Men Blogs (29,411)

A cluster of wildfires has scorched the Texas Panhandle, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches.


Authorities warned that the damage to communities on the high plains could be extensive.


The largest fire — which expanded to more than 3367 square kilometres — jumped into parts of neighbouring Oklahoma and was only about 3% contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.

A designer I worked with a few years ago took an assignment in a foreign country. I didn't ask, but the pay must have been enough for her to pack up and relocate. She contacted me with a request to do the design for her younger sister's bathroom renovation. I said yes and to my surprise, the sister already started some of the demolition, ordered custom glass doors and was getting bids from a few contractors.

The goal was to enlarge the bathroom by taking the wall out to the adjacent closet. Okay, I get it... where do you plan to relocate the closet? They had no idea.
Since it wasn't a bearing wall, she was okay with taking a few feet from the living room in order to enlarge the bedroom in compensation for enlarging the bathroom.
I took measurements, asked 30 questions and came up with a design... It was totally different than what was in her or her sisters heads.

She said she was 'blown away' I was able to make everything fit. She loved it.

My statement was "Thanks, but it's only the first round concept. We need to confirm if what I'm suggesting is doable. Plumbing, electrical and air conditioning duct work will need to be moved."

One of the requests was to locate the main wall more toward the living room from where I showed. The problem there was the custom glass door was in production and no changes could be accepted. That means the opening for the door has to be shifted a few feet. It's an exterior wall and expensive to relocate.

I resubmitted drawings showing the enlargement/revisions while she got a price from the contractor and was going in the direction of "Let's do it" but her older sister said, wait... this needs more thought. I agreed, since my dimensions were only concept and they knew I had to return to remeasure and get exact sizes.

On Tuesday, the younger sister said she made a decision and wanted to get started right-away. I couldn't go yesterday, but made it a point to go there today.

Thinking they would start in a week or two, I was surprised to find all the demolition was done. The contractor tore up the place. The floor tile was gone, all the interior partitions removed, gutted electrical and a/c duct work hanging from the ceiling.

The "Oh shit" exception: He already built and drywalled the wall between the bedroom and living room according to the OLD SET OF DRAWINGS. The sister wasn't working with the revised set I emailed 2 weeks ago. I spotted this mistake immediately as the revision had the wall about 4 inches from the door casing and I could see it was more than a foot.

I had a set of revised drawings with me as I was going to put my new dimensions on them. Too late for that. I gave that set to the contractor who will move the wall he installed today and will work through the changes to fit the conditions.

Hopefully they won't charge her too much to move the wall, probably a few hundred in labor.

It's a good thing I caught that mistake before all the electrical, a/c and plumbing was done. Otherwise, she would have to accept it the way it was, or pay a few thousand to have the changes made.

Trump's hush money trial is scheduled to start on March 25. It's about his then lawyer Michael Cohen violating federal campaign finance laws with payment to 'hush' adult star Stormy Daniels, who Trump had an affair with back in 2006. Cohen spent time in jail for tax evasion related to this case.

It's a full-time job keeping up all the back and forth of the players as there were other payments that included former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who says she had s*xual encounters with Trump.

As expected, Trump has denied affairs with either woman.

Yesterday, I read that Trump (via his lawyers) is seeking to block testimony from Stormy and Michael.
Huh?? That means, should Trump get his way, the two main components in the case would not be allowed to testify in a case directly about them.

Yeah, I get it... Hush




One of the many links about it:

Not a single blog posted for 2 days on CS hopefully this dosnt mean the death of this section of this site
Like the demise of the chat rooms which were removed before my time , but some of the founding members used to mention occasionally

"Ground Zero has a video on YouTube. The media reported that he (Trump) was not there. But I remember seeing it live. He paid people to help rescue and gave out water. A few years ago I saw him being (fact) checked for being there. I searched for hours on YouTube and finally found the interview. He made 2.

One (interview) was on the phone and the other was live from Ground Zero. This video was well hidden during his 2016 presidential race. I found it and shared it. He needs to sell all his property and never come back to New York again. They will miss him !!"

Let's Make America Great Again !

A woman in Italy accused of murdering great-aunt with spaghetti



A woman in Italy is awaiting trial after allegedly murdering her great-aunt — with spaghetti.


Paola Pepe, 58, was arrested after she allegedly force-fed Maria Basso the pasta dish at a restaurant in Sicily in December 2022, Nine reports.


The 80-year-old, who was susceptible to choking, died two days after eating the meal after it became lodged in her airways.


A police investigation was launched after Pepe changed Basso's will to name herself the sole beneficiary of her great-aunt's estate in the days prior.


The NZ$823,420 inheritance was to go to charity before it was amended.

The stories I've read about people committing insurance fraud is amazing. After COVID hit, the government was offering salary compensation for businesses. A guy in Miami bought some expensive sports cars with the money he claimed through his fake business. Lots of people were doing that, some got away with the scam and some didn't.

I watched a video where insurance companies send out investigators for people who are collecting large sums of money in personal injury claims. One guy was getting compensation for a back injury claiming he was unable to work, when they video taped him doing electrical work changing ceiling fixtures while standing on a 5 gallon paint bucket. He shimmied his weight to 'walk' the bucket along the floor from light to light. He lost his benefits.

A viral news story came up this week where a 36 year old woman in Ireland claimed her car crash in 2017 was so severe, she was unable to work for 5 years, carry her children, finish basic chores or lift a heavy bag. Claimed that, at times, she needed her medication to be brought to her in bed due to the pain. She had sued the insurance company and had an $823,000 injury claim pending.

What do you do with your Christmas tree after the holiday? You toss it... literally.

In January 2018, she entered a Christmas tree chucking contest... and won!
Her photo of the winning event made it to a national newspaper. The Judge having seen the photo threw out the case and remarked that the “very graphic picture” of her tossing the tree had helped her make the decision.





Links:

Nice remix of a classic

In the late 60's and early 70's there was a popular venue where they held teen dances Saturday and Sunday nights. It was originally a grocery store that went bankrupt, not long after it became a gathering place where they projected surfing movies on the wall. A father and son bought the place, erected 2 stages and hired local bands to perform there. The pay wasn't great, but it was steady work where as many as 4 bands playing each night and sometimes we were booked 6 to 8 nights a month.

The venue (legally) had a capacity of 90, but there where nights where kids stood outside waiting to get in and it was mostly 'standing room only' as the owners packed the place.
Lots of places would stamp your hand as identification so you could leave and return later and more kids would pay to get in as soon as a few left... even if they were going for a hamburger with plans to be back in 30 minutes. So total paid attendance would easily be 250 to 300 in a 4 hour period.

Because it was so popular, bands as far as 50 miles away were booked to play there. I got to hear a good sampling of the music being played in South Florida. There were a few Latin (Cuban) bands playing and a few soul or blues groups, but mostly the mix was rock & roll and later changing to hard rock music.

Over the years, I had been in a few different groups and my father managed us which was great because he was friendly with the owners that helped us get more bookings.

One afternoon, we had solid rain for a few hours and the streets were flooded. Some of the groups were forced to cancel their appearances. We weren't booked that night, but a desperate last-minute call from the owner asked if we were available. No problem. Our drummer had a Volkswagen bus, so we loaded our gear and was able to go through the flooded streets to make it to the gig! That effort put us in 'solid' with the owners.

As always, it was important to have a good opening song at the beginning of each set.
There was a band we often shared a stage with called "The Body Shop" and they played a mixture of blues and rock & roll. They were located across town so none of us knew them from school or any other connection, but we got along great with no friction or band rivalry in any way, so it didn't matter if they opened the set first or we opened the set first.
The cool thing about this group was they often opened their set playing the high-energy song "Living in the USA" by the Steve Miller Band.
I heard this song on the radio today and it reminded me of the group.
Great song!



"Somebody get me a cheesburger..."