Archives
[ * January to 20 April 2007 * ]
** CLICK thumbnails for larger image, which open in new browser window for convenience
* M A Y *
2 May 2007 / Wednesday -- I may add another kewlish thing on some of my pages -- here is what it looks like --
I always have to be very careful around NEW and FULL MOONS -- my facial hair seems to grow longer, my nails turn into claws, and my ears appear to increase in length --
Watch me turn into aWolf at YouWild.org
you can find what kind of animal you turn into on that page -- click the CREATE A MORPH tab on the upper left. It can almost be scarey.
Speaking about the Moon -- this May is what they call a two Moon month -- today is the Full Flower Moon [also called the Full Corn Planting Moon / Milk Moon] -- on May 31 we have a Blue Moon [which only happens once in a blue Moon -- hehe!].
I got new winter windshield wipers for the Honda [they have a rubber shell to keep the snow and ice from damaging them -- now I have to take the car for REinspection, perhaps tomorrow], and the side triangular passenger side window of the Dodge van replaced -- the window was broken last month by some asshole who actually got into the front seats, rummaged through what there was at hand, opened the left window to get some fresh air, and left via the door on the driver's side -- I think I mentioned this on the previous news page -- the transmission has to be replaced but I do not have moola for that at this point -- the friggen thing only has about 10k miles on it! I sent in the city property taxes for this quarter, leaving me little for other things. Ken apparently decided to keep his building across the street and finally repair it,. making several rental apartments -- we shall see what he actually does with it -- the rains caused the stucco to break loose and fall to the sidewalk in places where the roof gutters leaked -- I called him, he said he knew about it [yeah, like for years already] -- two days later some guys came to repair the stucco and the roof, BUT, the drain pipes are very rusted and water still runs down the wall in two places -- at this pace, the place will collapse before he does something with it. The place I sold diagonally across the street some years ago is still unoccupied, the large back garden is overgrown with weeds, and one of the street level front windows was smashed some weeks ago and is still broken. I ordered replacement filters for the two floor model air filters I run constantly -- the oldest one in my study was last replaced on 24 May 2003! I also got a three year extended warranty for the washer and dryer, which hopefully I may never need to exercise -- with high tech gadgets it always is a LOT less expensive to get the warranty rather than pay the extremely high price for repairs outside of the warranty. I sold more cigars and snuff on YardSaleNet but have not listed anything on eBay in over a month.
One day before trash pickup the Lifeline Emergency Shelter warehouse across my side street always puts large plastic bags on the opposite curb of things they do not want for whatever reason. The lovely scroungy next door neighbor lady and her friends leisurely went through each and every bag [there were at least 12 of them], collecting their own bag of must have goodies -- -- I also scrounge a little but did not feel like doing a thorough job on that very warm afternoon, BUT standing beside the bags of trash was a full roll of heavy generic gift wrap -- -- it must weigh at least 35 pounds, and will come in useful for the surprise gifts I always include with all online wins or orders -- the photo was taken on the stairs up to the apartment, and you can easily see all the stuff I have piled up the entire stairway, with just enough space to drag boxes of food and other things up the stairs.
Thomas, a German pal, returned to Deutschland today from about a month in Indonesia -- this is a pic he sent me -- -- of him riding an elephant.
13 May 2007 / Sunday -- Mother's Day
Just popping in to wish all Mothers everywhere, the best of their day -- and to those children whose Mom has died, to never forget the happy times they enjoyed together.
Blinky and her five adorable babies, born on 17 April, are now almost four weeks old, seen here in their box nest on my bed -- -- you can see other photos of them at -- -- they are all totally hairless and perhaps the best litter my mommy cats heve ever given birth to.
The weather is much warmer -- I put the cardboard sections in the two glass block windows to the right of my computer desk to reduce the amount of incoming radiation. Postal rates increase tomorrow -- sending packages destined to the USA via Priority with tracking goes up from $4.55 to a usurious $5.25 -- foreign shipping costs are unknown at this time, but may cost at least $6 more -- this means that online purchases, particularly to foreign countries, translates to fewer sales. I had the Honda REinspected, so that will not have to be done again until 2009. The side window on the van was replaced, as was the driver's side seat belt, which refused to budge.
I have two floor model air filters, one in the kitchen and a newer one [same model] in my study -- got them years ago at Sam's Club, but Sam's never has the replacement filters. I found the old documentation with a Hunter phone number to call for a special rate on filters -- called them, ordered six so I would have them for future replacements -- yeah, special rate -- for a heavy paper mounted rectangular filter thingy, they cost a whopping $227.30. Oh, well, I needed them -- the one in my study was last replaced on 24 May 2003 -- the kitchen filter on 9 October 2001. Gosh, how time flies as one gets older!
Me / - eCard -- Bertie / - eCard --
13 May 2007 / Sunday -- what a shocker -- Yahoo is closing down their American and Canadian auction sites. They did NOT even send an email to sellers announcing the change -- but they never were very good at doing things as one might expect. I went to Yahoo to add some more items and found the notice, with the result that I added nothing -- I still have a few things listed. The last day to bid / buy ia 16 June, and on 29 October all the user information disappears [or so they tell us]. I put a lot of work into my Yahoo auctions since about 2001 and sold a couple dozen things at prices better than I got on eBay for the same thing. Their Singapore auction site will still be operational -- it is in English, while their HongKong and Taiwan sites are in Chinese -- I may do a test run of some things in Singapore just to keep in practice.
23 May 2007 / Wednesday -- postal rates increased on 14 May -- I went there four days later and the gals at the counter still did not know what to charge because what they were getting on their computer screens kept changing -- the USPS website was worse and usually provided an error screen when I went to look up foreign shipping rates. I added a couple things to Yahoo Singapore.
Gasoline prices are really weird -- I filled up the Honda on 18 May at $2.89 / gallon at the cheapest place near here -- as I was leaving a dude changed the price on the large sign to $2.99 / gallon! What luck I had.
I opened the kitchen door so that the two cats in the center of the apartment could mingle and get to know the ones in the kitchen, AFTER I thoroughly cleaned it, of course. OK, thus far, with only minor hissing, NO major battles. The kittys in the bedroom are doing quite nicely -- -- hopefully I will be able to find adoptive parents for them [and three of my older cats], but may keep the female I call Ringo -- she is the black / blue one with the narrow light streak from her nose to between her eyes -- -- one person already saw the pics and contacted me several times about adopting one. They are now a day over five weeks old, drinking water, eating moist and dry food on their own, know where the litter box is and sleep in their box nest on the floor -- mommy still allows them to drink from her ample milk supply. In another week or so they will probably figure out how to climb up onto the bed, which means I will get even less sleep than I do now with Blinky and Olga usually beside me.
* J U N E *
2 June 2007 / Sunday -- last week the special Star Wars twelve stamp sheet came out -- -- I got a couple for my stash. I looked in at least four large and small hardware stores for a rubber bucket and cement mixing pan for when I finally get around to doing some cement patch up work around the garage [that is what my Dad always used] -- I always ask the guy if they have any rubber cement troughs, and invariably they show me the usual plastic ones -- DUH! On a post office run to West Trenton I stopped in an old True Value place, same result -- then an old coot tells me they always carried them but nobody asks for them anymore. We went into the small back room, he checked through a couple catalogs and found some things I could use -- he had to order them -- they were there in three days -- -- a heavy six gallon bucket with robust steel handle, a four and a six gallon round tub -- total cost = $29.07, which I consider very inexpensive -- I ordered one of each more.
Last Monday I plugged in the air conditioner in the kitchen because it was getting too hot to cook there. In the study I have a thermometer that shows the temperature in the study and in the kitchen [with a wireless remote] -- got the thing years ago, but never replaced the batteries in the two displays -- did that, and noticed that the temperature in the kitchen was 73.8 while that in my study was 91.3 -- even though I was only wearing shorts for a week, it was getting unbareable [pun intended], so I lugged the air conditioner from the floor to the study window and immediately turned it on. Within an hour or so the temp dropped to 81 [I have the automatic thermostat set to 74]. Now I can breathe easier once again.
I changed the bed linens -- the kittys are totally litter trained, and luckily they bother me LESS than Olga does when I go to bed. Olga always seems to want to sit on my head, I push her off, she jumps down on the floor, eats something, then jumps back on my head -- this goes on for at least an hour or so before she decides it is time for a prolonged nap [which usually only lasts from about midnight until 05h] -- the latest mommy and kitten photo -- -- when she first had the kittens her underside was very scratched up by their sharp claws, but as they get older they learn to keep their claws retracted when in contact with skin, including mine -- in this one we see all five babies -- -- Ringo is the second youngin from the left -- if she would not be occupied feeding, she would run over to where I am, as usual. They are all eating both dry and moist food but will keep nursing until Blinky thinks they are old enough to eat on their own, brushing them away with her paw.
The left show window downstairs is more organized than it was, with cacti and succulents on the shelves I made -- -- some work must yet be done -- an inside view shows the exuberant Epiphyllum cactus -- -- that bloomed shortly before I took the pic. The three Metasequoia [Dawn Redwood] in the small patio between the back of the property and the garages are all above the garage roof -- -- the one on the right is at least a meter above the roof -- by the end of this growing season they will probably grow another four to six feet. I have tried to find a new home for one [or even two] of them, simply because the garden space is quite small -- I asked Bernar about a dozen times, my vet, the auto repairman and a neighbor at the end of my side street if they want it -- YES, they all said, BUT not one of them comes to dig it out! As large as they are, they would cost at least $100 each at any wholesale horticultural supply nursery.
Oh, yeah, and I updated the last eight months of trivia contest winners -- link below -- the new format is easier to work with, so please take the time to have a couple minutes of online fun each day and play the trivia thing -- it is FREE -- compare your score with that of the other players -- I usually have the lowest score!
16 June 2007 / Saturday -- I updated a couple dozen of my for sale domains in the coin / stamp / astrology / biological cycle / travel categories -- most had not been touched in 3 - 4 years. The DNA results for my Sambor genes, on my Mother's side, finally appeared in the National Geographic web site, so I added that information to the -- -- pages after making new images / banners and reformatting ALL of the pages.
I missed going to the 45th reunion of my 1962 class at Villanova University -- a couple weeks ago I also missed the 50th reunion of the graduating class of 1957 at Father Judge High School in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) -- I would really have liked to attend both, but I am not sure the Honda would have gotten me there and back. My last Yahoo USA auction closed last week and the site was discontinued, but I hope to continue adding items to the Yahoo Singapore auctions. Last month I sent an email to the owner of YardSaleNet.net, saying how much I love using their FREE listings -- they liked it soooo much, they included it in their monthly -- -- newsletter.
I put a one page kitten ad with tear off web page URL strips at my vet's in West Trenton and also on the bulletin board of the post office across the street from the vet's place. Surprisingly, Ringo, who I thought was a female turned out to be a male, so unfortunately I shall not be keeping him. here is todays photo of the Sphynx in my bedroom -- -- Zews, the daddy is visiting with them for a few hours -- from left to right they appear to be -- female > male [Ringo] > female > male > female / Blinky in back, Zews in front -- they are absolutely adorable. If you know of anyone who might like to adopt one, send them the adoption link, below, please. Thanks.
19 June 2007 / Tuesday -- I took Blinky and her brood to the vet this morning to get their health certificates -- of course the vet loved them and said they were in excellent health, which I already knew, of course -- since I do not have any photos of me with the cats, a gal in the waiting room took three, which you can see on the kitten adoption page -- I do not add very many photos of myself in my news pages, obviously, since I take them all, so I thought it would be kewl to add a sexy shot of me with my favorite female kitten on my shoulder and Ringo in my right hand --
somebody sent me an email invitation to check out a new FREE online auction from the Canary Islands [ohhhh, the nostalgia] -- so I signed up and added a few things as a test -- from what I could observe, most of the items are listed by British expatriots who now live on one of the seven islands, and their minimalist item descriptions are all in English. Luckily the site accepts my very long item formats which are the same as I use on the other selling sites [links below]. Ads can be placed for up to 30 days, and can auto renew quite a few times. We shall see how it works out.
25 June 2007 / Monday -- last Friday and today I took a car loaded to the roof with donations [several windows computers / servers / network stations, many accessories, clothes, some framed art, books, and other goodies] to the Salvation Army. There is still a lot of stuff to gather together to take there. I now have about fifty items on the Canary Island auction site, hopefully something might sell.
Olga has been in heat for three days, so I took her out of the bedroom (where she was a PITA when I tried to get some sleep) and put her in the kitchen -- the two males there seem to be avoiding her (they only got to meet her a couple times previously) -- I never saw one of my Sphynx females in heat before (probably because they have always been with a male they knew) -- she is not screamy as the Siamese always were, rather kinda grunting in a deep baritone voice and flattening herself on any surface she happens to be on, thus inviting a male to hump her -- since she is up for adoption, I really do not want her to get pregnant. I also do not want Zews to mate with her this time again (he is in the central part of the apartment with Yakshini), but if she continues being ignored I may possibly allow her in with Zews just to quiet her down. No inquiries about the kittens yet -- they will be ten weeks old tomorrow -- they are eating up a storm -- since the pet food poisoning I have been getting the cats chicken and ground beef, which I give them almost every day, along with large cans of cat food and the usual dry food. I started keeping track of what they are costing me, but am afraid to even add it all up -- they are really pampered kitty cats!
Every once in a while I look at the ClustrMap of visitors to the main page of this web site -- on 12 June I finally reached 5000 -- here is a screen shot -- -- but it is now over 6000. If you click on sections of the main map you can see an enlarged map of that area. I find it quite fascinating, and am somewhat surprised at all the foreign visits.
At the end of this week the much anticipated Apple iPhone appears on the shelves -- I suspish they will sell at least a million during the first weekend -- I will not get one, nor do I have a cell phone -- it is actually the smallest computer Apple ever made, plus an iPod / direction finder / cell phone and digital camera all rolled into one. Next week is the monster 4th of July holiday, but the 4th falls on a Wednesday -- will it be a VERY extended break, or just a single day to get to the beaches at the start of the summer vacation season?
* J U L Y *
1 July 2007 / Sunday -- On Wednesday, 27 June I got a telephone call from Marshall in New Orleans -- he asked me for information about an artist, Alfred Henry Maurer -- he bought a pastel drawing by Maurer of Isadora Duncan, the famous dancer who died under tragic circumstances, at a local thrift shop for $35 -- it had my collection label on the back! Gosh, I sold that many years ago, possibly at the flea market for a couple hundred [it is worth quite a bit more]. I told him all that I could remember about the work -- he collects Duncan sketches and related items. It was quite an unexpected call -- it is a good thing I was in my study at the time when he started to add a message to my answering machine that made me actually pick up the phone, which is something I very rarely do. We chatted for at least twenty minutes about art and the rebuilding of New Orleans after the infamous floods of a couple years ago -- he lives in the French Quarter and got little or no damage. It was a welcome break from my frenzied iPhone related activities over the last couple weeks, which leads me to the main event ...
a new special report to commemorate the months of hype and speculation ... you will not believe it, but I was one of the many thousands of people waiting in line to see the history making gadget ...
4 July 2007 / Wednesday -- HAPPY 4th of JULY -- Me / - eCard -- Bertie / - eCard --
I found a really kewl video game -- I have not played computer games since when life was a LOT less complicated with FAR FEWER distractions in the days of the Commodore 64 and the original Mac way back when. It is not as complicated as WarCraft and a FREE demo can be downloaded online [the full version is a couple buckies and is worth it]. The Canadian maker tells us something about the game ...
Grubby Games releases a Molten Mystery
June 7th 2007. From the creators of 2005's best puzzle game, Professor Fizzwizzle, comes a logic puzzler of volcanic proportions: Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery! While on a well deserved vacation, Professor Fizzwizzle's investigation of a strange volcano has landed him in a hot spot of trouble. Now it's up to you to master exciting new gadgets, outwit the Bat-Bots, and vanquish a truly cunning villain!
Available on PC, Mac, and Linux, Professor Fizzwizzle's latest adventure pits him against the fiendish foe, Penny Pyroclast, and her island full of mind melting puzzles. Featuring over 210 levels in three different difficulty levels, Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery is packed with fun for gamers of all ages and skill levels.
And this is no ordinary puzzle game: Grubby Games has done away with the puzzle genre's frustration factor. Stuck on a level? Just use the "Show Solution" option to watch a walk-through. Made a false move? The multiple-level "undo" feature will come to your rescue. Find the action too fast? Adjust the game speed and play at your own pace.
I played up to level 10 on the easiest option just to get the hang of it, and did not do too badly -- it is VERY creative, simplistic, user adjustable, and does expand your logical reasoning skills by making you think about all the options to reach the goal at each level while avoiding all the pitfalls you encounter -- try it out and share it with your kids and young at heart pals who enjoy mind stimulating activities -- save the game icon in some folder on your hard drive or in your dock and have it always ready to play when you have a free moment ... I guarantee you will have loads of fun playing it ...
5 July 2007 / Thursday -- After I wrote the above I went to Sam's Club to stock up on stuff to eat -- this is a just short update to show you what I did with my new Kodak EastShare V1003 camera [they had them cheap because they were the last ones in stock], my first new camera in over 6 years -- what a friggin difference it is, 10 megapixels, 3x zoom plus digital zoom, really SMALL and light, easy to use, just as my previous two Kodak digital cameras are -- it even has video incorporated, which is something new to me -- so I did a few trial runs with the new toy and you can see the FIRST experiment here --> -- and the SEVENTH one here --> -- do not expect something out of this world because they are quite simple, no scrolling text or musical background.
9 July 2007 / Monday -- another special report, this time on Kodak digital cameras -->
14 July 2007 / Saturday -- I guess I was sorta busy over the last five days -- not quite as fast as the bulls in Pamplona, of course -->
if you need an AVATAR for your blog / web page / message board / emails or whatever, I have a bunch of them, many as animated gifs, at -->
I also loaded a page that took me over five years to get around to really working on -- it lists / describes most of the major SOFTWARE I have used on my computers over the years, some of which I continue to use, rating each from one apple to five apples -->
22 July 2007 / Sunday -- last week I needed a ladder about twenty feet high to see why the roof drain pipe was stopped up -- when it rains the water comes over the edge of the roof and runs down the side of the building -- I have a couple step ladders in the house and a really long fiberglass ladder in the garages but it is impossible to remove until I start reorganizing what it in there. I asked several neighbors -- they said did not have anything except much shorter stepladders -- the Hispanic grocery store across the street was working on their second story windows and trim for a few weeks, so I asked them -- sorry, but all we have is a stepladder. OK, so I went to the Home Depot and bought a twenty-two foot fiberglass extension ladder -- when I reached the double bend in the drain I saw that I did a really great job when I installed it because the individual parts were screwed together -- only one screw was able to be removed, so I had to bend the ends to get them to separate from the bottom straight length. It rained. The water apparently comes through to the bend, so the stoppage must be in the lower end. I tried sticking a stiff wire up through the bottom, but it only reaches so far -- my next step is to push the wire through the top and try to dislodge whatever is stuck in there. The moral of the story is -- IF anyone asks me to use a ladder I shall tell them I do not have one, other than a couple which someone lent me, and I cannot take the responsibility to allow you to use them, sorry.
Last Monday I went to where I have a rented storage unit on Lalor Street, on the south end of Trenton. They neglected to notify me that my yearly rent was due on 1 July, as usual-- it happened last year too. I loudly complained about their continued lack of notification -- the Hispanic dude at the desk said I owed them over 500 clams! HUH? His computer showed several months rent was due -- their computers are ALWAYS wrong, that is why last year I asked the lady to write on the receipt EXACTLY when I was paid up to, which was 1 July -- they have an easy scam working for them if the renter is not sure about what their flakey contract states -- fortunately I knew. He goes in the back office to speak with the manager -- manager comes out and tells me I am correct -- NO SHIT SHERLOCK! So I renewed for another year in advance, using a credit card which I really did not want to use -- I hope to hell I can somehow sell or find another place for all that stuff before next July, but I said that last year too.
The kittens are getting bigger and are still here in the bedroom with their mommy -- maybe if I sold ten foot alligators or champion sired fighting pit bulls they would be sold in a day.
The last time I went to Sam's Club I got a five cubic foot top loading freezer so I can store more frozen food that I I get there cheap and not have to go back every three weeks or so for more. The small freezer in the fridge in the kitchen is too small for doing this. So yesterday I went back and got more meat and other food for me and the cats, and, incidentally, a couple copies of the latest and probably last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, first editions. YES, someone dies in the end, matter of fact quite a few die in the thirty-sixth chapter.
29 July 2007 / Sunday -- Wow, on Thursday morning that non profit donation warehouse across the street put out at the curb about 27 huge trash bags of things -- -- that pic is of the bags across from my kitchen window in back the apartment, with another row further down the street -- the next photo is of that distant pile -- -- of course I was somewhat inquisitive, so I parked the Honda beside the closest pile [is this just inquisitive or obsessive?], used a tall plastic empty cat litter container as a seat, and started to leisurely and comfortably rummage through each and every bag. The contents were all linen goods, mostly from the Pottery Barn -- pillow / mattress shams, sheets, mattress / comforter covers, cloth remnants, hanging enclosures for suits / dresses, curtains, and, as usual, odds and ends of other things. I piled up what I liked on an adjoining bag, then opened the car door and lovingly placed the goodies inside. The Hispanic gals five homes away from me were avidly watching the show and giggling -- when I found something really colorful and attractive I raised it in the air and loudly said, Venga niñas, hay muchisimas cosas en las bolsas -- no pierdas esta oportunidad de encontrar tesoros para la casa. They finally got the idea, so three of the ladies and two of their kids went across to the bags closest to their place and started picking through the stuff. After about ninety minutes I had the Honda filled with piles of things, and even an entire bag from the curb -- notice in the first pic, above, a space between the trash bags to the top left of the inserted date stamp -- it contained only the pillow cases and some mattress shams -- many of the items were still in the original plastic bag with price tag, the most expensive I found was marked half off at $57!
Now I have to decide if I will simply donate everything to the Salvation Army, take it to a country auction south of here [if it still exists -- I have not been there in years], put it on eBay or whatever. Some of the material I will use to recover the seats of the five antique oak kitchen chairs, and I may use some of the curtains in the kitchen and faux living room to keep the sun out. The kittens got a fuzzy tiger pattern pillow sham to sleep on, and several pillow cases will be used as spares. Since I did not sleep too well that night, I was up well before 05h Friday morning and was going to go out to search the bags the gals partially went through, but the trash guys arrived at 07h and took everything, which is VERY rare -- they usually no not collect the trash on the other side of the street. leaving that job to another truck that arrives several hours later -- damn it!
Today I took two boxes out to the car to start sorting all the treasures -- keep in mind that I did NOT take at least 95% of what was out on the curb, MOST of which was in excellent condition. My starting list includes -- a gorgeous L. L. Bean XL lined jeans jacket, just my size and apparently never worn [I will add that to the second hand haute couture stuff in the bedroom closet] -- two large solid wood cutting boards -- a beautiful silk covered white double bed down comforter -- two small Brita water purifiers -- two down pillows, one the much longer king size. It was threatening to drizzle so I could not do very much -- I went through most of what is in that full trash bag, and found several dozen still in package pillow covers / shams -- -- several designer makes and sizes -- I am keeping these -- -- the ones on the top right are a pair of King size 800 thread count 100% cotton jacquard [price tag - $41.89], and that central pack on the bottom is a pair of cases made of Modal, a high strength fiber regenerated from the Beechwood tree of Middle Europe -- I will probably never even open or use most of them, so I guess my estate will be thrilled to get all these marvelous goodies. I cannot wait to continue the sorting process.
OK, I went out again a few hours later and filled up another box with different sized pillow shams [they are not pillow cases, rather a cloth thingy to put over a baby's pillow to a throw pillow to a normal size bed pillow, very decorative, some from the Pottery Barn Kids, relatively few in plastic package -- -- I still have more in the stash that I have to sort to pick out the ones I want to redo the kitchen chairs with. The count of pillow case packages now stands at 42, many of which contain two. The shams total 20 thus far.
On Friday, a ring of the doorbell at an amazingly early 08h produced a special delivery cashier check in my name for several hundred thousand dollars! OMG, now I can return to Spain and start to enjoy life -- read the entire fascinating story by clicking on the following icon ...
1 August 2007 / Monday -- I updated the Verizon story with yet more DSL related crap.
For a couple years I noticed that the toilet in the apartment does NOT flush MOST of the time -- sometimes even repeated flushings will not get rid of what is in there, and only a bucket full of water would do the job. I called the plumber a couple times about it, he even put in a snake thing to see if anything was stopping up the pipe, but he found nothing. There was a LOT of crusty scale on the lower end and probably in the openings around the rim which I could not see, and as a ring around the high water level. The ring I often attempted to remove using a pumice stone, but it would not get rid of all of it. On the built up scale on the bottom part I used a sharp knife to pick it off, and little by little I could remove much of what I was able to see, but I knew that a lot more remained on the lowest unseen part but could do nothing about it. Some two months ago on a visit to Sam's Club I saw something I never noticed before -- four packs of The WORKS -- -- a product that supposedly removes all the rust / lime scale / stains, so I thought I would try it -- it was cheap enough, only about $4 for the pack. I got home and poured half of a squeeze bottle under the rim and all over. After a quick brushing with a simple European toilet brush and taking another dump, I flushed it but not everything went down -- there was still a lot of crusty scale on the bottom, although, amazingly, the ring completely disappeared -- after all these years it was unbelievable.
OK, so I poured the remaining blue liquid into the lowest part where the crust was -- a white smoke started to appear and drift over the top of the toilet bowl -- it reminded me of a film I saw over thirty years ago -- -- I allowed the reaction to continue for about a half hour, then flushed and ALL OF THE CRUST / SCALE WAS GONE -- the dead toilet was brought back to life, just like in that flick! Since that time I have had absolutely NO problems with the toilet, and highly recommend the product to my readers. Curiously, on my last visit to Sam's, they did not have The Works available.
12 August 2007 / Sunday -- this past week I started listing some things again on eBay after about eight weeks of nothing -- I did sell two Star Wars lunch boxes from my web site -- every little bit helps. I added another two large boxes of useful things to my stash from the trash across the street. Filled up the Honda at $2.61.99 / gallon, but it was down to $2.51.99 yesterday at the same place. Last Wednesday I discovered that the phone service was working again [for that story about Verizon and their ratty DSL service, go to -->> -- immediately called Horacio in Tenerife, asking about the forest fires on the island -- they are in the south, in and around el Teide, the volcano and highest point in Spain. A heat wave with dry winds caused his fruit trees to wither -- he now has two turtles left.
The kittens are progressing nicely, but do not allow me to sleep in bed because they get so rambunctious, so most nights I sleep in the only open space in my study [in the entrance way] on a 6.5 foot foam base with a 6.5 x 3 foot Sleep Basics padded quasi mattress, both of which roll up, and both of which I got in the discards from across the street in the last month. Fabiola had a single kitten on 3 August, its eyes are open already -- she picked out a box on the kitchen table as a nest, and the other felines in the room do not seem to be bothering her or the baby. Olga is fat as a horse and should have hers within a week or so -- I still have not figured out the logistics of where she should have the kittens or how I MUST supervise the birth and care of the kittens, since mommy has been clueless in the past -- it worries me a lot.
We had a heat wave that made it unbearable to go outside last week -- inside was like an oven except in the closed study and kitchen [with air conditioners]. City property tax time came up, which depleted what little money I had in the bank after paying gas and electric and the credit cards, which was one of the reasons to start listing stuff on eBay again. If the kittens start to find new homes, that would help a lot too.
Last week they held the annual Puerto Rican parade, which I slept through to avoid the noise after I chased three really fat dudes from the entrance landing in front -- that evening I had to dispose of the usual beer bottles and food wrappers and other junk they pile up along the side of the property -- hurray for an old city wide law that says you cannot drink alcoholic beverages in public -- it is never enforced, according to my observations -- why are there federal laws on the books about illegal immigration if my area is probably 50% occupied by them, mostly from Central America, South America, Pakistan, China, Italy, etc. ??. In any case, I got in a Hispanic mood and found a web site, JibJab, that allows you to make a kewl dance video clip, so I made a slightly offbeat iPhone commercial -->> -- I did not have a female face photo to work with, so I had to do the only video that worked with a single face. Try it, and have some fun, which is what the InterNUT is all about these days.
20 August 2007 / Monday -- I decided, on a whim, to take the Honda full of mostly things I got from the trash acroiss the street on Tuesday, 14 August to a country auction I had not visited in at least 6 - 7 years, south of me. Although the day was heating up to the 90s, the trip there was ok since I had the air conditioning working. Unpacking and organizing the stuff on the shelves was an entirely different story, I was sweating like a hippopotamus. I had a permanent auction card #341, with a date of 27 September 1995, which is when I went there to buy and sell almost every week -- they only have a few select customers who get one, and one of them died, so I inherited their number. Richard, the auctioneer, told me the number is antique and since they changed their computer system, which they always seemed to do with frequency, I had to get a regular number. After finishing filling out my lot sheet, I took it to the gal in the office who told me my data was still in the system, so I have the same old number as before.
The day of the auction, Wednesday, 15 August, I headed out to the auction, bringing my Kodak V1003, arriving at about 17:30. I thought I might take some videos, but only wound up taking five stills, on some of which I pasted enlargements of details I thought were interesting. As usual, they began to sell from a truck in front -- cases of cereals, large cans of juices, chips, and other food stuffs and a few collectibles -- here we see Richard hawking bags of bagel chips by the bag -- note the cases of things in the truck -- -- it was a leisurely crowd, many seemingly country folk dressed comfortably, with a lot of older retired looking peeps -- quite a few overweight -- further back there were cases of vegetables, watermelon, peppers, squash, red onions, large and small yellow and red tomatoes, cantaloupe, egg plant and bags of sweet white corn picked fresh from the auctioneer's fields, which, incidentally, surrounded the auction site -- -- the insets show, left to right, the buxom gal keeping track of what is being sold, a svelte older gal wearing those Crocs,. soft plastic sandals that everybody is talking about, and an older gent with his wife, wearing a bulging Florida t shirt -- gawd, perhaps from the go south in winter hoards. Then they got out two native American Indian dolls, with all the typical trimmings on the dresses, with stands -- -- they went for a remarkable $20 -- I can remember getting entire cases of different sized ones in original boxes, porcelain heads and all, with limited edition certificates for $2 each many years ago!
As always some people spend a lot of time renewing old friendships and just shooting the breeze, as we see on the left of the truck -- Richard's main runner, Dave, was helping, as he has for all the years I have gone there -- -- he still looks the same. When they got to the veggies and all the boxes did not sell, they then started them again, putting two cases together -- at the end they wound up selling four bags of corn for a dollar more than they got for single bags! There was still a shitload of things in the truck, and everything was offered at $100, but nobody bid, probably because they did not bring a truck with them -- they could easily have made at least twenty times that much if they sold the items individually.
On the right side of the main auction building were the outdoor sales things lined up on pallets -- a lot of plush and other toys, tools of all kinds, building supplies, car / plumbing parts, outdoor furniture, many bicycles, shelving and tons of other goodies way in the back -- -- where another auctioneer was selling. Inside in the largest main auction room, the selection was notably sparse [probably the summer is off season -- even with the ceiling fans working, it was quite hot and stuffy inside] -- furniture on either side of the room [which gets auctioned off first -- it all sold, the largest things to dealers who brought large trucks with them] -- the main front shelves seemed lightly stocked -- some 1970-ish collector plates, a couple vintage cameras, Christmas ornaments, stem ware and other goodies -- -- there were no tables set up in the center of the room with smaller things on them -- not a lot that even mildly interested me. The back room had box lots, a few computers, including the first model iMac [ I never saw an Apple computer there before, although they always had many PCs which usually only brought in less than $10], some printers, stereo systems, boxes of long play records, collectible toys and such -- they begin selling those things when everything outside is finally sold.
I only bid on a single item in the main auction room that interested me, a nice wrought iron plant stand with green alabaster top -- -- after which I paid the $12.50 and went home -- I was getting too sweaty and really bored, did not even wait to see what prices my things would bring in.
The next day I made another trip to see what I sold, and to take home what did not sell. All the framed things, the vintage tin tobacco signs, the load of pillow cases, half of the clothes organizers and some other goodies sold, about half of what I took. I loaded the stuff back into the Honda, then went to the gal to ask what my earnings were -- she told me she does not have that done yet and a check would be sent sometime this week -- I kinda doubt it will be more than about $20, after taking out their fees, so hopefully I would have at least paid for the kewl plant stand I got.
When I got back home, I immediately filled the car with many more things, made out a list, and took it all to the Salvation Army as a donation / sizable tax writeoff. Although I might have preferred to sell the goodies, about the only way to get rid of them was to donate them to that not for profit charity, this making room in the garages to find more treasures to dispose of.
Fabiola moved her single kitten to the lower fruit box apartment in the kitchen, which is larger and more comfy than the box on the kitchen table she had him in -- yesterday I took a video of that area of the kitchen but the lighting was terrible -- after doing it twice, I decided that the second version was less awful yet kinda good enough to load on uTube -- here is the link -->
23 August 2007 / Thursday -- Yesterday I finally made new seat covers for the antique oak kitchen chairs -- they were originally caned and once upon a tyme many years ago I even bought the wooden pegs and caning material to restore them but, as frequently happens, never got around to doing it. I saved some of the pillow shams and other material from the trash across the street, and picked out a nice woven diamond pattern, seen enlarged in the insert on the upper left -- -- when I originally refinished the chairs to their Victorian splendor at least 20+ years ago I had another chair with a commercial type of work around for a seat for older caned seats. A board shaped as a seat, onto which some padding was added and covered with a cloth material, so I cut wood templates for all five chairs, padded the tops with some cotton batting and used a heavy blue material as the cover, stapling it to the bottom of the board [some ten years later I recovered the chairs with a nicer jacquard material, which over time has been ruined by the darling cats, which might be expected -- both old coverings can be seen in the left chair]. Two holes were drilled into the wooden seat part, which matched the holes in a narrow rectangle of composition board that fit under the chair seat edge -- -- that piece was then bolted to the padded seat and holds it firmly in position -- really looks great, at least from the top of the chair. I only did two of them, the two actually at the kitchen table.
The first couple days of this week had HIGH temperatures in the mid 60s, and at night it went down to about 55, what a change from the daytime temps in the mid to upper 90s we had been experiencing -- instead of getting out a warm comforter for the bed, I actually slept with a long sleeve padded jacket and long pants -- what little I could sleep with the five kittens romping all over me!
26 August 2007 / Sunday -- Here is another really kewl video game I stumbled across last week, Zamby and the Mystical Crystals, a mind stimulating adventure for days of pure fun for the young and even for old coots like myself with an always restless mind --
you can download a FREE trial version from the icon link, and if you like it as much as I do, it only costs a couple buckies for the full version with tons of advanced levels and additional special features.
30 August 2007 / Thursday -- I knew that Olga was getting fatter and was probably expecting -- on Tuesday between 15h and 19h she had two babies in the hideout under the lavabo. I was at her side most of the time, cutting the umbilical cord so that she would not continue eating kittycat after she munched the placenta. After she cleaned each one, I took them to the box in the kitchen where Fabiola decided to keep her single kitty, and she took care of each newby as her own. I wanted to wait until any more kittens arrived to reunite them with their mom. Yesterday between 19:30h and 20:45h, Olga had two more, I did the same as before with each. I also wanted to take the cloth cave she had them in and replace it with a box having newspaper in the bottom -- she did not like that very much, so I simply put some paper in the bottom of the soiled kitty hideout and replaced the three oldest while Olga ate some canned food -- -- after a few minutes she went back into the cave and the kittys started feeding again -- -- the last born was still with Fabiola and her darling, so to make the photo series complete into the kitchen I went -- -- her offspring is on the left and seems to be waving to me with its right front paw [sooooo cute!], while the youngin was interrupted at the feeding station. I have to frequently check on all of them to see if they have round full stomachs -- if not, I shall have to start feeding them by bottle until they get stronger. If they all live, that means I would have a total of TEN kittens to find new homes for. Although about a dozen peeps have contacted me about them thus far, nobody has come through to adopt one, but it is still summer / vacation time and kinda slow for many things, I guess. Should I mention that Blinky is also pregnant, which surprises me -- usually a female does NOT go into heat again until all her kittens have left the nest. When she has hers I shall have to put her previous brood of five in the center of the apartment and / or in the kitchen, so she is not disturbed -- I will probably also put Olga in with her since they know and tolerate each other well enough. After years of Sphynx females that seemed totally disinterested in having kittens, all of a sudden they do not seem to want to stop, and Blinky's five was above the average number for the breed [when I bred Siamese, they would sometimes have kittens three times a year and it was not infrequent for six or even seven babies to appear and survive]. It may be due to the fact that I have been feeding them MORE beef / chicken / fish on a daily basis since the Chinese pet food scandal made the news some months ago.
I just went into the bedroom to see that everything is OK and open the window to allow some cooler night air to flow in -- I was last in there to refill their LARGE Pyrex rectangular food dish about 3 hours ago. Blinky was on the bed with her couple month old kittens, as usual, when I first open the door -- I played with each of them and was ready to leave when I hear SQUEAK ,,, SQUEAK ... coming from the box under the vanity. OMG, it cannot be, she did not look fat enough to have a couple new kittys already. I carefully lifted the lid of the box, almost hoping that I might have been hallucinating -- you ain't gonna believe this -- -- on the newspaper that I changed yesterday because the other cats were ripping it up, were no less than SIX new babies -- -- incredibly, there are now ELEVEN brand new extremely delicate miniature bundles of joy that I have to keep watch over! The older five did not seem to be overly inquisitive about their new brothers and sisters. Although all of the herd seem OK, I would be greatly surprised if all of them survive more than a few days -- PLEASE GOD, allow them to live and grow up to be adoptable. It is now 04:20h -- I may get four hours of sleep in my study, with a six by three foot foam, on top of which there is a similar sized portable mattress and a pillow, all of which I got from that charity trash this month -- it is in basically the ONLY open space available, in the entrance way with a door at the far end separating this room from the rest of the apartmenent. I may have nightmares about cats taking over the world, bless their hearts.
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