last day of vacation

Got quite a bit done today. Had to go to Menard's and waste time there telling them how to do their jobs again. Every damn time I go there that happens. Today I needed two six foot 2x6's. Instead of ordering them from the desk and driving out to get them, I went to the yard and picked them. I did that because their lumber can be really crappy and if the six footers were crappy I would buy one 12 foot instead. They did not suck and they were on sale. So I carried them the 2 miles back into the store and got to the register and paid. As I got to the truck I did the math and they charged me too much. I thought at first that they had not charged the sale price, but as I was walking in, I remembered that one of them was about 3/4" longer then the other. AAAh. This has happened to me before. They take crappy long boards and cut off the crap and sell it as a shorter board. That is fine, BUT TAKE THE DAMN TAG OFF OF THE END! The kid that rang it up scanned the (wrong) sticker twice. So I went in and told the little girl what had happened. She did not understand so she got another little girl. After 3 times of explaining it to her, she finally got it and refunded the difference. I asked her to pass that along because it has happened to me before. If I had been buying 30 boards or whatever like I usually do, I would have not noticed so I wonder how often it has happened. The other day I bought some 30" aluminum powercoated spindels. I swear they said they were on sale in the yard. I needed about 20 or 25, but I just grabbed a whole box since they were on sale. There are 35 in a box. So... I take my stuff up to the little girl and she is ringing it up. I noticed that she scanned the box of 35 spindles and it rang up as $1.60. I told her that there are 35 of them in there and she gave me that blank stare. I told her that it is 35 TIMES $1.60. "oh!" She got it. Well then my bank card did not work. CRAP. So I push all of this plywood and 2x6's and spindles off to the side and get in the truck to come home and get Mary's card. Then she calls me and tells me to put it on the credit card. So I turn around and go back. Time is wasting. I go back in and push my big cart full of plywood and stuff back over to another little girl. She rings it up and I pay for it. On the way to the truck I realize that it was about $120 this time and the first time it was about $170. DAMNIT! Another little girl had done the same thing. By this time I was SICK of being there and wanted to go home. I had tried to do the right thing, and so I just went home. I understand that these little girls don't know shit about construction. I don't blame them. They are working and that is a good thing. But even if you don't know ANYTHING about construction or plumbing, or electrical stuff, you would know that NOTHING in Menard's in a box that size could possible cost $1.60.
So anyway, here is where we are as of today..

sunday

Well we went racing today. We saw the Indy cars in Newton. The race was not bad, but they still can't really pass for some reason. The great thing about Newton is that we can usually get out of there and home in no time at all. Today we left right after the race. We did not stop at the bathrooms or to get a drink. We got to the car and pulled out. Then we sat in the same spot for about an hour. We were about 1/4 mile from the exit, but it took 1.5 hours to get there. IT SUCKED. Also, I went to get sodas for the four of us. They only have coke (yuck) so I bought four of them. $14 for four sodas, and they were hot. That pissed me off. Later the beer guy came by and they were selling tall boys of beer for $5. They were cold, so I did not mind paying that. But $14 for hot coke products is just wrong. When we were waiting in line for hot sodas I realized that the metal militia was there jumping on the infield. I missed much of it, but caught a few jumps. A few years ago a flip was a huge deal. Now.. not so much. I was above them when I shot these photos so you don't really get a sense of how high in the air they really are. I was more impressed with that then the indy car guys, sorry to say.

Saturday.

I got quite a bit done on the deck today. One more wall pretty much done. Tim H stopped by and visited. That was cool. Don't see him enough. Randy from across the pond came over with a 12' net between to poles and we dragged a ton of algae out of the pond. Then... I ran out of energy.
Tomorrow... Indy car race at Newton. Hopefully it will be better then last year. They really could not pass.
You probably heard Scott Kaletta was killed today in an NHRA event. This is the worst crash I think I have ever seen. He was a true champion, and he will be missed.

Tuesday.

If you are a fat-ass white guy with a hairy back and a goofy haircut and you have been asked nicely not to come over to our pond because it is private property and you are trespassing, make sure that you bring your son over to break the law also. It is important to pass on these values to insure the next generation of white trash carries on the tradition of not amounting to crap. Sorry you had to see that. I should not have to either.

Happy Father's day.

I spent my Father's day at work, which kind of sucked.. but oh well. I stopped by on the way and took some photos of the flood. HERE are a few.
As sad as all of the damage is, there is one photo that I really enjoyed. It is the one of Carousel motor 2 under water. That is funny because they are scum bag crooks.
The good news is that as of right now I am on vacation for about a week. Hope to get some work done on the deck. It is actually supposed to be nice all next week.
-Steve sent me this link. I thought it was so damn funny that I had to post it also to make sure nobody missed on the jocularity. Yea, it is important to pause between thoughts.

wow

I went in to work today at 4:15 a.m. Most folks made it to work. A few did not because they were getting flooded. Then we started getting bad information in about the Burlington street bridge closing. It was the only way home for a lot of our workers. Me too. So we let people go and it was just crazy, but it was kind of fun trying to figure out how to make it work. One news show reported that it was closed. Then we heard it was open. But they were saying that they were going to close it at noon. I got out of work at about 1:00 and got the Burlington street. All three lanes going east were open and I went right through. But now the bridge is closed. I have to work tomorrow. The second map shows in red how I usually go to work and in blue how I think I will try to get there tomorrow.
There are a lot of of people that commute between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. You can't really get there except by going via Des Moines. I don't know exactly but the first graphic is an approximate drawing so you get an idea of what I am talking about. The news said it is now 284 miles between IC and CR. Crazy. Just crazy.

-One a lighter note.. BUSTED!!!!! What a dork.

Wed.

Remember, if you're off of work and eating at a restaurant, and the SERVERS who are working are in a better mood than you, you're doing something terribly wrong in your life.
That was a comment on FARK linked to a blog entry about rude customers. I agree totally with the blog entry, but really liked the comment above. She had some other good entries on her blog if you are interested.
I am off today but, naturally it started raining about noon. So I got some done on the patio, but not as much as I would like. A couple of days ago I had some patio blocks pulled off so I could set the 2x6 bottom plates. I had the sand all leveled and ready to go. I ran out of daylight. I came home from work and the dog had decided he was a goper. He dug all of the sand out and threw it all over the remaining blocks, and tried to tunnel under the damn borders. I reset everything and got it done. The next day I came home and there was a 5 gallon bucket full of sand on the deck. He somehow got inside the bucket and threw all of the over the blocks AGAIN. So today I pull some more off, get it leveled and stuff. I turn around to cut the 2x6. When I turn back, the dog was four wheelin' in the sand. It was everywhere AGAIN. I was not amused.
I know that the few people that actually read this blog also read Steve's blog. But just in case you dont.. he had THIS LINK and I thought it was one of the funniest/most pathetic things I have seen in a long time. Good stuff.
-If you are in a hurry and want to see Steve Job's delivery at the WWDC, here it is in 60 seconds.
-So a sailor loses his watch during WWII. It slips off his wrist into the harbor. He got it back recently. Somebody found it and sent it to him. It still works. I am assuming that Bulova will be reading this and wanting to make a commercial about it.

FRIDAY!

WHOOT!
I was going to work on the patio today because it is actually not raining. I got off at 1:00 and that was cool. But Tim's good friend Gerry is having to move. It turns out that they are releasing the water in the res' tomorrow and the trailer they live in will be flooded out. So we went over there and got as much stuff out of there as we could. I feel really bad for them. They seem like good folks. Gerry is coming over to life here for a day or whatever. Gerry borrowed his uncle's truck and came over to help us move when we moved here so I was glad I could help them.

-HERE is the story of a 32 year old home schooled dyslexic with ELEVEN advanced degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford, Columbia.. etc.

Thursday.

Tomorrow looks to be fun. I am the only supervisor in the morning, so I will probably go in at 4:30 and start early. The good part is I will probably be done by 1:00 and might get something done tomorrow. That is assuming it does not rain. I just saw the extended forecast and it is supposed to rain every day during the next week except Saturday. Cripes. Enough man. The Res is already full and they need to let some out.

-GRID is a new driving game. I just looked quickly at the site, but the damage simulation is really amazing. Stove needs to get this. :-)


-In case you have not heard the rumors, Apple is expected to release the second iPhone on Monday. I don't know why, but I am really curious to see it. Rumors have that it will be 3G and probably GPS. Just wonder what else they cooked up for it. I wish they would let you turn it sideways and type on it that way. The keyboard would be lots bigger. I don't know why I care. I won't be getting one. Just like to follow the evolution.

-Here is a funny new twist. The Eye-Fi card is a SD card that has WI-FI built in. (pretty slick) It uploads your pictures to your computer or to a server like Picasa or whatever you use. This lady had her camera stolen on vacation. She gets home and her pictures had uploaded. The crook was good enough to take a picture of himself, which also was uploaded. She got her stuff back.

Wed.

-This marine is funny.

-HERE is the latest office melt down video if you have not seen it yet. That girl gets wacked with a CRT pretty hard.

Monday

This woman probably got stuck on a stalled escalator also.

THIS is pretty cool. Lets you wave your CDs in front of your iSight camera on your Mac and it reads the bar codes and catalogs them.

I had the day off. So I thought I would go to Menards and get the lumber I need and start working on the screen in under the deck. On the way there, there was an airplane crash on the highway and it was closed. I had to stop, naturally, and see it. It was so odd. The plane was sitting right beside an apartment complex and just short of skidding into a gas station. The sad ending to the story is that a mom had brought her young daughter to Iowa to have surgery. They were leaving Iowa City when it happened. The mom and pilot lived, but the little girl did not. Talk about a really sad irony.
So I get to menards and it takes me forever to find stuff. Then I finally check out. Then I have to go find all of the assorted lumber. Nobody there knows where stuff is and they kept sending me all over. Also when I bought the carsiding, I told the kid that I forgot to see how wide it was. I asked if there was more then one size. He said no. So I go out to where the guy said it was, and it was not there. So I ask another guy and he says it is inside. So I go inside and find the another guy and he takes me to where he thinks it is. It is not there. So another kid comes along and shows me where it really is. But there are THREE sizes. Naturally I have purchased the wrong size. I would have gone back to see what I needed if the kid had not said there was one size. So I go back to the counter and they say that they can't refund it, I have to go to the front counter. So I go there and get refunded. I look at the ticket and he did not even sell me carsiding. It was some 4" tong and grove stuff. AARG. I left for Menards at 11:00 because it was pouring rain up until then. I got home at 3:30.
That was my whole day. I hate the new Menards store.

Sunday.

I worked today and then when I got home, I dug up the ton of dirt that I have been stashing beside the house since last summer. It looked really bad. I was able to get the truck in between the houses so I did not have to shovel it 2x and that was better. I hauled it down to Riverside to Farmer Tom's farm where he had some washout that needed filled. It looks so much better. I felt bad about leaving it like that, but I was always digging up dirt for different things, and then sometimes I would need some and go take it. Glad it is done.
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-Just when you thought you had seen the most tacky bastardization of an old car, something like a Harley V-twin powered Model T shows up on eBay. Click here to see it and bid away. Unless you are Ranger Rick.

-This, however is kind of cool. A guy in Lithuania sculpts cars using that foam stuff you use to fill cracks around windows. I assume he fiberglasses over that, but it did not really say. If you follow the "original foam car" link, it will show him working on it.

-"something came up into the ass of Timo" Greatest line ever in auto racing even before the "fist" gesture.