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Shower head for the touchdown

It wasn’t my first thought of the day, but it didn’t take long after waking up to realize that, this time next week, we’ll be watching football. This makes me very happy.

I watched, over the course of three installments, It Might Get Loud, a documentary where producers took three guitarists and put them in a room to see what happens when they stop being polite, and start talking about chord changes:

The Edge describes himself as an architect, which makes perfect sense when you hear his explanation. Jack White has this artistic struggling “I think I’m a little more important than I really am” vibe. Jimmy Page is Jimmy Page. They’re all great in their own ways, though Page of course transcends by virtue of his longevity and the genetic condition known as Being Jimmy Page.

If the producers are looking for a follow up project, I’ve just given them a title.

It is a good documentary. I’m no musician, of course, but I enjoy hearing the discussion of how these works came about. A lot of times you get the sense that there is this Thing and they wanted to Express It and eventually it made it to a recording studio, became a hit or important piece and now they have to Explain It. Trying to verbally explain this Thing which has become Transcendent must be an interesting exercise.

I watched this over Netflix. We signed up for the free trial last night. The Yankee downloaded a few things from the instant viewing feature. She’s watching television episodes on the television. I watched Full Metal Jacket — which has not aged well — on my phone. That was R. Lee Ermey’s third role, but the one that made us all aware of him. He’s done more than you realize, since.

Also, he might be the star in a sentence featuring the best ever use of the word refused.

R. Lee Ermey was involved in a jeep accident during the making of the movie. At 1:00 a.m. one night he skidded off the road, breaking all the ribs on his left side. He refused to pass out, and kept flashing his car lights until a motorist stopped. In some scenes you’ll notice that he does not move his left arm at all.

“I am in a great deal of pain, indeed old boy. But I shan’t to acknowledge it. I will not acquiesce to the sweet morphine that is mental surrender. So be a good chum, ribs, and stand fast while I flag a motorist.”

For some reason, in that story Ermey turns into a very proper Englishman in my mind.

Where was I? Oh, yes. It Might Get Loud. I had to watch it in three installments because I decided to replace the shower head. I made this command decision about 15 seconds after I broke the older shower head.

We have a slight dripping leak and I thought if I turned the plastic shower nozzle a bit tighter … SNAP.

So we visited Bed, Bath and Beyond. The Yankee walked us directly to the shower fixtures, which was a bit disturbing considering we’ve never been in this particular store. She mulled over the options.

Buying a shower head that would match the one in the guest bathroom was out of the question. The store no longer carries them. But you can get one online for 25 bucks. Of course, at the store, your options range from 29 to 99 dollars. I’m tempering my instinct to put my foot down with my guilt about breaking the shower head to start with. She buys a sensibly priced one. I suppose.

It is made by a company that calls itself Oxygenics. If you break it down, that means oxygen-born. More than air should fall from this device. The literature assures me that this might be the last shower head I’ll ever purchase. And it better be, if there’s anything that makes you feel more stupid than reading language on a shower head’s packaging I don’t know what it is.

Consider:

“The storm is coming … prepare to be drenched.”

Do you know what I do when a storm comes? I go inside. Out of the rain. So, already, we’re a little counter-intuitive in the marketing.

“A powerful, pressurized monsoon of water will envelope and sweep you away to a wonderous place.”

Again with the imagery. But doesn’t all of this sound wasteful? Oh no.

“… while saving 23% water and energy compared to industry leading brands.”

I’d like to suggest to the good people at Oxygenics that they add the word “other” to that phrase. Right now they just look like a trailing brand.

It has “1 drenching spray, 54 anti-glog spray nozzles” and is “guaranteed not to clog.” No pressure there, nozzles.

Here’s the best part, the 9 inch adjustable shower arm — mentioned by a sticker-like logo on the package, as if they weren’t sure when they designed the thing how big they could get that little rod — has two joints. From which water will spray. When you add the wall attachment and the shower head attachment itself that means there are four potential places from which water can escape.

Oh, but it has a monsoon, you see.

We visited the grocery store for a few staples. At the cash register two young men were there to help us. One was the bar code digital transfer engineer, the other the product package and dispersal supervisor. Whenever we make it to check out I try to find ways to entertain them. Who knows how long they’ve been working. It is new and clean and so happy with itself, and most of the customers are in the pleasure-zone known as Publix shopping, but you never know if the guy just had to deal with the guy that really ruined his Saturday.

So the patter today was about how we forgot our ecological shopping bags. Not to worry! I just bought a new shower head which will save 30 percent on energy. I am, as the cool kids say, offset. We hate the earth. The hemp woven, hand stitched, biodegradable hues of those items were left safely in the laundry room, where they are doing us a great service by hanging from something, so that we won’t forget them should we venture to the grocery store.

We live a mile-and-a-half away. One day the person will ask paper or plastic, I’ll remember I left the bags and ask him to hold everything for three minutes while I fetch my own.

He suggests we leave them in the passenger seat. But where would the passenger sit, my good man?

I point out that we usually keep them in the trunk, where they are also often forgotten. And then the conversation turned into one of those “A-ha! You’re my witnesses moments” that you just live for.

If we ever see those two guys up front at the grocery store again I’m going to have the world’s best follow up joke, brought to you by items on the condiment aisle, just to see if they remember.

We grilled steak. We baked potatoes and enjoyed okra. That’s a win. And next week we’ll be watching football.

errands / hobby / photo / weekend — Comments Off
14
Aug 10

Saturday

We're feeding everybody

The squirrels found our food. This bothers most people, but I like squirrels. How could you resist a face like this?

Who me?

The car got it’s mechanical attention today. Added two new tires — for a total of six! — and then the tire guy suggested that this configuration wasn’t in keeping with state highway policies.

Otherwise the day was a traffic mess. The less remembered the better.

We managed to pick up a new grill, though. We’d considered the basic model, but I found one that was a griller and smoker for only a few bucks more. So we went across town, in the day of frustrating traffic, picked up the grill and a new cover. Brought it home, wiped it down, fired it up and made delicious steaks.

The Yankee made okra. And, in her first time out, did a great job with it. I’ll have leftovers for tomorrow.

adventures / errands / hobby / memories / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
12
Aug 10

Part of a day in pictures

Pretty bird

The cardinals in our neighborhood are very shy. I’ve been patiently chasing them, and finally got a picture or two of the male. We played this circling, chase game around the trees in the backyard. After a bit I changed the rules and went under the tree. He didn’t expect that.

Pretty bird

Tried to get some work done on the car today, but the shop I visited had a slight problem with a key machine this morning. The guy said the repair man was coming at noon. I left my number and asked him to call me when the machine was fixed so that he may hoist my car onto it.

Because, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from amusement parks and forgotten to extrapolate to the rest of our lives, you’d rather not be the first person up on the freshly repaired equipment.

So I went to a giant antique store. I’m saving that story for the weekend. I walked the whole place, no phone call. After an amount of time that is surely beyond what it should take to fix one machine, the mechanics of which I know nothing about, I returned to the shop. The repair guy hadn’t yet showed up. So I called it an afternoon.

Time and temp

That was the temperature when we went out for dinner. In other news, this is August, but still. We had dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger, which is a place that The Yankee and I have never enjoyed together. There were two in Birmingham, for a time, but we have no memory of a mutual visit. So this is a new experience. This is also new:

Cheeburger

Cheeburger has always displayed the Polaroids of the hungry people who’ve eaten their one-pound burger (I’ve never tried). Previously the pictures covered the walls like a wallpaper, which was an interesting expression of growth, much like a celluloid bacteria. Haven’t visited in a while? Oh the pictures have expanded around the corner and down the baseboard. That sort of thing.

The last time I was here they were moving up to the ceiling. The surrounded-by-people-promoting-their-new-metabolic-problem atmosphere was a terrific exhibition. You couldn’t help but staring at the faces and the little notes people left behind. I understand why they went to the stacks, for space concerns, but this new display method ruins the point. You don’t want to look through pictures in stacks like that. It would feel like too much work, or feel too intrusive. So you just see the stacks on the wall and go about your meal.

I wonder when they finally make the decision to throw away some of the old pictures. Maybe they have a little ceremony.

We drove around until we found a field on a quiet country road where we could see the night’s festivities. I always oversell the Perseids in my mind. One of the astronomers on the Samford faculty sent us a note where he mentioned that some experts were expecting up to 100 visible meteorites per hour if you got in a good spot. I’ve learned to temper my expectations — I want 100 a minute, like some sort of movie theater intro film — but still haven’t learned to forget taking pictures of the event. This is the one I got.

Perseids

The background are actually stars I shot tonight. I caught no Perseid meteorites on my camera (The Yankee got TWO!) but we saw several and had a great time, sitting in the dark and quiet and heat of the evening. My best picture of the night:

A plane

The plane! The plane!@

errands / Monday / video — 1 Comment
2
Aug 10

Still unpacking

We have resolved our cable and Internet connection issues.

The guy came out to do this on Saturday, but he realized that the ones and zeros they use in Birmingham are different than the ones and zeros they use here. So he was ill-prepared which, somehow, meant he had to make a return trip with new equipment today.

So the equipment was brought. Things were connected. We had cable and the TiVo liked it and we’ve returned to the modern mediated culture. Or, rather, the 20th Century version of it. Our Internet connection is presently dial-up fast, which is not what we’d agreed to. The cable guy clucked and clicked and did all manner of professional looking things on his little pad. He pronounced it an office problem and that we must give them a call.

We did, they redirected a beam from a military satellite into our router and now we have NASA telemetry humming smartly through the network at a speed which makes Brian, our personal tech guy, jealous.

I made a series of phone calls today, which naturally means navigating a series of automated phone systems. I’d never thought of these as entertaining, but now I must. And I’m considering spicing up my own phone system recordings accordingly. One guy starts out “OK you already have service …”

I do a little voiceover work on the side, mostly web-based stuff, but lately I’ve been asked to do a little voice automation work too. This guy is beginning to make me feel as if I’m doing it wrong. I am for certainty, the occasional bit of enthusiasm but, mostly, authoritative. This guy really knows how to sell his passion with outright boredom.

Later, I get a more serious recording. I’m in one of those systems that requires a verbal input on my part. I start off by asking for things very casually. And at one point when I uttered a word that wasn’t in the program I was asked for a clarification. I replied with a synonym, in fake broadcaster morning banter voice, you know the one: “I’m Coffee!” “And I’m Cream!” from The Morning Zoo crowd.

That overzealous enthusiasm did not go over well. This recording is more serious. She said “I didn’t quite get that” with a scolding tone I haven’t heard in years.

Anyway. We’re all connected. Things are taking shape in the house. I’ve reorganized the garage once again. Sweated in the sauna-attic once more while storing things of not-so-vital national security. I finally figured out which cabinet holds the glasses and which drawer holds the silverware. Everything else is mostly a mystery. (I’m still learning the light switches.)

Fun. I watched The Most Interesting Man in the World tonight:

It was immediately followed by the Old Spice Man:

No one is man enough for that commercial sequence.

adventures / errands / Monday — Comments Off
26
Jul 10

It’s ours! All ours! And the bills too!

We sat in a little, windowless room and filled out the paperwork. There was the woman who stood in for the closing attorney. He was on vacation.

There was Shane, our realtor, with whom we’ve become friends. Our financial guy, who’s been steady and awesome and terrific throughout the process. He’s married to one of Shane’s colleagues, who was supposed to be our realtor, actually, but she had her baby just as we began shopping.

Across the table there was the nice woman who was selling her house. We got a good deal. She’s leaving a cute little move-in ready house in a terrific neighborhood. She’s getting married and has already moved out of town. We compared notes. Her realtor was there, too, on crutches. I was sitting opposite her, pushed way back from the table. It isn’t that I’m disinterested, I said, I don’t want to kick you.

We chatted. She signed her paperwork. We chatted some more and then she left. And then we had to sign our paperwork. This is enough to make anyone feel bad for famous people. Autographs just aren’t that fun.

Though, to be fair, most autograph seekers aren’t thrusting mountains of legalese into your face. The financial guy remarked that no one had read it all before, and I had to give him something to go back to the office and tell his colleagues, so I read it all. I tend to read a bit on the slow side typically — because I enjoy sentence structure — but especially so when reading something in legal language. This made the process run a bit longer than it should have, but we’re homeowners.

But that’s not enough for one day, no. We’ve decided to paint a few things and get it ready for the big move. So we took our new keys, made our way into the neighborhood, convincing Boris, the heavily armed gate guard, that we live here now.

The very nice lady from whom we bought our home left us take out menus and a list of places that deliver. The last menu was from Applebee’s. I question her taste.

Publix cart

We bought groceries. The Publix is just down the street and has been here about 15 minutes longer than we have. Also, it is huge. There are guides on all of the carts.

We made a list of things we needed from Lowe’s. We have a wonderful friend who is overworked at Home Depot, so we figured it might help her out a bit if we shopped at the competition. Also, Shane thoughtfully gave us a gift card there, so it worked out.

Having shopped online in every store in town and Amazon, I bought four ceiling fan lights, the most affordable ones I could grab. We picked up paint supplies. We ordered a carpet cleaner.

They came out this afternoon, two guys from the Stanley Steemer office in Columbus. I realized, after we got off the phone with the booking agent where I’d erred. I cleaned carpets in high school and as a former employee I accidentally ruined their commission. Here’s how to help them and get the best deal. Call and ask for the minimum. It is usually a two-room package. When the guys get to your house, tell them you are willing to upsell with them — for extra rooms or scotch guard (which I suggest) or deodorizer (if you need it) — and then haggle. You’ll get a little more out of them. He’ll get the commission. The person sitting in the nice, climate controlled office answering phones won’t take his money. You’d be surprised how much the guy is willing to haggle in this set up. Everybody wins.

And he gets to stand inside, in nice conditions, and haggle. Those trucks aren’t built for comfort. We were talking with the guys that visited us and they said they’d never had an air conditioned truck. That’s about right. At the much larger office where I once worked there was one truck with air conditioning, and that was the boss’. So we fed them plenty of water, apologized profusely for making the mistake that deprived him of commission and talked shop.

One of the best parts about cleaning carpet are the stories you hear or the places you find yourself. One of the guys that worked for us today was a college student doing this as a summer job, so he didn’t have many stories, but he’d heard about them. His colleague was a company man, and he had stories. We spent a few minutes trying to one-up one another. We settled on a draw.

After they left we wiped down the walls for paint. Already, serious progress has been made.

I borrowed a six-foot ladder from a friend’s grandfather who lives nearby. Installed two ceiling fan lights before it got too dark to see. By chance they just happened to match the lights already in place on other ceiling fans. I replaced all the locks on the house. (And only locked myself out once in doing so, simultaneously proving levels of both ingenuity and stupidity I hadn’t realized I was capable of achieving.)

It rained.

The neighbors, were they listening, were probably a bit concerned about the mix of Korn, Queen and Abba they heard coming from the new people. I blame The Yankee.

She made a delicious dinner and we sat on the floor in our future library, eating on a stack of shelves I’ve removed from a wall we’ll paint tomorrow. It was wonderfully romantic in that way that everyone forgets when the furniture and the boxes interfere.

Tomorrow, we paint in earnest. (That’s a great shade, by the way, you should look into it.)