Snow Country for Old Men

Suburban living for the 21st century male has several key milestones.

There's the point where you decide to pay a guy to take care of your yard because who needs that aggravation?

There's the point where you switch from a propane grill to a wood chunk charcoal smoker (dude, don't even bring that charcoal brick stuff around my house. What do you think this is, Gladstone?).

And then there's the day when you get your power snow thrower.

Of these three, I think the final one represents the furthest stage of "maturity." I mean, it seems like a bit of an extravagance. You're spending a couple hundred bucks or so on an appliance that you'll use maybe once or twice a year? But when you have a snow event the likes of which we had this week, you damn well are grateful that you have a snow shovel that you can plug in or power up and just walk behind to clear your driveway. That goes double if, like a majority of the guys on my block, you have "advanced experience in the role of life."

Me? I kind of take it as a point of pride that I haven't yet crossed that threshold. I'm still young. I'm able bodied. I ain't 'fraid of a little cold white stuff, and shoveling it off my driveway is my manly duty, a rite of passage each winter that, like the out-taking of the trash and the smashing of the spiders, proves how important I am to this family.

So I wasn't at all daunted when I opened the garage door Thursday afternoon to attack the thick layer of white stuff in my driveway. Hell, I was kind of looking forward to it!

Before: A tabula rasa

10 inches exactly

Then, I moved the first shovel full. This was a heavy snow.

And when I say it was a heavy snow, I don't just mean there was a lot of it. Don't get me wrong, there WAS a lot of it, but it was also quite wet and heavy. This was going to be a tougher job than I was expecting.

Frost thing's first. I shovel a path from the garage door to the end of the driveway. Whew, this is tough. Next, shovel out the rest of one side of the driveway.

Halfway done with half the driveway

By the time I'm halfway done with half the driveway, I've worked up quite a sweat -- a manly sweat, mind you. I can see that I'd better do little advanced planning for the post-shoveling recuperation.

I'm going to need this later...

I shed my coat and get on with the job. Soon, I've got half the driveway cleared. That's enough to get one of our cars out of the two-car garage, just in case we have some kind of emergency (like running out of Scotch). I've also got a helluva backache, which makes that Scotch emergency all the more likely.

After

It all got me wondering just how much snow I moved. We had our driveway and sidewalk replaced last summer, so I know that the area I shoveled is about 907 square feet (130,608 square inches). Multiply that by the 10 inches of snow over the whole thing and you end up with 1,386,080 cubic inches of snow, or 802.13 cubic feet¹. That all converts into a pretty seriously stiff back the next day.

But numbers aside, I was prepared to reward myself for a job... well... done.

Time for a cold one

Also, I'm totally going to get a snow thrower before next winter.

1) All math calculations done by the Internet and may be subject to my complete ineptitude at mathematics.

  tagged: winter, snow, Kansas, shoveling, beer, snowstorm, blizzard, weather

YouTube Tuesday: It all began with a god named Thor

Today's edition of YouTube Tuesday celebrates the good news that will send hipsters hopping all to way to Merriam in a couple of years.

Sure, every major city in the world already has an IKEA store, but how many metros are there that have an IKEA AND a Nebraska Furniture Mart? It's all part of my plan to make KC the furniture capital of the world!

The lyrics are even better...

tagged: Kansas City, Merriam, IKEA, Jonathan Coulton, YouTube Tuesday, video, music

Get Glue

It is said that over time, married couples begin to resemble one another.

Fortunately for my Supermodel Wife, this isn't the case in our situation. I mean, it would be a tragedy for her to begin to look like an old, fat, bald guy just because she had the bad judgment to marry a wildebeest like myself.

But that's not to say that over the course of years, shared experiences haven't given us a few physical similarities. Such an experience happened over the weekend.

It was the first Saturday in forever that we didn't have some kind of social or familial engagement. So I had the day open to focus attention on some much needed yard work. I spent the morning trimming trees and bagging up the debris in the back yard, spraying weeds, putting out cancer-causing crabgrass preemergent and cleaning some spilled plutonium off the back patio.

Pretty typical suburban stuff.

By about noon I'd worked my way to the front yard where I was shearing back some shrubbery that had become overgrown due to the sudden spring and our many busy and out-of-town weekends as of late. I was making pretty quick progress on the overgrowth thanks to the Black&Decker cordless electric hedge trimmer that I received as a Father's Day gift a few years ago.

(Ever notice how all Father’s Day gifts are either clothing or tools to "help” you work more?)

Anyway, I was happily buzzing along removing twig after twig of overgrown Japanese Snowball and ornamental apple tree in front of our house. I was trying to avoid disturbing a robin’s nest (with three bright blue eggs in it) when I reached up to remove a severed tree branch with my left hand. Stupidly, I simultaneously brought the electric hedge trimmers down with my right hand, getting the business end close to my left ring finger… a bit too close, as it turns out.

The pain of the cutting blade biting into the fatty tip of my finger was still radiating up my arm as I ran cursing into the kitchen, a trail of blood droplets left on the grass, sidewalk, driveway and garage floor (not to mention my t-shirt and shorts). Instinctively, I put my injured finger under a stream of cold water in the kitchen sink. It took about a second to see that quick medical attention was in order.

The pad of my ring finger, from about the middle of my finger nail to about 60 percent around my finger, was neatly sliced and dangling by the remaining 40 percent of the fingertip, which was still attached and in pretty good condition, all things considered.

I wrapped a piece of ice to my finger with a paper towel while my wife and hero, who was making lunch, recruited our next door neighbor to watch the kids. We headed to the emergency room at St. Luke’s South. After a quick three and a half hour wait, a tetanus shot and me explaining the accident three or four times to various nurses and doctors, I returned home with my finger tip superglued back in place underneath a Band-Aid with instructions not to get it dirty or wet.

Now, for those of you who have been reading this blog for a few years, some of this might sound vaguely familiar. But I can assure you that I’m not making up new stories due to a lack of anything else to write about. I mean, I do have a lack of anything interesting to write about, but I’m not repeating stories because of it.

It so happens that a similar accident befell my Supermodel Wife a couple of years, only in her case the cutting instrument was a cheese slicer, and she lost part of her thumb. You can read more about that at the link, but here’s a reminder of what it looked like after a week or so of healing.
For comparison, looking at this picture of my ring finger after a day or two of healing, you can see that it’s not near as bad.
But still it’s one of those shared experiences that helps make us old married folks begin to look like each other.

UPDATE:
There's still a lot of healing to do. The glue used on my finger turned out not to be so super so I went to the walk-in clinic this morning to get it redressed and re-glued. According to the Nurse Practitioner I saw, the glue used costs about $200 per .5ml vial. Thank you Obamacare!

tagged: injury, finger, medicine, home improvement, accident, hedge trimmer

Home Improvement: The old switcheroo

My main project for this past weekend (aside from the usual trimming hedges, taking out the trash and collecting "protection" money from local businesses) was to change out the electrical switches and outlets in our new baby's room.

The switch was one of those old-school switches from the days when people believed the electricity demons were aroused by the loud clicking noise the switch made, thus turning the light on. It was loud, is what I'm sayin'. So I decided to replace it with a fashionable modern switch that wouldn't wake up the baby (and the neighbors and the North Koreans) with such a loud clicking noise.

As for the electrical outlets, they were the old two-prong outlets. I wanted to upgrade to three-prong outlets because three is better than two (just ask The D).

Anyway, as a public service I documented the procedure so that you, yes you, can do the same upgrade without hiring a licensed electrician which could easily cost double the value of your entire house.

First, the basic tools. For this project, you'll need a screwdriver, wire cutters, wire strippers, an electrical current tester (optional), a utility knife, and a Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat.

We'll start with the switch. The first thing you need to do -- and this is of minor importance -- is find the breaker switch that controls the electrical circuit for the room. It's probably in your basement (next to the pick axe and trunk full of spare rubber trousers) and hopefully it's labeled. Turn off the breaker before you begin. You'll know it's off if you flip the light switch and the light doesn't turn on.

Got it? Good. Now remove the screws holding the switch plate/cover onto the wall.
Use your screwdriver for this. I used a cordless electric power screwdriver (because why should I have to do all the work), but a manual one works just fine if you're into that kind of thing.

Now you can see the actual switch hardware attached to the switch box. You'll want to unscrew the two screws (at the top and bottom of the switch) that hold it in. Your goal is to remove the screws and pull the switch hardware from the box housing.

But here's a tip: If your house is old (like mine) chances are that part of the hardware has been painted to the wall. So before you pull the switch out of the box, be sure to cut the paint around the switch so that it doesn't tear a big strip of paint and drywall off your wall.

Okay. With the screws removed and the paint cut, pull the switch out of the box. It will be attached to the rest of the house with two (or more) insulated copper wires. Stretch these out and pull the whole assembly a few inches from the wall to give yourself room to work.

Now is a good time to test to make sure there's no current running through the circuit. There are a couple of ways to do this. One, lick your finger tips and touch any of the dark copper colored screws on the back of the switch. If they're "hot" -- if electrical current is running through them -- you'll get an exciting electric shock. Man, what a rush!

Fun as that is though, I prefer the second way. Use a tool especially designed to check for electrical current. Just touch the electrode to the back of the switch (or to the copper wires themselves) and an alarm sounds if the current is on.

If you did step one correctly and turned off the breaker switch, you should be fine to proceed.

With the switch housing pulled away from the wall, use your wire cutters to snip the white and black (and other, if you have it) wires from the old switch. Be sure to cut fairly close to the switch to leave yourself plenty of wire to work with in installing the new one.

Now you can discard the old switch. Good riddance! And if you haven't done it yet, now is a good time to take a nice long swig of Boulevard. If you've already done that step, good for you. Your already ahead of the game.

With the two (or more) wires exposed, the next step is to remove some of the insulation from the copper so that they can be connected to the new switch.

Use your wire strippers to remove about three eighths of an inch of insulation. If you're not sure how much that is, there's probably a gauge on the back of the new switch that shows how much insulation to strip.

So now, you should have (at least) two wires sticking out from the wall with a tip of gleaming copper at the end. One of these will be white and the other black. Believe it or not, the hard part is over! Congratulate yourself and take another pull off that Boulevard. You deserve it!

At last you're ready to install the sexy new switch. The good thing about new switches these days it that they have been redesigned so that you can almost literally just push them into the wall and they'll work.

So grab the new switch and check out the back. Look carefully and you'll see a couple of screws on either side, and some corresponding holes on the back.

As with much in life, those holes are the key making this project fun. It used to be that you had to shape the stripped copper into a little loop and tighten the side screws around them. No more my friend. We live in the future now. All you have to do is push the stripped copper wires into the holes (hehe) and you're pretty much done.

Take note of which hole is which, though. One of them will be labeled "white (blanco)" -- this is the hole that the white wire goes in (duh). If you put the black one into the white hole, you'll trip you breaker switch when you turn the power on. Also, you'll probably cause a rift in the space-time continuum (and believe me, you DO NOT want that in your kid's bedroom).
One other thing: If your house is newer, there might be an uninsulated copper wire as well. This is the ground wire and should be attached to the ground screw on the switch (usually greenish colored). There's no hole for this one, so you'll have to attach it old-school.

At this point, with the wires attached to the switch, I like to test my work before I go any further. So I polish off the last of the Boulevard and head down to the basement to flip the breaker on and grab another beer.

With the breaker on and beer in hand, head back up to the room and turn on the switch. If the light comes on and there are not sparks and your house doesn't catch fire, then congrats, it's wired correctly.

If not, don't sweat it. Probably the worst that will happen is the breaker switch will automatically cut the circuit and you'll have to start all over. If this happens, you might want to go easy on the beer, because this really isn't that complicated of a project.

Just to be safe, go turn the breaker off again before putting the switch back into the wall. Carefully jam all of the wires and switch housing into the switch box and line up screws on the switch with the screw holes on the switch box.

From here, it's just a matter of doing the first couple of steps in reverse. Screw the switch to the switch box. Now get the switch plate/cover and screw it to the switch. Don't forget to turn your breaker back on when you're finished.

It really is that easy.

For the electrical outlets, it's pretty much the same process but use an outlet instead of a switch. I'm not going to repeat all of the steps again, because I'm out of beer.

But good luck with your project. Let me know how it goes (or if you need me to call the fire department).

tagged: DIY, home improvement, electricity, light switch, Boulevard, Romex

3AM EXCLUSIVE: SPECTRE switches sides

SPECTRE ISLAND (3AM) - Global terrorism network SPECTRE announced plans Tuesday to switch sides, a move intended to boost its chances of remaining profitable during the global economic downturn.

"We now find our political philosophy more in line with the forces of good than evil," said super villain and Chief Evil Officer Ernst Stavro Blofeld in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to world-wide anarchy. Several lower level henchmen said a formal announcement could come later in the week.

SPECTRE, the notorious crime syndicate, is one of a handful of terrorist organizations remaining from the Cold War era. It is known to have been involved behind the scenes in several high-profile terrorist operations specializing in kidnapping, ransom, extortion and stolen Soviet rockets.

SPECTRE faced an extraordinarily difficult challenge throughout the cold war and was stymied on many occasions by special operatives of the Western governments. Some proposed that it was this ongoing war of attrition that finally prompted the syndicate to change sides.

"It's true that we never intended to join in the fray directly," explained senior SPECTRE Operative Julius No. "But our strategy of pitting one side against the other to weaken both so that we could then achieve world domination proved to be flawed when the two superpowers made peace."

As a member of the side of good, SPECTRE spokesmen have pledged to use their global criminal network to help Western powers root out and defeat terrorist organizations around the world.

"We have the ability to tap vast resources to provide the kind of critical information necessary for successful anti-terror operations," said Professor R.J. Dent, an operations analyst for SPECTRE.

"Using information we provide, Western governments will be able to engage the enemies of freedom directly and effectively. Our believe financial and human damage from these operations will be minimal."

Added Blofeld, "Rest assured that our organization will stand ready to step in an assist with any rebuilding or recovery necessary if you country is significantly weekend as a result of these operations."

tagged: Specter, Blofeld, Dr. No, James Bond, satire, pop culture

Bug Out

It was a dirty, sweaty job, but it needed doing and the weather last Saturday was perfect for doing it.

Like many across the metro this year, three of the trees in my backyard have been afflicted with webworms.

In case you aren't familiar with these insidious little beasties, they build a webby nest in your tree and eat all the leaves. The more leaves they eat, the bigger the web gets. As the web gets bigger, it engulfs more leaves for the little bastards to eat.

It seriously uglifies your trees and can kill saplings. And the only way to really get the out of your tree is to amputate the infected limb and destroy it.

So anyway, I had already pruned the affected branches from two of the three infested trees.

The worms on the third tree were about 20 feet up. I put up a ladder and grabbed my telescoping loppers and climbed as high as I could through the lower branches.

By this point I was used to tree bark, leaves and sawdust falling off the trees onto my head and into my eyes and ears (eye protection is for the weak). So after I lopped of the offending branch near the trunk, I stepped down off the ladder and brushed myself off.

I could feel that a piece of leaf had fallen into my ear. I casually tried to brush it out with my pinkie finger as I picked up the recently severed branch to add it to the debris pile.

Except the leaf wouldn't come out of my ear. In fact, my brushing attempt seemed to have pushed it further into my ear.

It was at this point that I noticed dozens of tiny winged insect crawling all over my shirt. This was accompanied by the realization that there wasn't a leaf in my ear, it was a bug. And it was crawling deeper into my ear canal.

Cursing, I made my way inside, headed to our downstairs bathroom and grabbed the nearest cotton swab. I rubbed it around my ear until I was sure that no creepy crawlie could be left.

Feeling better (but still a little creeped out), I headed back to the backyard to finish my work. I'd just taken a step off the back patio when I felt the sickening tickling in my external auditory meatus - and no, that's not a good thing.

Panic set in as I raced up to our master bath. We have multiple mirrors that can be articulated to allow me to look into my ear.

It was clear that this nefarious creature was intent upon burrowing into my noggin and laying eggs in by brain. Believe me folks, I can not afford to lose any brain cells.

Visions of Chekov's madness in Wrath of Khan raced through my mind.

I aligned the mirrors to peer into my ear and there it was. Laughing maniacally at me and brandishing its pincher-like beak about to delve into my dome.

A few quick flicks of my finger and I had him out.

I made my way back outside, relieved to be rid of this certain terror. When I got into the sun, I peered at the horrible little invader for a moment or two before crushing him like the bug he was.

tagged: insect, webworm, bug, tree, ear, Wrath of Khan, Chekov

Adventures in plumbing

It was one of those deals where they say they'll be there "between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. We'll give you a call and let you know when we're on our way."

So I took the time off to head home at about 11. Luckily, I got the call on my cell from Mario McPipewrench (I call all plumbers Mario) that he was on his way, and how do I get to your house from 95th and Antioch?

Anyway, he arrived shortly after I did. I escorted him to the master bathroom and demonstrated the clogged sinks. I offered my opinion on what the problem is (the drain is clogged somewhere beyond the p-traps). He gave a few thoughtful nods and considered the problem for a few moments before heading out his truck to get his gear.

I headed downstairs to check email as he started to open the drain cleanouts. A minute or two later I heard the menacing sound of the metaphorical colonoscopy as the drain snake ground its way through internal passages of our house's sewer system.

After several minutes of snaking, I remarked to myself how much aggressive noise the snake was making. Shortly after that it stopped, and I heard the master bathroom sinks turn on to test the drain flow.

Then, as I sat checking Twitter, I heard a tock sound, like a clock missing its tick. It was coming from the lower level bathroom a few feet away. I went to investigate and saw water dripping from the ceiling onto a half-used box of Kleenex, making the steady drumbeat of a water clock.

I hurried upstairs to deliver the good news to Mario.

"Hey, I think you broke a pipe. There's water coming through the ceiling downstairs."

Mario appeared to be overjoyed at the news. He followed me to the downstairs bathroom and saw the drip drip dripping of the drain directly above. After a quick Direct Connect to his manager to get clearance to continue the repair, he told me he would have to break into the ceiling to check the pipes.

It was my turn to be overjoyed.

I stood back while he cut a 16 by 16 inch square in the sheetrock ceiling. Two chunks of ceiling fell on the commode below, and I could see the black stain of sewer grease on the side that was closest to the pipe.
The leak was coming from a joint fitting where three pipes came together. Mario inspected the situation for a few minutes, isolating the leak and determining the best way to fix it. He concluded that a rubber gasket patch affixed with hose clamps was the easiest way to proceed. I had my doubts and wondered aloud whether it would be better to simply replace the entire fitting.

Mario must not have heard me.


When he had finished installing the gasket patch, which I unhappily determined was the plumbing equivalent of a Band-Aid, he went upstairs to turn on the faucets and test the patch.

Just as my superior plumbing instincts had predicted, the leak continued through a seem in the patch. I apprised Mario of the situation and suggested, a little more forcefully, that a replacement of the entire fitting might be in order.

He agreed and set to work removing the old pipes with a reciprocating saw.

The heat of the saw blade on the iron pipes mixed with the contents of the pipes to produce an aroma that I can only describe as burnt shite. Imagine the worst smoker's breath you've ever smelled. I'm talking the three packs a day, hasn't brushed his teeth in a week, just drank coffee with lots of cream, sour ass smoker's breath. Mix it with a healthy dose of burned, rusty iron. Take all that and add shit, and that is what the smell was like.

I actually felt kind of bad for Mario as he cut the first pipe and was showered with a stinking sticky stream of black sewer grease. I provided a few rags from my basement workbench for him to clean up.

Time passed, and eventually he had the new fitting installed.


We turned the faucets on again to check that there were no leaks. After a few minutes, we were satisfied, and Mario did his best to cleanup the black streaks on the wall and floors. I suggested we throw away the now-soiled rags.

So in the final analysis, we now have cleared drains and a new joint fitting. Those are pluses. We also have a hole in the ceiling of our downstairs bathroom, but our home warranty company will take care of fixing that. In the meantime, we'll keep an eye on the new fitting to make sure it doesn't start leaking.

On the downside, we'll need to repaint the walls and ceiling of the bathroom. But we probably would have done that anyway.

Also, I got a nice long blog post out of the deal. So there's that.

tagged: plumbing, home improvement, sewer, pipes, bathroom, sink