How To Lose Weight

Get up at dawn

Get on the computer.

Stay on the computer. 

See dawn...

Ignore dawn.

Watch sun set.

Think "how bad would cat food taste"...?

Decide not to find out.

Make 3 egg rolls and a couple shrimp. 

Got to bed.

Sleep 14 hours...

There is a reason I have a clock in the bedroom that just tells me what day it is...

Price-fixing

Chewy sells a case of a particular cat food at  at $38.66 per case, Amazon sells it at $38.66 per case.  Logic suggests one might offer it at $38.49 and the other at $38.67.  Or whatever.  How is that not "price-fixing?  That's illegal.

We are getting way too controlled be non-competiveness.  Everything costs the same no matter where you go.   That's wrong.

Idiots Everywhere

My next door neighbor cut down most of the hedge between her and the farther neighbor 2 months ago.  It might have been by agreement, but I wonder if they know (as only I do being here before both of them) that the hedge was planted by the previous owner of the OTHER house. 

Not all that important, but that same immediate neighbor decided to burn the dried hedge material in the back yard.  Under small dry trees.  Among other dry debris.  Next to my wood fence...

Fortunately, I happened to step out side and heard the very distinct sound of a crackling fire.

Seriously, there was dry brush from the original burning spot all the way to my fence.  I told her it was very dangerous for several obvious reasons and that she needed to put it out.  She said OK and told her child to bring water.  It came in a child's pail which the woman splashed around a bit.  But they did that several times and it appeared to be extinguished.  The woman went inside; I stayed out to watch.  Fortunately it really was out.

Who is dumb enough to burn dry brush under dry trees near a wood fence?

Just a few minutes ago, I went to the local 7-11 literally midnight, and there was a teenager who just sailed through a busy intersection (with no overhead lights) on a black push scooter.  Wearing black clothes.  I only saw him in the headlights as I turned.  And I hit the brakes.  Another driver turning oppositely almost hit him too. 

Is there something in the water that is making people stupid?

Books

I was a young reader and loved reading books as a child.  I always needed more books to read.  The first document I ever owned was a library card.By the time I was 12, I had read the entire family encyclopedia of 25 volumes and several of my parents' saved textbooks.  I had gone through the entire local library's "young adult" section (defined as age 12-15 or something close to that).  I had to get permission from my parents and the librarian to check out more adult books.

My parents approved, but I vaguely recall the librarian asking questions about the difference between information and fiction.  I don't recall my answers the least bit, but apparently, when it was clear I understood the difference between William and Clark exploring Western North America and Isaac Asimov and Buck Rogers, I was allowed to read more adult books. 

In the years afterwards, I spent a LOT of money buying both science fiction AND information books.  So I love books and cherish the enjoyment of reading and the real information at my fingertips.

10 years ago, I packed half of my sci-books into boxes  to clear some shelf space.  It was the half I thought the least of.  A few years ago, I went through my shelves and removed those "information books"I thought had little value.  Those got tossed after I learned the local library didn't want my kind of books.

I've started a de-clutterring project.  Today, I went through the information books and tossed most of them into the recycling bin and put more in boxes in the garage because the recycling bin was filled. 

The era of information books is over.  The internet provides all the information I can use.  I skimmed through many of the books and I couldn't find anything in them that wasn't easier to find on the internet.  Basically, the internet (in this regard) is a bigger faster library a few keywords away. 

And books go obsolete so quickly sometimes.  Or even were decades ago.  I looked at one World History book and it was written in 1937!  So I got brutal about it.  Any information book that seemed overcome by new information (historical, scientific, or repair) went. 

I kept books like 'The Peter Principle' and 'Murphy's Laws' and 'Flatland' and Human and Cat evolution.  And those may go in the some future weeding.

Six 3' shelves became one.  Some I'll keep because their information doesn't age much (backyard landscaping projects or linguistic explanations).  And some books went because I'm not sure why I bought them in the first place. 

But I bet I tossed out books that cost me $5,000 originally.  And a shelf of National Geographic maps; Google does that better.    I got rid of 10 years of various magazines a few months ago.  I got rid of books of Poe stories and Kipling verses.  I even tossed al dozen Ayn Rand books I thought I would read and never did after 20 years.

I hesitated before doing this today, but I thought about the last time I did a few years ago and couldn't recall a single book of them.  Obviously, I did not miss them.  I bet I won't miss these either. 

It was hard to start tossing them, but easy to continue once I realized I wasn't losing information, just accepting that there was a better way to get at it that didn't fill up physical bookcases.

OK, so books had their time.  I guess I just went screaming and kicking into the 21st century today.  One day centuries ago, a storyteller started reciting a memorized tale of some hero, and the King said "I have that book, and others.  You're fired".

Things change.  And I'm not done tossing books.  The recycle bin is mostly filled and very heavy.  So tomorrow I'll pile more in boxes and stack them in the garage for the next recycle pickup.  I'm keeping every sci book I own.  Those don't actually become obsolete. 

Strange Flower

I have planted a lot of flowers over the years.  I usually recognize them when I see them.  I appreciate some (like Brown-Eyed Susans) that self-sow in places they like better than where I originally planted a few a decade ago.  I have a lot of those now in clumps scaterred around a corner of the yard.

I've been planting other self-sowers in other spots (seems efficient).  If they survive like the Susans and spread around, it will be interesting.  When I plant annuals, I tend to be very geometric, but these I will let wander where they may.  In fact, I'll snip the flower heads, rub the seedheads in my hand into a bowl to separate the seeds and just scatter them everywhere I don't mow. 

If it works, great - Flowers Everywhere.  If not, no loss...

I know it works in general, because last Fall, I collected seedheads from the Pollinator Bed and scatterred them back in and added a thin layer of leaf compost to cover lightly.  I got mostly just one kind though.  I don't know what it is, but orange flowers are nice and the bees love them.

But the strange flower is this...

I've never seen that in the yard, and I've sure never planted anything like that.  It's 16" tall.  The flower lasted 2 days and I don't see another bloom coming.

I may take a walk around the neighborhood to see if someone is growing those to ask what it is.  Of course, if anyone here recognizes it, that would be good...

Broken Cinder Block Wall

OK, some of this might sound technical but it isn't really.

My sunken patio cinder block retainer wall broke a month ago.  I originally thought it was due to rain, but now I think it was just coincidence.  There was no flooding against the wall.  Even the soil behind it is not expanded.

I had a masonry guy come out and he said he would rebuild it in a trench all around for $16,000.  Um, no not what I needed.  A couple other people returned calls, but I couldn't understand a word they said.  So I gave up and considered how I could do it myself.

I tried levering the wall back in place.  Wood beams are not as strong as cinderblock weight.  They bent first.  I needed a better lever.  I came across a "motorcycle lift", basically a wide scissor jack like you might have in your car for lifting it to change a tire.  But wider and more stable and up to 1100 pounds lift.  You turn a large handle, and the lift slowly spreads.   Cost $80.

I bought one.  It took a few days to figure out an immovable object from which to push the wall.  The house foundation was obvious, but I didn't have anything long enough to reach the broken wall.  But there were 6'x6" posts concreted 3' down and anchored to the foundation above. 

And I had a 4"x4" post that just came a foot short.  Perfect!  But the angle from the deck post wasn't exactly at the angle of the broken wall.  So I used some scrap wood and a dozen serious clamps to make it so.  That left "just" enough room for the motorcycle lift to fit in.

Let's just say that to avoid any boards moving around, I also clamped some wood to the posts to prevent that.  No supporting structure could move.  So I started to turn the handle of the motorcycle lift.  And no, there was no damage to the deck posts or anything else.  I had all possible movements prevented.

The broken cinder block wall MOVED!  I actually jumped for joy...  I got it 9" of 12" back in place before the lift was fully extended.  But then the angle was changed and it slipped sideways under pressure.  Nothing sudden, just that the pressure sideways was greater the the pressure forwards. 

GRUMPH!

It's at the point where I only need to move it 3 more inches in order to use some masonry construction adhesive between the broken edges (stronger that grout, it claims).  But it only has a 20 minute window before hardening.  So I had to know I could push the 2 edges quickly enough.

And I don't have posts that match the distance!  Arghhh...  I have some ideas about using bricks, wood chunks, loose solid cinder block caps.  But until I'm absolutely sure there is no angle of pressure that won't cause them to suddenly pop loose dangerously, I won't proceed.

I THINK two clamped 2"by12" boards across the 2 deck posts with be strong enough (a 4"x4" post just bends), but I want to think of a stronger and safer arrangement. 

And I should mention that the handle on the motorcycle lift is just a small 6" metal rod attached to a hex drive that fits over the screw that turns the jack.  It hurt my hands to put enough pressure on it to turn it when things got heavy.  Well, it just occurred to me while writing this that I have a ratchet drive set with longer handles and sockets and one of them is for loosening/tightening the lug nuts of truck wheels (that I've never had need of before), so I can get more leverage...

But I'm getting there...  Half the fun of doing difficult things is figuring out HOW to do the things. 

;)

Stuff

Nothing like returning from grocery-shopping and finding your driveway blocked by a big truck.  It wasn't a freight truck (and I hadn't ordered anything requiring one lately).  So I pulled the car off the road onto my lawn, put on my best smile, and asked what was up.  There was a large firehose in one storm drain..

Sorry, I didn't take pictures.  Which didn't matter, because there was nothing visible going on.  Apparently, the storm drain clearing crew reported that one was half-filled with gravel and a specialized equipment crew does that.  And I'm not criticizing.  A lot of equipment only has a few experienced operators locally.  The guy (I've never seen a woman among these crews) who can delicately manage a 1/2 tin bucket to scrape debris off a storm grate is NOT the same as the guy who can manuver a drone through a pipe to find a blockage, etc.

Anyway, they were there to flush the foot of gravel out of one storm drain to the other 90' away and from there to the outlet under the street.  They suggested I move my car since the spray was fierce and some gravel would come out.  I had raw meat in the car, so I demanded they let me get it into the refrigerator (they did) and I moved to car way up on the lawn (which they said was safe - and was).

When they put on their helmets and goggles, I decided the best place to be was in the house!  They let loose the firehose.  It wasn't Old Faithful, but it WAS pretty impressive.  I think their eqipment could have watered my entire lawn an inch deep in about 5 minutes.

When the finally left, I went out and looked, the major storm drain was completely empty of gravel, the secondary one was nearly empty, and all the gravel was washed through the pipe under the street.  I'm not sure how my neighbor there feels about it.  He has more gravel in the easement leading to the swamp than before. 

Nothing really special, but it IS a finale to the 6" of rain in 4 hours from about a month ago Monday...

I'm Back, I Guess

But I have some unfortunate habits.  One is that when I stay up late on the computer, I drink and smoke too much and ruin my next day.  If I get up at 10am one day and then stay up til 10 am the next, sleeping even just 8 hours brings me to dinnertime and a whole day is shot.  Not to mention any normal sleeping schedule...  So the next day is pretty well shot to hell, too.

I went offline in order to focus on some house improvements, some yard work, and some outside repairs.  I did that because I was spending too many whole nights til dawn and beyond on very interesting computer sites (blogs, discussion boards, how-to sites, etc).


I was doing that more and more often the past few months and I decided to try to re-establish some normal schedule in order to get some work done.  Don't get me wrong, the online hours are important to me.  I enjoy blogging, I enjoy debating topics in discussion boards (and I'm not at crazy screaming adversarial sites - one is a gardening site and one is an atheist site where we just want freedom to discuss science and society without a lot of creationists arguing about Noah's ark and humans living with dinosaurs).  And I play a computer game where you build a space-faring society from a single settler in an unknown location.


But that was using up a lot of time.  And I have a lot of practical things to do that were getting away from me.  And I have used the time away reasonably well.  I spent a full day going around the house and listing all the things, by room, that needed attention.  I've been here 32 years; the list is long.  I did a few of the things on the list that I could do myself.  A lot of them were small things not worth listing, that I had put off.  Some were things that caught me by surprise, like the sudden regrowth of vines and underbrush that happened rather suddenly in June where I had cleared last Fall and seemed under control in May.

The County came out and cleared the storm drains that were buried under tree debris, clay, and gravel.  That was good, but they weren't willing to dredge the drainage easement above the storm drain (they had in the past).  New rules about being ultra-cautious around buried electrical and cable lines...    I will have to hire a professional excavator.  My neighbor is equally responsible for the drainage easement, but he doesn't care because his lawn is 1' higher than mine so all the flooding is on my side.  And according to the County, that is not their concern.

Well, I can afford to hire an excavator to scoop out the washed-in gravel to improve the drainage.  It would tear up the lawn some, but I know how to fix that.  I might raise my front lawn at the same time to match the neighbor's.  That's not a "competition", just making our lawns the same height.  Practically speaking, raising my lawn height effectively makes the the drainage easement deeper, which solves a problem.

One problem I have is "too much stuff".  There are things I bought and never used, things I bought that didn't do what I thought they would do, and things I bought that became useless when I changed a habit.  I am making a list of things to sell.  Two good examples are the bicycle I bought 8 years ago thinking I would ride it for getting back and forth to the car repair shop and the air compressor I bought 15 years ago that was way more powerful than a needed.

RIGHT after I bought the bicycle, the car dealership started a van service to bring customers home and back after repairs, so I don't need the bicycle to get back home and back.  And recently, I bought a small air compressor that is all I need and I can even carry it around (the old -but more powerful one) is good for someone with greater demands.

OLD...
New...

So I am going to fill the garage with stuff to sell and leave the car outside for a coupe weeks.  Good opportunity to wash the car, too...  Once every couple years whether it needs it or not, LOL! 

I'll be mentioning the outdoor and indoor projects as I get to them...  I just can't stay away much longer.  I'll find the time to describe them.  The discussion boards will have to live without my brilliance for a while.  ;)