Really? Is that 100% effort?

I've written before about how I try to take care of my lawn and landscaping. I don't have the nicest yard on the street, but I try to make it as nice as possible. I have no issue with someone who decides they don't want to put the effort into their yard. My opinion, it's your yard, do as you please. Of course, I'm not trying to sell my house, which means my opinion might be different if I was trying to sell. But with that said, I guess my next opinion would be, if you ARE going to do something in your yard, wouldn't you try to do that thing correctly? Here is my example. My neighbors on either side of me are the "I'm not going to do ANYTHING to my lawn" kind of people. Fine. They mow the yard and one even puts down fertilizer, but that is it. On one side of me, they have a riding lawn mower, so they mow fairly regularly, but they never trim. That means, along all of the fences and around all bushes and trees, the grass is waist high. I understand it is another step, and it takes another piece of equipment, but don't you think you would give it the old college try and see if you can whack a path through the bush? Here are a few shots of their back yard through the gate.



You will notice that at the top of the hill, just through the gate, they missed a huge section of grass. You can see the semi-circle of mowed grass and the rest is untouched. You can see the build up around the tree in the back, which isn't landscaping rocks, it's just 5 years of unmowed grass, piled upon itself. I'm not sure if you can see, right at the bottom of my wooden fence, that the grass is about 10 to 12 inches high. I should have taken a picture of the edge of their driveway, where the riding mower couldn't get right next to the concrete, so it left a mohawk right done the middle of their side yard. They never mow around their mailbox, but since that piece of their property is connected to mine, I just mow that while I'm mowing my yard. Again, the fact that it looks like this doesn't bother me, its the lack of effort that I find disturbing. I know they aren't out doing good deeds and just don't have the time. No, they are in their basement smoking weed. I guess that explains alot right there.

Is this June? Feels like March.

Summer is in full swing, now if the weather would just realize it.  I'm not complaining too much about the temperature, I like it a bit cool, but the boys are tired of breaking the ice to be able to get in the pool.  Perhaps that is an stretch, but it's not pool hot weather, if you know what I mean.  That doesn't mean I get to skip cleaning it, so I'm out there skimming and changing the filter, but the boys sure aren't getting their monies worth.

 

The boys are back home and enjoying their summer.  They brought Grandma, Aunt Stacie and Cousin Elaina with them, which has been great as well.  Now that Marcy is working even more nights, it gives me adults to talk to, which may push my breakdown out just a little further.  The Mt. Pleasant crew has been busy, painting our front room, helping sort toys and working on re-finishing furniture.  I have a desk that my parents got from our church in Washington, DC from when I went to Sunday school there and when they retired and moved to NC, I snagged it.  I started preparing it to be re-finished last year, but as with so many of my projects, got put on the back burner.  I'm happy to say that the crew finished it off and it looks great.  It's a small desk and it looks like the kids aren't as interested in it as I had hoped, but that just means I get it to find a place for.  I'll work it out.  That desk, plus my friend Chad visiting Washington, had me reminiscing about my days spent in the DC area.  I saw so many interesting things and people when we were there.  I had conversations with hookers, all be it from a distant church window, and still wonder what they were thinking yelling things to a couple of boys hanging out a church window.  Saw many a crime being perpetrated and was even once concerned that I might be involved in gun play.  I watched a man snort cocaine off the top of a newspaper rack, on the side of a busy street, and had a Chinese lady yell at my brothers to "Leave tip on table."  I got to go through all of those great DC museums and monuments, see tributes to fallen soldiers and walk through Arlington National Cemetery to see what sacrifices had been made for me to be who I am.  Maybe I don't write this blog if I'm in Iran, and have had my hand cut off for stealing those cigarettes that I stole when I was 10 years old.  I got to walk along the Potomac river during cherry blossom time, and that is gorgeous.  I met Jacques Cousteau, Lady Bird Johnson and even the great Muhammad Ali.  I sat with the former director of the FBI, Clarence M. Kelly, and repeated my name to him 5 times, but he still signed my autograph to "Martin."  I have to say, it was a great place to live, for the years I did, but I wouldn't want to move back.

 

Update on the ants, the score is now ants 2, Mark 1.  I spent about $12 and was able to get rid of the ants, so far (knock on wood).  Since I worked my magic over a week ago, I have seen one ant, who was eliminated.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that his buddies don't come looking for him.

 

This weekend, we are heading to a lake with my brother and his family for a little vacation.  It should be fun, and hopefully I don't get burned.

SORRY!!!!

If you received an email from me, trying to get you to buy anything, it was a virus on my computer, sorry.  Why do people spend their time creating problems for others?  I guess I will never understand.  Just so this doesn't happen again, I'm going into business selling replica watches, weenie pills and "enlargers."  That way, next time you get an email from me selling any of those mentioned, it will look like a business transaction.  Try explaining that to people.  Having the email sent to my close friends and family isn't that big of a deal, most people have received them and just toss them out and then send me an email that says, "Hey dumbass, you have a virus."  The bad thing is when it sends an email to someone I haven't spoken to in several years, and this is our re-acquaintance.  Or worse, starts sending penis enlargement ads to my pastor friends.   I guess that is better than having it send an enlargement email to somebody from the gym, where you might have seen the said object that needs to be enlarged.  Might make the next run in a bit uncomfortable.

 

A little has happened since I posted last.  Normally you say "A lot has happened," but not much has, so I modified.  First, on our way home from dropping the kids of at their cousins house, we were doing about 70 mph in the dark, around 11pm, when a group of deer showed up in our headlights.  There was a group of three standing on the white line on the left side of the car.  On the right, on the other white line, another deer that had just crossed the road.  There was no time to stop, so we headed between them and prayed neither side felt the need to taste our bumper.  Luckily, nobody moved, only my bowels, so we shot through the gap while cursing and praying to God.  Then, yesterday, Marcy and I were heading to some friends house and pulled up to a 4-way stop.  A car approaching from our right seemed to be going pretty fast, so we waited to see if they would stop.  They did not.  We watched as a car with three teenage kids and one adult blew through the sign and continued on their way.  On the side of the car, "Student Driver."  Haven't laughed that hard in awhile.  Can you say "F" on that drive.  Reminded me of the girl I drove with in drivers Ed, oh so many years ago.  She scared the crap out of me every time we got in the car.  The third kid in our car only showed up once, then never returned.  I have no idea if it was because of Thelma's driving (Thelma and Louise reference), but I like to think that he was smarter than me and got out while the getting was good.  No need to get an ulcer in high school if you can avoid it.

 

In summary, I'm not suggesting you need enlargement, or weenie pills.  Kids can't drive and deer are fricking daredevils.  That is all

Summer!

Summer is here, the boys are out of school, soccer season is over and the heat has set in.  I was able to get the pool set up this past weekend and the boys decided they wanted to get in, despite the near freezing temperature of the water.  I had to stick my hand in the water to apply a patch and when I was done with the repair, my arm was numb.  The boys plunged in soon after that and spent the rest of the day swimming.  If I get in that water, I lose body parts that won't return until Fall.

 

The other night we took the boys to Mt Pleasant to hang with their Aunt and Uncle, cousins and grandparents.  To say they were excited, would be an understatement.  They love to spend time there, lots of things to do that we just don't have at home.  Plus, built in playmates that don't curse at them or cause any of the other issues we seem to have with neighborhood kids.  As the day went on Monday, I started to dread losing them for the week.  Yes, they drive me crazy, they are messy and loud, but I sure do love the little buggars and miss them when they are gone.  I love the fact that they get to spend time with family and build a relationship with them, which I wasn't able to do very much when I was a kid.  The distance between me and my extended family was large, physical miles that is, so getting close to them was difficult.  I hope we can continue to build the family bond that we want, despite the physical miles between us.  The other part of that sadness was that we learned this past weekend that Makiah's soccer coach of three years will no longer be coaching and his team will be disbanded.  Makiah has loved his time playing and loved his coach and team.  The team has gotten so much better over the past few years, it's sad that they will no longer be together.  I won't see the parents that I have been sitting with for the past few years, and they were some very nice and supportive parents.  They never complained about the coach, or playing time for their kids, or about any of the other kids.  It was a joy to be around them, and I will miss that.  Makiah is at the stage now where he doesn't want to play at all.  Seems he isn't big on change, especially radical change, so he wants to end on a high note and retire his stained jersey.   Marcy and I have decided to give him a little more time to consider before we push for a decision.  We have until the end of the month to either sign up or let the deadline pass.  Maybe he will take the Fall off and then be ready to go in the Spring, who knows.

 

The boys all got their report cards and next year teacher assignments.  Makiah has a new teacher to the district, so who knows how that will turn out.  She is a "Miss," so maybe that means she is young and will be fun for the kids, but she could be like other teachers we know and a task master who makes school a chore, instead of fun.  Mason, of course, is breaking new ground since he is our first 5^th grader, so we have no idea what he is getting into.  This will be his first male teacher, so it will be interesting.  Max's teacher is the same teacher that Mason had in first grade, so we know her and like her.  Max's best friend didn't make it to the same class, so that will be an issue for him, he will be extremely sad.  Might as well start learning now, life isn't always what we want it to be, but we plug on.

 

We have friggin ants again.  Damn these things drive me nuts.  We had them last year, so I had a company come out and get rid of them, once I had exhausted my attempts to rid my home of them on my own.  After a short time, they were gone.  Now that our financial situation is at the point that I need to be Joe Exterminator, I have set off to try to get rid of them on my own without spending they same amount of money I would have spent if I would have had a professional do it.  So far, Ants 2, Mark 0.  I bought some little ant feeders, which is poison, not food, (I'm well aware that if you feed them food, they will stick around) but they seem to have received the email from the head ant telling them that these little white food containers are in fact, poison.  No takers.  I also bought some spray to spray on the outside of the house, just like the pros use, but that hasn't seemed to slow them down either.  I'm going to try one more time with something I can do on the inside of the house that won't kill me, Marcy or the kids, and if that doesn't work, sell my kidney to afford the pest guy to get rid of the ants, again.  There aren't a lot of them, but just enough to annoy you and worry about leaving any food out.

 

 

 

New law, spread the word.

Yesterday, I figured out that we need a new law on the books. I'm not big on adding a bunch of un-needed laws, made to make people feel good, but not enforceable, for the most part. Iowa has a no texting law, which is a good idea, but very hard to enforce, unless you are actually in an accident and they can prove you were texting. The new law I am proposing, is that law enforcement vehicles are no longer allowed to hang a U-turn, unless they are then going to pursue someone. Happened to me yesterday and I damn near shit myself. I was speeding a bit, down a back road by my office. I wasn't killing the speed limit, but when you see a cop whip around right behind you, you just assume he is coming after you. As it turned out, he wasn't after me, or anyone for that matter, so I say we stop this practice before it gives me a heart attack.

That is all.