The Blue Beast

When I was a kid my folks had a pretty big back yard that dad kept cut so we could play back there.  In those days he had a big self propelled lawn mower.  I remember it was blue.  It was kind of a reel mower with an engine mounted on top.  It must have been a bear to get started because he wouldn’t shut it off until he was completely done cutting the grass. He would take it out of gear and go get a Pepsi.  He changed the bag while it ran and he even fueled it while running (while smoking a cigarette).  How he lived to be 84, I don’t know.   The mower just sat there shaking violently in neutral while he walked away for a few minutes at a time. 

One day Mom got his attention from the driveway, seems my grandfather was on the phone.  So dad just put it in neutral and went into the house to take the call.  Well my best friend David and I were sharing the backyard with the noisy beast, just minding our own business when suddenly the thing just took off.  I guess it shook itself into gear.  I swear it had a mind of its own.  It rolled all around the back yard and we were sure it was after us (like in a Steven King movie).  This was before mowers had a lot of safety equipment, so the big spinning blades were very exposed right in the front of it (like on a snow blower).  Had it caught one of us (it would have been David, he was a little heavy and not very maneuverable) it could have killed us, well him.  We ran around screaming as it chased us around for what seemed like an hour.  It only had two big wheels in front and a small roller in the back so it could turn on a dime.  It was racing around the yard bouncing off tree trunks like in a pinball machine.   Mom must have heard all the commotion and pretty soon dad was chasing the mower around the yard as it continued to try and eat us. 

As you probably suspect, we all survived.  But I think the blue beast’s days were numbered.  I think dad got his first LawnBoy shortly after that.  Remind me to tell you about his Gucci grass catcher bag.

Dad, the unlikely major leaguer

When I was a kid back in the 1960's the man across the street (we'll call him Mr. Smith) was a major league umpire.  He would come home from work at the stadium and empty his pockets.  And what were umpires pockets full of?   Baseballs!  I suspect that they can't bring home baseballs today, but back then baseball was a little looser operation I guess.

Mr. Smith was very popular with the kids in the neighborhood because he kept us in baseballs and from time to time, he would bring home a signed baseball from a Pittsburgh Pirate or from some other team.  But in the 60’s we didn’t care much about collecting, we played with those signed balls.  They wore out or ended up as a fly ball deep into the woods (home run to left field), in Fabrizi's pool (home run to right field) or lost in the ground cover (foulball behind first base). 

 As you can imagine, Mr. Smith would bring home lots of plain, slightly used balls, but only a few signed balls.  But we all wanted the signed balls and made special requests that were difficult for him to fulfill.  My dad, a great creative thinker, had a solution.  Dad would take the orders, and when Mr. Smith would bring home extra baseballs, my dad would get them, autograph them with the name of whoever we had requested and then would distribute them to us.  After all, we lost most of them anyway and there was no Ebay or Antiques Road Show back then.   No harm no foul in that earlier age. 

My one concern is that somewhere out there is one of our old neighborhood kids that thinks they have an autographed Mickey Mantle or Roberto Clemente baseball in that special display case that is really a Hal Schmitt autograph.  A final note, I have a genuine autographed baseball, it’s just autographed by Mr. Smith.  Not of any monetary value, but a pleasant reminder of my old neighborhood.

Home Depot, we have a problem

Musing #3 More thoughts about taking things apart.  I took apart a new storm door latch last year.  There was nothing wrong with it but the reason I took it apart was that I had installed the whole door upside down.  I know, you’re wondering, how did you manage that?  Wasn't there a clue that it was going wrong.  It was one of those doors that can be left or right side opening.  I did all my figuring, but I drilled the holes on the wrong side of the door (fortunately not as critical an error as you might think), and installed the new (custom ordered I might add) full view door upside down.  You get pretty far into the process before it becomes clear it's upside down.  For this door it was when the door sweep wouldn't fit on the "bottom" of the door.  I believe this was the actual second to last step in the installation process.  The last step being to clean your new glass door. 
Since I'd never seen a door with the door sweep at the top, I knew I had a problem.  To mis-quote a famous movie, Home Depot, we have a problem. 
So I take it all apart, pretty much start over.  When I was assembling the latch/lock/handle mechanism (almost the last step), I lost a little oddly shaped ring/washer/clamp inside the door.  I still remember what the part was called, the "D"ring.  No getting it out without removing the door (again) AND taking a hack saw to the bottom of the door.  What the heck, I put it all together to see how bad it would work.  No noticeable difference.  What was that ring for if it works great without it? 
It's been 2 years now and the door and latch still work fine.  I've decided the "D" ring was the self-destruct mechanism (D for Destruct) that I have suspected are in all devices.  We use to suspect the car makers of building in "planned obsolescence".  Well with the self destruct trigger (the "D" ring) now safely disabled, that door and latch will out live me.  

Hair, not the musical, part 1

Musing#2:  If you've seen me in the last 15 years, you'll know I am mostly bald.  I look a bit like a monk, hair wise.  A very hip monk I hope, but there isn't much you can do creatively with my hair line that doesn't involve a very long, complex comb over or a wig.

Which brings me to part one of my hairstory.  Thirty years ago I was sitting in the barber chair, well stylist back then, it's a stylist if you have hair.  The place was called the Head Shed.  With out being asked, my barber says "you know you can get a crown piece".  Although I knew I was getting a little spot up there, I didn't think it required a rug just yet.  Instead, I just decided to stop parting my hair.  People were still wearing longer hair and combed straight back was actually a style at that time. 

This seemed to work OK for a while until one day the girl I was dating (Rose's room mate) walked up from behind me and announced "hey, you're going bald!"  The spot was the size of a 50 cent piece, but I guess to a 23 year old girl, it was a shock.  So there was no hiding it anymore.  I refused to start down the comb over path.

A year or two later, I'm sitting in the barber chair again, still the Head Shed at their new location and with the new owner Tony.  He talked way too much and got off on rants on topics I didn't want to discuss with a worked up guy with scissors and razors near my neck, so I pretended to nap while he cut my hair.  It went quicker and I got a better haircut if he wasn't talking to me.  So I'm sitting there with my eyes closed when suddenly I feel a plop on my head, I open my eyes to see me in the mirror with what could best be described as a long blonde Beatles style hair piece.  Tony says "well we'd have to get it in dark brown and we would trim it up, but you'd have hair again".  I don't think so.

As a balding guy, I was always worried about my hair, but unwilling to do anything as drastic as committing to a hairpiece.  Going to a rug is a bit like getting married, once you do it, you're committed to it for good hair days and bad, in sickness and in health, until death you do part.  I would prefer a more platonic hairpiece relationship.  I would wear it to work, take it off when I got home, probably hang it on the hall tree by the door, wear it to go out on the town, take it off to cut the grass.  This is how you treat a hat not hair.  I also refuse to wear a hat to hide the baldness.  Speaking of hats, do any of the aging rockers wearing hats on stage think we don't know they are bald under there.

I use to spend a fair amount of time getting each of the remaining hairs well placed.  I must stress, this wasn't a comb over, but I didn't see any reason to look any more bald than I was.  I credit my wife Deanna with giving me the gift of hair freedom.  Early in our relationship when I still had a fair amount of hair (I guess you would call this the "going bald" period), we were in Toronto and she encouraged me to stop using a hair dryer and let my mildly wavey hair be wavey.  We were out of the country and I wouldn't see anyone I knew so I gave it a shot.  I got use to it in a few days.  Hair freedom was achieved!

The major disadvantage to baldness, beyond the sunburn thing, is the lack of an early warning system for your head.  It turns out that hair functions a lot like eye lashes do for your eyes.  Something brushes your eye lash you blink, something brushes your hair you duck.  Not when you're bald.  I'm slightly tall, about 6'1" and you just can't believe the number of things that are just 6' above the ground.  Signs in women's clothing stores, the pipes in my brother-in-laws basement, lights in stores, tree branches, etc.  Now you know why we bald guys have a lot of battle scars on our bald heads.

You might think that once you go bald, hair adventures would be over, but actually stranger things happen in the barber chair when you are mostly bald than when you have hair.  But those will have to wait for Hair part 2.

Maybe I've been out in the sun too long

Idea #3:  Before I forget, these ideas are from over the last 30 years or so and in no particular order.  I bring that up because there are likely more elegant solutions to some of these problems by now. 

Years ago when I spent more time on the beach trying to get sun instead of trying to not get too much sun, I was forever putting on suntan lotion (as we called it back then).  After a liberal application I would sit down to read, take a picture, eat or engage in some other activity that involved my hands and I would either get sunscreen all over it, sand all over it or both.  

The thing that really got me thinking was when I discovered that something in sunscreen caused the ink from a National Geographic magazine come off on your hands  and get on other things like towels, chairs and your knees.
I thought, wouldn't it be great if there was a way to apply the lotion without actually touching it?  This was before spray on sunscreen (which, by the way, doesn't really solve the problem since to do it right you still have to spread it around a bit). 

I envisioned a multi-layered glove.  The inner layer protected your hand and kept it clean (like a Playtex glove), the middle layer was perforated with many small holes (a bigger Playtex glove with lots of holes).  Between these two layers was a supply of sunscreen.  The third layer was the outer layer and was made of something like terricloth.  Finally the whole thing came in a gallon size zip-lock bag.

Here, for you folks that like pictures (which I'm guessing are the same people that like maps instead of written directions), is a highly detailed engineering drawing of the inner two layers, which I'm sure is perfect for a patent application. 

Here's how it works.  Open the zip lock bag, slide your clean hand into the glove, (your hand goes right into the inner glove because the wrist area is sealed).  Pull your gloved hand out, make a fist a few times to squeeze lotion from the middle layer into the outer layer and then efficiently rub lotion all over your or someone elses (consenting) body.  When you're done, slide the whole thing back in the bag, pull out your hand and zip it up until you need more.  No more sticky bottles, no more sticky hands, no more National Geographic pictures on your thighs. 

There are many advantages: 
Less waste of lotion
More precise, uniform application
Clean hands
No more sand on your sandwich
Easy to carry and pack
Less leaking, it's already in a zip-lock bag
You can write your name on the bag

But I think the best part was the name I had for it: "A Touch of the Sun"

For packaging I see a golden glove in a clear bag with a few white clouds printed on it.  You could even color code the glove colors, the darker the glove the lower the SPF or shades of yellow through orange to red.

I'd sell them on the beach.  I see a lifeguard type person (not me), carrying a large sack and sporting one of those big foam hands like you see at sporting events.  It would be yellow with the words "A Touch of the Sun" in red printed on the finger.

Unfortunately, now my preferred sunscreen is a hat, a tee-shirt and umbrella.


  

Bob and the art of mechanical repair

Musing #1:  I was listening to a favorite radio show in the car the other day and they were talking about trying to fix a car problem.  Any idea what show this was?  Anyway, I got to thinking about fixing things around the house.  Not a broken screen or something like that, but something mechanical like a lawnmower, the garbage disposal or a VCR (yes, I still have one). 
I learned from my father that if you don't know what's wrong with some piece of equipment, there is a very good chance you can still fix it just by taking it apart and putting it back together again and not doing anything else to it.  Sometimes you find a problem you can address, but very often, nothing appears to be wrong. 
I don't know why this works, but I suspect it's similar to the old "power off reset".  You know, unplug it, count to 10 and plug it back in and...fixed...sometimes.  FYI, counting to 9 doesn't work.
I also have a variation of this that I assume is unique to me.  It's the flip the lawnmower technique.  My dad gave me an old Lawnboy when I bought my first house.  It was, shall we say, unpredictable. It would be running great, but stop to empty the grass bag and you might not be finishing the lawn.  One time when it wouldn't start, out of frustration, I grabbed the handle and just gave it a twirl, flipping the mower 360 degrees and landing it hard back on its wheels.  Next pull, started right up.  There's probably some complex fuel flow explanation, but who cares, it worked and it worked regularly.  Had to buy wheels a little more often though. 

Fish need exercise too

Entry #2: OK, I might as well get the embarrassing ones out of the way. 
I had a goldfish in college that I won at a carnival.  He was named Bradley.  A girl I was dating named him.  I'd have called him Spike or Butch, something like that.
Anyway, I noticed when drying off his bowl after changing the water, he would swim right next to the towel as I turned the bowl.  As I spun the bowl and the water started to spin faster and faster, he swam to keep up with the stationary towel.  One dollar idea #1 was born!
I envisioned selling motorized turntables, like a record player (old guys explain that to the young ones).  Stick the bowl on the turntable with something decorative and stationary on the outside to keep the fish attracted.  I could see the billboards.... Exercise your fish for health and longevity!  There would even be a series of complementary products...little hurdles and obstacles for the fish to swim over and around in the bowl as it turns, decals for the outside of the bowl that look nice as the bowl rotates and healthy fish food.  Blogger Time Out: If we eat fish and take fish oil pills for health, what do fish eat for health?  What are those little flakes of fish food made of anyway? 
Well my friends all thought I was nuts.  And quite frankly, I was just pulling their chains anyway.  Then a few months later, my roommate told me (well actually he prefaced it by saying "I really don't know if I should tell you this cause it might encourage you but...") he heard on the radio about a study in Scotland that found that fish that exercised every day lived twice as long as fish that just floated around all day.  So I wasn't completely nuts.
Bradley lived healthy and happy for the next year.  However that spring, at the same carnival, I won another goldfish, whose name I forget.  After what seemed like a reasonable waiting period, the new fished joined Bradley in the same bowl.  Within weeks both fish were dead from some fish disease I guess.  My roommate was fish-sitting for the weekend and had to call me at my parents house with the sad news.

    

You call that a million dollar idea?

Entry #1: So I'm sitting at dinner and I said to Deanna (my wife), "I had another million dollar idea, it came to me in the car this morning."  And she said "another million dollar idea?  Don't you mean another one dollar idea?"  So I got to thinking, and said "you're right, I don't have million dollar ideas, I have one million, one dollar ideas!  I should be writing these down."  So as with every great thinker and inventor I planned to start a list.  Planned is the key word here.  The ideas just filled my head, eventually falling out, unrecorded.
About a year goes by and Deanna suggested I start a blog of my ideas as a way to record them.  After all, the ideas are more amusing than profitable.  And that's why I'm starting a blog.