A Look Back Recap

Here's some of what has happened recently!!!

Years ago, the boys had been sledding down into the canyon. A few weeks ago I was out doing some yard work, and a trio of neighborhood kids showed up with a sled of their own and did some of their own sledding!!! Nice to see area kids still getting up to outdoor hijinks!!! I didn't take a follow up picture of the unceremonious dismount...

Back in December the younger and I had gone down and visited my mom around Christmas. My sister and her youngest son also came down, and we all met up at the John's Incredible Pizza near where my mom lives. My wife wasn't feeling well, we'd all been off and on sick during that time. My cough came back and hung on for a month or so after, but when we were all feeling better, I wanted to go visit my mom again. Surrogate came along, as well. Haven't made mention, but the restaurant Stacked that we'd been to a few times didn't survive the stupid times, but while we've been in the area my mom lives, I've searched restaurants in the area, and turns out not far away there's another Stacked!!! Naturally, that's where we went!!!

They've done away with the “order on an Ipad” gimmick, but you can still craft your burger to order. I've mentioned that I'll almost always make one with sauteed onions and bleu cheese, and there was a burger close to that already on the menu, for less than I could have one built for, including bacon. I had to specify sauteed onions instead of the raw it came with, and added garlic aioli, and it came out great!!! I also like the building better, as well, it has the same look as the one we used to go to, but the windows towards the street are able to completely roll up for a fresh air dining experience, and the weather couldn't have been more perfect!!! Photos came up with a look back collage of our visit, and Halloween 2015!!!

I did a whole post that was mostly about how the driver's side headlight on Kutcher has always given me trouble. At that time, I had gotten a socket that was touted as high temperature. Back in January, it happened again!!! I found out that there were some places that make ceramic sockets, so I ordered one, and got it going again. Not long after that, the headlight bulb itself burned out!!! Bought a replacement bulb, and took care of it yet again... for now (Jinx!!!)

Oh yeah, there's a shot of the new battery...

A friend of mine had bought his car with LED headlight bulbs installed, and a little after I'd replaced the socket, then the bulb on Kutcher, one of his had burnt out. He asked me if I could help him out with it, and I bought him a new set of bulbs and helped him install them. His high beam bulbs were still conventional halogen bulbs, and the set I bought had replacements for both, so I told him my tax for helping him was I got to keep the bulbs that still worked. Shortly after that, the driving light on the driver's side of Kutcher went out again. The lens has a small hole cracked through it, and it had rained, and I theorize that when it rains, cold water will splash on the hot bulb and break it. Anyway, the one low beam LED bulb I'd removed matched the driving light bulb, so it's now in there!!! Of course, it has kind of a bluish cast, while all the other three lights have the yellowish halogen cast, so it's an odd one out. One of these days, I'll get those yellow driving lights installed!!!

My wife had suggested going back to Pie 'N Burger again. Apparently, it is now our just after Valentine's Day tradition!!! They've got a lot of items with chili on it on the menu, and we hadn't tried it last time, so this time I upped my fries to chili cheese fries. It was OK, but I wouldn't recommend them for their chili!!!

We split a slice of peach crumble pie for dessert. Go there for the pie!!!

I had mentioned that one of the pumps at the local Arco had caught on fire last year. They still haven't replaced the pump, or done much with the awnings. They've got the pump boxed off, and it's been tagged up,

I had made mention that the new phone holder in Kutcher had some issue rotating out of the proper position, and I'd put in on the forward part of the center console, with the arm pretty much straight up, and that had done the trick. A few weeks ago, the suction cup came off, and I'd stuck it back. It didn't stay, so I pulled it out, gave it a good cleaning, and it held for a week, then was falling off again. Time to go to the drawing board... I took the arm portion from the previous one (it has the same ball mount for the holder part) and made up a piece of plastic with a little portion that came out, that I could mount to one of the bolts holding the center console down. It worked, but it was close to the emergency brake handle so you had to pull it up with a finger or two, and the phone was almost laying flat.

It kind of worked, but really not acceptable. I bent up a steel angle that would mount to two of the center console bolts, and used the same plastic base to mount it to the upright. Fairly solid, and a lot closer to where it should be!!! I may take it back to the drawing board again, and rotate the base a little farther back. Shouldn't be difficult.

Had the younger's birthday get together last weekend. It was pretty cool, we went on a short neighborhood walk, they played on the swing across the street, and played a little basketball (horse). I didn't get many pictures, and most of the outdoor ones didn't come out good because it was dark out. Here he is in a shirt my wife got him, after he opened the cologne I got him. He's said for years that he'd like to get cologne that smells of petrichor, the smell after it rains, and I found some!!!

A few weeks ago, they did another rocket launch from Vandenberg, and somehow it left this crazy looking contrail!!!

A few weeks ago we'd gone to Goodwill again, I forget what even for, but I found another shirt!!! It was the sale of the day tag, and my size, and in an underrepresented color!!! Interesting, the DeLorean pictured is unmodified!!! I took the picture here with the cam in my computer, possibly the first time I've ever used it for a picture!!!

I had seen this new Mountain Dew flavor, Baja Cabo Citrus, a few weeks before, but didn't buy it. When I was getting supplies for the boy's birthday, I picked some up. It's pretty good, the flavor makes me think it's heavily tangerine.

Projects

I've got a few projects that I've done, or am working on.

The Studebaker came with a ring of keys, but that was all. It has a hidden release for the shaved handled door. My dad had some sort of fob with the mechanism to release it, but I have no idea what became of it. It wasn't hard to make up a design of my own to replace it, but I had to have something worthy.

I bought some cherry wood sheets and fashioned it into a new generation 512 key chain, with the requisite mechanism contained therein. Sanded it down to buttery smooth, and I'm quite pleased with the result!!!

On the subject of key chains, several years ago the younger came up with his alter ego character, Catnip. When I was doing CAD design, I took a few moments and came up with a couple of designs for a Catnip key chain. Back around that time, one of his friends was taking classes for CAD design and machining, and I sent him the file hoping he would have the machine time to whip one out, but that didn't happen. If I get back into the game, maybe I'll get a chance to do it myself.

Back a little before Christmas, he had made mention that he was interested in getting a wood Catnip medallion made up. It would have been cool to have made it up and had it ready before Christmas came around, but that didn't happen. I'd started in on it, but it wasn't ready for prime time yet. In both of the pictures I've got of it here, it's on the jig saw that my dad had gotten from somewhere and didn't have a place for or a use for, so he had given it to me. I've done a few things on it, and I did a lot of the medallion on it.

When I was drilling the eye or string holes (I'm pretty sure it was one of the string holes) it split down the length of the left side. I used some wood glue to put it back together, and it came out pretty good. I can still see where the break was. Bought a length of leather string and set it up on it. Kind of looks like he's got a headband on with the leather string!!! I was pleased with the way it came out (other than the break) and the younger likes it.

It's been more than 10 years since I had the windows replaced by the most incompetent and crooked contractors shysters I've ever done business with, YYB Construction, and I'm still cleaning up the mess they left!!! They always say you'll save so much money with double pane windows, but I haven't seen it. They are better than what we had, but not so much on the savings. Oh, and naturally the rat bastards never made with the actual window price information so that they could be deducted from our taxes. The window frames were left a mess, as you see.

They had been behind some light blue curtains, so they were largely out of sight, but I knew the shoddy condition behind them and have wanted to fix them up for a while. That's been another project that's still in the works. So far I've finished the two in the corner where I had my work desk, and they came out excellent!!! The two behind the couch are still in process, and their location behind the couch makes it a bit more difficult!!!

We have 5 panel doors in several of the rooms, and I've painted the transitions around the panels and the door frames in different colors for various rooms. The bathroom is black, the kitchen is green, and the front room is orange. If I get to it, I'll probably do the bedroom purple and the laundry room yellow. The doors have been used as the backdrops for a few of my shirt posts, as well as the costume the younger had on the most recent Halloween. The frames of the windows are also to be painted to match. The orange had been a quart that my parents had left over from some project, and the original paint had gone over, so I had to pick up another quart.

Oh yea, don't know if I ever made mention, but I bought a window mount air conditioner years ago, and took one of the sliding window panes out and added plywood sheet with a 12” x 24” Plexiglas window (the largest size my previous employer carried) installed. In the upper portion I put in an electrical junction box with a motion detector light over the outside stairs. This may be the first picture I've posted of it!!! I've been thinking for a while of getting a mini split air conditioner system installed, and if I do, I'll have to find a new way to mount the motion detector light.

I'm really happy with the way the two that are completed came out!!! It will be nice when the other two are done. I'm also thinking of doing an accent wall on the wall with the heater and TV on it. I plan on using the same orange, but starting at the top with the full color, and fading it lighter as it goes down. That wall has been splotchily repainted when the crap improvements were going on.

The final touch, my wife found some curtains that go nicely with the color. I repainted the curtain rods black to match the rings, and it came together really nicely!!!

Matte Black Cat with a Rat Kings Tat

This week we went to the previously teased Gaslight Anthem and Counting Crows concert. It was a venue I'd never been to before, the YouTube Theater.

The YouTube Theater is in Inglewood, on the same property as our recently added NFL stadium (which I've also never been to before). I had seen a few shows near there at what used to be the Great Western Forum. The first show I ever drove myself to was there, Quiet Riot, with Whitesnake (before most people had heard of them). My friend Sean and I went together. Later we also saw Ratt there, with Bon Jovi opening, back when Bon Jovi had just come out with 7800° Fahrenheit album, so also before most people had heard of them. Much later, my wife and I, along with her brother in law and his wife saw The Scorpions there, around the time their Crazy World album was out. Anyway, the thing I recall from going there was that it seemed like you have to drive quite a ways from the freeway to get there.

But I digress. We got there and parked not too far from the entrance and made our way in. Security is better there in the sense that you don't have to empty your pockets, go through a metal detector, then get wanded down anyway for your belt buckle. I think it was a body scan instead, a guy just ahead of us got pulled out for a more thorough search. Since the place is fairly new, it's real nice, and it was easy to get in and find our seats, which were pretty good. We were on the front row of the first balcony, a bit off to the left. The younger was wondering if there would be an opening act or acts like last time, and I noticed that the setup had a Gaslight Anthem banner, and figured there wouldn't be.

The guys from The Gaslight Anthem start heading out, and Brian Fallon gets on the mic and says his daughter would like to say something. She gets on the mic, and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Gaslight Anthem!” From there they go into a song I wasn't familiar with, Have Mercy. Right after that they go into Positive Charge.

They did two cover songs in the set, and another I'd not heard before and haven't been able to positively identify. Since I'd mentioned Tom Petty in the teaser post, it was interesting that one of the covers was a Tom Petty song, Honeybee from the Full Moon Fever album. I recognized the song from the riff!!! The set list was as follows:

1. Have Mercy

2. Positive Charge

3. Handwritten

4. The Weatherman

5. Dark Places

6. Time Spent Playing By Her Side?

7. Howl

8. Honeybee (Tom Petty cover)

9. Mae

10. Here's Looking at You, Kid

11. Lovesong (The Cure cover)

12. Mulholland Drive

13. The 59 Sound

14. 45

Brian was wearing a hat for most of the show, so he wasn't especially photogenic. Once again, I wasn't able to identify who the picture on the drum was supposed to be, but I tried to get a good shot of it. She looks so familiar, I sent a picture and asked my wife, and she wasn't able to tell, either.

Also noticed that they had action figures on several of their amps!!!

Seven of the songs they did in their set they had also done at the previous show. It was cool to finally hear Howl live, and in the teaser post I'd mentioned Tom Petty, so it was cool they covered him!!!

They did the change over with the lights up, and the partition curtain behind the stage up. It goes back a ways, and they have a roll up door for a loading dock at the back, looks like a good design!!!

While we were driving there, I played Spaceman in Tulsa, and told the younger that I bet Counting Crows will play it tonight. It just seemed too perfect for them not to play it!!! They took the stage, and it was the first song they did!!!

The set list was as follows:

1. Spaceman in Tulsa

2. Hard Candy

3. Mr. Jones

4. Virginia Through the Rain

5. Omaha

6. Cover Up the Sun

7. With Love, From A to Z

8. Miami

9. Colorblind

10. God of Ocean Tides

11. Blues Run the Game

12. Round Here + Raining in Baltimore

13. Boxcars

14. A Long December

15. Rain King (intro with something with the lyric, “It would have been fine if you would have been the one”, another song I wasn't familiar with)

16. Under the Aurora

17. Hanginaround

18. Holiday in Spain

I'd never heard Colorblind live before (to be fair, not a song I'd been clamoring to hear live, anyway) but it was another I recognized from the into riff. They did a cool effect where they did a rectangle cone of light over Adam, with brighter chaser lights going around the perimeter. Also did white spots over the rest of the band.

Before he went into Cover Up the Sun, he spoke of how some songs are fables, but rooted in reality and featuring real people. He said the song features Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and his grandson Clifton Collins, Jr.

Before he went into With Love, From A to Z he told the story of how his dad had to go into the military during the Vietnam war. They'd been in Boston, and ended up moving to Texas, and traveled in their Oldsmobile Cutlass station wagon. After he mentioned the station wagon, the crowd cheered, and Adam said that the mention of the car always gets a cheer!!! Adam said he had a stack of books, and read them and watched the scenery of the Appalachian Mountains and the open plains. And how now he travels the country and sees a lot of it. I always had thought that the storytelling of Cover Up the Sun sounded like a tale of touring the country in a tour bus. The line near the end, “Let that diesel fly”, as well as the traveling descriptions from the first verse always made me think that.

They left the stage after Rain King, and I had a feeling they'd be back for an encore. Sure enough, they did!!! I was thinking that the perfect song to end the show with would have been Bobby and the Rat Kings, but I guess they didn't want to play all night!!! Upon reflection later, I noticed that they didn't play any of the 4 songs from the original Butter Miracle Suite One, all of which I've become a fan of. They did play five of the songs off the most recently released Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets, which I guess makes sense, since Suite One was a few years ago. They did play Boxcars, which has the mention of the matte black cat with a Rat Kings tat that this post title is from (and made me take a look at Kangol hats, to see if any of them appealed to me!!!). After the show, I was looking to see if anyone had posted clips from the show (there are a few), I came across the cinematic official video for Suite One, and it's pretty good!!! Also, it features the aforementioned Clifton Collins Jr.!!! Also where I got the image at the top of the post of the Rat Kings CD.

Oh yeah, I didn't have any trouble identifying the picture of the girl on the Counting Crows drum head, it's the Butter Face girl from the Butter Miracle cover artwork!!!

As we headed out, we swung by the merch booth, to see if there was anything that appealed. As we had headed out of the venue, I saw one guy with a shirt from the hook line from Spaceman in Tulsa, “I'm a Motherfucken' Rock and Roll Star”, that I thought was pretty amusing but probably something I wouldn't wear much. The Gaslight Anthem had one with the lyric from Positive Charge, “It's Good to be Alive” (which, IT IS!!!, and a great sentiment, I thought) with band images underneath that I picked up.

The younger liked the Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets tour shirt, with the dates in a circular pattern on the back. On the front of his, it has Counting Crows, and the sleeve of mine has The Gaslight Anthem. A couple more overpriced shirts to add to the collection!!!

Venn Diagram

This is coming up in a couple of weeks. Two of my favorite artists are having a concert together!!! The Counting Crows and The Gaslight Anthem!!! The two most recent shows I've seen were Brian Fallon and The Gaslight Anthem, and prior to that I've seen the Counting crows nine times, so when this show was announced (and on a night that works for me) it was an easy sell!!!

I'm putting this post together as a way to chronicle the times I've seen both groups. I had to go through some of my previous posts to get it all together.

I've previously made mention that the first time I saw the Counting Crows was in November 16th, 1995 at the Hollywood Grand with my brother in law. It was before they came out with their Recovering the Satellites album, and it was a lot of their new songs, so it wasn't stuff that the small crowd that was there was familiar with, for the most part, but it was a great show, very intimate. I'd heard that there was a bootleg of the show entitled “Launching the Satellites”, and just recently found someone had published it on YouTube!!! I converted the audio, and have it saved. It's all as one track, and I want to break it up into the individual songs. This was the set list:

1. Catapult

2. Angels of the Silence

3. Daylight Fading

4. I'm Not Sleeping

5. Miller's Angels

6. Another Horsedreamer's Blues

7. Wiseblood

8. Rain King

9. Ghost Train

10. Chelsea

11. Margery

12. Have You Seen Me Lately?

13. Suffocate

14. Goodnight Elizabeth

15. Children in Bloom

16. Round Here

17. Good Luck

I have recordings of Chelsea and Good Luck that I'm pretty sure were from this show, and possibly others (I have a lot of live recordings of their stuff).

I fell off for a while after that, and didn't even pick up the This Desert Life album, but was getting back into them when the Hard Candy album came out, and I went to see them again on December 10th 2002 at The Gibson Amphitheater, right by Universal Studios, and I was reminded of what a great live band they are!!! Toad + The Wet Sprocket opened for them. The show started with all the lights down and went right into “Have You Seen Me Lately”, and on the third singing of the line “Have you seen me lately?”, they put on all the lights on the audience, it was very theatrical!!! At some point around halfway through the set, the drummer Ben Mize had an anxiety attack or some kind of breakdown, and was unable to continue. Adam pulled out his song book and they played a couple songs as acoustic versions, then the drummer for Toad + The Wet Sprocket took over for the rest of the show. I was hooked again!!!

I think the next time I saw them was July 17th, 2003, at the Staples Center with John Mayer. This may be the worst show I've seen, the acoustics there aren't great, and there were a bunch of really annoying John Mayer fans there. I don't beleive I'd made posts about either of these shows.

The next show I saw, I'm not 100% sure of the date, but it was December 2003 at The Wiltern. The Wiltern is a place that's general admission with no seating whatsoever, which I didn't much care for, but it was a great show, especially compared to the previous one!!! The Wallflowers were the opening act, and I enjoyed them. They opened the set with Adam and one of the other Crows with an acoustic guitar off on the side playing “Blues Run the Game”, which I'd not heard before. Later on in the show was another first for me, they played “August and Everything After”, and not long after the show I found a bootleg from the same tour, possibly from the show I was at, of that song.

The next time I saw them was October 25th, 2005 at the Disney Concert Hall with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra (I've previously had that as Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, please update my flaky brain error). Awesome show!!! I took my firstborn to this show, and made a couple of posts about it. Great show, great sound (and different from the standard versions of their songs), and we had what could have been terrible seats, but Adam turned around to be able to watch the director for most of the show, and we ended up with awesome seats because of that!!!

The next show I saw was September 12th, 2008 at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater with Augustina and Maroon 5 (I'm pretty sure it was the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater at this point, but it'll always be the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater to me!!!) I think I've seen 4 or 5 other shows at this venue, and this was unique among them (besides being the last show I've seen there) for being the only one I ever had general admission tickets on the field for.

The next time I saw them was July 24th, 2009 at the Greek Theater with Augustina and Spearhead. “The Saturday Night Rebel Rockers Traveling Circus & Medicine Show”, this was, and it was a great show. One of the main recollections I have from it is when the treacherous starter on Janice went out again!!! Oh, and Spearhead had offers to download audio from the show if you signed up with them, and I still get emails from them!!!

Next up was October 1st, 2010 at the Ford Theater for the Freeloaders screening. Great weather for seeing a movie under the stars, the first time I've been to the venue, and it's a great theater, with good acoustics for a great listening experience!!! The Ford is across the freeway from the Hollywood Bowl (another venue that I haven't been to) and Tom Petty (possibly with the Heartbreakers) was playing that night. You could hear them during some of the more quiet parts, it's the closest I ever got to seeing Tom Petty.

It almost doesn't seem possible, but the most recent time I saw them was November 24, 2012 at The Wiltern, this time with Mean Creek and Tender Mercies. Good show, I enjoyed Tender Mercies more than Mean Creek, and Counting Crows did not disappoint!!! I remember between the acts they played Black Keys' “Gold on the Ceiling”, and sure enough, I looked up, and the ceiling of the Wiltern is indeed gold!!! Another thing I remember is for both shows at The Wiltern, while we were waiting to go in, a couple of girls were going down the line and trying to drum up business for a vegetarian place down the street from there.

After that, it seemed like every time they were playing locally, it was on a day that wasn't good for me, or in one particular case, they were playing at a casino with a small theater, and the tickets were quite expensive. I would have liked to have seen them more recently, but it just didn't work out.

Not like this upcoming one, it's come together about as good as I could ask for!!!

Snowball Effect

I had mentioned at the end of my water heater post that I would likely be installing a new faucet in the bathroom. I did.

After I had installed the water heater I was talking to my friend who had recently bought the house mentioned in the Halloween post from last year. It's an old house, and the plumbing hasn't been updated. He mentioned how often one repair project will snowball into having to do something else, or more than you had intended.

We had a very basic single handle faucet that I'd put in years ago, and I know I'd replaced the cartridge one time. It had corroded around the base to where it had a couple low level holes on the base, so there was really no excuse to keep it. We spent quite a while looking at different styles, and finally settled on another single handle unit with a higher spout. It's installable with a 3-hole sink, or a single hole sink. With the 3-hole, as we have, it gets an oval plate that covers the other 2 holes. It was in stock, and as a bonus, it comes with a new, pop up drain (handy, since the old one had the pull stopper style).

The faucet installation was incredibly easy, and I was thrilled with how it came out!!! The new drain, though...

First of all, the old one was a pain to get out. You have to unscrew it from the chrome flange in the sink, and naturally it didn't want to come. Ended up bending the edge of it up, and got it's number. Hard part is over, right??? Went to put the new one in, and the threaded portion goes through with not much trouble, but it wouldn't go all the way down, stopping a couple of inches short. I tried to force the issue, but it wasn't working. I saw how it was looking chewed up at the end of the threads, and noticed it looked a little larger. Pulled out my calipers, and sure enough, the shank past the threads is an even 0.100” larger!!! What the hell??? I got the box and receipt together and took it back to the store to see if anything can be done. I had a feeling all of them are going to be like that. Of course, I wasn't taking the faucet part back, it's fine. The guy who helped me was great, since the kit wasn't complete, he said I could buy another, swap the drain and then return the whole thing. Of course, I was going to just check it before I got into all that, and as suspected, they have the same thing. Looked at the stand alone drains, and all pop ups have the same design, as did the pull rod type. They had ones with a grate that had the same size all the way up, but no. I took my new old box and drain and walked right out.

I considered buying a whole new sink bowl (maybe one with a single hole!!! And ours is a little worn looking, not terrible though) but I'm already way further into this than I wanted. I headed home, pulled out my little die grinder and went to work on the drain hole. It scattered brown dust everywhere, and stank, but I eventually got it hogged out enough for the wider portion, and after a little clean up, it went together without any more hitches.

Glad to be done with that!!!

Positive Charge

It's been a long while since I had been to a concert, but I took care of that last week!!! The last time I'd been, it was Brian Fallon, the frontman for The Gaslight Anthem, who had been on hiatus for a while. Well, they got back together and put out an album at the beginning of the year, and have been touring in support of it!!!

It was at the Greek Theater in Griffith Park, probably one of the closest venues to my house. I like it, especially in the evening in the warm months. The parking, not so much for the most part. I had a few times when I've gotten tickets from my work, and they have included a parking pass, which makes it better, but otherwise they stack park you on the grass. I took the younger, it was the first concert he's been to.

I figured there would be an opening act, but I didn't look into it any. Turns out there were two!!! First up was Dirty Nil, from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, a factoid they mentioned a few times. It was a trio, and they sounded pretty good, nice rocking tunes, and they looked the part. Truth be told, both opening acts sounded better than a LOT of the stuff they play on the radio these days!!!

Second was Joyce Manor. Didn't mention, I got tickets on the side terrace, in the second row from the front, directly opposite where I was when I saw Counting Crows there. The old lady who was ushering that area said they are great seats, in her opinion better than the opposite side!!! Anyway, those seats have 4 seats in the row. We had the row to ourselves for Dirty Nil, but a couple showed up for Joyce Manor. The girl, Mary, had heard of them before and knew a lot of the songs. Mary was the kind of person you want around when you're at a concert!!! Joyce Manor sounds very punk, the singer mentioned they had gotten rid of all their CD's except The Offspring and another group in their teens (but kept a cassette of another group) but they didn't sound very Offspring, actually reminded me a bit of Rancid. One of their songs was called “Catalina Fight Song”, and you know I like Catalina!!!

Before The Gaslight Anthem came out, they brought down the lights, and started playing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” over the PA, then pulled that down and went right into “45”. When it would get to the part of the chorus where it goes “Whoah-Oh-Oh”, they brought up the lights on the audience, who would sing along and pump their fists. Good start!!!

After that they went into “Handwritten”, then “The Patient Ferris Wheel” (which, as it turns out, was the first that the boy recognized!!! Thought he knew 'em better than that!!!)

Following those, they broke out a couple from their latest album, “Little Fires” and “Weatherman”, then back to some classic stuff for the next three, then, “since we're in L.A.”, they covered the Chili Peppers' “Soul to Squeeze”, a pretty close to the album version.

I took the close up of Brian Fallon to get a picture of the bass drum head, I have no idea who that's supposed to be a picture of!!!

The complete setlist was as follows:

1. 45

2. Handwritten

3. The Patient Ferris Wheel

4. Little fires

5. Weatherman

6. Film Noir

7. Bring it On

8. Here's Looking at You, Kid

9. Soul to Squeeze (Red Hot Chili Peppers Cover)

10. Positive Charge

11. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

12. Miles Davis and the Cool

13. Keepsake

14. American Slang

15. Mulholland Drive

16. Autumn

17. Michigan 1975

18. Mae

19. Great Expectations

20. The 59 Sound 

I thought it was a great show, just about all you could hope for!!! The boy enjoyed it as well. Sure, there's always a few songs you wish they had included (for the record, both times I've seen Brian Fallon now, the cover songs he's done haven't been ones that I particularly care for!!!) but they played a lot of my highly ranked songs, and some of the good ones off the new album (could have also gone for the title track of the new album, “History Books”)!!!

An interesting post script, the time noted above where I saw Counting Crows there, I had one of Janices' famous starter issues. Nothing like that while we were there this time, but the very next evening Kutcher had a no start issue, like the battery was almost completely dead. Put it on the boost function of a large charger, and nothing. Ran said large charger for about 15 minutes, and boosted it again, and still nothing. Called for roadside assistance, and the guy came out with a portable booster, and that fired it right up... but it died the moment he took it off. Boosted it again, and it fired right up, and as long as I had it revved up some, it worked, but as soon as I let off, it died again. The guy concurred that it sounded like the battery had a sudden failure, likely a dead cell. I've still got most of a year of warranty on it, but this was also right at the time that all the AutoZones are closing for the night. I let it go, and the next afternoon after work (this was the last week of our once-a-month in office for 3 days, starting is September it'll be every week in office for 3 days... I wasn't going to be out late, then have to get up at 4 AM to go in, so I took that day off, leaving only 1 day I had to go in for the win!!!) I yanked the battery out and took it to the AutoZone. The guy checks it, and it shows 100% charged and good battery. Huh, maybe it had something to do with that crusty looking positive terminal, which didn't want to even come undone when it was on the battery, and looked like it was developing a crack near the bolt when I got it twisted off!!! Bought a couple new terminals, wire brushed the heck out of the contacts and wires, and all was good!!!

I need a spark, I need a positive charge indeed!!!

Kutcher Swallows a Water Heater

Welcome to the season of blogging very much!!!

On Monday afternoon my wife was doing the dishes, and she says, “Why isn't the water warming up??” Huh. I've heard this kind of thing before...

Down to the basement I go, and sure enough, it's wet on the floor around the water heater. Not a lot, I've seen worse, but bad enough to put out the pilot light. I tried re firing it, and it came on for a moment, but wouldn't stay going. Back upstairs, I dig through my warranty file, thinking it was a while ago, but not that long. Thought I had a 10 year warranty, but that was wishful thinking, it was only 6. Now, when did I buy it??? Here's where there's a practical application for blogging!!!

When I first did the math in my head, I'd thought it was just about 7 months out of warranty, but it's actually 2 years and 7 months. Shopped around that night and ordered the same brand, but with a 12 year warranty. Not making that mistake again!!! Or rather, I'm paying the extra $300 to get one with twice the warranty. I'd also broke loose the water inlet and outlet pipes, and ran a hose out to the street and started it draining.

I don't think I've made mention recently, but I'm back on the weekend shift for a little more than a year now. When I'd started doing this shift, it was 4 hours on Saturdays, and Tuesday through Friday for 9 hours a day. Once again, they bump your pay some for doing the weekend shift, but in my current role, it's a good amount more than when I was filling. Found out after I'd started, when the company has a paid holiday and it falls on a day you have as your day off... they give you your day off. No extra, no you get to take a different day off. I voiced my view on it and was told, “Oh, it all evens out!” SO, for Memorial Day, Labor Day, and both Christmas and New Years I got boned. When the time came around this year, I had a couple of requests. First, can I get a different day off, either Tuesday or Wednesday, and is it possible to start my Saturday shift later. I had been starting on Saturday afternoons at 3:00, and it put a time crimp in the afternoons sometimes, I asked to start later, up to 6:00 PM, and they came through with starting at 5:00, and so far (2 weekends thus far) I've liked it fine. And, long story short, now I have Tuesdays off!!!

The younger and I got in the wife's Matrix and headed over to pick up the new water heater. Took a bunch of rope, being unsure how it would fit. Slid the front seats all the way forward, and it slid right in , and the hatch closed without issue!!! If Scruffy can do it, then so can the Kutch!!! (None of us ever call it Kutcher, it's always the Toyota or the Matrix) Will It Fit: Matrix Edition part II!!! Driving back was a challenge, though, I was so far forward I couldn't really move my right foot over to the brake, so I was 2-footing it!!!

The younger and I were able to move it around fairly easily, the hardest part was the 4 steps from the street to the foot of the house. The box had instructions to cut along a dotted line around an inch up from the bottom, so that's what I did, and from there was able to roll it on the edge of the base pretty easy. The removal of the old one was easier this time, too, it seemed to have drained most every drop by having the hose attached to the drain all night. None of the fittings fought me, and about the hardest thing was locating a roll of Teflon pipe sealing tape!!! I know I had more that I'd bought from my work, but I found a roll that may have come with our house, so over 25 years old, but it worked just fine!!!

When I had gotten up on Tuesday (actually before I got out of bed) I had the thought that I should take the aerators off the kitchen and bathroom sinks, since having the water off gets a bunch of air in the lines, and it seems to knock a lot of crud loose when it comes back on. Didn't do it, and the bathroom one ended up nearly plugged. It didn't come off easy, but I flowed good once I got it off and cleaned out... but it kind of ovaled from the removal, and it seems like it's leaking down the inside now. Might be able to get it fixed up, but I'll probably be installing a new faucet soon.

Big Mac Birthday

McDonald's has recently been engaging in some revisionist history. For years, Grimace has been something of an oddball background character. I've heard he's supposed to be a giant, anthropomorphic taste bud, and when he was introduced, he was somewhat analogous to the Hamburglar, where he'd steal people's shakes.

This year, for whatever reason, McDonald's has come up with the story that Grimace is huge on birthdays, and June 12th was declared his birthday. In celebration, they came up with Grimace Birthday Meals, featuring either a Big Mac or 10 nuggs, medium fries, and the special signature item, the Grimace Birthday Shake.

Don't know if I've made mention here, but a couple years back they built a Wingstop not far from our home. On Mondays and Tuesdays, they started off with $.50 wing night, sold in either 10 or 15 packs, with 2 flavor choices. We like their flavors, and it's a pretty good deal, so we've made Tuesday Wing Night. The price has gone up, first to $.60, then to it's current $.70, but it's still a pretty good deal. A couple weeks ago, I was out, first to the store for a couple items, then to Wingstop to pick up our order. In the same lot as the store, there's a McDonald's, so, being curious about the Grimace Birthday Shake, I stopped in to pick up some for the family to try. Got there, and there's a guy waiting at the counter, but no one helping him. I step up to kiosk to try and order one there, but it's either not there, or it's impossible to find, so I get in line, now grown to two, and now with a worker. As I'm waiting, the guy at the head of the line attempts to order a shake, and it met with the classic McDonald's reply, “Our ice cream machine isn't working”. Made my wait shorther.

The next weekend, we decide to again head to McDonald's for a second attempt. McDonald's is one of those where we rarely go there. I like the sausage biscuit with egg, but almost never make it out for any breakfast, and my son is a fan of the Shamrock Shake, so that's the one thing we end up going there for a couple time a year for. There's one it the area we're in that we've never been to, so we head there. We're able to order the whole Grimace Birthday Meal from the kiosk. The place it pretty nice, and for a change, it has restrooms where you don't need a key or code to use it!!! The workers bring out our chow, and they're friendly and on the ball with ketchup for the fry dippin'. Big Mac is a classic, and I ordered mine with the right extras.

The shake is... interesting. You can tell it's based on the vanilla shake, but with some berry flavoring. I'd read a review where they likened it to a cereal flavoring, along the lines of crunch berry or Fruity Pebbles.

Around the time I was almost done with the Big Mac, the worker came out again. Apparently, they'd made up a second Big Mac to my specifications, and since they couldn't give it to an unsuspecting customer, they gave it to me!!! Bonus Big Mac!!!