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| Sunday, November 6, 2005 |
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An old dog learns older tricks 
| | To make room for two cars in our two-car garage yesterday, we moved a couple tons of stuff — mostly books, filing cabinets full of paper and loose assortments of camping and other recreational gear — over to a container we put alongside the wide driveway of our next house, currently under construction. This took a day's hard labor, including the strong back of a young man we hired to help out, and a Ford F-350 pickup from U-Haul. |
| | As a 58-year old desk potato who avoids exercize and whose athletic background is confined to pickup basketball, which I've hardly played since the 80s, I was pretty damn wasted by the end of the day. In fact, I ached all over and couldn't wait to shower, return the pickup and go out for a nice dinner. |
| | After everybody had left, all that remained was one last trip with the pickup to drop off a small load on the back side of the construction site. |
| | Like most men, I fancy myself a skillful driver, and welcome chances to prove it, even if just to myself. So I felt pleased to back the truck uphill along a dirt path that winds between piles of rocks and a deep gully carved by recent rains. It's also why I felt confident driving back down the same path in a forward direction. That confidence persisted for about fifteen feet. Then the right front wheel of the pickup dropped over the steep wall of the gully, and the truck came to rest on the right front corner of its chassis. When I got out and looked at the situaiton, I saw the wheel was a good two feet above the ground below, and I was about a foot away from dropping the back right wheel into the same hole. |
| | It was clear that the only way out was to fill the gulley with rocks and try to drive forward on far enough to get the front wheel out — and then to back up with the front wheel angled to stay on firm ground. It looked do-able, but I'd need a lot of rocks. |
| | Fortunately, I had those. Some were quarried from the site; some came from piles brought in by masons, for use building the house itself. Most ranged from fifty to a hundred pounds. A few were close enough to roll into the gully. Most had to be carried in. |
| | It took me about half an hour to move and fit what I figure was about a ton of rock. It was prison work, but not bad as exercize goes; and satisfying to my inner stonemason. |
| | Then I brought my wife over to spot me while I gingerly worked the pickup out of its pickle. Today we have two cars parked in the garage, and my whole body aches like a bad tooth. |
Fail. Retry.
| | Some people don't like it that I often edit my posts after they're put up. The problem is, the tool I use doesn't have a save/preview function (that I'm aware of) other than writing and saving offline then copying and pasting to the finished post. So I usually write without a net, so to speak. |
| | Problem is, when the tool crashes, or I commit a user error (such as a keyboard command typo that quits the program rather than changes the view — an error I just committed) before I've saved (that is, posted it), I lose it all. |
| | That's what just happened with the only post I wrote this morning. Wasn't a bad one, as I recall. |
| | Meanwhile, I'm taking a run at using the OPML editor, which I've been wanting to try. I may be calling for help on that. |
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