Thursday, August 13, 2009
Moi's happy birthday
Umm Qasr 06172009
Slept in a bit, just long enough to miss brekkie. And I put down my book around ten PM last night, too. I guess I'm sleeping more in my dotage.
Which brings me to the point of today's piece: Today is my sixty-fourth birthday.
No, I didn't make a big deal about it. I had some over-carbed Raisin Bran with a box of cold, full-fat milk. Yep, 57 grams of carbs was too many for my brekkie, but it's my birthday, so I fell off the carb wagon.
I did a quick internet check. Darned Yahoo wouldn't work for me- sure, I could open and delete emails, but I couldn't send emails. And the browsers were really slow to load, too.
Around ten-thirty I came back to my hooch, having put off any productive activity for the first half of the morning. I got out the battery-powered skilsaw and drill, the combination square (curiously, only in metric, not in inches), tape measure (happily in both inches and metric), a large box of grabbers and the big table from the MWR. Then I got the small box of grabbers, my phillips bit holder and a roll of duct tape from my tool drawer. Once I got the table set up, cutting pieces of two-by-four and plywood, pre-drilling and screwing the two-by lumber went quickly. I made one more target holder. At eleven-fifteen, I finished the first one and decided to go as quickly as I could to finish the second one. By a few minutes to noon, I'd finished the tallest one of the bunch. With four finished target holders, I felt pretty good about the time to myself here. But I was all sweaty and covered with sawdust, so a shower felt great. Caution: don't take showers at noon. The cold water is hot and the hot water is scalding. I had to soap up quickly, trying not to get too wet because there was no tepid water, only hot and hotter coming out of the faucets. I dried off, crossed the patio to my hooch and got dressed for lunch. I ate alone, since no POETT people were around and eating alone isn't such an odious chore. After lunch, I cleaned my hooch a bit, then looked at the shower trailer door- it had been dragging on the linoleum and tore a hole so that you couldn't open the door without a lot of pushing and tearing the floor more. I had already seen that the original hinge pins were missing. So I took a door off one of the toilet stalls and stole the hinge pins and hinge pin sleeves from that door. Then I took the trailer door off. I replaced the hinge pin sleeves and hinge pins (well, only two- the top and bottom; the middle one is empty yet) and the door closes very easily- no more dragging. Heck, even the door latch works. I had to fiddle a bit with the toilet stall that was the donor for the hinge pins and sleeves, but I got it back together and I don't think anyone will notice the difference. Mission accomplished!
Feeling good about my day, I went back to the internet where I was once again frustrated by the inability to send emails. I had a good one that I wanted to send to Schaffe. Since I couldn't send it, I copied it to an OpenOffice blank doc and then to my thumb drive. What I had to say to him is in “For me 06172009.”
I made some popcorn and drank a diet Coke while writing “For me 06172009” and keeping an eye on AFN. The MWR isn't such a bad place. I guess one of the reasons I haven't spent much time here is that the MWR isn't “my” place, it's a common area. Spending time in a common area seems less desirable than spending time in your own personal area.
I've got a bit more than an hour till dinner. I expect to eat, visit the gals, give the lads some food, try one more time to see if the internet works, then lay in my rack and watch TV until nine or ten, when I'll try to get some sleep.
Slept in a bit, just long enough to miss brekkie. And I put down my book around ten PM last night, too. I guess I'm sleeping more in my dotage.
Which brings me to the point of today's piece: Today is my sixty-fourth birthday.
No, I didn't make a big deal about it. I had some over-carbed Raisin Bran with a box of cold, full-fat milk. Yep, 57 grams of carbs was too many for my brekkie, but it's my birthday, so I fell off the carb wagon.
I did a quick internet check. Darned Yahoo wouldn't work for me- sure, I could open and delete emails, but I couldn't send emails. And the browsers were really slow to load, too.
Around ten-thirty I came back to my hooch, having put off any productive activity for the first half of the morning. I got out the battery-powered skilsaw and drill, the combination square (curiously, only in metric, not in inches), tape measure (happily in both inches and metric), a large box of grabbers and the big table from the MWR. Then I got the small box of grabbers, my phillips bit holder and a roll of duct tape from my tool drawer. Once I got the table set up, cutting pieces of two-by-four and plywood, pre-drilling and screwing the two-by lumber went quickly. I made one more target holder. At eleven-fifteen, I finished the first one and decided to go as quickly as I could to finish the second one. By a few minutes to noon, I'd finished the tallest one of the bunch. With four finished target holders, I felt pretty good about the time to myself here. But I was all sweaty and covered with sawdust, so a shower felt great. Caution: don't take showers at noon. The cold water is hot and the hot water is scalding. I had to soap up quickly, trying not to get too wet because there was no tepid water, only hot and hotter coming out of the faucets. I dried off, crossed the patio to my hooch and got dressed for lunch. I ate alone, since no POETT people were around and eating alone isn't such an odious chore. After lunch, I cleaned my hooch a bit, then looked at the shower trailer door- it had been dragging on the linoleum and tore a hole so that you couldn't open the door without a lot of pushing and tearing the floor more. I had already seen that the original hinge pins were missing. So I took a door off one of the toilet stalls and stole the hinge pins and hinge pin sleeves from that door. Then I took the trailer door off. I replaced the hinge pin sleeves and hinge pins (well, only two- the top and bottom; the middle one is empty yet) and the door closes very easily- no more dragging. Heck, even the door latch works. I had to fiddle a bit with the toilet stall that was the donor for the hinge pins and sleeves, but I got it back together and I don't think anyone will notice the difference. Mission accomplished!
Feeling good about my day, I went back to the internet where I was once again frustrated by the inability to send emails. I had a good one that I wanted to send to Schaffe. Since I couldn't send it, I copied it to an OpenOffice blank doc and then to my thumb drive. What I had to say to him is in “For me 06172009.”
I made some popcorn and drank a diet Coke while writing “For me 06172009” and keeping an eye on AFN. The MWR isn't such a bad place. I guess one of the reasons I haven't spent much time here is that the MWR isn't “my” place, it's a common area. Spending time in a common area seems less desirable than spending time in your own personal area.
I've got a bit more than an hour till dinner. I expect to eat, visit the gals, give the lads some food, try one more time to see if the internet works, then lay in my rack and watch TV until nine or ten, when I'll try to get some sleep.
# posted by rich @ 2:56 PM 
