Wichi Dude

HUMAN "WHAT"?

The CK started her fall classes on Tuesday. Nothing to talk about on that really. Typical first day back to college.

But today, she started her "Human Sexuality" class. She came home all excited about the program. You can imagine, all nervous, slightly embarrassed but very up beat on the whole thing. Her biggest scare right now is that the will be given a topic to do a presentation on in class.

"In FRONT of the WHOLE class giving a speach on SEX?" Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

During the conversation she mentioned a couple people got up and left, upset about the subject matter.

Now I have a thought about this.

V DAY 5 (ACTUALLY 1 DAY OFF)

A fairly busy day this morning. Started things off by doing the lawn work, though it was HOT out there. Near 100 by the time I finished. After cooling off and getting showered and ready to go again, Dudette and I dropped off her car to have it serviced and the oil changed. During the wait, we checked out the local Sears for gas trimmers.

If you haven't gone shopping for gas, or electric trimmers lately, there are a bunch of them. They even had one that the end could be removed for optional heads. I don't mean the typical leaf blower attachment or the edger, I mean LOTS of other attachments. With one model, you could even hook up a mini garden tiller or an extended chain saw for branch trimming. Way more than I need.

Now it is a toss up between a 25cc with bump and go string feed or a 32cc with insertable strips. Pros and cons;
Pros:25cc is lighter, trim string is thinner and won't cut through the down spouts, string is advanced by "bumping".
Cons:25cc has a lot less power, string spool is a bear to reload with string, prestrung heads are expensive.
Pros:32cc is more powerful, insertable strings are easy and quick to replace, strings last longer and size ranges that can be used is impressive, replacement string can be bought in bulk spools and cut to length.
Cons:32cc is heavier hence more weight fatigue, string can cut through dpown spouts, small trees and the neighbors fence (not a bad idea really, sorry, I digress), if string is too short you have to stop working and replace string at the head itself.

A pretty balanced mix to cause severe headscratching. If only all things in life were so simple. Still thinking about it.

Dudette did find a coffee maker for her work at Sears. They have been looking for just the right maker for a couple months now. Their old one blew up and all the repalcements so far haven't lived up to expectations. This one ought to do it though. Let's hope.

Back home again and catching up on taped shows of Cops and Wildest Police Chases. Now these are reality shows. The people in those shows floor me. They know they are being or have been taped and they still act like they have no clue why the police are talking to them;
"No occifer, I was jus' stannen here minnen my own bizness. Why you got to put cuffs on me?"
"Chief, thirteen other officers and me have been chasing you in a stolen car for 20 minutes. You are pretty out of it, there are open containers, drugs and drug paraphernalia on the front seat of the car."
"Oh no occifer, I was..., I was'n drivin that car. I was a hostage. Iz all the otha guys stuff. Honess."
"Bud, we have it all on tape. You were driving and your busted."
"No, yur makin a mistake. Yur wrong. It wazn me!"

Forget "Joe Millionare" and "Paradise Hotel", I'll take mine raw, uncut and unscripted. Except for wrestling, though that's like all the "reality" shows, but everyone knows that's fake.

VAC DAY 3

Vac Day 3 and I got the truck out of the shop this afternoon. The shop said the wind noise we were hearing was being caused by, (oversimplification) a bad weather stripping seal. They straightened out everything and assure me the noise is gone. Haven't had it up on the highway yet to check it, but I will. And I hope it's gone. Nothing like the sound similar to a grade schooler trying to learn how to play the clarinet, whistling through the cab of a truck, anytime you get above 60.

While there, I also had the (second) 3000 mile check up done. I say second because the truck is 8 months old and just hit the 3000 mile mark, so at 3 months and 1500 miles, I had the first 3000 mile check done. You know, oil change, fluid checks, belts, the whole 100+ point inspection. Hey, I keep the warranty up, it breaks, it's their problem. Nuff said.

After all, when your in the fast lane, life happens.

ROUTER-ROOTER

I talked about issues with my router here and here. Well, today I took it back and swapped it out for a new one. Once home, the task should have been simple enough to reinstall it, having done it MORE than once already.

Wrong.

It had a newer version of the firmware in it and though the screens looked similar, there were enough differences to throw me. Now, I know I'm smarter than a piece of hardware. So it wasn't going to get the best of me.

An hour later, after trying a Rubik's cube's worth of combinations, I was on the phone with tech-support. We all know how I love those folks. After what felt like forever on hold, (real time approx. 10 min.), I got to speak with a techie.

Open this. Click that. Click this. Go here. Click this. Click that. Close this. Reopen. Done. Your up.

No kidding. It (almost literally) took as long to go through the motions as it did to read that last line.

I could drop kick someone sometimes. But, it's up, and I updated the firmware again while I was at it to the latest version, (two versions ahead of the previous router, which tech-support said would not have made a difference with my problem anyway).

So, hopefully, no more sudden drop outs causing me to scramble around getting three machines back up.

V DAY 2

Well, today started off relaxed. Enjoyed the lazy morning checking on stuff online.

Later on ran errands with Dudette. She needed to pick up a handful of incentives for work that would need to be sent out while she was off.

Picked up steaks for dinner also. Bottle of wine to go with it. Life is good.

Tomorrow the truck goes in early for scheduled maintenance and to get a wind noise located and corrected. I figure the truck won't be back for a couple of days. Oh well.
I'll be checking on replacing the router while waiting on the truck. Just in case.

MUST BE SUN SPOTS

While working on the previous post, the connection went on break. I didn't lose the connection per se, it just wasn't doing anything. The lights were on but doing nothing. Freaky. All the blinky lights weren't, they just stayed on, solid on. MODEM AND ROUTER! Couldn't go anywhere or do anything.

Oh, if I just lost ALL my previous post I was going to be mad.

POOF!!!

Blinky lights started blinkying again and my preview popped up. Like nothing happened.

I hope this doesn't become a habit. As Alice would say, "Curiouser and curiouser."

VACATION DAY 1 GARAGE FUN

Well it didn't cost a fortune to fix the garage door. 40 bucks bought the chain and cable assembly I needed. It does figure that the cable is an EXACT length making it almost, but not quite, impossible to just replace it. Especially concidering the cable has to be looped and crimped a certain way on one end.

It was a little higher price wise though, I HAD to get some new music to work with. Sammy Hagar's new cd, "Sammy and the Wabo's LIVE" is a great compilation of good Hagar stuff, all uncut. It even features Michael Anthony and Gary Cherone on a couple of the songs. I think, but don't quote me on this, that during the time of the recording, this was around the time Sammy and David Lee Roth were touring together. How odd, four "old" members of Van Halen still out on the road raising hell and making GOOD music after they all left the band. And, being bad mouthed after their leaving. Something to do about LSD (lead singer disease), bad attitudes and a couple of other issues.

Gee, if the scum of the earth is doing this well, then why haven't I seen any new VH cd's on the racks. OH...I know, they sell out so fast, if you're not there when they open the box, then they are gone. Silly me.

Anyway, fixed the garage door without killing anyone or breaking anything. Life is good.

Time for some blog reading before football. KC Chefs are up against the Vikes. Can't wait.

Time passes... (in case you didn't notice, this is being posted after the game, reason is coming.)

VACATION HAS STARTED

As usual, every time I take a vacation, it ends up costing money. Even when I stay at home. I don't know why this always happens but it does. This time it's starting off ahead of schedule.

Normally, I am into day three or so before something blows up and it costs a fortune to get it fixed. This time, less than 2 hours into it, the garage door broke. Figures.

I was leaving to run a simple errand, down to the grocery store and back, less than 3 miles round trip. I backed out of the garage, hit the door closer and "PING", cable and chain slithered down from above. You can imagine sitting in a vehicle in the driveway and seeing hardware fall from the sky. The door itself, fortunetly, was better behaved. It stayed where it was and didn't make a sound.

After collecting said hardware from the floor, my flight plan changed from the grocery store to the hardware store. The repair center was already closed (I thought) so the next best thing is to get "other" replacement parts to get by. Wrong. The hardware store had cable and clamps and even entire garage door opener kits for said problems, but not for my model. So after taking a wild guess on sizes and lengths, I walked out with what should do the trick in fixing the door.

Wrong again. The cable was too thick, the clamps wouldn't clear other parts and the configuratin called for the cable to go through part of the chain in a fashion that would REQUIRE it to be clamped ONLY a certain way. So without further ado I called the replacement parts people for the opener we have.

Yes the nearest store has it in stock. The store is open for another 10 minutes. We live 20 minutes away. No, they will not stay open for us, we can come in first thing in the morning. OK, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. (I know there are four items there, but one of them doesn't count.)

So, I get to start day, (officially), one of the vacation fixing the garage door. In the meantime it will be good old muscle power to open and close a double wide, double walled, insulated door to get in and out of the garage. Works for me.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another installment of the "VACATION EXPENSE SAGA".

But only in a "fair and balanced" way.

CARD HOLDER

Broad at Bat has a wonderful and insightful post called "Boys and boobs" with a great link to Steve's Thoughtful Spot .

I can relate to Broad at Bat's point of view. In fact, I've determined there are three stages of a mans life in relationships. At the third stage he become a holder of "The Card".

Read these posts first, then come back and finish this.