Hello Surf Reporters! Sorry I disappeared again. I won’t bore you with the reasons, but it’s mostly work-related. Plus, it took me a long time to get over that weeks-long yuck I found myself trapped inside. I’m not a fan of the weeks-long yuck. In any case, I’m back at the helm. And feeling about as good as it gets at this point.
Yesterday I was off from work, but dragging massive ass for some reason. So, last night I went to bed around 9:30. I’m a fully-vested night owl, so that shit was outrageous. But I fell asleep immediately, and was clear-cutting timber for several hours. Then, around 3:15 am, I was wide awake. I realized I’d made a tactical error… If I got up for the day, I’d be destroyed at work later.
So, I read the Replacements book for almost two hours, and was out like a bastard again. Toney had to shake me awake at 9:30.
What the hell’s going on with me?? Is this just standard old man stuff? I had a health screening about two weeks ago, and everything except my enormous weight checked out. When they showed me my BMI they had to fold the paper out like a gas station map so I could see the entire line chart. But other than that… big green check marks.
I know it makes me sound like a Nostrildamus-caliber precious snowflake pussling, but I think it’s the unpredictable schedule I’m now working. Some days I’m going in early, other days I have to stay until 2 am, there are random days off here and there, yet I’m working my usual days off. I think it’s just kicking my ass. It’s a sad state of affairs. Holy hell.
Over the weekend I commissioned some small website tweaks, and think the Surf Report is looking mighty fine these days. I need to do some work on the new Read The Books! page, and a few other odds and ends. But I’m happy with the site, aesthetically speaking. It’s fun to shake it up every once in a while, and keep things fresh. Any opinions about the changes? Did you even notice them? It’s nothing too major, but all are improvements, I think.
Speaking of improvements… We’re finally having some work done to our deck. It was built during the late 1990s, during a time (we’re told) when it was the fashion to go concrete-free, or somesuch. I don’t really understand it, but supposedly there was a ten year, or so, period when decks were routinely erected without using concrete underneath the posts. Who came up with that brilliant idea, I do not know. But it happened before we owned the house.
And so, one corner of the deck was sinking into the ground. At first it was subtle enough that we could convince ourselves it wasn’t happening. But, eventually, it became both undeniable and ridiculous. It was also disturbingly shaky.
By last summer I didn’t even want to walk on the thing, much less sit out there with an adult beverage, or whatever. I was convinced it would lead to a TV news story that began “What started as a festive beer and nachos session ended in tragedy Saturday night, leaving a Clarks Summit man fighting for his life with a wooden plank through his fucking neck…”
But, we didn’t have the funds to fix it, so it just kept sinking and sinking and sinking. Until last week, when the deck reclamation project kicked off! Within two days a team of strangers brought that bitch back to life, and it’s now solid as a rock. All the posts have been replaced, one was added, and there are concrete footers in the ground. They also pressure-washed it, and will return to seal it as soon as there are three-in-a-row dry weather days predicted.
Man, this living like a normal human being feels like the lap of luxury to me. It also makes me mildly nervous. It’s been a long time.
Of course, it means we won’t be taking any vacations this year. Again. But we’re used to it. We haven’t done anything since the London trip in 2008. You know, the year of severance pay? The year I made more money than I ever have, and ever will, but didn’t have to show up for work? And the year I was an emotional basket-case nearly ‘round the clock, despite having what sounds like a pretty sweet situation on my hands? Yes, those were good times.
Any plans for the summer? Trips? Home improvements? Whoring? Please tell us about it in the comments. That’s your Question of the Day.
I need to get ready for work now. I haven’t shaved in several days, and look like a homeless man. Some people get that cool Jack-on-LOST scruffiness going, but I look like a person who would break into your tool shed, hunting for something to steal and turn into liquor money. Wotta rip-off.
I’ll be back soon, with more of this nonsense.
Thanks for reading, my friends!
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JK is back!!
I noticed the changes to the site, and think it loos nice and sparse and clean and all that. I was wondering if you have purposely decided to not include the further evidence and bunker-cam links. I really like those, so I will ask you to consider bringing those back at some point.
I agree. I noticed and I miss them already. How about putting them in the drop down menu I get on the mobile site. Clean look and handy.
As we used to say, “me too.” The Bunker Cam in particular was dependably good and sometimes great.
Since I may relocate to a city where I am totally unknown sometime soon, this summer will be all about the whoring. Definitely whoring. Funny that you should mention it, but other than an improved job market that’s really the main reason to go anywhere.
You’ve always been a whore. A dirty, rotten, filthy whore. WHORE!
That’s what makes it sexy!
Puzzled about the favicon for the page. Not sure what the G means. Good? Great? Gonads?
Why no smoking fish icon?
WV.,
The capital white g on a black circle is the favicon for Genesis Framework, a framework for WordPress sites. I’m guessing the folks who worked on Jeff’s site this weekend left it behind, like the chain-link fence installers leave their “Fence Installed By . . .” sign so integrated into the framework of a fence that they get free advertising until the fence falls down.
Or maybe Jeff decided to plug Genesis or WordPress.
I was hoping it was something more interesting, like the Internet deciding that the WVSR is the G-spot of dick jokes for the Web, but the answer turned out to be more prosaic, although the perpetrators remain at large.
Nice peepers, by the way. I totally missed it.
John
Thank God you’re back. Your posts are the only thing that makes me smile anymore. Keep up the good work!
I’m digging the Replacements book, aka “Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.” This might be the first non-Jeff Kay book in years I finish.
I’ve done the usual boring suburbia stuff: Bought a new couch, planned a trip to the beach some time in July, didn’t kill the dog, etc.
Those hours are what are fucking you up. Time to lay down the law, as much as you can anyway, about stable hours.
I’d like to do some whoring… but I don’t think its in the cards right now.
Glad to see you posting! We all need your sarcastic banter to keep us muddling through our own piles of shit! Good deal on the deck, safety third!
In IE 11, the “READ THE BOOKS!” link links to a blank left page with “Read The Books!” at the top and nothing under it. At first I thought the G people had fallen a little short in the testing department; then I thought that the omission was a design point because anybody who would dig the books would be using Firefox, Safari, Opera, or Netscape, but not IE; then I decided it was one of those “Being and Nothingness” campaigns where the blank space is actually the message; finally I decided that somebody fucked up and I should bring it to Jeff’s attention.
jtb
Same thing in Chrome, a link to no where.
We are going to Disney this summer for the 1st time with our 7 and 1 year old. This should be interesting.
I looking through the links in “Best of” and The Woodstock Death Count needs major updating. Without looking up people I saw just off the top of my head that Ravi Shankar, Paul Kantner, Joe Cocker, Alvin Lee, Levon Helm and Johnny Winter have all joined the great gig in the sky since that was posted.
The beach in Rhode Island. Every waking hour when I’m not tearing a wall down or slapping up tile, I intend to grab my umbrelly, chair and cooler and be sitting on the beach! We busted our asses getting our place in shape to welcome family and friends. Once that wears thin, I hope to be up there every weekend. New job offered me one (JESUS! ) 1 lousy week of vacation. I’ll go in early and leave late to have Friday afternoons off. This job kinda sucks anyway.
My cousins and I will be selling the house in Connecticut, although maybe not by this summer. Will the circle be unbroken.
Smaller plans include getting the car inspected.
Damn, I worked and worked to get just the right syntax in just the right places, and got a 404 error when I tried to submit. Of course my comment went to Aruba, or wherever failed updates are routed these days. I’d say offhand that the G-people fat-fingered the weekend “upgrade”.
jtb
I’ll be spending the 1st half of the summer prepping for the arrival of our first small human, and the rest of the summer trying to figure out how to keep that human alive.
Not excited about being pregnant in the Alabama July heat, but thankful I’ll be home for maternity leave when the August swelter kicks in.
No vacations planned, as traveling extremely pregnant or with a newborn isn’t something that appeals to ANYBODY.
It is turkey season here, so hopefully I can waddle myself out to the woods a few times with my shotgun and harvest me a bird for the freezer. I got a deer at 8wks pregnant, surely a turkey at 25wks won’t be too hard.
No whoring here…that’s how I got in this predicament to begin with.
Home improvements are all about the tiny human stuff…cribs and safety locks and rocking chairs and a new washer/dryer.
We have “plans” for a full remodel of our master bath and new hardwoods in the downstairs, but I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon.
Our new place has been lovingly nicknamed Double Wide on Stilts. This bad boy needed some work. The last thing on this years list was the carpet being put in yesterday and now we are taking the summer off!! More shit to come farther down the road.
Off subject but does it bother anyone else that the type is so faint when typing a comment? I can barely see mine and then when I post it looks great.
Well Crap! I lost my horse avitar.
Revashane,
The Web is a big place, with blue sky that stretches from horizon to horizon. Perhaps it found greener pastures.
Just a guess. I don’t know much about horses. Sorry for your loss.
love,
John
John,
I figured it out. Wilber, my horse, doesn’t show when I post from my laptop. The carpet installation had me away from my comfy desktop. Speaking of greener pastures, horse women are a-holes sometimes. They get mad when the horse tries to grab a bite on the way to the barn. My analogy is walking through green grass for them is like us walking through Snicker Bars and being yanked for trying to get one. Sometimes they understand sometimes they don’t.
Revashane,
Thanks for the horse info. I always enjoy learning new things, and I have no idea why your story reminds me of my first marriage. In any case, we learned, with a sample size of one so far, that the Gravatar avatar is stored or activated via cookies rather than by an ongoing association between the comment management software and the Gravatar avatar database.
I have some concerns about that architecture, because many people comment on blogs, forums, etc. via their phones during the day and via their home desktops or laptops at night. I suspect there’s something else going on here. I need to stop now because I’m way over my head technically; truth be told, my avatar architecture speculations are probably not much better than Wilbur’s would be, and I’m stuck out here without a Snickers metaphor.
Always nice to hear from you; I’m glad Wilbur is safely back in the stable.
John
Jeff,
The newspaper lead (I’m sorry, but I refuse to spell it lede) reporting your incapacitation at the hands of your deck was laugh-out-loud funny. As you clearly know, rarely employing curse words makes their use much more effective. Actually, the whole update had a flavor of early WVSR. Thanks.
John
No trips or vacations for me this year and I have outlined the reasons below. Keep in mind I am retired and living on Social Security plus a tiny pension so I don’t have a ton of disposable income. In fact, if it weren’t for the IRA I busted my ass to save, I would be starving right now. In the past few months, that fund has had stellar returns based on our “booming economy”; in addition to withdrawals to make the below cash expenditures it will all be gone soon. I am considering suicide before that fund is totally depleted. Cheapest option I can come up with. 🙂
Had to have my roof replaced in November ($8,000) because of a constant leak around the chimney and a leak in the master bedroom. Had some serious rain a couple of weeks and water was dripping down the chimney like it was coming through a sieve. Roofer came out and said there were no problems with the roof or the flashing and that there were possibly problems with the chimney itself. Had a chimney expert out and yep, repairs needed ($500). I have no idea what it will cost to repair the plaster ceiling around the leak but I’m sure it will be less than the deductible on my insurance. BTW, I had the roofers remove my gutters before installing the new roof and they managed to ruin about 60 ft. of gutters. They finally offered to give me $240 to cover the materials (not the labor, mind you) to replace what they said is all they ruined. Now, I get to spend $1,500 replace the gutters.
Shortly after having the roof replaced, a HUGE limb from one of my 100 ft. Oak trees fell on my metal storage shed, flattening it. Finally had that torn down and hauled off and have to have it replaced. Right now, there is just a miscellaneous assortment of junk on a concrete slab in my back yard. Looks really classy.
Last month my water heater went out and flooded my kitchen and hallway. Had that replaced…another $1,000 (small 35 gallon water heater) down the tubes.
Another thing on the list for this Spring/Summer is having the exterior of this dump painted. Don’t even want to think about that cost.
After typing all this, I’m depressed as hell. I may just set up one of those “Go Fund Me” accounts like the rest of the world is doing and see how much my friends and total strangers pity me in my financial downfall.
Love,
Reefie
Welcome back. My daughter asked me for forty bucks and drove all the way from Doylestown to Clarks summit this morning to go see a psychic. Long way to go for a psychic. My wife and I went to see her a few times until a few years ago when she told us we would get divorced. Gee thanks Mary the Maudlin. Appreciate that my daughter wasn’t told she’d die a tragic death in college. Maybe that’s for the next consult.