A neighbor was shoveling snow this morning and had a cigarette dangling from his lips.
It’s the two for one heart attack special.
22 Sunday Feb 2015
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inA neighbor was shoveling snow this morning and had a cigarette dangling from his lips.
It’s the two for one heart attack special.
22 Sunday Feb 2015
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inThe song is from 1967 although it may have been written earlier – I don’t know but it contains a reference that forever freezes it in time right around one minute.
And that’s the great thing about music and how lucky we are to be able to stop time for 3 minutes and 15 seconds and travel back to somewhere that was safe and arm.
Sometimes it seems as though it really was yesterday that I was careening around on that bike through life and my teenage years. Sometimes I think I’m still on that careening path.
If you look closely you can see my radio right there on the handlebars. Go get your glasses – it’s there.
Only you have to put on your 1963 glasses. Then you’ll see it for sure.
21 Saturday Feb 2015
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inTags
Sad news… Lesley Gore passed away earlier this week and if you’re of a certain age, i.e., still read newspapers and yell at speeders zooming through your neighborhood then maybe you remember her, her songs and growing up in the 1960’s.
The new about Lesley Gore jogged my memory to my wonder years and when I got my first transistor radio somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14. It was a birthday present from my parents and it was a key, like so many other keys I would later receive to growing up.
Having an honest to goodness transistor radio was a sure sign that one had arrived.
This was way before cars were on my radar screen and my bicycle was my main and only mode of Locomotion (song hint here from the same time period).
I distinctly recall rigging that radio to the handlebars and instantly my portable music became even more portable.
And transistors. Are they made anymore? Didn’t the fellow who invent the transistor win the Nobel prize in teenage music?
My memory may be hazy on this but as a New York City teenager I recall that we were divided into radio listening camps – WABC, WMCA and a few others I can’t quite remember. Those were the glory days of AM radio before it became the pile of whatever it is today.
And in way I guess they were my glory days too before high school, college and real life set in. And then other music started to creep on to the FM dial and those were the glory days of FM radio.
Transistor radios on the AM and FM dial. I wouldn’t trade those days for all the ipods in the world.
Johnny was pretty much a real schmuck.
20 Friday Feb 2015
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inTags
Wind chill, wind chill?
You chill champagne, you chill out and chill is four fifths of chilli and the country Chile. Chilli is a warm and nourishing meal. Chilli peppers are hot and right now in Santaigo, Chile it’s 66 degrees.
Chill seems like a poor choice of words when it comes to plummeting temperatures and agonizing cold. We need to come up with something new that does not include words which offend polite company. And ” Real Feel” doesn’t cut it for me either.
I’m open to suggestions.
For example, when your local tv weather guy or gal says ” It will be 6 degrees tomorrow but with the wind it will feel like minus 142 so start whimpering and decide that you will have to take this lying down because you have no other choice chill.”
Wind freeze? Wind temperature freeze enhancer? Wind that will smack you in the face by a factor of ten or twenty degrees chill?
How about “Wind you best just give up because it’s so cold anymore chill.”
What would Chill Wills do?
20 Friday Feb 2015
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inHad a conversation with a fellow stagehand this morning at a load in. He told me about a show he worked on one day last week. He couldn’t remember the exact day but he said it was the day it snowed.
To which I replied – “Now which day when it snowed last week?” It’s all starting to run together anymore.
The color of my car officially is classified as ” Champagne Gold or Hawaiian Haze or Alaskan Mist” or some other stupid phrase cooked up by the whiz kids in the marketing department.
The car has transformed from light metallic green to looking like it got caught in a bakery warehouse during a free for all flour fight. It’s now shades of white and grey. The streaks and splotches are very organic in their placements. I like the look.
I’ll have to stop calling it the Millenium Falcon for something more appropriate like Frosty the Snow Car. Any suggestions?
How about the ” Aloha-mobile”?
19 Thursday Feb 2015
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inI’m immediately calling for an LJ 24.
In case you’re wondering LJ stands for long johns and 24 means all day and night.
I realize that there are loads and loads of people who deal with weather like ours currently on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and their lives go in pretty much uninterrupted. So this is not a boo-hoo please feel sorry for me post.
I think we’ve adapted well and I’m sure in some northern climes an LJ 24 probably becomes an LJ November to April event.
In other news pitchers and catchers reported today. Life goes on Obladi Oblada.
18 Wednesday Feb 2015
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inTags
I used to do this when the kids were young but over the years I seem to have forgotten this tradition I invented. At least I think I invented it.
First of all, show of hands – Who does NOT have a pile of snow within 5 feet of their front door. Yeah – I thought so. Maybe the question should be who does not have five feet of snow at their front door? Moving on.
Step one – Go outside and make yourself a couple of healthy sized snowballs. Three or four will suffice depending on how many kids you want to amaze and entertain in 6 months.
Step two – Pop ’em in the freezer. As they say on teevee – It’s just that simple. Forget about them.
Step three – Be sure to enter your local Fourth of July road race when the time comes. Five miles on the Fourth is how I always remembered the frozen treasures I had lurking in the freezer.
Step four – Run your race wearing red, white and blue and while your sweating your you know what off at mile 4 be sure to recall the frozen treats that are waiting for you when you get home.
Step five – You’re home – head to the freezer, gather up the young-ins and head out side for minutes of fun. I say minutes because even a frozen snowball doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in you -know – where on a hot July’s day, especially our great national birthday.
There you go – Five simple steps to being a summertime hero with the kids. Almost as much fun as shooting off fireworks at night during a snowstorm.
Don’t blame me if you shoot your eye out.
Cabin fever anyone?
16 Monday Feb 2015
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inTags
Watched the Fortieth Anniversary show last night and as the clock crept towards 11pm I kept thinking that I need to go to sleep. I stayed up and I’m glad that I did.
I remember when staying in on Saturday nights was the hip thing to do because of Saturday Night Live. Brought back some good memories and some not so good ones too.
I wasn’t expecting the latter but that comes with reminiscing I suppose. You always take a chance that when you look back a door opens whether you want it to or not.
And with me being a stagehand for a living I was very pleased to see the tribute to the crew during the Wayne’s World segment.
The funniest joke hit the screen around 11:15 and it’s got a 40 year old punchline:
Bill Murray said, “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.”
The joke as they say has legs. You really did have to be there forty years ago.
14 Saturday Feb 2015
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inNow that we’re deep into a nasty winter it’s pretty obvious that the furnace residing in my basement has been working overtime for many months. I have a hate/hate relationship with the little devil since I have to feed it a constant diet of #2 heating oil and it has a tendency to once a year do something stupid like break down.
This is the latest breakdown story. To set the scene…
Last Wednesday night I noticed a wet spot on the basement floor that had obviously been in place for a while since I also noticed loose floor tiles and mold growing behind a bookcase. When you can pick up a previously cemented to the floor piece of tile with your fingers this can not be a good sign.
I can’t find the source of the water. I look everywhere. There are no pipes in that part of the house and I’m pretty sure there is nothing buried below the basement. I’m stumped and while I’m stumped the: “What is this going to cost me meter?” begins running in my head. I sack out and decide to tackle in on Thursday.
I rip up all the loose tiles and stack them haphazardly because I need to find the source of the water pronto. Neatness doesn’t count in a race against mold and the clock.
I peer around the corner to the laundry room where the furnace I have now named Christine resides. Almost on cue the burner kicks on and water starts to flood out from under the damn thing and it’s path is right under my workbench and to the area where I’ve removed a dozen or so floor tiles.
Now, here is where the story gets really good in a slap yourself in the forehead kind of way. Sensing that something is amiss I immediately call my local heating contractor with whom I have a furnace (blackmail/extortion) protection policy.
But wait, it’s after normal business hours so I get the answering service. The conversation goes like this:
“Press one if you have a heating emergency.” I press one.
” Hello this is XYZ plumbing – can I help you?”
“Yes, my furnace is leaking water.”
” Do you have heat?”
” Yes, but there is water coming out of the furnace.”
” There is an extra cost for the trip charge because it’s after normal business hours. Can this wait until tomorrow?”
Let me repeat that slowly, the voice says…”Can this wait until tomorrow?”
At this point words are failing me except one beginning with the letter F that can be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective and an adverb. I appreciate the attempt to save me some money vis a vis the evening trip charge but this is no time to be penny wise cause soon I’m gonna be wet and foolish if I don’t get someone out here quickly.
I might add that one cat spends most of his time in the laundry room and he never said boo to me about the furnace. Thanks, Bub.
In the end the culprit was a pressure relief valve that couldn’t take the pressure anymore and was relieving itself whenever it felt like it. Hence the steady stream of relief for the valve.
Now what’s really funny is that when the service tech walks in and sees the furnace he says. ” Oh you have the B- 7 model. You know we’re always getting calls for parts failures on these things.” Well, no I didn’t but now I do. Sadder but wiser me.
The pressure relief valve now sports a bucket below it in case it can’t handle the truth or the pressure anymore. I’m shopping for a new furnace.
14 Saturday Feb 2015
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inFound this a few weeks back on obits page of the Saturday New York Times:
Vilmos Langfolder.
Disappeared in Soviet captivity January 17th, 1945. Gone but not forgotten.
That’s all. No name at the bottom of the remembrance stating who placed it. Only an anonymous ( I guess) mention of a hurt that still hasn’t healed and probably never will.
Husband, father, brother, son? No clues given.
Sad but nice to be remembered and missed some seventy years later.