White Lightning Axiom: Redux

I'll have to make this quick as I am trying to wrap up 100 disparate tasks and still keep my sanity. This is going to be one of those awful 'status only' type posts to let you know that I still persevere to breath air. The Ever Lovely Mrs had a birthday this past weekend ... just a few hours short of having a leap-year birthdate. That would have been entirely too entertaining, but alas, she is still only a few years younger than the wizened old fart who she calls here husband. Additionally, the Parental Units made one of their Monthly trips to ensure that the Tyrants would treat them fairly after the Great Apocalyptic Reckoning. Oddly enough, in a bizarre convergence of events, an old college friend (Mandy) stopped by on her way from California. Atilla was busy at her girl scout-brownie-daisy Juliet Low World Thinking Day what-dat-and-chew event, so it was up to me to entertain while the Mrs was detained as glorified limo driver. Fortunately, the Super Grandma was about to do most of the heavy lifting (like making snacks ... I'm only good at making them disappear) so we were not too shamed by our lack of preparation. Sunday came and went, only to leave us with a pile of snow and some sub-freezing temperatures. I had the foresight to go out and chop a month's worth of firewood and then lug it into the manor so we had some source of BTUs for the next week. That wood burns quickly when you are trying to keep your digits from snapping off. We were fortunate in that one of our more friendly neighbors had come back from a trip to warmer climes and needed a technical resource to help him out with a malfunctioning snow-blower. I gave him a few tips on how to get it to turn over (it had been sitting for 2 years, the ignition chamber was dry and the plug was corroded) and in a fit of gratitude, he cleared our mile long drive for us. That kept me inside for and extra 2.5 hours. We were going to do a few other things, but nearly every place we went, the doors were locked. The more important places were open, of course: TSD, Dentist, Piano. Of course, the studio ended up closing on Tuesday because the electric furnace failed and the ambient air temperature dropped to somewhere between 'Brrrr' and 'colder than a plumbers wrench in February'.

School Mid-Terms ... they are BRUTAL. Attila won the spelling bee the other day, so I'm not worried about her performance in the upcoming tests, but Ghengis finds very little use for all them high-falutin' fancy words and there is nothing he cannot say without a good round-house to the solar-plexus or ridge-hand to the temple. Trying to explain the difference of 'their' and 'there' to a 6 year old is a Sisyphean labor when you learned it by wrote. Lord, have mercy on his little heart because he will be crushed if he does not perform well.

Technorati Tags:Snow | Swimming | Karate | Children | Winter | School | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, School, Snow, Swimming, Winter

A minor chain of events yesterday slowed things up a bit. I was busily distracted by work when the Meticulous Mrs rings me up on the land-line phone in my sensory deprivation chamber. It was nearing 1430 hours and she let me know that the Day Care/ReEducation Facility had called her to let us know they would toss the Tyrants out into the cold cruel world at 1630 hours. Argh. I understand why they were closing (the public schools were shutting down and that requires the Professionals to go fetch their own offspring) but why they never call me (who does drop off and pick up NEARLY EVERY DAY) is sexist and illogical. Fine. I fetch them at 1620 hours and we scoot on home across the sheets of freezing rain and general wintery nastiness. I could see both the tiny kernels of frozen terror bouncing off my windshield and it's less acceptable brethren of 32F degree water droplets flinging themselves to oblivion and forming perfect little ovals of ice. We were on the brink of an ice storm. About the time we arrived at the manor, the assault by Mr Freeze had begun in earnest. I let the Tyrants 'enjoy' the 'snow' for a bit till the figured out that the sno-cone material laying about stung quite horribly when formed into snow balls and flung at each-others faces. A sled ride, however, was significantly more acceptable. Given this choice of activities, we of course refrained from attending TSD practice sessions. Good thing too. You see, the Manor is situated on a ridge where there are a confluence of surface roads which carry a great volume of traffic over/under various man made and natural obstructions. Turnpike, railways, stream ... all surround us leaving us insulated from a great deal of crime and other nuisance elements. Of course, the demeanor of the automotive explorers forging their way home was not at optimal levels. There were a great deal of accidents and nearly every bottleneck in the local region was sealed closed as tightly as Pooh in Rabbit's warren. The emergency vehicles were wailing and rushing about, only to find themselves all but trapped as well. Of course, this all settled down a bit only to start up again the next morning. A great deal of this traffic was from parents taking their children to school, only to find out that the buses did not pick anyone up because either the institutions were opening up late or not at all. Same case here ... delayed opening till 0900. At that hour, every single parent converged on the day care and filled the parking lot like Mentos in a coke bottle. To add to the misery, there was a semi truck parked in the middle of the road ... stuck while making a delivery. Ahh, yes. Good times indeed.

Technorati Tags:Snow | Ice | Winter | Children | Traffic

Labels: Children, ice, Snow, Traffic, Winter

To all my friends and family up north, Prayers and Hope that you will remain safe:

The scale of Sunday’s chain-reaction pileup on Interstate 390 is best described by the numbers:

Thirty-six tangled vehicles.

Twenty-five people injured, including one teenager who later died.
Wind gusts up to 37 mph and blowing snow made seeing past the hood virtually impossible.

Buses that were headed to the Rochester Institute of Technology to pick up hockey teams were commandeered by the Gates Fire Department and used to keep people warm while the temperature slid to 18 degrees. Firefighters had requested buses as part of the rescue response, West said, but those buses “were in the right place at the right time.”

Grams and Gramp called last night after they arrived home and reported a bit of white stuff as well, but not the level of destruction going on in Rochester, NY.

Technorati Tags:Snow | Weather | Winter

Labels: Snow, Weather, Winter

Hrmmm, let's see here. It snowed a bit here in Pennsyltucky. Just a light sheet of ethereal snow. And as a matter of course, half the automotive pilots on the local roads completely went off the deep end and tried to induce reverse cranial rectal examinations. Most of the snow melted, only to be replaced by a diamond strength layer of ice. Slicker and blacker than teflon. Half the autos were going 15mph, the other 150mph. Just looking at the POS SuperSaturn was putting my life in danger. On top of that, it looks like I have a slow leak in the rear passenger side tire. Fine, I'll have to pull it off and let Chris the Uber Mechanic patch it this weekend. You know, because I have nothing better to do.

In other news, my shoulder hurts. No good reason, but it seems to be more of a muscle ache variety of hurt rather than a barometric joint reaction. I'm hoping that it will not become a long term issue as I will need to do a lot of shopping for the Mrs this year. She does not typically go for the sparkle and shine of baubles, but the 'neato' factor in technology sends her over the edge. I can see her eyes glaze over as she pages through the new geek-toys on sale at the local electronics monger. Yep, expect she'll want that new robotic tank this year.

Technorati Tags:Snow | Christmas | Traffic

Labels: Christmas, Snow, Traffic

I had started this Sunday Night ... but alas, the anti-soporific allure of the Television captured my attention and I ended up watching 'Tin Man' on the SciFi channel till the wee hours of the morning. These vicissitudes in my sleep patterns are doing me no good, I know. Sometimes I just want to watch a show without a squeaky clean animation character. Speaking of characters, the dodgeball/swim night went well on Friday ... followed closely the next morning of me hauling my sorry sagging rear out of bed at the absurd hour of 0745. The tyrants were rampaging though the house and this always invoked the 'WHINE' factor in the hounds. They understand if they simper long and loud, I'll eventually let them out to do their stuff on the back-50. Then, it's off to administer the death penalty to another innocent evergreen. I went to a small farm that I spotted on my commute to work that was selling live trees for $30 a pop. Free-range, yup. So I met a man by the name of Emmo who apparently had a son that went to Cornell! Funny. Even funnier was the damned ATM at the Wawa that I usually stop off at was out of order so I had to find a different working one. Cost me about 15 minutes. After I gingerly transported the 50 foot pine strapped to the top of the SuperSaturn POS with spit, duct tape and gumption, I cored it out and hauled it to the Grand Cathedral in the Manor with a bit of help from the Mrs. As you know, I have some slight balance issues and have learned to NOT TRUST my internal ear. Just because things feel like they are tipping to the left or right, that means nothing to gravity. I have to judge my 'uprightness' by checking my surroundings. Makes swimming a real bear. In any event, the Mrs gave her 'Seal of Approval' and the strings of lights were added. Ornamentation would come later at the deft hands (and myopic minds) of the Tyrants.

That afternoon, the whole clan spent time outdoors raking up leaves in the front expanse. The Mrs would rake to the curb, I would run the mower over the area to suck up the remaining leaves and detritus. Rake, mow, blow, suck ... ummm, yeah. We cleared out the front fairly well leaving mountains of leaves which were promptly blown back into the grass and garden beds. Damn. We had to do it though since we were expecting nasty weather the next day. With continuing unpleasantness through the rest of the winter. Indeed, it snowed that night and made a terrible mess. While we were at it, I had the Tyrants take the truck load of aging pumpkins from the front porch to the Agricultural Sector and SMASH THEM! HULK SMASH PUMPKINS!!! Heh ... time and place for everything, you know. They were starting to get a bit soft so it was time to dispose of them. I'm certain I'll get a lot of 'volunteers' next spring after I till them under. After the Mrs and I finished up with the leaves (the Tyrants abandoned us for the comfort of the wood-burning stove), I ran across the street to help our neighbor, Gus, with a couple of 25 foot tall trees that he needed to take down. Yep, just could not get enough lumberjacking in so I started in on the arboreal work in the local area. It took little time but the chain on the semi-commercial saw started to dull before we got to the hard part ... cutting the stump flush with the soil. Leaning over with a roaring chain-saw ... yep, I'm destined to be sore the next day. To cap off the day, I made some Bohemian Goulash and load of Beef Stroganoff for the week's meals. The Mrs made chicken wings (ACK!). The cavalcade of leftovers is never long lived. I'm not sure what I would do without the double-blessing of ground beef and pasta.

Sunny Sunday ... not so much. Snow, sleet and just general nastiness. This impacted the attendance at Sunday School too. Only 4 little smiling faces showed up ... all talking about how they were going to build snowmen and make snow angels in the slop that laid about the ground like a sodden quilt. Of course, we had to stop at Dunkin Donuts afterwards, and share the plunder with the Mrs back at the manor. The Tyrants decorated the tree and put nearly all their ornaments within the first 3 feet from the floor. Looks good to them I suppose. We rearranged some of them and filled in all the empty spots. I spent the rest of the day bumbling about with laundry, feeding the wood burning stove and puttering about in the garage. I did manage to get the automatic garage door openers rewired so I did not have to use the remote to open the durned thangs. Good to get something accomplished. Oh, and I finally put up the wall Spackle over the patches in the closet wall. Now for the paint and the new shelves ... I can finally put my clothing in the same room I sleep in!

Technorati Tags:Snow | Weekend | Lawn | Christmas | Children

Labels: Banalities, Children, Church, Home Improvements, Lawn, Lumberjack, Mundane, Rain, Snow, Weather, Winter, Wood

Hey, wow ... look at me posting and postulating on a Sunday night! Yes, yes, after my many transgressions I should at least pretend to try and comport myself with dignity and restraint. PPttthhhht! After Friday night, that illusion has dissipated into a fine mist. Friday night, I stopped off at the Bent Elbow around 1615 hours and spent nearly the next two hours drinking a lot of scotch (about 10 or so snifters) and a few plates of deep fried 'happy hour'. That was my undoing. Damned crispy lard chunks ... soo tasty but oh so nasty for the arteries! I met my party, ranted a bit (she is a Democrat, I'm a bit to her right) and was assaulted by the Dos Equis XX girls till about 2100 hours. Got a hat out of the deal ... but mixing the pure pleasure of a single malt scotch with the poison of South-of-the-Border polluted water is not really a smart move on my part. Yeah, an early evening for me. And a late morning as well.

We spent most of the precious Saturday packing up the Family Tank v 2.0 with a month's worth of supplies for the week. Then, we proceeded to trail blaze our way from noon till 1600 hours to get to the FOB. Along the way we saw the landscape go from a gloomy grey and brown muck to the wintry wonderland of lake effect snow. Standard Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving image. Pine trees, snow, Grandparents, turkey ... and a roaring fire in the fireplace. And let me ask you this ... how do you go about getting a fire going? Well, with wood ... and that means chopping down trees! Oh yeah, Gramps and I hauled out the ropes, chain-saw, axes and medical kits so we could go about taking down a few dead-stands. Oddly enough, we did not need the ice buckets to keep dismembered appendages till they could be reattached ... or the tourniquets. Nope, not a single cut, bruise or scratch. Go figure. We managed to spend most of Sunday afternoon hauling chunks of wood about with all the vim and vigor a couple of mid-century boys could muster. Tomorrow, we will work on stringing up the Christmas lights. Mmmm, more ladders, heights and slippery precipices!

Technorati Tags:Beer | Grandparents | Weekend | Snow | Trees | Lumberjack

Labels: Beer, Grandparents, Snow, Trees, Weekend