Think About Chapstick

Why Do Swear Words Exist?

2010-01-09T10:42:00.004-05:00

Why do we have swear words? All we have to do is stop preventing people from using them. They will disappear in an instant.

Stay with me...

The only reason I can't say "F*@! Off" on TV is because some parent out there does not want their child to hear the "F word" or someone is offended by hearing the word. Why? Because it is a bad word and children should not use it. What is bad about it?

Which phrase is worse?

"That's f@!king beautiful!" or "I'm going to whack you in the head with this 2 X 4!"?

The second one, dumb dumb. It should be about meaning.

If we must have bad words for some reason, they should be words that are actually bad, like "rape". To me, "rape" is a horrible word. It describes arguably the most violent of acts. Why can we say "rape" if we can't say "sh!t"?

Test

2008-02-18T14:15:00.000-05:00

2007-02-26T21:48:00.000-05:00

On the way to work I noticed a run down shack off Memorial with a small homemade sign in front that said "Home of the Ghetto Burger". The place looked like it had been closed for 20 years but I mentioned it to Melissa. She did some research and discovered that it was actually called "Anne's Snack Shack", had won the best Burger in Atlanta award several times, and was still open!

She also found out Anne was about to retire and planned to close down the Snack Shack because she didn't want anyone else running it.

Naturally we checked it out. We walked in to find Anne and her husband grilling burgers and looking quite angry. There was only room for 12 customers, on bar stools. There was a large sign with 10 rules printed on it. The sign looked like it had been there for 50 years. One rule was "No cussing in the Snack Shack", another was "No standing your babies on the counter", another was "No leaning on the counter". Melissa picked up a menu and pointed to one of the few items listed on it; "Hambugers". She's quick to notice miss-spellings. After being ignored for 20 minutes, some customers left and a couple of stools opened. Anne's husband gestured to the stools, we sat, and he took my order. I order the classic Ghetto Burger with everything. Melissa watched as they grilled the meat, mixing in onions. As we waited for the food, another customer tried to order but he couldn't remember what his wife wanted. He asked if he could use Anne's phone and Anne snapped "You ain't usin my phone!". Eventually, Anne's husband handed me a 3 pound brown paper sack which contained my Ghetto Burger.

It was a spectacular burger. One of the best I've ever had...if not the best. Here is a picture of me trying to eat the monster.

Greta Gets Bored

2007-01-29T12:41:00.000-05:00

Our new dog, Greta, is driving me nuts! Even with all these wonderful dog toys...

...she continues to terrorize our house. Here are a couple recent examples. She chewed and bent nearly all the blinds in our family room.

Soon after eating the laces off Melissa's running shoes, she chewed holes in my Merrell Ventilators.

Eston's Marble Towel Holder

2007-01-29T12:25:00.000-05:00

During our Christmas visit to Melissa's family, her Grandpa, Eston, described an old-style towel holder that used a movable marble to capture the towel. He made several of them out of wood and marbles when he was 15 years old. Our discussion inspired him to make one of these towel holders and he recently mailed it to me. Eston made the holder based on his memory from about 70 years prior.

I was a little confused but I quickly figured it out. It works very well and I've never scene anything like it. Here's how it works...slide an edge of the towel up into the slot and let go. This will force the marble to slide up. As the marble slides up it travels into a larger track until it will roll to one edge of the towel and gravity will force the marble to slide back into the narrow slot at which point it will trap the towel. You can dry your hands or whatever and the towel will remain attached to the holder. To remove the towel from the holder, simply pull up and to the side, which will drag the marble back into the wider slot and thus release the towel. Pretty cool. You won't find one of these at Home Depot.

Thermal Protector Removal

2006-11-23T17:00:00.000-05:00

Last week one of our recessed can lights starting turning on and off. My friend, Branden, who is also an electrician, told me the light’s thermal protector was probably sensing too much heat and turning the light off, then turning it back on when it cooled. After removing the bulb, Melissa noticed a faint clicking sound, as if a piano string were being flicked. The sound only occurred when the empty can light was turned on. Since I couldn’t get to the light housing from above, I took it out from below and searched for the problem. There was no insulation near the housing and, in fact, I could feel a draft. I talked to Branden, and we concluded that the thermal protector had gone bad. I rewired the light to bypass the thermal protector and I removed it, thinking maybe I could get a replacement at Lowe’s. The bright people at Lowe’s had never heard of thermal protectors so I turned to Google. Apparently, the thermal protector I removed (pictured above) is old school. The new ones are much smaller. As with most little home repairs, I was happy to learn something new.

Shower Solutions

2006-11-23T10:43:00.000-05:00

During our bathroom renovation, we discovered rotten wood around the tub on the shower head side. We replaced it and ever since, I've been anal about water escaping the shower. Melissa and I take an average of two showers a day each, and mine are quite vigorous, so I knew waterproofing was a serious concern. Especially since we decided to keep the old cast iron tub and use a traditional shower curtain and liner instead of a sliding glass shower door.

I managed to find two excellent solutions that allow me to enjoy my showers and not worry about wiping the bathroom walls and floor down afterwards. The first is the “Sho’Bath C’eal” from the UK’s Subtle Concepts Ltd (pictured in my shower above). It creates a watertight seal by allowing you to trap your shower curtain liner against your shower wall. You can read about how it works and buy one here http://www.subtleconcepts.co.uk/.

The second, which is quickly becoming the standard in hotels, is the curved shower curtain rod. The curved shower curtain rod gives you considerably more room in the shower, prevents the curtain liner blow-in effect, provides smooth shower curtain ring mobility, and brings the shower curtain closer to the inside of the shower on both ends (which helps keep the water in the shower).

Screen & Storm Door

2006-11-19T17:58:00.000-05:00

Our custom screen & storm door finally arrived and we spent the good part of a day installing it. In the end, we were both pleased with the color matching the almond trim on the outside of our house. The top pane of glass slides down into the bottom pane, pulling down a screen that unrolls from the top of the door. We had to pay Larson an extra $200 to have the door made to fit our brick molding, which is taller and narrower than Larson (or any other door company) makes its doors these days.

My Muddy Gear

2006-10-29T09:08:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of my caving gear after yesterday's trip to Foxhole cave. Most of this mud came from a short little belly crawl required to get to 119' Phatom Well. The pit was beautiful and well worth the mud. However, this was exceptionally sticky peanut butter like stuff. Before getting on rope, we had to rinse most of the verticle gear out in available water pools just to get it to work.

looking Into The Black Canyon

2006-10-25T19:38:00.000-04:00


I shot this on the edge of the Black Canyon during a recent repelling/climbing trip.

Kohler Products Suck

2006-03-23T21:01:00.000-05:00

I am extremely upset with Kohler. I just installed my 2nd broken Kohler faucet from the Bancroft series.

After seeing the Bancroft suite of Kohler products at my local Lowes, I decided to use it for my bathroom renovation. I don't know if this suite of products is old or new but the Bancroft faucet featured in all the Kohler brochures does not appear to be carried by anyone. I had to special order it from a distributor on the internet who had to special order it from Kohler. Why is Kohler promoting something nobody appears to sell? After installing the faucet, and testing it with water for the first time, I discovered that the hot on/off lever does not actually turn off the water flow. As I turned it on/off I could hear grinding and feel resistance and it had no apparent effect on the water flow. After sending it back and waiting 3 weeks for my second special order to replace the bad faucet, I finally received my 2nd faucet. I tested the on/off level before I installed it, listening for the grinding noise. After not hearing the noise I went ahead and installed the faucet. Guess what? When I tested it with water, the same problem occurred. This time it was the cold on/off lever. I heard the same grinding and once again, it would not shut the water off. In both cases the opposite on/off level worked fine.

In between waiting for the faucet replacement, I decided to install the Kohler Bancroft toilet I purchased at Lowes. When I took it out of the box, I notice the black metal piece attached below the tank did not appear to be attached properly. I could see the slots the metal was suppose to fit into but instead, it had been attached crooked…and permanently so. I decided to give Kohler the benefit of the doubt and installed the tank anyway. Guess what? It leaked all over my new bathroom. I know it wasn’t an installation problem because when I returned it to Lowes and got another tank, I installed it the same way and it didn’t leak. By the way, both tanks came with different parts in the sealed bag…many of these parts are never mentioned in the documentation.

Clearly, Kohler has a major problem with quality control. Its products are among the most expensive in my price range, and yet its quality, from my experiences, is piss poor. I will never buy another Kohler product and I urge you to do the same.

Pelted with Acorns

2005-11-21T21:54:00.000-05:00

The thing that sucks about having a huge Oak tree in your backyard is that when it's windy, your house gets pelted with acorns. This is a frightening sound. I hope it ends soon.

Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area

2005-11-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

I spent much of my weekend looking through my pictures and playing with my new Canon Pixma printer. I also played with Google's free Picasa2 photo software. Both have led to many new framed photos in our house finally.

This is my favorite picture. It captures my view from the back of the canoe and shows how beautiful the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area is. Melissa came out perfectly. One of the few pictures where I didn't blend her head in with the horizon. What a place.

View from White Sides

2005-11-19T09:58:00.000-05:00

I love this picture. I took it while climbing rope up White Sides, the 600'+ free-fall cliff in North Carolina. The blue thing in the bottom right is my water bottle. You can see the rope below my water bottle fade away near the base of the cliff. Yes, the trees were that pretty.

US Postal Service Complaint

2005-11-02T20:34:00.000-05:00

I found out the US Postal Service will not deliver mail if a car is parked near your mailbox. A US Postal worker confirmed this rule for me today. This sucks when your street does not have "No Parking" signs and the PGA Tour is occuring 1 block away. The postal worker said I could pick up my mail between the generous hours of 9AM and 5PM. Which is great, because Melissa and I both work from 8:30AM to 5:30PM.

Melissa is currently on the kitchen floor making a big sign that says "Please don't park here we need our mail". She intends to duct tape it to the street.