Please excuse my son’s absence

Greetings all, I’m sure everyone has stopped visiting the site because of my recent inactivity, but I assure you, I have a valid excuse…well, maybe not. The past few weeks has been fraught with events that make tabloid journalist drool with unforgiving fervor. Me? Exaggerate? Why I’d never hear of such a thing.

The week we bought the trailer, our house became reminiscent of Europe’s Black Plague with my daughter getting sick with pink eye and strep. Those of you with children can imagine the joy of using antibiotic eye drops on an 18-month child with a fever of 103. Towards the end of my daughter’s bout with the demented sand man, my son came down with some random wonton virus that stole the weekend. Through this, my wife got sick with something or other and thanks to vitamin C supplements I skated the scourge attacking our house. It was all pumpernickel and daisies however; since I was the only healthy one in the family you can imagine my family obligations.

During my wife’s hiatus from her standard fare of motherhood, she was able to focus on more important things…like the lack of a ceiling fan in our bedroom and so the honey-do list grew by another.

Nothing is ever as simple or as difficult as it seems in the beginning and the ceiling fan was no exception. To keep a long story relatively short, I’ll simply summarize the steps to installing a ceiling fan:

• Choose ceiling fan
  
• Remove current light fixture
  
• Buy Romex 3 wire electrical wiring (standard 2 wire electrical only supports light, not light and fan from light switch)
  
• Pull old wiring out
  
• Run new wire through attic and down wall to switch housing
  
• Realize insufficient bracing for ceiling fan
  
• Buy brace for ceiling fan
  
• Realize brace when spanned over 16 inches is no longer sufficient to support ceiling fan (building codes allow for 24inch on center construction for roof trusses)
  
• Buy 2x4 and cut to 22 and a half inches
  
• Hammer new brace between rafters
  
• Attach electrical box
  
• Open ceiling fan box and find the hole cut in ceiling is to large for the new fan mount
  
• Cut new opening
  
• Pull out brace and relocate it to new opening
  
• Wire up ceiling fan (one line does NOT do this justice)
  
• Hang ceiling fan
  
• Try and force all electrical connections into a space a hamster would consider cramped
  
• Test ceiling fan
  
• Buy heart defibrillator when heart stops because the lights don’t come on
  
• Heart begins when wife discovers a little switch at the bottom of switch to turn on lights
  
• Balance the blades
  
• Mark 4 nights of life lost off of calendar because of ceiling fan and wonder if you could have made do with Egyptian eunuchs fanning you with palm leaves
  
• Plan patching of the too big hole in the ceiling
  
• Determine what color the bedroom will be painted (since you have to paint the patch, wouldn’t it make sense to paint the whole room?)
  

Well, it wasn’t that short after all; you can imagine what the non-condensed version looked like…I can.

So now you all can understand the reason for my “vacation” and my apologies. It appears that I’m back…for the time being.

Electrical, carpentry, dry wall…I’m gonna start my own home improvement show…watch for me on HGTV.

Anticipation

Well, this will be the second night in a row that I haven’t posted anything. After work for the past couple of days I’ve been getting my truck ready for the travel trailer and just got finished washing it down. Tomorrow it’s off for the state inspection and an oil change and tomorrow evening dropping it off at the RV dealership to have the brake controller and equalizing hitch put on it. Then Saturday morning we pick it up.

I’ll make sure to post some pictures when I get it.

These pictures were not taken by me.

Burning question for the ages, not 42

It was a harried morning, the kind that you would secretly wish on your roommate that never did the dishes and ate all your crackers. No matter how well I think I have things planned out, no matter how organized or how methodical things are, I invariably miss something, usually nothing catastrophic, but something nonetheless. This morning was no exception and I ran frantically about, making mad-dash calls to my wife and collecting bits and pieces from nooks and crannies around the house; my son was late to his first day back to school.

Returning home, I found myself on unfamiliar ground. Here, without the ever-present kid questions and constant interruptions to let me know what cartoon was airing on TV, my mind began to wander through unfamiliar territory, a creepy landscape that bore no resemblance to anything in recent memory.

I didn’t bother to rein in my consciousness and allowed it to survey the scenery with a new appreciation for the subtleties of the landscape. Drawing assumptions from wells, jumping to conclusions and plucking blades of nonsense, I realized I had nothing. So I folded my introspection into thirds, shoved it in my wallet where pictures normally go and started work.

While beginning the onslaught of emails with the vigor of a barbican pillaging, a little something had caught my eye during the foray into foreign territory and I began to wonder, I assume because of my recent attention to my blog, but when and how does one decide to post a comment in response to someone’s post. Is it a random occurrence or is there rhyme and reason to how one decides to comment?

I can only speak for myself, but I’ve visited an excruciating number of blogs and yet have commented on only a few posts on even fewer blogs. It wasn’t the fact that I wasn’t interested in the post or the author, in fact I’ve not commented many of the blogs on my sidebar, but there was a certain something on the blogs that I did comment on to that intrigued me.

What is the determining factor when publishing a comment to a post?

I really should take up yoga.

Tagged...

by JACC (snuck away from the movie).

1... Things that scare me

• Losing my family
  
• Mimes
  
• The spelling of Albuquerque
  
  2...People who make me laugh
  
• zombies don't laugh...we moan (for all the right reasons)
  
• But if we did, Jack Handy
  
• Spock
  
• People that trip on sidewalk cracks
  
  3...Things I hate the most
  
• People with lack of common courtesy
  
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (not the cartoon, the real thing)
  
• Crickets in my house
  
  4...Things I don't understand
  
• How Jack Black ever became popular
  
• Politics
  
• Hang nails
  
  5...Things I'm doing right now
  
• Hangin’ out, watching the game, drinking a bud
  
  6...Things I want to do before I die
  
• Too late…
  
• Invent a cure for stupidity
  
• Take my chances on Wheel of Fortune
  
• Teach the world to sing…in perfect harmony
  
  7... Things I can do
  
• I can do anything you can do better
  
• I can do anything better than you
  
• Read my children bedtime stories
  
  8... Ways to describe my personality
  
• Lack of
  
• Cynical
  
• Pillar (not of salt)
  
• Honest to a fault
  
  9... Things I can't do
  
• Things I don't want to do
  
  10...Things I think you should listen to
  
• Your parents...about 20 years ago or ((your age – your age) + 13)
  
• Your psychologist
  
  11...Things you should never listen to
  
• Back masked suicidal satanic messages
  
• The voices in your head telling you to do horrible things
  
• Styrofoam rubbing against styrofoam
  
  12...Things I'd like to learn
  
• How to tie my shoes
  
• What evil lurks in the heart of man...the shadow knows
  
  13...Favorite foods
  
• Lasagna
  
  14...Beverages I drink regularly
  
• Coffee
  
• Coca Cola
  
• Monster
  
  15...Shows I watched as a kid
  
• Scooby Doo
  
• Bugs Bunny
  
• Andy Griffith Show
  
• Giligan's Island
  

Since everyone I know has been tagged...I'll attempt to tag Jim (but doubt he'll do it, he's a slug).

Known unknowns

Finally, some peace and quiet…the door to my office is shut, the oldest boy is locked in the eternal struggle of good versus evil watching “The Hobbit” and the littlest girl is nodding off in my wife’s arms, who coincidently enough is also nodding off and me reeking of hickory smoke from the evening’s barbeque.

The weekend so far has left no waking moment unoccupied and every second filled with domestic adventure. Other than overcast, Saturday proved to be a pleasant day with only mist of rain playing off of the cool morning and dissipating as the day advanced towards evening. After accompanying my friend in the purchase his new truck, the zombie tribe launched an attack on a local RV dealership searching for a conveyance to further our travels with all the comforts of home.

After a year of research, we found the Outback 23RS to our liking and paid the funds to secure the model we were interested in. We take delivery next Saturday and prior to that, I have to bring the truck in to get the brake controller for the trailer installed.

That night was filled with seafaring adventure with the recently purchased Monopoly, Pirates of the Caribbean (which has come to be known and Munplee Partza Carbean by my son). I was the skull…it only seemed appropriate for a zombie (see…told you I’d make a good pirate).

This morning after another swift (is there any such thing as a swift game of Monopoly) game of Munplee, we headed off to get hamburger (turned into chili burgers) and a bitter Sam Adams Black Ale beer for the nights barbeque. The finale of the night, in my son’s opinion the main attraction of the weekend, we opened and set up “Smithsonian Prehistoric Sea Monsters”.

The Prehistoric Monster kit contains a plastic bowl and triop eggs, a crustacean from the Triassic period that have the ability to live in suspended animation, according to the informative printed instructions enclosed within. If all goes well, in about a month, we’ll have an entire colony of these sea bugs up to 3 inches long. I can’t help but think of the sea monkey advertisements I used to see in the back of my Batman comic books as a youth. Coincidently enough, my friend, after saving for what seemed like years, ordered the sea monkey kit. After the appropriate time for shipping we hastily set it up and nurtured the little critters to maturity. Talk about false advertisement…the lady sea monkeys did NOT have breast, what a disappointment.

The wife is trying to coerce me into watching the movie, “Night Watch”, I’m going to try to sneak in a few minutes to answer JACC’s tag.

Jimmy crack corn

Well, I missed a day of blogging. After going with my friend Jim to pick up his new truck, the family and myself went to look at travel trailers and then after dinner the family and I broke open the new Pirates of the Carribean Monopoly set and played until 1:30am (I was the skull, after all I am zombie).

I saw that I had been tagged by JACC and I'll get on that just as quick as I can. I think the Monopoly board is set up.

Random unedited thought

I would call, to anyone that asked, the great outdoors my living room if I were homeless. I have to admit however, the great outdoors wouldn’t be so great at that point.

Hauntings of August Eve

Creeping up the south eastern coast line, Hurricane Ernesto had introduced dark low lying clouds and cooler temperatures more befitting a New England coastal town than a southern city. Rain dimpled the puddles that had collected on the streets as I huddled next to the brick front of the bookstore to avoid being soaked by the passing cars. Gust of wind cleansed the air of the heavy seared steak smell emanating from the Lone Star Steak House around the corner and whipped the smoke from my cigarette. The awning that protected me from the rain popped like a wet towel and complained of the visiting wind.

As the windshield wipers slapped back the rain, the wife and I decided tonight would be the perfect night for soup and baked apples. I had hoped that we might find pumpkins at the local grocery store for some pumpkin stew, but it’s still too early in the season so we settled on Rosemary Chicken soup in a sourdough bowl and some white wine. Pumpkin stew would have to wait.

The wind is continued to pick up and by the time we arrived home, the scene was very reminiscent of the early stages of Hurricane Ivan in Pensacola Florida and the windows rattled and the house creaked as it was assaulted by the storm.

Our stomachs warmed, the aroma of baked apples filling the house and the skies murky, the mood was never so ripe for ghost stories, and so we lit a fire in the fireplace, prepared some homemade hot chocolate and assembled for some tales that were sure to have my son asking random trivial questions on bizarre subjects. I’ve always been enthralled with ghost stories, whether told by the fireplace on nights like tonight, or surrounding a campfire in the middle of the woods. Not the gory Texas Chainsaw Massacre type of stories, but the ghouls and goons variety that typify the lore and legend of days gone by. The Legend of Sleepy Hallow comes to mind and stories of vampires and werewolves.

My fascination extends beyond the nighttime attraction and well into the daylight hours where, feeling adventuresome, we travel to some of the local places of myths. One such place is Bunnyman’s Bridge in Fairfax County.

According to local lore, the location was the scene of a bus wreck; the bus was described to be transporting inmates from a D.C. insane asylum, which was being closed due to budgetary cuts, to a new local facility. Once word reached the officials about the accident, they set out on a manhunt to round up escaped patients. By nightfall, all but two inmates had been found and transported to the asylum.

Reportedly residents began finding dead rabbits around the bridge, apparently food for the two inmates that remained at large and although law enforcement continued to search for the fugatives, other than the dead rabbits, no trace was found until one day one of the missing patients was found hanging from the bridge, murdered by his fellow runaway. This is the local legend that gave the bridge its name.

While as legends go the story is obviously fabricated, there were no reported asylums for the insane in that area or recorded accidents, the designation of the bridge might also be attributed to a documented incident that occurred in the 1940’s where law enforcement officers responded to a call regarding a man dressed in a Halloween bunny suit and throwing hatchets at passing cars from the trestle.

A good tale and an excellent afternoon outing to visit the locale of local folklore and the memories used to spin our own good yarns in front of a fire on a blustery August evening.