Prattlings – Page 10 – Random Thoughts

Are You Out of Your Mind?

A couple of weekends ago Marie and I went to tour a show home in an exclusive gated community of Asheville North Carolina. Not because we had any desire or aspiration of owning a home there; at prices of between 1.5 and 4 million dollars per home these were way (way, way) out of our financial reach. We went because this particular show home was built with a lot of “green” building techniques, used reclaimed and Earth-friendly materials and was furnished entirely with furniture and art works provided by local artists. This last point was our main interest, but seeing the latest techniques of “green” building is interesting too.

Nearly all of the furniture displayed was quite beautiful, and very well made. One particularly striking piece of furniture was this secretary desk. I was impressed by the careful attention to detail in its construction, the French Walnut veneer and the absolutely flawless finish. Marie looked in the guide book to see who had made it and what the price tag was. I fell right out of my shoes when she said that the price was $52,000.00! No, that’s not a misprint. My initial reaction was to think, “Are you out of your mind!?” I know that “Art Furniture” carries with it a high price tag but Fifty Two THOUSAND dollars? As I was putting my shoes back on I wondered how long something like that has to travel around the country being displayed before it strikes the fancy of someone with deep enough pockets that the price tag seems reasonable.

Probably not as long as I might imagine. Just because it is way out of my range doesn’t mean someone else won’t snap it right up, maybe one of the folks living in those multi-million dollar homes. And I’m sure a lot of long hours were put into building it. The finish alone probably took weeks. It must be nice to be able to say that your work can command such a price tag. I will never know that feeling, or so I thought. Continue reading “Are You Out of Your Mind?”

Big Box Blues

In my travels I have come across many perfectly delightful old fashioned hardware stores; you know – wooden floors that creak when you walk across them, narrow aisles, with tall shelves, each just packed with all manner of hardware treasures, and a cavern-like back room where only the staff may go to ferret out something extra special for you. Most places I’ve lived have had at least one such store to serve me – if I look hard enough for it.

hardware - not big box — Wilton Springs True Value Hardware

Where we live now is no exception. Wilton Springs Hardware is one such store. It sits out in the middle of nowhere along a lonely two lane road. Not a big place, but chock full of things I need and staffed by folks who actually know their trade. I am particularly grateful for the staff’s knowledge of plumbing supplies – a plumber I am not! But I occasionally have to put on my plumber hat and pretend. No matter what kind of Rube Goldberg conglomeration I take in to show them, they find a way to cobble together stock parts to fix or replace it. Continue reading “Big Box Blues”

An Eventful Day

This day started off with a bang – or maybe more like a crash – although we didn’t hear it or even know about it for a while. The first sound I actually heard was the telephone. It was about 6:30. It was Mom – near hysterical. Pat is in trouble, she has called an ambulance, she needs my help.

So I get dressed – sort of; I pull jeans and a sweatshirt over my pajamas and slip into some shoes – and trot through the snow to Mom’s house. Pat is half-off their bed just wearing pajama pants and babbling incoherently. Mom tells me he was foaming at the mouth and saying “Just shoot me, just shoot me, I want to die.”

The babbling and foaming at the mouth remind me of past times when his blood sugar dropped into the 20’s so I ask her if she has checked his blood sugar. She says “No, he’s not sweating, if his blood sugar goes down he sweats like a horse.” Continue reading “An Eventful Day”

Simple Living and Technology

At first glance, the concepts of living a simple life and embracing modern technology would indeed seem to be strange bedfellows. And our minimalist cousins are quick to point to the high cost of purchasing, maintaining and upgrading personal electronic gadgetry… and they are right to do so. Especially when you consider the cost of required ancillary services like cell phone air time and ISP fees for computers. However, for us not-quite-minimalists, there are some advantages to be had that can allow us to live more simply if we choose carefully and eliminate the unnecessary.

www.sigmundtv.com/electronics.html

Cell Phones

Continue reading “Simple Living and Technology”

Fine as Frog Hair

Here in the South, we have a saying that can be used in response to the small-talk prompt of “How are you?” when you are feeling especially good (or don’t really want to engage in small talk); it goes, “Fine as frog hair .” It’s kind of cute and makes you think a little. Just how fine IS frog hair I wonder?

frog hair I was in the garden watering. When I got to the strawberry bed, there was considerable movement in the leaves in one corner. I was not surprised by that: I often flush a toad from these beds. They are welcomed visitors because they eat the bugs and slugs that crawl around in the boxes. Usually they are pretty small: the size of a golf ball, or so. This was a much bigger toad. I could see flashes of the brown color through the leaves.

Then those flashes started moving in different directions. Several, much bigger toads.

Then one of them hopped out of the box and into the path through the berry house. It was HAIRY! Several big, hairy toads! Nah … can’t BE! I looked again. Continue reading “Fine as Frog Hair”

Hat Man Do – Seeking the Fedora

Doug and his fedora I wear a fedora. No, not a menorah, a fedora: a type of hat — a type of hat that has fallen out of favor with the stylish set among common folk. But it was once a favored hat among most folk, common or stylish. Many of the mountain men depicted on TV and movies wore fedoras. So did gangsters. I think this style of hat captured my fancy first when I saw Indiana Jones. Indy wore a fedora. In fact the brown cloth fedora I wear is an official, licensed Indiana Jones product. Did I order it from some Indiana Jones fan web site or buy it at a fan convention? No; I found it in a discount tool store. One of those Dollar General-like places that buys, at liquidation prices, stuff that regular retail stores haven’t sold and want to be rid of. They were on close-out sale, but even Tool World wasn’t having much luck moving them.

Marie and I were just browsing: we were in this town for another purpose but had some time and tool stores are fun to explore. My eyes lit up when I saw the display; I’d been looking for a brown fedora for a while now. We’d been in all the local stores that carry clothing, they had a variety of hats, some not bad, but not fedoras. Marie quipped about how many places we had searched for a fedora and here we find them in a tool store. I trotted over and started looking through the selection for one my size. Continue reading “Hat Man Do – Seeking the Fedora”

Gone Mater Hunting

Blondie n me got up early and went mater hunting this morning. We knowed of a spot where they hang out. We got where we figured they’d be and sure enough: a whole bunch of ‘em just baskin’ in the sun an bein’ lazy.

We crept into the place real quiet like. It was still cool enough they weren’t stirring yet. Maters can be mean, sos ya gotta sneak up on em from down-wind. We’d creep up and reach out slow and easy, then – SNATCH! We’d whip one away quick, break its neck and stuff it in the bag.

Most never knew what hit ‘em, a few though; they put up a tussle. An’ one: I thought that one had me, but Blondie grabbed hold of my pant leg and pulled me back safe.

When we got a bag full we totted ‘em on home. There I fixed up a big pot of boilin water to dunk ‘em in for a short spell: that loosens their hide ya know, so yas don’t waste so much meat gittin it off’n em. We dunked ‘em in the boilin’ water then into cold water, then we could skin ‘em out easy.

Then we cut out their heart: tain’t no good to no one anyhow. An’ split open their belly to scoop out their goopy guts. They ain’t no good neither.

That left us with a good carcass of meat that we chunked up an’ put on ice. We’ll cook all that up tomorrow. We’ll make some mater soup, then can up the rest to use fer soup or stew, or it can be cooked down and used in lots of different ways.

Yessir, mater meat is good eatin’ – an thar ain’t much more fun than a day mater hunting.

Absent Internet and Tepid Coffee

I spent the afternoon Thursday packaging up a set of tray tables I’d built to fill an order. It had taken me a long time to build the tables and my client had been very patient with me. It was time to request his payment and process a shipping label. I went to my computer.

I went to PayPal to send my client: Phil, a request for payment. Unable to connect. I checked my network status: connected to LAN, no internet gateway. That usually means the modem has gone wonky and I need to reboot it. I was on my way over to do that when my cellphone rang.

I carry a cellphone as emergency communication between my wife, Marie, and I. No other reason. This had to be Marie – unless it was a wrong number or robo-caller, which does happen from time to time. It was Marie.

She had been trying to call me on our home phone but was getting a “Not available” message. She wanted to let me know that their internet was down at work. That is a big deal since much of the data processing work they do is done over the internet on remote servers. She had heard that a wreck on Highway 25/70 took out some necessary infrastructure and a large area was blacked out and without phone or cable.

By this time I was in the office and could see that the modem was not receiving any signal from Comcast. My problem was external; rebooting won’t help. Cable TV was out too. I am electronically MAROONED! Continue reading “Absent Internet and Tepid Coffee”

The Green Thing

The following tale has made the rounds of the internet in various iterations for quite a while now. It serves well as a starting point for this discussion:

We Didn’t Have the Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.

The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, “We didn’t have this ‘green thing’ back in my earlier days.”

The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”
The older lady said that she was right — our generation didn’t have the “green thing” in its day. The older lady went on to explain: Continue reading “The Green Thing”

Nellie’s Obituary

On the morning of Sunday August 3rd Nellie Notebook, faithful repository of family photos and documents and processor of all personal e-mail and internet browsing for Doug & Marie Bittinger and formerly the administrator of all bookkeeping and records keeping functions for Treasures Of Appalachia Inc., passed away.

Mr. Bittinger arrived at Nellie’s usual location in the Bittinger home dining room at 5:17 am to awaken her so they could get started on the day’s duties, but as she awoke Nellie suffered congestive hard drive failure which in turn caused her entire Operating System to fail.

C.P.R. (Control Programming Restoration) was attempted but was unsuccessful. Life Support systems (i.e booting from the LAN) was set up but that too was unsuccessful.

Nellie is survived by her half-brother Dale Desktop who has been employed as the Bittinger family’s business computer and a new baby sister: Ipod.

Dale has agreed to step in and provide family e-mail services to keep communications open in Nellie’s absence. A replacement for Nellie is not in the foreseeable future.

Internment is planned for Saturday morning at dawn. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, please send dark chocolate.