the most important invention...

Indoor plumbing has probably changed the way we live more than any other advancement of our modern world. Yeah, you can bring up HDTV, cell phones, and laptops. They are all cool gadgets. They are not necessities. They are nice to have, but not needed. Anyone that NEEDS these items, well, NEEDS to reconfigure the priorities of life. Yup, I have all these items. I would be willing to trade them and some cash for a clean toilet when I am on the road and have a turtle-head poking at the cloth.

There is no option in a vehicle called a Redi-Jon, or some similar item. Unless you are wearing a diaper like that crazy astronaut lady, you have to find a toilet. Outside of your vehicle. If I were in charge of designing cars, I would figure THAT option out. I would figure out the car seat Redi-Jon. I would make it so number two….

When a toilet is functioning properly, it is an underappreciated thing of beauty. When it is not handling the business of its business; it is a disaster of biblical proportions. I have unclogged a few toilets in my day. I have removed a few toilets that have the spoils of the day still in them. Not because I wanted to, but if the plunger does not work, there is another reason that the throne is clogged. Unfortunately for me, to get to the point where it can be un-stuck, some times you have to pull the bugger up and that can be unpleasant.

All that being said the other day, while I was in a public facility, I noticed a sign above the stool. It said, “DO NOT PUT ANYTHING BUT TOILET PAPER IN THE TOILET.” I took this message to mean that you could still carry out vital life functions as the toilet is designed to handle, but not to put, oh I don’t know, anything like Snickers wrappers, used fan belts, socks, or PAPER TOWELS in the orifice of flushability.

There is something wrong with a society that has to be told not to flush anything but TP and human excrement. Ok, occasionally I have driven to the porcelain bus. I will give vomit its toilet pass as well. However, hurling out the window at highway speeds is also a thing that should be tried once in your life. Just for the sheer excitement of it. You will understand why dogs put there heads out the window after that classic drinking debacle.

Toilets 101, people, would tell us that the size of the hole in the bottom of the toilet is the maximum size of objects that can be readily flushed. The typical home has three inch or four inch main waste lines. These lines are hard material. They are not expandable to accommodate objects larger than the diameter of the pipe.

I understand the principle of the sewer. Excrement does indeed run down hill. When it comes back up hill there is a reason. The objects that clog a DWV (drain waste vent) pipe are usually NOT supposed to be in the line, or not in the amount that they are. It is like a dam on a river. It’s got to go somewhere. Who am I kidding; it is almost always something that should not be flushed. It is usually a snickers wrapper, a fan belt, paper towel or sometimes a tennis shoe.

Just another day in paradise

is it summer yet?

Is it summer yet? I do not like winter. There are only two things to do in Michigan during the 9 months or so that winter is upon us. Go outdoors and risk your life or stay inside and hibernate. Maybe that is a bit extreme, but since I do not like the cold and the snow, I find that the inside option has greater up side. So does living. There is lots of hockey to watch. But even hockey is indoors.

Some people like to decorate the outside with colorful lights and such just before it snows. Some cultures call them Christmas lights. I call them mother$%&!#&^ lights. I usually throw the penguins on the roof, toss a couple, er I mean several, empty booze and beer bottles around them and light them up with a few halogen work lights. They are my winter decor. Nine months later they slide down the roof during the glacial thaw, and I tuck them away for next year. The beer and booze bottles as well. Sometimes I refill the vodka bottles with water to see if my wife can tell the difference…not really.

Yeah, we can piss and moan about the adverse conditions. We can joke about how bad it is. And yet there is hockey. Ice hockey. Not just any hockey. Redwing’s hockey! That is a topic for another day. This is not about that. Unfortunately my brain froze, so I forgot what I was doing. Is it summer yet?

I walked out side to burn one and realized that the truth about smoking is the harmful side effects of being outside. It is cold. The snow is blowing. The air cold and it hurts my lungs. Some may say my lungs hurt from the smoke. No, smoke is warm. It is a by-product of fire. It is definitely the cold air.

I am not fond of snow. I am not fond of driving in snow. I do not like the chore of snow shoveling, or using a snow blower. A couple of years ago I tried to melt the snow in the driveway with a brush torch. Didn’t work, but I was warm, and toasty. That is until I turned off the torch.

I shoveled the driveway the other day. It totally sucked. It was wet and sloppy. It was before work. It was work. I was tired by the time I got to the job. Then once inside the customers house….sauna…Man, the house was hot...I think they had the heat turned up to 90 F…better than working in the snow, but it was hot…did I mention how hot it was?

It is not that the snow is pretty. It is not. It is not that I want a white Christmas. I do not. Santa Drives a Ford Ranger, the reindeer are under the hood and he does not need the snow on the roof to come down the chimney, he walks thru the front door.

When I was in Key West one winter the lights on the palm trees looked as good as the ones on the snow-covered trees up north. It was warm. Maybe they looked better. I know the drunken penguins don’t look as good on a snow-less roof, but who really cares. Is it summer yet?

Just another day in paradise

i have a driver's license.....re post

    TRENDING NOW!!!!TRENDING NOOOOO!!!!!

1.Bristol Palin( NO WAY!!!wtf HAS SHE BEEN?)

2.Britney Spears (IF she were fat and ugly, she’d never have had a career)

3.Mel Gibson (prolly stepped in it again)

4.Mobile phones (work best when thrown out a car window)

5.Adam Sandler (funny guy)

6.Helen Mirren (had a face lift)

7.Diddy-Dirty Money (I hate rap) 8.Netflix (buy stock now!)

9.Invisible braces (where are they?)

10.X-37B (crashes..no survivors)

i would like to welcome  new follower Pearl from Pearl, Why you little... Check her out or you are missing out. Witty, articulate, smart and a bit sassy, but most of all a great read...

please note: since i am kinda *Cat's in the Cradle* right now, i felt a re post is in order...most of you have not read this and those of you long timers...i have made a few modifications...
one of my all time favorite posts...

I have a driver's license (re post of dec 08, 2010)

     I have a driver’s license. In Michigan they are known as an operator’s license. That strikes fear into my heart. Does that mean that the act of driving is an operation? If it is then I am doctor.

I will,

from this day forward,

be known as Dr. Johnson.

     I am always amazed by the trouble people that have an operator’s license have operating a vehicle. Hey, I know accidents happen. People misjudge the time it will take to perform the various operations involved in operating a vehicle. However it is a scientific fact that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. I have been the cause of accidents and have been the victim of others malfeasance. No blood, no foul.

And thank God for that.

     The other day I was operating my vehicle and I saw the following atrocities. The first operation that was diametrically opposed to operating a vehicle was a guy reading the paper. He nearly rear ended a SUV. A little while later I saw a woman putting on make-up. She nearly hit a pedestrian. Then I witnessed a person drexting. This person nearly ran a red light. Another operator was playing air drums and air guitar. This rocker nearly ran me of the road.

     Opinionflash: there is enough multitasking going on in a vehicle just to operate it let alone the other aforementioned functions

     I went to party few years back and did not know many of the other guests. That never stops me from rubbing elbows with the glittering literati of the vacation town in which I lived. Someone asked me what I did for a living.  I did not want to tell them the truth. I wanted to do something unusual. I reached into spinzone. I told them I was an insurance actuary. It sounded good. I really did not know what an actuary did.

I Still do not.

But that is not the point.

   I stood there with my clip on shades and  long, curly red hair, covered by a doo-rag, wearing a white tee-shirt and jeans with a flannel tied around my waste. I did not want to use the usual true~ness of I live in a van and am a street performer.

bo~O~O~oring. (singsong voice)

(not really...busking was cool, but...)

     I followed with a little yarn about how my job was to go to traffic accidents and gather up the broken glass and take it back to my state-of-the-art laboratory. Once there, I would carefully reconstruct the glass to find out if dirty glass was the cause of the accident. The other people seemed to buy what I was selling. A lot of smiling and nodding went on. After a while, I actually may have believed it myself.

I was in the spinzone.

It was A~W~E~some (singsong voice)

    I moved on with the spin and came up with other factoids about this “new” career I had just adopted. It was fun. I rolled out more BS than SlickWilly chatting up a young, female capitol hill intern. They probably thought I was drunk.

I probably was.

Well, I know I was drinking.

     If today, I were to have the similar situation, I would spin this in a new direction. I would add the factoid that I gathered the stuff in the vehicle and did all kinds of calculations and simulations to determine what non-driving function was involved in the altercation. Sounds like my dream job. Sounds like a lot of fun. And i know I would have an awesome collection of lipstick, eyeliner, cell phones, newspapers, novels and an awesome air drum kit and a sweet air guitar.

Just another day in paradise

the hockey ball incident

I play hockey. Well, not really, it is more like Hockeyball. We don’t skate. We wear shoes. We play on a driveway. We started to play this modified version of hockey during the Wings playoff run in 08. We only had sticks and a whiffle ball. The net was approximately a 3’x 4’ box with the bed board, from the van I used to live in back in the day, used as a net. The boards are 2x 10’s left over from a remodel project many years ago. I finally found a good use for some of that crap I have moved countless times, from one house to another.

The kids play and occasionally the wives as well. It is a rough game even though there is no checking and no lifting of the sticks. It nearly always draws some minor blood letting. Nothing in the caliber befitting of a tourniquet around the neck to stop the bleeding, mind you, but blood has spilled. We have rules, but not too many. It is a good way to spend a Michigan summer afternoon.

When we moved to a smaller house, we lost the rink space that the old house had and had to come up with a new place to play. We decided to use my buddy Rich’s driveway.

It is oddly shaped and irregularly surfaced drive. The ball bounces funny on the cracks in the drive and if you’re not careful it will eat your sticks. We hinged together the 2x 10 boards to from an odd shaped rink. It suffices for our needs.

I built some “pipes” out of 2x4 ripped to 2x2 and realized after I completed a regulation size goal that it would be rare for the goalie to make a stop. I reduced the size to 5’ x 4’. It works okay. Our save percentage is poor, but we are not getting paid, so I guess it all evens out in the end.

It started with just a group of four or five people. As more people started join in, the need for protection equipment for the goalie became a necessity. A goalie mask and a soft ball glove do nothing to protect your junk, as I found out by making a stop with my privates. Even though we do not allow slap shots a well placed wrister from 10’ feet hurts. I left the rink for about 10 minutes after I stopped howling like a banshee from the excruciating pain. I got back in net vowing to get a cup, before the next game. No blood, no foul

I still did not have a cup and. a couple weeks went by. No worries. Then I started peeing blood. It freaks you out a little when urine is not clear or normal, but chunky and reddish brown. I went to see my urologist; I got a bunch of tests done. I stopped peeing blood. No blood, no foul. Then I got the bills. It cost me about $1700.00 after my insurance paid their portion. A cup costs around $15.00 I bought a cup.
Just another day in paradise.