White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Well, that weekend went FAST! I got a bit of the mulching done on Saturday before the In-Laws (Mrs MDMHVONPA's Pregnant Cousin and her Husband) arrived. Good thing, I stunk like a barn animal. The two Appointments I had scheduled for the morning were a mixed bag. The AC guy did manage to show up before 1400 hours ... good thing. Cost me 110$ for a recharge for R22 though. At least the manor will be sufficiently chilled this summer should we need it. Yeah, who am I kidding, it's going to be roasting by the end of next month. Then there was the sprinkler guy. He just did not show up. I called and got the answering service who would be happy to relay a message. No thanx. I called this morning and was told that the service guys just did not work on weekends. Hrmmm, then why did we have an appointment scheduled. No matter. I surveyed the situation on Saturday and went down into the meter hole to turn on the system myself. It worked just fine after I managed to get the ball-joint open. All this with a maelstrom of main roiling under my left side ribs. Not sure where it came from, but it has been bugging me for a week and just finally subsided. Perhaps I should not block all those flying round-house kicks with my body. Finally, with the confluence of events this weekend, I attended an early Mass sans Sunday School and stopped off at the local St Judes shop to pick up some gifts for a 1st communion celebration we will be attending this next Saturday. Same day as the TSD test no less. I'll have little time to dicker around with my water barrels as I had hoped and there is still a mount of mulch in the Mile Long Drive that I need to deal with. I may have to take some time off to catch up on all this. I still need to pick up several diverters, spigots, overflow valves and, of course, the actual barrels themselves. With all the rain of late, the Car Wash has not had any surplus to had off. I'll have to ask next weekend in my 'spare time'.

Oh, yes. Speaking of the car-wash, their gasoline is now $3.60USD/g. I heard there is going to be a trucker convoy from NYC to DC today. I hope they can get some attention over the primaries about this.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Karate | Children | Plumbing | Gardening | Plumbing | Family

Labels: AC, Family, Gardening, Gas, Water, Weekend

Sorry to leave y'all in a lurch like that. The last few weeks have been a tad interesting. A brief and entirely uninteresting synopsis:








1) TSD:The intrepid wonder twins; Attila and Ghengis, got their Sparring Gear ... much pummeling ensued. Not to be undone by her beating at her brother's hands, Attila proceeds to 'Beat the tar out of him' when doing one-steps with Josh. I was treated to my own tar-release program in the adult class.

2) ENTERTAINMENT; CHILD:Last wet-day at Sesame Place included rides on the 'big boy (and girl)' rides that required a 42' stature. The lack of lines after Labor Day proved absurdly enjoyable and well worth the price of admission.

3) ENTERTAINMENT; ADULT:Between periods of work and migraines, I attended a few social events. Mostly mundane and rather brief. I owe one of my former co-workers about 20$ for beer and munchies due to an inoperable ATM. I'll send it to him in his Christmas Update Letter (Encyclopedia Sized).

4) EMPLOYMENT:Work, as busy and all consuming as it is, consisted of training, managing, monitoring, self testing and the omni-present and highly fungible level 4 support rotation. Never have I prayed so much outside of work as I did on this rotation.

5) HAUPERTONIAN MANOR:At the manor: Tilled the garden under except for the 10,000 pumpkins, bazillion carrots and bushels of green tomatoes. I actually got the Monster Tiller repaired at a local small-engine repair shop. Well worth the $100 repair bill; started on the first pull. Also got to deal with a clogged main-line sewer blockage. Somehow, a t-shirt label had come loose and wedged itself in the pipes about 25 feet down the way. Took a bit of gumption and a few fixes (small hole in 30 year old pipe) to get everything online. Now it drains like a champ. Of course, in the process of re-assembling the utility-tub drain, I cracked myself on the bridge of the nose with a plumbers wrench. My God ... it's full of stars ... and little tweeting birdies. Thought for sure I broke my nose but the blood loss was minimal and little bruising/swelling proved me wrong. Resigned myself to planting mums and bulbs in the garden after recovering from a monster headache the next day. Gee, I wonder why my head hurt.

6) FAMILY; MRS:The expected busy period for the Mrs got nixed when the recreant and ignoble miscreants from a remote location proved that their flippant behavior was not to be tolerated. They are in the midsts of covering up misdeeds and her requests exposed their roguish cozenages. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth will soon commence.

7) FAMILY; CHILDREN: Children are loving Kindergarten. Almost as much as the Mrs and I as we sit down to go over homework assignments, practice writing letters and going over spelling lists. As God as my witness, I shall make sure they write their first epic novel before they get to 1st grade. Or at least, a story that has all 20 words that they need to learn in it.

And there you are. I still live and soldier forth with few symptoms. Granted, most of my impediments are self inflicted. I shall endeavor to update you with the salient matters (read: blatantly mundane and mostly fabricated) as the occur. HUZZAH!


Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Plumbing

Labels: Banalities, Bar, Beer, Children, Family, Lawn, Migraine, Parenting, Summer, Swimming, Water, Weekend

Work has me pinned down today. I got into work at 0745 only to find an email sent to me last night regarding an 0830 meeting on a subject that I had virtually no in-depth knowledge on. I was to be the technical resource. URK! Had to bone up quickly and in the end, the resolution was to deny the request anyways since it did not comply with the standard ... mkay, hacking the system is bad. I'll go with that.

Last night was not too shabby at all. Swimming was greeted with a visit from Miss Steph, who for some reason enjoys being assailed by the Tyrants. Hey, if she is going to be a teacher, more power to her. I wonder how long it is before she becomes jaded and bitter. Poor thing, I wonder how she will do after having kids. I notice that it seem to be a magic switch in some folks. But hey, who am I to delve into the potentially ultraistic motivations of others who serve as a diversionary target thus relieving me from being constantly dunked! Karate went well, the kids really want to learn their next form, but are uninterested in getting the first part right before moving on to the next. Frustrating for both parties, but we will soldier on. For some odd reason, Alexis suddenly had a bloody nose in the middle of the class and was welcomed into the cooing clutch of the mothers in the audience. Nothing serious, and I know the source (damn nose goblins, all sticky and stuff), so I continued on with Jake. He was less than pleased to be the benefactor of 100% of my critique. I have my own new form to learn, and it is not as simple. I've done a fairly good job at completely demolishing it every time. I might need to return to my cheat-sheets!

The cooler temps and light rainfall have been a Godsend for the grass. Not watering the landscaping here at the Haupertonian Manor was a poor choice. Looking over the parched landscape, I noticed small patches of muted green. Upon further inspection, I found that these were my zoysia plugs. They had taken root and flourished with impunity! I've just ordered a new batch which I intend on planting in spots where the 'classic' blue-grass and rye have been met with a summary execution at the hands (paws) of the fire pissing cybernetic hounds. We'll find if it is really pet-waste tolerant, now won't we?

Technorati Tags:Lawn | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work | Weather

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Lawn, Mundane, Tang So Doo, Water

Well, let's see here. What to talk about first. Friday was fairly anti-climatic. Let sleeping dogs lay was the theme for the day. I stuck around the Home Office all day in case I needed to be called on to 'testify' for the TL9000 audit of our division. Silly stuff, so I bounced about and helped out some of my co-workers where I could. Standard end of the week agitprop greasing the slide into 5 O'Clock slackerdom. Friday is an exercise in pushing items off your plate and trying to temporize any requests that may come your way. Any meeting you come away with fewer action items than you went in with is a success. Even better, avoiding meetings where you might get something which would demolish your weekend is even better. But, you know, that's not really the team spirit, is it?

When I was heading back to the Manor after skirting responsibility all day, I was about to load up the POS SuperSaturn with my wheel barrow of work related paraphernalia when I discovered that I had neglected a complete a critical task that morning. You see, the squirrels have been destroying my crocus bulbs in their quest to dig up the emerging 7/21 year cicclids. So, they happen on my bulbs and think: MMMMM, this might be tasty. Argh. Go eat the damn bird seed you tree rats! In any event, I've been trapping them with live traps and relocating them on the other side of the turnpike. No chance that they will find their way back. Now I'm not trying to eradicate the population, I know better. Won't happen. I'm just trying to remove the sub-class that seems to have the gumption to dig up my flower beds in spite of the defensive perimeter claymore mines and the cybernetic hell-hounds leaving their acrid scent everywhere. So, I caught on this past morning and dropped the chattering little bastard into the trunk of the SS, cage and all. And there he sat, all day. Gitmo could have learned something from me. It was a relatively cloudy and cool day so he did not end up roasting to death, and when discovered ... was still filled with piss and vinegar about being trapped. I let him loose and he bounded off towards the near-by military base. Probably to pick up some plastic explosives and assault weaponry to get back at me. He disregarded the contract I had him sign saying that he would denounce his former 'anti crocus' ways. Damn tree rats.

Tyrants behaved as they usually do. All uppity in the pool and such. Don't want to go swimming, want to go to karate till it's time to get out of the pool. Then they want to swim and not go to karate till I remind them that it's dodge-ball Friday. Fickle little turds. Jake is still a bit under the weather and had a mini-meltdown in class. We cut that short! His 'tantrum' is usually him clenching his fists and screwing his face up into a whiny scowl and emitting a high-pitch screech ... like a wind-up to a major explosion or something. Usually I just have to bark out his name and he cuts it short. I've only seen him do it twice, but I let him know that it's not a behavior that I'll let go unchallenged. He is starting to learn that he will not get his way all the time and there are more ... proactive ways of resolving conflicts. This one will not work.

Saturday: do nothing but sleep in with a cruddy migraine and slum around all day. Pick some veggies, clean up the Master Suite a bit. Hang with the kids. Since the lawn is a perfect beige color now, mowing is not required. I'll certainly make sure that the sprinklers are turned on next year, the lawn looks like hell after this summer. The garden isn't much better off, but we do have about a dozen pumpkins that are looking quite spectacular now. A basket of very intense tomatoes too. Very flavorful due to the limited rainfall.

Sunday: more of Saturday's activity. We were planning on going to Sesame Place again, but forecasts of mid-day thunderstorms and a general malaise with the Tyrants but the kibosh on that. Genghis and Attila took turns napping on the Iron Maiden (New non-Hydraulic Master Mile Wide Bed), desperately trying to shake whatever NEW virus they managed to pick up. That, or the old virus mutated in both of them and they gave each-other a new bag-o-crap ... which I'm now coming down with. Nice. Indeed, each had a bit of a fever and the hacking cough prevalent in the Haupertonain TB Ward. The phlegm and snot runneth deep here, mind your step.

Technorati Tags:Weekend | Swimming | Karate | Children | Illness | Gardening | Lawn | Summer

Labels: Banalities Work, Bed, Children, Gardening, Illness, Karate, Lawn, Migraine, Summer, Swimming, Water

Behind the 8-Ball again here in the wonderful world of Haupertonian HyJinx. Friday was an abnormally mundane day. It got A LOT cooler around here so I could mow the lawn with little consequence. On top of the lack of measurable rain, the non-use of the sprinkler system of biblical proportions has resulted in a very un-healthy lawn. I did not need to empty the clippings till I had finished the whole front pastoral expanse. I could see every spot where I planted the drought tolerant zyosia grass though. Looks like it is spreading exactly where I wanted it to. I'm thinking about buying another sheet to fill in those 'less healthy' areas. Next year, it should really start taking over like some sort of alien kudzu. Saturday, I slept in till nearly noon. How I managed to subvert the Mrs into letting me get away with that, I cannot remember. I'll wager I signed a contract in blood that involved me surrendering a critical part of my anatomy at a nebulous future date. Hrmmmm ... I'll bet she mind-wiped me while I was sleeping. I'll have to take a look at my cerebral log files to see what happened. She is trick though ... probably edited them too. Ungh ... getting a headache thinking about this ... some sort of ... synaptic virus ... REBOOT, REBOOT! .... [static]

Wha? Oh, yes Saturday. Watched the kids play on the driveway while I was busy with the wee-eater in the back. Trimming some of the areas that the mower could not get at. Fixing up little things with the Twin AAA Towers in the Sand pit and mucking about in the agricultural sector. Typical puttering about type tasks that seem to gather en-mass towards the end of the week. We did have a minor outing to the Local Home Depot Temple to see if we could pick up the beveled mirror doors for Jake's closet. Much to my disappointment, they no longer carry the preferred product in stock ... it's a Stanley Special Order item now. GRRR.... We decided to make some measurements back at the manor and get doors for the other closets as well so we would only have to go through the red-tape again. It is getting harder and harder to make purchases for these type of 'big ticket' items. I think the Usurper Lowes is really putting a hurting on LHDT (Local Home Depot Temple). Dejected and disgruntled, we went off to Giant and picked up some butchers discount stew meat. Yeah, it was probably getting 'ripe' but since I have an iron gut and I intended on using it for shishkabobs on Sunday, I had little worry about spending 7$ on the 3 packs. Sunday: in short consisted of an early mass with the Twin Tyrants, the habitual stop at Dunkin Donuts and a early departure for Sesame Place. We got there by 1030 hours (it opens at 1000) so the usual line of cars leading out of the lot had dwindled considerably. Now, you would think that with a full parking lot we would have to contend with a horde of eager masses at the entrance. Indeed, there was a MONSTROUS gaggle of unwashed population queued up. We have a season passport which has a special line. It took us about 5 minutes to clear the gate. Oh yeah! (Doing a chair dance, stirring the pot, etc...) We then spent the next 7 hours getting roasted because we were about 3 feet from the sun all day long. Alexis broke out of her shell and went on the 'Giant Ducky Ride' as well as the big tube ride twice. It was a very good trip. We ate beef jerky on the way home and I made the kabobs with the garlic sauce marinated meat. A fitting conclusion to an untypically awesome weekend.

Oh, and gasoline is now at USD $2.59/gal. Not perfect, but getting better.

Technorati Tags:Gas | SwimmingChildren | Sesame Place

Labels: Children, Family, Gas, Lawn, Meat, Mundane, Swimming, Water, Weekend

Just a few things to banter about, the greatest of which is the gobsmacked state I'm in due to me laying down coat #2 on the floor in Jovial Jake's room. A little splash of mineral spirits, a daub of paraffin based oils ... wheeze! My noggin is swimming in an ocean of synaptic discombobulation. This leaves only one more coat to apply ... this Thursday after sufficient time for drying. Then, while we are on vacation, the final coat should coagulate into a high-gloss shine. Slap up the wall-paper and call me Susan! It's fortunate that I did manage to find those last 4 cans of finish ... the only ones left in existence. I used two on this coat so I should have just enough for the last layer. Looking forward to that ... like an enriched uranium enema.

I called the water company, Aqua PSW, yesterday. I asked for them to send a 'technician' out to put my seasonal meter back in so I can start up the summer sprinkler system that I so meticulously installed. After going through voice mail hell TWICE, I finally get a rep who tries to sort out my account. She hems and haws about various inconsistencies about my account and makes a comment about a meter shutoff request made in 1985 ... yeah. I was living in another State at that time and most assuredly did not make that request. So, she confesses that she is not sure how to proceed and needs to ask her manager (I'm expecting another hang-up at this time). She actually comes back online and says that she will be able to do this, but there is a 50$ meter transaction fee. WHAT!? Yes, 50$ to install or remove a meter. So, here are my choices: I can pay 100$ a year to have my seasonal meter removed/installed or pay 20$ a month for a minimum usage fee. Dammit, what kind of nonsense is this. They want to venerate myself before their billing department for the privilege to pay more for nothing? Gha! Every one wants a slice of my pie, and they have no problem laying out mendaciously specious tales to get it. I've threatened to have a well drilled for the singular purpose of feeding my sprinkler system due to their horrific billing practices and inability to keep accurate records. Now, I'm on the precipice of doing so. Double argh.

Technorati Tags:Home Improvements | Water | Fumes | Polyurethane | Plumbing

Labels: Banalities, Home Improvements, Lawn, Summer, Water