at it. Ever since the first proto-redneck discovered throwing, mankind has been searching for better ways to fling things. The aboriginal throwing stick made his arm longer and throw harder. The sling protected David’s sheep and brought down Goliath. The mangenel and trebuchet brought medieval Castles to their knees and tumbled kingdoms. The flintlock gave birth to this country. The caplock and howitzer decided the fate of the Confederacy. The V-2 terrorized London. The Saturn V put men on the moon, and the space shuttle supplies men in orbit over our heads. The history of throwing things parallels the history of the world.

But, as y’all know by now, I live in a place where a lot of folks check out of life with the words, “Hey! Y’all watch this!” Friends, “The Dukes of Hazzard” was not fiction. There really are folks down here who look for places they can launch an automobile. Unfortunately, the cars usually wind up looking like the V in an old Cadillac emblem, but this usually goes unnoticed due to the low level of blood in the alcohol systems of the jumpers.

But I digress. The purpose of this is to detail the development and social uses of a device that was spawned in an eddy in a backwater of the stream of history: The Spud Gun.

Imagine if you will, two good old boys sitting on the porch, sucking suds, and wondering what to do with the pile of tin cans decomposing at their feet. “Coy,” says Billy Bob, “whut are we gonna do with all them cans?” Billy Bob, feeling the effects of August Busch’s finest, says, “Well, I got a bran new roll of duck tape. We kin cut the bottoms out of ‘em, tape ‘em together, stick somethin’ flammable in there, and launch those ol’ tennis balls that Blue’s been chawin’ on.”

So, aided by their trusty jackknife, Coy and Billy Bob proceeded to tape a half-dozen cans together, and punch a hole in the side of the bottom one. A little lighter fluid, a tennis ball, and an in-judicious application of a Zippo, yielded a satisfying “Fwoomp”, a long-range serve, and a broken window. Convinced they were on to something, they pulled another pop-top, and reloaded. Flingin’ things had become an art form. No cat, dog, barn, pickup truck or grazing ruminant was safe.

Well folks, things are a little more sophisticated now. Lowe’s and Home Depot have come to the south and, through no intention of their own, become the armory of the March 31 Trout Assassin’s Camping, Fishing, and Prevarication Society.

The last weekend in March marks the opening of trout season in Georgia. This eagerly awaited event is celebrated by yours truly, his sons, friends, and some total strangers, by loading every variety of camping gear known to man into pickup trucks, trailers, and dog carts and migrating to the mountains for four days of mental rehab. We haul tents, dining canopies, Coleman stoves, lanterns, food, water, beer and firewood into a wildlife management area, and set up a small city. (Yes, we take firewood into a national forest, being respecters of nature, and generally too lazy to gather the stuff.) After setting up camp and downing a few cold ones while listening to Jimmy Buffet extol the virtues of dissolution, we are ready for the entertainment.

Entertainment is the Spud Guns. These are an evolutionary improvement on Coy and Billy Bob’s engineering triumph. The typical spud gun is built of PVC pipe, and can throw a piece of Idaho’s finest a couple of hundred yards. The barrel is usually about 4’ of 1½” diameter pipe, joined to a combustion chamber of 3 or 4 inch pipe. A screw cap on one end serves as a breach, and a lighter button for a gas grill replaces the touchhole and Zippo. Fuel is almost anything flammable. Cheap hair spray works pretty well.

The contraption is loaded by forcing a piece of potato down the barrel from the muzzle, unscrewing the breach, giving it a 3-4 second shot of Aqua Net, and quickly screwing the cap back on. The thing is aimed by pointing it in the general direction of nothing breakable, and fired by pushing the button. Usually, this results in a pretty good report, about 2’ of blue-orange flame (visible at dusk), and a hunk of hash-browns-in-the-raw flying downrange to become raccoon food.

Doesn’t sound real useful, does it? Let me tell you something. This device is not merely an instrument of anarchy, but a time machine. It can transport any man who shoots it back to when he was twelve. It can make a Game Warden laugh (I’m an eyewitness). It will make you forget your boss, love the idiot who chases your dog, and will draw a crowd of strangers and transform them into your best friends. Everyone who sees it has to try it. Once they try it, they want one. (I’ve given away 3 of the things.) As a social icebreaker, it is the best thing in the campground. As a vent and spiritual cathartic, it is a wonder. Blast a dead tree with 4 ounces of potato at 300 feet per second, and you know that your boss can never get under your skin again.

Fun is infectious, and I guess the sight of a 60-year-old bald man laughing like an idiot as he plays with a spud gun will draw a crowd. Fun and companionship are why people go to the mountains. The spud gun is a Swiss-Army toy. It does a lot of things.

Play keeps us young, and I intend to live forever.

So far, so good.

Projects

Since I talked yesterday about all the projects Jon and Missy are about to undertake, and I've been writing about the Kitchen Project for weeks, I think it would be good to introduce you to a couple of others that are on the horizon.

Project #1 is to build a shed in the back yard to house most of the junk that lives in the garage. The "junk" includes an engine hoist, engine stand, table saw, pressure washer, numerous spreaders, weed whackers, edgers, and a hoard of shovels, rakes, picks, and other yard maintenance equipment. Who knows, I might even be able to get a vehicle in the garage some day.

The first picture is Restoration Project #1. It's a 1954 Ferguson (no Massey, it's older than that) TO-30 tractor that belonged to Marilyn's Dad. He bought it slightly used when he returned from the Korean War, and used it constantly throughout his life. Toward the end of its farm existence, Fergie was primarily used to schlep wagons from one place to another, and to mow weeds along the road. Bob and Slade towed it home on a rented trailer about a year ago. Since then, it's been used to move things around Bob's back yard. It still runs quite well, has been converted from 6 to 12 volts, and seems to be mechanically sound.

Once the garage is cleared of stuff, Fergie will be moved over here where we will start pulling diseased sheet metal off. Once it's cleaned up and painted, it will be used as an antidote to all of the green in the local parades of antique tractors. It may also do a little landscaping work from time to time.

Restoration Project #2 is my truck, a 1989 Dodge Dakota 4x4. It's been a member of the family since it was new, has accumulated 450,000 miles, and is still a reliable vehicle. During the course of its life, it's had the engine, transmission, and most of the interior replaced. Planned enhancements include removing most of the trim, a few small dents, fixing the air conditioning, and applying a coat of paint since the original has lost its grip on the primer. Plans are to let Tyler inherit it when he turns 16.

Between all of these planned projects, and the usual un-planned ones, I think I should be spared boredom for quite a while.

Saturday Adventures

Saturday was interesting.

We started out on time (I thought) for our meeting with Jon, Missy, and Violet, but as usual, I was not privy to all the details. We made a stop at Bob and Laura's house to pick up Sara. Then, as usual, we started out about 10 minutes late for our appointment.

Breakfast was good. Violet ate Cheerios and grapes, was her usual charming self, and the rest of us did our best to occlude several major blood vessels. Why is it that when you eat a really good breakfast, you can hear your arteries hardening?

After breakfast we made the short hop to Wintersett Place, where the house Jon and Missy are trying to buy is located. It's a 70's vintage split level with a huge passive solar water heater deal on the roof. After a tour of the house, I decided that you could fill a 14 inch legal pad with a list of the projects that need to be done. None of them are really big, but it's going to take a platoon of volunteers with yard maintenance equipment to get the yard in shape, and a Delta Force raid on the New Yankee Workshop to get the house in shape.

The most glaring problem is a hole in one wall. Someone had started to convert a carport or outdoor patio into another room. To get A/C to the room, they cut a large hole through a cinder block wall. This is the first project, seal the hole. Like I said, not a big deal, but something that needs doing. The room is ultimately going to be an office, but initially, its primary use will be as a home improvement project.

There are 3 large bedrooms on the upper level and nicely sized living room, dining area and kitchen. The kitchen is in need of some renovation. Or maybe not. I've been spoiled by our new one.

The yard is 3+ acres with a lot of pine and hardwood trees. There are maples, pecans, oaks, and cherry trees. The area next to the house looks like an abandoned park. Jon and I talked of riding lawn mowers cruising around the yard like combines in a South Dakota wheat field. A little mowing would make the place look like it was lived in and add $10,000 to the value of the house.

Hidden behind the house is a nice 20 x 20 shop/storage building on a slab. I say hidden because there is a grove of the biggest Leland Cypress trees I've ever seen blocking the view from the house. Like most of the landscaping, they're in need of some serious pruning. The view of the house from the street is totally obscured by a seriously over grown boxwood hedge. I think it needs to be pruned at ground level. Maybe with a 4 wheel drive truck and a chain.

A bonus part of the landscape is about 50' of blueberry bushes along the property line. We picked for about an hour and came home with over 5 pounds of fruit. We didn't make a dent in the berries on the bushes.

The place has a lot of potential, but since it is a foreclosure, owned by the bank, it was neglected before the bank took it, and really needs some TLC. There is a fenced area behind the house that according to the Google Earth picture of the place, once contained an above ground swimming pool. The fence shows signs of having been climbed by the local kids. A couple of hundred feet of top bar, and an afternoon will have it in shape, and presto, a play yard for Violet and the dogs.

Still, Jon and Missy are excited and young, so I think it's probably a good deal for them. It's a lot bigger than where they are now, has about the same size yard, but it's (sort of) cleared, and once it's been mowed, quite usable. Their current home has 2 acres of jungle behind it. They won't need the unfinished room right away, so it should work well for them.

They're in our prayers.

Pardon the Clutter

As you can see from the pictures, Marilyn is hard at work in her nearly completed kitchen.

Wednesday we had the plumbers show up. In their favor, they were 20 minutes early, had the sink functional and the water and drain run to the dishwasher within an hour and a quarter.

We had been told they would install the drain and fixtures in the sink, install the dishwasher, and get the water to the fridge for the ice maker and water in the door.

What we got was a functioning sink, a dishwasher stuck in its home with water and a drain, and "you'll have to get an electrician here to finish the hookup. Oh, there was also the "We'll have to go under the house to get water to the fridge. That will have to be a separate call."

Why does nobody seem to want to do what needs to be done to keep their customers happy?

At any rate, I said, "Electrician? We don' need no steenking electician!" and grabbed a multi-meter, found the correct circuit breaker for the dishwasher, and had power to it in 5 minutes. I then spent the next hour finding all the sound suppression stuff the plumbers had left in the box, installing it and getting the thing centered in the hole and anchored down. It's truly amazing how many dishes appeared out of nowhere begging to be washed.

It's slowly coming together. Friday saw the arrival of the glass shelves for the glass fronted cabinets. As soon as the end cabinets (you remember, the ones that have been ordered 3 times) are delivered, Steve the cabinet guy can return and finish up. It will be great to have the cornice and bottom moldings on the cabinets. Then all we will need is the plumber to come back and hook up the water to the fridge.

It's projects like this that make the pyramids so awe inspiring. They're a lot bigger and were seemingly done a lot quicker. Of course, the customer on that project had the option of feeding the contractors to the jackals if they didn't meet his expectations.


Today, we're planning to meet Jon, Missy, and Violet for breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Athens, then go see the "new" house. I'll post some pictures later.

Make it a great day.

Monday

It was definitely a Monday.

The day started out with a visit to Dr. Wiggans, the hematologist. When my medical adventures started a couple of years ago, it was discovered I was slightly anemic. When it didn't improve significantly, Dr. McBee sent me to see Dr. Wiggans. He punctured, prodded, listened, and ran about $3000 worth of tests to see what the cause might be. Results, nada. Come back in 3 months. Three months later, the results were nada. Come back in 6 months. Today was the 6 month visit. Result, not anemic. Come back in a year. Not entirely a bad result.

When I got home, my cell phone was beeping. Call work. Well, I worked from home for the best part of the day until Sara arrived at 2:45. We had a nice visit.

Marilyn came home around 4 PM. Marilyn does not get sick. Marilyn was sick. I think I'll sleep on the couch tonight.

After Bobby came to get Sara, I went back to work on a project that the hardware gods had cursed from the start. We're trying to merge 2 sales agencies into one. The first step was to be to extract the data from what would be the satellite agency and move it to the primary server. The server at the satellite agency went Tango Uniform on Friday. It wasn't fixed until today.

By 6 PM I had the extract and load completed and tried to forget about work.

This week should be a good one. I get to leave work at 2:00 PM tomorrow to watch Sara again. Wednesday I have to depart at 1:00 PM to be here for the plumber. He's due between 2 and 4 on Wed. to install the dishwasher and plumb the sink. Hooray!

Speaking of the kitchen, I'm loving it. Once the thrice-ordered curio cabinets arrive and are installed, the cabinet guy will install the trim and be Outta Here! and the kitchen will be finished.

I can hardly wait.

Have a good one.

The Legion of Doom

Pete, Jerry, Kevin, Carl, Paul, and Bob (left to right in the picture) are the original Legion of Doom. I gave them the name 4 or 5 years ago after a particularly memorable weekend of dissolution and pyromania in the north Georgia mountains.

Twice a year, these friends since high school, and assorted relatives, friends of relatives, and friends of friends of relatives assemble in the peaceful confines of Deliverance country to clean the cares of urban life from their psychological pipes. They load campers, trailers, pickup trucks, and ox carts with every variety of camping gear known to man, enough fire wood to burn a national forest, more food than sane people could eat in a week, and assorted improvised armament, and descend on the back country near Clayton, Georgia. The purpose of this convocation is ostensibly to chase the put-and-take trout in tiny streams. The actual reason is to unwind.

The name came about after a weekend of beer, and campfires visible from space. As a matter of fact, one of the campfires was probably audible from space. A slightly under-thought attempt to make a plywood Jack-o-lantern face breathe fire resulted in a rather substantial Kaboom. After the flaming camping equipment was extinguished, I hung the Legion name on the group.

They are close friends, cousins, and blood brothers that still relish each other's company, and I am proud to call them my friends, sons, and nephews too.

By the way, guys, it's time to start planning the fall fling.

Progress

We have counter tops!

Within the last 5 minutes, the granite installers completed their chore. Marilyn is beside herself. Maybe, by the end of next week, we will have a functioning kitchen. We're supposed to contact the plumber on Monday, to get the sink connected, the dishwasher installed, and the ice maker and water connected to the Fridge.

I wanted to get this posted as soon as I could get an 'After' picture.

I'm going to cut this short, as the adhesive they used is making me loopy.

More later.