September 28, 2003
I'd been putting it off, but I was on a roll so I decided to to take down a big limb in the maple tree to open up the yard to late afternoon light. There are only two problems. First, this limb was waaaay up there, and second, it hung over the fence into the neighbors yard. I could care less about the neighbors yard, but I did not want to drop this massive limb on the fence that I paid for.
Mookie was in her room which looks out over the back yard, so I moved under her window to holler up and noticed a humongous spider seemingly hanging in mid-air right outside her window. Perfect. [evil grin]
Rachael poked her head out the window when I yelled and I asked her to come down and give me a hand. As an afterthought I told her to look to her left and she almost decapitated herself pulling her head back inside. Down below I'm laughing like a madman.
Together we moved the bench swing out from underneath the limb. I pulled out my 'high limb cutter'. What this is is a chainsaw blade strung between two long pieces of rope. You toss the rope over the limb, use the ropes to position the blade to cut, and then pull back and forth on the ropes to saw through the limb. Simple and effective.
Wonder of wonders, I tossed the rope over the correct limb on the very first try. Mookie is impressed. Now I did have a plan in mind, I'm hoping to saw through the limb about 4 feet out from the trunk, and let it splinter off so that it pivots down and misses the fence when it falls. Later I can saw the rest of the limb off cleanly close to the trunk.
Worked like a champ. Sorta. The limb began to break, swung down and missed the fence, but it didn't break completely free. Next I grabbed my pole saw (one of the neatest tools ever invented by man) and started hacking smaller branches off of the limb. Once I've cleared a path for the ropes again (which are still around the limb), I moved into a better position for leverage - and out from underneath - and started to saw away again. In moments the limb fell.
Now up to this point, everything went as planned, which gave me a false sense of competence.
Next comes the classic 'uh oh' moment. The limb dropped vertically, hit the ground and started to fall directly towards me. I'm up against the fence, in between the compost bin and a pile of bricks, so there's nowhere for me to go. In the blink of an eye, the splintered end of the limb crashed to the ground in front of me. How close was it? Lets just say that I'm glad I wasn't aroused. Now it's Mookie's turn to laugh hysterically, and she claims it's cosmic payback for the Paooki prank.
Once my heart started again, we cut up the limb into manageable pieces and finished cleaning up. I don't even like tomatoes.
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September 23, 2003
For the most part, Y2K was a letdown. Unheralded hundreds of thousands of people worked untold millions of hours to make it so. I was one of those folks, but my Y2K wasnÂ’t quite the non-event that most of us had.
I am a mainframe programmer. I started out by punching IBM cards and stacking them together into ‘program decks’. No, I’m not that old, it’s just that the military is always a little behind the times. Proven technology is preferred over cutting-edge stuff that might not work when you most need it. Thinking about it just now, that punch card technology was still heavily used just 20 years ago.
In 1994, I was working as a civilian consultant to the U.S. Government. My partner and I (we were a two person contract) were discussing the upcoming ‘2000 situation’ and what we would need to worry about to prevent problems with our systems. This was even before the phrase “Y2K” was coined.
One day, we mentioned it to our client (the big boss) and she told us not to worry about it, because our systems were going to be replaced long before 2000. Part of what we get paid for is to anticipate problems and devise possible solutions to things that might not even happen. Knowing that replacing computer systems is a complex job, we werenÂ’t nearly as confident as she was that it would happen before 2000, so we quietly did some preliminary analysis and wrote up some specs and notes.
Two years later, I’m sitting in my office and we get the official word that we have to convert our systems to be ‘Y2K compliant’. By now, the other guy has left for another project, and the staff consists of me, myself, and I.
I won’t go into a lot of detail, but I lived and breathed Y2K for the next four and a half years. Our systems contain over 2,000 separate programs and our data files maintain almost 10,000,000 (yep, million) records, and it’s all real-time. We – the government folks I worked with and I – busted our asses and got it done ahead of time and under budget.
So I was feeling pretty good about things.
My wife and I didnÂ’t have any plans for December 31, 1999. We were just going to relax at home and have a quiet evening. Sometime after dinner, I mentioned to my wife that it felt like IÂ’d just had a shot of Novocain and that my jaw felt funny. Within an hour, the numbness spread to the whole right side of my face and, after talking to the HMO duty-nurse, we were on the way to the emergency room.
They did a CAT scan, which told us that I hadn’t had a stroke (and that thought had never crossed my mind before that). In fact, the doctor came into the room and announced that ‘they looked at his entire head and didn’t find anything’, which cracked my wife up.
By now the entire right side of my face was paralyzed; canÂ’t blink, canÂ’t move my lips, nothing. The doctor tells me that IÂ’ve got BellÂ’s Palsy. ItÂ’s an inflamation of the cranio-facial nerve (the third, in my case), and they donÂ’t know what causes it. What happens is that the nerve runs through this little tiny tunnel in your skull, and when it gets inflamed, it pinches itself against the bone and gets damaged. They gave me steroids, which medical logic says will help, but they admitted that they almost never do. The nerve grows back ever so gradually, over the course of months.
Other than that, they just taught me some things I needed to be aware of. For instance, because I couldnÂ’t blink my right eye anymore, I had to tape it shut before I went to bed so that it wouldnÂ’t dry out. I had drops I had to put in my eye to keep it moist during the day. I figured out early on that I wasnÂ’t the worldÂ’s best dinner partner, because food kept falling out of that side of my mouth. I drooled too. It was actually kind of funny, but IÂ’d never laugh at anyone else who had it.
Probably the worst part was my sense of taste. ItÂ’s rare, but yÂ’all know IÂ’m special, so it was inevitable I guess. I completely lost the taste of sweet. Eating a cookie was like eating cardboard. Ranch dressing tasted like rancid buttermilk (to this day I canÂ’t stand it). Think about your favorite foods, and imagine no sweetness at all in the flavor. Not fun.
My recovery was about 85% complete in the next year. Most people canÂ’t even tell, but I can. I still slur the occasional word, and my right eye droops when I get tired. My sense of taste returned, thank God.
We were checking out of the ER that New Years Eve of Y2K, just about an hour before midnight. It suddenly struck me - I did all that work getting my computer systems ready to go, and it turned out that half my face was non-compliant. I told my wife that and laughed like a madman. She threatened to make me walk home.
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September 20, 2003
She tends to get moody in these situations, but the wife and I make it a point to get on her case about accepting the consequences and moving on. After dinner we went out back and threw a log into the firepit. The swing is still soaking wet from Isabel so we pulled up chairs and just sat and talked for a couple of hours. School, friends, world events, religion, favorite books, the conversation took some very interesting turns. It was a nice evening.
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September 17, 2003
Today I'm going to see the dentist again to ask about getting my antibiotics changed. I think whatever infection I have is resistant to Amoxicillin (sp?), because the swelling isn't going down. If anything it's getting worse. I'm starting to have pain in my ear now, which makes me not want to drive in case my inner-ear is affected. It's starting to really annoy me. In addition, I have to have my wife call my client to explain why I'm not coming into work again, and my home office to let them know what's going on. My voice has gotten worse every day; I now sound like a cross between Elmer Fudd and a stuttering Sri Lankan schoolteacher trying to take class attendance. Damn near unintelligable. Oh yeah, Isabel is coming straight towards us again.
Wow. I just rewrote that rant... whattayaknow.
Update (to the update): I talked to my dentist - she answers her own phone! - and she immediately agreed to change my antibiotic and called it in to the pharmacy. My wife will be picking it up before noon. I admit it ladies, we guys would be lost without y'all sometimes. And as soon as I feel better, I'll deny ever saying such a silly thing.
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September 06, 2003
I just spent a few hours alone out in the backyard. I built a fire and just sat there our swing, thinking and watching the flames.
The last time I had done that was with my best friend Paul. WeÂ’re closer than brothers; he was best man at my wedding, and weÂ’re godfather to each otherÂ’s sons. And yet as alike as we are, weÂ’ve led two totally different lives. I got married and settled down, while he just kept running full speed at life. WeÂ’ve talked about it, and weÂ’re both a little jealous of the other sometimes. Paul has seen the Taj Mahal, and slept under the Eiffel Tower, and spent time living in the Ukraine and the Philippines. His first wife was killed in an auto accident, and I was the first person he called. His son, my godson, was killed in another car wreck. He found out by being paged at an airport in Japan as he was making a connecting flight.
Despite it all, heÂ’s still happy. HeÂ’s satisfied with his life, even after all the pain heÂ’s endured. He has a wonderful wife and daughter, who calls me Uncle Ted. I love them all, and there isnÂ’t anything I wouldnÂ’t do for him.
Part of the reason I went out and built a fire was because after reading this idiot, I needed to calm down and regain my composure. To Stump, all I can say is that you are an asshole with no tolerance for anyone who doesnÂ’t act and believe exactly like yourself. You think that the value of life is measured by how long it lasts, and IÂ’m telling you that you are so very wrong. Even after reading that vile piece of hateful garbage you wrote, I hope that you live a long life anyway, since that is apparently all you treasure. If there is one thing that Paul has taught me, itÂ’s that life is too short and too uncertain to hold grudges, especially against a fool like yourself.
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“Excuse me?” I said.
“That’s how Jean Luc Picard would order it,” the little yuppie thing gushed.
{pause}
“Oh,” and I turned back to the counter to pay for my tea.
In that {pause} I’d considered and rejected many responses, including the devastating ‘who?’, which would have gone right over her head, and worse, would have invited her to explain who Jean Luc Picard is. I didn’t think I could've handled it right then, especially carrying a piping hot cup of shut-the-hell-up that I just paid for.
With the wisdom of whatever race is wisest in the universe of Captain Kirk meets Jason and Freddie, she let it go, probably feeling pity for one misguided soul who didnÂ’t share her obvious passion for The Next Generation.
I’ve watched every episode of the original Star Trek, and love them all. Hell, for a while there it was like M*A*S*H; on so many channels that you could usually decide which episode to watch at that moment. I also have a guilty secret – I love reading the Star Trek paperbacks. Sometimes it’s just comforting to pick up a book and not have to work too hard at reading it, because you know what each character is going to do in any given situation.
IÂ’ve seen at least a few episodes of every variation of Star Trek since then, and none ever held my interest like the original series did. Deep Space Nine had promise, but didnÂ’t pan out. I had high hopes for Voyager, but after an episode where they come across an entire planet of supreme hedonists, instead of getting naked and giving her all to save her crew, Captain Janeway feeds their leader pecan pie and turns him down. Pecan freakinÂ’ pie!!! CÂ’mon.
And that points up the reason why no one will ever be as cool as Captain Kirk. He taught an impressionable generation of young men that you can accomplish anything in this universe if you are smart, brave, and horny.
He wasnÂ’t tall. He wasnÂ’t built like Atlas. He wasnÂ’t even that great at following orders. But he solved any situation with his head, with his heart, and with the occasional full spread of photon torpedoes. And he proved that there was plenty of galaxy-class tail out there, just waiting for a human who was smart, brave, and horny.
Look at the main protagonist of The Next Generation: Q. Huh? Ooooo, in one episode he shows up and ruins a wedding between his mother and some other guy. Again, huh? What kind of stupidity is that? When Kirk had to take Spock back to his planet for a wedding, it was because Spock had to get laid or die. How cool is that?
Jean Luc Picard is Colin Powell. He wants to talk everything over. He needs his ‘councilor’ to tell him how he feels. Kirk is the 82nd Airborne Division. He drops on you like a ton of bricks, kicks your ass with massive firepower, and you can bet that none of your women are safe when he’s around.
I still drink Earl Grey tea. Been drinking it for years. I like to think that somewhere, somehow, Gene Roddenberry was standing in line behind me when I ordered a cup. He took my simple preference and added that genius that was his and came up with “Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.” Then he completely ruined it by giving the line to that patina-pated uber-wussy Picard.
I drank it first, dammit.
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September 04, 2003
In an effort to score some cosmic karma points, I’ll tell you about some other encounters I’ve had with local fauna.
About three years ago we had a bat get into the house somehow. It finally flew into our bedroom, and I closed the door on it while sending the girls into the basement to fetch badminton racquets. No, I wasn’t planning to half-volley the terrified (and terrifying) little beastie into a wall, I wanted something I could catch it with. Armed with racquets, we entered the room and proceeded to poke around behind curtains and furniture trying to find his hiding place. Oldest daughter indicated that she’d spotted him by screaming at the top of her lungs in a most helpful way (Karen Kinmont eat your heart out), and eventually the bat landed on the carpet. At this point I placed the racquet gently over the top of the bat, and then with even more care I slipped the other racquet under him, sandwiching him between the two sets of strings. This gave us a chance to take a close look at our visitor, before taking him outside and releasing him. I hope he lived a long and happy life, eating his weight in insects each night.
Now the rest of these stories need some background. We live in a townhouse, and for several years the house next door has been owned by what can only be called a slumlord. The backyard was overgrown with weeds and trash, and the single mom who rented it was nice enough, but never went into the backyard, nor did she allow her kids back there (wisely I might add). With her permission, twice a year I would toss a few rat-baits over the fence into her yard to keep the rodent population down. She wouldn’t do it, and her landlord certainly wouldn’t do it. Even so, we’d spot an occasional mouse coming through the fence between our yards, usually to snack on birdseed at the base of our feeder. My response was more rat-bait.
Last fall, I was in the downstairs and heard some rustling sounds in the room. We had had a problem earlier in the year where squirrels discovered our birdseed stash and decided to help themselves. To prevent that, the birdseed is now kept in a plastic bin with a locking lid. I figured that the squirrels were back, looking for a meal. I never saw any evidence of unwanted guests, but kept hearing that rustling sound on occasion over the next day or two. One day one of our dogs was downstairs and started ‘hunting’. That was it, we were going to get rid of the visitor. I placed the girls – once again armed with racquets – at the foot of the stairs leading up to the main floor, and in the doorway to the rest of the basement. Next I opened wide the back door (walk-out basement). I started moving furniture, and looking through boxes until I found it. It was a rat who had decided to nest in a box of sewing fabric that my wife had. The side of the cardboard box was chewed through, and this rat was turning it into a comfy little home. Not a cute little field mouse from the meadow behind the house, but a rat. It immediately made a beeline for the door and ran out and under the fence next door. Obviously it had come through the doggie door, and had no fear of our dogs. The only thing I could think of to do was to close the doggie door off and toss more rat-bait over the fence.
For the next couple of evenings, I’d look out the back door glass and this little bastard would be sniffing at the door, looking for a way back inside. He’d run off when he saw me, and I just didn’t know what else to do. I was waiting for him to die from eating the rat-bait, because it can take several days. I don’t know if he ever did or not, but we’ve not had that problem this year, and the doggie door is open again.
One huge improvement was our new neighbors. They have kids, and wanted to reclaim the backyard. Early this spring they started hauling the crap and junk out of their yard. I pulled on my gloves and pitched in, because it could only help the situation. At one point, we were moving a pile of lumber, and I stopped everyone to point out a copperhead snake we’d uncovered. Mom was freaking out, and the boys thought it was cool (they didn’t know it was poisonous). I went to my place and got a bucket and a hockey stick. The snake was pretty groggy from the coolness of the season, so I pushed it into the bucket with no problems and we took it down to the creek to release it.
They’ve really kept their backyard nice since then, especially when I told mom that the snakes loved the tall grass in the yards. Another time I had to go over there because they’d found a common garden snake under a wheelbarrow, and her son was trying to kill it with an axe. I was afraid the kid was going to kill himself swinging that stupid thing, so once again I grabbed my trusty bucket and hockey stick. It was full summer, and this snake was active and pissed off. He was striking at my hockey stick, doing his damndest to bite and refusing to get into the bucket. I eventually managed to steer him towards the gate, and he slithered off into the meadow.
I’ve also rescued a bird or two in distress. We keep a feeder full of seed year round, and have a couple of birdbaths full of fresh water. Several years ago, I had to remove the tree limb where our birdhouse hung. The birdhouse was pretty cool, because the kids and I built it using two sides of clear plexiglass and you could watch what was happening inside (the birds are ok with this). After an unfortunate incident where I waited too long to clean out the previous years’ nest and accidentally destroyed two newly laid eggs inside, the birdhouse was ever after referred to as the “birdhouse of doomâ€. The girls really know how to rub it in.
So basically I have a clear conscience about those newborn rodents, because I have a pretty good record when it comes to the animals I share this neighborhood with. Yes, what I did bothered me, but it was the right thing to do, if not the quickest way. I couldn’t bring myself to end it quickly, preferring the cowards way of ‘letting nature take its course’.
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In an effort to score some cosmic karma points, IÂ’ll tell you about some other encounters IÂ’ve had with local fauna.
About three years ago we had a bat get into the house somehow. It finally flew into our bedroom, and I closed the door on it while sending the girls into the basement to fetch badminton racquets. No, I wasnÂ’t planning to half-volley the terrified (and terrifying) little beastie into a wall, I wanted something I could catch it with. Armed with racquets, we entered the room and proceeded to poke around behind curtains and furniture trying to find his hiding place. Oldest daughter indicated that sheÂ’d spotted him by screaming at the top of her lungs in a most helpful way (Karen Kinmont eat your heart out), and eventually the bat landed on the carpet. At this point I placed the racquet gently over the top of the bat, and then with even more care I slipped the other racquet under him, sandwiching him between the two sets of strings. This gave us a chance to take a close look at our visitor, before taking him outside and releasing him. I hope he lived a long and happy life, eating his weight in insects each night.
Now the rest of these stories need some background. We live in a townhouse, and for several years the house next door has been owned by what can only be called a slumlord. The backyard was overgrown with weeds and trash, and the single mom who rented it was nice enough, but never went into the backyard, nor did she allow her kids back there (wisely I might add). With her permission, twice a year I would toss a few rat-baits over the fence into her yard to keep the rodent population down. She wouldnÂ’t do it, and her landlord certainly wouldnÂ’t do it. Even so, weÂ’d spot an occasional mouse coming through the fence between our yards, usually to snack on birdseed at the base of our feeder. My response was more rat-bait.
Last fall, I was in the downstairs and heard some rustling sounds in the room. We had had a problem earlier in the year where squirrels discovered our birdseed stash and decided to help themselves. To prevent that, the birdseed is now kept in a plastic bin with a locking lid. I figured that the squirrels were back, looking for a meal. I never saw any evidence of unwanted guests, but kept hearing that rustling sound on occasion over the next day or two. One day one of our dogs was downstairs and started ‘hunting’. That was it, we were going to get rid of the visitor. I placed the girls – once again armed with racquets – at the foot of the stairs leading up to the main floor, and in the doorway to the rest of the basement. Next I opened wide the back door (walk-out basement). I started moving furniture, and looking through boxes until I found it. It was a rat who had decided to nest in a box of sewing fabric that my wife had. The side of the cardboard box was chewed through, and this rat was turning it into a comfy little home. Not a cute little field mouse from the meadow behind the house, but a rat. It immediately made a beeline for the door and ran out and under the fence next door. Obviously it had come through the doggie door, and had no fear of our dogs. The only thing I could think of to do was to close the doggie door off and toss more rat-bait over the fence.
For the next couple of evenings, IÂ’d look out the back door glass and this little bastard would be sniffing at the door, looking for a way back inside. HeÂ’d run off when he saw me, and I just didnÂ’t know what else to do. I was waiting for him to die from eating the rat-bait, because it can take several days. I donÂ’t know if he ever did or not, but weÂ’ve not had that problem this year, and the doggie door is open again.
One huge improvement was our new neighbors. They have kids, and wanted to reclaim the backyard. Early this spring they started hauling the crap and junk out of their yard. I pulled on my gloves and pitched in, because it could only help the situation. At one point, we were moving a pile of lumber, and I stopped everyone to point out a copperhead snake weÂ’d uncovered. Mom was freaking out, and the boys thought it was cool (they didnÂ’t know it was poisonous). I went to my place and got a bucket and a hockey stick. The snake was pretty groggy from the coolness of the season, so I pushed it into the bucket with no problems and we took it down to the creek to release it.
TheyÂ’ve really kept their backyard nice since then, especially when I told mom that the snakes loved the tall grass in the yards. Another time I had to go over there because theyÂ’d found a common garden snake under a wheelbarrow, and her son was trying to kill it with an axe. I was afraid the kid was going to kill himself swinging that stupid thing, so once again I grabbed my trusty bucket and hockey stick. It was full summer, and this snake was active and pissed off. He was striking at my hockey stick, doing his damndest to bite and refusing to get into the bucket. I eventually managed to steer him towards the gate, and he slithered off into the meadow.
I’ve also rescued a bird or two in distress. We keep a feeder full of seed year round, and have a couple of birdbaths full of fresh water. Several years ago, I had to remove the tree limb where our birdhouse hung. The birdhouse was pretty cool, because the kids and I built it using two sides of clear plexiglass and you could watch what was happening inside (the birds are ok with this). After an unfortunate incident where I waited too long to clean out the previous years’ nest and accidentally destroyed two newly laid eggs inside, the birdhouse was ever after referred to as the “birdhouse of doom”. The girls really know how to rub it in.
So basically I have a clear conscience about those newborn rodents, because I have a pretty good record when it comes to the animals I share this neighborhood with. Yes, what I did bothered me, but it was the right thing to do, if not the quickest way. I couldn’t bring myself to end it quickly, preferring the cowards way of ‘letting nature take its course’.
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