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Those that really don’t fit anywhere else!

Messy Start to a New Year

~ Ron Walker ~ 1 Comment

Well, 2017 is here as off yesterday and this is the first weekday of the new year. It has rained for the last 3 days. This is December but it is 65F and has been for the last 3 days. Thunder and lightning outside at the moment with rain pouring down. It’s a messy way to start a new year.

Power is coming and going and the UPS’s are keeping things running smoothly here in the Depot Forum office. As long as no tornadoes show up we will be good to go.

Rain is coming down now at 1.93 inches per hour. Let’s hope it stops after this hour or I’ll need to dig out the plans for the Ark.

Scanner reports a vehicle wreck out on the Interstate about even with us. They say the vehicle is off and in the trees. Someone going too fast for the conditions. We always said that this area was a place of “Instant Idiots, just add water”.

“A Hard Day” is relative.

~ Ron Walker ~ 1 Comment

Ever think about how hard your day is going. I was having one such day about two months ago when I noticed at the back of our lot in the ‘neutral zone” outside our fence the local helper cleaning out the septic tank. Or what our landlord of the trailer park calls his version of cleaning it out. He has this poor fellow scrape just enough off the top to allow it to function another year.

No gloves, no face mask and getting paid a whopping $60 to use a pick and shovel and crowbar to dig up the lid by himself and shovel poop off the top into the back of the Trailer Park pickup truck to be hauled off to who knows where and dumped. The poor guy shovels, shudders, stifles back throwing up and jerks uncontrollably from the smell (frame stutter is from the webcam) and digs some more as I watch. I kept waiting for the cigarette he was smoking to set off drifting methane gas but it didn’t happen thank goodness. Imagine where all that gunk would have gone!

It must take a special kind of cheap to enlist another human being to do such a thing to save money on a real septic cleaning service.

So on your next “Hard Day” drop back by here and check him out. You just might get a new perspective.

Comments welcome,

Into the Muck…

~ Ron Walker ~ 4 Comments

Many people don’t realize why plumbers get paid so much. Try working on a sewer pipe under someone’s home. That is the worst smell you will ever face. I can handle death and decay easier than that.

WTF is that smell!

We bought this place and the owner had told us that a plumber had not quite put the correct amount of drop on one of the lines and it might stop up every few months needing to be cleared. We have been here almost 2 years and no problems. Apparently the house shifted and a couple of joints in the waste line opened. This is when I got to see the “plumbers” work. It turns out from the neighbors that the elderly man who lived here simply sent his 12-year-old “plumber” grandson under there to piece pipes together and shore them up on blocks (that can settle). There was not a glued joint in the whole system.

The job took us about 2 hours counting 45 mins of slowly crawling through and removing what one might mistake as cotton candy. It was actually Spider webs, I hate Spiders. I was fortunate that last month I had the exterminator come out and treat the underside with something to kill them so they were few and far between but their handiwork was there.

Hopefully my repair will stand the test of time since I did it what we like to call “The right way” using glue and tying the pipes up with hangers to the underside of the home.

At least the job is done.

Large Whoopee Cushions on Wheels (Jake Brakes)

~ Ron Walker ~ 2 Comments

If it isn’t the loud jacked up trucks with Earth Mover Tires, then we get lambasted by the Pulp Wooder 18 wheel Trucks that slowly drive down the highway out front holding their “Jake Brake” Open. The item is an addition to the engine to assist it is slowing on steep grades by allowing the compression stroke of the Diesel to be vented straight to the outside air. This can result in a loud “blatting” or machine gun noise depending on speed. It also sounds like what a super massive Whoopee Cushion might sound like in slow motion.

For some perverse reason these pulp wood truck jockeys take pleasure in going byimages-4 slowly past the park and holding the device open. They are on a level grade and they keep it in a high gear and low-speed to keep the sound going as long as possible. There is absolutely no reason to cause the noise other than “look at me” factor. Of course when you look at them they usually have bald tires and ropes or cables hanging mysteriously from the truck.

Some municipalities and rural areas post signs forbidding the use of them in the area. I think they should give a hefty fine for using them when they are not needed, much like laying down on the horn as you drive along.

Comments welcome.