Month: August 2014

A caution from the future…

…posted at the trail head of one of our favorite walks. I’ll keep it in mind.

Tagged along with Happy Wife the other day, we went to Pier 1 Imports. Don’t know that I’ve been before. Quite the menagerie of stuff there. We went to get two spill resistant glasses for our domestic date nights (see below). The ones we have for this purpose are funnel shaped. Even slightly twirling one sets the contents therein into a tornadic rotation, which can be pleasantly hypnotic, until the liquid whorl breaches the rim of the glass and dampens one or both date night day participants.

While HW searched for better glasses I randomly inspected various items to see where they were imported from. All were from China. I says to HW, “Let’s see who can be the first to find something not imported from China.”

She won with this gem:

Somewhere, somebody in Indonesia is holding a giraffe ear wondering where the rest is.

I don’t know, might work well in a room with a jungle theme.

Like I said, the shopping trip was prompted by our dissatisfaction with certain glassware that I’d used earlier. HW had arrived home, showered and primped, and encouraged me to do the same. In the meantime she took advantage of a gloriously warm August day to set a table on our backyard deck complete with select cheeses and meats. I brought the fun in a glass. She called it, Chez Nibbe.

I swear, no practitioners write more about what they do than writers do. Writing about writing: Are they not worried about the infinite loop? If you don’t believe me, march your incredulity over to your local book seller and inquire as to where you may find the section on “books on writing.” Or look here, I’ve done the work for you. I went to Amazon (who, my familial readers should know, did not hire me :-() and searched for “books on writing.” 497,718 hits!

By comparison, a search for “books on running a backhoe” returned six hits. Why is this? As children we’re taught to write in the first or second grade. Nothing challenging, maybe the assignment is: Briefly describe your classmate. This actually happened to me. When it was my turn, one of my classmates described me thusly (verbatim):

              Rod Nibbe

Rod is seven years old. I love
Rod. He loves me. Rod laghes hard.
Rod’s mouth is wide open in years
from now his mouth will stay
open. He makes the world. We all
love Rod.

                          Timothy Gieschen

See how easy it is to write? And, I should add, to write well.  No big words. No deep symbolic meanings (although “He makes the world” causes wonder). Good cadence. Prescient even — forty seven years later and yes, Tim, my mouth is still open (much to the chagrin of my betters).

Another good one. Verbatim again. Note the use of foreshadowing in the last sentence. Foreshadowing. People, this is a seven year old!

Rod Nibbe

Rod has a good Mother
and Father. Rod sits in the 1
row. He has blue pants on
to day. Whin He laouphs He
shaks the whole sclool evre time.
He plays with the girls.

                             Russell

Here, while arguably punctuation is a growth area for Lori, that’s something easily improved with practice. But note the feminine voice in her prose does come through quite clearly.

Rod Nibbe

Rod was very nise in
the begining of the yerr
he has a red shert on
to day and whit he
thinks he is funny but
he is int funny. do you
no wat 8+8=[] he likes to
lafs a long with timmy W

                         Lori

Another female point of view not entirely inconsistent with Lori’s. Note the complete absence of of adverbs. And remember, Teri’s never read a single book on writing!

Rod Nibbe

Rod was good at the
begininning of the year but
now he is bad. He laughs
so hard that his head will
come off. But I don’t
care. And Rod said that
5+8=11. He has a red and white
shirt on today. He likes
Mrs. Kerwitz and likes
Tim G. He sits in the
first row. And he swings
crooket on the swings.

               Teri

(For the record, I don’t recall making any such claim about five plus eight).

Here’s another good one. Precocious even. See if you don’t agree that had this been written as dialog it might sound a bit like Tom Sawyer.

Rod Nibbe

Rod is my buddy.
Rod came over to my house to stay
over night. We had a blast in the
basemant that night. He was laughing
so hard that he made me laugh at
the dinner table. Then my mom
sended he to eat some waer els.
Rod sneesed. We jumpt all over
the couch. Rod came over to my
birthday party. Rod’s mouth is
open so much I could jump in it.
Rod loves Lynn K. Rod and me are like
brothers.

    Tim W

In truth it was Tim’s sister I had the hots for. That’s the real reason I hung out with Tim, and especially the reason I went to his house so often. I feel like crap admitting it. Especially knowing I was like a brother to him. Sheesh.

Here’s what Lynn K had to say. At least half my classmates wrote that I was in love with Lynn Kaphingst, something I will neither confirm nor deny. Nothing indicative of early talent here, more or less just a fact dump. But she gets her points across quickly, so points for brevity.

      Rod Nibbe

I can see Rod today.
Rod is in Love with Paul
Johnson and Timothy Wright.
Rod is in love with me.
Rod sits in row one.
Rod is on a baseball
teme. He has blue pants.
Rod has a brane.
He has black hair

   Lynn K

A brane! Eat your hearts out Lori and Teri.

Diane grabs the reader early with elements of terror and suspense. Already showing promising signs of using compound sentence structure.

     Rod Nibbe

One day I saw. Rod and he had
a red shroot and I thought that
theri was a fire on him and he
was at my hose and wen I
saw that he had a red shoot
I ran out of the house

          Diane

Just because it was my day that didn’t exempt me from doing the assignment. My only excuse is that autobiography is a difficult form to get right. Too much telling here and not enough showing. Early indications of an Oedipus complex (note capitalization of Mother). Also, nothing here about my supposed love for my classmates. Lynn K especially must’ve been pissed about that.

Rod Nibbe

My Mother and father play
cards. My father like to read
dog book because we are going
to get one. his name is going
to be corky. We are going to
get him in three Weeks.
My Mother and father
buy me alot of presets for my birthday.

    Rod Nibbe

Took the Subbie in for an oil change and asked Rolando if he would also have the technician look into a noise coming from what sounded to me like the passenger door. “It just started this week,” I said. “A kind of high frequency rattle sound, like something was loose, although I looked the door over pretty thoroughly and couldn’t see that anything was loose. Goes away when the car stops. I only hear it when the car is rolling.”

Rolando dutifully typed the details into his computer as fast as I spoke, as if it were a crime scene. He then noted the manufacturer’s warranty had very recently expired. This is code speak for: Now it’s going cost you sucker. I quickly tried to think of way to explain how the problem very well might have originated when the car was still under warranty, and so doesn’t that mean, you know, technically speaking, it should be covered? But even to me it sounded like a load of bull, so I said nothing.

“I’ll have the tech look into it Mr. Nibbe.” He slides the estimate over the counter for my signature. “This still a good number to reach you at?” I told him it was.

Happy Wife (HW) had followed me to the dealership and was waiting outside in her car for me to take her to work. As we left I spotted the Subbie in the lot where I’d parked her, a tech already walking toward her to take her into the shop. It felt like seeing your child on a gurney being wheeled into surgery.

The hours passed. No call.

Still no call by 5 pm, and by then I needed go pick up HW from work, after which we went straight to the dealership. We pull into the lot and I spot the Subbie, right where I’d left her, but with a plastic protector on the driver’s seat indicating somebody had worked on her. Relief.

Rolando is at the counter again. “I’ll help the next person.” As I approach I’m thinking, The next person? Doesn’t he recognize me?

“Hi there, I’m here to pick up my Outback?” as if to say, remember me? And then, like a spurned lover I say, “You didn’t call me.”

“Oh, yes, I remember, very sorry for not calling you…” — he reaches for the paperwork on the chair behind him — “uh, Mr. Nibb is it?”

I correct him, “Nibbē“.

“Oh, sorry Mr. Nibbē. Yes, I’ve your work order right here. Just very busy today. Sorry.” He begins reading.

“What was the sound in my door? Did the tech diagnose it?”

I’m standing there with Happy Wife at my side, clearly expectant, like I’m waiting to hear “malignant” or “benign.” Rolando is still reading the tech’s note on the paperwork, and reading, and reading, and reading… And I’m thinking, who frickin’ wrote this note, Michener? I actually say that, “Man, that’s a lot of words. Who wrote the note, Michener?” Rolando chuckles.

Finally, he says, “I don’t know if you’re going to like what they found or not, Mr. Nibbe.” My eyes must’ve looked like two full moons. “Crap. What was it?!”

A bear bell.

“WTF?”

“Do you keep a bear bell in your car, Mr. Nibbe?” HW begins to laugh. An expression, half smirk half pity, rises on Rolando’s face. He explains the tech took the car for a test drive, noticed the noise I’d reported, and discovered the noise was emanating from the console, opened the lid on the console, spotted the bear bell, removed the bear bell from the console, and the noise disappeared. Entirely.

Rolando slides the paperwork over the counter for me to read the note myself, if I cared to.

“No charge for the diagnosis, Mr. Nibbe, just the oil change today. Oh, and the tech noted your air filter should probably be changed with your next oil change, and I see here the yellow box was checked on your tires. Still some tread life left, but you’ll want to think about changing them in six months or so too.”

I’m still on page one: “A bear bell?”

HW, now barely able to contain her laughter, says she’ll meet me at Bradley House, get us a couple of bar stools. She turns to leave, clicking towards the door in heels and an above-the-knee skirt, closely followed by the stares of two men at the parts counter.

I sign the paperwork. Swipe my Visa. Rolando staples this to that and hands me my copy. I thank him.

Outside, I open the Subbie’s door, remove the plastic protector, and there it is, on the console, laughing at me, the orange bear bell. I’d forgotten it was in the console. We sometimes put it one of the dogs’ collars when hiking in bear country. I pull out of the lot and mosey on down the road, hearing nothing but the sound of fresh oil lubing The Works.

Overheard in a bar in Moose Pass, AK.

Somebody might benefit from cultural sensitivity training?

Fun thing to do: Count the number of times she says “like!”

We saw him perform live once in Cleveland, Happy Wife and I. My gut hurt so hard from laughing you’d have thought I just did a hundred situps. I don’t disagree one bit with the consensus review: Robin Williams was a lightening storm of comedic talent. Sui generis. Without equal. Nonpareil. Ne plus ultra. All that.

Thing is, I’ve no idea what goes awry in a man’s wetware to cause him to descend into an inescapable well of darkness like that. If there’s one thing I think we can say for sure, the brain’s Prime Directive is the survival of its host, at all costs, no matter what, come what may, living is always better than the alternative. If anything is “hard wired” it’s the Prime Directive. The kind of dysfunction that can override that has to be some seriously scary sh*t.

So let me add my voice to the throng: Thank you for the laughter, Robin. A WHOLE LOT OF LAUGHTER. So far as I know we’re the only creatures capable of it. Life is incomplete without it. And in that way, you helped us all be human.

Godspeed, man. Godspeed.

First, a little shout out to our friends’ son, Brian Benson, on the publication of his (first) book. Got it queued up on the Kindle. Read the first few pages and thought, I’d no idea when I cycled with this boy (now a man) — what, twelve years ago now? — that he’d become a writer of literary prose. Back then his father had arranged this bike tour of northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s upper peninsula, in early September if I recall, entreating all of us to come to the northern latitudes for a ride, to get out of the oppressive heat of summer that had been afflicting the rest of the country that year. We all agreed, great idea, let’s do it!

I recall finishing a 100+ mile day, I think it was in Houghton, MI, in 102 degree heat. Highest temperature ever recorded that day in Houghton, according to the locals (aka “Yoopers”). Oh boy! It was the day Brian had chosen to ride with the group on what I thought was an impossibly old and clunky bike to be attempting such a feat, his first if I recall right. Damned if he didn’t do it though. All 100+ miles. So I wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear he cycled across the country to Portland. I just hope it wasn’t on that same bike!

This pic isn’t bad:

Happy Wife prefers the way she looks this one:

I don’t care for my appearance in either one. This is partly explained by exaggerated modesty, expected when one is asked to appraise his own visage (save Narcissus), and partly as a concession to the glacially slow disappearance of what we once were. The passage of time is inexorable. We know this, but we fight its erasures nevertheless. Fill the pocks, color the shadows, cream the creases, tighten the sags, whatever we need do to defend the fading facade of youth.

Some may say drinking Margaritas only aids the enemy, hastens the day. But tequila can feel like an ally, too, an inhibitor of concern, an agonist of blissful unawareness that the drawbridge is down, the mote has been bridged, the walls breached. If nothing else it makes acquiescence seem less like surrender.

Which is to say we are all doing the best we can.

Had steaks for dinner last night. Juicily rendered on The Grill. A new Weber!

Now wait a second there, before you start shouting, Hypocrite! and, You Owe Erika an apology!, let me say that you would be right, it was a mouthful of humble pie for me to swallow when I finally said to the man at Lowes — who convinced me that of all the grills Lowes sold, Weber was in his opinion was the best made — “I’ll take it.”

I now think the cause of the fire may have been due to the buildup of drippings and crud in the base of the cook box, a blackened mat of greasy crud that eventually got so thick it started to burn, and burn HOT. In other words: Customer reports becoming lax regarding routine grill maintenance.

EVEN SO, if you ask this customer, poor maintenance should be expected by the manufacturer, no? And certain fail safes designed accordingly. I mean, if I never replace the oil in my car it won’t suddenly burst into flames or explode.

And so yesterday, as I “burned in” the grates to season them before I grilled our first protein (Nature Made Grass Fed Boneless Top Sirloin), I read studied thoroughly the section on “Routine Grill Maintenance.” I have not yet registered the product at Weber. With my luck Erika would see it and begin smugly parading around the Weber office where she works in Schaumburg, Ill, shouting, “Look everyone, that schmuck in Alaska bought another Weber grill! Same model even!!”

I take back everything I said. Truly, today, I am a man humbled. Tonight, moose burgers on the new Barbie!

Ah hah!

I’ve owned this Weber Spirit Grill for about 5 years. Always kept it out of the weather and in good condition. A couple days ago we had just started grilling and got the grill up to temp and had just but burgers on it. We went to turn the burgers down and notice the gas flow control knobs were melted flat to the control panel. We took a look underneath and the valves under the knobs just above the propane tank were spewing in flames!

Did you read that, Erika — Spewing flames!

Same grill. Same problem. If you care to scroll around a bit you’ll see other reports of Weber grills on fire.

Erika called me back this morning after I sent    One.   Final.   Email.

Told me I could take the replacement parts or nothing.

I went with nothing.

…

Went to our Nest this past weekend. We got as far as Summit Lake where suddenly Happy Wife pulled over, pushed open the car door and said, “Get out. Your bike’s on the roof. You’re riding the rest of the way.”

“But deary-do,” I implored her, “it must be 50 miles to the Nest.”

“Out!”

I’m kidding! It was my idea to cycle from there.

And mostly downhill (except the uphill parts). I wasn’t more than a mile or two into my ride, nary a cloud in the sky, when an R/V rumbles past me with a not tightly-fitted stopper on its holding tank, flapping at its closure and emitting a spritzing volume of stinky gray water which got caught up in the wind whorl of passing cars only to finally settle on yours truly who was just pedaling along on the road shoulder thoroughly enjoying an otherwise glorious summer day.

Isn’t that special.

Had to stop twice to adjust my saddle height. How a clamp “spontaneously” loosens all by itself to permit the seat post to descend into the seat tube is a mystery to me. Maybe it was manufactured by Weber!

Then ten miles from Seward I flatted. No worries. Still sunny and 70. I alerted Happy Wife by phone that I’d be late, and to standby in the event my repair failed. Removed the wheel (front), fully deflated the tube, ripped it out, put in a new one, reseated the tire bead, then re-inflated the tube with a CO₂ cartridge. Or I intended to anyway. But I’d forgot to unscrew the valve on the tube (Presta valve don’t you know) to permit the flow of air into the tube, and consequently the air pressure in the cartridge adapter got very high very quickly and blew off the rubber gasket, releasing all that precious carbon dioxide, incrementally worsening global warming and leaving my tube still flaccid as a homo in a titty bar. But wait — I’d wisely packed two cartridges foreseeing this very problem! Unscrewed the Presta valve properly this time, screwed the spare cartridge in the adapter and pressed my fingers hard as I could around the gap where the gasket had been to seal it. Managed to deliver most of the gas inside the tube this time. Voila!

Except… as I continued rolling down the highway toward Seward I noticed the tire was not perfectly in round, there was a metronomic bump bump bump bump. Crap. Evidently I’d not seated the tire bead securely and so the tube was probably bulging. Will it hold for ten miles?

Yes — it did! I arrived at the Nest, fell into the loving arms of HW, and blamed the entire mishap on Weber!

Weber’s policy, I was told, is to replace only the parts of the grill that were damaged. Which was pretty much everything except the cook box itself, the lid, the metal frame and four legs. The whole control apparatus — switches, control knobs, feeder tubes, wires — and the supporting side tray would need to be replaced.

“Erika,” I implored, “the entire grill is an FRU at this point.”

“Sorry, Mr. Nibbe, that is our policy.”

This makes no sense to me. One, because nobody seems to know what caused this accident to occur in the first place, I can’t be sure it wasn’t related to some design flaw in the grill itself, so why would I risk continuing to use a rebuilt version, and two, the cost to Weber of replacing the damaged parts (plus handling and shipping), in addition to my time and effort to install and troubleshoot has to be equal to, or more likely greater than, the cost of a new grill.

No, I think the offer was intended to be absurd, so I’ll go away. Which at this point I will probably do, but not to buy another Weber grill that’s for sure.

Update: Erika left me v-mail to call her. Perhaps they’ve reconsidered? In the meantime, we have to broil the salmon fillets for dinner.