Family

Trying to get out of the gutter

Posted on by backuphill

house covered with red flowering plant

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It is that time of year, fall, and it is really irritating that I have to keep climbing to the top of the ladder on a regular basis. And by regular basis, I mean like every other week…

In the Northwest we get a lot of rain, and wind. As a result, the wind causes all the leaves and pine needles and pine cones and small twigs that blow off the trees end up on the roof of the house. When the rain comes it washes it all off the roof and into the gutters on the house.

I try to keep up, but I usually am reminded that the gutters need cleaned when it is pouring down rain and the gutters are overflowing. Then I gotta drag out the ladder, climb to the top, and empty the gutters while I get soaked to the bone.

Sometimes being a homeowner sucks.

Shorter days

Posted on by backuphill

birds flying over body of water during golden hour

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Can someone just hold on a minute?

Why do we need to have shorter days already? I am not done with summer and the ever encroaching of darkness is pissing me off. I got stuff to do and the darkness is in the way.

Season change blah blah blah…dark at 4:00pm. WTH?

Longer days. You know, the ones where it gets dark like at 9:30pm. I like those. Let’s just do that all the time and call it good!

Price match please!

Posted on by backuphill

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Competition is rough these days! Retail stores, brick & mortar vs. online, are in a battle to get your dollars because there are so many choices out there. Most stores, in order to overcome the competition, will do just about anything to get your business once you’re in the store, so many of them will price match identical goods found at other stores just so they can capture your money before you walk out the door.

Walmart won’t even match it’s own online price!

Yesterday was the strangest experience I have had as a consumer in quite a while.

My daughter wanted to buy “Grand Theft Auto V” and she was going to just buy it online from the Microsoft store as a digital download for $29.99. I said she should check around first to see if she can get a better price since it has been out for a while. So she did. As it turns out, there were several stores who had it on sale – Walmart and Game Stop, just to name a couple.

So, we jumped in the car and headed out to Walmart. We located the game in their electronics section in two place, neither of which indicated the online price as seen above. One was priced at $29.98 and the other one was priced at $59.98. These are the same game, mind you…

We asked for some help, showed the employee the price on the phone, he looked in the locked case and said something to the effect of “Well, we just updated prices so that is a bit of a mystery.” He pulled out both items at different prices and we went to do a price check. Both came up as marked. Wait, what?!? So, I asked if we could get the price as indicated online and he looked at my phone again, scrolled through the listing and said, “It must be an online only special.”

I was like, “It doesn’t say that anywhere. If it were online only, it would say that wouldn’t it?”

His response was, “It usually does.”

So, again, I asked if they would honor online price.

He said, “I don’t have the authority to do that but if you want to order it online then you could pick it up at the front of the store.” REALLY???? You’re gonna go there?

I asked for a manager. He said he called one. We waited for 15 minutes and still no manager. I asked if one was coming. He said they should be but they have to do “rounds” before they can get there.

I called Game Stop, verified they had the game in stock, left Walmart, and she spent her money there instead. No hassle.

When the physical store can’t (any employee should have this ability) to match it’s own online store price, you have a problem.

Walmart versus Walmart.com – both losers in my book!

Water is boring

Posted on by backuphill

clean clear cold drink

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What’s with water anyway?

Why is it so tasteless? Yes, I know that is a generalization and all water has a little something (chemicals/minerals/etc) that give it a “taste,” but it isn’t really a taste at the same time.

Drink more water they say…

OK, can you make it taste better without me going through the effort of adding something too it? It is just too much work. How about it just come out of the tap or, better yet, the dispenser in the fridge with some flavor?

Damn, I should patent this idea immediately! Soda machines let you choose the flavor of soda (who knew there were 435 *exaggeration* different flavors of Coke?), so why can’t my fridge do the same thing (some on Samsung, innovate that! I want credit though)? I press a button and the water that fills my bottle has a hint of lemon or a hint of lime or a hint of blackberry or a hint of mint (ewww) or a hint of fruit punch or whatever you think would be nice.

Make it happen people!

Otherwise, plain water is boring and I don’t want to drink it. But I do, reluctantly and begrudgingly.

Other people’s kids

Posted on by backuphill

focus photo of super mario luigi and yoshi figurines

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Anyone else find other people’s kids annoying?

Not that my kids were perfect by any means, but man I really dislike being around other people’s kids. I don’t really know why. Maybe I am just getting old.

I mean, yeah, I am old. Other people’s kids are loud, obnoxious, messy, whiny, and ill-mannered. They are picky food eaters, when they eat. They always want “play” with you and can’t play Wait, maybe it’s their parents I dislike. I mean, they little attention to their kids because they are focused on their phones, they yell as their kids when they don’t listen but don’t do anything to correct the behavior (“let’s talk about it” and “timeout”?). They seemingly expect other adults in the room to parent their kids for them, but they when you do they are offended that you did.

All I can do is shake my head.

#SMH

Left in the dark

Posted on by backuphill

yellow tent under starry night

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About that trip where I slept on the ground, in a tent, in a sleeping bag…

I also had to set up the tent in the dark, alone.

OK, so growing up, we were always setting up camping for family camping trips in the dark. It became a joke later as us kids got older, but all of us hated it growing up. And, it was always dad’s fault because he was always late getting home, which meant late leaving, which meant late arriving, which meant setting up in the dark.

So, as an adult out on my own, I always made it a point to leave early enough so as to not have to set up camp in the dark. I was pretty successful at getting it done! So much for being like my dad, right?

Well, I now know why dad was always late. His job – or in our case, our existence. He was a business owner and did everything. As the business grew, so did the work and the employees and everything else he was responsible for. So, of course he was always late.

Dad, I now understand.

But, I still hate setting up camp in the dark. Period.

I’m too old for this

Posted on by backuphill

relaxation forest break camping

Photo by Raj Tatavarthy on Pexels.com

I recently attended a mini family reunion on the other side of the state. It was a quick one, just over a weekend so two nights was all I was staying. I was also going alone, kids were busy and wife had to work, so I didn’t need to take the usual stuff. I wanted to travel light and quickly.

So, I threw a few camping type supplies into the car and some clothes, and off I went. Tent, sleeping bag, clothes, food.

Well, I regretted “go light” as soon as I climbed into the tent to sleep. I didn’t include the usual stuff like a sleeping pad or an air mattress, like I would have if someone else was along with me. What was I thinking?

My body doesn’t handle the same things it could when I was younger. Apparently my brain thinks I am still young enough to do this crap, my body obviously let me know that wasn’t the case. Comfort? Yeah, not so much. Sleeping on the ground and having an old body (or at least feeling old) just doesn’t add up to much sleep.

Lesson learned? Take the comfortable stuff. It isn’t over-rated.

I am not a fan

Posted on by backuphill

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How did you spend your Labor Day weekend?

Me? Oh, well, thanks for asking…I spent it laboring way too hard. It was one of those projects where I had no choice. You know, forced to do something you really had no intention of doing but are forced to do it anyway? Sucks hardcore and that ain’t no lie.

If you can read and understand the picture above, 2016 & 2017 are pretty normal readings for our house. Obviously then, you can understand that starting in February of 2018 something is going wrong. August broke the camel’s back…

No, that little blue dial isn’t a fan, it’s the water meter for the house and it isn’t supposed to look like that!

So, there was nothing left to dig, dig like you are Indiana Jones on an archeological hunt for the lost leak. By the way, whomever planted all those rocks in the yard is a damn idiot! But, that is a subject for another day. Anyway, I dug. And dug. And dug some more.

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It’s hard to get the scale from the angle of the picture, but that is about 20′ and about 36″ deep. Dug by hand, well, not just my hands but my arms, shoulders, back, and a shovel. Yeah, can you feel my pain now? No, literally, the pain…my arms and hands go numb now…anyway…

The leak has been repaired and hopefully the water meter readings go back to normal. What sucks is the repair was relatively cheap ($35) in comparison to the bill ($295+) and effort (pricele$$) to find the leak.

So, to sum up, Labor Day shouldn’t be taking quite so literally.

 

The “Poor Me” Society

Posted on by backuphill

adult casual collection fashion

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Well, there are a whole lot of people these days that you just can’t seem to make happy or placate in any way. We have become a society that immediately jumps on social media or goes to a media outlet of one kind or another to vent the “injustice” one has just suffered.

“Poor Me”

Got a bad meal? Poor me. Post about it on social media and post a nasty review on Yelp (or other place to do a review).

Got treated unfairly? Poor me. Rage post on all forms of social media.

Life generally sucks for ya? Poor me. Complain to everyone over social media.

Got discriminated against because I’m *insert laundry list of issues*? Poor me. Call them out on social media.

*insert laundry list of issues* offended me. Poor me. Everyone else should be offended too.

Life is hard. Poor me.

I don’t have what others have. Poor me.

*this* isn’t what I expected/wanted. Poor me.

We have a problem people. I am not sure if this is a generational thing, but it is sure starting to feel like it is. We have a whole generation of people who just can’t cope with whatever challenge or difficulty comes up in their lives. If it is hard or they meet resistance, they just quit – or rage on social media so everyone can feel their “pain.” Instead of meeting it head on, fighting for it, working harder, working smarter, or making do with what they have been given and where they have been given it, they instead try to generate outrage from everyone else so that their problem will be fixed by someone else.

We really need a change. We have allowed it to happen and that’s a shame.