Though not confirmed, it is believed Glenn's fear of birds started in childhood…
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
When It Rains, It Pours… From Upstairs
It has been said, "Life gets in the way when you're busy making other plans." I believe the original intention of that statement was intended to be more optimistic. I, however, can't help but apply this statement to a more negative slant. The plans could be for instance, paying down debt, having a good christmas and/or saving for a rainy day. Of course, in this economy, these goals, among others seem to be difficult.
Can I stop for a minute here? In today's society of instant gratification and Short Message Service (SMS) language creeping into everyday language, why do we bother to still say or even type out the phrase, "in this economy" or '"in today's economic climate"? The phrase itself is becoming part of vernacular. Why can't with abbreviate it too to the simple ITE? I hereby declare that this acronym will be used forthwith.
Now… where was I? Oh yes, life getting in the way. It also has been said that things happen in threes, and more often than not, these things are on the bad side. I guess it's fate's way of punishing you. Now, I could say the cycle began with the air conditioner in my house going out at the end of the summer. Not a bad thing per se, but since it's paired with the heater unit, it's unpleasant when the first real cold weather hits. I could say the cycle began [or continued] with the breaking of my eyeglasses, causing me to shell out more money to replace them. Instead, I think I'm going to say that this cycle of 3 started yesterday morning when my wife finished her shower before going into work.
I was lying there. Half awake, half asleep and I could hear the sound of running water. Our townhouse is over 30 years old, so the sound running water isn't all that uncommon, except when it is coming from your own house. Liz informed me that despite turning all of the faucet knobs into the 'off' position, water still continued to come out of the spout. There was a simple temporary fix to the whole thing and that was to turn off the water at the main. Liz's dad, a plumber by trade, came out that evening to assess the situation. After a brief time of diagnosing the issue, he and I hopped in my truck and drove down the street to The Home Depot to pick up some replacement stems.
Side Note: Our shower tub assembly is only about 5 years old. Prior to us moving in, the first-time homebuyer program we used goes in and does some minor rehab before letting us move in. This generally involves installing hardwired smoke detectors and other safety issues. One of the issues was that there was a leak and some subsequent water damage coming from the tub upstairs. In short, they replaced the fiberglass tub/shower assembly and metal framed glass doors with a traditional fiberglass tub with tiled walls. They also replaced all the hardware which included a stubby run-of-the-mill shower arm and a dollar store shower head.
The shower head coming out of my wall was at approximately 72" high which made the showerhead itself resting about 70" give or take. Being a human of approximately 74"-75" tall, I found this to be a minor inconvenience. Minor in the sense that I don't spend a lot of my life in the shower so I could live with it. Then again, something occurred to me. If I were to have a plumber rooting around the hardware of my tub and so long as I was in the plumbing section of the store, why not look for something that I could buy to alleviate my woes. I found a longer, snakier apparatus that extended the shower head well above my head as to make it seem like falling rain.
So we went home, and after a few minutes, the hardware was all replaced and water was coming out like a champ … except from the dollar store showerhead. Crap. Was it clogged? Was there not enough pressure? Liz's dad assured me that neither was the case. That's 2. So, it being Sunday night and all and I really wanted to take a shower, we hopped in the truck and drove down the street to Wal-Mart to pick up the almost greatest showerhead they carry. I say, $22 for a chrome look showerhead with7 6 settings (I don't consider 'trickle' a setting) is not bad in a pinch.
So we after Liz's parents went home, I turned on the shower and was got my hair wet when Liz came running upstairs telling me to turn the water off because it was flooding the laundry room/pantry which is directly below our tub. The water continued through to the kitchen and then on into the dining room. That's number 3 ladies and gentlemen. In a mad panic, we mopped up as much water as we could, we soaked it up with as many towels as we could and we moved all the stuff that was on the floor out to the patio. Liz took pictures with her phone and called the insurance company. Liz's parent's came back and brought more towels. My parents came with more towels and their shop vac. It was chaos.
The following morning, after we dried up all we could, the insurance company called us, walking us through the steps. We had a plumber come out and replaced the stems (again!) because the ones from The Home Depot were crap. A water mitigation came out with their industrial centrifugal blowers and place a half dozen of them around the house. 3 in the laundry room, 1 in the bathroom, and 2 in the master bedroom closet because the adjacent wall and carpet were wet. Now we have to have these things blowing for 96 hours straight.
I suppose things could be worse, but it's still really inconvenient. I'll let you know how everything turns out. Thanks for reading.
Can I stop for a minute here? In today's society of instant gratification and Short Message Service (SMS) language creeping into everyday language, why do we bother to still say or even type out the phrase, "in this economy" or '"in today's economic climate"? The phrase itself is becoming part of vernacular. Why can't with abbreviate it too to the simple ITE? I hereby declare that this acronym will be used forthwith.
Now… where was I? Oh yes, life getting in the way. It also has been said that things happen in threes, and more often than not, these things are on the bad side. I guess it's fate's way of punishing you. Now, I could say the cycle began with the air conditioner in my house going out at the end of the summer. Not a bad thing per se, but since it's paired with the heater unit, it's unpleasant when the first real cold weather hits. I could say the cycle began [or continued] with the breaking of my eyeglasses, causing me to shell out more money to replace them. Instead, I think I'm going to say that this cycle of 3 started yesterday morning when my wife finished her shower before going into work.
I was lying there. Half awake, half asleep and I could hear the sound of running water. Our townhouse is over 30 years old, so the sound running water isn't all that uncommon, except when it is coming from your own house. Liz informed me that despite turning all of the faucet knobs into the 'off' position, water still continued to come out of the spout. There was a simple temporary fix to the whole thing and that was to turn off the water at the main. Liz's dad, a plumber by trade, came out that evening to assess the situation. After a brief time of diagnosing the issue, he and I hopped in my truck and drove down the street to The Home Depot to pick up some replacement stems.
Side Note: Our shower tub assembly is only about 5 years old. Prior to us moving in, the first-time homebuyer program we used goes in and does some minor rehab before letting us move in. This generally involves installing hardwired smoke detectors and other safety issues. One of the issues was that there was a leak and some subsequent water damage coming from the tub upstairs. In short, they replaced the fiberglass tub/shower assembly and metal framed glass doors with a traditional fiberglass tub with tiled walls. They also replaced all the hardware which included a stubby run-of-the-mill shower arm and a dollar store shower head.
The shower head coming out of my wall was at approximately 72" high which made the showerhead itself resting about 70" give or take. Being a human of approximately 74"-75" tall, I found this to be a minor inconvenience. Minor in the sense that I don't spend a lot of my life in the shower so I could live with it. Then again, something occurred to me. If I were to have a plumber rooting around the hardware of my tub and so long as I was in the plumbing section of the store, why not look for something that I could buy to alleviate my woes. I found a longer, snakier apparatus that extended the shower head well above my head as to make it seem like falling rain.
So we went home, and after a few minutes, the hardware was all replaced and water was coming out like a champ … except from the dollar store showerhead. Crap. Was it clogged? Was there not enough pressure? Liz's dad assured me that neither was the case. That's 2. So, it being Sunday night and all and I really wanted to take a shower, we hopped in the truck and drove down the street to Wal-Mart to pick up the almost greatest showerhead they carry. I say, $22 for a chrome look showerhead with
So we after Liz's parents went home, I turned on the shower and was got my hair wet when Liz came running upstairs telling me to turn the water off because it was flooding the laundry room/pantry which is directly below our tub. The water continued through to the kitchen and then on into the dining room. That's number 3 ladies and gentlemen. In a mad panic, we mopped up as much water as we could, we soaked it up with as many towels as we could and we moved all the stuff that was on the floor out to the patio. Liz took pictures with her phone and called the insurance company. Liz's parent's came back and brought more towels. My parents came with more towels and their shop vac. It was chaos.
The following morning, after we dried up all we could, the insurance company called us, walking us through the steps. We had a plumber come out and replaced the stems (again!) because the ones from The Home Depot were crap. A water mitigation came out with their industrial centrifugal blowers and place a half dozen of them around the house. 3 in the laundry room, 1 in the bathroom, and 2 in the master bedroom closet because the adjacent wall and carpet were wet. Now we have to have these things blowing for 96 hours straight.
I suppose things could be worse, but it's still really inconvenient. I'll let you know how everything turns out. Thanks for reading.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Bad Karma? Bad Timing? Bad Luck?
"I've got this thing in my freezer and I don't know how to cook it."
The conversation with my friend and workmate, Tony started innocently enough. A frozen beef tip roast has been sitting in my freezer taking up valuable space and despite my collection of cookbooks, none of them has been able to provide me with a simple enough, yet worthy recipe of how I may prepare it. I figured, if anybody, a fellow carnivore may be able to share some insights, perhaps those involving carbon and a little flame. However, the conversation didn't go that way. At least, not at first…
"Dead Cat"
The comment elicited a snicker from Tony. As an amateur humorist, I took this as a cue to go on.
"Yeah… I've still got the collar and everything. It reads, 'Alice'."
Now, this comment (as I was hoping it would) elicited a response from Tony's cubicle neighbor, Maria. The whole reason I said it was because I know she'd be listening and she has a cat named Alice. Maria is also a friend of mine and part of my personality is to tease people about things like that. Morally wrong, I know, but it's all in good fun and generally received as such.
Maria did say that Alice has been getting out recently where she is predominantly an indoor cat. Not wanting to waste an opportunity to keep the bit going, I continued.
"Yeah, it's a long walk for her from Buckeye to my house in Mesa. No wonder she was so tired walking in the middle of the street."
I wrapped it up shortly after that, not wanting to overstay my welcome and we all had to get back to work. I did ask Tony however, if he had any ideas how to cook the beef tip roast I had in my freezer. Being a fellow carnivore, and fan of food, not to mention being 15 years my senior, I thought he could impart some culinary wisdom. Not so. He apologetically said to me that he was better at eating food than cooking it. I made another joke at his expense about not knowing how to microwave popcorn and walked back to my desk.
The following day, on my way over to my desk to start the day, Tony motioned me over to his desk. Maria wasn't there, but I hadn't noticed. He told me that my timing couldn't have been worse. Perplexed by the comment, I asked him why. He told me that Maria's cat, Alice was hit by a car that morning and she went home. I'm not completely soulless, but part of me couldn't help but chuckle at the sheer irony of the whole thing.
Maria's parting words to Tony were, "Be sure to give Glenn a hard time about this," but he too, was laughing at the irony. I know what its like to lose a pet by way of vehicle and I am still sad about it almost 3 years later. After all that, I'm still left with a frozen hunk of beef, shrink-wrapped and taking up valuable space in my freezer. I'll cook it one of these days, I just don't know how…
The conversation with my friend and workmate, Tony started innocently enough. A frozen beef tip roast has been sitting in my freezer taking up valuable space and despite my collection of cookbooks, none of them has been able to provide me with a simple enough, yet worthy recipe of how I may prepare it. I figured, if anybody, a fellow carnivore may be able to share some insights, perhaps those involving carbon and a little flame. However, the conversation didn't go that way. At least, not at first…
"Dead Cat"
The comment elicited a snicker from Tony. As an amateur humorist, I took this as a cue to go on.
"Yeah… I've still got the collar and everything. It reads, 'Alice'."
Now, this comment (as I was hoping it would) elicited a response from Tony's cubicle neighbor, Maria. The whole reason I said it was because I know she'd be listening and she has a cat named Alice. Maria is also a friend of mine and part of my personality is to tease people about things like that. Morally wrong, I know, but it's all in good fun and generally received as such.
Maria did say that Alice has been getting out recently where she is predominantly an indoor cat. Not wanting to waste an opportunity to keep the bit going, I continued.
"Yeah, it's a long walk for her from Buckeye to my house in Mesa. No wonder she was so tired walking in the middle of the street."
I wrapped it up shortly after that, not wanting to overstay my welcome and we all had to get back to work. I did ask Tony however, if he had any ideas how to cook the beef tip roast I had in my freezer. Being a fellow carnivore, and fan of food, not to mention being 15 years my senior, I thought he could impart some culinary wisdom. Not so. He apologetically said to me that he was better at eating food than cooking it. I made another joke at his expense about not knowing how to microwave popcorn and walked back to my desk.
The following day, on my way over to my desk to start the day, Tony motioned me over to his desk. Maria wasn't there, but I hadn't noticed. He told me that my timing couldn't have been worse. Perplexed by the comment, I asked him why. He told me that Maria's cat, Alice was hit by a car that morning and she went home. I'm not completely soulless, but part of me couldn't help but chuckle at the sheer irony of the whole thing.
Maria's parting words to Tony were, "Be sure to give Glenn a hard time about this," but he too, was laughing at the irony. I know what its like to lose a pet by way of vehicle and I am still sad about it almost 3 years later. After all that, I'm still left with a frozen hunk of beef, shrink-wrapped and taking up valuable space in my freezer. I'll cook it one of these days, I just don't know how…
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Update
The holster and memory card arrived via FedEx in a larger than anticipated box a day earlier than expected. So far, I am quite happy with it. It's less cumbersome than my previous bag and despite the fact that it cannot hold my additional lens, it can still hold a lot. Speaking of holding a lot, the memory card is freakin' huge (in capacity). I adjusted my camera's settings to "JPEG Fine" from "JPEG Normal" to increase the quality should I ever want to blow anything up to poster size and the memory card still shows that I have 1,000 pictures available. Oh well, more from me later. I just wanted to share that with you all. Have fun.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Even when you fail to plan, your plan can still fail you
I love to take pictures. It doesn't surprise me that when the hard drive on my personal computer was near the end of its life, I did what most procrastinating reactionaries do and try to back them up before the hard drive goes completely kaput. It doesn't really surprise me that I had over 11,000 digital photos to pull off of there. I am the father of a beautiful 22-month old girl and I love to travel. 8,000 of those photos are probably of my little girl.
A few weeks ago, my wife and daughter packed up and went on a weekend trip to Disneyland and Los Angeles. This post isn't about that trip, sorry. You'll have to wait for the book. Call it what you will, maybe a case of sibling envy or something as simple as technophilia, but last summer, my wife and I shelled out big bucks to purchase a DSLR camera that neither of us know how to work to its full advantage. Looking to take advantage of a package deal, we shelled out more money to get an extra lens, a couple filters, 2 instructional DVDs and a bag to carry all this. Later, we spent even more money on an external flash. Now, aside from looking like a tourist everywhere I go, I look like a damn paparazzo. Lugging around a camera such as this, not to mention all its accessories, can get pretty cumbersome, not to mention heavy.
In an effort ease some travel woes, I went on the e-commerce juggernaut known as Amazon and ordered a camera holster. Not quite as big as a bag, but big enough. I also saw that flash memory is really cheap know, and I figured I'd be taking a lot of pictures, so I splurged and bought a 4GB SDHC card to replace my measly 1GB card I have in there now. For the record, I wound up taking close to 500 pictures the whole weekend. The bag, excuse me, holster was $31.95 and the memory card $12.95. I told you that it was cheap. Heck, I remember when I bought my first digital camera the summer of '02. The largest you could go was 128MB and that cost me almost $100. Anyway, the total was $44.90.
I decided to have it shipped to my in-laws because 1) if it needed a signature when it arrived during the day, the chances of someone being home are far greater than at my place and 2) if the delivery guy would be careless enough to put it on my porch for the world to see, who's to say someone couldn't walk off with it. Granted, I get a lot of my paranoia from my parents, but recently we came home to discover that one of our patio chairs we had moved to our front "stoop" recently disappeared. Hoodlums, no doubt. All the tweakers have moved (I hope).
Back to the story at hand. I ordered this parcel a week before we were to leave for our trip. I did not spring for the extra shipping because a lot of the recent feedback was to the tune of "fast shipping", "got earlier than expected" and the like. Even if it didn't come until we were already on vacation, that's fine. It wasn't absolutely vital to have, it'd just be a convenience.
Well, to make a long story slightly shorter, it never arrived. Delivered by the US Postal Service, documentation states that it was not delivered because the address was not valid. It was valid. I don't know who to blame. The post office, Amazon, or the storefront in Amazon. When such an event occurs, the parcel gets shipped back to the sender in New York and per there policy, refunds the money. 2 weeks after this is set to occur, it finally happens.
My want for such items has not waned in the recent weeks, but in a way this experience was sort of serendipitous. While pining away for my package in the mail, I saw that there was a bigger and better holster for only a few dollars more. It's by the same brand, just a step up. Maybe I'll get that one instead. The holster was $39.95 and the memory card $9.95. The total was $49.90. The holster was a surprisingly $8 more expensive, but surprisingly, the exact same memory card was $3 cheaper only make the order $5 more.
Aside from not completing the ultimate task of actually placing the order in my hands, the storefront I purchased it from did everything right, so I decided to put my letter-writing pen down and give them another shot. We'll see if and when it gets here.
A few weeks ago, my wife and daughter packed up and went on a weekend trip to Disneyland and Los Angeles. This post isn't about that trip, sorry. You'll have to wait for the book. Call it what you will, maybe a case of sibling envy or something as simple as technophilia, but last summer, my wife and I shelled out big bucks to purchase a DSLR camera that neither of us know how to work to its full advantage. Looking to take advantage of a package deal, we shelled out more money to get an extra lens, a couple filters, 2 instructional DVDs and a bag to carry all this. Later, we spent even more money on an external flash. Now, aside from looking like a tourist everywhere I go, I look like a damn paparazzo. Lugging around a camera such as this, not to mention all its accessories, can get pretty cumbersome, not to mention heavy.
In an effort ease some travel woes, I went on the e-commerce juggernaut known as Amazon and ordered a camera holster. Not quite as big as a bag, but big enough. I also saw that flash memory is really cheap know, and I figured I'd be taking a lot of pictures, so I splurged and bought a 4GB SDHC card to replace my measly 1GB card I have in there now. For the record, I wound up taking close to 500 pictures the whole weekend. The bag, excuse me, holster was $31.95 and the memory card $12.95. I told you that it was cheap. Heck, I remember when I bought my first digital camera the summer of '02. The largest you could go was 128MB and that cost me almost $100. Anyway, the total was $44.90.
I decided to have it shipped to my in-laws because 1) if it needed a signature when it arrived during the day, the chances of someone being home are far greater than at my place and 2) if the delivery guy would be careless enough to put it on my porch for the world to see, who's to say someone couldn't walk off with it. Granted, I get a lot of my paranoia from my parents, but recently we came home to discover that one of our patio chairs we had moved to our front "stoop" recently disappeared. Hoodlums, no doubt. All the tweakers have moved (I hope).
Back to the story at hand. I ordered this parcel a week before we were to leave for our trip. I did not spring for the extra shipping because a lot of the recent feedback was to the tune of "fast shipping", "got earlier than expected" and the like. Even if it didn't come until we were already on vacation, that's fine. It wasn't absolutely vital to have, it'd just be a convenience.
Well, to make a long story slightly shorter, it never arrived. Delivered by the US Postal Service, documentation states that it was not delivered because the address was not valid. It was valid. I don't know who to blame. The post office, Amazon, or the storefront in Amazon. When such an event occurs, the parcel gets shipped back to the sender in New York and per there policy, refunds the money. 2 weeks after this is set to occur, it finally happens.
My want for such items has not waned in the recent weeks, but in a way this experience was sort of serendipitous. While pining away for my package in the mail, I saw that there was a bigger and better holster for only a few dollars more. It's by the same brand, just a step up. Maybe I'll get that one instead. The holster was $39.95 and the memory card $9.95. The total was $49.90. The holster was a surprisingly $8 more expensive, but surprisingly, the exact same memory card was $3 cheaper only make the order $5 more.
Aside from not completing the ultimate task of actually placing the order in my hands, the storefront I purchased it from did everything right, so I decided to put my letter-writing pen down and give them another shot. We'll see if and when it gets here.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Getting Back To My Roots
For a while now, I've been thinking about using this blogging forum as means to dispense non-sequitur quips rather than stream of consciousness rants or anything that has an agenda. If any of you out there in cyberspace want to read my media-inspired social diatribes or anything like that, subscribe to my newsletter … or join my religion. A newsletter subscription is included upon conversion.
I'm not saying I'm not going to continue to rant like an uneducated nonsensical street preacher, I'm just going to try and give you all more opportunities to enter the mind of Glenn, which as it has often been said, "It's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there." Think of it like Twitter, but without the 140 character limitation (as I tend to be quite verbose) and potentially not as narcisistic in the vaguely cultish goal to accumulate more "followers". That's what religions are for. I'll just write, and if you choose to read, great. If not, then so be it. This will just be another page on the world wide web that isn't visited. There are plenty of those …
I'm not saying I'm not going to continue to rant like an uneducated nonsensical street preacher, I'm just going to try and give you all more opportunities to enter the mind of Glenn, which as it has often been said, "It's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there." Think of it like Twitter, but without the 140 character limitation (as I tend to be quite verbose) and potentially not as narcisistic in the vaguely cultish goal to accumulate more "followers". That's what religions are for. I'll just write, and if you choose to read, great. If not, then so be it. This will just be another page on the world wide web that isn't visited. There are plenty of those …
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