Good Gardening Days

Some days, you just cant seem to get any useful work done.  You vacuum and it just looks the same a day later.  There are always dishes and pots to clean.

But outside, the effort of work seems to last longer.  I spent some time watering the gardens the past several days.  I have a tripod I built (my own design) that lets me just set the hose spray on and let it run for 10 minutes at a spot.  Its easy to move to a new spot to water.

It takes 5 movements of the sprayer to do the flowerbeds, 3 to do the veggie gardens, and 3 to do the hosta bed.  Plus random local watering for the odd places too small to water largely.  Which usually means 120 minutes or 2 hours.

But September has actually had virtually no rain, so I gave each spot 20 minutes of watering instead of just 10 and spent the time waiting by weeding the watered flowerbeds.  I pulled out 3 wheelbarrow-loads of weeds.  Fortunately, them being deeply soaked, they came out with the roots.  There is something very satisfying about seein a weed pulled up with the roots still on!  Even if they survive, they are annual weeds and won't have time to grow again to produce seeds.  So THEY are GONE GONE GONE!

It was a very good 2 days.

Washington DC Pro Sports

Well, actually, the only two I really bother with are baseball and football.  My apologies to fans of other sports, but basketball is too much a contact sport these days, soccer is too boring to watch (and I even played it), hockey is unfathomable to me, tennis just doesn't seem to work as a team sport, and my interest in my alma mater (Univ of MD) is pretty much gone since they are moving to an out-of-area conference where they will be cellar-dwellers for a decade until they leave in shame.

And neither of the two I have followed are looking promising.  The Nationals are setting themselves on fire at the very end of the season, but it's too little too late.  Something like a 5% chance of them getting into the playoffs.  And with Atlanta coming to town next, that should pretty much end it. 

The Washington football team (with the team name I will not use) looks like it is setting up its fans for a seriously depressing season of falling behind at first and mounting a great comeback attempt that falls short each game.

So it looks like my evenings will be free of baseball until the World Series and the next 14 Sundays will be free for shopping at "guy-stores ".  Seriously, the best possible time to shop at a home project store is during a local NFL game!

Weird Visitor Spike

Did I almost have a post go viral?

I don't often check the statcounter chart for this blog because it doesn't get very many visitors, I don't post there regularly, and the bookmark is set to open the site to the Mark's Mews chart.  So imagine my surprise when I saw THIS!

The Sept 11 post was a rather dark angry fantasy about having the 911 attackers alive today, and I can see why it might have gotten more attention than my usual home project and personal life posts.  But who would have ever found it to begin with?

If anyone spread the link around, please let me know so I can thank you for the excitement!  It really did make my day.

I can't go back and check the visitor list or other records because statcounter only displays the last 33 hours for free and I don't feel a great need to pay for 2 months of records every month, LOL!

Its also curious that I had so many on Sept 10th, when the only post of interest was the following day.  I considered that some hackers had gone into old posts to leave messages among themselves (that happened to me with a previous blog), but I've looked back at a bunch of the older posts at random and didn't find any weird messages.  I also have the blog set to require approval of any comments to posts more than 3 days old, and I didn't see any of those.

So if anyone has an ideas about the spike, I sure am curious!

That Darn Ceiling Lamp

Minor rant...

Well, I finally got in touch with a place that repairs old ceiling lamps.  I should have given up calling them every few days for 3 weeks and just emailed them to begin with.  I would have if their website actually OFFERRED an email address.  I had to find it the hard way, indirectly (through their white pages sales office).

But at least I got a rapid response assuring me they could do the work.

So I drove up there yesterday morning.  Only got lost once.  I had to stop at a paint store to ask directions.  They asked "where are you from" and I gave the name of my town, but then they said "No, where is your CAR".  (It's in your parking lot DOOFUS, why do you think I'm in HERE).  But I'm very polite when lost and said it was right by their front door.

Like good little locals they gave me directions according to local landmarks.  You may have sufferred that yourselves ("drive out past Smitty's barn and turn left where the old oak tree used to be").  I finally got "first right, 2nd left and about 2 miles" and went on my not-so-merry way.  I did finally find the street I needed and figured that if I needed more directions someplace else, at least they could only tell me to go left or right.

It took 1.5 hours to get to the lamp place (but only 30 miles). I should have FedExed it!

The front counter folks LOVED the lamp and guided me to the repair specialist.  Do I need to tell you what specialists in moderately arcane specialties are like?  First thing he did was demand to know why I hadn't answered his email question (I checked the email when I got home and it only said "what you need is a canopy kit, which consists of a canopy, a crossbar, a loop, and a threaded nipple or pipe. I have crome, black, white, and brushed brass finishes").

Then, when I didn't know what nipples, ceramics and canopies were, he became insulting.  I finally had to just beg him to "Please just do whatever an electrician requires to mount the damn lamp on the stairway ceiling".  Not satisfied with THAT victory, he further said that "any damn good electrician could get all this stuff from Home Depot".  Well, apparently, electricians these days don't have a price box to check off for "rebuilding old lamp".

He scribbled wavy lines on a list of repair items on a receipt ticket  and wrote $55 at the bottom.  I left with the ticket stub and a promise he would call in "a couple of days".

You know what "staircase wit" is right?  The killer comeback you think of as you leave the room after a dispute?  I didn't even have THAT...  I just drove all the way home pissed.

I didn't ever even WANT the damn lamp.  It was Gramma's lamp and my mother and a sister of hers fought over it for years thinking it was real Tiffany.  It isn't.  But my mother won the fight and she was so proud to hand it down to me, her eldest son...  She's dead, and while its a pretty impressive lamp, it not worth anything, but I still have to show it off for MY generation.  Click white elephant.

But I will have the lamp in a condition an electrician can install and my siblings will be able to visit and go "ooh, ahh" and be grateful they didn't receive it.

The only good parts are that I probably WILL like it once installed AND I get to choose who to inflict it on in my Will.

That's assuming I can FIND the lamp store again to pick it up.  No, I don't have a working GPS device...

9-11-13

 

I have such a hard time with this day every year.  The anger won't go away.  I try to write something thoughtful and it veers off into bitterness and hatred.  Most years I just post some picture I find to mark the date because I don't want to post the bitter angry words I write.


I choose not to post the bitter words for the benefit of you who kindly read this blog, though I am fine with those thoughts myself.  And once again, I have written and deleted a dozen angry posts about 911 this past week.

But this time, there is something I will post.

I wish...

That I could have bin Laden, his top lieutenants, and the individuals who carried out the 9-11 attack alive again today in one place.  That place would be a large office-sized metal mesh frame.  That frame would be covered in hot-burning wood with one open window.  The whole thing would be dangling from a helicopter 110 stories high.


The wood frame will be lit at the opposite side from the window.  The occupants can choose to stay inside and burn, or they can jump.  I grant them the same choice most of their victims had.

I would light the box.

And then I wish they could return to life to experience it again and again, once for every person who died in the attack (minus their own number).   Let them see they have not gone to Paradise.  Let them experience the horrible choice again and again.  And for those who simply jump each time, there will sometimes be no window. 

But let there be mercy of a sort.  Let those who truly come to understand and abjure the horror they created not return to life to suffer the same deaths again.  Let only those who do not understand, repeat the experience to the last number of victims and let them finally die too, for if they do not understand after that many personal death-experiences, they are beyond all hope.

And I tell you again, I WOULD light that box as many times as there were victims, with grim resolve...

Cavebear

The Risks of Risk

I joined an online game of Risk last night blind.  By which I mean you can investigate the conditions of the game and have someone jump in while you are doing that, or you can jump in blind yourself.  I went in blind.  The situation for my color was horrible!  

The only human player had half the board (and she outpointed me 3-1, 12million points to my paltry 4 million) and was attacking my poor few nations.  I was fortunate that she ran out of armies while I still had 2 nations.  It may seem bad that she surrounded me, but it DID mean I was isolated from the computer players for a turn.   And she SAID she would kill me on her next turn.

And she sure tried!  I got JUST enough to survive her next turn and slowly managed to control Africa and then South America.  She decided to try to take North America and the bots fought back stopping her plan.

I moved into NA and slipped from Alaska into Kamchatka (Asia) breaking her bonus for that continent.   I had JUST enough armies to stop her getting Kamchatcka back, but killing that last bot in Europe got me extra armies and I swept through Asia, pinning her in Australia.  She had no more armies that turn (takes 3 right cards to get more armies and she only had 2).   I took Australia.

I could tell she was really pissed.  You routinely tell the winner "good game" as you leave.  She didn't.

It doesn't get much better than that.  When you come from almost nothing, and win, that's special.

It Was 27 Years Today...

...that I moved into my "starter home".  I'm still here! 

I went through a long string of bad apartments and many roommates to slightly better apartments with a 2 roommates to a rented house with one roommate, to the same rented house alone.  And then FINALLY came the day when I was 36 and could get my own house.

I did a lot of research.  The Washington DC area is expensive, and the several counties surrounding it were not much better.  A co-worker pointed out that e lived just beyond the county line of the 2nd level of counties out from DC, and I learned that a house there cost only half of what the same house (on a smaller property) cost closer in.  The trade-off was a slightly longer commute.

I had to look around a lot before I found what I was looking for (large property with a decent house size).  I told the realty agent that I didn't care about schools, community activities, shopping, or restaurants.  Well, I'm a real homebody; you plant me in a decent house and yard and sometimes I don't leave it for a week (except for commuting to work before I retired).

The realty agent kept showing me tiny ranch house on tiny properties.  He was convinced that, as a single guy, all I needed out of life was basically a one-bedroom apartment with barely space for a M/V and a TV, a living room for parties, planted on the smallest possible yard (because who wants to mow a large lawn anyway).

After being driven the the umpteenth tiny house and yard I finally grabbed him by his cheap shiny garish tie and made him listen to me.  The next day, he drove me to a newly-built dead-end street just being developed.  30 lots available and I could choose any one.  Plus the developer had several varieties of houses to choose from.  I identified the best one by size and flatness and available sunlight.  It had 5 sides (comes to a point in the back because the street behind it is curved.

And I discovered "split-foyer" houses.  I grew up where basements were below ground and there was a one or 2 story house above that.  Split-foyer means that the basement is at ground level with basically a large ranch house on top of it, and the front door is halfway up so that there is a half stair leading up to the living area and a half stair going down to the basement.  So the front door is 6 steps up from ground level.  It's weird.  But I like it.

With 3 "bedrooms" there is a master bedroom, a computer/library room, and there was a guest bedroom that is now the cat playroom.  The basement has an enclosed garage and the rest is a nice woodworking shop.  The dining room is now the TV room and the living room is now the dining/cat tree/library room.

The yard is a half acre.  Half of the back yard is left relatively wild and half is flowers and garden with some small lawn.  I keep the front yard rather standard for the benefit of my neighbors.  My one gift to my neighbors is a standard routine appearance.  I live mostly inside or in the back yard, so I don't really care about the front; so let it please the neighbors.  The front yard is planted with some hostas and a few showy shrubs. 

After 27 years, I know every stone, weed, and mole tunnel.  My friends and siblings say I must be bored living in the same old place for so long.  Why should I be bored?  I LIKE this place.  The inside is perfected to my tastes (which don't change by fashion demands), and the outside is so familiar and comfortable.

For a "starter home", its pretty good.

So I am celebrating this 27th anniversary here, remembering how it was the day I moved in vs how it looks today.

Birds?

I have no idea why my squirrel cage catches birds, but I found a 3rd one in the cage today.  I let it go of course. They sure fly out fast when I open the cage.

This time it was a titmouse.  I didn't even bother to go back to the house and get the camera.

Apparently, most birds love peanut butter.  So far, 2 sparrows and the recent titmouse.  And I guess they peck at it hard enough to trigger the cage doors to close. 

Some Political Analysis

I pay a lot of attention to politics (I majored in it).  I pay a lot of attention to history (I minored in it).  I pay attention to game strategy (A lifelong hobby).  So I've been following the debates about possible US reactions to the nearly certain actions that President Assad of Syria has taken regarding chemical attacks on his own people.

My thoughts on this today do not involve the debate on whether the chemical attacks happened or what should be done about them.  I play some strategic games, and most involve figuring out what your opponent will do in response to your own actions.  I got to thinking about what Assad himself might say proactively to complicate his opponents plans and protect him against attacks (and I assure you I am not trying to provide him advice*)

President Assad:  "I have become aware that chemical attacks were launched against my people.  It was most assuredly done by either rebel elements engaged in illegitimate civil war or by rogue elements within the military.  I am investigating both possibilities and will report to the United Nations following that investigation.

I can only deplore the attacks and loss of life.  The guilty parties will be identified and punished.

But I am also aware that the United States and possibly other foreign powers are contemplating attacks on the legitimate government of Syria.  I warn them not to interfere. 

Syria does have chemical weapons, as almost all modern nations do.  In response to the foreign threats, they have been dispersed in ways that cannot be effectively tracked or targeted.  

If a single missile or airborne bomb from a foreign power  diminishes the ability of the legitimate Syrian government to suppress the rebellion, those hidden and dispersed chemical weapons will be used against all rebel encampments and strongholds.

If such attacks occur, the foreign powers will be responsible for the deaths of the rebels.

Finally, I remind the United States that it had its own civil war to maintain the governance of its own central government against a regional rebellion.  Foreign powers did not intervene, though 620,000 combatants and 50,000 civilians died in the suppression of the rebellious provinces. 

We will re-establish central governmental control over our nation.  We will actively resist foreign involvement by all means necessary."

Just some worrisome thoughts...

* If by some bizarrely unlikely possibility the Syrian government happens to read this, assume this is a planted blog by the CIA designed to provoke you into an disastrous course of action leading to your downfall.

Or not.  How would you ever know?

Too Few Facts

I was watching MSNBC tonight.  It is my preferred political talk source.  They generally provide backup to their claims, with videotape with dates and locations, etc.  They are generally thoughtful and complete in their presentations.  But sometimes even they go thin on the analysis and it irks me.

Chris Hayes did a piece on rip-off hospital charges.  And while it is generally true that US medical professionals and hospitals seem to get a lot more than in other countries (so that the costs can be legitimately questioned) the example he used was abysmal. 

He was talking about IV saline solution.  He said they use Morton salt and inexpensive bottled water.  I expect that its true because MSNBC doesn't slip on basic checkable information like that.  His big point was that some hospital charged a patient $91 for 88 cents worth of salt and water.  OUTRAGEOUS!

But wait-a-minute...  Aren't there other costs in providing that saline solution?

I'm no doctor and not even related to the least grade of medical assistant, but I can immediately think of a lot of costs involved beyond the saline solution.

1.  Someone has to mix the salt and water precisely.
2.  The saline solution has to be put in (I assume) a sterile plastic bag.
3.  A sterile tube has to be attached to the bag.
4.  The saline bag has to be delivered to the patient's location.
5.  A needle has to be inserted into the patient.
6.  The saline bag has to be attached to the needle.
7.  I assume there is a drip-rate control that needs to be set.
8.  The saline drip has to be monitored at some times.
9.  The use of the saline drip has to be recorded for billing purposes.
10. The use has to be billed.
11. The billing usually has to go through several cycles (the whole bill to medicare, then the uncovered amount to the insurance company, and finally some small bill to the actual patient.
12.  Some percentage of patient bills will never be paid, so those get distributed into other hospital overhead costs.  I'm a little uncertain on this last one, as those costs may be included in the above costs.  But even then, some of those costs will be distributed into hospital services that were not involved in the provision of the saline solution, so they aren't in the cost of the saline (meaning they got added to overhead for ER, cancer ward, meals, etc).

I'm not mentioning this to complain about medical costs (though that is worthy of attention and challenge).  I'm not qualified to accurately set the cost of an appendectomy (an operation I had once) or a heart transplant (which I haven't).

But if I can easily see a dozen more costly parts of a procedure, couldn't MSNBC's fact-checkers and editors see the same? 

I have to accuse MSNBC and Chris Hayes of pulling a sleight-of-hand with the facts on this issue.  Rather FOX-like, in "convenient factlessness"...

Car Problems

There are worse problems than having a battery just not work.  Brakes could fail or a wheel fall off , for example.  Burt for minor things, turning the ignition switch with the key and hearing clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick is bad.  Especially when you have been saving up errands to match the grocery-shopping trip because you are out of fresh food.

I even had gotten up relatively early today to do the shopping and errands.

So when the batterry seemed dead, I checked for causes.  No door was slightly open, the glove compartment was closed, the headlights had not been left on; no cause I could find.  And it was a good quality battery from April 2012.  No cause for a problem.

Fortunately, I have 3 boat batteries around and they are still well-charged.  I jump-started the car with one.  It started right up.  I drove it around for 15 minutes assuming that would recharge the battery well, with the boat battery in the car in case of trouble.  It probably helped to have really good cables too.  Never scrimp on those.  Good ones will work when cheap ones don't.

To keep a long story short, I had no further trouble today.  But every time I stopped the car, I had to consider that there would be problems.  I stopped at 5 stores today and worried every time that the car wouldn't start again.  I backed into every parking space in case I needed a jump-start from someone.

I hate that kind of uncertainty!  But I guess I'll just recharge the boat battery and leave it in the car for a month until I'm confident the car battery just had "a bad day". 

I keep 4 small plastic tubs in the car.  One holds the jumping cables, one has a first-aid kit, one has a cranking flashlight and emergency equipment, one has odd tools (like a window-breaker, in case of submersion).  And the back pouches of the seats are filled with local, state, and national maps. Its good to be prepared.