The Daily Peeve / Rant

[GeorgeParker]

Thank God it happened after the cold spell. And also, 25 years is a pretty good life for an HVAC system

I know. And I haven't had to spend any money on it except a "yearly" checkup every other year and having a little freon put in it every 5 years or so. But I was really hoping It would stay functional at least until summer. By then I'll either be ready to sell this house and move back to Georgia, or ready to bite the bullet and stay here.

But there is one other "good" thing about this situation. I paid $56,000 for this house in 2000 and Zwillow.com says current market value is $178,000, so the cost of the new HVAC is a drop in the bucket compared to the current property value.

[nswef]

IL- We use garbage can lids to gather chestnut burrs and sticks then dump either into the can or into the woods. I used to use a wheelbarrow for everything! Now I'm not as strong.

[iris lilies]

My go-to method for hauling most everything is 5 gallon buckets. Even in our community garden where we have wheelbarrows a loaded wheelbarrow is hard to maneuver up and over a brick border. I just don’t like to mess with them. I like the simplicity and ease of holding a bucket in either hand, they are more maneuverable.

[rosarugosa]

My go-to method for hauling most everything is 5 gallon buckets. Even in our community garden where we have wheelbarrels, a loaded wheelbarrow it’s hard to maneuver up in over a brick path, I just don’t like to mess with them. I like the simplicity and ease of holding a bucket in either hand, they are more maneuverable.

Oh yes, the indispensable 5-gallon bucket, my favorite gardening tool after my Felcos!

[Tradd]

My senior friend I grocery shop for has been asking me to get a can of Lysol SPRAY disinfectant for months. It's been out of stock, for obvious reasons. I'd check every time I went to the grocery store. Found a couple of large cans at Jewel, the big Chicago grocery chain, where I shop (and where senior friend always shopped). No price sticker on the shelf, but I didn't really think about it. You know what it range up at? $10! Crazy! I don't know what it sold pre-pandemic, as I've not bought the stuff in probably 20 years. Senior friend was so happy to have a can she didn't really care about the cost. She has been well supplied with wipes so I'm not sure why she wanted the spray.

$10 for a big can of Lysol spray. Still boggles my mind.

[GeorgeParker]

$10 for a big can of Lysol spray. Still boggles my mind.

In stock at Walmart $5.77 19oz. Limited stock at Target $5.99 19oz.

[GeorgeParker]

A frequent annoyance is people who think parking next to a motorcycle means they can intrude on the motorcycle's parking space by letting their vehicle hang over the parking space line by several inches or even several feet. Not only is it disrespectful to the motorcyclist, but since the motorcycle was there first it will probably leave first and the intruding vehicle will be left sitting there occupying two parking spaces and making its driver look like the a$$hole they absolutely are.

BTW: I always park a reasonable distance out in every parking lot to leave the prime parking spaces for people who may need them more than I do, and yet 10% of the time some a$$hole will park next to me or in front of me with their vehicle across the line, even though there are plenty of other empty parking spaces available as there were this time.

Parking Lot Ahole.JPG

[razz]

I have noticed that as well, GP. We have a lot of bikers visiting in the summer. My aggravation is a few of the extended cab trucks with tow-hitches that take up 2 spaces in a grocery parking lot. To be fair, most do park outside of the usual parking spaces.
My challenge lately is the high rears of the newer SUV's who park next to me. I have to back out of my parking spot almost completely before I am able to see if a vehicle is coming. This happened last Wednesday evening, I couldn't see through their windows which are too high from my sitting position, couldn't see around them and had to creep out hoping any car coming was going slowly; I was doing this all the while I am watching for shoppers walking in either direction and cars across the lane backing towards me. I am getting to the point with the large SUV's of choosing a drive-thru parking spot to avoid being stuck.

[GeorgeParker]

My challenge lately is the high rears of the newer SUV's who park next to me. I have to back out of my parking spot almost completely before I am able to see if a vehicle is coming.

It's the same thing with short-nose vans and tall SUVs/pickups that come up on your left at an intersection. They sit there and sit there because they're waiting for traffic to be clear in both directions so they can turn left or go straight across, and all the time they're sitting there you're stuck. You can't pull out and make your right turn because you can't see over their damn hood and you have no way of knowing whether or not a car is coming in the curbside lane.

At least on a motorcycle I can stand up to get my head above their hood, or lean way out above my front wheel to see around them, or move forward at a 45-degree angle so I can turn my handlebars and use my rearview mirror to see what's coming without my front wheel sticking out beyond the curb. In a car you can't do that, you're just stuck until the inconsiderate slob moves.

Now let's pick on the little guys!!!!! On one occasion when I parked at the front on a parking space instead parking in the middle or near the back, some moron in a small (Smartcar size) car parked behind me in the same space with their rear bumper sticking a foot out into the traffic aisle. It was one of those parking spaces with a sidewalk between it and the street, and apparently that moron thought since I was on a motorcycle I could just jump the curb and ride across the sidewalk to get out. I could, and I did, but I shouldn't have had to!

BTW: Normally I park close enough to the end of a parking space so that people driving down the aisle looking for a parking space will see my wheel and not think it's an empty space. That's a common practice because we realize how annoying it is if a cager (car driver) swings wide and starts to turn into a space only to discover the space isn't empty. At the same time we don't want to park all the way back and have our bike get hit by someone who swings wide while backing out because our bike didn't register on their consciousness the way a car would have. Again trucks and SUVs with high windows are a major threat in this regard. So It's a constant balancing act. Supposedly some bikers carry an orange cloth bag with them and put it over the top of their sissy bar as a warning to people who park next to them. I don't have a sissy bar, but that seems like a good idea if I did have one.

One time while I was parked at a restaurant someone backed out of the parking space opposite mine and bumped my rear wheel! Apparently they mis-estimated where my motorcycle was because they couldn't see it over their tailgate. Fortunately they barely touched it and no damage was done, but unfortunately I was inside watching through a window and couldn't get outside in time to stop them. As it was, if I hadn't been parked on the side of the building next to the windows I wouldn't have even known it happened, but it would have been bad if they had bumped it hard enough to move the kickstand and make it fall over.

[iris lilies]

Arghhhgg, mom! I am mad at my mom (poor woman, ten+ years deceased.)

As part of my task of cleaning out books, I took down from the shelf an ancient Victorian photo album that contained 35 photos of an old house we lived during my childhood. The album is falling apart and needs to go to the landfill. I carefully removed the house photos my mother had placed in the album because I want to sent them to the new owners of the old house.

Well, I’ll be damned. Behind these house photos are old family photos of our ancient family members. I had no idea these were photos she had pasted over. I had no idea this was a legitimate family photo album, I thought it was something she got at a garage sale.

Thanks mom. NOT!!! Thanks so much for giving me more work than I wanted to take on. Granted, there’s not a ton of photos there’s probably about seven images, but I can’t just throw them out because my rule is I don’t throw out pictures of the ancient ones. I will have to figure out who the ancient ones are and maybe send them to people or scan them or something. I thought I finished that project years ago.