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

[Gattonero]

Beer in Boston is too effin' expensive.

That's 'cause you haven't seen some places in London. 3 bloody pints £14, WTF??

[David Tollefson]

Just barely over a week ago my daughter took her first doddering attempts at crawling. Now she's scooting around on all-4's like she's got a motor. Fencing off the living room...

[Corso]

My wife is taking advantage of me working from home and basically not having a set schedule. The thing is - I do kind of have a set schedule - and I'm losing a couple of hours of productive work daily now being a shuttle dad.

The only worthwhile VC funding offer we've had for a side project startup fell through.

I hear you brother!

I’m currently working form home, doing shuttle duty, and when my wife comes home from her day at the office, I get the “So what did YOU do today?”…Meaning, did I work (yes i do) or goof off somehow or ride my bike?

I was renting an office for 14 years, at least then I didn’t get questioned on how I spent my time...

[zetroc]

I don't think the city of Concord, California has yet embraced the concept of installing public bike racks.

[EricKeller]

I have to finish installing a toilet, install another toilet, install a garbage disposal, and put in a light fixture. Then tomorrow I have to drive 6 hours so I can work on a house. Not liking this.

[j44ke]

I busted my a:: to get to a performance last night - dance by the Lyon Opera Ballet at Brooklyn Academy of Music - and my wife busted her a:: to meet me there. Tough week for her, business, work, Dad, etc. We wanted a nice show, know a lot about dance, have seen a lot of dance, completely open to challenging experimental work, etc. Curtain rises and the first dancer walks out slowly and then lies down. Then the second dancer walks out and lies down. Then the third dancer walks out and lies down. This goes on for about 15 minutes until there are 10 or so dancers lying down on the stage. By now I am wondering when the dance starts, when am I going to be challenged, when will I be engaged. The guy next to me is asleep. The couple in front of me is nodding off. The first couple in the audience gets up to leave. There has to be more, right? Then one dancer moves an arm. Someone moves a leg. Now we are 30 minutes into the performance, which is supposed to be only 65 minutes we discover - the shortest performance at BAM I have ever paid money to see. Then people start walking around again. Someone comes out wearing a hat. Did I say this was a French piece? Merde! Snake oil. I was so pissed I nearly got up and rushed the stage to demand that the dancers take up a collection to reimburse us for our tickets. My wife was disgusted. Her words - "Let's go get some fykking dinner." We get up, climb over the sleeping guy and join the smattering of people doing the same. What a frickin' insult. If the choreographer had been selling an elixir that promised eternal life, he couldn't have been more of a shyster.

We went to Franny's and had a nice dinner, though the woman next to us gave me the opportunity to share with my wife one of my favorite phrases - "She had a voice that would drive a starving dog off a gut wagon."

[bironi]

I've just got little grumps about aging.
Why do I have to find perfect lighting to find the pressure range or directional arrows on my tires - well because I can't see as well as when I was 20 and I sure as hell can't remember this crap.
Why am I worried about the pain that is aggravated in my wrist when climbing out of the saddle - well because the same wrist was repaired for a different problem ~ 12 years ago.
Why am I worried about pushing myself on the bike - well because I'm just beyond 1 year on a partial knee replacement, and cycling is the least aggravating activity and most enjoyable.
Anybody have a cheese recommendation to go with my bad wine?

[EricKeller]

good news about getting old in this day and age is that lighting systems are getting much better. If I could only find my flashlight.
Why did I make fun of my dad when he had me read him things when I was 6? Every time I have trouble reading small print I feel some regret about that.

[Nooch]

some assclown decided to rip the windshield wiper off my wife's odyssey. really? c'mon, man.

[bironi]

Eric,
I'm amazed by how many old-F's like me who are to vain to wear glasses. Maybe that's the look they want when laid in the box.
By

[seanile]

round 2:
last weekend i changed the oil on my motorcycle (1st time ever doin an oil change). i felt really accomplished, called my uncle (who has been apprenticing me from a few states away re: bikes) and bragged a bit. next day i see that the sightglass is completely full, rather than perfect as it was the day before, and now there's oil drooling down the front of the bike from the crankcase breather. apparently i overfilled it by about 500ml. so i empty some out. too much. put some back in. feel accomplished again. few days of around town riding go by and today i commute to work on it. everything goes swimmingly until the ride home when i notice the bike clanking around between neutral, 1st, 2nd, and a little bit of 3rd. swing by a shop on the way home and ask a service guy for some advice, he says my chain is probably loose (about 3-4 inches too much play D: ). ok then!
get home and fix the chain tension.
try to start the bike.. nothing. have to crank on the throttle to get it to start, after which it slowly dies during idle regardless of choke.
do it again and notice smoke blowing out the exhaust. say, "well fuck me is this from the oil?!"
pull the air filter off and low and behold, more oil is drooling out of the breather.
pull about 300ml of oil out, try to start the bike again. more smoke and it still dies.
call my uncle, and he tells me to check the spark plugs.

i flipping drowned the spark plugs and they werent igniting enough. even got oil into the plug wells. how come it took so long for this to rear its head?!
also, i tried to undo the little latch for a compartment on the side of the bike and the lock unscrewed itself on the inside and basically fell apart (i was able to fix it.. but still).

all of this began happening because i just wanted to change the oil so i could sell the damn bike with a clean conscious.

[maunahaole]

Is that bike British?

[seanile]

Is that bike British?

hah, nope kawasaki vulcan 800

[Britishbane]

I have the time to ride, for the first time in many months, but pulled muscle in my back during yesterday's gym effort doing stuff I shouldn't have been doing. Now I'm shuffling around like Quasimodo.

[Tom]

OK, so this isn't really so much as a grump except for the minutes or so I'm in those spots as it is a persistent question.

Why is it that 12 months or so after the town goes to all the good time and trouble to resurface a bad stretch of road somebody comes along and digs it all up again? I'm not talking about the customary sewer or water line fix, those you can't really predict.

On the state road coming up the hill from the river they spent the better part of a summer tearing up the pavement with one of those big grinders and then resurfacing it nicely, even installing a nice smooth three foot shoulder. Then in the fall they put the riprap on the bank, and the guys that did it managed to make a whole series of two inch deep gouges across the shoulder so about a quarter of a mile after the start of the hill with a quarter mile to go right about where it goes to 10 percent you go juddering over about 30 yards of those grooves. Couldn't they have done that before they put the top coat on?

So the last street before I turn up toward my house they fixed up because it was really bad. Big holes and cracks all the way to the road bed, all over the lane so cars weaved back and forth not to get flats and even the little ones slowed a bike down a lot. After the fix it was great, smooth as can be and you could zip right up the little hill and over. So this spring? New utility cuts, I think new water or sewer lines, to every house on the street. So now in front of every house, every 100 feet or less, nice big three foot square street cuts and they are somewhat casual with the repaving after they're done. You either thread the six inches against the curb or ride the middle. Couldn't they have done that and then repaved?

Doesn't anybody in public works talk to anybody else in public works? It's not a big deal, it just offends my sense of aesthetics. I like smooth pavement wall to wall. It just looks nice from the bike.

[popandmod]

Go in to work early do I can ride in the afternoon.
Because I'm sleepy I end up standing up into a giant piece of angle iron, no good.
Now at the ER awaiting staples. Grump.

[seanile]

was playing ultimate frisbee last night, last game of the season. stretched myself out to catch the disc and dislocated my left shoulder. for the 5th time. well, i've either subluxed or dislocated-briefly my left shoulder five times, my right has done the same about 3 or 4. this is due to something called AMBRI, an acronym for shoulder joint instability: which is Atraumatic, Multidirectional, often Bilateral, requires Rehabilitation as first-line therapy, Inferior capsular shift as the best alternative (surgical) therapy. AKA "Born Loose."

even though I've done it multiple times, including due to turning my steering wheel too fast, it's never been this bad (heard more pops than ever, and the pain is lingering much longer than usual). so I think I've actually fucked it up this time. have a dr. appointment at 1pm today to see what the verdict is.
will report back i guess..


on the bright side, biking isn't bad for it?

[Dallas Tex]

No one makes, or I can't find, a nice big, fat 29"/700c slick. I mean no tread pattern, like kojak. But big & fat.

[Nathanrtaylor]

The MF'ing GMAT.

13 days left before I take it and I'm still getting tripped up on stupid mistakes that I would never make if the questions were written to elicit answers instead of confusion.

[Corso]

was playing ultimate frisbee last night, last game of the season. stretched myself out to catch the disc and dislocated my left shoulder. for the 5th time. well, i've either subluxed or dislocated-briefly my left shoulder five times, my right has done the same about 3 or 4. this is due to something called AMBRI, an acronym for shoulder joint instability: which is Atraumatic, Multidirectional, often Bilateral, requires Rehabilitation as first-line therapy, Inferior capsular shift as the best alternative (surgical) therapy. AKA "Born Loose."

even though I've done it multiple times, including due to turning my steering wheel too fast, it's never been this bad (heard more pops than ever, and the pain is lingering much longer than usual). so I think I've actually fucked it up this time. have a dr. appointment at 1pm today to see what the verdict is.
will report back i guess..


on the bright side, biking isn't bad for it?

I dislocated my shoulder a total of 5 times before having surgery many years ago. My dislocations were very painful, each requiring hospital visits to put it back in. Long story there, but….

Cycling is FINE! I’ve not once injured my shoulders cycling, (broken a collarbone in a road crash, but shoulder was fine). I’ve fallen many time in the woods, snow, etc.

You should be good!