Sand and Sea

Back near the beginning of summer I'd posted about this year's return to the beach, for movies on the beach. It was a good time, but it was night and didn't feature the sun and swimming of a proper beach trip.

Went through most of summer without making a return trip, either for conventional beaching, or for a movie. Before it ended, however, I managed to get two trips in!!!

Both trips were to Horny Corner. The first time surrogate was arranging for several people to go... then his car broke!!! On the day he'd been planning, I asked if he wanted me to come by and pick him up, and he said he wasn't going, and everyone else flaked out, too. I had been looking forward to it, and younger came with me.

It wasn't crowded at all, and it was a very high tide!!!

There's usually seagulls perched on some of the swim area buoys, but this time there was a pelican on one of them!!! We usually will swim out to the buoy line, and when there's a gull, we'll see how close we can get. Often, I'll get within around 6 feet and they'll be getting a little sketchy, then I'll go under and swim under to around the same distance on the other side, and they'll fly away while I'm under. Got this picture of a pelican on the wing after we were out of the water.

We mostly got there, got in the water, and swam most of the time!!! Out to the buoy line, then down to the bridge. Last year one time when surrogate and I had gone with just us, we'd done the same swim, but this was the first time for younger. Swam back, dried off, then went for burgers at Grill 'Em All!!! I got the same as last time, the Witte, and younger got the Long Beach Dirtbag, a chili burger with bacon, chipotle ketchup, and garlic aoili. And, of course, the primate fries. Once again, I was craving a premium burger, and once again was not disappointed!!!

Two weeks after, we went again!!! This time, surrogate came as well. Got there, and went straight into the water and out to the buoy line!!! Scared off a seagull by swimming under it, swam down to another, and we got really close to the buoy and gull!!! This guy (actually I think it was a girl from the coloring) was pretty bold!!! While we were there swimming around and talking to her, another gull flew up and tried to chase her off, but she stood her ground!!!

The first time we were there, they had the inflatables up, but they were gone the next time. We swam over to the float that they stage from, and climbed up and jumped off it a few times. It's got an unusual construction, with two floats joined together with a wide area of grating between them. I swam under the grating area, and it's a bit strange and claustrophobic under there. Younger swam in after, and I went back under, and surrogate finally came under again. After that, I went back to shore, dried off, and re positioned a chair in the sunlight. As the summer comes to it's end, the light fades faster!!! The sunlight was right to the edge of the water, and I turned the chair towards the sun for a selfie. Oh yeah, it was a fairly high tide again!!!

The guys were still soaking, and I was mostly dried off, so I went and changed. On the way back, I spotted a snowy egret hunting along the water's edge. I went to take a picture, and he was heading off. I followed, parallel to him, and finally caught up for a decent picture.

I really like the burgers at Grill 'Em All, but it's a little expensive!!! After we finished up this time, we headed over to the local In-N-Out for some also great burgers, at a considerably lower price!!! One of my favorite summertime activities (besides hitting the beach!!!), I've realized, is dining outdoors when the sun is down, but the temperature is still up!!!

... So I Drove Her to Boyle Heights!!!

There's this park that a lot of family friends and us end up going to on a fairly regular basis. It's actually the park where Colby Jack (since renamed the rather generic Simba) came from. Back in June we were heading there for a picnic while the Lineage Logistics warehouse was on fire for a while, in yet another show of the incompetence of our city under the current mayor.

I had been hearing about, smelling, and seeing the plume from the fire for most of the week. They were saying it was in Boyle Heights, but that's one of those localities that I'm kind of unclear of the boundaries of, and I didn't bother to look it up to see exactly where it was.

While we were heading there, I got a much better look at the plume and saw more or less nearly exactly where it was!!! Not far at all from that park, and the plume was turning the sun red!!! The way the wind was blowing, it wasn't that smoky at the park.

We went there again not long after that for the 4th of July. By this time, the fire was out, but now all the food that had been stored in the warehouse was rotting!!! Once again, for the most part the breeze would be blowing in a way that you usually don't smell it from there, but every once in a while it would shift to where you get a whiff. It's not far from the freeway, and there's a pedestrian bridge over it, which is where this picture was taken.

Went there again for a birthday a little later. Someone had a Frisbee, and it got thrown up on the roof over some tables and the restrooms, so they had boosted up a girl, then while she was up there had her throwing down candy for the kids!!!

The most recent trip there was on Labor Day, and once again headed over to the pedestrian bridge. Also on that day there was a Giratina raid close by that had a bunch of people who'd signed up with the recently introduced RSVP system, so a few of us joined in and did it.

Just before that weekend a storm had blown through and left a lot of cloud cover, which made for some dramatic sunset!!!

Another recent time we were there for a gender reveal, so there's some more smoke!!! First one I've ever been to. The smoke seemed a little inconclusive, but it's a girl!!!

By the way, the title refers to a joke I'll use for a stinky area. I usually use it for Norco (You know how to get to Norco??? Go east until you smell it, then go south until you step in it!!!)

She told me to kiss her where it stinks... So I drove her to Boyle Heights!!!

The Wall

I'd made mention in a previous post of the project I'd been working on painting the window frames.

I had finished off the frames some time ago, and here's the results!!! The picture also has the motion detector light activated.

In the same post, I'd also mentioned that I was thinking of doing an accent wall, and now that's been done, too!!! The splotchy repaint I'd mentioned, you can kind of see in the next two pictures, but it's white on white, so it doesn't show up great.

In addition to the repaint, it also needed a little bit of body work to fill in some pits and gouges. I had the cover to the heater off to do the work, and it had a portion right by the air intake that looked burned. While I had it off, I cleaned it off (using the battery powered power washer I'd picked up, it's OK but not great. Kind of a glorified super soaker), sanded it down, and sprayed it with some high temperature spray paint.

My wife got a picture of me applying the first stripe...

The transitions didn't come out as clean as I was picturing, but it works.

I am pleased with the final results, though!!! My wife said it looks a little like a sunset, and said I could add some In-N-Out Burger style palm trees!!!

The bookcase and the stereo rack had been in the opposite positions before the project, and the bookcase was slightly into the walkway from the door, so this arrangement is better. I also painted the bare wood sides and top of the bookcase white before making some holes in the back to run the wires through.

I also realized that the TV mount had just a bit of height adjustment that I could use, so I've re positioned it around 3” up from where it was. I made a couple of gouges through the color layer while I was putting the heater cover back on that I need to go back and touch up, too.

The whole project took a while, but I'm pleased with the results!!!

Retro Taco

I had heard that last Saturday Menace of The Woody Show would be doing a back to school event at a shoe store in the area. One of the Taco Bell restaurants that we frequent is just down the street from the store, so I suggested that we get some lunch there, then go over to check out the event.

While we were at the Taco Bell, either younger or surrogate made mention that another group looked like they were going to be going to the shoe store, too. Looked like they were from the station, they thought. I looked over, and yea, could be, but I didn't look very hard.

We headed over after we were done. Surrogate sees Menace and says something about “that white guy” over there. I thought that was pretty funny, his original name was The White Menace!!! Headed over and said hi (he acted like he recognized me, maybe he did, I've seen him before, or maybe he just has that way about him) and asked if they'd been over at the Taco Bell, and he says that they had been. That reminded me, fairly often when Taco Bell comes up on the show, he'll call on Taco Bell to bring back the 4 Alarm Double Decker Taco, discontinued 1997. I turned my phone to selfie video and asked him to tell me about it, and here it is!!! It was pretty cool.

My personal 4 Alarm Double Decker Taco is the BLT Taco they had back around the same time, it was pretty straightforward, a good amount of bacon, and lettuce and tomato, along with a ranch dressing on a flour tortilla. I feel like it was just a bit after they'd had the 59-79-99 menu, and they sold for something like $1.29 at the time, so they were a little expensive for what you got, but they were tasty!!!

They were doing raffles for concert tickets and The Woody Show spatulas (a very expensive item, according to Menace), and we hung around for two of the drawings, but didn't win anything. I'd heard there would be theme park tickets, too, but not while we were there. That's what I would have liked. We also showed up in the background of one of his videos that he posted.

Menace has been using one of the GLP drugs (the fat shot), and he's looking good for it!!! Don't know how many of the 4 Alarm Double Decker Tacos he'd be able to put away now!!!

Back to the Beach

I hadn't been to the beach yet this year, until last week. On my birthday 10 years ago, I'd taken the family to see Toy Story on the beach in Long Beach. For some reason, I'd happened on the post where I'd mentioned it, and wondered if they were still doing it.

They are!!! I asked surrogate if he would be available, but he had to work. Hit up a couple of younger's other friends, and they were up for it, so we went.

Got there early enough that we'd be able to stake out a spot before the movie started, and got to enjoy the sunset!!!

And the movie that was playing??? The Breakfast Club!!! My wife and I have watched it probably over 50 times, I think she'd made younger watch it, but the friends hadn't seen it. The girl liked it, the guy was off at the bathrooms for the end and didn't like it as much.

It was a good way to spend the evening, and get back to the beach!!! They're doing it for several more nights this summer, and there's a good chance we'll head back again!!! Of the upcoming movies, Lost Boys is one I'd be up to see again, and A League of Their Own will be shown. I haven't seen that, and it's supposed to be good, so I might be up for that as well.

I Fixed My Bumper With JB Weld and I'm Ashamed

This will actually be a bit of a random, catch up post.

Around a month ago, my mom had fallen out of bed and hurt her arm and hip. They took her to the hospital to check it out, and at first they thought she'd had a stroke or something, but that wasn't the case. I think they were just going by past history. Anyway, she'd either been dreaming or hallucinated that she was on top of a rock, and there was a missile coming at her, so she dove off. After she was out of the hospital, they moved her to a rehabilitation place.

For Mother's day, she wanted to go to Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant, which is just outside Knott's Berry Farm and not far from her place. She thought she would be out on the Monday after, and that was our original plan. She wasn't out, and we pushed it back a week. She thought they were going to send a nurse with her, so we had planned on that. Turned out they weren't going to be doing that, but they wanted to send her in a wheelchair. We don't have quite enough room for that in Kutcher, so we talked Surrogate into coming as well, so we could haul the chair in Scruffy. Didn't really take that much talking into!!! I'd never been there, and I was wondering what the parking situation would be like. Found a Reddit post that said there's an hourly lot off to the left, and they validate for two additional hours. Found it as they said, pulled in, and pulled off out of the way to get my wife and mom out and set up before we went off to try and find parking spots.

While we were getting them set up, after I'd gotten my wife's walker out of the back of Kutcher and the wheelchair out of Scruffy, a spot opened up right by were we were unloading. The hatch on Kutcher was still open, and my mom's wheelchair was right behind it. I was trying to get people to move, so I could get that spot, and pulled over there with the hatch hanging open, and it somehow hooked the bumper a bit on the wheelchair. A few months ago I'd drug it a little coming out of a driveway with a bunch of people in the back, and the passengers' side will occasionally pop out a little ever since.

After we ate, we went back to her place, where she had some watches that needed the batteries replaced. While she'd been in the recovery place, my nephew Eyeball and his wife (who I haven't seen in forever) had given her a couple of coloring books and pencils, Sarcastic Jesus and Jesus on Vacation. This was the first page of Sarcastic Jesus, and Surrogate and I were losing it over it!!!

I had been meaning to take a closer look at that bumper situation ever since it became an issue. It has a series of slots that correspond to catches on the body, but the forward one was broken, and it has a screw going in from in the wheel well that seemed like it wasn't mounted solidly anymore.

Took out that screw, and pulled the bumper away, and the leading edge of the plastic that mounts to the body was broken off. I sanded it for adhesion, and saw there was a groove just below the mounting area that was around 1/8” wide and 1/2” deep, so I cut a piece of aluminum bar to place in there, then put a bunch of JB Weld on the ends of the break and the groove, and held it in place with tape until it set. Also put some on the broken part of the bumper slot, I don't know how well it'll hold, but it's better than it was.

You can see the aluminum bar on the shot with the tape removed. It's holding like it should now.

Back when I was at the fly by night plastics forming company, the machinist that was there when I came along would repair the aluminum forming tools using JB Weld, which has terrible thermal properties for doing thermoforming on. Those of us who had actual themoforming experience would use Devcon aluminum repair epoxy, which has a high content of aluminum, and has much better thermal properties, and we would mock him mercilessly for his use of JB Weld. Since I've been out of there, I use JB Weld for everything!!! Just the week before, the panel for the window switches had broke, and I also used JB Weld on it.

Unrelated, but could have been in the previous post, I picked up these electronic mosquito repellers. I was skeptical, but turns out they work great!!! They give off a high pitch tone that you can hear when you first turn 'em on, but after a minute you don't even notice it.

Another unrelated, I was ordering some items for Walmart, and they had this Dirty Mountain Dew that they said was getting down to limited amounts, so I picked up a couple packs to try it. It says cream soda, but it tastes more like the actual dew with the cream added, that they've been having at Taco Bell. Better than some (once you get past it not actually tasting like cream soda) but I don't think I'll be going out of my way for it again!!!

Power Tools

I've made some purchases of some cordless power tools recently, and thought I'd share.

The earliest ones I'd gotten were drills. My parents had bought me a 1/2” chuck Craftsman years ago that was really nice, but back then most of them used NiCad batteries, and it didn't last more than a few years. I replaced it with a Hitachi with NiMH batteries back when I used to frequent Woot, and it's served well and has lasted.

Around 3 years ago I replaced the second corded hedge trimmer with a cordless version. It cost about twice as much as the corded one, but it was also a duo, with a leaf blower included. It's from Westinghouse, and if the battery ever gives up on it, I don't think I'd be able to locate a replacement!!! Works very well, though, and the leaf blower is handy.

About a year ago I bought a tire inflator off Ebay. It was super handy!!! I wasn't able to locate any mention about it, but after I'd bought the new tires for Kutcher, the front ones would always lose air. I'd taken it back to the place I'd bought the tires, but they went out of business!!! I took it to another tire store, and they checked it out, and couldn't find any leaks, but re seated the tire, and recommended filling them to a higher level. The issue persisted, but recently got better on it's own!!! A few months ago, the inflator quit working right, not showing an accurate pressure and not inflating properly. I'd bought a warranty from Square Trade when I got it, and they turn out to be a real pain in the ass to deal with!!! Finally got them to make with the purchase amount (in two checks, since they wanted to underpay by a lousy $3.25 at first) and I bought another one.

Around the time I did the front end on Kutcher, I bought myself a cordless impact wrench, since up to that point I'd been very happy with the no name tire inflator I'd bought. It could work better, it struggled to loosen lug nuts, but it did work for some of the suspension bolts. The bonus, it came with two 3.0 amp batteries of the same style and voltage that the inflator uses.

And since I'd had pretty good results with both of those, I just recently bought a cordless weed eater. This one uses a higher voltage battery, but comes with two of them. It came with some plastic blades, a couple of metal blades, and what looks like a circular saw blade. I've used it for the area across the street where I park the cars, and for the uphill side of the house. I have yet to run a battery out using it!!! It's got a smaller cut diameter than the corded one I've got, and less power, but it will get the job done. Oh yea, it's a lot lighter, too!!!

Speaking of the corded weed eater, I recently replaced it as well. I think it may be the third one I've bought, the Black & Decker GH3000, which is an excellent machine!!! Most electric weed eaters spin quickly, but without much torque. This model has a gear reduction on the motor, giving it the torque of a gas powered unit. The brushes on the old one had worn out, and the contact area was pretty torn up as well. Since I had it apart to check the brushes, I noticed that the plastic body has a nice shape to it, that with a little paint could be modified into a steampunk look blaster gun of some sort, so I've held onto it.

Also pictured, my dad had a DeWalt cordless drill with two batteries, and I got it when my mom moved out. It's an older model, but it still works very well. Also pictured is one of the batteries from the impact wrench.

A lot of the reason I've bought several of these is because the price is pretty low. I'm thinking I might buy myself a cordless pressure washer, too!!!