Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[maunahaole]

I hop that you appreciate the irony of getting a drumming injury while riding your bike. Tinnitus is one of the two ways to hurt a drummer. Aspirating vomit is the other.

Wide clinchers/ tight tires.

Changed a tube yesterday. Inflated to 120 and gave it a spin to make sure it seated properly. Saw a bump. Before I could let air out, the goddamned tube popped. Loud. Ear pressure and ringing for 24 hours. Now I've got to see an ear specialist.

[Nierman]

Eff all-nighters, this 'kat is done. And a big EFF to the guy that almost took out sonny. Glad you're ok!

meerkat2.jpg
meerkat3.jpg
meerkat4.jpg
meerkat6.jpg
meerkat7.jpg

[bironi]

I'm trying not to be that competitive "Pinewood derby winner" dad, but.............

I'm not sure I buy your statement above. It seems you contradict it with your finished work. Nicely done.

[zetroc]

You should give the meerkat an open mouth so it can still spray Pledge on people. Form AND function.

(going to do some pushups now.)

[Dallas Tex]

Eff all-nighters, this 'kat is done. And a big EFF to the guy that almost took out sonny. Glad you're ok!

meerkat2.jpg
meerkat3.jpg
meerkat4.jpg
meerkat6.jpg
meerkat7.jpg

Excellent. You are a very good dad.

[maunahaole]

Glad to hear that sonny is OK. Someone need to continue to like my posts.

[ElvisMerckx]

This technically happened Thursday night, but someone removed all of the outdoor bike racks from around World Bank HQ in DC. They ripped them out of the concrete overnight.

Probably a misguided security decision because the racks get plenty of use. On any given day there are hundreds of bikes parked out there. Lots of confused and grumpy bike commuters this morning.

[davids]

This time yesterday I was sipping a cappuccino on Boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg.

Now I'm about to leave for work.

[Matthew Strongin]

We're short staffed at work, but there's been no adjustment of workload. We get great flexibility with when and where we work, but recently it's become all the time from everywhere. To the point where I had my first conference call at 7am yesterday. My last was at 8pm. And I took a 2 hour break in the evening to race, and was on my phone answering email within a couple minutes of crossing the finish line. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up without somewhat of a breakdown.

[robin3mj]

The disconnect between the Chicago rental vs buying residential real estate market is frustrating. Decent rental properties are getting leases signed within hours of going live on the MLS, despite monthly rates a good 20% higher than the cost of owning (mortgage plus insurance plus taxes).
Tempted to just buy a place, but I refuse to do so until we have some better certainty on where we'll want/need to live further than two years out.

[Britishbane]

The disconnect between the Chicago rental vs buying residential real estate market is frustrating. Decent rental properties are getting leases signed within hours of going live on the MLS, despite monthly rates a good 20% higher than the cost of owning (mortgage plus insurance plus taxes).
Tempted to just buy a place, but I refuse to do so until we have some better certainty on where we'll want/need to live further than two years out.

We're in the same boat. My wife and I are paying a few hundred more a month in rent than we'd pay if we were owning. Our current rental was off the market lickitysplit. We had a check in the landlord's hand within 1.5hrs of the posting hitting the internet...and we were the second offer. Its crazy.

We'd both like to leave the DC area, I just need to find employment - the wife can work pretty much anywhere.

My grump:


x100 a day.

[cody.wms]

Ok, my grump from yesterday -- Virginia is an "open carry" state, meaning if you have the permit you can carry your holstered pistol around. I see it from time to time and I know quite a few people from law school that are active on the Second Amendment legal stuff. I think it is weird in many situations, but get where it comes from.

So, I'm eating dinner yesterday, at the edge of where the city part of northern Virginia ends and where the suburbs begin, and see Mr. Open Carry who is also buying a burrito. He obviously just came from work and that is what got my grump on. Brother is wearing shitty cowboy boots, quad pleated olive pants which were so billious that circa-1992 MC Hammer would have said they were too much, a blue shirt that can only be described as the wrong color of blue, and a tie that looks like it came in a box with the shirt, purchased sometime when Bush Sr. was President. Basically he looked like a bag of ass, and works at a job that requires him to wear a tie and khakis. But somehow he thinks that 1. his job that requires a tie and "work" pants requires a gun and 2. that despite not taking any time in the last 15 years to buy decent clothes or even begin to know how to dress himself he still takes time every morning to put a gun on.

[SteveP]

too bad he wasnt in boston on marathon day.
he could have shot another few spectators... or cops maybe.

[Matthew J]

The disconnect between the Chicago rental vs buying residential real estate market is frustrating. Decent rental properties are getting leases signed within hours of going live on the MLS, despite monthly rates a good 20% higher than the cost of owning (mortgage plus insurance plus taxes).
Tempted to just buy a place, but I refuse to do so until we have some better certainty on where we'll want/need to live further than two years out.

Closely related grump.

My condominium building on Chicago's Northwest side was converted in 2004. Upper floor apartments (including mine) are one bedroom units that went fast and cheap. The six first floor units are duplex two and three bedrooms into the basement. To a one these were all purchased by young suburban couple first time buyers in '06 and '07. Two a one these units have all been foreclosed and taken over by the couples' lenders.

Now the units sit empty. The banks that own the units, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, changed the locks but have otherwise done nothing with them, including not paying assessments. Now the Association is faced with the expensive prospect of taking these six units to court to gain possession and maybe rent them out in order to recover lost assessments. The law is on our side, but the big concern is whether these units, a couple of which have been empty for over three years now, would cost a fortune even to get into shape for leasing.

Six once nice apartments that could be in use sitting empty, killing the building, and contributing to the ridiculous rent situation in Chicago.

For this we bailed out the banks.

[ElvisMerckx]

Sickness. I've had a horrible sinus infection for several weeks now. In that time, I've gained 7 lbs. from the steroids and sloth that comes with illness. I'm barely better. So my grump is against tree pollen, sinus infections, and doctors who hold punches.

And, I'd like to withdraw this grump, World Bank re-installed the racks this week.

This technically happened Thursday night, but someone removed all of the outdoor bike racks from around World Bank HQ in DC. They ripped them out of the concrete overnight.

Probably a misguided security decision because the racks get plenty of use. On any given day there are hundreds of bikes parked out there. Lots of confused and grumpy bike commuters this morning.

[cody.wms]

Sickness. I've had a horrible sinus infection for several weeks now. In that time, I've gained 7 lbs. from the steroids and sloth that comes with illness. I'm barely better. So my grump is against tree pollen, sinus infections, and doctors who hold punches.

And, I'd like to withdraw this grump, World Bank re-installed the racks this week.

I noticed how yellow my hood was the other day and thought of you. And your misery. Hope it ends soon.

[Saab2000]

Sickness. I've had a horrible sinus infection for several weeks now. In that time, I've gained 7 lbs. from the steroids and sloth that comes with illness. I'm barely better. So my grump is against tree pollen, sinus infections, and doctors who hold punches.

And, I'd like to withdraw this grump, World Bank re-installed the racks this week.

I used to get recurring bacterial sinus infections. No longer. Lots of meds and visits to ENT specialists. Finally I took the advice of, IIRC, TooTall. I didn't use the neti pot but I bought this. It works. It washes out contaminants. No promises, but it worked for me like a champ. I don't go anywhere now without this in my travel case. It is non-medicinal. Just salt water.

[ElvisMerckx]

I've been doing the neti pot / sinus rinse thing for years. Some years it helps, others it doesn't. I've also had surgeries -- turbinate reductions and a deviated septum correction -- I can now breathe better, but I'm still prone to infections.

I've come to the conclusion that there must be a deep dark hidden place in the sinus cavity behind my right eye that loves to grow bacteria. The neti rinse can't get there and, it seems, neither can the antibiotics.

[j44ke]

People who insist on wearing headphones/earbuds while cycling, running, walking in a city with 12 bazillion people who all are trying to get somewhere. If you do this, you become a human bump in the carpet of daily perambulations for others, and everyone keeps tripping over you and stumbling around you. Especially if you are on a g-d bicycle. I am trying to get around your swaying to the music riding style and of course, as soon as I appear in your peripheral view, your startle reflex kicks in and you swerve into me or a parked car and then bounce into me. This goes for "pros" too. If you aren't talking to a DS in a crazed Skoda Octavia right behind you, take the earbuds out so you don't wreck me when your heart rate dips because Brian Eno just popped unexpectedly into your shuffle mix of Swedish hellcore churn music.

[zetroc]

Litter!

I mentioned this before, but is it really so hard to not throw your trash out the car window when you're done with your Double Whopper mega-meal? Can't you just stick the bag on the passenger's side floor until you get home and put it in your own garbage? Is the interior of your car so clean that you just can't bring yourself to befoul it with the remnants of a meal that, not 2 minutes ago, you were stuffing into your face? Do you really have to smash that beer bottle in the bike lane?

What the fuck, people?