I've had a few episodes helping my nephew moving his family to California. I'm pushing the issue to have them out of the rented house by the end of this month so they don't incur more expense. Currently, they are in a hotel (in California) awaiting a deal on an apartment next month.
I found a 5th TV around the corner of the master bedroom loft that no one told us about. The only reason for that was my search for the internet router. Sheesh. The container is filled, so it's got to go in the back seat of the car they will have transported. Any other things we can stuff in the car should happen tomorrow. I'm waiting to hear when the car will be moved. If they can't get the carrier in time, I've got to move it to a guest spot at my condo or (preferred) the back parking warehouse of my office.
Tomorrow, I'm returning the TV and internet equipment then meeting one of the local donation services to take any/all of the things in the garage. Tables, (ugly) art work, lamps, broken bicycle, plastic bins and children's toys.
The one really negative that stands out is the smell of the place.
Nearly every room had a 'Plug-in' scented device. The few times I was there, scented candles were burning in a house with 2 cats, I deemed the place toxic. I mentioned about the Plug-ins being an irritant and not a good idea for 2 young children. That warning didn't faze them at all. Because my sinuses swelled within a few minutes, my visits were always short.
On the pile of 'give away' was a small carpet mat that I though would be good in my home office. Thought... I couldn't stand the smell and moved it to my back porch. The next stop will be the dumpster. I'm planning a yard sale at my house in Miami and put a toaster with a few other things in the back of my car for this weekend. The chemical perfume smell is so strong that I have to open the window and get fresh air into the car!
I'll be happy when this is over...
I listen to a local classic rock music radio station that has a few hours of talk show in the morning and music at 10am. One day, they talked about little known groups who re-record famous songs that help start their career. They stated, the price to pay for this is 50% of the total royalties.
YouTube is my favorite source for music and I often follow song remakes.
For this blog, I picked "You keep Me Hangin On" in 1966 by The Supremes, remade (as a psychedelic rock song) by Vanilla Fudge in 1967, and again remade in 1986 with a disco beat by Kim Wilde.
The Supremes
She said I was smug. Unlike the snug bug in the rug.
To be sure, I looked in a book to find this information I took...
Smug: contentedly confident of one's ability, superiority, or correctness.
Was she talking about me, did my struggle here make a rub, upset the bug in the rug?
Do I sense some disdain for her to mention my name, oh the woman in Spain? Does she live on the plain? I know it gets hot in Spain... she said chatty man and that's really not my name. Was it used in vain, did the cold run through her vein that would make her reference me without really mentioning my name?
My blogs are all too tame and many tell me about the same, reference to her blog, I decided to refrain and I'll live without comment, I know I will abstain.
Yeah, I married once before but a member called me a whore, I clicked the button and showed her the door. To the woman now in France, keep your distance, that's my stance. I'm not here to give you money, I'm here to blog and occasionally say things funny.
I'll respond to the suspicion from the South African guy, Jim N's my friend but he is really not like I, for he likes lemon cake and I like cherry pie.
I've always wanted to do a historic blog about the Hammond organ.... it's one of the most famous musical instruments in the last century. Consider this the first installment.
Hammond electric organs came into manufacture in 1935. They were large dual 61 note manual consoles mounted in wooden cases. The sound they make is synthesized/created by rotating tonewheels and magnetic pickups. The tone is shaped by controls called drawbars that can be pulled or retracted changing the harmonics and the overall sound. Over the years various model added features. The B-2 manufactured from 1949 to 1954 was very popular and had a vibrato circuit added to it's sound. The model B-3 is by far the most popular Hammond. it was produced from 1954 to 1974. The B-3 was used in Jazz, Gospel, Blues, Rock and many other genres.
In the beginning Laurens Hammond had a speaker system to go along with his brand of organs. Donald Leslie created a speaker cabinet with a rotating horn and baffle that created a chorale or tremelo effect to emulate the sound of a theater/pip organ. His attempt was to market his product with Hammond but Laurens wasn't interested. Leslie Tone Cabinets were sold as a stand-alone product around 1941.
To the ear, the combination of a Hammond with a Leslie was awesome!
If a gunman is caught by police, the news story would call him an 'alleged' shooter until he had his day in court with formal charges. If the gunman had been caught on video, the story would be the same... alleged.
This morning I saw a story on Yahoo News UK about a tumble dryer that caused a huge explosion that blew the entire gable wall off a house. No eyewitness, but the neighbors claim the blast was caused by the clothes dryer, though the Fire Chief states the cause of the blast was not established.
If so... the culprit was an alleged dryer. Get it right Yahoo News UK... it was
alleged the cause of the explosion was caused by a dryer.
I saw the photos of the site and believe there is something suspicious about the way the entire wall was torn from the building. To think it was a dryer that caused such a blast. Hmmm... If it was a gas dryer, perhaps a leak from a pipe and a spark from the motor, blasting the wall in the laundry room. That's my opinion, at least right now it is.
I did a job on a 100 year old hotel renovation. It was near the beach and the foundation was made with pilings into the sand. A crane accidentally struck a wall made with 2 layers of brick (and no inner steel reinforcement) and the side of the building collapsed. The hotel was in a historic registry and the wall had to be rebuilt using as many of the original bricks as possible. Alleged bricks, that is...
Something suspicious about they way the wall was pulled off the building.
A coworker... tall guy with a loud voice who often cracks jokes had mentioned he loves to sing and is in a men's chorus. I've known this for a while. Last week, after he made a joke, I said "Maybe you should do some stand-up" and his reply was "Funny you should mention that." He swipes the gallery on his cellphone and shows some photos of him on stage.
There are a few venues in the Delray Beach area that a night or two each week allow for amateur talent to perform. One place does Open Mic Tuesday. It's normally a slow crowd so something different is a way to bring in more customers. He enlarges the photo that shows another coworker in the crowd!
His side gig is working on stand-up comedy.
I told him next time he plans to perform, let me know... I'd like to see his routine.
Closed the shop,
Sold the house,
Bought a ticket to the West Coast,
Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.
I was going to do a blog about Mar-a-Lago as the president will be staying there between Christmas and New Years. This puts the kibosh on my plans to take a few days off and enjoy flying at the local radio control model airfield as it's in the restricted zone less than 25 miles from Mar-a-Lago!
There is another field in Fort Lauderdale 30 miles away that doesn't have flight restrictions, so I'll probably do some flight practice there.
Hopefully all who celebrate Christmas will enjoy the day and if you are missing your two front teeth, I suggest you Google a good dentist for restoration. As they say "Be truthful to your teeth, if not they will be false to you!"
When a failing business (especially in New York) has a mysterious fire in the night destroying the place including all the records and the owner claims enough insurance to start a new business, it comes under the heading of "Jewish lightening"
Legally, it's arson. In the old days investigators didn't have reliable means of determining the cause of such fires... unless it was obvious like a few empty cans of gasoline found in the premises leading to arrests, the insurance companies still had to make payouts on claims.
Today in the news, Latin singer Marc Anthony (Marco Antonio Muñiz) of Puerto Rican descent suffered a great loss when his 120 foot long yacht estimated at $7 million caught fire and capsized in a Miami harbor off Watson Island last night.
According to Yahoo news, it took more than 45 firefighters two hours to control the blaze and thankfully no one was injured.
Some of the reactions to the story were a bit revealing:
"a lot of times, fires like that are caused by friction. friction between the payment book and the insurance papers!!"
"The yacht was up for sale earlier this year. Didn't sell. Boom, fire. We see what you did there, Marc. *wink *wink"
"Was for sale, guess it was a fire sale."
"Fire $ale since nobody else wanted to purchase the money pit in a normal $ale."
"On a good note the fire was extinguished when it capsized."
"Mark, here’s some financial advice. If your worth is $80M, don’t spend a tenth of it on a yacht. You’re welcome."
"Two best days of a boat owners life: the day they get the boat, and the day it burns up in flames so they don't have to pay for it anymore."
"Anthony’s boat, which was for sale earlier this year..."
"Hmmm...can't wait for the investigation to reveal arson. Insurance fraud."
"Too much Salsa, huh?"
"I am guessing fire investigators will see if the fire was caused by arson. These multi-million dollar yachts don't just catch on fire. This is a rare event and stirs a lot of suspicion as to the cause."
(I like this last one)
"Was it arson? I need to know, tell me baby girl cause I need to know."
It's been raining on and off this week. Let's not rule out Puerto Rican Lightening...
It must have been last year when I flushed too much paper (among other things) down the toilet and clogged the entire sewer pipe. I bought a 50 foot plumbing snake and lots of drain cleaning chemicals to get the pipe open again. Doing the work manually took a few hours but the job was done. A few weeks ago the plumbing back-up happened again. I tried for 30 minutes with the snake. Having no luck and not wanting to fight with it, we left Miami for the condo and put off the project for the following weekend.
I decided to rent a 75 foot power feed unit from Home Depot. This thing was pathetically slow and I got about 60 feet into the drain line and it was still clogged. Setting the power feed to retract the coil jammed the mechanism and it would not retract. A call to Home Depot and they told me to wrap the coil as best as I can. I had to pull the coil out by hand (with rubberized gloves) and at the end of the snake was a chunk of 'something' that I originally thought was a clog of hair! Close observation revealed it was thin long roots. There are no trees in the area where the underground pipes travel. I know the old drain pipes are made from clay/pottery in sections about 6 feet long and the joints were sealed with tar. Over the years, the ground settles and water seeps into the soil. That's what attracts roots to grown to the water source and enter the pipes usually cracking them if this goes on for any length of time. So, I knew the reason as the paper (and poo) snagged on it's way to Washington D.C.
Using a few feet of copper wire wrapping I was able to get the coil around the outside of the machine and back to the store. They were nice to allow more time for the rental and gave me another machine that had a power feed at least 10 times faster than the broken one. We got back to the project and this time I added a cutter head attachment that's designed to shave off roots inside the pipe. The company who hires out to clean drains with a drain auger is Roto-Rooter. This is similar only cheaper as I'm doing it myself.
Less than 30 minutes with the new machine cleaned the clog. I ran it back and forth several times to be sure to scrape away as much of the roots as possible.
This weekend I gave it the ultimate 'poo down the pipe' test and all went well.
No worries!
I don't put too much emphasis on shaving as I usually do this 3 times a week with a disposable razor that lasts more than a month. Usually, the only reason for changing is the white glide strip is worn away! Shave cream is the inexpensive brand. So for less than $3 a month I've got shaving covered.
On another site there was a member who obsessed with shaving and often blogged about his purchases. It was special razors, creams, accessories and after shave skin conditioners. I believe he also had styptic pencils for bleeding.
While shopping, I was asked why I didn't use an electric razor and my response was I didn't need anything more than the simple disposable razors. I tried electric many years ago and I'm sure the technology improved, but it's nothing I'm inclined to try again...
unless I need to shave while driving to work each morning !!
Two generations ago, Mrs. Fletcher laying on the ground holding her Life Alert remote necklace, called the emergency monitoring dispatcher and shouted "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
This started as a TV commercial and sales based on fear sent a message to every senior who had a cane or walker... what would happen if this were you?
I'm sure the actress who played Mrs. Fletcher has been 'pushing up daises' for a while, but other white haired women have since taken her place. I'm also sure that every country is selling their version of Life Alert.
¡Me he caído y no puedo levantarme!
Je suis tombé et je ne peux pas me lever!
Eu caí e não consigo me levantar!
Upadlem i nie moge wstac!
Sono caduto e non riesco ad alzarmi!
Ich bin gefallen und kann nicht aufstehen!
For the record, the phrase "I've fallen and I can't get up!" is registered to the Life Alert company.
I guess in a real life situation, you could be sued if you fall, grab your cellphone (on the way down, of course) and dial 911 and tell the emegency dispatcher "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
Just in case... I suggest you learn a different phrase like "I slipped on a banana peel... send a lawyer" because he can get there before the ambulance and... knows a really good orthopedic doctor!
I see in the news that Rick Gates was sentenced to 45 days in jail, 3 years of probation, a $20,000 fine after pleading guilty in February 2018 to 2 charges related to conspiracy and making false statements. in addition, he is to serve 300 hours of community service.
Rick is the former business partner to ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and secured a plea deal to cooperate extensively in the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
According to the Yahoo news story... "Gates and Manafort were among the first to be charged in Mueller’s investigation. Manafort is currently serving out a prison sentence of seven and a half years on fraud charges."
Rick Gates sentenced for conspiracy and lying to the FBI.
This is the kind of dirt the best Dry Cleaner in town cannot get out!
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