Bathroom Project (Part II)

(Continued from Part I)

We went out as a family to pick tiles and get the rest of the stuff to start the flooring project.  My poor son has spent more time in his short life in the Lowe's flooring section than what is reasonable for any human to endure, nevermind a two-year-old. I guess Friday night was the last straw for him because he totally lost it moments after hitting the tile aisle.  Only the promise of seeing the array of inflatable Santas and snowmen on the other side of the store could mollify him. 

This is not something you typically witness on home improvement shows, but it would be awesome to see folks forced to pick kitchen cabinets or whatever in three minutes or less because a toddler in the group is going into meltdown:

Designer: (bellowing to make himself heard over the screaming kid) YOU SEE, THE LIGHT REFLECTING FROM THE OAK REALLY ACCENTS THE COUNTERTOPS...
Home Owner: (waving him off impatiently) SURE, SURE, WHATEVER JUST PICK SOME AND LET'S GO! WE'LL WORRY ABOUT THAT #$%! LATER!

So, tiles were chosen basically because they occupied space and had mass. Their looks, which were nice enough, were incidental.

I began tearing up the linoleum in the bathroom Saturday morning.  It was actually pretty easy to get up - I didn't need the crowbar I mentioned after all. :) Well, I did, but only to remove the trim and baseboards.

Jimmydunes helped me cut the cement board into the appropriate jigsaw puzzle shapes.  We used a Black & Decker 4 1/2 inch angle grinder with a masonry blade to make that happen since the utility knife was not up to the task.  I used this tool before to shape the blocks and the capstones for the garden and firepit.  It worked well especially for the seven inch toilet hole but the ON/OFF switch started acting up and then popped off altogether two cuts from completion.  The thing would operate only by jamming a screwdriver into the slot where the switch was.  Since operating the tool that way would take four hands and a complete and utter disregard for our safety and the safety of those around us, we decided to score and snap the last bits instead.

Screwing the cement board down was time consuming but fairly uneventful.  I had to use a 20-year-old corded drill to do most of that step - my cordless drill was just not up to the task. After electrical-taping the mess out of the embrittled and frayed cord, the screws went in easily. That is the last time I will use that drill, though...

Laying the tile was actually a lot of fun.  I was pleased to discover that the distance from the sink cabinet to the wall, when using quarter inch grout spacing, was an integer number of tiles.  The closet was similarly conveniently sized and shaped.  I still had a lot of cuts to do, though, and I  burned through a 4" tile saw blade before I could complete laying the tile.  That was fine with me since I had been at it for twelve straight hours and needed a break anyway.

The last cuts were made the following morning and the last tile was set into place around noon.  I had six hours to kill before I could grout so I went to the gym and afterward we all went and picked out a Christmas tree (a live one this year).   After hauling it up into the loft dealing with the stand, fun time was over and it was time to get back to work.

I finished grouting at about 9PM.  I thought the white grout would look a little weird with the off-white tiles, but it looks just fine. 

I re-installed the toilet today, and everything seemed to go fine. No leaks (yet). Props to Jimmydunes for the suggestion that a small sticky note with the words “HEY, $%#*, DID YOU REMEMBER TO TAKE THE RAG OUT OF THE HOLE?” printed on it be stuck to the toilet. This reminds the installer that the rag that he/she stuffed in the outlet piping to allow him/her the privilege of breathing more oxygen than sewer gas while the floor was put in should probably be taken out BEFORE the toilet is re-mounted. Apparently, this comes from experience...

So far, so good with the bathroom project. Next comes the painting, I think... but we might be looking at a new sink this week. We will see.

(To be continued...)

Bathroom Project

I hope that everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

One thing that I am especially thankful for is that the family will be gathering at our house for Christmas this year. My goal is to make the place so delightfully festive that Normal Rockwell pukes in his grave.

But, before I can get around to decking the bejezus out of the halls, I have a project to do. Mrs. Snowurchin wants the floor in the hall bathroom replaced so, since it is long overdue and I have not had a project in a while, I am pretty amped.

The idea is to take up the original linoleum and put down stone tiles. Obviously, this is the perfect opportunity to repaint the room, recondition the baseboards, add decorative trim top and bottom, install a new shower head, replace doorknobs and hinges, reseal the sink, install higher quality towel racks, and install some stone wall tiles in a bare area above the bathtub.

I honestly wonder how much of that other stuff will actually get done before Christmas...

The important thing is to get the floor finished as quickly as possible, though, so that my wife can have her bathroom back and my 2-year-old can go back to “bathtime” instead of “quickly hosing off in the shower time”.

It is 9:07 AM Friday. The wife, our son, and her dad are out at Wal-Mart doing the Black Friday thing and I am most certainly not (Hey – yet another thing to be thankful for!). While they are out fighting the crowds and trying to see how many linear miles of rainbow-colored duct tape they can buy for fifty cents, I am coming up with a list of things I am going to need to make the new floor happen. This is definitely one of those situation where we are both thinking “Sucker!”.

After we leave here and arrive back home I will take some measurements and also take an inventory of the tools and materials I have on-hand. Tonight we will go to Lowe's and buy all the stuff I need for Phase 1 (new floor, minimal life disruption) of this project. Jimmydunes is scheduled to come over tomorrow morning to help me move the toilet and to teach me the ins and outs of that sort of plumbing – something he has done but I have not.

I just hope the linoleum is easy to tear up, but I have a strong suspicion it will not be. Here is my reasoning. It's long and rambly, but I do get to the point eventually - just hear me out.

See, I have a belief – call it a delusional superstition if you want – that most events that happen in our day-to-day lives that are ever so slightly outside of the norm are not happenstance, but occur for a reason. Bits of slight fortune somewhat balance the bits of slight misfortune that happen, and vice-versa.

An unexpected $500 bonus in your paycheck somewhat offsets the unexpected $600 tax bill you get in the mail a week later. The power supply in your work computer fails causing you to lose the last 15 minutes of your presentation hours before a gaping network security flaw exposes your entire organization to a vicious hacker attack. I am sure you have noticed stuff like that in your own life.

So what is this supposed “reason” that I am talking about? It is nothing magical or mystical. It has nothing to do with angels or demons. It just has to do with balance. Oh, and not “balance” in a creepy sissified Zen way, either. I am talking straight-up, purely mathematical balance.

Look at it this way. What I see as a normal day might be seen by others as a rainbow-and-unicorns filled existence straight out of an old Disney flick. Other extremely fortunate people might see my day-to-day comings and goings as something sadly comical and possibly even worthy of pity. Everyone has their own personal yardstick as to what is “normal” that evolves as the major events of their life change who they were yesterday into who they are today.

Obviously, little things happen just to the plus and just to the minus of your baseline all the time, regardless of where that line relates to anyone else's. People are nearly infinitely adaptable. Heaping fortune or misfortune upon someone causes what they see as “normal” to shift until a new personal baseline is reached, with little ups and downs jittering around that new level.

Just to be clear: I am not talking about huge life events. I am talking about things that are barely out of the mundane - stuff like finding a wheat penny in your change, not the birth of a child or being involved in a near-fatal car wreck. Not stuff that is “all part of God's grand plan” or whatever – after all, no respectable deity is going to give a damn about whether or not you left your umbrella at the office as it starts to rain. I am just talking about the little things, and I am just talking about one way to appreciate the statistics behind them.

My belief is that, by acknowledging this “law of averages”, you can see the little pluses and minuses in a new light. Using retrospect, totally and genuinely unrelated events can be forced to fit together in a “why-because” framework in a very satisfying and sometimes fun way. Why did my shoelace break? So I could run into an old friend at Wal-Mart when I went to pick up a new set. Why did I find $20 a couple of weeks ago? To help pay for the speeding ticket I got today. Why did I drop that lightbulb in the kitchen? So, while sweeping up the shattered glass, I could find the wedding band I lost last year.

Thinking about things in this way helps make visible the gossamer thread that connects the billions of infinitesimal events in everyone's lives, and it lets me enjoy the small pluses in my own that much more.

What does this have to do with the bathroom floor? Well, a while ago the installation guys accidentally left a medium-sized crowbar in the back of a closet after they finished with the downstairs flooring renovation. They may have used it to tear up the old linoleum in the kitchen.

So “why” did they leave the crowbar behind? So I could have an easier time pulling up the extremely difficult old flooring in the bathroom six months later!

Of course, sometimes a crowbar is just a crowbar... :)

I will post with updates when I can.

Now, That's MY Kind of Planetarium!

I don't know what goes on in there, but I want in...

My Google-Fu Has Failed Me

My brother sent me a text today asking if I could find contact information for a new Yahoo data center that was commissioned in Lockport NY last month and I said “npiaitcsiwlwighok” - no problem, I am in the car so I will look when I get home, ok?

I looked for about five minutes online (aka forever) with no luck. Agmorion and jimmydunes looked briefly, too, but all that seems to be out there are news articles saying that it will be or already is built, they are hiring between 45 and 125 locals with an average salary of $60k, and the place is allegedly green because it uses hydroelectricity for power.

I am sure I am just missing it, but can you find the mailing address, phone number, or any other way of proving it exists in the real world without needing to get there via Platform 9 ¾?

Good Thing He's a Cartoon...

Feeling guilty about eating that entire can of Pringles last night?  Well, Homer Simpson has made a lot of questionable dietary decisions over the years, too. Here's what some of his meals and snacks would look like in Nutritional Information form (all food info from WolframAlpha):

Episode 85: Rosebud

[Homer sits down in the middle of the night to eat cheese]
Homer: Mmmm. Sixty-four slices of American Cheese...
[begins eating]
Homer: ...sixty-four... sixty-three...
[morning comes, Homer is still eating]
Homer: Two... one...
[Marge walks in]
Marge: Have you been up all night eating cheese?
Homer: I think I'm blind.

Episode 184: Bart Star

Dr. Hibbert: Well, your cholesterol level is lethally high, Homer, but I'm more concerned about your gravy level.
Homer Simpson: Now, wait a second. You doctors have been telling us to drink eight glasses of gravy a day!
Dr. Hibbert: [laughs] Well, you're a little confused.
Homer Simpson: Oh, confused, would we?

Episode 220: Maximum Homerdrive

(While trying to finish a 16-pound steak as part of an eating contest)
Homer: Lungs filling... sinuses packed with meat...
Bart: C'mon, dad. Just 1.2 more pounds.
(Homer groans.)

Puzzle for Charity News

A charity for the Puzzle for Charity has been selected!

The Lake Country SPCA in Clarksville, Virginia, is a privately run organization with no state or federal funding – it is totally donation dependent. It is a no-kill shelter (cool) and they even take care of horses (wow).

All the cash in the Charity Pool (currently $50) will go to them when the puzzle gets solved, and all of the cash in the Prize Pool will go to whoever solves the most recent puzzle. I might throw in the puzzle itself at a later date, but for now, it will just be the cash.

For those of you who don't know, here are some answers to some questions you might have:

Where does the money come from, if it doesn't cost anything to participate? Donations, stuff I sell on craigslist, and out of my pocket. I used to ramp up the prize pools a certain amount per day, and I may do that again in the future, but, for now, I just will randomly chuck cash in the pot(s) when I can.

Why are you doing this? It's cool to help others, and this is a fun way for me to do it.

Check out the sidebar for updates to the Prize Pool, Charity Pool, hints, rules, FAQs, previous winners, previous puzzles and all sorts of other info.

What else... Oh, yeah... I have posted Hint #2 to the Anagram Puzzle. You can find all of the Unsolved Puzzles at the Secret Puzzle Page link in the sidebar on the right. Good Luck!

I Have Lost My Mojo

Maaannn....

My Mojo Jojo keychain fob is missing. The thing was 11 or 12 years old, the paint was all chipped and peeled from his turban, and one of the corners of the cape was broken, but it was mine and made the wife and my sets of keys easily distinguishable. Well, really, the fact that my wife has more keys on her keyring than an octogenarian janitor makes the keychains distinguishable, but that's not important right now. I think it might have been a gift from Agmorion and Siun-Kelan, but I may be misremembering some pencils FedEx'd to my place of employment way back when...

No biggie, but it looks like I have a potential project to do. Maybe I will make one out of some leftover tile from the kitchen project, but I may just end up buying one.

A friend of mine suggested some really inappropriate stuff from ThinkGeek. That Robot Chicken one calls to me a little and the wine opener calls to me a lot, but I want one that I can explain to my kid in 10,000 words or less without a lot of “Ummm...” and shuffling my feet when he says “What's that?” and “Why?”

Suggestions welcome.

New Puzzle Hint

Another hint for the New Desk Puzzle on the Secret Puzzle Page has been posted.  Here it is:

Hint 2 (Posted 11/17/10): Gur fbyhgvba unf gur jbeq "qrfx" va vg.

Remember, the hints are ROT-13 encoded to prevent spoiling the fun for those who don't want hints yet.  Just shift each letter by 13 spaces to decode the hint, of simply copy and paste it here.

You can find all of the puzzles using the Secret Puzzle Page link in the sidebar, and you can leave a comment if you think you have an answer to one or more of them.  Good luck!

Ooooh... How Exotic!

"Daddy, daddy, daddy!  Can I please go throw marmoset chunks to the Bengal tiger?"  "Sorry, son, we just missed the Feeding of the Interesting Animals... Maybe we can watch them feed the goldfish in a couple of hours..."

Funnus Quizzus

I was on the treadmill at the gym the other day and it struck me that I have a lot of old songs on my media player.

Well, not really old, I guess, but “Sympathy for the Devil” came out in 1968. Man... that would be like my dad rockin' out to Mairzy Doats or Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy or something. .

Why don't I just be done with it and fill my iPod with Gregorian chants, FCOL?

Say...

Just to prove to you once and for all that I have lost any ability to distinguish between what is entertaining and what is idiotic, I have decided to translate portions of some of the songs on my iPod into Latin. Well, I'm not really doing the heavy lifting, it's Google Translate – I am just massaging the words a little so the right meaning is conveyed, like when “blue” actually means “sad”, for instance.

Also, if a term simply did not exist “back in the day”, replacements were used... For example, “Spaceship” could be changed to “ship of the heavens” before chucking the phrase into the translation engine. Further massaging with my extremely limited knowledge of the language is done just to make the auto-translation back to English a little less silly, definitely with the downside of making the Latin unreadable to someone who is super into Latin.

Below are four chunks of songs translated in this way. Let's see if you can guess what songs they come from. There are three methods of attacking this: 1) Look at the words and try and deduce their meaning from roots in English words you know 2) Spend a couple of years learning Latin then translate or 3) copy and paste the phrases below back into Google Translate and work with what you get. The phrase “something is lost in the translation” definitely applies here... :)

If you think you know one or more of them, leave a comment giving the song name and band. Once this post scrolls off the bottom of this page in a week or two, I will post the solutions if they all are not guessed yet.. Have fun and Good Luck!

Song One:
Omnibus nota,
Plenus mundus stultis populi.
Occurre capella in media nocte,
Partem nos pecunia.

Song Two:
Coepi cogitare
Scitis bibendae coepi
Non memini omnis multo illa die
Pulsatus mihi ut aliquid iocosa
Quando omnem pecuniam peracto
Vbi es transivit annos XV

Song Three:
Eunt purgo sursum vestri vultus
Omnibus falsum ex libris
Ut te cive...

Song Four:
Est oculus de tigris
Est pugna Horruit
Stare nos contra aemulum

"Fixing" the Truck

I went to take the trash to the dump a while back and discovered my truck would not start. It was obvious from the sound that the (brand new) battery had drained away. A jump start got it going again and it started up okay the next day, so I just figured I was a bonehead and left a light on somewhere in the vehicle that slowly killed the battery in a non-obvious way.

After the truck had sat for about five days I needed to take it out again and, once again, the battery was too weak to turn over the motor. Obviously, I had an electrical problem.

Now, vehicles and computers are just tools to me. I get only minimal pleasure out of them when they are doing their job, and I just don't care how they work. Oh, don't get me wrong... I know quite a few programming languages and I once taught myself enough car stuff from scratch to have successfully single-handedly rebuilt an engine from a 1965 Corvair.

So you see, “I don't care” isn't sour-grapes code for “I don't like things that are hard to do or are outside of my elitist comfort zone”. I can and do learn. It's just that I simply and truly don't care.

When someone excitedly tells me about the features of the new 2011 Ford Whatsit or extols the virtues of their video card that can actually play Crysis without needing to be submerged in liquid nitrogen, it has the same meaning for me if they were passionately describing a crescent wrench or a pack of sandpaper for some reason. I am glad the topic gives them pleasure, but, to me, its just a tool.

But, like all tools, it is a hassle when they break when you need them and that's where my “I don't care” attitude stops being a reasonable thing to do. Time to go marching up the learning curve yet again.

So I fired up the Kindle and tried to find a Haynes Manual for my F-150. Shut up. I know dragging a fragile piece of techno-bling out into the cold, greasy, dirty, and possibly wet environment you are going to encounter while troubleshooting an auto problem is a bad idea – it was sitting there and I just wanted to see what the price of the book would be through Amazon.

No Haynes car manuals at all. Huh. Oh, wait, it's just showing the downloadable content, not the paper stuff. But, wait, what's this? A Haynes manual for the USS Enterprise. The starship, not the aircraft carrier. Interesting, but that doesn't help my truck issue, it only helps my “I haven't said 'oh you've gotta be freaking kidding me' in a while” issue.

I got the book ($20) at an auto parts store in town and headed home. If you have never opened one, here are a few observations about Haynes manuals:

1. They are wrapped in plastic. At least they are at the auto parts store. I guess this is to prevent people from coming in, looking up the answer to their minor car problem, and going home to fix it without shelling out twenty bucks. Personally, I think that sucks.
2. The writers of the book are heavily into coarse, semi-accurate generalizations that assume you were really paying attention when your father took you out into the driveway on your twelfth birthday where the two of you bonded in a Rite of Manhood by ritualistically dismantling and re-assembling the family car. What? He didn't? Well, then ya maht as well be wearin' a dress, then, Nancy-boy. Find the Generic Electronics Module yourself, cuz we ain't helpin'.
3. God help you if you have an electrical issue and you don't have a degree in Electrical Engineering or several decades of automotive or electrical experience. It is clear the price of ink must have gone through the roof just as Haynes was about to print out the electrical schematics, forcing them to render the description of the various wiring harnesses and everything they connect into a single haiku. Well, not really, but the minimalist drawings could be a hell of a lot more helpful.
4. The Index is for display only and lends a “finished” look to the book. It is not for looking things up.

I figured I would start by removing the passenger compartment fusebox cover since I had already performed the requisite “ten minutes of staring blankly into the engine compartment” before I went to get the book. I just happened to brush the back of my hand against one of the relays as I was doing this and it was very warm to the touch. Hmm. I let the truck sit for about 15 minutes and touched it again.

Still warm. Well, that shouldn't be. I knew from the amount of time it took to kill the battery and the fact that the alternator charged up the battery just fine that the electrical short was a minor one, maybe an amp or two. The ironically named Battery Saver Relay itself tested fine – there just always happened to be 12V across the coil, regardless if the glove box light, the hood light, or the map laps were on or off.

With the relay pulled, the battery drew about 60 milliamps, which, I guess, is the right amount of current to provide standby power to the onboard computer and to the little blinky “THEFT” light on the dashboard. With the relay in place but nothing on or open, I was drawing about fifteen times that much – the right amount to drain the battery in a couple of days. The same thing happened with the replacement relays I got when I went back to auto parts place, so the relays were not the problem.

Some more poking around narrowed the problem to an output line of something called the GEM (or maybe the Central Timer Module.. it's a little tough to figure out what the Haynes schematic means here... ).

The Internet speaks of the GEM (Generic Electronics Module) in hushed tones as is right for something that takes authorized Ford dealers upwards of $500 worth of pixie dust and unicorn tears to fix (labor not included). I expect there is a bit stuck low controlling the output of the line connecting the Battery Saver Relay to the GEM which is causing the battery to slowly drain to ground, or the line itself has frayed and is partially grounded.

Either way, that's like $300 worth of labor to have found and fixed. I would try it myself, but, since I would have to remove the fuse box to get to the problem (FWIW, I found the location of the GEM on forums out there, not in the differently-useful book). The Internet tells me it's a tricky thing to do and its not a task for the unqualified.

Fair enough. Here's what I am qualified to do, though: yank the relays and never put them in again. There, problem solved. If I ever have an extra $800 laying around that I simply can't think way to use then I might take the truck in. Otherwise, I am done.

My father-in-law, the king of the automotive jury-riggers, will be so proud!

Dentist, Schmentist!

Oddly enough, this bling-tastical mall kiosk is covered by my dental HMO.  I just hope that "Watch Battery" is an item you can buy there and not an activity you can engage in while you are waiting.

I Need a Good Cry and a Stiff Drink

The wife and I were out yesterday doing some early Christmas shopping. They've got some pretty cool stuff at Toys R Us. This poll is not about those cool things.

Which “toy” pictured below best illustrates to your child the meaning of toil, servitude, and the soul-crushing emptiness of it all?



Home Depot Leaf Blower



Just Like Home McDonald's Drive Thru with Play Food

Although it might seem like an easy choice at first glance, I encourage you to give it some thought.  While the second selection might make you run the gamut of emotions from "disgust and anger" to "drunken disgust and anger" the first kind of smacks of the promise of a biblical, "by the sweat of thy brow" life-long treadmill of minor chores... 

It's a coin-toss for me.  Leave a comment if you have an opinion on the matter.

BTW, you can click on the captions above and read some of the five-star reviews of the products for some bonus despair. :)

Mighty Awesome.

FedEx delivered my burritos today!

As I told you last month, I mail-ordered some Mighty Taco beef-and-cheese burritos. They shipped two days ago and my longed-for taste of home arrived at about 12:30 this afternoon.

I was a little worried that things were not going according to plan when the evening of the 9th rolled around and I did not get an email saying that they had shipped yet. Luckily, I kept the contact info from when I first placed the order so I asked (politely, btw) where my order was using the link provided.

The Chief Operating Officer responded asking what my order number was. I told him. The next morning I had my confirmation email (from the guys that charged my credit card) with tracking number included, which was great. He emailed again about an hour later to make sure I got my notification and my tracking number. Man, talk about customer service!

Oh... by the way, I did not know he was the COO when I sent my first email... It wasn't until I after my last email to him that I had scrolled down the message a bit and checked out the signature line, so I feel kind of idiotic for addressing him by his first name. Not that I think that's a cardinal sin or anything, but the familiarity just made my business letter sound like it had a salutation of “Look Here, Skippy:” instead of the more traditional “Sir or Ma'am:” or “To Whom It May Concern:” Sorry about that, Mr. Jasulevich....

Today I knew I needed to be out of the house for much of the day so the tracking number was really going to come in handy. I didn't want to miss the delivery by very much because I didn't want the box to sit out in the open for too long, see. My wife drove us around and I was glued to the phone repeatedly pinging the FedEx site for location information.

In a sorting facility 40 miles away... Now 20 miles... Now “Out for Delivery”...

We came back from our morning errands around noon and were just about to leave for afternoon errands (life is fun!) when what to my wondering eyes should appear... the FedEx Truck! I was 80% excited about the food, but I was about 20% excited to get the chance to play with dry ice. I had never handled the stuff before so I was pretty psyched to get this bonus to my delivery. I was especially amped after reading the “Happy Fun Ball”-esque email that warned about the dangers of frozen carbon dioxide. “Too cold to eat,” you say... I accept your challenge...

As I took the box from the delivery person, I thought “This seems light”. I opened the cardboard box and the warning laden cooler inside to find my twelve burritos, a large package of hot sauce and absolutely no dry ice. It had all evaporated and the burritos and sauce pack had just started the process of thawing. Nothing serious – sort of the amount of thaw you would expect if you bought a frozen pizza at the grocery store and had a twenty-minute drive back home.

Good thing we caught the truck before heading out again, eh? I would have hated to open the box after it had sat out in the sun for four hours...

I quickly threw eleven burritos in the freezer and one in the microwave. After it was done I popped open my last Vernors Ginger Ale and dug in. When I closed my eyes and took the first bite, I was transported back in time 25 years for one quarter of one second.

It was awesome. Mightily so.

I look forward to sharing out the remainder of the burritos with a few friends of mine that are also exiles from Western New York. Who knows? Maybe the four of us can come up with a way of swinging a delivery from this one place I know up there that does killer milkshakes...

Man... This is Tough.

I have been smoking on and off for over two decades.  Jeebus...

Long, long ago, a friend introduced me to the awesome goodness that is a Marlboro Red and I have been hooked ever since.  I “accuse” him, see, because I possess no free will, apparently,  and it feels right to offload blame for my own shortcomings ;).

Obviously, when I started smoking I was invincible so it was not going to affect me.  Never ever ever.  Besides, Future-Me is the one who was going to have to deal with the consequences, if any... not Now-Me. Laissez les bon temps rouler.

I would smoke for a few months - about a pack a day if you are wondering - and then quit for a few months.  I would pick it up again for a few weeks and quit for a year.  Or vice versa. I think the longest I have ever smoked continuously was a year, and the longest I have ever been quit is about eighteen months.

Quitting had never been a problem for me - it was like having a smoker/non-smoker switch that I could throw at will.  The first day was never a big deal, it was always the second.  I don't know why.  After that second day, though, it was pretty much smooth sailing as long as I had a substitute.  In my case the substitutes tend to be spicy food (pepperoncinis out of the jar, say) and going to the gym.  It usually takes the edge off.  Your mileage may vary.

Having people smoke around me doesn't affect me during the times when I am temporarily a non-smoker, but, for some bizarre reason, seeing characters smoke in animated TV shows like The Simpsons or Venture Brothers hits a nerve occasionally.

I, of course, don't smoke in front of my boy.  By "in front of", by the way, I mean if there is even the slightest chance that he could see me puffing away, then no, I do not smoke.  As I am writing this, I am not sure he has ever seen anyone smoke (anyone he knows, anyway - we do take him out in public, after all). 

Also, I have no illusions that "not smoking in front of him" is somehow evidence that I am a great person.  At best, that act is a proper and neutral thing to do and is not to be rewarded.  It would be like awarding people for not keying each others cars every day or something - it's just kind of expected that humans would not do that.  Anything below that neutral line is unacceptable - reaching that line is not "praiseworthy". It just "is".

I am well aware of the downsides of smoking.  I am not a fictional character from a 1980's After School Special, after all, so spare me the drawn-out lesson in sickness and mortality statistics.  I don't need to be "shocked" by a long list of carcinogens present in cigarette smoke, or by an analysis of how much money I am “wasting”, or even by the fact that certain radioactive isotopes of plutonium and polonium take up residence in tobacco leaves.  Although I highly suspect the words "tobacco leaves" in the last sentence could be replaced with "pretty much all plants", I get the point.  I do. I. Get. It.

It's not about logic or reason, so don't bother appealing to either of those.

Today is Day Two, and I am in a bad way.  There is "too much" oxygen in my system, my ears feel like they are about to pop, every sound seems a tiny bit too loud, and my mouth and nose are very dry.  I feel a little unreal... sort of like I am driving my body around as though it was a marionette - I am in charge, but just going through the motions, you know?  It is very obvious to my body that something is missing. 

I don't know exactly why it's so tough this go around - it probably has to do with age.  But, whatever the cause, my hope is that this time the "quit" phase lasts for a good long stretch so that Future-Me will stop sighing in disgust at Now-Me for a little while.

Wish me luck.

Seven Hints

That's right! I have decided to put out some hints for the unsolved puzzles in the Secret Puzzle page.

Although I have decided to put out a batch of them this time, I will be sprinkling these out a little bit at a time from this point on. You will be able to find all of them on the newly minted Secret Puzzle Hints Page, so if you miss a post you can always catch up there.

Speaking of Puzzles, the Puzzle for Charity still needs a 501c charity to donate the Prize Pool to. Remember, the prize for solving it will stay at “Braggin' Rights” (a.k.a “nothing”) until someone suggests a good, fairly small, non-scam charity. After that, I will start adding money to the Prize Pool and Charity Pool until someone solves it. There is no catch and it does not cost anything. Check out the Puzzle Rules and Contact Info and FAQ links for more info.

Enough chit-chat. Here are the encoded hints. I encoded them to prevent spoiling the fun for those of you who don't want a hint right now. Just shift each letter by 13 to translate the clue, or visit rot13.com for a quick translation.

Go to the Secret Puzzle page to find the puzzles themselves. Good Luck!

Pallet Table Puzzle
Hint 1 (Posted 11/06/10): Gur Kf qvivqr gur jbeqf va gur cynvagrkg.

Desk Puzzle
Hint 1 (Posted 11/06/10): Rnpu ahzore ercerfragf n jbeq.

New Desk Puzzle
Hint 1 (Posted 11/06/10): Guvf vf n genafyngvba chmmyr – abg n fhofgvghgvba bar.

Art Table Puzzle
Hint 1 (Posted 11/06/10): Gur Kf qvivqr gur jbeqf va gur cynvagrkg.

Chessboard Puzzle
Hint 1 (Posted 11/06/10): N pvepyr, ru?

1970s TV Project Puzzle
Hint 1 (Posted 11/06/10): 1961 vf gur lrne guvf dhbgr jnf znqr.

Anagram Puzzle
Hint 1 (Posted 11/06/10): Vg'f abg n jbeq nyybjrq ol gur ehyrf bs Fpenooyr.

Cartoons (Part II)

Aaahhh!  I can't take it anymore! I have had the Umizoomi theme song stuck in my head all morning.  My kid's cartoons are killing my brain!  Hmmm, maybe holding an award's ceremony will help...

Learned Helplessness - This prize is given to The Wonder Pets for the show that most exemplifies crossing the line between “teaching the benefits of helping one's neighbor” and “teaching the benefits of never, ever attempting to solve a problem on one's own, no matter how trivial the task”.  "Teamwork" always triumphs over "self-reliance" - as a matter of fact, anyone who attempts to do anything on their own fails miserably and is always punished for their hubris. No matter what, always get someone to help you or, better yet, do it for you.

Deus Est Machina - (You read that right...)  If someone isn't there to help you with a trivial task or, more likely, you and your friends are absolutely stumped on how to overcome a simple challenge you are totally unprepared or unwilling to put your mind to, just cry out for tech support!  Diego's magic backpack and Toodles from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse tie for the gold, here. 

Diego's backpack allows Diego to leap from his treehouse and slide down his apparently ten-thousand foot zipline to save an animal anywhere in the world without even needing to prepare because this overly chatty Bag of Holding can also turn into anything without dumping or crushing the whatever happens to be in it at the time.

Toodles is even more advanced because not only can it provide Clubhouse members between three and five useful items per show, it knows what they will need up to forty minutes before they do (kind of like the movie Paycheck, I guess).  Really, though, pretty much all of the problems the clubhouse gang run across can either be solved if at least one of then carried a shotgun.  Can't wake up the sleeping giant?  Kitten stuck in a tree? Pete shaking you down for shiny buttons so you can pass over your own bridge?  Problem solved – Toodles not required.

Least Hangover-Friendly Cartoon Character - Easily stripping the title from Hola-I-have-no-indoor-voice-or-internal-monologue Diego of Go, Diego, Go fame is "The Map" from Dora the Explorer.  Although this is a virtually identical show to Diego, the creators decided that adding a character to slooowly repeat the simple directions to the barn (or wherever) four times in a row (five, counting Dora's repeat right afterward) wasn't grating enough.  To remedy this shortcoming, they gave The Map a voice that sounds like someone is slowly crushing a nasally-congested magpie under a set of bagpipes.

Do I wish these shows would go away? Sure. Here are some suggestions for series finales I would like to see:

Go, Diego, Go:
Baby Jaguar goes nuts and devours half a dozen baby puffins.  Diego looks over, shrugs, and says "Meh...circle of life" then goes back to playing Xbox (Roll credits).

The Wonder Pets:

• The Wonder Pets Save the Chupacabra.
• The Wonder Pets Save the Ebola Virus.
• Something with the Wonder Pets and some high voltage power lines.  Oh, please... please please please... C'mon... at least Ming Ming...

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:

Goofy: Hiya, Mick (hyuk hyuk) I want to build a birdhouse, but I don't have a hammer or any nails. (Looks around expectantly)
Mickey: Well, Goof, maybe you should hold off on your project until you are sure you have all the supplies you need.  That would make the most sense.
Goofy: Uh... ok (walks out sadly, credits roll).

Of course, these suggestions might force a change in the appropriateness rating of the show, but I guarantee you the thunderous applause from all of the bleary-eyed parents trying to get ready for work in the morning would be able to be heard on the International Space Station.

Pride in Wurkmanship

Hey, I make more than my share of typos - as a matter of fact I doubt any of my articles are defect-free. My excuse is that I tend to quickly jam these things out on my cell phone without really reviewing them closely. I rarely carefully lay them out in stencil form before I publish them.

I know it's petty and pedantic, but I hit the annoying red light where this sign is located several times a week, it has been there for about two months, and it has finally gotten on my nerves (it doesn't take much to set me off in the morning on the way to work). Besides, I'm not the one trying to sell a service where someone would hope the craftsman doing the work was the type that pays attention to details...

Here is one where "detail oriented" might be something you don't care about in a tradesperson. I see this one on my way home from work, and I am fairly sure this is some sort of hair or knick-knack place but, from the sign, it might be for cyborgs or automatons only.

Now, this might just be an alternative spelling I am not aware of, but I looked for an eternity online (about 10 minutes) and couldn't find evidence that this was correct, but plenty of evidence that this spelling is used all over the place.  If you can confirm the BOTIQUE spelling is correct, leave a comment.

Another Taste of Home

I was lucky enough to find another taste of home recently. A local fancy-schmancy food store started stocking Vernors Ginger Ale, something I have not had in decades.

For those of you who have not had it, it blows Schweppes or Canada Dry out of the water. Not only is it much more gingery, it tastes a bit like cream soda, and it is every bit as good as I remember it being all those years ago.

According to Wikipedia it shares the title of “Oldest Surviving Soft Drink” with Hires Root Beer.  It is distributed primarily in Michigan and other Northern regions which is probably why I have never seen it around here.

I highly recommend it - get some if you have the means. Just don't bother looking around my area, though, because I think I bought out the only supply for many miles around.  I hope I manage to save some for my Mighty Taco delivery next week...