Whatever

12 Rules

The other day on my morning walk, I listened to an episode of the podcast Revisionist History entitled “Malcolm Gladwell’s 12 Rules for Life“. He was reacting to a whole 12 Rules meme that was generated by a book called, surprisingly, “12 Rules for Life” that came out last January. He had an interesting take on the idea and in typical Canadian fashion it ended up being mostly about hockey.

In typical Life of Brian fashion I knew nothing about this meme until after it had been around so long it was already out of fashion so, you just know I’m going to make my own anyway. Trouble with that is, there is no way I can come up with 12 rules without doing a whole lot of cognitating first, so I’m going to take a play from Mr. Gladwell and name only one. His rule is: Pull the Goalie (it has to do with Risk vs, Reward and is worth a listen.)

Here’s mine: Life is too short to drive boring cars.

The Past 4 Days

Things that have happened in the past 4 days, listed in no particular order or level of importance:

  1. I managed to get two photos posted to Instagram.
  2. The Mini got a bath.
  3. Managed to bike ride to work on Friday.
  4. Donna got a flat on her bike ride home.
  5. Watched Up in the Air on HBO – again.
  6. The Miata got a bath.
  7. Bad breakfast sausage?
  8. Got 5 more pairs of glasses from Warby Parker.
  9. Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Underfoot Matters II

Over Spray/Dribble Mat

This is new. These cute little mats have started to appear under the urinals in the Valve Store. On Tuesday they were in place in two of the bathrooms and today they arrived in a third. I guess tomorrow they will make it all the way to the last one back close to where I am.

I’m no janitorial expert, but I’m thinking these things should be rotated 180° with the wide ends lined up with the outside edges of the porcelain fixture, that way you’d get better dribble coverage. Plus another clue making me think they are upside down is that the name of the company that supplies them, Cintas, is written in the lower left at an angle that would be easier to read if the thing was rotated around.

The only thing I can think of is the person who is distributing these things believe they are dual purpose and they not only absorb tee-tee, but thinks that maybe they are for the comfort of the person doing the tee-teeing.

Underfoot Matters

The bright light coming in the window overpowered the auto-focus feature on the camera, but you know, it kind of looks nice all soft and fuzzy.

When the Valve Store added on a big metal room in the back for us engineers, they put in a small section of tile at the entrance and rest of the floor was done in a mostly tan-ish colored industrial grade carpet squares (the Emperor actually had a free set of floor mats of the stuff for awhile.) The carpet was a nice compliment to the tan cubicle walls, but I think they underestimated the amount of foot traffic from the machine shop floor we would get. Within 2 weeks there was a noticeable greasy trail to the shift supervisors office’s. Within a month you could start to see the same thing leading to the department’s engineer’s abode. After a couple months the powers that be thought we need to do something to protect the new carpet.

They contacted our uniform supplier and the next week we had 5 dark brown throw rugs placed in a ‘T’ shape near the entrance in hopes of them removing the oil from the bottom of the shoes coming in. And while the rugs did a good job of hiding most of the really bad oil paths you could still see some lighter shading in places. In the 6 or so intervening years we have been in this building we have learned that while the carpet oil traps work, they don’t work 100%. Those faint trails that appeared in the first few weeks have now moved to cover nearly every aisle and in some case into the cubes themselves.

While the rugs were only sort of good at keeping the carpet clean, what they were really good at was creating an occasional trip hazard. If you have ever placed a rubber backed throw rug down on top of carpet you know that the throw will move very, very slightly with each step and eventually become crooked or buckle up like a little tectonic plate. Over that same amount of time we have had at least a dozen near misses, just stumbles, not actual falls, but complaining didn’t seem to do any good. Well last week the right person finally took it seriously and the Tool Crib Attendant (and Uniform Supplier Liaison) came in, rolled up the five throw rugs and tossed them aside.

Overnight, someone on 2nd or 3rd shift or maybe even the night cleaning crew decided that something was off and put the rugs back in place. Friday the Tool Crib Attendant rolled up again and told the 1st shift supervisor to pass the word. I thought it might help if she hid them and that’s when I went, “Hmmm.” I bet one of those rugs might look nice in my cubicle, sort of class the place up, so I re-purposed one. I’m not too sure how long I’ll get to keep it, no one seems really jealous of my new look, but all it will take is one comment to the wrong person and it will get re-re-purposed back to the uniform supply people.

Optimistic or Marketing Hype?

When my fair city of Aiken was first laid out back in the late 1800’s they started by naming the few streets after South Carolina Counties. As the city grew north and west they eventually ran out of county names, so they started adding US state names. Before the Bomb Plant development just blew-up the size of town to the south it went east a bit and they used some SC city names.

A dozen or so years ago the Aiken Corporation1 built a 30,0000 sq.ft. spec building on the northeast side of town on Beaufort Street across from where Hampton Avenue ended. The city provided the services, water, sewer and paved in a little road extending Hampton. The building was on one of the two 6 acres lots and they zoned it light industrial and they created a small industrial park. Unfortunately, light industry never came. Over the years there have been inquires about the building and every once in a while there will be a little blurb in the paper about something thinking of moving there, but the monolithic appearing structure still sits empty.

This morning on the way to work, my usual route takes me right by the building, I noticed a new street sign leading into the “industrial park” where our underutilized sits. Instead of keeping it Hampton Ave or naming it Hampton Ave Ext, they gave it a different name. In keeping with the city name naming structure it has a sign that says Prosperity even though Google thinks it is still Hampton Ave NE.

Who’s Guarding The Fort?

My sister and her husband live in a gated community so to deliver her the breakfast bagels we reminded her to call down to the gate house and let them know we were coming to visit on Sunday. So, when we turned into the access road to Carriage Park I drove right up to the left gate to identify myself to the person on duty. To my surprise, at 8:30 AM, it was empty. Hmmmm, now what?

I backed up 50 feet to the call box and tried to figure out how to get to their name using a keypad and no scroll bar. Donna said, “Just call the house.” Ooh, that’s right, I have a smart phone of my own now. I call the house phone. No answer2, so I leave a message, ‘We are at the gate, but there is no one to let us in, what’s the code?’ ” As we are idling there waiting for any sort of response, another car pulls in the access road and stops a few feet behind us. They must not live in the sub-division either or they would have driven up to the right-hand gate where their little transponder would automatically cause the arm to raise letting them in.

As Donna and I are discussing our options the car behind me loses patience and whips around me in a big hurry and sudden stops at the gate house to display his anger at my inaction. About this time a resident pulls slowly up to the right gate causing the arm to start to go up to let them in. I throw it in first and time my run to hit the opening at the same time as the back end of the resident’s SUV. We’re in! Leaving frustrated man stuck outside, now possibly even more so.3

Snap Crash Phhhhfft Thud

Tuesday is trash/recycle day in our neighborhood. It is also yard waste pickup day. If you have leaves or lawn clippings or tree trimmings all you need to do is leave them on the street where the city picks it up and takes it away. Usually in the fall they will come around a couple times wit h a big vacuum truck, but most of the time it is with an open top trailer with a claw arm like you see at the carnival where you waste a lot of money trying to pick up a small stuffed animal.

Over the weekend our next door neighbor cleaned the last of leaves out of his back yard and lined them up along the curb. When we came home, we couldn’t get to our driveway because the truck was parked in the middle of the street. We waited a few minutes, but you could tell he was going to be at it a while, so we backed up a few feet and took a cross street and went around the back to come in the other way. Donna walked out and checked the mail. The guy was still at it. I took a rake and swept a small branch off the roof over the front door which Donna then took out to the street to add it to leaf pile. We went inside and read through the mail, both snail and e.

We were both changing from work attire into our “play” clothes when we heard a series of loud noises: Snap. Crash. Phhhhfft. Thud. Donna asked, “What was that?” Me, “I don’t know.” She goes to the kitchen window and says, “There is wire down in the driveway! Come look!” I say, “That’s the phone line.”1 Her, “The guy must have hit with his truck. He’s still there, go tell him.” Me, “Let me get some pants on first.”

By the time I get dressed, put some shoes on and open the front door, the truck takes off down the street. We go out to survey the damage. The phone line ran from top of the end of the house along the driveway to across the street. It is still attached to the eave of the house, but it has been yanked off the line over on the other side of the street and wrapped itself around the tree partway down the side of the driveway. That is when Donna points over to the “natural area” on the other side of the lawn and asks, “What’s that?” It is the lamp that was on top of the post in the holly bush at the end of the driveway. As she put it, “That wire decapitated2 the lamp post.”

I went back in the house and looked up the city’s Public Works Dept. phone number ion the web. The page showed that their work hours were 8:15 to 5:00. It was about 20 minutes to five so naturally they didn’t answer the phone. So I left a message to call me at home, hoping that they would call before the day was over. You know what they say, “Hope in one hand, $%&@ in the other.”

Wednesday moring I called the number at 7:45 to leave another message to have them call my work phone. Someone answered on the second ring. I told the nice lady my story and she said, “Hold on, I’ll go get the supervisor.” Two or three minutes later she come back on, “I see his truck, maybe he’s in a meeting. Could you hold on a little while longer? That is in the other building.” Two or three minutes later she’s back, “Let me transfer you.” I get a quik ring and the supervisor’s voice mail kicks in; I’m out of the office until Monday the 13th (which is next week), leave a message or for immediate assistance dial 642-extention.

That was the same number I dialed in the first place, so I called it again. A different woman, who has obviously heard my story from the first, picks up the phone and says, “We don’t start work until 8:15.” So I say, “I know, was just trying to leave a message, but the supervisor’s voice mail says he won’t be in until next week and I wonder who I should tell about this problem.” “He is here. Hold on I’ll go get him.”

Two or three minutes later she’s back with a male voice on the speaker phone. I tell my story again and the man says, “What’s your adress, I’ll go by and see what we have to do, then call you back.” Within a hour he calls back. “I couldn’t find a light just like yours at BBHIW #1 or BBHIW #2 or Ace Harware. Do you want me to send you some pictures and you can choose?” I tell him, “It really doesn’t matter much to me, just as long as it is similar, i.e. black, 4 clear sides, whatever.” “OK, I’ll get you fixed up.”

I took Donna home at lunch as she was taking a half day off and when we pulled into the driveway there was a lamp already on top of the post. It wasn’t lit up though, there was no bulb in it. About that time, a City of Aiken truck pulled up and our male voiced supervisor popped out. “I had to go get a different bulb because the original one I picked out didn’t fit.” While he was installing the bulb he mentioned that he had called AT&T for us so they could come out and fix the wire.3

The whole light assembly is smaller than the one it replaced, but doesn’t look too bad. The bulb they put in it is super bright, when I looked out the window this morning when it was still dark out, it looked like we had a lighthouse at the end of the driveway, just not rotating.

1. This is no great loss as we get our phone service through the cable company.
2. As it might have done to any humans standing in the driveway had the truck pulled away about fifteen minutes earlier.
3. I wonder how long it take for that to happen? See #1 above.