Life in the middle ages

copyright 2005 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission

I have reached that time in my life where I have begun to contemplate, more and more, the world and the hereafter. I seems as though every time I walk into a room, I stop and think, “Now what in the world am I here after?”

I used to say it was because I was distracted with so many important thoughts. Einstein often was so immersed in weighty and consuming matters that he would forget about the world around him, after all. I was only acting like a forgetful, absent-minded … genius. That’s what I claimed. Eventually I realized that there was no one in the room to hear my protestations except me and I didn’t buy it for a second. In fact, these constant denials only confused me more and made me forget what it was I was looking for in the first place.

For example: at work, there is a little coffee room, two pots, two microwaves, and one refrigerator. I don’t drink their coffee – they don’t clean the pot (EVER!); I don’t nuke my lunch; I only ever use the refrigerator, and then just for a bottle of water.

I have one item in the entire room, a bottle of water. It has my name written on it in indelible marker in 3 inch high letters, sitting at eyelevel in the door of the fridge, and I STILL can’t remember what it was I went in there to get.

My wife has gotten used to me entering a room as I prepare to leave in the morning and come to a complete standstill as though I had jumped the track and was waiting for a tow. As soon as the expression of “What am I forgetting this time?” crosses my face, she starts on the list.

“Car keys? ID badge? Laptop? Wallet? House keys?” and so on and so on. With each item dutifully called out, I slap, grab, brush or otherwise indicate the item in question. Once or twice she has caught me deeply in a middle age moment and called out items I possessed, but actually felt a little pain when indicating their existence too carelessly. She’s good at that.

I have found this extends to my driving as well. Occasionally a random thought will occur to me while driving like “Was that light green?”. The truck has no dents, there are no irate policemen tailing me, and I am picking up no more rude gestures from traffic than anyone else, so I can only conclude that it was green or I stopped and waited.

Once in a while, I will realize that the road I need to turn onto was the one I just passed. Occasionally, I will also realize that for just a moment, I have absolutely no idea where I am. This happens on long trips, when I have no idea if I have passed exit 230 or just come to exit 192.

It’s actually worse when I am at work. I will declare a variable (I’m a programmer, and we programmers are always declaring variables. It’s a thing we do), and then cannot for the life of me remember what it is I called it. For all the good a steady Microsoft naming convention does me, I should just start using character names for Tolkin or Monty Python movies. At least I can guarantee there isn’t another programmer in the world that wouldn’t recognize those! All geek code, for geeks, by geeks. GEEKS UNITE! Or is it GEEKS UNTIE? Whatever.

I thought about getting it checked, and in fact I see a doctor every three months, but I never remember when I get there, and on those occasions when it occurs to me belatedly, well, who cares?

Anyway, the point of all of this is… uhm…. forgotten.

Oh well.

I post again later.

Though you may need to remind me.

Tall grass and broken toilets

copyright 2005 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission

I haven't written for a long time for the following reasons: Hot cold air, washing dishes with a semi-automatic, trying to get a handle on the toilet, and mowing for the city.

OK? Everything makes sense now, right?

Humph. OK, let me start over.

The last storm of the season had ended a day or two before, but the rain and the humidity decided to stick around. My wife and I were finishing dinner when a strong and unpleasant smell began to insinuate itself into the room. It couldn't have been my cooking (because it would have smelled long before then), and all the burners were off. I couldn't find the smell at first, but it grew stronger and fouler as time went on.

It was rather reminiscent of my first car. Rather, it reminded me of the death of my first car: the one that froze when some bearings burned out and melted. I then noticed the AC was no longer shaking.

The AC had developed a rattle and a shimmy that threatened to pick the entire thing up and walk it out of the closet. I understand that an AC with a wicked shimmy is NOT a good thing (forgive me Cuppa, I mean Air Conditioner), but being as financially strapped as we’ve been, we were hoping to limp it along to the end of the season. No such luck.

Whatever wasn't working before was now melting. I turned off the AC as fast as I could, but the smell increased for a long time before it began to dissipate.

We were left with the swamp.

Now, for those of you in the great white north, or near a coast who have no idea what I am talking about - by swamp I mean swamp cooler; also called an evaporative cooler. A swamp cooler pulls outside air in through wet pads and blows it into the house. In theory, this cools the air and thus, the house. A swamp cooler works wonders - if the dew point is less then 50 degrees. Anything over fifty, and there's already too much moisture in the air too cool it well, anything over 55 and the entire thing becomes an enormous roof-mounted fan and the humidity in the house just increases without decreasing the temperature.

The dew point that day, and for the next few days, was 64.

This was when the swamp cooler really lived up to its name. It was muggy, miserable and 108 degrees in the shade. Whoever the architect was that decided a large living room window should face west in Phoenix should be roasted under glass - like we were.

Still we tried to make the best of it. There was no sitting in the leather chair in front of the computer, though, so no BLOGging.

The next day, I ran the dishwasher. My dishwasher is a "portable", meaning in this case, it has wheels so I can drag it across the kitchen floor and hook it up to the sink.

The connector to the faucet had a small but dramatic leak, so I would turned the water off as soon as the dishwasher ended. I heard it end, and on cue I got up and walked into the kitchen. As I turned the corner, the faucet blew out.

It's one of those pullout faucets with a switch to alternate stream and spray. Apparently, the back pressure of years of automatic dishwasher overwhelmed the switch and it blew.

Just as I came with in sight.

I think it was a cold and deliberate act. Plumbing and I have never gotten along well, and I believe that the faucet waited until I was nearby to blow out. The odd thing is, the dishwasher, unaffected by the faucet, still worked, and the water still cycled fine - as long as I stood next to the faucet the entire time and turned the water on and off between cycles.

I now had a semi-automatic dishwasher.

Well, at least I could still use it and didn't have to stand over a steaming hot sink in a steaming hot house. I was truly grateful for what I did have left. Then the toilet handle broke.

I had replaced it some time ago with the only style Wal-Mart (OK, OK, I know!) had. It was cheap plastic. It had sheared off in the tank, so every time you needed to flush, you had to go digging in the reservoir and pull up the remainder of the mechanism.

I told you plumbing and I didn't get along well.

OK, so I had to fix the faucet, the toilet, the truck - don't ask - and then I got a love letter from the city. While I was trying to wash dishes, flush toilets and grow gills in my own little rainforest, I hadn't had time to go out and - mow. The grass had grown a bit high, I'll admit, but it was Wednesday, and I had the entire weekend ahead. It was supposed to dry out then too, and that's when swamp coolers are FANTASTIC! I was hoping to wait, but the city of Phoenix thought differently. Apparently, they sent someone over with a ruler to measure my grass, because I was warned that that no grass was allowed to exceed 4 inches in height. I think I had two or three weeds pushing 5 inches. I'm just glad it wasn't a capital offense!

So, instead of fixing the sink, fixing the toilet, fixing the truck - no, seriously, don't ask - I had to stop everything I was doing and give my yard a pedicure.

The house is nice and cold now, the pluming is all fixed, the dishwasher now bypasses the faucet entirely and the truck is running smoothly – thanks for not asking. The entire yard is less than half an inch tall, and 6 tons of crushed rock is starting to look like a really good landscaping alternative.

I'm planning on sleeping for a month.

If I can get the time off of work.