- Smothered steak and eggs, served blood rare, with basted eggs and hash browns on the side was one of the better breakfasts I’ve had in a while.
- Sleeping in around here means you can go back to sleep after you get woken up at 6 AM and stay there until about 8.
- I disassembled the fence that Irish Woman decided had to go.
- About 3/4 of the screws either had their heads break off during extraction or had to be cut with the reciprocating saw.
- I also broke two of the Philips bits on my drill. Dewalt has some explaining to do.
- It is good that we got almost a month’s worth of rain in one night this week. It meant the ground was soft enough that I was able to lever out about half of the fence posts using body weight and muscle. The little digging I had to do was pretty easy too.
- Irish Woman and I planted the following plants today:
- 2 hazelnut bushes
- 4 cherry trees of varying breeds
- 6 raspberry bushes
- 1 seedless grape vine
- Tomorrow we will be preparing a new bed. We will then transplant four existing blueberry bushes and plant two new blueberry bushes in it.
- After all that, I will give notice that I am done planting trees and bushes for the foreseeable future.
All posts in category Thought for the day
Thoughts on the Day
Posted by daddybear71 on April 5, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/04/05/thoughts-on-the-day-225/
Shoutouts
- To the lady at the children’s museum who suggested to Irish Woman that we start our second day there as early as possible and go directly to the top floor where the big interactive room is: Bless you. Boo had a ball this morning, and the crowds weren’t too terrible for the first couple of hours.
- To the mother who dressed her young (somewhere between 4 and 6 years old) daughter in clothing three sizes too small to go to the museum: What in the name of Cthulhu is wrong with you? Seriously, her shirt was a good three inches short in both the arms and waist, and her pants were so low and tight that a good two inches of butt crack were showing. I can’t believe you couldn’t afford new clothing, seeing as how you properly dressed yourself. Were you trying to shame her over her obvious weight issue? Was this some sick kind of punishment where you forced her to go out in public like that?
- To the man in line at the sandwich shop who gave me the hairy eyeball after I dropped my voice half an octave and told Boo to get down off of a chair: When I need your approval on how to parent my child, I’ll let you raise him. Until then, the line to bite my butt forms to the right.
- To myself: You, sir, are a horse’s ass. Lashing out at your family, no matter how tired, sore, and frustrated you are, is never in bounds. You’re lucky you married such a good woman, and she deserves better.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 4, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/04/04/shoutouts-11/
Musings
- The urologists in Indianapolis ought to advertise vasectomies at the children’s museum. They’d have to turn away business.
- I’d like to thank the trucker on I-65 who let us test the brakes on Irish Woman’s car today. You coming over into our lane during a thunderstorm was an act of absolute genius. Only you, sir, could have tried to prove that it is indeed possible for the matter in our fender and windshield could co-exist in the same space as the matter in your rear bumper.
- There’s nothing better than spending an afternoon in an enclosed space with 14,000 other human beings.
- That goes double if your overstimulated 5 year old is one of the better behaved children.
- It was cheaper to buy a one year family membership to the museum than it would have been to just buy one day tickets.
- I guess this will be a good excuse to come up to Indianapolis every so often.
- I wish the train still ran from Louisville to Indy. Even if it made six stops before getting to Indianapolis, I could have had a nice nap on the way up.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 3, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/04/03/musings-42/
Thoughts on the Day
- It is a good thing when a co-worker says “Oh, you’re working on that? We can get that done today, if you’d like.”
- Nothing good can come from a young boy running down the driveway with his father’s hammer and masonry chisel.
- We had to cut down and dig out a volunteer cherry tree on Sunday. The main trunk was long and thick enough to make a walking stick for Boo. He loves it.
- Of course, he thought it was great when I taught him to smack it down on the porch and yell “You… shall not… pass!”.
- One good thing about working the first few days of spring break is the reduced number of people on the freeway and in the office.
- Watched “Frozen” with the family last night. Now I’ve got that !@#! song in my head. Going to have to kill a few synapses to fix that.
- Pond muck, it’s what’s for the garden’s dinner.
- Seriously, the ‘water’ I put on the stuff we’ve planted was about the color of pea soup.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 31, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/03/31/thoughts-on-the-day-224/
Thoughts on the Day
- It’s amazing how long a young boy can play with just a handsaw and a piece of scrap wood.
- Irish Woman spent her afternoon cleaning, thinning, and replanting the strawberry beds.
- She’s halfway done, and counts almost 200 plants.
- Going to be a lot of strawberry jam around here in a few months.
- Boo and I planted kale and snap peas today. On a later trip to the home center, I picked up broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, and bib lettuce.
- It’s so nice to garden when all you have to do is move dirt and put in plants and seeds.
- The past three years I’ve had to do several weeks of construction before putting shovel to soil.
- There’s nothing like waking up at 4 AM from a bad dream and having no hope of falling asleep due to an extreme adrenaline dump.
- You know you’re funky from scooping last year’s compost pile into garden beds when you offend yourself while taking a shower.
- Two rounds of lather, rinse, repeat made me somewhat human again. Well, as human as I ever am.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 30, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/03/30/thoughts-on-the-day-223/
Thoughts on the Day
- My rheumatologist might not take it too well when I tell her that my prescription anti-inflammatory doesn’t do as good a job as three aspirin.
- I’m so glad I had something to drink when I was meeting with people today. It kept me from getting in trouble when the first thing that popped into my head was “Were you born this stupid, or did you have to work at it?”
- When we went to the store today, Boo asked for a treat. I told him we were going to have pizza for dinner, and that was good enough. Then he asked for a toy, and I told him he already had enough toys. Then he said we needed to get a puppy, so Moonshine would have something to take care of.
- The boy definitely has a future in either sales or union negotiations.
- No, we are not getting a new puppy.
- Today was “Cut across three lanes of traffic to get to my off ramp” day in Louisville.
- Is it just me, or does everyone freak out when people drive like idiots around their new truck?
- After the dog licks the slice of pizza, the slice of pizza belongs to the dog.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 27, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/03/27/thoughts-on-the-day-221/
Thoughts on the Day
- Humans are adaptable. Tell them that only things that are related to BIGHONKINGPROJECT are going to get done this year, and suddenly everything is crucial to BIGHONKINGPROJECT.
- I’m officially on probation when it comes to talking around Boo. Irish Woman didn’t like it when he yelled out “Buck you!” after overhearing me while I was getting ready for work this morning.
- Nothing says “Sleep on it” like reading through a post about something I think is important, realizing that none of the people I’m writing about are decent human beings, and feeling depressed about the entire situation.
- First hint should have been when the voice in my head kept saying ‘Glad I’m not on that jury.”
- You know you’ve had it up to here with being polite when someone challenges you by saying “Oh, so you think INSERTSCUMBAGHERE deserved to get shot?” and you reply “Hell, yes, he deserved to get shot, and it’s too bad he survived long enough to breed.”
- He had a hard time believing that I am not prejudiced against minorities, but rather I am prejudiced against trash. Apparently he doesn’t recognize that trash knows no race, color, creed, or economic status.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 24, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/03/24/thoughts-on-the-day-220/
Musings
- It is good that we only have to pressure wash the sundry fences and such in our yard once a year. Otherwise, I would be holding a giant bonfire to avoid it.
- Of course, once we had power washed half of one of the fences, Irish Woman convinced me to rip half of it down.
- Of course, the half she wants ripped down is the half we power washed. How could it be any other way?
- Does anyone have ideas on how to extract two to three foot deep concrete foundations for fence posts? Like, 11 of them?
- Three of the garden beds are washed, stained, and filled with compost and dirt. Now to let them warm up in the spring sun and we will be planting.
- Apparently, at some point in the recent past, I agreed to build Boo a tree house in the back yard.
- I’m thinking something with a simple ladder, a platform with a railing, and possibly roof of some kind.
- Irish Woman and Boo seem to be envisioning Swiss Family Robinson, complete with some way for Moonshine to join Boo up in the treehouse.
- Overcame my natural disinclination to talk to strangers today and spent a few hours trying to sell raffle tickets and give away information on the Friends of the NRA at a hunting and fishing expo.
- Top reasons given for not buying a raffle ticket:
- I already have enough guns.
- I already give enough to the NRA.
- I don’t like guns.
- I think we sold 10 or so tickets in three hours and talked to about 200 people, which isn’t bad.
- Top reasons given for not buying a raffle ticket:
- What a difference a year makes. On Saturday, we joined Freiheit and his family for a party, and we were comfortable letting Boo play in the yard with other kids without our presence. This time last year we would have never been more than an arm’s length away from him.
- I dreamed last night that I went and got “P.U.F.F. Exempted” tattooed on my shoulder. Thing is, it was a necessary thing in the dream, not a bit of tomfoolery.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 23, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/03/23/musings-41/
Musings
- You may have spent an easily measurable fraction of your life in tents. You may have put up pup tents, dome tents, cabin tents, and a bunch of other variations. You may know that an arch made out of 1/2 inch PVC pipe is more likely to be stable when you use a 45 degree elbow rather than a 90 degree elbow. But when your loving wife has a vision for how the frost shelter she wants for her fruit trees is going to look and she wants to use 90 degree elbows, YOU. MAKE. THE. 90. DEGREE. ELBOWS. WORK.
- I’m not a physicist or an engineer, but I’m pretty sure that a hatchback has to be absolutely hauling ass to knock a minivan over on its side upon impact.
- To the jackass who decided to steal a semi and run from the police on I-64 today: I am going to momentarily suspend my general distaste for police brutality. The extra 45 minutes I spent with a couple thousand of my new freeway friends put a wonderful cap on my week.
- Seriously? Did you not think that someone was going to notice that the blood great truck was missing and not identify it going down the road?
- Apparently spring has sprung. Irish Woman has begun digging holes in the yard, and mentioned a pressure washer at dinner tonight.
- Oh, frabulous joy.
- I’m still not putting away the snow shovels. Kentucky is the land of bipolar weather patterns.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 21, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/03/21/musings-40/
Thoughts on the Day
- 60 degrees and sunny on Saturday. 25 degrees, raining ice and snow on Sunday. 60 degrees and sunny today.
- I’m not the type to complain, but I wish the weather gods would get off the meth.
- I attended a meeting at work today where the mayor of Louisville spoke.
- He kept it light, but he also kept it very middle-of-the-road politically, which was nice.
- Not saying I agree with him on a lot of things, because I don’t, but he did an excellent job in explaining why he re-instituted the Veteran’s Day parade. He also convinced me to participate in his “Give a Day” program.
- The other speaker was retired Colonel Eric Schwartz, who led the unit that carried out the “Thunder Run” attacks on Baghdad in 2003.
- The gist of his speech was “Where do we get such men?”, and he talked about the extraordinary, ordinary men he led during that mission.
- He made an interesting assertion: that only 3 in 10 American males, age 18 to 23, are physically, educationally, and socially qualified to serve. The things he said cause the disqualifications are physical impairments, criminal records, and lack of a high school diploma. According to Colonel Schwartz, the lack of a basic education is the cause of disqualification in the majority of cases.
- He also pointed out that the military is becoming a family business. By that he means that the children of soldiers tend to become soldiers, and the children of non-soldiers tend to not become soldiers. I’ve thought about this a lot over the past couple of years, and it troubles me. I come from a long line of people who served, and I expect that at least one of my kids will also serve. But if the same families keep enlisting generation after generation, and the same families don’t enlist generation after generation, what will that do to the relationship between the military and the civilian leadership over time?
- Apparently we’ve gone from tongue clucking to finger waving in reaction to the situation in Ukraine. I’m still torn between “Is this really our fight?” and “If we’re going to do something, then we need to DO SOMETHING.”.
- Know what’s worse than doing nothing? Try doing something that demonstrates just how impotent you really are.
- You know, I go months without having a creative thought in my head, then I get three ideas for short stories while I’m taking a shower and driving into work.
- One of these days I might even try doing more than jotting down the idea in a notebook.
- I finally broke down and bought a power paint sprayer tonight, along with five gallons of stain for the sundry wooden objects in the yard.
- Apparently I’m a Philistine because I refuse to acknowledge a difference between opaque stain and paint.
- If the weather holds, we’ll be cleaning and staining this weekend.
- If I go into work looking jaundiced on Monday, it’s because I messed up the first couple times I tried to spray something with the new gadget.
- Girlie Bear had the ick today, and apparently Moonshine rarely left her side. I’m tempted to send him with her when she goes to college.
- Speaking of rotten animals, chasing Crash the Combat Kitten around the yard at 4 in the morning when it’s cold and wet out was not a good way to start my Sunday. Next time, he gets to find his own way home, preferably back in Siam.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 17, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/03/17/thoughts-on-the-day-219/
DaddyBear
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