New Damn Mower!

06.28.2009

After all the hassle with the lawn mower over the past week, I went and got myself a new mower.

Troy-Bilt 20-HP Automatic 46" Cut Lawn Tractor

The reviews that I've seen for the Troy-bilt mowers with the Kohler engines are horrible. To be honest, I don't really care right now. The inaugural mowing went ok. There area couple of new things to get used to with this mower. I have to admit that I really like the cup holder and the padded seat.

I also got off the mower, shutting it off, 3 times. It started right back up afterwords. That was nice.

Now the challenge will be to remember to change the oil as recommended after the first 5 hours of operation. That should be in about 2 weeks.

Permalink random

My Damn Mower

06.24.2009

In April, when the yard was first in need of mowing, I thought about trying to sell my mower and buying a replacement. I've had the mower for at least 8 years. Except for a problem with the gas tank leaking I really haven't had any major problems with it. At the end of the last mowing season I had a feeling that he mower was just getting old - 8 years for a $1000 mower from Wal-Mart felt like a good run. The first "I've really got to get out and mow this grass" came too quick and I decided to try and get one more year out of the mower.

Even though I don't have major problems with the mower, I do have minor ones that pop up. These week, all of the minor ones popped up. Sunday I decided to mow. After 10 minutes, minor problem #1 popped up.

Years ago, the mowing deck bottomed out in a dip in the yard (since filled in by handyman Mike) and snapped off pin that holds one side of the mower deck onto the frame. Instead of trying to find a replacement pin, I stuck the bar from the deck back on the post on the frame, then slid a hose clamp onto the post and tightened it up. This would work until the deck bottomed out harder than normal sometime later and the hose clamp would go shooting off. Whenever I get the mower tuned up, they generally replace the hose clamp with the proper pin, but eventually the whole breaking-replacement sequence would start over and I would end up with another hose clamp. Sunday I got a little too close to something (I think it was a root near the front of the garage) as the mower deck shuffled from left to right, then I heard the distinct sound of the left side of the mower deck riding on the driveway.

Enter Problem #2. Putting on a hose clamp to fix the mower deck problem is easy. I've done it a dozen times so I know the steps, I have hose clamps at the ready, and I know how to twist my arms around the rear tire to where my arms will actually fit. Problem #2 is that whenever the mower turns off, the engine gets flooded and it won't restart for at least an hour and a half. The mower can be running for 5 minutes or 2 hours, it doesn't matter. Maybe it's not really flooded, maybe it's overheated or got oil up the wrong tube, but it smells like too much gas in the air when I try to restart it. So after fixing the mower deck, I've got to wait 90 minutes to continue to mow. Thanks to starting late on Sunday to try and avoid some heat, it'll be too dark to finish mowing in that time window.

We now move on to Monday (day 2 of mowing). 5:00, at least 2&amp12; hours before it gets dark - plenty of time to finish what is usually a 2 hour job if I get detailed and mow and weed-eat every nook and cranny. The mower cranks up, the mower deck isn't dragging the ground. I start circling the yard, the grass gets shorter on each pass. After about 20 minutes, the blades stop spinning.

The grass discharge gets clogged when the grass is thick, or wet. Most of my ways of fixing this are a combination of:

• going backwards for about 50 ft
• turning off the blades and going full speed for a lap around the yard (I think the rough terrain jiggles things loose)
• run over part of a branch (a nice solid chunk of wood can break things up!)
• using the deck height lever while on the drive way, slam the deck up and down (as one would coax ketchup out of a bottle).
  • I know that's not a good way to do things, but when you're pissed off and frustrated you'll do anything

Monday none of those solutions were working. Whenever the blades were engaged, the blades were so locked up that the rubber on the belts would start to smoke as they tried to spin the blades. Something was messed up down their, so I pulled into the garage, turned the mower off (getting us back to Problem #2 eventually), and propped one side of the mower up to where I could poke under it. I got a screwdriver and started chipping away at grass that had dried onto the bottom fo teh mower deck over the years, but none of this should really be interfering with the blade movement. While feeling around, I came across a chunk of grass that had gotten wedged between one of the blades and the mowed deck.

A chunk of grass. How does a chunk of grass get caught by a blade? This wasn't wispy grass though. If this were hail, it would be golf ball sized and held together by a clump of dirt. This chunk was stuck good, too. I'm not a wimpy pansy man like Jerry, but I had to pry and grunt pretty hard to get the chunk out. But I got it out. Once again it was going to be too late to mow once the "waiting for the mower to restart" window opened back up.

Tuesday afternoon (day 3 of mowing) I thought would be the day I finished. My normal problems had all been accounted for. I was starting a little before 5:00, heat be damned! In the previous 2 days I had managed to mow possibly &amp14; of the yard. As I went around the yard mowing it bit by bit, I was keeping an eye on the height of the mower deck, making sure grass was flying out of the discharger, and trying not to go tto fast (because that's when things break). I had gotten almost &amp34; of the yard mowed when I heard the blades stop. I looked down and saw one of the belts that drive the blades sitting, snapped, on the mower deck.

Damn.

It.

To hell in a handbasket full of molten hot shrapnel that I want to shove into somebody's eyes.

So now I've given up and am taking the hint. It's time to replace the mower. Everything that's wrong with the mower is fixable, I don't deny that. But, in all honesty, the mower has pissed me off. I don't deal well with mechanical things that piss me off. I don't fix them, I replace them. I'm about to make someone at Lowes, Home Depot, or Sears happy.

Permalink rambling

Yo, July 22!

06.22.2009

I am so going to get the complete 1980's GI Joe cartoon!

It's $145. I'm 40. Neither of those numbers makes a difference to me.

Must just wait for another month....

Permalink

I'm not gay, but...

06.10.2009

Way back in August of 2004, I tried to learn how to paint in one of my spare bedrooms (not the master bedroom and not the computer room). It didn't go well. By the time I claimed I was finished, there was paint on the walls, in many places you could see where the runs in the paint had tried. There was paint on the door frames. There was paint on the window frames. There was paint on the ceiling. Even though I had used old sheets as drop cloths, there was paint on the gray carpet. For the majority of the past 5 years I haven't gone into that room more than to toss some crap in or go digging through the crap looking for something I had tossed in. One of my goals of this year was to fix that room to make it usable. I even had an idea for how to make it super-usable!

Over a couple of weeks I started to accumulate the tools I would need to prep the room for painting. Masking tape, various sanding implements to get rid of those dried up runs in the wall, etc. One weekend day I found myself with some free time and noticed most of the other things on my chore list were marked off, so I set out to prep the room! I grabbed some sandpaper and started sanding a run on the wall. And I sanded. For a long time. A long, long time. The run never really went away.

It didn't take long before I decided that while I originally thought this was a job for me to learn how to paint properly while fixing my past mistakes, it was really a job for my to call handy man Mike and get him to fix it. I called him up, showed him the disaster I needed fixed, then I went off to Jamaica for a week. When I got back, the disaster was fixed. Walls were painted. Ceiling was painted in the proper places. Carpet had been replaced with the laminate flooring I have in the rest of the house. I believe I've learned my lesson - whenever I get the urge to paint, call Mike.

I had been thinking for a while of what to do with that room. Most people have a spare bedroom for visiting guests. I don't have visiting guests, so setting up a proper bedroom would be a waste of space. I had originally (when I first painted the disaster) thought of turning the room into a small library - bookshelves, a chair to read in, cozy lighting - but how often do I just sit around and read?

One thing I've discovered, or maybe just admitted, over the past year is that I'm a clothes horse. When I find clothes in my size, I tend to buy the regardless of whether or not I really need another blue polo shirt. My closet is stuffed with clothes. Plus, my big-n-tall clothes takes up loads more room than most people's normal sized clothes. I hang most of my clothes, but it seems they were all crammed into the closet hanging up. Grab one hanger and pull out 3 others when you take a shirt out. It was here that I realized I could make my disaster room into a closet. I big honking closet!

Closetmaid makes closet furniture, cool furniture you see on tv shows with fancy walk-in closets. I had gotten a couple of units from Lowes/Home Depot about 2 years ago and set them up in the bedroom to replace my old dresser. The Closetmaid units are modular/stackable pre-fab kits, so I'm all about putting them together. By the time Mike fixed the disaster room, all I really needed where some hanging rods and I would be in business.

Over the course of a week I moved furniture into my new closet. I made a couple of trips to Lowes/Home Depot to fill in some missing gaps. I found that Closetmaid no longer makes the furniture I have, although Sauder makes something similar. I replaced my amalgamation of multicolored Wal-Mart plastic hangers with cool-looking wooden hangers. Overall, I think it turned out pretty good.

So far I'm the envy of every girl that's seen it :)

Permalink renovation/remodelling

Jamaica

05.24.2009

My belated 40th birthday present to myself (and Gina, since I made her go too) was a trip to Sandals Whitehouse in Jamaica. I've always wanted to go on one of the all-inclusive resort vacations, but outside of that I don't know why I picked Jamaica. I guess it just sounded good at some point. It's a good thing I didn't look too close, as I checked the weather on the Wednesday before we left at 11:00AM. It was 86°F with a heat index of 104°F. For a big man who sweats from March thru November, maybe this wasn't such a smart idea.

Around the end of March I went online and picked out where and when to go. Learning a lesson from the cruise that Gina and I took, I opted to not pick the cheapest package I could find, but instead went all out - I decided that I was going to be paying enough money that if something went wrong I would bitch about it and somebody would listen!

Flying
I hate to fly. I learned the last time I flew that I do ok if I go to the doctor and get some anxiety drugs, so that's what I did the Tuesday before Gina and I were scheduled to fly out. As I left the doctor's office, I was armed with some Cloraz Dipot 7.5MG with which to battle the skies!

It's been raining most of May, so the odds were good that while making the Huntsville-Atlanta-Montego Bay route there would be some rough weather. Luckily it never got too bad, just a little bumpy going through cloud layers.

When we boarded the plane in Atlanta to head to Montego Bay, the captain was on the microphone giving us the standard do-not-smoke-etc speech. He gave it to us a little different though.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Jim Livingston and I'll be your pilot today on our flight from Atlanta to Montego Bay. You know, you don't look like the normal crowd so let me tell you what I'm going to do. Today we're going to fly this thing like we stole it.

Scheduled flight time from Atlanta to Montego Bay is 2 hours and 19 minutes, but I'm going to try and get us there in 2 hours and 17 minutes.

The FAA prohibits the use of tobacco products ... [everyone that's flown has heard this part] ... We have about 4 hours worth of fuel for todays flight, and if it takes longer than that I'll tell youu what, you smoke'em if you got'em." Capt. Jim had to avoid a couple of storms along the way, but it wasn't too bad of a flight. As we were coming in for the landing, the weather looked clear - clear and hot. As the wheels touched down, there was a sudden jerk to the left; Maybe it was wind, maybe the runway wasn't pointed in the right direction. I looked over at Gina and said "I think he's landing it like he stole it." As we taxied to the terminal, Capt. Jim came on the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, local time is 1:42. Looks like I got you here 8 minutes late, and that's not something I'm proud of, but I got you here safe."

I like that Capt Jim.

Customs

---

My only experience with going into another country was the time I went to Canada a couple of years ago. I still remember getting off the plane, walking around the airport (what seemed about 3 times), and finding myself in line with what I estimated to be 1000 people as I made my way over the next hour to the official government guy who would stamp my passport. In Jamaica, I once again walked around the airport, this time trying to aim for where air conditioning vents might be blowing. Eventually the crowd I was in merged into a wide line, where we were then grouped into smaller lines. These lines didn't have 1000 people, probably only 150 people. It was here that I learned nobody in Jamaica is in a hurry. An hour and a half later I was getting my passport stamped.

Wrong Side of the Road

---

After customs Gina and I tracked down our luggage (it took so long to get through customs our luggage had jumped off the carousel and was hiding in a corner), we checked in at the Sandals check-in-place at the airport and boarded our bus for the resort. Some people got stuck in a mini-van, but we had a nice, air-conditioned bus just right for tourists as it had 2 seats on the right side and 1 seat on the left, with 6 or 7 rows. I claimed the back row in the name of Athens and my large ass.

For the next hour and a half we traveled the (barely) 2-lane roads along mountainous Jamaica. The roads were a little rough, being mostly paved potholes. As we drove along the left side of the road, our bus driver was on the intercom telling us a little about Jamaica, mostly about fruits that we could see along the way and what dishes and drinks could be made with them.

Patrona The Butler

---

We finally arrived at the resort. The driver turned past the entrance and the rough road gave way to smooth, well kept asphalt. As he pulled in front of the main building, people came out waving, some with little wicker baskets that contained cold washcloths that the handed out with tongs. as everyone deboarded the bus, the driver told us that one person should go check in while the other pointed out which bags were theirs. Since I was in the very back, I told Gina to go ahead and check us in while I pointed out the bags. A few minutes later I was out pointing at bags and saw Gina with a cold washcloth. "Did you get us checked in?" I asked her. "No," she said, "They need the booking number and I don't have it." Well, crap. I wanted a cold washcloth.

I had packed all the paperwork I had gotten from Sandals into my bag (which had my laptop, camera, iPods... everything a nerd would plug in on a vacation). I went inside to what I can best describe as an ornate hotel lobby you would see on TV. I waited for the 2 people ahead of me to check in, then I handed somebody behind the counter my little Sandals booklet which I hoped had the booking number in it. After a minute, I was told "If you'll have a seat, yyour butler will be here in a moment."

When picking packages I had gotten one with a butler. Even though it cost more I figured some good stories would come out of it. Besides, I had never had a butler. Batman had Alfred, so maybe I should try it for a few days.

I motioned for Gina to come over (she was now inside with her cold washcloth) and told her "Our butler will be here in a moment." Although we knew we had a butler, I hadn't expected one to show up until later. What do I know about butlering? After a couple of minutes, a Jamaican woman in her late-20's walked up. "Hello, I am Patrona, one of your butlers." One of our butlers? How many butlers do we get? "Dwayne the Butler will be your other butler. He will be here tomorrow at 2:00." Oh, cool. we have butlers that work in shifts.

Patrona the Butler took my bag and proceeded to show us some of the property as we made our way to the room. She showed us where the restaurants were, the gift shop, the spa, etc. We entered our room and she showed us the living room, the bedroom, bathroom, and balcony. Our suite came with 24 hour room service and she showed us the menu. Then she handed us a cell phone that had her (and Dwayne's) number saved so that we could call if we needed anything. I'm not sure what all the butler was supposed to do, but it looked like I was going to like having one.

Every morning Patrona or Dwayne would call (with a greeting of "This is Patrona the Butler" or "Dwayne the Butler") and ask if we needed anything. They would check the bar in the room at least twice per day to make sure it was stocked, and ask if there was anything particular we would like it stocked with. They would reserve beach chairs for us, and generally at some point during the day while we were on the beach someone would show up with some drinks that our butler thought we might want to try.

Around Tuesday I figured out how the butler really works. If there's something you need to arrange, the butler does it. One morning Dwayne the Butler comes in and asks "Where would you like to have dinner tonight?" We would like to go to the Italian place! "I'll make the reservations and get back with you." A couple of hours later Dwayne calls on the cell phone and says "You have reservations tonight at 7:00. I'll come by and pick you up 5 minutes before." At 6:55 Dwayne knocks on the door and we hear "Dwayne the Butler" from the other side. We walk out and the 3 of us walk to the Italian restaurant. Dwayne opens the door for us to walk in, but there are 2 other couples behind us so he holds the door open for them also. The hostess looks at Gina and I and asks "Name?" I tell her, to which she responds "There will be a 30-45 minute wait." I look at Dwayne, who's now come in after letting everyone else in. He goes over and mutters something to the hostess. The hostess picks up 2 menus and says "Right this way."

I like having a butler. After Tuesday I got a lot better at planning out my day and passing it along to the beutler to handle the details.

Every night, I think while we were at dinner, our butler of the day would come back to the room and turn the bed down. At the same time, they would make decorative animals out of towels. I don't know how they did it, but since neither Gina nor I had ever since such things before, we were in awe. Discovering the nightly animal was secretly our favorite part of the day.

Patrona became our friend while we were there. We warned her at the onset that not only had we never been to Jamaica before, this was our first resort and the first time we had ever had a butler. We would cut up with her, and of course I would flirt with her. Since I don't normally drink, she kept the bar stocked with water and Diet Coke for me. Speaking of Diet Coke, I pop open a can of Coca-Cola Light one day and am taking a swig. It's the same can as Diet Coke except for the working. Gina looks at me and says "Is that can smaller?" I look closer at the can and see that it's 11.73 ounces. Who can see a 0.27 ounce difference in a can? Crazy dog lady has some extra weird super powers.

Vacationing

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During the week, we stayed at the resort. After the hour and a half bumpy road ride, Gina and I agreed we didn't want to get back on the road until we were going back home. We ate, laid out on the beach, walked around (in the shade whenever possible!). One day we went to the spa and got massages. I think Gina may now be in love with a 6ft 5in Jamaican guy with long, strong fingers. Another day we went for a glass-bottom boat ride that took us between two reefs in front of the resort. That really was about all we did.

I had taken my laptop, thinking that as I was avoiding the heat I might have an urge to do some work. All I used the laptop for was transferring pictures off the cameras memory card to free up some space, charging the camera, and charging iPods. It really was a vacation.

Coming Back HomeThe trip home started at 5:00AM. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11:06AM. Vacation was definitely over. We had to get up at 5:00 in order to have our luggage in front of the door for pickup by 6:00 so that we could baord the shuttle back to the airport at 7:00 for the 90 minute ride. The suggest getting to the airport 3 hours before your flight leaves, and the 7:00 shuttle was the closest one.

Alternately we could have taken the Sandals helicopter from the resort to the Airport. 11 minute flight. If it hadn't been $600 I would have done it. For $200 I definitely would have taken the helicopter. $400... maybe. But $600 was too much.

As we boarded the bus, the driver got on the intercom and told us "My name is Mel. It is not Jesus Christ or Holy Shit as you may hear from some people when driving." Mel was ok, reminded me a little of Capt. Jim. The Saturday morning ride the the airport was pretty quiet after the first 20 minutes. Mel figured we had heard the tourist speeches before, I guess.

At the airport we made our way through lines once again. There was a line at the ticket counter that took close to an hour to get through. There was a line for exit customs(?) and the security x-ray scanner that was a little faster, maybe only 20 minutes to get through that one. At that point we were in the duty-free section of the airport, so Gina stocked up on rum and rum cakes to give away when we got back. I grabbed a sandwich to settle my stomach for the flight, and an hour and a half later we were Atlanta bound!

In Atlanta we went through customs - Yes I had a wonderful time, God Bless the USA, please let me back in - followed by getting our checked baggage. This part still confuses me since we took the baggage through a "do you have any agricultural products" check, then dropped it off to be loaded onto the next plane. This also when you have to stow away any duty free liquids you might have gotten, because you have to go through the x-ray scanner while taking off your shoes checker again. Canada wasn't this confusing.

After being checked and x-rayed, we had 2 hours before our plane for Huntsville left. In those 2 hours, every plane that was scheduled to leave at either Gate 33, 34, or 35 had its gate changed. Usually it was just to another gate 40 ft away, but it still made for some entertaining confusion as we sat watching people scuttle about. The weather in Atlanta was rainy, but not stormy, so flights were getting pushed around and delayed. Luckily our flight was on time. At 5:55 we left Atlanta! Huntsville had scattered thunderstorms, but except for 2 roller-coaster-ish dips coming in it wasn't too bad. Granted, I was focused on breathing and staring intently at a coffee pot at the front of the plane, but I didn't poop myself!

Gina and I grabbed our bags and proceeded to make our way to our post-international trip destination. Outback! After we returned from our Bahamas cruise we were craving Outback. This time it just sounded like a good idea. We ate, I dropped off Gina and her luggage, then I made it home around 8:30. 3 hours of total time in the air between Montego Bay and Huntsville. I got home 15½ hour after getting up. I think I may have been ready for another vacation at that point.

Permalink road trip