Archive for the ‘Bitch & Complain’ Category
Sixty plus degrees. That’s all I have to say about yesterday. I’m just about over this stupid virus that’s been kicking my ass for the last two weeks. Combine that with the warm weather yesterday and guess what you get. The largest most contagious case of Spring Fever ever experienced. I guess the longer and more oppressive the winter the more intense is that first burst of Spring Fever. Man I’ve got it bad.
I spent a good part of the day yesterday just wandering around the yard in a T-shirt with no gloves, no hat, and no parka. As I slowly strolled between the remaining piles of snow I could see that blessed light at the end of the tunnel and no, it isn’t a train coming toward me it’s Summer.
I couldn’t stop myself from going with the feelings and actually started cleaning up the winter debris strewn about the yard. I picked up tree branches and pine cones of which there were thousands. I’ve never seen so many freaking pine cones in my life and they will certainly require an major investment of my time to pick them all up. That should tell you just how bad my Spring Fever really is that I’m actually looking forward to doing it. I find that a little disturbing to say the least.
I then decided to get my riding mower out of mothballs and ready for use this summer. I filled it with gas, checked the oil, and reconnected the battery. I was just standing there enjoying the warm air when I was overcome with love for that stupid tractor. I hate to admit this but I found some rags, soap, and car wax, and went a little crazy. That tractor got a hot bath and a good scrubbing, was dried off, and waxed to a high sheen. How sad is my life?
I need to pace myself a little better or I’m going to lose my mind. I actually found myself drawn to the seed packet display at Walmart a few days ago. They were silently calling to me to buy, buy, buy. I maintained what little control I had left and just “Said No” and walked away. Unfortunately my better-half is worse that I am when it comes to Spring garden purchasing. We both need some sort of twelve step program to help us through the next two months and to keep us from overspending like we do every blessed year.
I just received a giant package in the mail today and had to help the mail carrier bring the box into the house. It’s the new part I ordered a week ago for my sweetheart, the mower. Now she’ll be even prettier than usual as I cruise around the yard making the neighbors oh so jealous.
Eat your hearts out people, if freaking Spring Time.
One of my first tasks today was to get in a vigorous workout to start the day. Most days I turn on the TV or a movie and crank up the treadmill to a quick speed with a steep incline. I’m averaging forty-two minutes a session and watching TV for that long has started getting really old. On a good day there’s precious little on the tube that can hold my interest for forty-two minutes.
Today I decided to plug into ITunes and spend my time listening to my newly updated Favorites List. I have quite the collection of music and it was a tough job picking out fifty songs from over seven thousand. It took some time but it was worth it. I ended up with forty-five songs that met my stringent qualifications. It had to be a song that no matter when I heard it I’d stop what I was doing to listen.
It took twelve songs to complete my workout and the time seemed to fly by. Listening to good music is like having your own time machine. As soon as I hear a song it takes me straight back to a specific point in time and a specific person as well. So here’s my list of today’s twelve workout songs:
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Love Letter - Clairy Browne & the Bangin’ Rackettes
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Up on Cripple Creek – The Band
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Kokomo – The Beach Boys
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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club – Beatles
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Nights on Broadway – Bee Gees
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Uptown Girl – Billy Joel
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The Guitar Man – Bread
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Gypsy Woman – Brian Highland
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I’m Your Angel (Duet w/R. Kelly) – Celine Dion
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How ‘Bout Us – Champaign
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Down in Mexico – The Coasters
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Run Through the Jungle – Creedence Clearwater Revival
If those songs don’t get your heart started then you’d better call for help. Say what you want these so-called Oldies more than hold their own against today’s Hip Hop generation.
I spent some time today preparing for the arrival of the grandson who’ll be staying with us until after the birth of his soon to arrive new sibling. The doctors intend to induce labor today so we’re hopefully looking at an early morning arrival by the baby.
This waiting has been murder for both of us almost as much as for the mother and father. She’s two weeks late and it’s been making everyone absolutely crazy. Hurry up and wait until the baby decides to get here.
I spent a good part of my day yesterday trying to get a fourteen year old computer to once again work properly. I’ve been a computer gamer for a very long time and started when the games were just text-only. I finally settled in permanently with the X-Box because of my life long loyalty to Microsoft. Don’t sit there and shake your head, all those years were a great deal of fun and taught me a great deal about computers and software.
As the games became more sophisticated the older games fell by the wayside. Having spent my hard earned money for these games I refused to just discard them. I saved the floppy disk games, games on CD’s, console games, and any other that I sincerely enjoyed playing. All these years later most of them remain unplayable but alive and well in my files.
I’ve became interested in reviving some of these old games after receiving from my nephew an Atari 2400 Anniversary console that contained dozens of the ordinal Atari games such as Pong, Asteroids, and Centipede. My nephew is a computer nerd like me and after a telephone discussion a year ago he shipped me one of his older computers dating from the late nineties. It’s one of the few I’ve been able to find with a working floppy disk drive and I also wanted to use it to convert many of my older games on floppies to CD’s. It would give me a much better chance at playing them once again.
I love computers but they are extremely frustrating to work with. The computer companies in their attempts to protect their software have made them extremely difficult to copy and to reuse. It seems to me that most of their technological advances with game consoles and computer games are purposely made incompatible with previous generations. It forces consumers to constantly spend their hard earned money on upgrades of both software and hardware. My best recent example for that was X-Box One which will not play any of the hundreds of X-Box games made for previous X-Box versions. That sucks and has only convinced me never to buy one.
Yesterday was like giving CPR to someone who is on his last leg. During shipment cables for that old computer were knocked loose and it took a while to get them all replugged into their proper places. I finally was able to get it to reboot with Windows 2000 but that’s when the real fun began. Using parts from a number of my past computers I finally found a mouse that would work with the unit. The monitor worked fine and I thought I was home free. I still had no sound and no working keyboard and I don’t know why. The keyboard I have was from a newer model and there was no way it would ever work with this old machine.
One of my chores for this summer will now be to visit as many yard sales as possible to find a keyboard and mouse from that same era. It should be an easy find since almost every yard sale has computers and parts for sale. With any luck at all I should have this machine working this summer and I can pull out my old Doom and Quake games and relive those earlier days that I enjoyed so much.
I find myself extremely frustrated but having many years of computer experience it wasn’t unexpected. I’ll just walk away for a while, turn on my X-Box 360, and return to the world of Halo to kill a few thousand aliens. It always makes me fell better.
Nerds rule !
Well I guess the world can continue to rotate around the sun and all of you can continue living your exciting lives once again. I received a clean bill of health from my doctor during my recent checkup so everyone can relax again for another year just knowing I’ll still be around.
Have I ever mentioned just how much I hate doctors and hospitals? I’m positive you have no idea just how much. I spent a lot of my youth visiting uncounted hospitals throughout the Pittsburgh area while visiting my mother who was afflicted with every disease known to man during her life. I became almost phobic about it. I was terrified of entering hospitals and getting stuck with needles. For years every time I needed a blood test or a shot it usually caused me to become violently ill or to pass out completely. That phobia was finally dealt with when it became time for me to leave the Army. A blood test was required before I could be released from the service and I certainly wasn’t going to stick around any longer than necessary. I sat quietly while they took six tubes of blood and suffered no ill effects whatsoever. It’s amazing what proper motivation can do to help you get through the tough times.
I have no phobias now but I still hate hospitals and doctors. I’m good to go until sometime in August when my new doctor will put me through my paces once again. Blood tests, poking and prodding of body parts best left alone, and more of those miracle vaccines and shots that may or may not even work. Getting old requires more and more maintenance of the body and mind just to maintain the status quo. Regardless we eventually all lose that battle. More exercise, less alcohol, no smoking, healthy foods, and an endless supply of drugs, drugs, drugs.
When I turned fifty the medical community found out about me and the process began in earnest. I needed a shingles shot, a pneumonia shot, a tetanus booster which probably cost the insurance carriers at least $500.00. Increased visits, regular colonoscopies, and future eye surgery to fix those pesky cataract problems we all have to deal with at some point.
I’m one of millions of Boomers whose current responsibility is to stay alive as long as possible to help keep the health care community in business. What will happen to the system once we’ve all passed on. That will be the new healthcare crisis with lots of layoffs, hospital closures, and a serious overpopulation of doctors, nurses, and home care specialists. I guess we Baby Boomers could be called a massive health care asset until we all finally die.
The Spring melt continues between bouts of annoying snow that keep showing up almost every morning. Fortunately it’s usually just a dusting that melts away as soon as the sun comes up. What’s been the most surprising is the speed in which the snow has been disappearing. Having four feet of snow on the ground for most of 2015 and piles more than fifteen feet high found in certain parking lots, it’s melting away much quicker than expected.
I’ve been mentioning for the longest time about the amount of ice and snow that has built up on the roof of our home. The rear of the house gets very little sunshine and the accumulation there is always an issue. Each year we look forward to the "ice fall" and this year was no different. I was working on my computer when the whole house shook much like a small earthquake. I knew immediately that the ice had dropped and OMG it was amazing. A sheet of ice between ten and twelve inches thick, four foot wide, and thirty feet long, smashed to the ground with a tremendous roar.
‘Be glad you weren’t standing here when it came down.’
After last Winter I was forced to rebuild the hand railing on the steps for the third time. When the ice drops it usually crushes the railings and they must be rebuilt. I attempted to build a replacement rail that would survive the ice drop and I was successful. This huge ice sheet hit the railing and bounced down off and landed in the yard. That’s one project eliminated from my Spring repair list.
I began today by heading to Lowe’s to purchase the materials I’ll need to rebuild my mailbox. I’ve come up with a new design that will hopefully keep those damned snowplow drivers from costing me more money next year. Here are the results:
‘Before’
‘After”
Later this week my plans for rebuilding the frames for a portion of my garden will begin. Then we’ll decide what we’ll be planting and where. I’m looking forward to the warmer weather and getting outside to dig in the dirt a little. Winter can’t disappear soon enough as far as I’m concerned.
‘All you need is a coat, hat, gloves, a blanket, and a space heater.’
I hate to admit it but I think I may be suffering from a slight case of Spring Fever. I try never to fall prey to things like that but I’m beginning to feel it. With official Spring being just a week away maybe it will actual happen.
I see ice and snow quickly disappearing and to help that cause along I spent two solid days cleaning snow and cumulated ice from my second floor deck. The snow was still two feet deep and the ice under it was between four and six inches thick. To put it bluntly it was a real ball-buster of a job which I’ll never do again. When I finally cleared a large enough area I set up the deck table and chairs and sat down for a break. Spring in Maine, twenty degrees, bright sunshine, sitting on my deck wearing a parka, hat, and gloves.
Yesterday was another beautiful sunny day and I decided to greet Spring with a flurry (no pun intended) of photographs of the beaches in the area.
Here we go . . .
‘It’s hard to walk on the beach when you can’t get there.’
‘If you think the water looks cold you should feel the wind.’
So maybe I’m rushing things a little. Can you blame me? This has been a long, long, long winter and it needs to “cease and desist” right now. I took a drive past the amusement park in Old Orchard Beach and wasn’t all that amused. Brrrrr!
‘It’s the only time of the year when the lines for the rides are this short.’
‘Almost open for business.’
Even the birds are unhappy. I can’t imaging why they insist on swimming around in freezing cold water but they appear to love it. I was uncomfortable just watching them.
So much for my first beach day of 2015. I hope to God the rest of them are considerably warmer with a few more thongs and bikini’s to catch my interest. This is as good as it gets in March so I shouldn’t be complaining.
It can only get better.
The ice and snow is finally melting. It would appear that we’ve seen the last of the big Winter storms for this year. While the temperatures are in the mid- forties during the day the nights remain cold as hell. It’s a great trade off as far as I’m concerned. We still have tons of snow and ice on the roof of the house but it’s already been reduced by at least twenty percent. The remainder should fall this week as it appears to have moved a few inches with this minor thaw.
‘When this ice hits the ground the entire house will shake.’
I made a trip to Lowe’s in preparation for the rebuilding of my mailbox for the third year in a row. If I had the extra money I might even consider a small yet annoying lawsuit against the town to demand repayment for all of the mailboxes they’ve destroyed over the years. From the looks of things as I drive around I’m just one of thousands who have the same complaint.
‘I know this looks almost usable but the door won’t close and the pole it sits on is missing. Take away the snow and it will be sitting on the ground.’
I’ve come up with a creative solution to the mailbox problem which will require me to spend a bit more money than I’d like. If it works I won’t be buying any more mailboxes in the future. As that project proceeds I’ll post some photo’s so all of you that don’t suffer from this problem can have a chuckle or two.
‘This is a sample of one of the many Maine seasons. We have Summer, Snow, Snirt (Snow/Dirt), Mud, and Black Fly. This is SNIRT.’
The sun is shining this morning and I’m anticipating a decent day where I might actually get out of the house and into the woods. This year has been one that made it difficult to get out and about even with snowshoes. I tried it once and was exhausted within minutes. With three feet of snow on the ground even snowshoes can’t help. I think today I’ll get my car desalted, take a few pictures and celebrate seeing actual pavement for the first time in months. I may have to be retrained to drive on real dry asphalt.
C’mon Spring!
I spend an hour or so every other morning sitting in this bed and writing about my life and my interactions with the rest of the human race. Sometimes it’s interesting and sometimes not so much. There are times when finding subject matter becomes an issue. It’s not a problem finding things to write about it’s deciding what things shouldn’t be written about that is my main problem.
I’ve been taken to task on many occasions by both friends and family about things I’ve written. Some asked, some begged, and others demanded that they be left alone and not included in my ramblings. It took years for me to find that comfortable little niche where I was allowed to say just about anything without repercussions. You see my problem don’t you? It’s the reason that I never post photo’s or use names of the people in my life. Truthfully they think what they and say do is so vitally important and private that I should never write a thing about them. I think that’s a huge steaming pile of ridiculousness because everyone is egocentric and thinks the world would stop tuning if their everyday boring crap isn’t kept totally secret. That’s silly I know but everyone including myself seems to feel that way. I guess that just means we’re all a little more delusional than we’re aware of or care to admit.
I thought it was time for me to restate my approach to blogging because it continues to change and be readjusted the longer I do it. I suppose I could give all of the more important and interesting characters in my life cute little nicknames or aliases but that to me is stupid. I could write in great detail about all of them and their activities and cause a great deal of turmoil as I went about doing it. I could post questionable photographs of them so the world would know just how important they’re not. But I don’t and I won’t. That simple statement should help some of them sleep a little better tonight.
This posting is just a polite statement of my style of blogging and my motives. I blog because I love to write and what better things are there to write about than my own activities. I’ll continue to do this for as long as I can regardless of what anyone thinks. The only motivation that keeps me going is that generated by me. Outside influences are interesting but annoying and have no effect on how I approach this blog. It will continue without change into the future.
Even Ted Kaczynski had a manifesto that explained his bizarre way of thinking. That’s the right of every citizen to voice their opinions regardless of how right or wrong they are. I intend to keep my blog rated at a PG level but with a minimal amount of cussing and swearing. I do plenty of that in my everyday life and find it much more pleasurable than writing it. There’ll be no photos of people in my life and no actual names will be ever be used. It isn’t really necessary because they all know who the hell they are anyway.
So I’m about to leave my warm bed and begin my day. The blogging will continue and be as harmless as possible except when someone or something pisses me off. That’s just human nature and I choose to do it here on this blog rather than standing at a water cooler bitching about the world to a bunch of people who are bitching right back at me.
I prefer individual bitching rather than having it become a group activity. This blog is MY water cooler.
Have a wonderful and sarcastic day.
Today will be a short lesson on making wine. As I’ve mentioned in past postings I’ve been attempting to make a batch of Honey/Maple Mead. A few weeks ago I began the process and things were going quite well. After the initial fermentation the color of the mead was a beautiful golden color and was clearing nicely as the yeast completed it’s alcohol production. Maintaining a temperature of seventy degrees was the only challenge at first but things appeared to be going well.
I siphoned the wine a second time two weeks ago and was feeling pretty good about things but I should know by now never to get overconfident. After completing the siphoning and out of curiosity I decided to take a quick taste. I was hoping for a smooth and mildly sweet mead. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. It was extremely dry and tart with almost no aroma of either honey or maple. I’m afraid that the champagne yeast was a wrong choice for this type of wine. Champagne yeast is more resistant to alcohol giving the batch a tartness I wasn’t looking for. Normal yeast would’ve given me a much milder version that was a little sweeter and closer to my goal.
What I’m really trying to say is this batch is awful and I was sorely tempted to throw the entire experiment out. I then decided to attempt the impossible and fix the problem. I needed to add just enough sugar to sweeten the mead to bring back the flavor that is being hidden by the harshness of the alcohol. After experimenting with different sugars I decided to stay with the theme of the mead and to sweeten it with Maple syrup. I added one cup of diluted maple syrup to each gallon of mead which I hoped would give the mead a much sweeter flavor and a deeper color. The maple flavor was wonderful and the aroma was amazing.
I placed the jugs back into a warm room to determine if the yeast would reactivate. So far it seems to be lightly fermenting which was expected. I’ll let it sit for a few weeks to allow the yeast to die and for it to clear once again. Then a final taste test and I hope a successful bottling.
I’ll have my fingers crossed the entire time hoping against hope the problem has been resolved. I’ll let you know.
I can’t believe it but I’ve succeeded in sleeping in until 9am this morning. I suppose the late night pickup at the Portland Jetport is primarily responsible. My better-half’s flight was scheduled to arrive at 10pm but air travel being what it is she arrived on a different airline and at 1140pm. Airline travel sucks on a good day but then you add in Maine and winter weather it becomes ridiculous. I won’t get into a major rant on airline companies today because anyone who flies anywhere that isn’t first class or non-stop is well aware how they make you suffer. Maybe they’re doing it intentionally to force as many people as possible to pay the extra money to avoid flying coach with multiple connectors.
Maybe I should thank my better-half for bringing back a little sunshine from her journey. For the first time in a long while I was awakened by bright sunshine blasting through the layer of ice hanging from the house and into my bedroom. It’s a brilliant sunny day and the temperature has yet to reach 20 degrees. These photographs were taken from inside the house because it’s almost impossible to walk anywhere in this deep snow.
As you can see it’s impossible to enjoy the scenery without ice and snow being the main focus. The cold weather is expected to last well into March which means this ice will be hanging around (no pun intended) for at least another month.
The birds are finally making an appearance in fairly large numbers. They’re roosting in nearby trees and soaking up as much of the sunshine as they possibly can. It’s tough being a bird in any northern state at this time of the year.
The squirrels aren’t going to be too happy either when they’re finally able to stick their heads out of their nests. Mother Nature has badly damaged their feeder which will be my first Spring project.
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