First Days of Fall

For those of you who don't know, I ride the but to and from work every day.  It means I have to walk a half mile down the hill to the bus in the morning and half a mile up the hill to get home at night.  Along my way I pass about 100 or so houses.

We, here on the central coast of California, have had a rather late summer.  Our temperatures didn't start to rise until about a month ago, and as a result were able to spend our summer in the relative comfort of a low 70 degree summer.  Only in the last month did our temperatures rise into the 80's and 90's.  Now, the temperatures are falling again, and thing are actually looking a little fall like.

On my walk home yesterday, I smelled the first fire of the season.  It didn't take long to find which chimney was puffing out smoke.  Now, I love having a fire in my fireplace, but I normally light it when it's cold.  I walked home in a short sleeved shirt, and was wondering if the temp had gotten down to the 60's or not.

Made me wonder, were the people who lit the fire just waiting for fall?  or were they actually cold?  We've had colder days this summer and I didn't smell andy fires burning then.  Just curios.

Dog Circles

Ok, so I recently got a used dog.  I say that meaning I got her from the pound.  She is an eight year old pug, and really is quite a nice dog.  She is loving and cute, really good with the kids, and in a short amount of time has become a member of the family.

That being said she does one thing that really makes me question her state of mind.  When I take her for walks (seemingly I am the only one in the family able to do this), she makes circles before she potties.  Now when I say she makes circles, I don't mean to say she goes around once or twice then pees, or poos.  I mean she will make a dozen or more circles.  I don't know for sure what the most she's done is, but I know that the highest number I've counted her doing is 35.  THIRTY FIVE!!!  That's insane.

I would swear that when she gets over 20 or so, she starts to get dizzy.  She is old for a pug, and her back legs aren't the strongest in the world.  So it's really funny to see her dizzy.  Her back side gets even wobblier than normal.  I'd say its a good thing she has to stop for 30 seconds or so to let her re-acclimate to the world not moving.

Anyone else have a dog that circles like that?  I've never seen it before and I think is bonkers.

Goodbye Whales

For the past week, we have seen one of the most spectacular sights on earth.  There have been hundreds of whales here.  Feeding, playing, and yes fighting.  They are working their way down the coast for the winter.  Migrating back from the summer feeding in Alaskan waters.  Last Thursday there were literally hundreds of them.  One of my friends was counting how many he could see breaching in one minute.  The most he counted was 43.  But Alas, they have moved on.  I took a long look out the window this morning with a pair of binoculars and wasn't able to see a single one.

Im including some links to youtube videos (not mine) that you might like to see.  Truly amazing.

Link one

Link two

Link 3

Enjoy.  Thank you

How hard is it to change a light?

Over the weekend, I along with about 100 million other husbands in America,  got a honey do list.  For me, the list was pretty basic.  It  had some cleaning, some yardwork, and on thing that got me in trouble.  I needed to hand a light fixture in the bathroom.  

Let me step back for one moment before I get too far into my narrative to explain how we happened upon this a particular light fixture.  My wife, and I to a lesser extent, seek out and find interesting things at thrift stores, garage sales, yard sales, craigslist ads, and all other manner of places where thing can be bought cheaply or sometimes bartered.  This particular light fixture came from the swap meet.  And like many of the light fixtures I've hung around our house, it came with no hardware.  It's usually not an issue since you have the hardware remaining from the one you are taking out that you can re-use.  Also, somewhere along the way I have collected quite an array of doodads to help me with just about any installation.

Ok, back to the story.  Simple, just replace the light on the bathroom ceiling.  Ok, no need for a ladder, just grab a chair.  Check.  Get a screwdriver.  Check.  Turn off the power at the breaker?  Naw, no need its just a light fixture, and turning off the power at the switch will do it.  Good, time to get started.  It should be easy, I think I'm ready to go.  

I take off the old light fixture.  Hmmm, that's not right, there is no hardware.  The fixture screwed into the junction box through the fixture itself.  Ok, no problem, off to my box of doodads.  (A short while later)   Got it.  Just what I need,  at strip of metal 3/4 inch wide with two slots, one on each end.  But wait a minute, its not quite right.  The bracket I need has a whole in the middle.  AWESOME.  Time for power tools.

I quickly determine the bit I need, and attaching it to my trusty DeWalt 19 amp drill, I set off to screw a hole in the center of this sucker.  But wait, I need a piece of wood to drill into.   There must be one in the shed.  Got it!  hmmm I can just do this on the half wall by the garage.  Its nice and bright.  

Drill set to high speed.  Start slow then increase to full speed.  Hole is forming.  Looking good.  Just a bit more.....  OOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!  Shit, I think I just managed to slice the end of my thumb off.  And to top it off the metal is still on the drill bit.  Just sitting there waiting for me to back it off. 

A trip to the bathroom to clean this thing out.  Yuck, it looks horrible.  Where do we keep the butterfly bandages.  Can't find them.  Thumb bleeding again.  Hmmmm. What to do.  Washcloth.   Do we have red ones?  Perfect we do.  Wrap the cut.  Now I have a little extra time to find the bandages.  

Got it.  Do I need two or three?  I'll go with two.  Now, how to unwrap the cut, dry it off get the butterfly's unpackaged and on before the blood starts again?  Well, I'll figure it out.

10 minutes and 5 tries later, I called my son to get the friggin bandages out of the wrappers.  I never thought it would be so hard to do with on thumb.  There.  Finally, I got them on, and my thumb is throbbing.

If only I could put a glove on to finish with the drill.  Luckily all I had to do is reverse the thing off.   I can use my palm to hold it and with any luck I wont get cut again.  Like I said lucky.  After 3 or 4 attempts it actually worked.  

Now the easy part.  Putting everything back together.....RIIIIIGHT.  It seems that while I went back outside, my son decided to take a look at my handiwork and turned the light switch on.  Ok, here I am working on the hot lead, when what should happen.  My finger touches the ground.   Hey, check it out, I'm dancing.  Pulling away I flex my right hand and find what?  yes, its numb from the electricity.  Awesome.  I guess I should turn off the switch.  

After that things got easier.  I guess there wasn't much more that could go wrong.  Oh, except that we didn't have the right sized lightbulbs and  the lighting bezel was cracked.  I'm waiting until I can get to the hardware store to find the right bulbs to go in there, so that I can turn them on and burn the house down.  

What Makes Some Golfers Asshats?

Yes, I will admit that I am a golfer.  I don't get frustrated by the sport like so many people do.  I find it relaxing and invigorating.  I try to golf as much as possible, but that seems to be only a few hours a week.  Mostly I'll take in 9 holes after dinner.  Or, at least I'll take in as much as I can before sundown.  

I'm usually pretty courteous on the course.  I don't make cat calls at the beer girls as she rides past.  I try not to slow up play for people behind me, and I try not to push people playing in front of me.  I even repair my ball marks on the green and marks may by others that haven't.

But over the weekend, some asshats really got under my skin.  Let me set the situation for you.

A group of 6 guys were playing hole 10.  Being a group of 6, I figured they were going to play pretty slowly, so I went around them and played 13.   Yes, I suppose I could have gone to play 11, but the course configuration made it easy to get past them at 12 rather than 11.  I figured I would play 13, 14, 15, 16, then 11, 12, 17 and 18.  I skipped 10 altogether owing to the fact that it would have been a hike  to get to the tee box and with darkness approaching, I thought 8 holes would be sufficient for that night.  

Back to our story.  I started on 13 about the time the group of asshats was teeing off on 11.  I played 13, 14, 15, and 16.  Then I looked to see if I could get back onto 11 and play 11 and 12 before finishing with 17 and 18.  Good news, both holes are clear.  I teed off, and as I'm putting my driver back in my bag, i notice the asshats are just finishing 13 and driving back up the hill.  As I get to my balls for my second shot (yes, I play multiple balls if nobody is around.  If I need to play faster I play only one ball.) the group is on the tee box.  They are going to play 11 again.   Apparently, they didn't like me being on the hole, because they started shouting for me to speed up.  I played my balls, but didn't bother to put out, so that I wouldn't hold them up.  I stepped onto the tee box on 12 and hit my first shot.  I could see one of the asshats drive into my fairway.  Hmmmm that's odd, whats he doing there.  I tee up my second ball, and he looked my way and drove back to his fairway.  Hitting my second ball, I see him drive across my fairway again.  He's now approximately 60 yards away from his fairway.  I've played this course for years and years and have never seen anyone teeing off of 11 hit a shot that far to the left, and it dawned on me that he might be trying to take my ball.   Literally, I ran to the crest in the fairway and yelled' "I hope you didn't take my ball."  

Without slowing down, he tossed my ball back toward my fairway, and kept driving off.  He drove to the right side of his fairway where his ball was laying in the rough, played it and drove off so as to not have to face me when I got to my ball.  

Why he would feel the need to steal one of my golf balls is beyond me.  Why he would drive across my fairway to do it I don't know, and why he would throw it out when I called him out, is another mystery.  

So I finished 12, then 17 and 18.  As I was playing 18, I noticed the gaggle of asshats hadn't bothered to play anymore holes and went to turn in their carts and go home.  I guess they saw me because they started pointing and yelling at me.  For what, I'm still not sure.  They conveniently left just as I finished putting on 18.  As they got in their cars, however, I notice the cart girl (the last employee left at the course) flipped them off and walked back to the garage.  I guess they said something she didn't like.

What I don't understand is what is missing in these asshat's lives?  or what happened in their upbringing that caused this behavior?  Do they feel bigger about themselves for acting like that?    I just don't understand what gets into people sometimes.   Can anyone explain it?  Please, let me know.  

Lunch at Subway? Uuugh!!

As it turns out, I was hungry during lunchtime yesterday.  Usually, I will make a little soup in my office and enjoy a little quiet time to prepare for the rest of the day ahead.  Unfortunately, I felt a little more peckish than normal and didn't think a bowl of soup would suffice.  As a result, I got up  walked over the closest Subway ( I am lucky that I work at a university ant it is just across the lawn, less than 100 yards away) and ordered a sub.  The following is why I try to stay away from Subway.

I got to Subway at 11:32.  Since classes start at 10 after the hour, and end at the top of the hour (don't get me started on this, it another thing I don't understand) I figured there would be the shortest line at that time.  I was right, the line was quite short.  I've seen it stretch around the building around lunch time.  This time, there were only 6 people in front of me.  Well, I stood in line for 4 minutes and the "bread" guy ask what kind of sandwich I want.  Great right?  Wrong!!  As is the way at subway, the "bread" worker works faster than everyone else, so I hadn't actually moved when he asked what sandwich I wanted.  That meant there were about 6 loaves of bread stacked in front of the one I was about to get.  Since I was so far away from him, I guess he couldn't hear me, and pulled out the wrong bread.

When I finally got the the "bread" guy, I had to inform him that he had given me the wrong bread.  That seemed to throw the whole system off.  Now he had to re-cut me some bread, and find the right place for it in the bread queue.  The "cheese and meat" guy must have been feeling pressure to get meat and cheese on the bread because he was trying to work at a frenetic pace to keep the bread mountain behind him from falling over.  Unfortunately, being frantic wasn't translating into sandwich throughput.  I can only guess that running the toasting oven while putting cheese on bread and trying to keep things in order was too much for him.  In all his frantic-icity, he started to toast my sandwich, which I had told him specifically I did not want toasted.  I had to scream at him to take it out.  He never heard me, but the "bread" guy and the first "veggie" guy heard me and nudged him.  Then he had to turn around and double check with me that I did not want it toasted.  All the while my sandwich is toasting.  Well, after nearly a full cycle in the toaster, my sandwich came out.  I didn't dare ask for them to make another, as it seemed they were having a bit of trouble with the first one.

On to the first "veggie" worker.  He didn't even look up at me for about 30 seconds.  He took this time to re-arrange the meat and cheese on the sandwich.  Apparently he didn't think the "meat and cheese" guy was doing a good job, but decided to just rectify the situation himself rather than just tell the guy who was literally standing a foot from him.  Finally, he asked me what toppings I wanted on my sandwich.  I don't know why I bothered to tell him, because before I could get it out, he was replaced by the second "veggie" employee and I had to repeat myself.  Repeating myself to the second "veggie" didn't do any good because she seemed to be putting on whatever she wanted anyway.  Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and pepperchini is what I ordered.  Lettuce, tomato, black olive, and jalapeño is what I got.  Ok, she finally added the onion, and I guess couldn't understand the rest.  I let it go.

I also ordered mayo and mustard, extra oil and extra vinegar.  I don't get salt and pepper on my sandwiches because 1) I think pepper has a terrible taste and 2) there is enough salt in their meat that I don't need more.  So I rely on the oil and vinegar to give a little extra flavor.  Apparently, extra, means just the smallest tiniest amount that can possibly come out of the bottle.  Even after repeating my request, I got only a smidgen more.

Luckily, paying for the sandwich was the best part.  $5, no tax. Looking at my watch, I noticed that the whole ordeal had take 1/2 an hour.  REALLY!!  Unbelievable!  So I got to stand in a line, get passed from one person to another, have my order taken wrong at nearly every step, and still get the wrong sandwich.  Brilliant.  Thank you Subway.  I try to make lunch a relaxing time.  You ruined that.