You’d Almost Think I Knew What I Was Doing

(I’ll most likely post the third and final installment of my recap of my trip to the UP tomorrow.)
As Wednesday is new comics day, and I was off on Wednesday, having taken the day off to recuperate from my travels after returning on Tuesday evening, I thought about going to the comic shop to pick up the two weeks’ worth of comics awaiting me there, but then I remembered that today was Free Comic Book Day, so I decided to wait.
When I got there this morning, I was glad to see that there was a huge turnout, but I wasn’t so thrilled about having to make my way through the crowd just to get my books.  The table on which the special free comics were located was too crowded for me to approach.  There wasn’t much there that I was interested in anyway – after all, the day is about hooking new readers, not catering to old fogeys like me – but I usually try to pick up some freebies for Scott’s kids.  (Sorry, Scott’s kids.)
The one freebie that I was interested had been put in with my stack anyway, as they know what I’m interested in.
(There were people – mostly the staff – dressed up.  I took pictures, but they’re too blurry to bother posting.)
After leaving the comic shop I stopped at Home Depot.  It was a nice day – which meant that Home Depot was nightmarish, since the thought process in NoVA seems to be “It’s a nice day; let’s go shopping!” – so I wanted to try to get some work done on my yard.
For a while now the shrub in my front yard has been dying and in need of removal, but my motivation to try to deal with it has been lacking.  Not so today.
After trimming the still-living hedges, I busted out the chainsaw and set to work.  Despite the tangled mass of branches, it didn’t take too long to get it reduced to a mere stump.  Of course, all of the battery packs I had charged over the winter seemed to have lost most of their charges, so trying to cut the stump down even further proved to be a challenge, as the chainsaw was rapidly losing power.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about the stump.  I thought about digging it up, but concluded that doing so would be too much work.  Instead, I decided to just hack away at it until it wasn’t too noticeable, and then I would either rent a stump grinder, or use this stuff I have that makes stumps really mushy and easy to rip apart (or burn, without causing a major conflagration).  It takes a month and a half to work, so I wanted to make it as small and unobtrusive as possible.  However, the fading charges of my battery packs were making that a challenge.
So I decided to try digging it up.  I was right about that being too much work.  Still, I’d severed most of the roots, and was able to get it to move around, at least a little.  It wasn’t enough to allow me to pry it loose, though, so I went back to work on cutting it down to a smaller size.
The biggest problem with that was the large remnant of one of the branches, which was proving to be more than my rapidly-fading chainsaw could handle.  I whacked at it with my ax for a while, but the thing was stubborn.  I’d cut a big wedge out of it, though, and tried to break through the remaining strands with the shovel.  I had no luck in severing it, but I found that when I pried at the branch with the shovel I nearly managed to pull the entire stump free from the ground.
To anyone observing me, I thought, it probably looked as though that was my intention all along.  “Huh,” the imaginary observer might have thought, “he was trying to carve himself a hold so that he could use the shovel to pry the thing up.  That guy knows what he’s doing.”
Sucker!  I totally fooled your hypothetical ass!  I had no idea what I was doing.
After finding the last root holding it in place and severing it with the ax, I pulled the stump free with one mighty heave.
I’m manly!
With that accomplished, I raked the dirt back in to fill the now-empty space, and set to work on hauling the shrub’s remains to an area where, hopefully, based on past experience, the County will come along and deal with them.  Then I mowed.  I made several passes over the grass-free area where the shrub had been with the mower to mulch the remnants and further smooth things out.  This managed to burn through the mower battery’s charge pretty quickly.
While the mower was recharging I spread out some of the grass patching seed stuff I’d picked up at Home Depot, and watered it.
Eventually the mower was charged enough for me to just barely squeeze enough juice out of it to finish mowing the entire yard.
When I’d been mowing earlier, I’d noticed a small frog (or toad; I’m not sure which) hopping around.  I kept trying to shoo it unto the neighbor’s yard so that it wouldn’t be in the area where I was mowing, but it refused to cooperate, and I wasn’t concerned enough for its safety to actually pick it up, so I resolved to just keep an eye out for it as I mowed.
Later, I noticed a bird roaming about the freshly-mowed lawn – they tend to do that after I mow, as apparently the mowing makes it easier for them to find food crawling around – and I thought, “You son of a bitch.  You’d better not be eating my frog after I went through so much trouble trying to avoid mulching it.”
Oh, I also got a haircut at some point today.  I was Mr. Productive, apparently.
There’s still a lot of work I need to do in my yard, including cutting down yet another shrub.  Life in the ‘burbs is a lot of work.

The remains of the branches.

What now, bitch?...seriously, what now?  I don't know what to
do with the thing. The County won't take it. Guess I'll have to try
chopping it up once I have a fully-charged battery pack.

Letters To My Lawn

Dear Tree In My Front Yard,

How the hell many dead branches do you have?  Every time I mow I find that you've deposited a brand new collection of them on the ground.

Sincerely,

Jon

*****

Dear Lawn,

I know that with the recent near-continuous rainfall we've had you've been growing like weeds.  And I don't just mean the weed part of you, but all of you.
However, given the amount of moisture that the soil is retaining, mowing is virtually impossible for anyone short of Jesus.  Seriously, it's like trying to mow seaweed.  Please stop growing until after the ground dries up enough that I can walk on it without fear of drowning.

Affectionately,

Jon

It's Official

I hate my lawn.
Why?
Let me list the reasons:

Weed killer, no matter what type I use, kills the grass and not the weeds. The weeds seem to feed on it.

The grass that manages to survive grows at a supernatural rate.

Somehow the soil in the backyard is different from the soil in the front and side, so, combined with the fact that it gets more direct sunlight, it grows even faster and is much fuller and nicer-looking, and doesn't get nearly as many weeds. It's exactly the sort of yard I would like to have actually visible, as opposed to the patchy, weed-covered POS I have out in front for all the world to see.

The final straw was that a random piece of debris got hurled out by the mower and hit my car, putting two big scratches in the passenger side door.

And, worst of all, I've become that guy: the guy who spends way too much time thinking about his lawn.

Tiller-less

Yesterday I stopped at Home Depot on the way home to pick up some more of that lawn patch repair stuff to use in the front yard, as the test patches in the backyard have actually been yielding new grass.
I also wanted to pick up some kind of tiller thing for the immediate purpose of breaking up the soil in the areas in which I need to use the patch repair stuff, but also for the future date on which I decide to do something different with the flowerbeds, as I'm not really all that thrilled about what was left behind by the previous owner in the way of flowers.
I found the perfect one; a Black & Decker model that uses the same battery system as all of the rest of my stuff.
Naturally they didn't actually have any in stock, and weren't selling the display model.
I'd intended to mow the lawn - the front and side, anyway - when I got home, but by the time I did I no longer had the energy, so I put it off until today.
I also did some hedge trimiing, and then did the patch repair thing on one of the bigger sections of dead grass, using a shovel and a rake to break up the soil, since I'm still tiller-less.
And that's been pretty much all the excitement in my life.

A Conversation at Work:

My boss: That will free you up from some "grunt work."
Me: That's good, because I certainly have plenty of that.
My boss: We're definitely going to be moving away from that kind of thing. I've got some good projects lined up for you.
Me: ...great.

Why I Heart Slacktivist Continued:

In his most recent post about the Delaware legislature passing legislature that would add sexual orientation to anti-discrimination laws, Fred "Slacktivist" Clark demonstrates yet again why I Heart Slacktivist:

Those bills never passed. "Discrimination against gays still legal in Del.," read the headline on the paper's Web site, year after year after year.

That headline was celebrated, each time, by Christian conservative groups who were always ferociously opposed to the idea that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons should enjoy the same legal protections as everyone else in the state. Those groups liked to quote Leviticus to support the idea that homosexuality was an "abomination" to God. The idea, I guess, was that homosexuals were sinners and thus real, true Christians were therefore obliged to ensure that it remained perfectly legal to deny them access to housing or employment.

It's tempting to respond in kind, to say, I'll see your Leviticus and raise you a Deuteronomy:

Do not have two differing weights in your bag -- one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house -- one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures ... For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

In other words, no fair not being fair. You can't have one price for one group of people and a different price for a different group. You can't have one housing market or one job market for one group of people and exclude other people from that market -- that's differing weights and measures, something the Lord your God detests. Inequality, discrimination, disenfranchisement and the dishonesty of double-dealing and double-standards turn out also to be abominations before the Lord.

And there's nothing in Deuteronomy to suggest a loophole that says it's OK to have differing weights in your bag so long as the short-changing one is for homosexuals. The Bible says, unambiguously, that these Delaware Christians' crusade in defense of legal discrimination is abominable and detestable.

So what we have here is a theological dispute -- a disagreement over the interpretation and meaning of the scripture. I'm confident I can win this argument, but before we get bogged down in the theological details of such a dispute, allow me to point out the most important thing to remember about all such arguments: They don't matter. Not even a little bit. Because none of what any of us thinks about the interpretation and meaning of the scripture is in any way relevant to the question before the legislature, a wholly secular body charged only with the wholly secular matters of law and justice.

The Virginia Chainsaw Massacre

Oh my god, Jon has a chainsaw! Everybody run!

Or, you know, not.
As much as it annoys me when people make “serial killer” comments about me, alluding to the fact that I’m kind of weird, angry, quiet, and keep to myself, there are times when it’s difficult to avoid making snide comments about it myself.
Like when I buy a chainsaw.
But yeah, the “serial killer comments really do annoy me. Not all angry, quiet, weirdo loners are vicious murdering sociopaths, after all. Hearing those comments makes me so angry that I find myself wanting to methodically hunt down the people who make them, kill them, eat their hearts, skin them, and hang their skulls on my wall.
Kidding!
(Okay, so maybe I do bear some responsibility for perpetuating the serial killer image.)
In any case, yesterday when I got home from work I decided that I should take advantage of the break from the rain and mow the lawn.
I didn’t have quite enough energy to do the whole lawn, so I just did the back yard, as it gets a lot more sunlight than the front and side do and thus tends to grow more rapidly.
Before mowing, though, I figured I should do some hedge trimming so that I could use the mower to mulch up the trimmings.
There are two tree/hedge things growing in front of my fence on either side of the gate, and their branches have grown through the openings in the fence, and that kind of annoys me, as it just looks stupid. Last year I trimmed them as much as I could, but some of the branches were too thick for the trimmer to cut through.
Hence the chainsaw.
I’d seen the chainsaw last year and thought about buying it, as it uses the same interchangeable battery as the rest of my lawn equipment, but had never gotten around to it. So this morning I headed to Lowe’s, as it was the only place I knew that sold the chainsaw, and finally picked one up.
About a week after I bought my corded electric mower last year I saw an ad for a cordless, battery-powered version, which elicited a predictable response from me (which is to say that I loudly proclaimed “Fuck!” at the TV).
Mostly out of curiosity I kind of looked around to see if any place sold the mower, but didn’t find it anywhere.
Lately I’ve been seeing ads for some other battery-powered mower that looked interesting (Free edging attachment!), but it was one of those annoying “Call now to receive our informational DVD” things.
Thinking, “I’m not ordering a damn DVD,” I decided to check out the Web site, assuming that in the 21st Century any sensible company would put the appropriate information on its site.
Nope. The site is nothing but an order form for the DVD.
Listen, Neuton; fuck you and your DVD, all right?
Anyway, the point is that while I was at Lowe’s I saw the battery-powered version of my mower and found myself sorely tempted.
After all, the awkward shape of my property makes dealing with the extension cord plugged into my mower a huge pain in the ass, and the cord is the primary reason I put off mowing as much as I do.
I didn’t buy it, simply because there’s no way it would have fit in my car. I suppose that if I do decide to buy it I’ll have to shanghai Scott and his minivan, though Home Depot does rent out trucks for $19 for the first 76 minutes, which would be plenty of time to pick up the mower, drop it off at home, and bring the truck back, and the irony of renting a truck from Home Depot in order to buy something from Lowe’s would be rather entertaining.
Of course, the other problem is the question of what to do with my old mower. I mean, I just dropped a couple of hundred bucks on it less than a year ago. I suppose I could try selling it on Craigslist or something, but that seems like too much effort.
(Yes, that’s right; posting an ad on Craigslist is too much effort.)
That laziness (and generosity of spirit, of course, because I’m such a swell guy) is why I usually prefer to just give things away when I don’t need them anymore.
So...anyone need an electric mower? One may become available soon.
Anyway, after I got home I assembled the chainsaw and made short work of those recalcitrant branches, and, as I sliced my way through them I thought, “This is freakin’ cool!”
So, finding that now that I was a man with a chainsaw every problem looked like a tree branch, I scanned the yard for other things I could cut.
I ended up cutting down this little tree/hedge in front of the house that seemed to be struggling to live. For some reason most of its branches seemed to be broken and dead. It’s actually kind of weird; the branches seem to just randomly break, as if they’re too weak to support themselves (or some punk kids are coming along and snapping them in an act of petty and retarded vandalism).
So I decided to put it out of its misery.
There was another small hedge kind of hidden behind the hedges next to my door that never seems to grow anything, as it gets very little sunlight, so that got axe chainsaw as well.
Not sure what I’m going to do with the empty space where it used to be, though, as it now looks kind of weird (though better than it did with the dead bundle of branches). There doesn’t seem to be much point in planting anything else there, as it will probably die as well.
There’s still a little pointless tree in the back yard that I want to get rid of, but I figured that I had to stop with the chainsaw and get to mowing the rest of the lawn, so I didn’t get to it.
And that was pretty much my day.

Conversation With The Universe

“Hey Jon, it’s me, the Universe.”
“Yeah.”
“’Yeah?’ What kind of greeting is that?”
“*Sigh* Hello, Universe.”
“That’s better. So, knocked off work early and decided to use the extra time to mow the old lawn, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, you’re getting really sweaty.”
“Well, it is over 90 degrees out.”
“It sure is. Looks like you picked a lousy time to get motivated.”
“I suppose so, but I couldn’t put it off any longer.”
“Shouldn’t have procrastinated so much.”
“It didn’t help matters any that every time I thought about mowing it would start raining.”
“No, I suppose it didn’t.”
“And the rain made the grass grow even more.”
“Yeah, it sure did. Wow, you’re really, really sweaty. Hey, remember how earlier today there was a nice cool breeze? Now when you could really use it, it’s stopped. That’s funny, huh?”
“Hilarious.”
“Looks like some of that sweat is running into your eyes.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Does it sting?”
“Yes, quite a bit.”
“Hey, do you think it would help matters any if I made sure that some of the dirt and grass you’re kicking up with the mower flew into your eyes?”
“Ow! No, it doesn’t help.”
“Hmm, okay…how about I have some of the bugs buzzing around your head fly into them?”
“Dammit!”
“Heh, guess that’s not helping either.”
“No, it really isn’t.”
“Well, what if I – ”
“Look, would you just leave me the hell alone and let me finish mowing my goddamn lawn?”
“Hmmph. That’s no way to ask the Universe for a favor.”
“Fine. I apologize.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Yes, I do. Honest.”
“Hmm, well, I guess I believe you, but you’re going to have to be nicer to me.”
“Okay. I’m willing to put up with the heat, and the sweat running into my eyes, and even the grass and the dirt. The bugs just seem excessive, though, so would you please be so gracious as to have them stop dive-bombing my eyes? I would really appreciate it. And could you also just let me finish mowing without any further interruption? Thank you.”
“Okay, that’s better. I’ll leave you to it.”

Ten minutes later…

“Hey Jon, did you notice that bit where I made the mower get stuck when you were pushing it so that when you moved forward you ended up getting hit in the groin by the mower’s handle?”
“Ow, yes, I did. It was, after all, my groin that took the hit.”
“Oh, right. I guess you would notice something like that.”
“You really don’t grasp the concept of doing someone a favor, do you?”
“No, I grasp the concept, I’m just unwilling to do you any favors.”
“That’s about what I figured.”

What I Learned

With the batteries all charged up when I got home today, I decided to break out the weed whacker and the hedge trimmer and do some more yard work.
The weed whacking was simple enough, but the hedge trimming was something of a learning experience.
Here are the things I learned:

1. There's a fine line between "trimming" and "butchering."
2. I don't know where that line is.
3. When you trim hedges, stuff flies everywhere, sometimes even ending up inside your pants pockets.
4. Bees don't like it when you chop up their hangouts.
5. Trimming my hedges will be an all-day (or most of the day) project.
6. I need a ladder.

Mow, Mow, Mow, How Do You Like Me, How Do You Like Me?

So it stopped raining today and the sun came out long enough to dry things up sufficiently that I was able to mow my lawn when I got home from work.
The mower works pretty well, and I was surprised that the 100' extension cord was long enough to allow me mow my entire front yard while plugged into the outside outlet on the back of the house.
Of course, I can't help but think that Jon + device with spinning blades attached to an extension cord = flirting with disaster, but I did manage to avoid any incidents.
Well, except for causing a circuit breaker to trip a couple of times, as it seems there is an inordinate number of outlets (living room, part of the kitchen, all the upstairs rooms) on the same circuit that the outside outlets are on.
I wasn't sure if it would clear up today or not, so I didn't put the batteries for the weed whacker and hedge trimmer charging yesterday, so that'll have to wait until tomorrow.
After finishing the yard I was feeling pretty manly and decided that I should grill something, so I went to the store, all nasty and dripping with sweat, to pick up some Polish sausage.
I definitely need some practice with the grilling skills.
And that was my big excitement for the day.
Tomorrow's excitement will be the stiffness and pain that will result from today's excitement.

Le Grill? What The Hell Is THAT?

Lately I’ve found myself adding movies to my Netflix queue that, upon their arrival, make me say, “Why the hell did I pick this piece of crap?”The latest example, which I watched on Friday night, was Good Luck Chuck.
Of course, I do know why I picked that piece of crap:

1. Jessica Alba is hot.
2. The central premise was built around the concept of someone having a “super power” that is very similar to one I possess.
3. Jessica Alba is hot.

I’ll get into point 2 in just a bit, but before that I’ll say that the movie was absolute formulaic dreck that ticked off all the boxes on the “Zany Romantic Comedy Checklist.”
Fat, sassy black lady? Check.
Fat, obnoxious, crude, sex-obsessed best friend? Check.
Amazingly hot female love interest who is almost inhumanly kind, sweet, and nurturing, and who has some kind of endearing quirkiness? Check.
Romantic misunderstanding in which the male lead does exactly the opposite of what he should do, thereby driving the female love interest away? Check.
Big dramatic last-ditch effort to win female love interest back, preferably at an airport? Check.
And of course, somewhere in there the male lead learns some valuable lesson about himself, life, and love, and the fat-ass “comically” douchebaggy best friend manages to find true love of his own.
So yeah, it was crap.
Anyway, the central premise of the movie, for those who don’t know, is that the lead, Charlie/Chuck, was hexed in his youth by a spurned goth girl, making it impossible to find love himself, even as love “falls like rain” all around him.
More specifically, if he sleeps with a woman, she will then almost immediately meet someone else who turns out to be the love of her life. Thus women line up to have their turn with him and then head off to buy a wedding dress in anticipation of meeting their darling dearests.
Years before the movie came out, I wrote a Threshold entry in which I explained that I have a similar ability, though in my case, naturally, it doesn’t require that I actually sleep with a woman in order for her to reap the benefits.
All I have to do is simply become romantically interested, even in the slightest degree, in a woman, and within a year she’ll at the very least be engaged, or, as has happened more often, be married and have a baby.
In every case in which I’m privy to the details of what happened in the lives of the women in whom I’ve been interested, this has proven to be the way things turn out.
(In one instance, the power of my interest was sufficient to get someone who had steadfastly maintained for most of her life that she would never get married to change her thinking on the subject.)
Anyway, the fact that there was a movie built around someone who has a better version of my power (i.e. his power allows him to get laid), was sufficient, when coupled with Alba’s hotness, to make me want to check it out, and it’s not like I didn’t know it was going to be awful going into it.
On Friday Scott came over, by my invitation, so that I could make use of his van to go out and buy some things that wouldn’t fit in my car.
Namely a gas grill and a lawnmower.
Once he arrived we headed off to Home Depot, where I found the aforementioned items, in addition to a weed whacker and a hedge trimmer, and the two of us headed to a register where I prepared to drop a substantial chunk of change.
Before I could do so, however, the cashier asked if I had a Home Depot card. I confessed that I didn’t, and she asked, “Do you want one?”
She then proceeded to talk about the advantages of having one, most notably the fact that I would have no interest and no payments for a year on the day’s purchase if I were to sign up for a card.
So I did.
From there, we went to a grocery store to pick up some brats to cook on the grill after putting it together, and then to Super Target, where I picked up season 3 of Battlestar Galactica for us to watch after the day’s work was done.
Of course, by the time we got the grill assembled and the food cooked, we only had time to watch two episodes before he had to leave.
In any case, I greatly appreciate all of Scott’s help, as even if I’d been able to get the grill home by myself, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to put it together alone. If I had attempted to do so, there’s no doubt it would have turned out almost exactly like Homer’s attempt at putting together a grill on The Simpsons.
(Which provides the title of this entry; after dropping all of the parts in wet cement, Homer grabs the instructions and finds that the English side is unreadable and attempts to follow the French instructions.)
And of course the plan for today was to put my newly-acquired lawn equipment to use, but naturally it’s raining today and is supposed to continue to do so through Wednesday.
After Scott left, I continued watching BSG, and was about to go to bed at around 1 AM after watching one last episode, but at the end of the episode it said, “To be Continued,” which led me to say, as they do on BSG, “Frack!” as it meant staying up for yet another episode.
Today I went out to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things, came home, had lunch, watched an episode of BSG, then decided to try to take a nap, changed my mind, and sat down to write this.
Sometime last week I developed a cold.
It’s always irritating to be sick, but there are a couple of things that serve to enhance my misery. For one thing, the fact that I’ve managed to catch a cold – and a pretty nasty one at that – means that my immune system is no longer as seemingly bulletproof as it’s been for the past 8 years or so. For another, it means I can’t wear my gentle molding lenses, so my vision has been fading more and more each day.
In any case, we’re now up to date, so I think I’m going to go sit on the couch and watch some more BSG and feel miserable. It’s a perfect day for it.
(Pictures of the grill and etc. will be posted someday when it’s a little less gloomy out.)