Bummer!

I got up this morning and took a shower. Boy it was great! Nice and warm on a cold morning.

THEN!

The water didn't go anywhere. I mean it stayed in the tub. I checked the drain plug. Yep, it's open. Still, nowhere. There must be a stoppage farther down the line. I proceed to get the trusty plumbers friend, better known as "The Plunger". I plunge, and plunge, and plunge. And nothing!

Oops! There was a little something I didn't notice. The water did start to go somewhere. It's not where I wanted it to go. It started backing up on the floor around the toilet. GREAT! Now I have to abandon the tub and start cleaning up around the toilet.

In the middle of all this I realize I need to take the dog out. I don't want another mess on my hands. Well, actually not on my hands but on the floor. I take Puppy out and she was by all accounts a good girl. I come back in and get ready for Wal-Mart. I am now thinking it would be better if I buy some drain opener/cleaner.

I go back to the bathroom and the water that was in the tub is gone. No, it's not on the floor this time. It's gone. I finish cleaning around the toilet and then move back to the tub. I run the water to rinse out the tub and the water dutifully drained. I then run the water even longer and watch. The water drains.

Why does this happen to me? Does the tub have a mind of it's own?

I HATE plumbing!

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Life In The Fast Lane With Bristow

I woke up early today. We were planning to go to Ryan's this morning for breakfast and I didn't want to miss it. There were supposed to be bad storms rolling through this morning also. I don't really remember anything other than a few flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder. Chris was showing me the weather and she said that there are supposed to be a lot of storms still. The weather shows 100% chance for rain today.

While I was up I started looking at some You Tube videos. I found this one that fits Julie's new cat, Bristow. It's called the "Mean Cat Video". I hope you enjoy it. I did, even though the music is rap.

A reminder from your friendly moderator: I now have You Tube links on the bottom of my blog page. You can scroll on down and view some videos. I've tried to make sure the videos that are linked to my blog are, shall we say, appropriate. I apologize if something less than tasteful slips through.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Get The Phone, It's For Me-The Unrelated Sequel #1

I was watching reruns on TV last night. I had recorded an episode of "I've Got a Secret" from the early 60's. I finally got around to watching it. Steve Allen was a guest and did a few telephone stunts. One of them was trying to get Bill Cullen to accept a long distance collect phone call. It made me think of how things have changed. When I was younger I remember when we always waited until after 10:00 PM to make long distance phone calls. if the phone rang after 10:00 it normally meant a relative was calling. I also remember when I would go out of town to visit family. My parents would tell to call collect person-to-person when I had arrived. They would usually say the person I was calling was not home and refuse the charges, but they knew I had arrived safely.

Nowadays, we don't think twice about picking up the phone and calling most anywhere. Here at the house we have unlimited long distance and even can call internationally on the cheap. Then there are the cell phones. Call anywhere, anytime, from anywhereand the long distance is included.

When I was younger we only had one phone. It was in the kitchen and I swear the phone cord was a mile long. I especially remember my sister talking on the phone and taking the phone, really the receiver, across the hall into her room. Before I went to junior high we moved. Our new house had a phone in the kitchen; and wow, phone jacks in the bedrooms. We got another phone and it was great. My brother and I could take the phone out of our parents room and take to our room and then talk. Wow! Those phones had long cords to. I guess the long cords made up for not many phones.

By the time I got married the phone business had been deregulated and you could buy phones instead of renting them from Ma Bell. When we lived in Irving the pharmacy at Kroger had a promotion that gave free phones with new prescriptions. That was really different. Now we were responsible for our own phones. If they broke, buy a new one. And we did. But these were corded phones. They were still stuck to the wall.

Hallelujah! Cordless phones! Finally, a phone that you could take anywhere and talk on it. As long as you were within range of your base set. They were great though. Freedom at last. You could have a phone in the kitchen and the bedroom and maybe the den and the garage. You could talk and talk and talk.

And then the cell phone. But that's a story for another day. Remind me to tell you sometime about Scott and the first cell phone he had.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Garden Update-February 14, 2008

The narcissus has started to bloom. Here they are. More to follow as we open up more.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Happy Valentine's Day The New Green Way

Chris gave me my Valentine's Day gift yesterday evening. I was surprised because earlier she told me that I didn't have to get her anything. She said she hadn't got me anything. Okay. That was fine, I don't really need anything anyway. Back to the story; Chris came in the bedroom last night and announced that she had my present. She gave me a decorative sack with a few small items in it. I looked in it and found a card, 2 small stuffed animals, a small toy, and a bag of sugar-free candy. She told me the card only cost 50 cents and that I could use it too if I wanted to.

A few moments later I gave Chris her Valentine's Day gift. She was as surprised as I was earlier because I had told her earlier that I wasn't going to spend anything for her gift. I gave her a decorative sack with a few small items in it. She looked in it and found a card, 2 small stuffed animals, and a small toy. I kept the sugar-free candy for myself. Chris doesn't like sugar-free candy.

I recycled the card she gave me. We went green for Valentine's this year.

Later, I was looking in one of my tree catalogues. I found a pine tree I liked. I also found an apple tree that looked pretty good. Never found the pineapple tree though.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Say Again...

Sometimes I don't hear so good. If I'm not concentrating on the conversation I only hear bits and pieces; literally. My brain then takes what was heard and fills in the blanks with something that works but may not always make sense.

Example-I was watching TV last night when a Sonic commercial came on. Obviously they were advertising a food item; for breakfast I think. What I heard was "Petrified Steak". I knew that wasn't right so I used context clues and figured out that it must have been Country Fried Steak. At least that sounded more appetizing.

I can't tell you the number of times that I've heard a joke, well not really heard it; but sort of heard a joke and missed most of it but laughed so others wouldn't know that I didn't hear it. By the way, that also works if you don't understand the joke. Laugh heartily and then others will think you understand and ask you to explain it. Just tell 'em to think about it for a while. By then you can leave and they'll never know the difference.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.