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

[Saab2000]

It's raining. Portland sucks.

It rained in Switzerland for 10 straight years. I'll trade you your Portland for my Virginia Beach, especially now that I have the bike I longed for for a decade in Switzerland.. Ti (no rust), disc brakes, fender mounts, light mounts (cuz it's dark 5 months of the year...), etc.

Get a bike for it and embrace it and enjoy the dense rain forest. I wish I still had it. Seriously.

[Shinomaster]

It rained in Switzerland for 10 straight years. I'll trade you your Portland for my Virginia Beach, especially now that I have the bike I longed for for a decade in Switzerland.. Ti (no rust), disc brakes, fender mounts, light mounts (cuz it's dark 5 months of the year...), etc.

Get a bike for it and embrace it and enjoy the dense rain forest. I wish I still had it. Seriously.

I took the fenders off my bike thinking it was summer.. Yesterday it truly monsooned for about an hour. Just crazy amounts of rain. Hey, at least you have Swiss Cheese over there.

[Saab2000]

I took the fenders off my bike thinking it was summer.. Yesterday it truly monsooned for about an hour. Just crazy amounts of rain. Hey, at least you have Swiss Cheese over there.

They call it Emmentaler cheese there...

Anyway, if I still lived in the hills and valleys of rain I'd have a year-round bike for such weather. Makes life easier. And these days it'd probably have a Rohloff internally geared hub for even easier maintenance....

Sorry for the conversation, but there are tips here for the rainy climates: Eat cheese, use disc brakes (because you can wear down a set of rubber pads to the metal in one ride) and use an internally geared hub if you ride days on end in the rain.

[roseyscot]

"If you don't know how to use a system or what that system is capable of, don't go around telling people what it can't do. Now I look like the asshole going around trying to set the record straight and calling you out for being wrong. Next time, just ask. It'll save me time and energy and save you from looking foolish."

This is what I should have said to about 10 people today. My grumps are that 1) I didn't say it, 2) there was a need to say it, and 3) had I said it, I would have just made things worse.

Haha, I'll pile on. You mean software sales people. That's my grump too.

[TTX1]

Misplaced Amazon giftcard. Noticed it was missing yesterday. Officially grumped today. Disclaimer: Was not planning to use to buy anything available at LBS, which may or may not include actual bike-related products. Perhaps it will turn up over the weekend...

[Too Tall]

Rules is rules. See you grumpy Mofos next thursday.

Mandatory drop and push, you know who you are.

[nahtnoj]

I think its Friday. Haven't known the day all week.

[Mike Mcdermid]

every single thing

[davids]

Two things:

1. Contractor rebuilding the back porches. Tells us the 3rd floor columns are rotting and need to be replaced. I look and agree. Ask him to get me the price, and I’ll get fellow condo trustee approval. He phones me with the price - $411. Seems really cheap, so I press, “Total?” “Yes, total”. I pass on the info, get approval. The next day he gives us a bill for $909. WTF? I either look like an idiot or a liar. I call and lay into him. He squirms, equivocates, and finally tells me if I have a problem I should call the supplier. I no longer trust the guy we’re paying five figures. All future business will be in writing.

2. Employee sent out last month’s remittance info to 2,400 partners. He has made this mistake before with payroll and accounts payable. I like this guy and I want to fire him.

[sbornia]

nanny may quit work to go back to school.
wife wants to quit work due to burnout.
i may have a cool new job offer, but it's 1.5 hours from home.
too much big change at once.

[sevencyclist]

Have not been able to commute to work for the past two weeks due to needing to use car for work.

[joosttx]

I am vacation and a hurricane is coming.... So I drinking a piña colada....

[Matthew Strongin]

Every time I turn around there's another issue with my money pit house. And I can't even get the previous problems fixed because all the contractors here are flakey, at best, and liars, at worst. So the issues pile up. And this was the "move-in ready, remodeled" home of the options. I want to love this home, but I don't trust that it won't keep falling apart on me.

[caleb]

Sometimes I understand why people hate cyclists.

I've been running a couple days a week with my two dogs this summer, and my route takes me over two bridges, both of which have bike lanes on the street and a sidewalk separated from traffic. I always run on the sidewalks across the bridges with the direction of auto and bike traffic.

Nearly every run I've had an adult cyclist clad in spandex jump up on the sidewalk on a bridge going against the direction of traffic and come riding toward me and the dogs at pace with no intention of yielding. In an effort to not get run over by a dickwad who thinks he's entitled to ride wherever and in whatever direction he wants, I stop my run and line the dogs up single file to make room for a guy on the wrong side of the road breaking a city ordinance prohibiting bikes on the sidewalk. I wouldn't grump, but this has been happening 2-3 times a week all summer, and it's never the same person. It's widespread.

I don't in general have a problem with cyclists bending the rules when it doesn't hurt anyone. But that doesn't extend to acting like you're somehow entitled to make everyone else stop for you while you bend the rules. Unclipping, yielding, and offering a mumbled apology aren't out of place when you get caught doing something you shouldn't be doing.

[VertigoCycles]

so I have this neighbor across the street who has it in her head that when she's at her house EVERYONE around her needs to cease all noise making activity. Lawn maintenance, children playing, outdoor talking, music...everything. She says it's her right. Four years ago, her first interaction with her next door neighbor was screaming at him mid-day on a Saturday for building a chicken coop in his back yard and she's had it out for him ever since. He's a reasonable guy but didn't appreciate being cursed at.

Since "moving in" she's rarely been at the house and mostly lives in a condo somewhere else in the city but it doesn't stop her from stirring shit. Three months ago, she setup a speaker in a window facing his house and BLASTED a classical radio station from 8AM to 11PM (on a timer) which I could hear, clear as day, from my couch with the windows closed. After six weeks of that nonsense, I wrote her a note asking her to turn it down. The tone was pleasant and I clearly laid out my two assumptions...the first was that she was on vacation and the stereo was supposed to act as some type of deterrent, in which case I mentioned that probably wasn't necessary as we have great neighbors who if made aware of her absence would keep an eye out for trouble for her. The second was that this was a hypocritical and childish act just to annoy Randy and if that was the case, she had three days to shut it down before I file a formal complaint with the city. I left my phone number to discuss it.

Guess who got a phone call a week later with a screaming ranting sociopath on the other end?

I'll mention again that she doesn't even live at the house.

I made my complaint (side story: my oldest kid [5yo] mentioned the noise several times, stating how hard it was to carry on a conversation in our own front yard. I told her what was happening, asked her how SHE would deal with this and we agreed that the neighbor was being a bully. Part of this process is to attempt to responsibly teach her that bullying isn't OK and what can be done about it), two weeks go by and then I got a voice mail letting me know that she's going to try to shut down my business.

As far as I know, I'm fully compliant with state and local laws, everything is above board but I've been getting visits over the past few weeks from every fucking section of the local government for reviews and inspections. They all have admitted that she's a serial complainer but they have to follow up with every complaint.

How fucked up is it that this person can get away with wasting so much of my time and tying up government resources just to be an asshole? In over half a dozen visits, I have not been dinged for one single infraction.

[caleb]

^ Yikes!

[mjbabcock]

I'd toss a bag of fish in that window then nail a sheet of ply over the offending window some evening with a combination of galvy framing nails, rings shank nails, and stripped out security screws that I bought with cash from a hardware store without security cameras.

Fuck it. Burn her house down.

[mjbabcock]

Better yet, buy the neighborhood pre-teen kids a couple dozen slingshots and teach them how ice cubes can be very impactful. Give them a stern warning about how not to use them in nefarious ways and turn them lose.

[VertigoCycles]

I've thought about planting signs around the neighborhood with her address stating that it was the designated neighborhood firework lighting zone.

Also during the next big rainstorm, running a hose into the open window and letting it flow.

I like the fish idea.

But I won't do any of those things because I have too much to lose.

[mjbabcock]

Buy your kid a drum set and put it on your porch when she's around.