4th of July Hijinks I

Back all the way on 4th of July this year, we did as we often do for that particular holiday (one of our favorites, Summertime, outdoor dining, swimming, and fireworks!!!) and went to my parents' house. We partook in three of the four above listed activities, and then my parents took my sister and my nephew to a local fireworks show. He'd never been, and word is that he enjoyed it. On our way, we stopped by a local fireworks stand and picked up $40 worth of the so-called safe and sane fireworks, so because of that, and the fact that I was working overtime the next day, we stayed there until a little after dark. Just before they headed out, my younger and I helped my dad out by re-hanging one of the side shed doors, which required the use of his ladder. After they left... the mischief ensued!!! The boy and I climbed up, and I jumped off a couple times, and after getting his nerve up, the boy tried a couple times. Yeah, I know, parent of the year!!!

I know at least my mom would have been troubled by this, so hopefully she doesn't come across this!!!

Don't think I've made mention here, but one of my recent pleasures has been morning radio with The Woody Show on Alt 98.7.

One of the segments they do daily is Redneck News, which the boy enjoys the intro for, and does the "Whooo Hooo!!!" along with. Well, for the roof jumping once he got going, he wanted me to come up with intros for, and he'd do the "Whooo Hooo!!!" on the way down. If memory serves, he was wanting me to do 'em earlier in the day as he was jumping from the diving board. Oh yeah, when we were on vacation, at our last hotel in Galveston, he learned to do a flip into the pool, so that's cool and a really useful life skill to have!!!

Of course, later on that evening we lit off the fireworks, and I've got video of the stupidity that ensued on that also, so if I ever get that posted, you'll have part II!!!

And, as always, we drove home through the badlands of the 710 freeway, which is always like driving through a tunnel of fireworks on the 4th of July!!!

Spider, Man!!!

As promised, here's a second post in one day!!!

Last Wednesday at work I headed out to break with some of my co-workers. Three were already out there, and as I rolled up, they were talking about having a seat by my buddy there, indicating the planter wall. I checked it out, and say, "Hey, it's a daring jumping spider!!!" Recalling the first one I saw, and take out my pen and start trying to get him to put up his dukes in the fighting stance. This one wasn't quite as bold, only raising one foreleg in a blocking gesture. I'd never seen one with the white striped legs before. I snapped a couple pictures, and one of the girls took a few, too. Paparazzi!!!

Aztec Falls Revisited

Finally getting some more pics from Aztec Falls up. Once again, I've got a ton more I could do, but for now you get this.

You start off at a place called Splinter's Cabin. There's not much of a cabin there, but just a bit down the trail from there is a pretty cool bridge.

I'm not a fan of graffiti out in nature, but I actually kinda liked the addition to these rocks!!!

As you make your way down, the upstream part has a wide, shallower area. I call it the kiddie pool.

A nice little jump off point. It's about as deep as it is tall, so be sure to bend your knees on the way down!!!

Farther down is the big jump off points. I used the boy's height and checked the high jump against it in Paint Shop Pro. Looks like I was real close with my estimation of 35 to 40 feet up. You can see there's something of a pillar to the left side, which could be climbed to pick up that much more height, but it's a little tricky.

I like the splash down shot that looks like the shape of a body.

On the far side, near the base of the 20 foot jump, there's even a natural rock ramp to climb out on!!! You can see that in the bottom left of the last shot. I'm sure we'll be back next time!!!

I've got the idea to share how I stretched my birthday out to a week, perhaps that'll be next...

Aztec Falls

Usually when we head up to the mountains, we've headed up to Deep Creek. Unfortunately, there were some heavy rains a few years back, and it washed so much sand and sediment downstream, so the last few years it hasn't been much in the deep department.

This year, my older looked up to see if he could find any other places. He came across Aztec Falls, probably a little more than a mile downstream. I wasn't holding out much hope for it, being as it's rained less and less the last couple years. Turned out to be far beyond what I might even have hoped for!!! May have to make another trip up there again this year, and definitely we'll be back next time!!!

The close side was about 20 feet up, the far side around 35 to 40 feet. The boy did the biggest cannon ball ever from the far side. I jumped probably half a dozen times from the lower side, and once (since I was there) from the far side.

I didn't take a ton of pictures (I was wet most the time) but I've got a few I may share later on. Only took this one video, and things went awry!!! A guy from another group jumped from the other side at almost the same time!!! Everything came out OK, but you can tell I was troubled!!!

CupDate and a Bit-O-Random

Got the annual notice from the Fire Department. Brush clearance time. Actually, I never got one, but my parents, who are the owners of the adjacent lot, got theirs. Anyway, my parents came up today and my dad and myself and the oldest attempted to make the yard compliant. It certainly is more so than it was, but still a long way to go. We exceeded the yard waste allotment by quite a bit.



This picture was in my camera when I took the shot of toofy boy. I had no idea where it came from, but the oldest just told me that he'd taken it a few weeks back. It was in the yard, and he was impressed by the bug.

Speaking of bugs, tonight on Baby's rear trunk reflector, there was a little moth with a very wide wingspan. If I had my camera with me, I would have gotten a picture.



This cup was from a week ago on Friday. I had been throwing totes, and in that area they have the yellow circle stickers, and the numbered bar codes. I had downloaded Microsoft's Image composite editor to try and stitch the rotational view of the cup together. The documentation on it is very lacking, and it doesn't work, at least in this case. I'll try some other time.

I've never updated on Janices' starter. The day after the starter post, I exchanged it for another of their "lifetime" starters. Spent the afternoon installing it, and it didn't even make the little whirr noise, the only noise it made was the relay on the opposite side of the engine compartment!!! Actually, I think I did put that in comments to that post. Anyway, before I got going on the yard today, I disconnected the starter from everything but the battery and tried to jump it to test my wiring hypotheses. That was a fail. Jacked the car up again (naturally, she's parked on the street, which has about a 10% slope to it, makes for good times and a dicey proposition!!! Also, my sockets will roll away if I'm not careful) and pulled the starter out. I'm actually getting pretty good at that, didn't take me long at all. Doesn't work loose from the transmission, so I tried it first just on cables to the battery, then on Bessie's battery. Dead on arrival!!!


There was a meeting last week by the investment firm that handles our deferred profit sharing account. It was interesting for the first half. The second half, the other guy had a rather droning voice, and that combined with being in a darkened room for the presentation in the afternoon, had a narcoleptic effect on several of us!!!



While working in the yard today, I happened on one of the old brake drums from Bessie. The one that had one of the wheel studs cross threaded, and I had drilled out. There's a nasturtium growing up through the drilled out lug stud hole!!!

Ever hear of Stupid Fun Club??? I had heard of it, and just the name sounds like something where it could be the exception that proves the rule of the Groucho Marx adage "I would never join a club that would have me as a member!!!" Unfortunately, their web site doesn't seem as fun as the name implies. Guess I'll just have to make my own stupid fun!!!

Sammy contacted me a bit ago. Thursday before last I went to see him at his and his new wife's (new wife makes it sound like he had an old one... no, just newly married to her) new place. He'd gotten married, moved to this place, then those scumbags at my old job laid him off. I'm glad I got out of there at the time I did. He made some great chicken tacos and guacamole and salsa. The guacamole was a bit on the sweet side, I've never had guacamole like that before. I don't think it was intended that way, but it was pretty good. I'm actually craving some of that right now.



My wife took the oldest to the recycling center ($23.00, way to go!!!) this morning when I was starting in the yard, so I had her exchange Janices' starter. They tested it for her, and declared that it had a faulty solenoid. I asked her if she made them test the replacement. She hadn't. This evening, after cleaning up, I took the jumper cables out and tried it out. It doesn't seem to work at all, either!!! The solenoid kicks the gear into place, but it doesn't spin!!! It will be tested before I bring home another.

They called Sammy about coming back to work some. I have mixed feelings about that. Kind of how you feel when a lady friend tells you she's getting back together with an abusive, or even just scummy or loser ex boyfriend. I think those guys qualify as all of the above, but it ain't easy out there these days.

Apparently, according to the statement they mailed me, my deferred profit sharing account lost almost $4,000. Pretty impressive, actually!!! As I often say, if you don't sell when it's down, you don't lose a thing!!!

The Midnight Rambler's Random Post

Went out to dinner and a movie tonight. I usually don't drink much soda, but I had three glasses of Mr. Pibb with dinner and a cup you can re-use as a wastebasket of it at the movie.

I tried to sleep, but it wasn't happening. My mind kept going, so I decided to try and put my latest random post together.

If I start to fade, I've got the couch for sleeping. It seems to have sedative properties.

Ironically, I'm reading Stephen King's "Insomnia" at the time.

I've started tracking some of the statistics about my work. I was thinking I could make a new blog of that. I could title it the world's most boring blog. Besides, I hardly keep up with this one, how would I do with a second??? I imagine not well.

My latest Wheres George hit was from Winnetka. Ironically, that is where my IP address shows up as being from.

419'ed again!!! From England this time. His business patners (yes, you read that right, spellchecker, patners) will fedex or USPS me payments, and I should western union money transfer to him. Why would not his patners just do the western union him the payments???

After reading the first of The Gunslinger graphic novels, my firstborn started in on the books. He's about halfway through the third book, "The Wastelands", right now. Quite advanced for his age, I say.

I filled an order from Alaska today. The guy's name on the order was Axemann. I thought that was a perfect name for a guy from Alaska.

I was also thinking of starting a Dream Blog. I rarely remember my dreams, but if I were to do that I might tend to remember better.

How come I can't find Mr. Pibb in cans or bottles???

Itunes is working better for me than Windows Media Player ever since I got the latest version of the latter.

Humming birds: The crack heads of the Avian world???

I got an E-mail from Dean Koontz that they will be coming out with an Odd Thomas graphic novel. Can't wait to see it!!!

I think that back in the Golden Age of Cinema, they used to have intermissions at the movies. Seems to me that would be a good idea these days more so than back then, what with movies pushing towards three hours and drinks pushing towards a gallon.

My parents got a fiber optic phone, TV and broadband package last week. I forgot to ask them how that is working out for them.

I got three comments from people today (well, yesterday now) about my lunch box. I should do a post about that someday when I am challenged and want to make a post.

614 unique hits, 684 total hits. 10.47% percent. Those are my current Wheres George stats.

The sofa is getting a tad threadbare. Well, a tad more. I'm considering re upholstery.

My cell phone company is so cool. They have sent me a shirt, playing cards, a Tyler Hilton CD, and threw a bowling party for subscribers. Got my wife a new model for Mother's day, even tho she's not my mother.

I really like that show, "How I Met Your Mother". I also like reading blogs. One of these days I should check out Barney's Blog.

A week ago at lunch break, one of the girls spotted a spider on the other table's leg. It was fairly large and THICK!!! I took a closer look, and it turned to watch me back!!! Crazy looking, iridescent green eyes (I thought, we all thought, turns out they're it's fangs). The chef came out a bit later and was messing with it, and it was putting it's front legs up like it was ready to fight!!! I finally researched it, turns out it's called a Daring Jumping Spider!!! (Photo by Patrick Edwin Moran)

Fracture was a pretty good movie. Seemed to kind of drag for the last third or so, tho. I wonder if it wouldn't have so much if I hadn't figured it out at around that point.