Category: Personal

Well, any day when one of your trees falls on your neighbor’s house has got to be pretty bad.  Sorry for the lack of posts today, as I was in meetings all day, while simultaneously trying to give Bitter instructions on what to do about the tree.

Seems that a tree falling in a wind storm is considered an Act of God, and the only way you’re liable for it is if someone can prove negligence, like the tree was clearly troubled, and you refused to do anything about it.   I had my trees trimmed just last year, because I was concerned about dumping branches on my neighbors.

So because it’s an Act of God, my neighbors are actually responsible for filing their own claim with their homeowners for damage to their house.  Fortunately, there was very little damage to their house.  I think they will have to replace a few roof shingles, and maybe some of the capping on the garage.  The removal of the tree is going to be on me, and I’m going to tend to the damage to their fence which divides our property.

I’ll be honest though, I feel horrible that one of my trees fell on their house.  No guilt a good stiff drink can’t deal with though.  Tonight is a bourbon night, maybe two.  Indoor Silhouette was earlier tonight.  Did pretty well on rifle: a 39.  But tonight was special.  For Valentine’s Day, we taped up some heart shape lollipops to shoot at.  If you hit a lollipop, it was worth 5 animals, but you had to sacrifice an animal for every attempt at the lolly.  I hit one, so it boosted my score, but I probably would have had a 36 without it, since I was hitting the animals pretty well compared to usual.  Shooting with pistol was not as good.  A few months ago, 23 would have been good, but I’ve been getting into the high 20s more often lately, so 23 is back down to where I was at the beginning of the season.  I’m still surprised by how easy it is to psychologically defeat yourself.  Started out with hitting 8 pigs.  Keep that up, it’s a 32, which is decent for me.  Bombed turkeys, big time, only 3.  Got 6 of each of the remaining two animals.  If you worry about missing, it seems you’ll miss.  I do better when I’m just enjoying being on the range.  I do worse when I worry about how I’m doing.

I’m in meetings most of today, and I spent last night and this morning preparing for them.  I would ask Bitter to fill in for me with some content we found yesterday and this morning, but she’s busy dealing with the tree that the wind from last night’s storm brought down on to our neighbor’s garage.

Look for more later.

UPDATE from Bitter: Yeah, this is getting fun.  The wind keeps whipping up to some pretty high speeds, so I’m not confident that things won’t get worse.  Which kinda sucks since right now, the damage looks to be minimal (a fence is leaning).

Pics from my phone since it seems my camera is in Sebastian’s laptop bag which is with him at work.  Hopefully he’s had time to see them by now.

Some of the photos are taken through the screen and windows since it’s not exactly safe to go out there.  The tree split and one half went on to the neighbor’s garage about 10 minutes after I called the tree guy to come get it out.  We’re still trying to figure out what to do.

The snow coming down provides the opportunity for some camera trickery:

I like playing with exposures, and seeing what the effects are.  Some exposures in snow can almost look like daylight.

Today, in addition to being Inauguration Day, is the 2 year anniversary of my first date with Sebastian.  We are toasting with a bottle of Chianti.  As we raised our glasses, Sebastian said, “May our relationship outlive a Democratic Congress.”  I laughed.

I will also say that even though the Chanti is only so-so, I will say that I far prefer it to the choice of sparkling wine at Obama’s luncheon.  I loathe Korbel.  I think I had one okay bottle once in college.  And I’ll be honest, it may not have been that good since I was probably already well on my way to intoxication.  (Champange & Strawberries and I left to go have beer with my friends.)

Interestingly, the wines were chosen by committee.  And all three happened to be from California.  Want to take bets on how much each of the committee members received in donations from the owners and employees?  That’s the kind of change they like on the Hill – the kind that rattles in their pockets!

A few years ago I redid my master bathroom.  Not two weeks after I had moved in, my pipes froze up on me.  Since I was redoing the bathroom, I figured I’d head into the floor and fix the problem.  The supply pipes coming up to the bathroom had been installed along the outside wall on the first floor.  Not code.  Nothing I could do about that for the time being, so I rerouted, insulated, and sealed what I could in the master bathroom.  I had known it was freezing there, because the shower and the toilet always worked.  It was only the sink, which ran closer to the outside wall, that was a problem.

Woke up this morning.  Go to brush my teeth.  Turn on the faucet.  Nothing.  Crap.  Had I not actually fixed the problem?  Opened up the sink faucets, opened up the shower, and heard gurgling.  My repair to the sink three years ago was working fine.  We had flow between all the water consuming appliances, so the blockage has to be in the supply coming up the outside wall on te first floor.  Got a spigot outside for a hose fed off the same line.  Put some heat into that with a torch turned way down.  That frees up the cold water line.  The hot water line is still frozen.  I need to keep the taps open to prevent more damage than may have already been done.

At some point I need to reroute 90% of the plumbing for this house to fix the problem for good.  Pretty clearly someone at the township wasn’t paying attention when they built the house.  This was an owner-built house, meaning the guy who built it lived in it.  He didn’t always (usually) know what he was doing.  He’s dead now, and if I knew where he was buried, I would go piss on his grave, except that it would freeze before it got anywhere.  Dang.

UPDATE: Several hours with Bitter’s hair dryer, and turning my heat up has freed the water from its ice prison.  The best part is, there is no torrent of water flowing down my outside wall.  I have several holes in my wall that weren’t there before, however.  I drilled into the drywall with a 1″ auger bit so I could a) locate the pipes, and b) put some direct heat on them with the hair dryer.  Annoying, for sure, but 1″ holes in drywall are a hell of a lot easer and cheaper to fix than burst pipes.  This cold spell lasts one more day.  I’m going to run the faucet on a slow drip all night.  Once the single digit temperatures recede, we should be good.  I will definitely need to reroute all the plumbing for that bathroom to remain inside.  Can’t have pipes freezing up in really cold weather.

Bitter and I, as we originally planned, paid a visit to Valley Forge National Park today.  It was a cold, breezy January day, so not many people were there.  I took some pictures.  Click through to find out what they are:

Remember that the Brady Campaign are seeking an injunction against the new carry rule, and might get one.  It is an abomination that the men who bore arms in the defense of our Republic should have suffered and died here only to see their posterity fined and jailed for doing so in their own self-defense.

Bitter and I are on our way down to Washington D.C.  On the way out of Philadelphia, President Bush was on his way in to celebrate the 7th anniversary of what he considers to be one of his greatest achievements: a massive federal intervention into education that the federal government has no business being involved with in the first place.

Either way, Bush’s motorcade was heading up northbound on I-95, as we were heading southbound.  While we were going over the upper deck of the Girard Point Bridge, his motorcade was passing under on the lower deck.  So guess you could say Bitter and I drove over Bush on the way to DC.  Sadly, we didn’t have the opportunity to back up, and drive over him again, just to be sure.

I don’t know how many of you have figured out by now that Bitter is now a food blogger.  Her crazy Oklahoma traditions say that black eyed peas on New Years is good luck.  Here, for Irish families at least, it’s Corned Beef and Cabbage, and since that is my ancestral heritage, we’re having that in addition to the black eyed pea dish.  The corned beef cabbage can be cooked in the slow cooker.  Boiling things for long periods of time is the basis of Irish cooking.  While this cooking process tends to dull flavors, that’s nothing an unhealthy amount of salt (provided largely by the corner beef in this dish) can’t fix.  Once you drink enough whisky, you won’t care too much anyway.  Corned Beef and Cabbage is also the traditional Irish-American dish for St. Patricks Day.

Bitter and I decided to head to Mill Mountain to see the giant neon star that looks over the City of Roanoke, Virginia.  We used our new GPS navigator that Bitter’s mom got is for Christmas, and it worked pretty well.

I see Tam has discovered the unmitigated joy of the Brazilian Steakhouse.  I went to one in New Hampshire with friends a few years ago and though I had died and gone to heaven, only instead of spending an eternity with Jesus, I would spend it with “our servers providing continuous table side service, gallantly walking among the dining room with sizzling skewers of the hottest, most delicious rotisserie-cooked meat. Every bite is perfection.”  I thought suggesting their servers were gallant was a pretty bold statement, but afterward, I had to agree, they were pretty damned gallant.

There’s one in Philadelphia I’ve been meaning to go to, but I need to starve myself for a few days beforehand, so there’s room for all that delicious meat.  Maybe I’ll take Bitter there to celebrate when she gets a job finally.  If you have a Brazilian steakhouse in your city, go.  You can find it by following in the opposite direction from the fleeing vegans and PETA members.