Archive for the ‘Useless Crap’ Category
A few cups of coffee, an hour on the computer, and then back to the serious work of remodeling our spare room. I’m in the process of combining our master bedroom with an adjacent unused room and I’ve pretty much gutted the room to include removal of all the drywall from the walls and ceiling. I’ve pulled up and removed the carpeting and pads and removed the old electrical outlets and switches. Thank god it’s not a huge room but its still a lot of work and preparation.
Today I’m beginning to rewire some of the outlets and taking measurements for the laminate flooring. Small but important steps in the process. Next week Ill be reframing the closet and deciding how much of the wall to remove to make the new opening into our bedroom. Good old Lowe’s delivered the new drywall and studs last week and I’m almost ready to get serious about this project. I’m tempted to just call a contractor but my better half insists I do some of the heavy lifting. She’s just so frugal at times it makes me crazy.
I stayed up a little too late last night reading book number one of the Harry Potter series. I was surprised how closely the movie followed the story line but there were a few things in it that were edited out of the movie. Hagrid in the movie came across much differently than in the book. He was a big loveable hulk in the movie but was portrayed as something of a loser in the book. It’s those subtle little things that allows books to remain true to the authors original story. Hollywood has a way of editing stories in a lot of little ways that can sometimes change the entire story. I’ll stick to my books thank you very much. Unfortunately I got so caught up in the story I lost track of time and the next thing I know it was one o’clock. Obviously I need all the beauty sleep I can get so off to bed I went.
As I walked into the bathroom this morning the mirror was very unkind to me. I looked like “forty mile of bad road” and felt just about that good. I’m still tired as hell but I’m up and finally motivating.
My better-half is working today and has meetings scheduled well into the late afternoon. I can finish my tasks and still have time for a hour or two with my camera along the coast somewhere north of here.
Back to work. No more procrastinating
Are you as sick as I am with all this political nonsense? I decided to get out of the house for a few hours with my better-half to take a short hike through the woods, in a non-hunting area of course, to just enjoy the clean air and the sunny day. The area where we wanted to walk is approximately seven miles from our home and we took the round-about-way of getting there.
I decided just for the hell of it to count all of those annoying political signs that seem to pop up at every intersection and clutter the landscape during every election cycle. I stopped counting at three hundred but it was easily twice that.
I realize there are some rather loosely enforced rules about where those signs can be placed and how many can be placed there but that’s not really my point. It’s just another way for politicians of both parties to irritate the hell out of people. It’s bad enough that we have to listen to a barrage of advertisements on television but now they’re calling on my cell phone. I’m sure I’m not the only person in this country whose made an attempt to contact every no-contact list imaginable to stop these annoying intrusions. Whatever rules they’ve set up for this kind of political crap just aren’t being enforced. Why am I acting so surprised? Everyone knows the rules don’t apply to the political elites.
I’m not a big fan of things political and I’ve lost a great deal of respect for many of the people who insist on living that lifestyle. I can respect a blue-collar worker much more than a smooth talking, word parsing, political hack. These feelings aren’t restricted to any specific political party because the differences between the two have become so blurred in the last few years it’s all the same damn thing. I know it doesn’t do much good to bitch and complain but it certainly makes me feel a little better.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting this week, I was able to make a little progress on that sculpture I been working on. It felt good to zone out for a few hours and concentrate on something interesting instead of the normal everyday humdrum nonsense. It still won’t be ready for Christmas but at least I’m back working at it. I love working with unusual materials and this project has taken it further than I normally go. Trying to create or re-create a woman’s hairdo out of white caulking compound has been a true challenge. I know exactly how I wanted it done and how I wanted it to look but getting there has become quite a challenge. I’ll keep slaving away and hopefully see an end to this project sometime after the holidays. Maybe I’ll be forced to make it a Valentine’s Day gift.
I did little shopping earlier today at a local store that sells used CDs, books, and video games. I love reading and I’ve been wanting for the longest time to eventually read the entire Harry Potter book series. I got extremely lucky and was able to purchase the first six books of that series at a reasonable price. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish the book I’m currently reading and be able to get into the first book of Harry Potter sometime this evening. The books are always better than the movies, at least in my experience.
Did you ever have one of those days where no matter what you tried to do, it just had no pizazz. That’s today for me unfortunately. It’s gray, dreary, and just cold enough to force me into wearing my winter apparel. Then I walk outside, take about twenty steps and all of a sudden I’ve sweated through my shirt. Then off comes the jacket and once again I’m freezing my ass off. It’s simply a no win situation with the cold or flu lurking in my near future. My decision is to be as lazy as possible and not work up a sweat of any kind.
I love the fall but it does have certain drawbacks. They are called LEAVES. I love Mother Nature and I love living in a rural wooded area but OMG the effing leaves. For years I’ve raked those bastard leaves into piles large enough to hide my car behind. Then I get to rake them again onto a huge tarp and attempt to drag them into the nearby woods. Saying that raking leaves sucks just doesn’t cover it.
A few years ago I lived in an area where burning leaves wasn’t permitted and most people were required to bag them and set them at the curb. If I did that now it would cost me a freaking fortune for bags and a week to fill them and stack them along the road. The town would be obliged to bring their entire fleet of trucks to cart them away and then later try in their slick governmental way to make me pay a fee. It’s just one of the few things governments do really well. They love to interfere with your life whenever possible and then work extremely hard to take money from you.
I decided this year I would win the battle with Mother Nature by becoming mechanized. I made the grand purchase of a riding mower with a grass collector figuring it would also be a great leaf cleaner-upper. Wrong again. It turned out to be a hugely expensive, red, leaf blower. For every leaf it sucked up, it threw three hundred into the air where Mother Nature could redistribute them around the yard. After my fourth pass, becoming more pissed off with each pass, I parked that mother and went inside for a cup of coffee.
After a half hour of quiet meditation to lower my blood pressure, I had another cup of my terrible coffee, and also an epiphany. A leaf solution came to me out of the blue and as always it was perfectly simple. All I had to do was pray for a week of high winds and rain storms that would blow most of the leaves into my neighbors yard. Any that were left after that would be allowed to stay right where they are until Spring. Problem solved!
So I’m off to visit my better-half who is happily slaving away for “The Man”. I think I can convince her in my charming way to eat some Chinese food for lunch and if I’m lucky she’ll get to pay the tab too. Things are looking up and screw the freaking leaves.
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