Showing posts with label Hurray. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hurray. Show all posts

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Storm Drain

I have the misfortune to live at the bottom of a gradually-sloping neighborhood.  There are several drainage easements ending on my street.  The major 2 both combine at my yard in deep-well storm drains.  One works fine.  The other brings an unending supply of tree debris and general trash down.

When I chose this lot 30 years ago, I considered many things.  A drainage easement wasn't one of those things I had any knowledge of.  I SAW it, of course.  It seemed to work fine.

I signed the construction contract and moved in on Labor Day 1986.  The month after, the serious Fall rains hit and the drain got covered with loose twigs, branches and debris.  I cleaned the covering grate off each time. 

It got worse as years went by.  After a hurricane, the entire street around my house was covered by drainwater.  I got really tired of cleaning the drain top.  When I called the County office back then, they told me the property owners were responsible for that.  The drainage easement is exactly on the property line, so my neighbors were equally responsible.  But their lawn was 2' higher than mine, so I got all the water; they didn't care.  So I had to keep it clean in self defense.

One year, the drain top got cleaned mysteriously and I thanked my neighbor.  They said they "knew a guy" at the County and he arranged for the cleaning as a favor but only that one time.

They moved out and another couple moved in.  So the County "in" was lost.  I asked the County on several occasions for help in cleaning the drain.  No luck.

3 weeks ago, I asked again, using an online site.  Imagine my surprise when I glanced out my front windows and saw an unfamiliar reflection of the storm grate top!  The County had come by and scraped it clean and made some further digging to improve drainage! 

I didn't even hear them doing it!

Before...

After!

Win!




Monday, November 2, 2015

A Surprise Letter

I subscribe to The Washington Post newspaper.  Yeah, the print edition.  It also happens to be my local newspaper (living near a nation's capital can have odd twists).  But its easier to turn paper pages while I eat my lunch than mess up my laptop.  And I recycle/compost anyway, so little is wasted.  But I am also always about a month behind, so reading the political, business, and sports news can be hilarious!  I read it mostly for the editorials.

So when I received a letter from The Washington Post, I expected some notice that my subscription was unpaid due to an expired card.  Nope.  It was good news.

The Washington Post has run a humor contest called 'The Style Invitational' each Sunday for 1,150 weeks.   The weekly contests always some some odd theme or another.  Write a limerick one week, caption a silly drawing the next, combine 2 Kentucky Derby racing horse names and come up with a funny name for the offspring, create a motto for a politician, etc.

I've sent in entries a few times, but because I'm behind on the reading, the deadlines are usually past.  But I always read the winning entries because I admire the cleverness.  There are usually a top 4 of winners and a dozen or so Honorable Mentions.  Winners are referred to as "Losers" (it IS a humor column, the top 4 get prizes (like T-shirts saying "'Im a LOSER",  cheap plastic coin banks shaped as outhouses, fake Dracula teeth, etc).

First time winners get one of those cheap pine tree car air fresheners, and even that is a joke.  The air freshener is a "fir stink" (first ink).
 I got my "fir stink" in the envelope!  Hurray, I'm now a recognized LOSER!

The person who manages the contest (The Empress) doesn't have to give out very many "fir-stinks".  The weekly winners ("losers") are usually pretty much the same group of very talented humourists.  A new loser (also called a "first offender") is rare.  Hurray, I'm RARE!  And a "First Offender"!

For the record, the Week 1,142nd contest was to combine any 2 names into a Twitter handle and write a tweet by the hybrid person.  Most just used real people names.  I combined Secretariat (Kentucky Derby race horse winner) with Hillary Clinton for "@SecretariatHRClinton", and the tweet was "So I'm supposed to just keep running to the left?"

I'll leave everyone to figure that out themselves, but will explain if asked...

The winning entry was "@OrangeJulius:  Could be well mov'd.  My friends in the House are sticking knives into me."  That shows the difference between a winning entry and an Honorable Mention!  It succeeds on multiple levels.  I was, as my Aussie friends would say "gobsmacked".  No wonder some of these weekly participants win frequently! 

But I think I may try entering the contest more often.  There are, apparently, anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand participants each week (some contests are trickier to get a grip on than others).

I am outrageously delighted with my "First Ink" and want another shot of INK!

Looking Up

 While I was outside with The Mews, I laid back and looked up.  I thought the tree branches and the clouds were kind of nice. Nothing import...