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| Easton's Beach, Portsmouth, RI |
Anyhoo, summer is indeed winding down. I know a lot of people who will be "closing" their pools as Monday was Labor Day. Not that it's going to suddenly get cold or anything, I guess that's just as good a time as any.
If I had a pool, no doubt it would be "closing" sometime in November. About the same time I dismount the air conditioning units and store them away. If I'm lucky I get to do that on a warm(ish) day with no rain. Believe me, I've done it on cold days with the rain pouring down, ya gotta be quick to pull the unit out, then close the window. With The Missus Herself on "closing the window" duty we get it done.
She will often ask why we didn't take them down earlier. My answer is invariably "We might still need them! It isn't winter yet!" I've been right once or twice in nineteen years. Sorta that whole "even a stopped clock is right twice a day." Not that you could tell exactly when those two times were. Unless you had a functioning clock. If you did, why do you still have the broken one? No doubt you're operating on the Sarge's "you never know when that might come in handy" theory.
Pulled the hard drives from a bunch of old computers that the "boss" has been agitating to get rid of. Lord knows we need the closet space for something, prolly for something she ain't bought yet but soon will. Those computers are old, not even Juvat's teachers would want them.
Which is alright, we need more of whatever it is she's going to buy eventually. Besides I'm kinda in the dog house on the whole electric drum kit purchase thing from Friday last. While it is often better to ask forgiveness (meaning it will happen) than to ask permission (meaning it will never happen), sometimes the penance which will be due is rather a bother.
Oh well, life is too short to worry (too much) about such things. So I don't. Much.
Ya....that window AC may get yanked sometime this month, depends on the forecast. Last Saturday it hit 86 and the dewpoint was in the low seventies. As to the puphouse.... there's the price you paid for something, the price you told Her you paid, and there's the price you pay when She finds out the price you paid....although your situation is permission/forgiveness.....good luck there Sarge.
ReplyDeleteIt is what it is.
DeleteI grew up in Lubbock, TX. We did winter prep that I forgot about. We took down the screens, and put plastic over them. It was held by paper strips and tacks. I think they sold the kit at Furr's or Gibson's. We did all the but the south facing windows...
ReplyDeleteThe sound of the winter wind against those is a fond memory. Sinking deep in the bed with a heavy quilt on top... cold nose in the morning.... The "whump" of the floor furnace coming on.... Thanks for kicking that rock over, Sarge.... There were some things about childhood that I miss... With this much distance from them!!
I'm hoping the heat breaks soon, we've been a 100 plus since May. It's getting a bit old...
I drove through Lubbock back in January of '87. There must have been a foot of snow on the ground, the top few inches having fallen the night before I drove through.
DeleteSurprised me, prior to that I always thought winter in Texas was just cooler than summer in Texas, but that's it. Now I know better!
Winters in Lubbock could get very bitter, not in actual temperature, but wind chill. Between Montana and Big Spring, there's nothing to stop the wind. Wind chills in the negative double digits were not uncommon. But the USAF ROTC had a Mindset similar to what you expressed. Parka's were not authorized. Class A's were the best one could do. Didn't provide much protection on Thursdays. Travel between buildings was usually performed based on which were unlocked, rather than the shortest route.
DeleteDang, sounds like you've "been there, done that," Juvat!
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DeleteI almost got a bad frostbite on my nose walking from class past Jones stadium. The wind was 30 from the 00, and the windchill was well below zero. I had to turn around like a cow and put my tail to the wind several times. You didn't have to move out there to have snot blow into your ears. That north wind would do it for you easily.
DeleteWe lost all our fruit trees the winter of 76-77. It didn't get above 20 for 2 weeks as I remember. I had to carry water down to the barn as the water was frozen solid for a month. Two 5 gallon buckets of water doesn't go far with 3 cows. I don't miss that part of growing up.
Coulda bought a tuba!
ReplyDeleteHahaha!
DeleteWindow AC on ground level rooms is the thieves invitation to your stuff.
ReplyDeleteWell there is that.
DeleteThe pool will get put into seasonal mothball status next week. That way we stop the clock on running the pump and adding chemicals.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that owning a pool is sort of the inverse of owning a boat. The pool would be defined as a hole in the ground, filled with water, into which one puts money.
The preparation for winter is a process, and we have learned to not put the lawnmowers away too early, and we have also learned to not put the snowthrower away too early in spring.
Speaking of closed dining places, I fondly remember eating at Sala's in Newport.
Good post.
Most pool owners of my aquaintance say the same. Still and all, I'd like to have one, especially when the grandkids come to visit.
DeleteWe still have the ocean as an option.
I've heard people speak of Sala's, never made it there. Of course, we try to avoid Newport in the summer and we have a lot of restaurants closer to home as well.
Thanks John.
My ship had pulled into the downsized Newport Naval Station in '77 (ish) for a tuneup, and one of locals suggested eating at Sala's. At that time Sala's was near the working sailor part of town. As you mentioned, Newport isn't the same now as it was in the seventies.
Deletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1977/03/27/rhode-island-4-years-later-pullout-still-hurts/73d45f3b-1a1e-422e-9836-373923d36442/?utm_term=.d73e50aab038
Sala's lasted until 2012, from what I can find on the Interwebz.
DeleteWhy the Feds shut down so much of the Navy here in Rhode Island probably has more to do with politics than logic.
Of course it was politics.
DeleteThe Look what the Feds shut down here in California, not just Navy, but the all the other branches, as well.
Don’t worry much about window units here in the Central Valley, we have the whole house heating ang cooling.
The pool will go into ‘winter’ mode when the Sun no longer can keep it warm enough for human occupation.
That will be when the kids no longer ask if they can swim.
There are times that I think the government is trying to make a potential adversary's targeting problem easier.
DeleteAll the eggs in maybe two, or three, baskets.
Oh, and my teachers.....
ReplyDeleteIf their computer is not the latest model, they're lobbying (swahili for bitchin') for new ones. The lobbying process starts with "I can't teach....". My listening stops with "I can't teach."
December 31st 2018. 118. "Free at last, Free at last, great googly moogly, Free at Last"
December 31st at 17:01 you go from employee to $500 an hour plus perdiem, $1,500 after hours, you retain the rights to any software.
DeleteAnd they'll call you lots in the first month or two. Makes for a nice amount of fun-money..
Back at the PD, before they got the last round of computers, I would go raid the surplus shed where the City Offices (of Mordor) would send their last year's product and snag mice, keyboards, monitors and memory. Amazing how a 1 year old monitor just doesn't work as well as one that's brand new. At the time we at the PD were running about 4-5 years behind in replacement. I snagged a super deal, 2 x 25" flat-screen monitors (I was rocking a 19" CRT at the time) that I had to clean lipstick and nail polish off the screen and then suddenly they worked! The PD IT guy finally asked me not to do that anymore as he was getting complaints from other PD staff asses that I had better stuff than they did.
We'd get our 'new' desks from city hall, or the utility, by cruising the surplus sheds at the end of the fiscal year (that whole sudden buying to not 'lose' budget money.
Juvat - Add one year. That's what I'm shooting for.
Delete(As to "I can't teach..." - we know the real meaning there. As you have taught us.)
Beans - Dealing with idiot bureaucracies is no fun. Then again, "idiot bureaucracy" is redundant.
DeleteHmmmm. juvat. Must be hard not to smart-mouth off when they say they can't teach because of out-of-date combonkulator. I know my smart-arse thought of at least 5 quick retorts that would have the teachers out in the yard digging 'safe spaces' while crying. And that's me being nice.
DeleteI never smart-mouthed off to the other staff-asses at work, nope, never ever got called into the boss's office to be told to play nice with the other children.
Why yes, this is my skeptical face.
DeleteAre you planning on sucking all the fun off the hard drives and then going all Shrillery on them?
ReplyDeleteI always found it interesting that my stuff was junk but her stuff was 'needful things.' Not that Mrs. Andrew is ever wrong, oh, no. I mean, everyone needs 4x21 gallon totes full of beading supplies, right? Or 5 guitars...
Moving from a house to an apartment was an interesting time. Kinda like moving in the military, we got to shed stuff right and left. Still got the beads, but only have 2 guitars now...
Eventually all of the useful stuff on the hard drives will migrate elsewhere. Then the hard drives will go into hiding. (They're small enough that they can be stowed where Momma won't see 'em.)
DeleteThere are two of us, plus the cats. We lived in smaller places when it was the command staff, the three chilluns, and two felines. But we had less stuff. Becoming civilians gave us the opportunity to have more stuff. It's a mixed bag as to whether or not we actually need more stuff.
Okay, we don't need it, but it's "nice to have." As long as someone would stop indicating that "we need a bigger house." When the one we have is PAID FOR. Doesn't bother me, no, not at all.
I recommend that you, next time she's saying the house is too small, not go around and ask when the last time she used this or that. We don't want to find out how many kimchi jars you'd fit into.
DeleteWell yes, there is that. (I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid. I think.)
DeleteAnd what is this 'window ac' thingy you talk about. You people up north are weird. An a/c unit just for your window. We people of the South are smart as we coo the whole house.
ReplyDeleteWindow a/c. Weird...
For some reason, the North bought into this fantasy that, "Hey, this is the North, it's always cool up here." Same problem when I was a kid, temps in the triple digits, air conditioning was, "leave the window open and pray for a breeze."
DeleteYeah, we sweat a lot for three months out of the year. (Unless one has a newer house with central air, or window AC units.)
Daun heah in the Saouth, Mr. Carrier is up there with Robert E. Lee and John Moses Browning as a saintly man. There really should be a Carrier Day as a National Holiday. You could call it National Chill Day.
DeleteI'm all in on that.
DeleteThe print out from the weather service was blurred, and i am not sure if we are going to get 3.5" of rain tonight, or 35'. We don't need either, we have gotten over two feet in the last 10 days. I live in Baraboo, WI, on the Baraboo River. The Baraboo is 10 feet above flood atage right now.
ReplyDeleteOuch!
Delete