He: What happened to your thumbs?
Me: I volunteered at the Housing Authority. I spent three hours on Monday raking and bagging leaves. I lost a little skin on the deal.
He: Why didn't you just use a leaf blower?
Me: I don't have a leaf blower.
He: What did you use?
Me: A rake.
He: Well, what do you use at your house?
Me: A rake.
He: ...
Me: We don't all have multi-acre spreads, you know.
He: I don't have multi-acres. "Multi" means double digits. I've only got 5 acres.
Me: I don't even have one acre.
He: Well, next time, let me know. You can borrow mine. It's gas, very powerful.
Showing posts with label Homeownin'. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homeownin'. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Thursday, December 10, 2009
An Apology Would've Been Nice
One of the things Pops taught me was to be unafraid to try to do things myself. He taught me how to use tools, and in return, I lost, misplaced, and mistreated all of those tools. I recall him saying that one of the biggest changes in having his last child out of the house was that tools remained exactly where he left them.
He taught me how to do all sorts of things, from using a coping saw, to roofing a house, to changing a water pump on an '82 Escort. So I've got the do-it-yourself genes, but unfortunately, I didn't inherit his skill, patience, or attention to detail. The result is that I know enough to get myself into trouble, but not enough to get myself out. So I get by with a little help from my friends, and especially my family. When Aerie and I bought a townhouse years ago that had a rotten bathtub, among other problems, I got a lot of practice fixing stuff. I called it my practice house. I did a terrible job tearing out the old tub, installing the new one, and putting in new drywall in the bathroom. God knows how we managed to finally sell that place.
So in the new house, when I wanted to screen in the deck, I called on Pops. He had the equipment. He had the know-how. And what he didn't know, he could figure out. When I wanted to turn an office into a bedroom, I called on Big Brother. He's a structural engineer who used to frame houses. He knows his stuff.
Big Brother and I, we turned this:
Into this:
It's not perfect. Even in the picture, you can still say the shape of where the old door used to be. But it's pretty darn good. Much gratitude and love to Big Brother for all of his expertise and help.
But you see that white patch of joint compound up there? See that? We had a couple of unrelated electrical problems that I couldn't figure out, so we decided to call an electrician. And as long as he was here, I thought it best to let him move the light switch inside that room so that I wouldn't spend the next 20 years annoyed that it was six feet away from the doorway. And he more or less did a good job. He fixed the two other problems, but he left screws and cut wire and various detritus from his work laying around the house. But worse, he put a hole in my new wall. I was happy with that wall. Aerie was happy with that wall. All I had left, after floating, and taping, and texturing, and painting the hallway side, was painting the bedroom side. That's all. Nearly done. And the electrician, when drilling through the old header above the old door, missed. And put a hole in my new wall.
He said, "Oh." He said, "I guess I missed." And then he proceeded to lavish praise on my drywalling skills. He suggested that I was so good at it, that it would be no problem for me to fix his mistake. And then he gave me $25 off my bill.
Son of a bitch never even said, "I'm sorry." And now I'm patching and texturing and painting again. I'll bet I'll be looking at that spot for the next 20 years and thinking about that stupid electrician.
He taught me how to do all sorts of things, from using a coping saw, to roofing a house, to changing a water pump on an '82 Escort. So I've got the do-it-yourself genes, but unfortunately, I didn't inherit his skill, patience, or attention to detail. The result is that I know enough to get myself into trouble, but not enough to get myself out. So I get by with a little help from my friends, and especially my family. When Aerie and I bought a townhouse years ago that had a rotten bathtub, among other problems, I got a lot of practice fixing stuff. I called it my practice house. I did a terrible job tearing out the old tub, installing the new one, and putting in new drywall in the bathroom. God knows how we managed to finally sell that place.
So in the new house, when I wanted to screen in the deck, I called on Pops. He had the equipment. He had the know-how. And what he didn't know, he could figure out. When I wanted to turn an office into a bedroom, I called on Big Brother. He's a structural engineer who used to frame houses. He knows his stuff.
Big Brother and I, we turned this:
Into this:
It's not perfect. Even in the picture, you can still say the shape of where the old door used to be. But it's pretty darn good. Much gratitude and love to Big Brother for all of his expertise and help.
But you see that white patch of joint compound up there? See that? We had a couple of unrelated electrical problems that I couldn't figure out, so we decided to call an electrician. And as long as he was here, I thought it best to let him move the light switch inside that room so that I wouldn't spend the next 20 years annoyed that it was six feet away from the doorway. And he more or less did a good job. He fixed the two other problems, but he left screws and cut wire and various detritus from his work laying around the house. But worse, he put a hole in my new wall. I was happy with that wall. Aerie was happy with that wall. All I had left, after floating, and taping, and texturing, and painting the hallway side, was painting the bedroom side. That's all. Nearly done. And the electrician, when drilling through the old header above the old door, missed. And put a hole in my new wall.
He said, "Oh." He said, "I guess I missed." And then he proceeded to lavish praise on my drywalling skills. He suggested that I was so good at it, that it would be no problem for me to fix his mistake. And then he gave me $25 off my bill.
Son of a bitch never even said, "I'm sorry." And now I'm patching and texturing and painting again. I'll bet I'll be looking at that spot for the next 20 years and thinking about that stupid electrician.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A Just Universe, But a Little Petty
I installed a shut-off valve on our shower so that we could righteously conserve water and the natural gas we use to heat it. It's a small cylinder that installs between the water pipe coming out of the wall and the shower head. But the barrel of the thing is so short that the button that allows or restricts the flow of water prevents the shower head from screwing on all the way. That prevents the washer inside from compressing all the way and keeping it from leaking, or whatever. I don't know the mechanics of the thing exactly. What am I, a plumber?
Anyway, I can't tighten the shower head all the way and so it leaks. Consequently, every morning when I turn on the shower, I get a spray of cold mist to the face. For weeks, I would forget from day to day that this was going to happen, and I would be surprised daily by the cold jolt. Then I started trying to sneak up on it. I tried turning on the water while standing behind the shower door, but I couldn't reach. I'd stand on the edge of the tub and lean way over. Still, that cold shot to the face. Then I figured out that if I rotated the shower head, the spray shot of harmlessly into the wall. Ha ha! Success! But Aerie, being fifteen inches shorter than I, rotated the shower head back to what is apparently the optimal angle for her showering needs, and the next morning, Pow! Surprise!
So instead of doing something effective, like removing the valve or searching for one with a longer barrel that won't impede the proper level of torque on the shower head, I spend several minutes each day standing in the shower and brooding about the injustice of a universe that punishes good intentions.
Of course, the universe may instead be punishing me for the fact that, while I installed the shut-off valve, I never actually use the shut-off valve. Hey, I enjoy the soothing sensation of warm water cascading down my body. Is that so wrong?
Anyway, I can't tighten the shower head all the way and so it leaks. Consequently, every morning when I turn on the shower, I get a spray of cold mist to the face. For weeks, I would forget from day to day that this was going to happen, and I would be surprised daily by the cold jolt. Then I started trying to sneak up on it. I tried turning on the water while standing behind the shower door, but I couldn't reach. I'd stand on the edge of the tub and lean way over. Still, that cold shot to the face. Then I figured out that if I rotated the shower head, the spray shot of harmlessly into the wall. Ha ha! Success! But Aerie, being fifteen inches shorter than I, rotated the shower head back to what is apparently the optimal angle for her showering needs, and the next morning, Pow! Surprise!
So instead of doing something effective, like removing the valve or searching for one with a longer barrel that won't impede the proper level of torque on the shower head, I spend several minutes each day standing in the shower and brooding about the injustice of a universe that punishes good intentions.
Of course, the universe may instead be punishing me for the fact that, while I installed the shut-off valve, I never actually use the shut-off valve. Hey, I enjoy the soothing sensation of warm water cascading down my body. Is that so wrong?
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Weekend Reviewed in a Series of Unrelated Sentences
Little old ladies watching their grandkids' commencement are sweet. Mostly.
It's endearing how bad Mrs. Rodius is with directions. She called me four times for help driving 9 1/2 miles on Saturday. God love her.
Biggest Brother, Big Brother, and I spent the best night out that I can recall in recent history. It was deeply satisfying to get to know Biggest Brother a little better, and all three of us discovered some common ground we didn't know we had. And we stayed out talking so long, we actually got kicked out of a bar when it closed. Crazy! That's way past my bedtime!
Thanks, Mrs. Rodius, for getting up with the baby at 7 a.m. on Sunday. You are way nicer to me than I deserve.
This is only our second summer in this house, and already my yardwork standards have gone waaaaay down. At least I'm still edging! I wish I hadn't recently watched Kinison's first appearance on Letterman. All I can think about now while I mow and trim and edge and weed is, "My life was so boring, I actually worried about my yard. The rest of my friends had goals, careers, visions, doing things with life. I was out there looking for crabgrass, weeds and stuff, going, 'I have a responsibility to the neighborhood....'"
It's endearing how bad Mrs. Rodius is with directions. She called me four times for help driving 9 1/2 miles on Saturday. God love her.
Biggest Brother, Big Brother, and I spent the best night out that I can recall in recent history. It was deeply satisfying to get to know Biggest Brother a little better, and all three of us discovered some common ground we didn't know we had. And we stayed out talking so long, we actually got kicked out of a bar when it closed. Crazy! That's way past my bedtime!
Thanks, Mrs. Rodius, for getting up with the baby at 7 a.m. on Sunday. You are way nicer to me than I deserve.
This is only our second summer in this house, and already my yardwork standards have gone waaaaay down. At least I'm still edging! I wish I hadn't recently watched Kinison's first appearance on Letterman. All I can think about now while I mow and trim and edge and weed is, "My life was so boring, I actually worried about my yard. The rest of my friends had goals, careers, visions, doing things with life. I was out there looking for crabgrass, weeds and stuff, going, 'I have a responsibility to the neighborhood....'"
Friday, April 25, 2008
New Gadgets
This week we looked into a water softener system. We can put up with the calcium scale on the shower walls and on the drip tray for the water dispenser in the refrigerator door. But we have a suspicion that high magnesium levels in our water contributes to both of the cats urinary tract infections ("UTI's" to those of us in the business). High levels of magnesium in non-prescription cat food is known to contribute to struvites, which scratch up the bladder, which allow bacteria to develop. So if magnesium in the food is a problem, magnesium, a component of our hard water, in the drinking water is probably a problem, too, right?
But yeah, it turns out our water comes into the house on the wrong side. Two plumbers explained why this is a problem, but I kind of spaced out and went away to my happy place for a few minutes while they were talking, and I can't really recreate for you here their explanations. But both of them said it meant we'd either have to spend tons of money digging up our driveway or spend tons of money digging a trench and running pipe all the way around the house. And yeah yeah, we love the kitties, blah blah blah, but thousands of dollars of plumbing work? Uh, no.
So we're getting the kitties a $370 countertop water distiller instead. We've been double-filtering their water (the refrigerator water's got a Pur filter on it, and we run that water through a Brita pitcher filter, too), but apparently to no effect. So we're going to distill their drinking water instead.
Part of me feels like a heel, like if I explained this to, say, a random sampling of my co-workers, a high percentage would point and laugh at me. $370? For cat drinking water? Heh heh. Sucker. Then part of me thinks it's not just the compassionate thing to do, but the smart money. We could easily spend that $370 on one, or maybe two, UTI's. So let's be proactive! You've got to spend money to save money. Or something like that.
And then part of me was sad that we wouldn't be getting the calcium scale-reducing benefits of the water softener. And I swear my skin's been drier and itchier since we moved here. So I just bought a $70 shower filter, too.
Heh heh. Sucker.
But yeah, it turns out our water comes into the house on the wrong side. Two plumbers explained why this is a problem, but I kind of spaced out and went away to my happy place for a few minutes while they were talking, and I can't really recreate for you here their explanations. But both of them said it meant we'd either have to spend tons of money digging up our driveway or spend tons of money digging a trench and running pipe all the way around the house. And yeah yeah, we love the kitties, blah blah blah, but thousands of dollars of plumbing work? Uh, no.
So we're getting the kitties a $370 countertop water distiller instead. We've been double-filtering their water (the refrigerator water's got a Pur filter on it, and we run that water through a Brita pitcher filter, too), but apparently to no effect. So we're going to distill their drinking water instead.
Part of me feels like a heel, like if I explained this to, say, a random sampling of my co-workers, a high percentage would point and laugh at me. $370? For cat drinking water? Heh heh. Sucker. Then part of me thinks it's not just the compassionate thing to do, but the smart money. We could easily spend that $370 on one, or maybe two, UTI's. So let's be proactive! You've got to spend money to save money. Or something like that.
And then part of me was sad that we wouldn't be getting the calcium scale-reducing benefits of the water softener. And I swear my skin's been drier and itchier since we moved here. So I just bought a $70 shower filter, too.
Heh heh. Sucker.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Unvoiced Bilabial Plosives
Twitter's kind of fun, but it's probably better for people who live beautiful, artistic, fascinating lives, like suttonhoo and martingruner. And for people who have text-friendly phones and text-friendly cellular plans. Does anyone want hour-by-hour snapshots into the life of a guy who spends much of his time in contemplation of the poop, the pee, and the puke? I ponder the color, the texture, the consistency, in all its variegated glory. For instance:
Was the cat pee on the carpet a dark enough orangey color to indicate possible blood in the urine and therefore yet another bladder infection?
How can the baby poop out neat little brown balls of clay that fall cleanly out of the diaper and into the toilet, and then a mere two hours later fill his diaper with a wet, sticky, multi-colored extravaganza that takes me fifteen minutes to clean up?
Could I have guessed a year-and-a-half ago, when Pops and I screened in the back deck, that the best part of the kitties spending so much time out there is that it catches most of the puke? Trex is much more stain-resistant than beige carpet.
Speaking of beige carpet, when I see that the boy's spit up somewhere because he has it on his chin and the front of his onesie, how is it that I can search and search and search for beige puke on a beige carpet without finding it, but a half-hour later when I walk barefoot across that same carpet, I'll unerringly step right in it?
Somehow it doesn't live up to suttonhoo's jet-setting, tours of the Field Museum and catching up with her friend in Singapore, or martingruner's bilingual cross-country skiing. I can only attempt to elevate my philosophical musings by using words like "unvoiced bilabial plosives."
Was the cat pee on the carpet a dark enough orangey color to indicate possible blood in the urine and therefore yet another bladder infection?
How can the baby poop out neat little brown balls of clay that fall cleanly out of the diaper and into the toilet, and then a mere two hours later fill his diaper with a wet, sticky, multi-colored extravaganza that takes me fifteen minutes to clean up?
Could I have guessed a year-and-a-half ago, when Pops and I screened in the back deck, that the best part of the kitties spending so much time out there is that it catches most of the puke? Trex is much more stain-resistant than beige carpet.
Speaking of beige carpet, when I see that the boy's spit up somewhere because he has it on his chin and the front of his onesie, how is it that I can search and search and search for beige puke on a beige carpet without finding it, but a half-hour later when I walk barefoot across that same carpet, I'll unerringly step right in it?
Somehow it doesn't live up to suttonhoo's jet-setting, tours of the Field Museum and catching up with her friend in Singapore, or martingruner's bilingual cross-country skiing. I can only attempt to elevate my philosophical musings by using words like "unvoiced bilabial plosives."
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Hasty Halloween!
I intended to nap with Thumper this morning, but then Martha Stewart came on the Today show and inspired me. Not that what I did even remotely resembles anything she was doing, but she filled me with a sense of my responsibility as a homeowner and a parent to participate in seasonal festivities. So Thumper and I made some good ol' fashioned homemade Halloween decorations, by which I mean he slept long enough to allow me to make some good ol' fashioned homemade Halloween decorations. I was ever aware of the naptime countdown clock ticking away in the other room, so they're a little hastily made. But since cheapness counts, they were made with materials on hand. Of course, I didn't make the sash around the door; that's left over from last year. We finished moving into the house two or three days before Halloween, and we needed something to signal our state of candy-readiness to the new neighbors. I made the rest of it though. I used the pad of construction paper I bought a few years ago when I made paper roses for Mrs. Rodius for Valentines Day. That pad didn't have any black in it, perhaps because that would be too depressing a color for young minds to handle, or maybe because the black's faded in the intervening years. So the cat and bats are more like a purply-brown color, but I don't think that detracts from their Halloweeny splendor. I might even do a real jack-o-lantern this weekend. You can't do those things too far in advance around here, as jack-o-lanterns take about ten minutes to rot in balmy Central Texas. We do loves us some roasted pumpkin seeds, though.
Hasty Halloween, y'all!
Hasty Halloween, y'all!
Monday, October 22, 2007
Week One in Review
All in all, a pretty good first week on the job:
We took four walks. I even got over my fear of a screaming infant in public and took him the full three-mile loop. He slept through the entire thing, but I could tell he thought the parts with the sand-and-gravel trails were a little unnecessary.
I did ten minutes of yoga; Rodney Yee may have been a little ambitious a choice, though.
We went on our first playdate with the Austin Stay-at-Home Dads. They seemed like a great bunch. The majority of kids were boys in the 2-year-old range, so in about a year, they'll be the kids that Thumper desperately wants to be like and follows all over the playground. There are members with kids Thumper's age, but we haven't met them yet. We'll try to make another playdate this week.
I got a couple of things checked off my List of Things I'll Get Around to Someday, like laying down brick under the gate, apparently successfully thwarting that damn dog that likes to crap in my yard. I also dug up the stupid footpath that used to run from the deck stairs to the shed. When Pops and I screened in that deck, though, we moved the stairs, so the path ran from a flower bed to the shed. And besides it was made of loose, uneven stones, so if somebody actually decided to walk on it, he would be in grave danger of spraining an ankle.
I worked my first event as a part-time usher at the 17,000 seat arena. It was a small, polite crowd, perfect for my first event. I worked the door, scanning tickets, and so help me, it was actually fun!
Thumper is staring at me. He fell asleep in light and noise, and woke up when I put him in dark and quiet. Go figure. I guess I still need to figure out how to fit this whole blogging thing in, what with the dishes and diapers and laundry and cooking and walking and whatnot. It's frankly amazing their are so many parenting blogs out there. How do you people fit it in??
We took four walks. I even got over my fear of a screaming infant in public and took him the full three-mile loop. He slept through the entire thing, but I could tell he thought the parts with the sand-and-gravel trails were a little unnecessary.
I did ten minutes of yoga; Rodney Yee may have been a little ambitious a choice, though.
We went on our first playdate with the Austin Stay-at-Home Dads. They seemed like a great bunch. The majority of kids were boys in the 2-year-old range, so in about a year, they'll be the kids that Thumper desperately wants to be like and follows all over the playground. There are members with kids Thumper's age, but we haven't met them yet. We'll try to make another playdate this week.
I got a couple of things checked off my List of Things I'll Get Around to Someday, like laying down brick under the gate, apparently successfully thwarting that damn dog that likes to crap in my yard. I also dug up the stupid footpath that used to run from the deck stairs to the shed. When Pops and I screened in that deck, though, we moved the stairs, so the path ran from a flower bed to the shed. And besides it was made of loose, uneven stones, so if somebody actually decided to walk on it, he would be in grave danger of spraining an ankle.
I worked my first event as a part-time usher at the 17,000 seat arena. It was a small, polite crowd, perfect for my first event. I worked the door, scanning tickets, and so help me, it was actually fun!
Thumper is staring at me. He fell asleep in light and noise, and woke up when I put him in dark and quiet. Go figure. I guess I still need to figure out how to fit this whole blogging thing in, what with the dishes and diapers and laundry and cooking and walking and whatnot. It's frankly amazing their are so many parenting blogs out there. How do you people fit it in??
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Things I Think About As I Float Away to My Happy Place While Thumper Expresses His Displeasure with the Level of Customer Service I Provide
I've been wanting to add a feed to this site for awhile, but I didn't know how, or invest much effort into learning. Turns out this Blogger thingy makes it pretty easy. I think it's somewhere way down there at the bottom now. I've also wanted to learn how to link so it opens in a new window, but was too lazy and/or busy to investigate. I think Dooce's error this morning pointed the way. Did it work? It did! Well, there's that done, then.
I've also been thinking I should get my own non-blogspot domain name someday. I bought a domain name for an audio transcription/database consulting website. I need to figure out the income tax and sales tax and insurance implications of that whole idea, too. But if I do get my own domain name, I should, you know, do some actual web design and make this look like my own website and not a template. More stuff I don't know how to do. I used to, in the early to mid '90's, keep up with all the new and improved techie computer webbie stuff. But good God, it all changes so fast, it's hardly worth the time investment. Almost as soon as you really get to know it, it's no longer true. Who has the time? These kids today and their technology!
Now this stuff is somewhere on my to-do list just below committing to a workout program, though I did buy a $50 used Eddie Bauer jogging stroller yesterday. God, I love Craigslist! I don't really understand it, though. How does it survive? How does it make money? Is it some kind soul's or souls' gift to humanity? I should read the Wikipedia entry.
Also somewhere on that to-do list is cutting out some turf and laying out bricks for pads for my rain barrels, which have been sitting in my garage for about five months now. Oh yeah, and putting up actual rain gutters, too. It's just like me to start with the end and never finish the start.
And I need to finish painting the deck Pops and I screened in, uh, eleven months ago. And clean up the garden. And wage war on the fire ants. I've been trying not to lay out poisons all over the place for barefoot children and pets to stumble across, but sprinkling Cream O' Wheat on their mounds just makes them move, so I've spent the summer chasing the little buggers around my yard with a box of breakfast food, and I'm starting to imagine neighbors snickering behind curtains.
And when am I going to have time to set up a dog blind on the roof of my shed from which I can stalk and murder the little bastard that keeps making a special trip to my back yard to do all his runniest poopin'? I sprinkled cayenne pepper all over his favorite spots, and that worked for a couple of weeks, but within 24 hours of my nephew coming over and mowing it all up, the little bastard was back. And it looked like he'd been holding it in all this time, just waiting for his moment. I have visions of slingshots and web cams, and spring-loaded traps of varying degrees of lethality. Bamboo lined pit traps. Noose traps. Cayenne pepper bombs. Why am I cleaning up dog crap? I don't own a dog!
Anyway, these are the things I think about.
I've also been thinking I should get my own non-blogspot domain name someday. I bought a domain name for an audio transcription/database consulting website. I need to figure out the income tax and sales tax and insurance implications of that whole idea, too. But if I do get my own domain name, I should, you know, do some actual web design and make this look like my own website and not a template. More stuff I don't know how to do. I used to, in the early to mid '90's, keep up with all the new and improved techie computer webbie stuff. But good God, it all changes so fast, it's hardly worth the time investment. Almost as soon as you really get to know it, it's no longer true. Who has the time? These kids today and their technology!
Now this stuff is somewhere on my to-do list just below committing to a workout program, though I did buy a $50 used Eddie Bauer jogging stroller yesterday. God, I love Craigslist! I don't really understand it, though. How does it survive? How does it make money? Is it some kind soul's or souls' gift to humanity? I should read the Wikipedia entry.
Also somewhere on that to-do list is cutting out some turf and laying out bricks for pads for my rain barrels, which have been sitting in my garage for about five months now. Oh yeah, and putting up actual rain gutters, too. It's just like me to start with the end and never finish the start.
And I need to finish painting the deck Pops and I screened in, uh, eleven months ago. And clean up the garden. And wage war on the fire ants. I've been trying not to lay out poisons all over the place for barefoot children and pets to stumble across, but sprinkling Cream O' Wheat on their mounds just makes them move, so I've spent the summer chasing the little buggers around my yard with a box of breakfast food, and I'm starting to imagine neighbors snickering behind curtains.
And when am I going to have time to set up a dog blind on the roof of my shed from which I can stalk and murder the little bastard that keeps making a special trip to my back yard to do all his runniest poopin'? I sprinkled cayenne pepper all over his favorite spots, and that worked for a couple of weeks, but within 24 hours of my nephew coming over and mowing it all up, the little bastard was back. And it looked like he'd been holding it in all this time, just waiting for his moment. I have visions of slingshots and web cams, and spring-loaded traps of varying degrees of lethality. Bamboo lined pit traps. Noose traps. Cayenne pepper bombs. Why am I cleaning up dog crap? I don't own a dog!
Anyway, these are the things I think about.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Local Politics Are Dirty Politics
And suddenly I want to sing, "Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh!" Maybe that's just a New England thing. I don't know. What was I talking about again?
Oh yeah, local politics are dirty politics (and dirty politics are fresh!). Well, all politics are dirty politics, really. I've never been that politically active, and certainly not at the local level. Big Brother, for whom I have a long list of Reasons I Know He's Completely Nuts, has this one near the top of the list: he likes to watch Austin city council meetings on public access television. He swears they are fascinating. He says, and rightly so, that local political activity has more power to affect your daily life than national politics. But seriously, city council meetings, on public access? With low production quality? And not even a rockin' soundtrack? Can anybody out there think of a better cure for insomnia?
My first taste of involvement in local politics was attending Homeowners Association meetings in the Land of Loose Dogs, Five Vehicles Per Home, and Getting Braids in Your Front Yard While Drinking Forties with Your Shirt Off While Fast-Food Garbage Tumbleweeds Blow Forlornly Down the Street. It was a nightmare. The HOA Board was little more than a mini-politburo whose individual members had for twenty years or more used their positions to pay their relatives inflated amounts to fix the road right in front of their own townhouse unit while letting the rest of the community fall into disrepair. They filled in the pool with dirt and grew grass over it to save the maintenance costs. They allowed the insurance policy that covered the exterior of the units to lapse, without informing the homeowners, because it was too expensive, thereby leaving all of the homeowners in violation of the terms of their mortgages. There was no continuity of records, with board meeting minutes only going back a few months because somebody had lost the files. They failed to maintain the proper paper work with the Secretary of State, or the Comptroller of Public Accounts, or one of them, and a disgruntled resident stole their corporate name, forcing them to rename the HOA. It was kind of a farce. After showing enough interest to actually attend a few meetings and send a few "WTF?" emails when the insurance expired, I was approached by a few other residents to run for a seat on the board. I politely declined, and then ran for my life.
But now that I'm a homeowner with intentions of long-term residence, local politics are starting to look a little more interesting, though no less dirty. Now, instead of an HOA (or actually, in addition to an HOA), we're under the jurisdiction of a Municipal Utility District. That's an actual governmental entity, and not just a non-profit corporation, so maybe it's a little less farcical. They have an actual lawyer that attends their board meetings and keeps them from breaking parliamentary procedure and everything. It's real professional-like.
But you know what? It's really not any less farcical. There are still board members who've held their seats for over 20 years, revelling in the power of their mini-dictatorships and bristling at the suggestion of cooperative action. Residents still mumble and shake their heads when encouraged to attend board meetings, because in the past, they've been actively discouraged by board members from attending, treated with open hostility when they did attend, and some even claim that they've been harrassed through the powers of restrictive covenant enforcement and other petty torments by board members that they've opposed.
Fun, right?
So last night I attended a public hearing called by the neighboring city council. It was supposed to happen six weeks ago, but the city didn't post public notice of the hearing properly and had to reschedule. The hearing is on an issue to which the district board is vehemently opposed, though they have shown no interest in explaining their objections to residents. Another resident and I met with an engineer who works for the city, so I've heard their side of the story. I was hoping the public hearing might fill in the gaps on the district board's side of the story. But when I arrived at the supposed appointed hour, I found out it had happened an hour earlier, and the city council had voted to proceed before any residents had shown up for the public discussion portion.
So what I got instead was a district board member holding court in the parking lot, whipping a contingent of residents into a frenzy against the city, while still paying lip-service to the fact she's not supposed to discuss these matters outside of board meetings with a quorum of board members present. Inside, the city engineer was holding court, whipping a contingent of residents into a frenzy against the board. And both sides were finger-pointing as to who had the wrong time and why. The city says they properly posted public notice with the correct time. The district board says the city underhandedly changed it and violated the public notice requirements again. The city says the board purposefully distributed information to the residents with the incorrect time because they don't want residents to hear the city's side of the story.
Fun, right?
So am I going to run for a seat on the board? Let's see: an uncompensated, volunteer position, to which one must devote a large amount of time and effort, and for which no matter how hard you work for the good of the community, some subset of that community will still always believe you to be at least stupid, and certainly selfish if not outright corrupt, and always working solely for your own benefit? Um, let me get back to you on that.
Oh yeah, local politics are dirty politics (and dirty politics are fresh!). Well, all politics are dirty politics, really. I've never been that politically active, and certainly not at the local level. Big Brother, for whom I have a long list of Reasons I Know He's Completely Nuts, has this one near the top of the list: he likes to watch Austin city council meetings on public access television. He swears they are fascinating. He says, and rightly so, that local political activity has more power to affect your daily life than national politics. But seriously, city council meetings, on public access? With low production quality? And not even a rockin' soundtrack? Can anybody out there think of a better cure for insomnia?
My first taste of involvement in local politics was attending Homeowners Association meetings in the Land of Loose Dogs, Five Vehicles Per Home, and Getting Braids in Your Front Yard While Drinking Forties with Your Shirt Off While Fast-Food Garbage Tumbleweeds Blow Forlornly Down the Street. It was a nightmare. The HOA Board was little more than a mini-politburo whose individual members had for twenty years or more used their positions to pay their relatives inflated amounts to fix the road right in front of their own townhouse unit while letting the rest of the community fall into disrepair. They filled in the pool with dirt and grew grass over it to save the maintenance costs. They allowed the insurance policy that covered the exterior of the units to lapse, without informing the homeowners, because it was too expensive, thereby leaving all of the homeowners in violation of the terms of their mortgages. There was no continuity of records, with board meeting minutes only going back a few months because somebody had lost the files. They failed to maintain the proper paper work with the Secretary of State, or the Comptroller of Public Accounts, or one of them, and a disgruntled resident stole their corporate name, forcing them to rename the HOA. It was kind of a farce. After showing enough interest to actually attend a few meetings and send a few "WTF?" emails when the insurance expired, I was approached by a few other residents to run for a seat on the board. I politely declined, and then ran for my life.
But now that I'm a homeowner with intentions of long-term residence, local politics are starting to look a little more interesting, though no less dirty. Now, instead of an HOA (or actually, in addition to an HOA), we're under the jurisdiction of a Municipal Utility District. That's an actual governmental entity, and not just a non-profit corporation, so maybe it's a little less farcical. They have an actual lawyer that attends their board meetings and keeps them from breaking parliamentary procedure and everything. It's real professional-like.
But you know what? It's really not any less farcical. There are still board members who've held their seats for over 20 years, revelling in the power of their mini-dictatorships and bristling at the suggestion of cooperative action. Residents still mumble and shake their heads when encouraged to attend board meetings, because in the past, they've been actively discouraged by board members from attending, treated with open hostility when they did attend, and some even claim that they've been harrassed through the powers of restrictive covenant enforcement and other petty torments by board members that they've opposed.
Fun, right?
So last night I attended a public hearing called by the neighboring city council. It was supposed to happen six weeks ago, but the city didn't post public notice of the hearing properly and had to reschedule. The hearing is on an issue to which the district board is vehemently opposed, though they have shown no interest in explaining their objections to residents. Another resident and I met with an engineer who works for the city, so I've heard their side of the story. I was hoping the public hearing might fill in the gaps on the district board's side of the story. But when I arrived at the supposed appointed hour, I found out it had happened an hour earlier, and the city council had voted to proceed before any residents had shown up for the public discussion portion.
So what I got instead was a district board member holding court in the parking lot, whipping a contingent of residents into a frenzy against the city, while still paying lip-service to the fact she's not supposed to discuss these matters outside of board meetings with a quorum of board members present. Inside, the city engineer was holding court, whipping a contingent of residents into a frenzy against the board. And both sides were finger-pointing as to who had the wrong time and why. The city says they properly posted public notice with the correct time. The district board says the city underhandedly changed it and violated the public notice requirements again. The city says the board purposefully distributed information to the residents with the incorrect time because they don't want residents to hear the city's side of the story.
Fun, right?
So am I going to run for a seat on the board? Let's see: an uncompensated, volunteer position, to which one must devote a large amount of time and effort, and for which no matter how hard you work for the good of the community, some subset of that community will still always believe you to be at least stupid, and certainly selfish if not outright corrupt, and always working solely for your own benefit? Um, let me get back to you on that.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Notes from the Back Yard
A tip for the homeowners out there: pathological cheapness and environmental awareness have their place, but if you're going to go with the 18" electric mulching mower, you might not want to let the grass grow for 5 straight weeks between mowings, through the rainiest summer in memory. And man, I'm glad now that I didn't do the Full Hippie and get the reel mower I was considering.
At least now the nieces and nephews can play in Grandma's inflatable pool in the back yard this weekend. When they come back in, they'll probably be coated knee deep in grass clippings, but that's OK. Mrs. Rodius can vacuum it all up on Sunday...
Kidding! I'm kidding! It's a joke, people!
At least now the nieces and nephews can play in Grandma's inflatable pool in the back yard this weekend. When they come back in, they'll probably be coated knee deep in grass clippings, but that's OK. Mrs. Rodius can vacuum it all up on Sunday...
Kidding! I'm kidding! It's a joke, people!
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