Holiday Cheer Everywhere. Even My Lungs.

My kid keeps breaking out of his swaddle blanket.  The kid is like Houdini~  He gets a hand out of the little swaddle blanket (which looks an awful lot like a tiny straight jacket) pretty much before you get the light out.  And he likes it.  He gets a little thrill out of it. 

Just when I thought the dust phase of the statue was over, I got a full 8 hours of it today, a vacation day, no less.  The hands are on and I’ll be posting out some photos of that this w/e.  And I do wear a mask when the dust is flying but it can be darned uncomfortable.

Tomorrow, I need to have another big day with the work on the statue but will be shoveling frozen ice off a driveway (still doing that) and taking my nephew to his hitting workout as his dad is in dialysis.  Then after hitting, we are working out the kids for tryouts for the last 2 slots and we have ringers coming in who should be good; but we have to go through the whole thing.  Then we take the boy to get measured for a custom baseball glove.  They measure his hand and build it to suit.  It is quite cheap on a deal that the coach has arranged, so I’m all over it.  He may get 3 years out of this glove.

Then it’s over to the nursing home that my dad is in now with the broken hip.  He was released from the hospital and is there for rehab.  I was a little p****d to find out that this place charges.  Where I work, if someone is on a full Medicare A stay, the first 20 days of your 100 days are free in essence, because you are collecting 100% from Med-A.  Whatever that person’s RUG score is, THAT’S what they pay the facility.  Well, at least this place is close and that money could be an incentive to get the walking in and get out.  He will most likely be there for Xmas but it still may only be for 4, 5, or 6 days.  All in all, for his age, he has come through remarkably well.

After all this stuff, I will be able to work.  Maybe get in a 6pm to 1am shift.  That’s when I get all my work done anyway.  At least there’s an Andy Griffith 4-pack on at 8pm.  2 hours of Mayberry.  I want to live in Mayberry.  There isn’t much to watch on TV when I’m trapped in the shop.  Why isn’t there more pool on TV?  I love it.  All I see is poker: Where’s the pool?  And when it is pool, it’s always 9-ball.  How about some Rotation (Chicago) or one pocket or something other than 9-ball?  And when they show you the table with the ball diagrams on there, can they show that more?  I mean longer?  So I have a chance to map out 3 or 4 shots ahead?  That’s the whole game and they rush it but boy, they make sure they have the stupid, “pocket cam”.  That is a little camera that gives the view of an ant, standing in the pocket as the ball comes AT you.  Now why in the hell would you EVER want that vantage point?  I wouldn’t mind seeing the whole match from above the table.

Also today, I bought 100 shares of YUM and now I’m hoping that those guys can sell a lot of our bad food (and lifestyle) to the Chinese.  They have some dough in their pockets now so naturally, they’re going to want jalapeno poppers, doesn’t everyone?  And I will profit like Cheney….[evil laugh]. 

Last item.  See the photo below?

This is my tax money being spent on town, curbside, leaf collection.  Yea, that’s how they do it here and you don’t have a choice.  I rake my stuff to the curb on a busy county road and the cars and wind blow it all the hell all over the place.  I re-rake it daily for a couple of weeks and then these guys come around and vaccuum them up.

Only here, this year, they can’t vaccuum up my neighbor Bill’s leaves because the da*n things are frozen~  So there were as many as 4 guys hacking away at Bill’s leaves with shovels and backing up traffic for 10 minutes.  The pile on the right?  That’s the ice from my driveway.  The leaves are behind Bill’s blow-fence.  Unsure if the blow fence is helping the leave-entropy.  They might be because Bill is the only one on the street with any leaves at all.  The mayor wants us to know that the system is working and can he please raise our taxes? Again.

Sawdust Samwich

I tried to take some photos of the dust that gets generated from the sculpting process. Even though I’m nearer to the end, I’m still taking out a shopping bag of dust almost every night. These aren’t real bad scenes overall. When it gets bad, you don’t tend to want to stop and get the camera and take any photos. There have been one or two times when I’ve thought that I should take a photo because no one would believe it.

My favorite die grinder died yesterday. A Milwaukee, 1/4 inch, 4.5 amp job. The first big purchase I made back in 1992 or so do these large figures. I’ve changed the brushed numerous times and even sent it back to have the bearings repacked. I won’t send it out this time even though it cost over $300.00. The reason? The die grinder to the left with the orange handle is a cheap made-in-China job that goes for $50.00 and if it ever dies, I will toss it and buy a new one. Tools that I only dreamed of in the 1990′s are now so cheap they are virtually disposable. And that’s because of all those inefficient, polluting manufacturing plants over there in China that are not going to stop belching their carbon gases no matter what silly laws Arnold passes in California to hoodwink gullible and mis-informed taxpayers about the cause and solution to the current warming trend that’s in all the papers.

Driving with Balloons.

 

Mrs. Pinetar recently coined her own axiom: “It’s hard to drive with balloons in the car”. Amen to that. I mean, you can’t SEE, right? D*** balloons…

 

***

 

Did people notice at the Hone Run Derby at the All-Star game that there were more kayaks in the Bay than landing draft at D-Day? Was anyone besides me laughing that really no balls were hit into the water? Oh well. I guess the wet suit will come in handy on Halloween or shoveling snow. Do they do that in SF?

 

***

Ichiro to be signed and announced as signed, likely tomorrow. This makes Hargrove’s mystery, Nixonian resignation all the more juicy. Was the deal to pay off Hargrove and make him go away so that Ichiro-san could sign a long term deal? Boy, oh boy. You know you are a BIG player when you can get a veteran manager dusted, just like that.

 

***

 

And speaking of balloons, take a look at this. Someone emailed me this so I don’t have the credit to cite but don’t sue me, ok? One of the more amazing things I’ve ever read. Makes going over the falls in a barrel seems sensible.

Getting the Belly

Mrs. Pinetar is afraid of McGonnigle, the cat. Not really afraid but she thinks he doesn’t like her and is wary of him. He has nipped at her hand in the past, apparently.

 

Today, I showed her that when he is nice and sleepy, he will be good and he purred for her and he even rolled over and “gave the belly”, or, felt comfortable enough to roll on his back for belly scratches.

 

She said, “yea, he gave the belly for YOU! He wouldn’t do that for me”

 

I said, “…you have to do it right. You have to approach slowly and let him smell your hand for a while, because that’s how he identifies you and assesses threat level. Then, you start with safe scratchies that he likes and keep doing that until he trusts you more and more and then slowly work the scratchies under him and he’ll just flip over and stretch and give you the belly.”

 

She said, “yea, sure, that works for you…”

 

–fog

Good News Pinetar Raggers

I found a web page that really goes into metal objects (and yes, even rocks) making sounds in near-lightning conditions.

Click here to go to the Google Answers Page

Of 400 Lightning Strikes a Year

Factoid from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader: There are on average, 400 folks hit by lightning each year in the USA. Of that, only 10% die and several could be saved by CPR. Of the survivors, 60 to 80% have some lasting, physical damage. The rest walk away.

The biggest culprit for indoor lightning strikes and injury is people being on a hard wired telephone (cordless doesn’t count) .

Tips for not getting zapped:

 

Removing all metal objects from your person is recommended.
Don’t stand in a crowd of people. – “Spread out”
If you feel a tingling sensation, your hair stands on end or you hear
‘buzzing’ from nearby rocks, fences, etc., move immediately.
Lightning may be about to strike!
Immediately crouch down, get on the balls of your feet
and cover your ears.
Do not lie down or place your hands on the ground.

***
One time, a friend and I were playing tennis at the high school. A big June thunderstorm was coming in and we were leaving and as I was trotting under the “H” metal goalpost of the varsity football field, I HEARD the pipes BUZZING and clicking. This noise stopped the INSTANT that a big bolt of lightning hit down behind the school, about a quarter to a half mile away.

My friend didn’t believe me that the pipes were buzzing and I KNOW I heard it. No chance–it was real. It actually annoyed me that he didn’t believe me, but, oh well, what are you going to do? It is a wild story. Then I googled up the phenomenon surrounding lightning strikes and you know what? People near strikes and some of those who get hit sometimes report the buzzing. In fact, a couple accounts I read said that even ROCKS were buzzing. At least I’m not nuts.

But when I think of how close I was to getting hit, I think “zoinks”. Lightning is not playing. –Fog