As luck would have it

Friday 8:00 PM

We get a phone call from a friend saying they were going to give us our wedding present early.  A $1200 pillowtop mattress.  Beautiful, comfy, $1200 mattress.  “We’ll pick it up tomorrow” we say.

Saturday 1:00 PM

Since we don’t have a truck of our own, we borrowed my fiancee’s dad’s truck.  Immediately, upon driving away, we notice a little sputtering, but no big deal.

Saturday 2:30 PM

Since we don’t have any room to put our old mattress, we take it to the dump in anticipation of the new one.

Saturday 5:00 PM

We show up with the truck at our friends house.  We wrap the mattress with a tarp.  Secure it in the truck.  Double check the tie-downs.  Triple check the tie downs.  All clear.

Saturday 9:00 PM

After watching the Patriots beat the Giants, we decide to head out.  We are driving up Highway 9 when I notice the tarp stopped flapping.  “I think we lost the tarp” I say.  Ingrid then looks back and screams “THE WHOLE FUCKING MATTRESS IS GONE!!!!”  Me, not thinking that’s really possible with all the tie-downs, think to myself OK… and then look in the rear view mirror to see two cars swerve off the road.

Saturday 9:01 PM

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!“

Saturday 9:03 PM

I turn around and go back to where the cars are.  We pull up and the 2 cars (one of them being a truck) see us pull up and then book out of there (our truck could have been easily mistaken for a Washington State Patrol).  We get out and look at the mattress.

Tire tracks.  Dirt.  Nasty water.  Broken springs.  Tufts of mattress material all over.  Oh, and there is the tarp we lost too.

We grab the mattress and throw it in the back of the truck (again), but with all the broken coils, it fits much better this time.  We get the hell out of there….

Saturday 9:30 PM

As we get home, the truck is starting to sputter more, but oh well.  We’re home now.  We unload the truck and try to make to it Sears to get a new mattress.

Oh, well, Sears is closed.  Damn.  Oh well.  We had back home.

Saturday 10:00 PM

Since we have no bed, we hijack my step-daughters bed (which used to be mine anyway).  It’s been too long of a day, so we go to bed – all sorts of pissed off.

Sunday 1:00 AM

SNAP! BANG! We are startled awake.  We are at a 30 degree angle.  One corner of the bed decides to snap apart which caused the mattress to tilt.  FUCK.  ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!  Whatever.  I’m not doing anything about it right now.  I’ll just deal.

Throughout the day Sunday…

The truck finally gets to the point of breaking down, so we take it back to dad’s.  We shop for hours and finally find a good replacement mattress.  Once we get our new mattress home, we carry it upstairs and put it on the bed.  Mission 1, dirty and hell-bent, but complete.

Now, I have to fix my step-daughter’s bed.  It’s an Ikea bed, so if you aren’t aware, all the hardware is custom made and you have to get it directly from Ikea.  Ikea is over an hour away from my house.  So, I call ahead and verify they have the hardware.  I am assured they do.

I drive all the way there and lo’ and behold, they don’t have it – but “this should work” and they give me hardware that looks similar.  Now I drive all the way back home.

Go figure, the hardware doesn’t work.  Fuck it.  I jimmy-rigged it.  I got a bunch of heavy duty screws and drilled that bitch together. Finally got it it all done.  Mission 2… accomplished.

What a weekend.

Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough… a buddy of mine committed suicide on Thursday night.  Jumped right off the Aurora bridge, equivalent to a 15 story drop. 

What an end to 2007.  I will gladly reign in the new year.

World Class Genius

Bill says Hillary is a “world class genius”.  Tell me, would a genius do this?  Check it out:

Clinton urges voters to caucus on the wrong day

I’ll take a Big Mac and a Double-1/4 Pounder Please

Very interesting article.  Pretty long though, so if you don’t have time, here’s the story in a nutshell:

No one has ever actually proven that saturated fat is linked to heart problems, including heart disease and high cholesterol.  It was a media frenzy after a scientist’s study in 1953 that was later proven as inaccurate once the study was broadened to a much larger group of countries.

I also recently heard that Vitamin C isn’t actually proven to improve the immune system.  I don’t have an article for that, but someone did told me.

Next week, we’ll see a new article that will be titled “Gravity… is it real?!”

The Real Inconvenient Truth

Getting a grip

Along with millions of other people, I have been taking care of Christmas shopping over the last few weeks.  It’s normally about this time of year that I get all pissy.

Not because I hate Christmas – I love it actually.  Not because of the shopping madness – I love that too. 

What usually pisses me off this time of year is that people get so caught up in the decade-old-ball-busting political correctness.  You know, the mindset that disallows people to say “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Hanuka”, or “Happy Kwanzaa”.

This year however, has been a different story.  Everywhere I go, I get a “Merry Christmas!”.  Only once have I got the “Happy Holidays” crap.  Retail establishments, restaurants, and even a Jewish guy… all said “Merry Christmas!”

I am so happy to be able to say “Merry Chrismas!” back to everyone.  Except for the Jewish guy.  I said “Happy Hanuka” to him.  He gave me a thumbs up. 

This is how it should be!  Let everyone be who they are, let them celebrate their holiday no matter what religion it is derived from.  No need to make up words like “Christmahanukwanzaka”.  Just plain old “Merry Christmas” or “Happy [insert holiday]“.  How simple.

Way to go people!  Keep getting over yourselves like this and who knows, maybe one day we can all get along. 

The Sock Monster

So, we got a new dog about 2 weeks ago.  I friggin love this dog.  He is great.  Well trained, relaxes when he’s inside, and will always stay right by my side.

I thought he didn’t ever eat anything outside of his own toys, but today he proved me wrong.  If you have a weak stomach and/or easily dry heave, you may just want to stop reading now.

I was just outside playing fetch with him and at one point he just stopped and crouched to take a dump.

He looked almost in pain.  Really trying to squeeze one out.  I didn’t really think anything of it.  Until something caught my eye…

Something brownish-white finally came out. 

What the heck?! I think to myself.  I had to check it out.

Oh…  My…  God. 

My dog just pooped a sock.

You’d think cotton would break down in a dog’s digestive system, but no… it most certainly didn’t.  It was a whole freaking sock.

I think I’ll let the pooper scooper take this one on…

Floor Plans

After that last post, I decided to search around for more details on Bush’s house and found this parody site on this floor plans.  The pictures below are all excerpted from http://www.westernwhitehouse.org/

First Floor:

 

Second Floor:

Attic:

Ah, that is quality right there.

Tale of Two Houses

I’ve touched on a very similar subject before, but this is quite interesting…  This is the “Tale of Two Houses”.

House #1:   

 

A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas.  Add a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas.  In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year.  The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400.  In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home.  This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern “snow belt” area.  It’s in the South.

House #2:
 
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university.  This house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide.  The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American Southwest.  A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground.
 
The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer.  The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter the electricity required for a conventional heating/ cooling system.  Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern.  Wastewater from showers, sinks and  toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern.  The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house.   Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.    

~~~~~
HOUSE #1 is outside Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of environmentalist and filmmaker Al Gore.  

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.   

Interesting.

Problem Solved

A friend sent this to me in email.  It was so good I had to share!

Here’s an idea…
 
Bush wants us to cut the amount of gas we use…

The best way to stop using so much gas is to deport 11 million illegal immigrants!

That would be 11 million less people using our gas and the price of gas would come down…
 
Bring our troops home from Iraq to guard the Border…
 
When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the border, hand him a canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq…

Tell him if he wants to come to America then he must serve a tour in the military…  Give him a soldier’s pay while he’s there and tax him on it…
 
After his tour, he will be allowed to become a citizen since he defended this country…  He will also be registered to be taxed and be a legal patriot…
 
This option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a solution for the troops in Iraq and the aliens trying to make a better life for themselves…
 
If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway, without the canteen, rifle or ammo…  Problem solved…

If you think this is a good solution to both the problems, forward it to your friends…

Jackassery Award of the Day, Volume 4

As many already know, Western Washington suffered quite the storm the last few days.  We started off with some snow and then immediately a downpour of rain came down.  In a 24 hour time period, some areas got almost 15 inches of rain, not including the already melting snow.  We ended up having very large floods that shut down entire cities and a large section of I-5, our main freeway in the state with highest number of travelers on a day-to-day basis.

80,000 people without power.  Highways shut down.  Thousands upon thousands of people with homes completely flooded out.  Those same thousands flooding (no pun intended) to local Red Cross shelters.  6 people died as a result of this storm.

Lo’ and behold, our trustworthy congressman Jay Inslee sent an email (actually, each person got two of them) explaining the impact of the storm and that “Residents whose homes have become uninhabitable due to flooding should go to the nearest shelter.  Shelters can be found at the following locations…”

Hold up.  Did this guy seriously just email instructions saying that if your “power is out and/or your house is flooded, go to a Red Cross”?

I shouldn’t have to call out the obvious here… If your house is flooded and/or your power is out, I don’t think you will have the ability to check your email to get this information!  You’re probably just a little too busy trying to be rescued by the guys in the boats while you are standing on your roof.

Good thing my tax dollars were spent sending these emails to everyone in Western Washington.  Not only that, but everyone I know who received this email actually got it twice.  Sure one or two emails aren’t expensive, but when you send 2 emails to millions of residents in Western Washington, it adds up to a good sum of money.  A good sum of money that could have been used on extra man-power to rescue the rest of the people still stuck on their roofs.  You know, the ones that can’t check their email.

Jay Inslee, you win the Jackassery Award of the Day!