Hot Dirty Man Work

Early Saturday morning, I took a phone call from a fellow retired Navy friend, Mike. Mike and I worked together for a few months when I was stationed in Grand Rapids from 2001-2003. He served as the Senior Enlisted Advisor at Navy-Marine Corps Reserve Center Grand Rapids and he retired from the Navy in 2006. Mike bought a home in in a rural area of Lowell back in 2003, and he year by year he has cleared some of the trees from his property, built a pole barn, put up some fences for his horses and livestock, etc. Yep, Mike is quite handy.

Back to the phone call. Mike called me to see if I would like to help him cut up and split some wood. I have helped him in the past and in return, Mike would give me my share of "sweat equity" firewood. Deirdre and I were also going to meet Mike and his wife Rhonda for dinner later in the day, so it seemed like a good idea to spend a few hours with him cutting up some wood, plus I will be set for firewood for next winter.

The trees that we cut up were located a few miles from his house. A very large oak tree had fallen due to natural forces, and the property owner (a 77 year old retiree named Gil) wanted to get rid of the tree. Apparently another person had started cutting up the tree but apparently he gave up because the tree was too large. However, Mike has a very large Stihl chainsaw which was easily up to the task.

I arrived at Mike's house around 1230 and soon thereafter we left for the tree. It was a very, very large oak tree. Mike gave me some specific tasking to start cutting up two of the limbs of the tree while he started to work on the main trunk. Cutting up firewood is, as the Maven would say, "Hot dirty man work." I will tell you that this effort to cut up the wood was precisely that. While the outside air temp was around 45F, there was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining brightly upon us. Quite quickly, I was hot and dirty and having a blast. I used my Husqvarna 345 chainsaw to work on the limbs, cutting the wood into 18 inch long pieces. 18 inches is a standard size for most fireplaces and wood stove, and I learned the first time I cut wood with Mike that under no circumstances should the wood I am cutting be much longer or shorter than 18 inches. I suppose that there are lots of unwritten rules about cutting and splitting firewood, and each time I work with Mike I learn a few new ones.

We spent about an hour cutting up the limbs and the trunk, so we were now about 1/3 done with our work. After you cut the wood into 18 inch pieces, you have to split it. I used one of Mike's wood mauls and started chopping away. The maul is a simple tool and it does an excellent job of splitting the round pieces of wood in half. The work goes something like this: Set the log up on the ground, swing the maul and split the log. Repeat until all the logs are split. This effort took about 45 minutes and once the splitting was done, we loaded the wood into the back of Mike's truck. Loading the wood did not take that long, and as soon as the the wood was in the truck bed, we went to his house to off load. We literally threw the wood out of the back of his truck on to the ground, and Mike said to me, "I will stack it later. You should get back to East Grand Rapids to get cleaned up before dinner." Who was I to refuse the orders of a Navy Chief Petty Officer? I headed home and I was hot and dirty. I got home sucked down a couple bottles of Fruit2O and got cleaned up in preparation to head back to Lowell to have dinner with Mike and his wife Rhonda.

At the end of the day, I spent about 3 hours cutting and splitting wood. Mike and I were able to catch up on the happenings in our lives, cut up and split some wood, and basically enjoy some time outdoors in one of the nicest days so far this year.

A holiday I like!

Gentle reader, tomorrow, a little before noon EDT, the vernal equinox will occur. This means that the sun will be directly over the Equator. Technically, the equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun. Thus, the Sun is vertically above a point on the Equator. Since this blog is about the life and times here in a place just East of the Equator, I felt that it is my civic duty to report such celestial occurrences when able.

Enjoy the sun as we will be seeing a little more of it each day for the next few months!

A holiday I dread...

Author's Note: I am recycling the post I wrote last year just before St. Patrick's Day. Frankly, I think that it is some of the better prose I have written in support of this blog.

So, a Happy St. Patrick's Day to all, and I hope that the peasants amongst us enjoy some corned beef and cabbage today. They can have my share, too.



Those of you who know my heritage know that I am half Irish and half German. My mother's family came over from County Mayo in the 1800s and settled in eastern Pennsylvania. The Irish did not stray far away from other Irish when it came to marriage, so I come from a long line of Hastings and Clancys. My father, however, is a first generation German. His mother and father emigrated to the United States in 1921. My parents met when they were both stationed at Parks Air Force Base in California. They married and moved back to Michigan where I was born and raised. Well, my mother is quite proud of her Irish heritage and when I was growing up, St. Patrick's Day was always a cause for celebration. We would go to the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in downtown Detroit, we would wear green clothing and sometimes put on silly hats and pretend to be leprechauns. One part of the celebration was the evening meal, which invariably was Corned Beef and Cabbage. For the life of me, I think that the reason why so many Irish left the Emerald Isle is because like me, they could not stand this vile cut of seasoned meat.

Back to my story. Each St. Patrick's Day my family would look forward to eating what was essentially boiled shoe leather. My mother would fill a cauldron with water, throw in a hunk of corned beer, some potatoes, cabbage, maybe some salt and pepper, perhaps some celery for flavor. How one could ever flavor shoe leather is beyond me, but she would try nevertheless. The aroma of this dank cut of meat would fill the house, so I would try to spend as much time as possible outdoors whenever this "dish" was being prepared. After my father came home from work, the table would be set and the the carcass of beef would be removed from the pot, along with the soggy vegetables and potatoes. My siblings would rejoice at the thought of the meat, while I could barely keep myself from retching at the stench of it.

So, we would then take our places at the table, grace would be said and then my parents and siblings would relish in the consumption of this thoroughly proletarian dish. I was forced to eat this wretched excuse for a meal, so I would slather as much mustard as possible between two pieces of bread, then put a slice of this offensive meat there as well. I would then try to gulp this down, chewing as little as possible so that I would not have to taste it, much.

So, while I applaud the celebration of the birth of the patron saint of Ireland, to this day I cannot stomach the smell, taste or appearance of corned beef. I will probably have a beer or two, maybe even a green one. I will leave the consumption of corned beef to the peasants.

Before I forget...

Happy Pi Day!

Boy's Night Out

Last night was my first "Boy's Night Out" in a while and I am happy to report that from all published accounts, the evening was an unqualified success. One of my co-workers at the General approached me on Monday and asked if I would be interested in seeing the movie Watchmen on Friday night, He felt that we could grab a bite of dinner and perhaps a few cold, adult beverages before the movie. I quickly said yes. A fellow co-worker needed a little effort to "work the issue" with his better half, but at the end of the discussion, the three of us left work at 1630 and headed to an IMAX theater to see the movie.



We went to the theater, first, to purchase tickets for the 1830 show, then we hoofed it about 150 feet to the nearby Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. I enjoyed a serving of Caribbean Jerk and Hot wings, along with some celery and blue cheese dressing. I washed it down with some Budweiser American Ale, which I must say is might tasty. Jon and Larry (my co-workers) and I engaged in some great conversation and laughed a lot about life, the universe and everything.

We settled out bill with our waitress and headed to the IMAX theater. A movie in IMAX is pretty impressive. While each IMAX screen is custom fit to the theater, the screen at Celebration Cinema is 70 feet wide and 55 feet high, so the images from the movie are literally in your face. Now matter where you sit in the theater, you have a great view of the screen.

We settled into our seats and a few minutes later we say trailers for some upcoming movies. After 10 minutes of trailers, the movie began. Watchmen was originally a serial comic book, written in 12 installments from September, 1986 - October 1987. At that time, I was serving aboard USS NIAGARA FALLS (AFS 3). The only communication I received was via snail mail. Yes, for the younger readers of this blog, there was a time before the Internet, e-mail and instant messaging. Anyhow, one of my roommates from college started sending me the comic book each month as it was published. Over the course of 12 months, I read the story of the Watchmen. It was a great read to fill some of my extremely limited spare time when I was deployed. I never imagined that the comic book would be made into a movie because of its complexity, but technology has a wonderful way of making things happen.

Watchmen is definitely not a movie for children nor is it a "feel good movie." It has action, drama, suspense, a lot of violence, some skin (male and female), a few moral tales and in this reviewer's opinion, Watchmen is an excellent movie. My co-workers liked the movie too, and we are all hoping to have another "Boy's Night Out" combining a dinner, beers and a movie in the near future.

NO TALKING NEEDED!

Well, it is that magical time of the year here, East of the Equator. Dancing with the Stars began its new season. What that means to this blogger is that for at least two nights per week for the next 7-8 weeks, Deirdre does not need or require me to say anything to her while Dancing with the Stars is being broadcast. Life agrees with me.

Don't forget to Sping Ahead!

Well, it is that time of year again here east of the equator. It is time to advance our clocks and spring ahead into Daylight Saving Time. Well, it is time to do so unless you are at the Hacienda. The Maven is not much of a fan of DST. Hopefully, tomorrow will not be too much of a shock to her system.

My baby has new shoes!

Late yesterday afternoon, I took my 2007 328i to my local BMW dealership to change the oil. The car does not have set service intervals, rather there is are a multitude of sensors which determines collectively when the car needs service. While my car was being serviced, I waited in a customer lounge and I knocked out some work. Well, after about 20 minutes, the service rep came to me and informed me that my tires needed to be replaced. The tires had 27,300 miles on them. The original issue tires were run flat tires, and they cost about $400 each. These tires were designed to allow you to drive 100 miles at 50MPH with no air pressure in the tires. This is a great idea, but the devil is in the details. Run flat tires cannot be repaired when they are damaged, so each and every time a tire is damaged, you have to replaced the tire. Now that would not be so bad, except that the tires have a much shorter wear life than "conventional" tires, and they are twice as expensive to boot.

As soon as the service tech told me that I needed 4 new tires, I said to him, "So how much would this cost me?"

Jason (the service guy) said, "It will be around $1200. Do you want me to replace them."

I said to him, "I do not have the time to wait to get them replaced, plus I usually get my tires locally."

Jason said, "No problem. However, you might not find much of a price difference elsewhere for the RFTs. We will note that you need new tires and maybe replace them the next time you are in for service."

I thanked Jason and as soon as the oil change was done, I went to see my friends at Ronda Tire. Ronda is a local tire and automotive service place where I have purchased all my tires the past 8 years. Tim Ronda is sort of a personal friend of mine. Tim took one look at my RFTs and said, "You need new tires. Do you want to go back to conventional tires? I can save you a lot of money if you do."

It was a no brainer. The RFTs were a lot noisier than conventional tires, plus the service life of the tires was half the life of conventional tires and they cost twice as much. Now, I no longer have a spare (Tim is working on this for me), but in my life I have had three flat tires. Two of the flat tires I have had have been run flat tires, both of which went flat in the past 12 months. I was done.

So, late this afternoon I dropped my car off, said hello to Tim and about 90 minutes later I had four new Bridgestone Potenza G019 tires for my car. As soon as I pulled on to the street in front of Ronda Tire, I knew that I had made the right decision. The ride was smooth and quite. For the reader so this blog you have own or currently operate a BMW, you know the feeling I am talking about.

Sure, I not have a spare, currently, but one issue at a time.

A simple explanation of how we got here...

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Berlin. In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger
(thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar.

Taking advantage of her customers' freedom from immediate payment constraints, Heidi increases her prices for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes
these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics
as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer
assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these bbreviations mean and how the securities are guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager of the bank
(subsequently fired, of course, due his negativity) decides that slowly the time
has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar.

However, they cannot pay back the debts.

Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95%. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80%.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar, having granted her generous payment due dates and
having invested in the securities are faced with a new situation. Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy; her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor.

The bank is saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties.

The funds required for this purpose are obtained by a tax levied on the non-drinkers.

So tell me again why my wealth should be re-distributed to those who were the drinkers in this analogy? For those "non-drinkers" out there, hold on to your wallets.

Davey Jones Dinner

For an update on what happened last night east of the equator, please click here.