Cracker Berry L.

My new little furry friend!!!!

My new friend. His name is "CRACKER BERRY L."

Trying to find s..om..e thi..ng to eat, hmm, what ?!?!? the honey isn't real ?

I almost responded "well, you aren't a real bear either", but then I thought that might give him the dreaded psychological condition called the "Pinocchio Complex".

"No, you may not drive home"

I did p00f up his ears and uncover his eyes for this third photograph, even though he complained that it wasn't his natural "aerodynamic" look. Deer are aerodynamic, bears are not.

 In my Ford, "The Truck Trio":

l to r Cheeteree, Cracker Berry L., and RIACH Herd (Reindeer In A Cup Holder)

If you look really close at Cheeteree the whiskers are trimmed on one side.

When my son (the owner of Cheeteree) was a little boy, he decided to do an experiment to see if his whiskers would grow back.

They either didn't grow back OR they grow very slowly.

Life Stuff, Wife Stuff

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It was wet outside, so this morning when I let Cooper back inside I asked him to sit on the towel by the back door so we could go through his normal routine of him getting most of the junk off his feet. Instead of sitting, though, he walked in a tight circle four times and looked up at me. I told him, "Good job, Bubba Bear, you did really good!"
He smiled and wagged his tail.

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I remove the evil celery and giant carrots from my salad at the restaurant. I continue digging through my salad.
My wife asked me what I was doing.
"Looking for evil celery ... (pause) maybe I should have saved it to take home"
"Why?!?!?", she asked.
"Just in case I need some celery"
The wife smacks her own forehead with her hand.

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I have no idea where Killeen Texas is, but my Internet service pretends that I am there. All the nasty sneaky little internet marketing scheming devices display messages like "Select Age to View Singles in Killeen" - umm, no thanks, match.com, not with the price of diesel, it would be too eXpensive. If I did someone might be kill-een-ing me. I just wanna play Sudoku.

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My wife has an overactive imagination. She thought that I had laid a couple of Beggin' Strips together on the floor end-to-end to make a snake-like figure to try to fool/scare her. "No, honey, for some reason the dog must have left them there instead of eating them." Besides, what are the odds that I would leave Beggin' Strips on the floor AND the dog not mess with them?

AND several hours later they were still on the floor eXactly where he left them, bizarre, AND I know he had to have walked right by them at least once!

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A recent conversation at eXtreme distance, almost yelling (fake):
"Bye, Ern"
"Bye, loveyouabunch"
"Bye, loveyoumore"
"Bye, loveyouless"
Giggles.
Front door closes.

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I decided this morning that we must have a "Nevada" type marriage. Whatever is lost and vague among us, stays lost and vague among us.

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I found out there is a slightly more complicated version to equate dog years to human years, rather than just using the "7 Times Factor". So I used a spread sheet to calculate the day when my dog and I will be the same "aged": 

Feb 9th, 2014

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Q: "Are you glad you are my wife?"

A: "My pillow is as flat as a pancake"

My Brain goes ?!?!?!?(mental cartwheel)?!?!?

Then I thought, well, I did ask her at 1:25 AM

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‎"I'm so tired I can't even ...."

(Pause)

"I'm so tired I can't even ....."

(Pause)

"What?!?!? '.... Finish your own sentence' ?"

"Yes"

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Nothing quite like the pitter patter of your children's feet going through the house in the morning after being gone for so long.

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A night of vivid strange dreams:

A) I was irritated because my wife was trying to secretly own three restaurants instead of two (we don't even have one in real life)

B) They weren't measuring the chemicals correctly on a gas chromatograph at the place where I used to work.

C) Trying to retrieve a photograph of one of my daughter-in-laws from both of them.

A tiring night of straightening out the imaginary world

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I get up briefly to get a drink of water in the middle of a terrible night of non-sleep for all three of us. I meet my wife in passing asking her what time it is, as the kitchen stove clock blinks 12:00 due to Excel Energy's recent failures. She says that it is 4:10 - ah, I think, how fitting, my favorite caliber of shotgun.

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It's gotten worse and completely out of control around here. The dog begins to complain verbally about wanting some supper and then The Wifey encourages him by making the eXact same noises, along with giggling as she thinks she is so intelligent.
What's a boy to do?
Charm school for both of them is sounding better all the time.

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HerHim Shepherd

My wife asked me if I sent the dog into the bedroom to get her out of bed.

"No honey, I would never do that to you at 7:30 in the morning"

He likes for us to be in the same room together. He is usually positioned between us on the floor, typically with a chew rawhide bone. 

I came up with a new name for him. Instead of being half German Shepherd, Cooper is a HerHim Shepherd.

Moments later ...

Her: "Are you happy now? I see your tail wagging"

A Spoonful of Grape Juice

My first year to get grapes from my vineyard was rather meager, but considering the dry hot record breaking ( as well as destroying any and all 8 Track Tapes and cassettes ) I was glad to get something. 

I was hoping for a little bit more than a tablespoon of grape juice, but I did lose two of the grapes before I got to the mashing stage. Farming!!!!

Considering the amount of water used to create the plant, both this year and last, the cost to create that amount of grape juice is staggering on a per gallon basis.

I told my wife about the "Price Per Gallon" at supper and she mentioned that I needed to include the cost of the nice cedar posts (plus wire, turn buckles, concrete...). I told her at least those costs get spread out over the rest of the time the vineyard is "in operation". She didn't realize that they last a very long time (after we are dead).

The Möbius Ball

I combined three Möbius Strips to form a one sided ball-like structure.

I photographed the paths around each strip to show the one-sided-ness of the entire structure.

Constructed of paper and glue.

Note: When I sequentially labeled the glued strip intersections with letters (A->B->...->M) to show the single sidedness of each Möbius strip, I purposely skipped the letter "I" because it might have caused confusion being photographed at a 90 degree angle and then it would look like an "H".

This next photo shows the three paper segments that have a half twist in them. They form sort of a "curved triangle", one eighth of a sphere. Four of the spherical segments are bounded with straight paper segments, three of them have one half twist, and the eighth one has the three half twists.

I started the journey around the strips beginning with letter A:

The B to C segment encounters the first half twist:

After arriving back at A, start the second Möbius Strip

After arriving back at A, return to M to begin around the third Möbius Strip

Final step back to M

Update 2011.09.06 - Someone just asked Google this question:
"where can i buy a möbius ball" - and of course the answer is: ME !!!

Just send me a request by e-mail or blog comment.

Invention Link: The Next Invention in My Blog

Out On The HVAC Trail

Short Pieces On Learning About Air Conditioning

(I will add more new short related pieces - newer items float to the top "blog style" and separated by "-----")

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As I was getting out of my vehicle there was a small Russian thistle that I almost stepped on with my left foot, and I thought, "wow, that was close!" But then one and a half steps later my wrong foot was headed for a medium sized tarantula. Luckily I avoided him/her as well, and this pair was far away from my home where nothing bad ever happens.

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Today was a GREAT day to NOT go to work. I was glad I wasn't there to eXperience TWO rattlesnakes under a house. My friend had to fight them off with a piece of PVC pipe. Do you realize how difficult it is to KILL a charging rattlesnake with just a piece of small diameter PVC pipe underneath a house where there is little room to swing anything?

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"Wrong" - is the One thing common for the last three job sites that I had been to Thursday. Something was either already wired incorrectly or in one case, the wrong type of fuse was installed.

Also, if your air filter has started to resemble shag carpeting, and weighs considerably more than the new one, you have "weigh"-ted TOO long between filter changes.

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Today was free beer day, two different kinds!

First A&W and then Barq's.

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Jealousy is such a weird beast.

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I spent about 20 difficult minutes in a warm attic today removing a fan blower unit with a faulty motor. As soon as I got down from the attic my mentor Eddie let me know the rest of the story.

I knew that Eddie had tried to get the bad motor but it was in just too difficult spot in the attic for him with his knees. So he had asked me to help the next day, today. But what I didn't know was that after Eddie had not been able to remove it, the homeowner had called in another local HVAC guy, and it just happened to be the same person that had told me a few months ago that my entire system on Main Street needed replaced, which of course, with Eddie's help that wasn't the case, and it was the very impetus to get me started in HVAC work. So with this bad motor situation this other HVAC guy had told the homeowner it would be too difficult to fix, and that he would need to buy a complete new unit. So that boosted my ego and made us laugh hard and long.

(2nd Day on the Project - Had to wait for a new motor) We got the new motor back in place today, but it was rough and took a *little* too long, more warM aTTic TiMe. But I learned some good lessons and I'll be able to do it faster next time. Next time I'll shoot photos of the things I plan to take apart.

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I solved the riddle for what is causing the release of refrigerants ruining the ozone layer. Answer: Dogs urinating on the condenser coils of central air conditioners. The chemicals eat away at the aluminum fins eventually totally destroying sections of the outdoor unit. The first confirmed case day before yesterday was a very large dog appropriately named Boomer.

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I asked where we were going next.

"To Stinnett to fix a window AC unit that has a 'dingling' noise"

My question: "So this is a 'de-dingling' process, and when we get finished it will be 'de-dingle-ed'?"

Eddie responded with laughter and a yes.

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Today a client gave me a glass of tea. After drinking the tea I returned the glass to her kitchen. My mentor Eddie told me that the glass was a gift, and she said, "it's one less thing I'll have to move" (when going to her new home soon). So now I'm the (proud?) possessor of a Santa-Snowman-Gingerbread Man Glass, thanks to The Turtle Woman of Fritch Texas.

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I saw this box at a customer's house. So what do you think? Why, of course I touched it!

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I learned today that Albert Einstein did research and had patents for a refrigeration process with no moving mechanical parts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E​instein_refrigerator

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Today a customer, that I have known for about 30 years, told my mentor Eddie this about me in a loud whisper so I could hear, "You have to watch out for him, he's smarter than he looks"

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We just got directions to a rural customer: "He's out in the middle of nowhere, on the left"

I was greeted by a very nice cow dog. He was quiet and friendly, until right when we were leaving he started barking! We were already IN the vehicle AND the pickup was already in gear.

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My Lost Trailian Son Comes Home Soon

I posted this status in Facebook: Eight VIII 1000 (that third one is the binary form of the number 8) 8 - EIGHT more days and my son will be home for awhile!!! We have missed you so much, please make sure that you make your flight, don't forget to come home that day! (ha, like that would really ever happen!) We promise not to make you eat anything Australian.


Message from my ex-sister-in-law: Do You keep Vegamite in the house??

Response to my ex-sister-in-law:

We keep Vegemite at our house under lock and key and out of direct sunlight ONLY for the following purposes:

A) For Halloween Trick-R-Treaters who happen to be more than 51% Australian
B) For use as a refrigerant as an approved chemical according to the Montreal Protocol for the ban and diminished use of chlorofluorocarbons to save the ozone layer
C) For shingle roof repair
D) To lubricate the sludging, oops, wrong word, SLIDING glass door at the back of the house
E) A small amount is kept in a hypodermic needle as a replacement for epinephrine (adrenaline) in case any Aussie visiting vegetarians go into anaphylactic shock
F) For skunk odor removal. Mixed with tomato juice with a side of vodka and a celery stalk in a separate container
G) For those rare times when I run out of RoundUp weed killer
H) Painting my toe nails

and last but not least:

I) In slightly diluted form (3:1 ratio water:vegemite) to fill my Super Soaker as my primary weapon when "playing" paintball. I make a flame thrower noise when releasing the toxic contents on my victims. I rarely get invited back to play paintball from the other kids in the neighborhood and somehow always win.

Today's Thought

Today's Thought: If I were a fireman I would have a fire eXtinguisher nearby at all times in order to "Save The Day!"


Someone might comment, "Say, is that a tiny fire eXtinguisher hooked on your belt ?!?!?"


I would respond, "Yes, it's 'ABC' rated, and [lifting pant leg] this other one (around my ankle) handles sodium metal fires."


"Do you wear them everywhere?!?!?"


"No, not in the shower - plenty of water there"

My Wife and The Polystyrene Duck

My wife has acquired a new wonderful skill: She can make a "decent" AFLAC Duck sound by rubbing two pieces of styrofoam cup together. Discovered quite by accident by her talent agent husband. She argued with me that it was actually the LID on one cup rubbing against the side of another cup.

Of course I was driving at the time and had not noticed the lid, so I discovered my own method of Aflac-ing simply by partially removing the lid in two steps, in order to make the duck noise.

Then we had a "discussion" about whether the lid counts as Styrofoam because I couldn't find a polymer recycle symbol on the lid itself to indicate whether they both might be a different forms of polystyrene, with the cup being a foam blown object and the lid being a stamped part from sheet form or some similar manufacturing process.

See boys and girls what kind of fun you can have with junk in your car, kind of a "McGyver" meets "Mr Rogers Neighborhood" with a twist of "America Doesn't Have This Much Talent"!

My ex-sister-in-law responded that she was concerned about us performing these activities while driving.

My Response: We had just eaten Mexican food so that probably made it safe to perform the activities while driving at relatively low speed in that particularly unimportant and boring part of town. Plus I was "reading" one number or symbol through a translucent object, which I never found, instead of letters of the alphabet which probably makes a big difference.

[To my newbie readers, that My Response paragraph was meant to have elements of incoherency that are consistent with the general tone of most of my writing that is to the left of center]