Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[bironi]

Have my appointment with the auto body shop on Monday. Accident was December 27th. March 4 was the soonest I could get it repaired. Volvo dealer's body shop said May 20th. Both places said they are seeing more accidents than ever. A lot of it is ye olde deer & beer, but the body shop guy said increase is all "people going too fast not looking where they are going."

And it is making things more expensive for everyone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/b...inflation.html

I'm with your body shop guy.
Definitely what I see in my corner of the country.
Rules without enforcement aren't working.

[htwoopup]

Back in the North Country where it is above freezing and only 75% of the ski hill’s runs are open. In the first week of March.

Plus the 62 miles of xc skiing and fatbiking and snowshoeing trails are officially closed for the season.

It is still beautiful here in all honesty.

The grump is that this means that the xc skiis and equipment that I took down from the attic could have stayed there as I didn’t get to use them once this year due to lack of snow.

The snowshoes never once came off their hooks in the closet this season.

And, I have to change the fatbikes from their studded tires to their regular summer fat tires as they may as well go back south to be used on the beach and the fat bikes weren’t used even once this season due to the trails being closed due to lack of conditions to protect them from further damage so that they can be hopefully used for MTB in the summer.

But that is all the first world part of this grump.

The big real world grump is I am not sure how the earth that my generation is leaving our grandkids will be able to support them and the rest of humanity and other animals.

[johnmdesigner]

Dispatch from old NY

There has been a lot of media coverage lately about just how bad it is to live in NYC right now. I have lived here for 40 years so no real amount of shootin, wackin, stabbin surprises me. The fact that I cannot afford to go out drinking at these prices is unfortunate, but my fridge is well stocked and who needs to go out in Harlem after dark and get shot. In fact, many of the aspects of bad behavior that are surprising here are the ones the inhabitants inflict on each other.

The latest phenomenon is the Cross-Legged Asshole. I remember when Manspreading was the big thing, and you will sometimes encounter those who still cling on to this behavior. But crossing your legs in a subway car with 5 feet of space between the seats at rush hour is now the new normal. Maybe this is the new TikTok thing or some sort of group sponsored bad behavior. And the worst offenders are the men. I can perhaps understand the women doing this considering the threating environment they are traveling in. But the men? And the middle-aged men are the worst. Try politely asking them to uncross their legs and sit up straight because the train is crowded. Imagine the look of death you receive.

Maybe it’s an expensive college thing (my train goes past Columbia). I got into a car the other day to find all these college boys sitting like Jay Gatsby in his solarium with their toes almost touching. All those white sneaker soles pointed up high while their manhood safely crushed and protected by a scissor hug that would make Daryl Hannah blush. All oblivious to the pain and discomfort they are causing those who try to enter.
Perhaps Columbia is reluctant to offer a class entitled “How not to be an Asshole in NYC”. Or perhaps the parents who are already paying $70K a year are unwilling to spend another dime to properly train their offspring.

True I am an old fart, and do not understand the minds of those who filter the world through their phone to make sure it is real. And I am tired of having strangers rub their dirty shoe soles on my clean pants leg.

So, I dusted off my old pair of Frye Prison Boots recently. They have leather heels with the consistency of granite and sound like Frankenstein when adequate pressure is applied.

Now I stride onto the train with confidence, crushing a pinky toe here, scuffing a white-on-white sneaker there. “Oh, pardon me but the train is crowded, would you mind uncrossing your legs?”
It seems to be working.

My only concern is what I am going to wear when it gets warmer.

On the return trip some asshole across from me had to put his dirty feet on the center pole and block the entire row. “Excuse me”, I said as I stepped over his leg and grazed his knee with my rock-hard heel “You have a condom stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”

People sometimes ask me why I stay here. The Jamaican man playing steel drums in the subway today was sublime.

Cheers!

[dashDustin]

Think we're gonna have to put our dog Nugget down. I'd post a picture of him, but it's really hard to look pictures of my pups right now.

2nd blood test in 2 weeks shows significant loss of red blood cells and platelets. Auto-immune or cancer. He's lost about 10lbs since January. 3lbs since last week. Just not eating. Still loving his treats, though.

At the moment I am convinced that this was triggered by phenobarbital that we started in October to help with seizures.

[Tom]

Wrong day. I know. Two things.

- Finding ground hornets with the lawn mower. One of the little buggers got me a few minutes ago. Last summer I ended up sick as a dog in unspeakable ways for about eight weeks when I got stung, got a dose of prednisone for the stings and unbeknownst to me had the new "emerging" tick-borne disease at the same time.

- How do they mill lumber so that one side isn't flat, but angles off a good eight of an inch? I have four pressure treated 4x4s I am using as the sill for the greenhouse I'm assembling from a kit. I painstakingly got the whole thing level and square but completely failed to notice this feature of one of the pieces. I was aware that while it is accepted that a 4x4 is actually 3 and a half inches square, these things are anywhere from 3 and a half to four inches on a side. Plus the sides aren't always straight. I'm baffled because it isn't consistent and looking at the end grain there's no reason I can see that it should fall off like that. In school I worked for my dad who had a small millwork business and I know a little about this kind of stuff. Of course not enough to check the sides to make sure they're a single plane. The thing is bolted down to the footings now, no pulling it up at this point. I have a plan to make it work but I'd love to have a word with the sawmill operator.

[echappist]

Hornets are stuff of nightmares. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

[j44ke]

Wrong day. I know. Two things.

- Finding ground hornets with the lawn mower. One of the little buggers got me a few minutes ago. Last summer I ended up sick as a dog in unspeakable ways for about eight weeks when I got stung, got a dose of prednisone for the stings and unbeknownst to me had the new "emerging" tick-borne disease at the same time.

- How do they mill lumber so that one side isn't flat, but angles off a good eight of an inch? I have four pressure treated 4x4s I am using as the sill for the greenhouse I'm assembling from a kit. I painstakingly got the whole thing level and square but completely failed to notice this feature of one of the pieces. I was aware that while it is accepted that a 4x4 is actually 3 and a half inches square, these things are anywhere from 3 and a half to four inches on a side. Plus the sides aren't always straight. I'm baffled because it isn't consistent and looking at the end grain there's no reason I can see that it should fall off like that. In school I worked for my dad who had a small millwork business and I know a little about this kind of stuff. Of course not enough to check the sides to make sure they're a single plane. The thing is bolted down to the footings now, no pulling it up at this point. I have a plan to make it work but I'd love to have a word with the sawmill operator.

The wood they use in standard treated pine now is out of spindly tall trees, not substantial sized timber. You could mill it at 11AM and by lunch it would be a pretzel. Treating it and bundling it wet with other 4x4s holds it straightish but on its own the board dries and starts to bow. You can get nice straight stuff from the few places that still mill and treat (fewer and fewer due to environmental regs) their own lumber but it will cost you. Or get some form of bow or board wrench and have at it.

[TMB]

E-bikes.

They are freaking everywhere.

[bigbill]

E-bikes.

They are freaking everywhere.

Makes me want to carry a full size Zefal frame pump to put in the wheel of the next ebiker that tells me I'm doing great on a climb as they hum past.

[Tom]

They can hum past overtaking all they want. It's when two side by side, inexperienced on two wheel conveyance, appear around a blind curve going 25 on the path as I'm heading back into town... it can be a thrill.

They're going to be a public health epidemic. I watched a 15 year old kid with his maybe six year old sib doing about 25 weaving through traffic, neither helmeted not that it would make much difference if they tangled with a car. I've seen the same guy twice now about the same time of day come off the left sidewalk against the light, turn down the hill and hang a right at enough speed that the bike starts to wash out. One time he held it by putting his inside foot down. Only a matter of time.

I did have a conversation with one of the local police officers assigned to the traffic division. He said they've learned the capabilities of the various configurations and when they see one clearly outperforming they pull them over and ticket. I asked if it was common. He said a half a dozen a day without trying and generally traffic has two officers out at a time.

[bigbill]

They can hum past overtaking all they want. It's when two side by side, inexperienced on two wheel conveyance, appear around a blind curve going 25 on the path as I'm heading back into town... it can be a thrill.

They're going to be a public health epidemic. I watched a 15 year old kid with his maybe six year old sib doing about 25 weaving through traffic, neither helmeted not that it would make much difference if they tangled with a car. I've seen the same guy twice now about the same time of day come off the left sidewalk against the light, turn down the hill and hang a right at enough speed that the bike starts to wash out. One time he held it by putting his inside foot down. Only a matter of time.

I did have a conversation with one of the local police officers assigned to the traffic division. He said they've learned the capabilities of the various configurations and when they see one clearly outperforming they pull them over and ticket. I asked if it was common. He said a half a dozen a day without trying and generally traffic has two officers out at a time.

I was nearly taken out by a group on ebikes in Saguaro East NF near Tucson. It has an 8 mile, one way road you share with cars, but the most fun is to ride it like a pump track and sprint down hills to carry speed up the other side. There was a group of ebikers riding down a hill and when I was about twenty feet back, I called out "passing on your left" and they scattered all over the road. I passed between two riders to keep from careening off into the cactus. A few caught up with me on the only climb and we had choice words for each other. I'm a retired sailor, I think I won that skirmish.

[Tom]

Trying to do one more thing at the end of the day by myself. Wanted to uncrate the glass for tomorrow to get the roof pieces out of the middle of the stack. By myself. When the pile got frisky and tipped over I needed to unscrew a setting block with one hand while I held back a half a ton of glass with the other. I broke a piece when I dropped my cordless driver on the gable end point. Tempered glass is very binary. I'm an idiot.

[TMB]

Finally agreeing to mmet some people to go for a ride on mostly reasonably hard packed gravel roads, and realizing that you left your cycling shoes at home.

So you go for a ride in “DAD SHOES” ………….



IMG_3880.jpg




Awesome.

[bigbill]

Finally agreeing to mmet some people to go for a ride on mostly reasonably hard packed gravel roads, and realizing that you left your cycling shoes at home.

So you go for a ride in “DAD SHOES” ………….



IMG_3880.jpg




Awesome.

I have numerous Skechers including a brown pair for we go out for a nice dinner. The pictured ones look like the newer model that you can just step into. They're really nice when traveling, not so much for riding.

[David in Maine]

Posting a day late… Another school shooting. My elementary school students will be practicing barricading classroom doors this year. My district issued us all Centegix panic buttons to wear around our necks at all times. A daily reminder of how fucked up our country is.

David

[vertical_doug]

I feel for you.

When the conversation is about panic buttons, barricaded doors and school police, we already lost. We just haven't admitted it yet.

[72gmc]

By allowing this situation to linger at a public policy level, we allow kids in danger to become a business opportunity, such as business models based on taxpayer funding for first responder tools.

[rwsaunders]

A few years back, our school district spent a crapton of money on enhanced security at the front and rear entrances of our HS. I hated to ask this at a board meeting, but how was the district going to secure the area when buses arrive in the morning and leave in afternoon to transport 1,400 kids…gun control is the only answer. Even the bunch of dopes in the Trump camp, Congress and the Senate know this. That position unfortunately doesn’t resonate with their constituents, but perhaps if one of their own family members were a victim? Who knows…sad state of affairs.

[bigbill]

We say more gun control after these events, but where are the specifics? I think we say it to feel better, but who is putting in the work to find a solution? Banning AR type weapons because of how they look isn't the solution. I can buy a semi-automatic rifle in the same caliber with the same magazine size and rate of fire, but with a friendlier wood stock instead of black. We could ban semi-automatic guns, but that won't fix the millions already in circulation. I live in NW Arizona, which is the wild west, and normally have a revolver in the truck. We have other guns including a 7.62 SKS, 22 rifle, and numerous handguns, but they all stay locked up and unloaded.

My son was born in 1999, about halfway through my Navy career. After he was born, I sold my guns because I didn't want them in the house. I knew I'd be gone on deployment and didn't want my young son or his friends to find a gun. After he was a teenager, I bought a single stack 40 and taught him to handle a gun and shoot safely. I also made sure he understood that what he saw in computer games wasn't realistic. We'd shoot at milk jugs, tin cans, and pieces of wood, just so he could see the destructive power. He is a Marine officer these days and an Expert in pistol and rifle.

I blame the parents and society in general, not the gun. Many of these shootings were carried out by kids who had been bullied or had mental health issues that were not recognized or addressed. Many either used guns a parent had purchased for them because they weren't old enough under existing gun laws, or left unsecured in the house. I support arresting the parents and charging them with accessory to murder.

[rwsaunders]

If you want to start a conversation regarding the specifics of researching and developing a meaningful gun control policy in the US, RAND is a good place to start. Somehow it seems to work in Europe, Australia and other nations. I shot cans and bottles and other crap with my Dad at my uncle’s (all Marines) farm starting when I was 12 and I passed the ROTC rifle marksmanship class when I was in college, but I’ve never believed that I should have the right to own an AR-15 or carry a concealed weapon. I live in Pennsylvania and having just checked the state website, there are 1.6M concealed firearm permits currently issued in the state…that translates to over 15% of the population of the state over the age of 18 has a license to carry a concealed handgun. That number of course doesn’t include automatic weapons, hunting rifles and the assortment of guns purchased “off line” at gun shows. That should scare the shit out of people.

https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy.html