And now what did you do TODAY?

[swt61]

Oh, and tell Colin that I'm challenging him to a clothing duel.

Older, wiser gay man that can throw down a fabulous ensemble in 15 seconds or less, to younger, over confident gay man that probably thinks it's avantgard to mix pattern on pattern, especially of differing sizes.

I'm throwing down the gauntlet! The supple, milk chocolate brown, lambskin gauntlet.

Edited August 4 by swt61

[Augsburger]

Not clear. Are you looking for replacements for these?

I might have a few stashed somewhere in my garage.

Edited August 4 by Augsburger

[swt61]

Why am I not surprised?

I'd ask why, but it doesn't matter. 

Yes, I'll take them off of your hands kind sir.

[swt61]

I've always heard that it's bad luck to bring an old broom when you move. So, not to tempt fate, today I bought a new broom and a Swiffer sweeper.

Now, I'd like to think that I'm a reasonably intelligent guy (please correct me if I'm wrong. NOT YOU JACOB!)

And I'm pretty good at puzzles too. However, apparently not as good as I thought.

WTF Swiffer!!!

[swt61]

Just looked it up on YouTube. Apparently there are supposed to be 3 poles, one of which has two female connections. My box had only these two poles. 🤬

Greg, do you have an extra Swiffer pole in your garage?

[Augsburger]

Sorry Steve, the pole is currently employed as a snake stick.

[mikeymad]

4 hours ago, swt61 said:

 Apparently there are supposed to be 3 poles, one of which has two female connections.

 

So you got the one with only male ends.. 

um.... 

sounds about right? 

[morphsci]

So we finally made it home from Germany this morning. Brent must have had a huge biscuit this weekend. So we were supposed to fly out of Berlin to JFK on Saturday morning around 11 am Berlin time. Shortly before we were to board the flight was cancelled. It seems the plane we were to take to JFK arrived from Amsterdam the previous evening and sucked a bird into one of the engines on  its landing. The plane landed fine but they needed to check the engine internals for damage. There are only two ways to do this. Tear the engine apart and then put it back together or use an endoscope designed for the task. Unfortunately the nearest endoscope was in Amsterdam and was set to arrive later that day. So the flight was cancelled and they put us up in a hotel until we could get another flight out. Unfortunately the Delta website and app was not operating very well and it took us most of the day to get a flight booked for Sunday. We finally boarded our flight and made it to JFK where we remarkably landed on time, which was 2:45 pm NY time. However we had to sit on the runway for over two hours since we did not have a gate as no planes were permitted to leave their gates because of thunderstorms. We finally got to our gate, got through customs and got to the Delta lounge where Karen had several beers and I had a Bloody Mary and two Martinis as well as some food. We had a fairly long layover as our flight to Burlington was not scheduled to leave until about 11:00 pm. At approximately, 9:30 pm Delta canceled our flight due to weather. At least this time they scheduled us for another flight to Burlington on Monday morning. At this point we had no confidence that Delta could actually get us home so Karen called her sister, who lives in Forest Hills, to see if we could borrow her Jeep Cherokee and drive home to Northfield. We took a taxi from JFK, picked up the Jeep and drove home arriving here around 2:00 am this morning. Delta was not finished with us, I actually canceled our flight this morning on the way driving back to Northfield. I received a boarding call for the flight on my app this morning. So I say, “Fuck you Delta Cunts” and again I blame Brent.

[guzziguy]

Sorry you guys had such a tough time getting home.  Glad you are there, though.

[Voltron]

Brutal, Jim, just brutal. 

But how was Berlin? 😎

[morphsci]

Berlin was good. Lots of good beer and we both like German food. It was a work trip and that part also worked out well so overall the trip was good except for the last leg.

[swt61]

Brent the stud bumper strikes again!

[luvdunhill]

I recently had a BA flight that turned around mid air because it couldn’t get a part needed at the destination…. 🤡

Edited August 5 by luvdunhill

[swt61]

^

Brent Airlines? 

[luvdunhill]

2 minutes ago, swt61 said:

^

Brent Airlines? 

I dunno, you tell me… feels gram is somewhat to blame as well. Maybe they ran out of the usual?

https://aviationsourcenews.com/incident/british-airways-a350-bound-for-austin-u-turns-back-to-london-heathrow/

 

[Grahame]

15 minutes ago, luvdunhill said:

I dunno, you tell me… feels gram is somewhat to blame as well. Maybe they ran out of the usual?

https://aviationsourcenews.com/incident/british-airways-a350-bound-for-austin-u-turns-back-to-london-heathrow/

 

Unlikely, as I feel they would have been perfectly justified in declaring an emergency at that point.

[swt61]

I had my Amazon Fire TV Cube packed away for the last few years. When watching Schitt's Creek, everytime they called their Daughter Alexis, Alexa would reply, and it kind of drove me crazy. Last night I re-installed it. Tonight when I came home from work, I said "Alexa, turn on the TV", when she replied "OK" Maki went crazy. She strutted around the apartment barking for 3 minutes. I couldn't convince her that nobody else was in the apartment. 

[Augsburger]

Small earthquake just now...anyone know what Brent is doing?

 

[swt61]

When I think of Brent, and that's a rare moment. I can't think of him except as a continuous loop in my brain, of him falling off of a bicycle. 

So, falling off of a bicycle is my answer.

[swt61]

On 7/18/2024 at 6:13 PM, swt61 said:

I haven't mentioned it before now, because it's been a bit of a scramble, but today I signed a lease on a new apartment. 

I'm going to miss my current place, but my landlord's Father is getting too old to care for himself completely, and he's going to move into my apartment, so that he can still have some sense of self reliance. But Sheri can better help him out.

My new apartment is 20 minutes West/Northwest, in a sleepy town called Nicasio. I use the term town loosely. I'm in the middle of giant Redwood trees. And I do mean in the middle. It's absolutely gorgeous! Maki will have 5 big dogs as neighbors. The landlords are dog softies and have foster failed with each one. Though Maki will have her own fenced yard. And this apartment has a doggy door, which is phenomenal. It's a bit smaller than my current place, but does have a sizable deck overlooking the forest of giant Redwoods, and much more kitchen cabinet space for my abundant kitchen appliance collection.

Maki can bark all she wants, and I can crank the music as loud as I want. Currently my apartment is below a house, and that keeps it quite a bit cooler than the house above me. This new place is below a garage with a concrete slab floor, and the trees block out a lot of direct sunlight. So it should be even cooler than this place. It was quite comfortable at 4:00 today. I've had the heater vent blocked since the day I moved in almost 7 years ago. And will never need the heater in the new place. Still have my Alaska blood. Should be in on the first. Will take some pics after getting situated. 

Nate, do you remember the hike we went on last time you were out here? It's just a little further up the road from there, and very similar surroundings.

The only downside is no in-house washer/dryer, but that's not the end of the world. It has two large closets with hanging rods, where my current apartment has none. And as a gay man, I do have an adequate clothing collection. I threw out about 20 pair of old shoes today. So only about 80-90 pair to have to move. Norm Abram would covet my plaid collection. Haven't counted but at least 40-50 plaid shirts alone. 50-60 hats, etc...

You know, a perfectly reasonable wardrobe. I did slim my T-shirt collection considerably today, and have about 50 to take to Goodwill/Salvation Army. My 50-60 pair of boxer briefs and 100-120 pair of socks will remain intact. I get nervous with less. I will most likely be thinning my crazy audio cable/adapter collection soon. Will post to give anyone an opportunity to claim any unwanted items.

Only 20 minutes from Compound Bedecarre, so Al, Claire and Dorothy won't easily be rid of me. 

What I haven't mentioned yet is the other big change in my life. That's a career change. The company that I've worked for the last 7 years has had less and less work for me. And the last job I did for them had 137 stair steps from the street to the job site. And there was rarely parking anywhere near the stairs leading to the job. On top of that, the homeowners insisted that we load our tools up daily, because they were afraid the tools would cause a break-in, which they were worried would lead to vandalism. So I was lugging many, many tools up and down those miserable stairs every day. Some tools quite large and heavy. I was having dizzy spells that I assumed at the time was related to the ascending climb as well as my ascending age. I've since discovered that my Hypertension meds needed to be adjusted, and I'm feeling better now. However, I've decided to try a career change. This old dog is trying to learn a new trick.

I turned in my Resume to the local Fairfax Lumber store about a month ago, and was surprised when the cashier rushed myself and my resume back to the President of the company immediately. 

As it happened, they were looking for a new hand at the lumber desk. They needed someone to revive the tanking contractor sales. The President got a bit excited as he read my resume, then offered me the job on the spot. I accepted. I started a few days later, but on my first real day of work, I started having really bad dizzy spells after simply stocking shelves. I thought I was going to pass out, and my vision was getting blurry as well. It shook me up, and I had to tell the President that I couldn't complete the day. 

The good news was that the next day I went to see my Doctor, at the insistence of Al and Dorothy, for which I'm very grateful. The Dr. was pretty sure immediately that the issue was low blood pressure. That was caused by the 3 meds I was taking for Hypertension working too well. Partly due to an over 20 lb. recent weight loss. Anyway it was a relatively easy fix, except she told me that I needed to be as inactive as possible for two weeks while the deletion of one of the meds cleared my system.

Not the best timing, with a brand new job and a big move happening. 

But I'm the guy that has the most incredible friends imaginable! 

Al, Dorothy, Dorothy's friend Gavin and Dorothy's Mom Rini moved my entire apartment to my new place. Cleaned my old apartment (no small feat), and insisted that I chill and do as little as possible.

I can tend to freak out a bit when things come at me hard. Al has this incredible way of calming me down and making me see what's possible, instead of what's impossible. And I don't usually make that easy!

After my session with Dr. Al, I went and talked to the President of Fairfax Lumber, explained my medical situation and the two weeks off that I needed. He agreed to give me that time and a bit more to complete the move. I just completed my first week on the job yesterday. It's going great! My experience as a carpenter is definitely crossing over. I've been able to solve customer's project questions, am learning my way around the myriad of goods that we sell and above all the boss is impressed. At closing yesterday he pulled me aside and told me how happy he was that my health issue has improved, and how happy he is with my knowledge and customer service. The last guy they hired in my position was there only a few weeks, then died of a heart attack. So I understand his relief.

Well it seems I've created another marathon post, but just wanted to fill you in and express my gratitude for friendships I clearly don't deserve, but will do my utmost to repay!

Edited August 11 by swt61

[robm321]

Al is a good dude. Congrats on surviving, new job, new place, weight loss. Did I miss anything?

[swt61]

You missed nothing Rob.

Edited August 11 by swt61

[Torpedo]

I'm very glad for you Steve. Good things must happen to good people It's awesome that you lost 20lb and now you need lower medication dosage. Remember that if you keep losing weight, and don't get it back.

[skullguise]

What an awesome ending!  Glad things are looking so great, Steve.  And big thanks to and kudos for for Al and family/friends

#NFLO!!!!

[morphsci]

Agree with all of the above. It’s great when good things happen to good people.