"Letters to Miss Emily..."

[RedDog]

Slaves we are. My neighbour - whom I can visit again now that her sister got the punt - is leaving for a dome car VIA rail trip to the coast today through the Rockies and I'm the pet boy and yard duty guy. Her place is like an English garden. It won't be easy.

Yea, verily, but a sweet slavery it 'tis... MaryAnn called a while ago and had a sign she wanted taken away from a property downtown. I went and looked, affirmed that I could do it and now have a 6' X 3' Island Realty sign propped up in the garage.

Mount it in your front yard and see if you get a decent offer.

[backhoe]

Slaves we are. My neighbour - whom I can visit again now that her sister got the punt - is leaving for a dome car VIA rail trip to the coast today through the Rockies and I'm the pet boy and yard duty guy. Her place is like an English garden. It won't be easy.

Yea, verily, but a sweet slavery it 'tis... MaryAnn called a while ago and had a sign she wanted taken away from a property downtown. I went and looked, affirmed that I could do it and now have a 6' X 3' Island Realty sign propped up in the garage.

Mount it in your front yard and see if you get a decent offer.

That's a thought- for years I had the sign for The Crystal Ship- one of our former stores- at Mom's. I though about putting it in my yard- the damned thing cost over $600, was 12 feet long and had a beautiful silk screen line drawing of a clipper ship on a mirror. I guess the guy who bought her house ended up with it.

[backhoe]

In the "just because I can" dept?

I'm adding this- bolded the part that resonates to me. This post became a pseudo-blog of me & the Kids, me & The Kid...and continues on.
( Most of Professor Ann's commentors are decent & sane- but she has a few kooks like any place that accepts public comments. They are mostly insightful/entertaining. Don't read too many parallels between the essays, the comment, and me. I'm placing it here because it interests me.... )

http://www.althouse.blogspot.com/2012/06/i-used-to-love-blogging-i-ate-it-drank.html

"I used to love blogging. I ate it, drank it, and slept on it at night."
"Then I became a consultant and professional blogger, earning a living giving advice and blogging for others.... Now I hardly blog at all. I returned to what I intended to do in the first place, before I’d ever heard of blogs: freelance writing."

Writes La Shawn Barber, who'd just run across an interview she did back in 2006, when she loved blogging. "Nothing profound. It just brought back memories."

From the old interview: "The more you blog, the more you love it, the more you have to say.... You need to blog because you like, or love, to do it."

The things that we do for love — and truly love — may be things we wouldn't love at all if it were paid work. Sex is an obvious example of that sort of thing. Here's a great old blog post by Penelope Trunk: "Bad career advice: Do what you love."

I am a writer, but I love sex more than I love writing. And I am not getting paid for sex. In fact, as you might imagine, my sex life is really tanking right now. But I don’t sit up at night thinking, should I do writing or sex? Because career decisions are not decisions about “what do I love most?” Career decisions are about what kind of life do I want to set up for myself?...

If you are lost, and lonely, and wondering how you’ll ever find your way in this world. Take a job. Any job. Because structure, and regular contact with regular people, and a method of contributing to a larger group are all things that help us recalibrate ourselves....

Posted by Ann Althouse at 7:21 AM

[backhoe]

In the little mysteries dept? There's a cleanup crew working in the yard of the duplex apartment catty-corner from us-- they are leaf-blowing its tiny, sparse yard endlessly- the mystery? The “yard” is dirt- all they are doing is blowing dirt around...

The web's a funny place- in my post on Zer0 I saw a reference to A Flock of Seagulls- the band. I hunted up a clip of “their one-hit wonder”-- I Ran- and I can't even remember the thing from 1982.

But posted in the sidebar was The Thompson Twins ( One white, one black, one girl- get it? A bad jape... ) “Hold Me Close.” That was emblematic of my early days with Emily when We Lived In Sin! Together.

I'm glad we had that time to be together. Smooth sailing my six-foot Aryan superwoman. Maybe next time you Jerries will beat us mongrels...

-30-

[backhoe]

That bumper sticker is putting up a fight- and the files I have may be too low resolution anyway. I kind of like this one:



MaryAnn is taking her old front end man out to get him out of the house- these holidays can be depressing. Emily sent me cards from "the Kids" on such occasions. I even saved one or two- there surely will be no more.

I may go out & get bumper sticker stock from Office Depot and gas the Mitz while I'm out that way- it needs doing. Wild & crazy, wild & crazy...

[backhoe]

Housekeeping notes & annoyances 6-16-12

The good news is I got a bumper sticker printed- the not so good? The Mitz's AC quit on the road.

I got BS stock ( Make of that what you will ) at Office Depot & fueled the car- when I restarted it, no cold air- and it's getting hot. No fan, no “compressor on” light. I got home checked the shop manual and there is one fuse- that wasn't it. There are also fusible links and they don't identify them or tell you where they are- so it's in off to Ken Bush's expensive place Monday.

That means getting cab fare & tip money, removing pistol, shotgun, checkbook, wallet- Ken's guys are scrupulously honest but the field where they park cars before & after is in a kind of bad area- no point giving a smash & grab artist anything he'd want.

Throwing in the towel with the car I tried the bumper sticker- naturally the BS template I downloaded from Office Depot does not work with open office, despite a website that claimed otherwise.

On the bright side OO will load a PGN file, resize it, move it around, etc. But the BS stock has two bumper sticker blanks... I remembered the last time I did this I cut it in half, centered the image and printed one bumper sticker. It worked again- now it needs to be totally dry and coated with Krylon. About ten times.

In the “add insult to injury” dept? I scratched my arms pretty badly on some sharp edges of signs I moved last week and naturally one got infected, stayed infected, and started spreading under the top layer of skin. I finally had enough of the oozing & weeping, scrubbed it open and packed it with triple antibiotic goo- maybe that will make it pull in its horns. Like we say down here, “If it isn't one thing, it's two...”

I also got that damned Food Stamp form and they want driver's licenses & birth certificates & utility costs. I copied my DL and precinct card- which at least proves the board of elections thinks I'm a citizen- and will write a cover letter- “I was born two blocks down the street.” If that's not enough, fine- $16 a month that I have never used isn't worth the bother.

-30-

[RedDog]

That bumper sticker is putting up a fight- and the files I have may be too low resolution anyway. I kind of like this one:



MaryAnn is taking her old front end man out to get him out of the house- these holidays can be depressing. Emily sent me cards from "the Kids" on such occasions. I even saved one or two- there surely will be no more.

I may go out & get bumper sticker stock from Office Depot and gas the Mitz while I'm out that way- it needs doing. Wild & crazy, wild & crazy...

I like the idea of the caption being:

Obama isn't working.
How many others aren't?

[backhoe]

That bumper sticker is putting up a fight- and the files I have may be too low resolution anyway. I kind of like this one:



MaryAnn is taking her old front end man out to get him out of the house- these holidays can be depressing. Emily sent me cards from "the Kids" on such occasions. I even saved one or two- there surely will be no more.

I may go out & get bumper sticker stock from Office Depot and gas the Mitz while I'm out that way- it needs doing. Wild & crazy, wild & crazy...

I like the idea of the caption being:

Obama isn't working.
How many others aren't?

That's a perfect bumper sticker meme- I've read on the web ( Yeah, I know... ) that one bumper sticker is worth about $300 worth of local advertising, if it's memorable, and that sounds about right.

[backhoe]

Curious, I looked back two years...

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1503284#p1503284

For once Satchel was wrong- it just sits there. What was, was. “See ya around, kiddo...”

Progress comes slowly- overnight that infected patch of skin sloughed off so I scrubbed it raw, doused it with Witch Hazel and left it exposed to air- and sunlight when it comes. Maybe that will get rid of it.

I wasn't kidding about being somewhat dyslexic- further reading of that shop manual disclosed more information, and it's mercifully cooler so after a while I'll take a look at The Dead Miss Emily's Little Red Buzzbomb, maybe take a test light, and check to see what isn't getting voltage.

The bad news is one fuse block is under the dash- on the wrong side of my bifocals for looking at it- I've done this before with this car and others- what you need is glasses with the close-focus grind on the top of the lenses. Still, it's worth a try- getting the car to Ken's and back is a damned 3-ring circus. Not to mention the expense...

Trying to hold the dog hair “down to a low roar” I'm washing the bedclothes- sheets & pillowcases-- every day. It helps but there is still half a dog wafting around the house...

He's on what used to be my side of the bed- belly up, which Emily sarcastically called “guard mode.”
You wonder where all that life went- we had a history, a past, a commonality- and in a missed heartbeat it was gone.

Leaving me with a handful of sand- the tighter you grip it, the faster it sifts away.

It's another day... in Paradise.

-30-

[backhoe]

...and sometimes, you get lucky...

I pulled every single fuse in both blocks & physically inspected them for “opens...”
Located the fusible links ( In the fuse blocks, Duh! ) and confirmed that they had not blown... disgusted that I had not found an easy to fix problem I started thinking about what could break the circuit...

There are interlocks that cut the compressor out- but those would still let the fan run. The ECM- the brain box- has some control of the compressor- when you throw the car in to gear it cuts the compressor on immediately. If you don't, it delays this about 20-30 seconds. But again, that does not affect the fan...

That left the switch- the fan speed switch is also what you push in to engage the compressor, and it is the most frequently operated part in the chain.

Got a can of contact cleaner- sprayed around the combined switch while moving it through its paces-- cranked the engine...

Lights, thumps of the compressor pulling in- cold air.

Thank God- aside from the hundreds of dollars I can ill afford to spend, the whole hassle of getting the car there, me back, using the truck, getting the car back, paying for it was driving me crazier than usual.

So The Kid & I can get back to our normal Sunday routine of Do Little.

-30-

[RedDog]

Mid way through June and I haven't used AC yet in the little Buzz Bomb this year. I tend to lower the top on nice days so the air conditioning doesn't get used.

[backhoe]

Mid way through June and I haven't used AC yet in the little Buzz Bomb this year. I tend to lower the top on nice days so the air conditioning doesn't get used.

My truck- the Amigo-- has one of those half-assed "sorta-convertible" tops on the back-- I think the Brits call it a "one-man top," meaning in practice it takes one man, a teenager, a boy, and a dog to take it down or put it back up.

The only time I ever had it down ( Because I knew I could never get it back up by myself ) was when I had the zipper replaced in 2009. It took the upholstery shop owner & both his helpers to wrangle the damn thing off and on. They found a Ford tractor zipper that was "close enough" and adapted it.

Whoever designed the thing apparently saw too many Mad Max movies- there is even a grab bar on the roof so you have something to hang on to if you stand up in the well. Or, it might be for mounting a belt-fed machinegun.

Cunningly it is designed so that if you wish to open the tailgate you have to unzip the back window flap first. I looked in to getting a hardtop for it- they do exist. They just cost about as much as I paid for the truck. So I use the tailgate as little as possible.

Here's the general idea:

[RedDog]

Tarheel. Even the UNC at Chapel Hill colors.

A nice vehicle that should still be offered. There's nothing like that on the market.

[backhoe]

Tarheel. Even the UNC at Chapel Hill colors.

A nice vehicle that should still be offered. There's nothing like that on the market.

It's basically a Japanese adaptation of a Jeep- 5 forward gears, two-speed transfer case, big 4-cylinder engine. Torsion bars on the front end. It still rides, jumps, and hops like a Jeep, but somewhat less uncomfortable.

I got it when Emily's Mom was entering that terminal phase, her huge old dog was ailing- I was doing a lot of transporting and those two large, high doors looked like they would help with that. I had been driving Emily's hand me down Protege' and getting either of those large passengers in & out was a real trip.

It's paid for, is pushing 200,000 miles but the engine is still tight. I just prefer the Mitz because it is so much more comfortable to drive.

[RedDog]

There's a number of Troopers around but Rodeos and Amigos are getting rare here. I stand to be corrected but I believe Isuzu is a couple decades older than Toyota, Honda or Nissan as a corporation.