Car Show Report

I didn't bother to see what the story was - sponsor or supported charity etc, but this past weekend while my wife and I were out and about, we happened upon a little car show of sorts in the parking lot near Northern Tool over off Vance Jackson.

I'm no real motor head or anything like that. To be honest, about the time I learned what it was to have to pay bills, the idea of spending what little cash I had on spiffing up a car was pretty much lost. Before then, I had a '73 Camaro like this one, only a hell of a lot nicer.

Anyway, even if I have lost the urge to tool around town in a muscle car, they certainly are fun to look at, especially when you see what great care the owners have taken to either keep them in shape or restore them to their original grandeur. This is the group of cars we saw. Definitely Mustang heavy - like this awesome Shelby. I love the Mopar!Some guy had a '73 Pantera on display. Wow!

And like I say - lots of Mustangs. Cool cars. And I'm sure at $3.10 a gallon, they are better left on display on weekends rather than making a daily commute.

Why Northern Tool Rocks!

I can't even tell you about this without mentioning right up front that it was all my wife's idea. Okay? Is that good enough?

Okay, maybe a little more.

I confess that I would not have even taken the time to drive over to Northern Tool this evening if my wife had not pushed and pushed and pushed for me to do so. I was actually taking a nap when she re-read the warranty on my screwed up pressure sprayer and told me that the 800 number was open until 9PM EST. So is everyone clear? My wife gets credit for this.

Now onto the story.

About 18 months ago, I went to Northern Tool and Equipment, a place I had already been fond of, to purchase a pressure washer. If there is any doubt in your mind that I am a cheapskate (and that is no reflection on Norther Tool, mind you), several friends had told me to spend the money and buy an engine powered pressure washer, not the electric one, but of course, I bought the electric one.


For some reason, and I still don't know why, I paid the $23.00 to purchase a 2 year extended warranty. This is behavior unlike me, unless it is something really cheap, like and extra $3 or $5 added to the price. And usually, I don't even remember to activate the warranty, but again, for some reason, I did this time.Now, fast-forward to this past weekend when my wife was using the pressure washer on a project she has been working on, and the thing goes Tango Uniform big time. The motor would not cycle down and the power would not turn off. In fairness, I figured we just used the thing enough that it was time to break. I paid $199.00 for it which I figured out the first time I used it, was way too much, but we used it a lot. I was satisfied to just toss it out or give it to my brother-in-law and let him work on it or something.

My wife on the other hand needed the pressure washer for her project. And, she knew it was under warranty. Between Sunday and today, she kept asking me about it. In fact, she went so far as to go to a pawn shop and price a used one, just to show she meant business.

So let me cut to the chase here; she hates it when I drag these stories out, and in fairness, this is her story. I had called the 800 number found on the broken pressure washer and they closed at 5PM eastern. But my wife looked at the warranty and found a different number to call that was open until 8PM.

At 7PM, I called the number, talked to some guy who asked a few identification questions, then he gave me a confirmation number. I asked him what was next and he told me to take the broken washer back to the store and give them my receipt and the confirmation number. Bad news. I have the receipt, but I just have no idea where on earth it could be. No problem. He told me to give them the conformation number.

At 7:15PM, we are headed down Culebra - they close at 8PM. Even on the way there, I was sure that there would be a hassle. I was convinced there was some conspiracy that involved me having to pay some sort of pro-rated, additional $198 to get a full refund or something, or they would first want to have it in the shop for three months to work on it.

We arrive at Northern and bring in the washer. I hand the lady my printed out warranty (from an e-mail that I had somehow managed to save from 18 months ago) with the confirmation number jotted down on it. The nice lady at the register calls her manager and of course, I'm thinking this is where the story turns south.

A phone call and some clicks in the computer and the lady is saying, "Grab a new one" and to be honest, I was waiting for her to laugh and say, "Psych!" But she didn't.

As I was walking over to grab a new one, I asked almost jokingly if they would give me a credit toward a better model and she just nodded and said, "Of course."

WTF? I gotta tell you, I seriously started looking for the hidden camera because I was sure my wife had set this whole thing up and Alan Funt was on his way out to slap me across the face, point out the Candid Camera and call me the dumbest idiot in town.

Instead, after a few minutes of paper work a new extend warranty (hell yeah!) and some oil, I write a check for $143.00 and I'm on my way to the loading dock to pick up a new Honda 2600 PSI Pressure Washer!Even as we waited at the back door for the guy to put air in the tires, I was still thinking it was too good to be true. But sure enough, we came home and fired that puppy up just before 9PM (sorry to my neighbors for that) and in the morning, my wife will be in action.

I rarely have something good to say about retail places. Northern Tool and Equipment gets a huge thumbs up! And my wife gets a little pat on the back for making me take the washer back rather than throwing it in the trash.

Daily Drive Report: Culebra + Rain = Wreck(s)...

It isn't uncommon to see a car accident along Culebra Road. Usually, someone is Zigging when he should have been Zagging, or there is some idiot on a cell phone trying to change CD's not paying attention to the fact that the light has turned red or that their car is drifting into my lane.

Just last night on my way home from the airport at nearly midnight, I have the entire road along Loop 410 almost to myself, but some lady in a white Cadillac was so engrossed in her cell phone conversation that she had no idea that she had drifted into my lane causing me to quickly jerk into the empty lane next to me. What the hell? She probably was not aware that she had changed three lanes between San Pedro and Vance-Jackson.It gets even worse if you add lots of traffic and a little but of rain onto the roads. Just this afternoon on my way home from work, I happened upon this accident on Culebra, and naturally, traffic was really backed up behind it and somewhat in my direction only for the rubberneckers and people like me with camera's always ready to take a picture of some other guy's misfortune. I trust there were no injuries.And then, not even to the next stop light, another crash, no doubt caused by someone not having situational awareness.

The more I hear about this public transportation scheme where people simply sit in a bus or a train and not have to do the hard work of paying attention while they drive, the more I like it.

As long as I don't have to sit in the bus or train with them.

Crappy Job Report: The Time I got Poop in my Eye...

The other day while my wife and I traveled through some of the older parts of town to avoid contact with the construction on Loop 410, I was reminded of a brief period that I was working with my brother-in-law while waiting for details of my current contract to be worked out.

I'm not in the construction trade, but what guy would pass up the opportunity to be like Bob Vila for a few weeks while making a few dollars? If you are familiar with the neighborhoods in between IH-10 and Loop 410 between Vance-Jackson and West Avenue, you get the idea of where I am talking about.

My brother-in-law, Junior as we call him, works in the trades business. He is certainly a jack of all trades and can do electrical, plumbing, general construction, and he has also done repair of restaurant equipment and other things. This is no free advertisement or anything - so please don't e-mail me asking to see if I can get you a good rate. During the time of this story, we had been working to refurbish several rental properties around the city and had a few different property managers and Realtors that would call us for bids.

So anyway, he calls me and asks me if I can go look at a property to help him assess the situation. He says that this Realtor has a property that was vacated by the renters and that the house needs to be cleaned up. Now keep in mind, you all know that when people leave a rental property, they usually just un-ass, take the stuff they want and leave the rest. The result is, the landlord is stuck with hauling out the trash, getting rid of a dead couch and cleaning things up. A few guys and a pick-up truck can usually clear out a house in no time.

The Realtor said that “Before you make your bid, you really need to go look at the place.” Junior was pretty adamant that he could get the job done for less than $500.00. The Realtor again said, “No, you need to see the place”.

You have no doubt heard of cat ladies that have 68 cats living in a house, crapping everywhere, newspapers piled up, opened cans of cat food sitting all over the place. This was worse. No cats.

The people who lived in the house were no doubt sick.

When I first peered through the window, I though I might be in beer drinker’s heaven. It was this experience which taught me to take my camera with me everywhere I go. If I had the camera to take pictures, you might find it easier to believe this.

This 3 bedroom, 2-bath house was a sea of beer cans and trash piled 2 feet high. But, they had small paths leading to strategic locations like the refrigerator, the bathroom, and the front door. I refused to enter the house for fear of rats. The beer cans and the 18-pack cardboard cases were left in place as if the occupants had simply arranged to have a non-stop supply of beer delivered, and that they sat there and drank one beer, dropped the can and opened the next. When the first case was finished, they simply opened the next and so on and so on until their was an 1,800 square foot house full of beer cans, pizza boxes, dirty laundry, discarded tissues and so on.

Oh, the bathrooms were a hoot. And yes, beer cans in the bathrooms. The walls of the shower stall and the tub were covered in mold. And for some reason, they stopped putting the toilet paper in the toilet – they just wiped their butts and threw the toilet paper on the floor. Perhaps they had visited Mexico and decided to be exotic or something.

So, long story short, Junior had to hire some other workers he found to clear out the entire house. In addition to $650.00, he told them they could take anything that wasn’t nailed down that they wanted (nice side by side refrigerator at Best Buy - $1,200 – the mold encased version, free). These guys came in with gloves, masks, shovels and a huge truck and cleared the place in a matter of hours.

You can empty the contents, but you can’t empty the filth. That’s when I showed up with a power washer. Bob Vila would never recommend using a power washer inside a house on solid wood floors and sheetrock. I march to the beat of a different drummer I suppose.

The worst part was when I aimed the power washer at one of the toilets.

Big mistake.

Apparently, when they decided that the toilet was running too much, they decided to turn off the water supply to it. Well, apparently, that didn’t stop someone from taking a dump in it. By the time I got there with my power washer, the poop in the pot had dried. Dried feces and 2300 psi from the power washer equals a whole new game of foul smelling doo-doo flying back at you.

Thank God I have fast reflexes. But I could not dodge the smell. I literally threw up on the spot.

I ran out of the house and threw up in the yard. I waited a few minutes to regain my composure and decided to go in for another whiff. I threw up again.

In the end, I had to hold my breath long enough to get a hose through the bathroom window into the toilet so I could try to clear things up. I let the hose run full blast for 15 minutes before it cleared the funk from the bathroom. Oh, it was a total of 4 times that I threw up.

Okay, three days later, the house was clean and the real estate lady did not even recognize the place. She was in shock. Turns out, it was her house and she had been letting her daughter and her family live there, and the reason the house was vacated was that she had moved them into a new house she bought in a nicer neighborhood.

Attention residents of Stone Oak: Your new neighbor is Joe Dirt!

A Cygnet Named Baby

Sid Seidenberger, our Mission Trace correspondent, enjoyed the pictures of my funny dogs Gracie & Panda and told me about an interesting pet he has adopted, named Baby. He referred to Baby as a Cygnet, and not being familiar with that particular nomenclature, I must confess that I had to do some quick Google action to find out just what sort of critter he had. I’ll spare you the details of my research, but if you find yourself in a Discovery Channel state of mind, you might start here.

Before I get to Baby though, I think it is fascinating how the small neighborhood of Mission Trace, like other older gated communities, seem to carve out a sanctuary of sorts for their residents, when just on the other side of the fence is all the hustle and bustle of a fast-paced and continuously growing and congested environment.

Like many of my fellow Silver Creek and Great Northwest neighbors who drive up Culebra Road every afternoon, I often wonder if all the traffic is worth it. So as I drove down Wurzbach and on Vance Jackson at the height of rush hour to get to Mission Trace, I had similar thoughts about the sense of living in such a congested area.

Those questions ceased as soon as the guard lifted the entry gate into Mission Trace. Surrounded by trees and walls that make the traffic on Vance Jackson disappear behind you, the small tree-lined lake to the right immediately catches your attention. The only distraction to the lake was a well-placed sign emphasizing the need to be cautious for the swans. As I drove in, I saw a duck casually sitting on a bench as though he was waiting for a bus or something.

The point is that just as I find the comfort of my home and my neighborhood to be worth the short drive up Culebra, I suspect the residents of Mission Trace soon forget about the bumper-to-bumper traffic navigated through to arrive in their little piece of heaven. And I’m willing to bet that wherever Baby’s parents came from to land in the small body of water in Mission Trace, they felt the flight was worth it. And that’s where Baby’s story begins.

I spoke with Sid and his friend Al, also a resident of Mission Trace, and they told me how the parents, Australian Black Swans had a small nest of babies, or cygnets as the young swans are called. The enemies of these young cygnets are turtles and hawks, both prevalent around the lake, and soon it became clear to residents of the area that the little babies would not survive.

Fearing for their safety, the property manager for the local HOA removed the cygnets from the predators around the lake when the Cop and Pen (the parents) could not protect them. Unfortunately, Baby’s two siblings did not survive.

Fast forward to a month or so ago and a now much larger but still immature Baby as she was named by the manager, was released to learn to live and enjoy the same peaceful solitude of the lake that human inhabitants of the area enjoy. But, Mother Nature, the prankster she can often be, gives the Australian Black Swan an apparent short memory. And without the standard baby-swan passport photo or the equivalent of those school year books that show your child growing from a toddler to an adult in 12 short years of public school, these poor swans had no idea who Baby was.

Worse, because some swans don’t feel at all icky about incest, and apparently others do, the parents took this new strange cygnet as a threat to the marriage. Sid reports that in one fowl exchange (sorry), Papa Swan “bit Baby's tail and shook her whole body like an old kitchen rug being shaken free of dust on the back porch. It scared the hell out of Baby...and me.”

So now, Baby has to be caged at night (conveniently beneath the picture window of Sid’s home, overlooking the lake), and she has to have water tubs from which to drink and slosh around in. Lettuce and seed come hand delivered at this point but I suspect she will learn to scrounge around the lake for vittles before too long.

What surprised me the most about meeting Baby was that she has taken to Sid’s voice and presence. When I asked if we could get close enough for a few happy-snaps, Sid simply wandered outside, called for her and picked her up as though she was a little puppy. When Al and I approached to get a better look, Baby tucked her beak in-between Sid’s protective arm and chest, though she looked up occasionally to see if we were still gawking at her. After a few nervous moments of introductions, Sid let Baby down and she wandered down toward the lake.

In addition to her estranged parents watching from a distance on the other side of the small lake, there was an egret not far from us contemplating his next move as occasional sprinkles of rain approached. Baby seemed fine dipping her feet into the water as long as we stood by, but I suspect she knew as well as Sid that once we retreated back to the house, the aggressive parents would not be nearly as standoffish.
Later, from the incredible view indoors looking out, Baby fled the pleasant water of the lake with her Springer-like parents in hot pursuit. Sid has a sense of Baby’s speed and was confident though visibly nervous about her ability to make it to the safety of her cage. Once on land and headed toward the house, the parents ceased the chase of the last of their offspring, with no idea on earth that only a season earlier, they had hatched the little cygnet.

In a few more months, Baby ought to make a pretty good centerpiece come Thanksgiving time. And with that, we were hopeful that Baby would survive this season, and the next.

Note: Thanks to Photographer Al for additional photos of Baby and her parents.

Living in Mission Trace - 78230

I’m pretty excited about having our first guest reporter give a little update on the area known as Mission Trace. Hell, the fact that Sid e-mailed is proof that I’m not the only person reading, so that in itself is pretty exciting. But I digress.

If you have ever taken the drive along Vance Jackson north of Loop 410, you know that there are quite a few lovely neighborhoods and apartment/condo communities. Believe me, this is quite a contrast from my visits to the west side of SA. But as envious as I am of the area, even the residents of higher end neighborhoods often have to wait just like the rest of us for needed improvements. Our correspondent, Sid Seidenberger reports:

I have always wondered why there were no sidewalks (just a few limited sections of cemented walkways) for pedestrians since this neighborhood has been in existence for some thirty years. School children, the elderly, dog walkers, and others have experienced a very difficult time negotiating the holes, ditches, puddles, and high weeds all the while being mindful of the heavy traffic here on Vance Jackson between Wurzbach and Big Meadow.

Finally, after three decades, something is being done! It has taken a long time, but if you drive through this area (I wouldn't walk it quite yet), you will observe the construction of continuous concrete side walking made completely wheelchair accessible. The low water crossings even feature grated concrete curbing to help deter flooding during heavy rains. Construction crews have even sodded areas between the new curbing and freshly laid sidewalk with grass pallets.

Progress? Yes, but one must wonder why it took so long for the "powers that be" to act in doing something that has obviously been long overdue. After all, there is much foot traffic in this area, and there are two public schools and a library located between Wurzbach and Huebner.

I don’t know the details, but it sounds like perhaps the Home Owners Association has taken some time to get things going. But thankfully for Sid, sidewalks are on the way. If you would like to tell me about your neighborhood, the good, the bad, and the ugly; feel free to e-mail me.