Dumb Things I’ve Done

Lack of Attention to Detail

About a month ago we were in Walmart, shopping for some groceries that we like, but Fred Meyers stopped carrying them or never did. When we got back to the car to put our purchases in the trunk an employee out gathering carts stopped and said, “You know you have your tires on the wrong side of the car?”

I looked down at the rears tire I was closest to, sure enough the tread pattern was facing the wrong way. Doh! “Wow, I must have messed up when I swapped the summer tires for the winter all-seasons back in March”, I told him. The fellow said he noticed because he also has a Miata, a ’90, and has run these tires on his car in the past.

I thanked him and the next day I swapped the tires to their correct sides. This was not a real big deal because the tread pattern is that way to improve wet traction by channeling water from out from under the tire and I don’t think the Miata has been in the rain since we have lived in Oregon. Well maybe I had the wipers on intermittent once last year…

Today was another one of those Walmart runs and when we pulled into the lot I noticed a white early model Miata, so I parked next to it figuring it might be that guy’s car. When we here last time and I asked him where his car was he had pointed over in the side of the lot. When I got out and looked at it I noticed he had a “Share the Road” license plate too.

Adventures In Picture Hanging

When shopping at Fred Meyers last week we started at the back of the store because we needed some stuff out of the Garden Department. On our way over to the grocery section we walked by the Home Décor area and right there on an end cap were these 40″ x 30″ photo prints on canvas for sale at 50% off.

As we leafed through the stack we saw a forest scene with a trail through it and Donna said, “Ooh, I like that one.” I said, “Me too!” Not only was it the scene, but it was the color too. It would fit perfectly with the greens of our bedroom colors and we did need something to hang on the wall behind the bed. When this type of synchronicity happens, we knew that this was a must buy. So we did.1

Yesterday I decided to hang it up. First up I hammered two sawtooth picture hangers into the back of the frame of the photo 5″ in from each edge to hold it up. Then I measured the wall horizontally and the space between the top of the headboard and the ceiling so that I could figure out how to put the picture in the center of the space.

The ceiling height was at 93″ and the top of the bed was 54″ from the floor giving me 39″. I then subtracted the picture height and divided it half to give me the height of the top of the picture to the ceiling, 4-1/2″ The wall was 102″ wide, subtracting the picture width of 40″ and dividing that by 2 gave me 31″ from the wall edges.

I dragged the bed away from the wall and got out my laser level and transferred my measurement to the wall and drilled two holes to mount the screws. As I held up the picture to hang it I quickly realized that the screws were no where near where the sawtooth hangers were. Doh! Homer Simpson head slap. I forgot that I had mounted the hangers 5″ in from each edge of the picture.

So, I measured five inches in from both wrongly placed screws and drilled 2 more holes. I placed the picture back on the wall and stepped back. Nice, got it two. I’ll spackle the extra 2 holes later. I pushed the bed back up against the wall, using the existing dents in the carpet to get it back exactly were it was. Stepped back again to admire my handy work and the picture wasn’t centered over the bed. #%$&#@!

The bed itself was not in the middle of the wall. One side was further right to allow Donna an easy path out along the side wall without having to turn sideways. The main bath is behind the wall the bed is on, so that my side has almost four feet of room to the other side wall.

I took the picture down and stood it up against the wall it has been leaning on for the last week and a half. Sometime later this week I will try and get the photo mounted correctly. You know what they say, “The third times a charm.” Keep your finger crossed…

7.1 miles on Fred Meyers run.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 29

 

Don’t Forget Step 15

On Monday evening Donna called me into the kitchen to listen to the garbage disposal. It was making a strange noise and she thought that there might be something stuck in there. Cleaning out the disposal, like killing spiders, is man’s work, so I turned it on and it was making a very metallic noise, nothing like something stuck inside, but more like bad bearings.

Tuesday morning we headed off to Home Depot to buy a nice shiny new one. In the afternoon I swapped out the old Badger with the new Badger 100. Because I had swapped out a garbage disposal before back in Aiken I know how to do it, so it took about an hour and the hardest part was holding the unit up straight so I could lock it into place under the sink.

On Wednesday evening I was again summoned to the kitchen. Not garbage disposal this time, but dishwasher. The dishes were clean, but not rinsed and the the bottom of the dishwasher was full of water. Off to the internet to see what I might do about this. Looked at several pages of info and tried the easiest first, rerun the cycle and see if it drains. While it was running we tagged teamed the the dishes, I washed off the rinse agent and she dried and put away. Unfortunately the second cycle still left water in the bottom. Next and most obvious would be hose out connection to the garbage disposal, so I asked my wife if there was water in the bottom of the dishwasher after she washed on Tuesday and she said there wasn’t.

Every other solution I found I could check easily enough and dismiss or didn’t apply, leaving calling a repair person or buying a new dishwasher. You know, I don’t remember popping out the the dishwasher drain plug in the disposal, but Donna said there wasn’t any water in the bottom of the dishwasher after her first run on Tuesday. Did the disposal come with it already knocked out?

This morning, Thursday, I removed the dishwasher drain hose from the disposal and stuck my finger in the pipe and sure enough it was stopped dead. That is why the dishwater wouldn’t drain, it had no where to send the water except 6 feet down a plastic pipe where it got promptly turned around. Luckily there was enough room under the sink that I could get a screwdriver into the drain outlet pipe and whack it hard enough to get the plug out with out to much drama.

I forgot Step 15. I was lulled into a false sense of my own home repair acumen by having done the same job previously that I didn’t even read all the installation instructions, but I didn’t take into account the decrease of fine detail memory brought on by advancing age and the fact that I had done this job only once before a couple of decades ago.

Schrodinger’s Lottery Ticket

For practically forever, we have been buying a Mega Millions quick pick ticket that gets us into the bi-weekly drawing for 5 weeks at a time. We routinely end up not winning squat, so every month and a quarter we get an Andrew Jackson out of the ATM, and place that money down on a chance at winning mega-millions.

Thursday last week, we when out for an evening drive and in the middle we stopped at Fred Meyer to use the lottery vending machine and bought our next Mega Millions Lottery Ticket.

The bought ticket hangs on the upper shelf of my computer desk and earlier this week while watching a movie on the PC I noticed there wasn’t one there. My “prop” Mega Lotto Jackpot ticket with the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 & 42 that Hurley won $114 million with was still there, but no real life Mega Millions ticket. By the time I finished watching the movie I had forgotten all about the lottery ticket.

Yesterday, while I finished watching the last episode of Devs, I again noticed the missing lottery ticket. This time I clued Donna in, so we commenced to searching for it. The last time I remember seeing it, it was in the center console of the Miata. That was what we were driving that evening. I put the ticket in there because I didn’t want to put in my pocket where it would get wrinkled. We started there. Not in the center console. It was also not in the glove box. Or the trunk. For thoroughness we looked in the Mini too. We came back upstairs and while I searched every pocket in every item of clothing that I could have been wearing when I bought the ticket, Donna was busy searching in the living area where any piece of paper could be laying. We both came up empty.

Thus we became owners of a Schrodinger’s Lottery Ticket. Because I didn’t think to memorize the 6 numbers on the ticket and there has been two Mega Millions drawings since then, right now we are both winners, and losers, until we somehow happen to find that ticket.

Not wanting to not find the ticket and then read in the local paper of a Klamath Falls individual who purchased a jackpot winning ticket and never coming forward to claim the prize, we went out this evening and bought another ticket.

I’ve Got A Screw Loose

Because yesterday afternoon was sunny and lower 60’s, when we headed out to run some errands, we opted to do them in the Miata. About 2 blocks down the road a fairly loud rumbling started and the front end of the car was doing a small wobble. Donna went, “What’s that?” I answered, “Might have a flat.” A couple of seconds later I said, “I know what it is,” and did a quick u-turn to head back home.

This post should really have been titled “I’ve Got A Few Lug Nuts Loose.” For what has to be at least the sixth or seventh time in my career I have not fully tightened down the lug nuts on a wheel or two (or four) after rotating the tires or doing some brake maintenance. Including one time in the early 80’s that happened with Donna driving and having to stop at a place to have them diagnose the rumbling sound the car was making.

This is why I was getting the stink-eye from her as we returned to the Pacific Terrace driveway. Because just before turning around I had said, “I forgot to tighten the lug nuts.” On Wednesday afternoon I installed the new front license plate mount, which had caused me to remove the front wheels and I missed the final step.

About the second time this happened in Aiken, I devised a way to make sure not to forget this step by taking the torque wrench and placing it right at the entrance to the garage. There was no way for me to miss it and I sure as heck couldn’t drive the low clearance Miata over the wrench. To my credit, I did something similar here too, but because I was working close to the garage opening, the torque wrench was mixed in with all the other tools I was using, so it got put away with everything else. I think a new safeguard is required. Possibly I should buy a baseball cap from the Lansing Michigan minor league baseball team to wear when working on the car. Or, perhaps putting the torque wrench on the driver’s seat might work.

Really, That Long?

On Thursday morning I called around looking for a doctor to get a tetanus shoot and to establish a relationship with. I’ve got a few prescriptions that I’m going to need refills of in January and I think our old doctor in Aiken is eventually going to catch onto the whole I’m just visiting in Oregon thing.

My first call was to the Adult Medical Clinic at the local hospital. They were listed on the BCBS of Alabama website. When I called I was informed there were three doctors and only one was accepting new patients and the next available appointment was in July 2020! The nice person who answered the phone said I might try something called Cascades East, when I called them they said the waiting list is 6 months! I had them send me the forms to get on the waiting list.

In the meantime we could avail ourselves with the services of Basin Immediate Care, a walk-in clinic that takes anyone who can pay or has insurance. So guess where we spent 2-1/2 hours on Thursday afternoon getting a tetanus shot and a band aid?

This afternoon we had a shiny new 3/4 horsepower, kevlar belt drive garage door opener with two remotes and a wireless keypad installed. So much smoother and quieter that the old chain drive unit. Now it has got us thinking about replacing that old heavy wooden door. When the installer took the old unit down we looked at the date of manufacture on the sticker and it read 1995. Twenty-five years, so it had a pretty good life, but who knows how much longer it would have noisily gone about doing its job if I hadn’t accidentally killed it.

Fixing Up Our Christmas Present

Neither of us had any presents under the Christmas tree (which we don’t have anyway) this year because all that kind of money is going into furnishing and resupplying the one big shared present, 1025 Pacific Terrace.

The last owners of our new home were only in it for 2 years. I’m mildly curious as to why, but whatever. In those two years I don’t think they ever really cleaned. They must have done some sort of quick clean before they left because the place was habitable when we moved in, but a deep clean, not so much. We are on our second box of Swiffer cloths removing dust and cobwebs from nooks and crannies in every room. We are also on our second container of Clorox wipes removing various stains and dirt spots from the walls and ceilings. In the Master Bathroom there were lots of black hairs stuck to the walls and ceiling from the previous owner blow drying her hair.

I have replaced between 15 and 20 light bulbs throughout the house. I don’t know what the reason, to conserve energy or just plain laziness. I betting it was mostly the later because there was a burnt out bulb in almost every 2-light fixture. The light on the front and back porches had bulbs, but the one on the pole in the front lawn for the stairs didn’t. The light in the bottom of the microwave that illuminates the stove top was out. The light on the garage door opener was burnt out and this was vexing because the garage is really dark when we get out of the car at night.

On Christmas Eve I decided to replace the bulb in the garage door opener. It worked fine using the wall switch, but when the garage door would go up and down the light would flicker like a strobe light. I opened up the light compartment again and noticed the the bulb socket was held in place by some tabs, thinking maybe it was loose wire I pressed the tabs and pulled the socket out from the opener body. FLASH! CRACK! It was a loose wire and when I pulled the socket out the two wires touched and shorted out. Now we have to manually open and close the door until I can find someone to install a new garage opener.

I don’t think the previous owners used the two car garage for cars. I have been sweeping out dust and cobwebs from all over in there too. There was a long bench along one side of the garage that I decided to take apart today to make room for the imminent arrival of the Miata (supposed to be sometime this week.) This thing is big, about 2 feet wide and 8 feet long. Sturdy too, it is made up of 2x4s and half 1/2 plywood screwed together with deck screws. There are about a a dozen nails in one end. I figure whoever made it started hammering it together and realizing that that would be an awful lot of work, then switch to screws. I was about 90% through disassembling it when I accidentally stepped on a nice long nail. OUCH! Went right through the sole of the sneaker, my sock and probably a 1/2″ into my foot. Direct pressure stopped the bleeding after about 5 minutes. Thought it might be a good idea to go to the Emergency Room , but then thought of the cost, so just cleaned it out with some alcohol and dressed with a band aid and some polysporin. I’ll try and get a doctor to give me a tetanus shot tomorrow even though the nail was clean and shiny having spent who knows how long inside that 2×4…

I think I need to reassess my handyman qualifications…