Boot scooter boogie

I first noticed them about a month ago. In fact, the first one I saw was on my morning walk, parked outside of a home down the block. It was an electric scooter. My first thought was that the owner shouldn't have left it just sitting there. It would be too easily stolen. You know, an old guy thought.

Yet apparently it was meant to sit there as the (as it turned out) renter was finished with it. It was a Bird scooter, intended as a cheap means of transport for getting somewhere 'too close to drive but too far to walk'.

They're all over Detroit now. I've since several times seen users scooting up and down the local streets. I saw five parked (I guess you'd say parked) around the neighborhood this morning. You load an app on your phone, agree to pay the charges, scan the app against the scooter nearest you (the app tells you where they are) then hop on and pretend you're a kid again, tooling around until you're done. Then you leave it wherever you happen to be, for the next user. The company somehow tracks them, so they can be gathered for recharge as needed.

It all strikes me as rather bizarre. There's nothing in world wrong with them of course. If they're useful or even simply enjoyable as recreation, okay. Still, it does illustrate to me how behind the technological times I am. I shake my head at the idea even as I write this little passage. To just pick something up that isn't yours and set it aside anywhere at all when done, well, yes. It strikes me as bizarre.

But if that's your pleasure, so be it. I might actually try it myself one day, once the novelty wears off. After all, you can't stay behind the technological times to do something when it's still trendy.

The breaking point

One of the fascinating things about repairing drain cables and equipment are the the laments which I hear along the way. At times I wonder if people ever actually think about what they say.
Broken cables always just break. The operator never ever put too much pressure on it. Never, ever. They were simply feeding it into the drain line and it broke. I was told by a customer that his cable broke not once but eight times, all while he sat driving his van. He insisted he could hear it breaking as he drove: several sharp pings in a row as the machine simply sat there. Another claimed, I am not making this up, that he just looked at his machine and the cable snapped. Of course, he was kinda ugly...but the point is that most cable breakages supposedly occur though absolutely no fault of the operator. Right.
A favorite question for me is, why did my machine break? It is often asked with incredulity. My answer is, I think, obvious. Everything is subject to break. Nothing made by human hands lasts forever. Your equipment, your cars, your refrigerator; they all break, and sometimes we just don't know why. How can you be shocked by that? Now, if I can see an obvious reason I will tell them. Yet the most obvious reason is abuse. They don't seem to care to hear that...
Then there's the equally incredulous, it was working and then it just stopped! Again, why are you surprised? Everything works until it doesn't.
Sometimes I just sigh about it. Other times I blog about it. Today is your lucky day.

Getting gas tanked

We all know enough about cars to know that they break down. The starter gets fried, the transmission goes out, and we have to from time to time deal with nuisances such as flat tires. But sometimes truly unusual things happen to our vehicles.

Back in the Seventies we had a tan Chevy Suburban. With Mom and Dad and seven of us kids, you had to have a car large enough to transport everyone around, and Suburbans fit the bill. One day, I was 13 or 14, Mom and I were going to or coming back from somewhere and were just tooling along the street. Suddenly there was a loud and emphatic 'ker-thump!" and a terrible dragging sound. Mom eased the car to the curb. "Get out and see what's wrong," she instructed me.

I wasn't sure what she thought I would know to look for, but fortunately the trouble was obvious. When I got to the back of the Suburban, I saw the gas tank plain as day laying on the asphalt. It was held on by only the gas line.

I went back and said to Mom, "The gas tank fell off."

"Oh, come on," she responded. The tone in her voice and the look on her face told me she didn't believe that could possibly be the case.

"Ma, it's laying on the ground," I replied, incredulous myself really.

She got out, walked around the car, the looked at me and laughed. "You're right, the gas tank's fell off," she concurred. Thanks for the vote of confidence Mother.

Back then there weren't cell phones but pay phones were still all over. We found one only a block away and we weren't far from home either. So me Pops and me Uncle John came, disconnected the tank, and towed us home. The straps holding the tank in place had rusted through, and it turned out an easy fix. And though I'm sure the story is out there, I've yet to hear a car trouble tale quite so bizarre as dropping the gas tank.

Drain man

Yes, Cloyce was a poor excuse for a drain cleaning expert. I do believe that I ought to offer you one example of exactly how bad he was.

Often drains will have an access known as a riser outside of a house. This allows a plumber to cable a line without going into the building. It also avoids a trap, a sharp turn which can be difficult for a snake cable to navigate.

Cloyce arrived at a job and located the riser. He then began to snake the drain. He pulled out a small rug. He pulled out a wig. A garden hose came out of the line next, to be followed by a bed sheet. Several items of clothing found their way to the end of his cable. Soon he had a pile of various items and debris about three feet high laying in the customer's back yard. I know this from what another plumber who had by then arrived on the scene told me.

Cloyce had manged to go backwards through the riser (an impressive feat in an odd sort of way, truth be told) many times. His cable had burst through the cap on the line inside the basement of the house. Each time he ran the cable through he pulled out whatever in the basement engaged the cable. Yet he never once imagined that something might be wrong. He simply kept going back at it, figuring that eventually he would get everything out of the drain and that it would run just fine.

The inside of the basement, checked by Cloyce and the second man after that guy's arrival, found a basement nearly devoid of anything but with bits of paper stuck all over the walls. They had been ground up and thrown onto the walls as though avant-garde decor.

Yep, Cloyce was not a good drain cleaner.

Cloyce destroys my Model C

I remember a time when I was 16 or 17 that Pops handed over to me a used Electric Eel Model C drain cleaning machine which he had taken in on trade, and told me to clean it up for sale. With that, for honestly the first time in my life, I went all out on a work project. I really put my heart into the job.

I took the motor off the frame, and washed all the grime off both. I painted the motor gray and the frame royal blue, just as they painted them at the Eel factory. I rewired it and installed new wheels. All the bolts everywhere on that unit were new. When I was finished with it that baby looked sharp. She was dressed to the nines. I was truly proud of my work. Pops was too. That made me feel very good.

A few days later a regular customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, came by. I was busied at some project at a work bench in the middle of the Shop, the old barn where I still work. "Bill,' I heard Cloyce say to my father, "Have you got any used Models Cs?"

My heart sank right to floor. It seeped right through my boots.

You see, Cloyce was a great guy and a good customer. He never debated cost nor asked for better prices. He just bought what he wanted and said thank you. But man oh man, he was one lousy drain cleaner. He lost more cables in more sewers than you might think it possible for any one man to lose. I think he lost more snake cable in a given year than entire companies would in two. He abused his equipment in ways and manners unimaginable, incomprehensible to the rational human mind. In the museum of incompetent plumbers, yes, I mean this, is a solid gold, life size statue of Cloyce. He was simply not good at what he did. It remains a wonder to me how he ever got any jobs. Who, once they had seen his work, would refer him?

And Pops was going to sell him my Model C.

He couldn't not not sell the man the machine. I get that. We were, are still, in the business of selling new and used drain snakes, and Cloyce's money was as good as anyone else's. Plus, his poor skills weren't our fault. The old man had to sell the unit. As he took Cloyce's money me Pops, for likely the only time in his life, looked over at me with a sheepish, embarrassed, pained look which plainly said, 'I'm sorry, son'.

Cloyce wheeled that Eel out the door with a bright smile, while I was truly morose. You know those classic theater masks, the grinning one which represents comedy and the crying one which spoke tragedy? I learned that moment how tragedy felt. My youthful innocence was broken, its tatters strewn across the Shop floor.

Within a month Cloyce brought that Model C into the Shop for a switch or something. The front swivel caster was gone and the frame broken off so that the drive shaft had no support. The paint was scratched and grime covered my first child. I swear it looked up at me in despair and whispered pathetically, "Shoot me."

A man's man

Three hours this morning, three hours I tell you, I've spent trying to get online through my desktop computer. Thank goodness for cell phones or I couldn't have posted anything to facebook.
After trying restarts, after unplugging and replugging various HTML cables and connectors over and over, after allowing updates to install, after running the troubleshooting program ad infintum, I am online. I can play my daily games. I can like posts and post some more. I can create today's blog (which you've noticed I assume). I am Marty; I am a man who can solve first world problem deftly. Well, I suppose not deftly as three hours is a chunk of time. But I did it. By gum, I did it. I am online. I have solved the problem.
The trouble is that I don't really know how. Expect tomorrow's blog to be late.

Thirteen thirteen

I'm not sure the reasons behind it, but Amos whom I spoke of yesterday once went through a spell where he needed many surgeries. For whatever other reasons of which I am also unsure, me Pops ended up the contact person for him. Amos had no children and what family he had were all living in Kentucky.
I should mention here that Amos was extremely, indeed fervently, superstitious.
One day during the course of all Amos' health issues he had to have a surgery fast. It was a we need to know this instant, don't dwell on the answer, we'll lose him if don't operate immediately situations. Yet Amos himself was in a coma and could offer no instructions. Pops happened to be in the hospital and was approached about what to do. Operate, he of course told the doctors.
The surgery was done, and Amos came out in flying colors.
Well past any danger a couple of weeks later, Amos still lay in the hospital recuperating. Me Pops went to pay a visit. As they talked, Pops could see that Amos was calculating. Eventually he asked, in a fit of pique, "That was my thirteenth operation. Why'd you let them do it?" he demanded of Pops.
"What was I supposed to do?" Dad responded incredulously.
"When was the surgery?" Amos then demanded.
"I dunno. Two Fridays ago I guess."
"That was the Thirteenth!" Amos exclaimed. "You let them operate on me for the thirteenth time on Friday the 13th?"
"You're made it, didn't you?" Dad said with a wave of his hands. But I suppose when superstition gets a hold on you, it grabs tight.

Mom demands to golf

I was sitting on the porch with Mom on Sunday; it was about 12:45. She always wants to go somewhere, and for the third time in ten minutes she asked me where we could go. I had been putting her off as I knew my brother was taking her to our sister's house at 1.

When she asked the fourth time I answered, "Well, let's go golfing." I said it as a joke of course. I had said it joking before in fact. She usually wrinkles up her nose in disdain at the idea.

But it turns out she can still joke too. "Okay," she replied this time, "But I'll have to borrow your clubs."

Going along with it I explained, "You can't. It's against the rules to use another player's clubs."

She got a stern look and pointed her thumb at herself. "Do you think they'll tell me no?" she declared.

We didn't go golfing. But it is cool that we can still playfully interact.

Simon Bar Sinister

Are you wondering where I could possibly be going with a character from the old Underdog cartoon? I should hope so, as I'm about to tell you.

Back when network censorship of TV programs was a real thing, writers and actors would try to get questionable material past the censors. Perhaps it was to make a point, perhaps only for giggles just to see what they could get away with. They certainly got away with something on that beloved kids cartoon. Surely neither kids nor adults caught the joke.

You see, a bar sinister is an imaginary symbol from family crests of medieval times. Apparently Sir Walter Raliegh came up with the term. It supposedly denoted that the person who had it on his crest was an illegitimate child. The developers of Underdog, then, managed to get past the watchful dragons a character called Simon the...well, you know.

It was rather clever, I must admit. The censors would definitely not have allowed it had they caught it.

The offer of help

I was taking a fairly heavy package into the UPS Store this morning. Nothing I couldn't handle. Yet that should not take away from the young man who made the offer.

He acme over to my van and asked, "Can I help you with that, sir?" My initial reaction was panhandler. But he was in the uniform of a company truck right behind me. I told him no thanks, but that I truly appreciate the offer.

And I truly do. He was by all indications just being nice. I've said a couple prayers for his safety and well being. And I genuinely mean that, as much as I'm sure he meant to help me. We say too much about the negative. We should be positive at least occasionally.

The right number

My eldest son shot me a text last night, part of the gist of which that he had several phone numbers for me and he wondered which he should use primarily. I told him to use the Shop number. It's been around awhile, since 1966 in fact, and I intend on keeping it.

I had a cell phone number of my own for about ten years. That fact confused many friends when I got rid of it and made the Shop number my personal cell. I had failed to inform them of the change. Yet that move had many advantages. When me Pops went home, he left me the care of his business. It made no sense to rid myself of an established business number. When I learned that I could transfer that number to a cell, well, the decision was a no brainer. I got rid of my own cell and directed friends and family to call me on the Shop number. Aw Hell, as me Grandpa Joe would say, I was by then the boss. I could take personal calls on a business phone.

So if ya wants t'speak to me, call me business phone. It's that simple. I'll just let ya go to voice mail if I'm tied up making money.

The bug has bit me, the disease takes hold

Last night I didn't shoot my age, or older. I shot a 51, my best score ever for nine holes (and in fact beating my age by a few years thank you very much). I'm beginning to believe that I might actually rise to mediocrity at golf.

I had sixes, mere bogeys, on both par fives. I had fives, mere bogeys again, on three of the par fours. On one of those par fours I had a no putt, another first for me. I was about a foot and a half on the fringe of the green and holed out. Granted, I used my putter and hit the ball firm. But as I understand that's technically a no putt as I wasn't actually on the green, so it counts.

I had a five, five, and six respectively on the par threes. Ironically then my worst holes were the three where I double parred and the other two par threes (the shortest holes). Yet on the whole, when I hit a poor shot, each time after I thought okay, just make the next one. I shot out of heavy rough to within twelve feet of the cup on the ninth hole and knew I would do it. I've felt that kind of confidence curling and playing baseball but never while golfing. I have never felt so comfortable on a golf course.

Now here's where the latent golfer in me comes out. As pleased as I am with yesterday's play, I can't shake the bit of disappointment that I did not break fifty. My three three putts cost me that. But while I'm not really mad at myself about it, I am reminded that there's still tons of room for improvement.

I'm looking forward to next Monday more than I ever thought I'd look forward to golf, and I've looked forward to it a lot in recent years. This golf disease is definitely getting a hold on me.

The great unanswered coffee question

As I related a couple of months ago, I bought a used Keurig single cup coffee maker for use at the Shop. My home percolator is not yet happy with me but our relationship is thawing, albeit slowly. You can read about that here if you like: http://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2018/05/lazy-coffee-jealous-percolators.html
Anyway, I was surprised at the cost of the coffee pods, those little plastic cups with a single serving worth of ground coffee which are used with the Keurigs. My daughter helped me on that question by buying me refillable pods (thanks Sweetie!). Still, I can't pass on a good sale when I see one, and I saw one yesterday. It was forty filled pods for ten bucks. So I bought a box.
My only issue is with the flavor: it is listed on the box as 'donut shop'. But which blasted donut shop is it?
Around here, when I think donut shop I think Tim Hortons's. But it's not Tim's flavor at all. Far too weak, and not the least bit robust. Nor does it seem to be Dunkin's or Biggby's or, thankfully, Starbucks (which in my mind is overpriced and tastes burnt). The newfound coffee tastes fine, but I can't associate it with any particular donut shop at all.
I think truth in advertising ought to compel them to simply call it coffee. That's what it is, and they should say as much. Curmudgeon rant over.

Pops nearly shot himself

Jokes and novelty songs have been made about this type of situation, but one day me Pops almost shot himself. Really.

It's been nearly fifty years ago. One summer we took a four week family vacation to see Mom's people in North Carolina. Pops drove everybody down in the old Dodge Polara station wagon, stayed a week with us, then left the car there for Mom and us kids while he flew back to Detroit for two weeks. He returned for the fourth week and drove us all back home after that. He spent the two weeks in the middle (other than working) replacing the front porch on our house. It was easier for him to do that chore without us rugrats in the way.

After a few days he had completed the deck but not the stairs. But it was late so he went to bed, knowing he had plenty of time to add them. Yet he hadn't counted on me Grandma Cosgriff's paranoia interfering with his sleep.

Me grandparents lived next door, and Grandpa Joe was off on one of his jaunts for a couple weeks. Grams called Pops in the middle of the night and said she heard a prowler. He grabbed his pistol and rushed out the front door.

He threw open the door and took three quick, unthinking steps. On the fourth step, the step just exactly too far, he realized to himself just too late, 'There ain't no stairs'. He fell face down onto the ground, his pistol in hand right under his chest. Yes, he fell smack on top of the gun.

Luckily, obviously, it didn't go off. And of course, there was no prowler. Pops would often tell the story, yet with a nervous laugh even years later.

Wide world of chessboxing

Okay folks, I am now officially proclaiming that we have gone too far. The sports industry, and sports are an industry rather than a diversion (they have been for a long time and I for one will argue that that is not good), is out of control to the point of having become a joke upon itself.

Things such as frisbee and cornhole now get airtime on ESPN. Really? These are games which are fit for little more than recreation at family reunions. I won't even get into competitive eating...all right, I have, and will further. It's an affront to all things good in the world and an insult to poor and hungry. Quite bluntly, it mocks them. Now added to all this inanity is the up and coming 'sport' of chess boxing, or chessboxing.

I had to look it up; it just seemed too thoroughly oddball to be true. Even though I caught a few minutes of it on ESPN2 yesterday, I wondered if perhaps it was a joke. Perhaps ESPN and the Onion had formed a faux sports entertainment business. Yet apparently it's, uh, well, I hesitate to say legit. But apparently it is popular in some parts of Europe.

You box a round, then play a game of chess. Then you box again, then play chess again. Somehow results are correlated and one or the other, I guess athlete, wins. Honest. You can win instantly by knockout or checkmate, by the way. Describing that as strange undercuts the definition of strange, methinks.

I believe that prizefight boxing is immoral anyway (as the direct intent is to actually hurt a fellow human being rather than prevent him from obtaining a goal of some sort) but still; chess boxing? It's the world turned upside down. It does not speak well of our human capacity for decadence. I ask seriously: why do we need such bizarre entertainment?

No more pencils, no more books

It's August, and that means one thing for parents of school age children: it's time to buy school supplies.

The ads are everywhere, for clothes and backpacks and pencils and notebooks and all those items on all those lists helpfully supplied by our teachers. If you've got one schoolchild it can be a daunting task. If you've got several it can seem too high of a mountain.

I'm past all that and I don't mind at all. Rushing from store to store to get the best prices on different items was simply a chore, especially factoring in all the other parents doing the same thing. It wasn't long before the school supply aisles at Office Depot and K-Mart looked like bombed out cities from the Second World War.

Then there was always that one item which, somehow, became impossible to find. Erasers; I remember one year when we could not find an eraser anywhere. Well, yes, on pencils, but you know how quickly those wear down. You needed actual hand held erasers. Yet there were none, as though the erasers themselves had gathered en masse and decided, nope, we're not having anything to do with this madness this year. You're on you're own; bye!

I don't miss it at all. I pity the folks still dealing with it. I have absolutely no sentimentality for the school day preparation of my children. We ran the race, we fought the fight. And I like the feeling of switching channels the instant a back to school sale commercial appears. It is empowering in ways beside which fighting the crowds at Target pale.

I hate open primaries (but I'll take advantage of them)

Tomorrow is a primary election day here in Michigan. And I'm going to vote in the Democratic primary.

I assure you I have not lost my head. I am only doing what open primaries allow: I am voting in the opposite election expressly to vote for candidates I believe the Republicans are most likely to beat in November (and against Rashida Tlaib, who really irritates me with her smugness). November doesn't matter to me because I will almost certainly vote for whomever the GOP winners are tomorrow.

Many folks won't like me doing that. I don't care. Those are the same liberal folks who brought us things such as open primaries. Let them reap what they sow.

To make my point bluntly, while in democratic elections you have the right to freely choose the candidates you like, that only applies in general elections. You do not have the right to tell the parties whom to select. Political parties are essentially private organizations. As such, they have the right to monitor their membership and pick the people who best represent their interests. Do you actually believe Donald Trump would have been chosen by the Republican Party if the selection of its candidates had been closed? No. Way. But again, I blame the left for that. They're who pushed for open primaries and were awarded with President Trump. They can stew in their own juice.

So I will vote in the Democratic primary tomorrow. I encourage my conservative friends to do the same, if circumstances allow.

Joe and the art of the sale

Joe Cosgriff is not for sale. Or he doesn't sell things. Or something like that.
When my kids were young we traipsed down the street and visited Grandma Cosgriff and Grandpa Joe quite often, usually once a week. Grandma would often begin such visits with a small list of things available to us: cookies, coffee, candy and the like. Grandpa Joe would quickly stop her with an abrupt, "Don't sell them on it! They know they can have what they want." Grandma would purse her lips in mild anger, and that would be that. We'd get cups of coffee or cookies and go on about a conversation.
But interestingly, if by some chance Grandma was not nearby, Grandpa Joe would launch into a litany: there's coffee on the stove, and cookies in the jar, and cake on the table (plates on the shelf, forks in the drawer) and so on. Then he would realize what he was doing and add, "But I'm NOT selling you on it. I'm only telling you it's there if you want it."
It was merely a variation on a theme. But it may have been my first experience with what the politicians would call 'spin'. Grandpa Joe could certainly put his spin on things.

Start up issues

I've noticed something lately, and I'm not sure why. Is it a habit that's been around for years and I've simply missed it? And is it actually worth the effort, I wonder. But to the point: four times in the last month I've noticed drivers cutting their engines while stopped at traffic lights, then turning them on when the signal hits green.

Does that save that much gas? I can't imagine that it does. I would also have to believe that it leads to greater wear and tear on the engine. A driver might theoretically stop and restart his car dozens more times a day through the practice. Further, I've long understood (although I concede that I may be wrong on this) that engines use the most gas at start up. Is this true, has it ever been true, or am I simply mistaken? And why would you want to take the admittedly unlikely chance that your vehicle wouldn't restart?

I dunno, but it strikes me as a waste. Its certainly innocuous anyway you think about it. Still, I have to ask, is it really worthwhile?

Friday moanin'

Nothing will make me click off a web page faster than the words, begin slideshow. I'm not sitting down to click from one page to another for ten minutes while ads load.

I get it: the sites have to make their money, and I'm not entitled to their content. But neither are they entitled to my time. They lose it immediately with the dreaded words, begin slideshow. And all after disappointing teasers anyway.

Rant over. Have a nice Friday once you've clicked me off.

The reading disease

While it has cost me time before, it has never cost me a night's sleep. This reading bug I've caught has gotten a tight hold on me and seems to be squeezing harder all the time.

The immediate cause is the book I finished about twenty minutes ago on the tribulations between President Truman and General MacArthur, The General vs. the President. It's a very good read which, for the record, really didn't alter my thoughts on the issue. I still have sympathy for MacArthur's worldview yet agree that Truman did exactly what he had to do, things as they were. It was exactly what I believed before this book came into my hands. Still, one must feel differently, more enlightened, more deeply understanding of a subject after reading a balanced and entertaining take on it. But there is no particular call for reading to change a mind, really. Broaden it, I would say, yes. Yet abrupt and compelling change of mind isn't necessarily the point of reading or writing. Nor must it be.

That is however a sidebar point just now. As I've said before, books snowball for me. I read more quickly as I get further into a story and the further into it I get the more compelled I am to finish it post haste. So it happened yesterday evening. I sat down around 9, without even the TV on (I am less interested in TV the more I read) to read for only a bit before going to bed. Then, with the admitted exception of a couple of catnaps perhaps a half hour long each, I kept reading until done at about 7:15 this morning. I began at sunset and ended at sunrise, if you will.

Enlightenment and understanding are good and fine things. Yet they won't help me get the day's practical work done. They won't help me get them snakes repaired or those calls made (though I certainly will get the day's work done, there being Bill and Joe Cosgriff in me bones and on my conscience). It certainly won't help that part of my day will be left to wondering what book I should launch into after work. It won't help that no matter how tired I might be I will start another book and perhaps read too long tonight when I ought to get some real sleep. I simply never imagined contracting the reading disease so profoundly. I do hope it at least makes some positive difference in me.