Le Sigh and a Solenoid

Ok, so the posting isn't a continuous stream. Not that I am lacking things to post about... it's just that a few factors prevent most posts from ever reaching my blog.

1: I usually think of something great to post about while I'm working, then promptly forget about it by the time I get home.

2: Many of the posts would be work related and I'm hesitant to put anything like that in a public medium considering the depth to which many companies now dig. One never knows how any particular statement will be taken by a prospective ( or current ) employer.

3: Some parts of my life would be really, really funny but I refuse to post about them on this blog since it's listed on my Facebook account and there are things that I don't care to have casual acquaintances knowing about me.

If it weren't for those three things, I'd have a new post or two every day!

On other fronts....

When I moved in with my wife, the ice maker/dispenser was broken. That was back in 2009 and judging from the condition it was in when I first checked it out it had been that way for quite some time. (The wife says '08, possibly '07 that it quit working.) So I looked at it on and off for a couple of years while my brain tried to figure out how the thing was put together. At first, I thought that the door had to be dismantled from the inside. But while I was cleaning the coils on the fridge I ran across the water solenoid in a panel on the back of the unit. This made me realize that it probably came apart from the outside rather than the inside.

Lo and behold, upon further study I found how to dismantle the control panel to trouble shoot the damned thing. I got the ice maker working with a few tweaks, and moved on to the dispenser portion of the unit. Behind several layers of plastic and screws was a solenoid that opened the dispenser flap for the ice to flow through the door. It was solid rust. I pulled it out, took a wire wheel to it until I could read the part numbers again, and ordered another one.

The part was at the front door when I got home. Fifteen minutes to install it and it was once again working as it should. That made for a very happy wife. And Choreboys around the world know.... a happy wife is a happy life :)

Now why, you ask, didn't I simply call a repairman and have ice for the last 2 years? I'll tell you why: There have been many times in my life that I have called someone out to fix something only to realize how damned simple it would have been to do it myself. And I kick myself mentally every time I pay someone for things like that because it makes me feel lazy! I respect the people who do repair work, I just respect myself less if I spend my hard-earned money paying them to to something I'm perfectly capable of doing.

With all of that being said, I realize that there are people in the world that wouldn't know which end of a screwdriver to use (or the difference between a phillips and a standard) much less be able to repair something on their own. Those are the people that need repairmen.

Me? I'm grateful for the knack I have for fixing things.

You're kidding, right?

Working in a restaurant has benefits. If you so choose, you can eat anything on the menu fixed any way you want it and it's FREE. On the flip side, you get so tired of eating the same thing every day that it can be a treat to eat food from some other restaurant.

Today was one of those days. We all decided to send someone out to pick up food from other places so that we could have something different.

So I'm in the restaurant busting my butt serving people that feel like eating our food when my cell phone starts to vibrate incessantly. Of course, I can't stop making food to answer the phone so I ignore it. At this point in time the store phone starts ringing, and doesn't stop. Just ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. Fifteen minutes later when the lines were eliminated and everyone was served and happy I ran back to the office and picked up the phone (which had not stopped ringing even once).

It was the guy we had sent out for food. His question to me: "Do you want your chicken wings to be white meat or dark meat?" I said "WHAT?????" "Do you want your wings to be white meat or dark meat?" He was serious! I said "Fred, wings are wings. They only come one way." He says "Well, I always order my wings with white meat, because if you don't specify they give you dark meat."

I did not think it was possible to surprise me with the power of human ignorance, but damn if it didn't happen today.

But will it make a turd?

I love my dear wife, even with her fanaticism concerning weight loss. She often cooks and the food is usually good but at times it can be.... etheral in nature. Today was a special day though :)

I once asked an older gentleman why he didn't like lettuce. He told me that he actually didn't mind the taste of lettuce, but it didn't have enough substance "to make a good turd with". Basically, his idea of good food was anything that would "make a turd" the next morning.

Breakfast today was good food.

We had real bacon- fried on the stove top, not precooked/devoid of fat stuff reheated in the microwave or oven. Then while the wife scrambled her artificial egg whites from a carton I fried three real eggs (fresh from the shell) in the bacon grease as eggs *should* be cooked. While I was working on the bacon and eggs, Amanda was busy cooking grits with a one pound block of Monterrey Jack cheese in them and loads of butter, and big horkin' biscuits that were soon filled with tons of butter and jelly.

If you've never had a breakfast this good you should understand that this kind of meal will generally hold you through lunch, and depending on what time you eat it could even tide you over until dinner. This is the kind of breakfast that I used to eat as a kid, or on camping trips. I think it is sad that people don't have the time to cook a real breakfast anymore.

Especially the kind of breakfast that will make a turd :)

My own gravity field...

Wow. I've done it. I quit smoking, quit using nicotine gum, and quit staying at a reasonable weight. I am now heavier than I have ever been in my life. I weighed myself today and came in at a whopping 196.5 lbs, give or take a pound (it's a cheap scale). The most I remember weighing in the past was the last time I quit smoking and that was 194 lbs.

Fortunately I'm fairly tall at 6'1" and with a loose shirt the tire around my midsection doesn't appear to be as large as I perceive it to be.

The wife, however, insists on cooking loads and loads of foods that cause one to gain weight simply by smelling them. This wouldn't be so bad if she would assist in eating some of these foods, but she is trying to reach her goal weight and eats like a canary. She just cooks the fattening stuff to live vicariously watching others eat it. I personally believe that she's trying to make me obese so that she looks tiny when she's with me. She barely weighs the same as a box of crayons as it is!

I suppose I'm going to have to begin a regimen of exercise like I did previously. I used to run 5k every morning before work, and sometimes again when I would get off late at night. It would probably make me feel better to do so but I'm having a hard time getting motivated to start running once more.

To be honest? I'm not into building muscle, I just want to look reasonable in my clothes. That, and not have my own gravity field.

Gaurd Hound, Inc.

I had an interesting week. I offered my ultimate wisdom to the 12 year old in the form of suggesting that cat fur was impervious to the adhesive properties of chewing gum. Upon noting this fact on Facebook, I was inundated with suggestions on how to remove gum from a cat:)

Note: No animals were harmed during the course of this experiment!

In another realm of the animal world Hound has become quite the Guard Hound (tm) that I've been training him to be. He now barks when anyone knocks on the door, fiercely defends his back yard, and howls mercilessly when we are not in the same room where he can adequately protect us. You have to understand- in his own eyes Hound stands approximately 3 feet tall at the shoulder and is just over 250 lbs of pure muscle.

Here is a picture of Hound eating a cow's ear:


I have NO idea where the rest of the cow is.


Speaking of eating things... the wife gave me five pounds of tasso for Xmas, and actually learned to cook real red beans. I am in heaven. It's been a few years since I've had a proper pot of read beans to eat, and they are a food that I simply don't get tired of consuming. I am a happy camper:)

Another year down....

Well, just made it through yet another Christmas. This is not my time of year... I really don't like trying to figure out what to get everyone while I'm on a strict budget and then worrying that whatever I chose wasn't considered adequate or acceptable.

This year (against the rules of being a husband) I got the wife a KitchenAid stand mixer. I chose this because the only other thing she really wanted was out of my price range and also because on many occasions I've had to pull her away from the displays in the store due to the fact that she would pet the mixers and coo like a dove.

Fortunately, she seems to be happy getting a mixer as a Christmas present. Not all men are as fortunate as I am:) And as a bonus? There are about 73 different attachments that can be used as fall-back gifts on birthdays and other holidays. Not that I would do that, but it's nice to have the option.

Now it's time to start with birthdays for everyone. The kids are easy, since I have two in college and one in high school that are always happy to get whatever amount of monies that I can send. Thankfully my wife is thoughtful enough to tell me throughout the year exactly what items I should add to my list of potential gifts for most occasions. She's so subtle about it too.... "Honey, put xxxxx on the gift list." It works for me!

April will mark year three of a five year long goal that I am working on and I am so very happy that I only have two years left to reach that goal. Life will be much simpler and more relaxed once I get to that point. (I won't share the goal, but I did want to share the sentiment.)

I am making plans to visit my older children this summer. I'll probably spend a week with them and they have already planned out our activities for that point in time. It should be a very happy reunion:) It's harder than I thought it would be for them to leave home for school. I often have to stop and remind myself that they are of legal age and the ability to "protect" them is now extremely limited. The time spent rearing them seemed so very long in the process but somehow feels to be a totally inadequate amount in hindsight. It's hard to consider the fact that I've either done a good job or not. The rest of life is up to them. *sigh* I don't feel ready to let them go, but I have no option.

Now that this year is done, I only have to wait for the cats to finish stripping the Christmas tree of needles so that I can take it down and spend countless hours vacuuming them out of the carpet.

Oh joy. *smirk*

Happy New Year:)

Evolution?

I made a trip to the eye doctor today since my last trip was almost two years ago and I'm not seeing quite as clearly as I once did.

The doctor asked if I wanted "Progressive" glasses, the no-line glasses for those of us in need of bifocals. I informed him unequivocally that I tried those for about 8 months at one point in time and I simply could not get used to them. He then informed me that due to the nature of my vision issues, I would need trifocals.

I had a few options-

Go with the progressives and get a narrower field of vision and hate wearing them because you look like an owl since you have to turn your head to the direction that you want to focus on. Not to mention the fact that I hated them the first time around, there's not much chance of me falling in love with them this time.

-or-

Get a taller lens and put the trifocals on them, still looking like an owl with the "big-eye" lenses framing my face.

-or-

Order multiple sets of glasses.

I did somewhat of a compromise. I ordered two sets of bifocals. Set number one will have distance and computer reading prescriptions in them, along with photo-gray ( the old timer's language for "Transitions".) The other set will be normal glasses with one prescription for computer and one for reading. This way I'll be able to work on spreadsheets and such without having to switch.

As for the evolution in the title? I'm wondering if I will look like a fly when I'm 80 and need a different prescription for each foot of distance that I try to take in. Would that be considered as evolving or devolving?

Now all I need is a pair of glasses to wear when I look into the mirror each morning. One that sees everything but gray hair and wrinkles::::)