Category: Life

Gentle reader, I have wanted to be a real writer for a long, long time. When I first started keeping track of submissions, I used notebooks to track which stories, essays, or poems (later novels and plays) I sent and to which publishers along with the date I sent them. I can remember the powder blue cover on the notebook where I entered my first few lines in the middle 1980s, when I precociously started sending my middle school and high school work to major national magazines (and began amassing a vast collection of rejection letters).

I started a second notebook, briefly, in December of 1995 (depicted above). I’m not sure if I misplaced my original notebook or if I filled it up; I haven’t laid my hands on it this morning, so it could be either (or an invitation to clean my office closet whose order was set when we moved to Nogglestead and has now turned to disorder as I have thrown things in and closed the door).

Somewhere around the turn of the century, I started using an Excel spreadsheet to track them. The file named Submission Record.xls has a first worksheet of 2002. Continue reading “Wherein Brian J. Defibs His Submission Records” →

As I mentioned, I left a full-time job for a return to consulting, and I’ve got a part time contract for the nonce, but I’ve been exploring other opportunities. I have had a lot of conversations over the last couple of months, but none have resulted in a job offer or contract. Sales pipeline, they call it. Discouraging, I call it.

I have been here before: When a full-time contract ends, I start reaching out looking for more work, but I also think, Man, I’m going to have so much free time! I start thinking about household projects I can complete. Did I mention I was painting my fence and deck again, and that I started this spring? Yeah, that’s not done yet, and I should have all this new free time, ainna?

Well, that’s not how it ends up. I get up in the morning, get the kids ready for school, stop by the gym a couple times a week, hit the grocery or the warehouse club, get home, maybe write a blog post or two, hit the job boards and maybe reach out to a company or two (working that discouragement pipeline), do some work on my part time contract, have some lunch, pick the boy or boys up from school, take them to martial arts a couple times a week, have dinner, do the evening chores, and sit down to read for an hour or so before bed. I spend parts of days at the laundromat or on household repairs. What extra time?

The gym can cut a couple hours off of the day at the beginning, and when I’m not working full time, I pick the youngest up after school on time instead of having him hang out in their “extended care” program (it’s not like he has extra-curricular activities in These Days) which cuts another two hours out of that extra time every day. And I don’t have a lot of blocks of an hour or thirty minutes between the daily activities–so I spend the time sitting at the desk, reading a blog or something. I certainly wouldn’t have the time to get the paint out and slap it on a couple pickets–or would I?

Then, a few weeks into the process, I notice how the cash flow is tightening. So I start getting concerned. I have a lot of places to tighten, of course: Not so many impulse purchases of CDs, fewer dollars-a-day stuff, not eating out, cutting the charitable giving. We’re not in dire straits by any sense of the imagination, but I get to thinking: What if I don’t get more work? What if this contract ends and I am completely out of work? I mean, even when I have a full time job, I tend to think I am only a couple weeks from being laid off, unemployed, and without prospects as an old man in a young persons’ industry.

So when I worry, I spend more time hitting the job boards instead of doing something else–writing, working on a new skill, or those aforementioned household projects. I get nervous when a day or so passes where I don’t find somewhere to apply or reach out. And, of course, the moments stolen with news and politics don’t lower my stress levels.

And then I get a full time job or contract, and all the “free time” and the promise it offered evaporates, and I really didn’t take advantage of it while I could.

This has happened before, of course, and I can explain all the stages of it very clearly. However, I’ll go through them all the same.

I’m a little afraid it’s how I live my whole life, though, frittering away time. Or maybe I just need to pick a better way of frittering.

Apparently, I dressed as a competent handyman.

For starters, the parts I ordered for dryer did not arrive in our mailbox until we had left for the football game so it was my first task for Saturday morning.

I replaced the thermal fuse easily, but the cycling thermostat did not look like the ones in the YouTube videos, so I had a bit of swearing and concern as I tried to figure out if there was a particular way to orient it. It has four wires to plug into it: Two on the top, and two on the sides. So it might make a difference which end is up, ainna? As it turns out, apparently not, but I only discovered that by plugging it in and turning it on. And the dryer worked again.

Then, late in the morning, whilst I was working, my mother-in-law called with some sort of HVAC issue. Apparently, fixing the dryer built my reputation for the day. So I went over to her house. I was the first person in her house since Ash Wednesday. Which was in February, remember, gentle reader–my mother-in-law has only had contact with people via phone and FaceTime since then. She has not interacted with my boys in nine months. But perhaps the miracle cure for the virus, a new Presidential administration, is in the offing.

At any rate, it was not a grand HVAC issue–she replaced the filter in her ceiling cold air return and could not get it to close. I gave it a quick look–both the thumb latches holding it in place were broken off–you could move the thumbs into closed position, but they lacked the hooks that grab into the duct frame.

The proper fix, of course, would be to go get a new vent assembly and put it in for her; however, she has HVAC professionals for that. Instead, I got a couple pieces of wire and fed them through the vent to wire it closed for the nonce.

Given that she had used putty/stickum adhesive to hold the filter in place, that cold air return is held together with bubble gum and baling wire. She initially told me I could tape it up; I guess she tried that first before calling me. So basically, it is bubble gum, baling wire, and cosmetic duct tape.

So the dryer has not caught fire nor electrocuted anyone in the three days that it has been operational, and we’re caught up on laundry, so I am a little pleased with it–although as I recount my appliance repair adventure here, I do it with the thought of my father, listening indulgently and patiently, as I regale some story of my competence to him and he cannot feign pride in my doing a simple task that any man should be able to do in ten minutes after a couple beers.

As for the cold air return, I got it closed and could tell my mother-in-law the proper repair, but I didn’t do it myself even though I might have been able to. So the accomplishment has an asterisk. Given the choice between the proper fix and a band-aid, I often go with the band-aid.

So maybe the word competent is not the best word choice.

I might have mentioned we’ve been going to high school football games. The school’s football team is not as good as a lot of the other teams in the district. Although they won handily their first home game, they lost the rest and entered the playoffs somehow with a 3-6 record.

But one thing I really enjoyed watching was #2, a running back/defensive back. According to the roster, he is five foot five and 140 pounds–which means he outweighed me at the end of high school, although I was seven inches taller. But he was playing football against, basically, men. Some of the linemen on his own team were well over six foot tall and three hundred pounds. So he comes up to the shoulders of a lot of his team mates. And opponents.

They’ve run the ball with him sometimes, and he had some good runs. I don’t know if the opposing players just couldn’t see him or what. And he would block on passing downs, sometimes bouncing completely off of the linemen or linebackers he’d run into. And he would get in on tackles, although I suspect that his method of tackling was mostly making the opposing players trip over him. And when he was not on the field, he often would walk on the sidelines, raising his arms like they do in the NFL to encourage the crowd to make some noise. He did all of this even when his team was down by three touchdowns.

He played the game with everything in him. He played football like Ed Gennero played football.

I have always cheered hardest for the undersized players who play with a lot of spirit. As I have often mentioned, I was pretty small and scrawny as a kid until I got close to six foot in the 11th grade (I am so old, I don’t say junior year any more since most of my years were junior years, and I am only hopeful I will make it to senior years). And I was not very coordinated or athletic until I hit my 40s, when the bar for performance was lower (just showing up makes me a triathlete).

When I’m doing triathlons or 5Ks, I generally end the even with something left in the tank. I’m not sure how to do things all the way, and a lot of things I don’t do with the right mind or with all my heart. Sometimes, I might only give a token effort or pull back when the going gets tough or the progress too slow.

In this broken, fallen, and gone-mad world, I’d like to do everything–work, play, learning–with my whole heart like #2 plays football, but that’s still a goal I aspire to. With inspiration where I can find it, sometimes on Friday nights in autumn.

My oldest son has started stepping out of the house right before bed for some reason. Perhaps to get his last taste of fresh air before turning in, perhaps to look for UFOs or intruders around Nogglestead or to groom us to expect this so he can eventually sneak out at night.

However, last night, he came to get me because he could not close the front door. The plate around the latch had worked its way loose, so I screwed it in again and closed the door.

This morning, as he was preparing to leave for school, he came down and told me the door was off its hinges. Exclamation points burst into my head as I went to see it, but the he meant the latch plate was loose again. I tightened it again, and he headed for the bus stop. But I knew I would have to figure out a way to permanently tighten the plate, but I figured that was a task for, you know, daylight.

Thirty minutes later, my youngest, whom I had not yet awakened, came to my office to say that the door was open, and he found Roark (yes, an orange-haired tabby named after that Roark) out front.
Continue reading “If It’s Thursday, It Must Be The Door Latch” →

I got to use my digital voltage multimeter today.
I set the voltage detection to 200V in testing a 240V appliance dryer outlet.
I got to use my new digital voltage multimeter today.
It autodetects the voltage and AC or DC, which protects it from mayhem like me.
The woman at the hardware store offered me an extended protection plan;
I said it should protect itself from my mistakes.
I think it’s the thermal fuse.
I have ordered a thermal fuse and cycling thermostat based on this diagnosis.
I guess we shall know sometime Friday whether the diagnosis was correct
and can maybe relax sometime Sunday or Monday that my repair
will not burn the house down.
Meanwhile, I will be visiting a laundromat for more adventures
this week
and maybe next
until we get a new dryer.

So yesterday, I went to the laundromat to launder our oversized comforter. I’d like to say that this is a tradition, that I do this every autumn when I am employed less than full time and we’re transitioning from summer weight bedding to the autumnal anti-anxiety weight (not actually designed for that purpose, but it is too heavy for mere mortal laundry appliances). I would say this is a tradition, but it’s a good news/bad news situation: This was my second trip; apparently, I only have this free time in October or November every two or three years, and the free time soon ends when I catch onto a full time position or contract right after doing the comforter. Well, that has happened once so far. So I had better enjoy this free time while I can.

So I went to the laundromat with my large comforter and started it up. As you might expect, gentle reader, I am not the sort of person who leaves his clothing or large comforter unattended at the laundromat, so I brought a notepad and a book to read to settle in for a couple hours’ of watching tumbling laundry and wishing I was writing.

But the people in the laundromat held my interest if not my impolite gaze.
Continue reading “A Trip to the Laundromat” →

As I mentioned, I have not worn cloth masks because I refuse to accept permanence of masking orders (although I’m starting to wonder if they’re permanent or just until rioters in the streets are no longer covering their faces). The box of paper masks I’ve been drawing from was getting low, so I clicked on an Instapundit Amazon link so he would get a couple coppers from my purchase.

The link says 50 Pcs Disposable Face Mask 3-Ply Breathable & Comfortable Filter Safety Mask, Protective Blue Masks for Indoor and Outdoor (Blue Face Mask). The headline of the Amazon item says the same. I did not look closely at the image.

Because it’s Chinese-made:

Disposal Face Masks.

Me, I’m just hoping they’re not covered in cadmium.

I am not saying I am that guy or we’re that family; generally, we decorate for Christmas around Thanksgiving here at Nogglestead. But this year might be different.

I played the first Christmas carols of the year last Friday because I got a disappointing email and because, well, 2020, man, although I am hopeful the worst of 2020 is over by Thanksgiving, although I am afraid it will not. Can one be hopeful and frightened at the same time? If one has a reason-based or perhaps will-based hope but an emotional fear, I reckon. I played Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’s Christmas Album and Jessy J’s California Christmas downstairs, and I’ve recently played the Reader’s Digest Christmas set I got in September as it was on the desk. I don’t tend to put away the records I just got until I listen to them, and besides that, I have nowhere to put the records any more as I have filled the current storage which was going to be enough for some expansion, but that was a couple years back.

This year, recently bought Christmas carol LPs aside, I am eager to get the Christmas season started, albeit with a whiff of desperation mania.

I even baked pumpkin pies last night. Continue reading “The Earliest Christmas At Nogglestead” →

Also from his address on Milton I mentioned yesterday:

The most eloquent voice of our century uttered, shortly before leaving the world, a warning cry ‘against the Anglo-Saxon contagion.’ The tendencies and aims, the view of life and the social economy of the ever-multiplying and spreading Anglo-Saxon race, would be found congenial, this prophet feared, by all the prose, all the vulgarity amongst mankind, and would invade and overpower all nations. The true ideal would be lost, a general sterility of mind and heart would set in.

The prophet had in view, no doubt, in the warning thus given, us and our colonies, but the United States still more.

You would expect to hear that sort of things in colleges now, or thirty years ago.

This address was given in 1887. To dedicate a stained glass window to honor Milton’s second wife. Donated by an American.

Yeah, the whole address pretty much builds up Milton by damning the nineteenth century poets and non-Excellent, especially the Americans.

FULL HOUSE! Hoarder’s amazing £4million Aladdin’s Cave with 60,000 treasures packed into terraced house:

AN INCREDIBLE £4million treasure trove of more than 60,000 items has been discovered in the home of Britain’s biggest hoarder.

Most of the haul consists of unopened packages delivered to the property since 2002.

Neighbours say a full Royal Mail van of parcels would arrive at the collector’s home every Friday.

He eventually had to move into a bed and breakfast and rent a one-bedroom flat and two garages to continue to store the items.

One expects that the you-store-it industry is not as big in England as here.

I don’t know that I even aspire to that amount of accumulation. To be honest, my own gathering has tapered off a bit in recent years. I mean, I still buy books, records, and CDs in fair amounts, but I have only bought a single comic book this year (I think), and I’m not out at garage sales and flea markets where I used to pick up larger items like video games or old computers (not that they’re available at garage sales any more–the real vintage window closed) or old cameras or things I thought were cool but just take up space in the store room or closet. I have not picked up any crafting hobbies that led to trips to the craft store to stock up on a lot of supplies that have gotten sidelined. I never really got into collecting action figures, toys, or mementos to fill a house. I’ve even started trimming my collection of old clothing–I had thirty years of shirts and old jeans stashed away–what depression did I live through?

Although you haven’t seen a depackratification post in years here, gentle reader, look kindly upon me and think, as I do, that I am depackratifying by simply slowing my rate of accumulation. And, should I call upon you during a discussion with my beautiful wife as to whether we really need a bigger home or not (you-store-its are for the weak!), please agree with me.

Thank you, that is all.

This thing on my little finger has helped me to identify places and conditions where I straighten my fingers completely since it is supposed to prevent that very maneuver, and it hurts a bit anyway.

I straighten my fingers completely, generally, when I:

• Wash my hands.
• Put my hands through the sleeves of long-sleeved shirts.
• Fold laundry.
• Hold mass market paperbacks with a single hand whilst snacking with the right.

Also, knife hand and ridge hand strikes in martial arts classes, but the focus over the last year has been closed fist boxing strikes, so not a lot of call for the more traditional tae kwon do hand techniques. Not that I have been on the mat enough in the last year anyway.

I now return you to the regular nonsense on this blog already in progress.

I went to an orthopedist yesterday. I was all splinted up with a new bandage which kept the finger and the hand mostly immobile. The assistant brought me into a room, asked some check-in questions, and then pulled up the x-rays from my trip to the clinic last week.

“Wow,” she said.

Continue reading “Salute, One Finger” →

I mentioned I have a bit of a sports injury that has the smallest finger on my left hand in a splint.

Over the course of the last four days, I have learned a number of things are difficult in this condition.

• Hit the Q key. I am not a touch typist, gentle reader, so I can still hit the A key as needed. But the left pinky apparently handled the Q key (and sometimes often the SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT keys over there). So, of course, I find myself queuing up lots of quintessential quokkas and whatnot now, which slows me down a lot.
• Laundry. I am constantly banging the splint into the basket, the side of the washer tub, or the top of the appliances as I shift the laundry. I hadn’t realized I brushed my hand against all these things routinely, but apparently so.
• Buckling the seat belt when a passenger in a car. I’ve ridden as a passenger a couple of times, and I’ve had to reach across my body to click it as the big splint does not fit in between the seats so well.
• Close the driver’s side car door. The contraption does not fit into the grip, so I have to reach across my body to close it. Also, I guess I am used to hitting the window open button with that finger, too. And although I can more easily buckle the belt with my right hand whilst sitting in the driver’s seat, grabbing the belt buckle when it is beside the seat to the left is also a chore.
• Picking up cats one-handed when they (and by they, I mean Chimera) gets into my office chair when I go for a cup of coffee.

Not depicted: catching a football, because if that were easy for me, I would not be in this predicament.

You know, this is not my first sports injury. And all of my injuries tend to be sports injuries, come to think of it. I have always eventually bounced back, but I get a little down while I mend. I mean, this one is not very painful and is only a little inconvenient, but it reminds me that I’m aging, an intimation of mortality that goes meshes well with my mindset in the current dying time. It’s certainly nowhere near what Jack Baruth just suffered–a broken leg–but the thoughts are very similar. They tell me I will more easily dislocate these joints in the future–so how many jabs can I throw in martial arts classes before I do it again? That sort of thing.

Ah, well, the one thing it is not hard to do, and I feared it might: to hold a book to read it. I can set big art books so that they’re resting on my lap and I’m just holding them up with my hand and few working fingers, and I can hold smaller books with a hand and those smaller fingers. So I can still do that, fortunately.

Yesterday afternoon was glorious. Warm; the temperature topped out at a golden 80 degrees. I finished my work day, and as I had calls until past time to pick the youngest up for school, we could not do our early martial arts class. I had the choice of noodling on my computer until dinner time, which I too often accept as the default, but my boys were also about to default to their choices of spending time on their devices. We told them to go outside, to shoot some hoops or to throw around the football a bit, but they were, erm, reluctant to do so until I divested them of said devices. Even then they only went to the garage to consume an illicit snack of chocolate chips.

So I decided it would be a good time to Make Memories by joining the boys for a little game of catch. Which made a memory, all right. Continue reading “My New Least Favorite Pull-My-Finger Game” →

If the hot shower had a coffee pot, I would still be there.

It’s the autumn time of year where we can leave our windows open all day, and then into the night where it really cools the house for some good sleeping weather. We get about two or three weeks of it before we have to go to the furnace or the evening fires to keep the house warm.

But it’s kind of nice, the changing of the seasons.