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 |  Don't do this
I have made the mistakes so you won't have to. |
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Real world advice for the reality-challenged. Always looking forward to what's around the next bend.   |
| Don't do this: Allow Pandora to design your yard |
| I was asked once by a young person just starting out what he should look for in buying a house. My advice was to find a place where his wife thought all the walls and dirt were where they should be. In his youthful optimism, he thought that sounded like good advice. In truth, his wife will never be happy with where the walls and dirt are. I should have told him to learn how to move walls and dirt, but I didn’t want to discourage him so early on. Those of us who are the victims of home improvement shows know that in the minds of home makeover show producers, nothing is impossible. I also know that nothing is impossible, as evidenced by some of the things I have witnessed while psychotic. Recognizing a fellow lunatic when seeing one, I know these same home makeover show producers are crazy as well. Yet, while no one believes I saw a skunk the size of a Labrador retriever, they are perfectly willing to believe one may remove every wall in a house. These interior designer lunatics are relatively easy fend off once it is brought to light that there will be no home makeover show producer footing the bill for a remodel. It is the demon yard makeover fiends that present a problem. There is almost nothing they suggest that doesn’t require moving dirt even though you were careful to select a home where the dirt was supposedly in the right place. Making matters worse, they throw around bricks and pavers with abandon. These maniacs will have you hanging 10-feet in the air trying to construct a pergola if you let them. But, it can’t be helped. The parental locks on the home improvement channels won’t work (tip: don’t try). Pandora has escaped and is out building peaceful water features and stylish seating areas on the cable channels. I have an advantage in that I am crazy and know what to expect. You may not. Here are some phrases indicating a trip to the home and garden store is in the making: “Our yard doesn’t flow”. This does not refer to the drainage problem you are already aware of. When accompanied with hand gestures, assign $1,000 to large movements and $500 to lesser. “We don’t have a vertical element”. If you are not standing, get up and see if that satisfies the vertical element requirement. If it doesn’t, buy a better ladder. “Water feature”. Try to get it as close to the house as possible. Laying the power conduit will require moving all the dirt from where it was supposedly OK to outside the trench. Review Don’t Do This, Marital Relations for suggestions on negotiating with your spouse about the project. There are only a few items that matter. How big, where, and how high. If you recognize a taint of insanity brought on by prolonged exposure to home makeover show producers, don’t say so. You will be reviewing a lot more than just the Martial Relations section if you say, “That’s crazy!” Don’t do this. |
| Don't do this: Overlook bacon when storing a filter |
| Our refrigerator stubbornly demands a new water filter every few months. My solution is to place tape over the annoying warning light on the front panel. My wife suggested a different solution. It was less impactive to the tape supply but significantly more so to the money supply. But, since my wife feels an ice and water dispenser in the door is the foremost reason to own a refrigerator, I agreed to replace the filter. The first thing I noticed while shopping was that they are exquisite filters, as evidenced by the cost. After going through all the required steps of grief, I decided to purchase a two-pack since it was cheaper than buying one twice. The filters arrived and I installed one just moments before the old one was about to fail (according to my wife). I then put the spare in a place where I would be able to find it when we needed it. What followed is completely predictable. The accursed light went on again two weeks ago. It was time to retrieve the spare filter. As is common to everyone looking for something in a place where they will be able to find it, I could not find it. The filter does not evidently exist in this dimension. I have a clear memory of finding it a few months ago and thinking it was a box of guitar parts that I had forgotten about. Assuming that I was probably near guitars at that time, I began looking in all the places guitar parts might be located. That having failed, I looked in all the places that are more logical than those having guitar parts. After that, I executed the Dog Search by searching in an apparently random manner. That may have succeeded if I had thought to smear the filter with bacon before hiding it, but alas, I did not. If there is one universal truth regarding lost things, it is that buying another one will turn it up. Since the refrigerator was teetering on the brink of uselessness at that point, I bought another filter. My sure-fire remedy for locating the missing refrigerator water filter failed. I am not without options yet. I am going to buy two water filters next time. I will smear the spare with bacon, and store it in a place where I will be able to find it when we need it. Hopefully, the other filter will be there. Also, the way to find things is to look in places where one has not already looked. I have only searched a minute fraction of the Earth. That gives me a lot of room in which to conduct my search. However, if the lost filter is indeed in another dimension, it will just have to stay there. My experience is that it is much easier to get in there than back out. If I got stuck in there, my wife would have to buy the filter and she would not be happy about it. |
| Maybe I can get him to take a couple of more guitars. |
 That strapping young fellow is Evan Ferro. He is appearing with the band Middle Class Rut on the Artie Lange Show. That is my guitar, or was until I gave it to him last month. A couple of months ago he put out a request for a semi-hollow-body guitar to borrow for a couple of months so he could tour with this band. I had that guitar and having several more guitars than I can play, I gave it to him. Their next appearance will be in England, and then off to parts continental. I played with Evan’s father in the Bos Branham Blues Band in 1971 and 1972. I think the highlight of the experience was playing for Alice Cooper’s birthday party in a bar they had rented. Alice Cooper and his band were normal working performers. The crowd was not normal anything, except for the stripper, who was a normal stripper. The band was a Chicago-style blues band styled after the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The lead player in the Butterfield band was Mike Bloomfield, a guitarist I greatly admired. I lifted a lot of licks from him. Bos, the leader of the band, eventually moved to Berkeley and played with Bloomfied. I had taught Bos to play guitar, and he still plays what I taught him to this day. He told me that during his association with Bloomfield, the famed guitarist lifted a few licks from him. That Bloomfield played a little of what I taught Bos is very gratifying since I achieved a minute degree of notoriety playing his. In the title song from the album East West, Bloomfield plays a section of the extended instrumental piece in what I can only describe as Psychedelic Klezmer Rock. The only change I made to the style was to play a little more attention to scale and mode. For that, I received a mention in the jazz periodical Downbeat Magazine. However, blues is a very prescribed form. One can get away with playing blues and jazz licks in a rock tune, but one cannot play rock and jazz licks in a traditional blues song without getting a Breaking Form penalty. Modal rock licks are a flagrant violation. So, I eventually quit the band to play anti-jazz, country music. I would mention here that modal rock licks are even less appropriate in country music, but the temptation and opportunity to play them are almost absent. I eventually lost touch with Evan’s father, getting only occasional news from my infrequent visits from Bos. Social networking put me in touch with Evan, we having mutual musician friends. He was very pleased to get the guitar, especially as it had come from someone who had played music with his father. That guitar has, unsurprisingly, a few modifications to the controls and electronics that I probably should have told him about, but he appears to have mastered them. Maybe someday I will tell him about his dad sitting with a couple of gorgeous transvestites who were having some luck in enticing the unwitting Bos while Alice Cooper played pool in the back room. You can view Evan’s performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5KxCcovqbI He make the guitar sounds a lot better than I ever did. |
| Don't do this: Trust mice to hang a door |
| One often hears the phrase, “The best laid plans of mice and men…” The originator of the statement, Robert Burns, followed it up with, “Gang aft agley.” That last part, which Mr. Burns chose to write in the Scottish language for some reason, translates as, “Often go awry.” As Douglas Adams will tell you, and did in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, mice are the most intelligent creatures in the universe. What chance do I stand of getting anything right when even the best laid plans of the most intelligent creatures in the universe often go awry? Aggravating matters is that I rarely plan at all. I simply take things step by step, out of order. In this case, the project was building doors for my shop several years ago. My less-than-well-laid plan was to hang two closet doors so that they would slide open and present a five-foot opening. This was supposed to allow for moving large objects in and out of the shop. Since I wanted to get it right, I called in the mice. The first thing the mice got wrong was that nothing that big will fit in my somewhat cramped shop. The second thing was that closet doors and hardware are not built to withstand the kind of abuse I dole out. They were constantly getting knocked off of their track and falling. These events were usually ill-timed and occurred as I was attempting to get things too large in or out of my shop. The third, and most condemning of rodential intelligence, was that they would not close well enough to keep out the cold air. This is fine for mice, who live in the insulation, but I was often cold. My goal of getting the temperature up to sixty-degrees was simply not obtainable in the winter. I finally gave up on the mice, who I am beginning to doubt are capable of well-laid plans, and decided to hang an actual door. Installing doors is not complicated (discounting they gang aft agley). I have done a few and the jobs came out fine. The problem with the shop door was that the opening was inadvisably constructed to accommodate double doors. I had to drill holes in the concrete to extend the bottom plate and frame the opening. The result would have been better if the mice had done it. All of that can be compensated for. Gravity cannot. Getting the casement for the door right required that the door be stood up and the opening measured. I avoided breaking a fluorescent light fixture thanks only to the unexpected toughness of the tubes. I avoided damaging the door by stopping it from falling with my head several times. In the end, the door was hung and will probably keep out more cold air than the sliding doors did. In retrospect, I should probably have called in the mice on this one. The amount of sheet rock screws, nails, bruises, and mismeasured wood could have built another half of a door. In my favor, this was not one of my better laid plans and so should not be put up against those referenced by Mr. Burns. Additionally, I have yet to see the mice come up with anything better. It could be that they are not trying that hard either. |
| Don't do this: Soggy blankets mania. |
| Mother’s Day went well. I spent a good part of it under my daughter’s truck which was rear-ended a few weeks back. The rear bumper repair was successful after a couple of hours of hammering, jacking, a trip to the auto parts and hardware stores, plus a series of invocations and implorations. The tail light repair was a failure, but to my surprise, there is red tape made specifically for the purpose of making tail lights legal. Where I live, in the seventies and eighties, repairs like that are done by going to the crafts store, buying red cellophane, cutting it roughly to size, and taping it over the light. There were varying views of the legality of such repairs. Since the light shone red when lit, we considered it legal. The police had a different view. Their view seemed to be that for all its other wonderful properties, cellophane does not stand up well to snow, rain, blistering heat, or young children with sticks. I am hoping the tape does better because the vehicle is registered in my name. I love it when the family gets together. This occurs in retrospect. I love it now that the last load of dishes is in the dishwasher and all the towels are washed and dried. I haven’t assessed the damaged to the gardens yet. I am going to wait until I love family parties a little more before doing that. I will re-fix the clothes line after that. I need to restore the house to some semblance of order and then I will love it a lot. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I am “high strung”. One might even preface that with a superlative such as “very”, or “ridiculously” (to use modern parlance). There are medical terms which apply. None of that matters. What matters is that I sit with everyone and enjoy the party. Enjoying it in retrospect is not acceptable. That is where having other duties is helpful. Freeing up my wife and children to enjoy the party in real-time while I wash clothes and do dishes is an act of love (24-hours later). This personal sacrifice is done so that I may enjoy consciousness, as opposed to what would be required if I were to attempt to love the party in real-time. Each of these fetes offers a bit of experience in how to cope. These are also in retrospect because I fail so badly at the time. Here are things to not become mega-anxious about: -Bedding on the lawn will require washing even if the children don’t wrap up in it and roll around in wet grass. If you see pillows, blankets, and comforters on the lawn, it is too late to prevent another two loads of laundry. Apply beer as an aid to loving it later. -The number of cups and saucers required for a proper tea party is all of them. The number of cups required for painting will exceed what is left. -“Washable” paint, Play Doh, and sparkle glue does not come out of rugs. -The agony of the Disney channel is well compensated for by the ecstasy of silence. If you find yourself teetering between a hypermanic state and drunkenness, or perhaps both, then you should work on a truck. Everyone will be happier (in retrospect). Be sure to work on something that needs to be fixed. Avoiding using a jack in a dangerous manner where people can see you. Use a big hammer. Lay off the beer. When you go to town for parts, something I highly advise, buy your wife a Mother’s Day present. It may shorten the, “happier with you in retrospect” horizon. Hopefully by the time she gets home tonight. |
| Don't do this: Bras, panties, and compost |
| A couple of weeks ago when the roofing crew was here, they snagged the clothes line with their lift truck. It was an education experience. The line stretched very much more than I thought it would but didn’t break. After the line stopped the truck, I took it down and waited for inspiration to strike before fixing it. Inspiration came in the form of a mountain of laundry and 80-degree days. In an effort to avoid doing the laundry, I repaired the clothes line. It was a successful effort. By the time I was done I only had time for one load. But, the line sagged terribly when a load of wash was hung on it. My wife noticed the deficiency and remarked that it was not attractive. There is no greater flaw than unattractiveness. An outlet may be left unserviceable for decades, but if the sheetrock gets damaged, it must be repaired. It required a lot of instruction for me to grasp this fundamental and universal fact. It took time, patience, and repeated reinforcement for my wife to teach me the ultimate importance of attractiveness, but I get it now. The point is that I don’t need to get it, I just need to fix it. After having been properly instructed, I agreed that the clothesline had to be improved. The tension on the line had to be increased. This was accomplished by a Herculean effort on my part which resulted in a clothesline that sounded a low B-flat when plucked. I secured the union with that all-purpose balm of attractiveness, black tape. Nothing says “fixed” like a big wad of black tape. Having improved our quality of life, I hung a truly enormous load of wash up. There were several pairs of jeans, three or four towels, t-shirts, and a few of my wife’s things (which I later remembered weren't supposed to be washed with jeans, towels and t-shirts). The line handled the load in an attractive manner. About a half an hour later, I was standing at the sliding glass door staring at nothing when the universe decided to reinforce its own lesson. As I stood staring out the door, the line fell to the ground. It was not attractive. My engineering had been inadequate. When the sun hit the magnificent wad of black tape, it had softened and the joint had failed. But lo! All was not lost! The clothes which had fallen into the dirt at the far end of the line were all mine. My wife’s clothes were still attached to the part of the line suspended in the air. I threw my clothes in the dryer to remove the detritus and put my wife’s clothes in the dirty laundry. Clothes Line Rev. II is much stronger. It is secured with wire clamps which lends it a stylishly attractive industrial flair. The tuning has been raised to low C. If this fails, the next step is $100 of stainless steel wire. There is no more attractive material than stainless steel. It will produce a much clearer note as well. If you should find a load of damp clothes lying in the dirt, there are a few things to keep in mind: -Leaf detritus in the dryer lint trap raises suspicion. It is OK to admit you didn’t rewash your clothes. Your spouse’s opinion of your general mental state will probably not be affected, it being low to begin with. -Since you weren’t supposed to wash your wife’s clothes in the load with your clothes anyway, there is no need to mention their unfortunate encounter with gravity. -B-flat is a fine note, but there is nothing wrong with G, or even F. Try to tune to the lowest attractive note. -Review Don’t Do This, Marital Relations before attempting to convince your wife that her clothes were not soiled in the disaster and did not require washing. -If the universe and your spouse’s opinion on clothes line attractiveness seem to be at odds, go with your spouse. It is more likely your spouse will wear the universe down before changing their own views on clothes line attractiveness. |
| I don't even remember the title of my research project. |
| I don’t think I will get much of an argument when I say that life is strange. That is a good thing because I am not in a position to argue in favor of whatever position I adopt. If the case can’t be succinctly stated in one sentence, I am lost. Being able to constructing a succinct sentence is pretty remote also. I have given up on trying to be coherent. The effort fails just a few words into a conversation and that leads to disappointment all around. It is better to be loony right out of the gate. That way no one is frightened, or even surprised, at meandering trail of a sentence that probably had no point even at its inception. My few friends, my family, and many of the relatives are familiar with this and are patient about it. There may be an exception here and there, but they suffer from prolonged exposure fatigue and even I get tired of that. There was a time when I was perhaps less crazy and certainly more coherent. I was expected to be astute, exercise good judgment, be able to plan large projects, and manage a big budget. I became less able to do that over time and I eventually retired before it became too apparent. Since then one might say the situation has deteriorated. They would be generous in their assessment. The situation has become dramatically worse than degenerate. What brings this about is the retirement of my only remaining work contact. In the seven years since I retired I have not attended one retirement party, luncheon, or even gone to lunch with anyone except my friend. My friend’s retirement requires my presence. There will be wall-to-wall PhDs, people with whom I once had in-depth discussions concerning their science and data needs. There will be oodles of grad students who have ascended into the ranks of working scientists. Some may even want to talk about my research project (God forbid). Many of them will want to know what I have up to. This is going to be a minefield pot marked by the craters created as I serially confuse and alarm the attendees. Fortunately, I have a plan. My friend has met, and likes, my buddy down the road. She asked me to invite him, which I did. To my amazement, he accepted. The promise of free beer and deli food had a lot to do with it. I feel that as an army of two, we can meet the challenges head on. The sight of a once competent coworker huddled in the corner looking disheveled, confused, and disoriented would be a concern. Seeing two together would be something quite different. Together we will be able to navigate the maze of perplexing questions using our well-rehearsed patter of incomplete sentences and off-topic remarks. The conversations are sure to be short. I am relieved that I will not have to come up with statements that no one will disagree with. Saying that I recommend retirement but the hangovers are rough should elicit a chuckle. I have a few pictures of the guitars I have built on my phone so I can show those off. My buddy and I will knock back a few beers, grab a handful of salami and cheese, kiss my friend on the cheek and wish her well, and shuffle off into the sunset. Then I fully expect I will never have to do it again. I don’t think I will get much of an argument when I say that is for the best. |
| A stuporous alien is still pretty smart |
| As much as I tire of winter, and I truly do, it has its advantages. We live on the 45th parallel, halfway between the equator and the North Pole. As I am sure those in South Dakota, Michigan, and Maine will attest, days are short in the winter. The amount of daylight we get allows for about four hours of useful consciousness with the rest being devoted to stupor. It is not something that works to the advantage of working people and parents, but it does for me. Expectations put upon me are deservedly low. It is something that greatly aids in meeting them. When I was expected to be brilliant, it was much harder. Now, if I manage to install a light fixture without a trip to the ER, it is counted as a great success. That, combined with four hours of useful consciousness, makes winter a rather restful time. Contrast and compare with the present situation. The yard resembles a civil war battle field. Restoring the borders, smashed plantings, plus removing the detritus caused by the soldiers who for some reason were shooting the trees will be a monumental task. I will go broke before I can fill my truck with gas enough times to take all the trash to the dump. Being stuporous in winter is OK, but rousing from my mole-hole shop, blinking at the blinding light after months of torpor, the prospects for getting it done are daunting. Worse yet, the expectation is that I will. I know that at times like these the tough are expected to do something, but I am less ready to do it than they. My efforts so far have been directed towards extending the stupor but that hasn’t seemed to pay off in results. I have the beginnings of a plan. It is to go over to my buddie’s house, drink beer, and complain about the rise in expectations that we are both laboring under. That hasn’t worked well, but we will give it a couple of dozen more tries before giving up on it. One of my favorite lines comes from Carl Sagan in his novel Contact. Ellie, the lead character, is told by her father to use small steps when tuning her short-wave radio. Later in the book, the statement is echoed by a personable alien, which lends a great deal of credence to the idea. Using the assumption that anything said by an alien, even perhaps a stuporous one, is superior, I am using small steps to address my dilemma. Knowing what constitutes a small step to an alien is a tough one, so I am taking a conservative approach. I think I will get dressed first and take it from there. I have a lot of respect for Dr. Sagan both as a scientist and an author, as well as for his role (whatever it was) in selecting Jody Foster for the role of Ellie in the movie version of Contact. As a guess, I would say he did not have many stuporous days. Even if the alien’s advice was simply the product of his superior intellect, it is still good enough for me. It is a shame he is gone. Lacking his advice on what constitutes small steps, I think getting dressed is the way to go. |
| Don't do this: Cast without warp. |
| I ran across an interesting article on BBC. It was about an author named Walter de la Mere. He was a well known author of his time, writing during the first half of the prior century. At the beginning of a 1924 short story, he wrote, "Any event in this world - any human being for that matter - that seems to wear even the faintest cast or warp of strangeness, is apt to leave a disproportionately sharp impression on one's senses." I say kudos to Mr. De la Mere for his insightful observation. Casts and warps of strangeness are practically the only things I remember. And, the world absolutely abounds with people wearing them. All this strangeness certainly does leave a sharp impression on my senses. After reading the article, titled “Ghosts in the material world”, I have been trying to separate the casts from the warps. A warp seems intuitive enough. I left a 2X4 out all winter and when I picked it up it was warped. A cast of strangeness is why I would do such a thing and expect the board to be straight in the spring. I probably did it out of sheer laziness, which requires neither cast nor warp to explain. A hallucination is a warp. The weird things they do is a cast. Almost everyone outside my yard, and occasionally those in it, are all warped. The inside of the supermarket definitely has a cast of strangeness. When warped people mob a supermarket which is cast in strangeness, the result certainly leaves a disproportionately sharp impression on my senses. My experience is that when one thing is cast in strangeness, everything is. One might think my memory would be better what with all the sharp impressions, but I think the warps counteract that. This leads me to believe that casts and warps are the Yin/Yang of disproportionately sharp impressions. It therefore stands to reason that keeping casts and warps in balance is key to mental harmony. Here is some valuable free advice concerning the tao of the casts and warps of strangeness: If you are parked on a slight incline, the cars around may sometimes appear to all be moving forward. This certainly has a cast of strangeness. The fact that you are rolling slowly backwards but don’t realize it until you hit the car behind you is a warp. These are in balance. Talking to invisible people is normal (for some). However, it may affect others around you and cause concern. For their sake, one should try to manifest both cast and warp so that they form a well-rounded sharp impression. Many people seem to be oblivious to all of this. The swarming hoards of insensate obliviatos may create such a maelstrom of casts and warps that balancing them is impossible. In this case, I recommend engineering a solution in which one raises their own strangeness in order to achieve inner piece. That always works for me. |
| Don't do this: Swear at the villagers. |
| This last week was full of excitement. Roofer roustabouts, two-ton trucks driving through the landscaping, a rain of rusty nails, the unexpectedly pungent aroma of freshly laid roofing shingles, it was like a carnival. Now the midway has left town and the local inhabitants are left to restore their once peaceful village. It would be much easier if the village had a larger population. It is as if the entire population moved leaving only the village idiot behind. There have been a few bonuses in addition to a new roof. I have made three trips to what is called the “Reclamation Center”, but which we call the yard dump. This is a facility where you pay to deposit your yard debris, and then pay to get it back in the form of compost. This sounds as if there may be an unnecessary middle man in the process who might be eliminated by purchasing a chipper. As much as I am attracted to a large, roaring machine devouring limbs and brush, I am not going to get one. I have a bad history with chippers. Besides that, there is no better place to have one’s manhood reaffirmed than the dump. A dump is like a man spa. You arrive with excess stuff, relieve yourself of it in the most violent way possible, and return covered in a fine layer of dirt smelling of eau de dump. There is no expectation that anyone be anything but surly, a requirement for male reaffirmation. Swearing loudly is condoned. It is a tribal gathering of Men with Trucks without the obligation to beat drums or sing. On my second trip, a pleasant young woman offered to leave me her gloves after watching me violently unloading brush and swearing. She apparently assumed that I could benefit from gloves, and she was right. But, I would certainly not reduce my manhood by donning unnecessary safety equipment (a rule that I live by). Any perusal of manly action films will reveal manly heroes have a least some amount of blood on them, so working without gloves is a requirement. I felt my testosterone levels had been sufficiently raised by the end of the third trip so I quit. Feeling invigorated, I decided to take on the raised beds we want to construct. I bought the lumber and then went to the man boutique, also known as the dirt store. I bought a yard and a half of soil and unloaded it at the house. Then I cleared the garden area of the landscaping rocks and leveled it. I want you to try a conceptual exercise. Form a mental image of all these tasks, combine them all together to form a pictorial collage, place me in it, and then caption it, “What’s wrong with this picture?” I have overstayed my welcome at the deserted village, overindulged and the spa, went overboard at the boutique, and now I have a testosterone hangover. I wrote recently about my sore wrist. In the process of compensating for that, I injured the other wrist. Surgeon’s have a much better compilation of Don’t Do This advice than even I do. I managed to do almost everything I had been warned not to do. It is clear where I went wrong. Here are a few tenets of my version of Don’t Do This that I willingly and purposely flaunted: If everyone else leaves the village, don’t try to fill in. Follow them. Limit you testosterone production to one trip to the dump. Pleasant young women who are only trying to help may be unfamiliar with the manly dump protocol. Swearing is inappropriate. The back of a truck is a fine place for soil until such time as a few villagers return. IMPORTANT: Be sure to complete the transition from the manly dump spa protocol to the village protocol before reaching it. If you don’t, it will be the village that stays and you who goes. |
| Don't Do This: Mother's Day flat tire |
| The treasure hunt is going great. I had a new roof laid and the roofers finished up yesterday. The first step in the process was agreeing to pay umpty-thousands of dollars. The second was to remove the old shingles. This is done by using implements resembling shovels to scoop the old shingles off the roof. Each of the hundred of shingles was secured with four nails. The shingles on the driveway side of the house landed, unsurprisingly, in the driveway. A good number of the thousands of nails were left behind. The fourth step in the process is to try and minimize the devastation to the landscaping caused by the third step. It is not insignificant. Unfortunately, most of the damage to the plantings was caused by me and the foreman cutting tree limbs that overhung the house. It was a lot of fun. There were tree limbs weighing hundreds of pounds falling right and left (and center, causing the windshield of his lift truck to be broken). By the time we had slashed our way through the trees to a height of twenty-five feet, a lush, green carpet of fronds covered the ground. A goodly portion of that ground was mature landscaping. My wife was up at our daughter’s house last night. She hasn’t seen the finished roof or, more importantly, the broken devastation of the gardens. My first task is to remove all the detritus from the limbing job and trim up the broken shrubs and smashed plants. There is no way to make a rhododendron stripped of half its limbs look right. Some of the garden ornaments I thought were out of harm’s way fell prey to the ingenuity of the roofers. I need to remove the evidence of that. As bad as it looks with now, when I clean it up, it will look worse. The second task is absolutely crucial, and even more futile. I need to remove all of the nails from the driveway so that my wife never, ever goes out to her car to discover a flat tire. Those of you familiar with reality know that this is impossible. Those of you familiar with Don’t Do This know that when it happens, it will be my fault. The first likely incidence of this is tomorrow. My wife and I have a verbal agreement that my part of the property is from the floor down, and the ceiling up. All of the damage, expense, and inconvenience resulting from the new roof is my fault. However, all of it combined will pale in significance compared to the first time my wife discovers a flat at work. Hence, the treasure hunt. So far I have spent about an hour walking up and down the driveway dragging a magnetic sweep behind. Each time I complete a pass, I net a handful of nails. I expect this to continue for some time. Disaster might be averted by asking my wife to park at the bottom of the driveway until I remove the nails. I expect the job to be completed sometime next year. That is not going to happen. I could plead my case and explain the difficulties. To paraphrase a popular saying, excuses are futile. In short, there is no path through this minefield that will result in a satisfactory outcome. Don’t Do This has little to say concerning certain doom. Its purpose is to avoid it. I can minimize some of it by having tire changing tools at the ready and emulating NASCAR pit crews in preparation for the inevitable morning flat. I could take my wife to the local designer nursery for a tree and shrub spending spree. I am going to organize a Mother’s Day fete. I’m sure other things will come to mind. But, someday soon she will walk out of her office and will discover a flat tire, and it will be my fault. I am hoping for an unsuccessful treasure hunt soon. |
| Don't do this: Tell your surgeon about the cage fight |
| I am enjoying a fine “morning after” buzz from the handfuls of medications it took to recover from the examination I was given yesterday. The examination was performed by a young intern (all doctors look young to me at this age). His specialty is orthopedics. He couldn’t resist playing with my ortho maladies and as a result, I am buzzed. The damage he did is of little consequence as I could have just as easily been injured picking up a 4X4. Although, one might think that four consecutive “yes” responses to the question, “does this hurt?” would result in a little restraint during an examination. They would be wrong. As an aside, this examination had nothing to do with the reason I went there. This event is the opening round of the cage fight that takes place each year within the confines of our yard. I am sequestered in my basement shop all winter. The typical mishaps down there are sometimes colorful and dramatic but are confined to a small area. When the sun comes out, I emerge from the cold, dank basement and survey the wild swamp that the yard has become. Then the bell rings and the main event begins. This year I am told we will be constructing four raised gardens, each of which will require a yard of soil shoveled from my truck and transported across the yard in a wheel barrow. We will also be building a chicken coop. This will require lifting and working with lumber over head. We will be realigning two gravel walkways. This will require digging and raking. The motions these jobs will require that surgeons have told me specifically not to do is: all of them. I expect to be disabled at the end of round two. The key to completing any of them is to only do one at a time. This sounds basic, but it is contrary to my fundamental work methods. Given my preference, I would do them all at once. It doesn’t have anything to do with efficiency or cost. I am just incapable of beginning at the beginning and ending at the end. My wife says I am not a linear thinker. She probably says that as a kind way of saying that I am not a thinker. I believe I am a prodigious thinker, but the results are not anything usable. I have carefully considered the list of projects for this year and concluded that what is needed is more beer and chocolate. I have a few snippets of advice for those in a similar situation: The answer to the question “Does this hurt?” is an immediately “yes”. If you are visiting your surgeon as a result of doing something they specifically told you not to do, don’t admit it. They get frustrated after the first few times. A frustrated surgeon is not a good thing. Sometimes the best cage fight strategy is to run in circles. Confusion is non-productive and that may be the best thing for you. I am mentally prepared for these projects, partially due to the fine buzz I am still enjoying. My recent re-entry into the real world has brought with it a new sense of caution and conservatism which should help keep the injuries to a minimum. I don’t believe that anymore than I believe beer and chocolate will build a chicken coup, but I’m hoping the surgeon will. |
| Don't do this: Share a good laugh with ER doctors. |
| After my last shoulder operation in 2006, I swore that I would never under any circumstances short of risking death have another. I was mistaken. I have had three since then. After the last one, I swore that I was done with operations. I was apparently mistaken in that as well. I am going in this morning to see if they can correct a problem with my hand. The only thing I can say about it is that I am going to stop swearing oaths regarding surgeries. It does nothing to improve my credibility with my wife, something which has suffered as of late. Plus, it doesn’t seem to do any good. But, there are a few things that I swore to stop doing which have stuck. -My wife and I swore to never be hung over on New Year’s Day years ago and that has stuck. I suppose part of it is that I don’t like going out on New Year’s Eve. The chances of being stopped are too great. I couldn’t pass a roadside sobriety test even right now at 7:00 AM. I can’t stand up without falling over, I can’t speak, I don’t make any sense, I am naturally impaired on even my best days. I also don’t like playing gigs on New Year’s Eve. All the amateurs are out and they act obnoxiously. -I swore decades ago to stop doing things involving the misuse of medical supplies and powdered materials from the Golden Triangle. That stuck (so to speak). -I swore to stop playing with black powder. That stuff is dangerous. -I swore to stop gambling, but since I never started I don’t suppose that counts. -I swore to stop free-climbing whatever rock wall I encountered. I am very selective about it now. I hope my wife doesn’t read this. There are other things I have not done so well at. These things deserve noting in Don’t Do This. -Do not use power tools for other than their intended purpose. If you do, don’t wear your good jeans and have bandaging materials nearby. -If you find that you must confess your transgression regarding the misuse of power tools to an emergency room doctor, they may laugh. Do not laugh with them. Your spouse will fail to see the humor. -Injuries caused by gross negligence don’t carry the sympathy one might expect. Even though you have come close to severing one or more fingers by using a bandsaw as a file, disparaging observations and commentary may still result. Do not argue. And, don’t swear any oaths regarding the incident because you may need to do it again. That would be bad for you credibility. |
| Don't do this: Sunrise is too early to be depraved |
| There is a crew of roofers here who are, unsurprisingly, going to put a new roof on the place. In the old days of about a month ago, I would have been filled with terrible anxiety from worrying about everything that could go wrong. Now, in my improved state, I am only at about sixty percent. The other forty percent doesn’t really care that much. Now that they are here and I am watching them from my upstairs office, I am becoming much less concerned. The reason is remembering my short career as a roofer. Perhaps you have heard about the debaucheries and depravities of the seventies. I can bear witness as to the truth: it was a debaucherous and depraved time. It may have been doubly so in California where such activities were being field tested. One of our more afflicted acquaintances was a roofer. He had recently lost a laborer and was hard up for help. I had gained experience as a roofer working with my Dad, so I offered my services. (Took a break to help get a 2-ton truck through the landscaping and into the back yard). Leo the roofer was a fun guy. A true soldier of the depraved and debaucherous lifestyle, he was blasted every time we met him. I hadn’t stopped to consider what this might mean in terms of working with him on high, steep roofs. He told me to be at his place at six. We were on our way to the worksite when Leo pulled out a pipe. I was no stranger to such things, but I was certainly a stranger to it being done at early dawn just before mounting a roof. Leo evidently felt his work methods were sound because he kept it up all day, even as the temperature climbed to over 100-degrees. We completed three houses in a subdivision over a period of a couple of weeks. He asked me if I would stay on to help him on another job. Feeling that it was just a matter of time before I fell off a roof, something he had done twice in recent history, I declined. My hometown suffered a serious decline in the following years. That had been the reason why my wife and I decided to move to Oregon. I had many friends, acquaintances, and even relatives who succumbed to violence, accidents, and drug overdoses. Leo was one of them. He died of a heroin overdose many years ago. If I were to give advice concerning depravities and debaucheries, I would counsel a low-key approach. Find those things that do not end in a heroin overdose. These days, mine are limited to beer and chocolate. I have learned to fall off a roof without the aid of intoxicants. The most debilitating thing I do at sunrise is drink too much coffee. When Leo and I were tempting fate, it was just the two of us putting on shingles with a hammer and nails. The roofing crew today is three trucks and five people. None of them look as though they are bombed. Hence, my falling anxiety level. In honor of my somewhat hazy memories of Leo, I am going to make some strong coffee and watch the roofers work. |
| Mankind needs pressure washer turbines |
| I began yet another medication plan just after Easter. I waited until after Easter to start it because we went to a family gathering and I didn’t want to put on a show if things went badly. I got through Easter in fine fashion. The hallucinations I had been experiencing were almost gone and I was the model of temperance and restraint. Thank God that’s all over. The temperance and restraint were worse than the hallucinations. The new plan has me on a grand total of three mood stabilizers, practically a record. He has me on a few other meds because three is apparently just not enough. The upshot of this is that I have reduced the medication recognized as causing “dullness”. Being dull is better than one might think. Being sharp is a fine thing, but it can be quite wearing in some cases. I don’t seem to have any other speeds except high and off. Being turned up to high and left there is hard on the equipment. Being turned off is real relief. But, I feel like it is time to end my vacation to vacuous. This new plan is designed to relive the dullness while preventing me from gaining escape velocity. So far, so good. All of this presents a problem. Now that I have regained my faculties, I feel as though I should be able to compose great blog entries. But, I don’t have a thought in my head. When I was taking enough medication to stun a horse, I wrote almost everyday. I don’t know what to think about this, and now that I am capable of thinking again, I don’t know what to think much more clearly. I suppose things are working the way they are supposed to. I don’t have any urges to put my regained consciousness towards working for the betterment of mankind by constructing a better potato gun or building a pressure washer-powered turbine. I may pursue the turbine idea. Escape velocity is the speed needed to "break free" from the gravitational attraction of a massive body. That massive body being Earth, not my body. At the risk of over simplifying things, a risk I am willing to take on a regular basis, that speed is 11.2 km/sec. I can reach that velocity very quickly when I am in top form. I am not on the launch pad right now. That is how I would prefer to keep it. Once the final countdown has begun, my options are either a high Earth orbit or dullness. As long as I am flogging you with arcane rocketry analogies, I would mention that a Saturn V rocket displaces the Earth’s orbit eight nanometers a year by virtue of recoiling from the launch. I am afraid if I launch often enough, the world will recoil to the point that I will not be able to get back. Being dull is definitely preferable to that. Anyway, I have high hopes that I will be able compose a decent entry at some point. I have some useful information concerning Hawaiian hotdogs, but I am going to save that. I also have advice on why accepting the dirt on top of your garden is preferable to wanting the dirt underneath it. All of that later, for now I am going to be not dull somewhere outside. |
| Only Hubble knows how old you are. |
| A few weeks ago I had unexpectedly done something to injure myself. It was unexpected because there are some things that I know will certainty result in some kind of injury, but this was not one of them. It prompted my wife to observe that, “You are not fifty anymore”. I was taken aback because I had not fully realized I had attained the age of fifty yet. A birthday is an arbitrary thing. It is based on an orbit that has never been constant. Aggravating matters is that Earth’s rotation is speeding up 20 milliseconds per century. (These fascinating facts, and support for my claim that gravity is variable, are in “On the planetary acceleration and the rotation of the Earth” by Arbab L. Arbab. If you have qualms with the laws of physics as they are commonly understood, this is the guy for you.) These wild fluctuations make the question, “How old are you?” an esoteric matter. It is no wonder that people don’t feel their age. Doing so would be to claim they know more about cosmology than Hubble. One glance at the math will change your mind, unless Arbab L. Arbab is reading this. What brings this up is an annual occurrence. The sun came out and it was seventy-five degrees. This situation will most certainly result in some kind of injury. I picked taking a hike as my cause of injury. I chose a steep, long, brushy trail which is punctuation by a long, steep trudge through a slash field. I had made some progress on the injury front thanks to variable gravity and the wild fluctuations of space-time. After I had navigated through the scenic slash field, I glanced at my phone to get the time. I had been walking for 2 ½ hours, which is usually just getting started. Yesterday I felt a bit tired at that point. I considered my destination and how long it would take to get back to the truck. I put it at about six hours total. I capitulated to reason and changed my route. I reached my truck after 4 ½ hours of hiking. It was a good hike. It had a bit of drama, it was suitably tortuous, and it was more than acceptably steep. My right shin was sore from the sneak attack of a viscous and nearly invisible log. I was really quite glad I had cut the hike short. My wife’s assertion that I was not fifty anymore came back to me. When I was fifty, I was a network administrator working at a desk, weighed thirty pounds more, and was not up to four hours of abuse at the hands of a mountain. I have resolved to become less fifty and take on the six hour version of the hike I had originally planned. I have been defeated by a mountain before, but it isn’t something I will accept as I would have when I was fifty. I need to start earlier, fortify better, and try to avoid attempts at breaking bones. My wife was correct when she said I am not fifty anymore. There is some question as to whether I ever was if you ascribe to the tenets put forth by Dr. Arbab. In fact, all of existence is quite incomprehensible (see Hubble Constant). This is simply another challenge to overcome along with slash fields and blackberry thickets. I am putting aside my doubts regarding space and time and concentrating on becoming as little like fifty as I can. I will say this, though. After six hours of straight up and down, I am sure as hell not going to feel like I am fifty anymore. |
| Odd globes affixed to trees. California is strange. |
| My daughter and I returned from California on Monday. We traveled 1200 miles in 5 days in a ¾-Ton truck which has a suspension designed to carry a cord of firewood. I am used to my truck. I know that when I have driven it all day, I will feel as though I had beaten myself with it. Additionally, while Highway 101 is a wonderfully scenic route, it is not famed for its other qualities. Some portions of it have been trying to slip off a cliff for as long as I have driven it. Other sections wind between redwood trees with only a slim margin for error. The ubiquitous logging trucks travel at speeds that I couldn’t match. Other sections are infested with Californians who’s BMWs and Lexus clearly out perform a 15-year old truck. After five days of this, my daughter was driven to observe, “Dad, your truck sucks”. There were none who objected. Our destination was Bodega Bay, the town where I grew up. It in no way resembles the town I knew. My relatives still fish salmon and crab, there is still a bay, but beyond that it has been transformed. It is besieged by tourists and wealthy commuters with immense houses. Besides those tremendous changes, there is another thing worthy of reporting. We traveled inland to see a relative. The temperature was about 80-degrees. Along the back of their house were shrub-like trees. These trees held brightly colored globes of yellow and orange. They smelled like lemons and oranges but were somehow affixed to the branches. We certainly have nothing like that in the soggy north. I brought a sampling home to show my wife. She asked why I didn’t bring home any grapefruit. I replied, “Is that what they were!?” My daughter and I took several short hikes around various redwood groves. It was a beautiful day, but the walks stretched out the drive to eight hours. That is a long time to be beaten from the bottom up by a truck. On the last day, after the road had improved and we were a couple of hours away from home, I let my daughter drive. I had resisted because the truck does not steer well. If fact, it does not steer at all unless one jerks the wheel over. When trying to turn, the steering wheel moves but the tires don’t. There is some resistance felt in the steering wheel, and then the truck turns. Usually more than intended. They way it is driven it to make jerky motions back and forth until the truck is going approximately the intended direction. I am an expert at this technique. The reason I had avoided letting my daughter drive is that she is not. The key to avoiding large trucks on narrow, winding roads is to stay loose. Tensing up just aggravates the over-steering problem. My daughter is no stranger to dangerous situations. She works for a women’s shelter and routinely enters homes where a violent incident has just occurred. An officer mistook her for a suspect a few weeks ago and drew his gun on her. She passes all of this off with a shrug. Driving my truck evidently surpassed her tolerance for dangerous situations. She had the wide eyed, white knuckle, hunched forward demeanor of rookie destruction derby contestant. When she discovered that the situation did not improve on a straight road, she issued the condemnation declaring truck both unfit for traveling in and passing by. It was no news to me. That truck absolutely does suck. |
| Don't do this:Re-remember your wedding anniversary |
| Our basement was converted to a garage at some point in its history. A ramp leads down to double-doors, and it is five steps from there to my shop door. The light switch for my shop is at the entrance to the basement. When I leave my shop, I turn out the lights. The problem is that in the five steps from my shop to the light switch, I forget what I was doing and leave the lights on. I feel as though I should write BREATHE! on the back of my hand so that I don’t forget and pass out. I am trying to finish up a few things before going to California. This morning the list had grown to five items. Realizing that is about the limit of my memory, I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper. I can now only remember three items. If I am lucky, none of these things pertain to my wife. That is never the case. Happily, a bit of medical science has come to the aid of those of us who can’t remember why we need it. A study from the curiously misnamed Northwestern University reveals why we struggle, and the answer is: we’re smart. An excerpt of the press release (full text at http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2012/09/your-memory-is-like-the-t... ): “A memory is not simply an image produced by time traveling back to the original event -- it can be an image that is somewhat distorted because of the prior times you remembered it,” said Donna Bridge, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead author of the paper on the study recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience. “Your memory of an event can grow less precise even to the point of being totally false with each retrieval.” It is an easy to connect the somewhat fuzzy dots and conclude that the reason we have such trouble remembering things is that we think too much. Those of us with very active minds are continually screwing up memories because of how often we access them. At this point most of my memories are not just inaccurate. Even the false memories have been replaced over and over. Is it any wonder I have only a tenuous connection to reality? I have long espoused that while forgetting things is bad, remembering things that never happened is worse. Now it is revealed that virtually nothing I remember ever happened, at least the way I thought I did. Lucid dreaming seems like a great thing. I see a potentially useful and valuable tool for those in our position: lucid remembering. Since our memories are continually in the process of being rewritten, we could vastly improve our lives if we could learn to control the new ones. Since the accuracy of our memories has been shown to be bogus anyway, we should make better ones. I am definitely going to put on my rose-colored glasses, turn around, and look backwards. Embarrassing gaff during a speech at a wedding reception? It was actually a great joke and everybody laughed. Your boss said something unkind? They were being facetious. Forgot someone’s name? They recently changed it. I think a word of caution is justified here. Using this method with your spouse may create even worse memories. Don’t do this. |
| Appliance malcontents require superior forces |
| It has been a busy few days here at don’t do this. Our older daughter and I are going to California in a couple of days. She and I travel well together. We have identical diagnosis from the same doctor. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it, but it gives us a lot to talk about. I am looking forward to the trip, but it has caused a bit of anxiety, as anything out of the ordinary does. I am sure it is affecting my daughter as well, but this is a minor blip when compared with the things she has to deal with. My buddy and I replaced my aging dishwasher that had mostly died a few weeks ago. That sort of thing makes me nervous because all it takes is one malcontent to ignite an appliance revolt. One of my shop tools died, but I thought that was unrelated. I was wrong. Our water heater sprung a leak three days ago. The poor old water heater and I have had a long history of parry and thrust, advance and retreat, shock and awe (add expletive here). I had replaced everything replaceable over the last several years. Replacing one of the heating elements spawned a classic Don’t Do This entry – Don’t work with live 220-volt circuit while standing in a puddle of water. Come to find out, there is a better way to test the circuit. The old water heater had to be replaced, a leak is over the line as far as water heater flaws go. Enter my good friend and full-mental-disability kindred spirit to save the day. He worked “in the trades”, as they say, for years. He is a journeyman plumber and knowledgeable in all thing home repair death wish-related things. Needless to say, he is horrified at my methods. He won’t let me touch a tool. I bought the flagship water heater, because that was all that was available, and we installed it yesterday. The plumbing is beautiful, a flawless work of art. The electrical circuit is perfect. The connections are sound and the line is secured in the clamps. The installation is something one would expect from a professional. It is nothing at all like the water heater installation illustrated in Don’t Do This. My safety precautions are limited to standing on a cinder block to keep my feet dry. My plumbing methods consist of whatever exigencies are required to stop a leak. My methods will result in minimal burns and cuts (unless another unfortunate 220-volt incident occurs). When my buddy finished the job, he wasn’t even dirty. I am hoping the other appliances will take a lesson from the dishwasher and water heater installations and give up the revolt in the face of superior forces. My friend is a formidable appliance warrior, to be sure. I am trying to think of something I can do for him in return. He doesn’t require a guitar. Their computer is functioning well. That is about the limit of things I can do that he can’t. He says I am performing a great service by playing with their dog, a beautiful little collie that needs a lot of exercise. She will only play with me for some reason. She will not pay attention to anyone else while I am there. She is my dog girlfriend. As girlfriends go, she is a good one. I can absolutely do no wrong even despite my abysmal Frisbee skills. My wife is not jealous of her. Playing with an adoring dog is an onerous task, but if it repays my buddy for all the times he has bailed me out, then I am willing to do it. I’ll say this, though. He has a lot to learn about being crazy. |
| Don't do this: Pull harder. |
| I have practically no interest in sports. I was in little league for two years but wasn’t any good at it. I enjoyed rugby. Even then I did not mind a bit of severe pain. That was just a bit of fun, though, and nothing came of it. I may have watched ten football games start to finish. Fewer baseball games. My wife and I watch the Olympics off and on. Gymnastics and curling are our favorites. Other than those few things, we don’t give a tinker’s dam about sports. The sole exception is NCAA women’s basketball at Oregon State University. My wife’s step-father got us into it. We started attending regularly five years ago. It is the only thing my wife and I do. For some reason, we were assigned very good seats when we got our first season tickets. Our seats are behind the bench in the section reserved for potential recruits, their families, and college big wigs. To me, they are all guys who for some reason wear suits to the game. We chat, we laugh, we complain about the refs, we talk about sports-guy stuff. They don’t swear, whereas I have my moments. What brings this up is that the banquet marking the end of the season was last night. It is reserved for those who belong to the booster club. The members consist mostly of older people who are willing to fork over hundreds of dollars. Inexplicably, that describes us. The banquets are fun. There are extremely tall young ladies wearing high heels and nice (read: tight) dresses. There are coaches who are perpetually energized. There is an open bar. The athletes are obliged to schmooze with the crowd because we are worth some serious money to the team. It is the highlight of our social life. Did I mention they have tables set around the room with three kinds of cheese cake? Free beer, all the cheesecake one can eat, and statuesque young women in peak physical condition. Definitely worth a few hundred dollars. We were treated to the banquet this year by a couple of friends. They are older women who have both coached teams and know a lot more about basketball than we do. We met our friends in the expansive plaza of Reser Stadium. As we were entering the posh sports complex, we rode up in the elevator with the gentleman who sits in front of us at the games. We said hello and chatted a bit. He was opening doors for us, which seemed odd, but there are a lot of very polite people in town. When the elevator doors opened he hurried to the doors of the banquet hall and pulled on a door. It didn’t open. He tried the next one. It didn’t open either. The man remarked that they must not have unlocked the place yet. One of our friends walked around him and pushed the door open. We broke into laughter. The gentleman didn’t seem very amused, in fact, he was quite embarrassed. I remember thinking that the man took himself a little seriously. I would never leave the house if I got upset every time I embarrassed myself. We were still chuckling when someone remarked that the man was the president of OSU(!) No wonder he was embarrassed. The banquet went well. Two athletes sat at our table. One had left mid-year to play professionally in Finland. The other was a senior who didn’t have an agent yet. We found out the tallest player, a 6’8” freshman, is an engineering student. All the athletes held up well considering they don’t have much in common with the crowd. I was sick from cheese cake and beer by the final speech. This morning I am reflecting on those things I have in common with the president of OSU. We both believe some referees are out to kill the coach, who is easily agitated. We share hopes that the impossibly tall young ladies sitting behind us sign with OSU. And, we can’t tell “push” from “pull” when written on a door. I take it better than he does, though. I sure am glad I don’t have to be that serious. |
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