What's a Delmer Look Like?

It was probably something I did.

But I hadn't done anything! I'd unplugged something and then plugged it back in! Of course, I hadn't disconnected the battery — maybe I blew a fuse or did to a relay whatever it is you do to a relay that causes it to quit working.

And, I had pulled a couple of relays out of the fuse panel when I was working on the van. Just because.

Anyway, I checked all the fuses under the dash and under the hood. I removed the relays I'd removed before and made sure they were reseated. I checked the numbers on the relays, to make sure they had the same part number, and swapped their slots.

Later that day I checked the fuses under the dash again.

The next day I checked all the fuses once more. And moved the relays again.

Today, after work, I turned on my emergency flashers (I knew they were still working). I figured it had to be a bad flasher relay and I assumed the emergency flashers and the turn signals used different relays. I thought maybe I'd swap one for the other.

With the emergency flashers on I laid a finger on one of the relays I'd played with. It was vibrating as the flashers flashed. So was the other relay. And, naturally, the whole fuse panel, inasmuch everything was connected. I noticed that as my finger went from the relays and up the panel, more toward the top, the vibrating seemed to get stronger. I stuck my head up under the dash and found another relay … a larger relay (and I had thought the two relays I'd been working with were kind of small, but the last time I'd goofed around with a flasher relay was like 1979) … a manly relay … a relay that was kind of hanging loose from the panel almost as if it had been bumped when I had my hands under the dash tracing a wiring harness.

I pushed it back in.

My air bag deployed.

Wouldn't that have been an awesome ending to the story? What really happened is that my turn signals started working.

I'm so excited. You can bet I'll be taking the long way to work tomorrow!

Posted by delmer at 8:48 PM | Comments (3)

April 20, 2007

The Wallet

My cousin now lives in the house I grew up in. When I visit I toss my keys on his fridge out of habit, just like I did all the years I lived there. Growing up, I always knew where my keys would be; when I visit my cousin I always know where they'll be.

Any other time, my keys are mostly lost.

Each morning I spend a couple of minutes looking for them and no matter how many mornings I do this I never learn. I really need to put them in the same place each evening.

You may recall from yesterday that I lost my phone.

Honest to God, if my kids lost things as much as I do I'd have to beat them to within an inch of their life. Assuming I could find a club.

This morning I couldn't find my wallet. I remembered having it yesterday at dinner but after that I had no memory of having it.

I looked all over the kitchen, upstairs (where it had no business being at all), in the living room, in the van … basically all the places I'd failed to find the phone yesterday; my reasoning was that as the wallet would know I'd searched those places yesterday it was likely to think I wouldn't go there today and would, thus, pick one of those spots to hide.

The pants the wallet had been in had been washed so I cleverly checked the washing machine. It was not there.

It wasn't in the van the second time I looked nor by the box of oats which remain on the kitchen counter.

Finally, the boys and I had to leave for school. On Fridays we always go to McDonald's and Haydn was kind enough to front me the money for today's excursion.

After I dropped the boys off I returned home to pick up The Mighty Schwinn (it's beautiful out today so I'm pedaling to work).

I checked the kitchen again and then gave the washing machine again.

I don't know where the wallet had been before but while I'd been running the kids to school it had moved itself to the washing machine. It must have figured that since I'd checked there I wouldn't look again. My dad used to use this Hide-&-Seek technique when my brother and I were little.

To further throw me off the wallet had thoroughly soaked itself.

It now sits drying on the stool that sits next to me. (Which I mention simply to have a written record of where it was I last saw it.)

Posted by delmer at 11:14 AM | Comments (2)

April 19, 2007

The Phone

I misplaced my cell phone yesterday. I remember taking it off the charger and clipping it to my pants and after that my phone memories sort of fell into the fog that normally holds things like brushing my teeth and tying my shoes; I know I've done both, I just don't remember either.

I eventually found myself sitting at a PC in the manufacturing area and wondering about my phone. I went to my office, looked for it, and when I couldn't find it I assumed I'd left it home next to the box of oats I'd meant to bring in. Just to be safe, I called the phone and listened for it to ring even though I know this is not a foolproof method of phone-finding in my case — the phone has a button on the outside that will put the phone in vibrate mode without too much contact and vibrate mode is so weak I don't even notice it when it's in my pocket (a new phone has been ordered). So, if the phone were in vibrate mode I may not be able to find it.

I didn't find the phone in the office so I went to the van and had a look. It didn't turn up there either.

And I couldn't find it at home.

I tried calling the phone and walking around the house. I called the phone again and looked in the van once more.

I took Haydn to track at 5 p.m. and on the way home drove by work as the phone just had to be there. It wasn't, even though I looked harder than I had any of the times before. I checked my desk, the servers rack and the work table going so far as to move a keyboard I knew the phone could not possibly be under.

Back home I dug around some more. At six I took Jack to baseball practice and swung by work again as I was certain the phone was in the pocket of my anti-static lab coat; it wasn't.

It wasn't in the van again and, once again, it wasn't on the kitchen table or by the box of oats.

I called Cingular to suspend the account. Suspending an account isn't as easy as it sounds. Since I lacked the account number I had to come up with three numbers that I'd either called or that had called me. In the old days — the days before I'd choose a name from a list and have a phone auto-dial — this wouldn't have been a problem; in the new days it is. I didn't know many of the numbers of the people who I may have called or who may have called me.

Still, I was sure I'd called my old cell number at least once to use the caller ID on that phone to determine the phone number of the new phone. Apparently, I hadn't. However, when I gave that number I could tell by the sound the Cingular gal made that I was close … so, I'd probably called The Wife At The Time (her number is one off mine) and I gave that number. Bingo.

I'd also called work and a woman friend.

And the account was suspended.

That night I noticed the phone was not in my bed. Just in case is snuck upstairs overnight, I checked again this morning when I made the bed. I also checked near the box of oats, the kitchen table, the van and at McDonald's.

I checked the lab coat again, the workstation in the manufacturing area, the reception desk (just in case someone turned it in), on the toilet tank in the men's room, the hook on the back of the stall door, the servers rack and the work table, once again moving the keyboard that the phone couldn't possibly be under.

About 11 a.m. a coworker came in and sat in the chair behind me, just beyond the work table. As we talked my eye fell to the floor, and to my phone. I had to have almost stepped on it each time I picked up the keyboard on the work table.

And, yes, it had somehow gone into vibrate mode.

Posted by delmer at 8:49 PM | Comments (1)

April 18, 2007

The Chiller

Last Saturday rolled in sort of cold and dreary, which was fine as the boys had a bunch of homework to do and the dreariness allowed us to knock a lot of it out.

As you know, though, the fun has to end sometime and at a point we were left with nothing homework-wise to do. Sammo thought we should go ice skating.

Sam has his own skates, but in the interest of saving time we thought we'd rent as those skates were at his mother's.

Off to The Chiller we shot.

Neither Jack nor Haydn wanted to go so Sam asked if I'd skate with him and I said I'd give it a go. And, really, skating with him was never going to be an option — he can ice skate, I can't; we may have been on the ice together at the same time but it wasn't like we were going to be sling-shotting each other around the rink (can you imagine how fast I'd be able to sling him if I could get anchored and not fall on my ass when I gave him the heave). The Iron Lotus was certainly out of the question.

We paid our rink admission — it seems like it was $12 for the both of us — and we rented skates. Sammo got hockey skates, because they look cooler I think, and I got figure skating skates because I wanted something that would let me go into a tight spin on my toes.

Then we got to the tricky part: locker rental.

The Chiller has, as do many places like this, lockers for rent. When Sam was taking lessons there a few months back I rented a locker each time we were there and I never had a problem. This time I was not so lucky.

I put my money in, loaded the locker, shut the door and tried to turn the key. It wouldn't budge. I didn't feel like complaining about it and moved to another locker. The same thing happened. It happened a third time at a different locker and that's when I finally went to the counter for help.

I am fully aware that any problem I may be encountering might be a result of something stupid I'm doing, but a locker is a pretty simple thing. Despite their simplicity I'd even read the instructions. Despite the fact I'd used them many times before I read the instructions again.

Still, when I approached the counter I said to the counter gal, "It may be that I'm just too stupid to use the lockers, but I'm having trouble with them. Could you give me a hand."

The counter gal came over and gave the key a hard turn and did some door banging, as I'd done (so my trouble-shooting methods were in line with the accepted practice).

She said, "I'll go ahead and refund your money. It was three lockers? Right?"

"Yes."

"So, a dollar and a half?"

"Wait," I said. "Are lockers fifty cents apiece. I think I've figured out the problem."

Yep. I was living in the past. And not the past of two months ago when I was at The Chiller successfully renting these same lockers. I was several years (maybe decades) in the past when I was a CIA operative leaving packages in lockers at Greyhound Bus Terminals … back when lockers were a quarter.

Anyway, with our shoes and other valuables safely locked up Sam and I hit the ice. He started skating circles around the rink and I skated to a safe place that I thought would be out of the way and stood there. In a few minutes — and I mean less than 10 — Sam would complain that the skates felt funny on his feet and we would leave.

While we didn't have time to get his skates from his mother's and make it back to The Chiller to skate that afternoon, we did have time to get the skates and make it back for the evening skate and pay another ice fee. Sammo didn't make me skate this time.

And I was able to rent a locker without assistance or embarrassment.

Posted by delmer at 7:38 AM | Comments (2)

December 26, 2006

The Missing Coat

I recently purchased two light coats. I more recently lost one.

I remember knowing the coat was gone and not being terribly worried about it as I knew it was in the minivan. And I wasn't terribly worried about the fact I didn't see it whenever I climbed into the van since I'd sort of cleaned it and thrown things around a bit.

Even after I informally searched the van a couple of times and couldn't find the coat I didn't get worried. But I did start checking other places I could have left it. Which is really a simple process; I don't go all that many places.

I checked all the closets at home and the downstairs coat closet more than once.

I checked the lost & found at Mel's Diner.

I checked the storage area next to my office.

I called the woman I'm doing computer work for and asked if it might be there.

I checked the closet of woman I used to be married to. I couldn't imagine it would be there, but I was running out of places.

I drove my McDonald's yesterday morning with the intention of looking in their McLost & McFound. I knew it wouldn't be there but, again, I was running out of places. McDonald's was closed for the holiday.

After yesterday's Christmas-gift-opening festival I drove by the local car wash and gave the minivan a good going over. No coat.

Later in the day Samson and I ran and errand. I had to go to work to pick up something. While there I checked the cafeteria and the adjoining coat area. No luck.

I checked the front closet at work, for the third time.

I checked the area the servers are kept in. The coat shouldn't be there, and it wasn't.

I grabbed the glasses I went in for off my desk and while leaving the office decided to move the gym trunks that were hanging off the exterior door knob to the interior side of the door ... you know, that way I could start the new year not having to look at gym trunks as I approached my office.

I had a bit of trouble getting the trunks on the interior door knob ... until I took the coat off it.

Posted by delmer at 12:01 AM | Comments (1)

September 4, 2006

On the Road to OSU: Act III

Posted by delmer at 12:05 AM | Comments (2)

August 21, 2006

On the road to OSU

It was 1982.

A group of us decided to make the trip from Miami University to The Ohio State University to visit some friends. We thought we'd make the trip in The Bruise, my black and blue VW, which was an odd choice as not too long before it had suffered from a fire in the engine compartment.

(You can read a lot more about The Bruise here. It's worth the time.)

The group was comprised of Tom, Dick, Cindy and me.

We left early in the afternoon; the four of us and about a dozen beers. Tom decided he'd drive as I'd already had a few early-afternoon Miller Lites.

We hit the road with Jenny (867-5309) blasting.

Traffic was light on I-70 and we were making pretty good time, until ... the car started sputtering, which always signaled an inevitable stop.

We pulled to the side of the road, I got out and threw open the hood at the rear of the car. I probably took a look around the engine compartment -- it was SOP -- and then I got in the driver's seat to try to get the thing running.

As I sat there a State Highway Patrolman appeared outside the door. This is always a good sign

"You were driving pretty erratically back there. Is something wrong?" he asked.

"It wasn't me driving sir," I replied.

"It was you. I saw you," he stated, still friendly.

Well. It wasn't me driving -- but I wasn't the one wearing the badge. And, as to the erratic driving, I don't know what that was about. I'm pretty sure we were singing at the top of our lungs and just carrying on.

"Officer, I wasn't driving," I said, "I've had a little too much beer."

"I was driving sir," Tom piped up.

The officer asked why we'd stopped and I explained about the engine problems the The Bruise had.

The officer stepped to the front of The Bruise. "Where's the front plate?" he asked.

"At home in a closet," I said. And it was, I'd seen it just the weekend before.

"There's a reason they give you two plates," he continued.

"Yes sir. I know."

"I'm going to do a safety check."

This was going to be good.

Really. If you haven't, you need to read up on The Bruise before you continue to the next installment. You need to have a feel for what a sweet ride this car was to fully appreciate the stupidity of taking it outside of its home zip code.

Posted by delmer at 7:09 AM | Comments (2)

July 3, 2006

Coincidences

I've read several books recently in which one of the characters will say "There's no such thing as coincidences," or something similar.

Sunday I was looking at the flower bed behind the house. There is a phone cable that comes off a pole in the garden, lays across the ground, goes under the fence and disappears under the sod. There are also a couple other lines that come up from the ground that are cut off a couple feet above the flower bed and tucked behind the pole between it and the fence. It looks like a tangle of junk.

I told dad that I was going to bury the wire that was laying on top of the flower bed -- this wire was exposed for about 20 feet. Dad told me he'd looked at the wire and that it didn't appear to go anywhere and that he couldn't imagine the phone company would run a line like that.

The box the wire was terminated to was about chest high on the pole so I opened it. On the interior of the lid was written, "You're welcome."

Dad told a story about being younger and being in a house in which the residents were borrowing phone service from the neighbors. We thought the "you're welcome" might be an indication of that type of borrowing.

Rather than cut the wire I decided to detach a couple of connections from the box. No use in creating a really big problem. I thought I'd call the phone company and have them take a look at things so I could get the mess of wires straightened out.

Coincidentally I saw a phone guy walking down the alley this morning. I flagged him down -- which, as it happens, was really unnecessary as he was on his way to my backyard.

The phone guy said my neighbor's phone service was dead. I told him I was pretty sure I knew what happened.

When I disconnected the long cable that was strung across my flower bed I'd also disconnected the neighbor's phone.

The good news is that the phone guy determined that three of the four cables back by that pole or laying across my flowers were unneeded. Two of the three he had a ready explanation for. The long, exposed one, fell into the mystery cable category.

The phone guy had the neighbor's service reconnected in just a few minutes.

Posted by delmer at 10:09 AM | Comments (1)

June 6, 2006

I am still not the smartest man you will ever meet

(This is a continuation of an entry that has yesterday's date ... both entries were thrown together one after the other. The first was finished as I started a hot cup of protein drink ... the second, this one, was started as I finished the hot cup of protein drink. You probably should read yesterday's entry first)

I arrived at work around 6:04 a.m. Full of spunk. A song in my heart. A spring in my step. I'd round this all out with a hard drive in my hand and a screwdriver in my pocket and then head to the AP Clerk's computer.

My plan was to replace her older, slower hard drive with something newer that had a faster transfer rate. Setup would take about 10 minutes and then I'd be able to address the CEO's ODBC problem while files transfered from the old drive to the new drive.

I removed the case, disconnected the CD-ROM drive and plugged the new drive into that IDE connector. I booted and received a CD Drive not found error. No shit! I'd disconnected it. I'd done this a thousand times before and never run into this error message. Maybe I'd missed something. I rebooted and got the same message. The Press F1 to Continue was useless as pressing F1 did nothing aside from burn .00001 calories.

I eventually reinstalled the CD-ROM drive and set the new hard drive as a slave on the primary controller.

I rebooted and got to the message advising me that system settings had changed did I want to (S)ave, or (I)gnore them. This message is provided by our antivirus package -- since I knew why the settings had changed I opted to save them. I pressed S.

There was no keyboard response.

Ah yea. This happens more than you would think. And yet, not all the time despite the fact that 90% of the motherboards in the building are the same. At some point during the boot process the keyboard becomes disabled. I'll have keyboard capability at the point I need to hit DEL to enter the BIOS and then when Windows is running. At the point I need to answer the system settings query, however, the keyboard is nonresponsive.

This can be fixed by tweaking the BIOS. In the past I've tried shutting things off one or two at a time only to eventually give up and just disable a whole boatload of BIOS crap. Today I thought I'd be a little more scientific and make notes of my progress so in the future I could go to exactly what I needed. For more than an hour I tweaked the BIOS and rebooted. Nothing worked.

Finally I thought maybe I had a hardware problem of some kind and decided to swap out video cards. I replaced the PCI card with an AGP card and hit the power button. The sound the PC emitted suggested that something bad had happened. The smell that presented itself a fraction of a second later backed this up to a degree. The lack of any type of lights flashing or fans spinning was the icing on the cake.

I started unplugging things -- it was time to head back to my office with this box. And this is when I noticed something ... the part of the process that points to my profound stupidity ... as I unplugged the keyboard I noticed the USB end.

The non-responsive-keyboard problem had never been corrected when the keyboard in question is a USB keyboard. I knew this. I also knew this PC had a PS2 connection as it also had an extension due to the distance between the CPU and keyboard. I'd set it up a good long while ago.

Unfortunately, about a month ago I'd replaced that keyboard with a USB keyboard. It would seem my long-term memory has it all over my short-term memory.

The item that had fried was the power supply. It may have been coincidence that it cooked after I plugged the AGP card in. During a couple of the reboots I'd noticed the fans spinning a couple of revolutions only to stop. Each time as I'd formed the do I have a short somewhere question in my mind the PC would crank up. It seemed odd, but not odd enough.

I guess it was odd-aplenty.

Everything is working now. All is well.

Posted by delmer at 10:47 AM | Comments (1)

May 23, 2006

Meditating on a Lost Wallet

As you may recall, I've recently misplaced my keys.

About 18 years ago I misplaced my wallet. It was one of those situations in which I walked into my apartment and within ten minutes realized it was gone. At the time, I gave the living room a quick look and, when I didn't find it, decided it must be in the car. I wasn't real worried; I'd be in the car again soon enough.

To sort of speed things up, it wasn't in the car and it didn't appear to be in the apartment.

I told a coworker about it and she said she'd meditate on it to help me try to find it. This woman had never been to my home and I'm not sure she had a clear idea of where I lived past north of campus.

The next day she came into work and said she'd done the meditating. I asked if anything had presented itself to her and she said:

"At first I had the feeling that it was near a blue couch with birds on it. And then I got the feeling it was near a brown couch with dark brown squares on it. Do you have a brown couch with darker brown squares on it?"

As it happens, we did have a brown couch with darker brown squares on it. It sat right next to our blue couch that had birds on it.

I know what you're thinking: You boys really needed an interior decorator. What can I say -- we tried to pick furnishing that didn't clash with the weights and bench we had in the dining room. And free was important; both of the couches had been given to us.

But really -- the whole thing was pretty amazing. If someone asked you to describe 25 different couches you would never come up with a blue one with birds on it -- this couch had not been bought this way, it had been reupholstered with this fabric. And the brown one with brown squares was so late 60's. And to have them in the same room, next to each other. This certainly had a mystic feel to it.

The wallet -- well, it wasn't in either couch. I imagine I dropped it on the way into the apartment and a street thug picked it up.

I did learn a lesson from this experience: If you had something important ten minutes ago and you can't find it now, get off your ass and start looking for it. The more time that passes the more likely you're not to not find it.

Which brings us to my keys.

They came up missing last Wednesday night. I had them, I unlocked the front door with them, I made two trips to the van after that that may or may not have required keys. They came up missing Thursday morning. I was pretty sure they turn up over the weekend as I cleaned and bounced around the house.

They didn't.

Finally, yesterday I had to do some serious looking. I'm expecting an important piece of mail and, for whatever reason, the sender (a government body ... The Man to you hippie-types) has trouble sending mail to my house and keeps sending stuff to my PO Box. I needed the PO Box key; the Post Office (another government body) will not open your box for you simply because you've left your key at home (I don't blame them -- I don't think this is part of a larger conspiracy.)

I pulled the cushions off the couch (one with a southwestern thing going for it ... no birds), looked in cabinets, pulled open drawers, checked things I'd recently worn, moved chairs, etc.

I didn't check the kitchen table because I'd already checked it several times. I'd checked it so many times -- when there was so very little on it (an empty bowl and a bag of apples) that I'd since used it as a staging area for things that needed a home: my GPS, my MP3 Player, dress shoes, several books, kitchen utensils I can never identify -- things like that.

About 7 p.m. I decided I'd go for a bike ride. My sunglasses were on the table and as I reached for them I noticed dad's keys peeking out from beneath the bag of apples. I didn't want them to get 'lost' and picked them up. Naturally, they were my keys.

They'd been on the table the whole time -- during a time when the table had on it only an empty bowl and the bag of apples. Well, and my keys. I had scootched the bag of apples around when I was looking for the keys. I had eaten at least three apples out of this bag since the Thursday the keys came up missing. I had never noticed the keys.

The apples are supposed to be in the bowl.

There's a lesson here, somewhere.

Posted by delmer at 8:21 AM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2006

Press Here

There is a Donatos Pizza just a short walk from where I live. I eat there often enough to know how things work there. I know they'll ask my name when I order and I always have it ready. I know to specify "green olives instead of green peppers" when I order my Chicken Vegy Medly and, more importantly, know to listen to the order taker repeat it back to me so I know it took.

I know how the self-serve fountain-drink machine works.

For the longest time I'd eat there once a week. I always got the same thing. I never had a problem.

And then, one day, all of a sudden I had a problem with the drink machine.

The drink machine at Donatos serves Coke products. You put your cup under a nozzle and press a button just below the word Coke, Diet Coke, Orange etc. You get the picture. The important thing to know is that you don't push a lever back to get the pop flowing.

And, of course, the other important thing to know is that I'd successfully dispensed gallons and gallons of pop out of this thing. Until that fateful day.

I put my cup under the nozzle and pressed the icon for a large Diet Coke -- our machine has several icons ranging from small to super large -- you've seen the folks at McDonald's push one of these icons and then boldly turn their back on the fountain machine as the unit magically dispensed the appropriate amount of pop.

At this particular time I had an awareness that I'd never seen the series of icons before. However, like I said, I had poured a lot of pop out of this thing over time and I was pretty sure I'd just never noticed and it was something I did automatically. As a matter of fact, the only reason I noticed this time is because the button wasn't working very well. A spurt of pop would come out and then it would stop -- and this was with my finger constantly on the button.

I tried all the icons with the same result.

Eventually, using this method I was able to get a full pop.

A week passed and I was back at Donatos.

As I filled my pop I had the same problem ... briefly. Below the row of icons -- the row that would auto-dispense -- was a much larger "Press Here" button. That would have been the button I'd pressed the dozens of other times I'd eaten there. The button I would have pressed without ever thinking about the motion involved. The button that always worked. The button I think the folks as Micky D's press to top off your soda.

More time passed. Much more that a week. So much, in fact, that we're all the way up to yesterday.

I went to Donatos and found the place full -- I mean packed -- with soccer kids, soccer moms, soccer dads, some blokes from Manchester United and some old people that seem to have gotten lost on the way to MCL Cafeteria and decided to make the best of it.

I was third or fourth in line and there were people behind me. (Normally I stroll right up to the counter.)

Behind me a mother and daughter were talking. The daughter had noticed the pop machine -- we were standing right next to it -- and wondered about the icons with the different cup sizes. The mother explained that she thought they were auto-fill buttons, how they worked, and said she thought they had them only in places where the employees poured the drinks.

Always helpful, I said something like, "The auto-fill buttons don't work."

"They don't?"

"No," I said, and to demonstrate my point I reached over the pressed what would be the super-size button under the Coke label. I expected a splat of pop to come out.

Naturally, a super-size amount of Coke started pouring out of the machine and down the drain. There was no way to stop it.

"You have to keep in mind," I said to the woman, "that I am a man. How much can I possibly know? As a matter of fact it wasn't until I heard someone say 'a large with pepperoni and mushroom' that I realized I wasn't in Burger King."

FWIW, the icons for Diet Coke still do not auto-dispense.

To make things worse ... I forgot to specify green olives when I ordered my Veggie Chicken Medly.

Posted by delmer at 10:12 AM | Comments (2)

April 12, 2006

On the Road to Springboro

As we continue with The Thugs Take a Road Trip ... Tom, Dick, Sherry and I loaded into The Bruise and shot off for Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. We may or may not have had an uneventful drive on the way down. It's hard to remember as the trip to EKU and the time we spent there was sort of overshadowed by the trip home. So let's fast forward to that.

Kentucky, as you can see is a very green state criss-crossed with just a few highways, byways, and cart paths. We would spend most of our trip to Springboro (remember, we had to drop off Sherry so she could do her laundry) on I-75. And a lot of that time on the shoulder.

As I mentioned in yesterday's entry The Bruise had a fuel-delivery problem; at least that's what I think now; back in '82 I wasn't sure what it was.  The symptom was that the car would sometimes just quit running -- it would start chugging and slowing down until it eventually died.  Days or weeks might pass between these episodes but the fix was always the same -- I'd wait it out.

As we drove home from EKU the problem reared it's ugly head as it never had before. We had to keep the car floored to keep it running at all.  We would pretty much rip up the highway at 80 mph (back when 55 was the speed limit) until the car quit running.  Waiting it out really wasn't an option on this trip, so we'd pull off a fuel line, partially fill 12-ounce bottle we had with us, and then dump the gasoline right into thecarburetorr.

Then we'd be back on the road doing 80. Working in this manner we were passing everybody on I-75. Up until the car quit running, then they'd pass us. But we'd eventually pass them again.

There we were, roaring along. Al, uh, Dick was in the passenger seat while Jeff, uh, Tom, and Sherry were in the back. 

A little bit of smoke came out of the heater vents. This was surprising -- if you know anything about Beetles you know that having anything  remotely resembling something hot coming out of the heater vents is uncommon.

"We're on fire!" screamed Dick.

"No we're not," I replied calmly.

"Pull over!"  As Dick finished that statement, well exclamation according to the punctuation I've used, the gas pedal gave up any pretense of having any spring to it and dropped flat to the floor. It would soon be revealed that the spring mechanism on thecarburetorr had sort of melted.

I didn't really pull over so much as limp over but, in any case, I made the berm.

She's gonna blow  is not only an excellent title for a porno movie but is often the thing people yell in moments of panic ... when they think something might blow up. Would you care to guess who might of said that?  Did you say Dick or even Al?  His response to this whole thing still puzzles me. Dick/Al was never one to panic.

"She's gonna blow!" screamed Al as he threw open his door and headed up a bank.

Sherry, Tom/Jeff and I exited the car a bit more sedately, though with some haste..

She's gonna blow  played over and over in my mind as Sherry and I slowly backed away from The Bruise. Was she gonna blow? Did Al know what he was talking about? He'd watched the Dukes of Hazard on a regular basis ... things were blowing up all the time there. 

As Sherry and I were retreating Dick made his way to the back of The Bruise and put up the trunk.  He beat out the flames with a shirt ending our little drama.

We regrouped. Tom and Dick said they were going to start walking to the next exit while Sherry and I retrieved her laundry.  The boys weren't too terribly far ahead of us before we had Sherry's laundry bag in hand.

Before we started walking Sherry looked over at me and said, "I think we could hitchhike."

Posted by delmer at 4:25 PM | Comments (2)

February 22, 2006

More Stupid Smart People

Maybe helpless smart people would be more correct.

And this might be a story that is only funny if you know the people involved. They are: Joe (from two days ago), Rick, and Kevin.

All three guys are very intelligent. All three graduated college Summa Cum Laude -- and they all went to name-brand colleges ... nothing from the back of a matchbook. And they were athletes in high school -- it isn't like they are your typical, uncoordinated, nerds.

The boys were all groomsmen in a wedding. I can't for the life of me remember whose it was, though I don't think I was there.

Just before the wedding started Joe, Rick and Kevin were put in charge of unrolling the carpet that the bride would float over as she came down the aisle.

The three boys had the carpet in the front of the church and proceeded to struggle with just how to get it to unroll. They struggled with it enough that Dave, another friend, commented, "We've got a f*ckin' Mensa meeting up there and they're too stupid to figure out how to unroll a carpet."

Posted by delmer at 8:21 AM | Comments (1)

February 20, 2006

Getting Gassed

My friend Joe recently made a mistake. He told me he's stopped by the blog and read some of the Not So Smart Stuff items -- stupid things that I'd done -- which reminded him of a couple more stupid things. I'll share one of them with you. This one about Joe.

Before I go any further let me say that Joe is one of the smartest guys I know. He graduated Summa Cum Laude and is so smart he probably knows how to spell Summa Cum Laude without having to look it up. It may have been Magna Cum Laude ... it's whichever one is smartest. Joe probably knows that too. (And now we all know. And for the record, even though I was unsure of the spelling I nailed it.)

As with all great things, this happened about 20 years ago. Joe and I were tooling around in his fawn brown Datsun (orange to you and me) and decided we should stop and get some gas.

Joe pulled up to the island so that the driver-side door was nearest the pumps. I got out and walked around to the back of the car to do the pumping and found the filler door to be on the passenger side of the car. The hose wasn't going to be long enough to reach across the car.

Joe rolled down the window, looked up at me, and asked if the gas cap was on the driver's side or passenger's side. I told him the passenger side and he said he'd "pull around."

As he pulled forward I remember thinking, he's not going to do what I think he's going to do.

Of course he did, or there'd be no story.

Joe pulled forward and swung around in a 1/2-circle left turn. As he pulled up to the pump I stepped from the right side of the island to the left side so that as he came to a stop he was parked right next to me with his window down, looking up at me, and the pumps on the driver side of the car.

He realized right away what he'd done which didn't keep me from busting his chops about it.

He backed up past the pumps, eased left and pulled forward so the pumps were on the passenger side of the car. I moved back to the right side of the island and was successfully able to refuel the vehicle.

I'm guessing we also bought some beer while we were at the station. Probably without making any boneheaded mistakes.

Posted by delmer at 10:47 AM | Comments (3)

November 29, 2005

Delmer and the Beer Bong

If you haven't done so already, please read this disclaimer. Especially before writing me and telling me what a moron I was when I was younger. I know it.

Way way back in the early 1980s some friends and I went to the Dixie Electric Company in Hamilton, Ohio. Disco was dying, which wasn't really a problem for my friends and me, we weren't big John Travoltas and the Dixie had some pretty friendly drink specials during the middle of the week.

For that sake of this story well say it was a Tuesday and the Dixie was selling pitchers for one cent. With this promotion you would pay a fee to get in the door and then beer was a penny a pitcher. At one point in time they'd had drink and drown -- you paid a fee to get in and then beer was free. This was somehow illegal (and certainly a bad idea as I look back on it with 45-year old eyes) so pitchers were bumped up to a penny (still a bad idea as I look back.)

The guys in charge of the beer bong were only too happy to oblige. Penny pitchers have a way of bringing out the friendliness in everybody.

I took my position under the tube and the beer started flowing. It was cold and it burned as it went down. Even though my eyes were closed I could feel them tearing up. The burning was uncomfortable and I couldn't believe it was taking as long at it was to drink 12-ounces. I was a lot faster drinking out of a can.

At some point it was too much. I pulled the tube out of my mouth and stuck my thumb over the end to stem the flow. The funnel was empty.

A round of cheers went up. Some pats on the back. A couple of guys shouted, "You did a great job!"

If I'd done such a great job, why did I feel so bad.

My buddy Joe looked at me. "You feel okay?"

"I'd better get to the bathroom."

Like many of your better drinking establishments the Dixie Electric Company took the trough-as-a-urinal approach in the men's bathroom. I'm guessing the women had a similar setup, but I can't be sure; I've always thought it would make passing TP back and forth a bit easier.

The path to the bathroom was patron-free so I pretty much had a straight shot. As I approached the arch that served as the entrance I felt my body shudder. This was going to be close.

The trough was wide open except for one other guy. I didn't miss a beat and pretty much heaved midstep.

As sweet as this story is already it gets better: I'd had stuffed green peppers for dinner.

As I deposited my dinner in the trough the guy using the urinal in the traditional way started laughing. I immediately felt a lot better and apologized for the interruption. The guy didn't seem to mind.

"I can't believe a beer had that affect on me," I said to Joe.

"Oh. That wasn't a beer. That was a pitcher." That explained a lot.

And, one of my other friends had added another 12-ounces saying, "If he takes that give him this too," as he dumped his beer in the funnel.

So what is that. Seventy-six ounces in thirty seconds. I kept it down for about as long. Which was probably a good thing.

The rest of the night was puke and beer bong free.

Posted by delmer at 8:58 AM | Comments (5)

November 13, 2005

The Ticket, The Attorrney and The Judge

Let's wrap this up.

As I mentioned yesterday, the policegal gave me a ticket for reckless operation. With the ticket came a mandatory appearance before a Cincinnati judge.

It seemed like a good time to see an attorney and I went to see the dad of one of the guys I went to high school with.

I gave him the ticket and he leafed through some of the books he had in his office.

He asked, "Whose car were you driving?"

"It was my car." I said.

"There's something funny about this. The first couple of numbers on the ticket come from the burglary statutes. The last set of numbers don't exist anywhere."

And nowhere on the ticket did it say "reckless operation."

My buddy's dad said he was going to refer me to an attorney in Cincinnati.

I was supposed to meet with the new guy an hour before I was to be in court -- which I thought was pushing it, timewise -- but that's when I showed up.

He was familiar with what was going on and commented that he'd heard we had a funny ticket. I told him I wasn't how sure how funny it was, but I'd let him be the judge. We went to court (or maybe we met at the courthouse ... it was 20 years or more ago.)

An eerie silence fell over the courtroom as we entered. The lights flickered once and went out completely for ten seconds or so. Well, not really.

The court was full of riff-raff, and there I was amongst them. You know what they say about birds of a feather. And speaking of birds there was a guy with a huge parrot tattoo running down one arm. My attorney looked at me and said, "You know, things would have looked a lot better for you had you taken the time to get a big parrot tattoo on one of your arms."

I asked if my case was likely to make the paper. "Yes," he assured me, "Probably the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer." He then told me that there was too much going on in Cincy for something like this to make the paper. I felt a little better.

My case was called. My attorney suggested that it was hard to know what I was being charged with as the ticket had been written incorrectly. He explained that whatever the digits are called that represent the various crimes a person might be charged with were indecipherable (he said it much more eloquently). The bailiff then turned to the judge and said something like, "Yea, take a look at this." It was like I had two attorneys.

The judge smiled, smacked the gavel and said, "Case dismissed."

My attorney told me the officer that had written the ticket could always refile a corrected ticket. He said that was unlikely.

"What do I owe you," I asked.

"I'll send you a bill."

"Could I give you cash now?" No use in getting anything from a Cincinnati attorney in the mail. Not with mom being a postal employee and all.

He wrote a receipt -- for $100 -- on the back of a business card.

On the way out of town I gave the University of Cincinnati Security Office a yard job.

Posted by delmer at 12:14 AM | Comments (1)

November 12, 2005

Another Field Sobriety Test

As we continue with our story...

The Cincinnait police officer came over and told me he was going to give me a field sobriety test. Even though I had just practiced for the UC cops I was a bit concerned. You never know how these things might go.

The officer told me he wanted me to walk heel-to-toe for several steps until he told me to stop and turn around. "I want you to do it like this," he said as he started walking the line.

On his third step he lost his balance, went back on one foot and windmilled his arms. He regained his balance, turned toward me and said with a smile, "I'd like you to do it a little better than that."

I started down the line heel-to-toe and made it several steps before the Cincy officer told me to spin around. I made the turn and heel-to-toed back to the officer.

"I'm glad you passed," he said, "I'd a hated to haul you in when I couldn't pass the test myself."

The Cincinnati officer left shortly after that.

The angry UC cop got in my face and screamed that they were going to give me a citation for reckless operation and that I was lucky I wasn't getting a DWI (driving while under the influence.) I listened and "yes sir'd" while he spoke.

The female officer wrote the ticket. It was her first one.

We shot off to The Lighthouse.

Tomorrow we finish with: The Ticket, The Attorrney and The Judge

Posted by delmer at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2005

The Cincinnati Police Are Called In

To bring yourself up to speed, Start Here and Read This Too. And please, if you're thinking, what an idiot this guy is to post this, please read The Disclaimer.

Now that were all on the same page.

The angry UC cop told me they were going to call in the Cincinnati Police. I can only assume that, as I'd passed the field sobriety test the list of things he could charge me with were more limited than he liked. Maybe the Cincinnati police would have better luck. Maybe I'd screw up in front of them. Maybe the whole thing was standard operating procedure.

Joe came down from the Fawn Brown Datsun. Again, he acted like he was taking a walk through the streets of Cincinnati and just happened across me. "Hmmm, this Delmer guy," the UC Cops must have been thinking, "is certainly popular. He can't stand on the sidewalk forty miles from home for more than 15 minutes without running into people he knows. If only I were that popular."

Perhaps this is why angry cop was angry. He was just a bit jealous. Then, there's always the chance that he just didn't like being lied to.

Joe asked me what was going on. Angry cop asked Joe if he'd been in the Orange Datsun. Joe said he hadn't. Angry cop said ... everybody ... all together ...

"DON'T LIE TO ME!"

Joe and I have different approaches when it comes to dealing with law enforcement persons. Right after "Don't Lie to Law Enforcement Officials (To Save Your Butt)" I list "Always Be Polite When Speaking with Law Enforcement Officials" as point number two. The whole time I was conversing with the police ... and we'd shared many sentences, probably a paragraph or two, I was all "Yes sir," "No Sir," Yes Ma'am," "No Ma'am," "No, not very smart at all."

Joe has one exchange with angry cop and answers like this, "I'M NOT LYING TO YOU! I GO TO SCHOOL HERE ..." there was more but I don't recall it all. Angry cop walked off. I gave Joe an update. (Joe is normally a very laid-back guy.)

A Cincinnati Police Officer arrived. I could overhear his conversation with Angry Cop.

"How many has he had to drink?" ask the Cincy Cop.

"He's had twelve."

The Cincinnati Officer paused, took a look at me and said, "He looks like he could hold twelve to me."

You could tell by his tone that he didn't mean if I was all hollowed out my shell could hold 144 ounces ... he meant that it looked like I could probably drink twelve beers and not be the problem some other twelve-beer drinkers might be. At the time I was running 250 pounds and, as always, had that stretched out over a 6'4" (plus a wee bit more) frame.

Tomorrow's episode: Another Field Sobriety Test

Posted by delmer at 6:38 AM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2005

Never lie to The Man

... even when the man is a woman.

From yesterday:

The policewoman asked, "Have you been drinking?"

I believed then, as I do now, that lying to law enforcement officials is a bad idea.

"Yes." I said.

"How many have you had?"

"Twelve"

"Where'd you drink them?"

"I-75."

"What'd you do with the empties?"

"We threw them out." (On the grassy area we'd cut across. I was surprised the officers hadn't seen that.)

"Will you please step out of the car."

And I did.

It was then that I noticed the second University of Cincinnati police person. He had been on a dirt bike.

The guy officer struck me then, and still does, like he was on a power trip. Maybe he was just a genuine ass. Maybe out-of-towners driving across UC lawnage just pissed him off. He was about 5'10, so as he'd be yelling in my face he was almost standing on my toes and he'd be looking up at me.

"Who was in the orange Datsun?" he demanded?

"I don't know anything about an orange Datsun." (As I said in yesterday's entry, the Datsun was Fawn Brown in color.)

"DON'T LIE TO ME!!"

(Hmmmm. I seem to have broken my own Don't Lie to Law Enforcement Officials rule. The Fawn Brown vs Orange argument is sort of weak. Maybe that should be amended to say, "Never Lie to Law Enforcement To Save Your Own Butt." Lying to protect your buddies is somehow noble.)

I was given a field sobriety test. Lean back, spread out the arms, close the eyes and touch the nose with the fingertips. I also walked a straight line, did a spin, and walked back. I did a very good job. In different circumstances I'm sure I would have been given a gold star or certificate of achievement.

Todd, one of the guys from the Fawn Brown Datsun walked down to see what was going on. He acted like he was just walking by and stumbling across me was a great coincidence.

"Delmer, what's going on?"

As I started to explain Cranky Cop got in his face and asked, "Were you in the orange Datsun?"

"No. I don't know what you're talking about."

"DON'T LIE TO ME!"

Tomorrow's Episode: The Cincinnati Police are called in.

Posted by delmer at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)

November 9, 2005

The Lighthouse, Cincinnati and The Man

Alright. You've all read yesterday's disclaimer. The one where I say I don't condone a lot of the stupid things I did when I was younger. Good.

It was probably 1982 and a group of us had decided to go to a bar called The Lighthouse in faraway Cincinnati. Well, it was about a 40 mile drive. I had Flying Fred as a passenger in my VW Beetle. My buddy Joe had his orange Datsun (the color was Fawn Brown according to Datsun ... now Nissan).

We made it to Cincinnati without any problem -- it was a straight shot down I-75 -- and were able to get really really close to The Lighthouse.

I should point out the The Lighthouse was in the University of Cincinnati area.

Anyway, we kept driving around The Lighthouse, always able to see it but never able to get near it due to the configuration of one-way streets. I'd finally had enough and told Flying Fred that I was going to hop across a small grassy area so that we'd have a better angle on the bar. It was a really stupid thing to do.

As we hit the curb going onto the grassy area Fred said, "Delmer, it's the cops!"

"Throw all the empties out," I suggested as I continued across the grass. Fred complied.

"What are we going to do?" Fred asked.

Assuming the cops were University of Cincinnati cops and on foot, I said, "We're going out run them."

And then luck turned her head my way. As I came off the far curb the car died. Had it not, I would have preceded right, down the road and away from the UC police. They were not all on foot.

The Bruise (the name of the Beetle) had a problem of dying occasionally. When it died it took about 10 minutes for her to decide to start back up. I didn't even try to turn the engine over.

I rolled down the window and waited.

A female University of Cincinnati police officer strolled up to the window. I let out and incredibly audible sigh that was heard for what it was.

"What are you so relieved about?" the policewoman asked.

"I thought you were going to be a man," I stupidly said.

Do you detect a theme?

We'll continue tomorrow.

Posted by delmer at 4:23 PM | Comments (1)

November 8, 2005

Stupid Things

I am not going to defend any of the stupid things I did when I was younger. Some of them, while possibly considered stupid by others (skydiving) were rather fun. Others there is no defense for; these are the ones I lie awake at night trying to figure out how to keep my kids from doing.

Under the category of "others" falls having a few beers and then getting into a car to tool around with some buddies. Maybe that should say, "drive around with buddies"; I've been advised that "tool around" means different things different places.

Anyway, drinking and driving is a bad idea. You don't need me to tell you that.

There was a comedian on the other day commenting on George Bush's arrest for drunk driving. The comic said something like, "This was back in the early 80's. Do you know how hard it was arrested to for driving under the influence in the early 80's"?

Bush's arrest came in '76 according to the link above. But I believe I started that last paragraph with "There was a comedian on the other day" and not "I was having coffee with Bush's autobiographer." We need to cut the comic some slack -- they're not all as good as being funny and historically correct as Eddie Izzard. (Yep, I said, Bush's Autobiographer. What. You think he's going to write it himself?)

In 1976 I was 16. I can't say I was really doing any drinking then. Well, about that time I had a bottle of wine one night. Several of us camped out and had some alcohol. The most memorable thing was one of the guys getting sick on warm Little Kings (that's a 7-ounce bottle in the picture) and having dry heaves most of the night. It was awesome.

When I look back on a particular period of time it seems like my friends and I were getting pulled over fairly often. We were never horribly smashed and we weren't getting pulled over for weaving. Until this minute I'd never given this much thought -- maybe the police would get wise when they'd see the same group of boys drive by time and time again and they'd pull us over just to see what was going on. We'd always have beer. Somebody might have to take a field-sobriety test. We'd often be told to be careful. We'd be sent on our way and told to go home. Given how the law has changed over the years it isn't hard to believe that, by today's standards, we would have been over the blood-alcohol-content line. By 1980's standards, maybe not.

The police may have been cutting us some slack as we lived in small-town Ohio. A person didn't have to go but a mile or two to be out in the county where there isn't too much to run into. Maybe it's because a lot of these guys grew up in the 50's when there was even less to do and they knew ... well, just knew. Maybe it was because none of us were hardcore hoodlums.

I should point out that the Thugs I ran around drinking with are an entirely different group than this group of thugs. But it is more coincidence than anything else that the picture in the link above doesn't have both groups in it. We were all a pretty innocent-looking lot. We all hung together.

What have we got here?

Alcohol and autos are a bad combination. I am not saying otherwise. My buddies and I are lucky we didn't get hurt or hurt someone else.

Having said that, there are some, in retrospect, interesting things that happened in which alcohol was involved.

Tune in tomorrow for a story involving me, several Thugs, the University of Cincinnati Police, and the honest-to-God Cincinnati Police.

(Other observations: I rarely drink anymore and have a been aging the same six-pack for about two months in the fridge. The guy that almost killed me may have been hammered; but that's another story.)

Posted by delmer at 5:31 PM | Comments (3)

November 4, 2005

Domain Transfers

You know, if you transfer a domain from one host to another, and you forget to do anything with the DNS records sometimes things quit working.

When The Boys' pictures are back and The Granny Gallery picture is back you'll know that the recent changes I've made have propagated across the Internet.

Those of you more attuned to things like this will likely feel a shift in The Force.

(Yes, I could change the HTML to fix things now ... but really ... what's the fun in that?)

Posted by delmer at 3:00 PM | Comments (0)

September 30, 2005

The New Backyard

Go for the burn.

(As we continue to transition from the old site to the new)

It was pre-Spring. Rebecca and Haydn (of car-seat age) had gone to Beallsville for the weekend leaving me home to take care of some chores.

At the time, we were living in Mt. Sterling, Ohio. We had a two-bedroom ranch on five acres. A creek ran through the back of the property. The garage measured 30 by 30 feet; and it had a 220 outlet - not that I ever used it, but I always felt very manly knowing it was there just in case.

We'd planted 400 or so trees on the property. They'd been purchased from the Department of Natural Resources and we planted them when they were all one- to two-feet tall. At this point in time they were all a couple of years old and ranged in height from two to four feet. I loved each and every one of the trees.

When we moved into the house the portion of the yard that served as the immediate backyard was less than ideal. The yard sloped down from the back porch a very short distance before leveling off and then turning up just before dropping off a foot or two. There may have been a fence at the drop-off at one time; I don’t really recall. The area beyond the drop-off had been a cow pasture.

Well, the backyard wouldn’t do. I didn’t care for the way it looked and it wasn’t terribly useful. So I borrowed a tractor, a plow and a blade, and over the course of several weeks changed the grade of the backyard. When I was done, I had a backyard with a nice gentle slope that extended well away from the back porch before rising to a not-too-small grassy area. We used to have cookouts on the grassy area (and would sometimes provide backup firepower for would-be presidential assassins from this knoll) and there remained in the middle of it the clearing in which we’d build fires.

"How boring," you might be thinking. "A story about changing the grade of a backyard hardly classifies as doing something stupid!"

Read on.

So, Rebecca and Haydn were out of town. I had been home alone all weekend and had made good progress striking things off of my list of chores. The one thing I had not done was to burn some trash that needed taking care of. I’d been putting the job off as the day had been a bit windy.

Yes, it was a bit windy. And a bit dry. But, I had burned on windier days. Dryer days, certainly. Maybe it was the combination of windy and dry that would cause me problems. Maybe it was the fact that bulk of what I had to burn consisted of that year’s Christmas tree and the Christmas tree from the year before. It’s hard to know for sure. I know, however, that I didn’t make the decision to burn lightly … I gave it some thought. I think the thing that sealed the deal was the fact that I had to walk through mud (from the regrading) to get the to area I was going burn trash in. I rationalized that if it was muddy out, it couldn’t be too dry to start a fire.

When I started the fire the Christmas trees went up like Roman candles. They were instantly engulfed in fire. They were burning so fast, in fact, that I thought (or hoped) for a moment that they wouldn’t be a problem. Here and there a spark would float off and start a small fire away from the intentional fire. I was able to put most of them out right away.

Finally, one of them got away from me. I can’t remember how it happened. Maybe two peripheral fires started at the same time. Maybe I didn’t catch one in time. All I recall is that at one point I had a small circle of fire that was spreading faster than I could stamp out.

I tried running a one-man bucket brigade from the creek to the fire. It took only two trips to the creek and back to see just how fruitless this would be. I ran to the house and grabbed the hose. I had several hundred feet of hose, but I feared it still wasn’t going to be enough.

As the fire burned I did a quick assessment of the situation. The fire could go south, I knew, only as far as the creek. It would never make it to the house (north) as it would never get past the mud … and, of course I had the hose and a whole well full of water. The fire would eventually choke off to the west as well; the creek circled around in such a manner that the fire would be forced to the road. Going east was a different story. There was a big empty muddy field there, behind which was some not-been-mowed-in-a-coons-age pasture area. A quarter mile up the road through the field was the home of my neighbors, Cecil and Betty.

The fire was never real big. The flames never got more than a couple of inches high or a couple of inches wide. It was a slow-moving, ever-widening fire ring expanding outward from its scorched center. As a matter of fact I could cross over the flames and be on either the inside or outside of the ring of fire. It was a lot like a Garth Brooks video (despite the obvious reference to a Johnny Cash tune).

The fire was tame enough that I could put out the portion of the fire I could reach with the mighty green garden hose. Still, this meant that the fire would eventually make it to the creek, and quite possibly Cecil and Betty’s. Most probably, Cecil and Betty’s.

It was at this point that I had a Tim-Allen moment. It occurred to me that if this were a Home Improvement episode, and Tim had a yard fire going, he would keep battling it until he burned the siding off his house and every house in his neighborhood. I decided this was not the way to go and opted to call the Range Township Volunteer Fire Department for help. I made a beeline for the house.

Unbeknownst to me, while I had been bravely battling the yard fire, Rebecca and Haydn had pulled into the driveway. Rebecca would tell me later that she and Haydn noticed something odd about the house as they crested the hill a quarter mile west of the house. Rebecca wasn’t sure what was going on. Haydn probably wasn’t either, but to cover his bases he had started crying anyway.

So Rebecca met me at the door and told me she was going to call the fire department. I went back to the task of fighting the fire myself.

The Range Township Volunteer Fire Department is located in Midway, Ohio. It is almost exactly six miles up Rt. 323 from where we lived. Route 323 is pretty much straight as an arrow, but I figured it would still take 15 or 20 minutes for the RTVFD to get to me. I assumed the guys would have to hear the call, drive to the station, crank up the fire truck, make the six-mile drive, etc. I thought 15 to 20 minutes would be about right.

It couldn’t have been much more than three minutes before I heard the siren. I heard it so close after Rebecca made the call that I was sure they were responding to another call. Fortunately, they were coming for me.

The big red tank truck pulled into the backyard. I pointed out the areas I’d regraded -- where the ground was likely to be soft -- and the guys got to work. It was all over in under five minutes.

I asked the guy in charge how it was they were able to respond so fast. (I’d assumed that a city-boy-has-moved-to-the-country-and-is-starting-a-fire alert had gone out earlier and that the firefighters had been sitting a mile up the road waiting on a call.) He told me that they’d had two grass fires before mine. That each year when the weather gets nice they have a few grass fires early in the season. They guys had been at the firehouse waiting, just in case.

The next day I assessed the damage. Several of the trees had been burned around. I hoped they’d make it; they didn’t. The hill was burned bare as was a portion of the backyard going toward the creek. It remained scorched for a while but eventually came back greener than ever.

I mentioned the fire to Cecil and Betty. They weren’t real concerned about it. Cecil remarked that it couldn’t have really gotten too far and that good periodic burn doesn’t really hurt anything.

You gotta love country people.

Posted by delmer at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2005

Stupid Kids

I've done plenty of stupid things in my life. If it weren't for the fact that I knew my mom was a regular reader I'd post more of them here. Well, I do post the stupid things I've done as an adult, but the stupid things I did as a young adult I tend to omit. No need causing retroactive worry.

However, I'll gladly post a stupid thing some other kids did.

My buddy, Joe, and I were driving around one night not doing anything in particular. We may have been on our way home from somewhere.

I should probably point out that Joe is about six-feet-two, maybe -three and I'm six-feet-four (just a tad over, actually). At the time we both weighed about 220 pounds. And, as we were both about 25 we were carrying the weight where it should have been carried.

Neither of us were really big fighters or troublemakers.

There we were. Driving around. Minding our own business.

At some point, two guys in another car started giving us the finger and mouthing unkind words toward us. Now, I don't know what this means where you live, but in Middletown, Ohio in 1985, it meant "try to chase us down." So we gave chase.

I don't remember all of the details of the chase. I really don't remember the guys mouthing unkind words. But I do remember them giving us the finger and, really, it only makes sense that the unkind words would accompany it. I mean a finger may mean, "look up," "we're number one" OR (in caps, italics and bold for super-emphasis) "f*ck you." However, if you accompany the finger with some lip action that looks less like "book truck" and more like "drunk Jew," well, there's a better than even chance you've been insulted.

I do remember that the chase ended when the other guys pulled into a dead end and we cut of their avenue of escape.

Joe went busting out his door and I mine. Joe and I stuck our faces in the guys windows -- Joe the passenger side and I the driver side -- at the same moment. The driver looked at me and said:

"We're sooo sorry. We didn't realize you guys were going to be so big."

"Don't worry about it, " I said."We're not going to hurt you."

"You got any beer?" Joe inquired.

"One," said the passenger.

"Give it to me." Joe, um, suggested.

"But it's our last one," the passenger mildly protested.

"I want it!" Joe said as he reached through the window and liberated the beer.

And off we went. Like spirits in the night.

Oh. I gotta blog about gigging frogs with Roy sometime soon. There's no alcohol in that story, but the police are involved. And a pat down.

Posted by delmer at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2005

A new stupid thing I've done

I mentioned the new UPS's in yesterday's installment, but I don't think I mentioned that one of them was bad when it arrived.

I called the vendor and asked for an RMA so I could return the bad UPS. My sales gal, while always helpful and a true Queen among sales gals, got the word from her higher-ups that I should call APC tech support. I can't say I was real happy about this as ... well the unit was new ... it arrived broken ... why should I have to call APC?

But I called APC. During the conversation I found that the bad UPS seemed to be three-years old and found the serial number on the unit didn't match the serial number on the box. APC said they'd send a replacement unit.

(Over the past eight or ten years I've had to call APC tech support two or three times. They're the best. This past call I didn't spent a second on hold. The techs have always been helpful.)

I put together an e-mail to my sales gal and told her that, while I still considered her the best, I was a bit troubled by the company's attitude that I should call the manufacturer for support. I agonized a bit over the wording and was close to deleting it -- after all, the mere writing of the complaint had made me feel better -- when one of the engineers came in and asked if I wanted to go to lunch. I clicked 'send' and we headed off to Wendy's.

As I reentered my office after lunch, something occurred to me. The bad UPS was certainly three-years old, but it had certainly not just arrived in the building. It was one of the original UPS's I was replacing. When I was shuffling things around in the wiring closet I picked up one of the dead UPS's and mixed it in with the three new ones. As there are several in there that are not new and of the same type, I didn't notice my mistake.

I checked serial numbers on units to those on the boxes and matched everything up. I called APC and put a stop to their sending me a new UPS -- explaining I was a buffoon and thanking them for their help. I called my sales gal and apologized profusely.

I try not to complain, for when I do it often blows up in my face.

There must be a Murphy's Law that covers this.

Posted by delmer at 2:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 30, 2005

Simply Shocking

(This post, Simply Shocking, keeps disappearing -- which my 11-year old points out is Simply Shocking in itself. I've added this blurb of text hoping that an edit of some sort, rather than a repost, will fix the problem.)

There I was. Standing in one of the engineer's cubes listening to him talk with a fellow engineer about some uninteresting fact regarding the way electricity works. I was patiently waiting, looking for my chance to interject with a much more interesting fact regarding how NetWare print queues work and why it would be a moment before his print job appeared.

While I waited I picked up the ink pen that was sitting on the half-partition that separated Steve's cube from Jeff's cube (the engineers mentioned above). I don't know why I picked up the pen -- it was just one of those things a person does to pass the time.

I gave the plunger a push with my thumb and I'll be darned if I didn't get a small static shock. The shock hit me soon enough that I didn't depress the plunger far enough to get the pen point out, which I would assume was my goal if one can go so far as to think that things one does to simply to pass the time while waiting for a break in conversation actually have a goal.

I gave the plunger another push. Damn! Another shock. But this time as quick as the shock hit me I realized what was going on. I'd picked up Jeff's joke pen. A pen that had been sitting on the half-partition just waiting for someone to pick it up. A pen I've known about for months and months. I couldn't believe I clicked the pen twice.

Now, it's taken a few seconds to read all of this, but it all happened in just a second. I pressed once and got shocked and a second time so soon after the first time -- and shocked again -- that to the casual observer, or casual engineer, it would have all seemed like a single split-second incident.

"Ahhh," I exclaimed. As much a statement about my stupidity in getting zapped twice as any reaction to the zapping.

The engineers, sensing an opportunity to enjoy a chuckle at the expense of a fellow coworker stopped their conversation. They could have been on the verge of some sort of massive electrical-engineering breakthrough -- something monumental ... maybe a fuel cell design the size of a time that could power a city -- and the chance to have a laugh at a fellow employee would have stopped them in their tracks. I'm sure this happens all the time in every corner of the world to people in every walk of life.

A friend of mine is a reporter in Washington DC and overheard the following exchange between two Senators, a Democrat and a Republican, who were lunching at an Outback Steak House.

Senator 1: "Bob, I want you to take a look at this," he says handing a small stack of papers across the table.
Senator 2: "This looks incredible. Does this say what I think it says?"
Senator 1: "Yep. We can balance the budget. Save Social Security. Bring peace to the Middle East. Solve the oil crisis ..."
Senator 2: "Cut taxes! This is amazing. We'll all be heros. Both parities. What do we need to get this going?
Senator 1: "Well, the way I see it ... Hold on. Tom DeLay just walked in. I filled his brief case with shaving cream this morning. I want to see his face when he opens it.

Senator 2: So I hear you got a new dog.
Senator 1: Yea, a lab puppy. Chews the shit out of everything, but the kids love him. That DeLay is a piece of crap isn't he.
Senator 2: You know it. Could you pass the sugar.

"Did it shock you?" Engineer Steve asked.

"Both times," I replied, acknowledging my double stupidity.

"Both times!" The engineers were having a friendly laugh.

"Yes I know ..." I was leading the laughter.

I could hear Steve ask Jeff if he could borrow his pencil sharpener as I walked away.

Posted by delmer at 10:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack