Slightly Barf-ey

I have gone through periods in my life where I cycled pretty avidly. I was never particularly fast, but I got by.

Since moving, I refitted my old Schwinn beater road bike to get to and from the train station. Downhill pretty much all the way there, and uphill all the way back. It's barely over a mile, but the extent of my decay has been notable insofar as I feel like I'm going to throw up every ride home I've taken. I think it might be getting easier, and can only hope that it ends up feeling like it's not a total challenge to ride a bike uphill for a mile. Sometime this summer, I pray that it will be more fun than a pure hope that the prickly feeling in my mouth and throat won't result in me giving up my lunch by the roadside.

The technicolor smile has not visited my return ride yet, but it has felt painfully near this week.

Hope abides.

Tomato Mousse

Our dog, the erstwhile Moose, managed to get sprayed by a skunk last night...

Apparently, tomato juice doesn't work. Good thing, as we didn't have any. We did give him a peroxide wipedown, and it helped a LITTLE bit.

I am hoping that his experience has chastened him just a LITTLE bit about playing with the black and white kitties. It was as if he wanted to smell its butt, and all went to hell from there. All we wanted was him to have a pee before bed, and I was already asleep... lovely wife called from outside, and I came out into the frozen-ness of the great north to wipe down the dog... it's been a great 24 hours, on top of having spent a staggering amount of dough on the sewer yesterday.

Let us hope for a slightly less eventful week to come.

The Most Expensive Dump I've Ever Taken

We had an operation involving three backhoes, a bulldozer, and six guys in our backyard today to repair a broken horror of a sewer pipe in the homestead's backyard.

It cost the equivalent of a halfway adequate used car, less a 200k civic than a lexus, but not as bad as it could have been.

I've never before this evening had a movement (so to speak, nudge nudge) that cost more than a grand. I've now way done that. Like a multiple of that.

To paraphrase "Lazy Sunday"... you can call me Robert E. Lee for the way we dropped Grants today. I'm very tired and a bit burned out.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

We find out how nice a used car we are not buying as a result of fixing our sewer issue.

I'm hoping it's more along the lines of a used 200k Civic instead of a Lexus. We will see...

Breaking Sewer News!

It may go into the street, which in our new fair city is something we would have to pay for. That total would be... $7000 give or take.

OR it goes some random direction, and it's $3500.

OR it gets unplugged with a water jet, which could be $400.

I'm not sure how I'm going to sleep tonight wondering what happens when our new Sewer Guy shows up.

Sidenote: our sewer guy apparently looks like Kenny Rogers.

Our Critter Guy looks like Ray Liotta dressed up as Dog the Bounty Hunter for Halloween.

Sleep tight in your correctly flowing toilet filled homes, people...

Baby Billboard

Here's something I can't figure out: my daughter has loads of onesies, all of which have words/phrases/pictures on them.

She can't read.

She can't sit up and look at her stomach.

So, here's a thought: instead of putting "what does the lamb say?" on her onesie, how about a New Yorker article on the onesie, for example? I'm the only one reading it... and I fucking KNOW what the lamb says already.

(Spoiler alert: "Baaaa")

Painting

We painted the front room this evening. At least the primer is on the walls...

What Starts With "C" and Ends With...

...ollapsed Sewer Line..."?

I don't know for sure, but you can fill in the blanks. You can also understand that it will cost about as much as a marginally decent used car.

It's in our backyard, or in our front yard or something.

Again.

Pray for mojo.

More Good News!

No! It's not about jesus!

It's that in addition to skunks in the yard, with baited traps, we've now had a drain backup in our basement! I don't know whether it is strictly considered raw sewage, but when the toilet is passing water through itself the wrong way in your spare bathroom, as well as convincing the local shower to do the same, it's not an easy thing to handle exactly.

Let's hope the home warranty based plumber has some good news tomorrow.

Pray for mojo.

Microserfdom Deconstructed

I am part of a "daily blogging for a month" exercise.

That's why I'm here after being nowhere for forever.

It's the love I bring to my work.

I've moved to where my commute is long, and am getting a lot of reading done... Just put down the Border Trilogy, and started a new book today, on which I plan on having more to say later...

Shop Class as Soulcraft.

Read it, as it may be a bit of a polemic by a slightly overly intellectual philosopher-turned-motorcycle-mechanic but it is tremendously thought provoking.

The result of today's thought and reading is what I'm considering Dedring's Law: Elegance is not the province of machines. It is the province of human's, though it is not clear that all humans have the capacity for elegant solutions.

IF you do white collar "knowledge work", be aware that the making of rule-based systems, and the improvement of communications networks is putting you closer to irrelevance. The simple way to put it is: you can't hammer a nail over the internet. You can do many, many other things. The idea of knowledge work is a nice thought, but most of us have actually become clerks of one kind or another. The making of rules and procedure manuals renders us less relevant, and renders our ability to think ever less significant.

More to follow down the line. I just had to write SOMETHING today. So 2 for 2. Both are worthless, but both are here.

Beth.

Here you are.

They will get better, I promise.