Rain and wind erode the finest materials.

The third dock was not exactly made of the finest material, but it was perfectly usable until the other day when a storm blew  through and rocked it around for a few hours. Here's a POV movie of me walking out on the dock that was destroyed, showing it before it fell apart.

And here's a picture of it now, before I pulled it apart.

And here's our hero removing the broken parts, the first stage of repair.

Here's a short appearance of my father. 90 years old.

Day of the Remote Control

My dad has a DVD player and a VCR attached to the television in the living room. He has another television in the kitchen and another television in the bathroom. Each one of  these devices has a remote control. When he loses one, he often buys a "universal remote" controller and uses that instead. Today we attempted to use the DVD player. An two hours later he's a very frustrated 90 year old, and I have a pulled neck muscle, and the DVD player still won't work.

First we had to find the remote control that went to the DVD player. That necessitated a search and identify mission through the seat cushions of the easy chair, the couch, removal of several years worth of magazines, books and papers, with no remote being found. I did, however, find a .38 pistol in a plastic bag he keeps in the easy chair when it fell out and hit my foot. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The first twenty minutes were spent trying to explain to him that the DVD player had to have it's own remote control (no, the Universal remotes won't work - they don't have an open/close button for the tray). After I got that, the next fifteen minutes were spent figuring out the wiring between the auxiliary inputs and the Video input on the television and which remote worked with the VCR, and which input enabled it on the television. Then I had to explain that the VCR remote control won't work with the other devices, and the universal remote control won't work with the DVD player (see, it has an open/close function for the tray, which won't open with a button on the front of the DVD player, so I surmised it must have a dedicated remote control somewhere).

I knew this would happen one day and I have been dreading it. But it was a Clint Eastwood movie, so I figured what the hell. Clint Eastwood, man. Maybe I could get things going with a minimum of confusion.

Meanwhile, my father has collected every remote control in the house and has started going through them from device to device. No, that won't work. No, that doesn't work. Nope, not that one. Yup, that's the one for the kitchen.

In a moment of Einsteinien inspiration, I opened the cabinet next to the television. There was a remote control. It was the same brand as the DVD player. Ah, I thought. Success.

No button seemed to work anything on the DVD player. I removed the batteries and began to look for batteries in the drawers. I found them. About twenty. All in various states, all by different makers, so I removed the old batteries, noting their condition and maker, and noticed the corrosion filling the battery compartment. Ok, well I scraped off the terminals, selected the best looking candidates from all the AAA batteries I found, and started plugging them in, trying the remote, twisting, turning, etc.

Meanwhile, my father was busy with the pod of remote controls he had in his lap, pointing them at the television and changing channels, turning it off and on, changing functions to the VCR (no dad, that's not it, see the light on the DVR? We need the DVD light to go on and off.). During this process he managed to deprogram the television so it would not connect to cable. I know mare about the television remote control and cable setup now than I ever wanted to know. So, after I got the cable hooked up, programmed, and running normally again he made the comment that "sometimes the tv goes out by itself then comes back in a few hours or days. That's ok...."

So after a while messing around with the drawer full of batteries and playing with the DVD remote control I determined that I still might be using bad batteries. So, I took one remote control that worked and removed the batteries from it and swapped them with the ones in the DVD remote control. Still nothing.

Meanwhile, my dad has picked up the remote control w/o batteries and has been trying it on different televisions. His cussing alerted me to the fact he had put "new" batteries from the drawer into the remote control that had no batteries.

This is the point where I think I pulled my neck muscle.

So, holding the known good batteries, I have determined that the DVD remote control either doesn't work any more or the thing is broken. I explained this to my father while I set up the cable programming again on the television. Then I helped him to identify the remote control for the television in the living room and the universal that worked on it, and I put the batteries back into the remote control for the kitchen television. But I had mentioned the funky batteries, and my dad went and found a battery tester that looked like it was pulled of a classic model Buick car, and began testing batteries as he removed them from remote controls.

I explained again that we weren't going to be able to use the DVD player because it had only one remote control, with the manufacturer logo (A-Star), and it didn't work so don't bother with that one. Sensing increasing levels of his frustration, I decided then to return to my "cell" and find something to do while he tested batteries. An hour later he had finished and identified the working remotes for the various televisions and had them properly placed. Then he asked me if we could watch the Clint Eastwood movie in the DVD player.

"No, dad, the remote control ... the player ... it's broken. It doesn't work."

"Oh, well, sh*t. I'll have to take that down to the store and buy another remote control."

Then I explained that the universal controller probably wouldn't work, and he shouldn't mess with getting another one. Then I explained why the remote control for the DVD players doesn't work.

Thank God it Saint Patrick's day. Evening is on the way. I'll see my favorite bartender.

The crab trap continues to vex me.

Well, not the trap itself, but the crabs. My last attempt at raiding the crustacean haven off the end of the dock, using a couple pounds of rotten bacon, came to naught. So far I've used old bologna, old steaks, old head cheese and old olive loaf (all in varying stages of decomposition). I've put one of my first attempts on video, below. It's rather boring, so consider this just a look at what not to do.

The first bait I tried was headcheese.

The result: no luck. Head cheese was missing but no crab had been trapped.

Here's a quick video of the trap - it's hard to see, since it's made of black plastic coated wire, but you can make it out if you look closely enough.

Here's a video of the bait I used from the 'frig.

And here's a POV walkout to where the crab trap is currently positioned as of yesterday.

Stay tuned for further news, and upcoming videos!

I double I will be doing much outside today. It's raining like crazy. There's enough to do in the house anyway. I am going to remove drawers and attempt to locate the hole where rats and mice and snakes are getting into the house. There's gonna be a lot of crawling around today. Stay tuned!

The saga continues.

Over the past few days I've been suffering with allergies that have kept me down. However, application of many different blends of over the counter medications have helped get it out of my system. During the time I've been off the blog, a number of things have happened.

Still applying to any freelance writing job I can find. I think my age and lack of a Bachelor Degree are holding me down, but that doesn't effect my personal writing. I've been adding more chapters to the "saga" that was published at JukepopSerials (up to Ch. 4). While the subject matter is laden with topics I don't work with anymore, I find it to be a fresh change of pace and plan to continue it for quite some time. Who knows? Tolkien penned his stories without any prior history of elves, hobbits, and orcs and, well, you know how that went. I'm not trying to say I have anywhere near his level of talent, but maybe I can make an interesting story anyways. That's really all I want.

I am under constant observation from the many animals that live on the property.

Another week

A week has passed at my father's place. I have found the only way I can stand things is to sleep through most of the day, work furiously on the computer while awake during daylight hours, and then leave for the bar as soon as it gets dark. This has kept my father from focusing on my long enough to deliver some harangue about "following his rules if I want to live here" (which means I can't clean the rat shit and rat piss, stained magazines and newspapers, or move the decades old detritus in any way that he notices while living/surviving/existing in the closet I have been allotted). Well, as long as he leaves me alone I suppose that's a win, as sad as it is.

Published chapter 3 of my "fun book" on Jukepopserial http://www.jukepopserials.com/home/read/1323

Continued work on "Quest of the Migo" and outlines for SCP project and another Lovecraftian story based upon lizard men.

Took garbage can outside for a thorough cleaning. Can't throw it out and get a new one - "What do you think, I'm made of money?" from the father who eats out every day, buys new things instead of looking for something he lost, and buys electronic equipment and tools that are broken "for the right price". You should see the tool shed. And the vicinity. (will post pics).

So I'm rinsing out the garbage can for reuse. While doing so I have cleaned HALF of the sink area. That means I had to put detergent, scrubber pads, oil, tools, styrofoam cups, and cleansers in their "new" places (under the sink and in a nearby drawer). I can hardly wait for my father to return home from breakfast and explode when he sees what I have done.

Onward ...

Moved - Accomplished, Mostly

So the move into my father's place is complete. I've piled boxes as high as I can in the tiny room he has alotted for my use, and stacked the rest on the porch outside. After a week of waiting I have Verizon installed as an internet service. Did you know, according to my last Brighthouse technician, that Brighthouse is incapable of providing two accounts to a single residential address? The level of technical ability - adding another tap to the pole - is far beyond the abilities of their average service technician. In fact, as I wrote this, Brighthouse called me to discuss the issue of providing a second service to the same residential address. Apparently it IS possible. So the technician was wrong. Why he turned off my father's cable service AT THE POLE is now a rather curious question. He acted displeased that he had to come here and not be able to do the job. Spite? He certainly seemed to be somewhat of a jackass. I'm finding "spite" is the only possible reason he decided to "unhook" the address. Nice, eh?

So the adventure continues. Soon I will be eradicating the rats in the walls and the mice that have infested my father's place due to his unwillingness to pick up after himself. They are on official notice of eviction. After that, I can clean up the rotting hulk of a sailboat that rests at the end of the dock. I'm not sure, but I may have heard moans of the damned emanating from it's vicinity. I look forward to the investigation.

More Encounters with Evil

While developing web sites to keep my web design skills sharp, and working on "Hello! Chupacabra" as well as other endeavors, I have, of course, been searching for gainful employment with the system. The right-to-work state of Florida is a fairly hostile employment environment and with the glut of job seekers just getting an interview is a major hurdle. The search continues. The software employed by FLUID (the unemployment compensation system ran by the state of Florida, recently reworked by Rick Scott, worst governor in the history of the United States) still fails to operate correctly, and reported to me that I would not be getting a check at one point when I struggled through reporting my freelance work, but then operated correctly for no reason whatsoever. The instructions are ambiguous in many places, and I can only wonder what people who don't have a background in writing and programming do when they are presented with its many strange glitches (which can be overcome through repeated experimentation using different browsers, if you understand how this stuff works).

In the meantime,  there's no reason not to enjoy the weather and thank the powers that be that I'm not up in the frozen hell of Michigan. Of course my relatives have come to hate my facebook posts, such as the ones you see here. I always try to throw in something so life in here in Florida seems less than idyllic, such as "stubbed my toe on the stairs" or "got a flat tire on my bike" so they don't get too jealous of life here in the sunshine state. It seems to work.

I'm also working on providing other writers with some useful utilities, such as a tutorial on using the database function in OpenOffice Writer, and more Joomla tutorials at http://www.webdissemble.com, so go give it a look if you're interested (the database tutorial will be on that website in a special section I'm creating for this type of work).

As usual, email from people encountering the chupacabra in the wild keep arriving. While most are clear fakes, some warrant further investigation. I've forwarded them to the respectable Dr. Arthur Antebury at the Mexico Institute for further investigation. (http://www.hellochupacabra.com).