I randomly decided to reactivate my old blog. You can find me here: dewitte.wordpress.com.
I’ll remove this one in a few weeks as part of the “clean up your mess on the internet” initiative.
Don’t touch my scissors!
I’m 55 and if I live to be 100, I’ll never understand scissors.
My wife sews. We were at the dinner table the other night and I picked up a pair of scissors and I heard “Put those down! Don’t use those for ANYTHING. They are my GOOD scissors.”
All of a sudden, I was 5 years old again and my mother was violently shaking me and yelling “Don’t touch my scissors! They are my GOOD scissors!! Leave my scissors alone!” (okay, she didn’t shake me violently. Well, she did once – but that was when I jumped out of the car in the middle of a busy intersection while she was trying to turn left. She wasn’t thrilled about that – plus, I was only about 4 years old.)
Anyway – scissors. They still make them out of steel, right? I mean, they aren’t made out of plastic or wax. What is the deal with scissors? Can I really ruin them forever by cutting something?
I remember my mother drilling me for hours not to touch her scissors. “These are MY scissors. Don’t TOUCH MY SCISSORS!!!!”
Flash forward about 30 minutes and I’m in her sewing room. I open the drawer. Take out the wooden box. Remove the velvet bag, remove and unroll the dark blue felt and there are her scissors! Beautiful, really. I cut one piece of paper off of my paper airplane – about 2 inches of extra paper. I wrap the scissors back up in the dark blue felt. Slide them back into the velvet bag. Put the bag back in the box and the box back in the drawer.
About an hour later, I hear screams from the sewing room – “MY SCISSORS! Did you cut something with these? THEY’RE RUINED!!” She throws them and they fly across the room like a ninja star – barely missing my head before sticking in the wall.
Well, that’s how I remember it anyway. It was probably a lot less exciting. How can cutting a single piece of paper ruin scissors forever? And how in the world, could she tell that I’d touched them? I certainly learned my lesson, but the lesson was don’t touch scissors that aren’t mine. I never learned why scissors are so flakey.
Baby Fishmouth
Don’t know – just seemed like a Baby Fishmouth kind of way to start a post. I’m going to end with an X-Men clip – just so you’ll be prepared.
It has been a busy week (in Lake Wobegon). Can I even say that anymore? I know Garrison Keillor turned out to be some sex crazed maniac or something like that, so much so that the show had to change it’s name – but I digress again.
It’s summer school and I work support and man. People have really been needing help. Since everyone is at home, it is a lot more support because mom and dad (and grandma sometimes) don’t know how to log in. “What’s a Google Chrome now?” So then, at night I do data processing and programming for another company and I guess they all of a sudden want reports and then tonight I get an email from a friend asking if I can help him with a report. I downloaded the files, but I’m not looking at them until tomorrow.
After work today, my wife and I hung out in the back yard. She was in the hammock and I was in this cool recliner kind of outdoor chair that I wanted for my birthday last year. It’s just a chair that was on Amazon, but it’s outdoorzy and foldable, etc. Anyway, we did that for a while and then I ventured into the chicken coop area to get eggs. 7. Seven eggs. (*cough*) SEVEN. The other day since I missed a few days, there were 15. We have eggs on our eggs. I eat about two a week, so you get the idea. Actually, yesterday and today I managed to cook eight. Four each day and I give two to the dog. He loves them. We were talking to this guy at the farmer’s market and he was saying that eggs are cheaper than dog food and he’s right – especially for us, if you subtract the cost of chicken food which is maybe $15 a month.
Then I worked on the air compressor. I had this nice little pancake one and my son took it apart to make something and it didn’t work after that. In all fairness, it was his, so I can’t say much. Our neighbor threw one out and I asked what was wrong and it was the pressure switch, which I just happen to have another of. So I’ve been messing with that. I use it to work a nail gun. I’ll flip all of the cards over and just tell you – I make bird houses for fun. It’s a new thing for me. You can make them out of fence slats so they don’t cost anything. Home Depot has cedar fence slats, so bonus. I bought some crazy yellow and blue paint and they like psychodelic hanging on the fence. Anyway, my son isn’t home and I can’t find the silicon tape stuff I need to keep it from leaking so I came back in the house. It’s like 8:30 anyway. I’ll work on it tomorrow since I’ll be off in the afternoon. We have to run errands too – drugstore, feed store (chickens), and probably grab some lunch.
Oh, well. I was on Youtube earlier and a suggested video was Quicksilver from X-Men, and wow – I forgot how much I enjoy his scenes. It’s really quite impressive. Have a good night!
Vitamins and a side of Sneezing
Those aren’t related really. However, as soon as I started this post I had a 5 minute run of sneezing. Sneezing like you didn’t send the chain letter soon enough or to the right people. I carried one paper towel to my desk with my breakfast thinking “Is one enough?” – No. The correct answer is “No”.
Busy day today. More summer school stuff. I work support during the summer and it’s been crazy with the pandemic. We’re all virtual. I had like five Zoom meetings yesterday. One of those was a spontaneous one that came up right after a meeting to … (wait for it) … discuss the previous meeting.
So Vitamins. I take a lot of vitamins. I still learn stuff, too. Like iron absorbs better when you take it with vitamin-c. I take a lot of vitamin-c too. Like 1000mg at a shot. If I’m sick, I may take a few in a day. That’s like a gram (well, it IS a gram). I listened to a recording of Richard Feynman. When he had cancer, he was taking 60 grams a day. So I’m under that. I’m only thinking/talking about vitamins because I overheard some people at the farmer’s market last week discussing vitamins. She rolled off maybe 5 and I’m thinking – yep. I take that.
If you care – here are vitamins and minerals I take. I used to take them all every day, but not anymore. I take them at different times and sometimes different days:
Vitamin B, C, D, Iron morning
Zinc, Magnesium before bed
B12 and Folic Acid only sometimes, because I already take the B
Potassium sometimes. I used to take this daily, but don’t not for no reason.
Of those, Zinc is the most interesting. People take Zinc for health and immunity. I take it for a completely different reason. Somehow, years ago I was out really late I think we were fishing or something, and I had to get up early. I randomly took a Zinc before bed and felt GREAT and rested the next morning after only 3 hours of sleep. Since then, I’ve found that Zinc helps me wake up and I usually feel refreshed. Maybe it’s all in my head, but I’m good with that.
Back to work. It’s tax day in the US. I haven’t done the first thing to prepare. UGH! Tax Day in the US is like Boxing Day in Canada, but without the food, fun, and presents. Enjoy!
Bueller, Bueller
Ah, blogging. This is something you should do often, like journalling. I’ve done neither. Ironically, we are facing several of the largest historical events of our lifetimes, and I have yet to say a peep about any of it. Someone will open my journal in 100 years and say “I wonder what great, great, grandpa had to say about the pandemic of 2020” and they will find nada.
The last 11 months have been a blur. I see I posted in February, but only talking about sleep. In September I posted about lack of sleep. Truth is, I went through this crazy time in September-November where I wasn’t sleeping right and I ended up going to the hospital. After a CT scan, they found I’d had a brain bleed sometime in my lifetime, but it wasn’t current – which really excited the brain surgeon on staff. What had happened to me? He pondered that I must have hit my head or something. I don’t know. The issue at hand at that moment didn’t seem to be related to a brain bleed but to some kind of anxiety. Now I take an anxiety pill and I sleep like a baby again. I’m not anxious. I don’t look forward to anything, but I never did. Much to the chagrin of my wife, who likes to have something to look forward to. Me – I’m just happy to be here.
For a really short time, I was active on Facebook. By active, I mean I was stirring up trouble. By trouble, I just mean I would post something that might upset a conservative or two and they’d descend on my page like the zombies from Raccoon city. Then I was done – hid all of those posts and slipped back into the darkness. I didn’t mean to suddenly take a stand, but it’s fairly easy to get worked up when you go to Twitter and see something trending and turn it into a Facebook post. Before you know it, you have an opinion – and in my case, a differing opinion. Oh, sure – some people are all for it, but there are some nasty people who are against it. And, let’s face it – life is short. Facebook shouldn’t make you feel like you need a shower everytime you use it.
It’s Sunday. Summer’s are made up of a four day work week and three glorious days off. This particular weekend has been especially blissful since I haven’t checked emails at all. Oh, I’ve ‘seen’ them flashing by, but I haven’t been into my email. The problem with working weekends, which I’ve always done, is that people start expecting you to work weekends. You aren’t paid to work weekends, so why should you work on the weekends? Usually, I do since my work and my hobby are intertwined and always have been. This weekend, though, I’ve been doing other things like reading, cleaning, and mowing grass. It’s hot, though. I need to mow the backyard today, but that 97 degrees is a bit much. Maybe in a while it will cool down. For now, I’m sending you a quick update. I need to vacuum, dry a blanket and work on an air compressor. Or, maybe I’ll just take a nap. 🙂
Oh, we bought a puppy. This is Riley. He’s 10 months old now and we’ve had him for about 9 of those months. He’s made quarantine a lot more fun than it would have been otherwise. This is from when we first got him, but you missed all of that. He’s bigger now.
Sleep is my favorite
I think sleep is my favorite thing to do – if done correctly. A few weeks ago, I fasted all day then after work I laid down for a few minutes in bed between changing clothes and fell into a deep sleep. I can tell I was sleeping good because my wife came in and said “Hey, whatcha doing?” and I didn’t know what day it was or if it was day or night. I said “Why are you up so early?” because, at first, I thought it was 6am.
That, my friends – is the right way to sleep. I treasure moments like that. They are right up there with having a anesthesia during a procedure – where they say “count backwards from 10” and then next thing you hear is “wake up! you’re all done” after two hours. Also the best. I’d like about a month of that if possible. If I were rich, I bet I could make that happen. Imagine the weight you could lose while snoozing for 30 days. Sign me up.
Weekend Update
The end of a weird weekend – but only sleep wise. I couldn’t sleep Saturday night – tossing and turning and finally got up and then went back to bed. I think I settled down around 6am. Last night! I woke up at 3am to go to the bathroom and returned to a room that was so dark, I felt like I was in a coffin. Then I managed to freak myself out thinking that if I went to sleep, I was going to die. No, I didn’t drop acid right before bed. Maybe I should have. I *almost* looked up fear of sleeping, but didn’t want to promote that idea. I tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep, even with headphones and Netflix on but to no avail. I went downstairs, put on the TV, got in the recliner and I was out cold until I hit snooze 6 times – UGH! So much for going to work early today to get all caught up. I ended up getting in about 10 minutes late because also [also] the traffic was crazy.
I did manage to make a huge batch of oatmeal to bring in for breakfast. Yummy – lots of brown sugar and *cough* butter (not lots of butter, but butter, because before I could catch myself I’d dropped it in there and forgot I was trying to really avoid animal by-products today. I need to get back to my VB6 (Vegan Before 6) regimen. I’ll be 55 next week – 55 (fifty-five). That means I’m almost dead. That’s probably the wrong attitude – and I know there are people living to almost 56 and 57 these days. Who knows. My dad made it to 82, so I could end up with 30 more years of this.
We didn’t get to run the Cat-5 cables to the garage this weekend. I went out on Saturday and planned to get started. I started knocking out a piece of drywall in order to expose the wiring area that the previous owner left in the garage. About 5 minutes into that my son who was helping me squealed and he’d been stung by a wasp or hornet or whatever and as it turns out – I’d upset a huge nest of them living in the garage. Yay! I hate wasps and hornets. I’m sorry he got stung. Every time I helped my dad do anything, it seemed I ended up getting hurt – so I certainly feel his pain. My wife, who is completely unphased by bugs, sprayed the nest down Saturday night and we were all set to move forward Sunday but they were still there. Turns out “kills on contact” is maybe just a suggestion. I put on my big pants last night and sprayed the rest of the can on the nest. Hopefully they’ll be gone now.
I’m not sure why I didn’t sleep, but I did take a new “brain” pill last night called Neuriva. It’s supposed to make you all limitless like that movie (I wish!). Actually, it’s just some coffee derivative that seems harmless based on what I read. They said “make sure to take it before you go to sleep because you’re going to get super tired.” Yeah – I was more like “super wired”. I read some reviews and some other people take it in the morning, which is what I’ll probably do since I can’t afford to have my sleep interrupted.
In other news – we watched Beasts of the Southern Wild – which was a real tear jerker. We were going to watch an episode of Kim’s Convenience afterwards to cheer us up a little but turns out – we’re done with all of the seasons. Ugh. That show is funny.
I bought a new kitchen rug for in front of the sink and the cats spent about 0 seconds finding it and laying on it. They are also still enjoying their box city.
Someone sent me an email that said “Please Advise” at the end, and and I discovered that saying “please advise” in an email sets me off. If you say “Can you help me with” or “Can I call you and you go over with me” or “I saw a dog today” – any of those – are much better than “please advise”. Please advise sounds like some weird passive-aggressive way of asking for help. Please advise. Ugh! No, I cannot “advise” you. Did you want help instead?
We bought two giant corn stalk bundles from Home Depot to decorate for Halloween. It took an act of congress to find the price on them and once we did, we decided to get two since the lady worked so hard to find the info. So – what’s funny about that? Well, I completely forgot about it until I got in my car this morning and they were still wedged sideways from the front to back of the car. Ah. That’s right. I left them. I can see around them and I didn’t want to waste more time this morning taking them out.
Guess I’ll get on with my Monday. Have a great one!
Unboxing – Boxing
We were watching TV the other night and I noticed the cats were interested in this stack of boxes. I have four from a recent delivery and they were all inside of each other just sitting near the wall until I take them out to the recycle bin. Yes – I know cats like boxes, but I don’t think I’ve given it more thought than ‘Cats like boxes’. So we paused the show we were watching and I took the boxes out of each other and put them all around each other. Well! The resulting antics were more fun than any TV show we could watch.
The cats were in the boxes and out of the boxes – in the same box – in a different box – next to the box – climbing on the box. At one point, they looked like one of those follow fountains you might find in a mall where they just went in rapid succession from box to box.
I’m thinking I might leave them over near the wall. They are certainly more fun than just crumbling them up in the recycling.
Happy Accidents
Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon here. Actually an un-quiet few weeks. Just busy. I’m finally almost caught up, but I have two or three pokers still in the fire that I need to address. Today. I’ll get all of that today – or most of it. I haven’t washed dishes in the last two days and I woke up late after hitting snooze about four times too many, so I ended up going to Hardee’s. They had a two chicken biscuit deal going on, so I got that. I had one for breakfast and left one in the car so I’d have one for lunch. Notice I had to leave it out there, because if I brought it in, it wouldn’t make it until lunch. I think I’m a nervous eater – or just an eater. Anyway, if it were in my office, I’d eat it.
Last weekend, we went to a ground breaking for a new kids center in our neighborhood. Lots of city officials there – and they had food. That’s not why I was there, but it helps. We are on the civic league, so it makes sense to go to events like this and support area growth.
I see Verizon people in our area – I think we are finally getting FIOS. It took years, so this could be exciting. We have cable internet – but it’s not super fast. We don’t have cable. Just not enough time in the day for it. I find I can get all I need from Netflix, Hulu, CBS, and Youtube. Youtube even had the debates streaming last night – looked great.
Guess I’ll go get to work. Here’s a couple of Friday tunes:
Plex and Quincy, ME
Quincy is like one of my all time favorite TV shows. Originally, all of the seasons were on Netflix which is why I signed up for it. Then they shifted it off and it’s not there any more. So I finally bought seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. It’s everything I remember as I spent almost every Thursday night at 10pm watching him solve some medical mystery.
Problem is – to watch a DVD, I need to fire up the DVD player and just maybe it will work. Honestly, I should use it more often since the last one froze up and wouldn’t open. They tend to do that when you don’t use them. I was listening to my tech podcast last week and Plex is now a sponsor. Plex. I think I looked at it a long time ago, but since they had a deal going I checked it out.
Plex is a media server for your home. You load all of your media files onto it and then if you have something like an Amazon Fire TV, it can connect to the server and play your files. I think it’s free. I signed up for a $5 a month plan, but only because the first month was free, but I honestly don’t know what I’m getting for that $5 yet. Maybe you don’t need to pay anything. Still, it’s a pretty neat package and certainly worth paying a little bit for.
I Googled how to rip dvd’s and started ripping my library. The first set of disks is from The Six Million Dollar man – Season 3. So why not Quincy? Well, I’d ripped some of those last year so they’d be on the computer, but I used some weird format and now I think I’m going to re-do them. While practicing, though, I used Six Million Dollar Man.
Anyway – I use HandBrake to rip the DVD’s. There are YouTube videos that explain all of this. You can put in the DVD and a few hours later, you have a set of media files. The cool thin about Plex is that you can put all of the files into a directory called Six Million Dollar Man/Season 3 (with names like Six Million Dollar Man – S03 E04) and Plex does the rest. I go to my Amazon Fire TV, load Plex and using the menus I’m looking at a nice and well organized listing of Season 3. It brings in the synopses of them and everything. I’m watching TV without DVD’s!
Now just to buy the other Quincy seasons so I can load them up – oh, and I have to re-rip Season 1 and 2 so I’m using the Handbrake format and naming them right. Turns out, what I have from last time is “title1, title2, title3” – and well. I’d have to try and figure out what they are and name them.
