Ms. Ann Thrope

Dozer! Dozer!

Hey, I forgot to tell you two (readers) about the “Dozer” incident earlier this year.
Mum and I went to Cleveland to visit Babyland General, so she could
buy Evvie a Cabbage Parch Kid from the actual birthplace, as it were.
We went to a garden nursery on the way home, then came back via Rt. 52
bypassing Dahlonega. (Which I mentioned casually to Mum about a logging truck coming towards us on those winding, mountain roads: “ I hope those chains hold.” And the night before a van passed us on the highway with 100 ladders strapped to the top it, I said “ One of these days, those will fly off…”)


As we were sitting at a red light to turn left, chatting away, I happened to hear a creak to my left, just in time to catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of a small bulldozer rolling off the back of a flatbed truck, right towards us.



I clutched the wheel, and leaned over towards my Mum, yelling, “Motherfucker!” right before I felt a big bang towards the back of the car.



I really thought it was coming into the car with us, but after it slammed into the rear left wheel well, it flipped around the back of the car and balanced perpendicular to the road, the teeth of the bucket imbedded into the street. It slammed down a second later, and we only heard after the fact that the driver behind us had to whip into the other lane to avoid having the front end of her SUV
crushed.


I asked Mum if she was okay, as she was still under the impression that we were rear-ended by another car. She started opening the door and I warned her to watch for other cars. She turned and hissed,” I was driving!” (As it was her rental.) Later I teased her that I could have been impaled, crushed up against the steering wheel, and the last words I heard being hissed in my ear was: “Remember - I was driving!”

I got out and reached for my cell phone, calling 911.
The dispatcher told me that other people had called already, and they asked if anyone was hurt, etc. Which, hard to believe, no one was. I grabbed my camera as the cops arrived, and took these snapshots:





It seems the guy popped the clutch, the truck lurched, and these stupid straps snapped.
Long story a little less long, we were at that intersection for quite a while, the owner of the construction company showed up and told Mum he would take care of anything and everything, and handed her a card. The cop asked the owner how they were going to move the dozer out of there, and he replied “ The same truck.” I told him to use better straps. (Though I told Mum I thought it should have been chained down.)

The cop told us we could head up the road to Slacks Auto Parts. (Earlier, when she pulled the car to the side of the road, it made an awful sound, but it didn’t look like any thing was touching inside the wheel well. I realized later, that the dozer had probably hit the tire so hard that it pushed it in, possibly bending the axle.)
We had to wait for over four hours for the rental company to bring a new vehicle, all the way from Hartsfield International, Friday afternoon, Atlanta rush hour traffic, can you say, ”Ugh!” now.
Those guys at Slack Auto parts were great. They offered us to come in out of the heat and use their break room. We afforded ourselves usage of their restrooms, and when the replacement car arrived and we took out plants from the nursery out of the old car to put in the new one, Mum forgot a couple of plants out in the parking lot. The Slack guys took care of the plants until I could get back for them. Thanks, fellas!
I talked to one of the guys who let me know it was his old high school buddy who drove that truck, and “he got into a heap of trouble”. I asked if he’d lost his job, and he replied no, but the company got fined quite a lot. I told him it seemed dangerous to use simple straps for something so heavy, and he said, “ That’s what all the fines were for.”) Apparently there are laws in place for such a thing…

I asked Mum later if I had warned her in any way, and she said I just leaned over on her and yelled something intelligible. Muwahaha !

For a month or two Mum had a rigmarole over the rental, as she didn’t have rental insurance, the dozer was insured through its owners for damage, but not for dropping onto traffic. Finally Mum contacted the owner, whom I looked up in a local phone book, and he took care of everything, paying all costs.


So anyway, that’s something that doesn’t happen everyday, and no one was hurt.
Kind of exciting, hmm?

I got an email from Mabs today :

Fw: 320 LB. WOMAN

I'm not overweight...I'm undertall! :-)


The question is, What does a 320 pound woman look like?

Now, before you look at her pictures, get a mental image of what you think a woman who weighs 320 looks like....

Got it?

Ready?





Then:
Not what you were expecting, was it??!!
The tallest and biggest woman in the world lives in Holland. She is 7'4" and weighs 320.

The Regular Guys Show has been terminated once again by Clear Channel Radio. In the past week, my partner, Eric Von Haessler, and I have been silent during a paid suspension while we awaited the results of a company investigation into a minor incident that has since snowballed into something that now demands a public response...

A case of a humorous prank has turned into a culture clash, a suppression of 1st Amendment rights, and a ridiculous smear campaign against me as well as termination of my income without due process.

For sports fans...

Courtesy of Werbinox and Jake

Courtesy Of Jackie

Dead holly and tombstones

It was slow at work so I volunteered to take the day off today. Instead of doing the usual thing, i.e.: playing ‘’The Sims’ all day long, I ventured out to look for Mum and found her in the garden.
A while back I’d talked to her about putting some stepping stones next to the postbox, where there’s an incline leading back towards the house. She now asked if I wanted to get that project started, asking me where the spare pieces of slab marble were that have been out back near the shop for years. There’s a pile of bricks out there also, that she’d dug up building her compost heap, and she’d found some extra marble there, as well.

We gathered up 4 pieces, varying in size and shape, and noticed some letters had been carved on some of them. Then we headed out to create our landscaping vision.
I cut out the general size and depth of the steps, then, hacking away through the incredibly stony ground that my yard possesses, cleared away wedges into the hillside.

I noticed a young holly plant Mum had dug up (in my mind, it seemed like quite a while ago) sitting aside in just it’s root ball, it’s leaves black and shriveled.
“ Poor bugger didn’t stand a chance,” I told Mum.
She just looked away and muttered “ Ah, well.”

We had to sift the dirt that had been dug up (because of the many stones), and Mum’s idea was the sieve for flour, and while I was in the house I noticed the ladle for deep-frying. I thought it might work (which it did) even though it was hard and tedious work with such a small sifter.
When I returned with the implements, I looked over and did a double take, seeing the blackened, wizened holly bush planted in one of the front flowerbeds. I asked Mum if she thought it had a chance. She mumbled something about ‘ story of my life’, so I dropped it.

As we were strategically placing the slabs in their niches, we started paying more attention to the letters crudely engraved on their surfaces. One read ‘ J.J.’, the other, which made me realize what the inscription meant, read ‘Bear’. “My gob, mother! Do you know what these are? I believe these were headstones for pets from previous owners.”
Mum suggested placing them face down, but I nixed the idea, saying it was a sign of respect, a remembrance for the poor creatures. (Keeping the thought in the nether region of my mind that I’d be stomping on them on a daily basis.)
I also realized, with a small amount of dismay that we’d been digging around in the general vicinity of the slabs, hoping to find more. I could just see Mum holding up something saying, “ ‘Ere, 'int this a strange lookin’ white twig?”(Insert ‘blimey’,’cor’ and ‘bloody hell’ wherever you want.)

We put in snatches of ‘Blue Star ‘ creeper and ‘ Golden Carpet’, as well as some moss we have in abundance from the lawn. (Come to think of it, the lawn is basically moss. Hmm.)

As we were tamping everything down, I looked around and said,” You know, I bet I can win the neighborhood Halloween decorating contest this year.”
Mum laughed and I added, “ Freshly planted dead holly bush, tombstone steps, and the most realistic cobwebs on the block.”
Mum responded, “ It took you years to perfect those!”, as she dodged the spade I threw at her head.

Ha ha.
Last night my Mum and I went to Morg’s school for a play. He’s not in the play, he was an usher. I wasn’t planning on going, but my mother told me I should take an interest in his interests, so that’s that. No one argues with Mummy!
Mo said he needed $12 the night before for the play’s t-shirt, to which Mum zipped out her check book for. (Just like she did with me when I was a lassie. NOT!)
Anyway, we got there and Mum bought the tickets and I didn’t see Morg around, so I asked another usher where he was. We went to the other door where we were directed, and found Morg with another boy. Mo was wearing a long sleeved white dress shirt with black stitching, quite atrocious, actually. I asked him if that was what my hard earned money went to.
“Your hard earned money?!” mother gargled.
Oh, yeah, forgot that tid-bit.
“ This shirt’s from the ‘Oklahoma’ presentation,” Mo adds,” It’s gay.”
I told him to hush as he showed us the real tee he had bought. It was better.
I looked to the other usher, who was wearing a white shirt also, but his had embroidered red and blue flowers down the front of it.
Oklahomo, indeed.
“At least you didn’t end up with that one,” I told Morg, pointing to the other kid.
“Hey!” the kid replied, looking indignant.
We watched the play, which was great, all the kids did great. It was called ‘Flowers For Algernon’,something the high schoolers have to read nowadays.
As we came out of the theater, the ushers told us to come and watch their production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ next month.
We turned to leave, and Morg told us to wait, as he had to return the white shirt.
When he came back, we passed through the cafeteria to leave out the front doors. I noticed the other usher there, waiting with some people. In his arms, folded and prepared to return home with it’s owner, was a white, long sleeved shirt with red and blue embroidered flowers. I covered my mouth with my hand to supress a chortle, and then whispered a question to Morg.
We got outside and I informed Mum about the shirt, and as we howled with laughter, Morg said, “Did you have to say ‘Don’t tell me that’s his own shirt!’ so loudly?”

Courtesy of Mabs

What plant is it ?

The tree/shrub is about 6 foot tall, it's been here since we got the house.
The thorns are about 2 inches long, quite deadly looking, actually.
Any ideas ? Let me know. I spent an hour Googling the thing.

This is a closer image, but I didn't quite capture the size of those thorns.There's little yellow 'apple' looking fruit that's hard,not soft. And no, I haven't tried eating it.

Looking up the shrub, using key words like thorns,spikes,etc, Google picked a disturbing site: holy land imports, who makes this divine

"We need a doorbell out back by the door, Al." Hey Hercules, lift this guy up and then clean out these stables. It sounded so simple. I had an electric drill, I had a drill bit, I had a chuck key, I had a pencil, I had six inches of industrial concrete wall that had been gaining strength for 20 years. Out goes the tool steel drill bit. You might just as well chuck up a hamster and try going though the wall, for all the good it would do.
If I as a scientist in a major corporation were called upon to go through a wall suitable for containing nuclear blasts, I would ask for a thermal lance. A thermal lance is a long length of iron pipe stuffed with steel wool and hooked to a trailer full of liquid oxygen. You pump in the LOX, light the end of the pipe with an automobile flare, and walk forward until you run out of wall or run out of lance. I would ask for a water jet cutter. A water jet cutter is a little jewel orifice set in a steel wand, and hooked to a hydraulic gizmo that sends out a stream of good old H-2-O squirting under about 100,000 psi near the speed of sound. Since I am paying for this out of my own pocket, I walk over to the hardware store and come back with a carbide masonry bit.

Rebar is that ductile heavy steel bar with a rough surface put into concrete forms that must bear tensile stresses, binding the whole mess together and sullenly waiting for a chemist with a drill to try to get through. Back I go to the hardware store for a titanium nitride drill bit. "You lose!" I screamed at the rebar as the TiN monster devours the steel, spewing little grey shavings onto the ground. "You lose!" chuckled the concrete on the OTHER side of the rebar as it chews up the TiN drill bit.
This is why I bought two sets of carbide bits and star drills. Scientists know this stuff. Murphy always has the wind at his back.
As it was, as it was meant to be, the drill bit was just a little bit too short to get the job done. With less than a quarter inch of wall between me and my doorbell wire hole, I slipped the star drill into the dark passage and tapped it with the baby sledge, popping off a piece of the wall on the inside just smaller than a dinner plate. I went back to the hardware store for some spackle.
I ran the wires through the wall, screwed them into the doorbell push button, and noticed two little mounting holes along the edge of the brass rim. I immediately suspected that these holes were in some intimate one-to-one correspondence with the two brass screws left in the blister pack, and were no doubt only lacking two holes in the wall in which to be fastened.
If you come down Red Hill Avenue in Costa Mesa, stop by that little company. Come round back and they will let you in the rear door. You cannot miss it. Their doorbell is the one glued to the cement wall.

We have a new addition to our household, one we didn’t expect. No, I’m not talking about my Mum, but our new cat, Pippin.
We came up with the name because he’s into everything without a thought in his little head. I’ve had an inkling he’s been into some lead based paint, but it’s just a theory.

^{Skin and bones/first night inside}

He was on our back porch one night and had our other cat, Minerva in a tizzy. Jay went and shooed threw him off the porch. He then felt guilty (Jay, not the cat) and went and got the poor thing. We decided if he was still around after we got back from an overnight trip, we’d take him to the vet then let him in.
He was, so we did. We wanted to see if he and Minnie got along, it all depended on that.

^{Look at that length !}

A month later, they’re still wrestling, but I suppose that’s natural. At least since we got him fixed he’s not trying to mount her anymore, so that’s a plus. Anyway, as you can see, he’s an orange striped tabby with green eyes, but when the skin and bone motif is shed, he’s going to be huge. He’s very long, and that tail! Where do I begin? It’s like a longhair breed and moggie mating gone astray. You ever see one of those feather dusters? It’s like someone stuck one up his bum, and it’s twice the length of a normal cat. I hope he grows into it soon! He’s the only cat I’ve seen chase his tail and catch it!

Welcome, Pippin!

^{Friends at last ?}