More weather talk....

It's as weird as KC, but different. Yesterday it hit mid 70s, today 80 and this is what I can see from my back yard, best to enlarge it:

Yeah, that's snow in the mountains. SNOW! Officially it was there on the last day of summer, can you believe it? The pups love snow about as much as they love the water, and I can't wait for true winter weather to arrive. Biggest bummer is I don't have a wood burning fireplace, but I'll survive. The gas one puts out a nice ambiance, and maybe as I get older I'll realize what I was doing was a LOT of work. Satisfying work though.

Weird weather

All of a sudden the weather here is reminding me of Kansas.

Don't like it? Wait a minute!

A week or so ago it was in the 90s near every day and it had been hot since the day I got here. The other day about 9PM I opened the door and WTF? It's RAINING? Tracy gets a little excited and tells me to grab the cooler and put it under the eave to catch the water. Sure enough, it filled it half way full (water for the garden, filthy too. All that dirt running off the roof). The next day it's still cloudy and I hear something about chains required at elevations above 7000 feet, that's Lake Tahoe. Already??? We went from 90 to snow in a week? Sheesh. And I guess it's true, while it reached mid 70s yesterday and is already 60 here and it's still mid morning, I've heard of 6" to a foot of snow in the "Sierras". Absolutely weird. The lows every day for the next week are upper 30s, highs in the mid 70s. Great sleeping weather, but doubt we'll be taking the dogs swimming soon.


Last weekend:
Oh look! A Chicken!

Throw the ball, will ya dad?

Drying out:

My helicoptor is bigger than your helicopter, NYAH NYAH

I wasn't going to bitch about this, cause I've been accused of being fairly negative and bitchy, but I am what I am so I'm GONNA! Let me start by saying I've found that overall the people here in Reno/Sparks are pretty friendly and helpful. I've got more than one story about people going out of their way to help, suggest, advise or just discuss something with me unexpectedly. The earliest example is when I was still in KC and Tracy was wanting to hire someone to do our yardwork cause she was working so much. I emailed a friendly person that had come to look at our playground, asking if she knew of any neighborhood dudes that cut lawns. Guess what? She did it for us! She hauled over her mower MORE than once and cut our lawn, fer nuthin'!! And after that, allowed Tracy to come borrow her lawn mower too! What a nice gesture. (I still need to meet her.)

But not this dude. A few weekend's ago we were exploring, going up & down the Truckee River looking for dog swimming areas. Out by Verdi (Ver DIE) we came across a little subdivision right along the river, which happened to be having a neighborhood garage sale too. It was Sunday, so not many participating, but we still managed to hit a few. On the way out, an old GEEZER was at the end of his driveway and had a large gas powered helicopter on a stand that he was about to put away. Could he be selling? Could he be closing up his garage sale? Nah, I doubt it. Those things are expensive and this looked like a big one. But what the heck, it's a neighborhood garage sale, right? Beautiful day, sunny, blue skies, nice driving weather.... I roll up and roll down the window and:

That thing for sale??
(Grumpy look on his face) You couldn't afford it sonny.
(Me, a bit smart alecky) Now, how do you know how much money I have in my pocket?
(Almost angry look!) Do you know how much this costs? This is over $20,000 and is worth more than your car. To give you an example (of what I don't know) I own a Boeing Bell Blah T-206, costs me 1.5 million.

Goodie for you scooter. Take some of your money and buy a personality. I'm not even sure how the conversation ended, but we didn't talk much more and I drove away. What an ass. It struck a little nerve, and probably always will when people PRESUME things about you, your lifestyle and your financial situation. I've lived with that a lot, especially since I've gone self employed, which to many means "doesn't work". For all he knew, I was a bulti-zillionaire. It's the same thing to hear how "lucky" you are, let's ignore the hard work we've done, we're "lucky"!!

Lucky I tell you!

I want to (HIC!) ride my bicycle (HIC!)

I simply HAD to do it. Had to!!!

Butta, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING!???!!?

I'm sorry, but WHAT THE HELL?!?!

They changed the size of BUTTER?

Or is this a West coast thing? Did they get Bill Gates in on it? You know, make a change that EVERYONE will have to conform to even though it doesn't make it better? Did they take a survey? Do studies? Testing? Gave a rats ass about all the BUTTER DISHES out there? IT DON'T FIT my DISH MAN!!!!! You know, they still sell hot dogs in a 10 pack, and buns in an 8. They can't fix that but some f-ing genius has convinced the butter patrol to revamp the size of sticks. Help me man, what am I missing?!?!?!?!?!

I **HATE** People Who Steal! YA THIEF!!!!

Or people that thing they have a "right", or think they are better than others and show it. Talk about balls!! I finally got this little situation resolved thanks to my buddy Pete. I found out about it about three weeks ago, and being 1500 miles away, it's tough to be DO anything about it:

Here is my garden in 2005. Nice huh? Blow up the picture, look at that sunflower, those luscious tom plants, the windmill. Nice huh?

Now two years later, after I've left but before I've sold my house. Here's another pic. Blow it up, whatta ya see? To clue you in, that's my NEIGHBOR'S yard, with *MY* WINDMILL!!!

Look closer, oh I'll do it for you, look below. That's my wagon. Home made for the most part and I forgot it, and Suzie was supposed to go get it out of my garden but had forgotten.

So yeah, my lovely next door neighbor BRENDA figured since I was gone, she'd help herself! Windmill, wagon, and I've also heard of a few other things that frankly were trash to me, but she JUST HELPED HERSELF! No call, no email, no nothing. Just went over and STOLE them. That's stealing, and trespassing, but mostly FRICKING RUDE! Thanks to Pete, they are in my garage now, I've got a home for the windmill, and the wagon will somehow find it's way home.

SHEESH!

Labor Day River plunge

Man my pups sure love the water. We scouted around a little bit and found a nice access area to the Truckee River just West of downtown Reno. Sure does tire them out too!

Ready?

Cruise Dog Missile
Three very happy dogs

Action movie!

Boo tired

Stones tired

Abbytail queen of the bed

Better than Tampax

That special time of the month deserves a special outfit. This actually worked VERY well. What else could you do? She's about a year old, I think.

Rain?

Wow, all my griping must have pissed off the rain gods, we got sprinkled on today

QUICK, GRAB THE CAMERA BEFORE IT DRIES UP! <<>>

No wine cellar, so whatta ya do?

Well, we bought this wine rack. Now honestly, whatta ya do in a house that has no cool basement? From the picture, it looks kinda white trash to have it in the hallway (off the kitchen), but it really kinda works well! The garage was off cause of heat, and the laundry room suspect. Tracy didn't want it in the living room, and where else can you put it? Bathroom?

Also reality hit me as I'm unpacking my third huge box of wine & box: I'm a Pack Rat!!! I've still got a full case + 1 of a 1983 McDowell Valley Cab Sav that I first had at Houston's in KC, I wonder if it's any good. I also ran across a nice Turley, some T-Vine and a flurry of other good ones. Probably a lot of BAD ones in there too. (Aside from the obvious of throwing it away, what can you do with old vine? How about making your own balsamic? That would be interesting). Back to being a pack rat, I counted. I've got exactly 100 bottles of wine. ONE HUNDRED! 93 on the shelf, 3 opened and 4 in the fridge. I'm half thinking I've got another box somewhere too, that's scary. And there I am at Trader Joe's today looking new ones over. BAD TODD!

Note to Butch: Your row is to the right of Keystone, we've still not sampled, it's coming.

Siren Day!!

Looks like Blogger is allowing movies now, this could be dangerous. This is one of my favorites. Every month in Kansas they tested the tornado sirens. They actually liked it!

OMG, Call out the National Guard!

Sirens wailing, people running for cover, small children hiding under desks!!!

IT LOOKS LIKE RAIN!

For the record, not a drop. I wuz really really a-skard though...

Weather: A BORING experience

Today the news said we hit day 80 of not having any measurable precipitation, and even that was 500ths of an inch. They said the last significant amount was in May, in the form of snow. Every day seems the same, with slight fluctuations on the temp, but nearly always sunny and hot. It most bore the bejeesuz out of the weathermen, can you tell? They gotta get creative. These is my actual EXCITING forecast:

F: Record breaking temperatures
S: Record breaking temperatures
S: Sunshine
M: A full day of sunshine
T: Plenty of sunshine
W: Sunny (guess SOMEONE wasn't in the SPIRIT NOW!)
T: Plenty of sunshine
F: Record breaking temperatures
S: Record breaking temperatures (Can you tell the weekend guy is working?)
S: Record breaking temperatures
M: Record breaking temperatures
T: Hot with sunshine
W: Sunny and very warm
T: Hot in the morning, sunshine (or sunshine in the morning, hot)
F: Sunny and hot (please kill me!)

A few weeks ago there was a 30% chance of maybe getting a brief downpour. *MUCH* excitement!! They so happened to have finally caught Bin Laden that day, dressed like Al Gore working at a Taco Bell, but this was BIG NEWS! Needless to say, we got nothing.

Weeds: A different experience

Some things you just don't think will be different when you move. Sure, the weather and cost of living come to mind, but did you ever give a thought about weeds? SURE! In KC, MOST of the yard was weeds (were weeds?), but here, it's different. The front lawn is pretty nice, but there's been about 3 types of little bastards that pop up and Mama, ya gotta use the gloves. I don't know what they are called but they got stickers. And they hurt. They are a pain in the ass. I've picked a name and am calling them "Bernies". They stick ya and they're a pain in the ass. Yeah. (See Note)

I'm not sure you can see the little barbs in this pic:

Secondly, what's a tumbleweed? Well, I'll tell ya. It's this large prickly weed that grows quick, dries up quick and get more brittle and more spiky. And they blow around and scratch cars, never thought of THAT have ya? Here's one I yanked up from the back yard (with gloves) and a dried one blowing around.



Guess how else they annoy ya? Well, last night unknown to us, one had stuck to Keystone's tail and leg, and as he walked around the house and laid down, pieces of it broke off, AND THE GREAT NEWS? THE GREAT NEWS?

They're the SAME COLOR AS THE CARPET!!!

So how do you find them, well, you STEP on them. Oh yeah, it was a fun evening. Peachy. Vaccuummiinngg them up helps, but it isn't perfect, they stick in the carpet too.

Sample piece:

Did I mention they get large? Think typical tumbleweed in a movie, you got the picture. And for a real picture, here's the neighbor's trash can today, one big weed:

(Note) To be accurate the Bernie weed would have to lie, drink all your beer and owe you money.

Me so funny

Wasn't sure where I was going with this, had this "draft" in my folder from four months ago,and well, what the heck, a fun pic!

Before & After: No playground! Yeah!

Having no kids (to speak of), buying a house with a playground was nothing but an eyesore for us. It was the first thing I listed on eBay when I got here, and I'm happy to say we got $660 bucks for it. We plan on eventually filling in the areas within the tree line with grass, but meanwhile, don't you think the view looks a LOT better? Oh, and we got a fence too, thanks to the neighbors up the hill!

Notice the shovel? That's for scooping up the cat shit that was in the sandbox. Disgusting. Also has greened up a lot in a few months eh?

Quiet neighborhood

This past weekend was fairly decent out, and T and I had scheduled some outdoor yard activities including weeding, mowing, trimming, and misc cleanup out back. While we do have two nice patches of grass out front, it isn't huge and not half what I had in KC. Regardless, I couldn't believe how many weeds had snuck in there! Weird weeds, not KC style at all, and most everything requires gloves or you'll get poked. Tracy hasn't mowed since before she left to come to get me, so it's been nearly 2 months since anything was done, but you wouldn't have thought it. The mower, lowered one notch, barely bagged half full! Guess I didn't need to bring all this power equipment with me, eh?

Pics of left and right of our front yard:

She's done some wonders with flowers & stuff there too. To the left and right of the entryway:

Notice anything Paul?

And still, another weekend goes by and no (barely any) neighbor activity. I did make a point to climb the hill in the backyard and introduce myself and shoot the shit with "Rod", who of course said "Oh, we were going to come down today and meet ya today". Sure ya were. Seemed nice, gave me some pointers on some yard stuff & got some neighborhood gossip.

Pics of the before and after monkey playground coming soon!!!

Call me a grump

Almost a month here in dry hot Nevada, and I still don't know what to think. I woke up this morning realizing most of what I did yesterday put me in a lousy mood, and it kinda carried over to today. In most respects it's all cause I'm 1500 miles away from my home and friends, or something related in only ways I can figure out. I quickly realized even before I left that though much of my communications in the past with friends was phone, email or chat, some wrote me off months before I left, as if these forms of communication are no good anymore, even though nothing's changed except my physical location. On the other hand, there's a few that it seems like I'm still there. We chat, talk. You get the idea. I've made some attempts to meet pinball people here, and actually have had someone over, but I feel like I'm grasping. And being a self-employed bum in an upper scale neighborhood with no kids to speak of makes it worse. It's VERY quiet on my block from sun up to sun down. It seems as if people are working, then they come home and hole up inside. I thought maybe in a month's time we'd have a heckuva lot more interaction with neighbors, but literally no one's come by. The doorbell has rang only a few times not counting gutter salesmen, UPS and FedEx. To be honest, I can think of once, the lady next door brought over a plant for Tracy to put in the ground, something they apparently had talked about before. People pay for landscaping, pay for mowing, and aren't sitting outside whooping it up. I've smelled one grill, and with Da Nose figured out it was immediately next door, but that's been once. I'm really not one to want to socialize all the time, but sheesh, this is driving me a bit nuts! Tracy works 10 hour days, which means she leaves by 7 and is home about 6 or later. The dogs like it, but they've requested more excursions. I *hate* having a garage stacked to the rafters with boxes of junk. The trash people are assholes. The electric bill was $325. I don't have a big room for pinballs. I miss my garden. The KC house inspection came back with TOO many things that annoyed me (the lot is flat, that could cause problems!).

Man am I grumpy today. It's barely 9AM, I better get out of it.

Moving sucks

I know I'll have more stories later, but tonight a shorty, cause I'm wide awake after a mere 5 hours sleep, up since 5:30AM and it's near midnight (again), a little wired, tired but alert, feeling old and stressed.

So I thought I was pretty well prepared, but not. Just in 24 hours:

• I've got a half roll of TP. I didn't think about grabbing more. Good thing I have some at the Shoppe!


• I woke up at what time? I dunno, they packed my clock radio. Can't fall asleep to the radio either.


• No dishes and silverware suck more than I expected. Last night I needed a water glass. I rinsed out a Keystone can and used it instead. This morning, I had nothing to spread butter with, and besides it was hard, so I ate dry toast. I had kept aside a coffee mug so I could M-Wave the two cups I got at QT when it got cold, but they packed it. I guess.


• Last night I went out with Kevin & Suzie to Salsa grill, but tonight since I was drinking beer, I didn't want to drive to get food, so I ate.... 10 packages of "Bite Size" peanut butter mini Ritz sammich crackers and enough pickled beets to turn my fingers pink.


• I've been packing crap tonight, throwing away a lot.....guess I should have held back some trash bags. Sigh.


• I'm so smart! I set aside 4 days worth of clothes and put them upstairs on the railing. Of course when I went up there today, they were gone. My fault. I told them to pack everything except the north office, and where did I leave them?


• So I took a shower, but did I leave a towel? NO! Thank God I left (and they left) a washcloth, which was dry so it got an early promotion!


• Headache - need aspirin - call neighbor. Trash bags, call neighbor. ZIPLOC bags, call neighbor. <--- Ironic, they packed two of my cordless phones, which will soon be beeping Lo-Batt. Ha. What's in dat box beepin' boss?

I've been packing my office tonight and when I've found disks, I've checked them for old pictures. Been very nice and kinda fun to find old pictures. I found this one today, a series of about 6 that I took over 8 years ago before we were even married. It made my day. I'm nicknaming it "smolder" (hee!) and I dunno about you, but I read a LOT in to her eyes in this picture, and it makes me remember tons of things about her and why I love her so much.

Maybe I'm incapable of a SHORT blog?

Because I SAID so! Those are the rules. That's the policy. (What-Ever...)

I can't say I hate authority, I'm OK with it, really am. What I don't like is things supposedly set in stone when you know they aren't. The phrase "That's the best we can do" comes to mind. I do a lot of haggling and bargaining and have my rules in my head. Don't offer less for something unless you're willing to let it go. Don't low ball on every damn thing. It's OK to say NO to someone that is an ass, or even isn't. You don't have to do something just cause someone else says so either, whatever THAT may be at the moment. Garage sales bring out a lot of the best in people, and I'm not afraid to offer $10 on something someone has $15 on, but there are limits, and garage sale etiquette, just like everything else. (Huh, I've drifted in to garage sale stories. I'm gonna write that book, I swear). I've actually been to a sale or two where signs are posted "All prices firm". Kinda not the spirit of things, but I guess you have your reasons! A coupla stories about bad hagglers:

Story 1: Background: When I did a big company move years ago, they abandoned a ton of power strips, some really nice surge protector ones, some generic strips. I bet I had 8 boxes of them. I still have a bunch of them, gave a lot away to friends, and sold a bunch at my garage sales. I'd get a box out, slap $3 on each of them and put them all around. Some here, some on this table, some over there. People snapped them up, I bet I sold 30 or more over various sales. If people were looking them over, I'd help. That one's got a long cord, that one is a surge protector, that one is arranged such that those power bricks fit well, etc etc. I'm a nice guy, I'm helping! $3.00 each is a good deal, it's not the deal of the century ($2.00 would be), but the price is right. So, in the middle of the sale on the first day, 10 strips already sold, some lady comes up with two of them and ***BAD HAGGLE ALERT*** "Woodja take $1 each if I buy two?". Mentally I say many things, but I nicely say "Well... Nah, I'm selling them fine for $3 each... it's a good deal. I'll knock off a buck for two" to have her promptly set them down, turn and walk away. Bye bye unhappy lady!!!

Story 2: Tools. Some men HAVE to one-up you, and then tell you about it. I have a box of tools, misc, $1.00 each. Old man who I recognize from other sales comes up with one screwdriver and says "Would you take a quarter". OK, well, I've seen you before and whatever, this time I'll just take his damn quarter. "Sure". He proceeds to dig in to his pocket and amongst the quarters, hands me 5 pennies, 2 nickles and a dime. Mini bad form there grandpa, you said QUARTER. I zip it. So as he's counting out the change ***BAD HAGGLE ALERT*** he says kinda slowly "Now.... you wanna know why I zeroed in on THIS particular screwdriver?". Sure I say. "Cause it's a HUSKY!"

....And your point is?

"Lifetime warranty! See that nick? (points to a little chip in the tip) I'm gonna take it back to Home Depot and they've give me a brand new one still in the package and I'll put it on eBay for five dollars!" Faster than you could say jack-rabbit, I had him wrestled to the ground retrieved my screwdriver and stabbed in the eye. Not really.

So this leads me to why I really wanted to gripe about. The dreaded notorious Department of Motor Vehicles. Weeks ago I turned in the plates for two vehicles I had sold. Unknown to me, not only do you need the plates, but you are supposed to bring in your registration receipt. I did not, and after waiting for half an hour, just paid the outrageous $2 fee (one per printout) so the lady could click two buttons and print out the info she already has in her computer. Why? I don't know, to file or shred it are the only two outcomes I see. I don't argue, I guess I'm in a good mood. And after being told a check would be coming my way, I left. Now on to the third vehicle, the Toyota I drove to Nevada, the one that Tracy has NV plates on, and she has her NV driver's license, and she brought me back the KS plate so I can turn it in. Yeah, this is me, wanting to save a buck, she forgot the registration, so I had her fax it to me. After waiting for 45 minutes, more than 15 minutes past the wait time the clock says, I'm finally called. I saw other people come in before me that have already left, but no Refund people. A little annoyed, I walk to the counter.

Hi (handing over the plate and the registration)
I'm going to need a Drivers license
(Aren't you a joy! I hand it over)
This is a fax, I'm going to need an original or have to have a dollar to print one out.
You gotta be kidding me. What difference does it make??
It's got to be an original.
If you print one out, that's not the original.
Those are the rules sir.
Well, I think that's a bunch of crap. The info is right there and isn't any different.
You can fill out a comment card.
I will. (So I whip out my dollar and hand it over. It lays there for a second then she takes it. Then she takes my worthless, no good, not adequate enough fax and lays it above her keyboard and starts typing from it!)
Uh... No.... (I reach over and take it) If my fax isn't good enough, you can't use it! (Now I've flustered her)
I was just getting the number
Go print it. You charge me a dollar when I took the time to have the info faxed to me and it's a stupid policy.
She clicks to print and leaves to go get it. I calm a bit. She comes back
You know I'm not upset with you, it's just a stupid policy and I took the time to have my wife fax it from Nevada just so I'd have all the info.
She's silent.... Now did you sell the car?
No, it's now in Nevada with Nevada tags, my wife moved there and sent the old tags back
You can't do that, she's going to have to come in with her Nevada ID and registration.
You've GOT to be kidding me. She's there, I'm here. I've not moved yet. I still own the vehicle. You've GOT to be kidding. You expect her to fly here for a $100 refund?
I'll go talk to my manager.
(You do that)
The story is kinda anticlimactic. She came back and told me to have Tracy fax her NV registration and drivers license to her and she'd process. I got lucky in getting a hold of Tracy quickly and after only waiting for her to finish up the next guy in line, I got my paperwork done and was out of there, $95 promised check in the mail, an hour of my life I'll never reclaim. Funny to me that faxes were OK.

I told her to have a nice day, she didn't acknowledge. Grump.