Why do kids like to throw the gravel, on a tar and gravel roof, off of the roof? I remember being told not to do it as a kid, so I must have done it but I don’t remember was it was fun.

My nieces were on the roof with me: one was helping and asking all sorts of questions and the other was helping and throwing the pea gravel off of the roof. When she wasn’t throwing the gravel from the roof, she was moving it around with a small crowbar.

They were both happy when I “built a ramp” from them to get from the roof to the doorway. There is about a four foot drop from the doorway to the roof, I was getting in and out by stepping on a bucket of roofing cement but it was hard for their littler legs to span the gap, so I set a 2x6x8’ plank of wood from the threshold of the door to the roof.

“Look at the ramp, Timmy built for us,” they would yell to whoever would hear. I thought ‘built’ was an overstatement.

“Timmy, why are you taking the stairs down?”


“Timmy, when are you going to fix the leak?”

"Timmy, why do you need two different types of screws?”

“Timmy, why did you need to use the little nails?”


“Timmy, why are the screws different colors?”

I gave an answer to all of her questions, even when the answer was ‘I don’t know.”

I forget the questions that I didn’t know the answer to.

Later, I smiled when she was able to brag to her mother that she helped me build the stairs.


I drove around Sunday taking photos of things that may disappear soon because a contract has expired.


I’m still having a hard time motivating myself but I fired up the design program anyway, I tossed all the elements on the size paper I was going to print to and moved things around. It was designed around some politician’s pride.

I was moving along but then I moved passed it

I was on the roof today; the lowest one. I have six different roof levels. The lowest one is the tar and gravel roof that’s over the addition that was built in the 60’s. There is a door on the second floor that opens put onto it where three stairs would take you down to the roof.
The ceiling below this door has leaked since we’ve had the house. I would chase the leak here and there but never find it. I would mostly blame the roof but then I figured that it might be the door so I replaced the door last year. The new door has a larger window and is better insulated so it wasn’t a wasted effort in putting it in when I found out that the leak hadn’t stopped.
The leak did slow, though; so that left the stairs which I pulled off from my house this very day. Sure enough there was plenty of moisture where the stairs had met the house. Part of the stairs fell apart in the process so everything got replaced.

My nieces helped somewhat which was going to be that purpose of his post but now I’m tired of it, so maybe later.

It's the little things that make my head explode

Please take it with you

I have no problem with people reading my paper. I’ll actually leave it out and across from my desk so folks can grab it without having to disturb me but I do have a problem when they plop their ass down and start reading the damn thing right then and there. Scanning the headlines is fine but if you’re going to spend some time reading; take it with you and then bring it back.

Why do bees do that? Flies and beetles too.

My phone started its impersonation of a bumblebee on its way to bumblebee heaven. I put it on vibrate during the meeting and set it in front of me on the laminated wood conference table so when I get a call it starts to buzz while its does a little dance. I checked the caller ID and pushed the button that would stop the buzzing sound and sent it to voice mail.

I called him when I got a chance. He apologized for calling me in my meeting which robbed me of telling him that he should have known better than to call me anytime for the first half of any Tuesday. He also said that he had forgotten why he called. I guess his short term memory is running at about a half hour. He then said that he wasn’t worrying about anything that had to do with his job and he told me by name where he was; which worried me a little because we usually don’t use the actual name of the place. We usually refer to it as “Down the street” or some other non-descript name.

A half hour after that, I was sitting by his side. I was asked if I wanted a soda because that is what I usually get during the day but I said that I would have what my buddy was having.

I asked if something went wrong as soon as I could float it into the conversation but all that he would tell me was that it was the “Same old shit.”

I ordered some nachos, which I knew he would share, just so he would have some food in his system before he went back to his desk.

They spelled my name Trim

I think they’re gone for the moment. I did feel a twinge of remorse; I am pretty sure she was a single mom with four kids and three nights ago she had to find a new place to live because of me.

I thought there would have been more of a fight, more drama, more effort to be extended.

But knock on wood, I got off easy.


My umbrella smells like hickory smoke; something having to do with grilling a roast and seemingly never ending rain. The sun was out when I started and I wasn’t comfortable with letting the roast sit in the frig any more days.


The trouble with people thinking you’re a know-it-all is that people expect you to know it all.

I was supposed to be working on a redesign for the ad that gets posted online to some popular list but every time I turned the computer on my motivation to do so disappeared. That happened for six weeks or so until I finally hashed something out. It was a lot of effort to stick with it for my heart wasn’t in it.

The end result functions but it doesn’t sing. It’s all business.


I want change but I’m not willing to change.

I ain't dead yet

This is mostly just a post saying that neither I or this blog is dead yet.


If the blog dies: I'm not crying but... Is that the proper use of a colon?

Anyway, I've been working. For quite some time I was supposed to redesign some ad but I never could motivate myself to do it. I would fire up the laptop, startup Dreamweaver, sit there for a bit and then close the machine down. But the other day I just did it. It was rather uninspired but it was all business looking and it was for a business so it worked out, I guess.

I boss said she liked it. I'm still not in love with it but I wouldn't mind copping a feel with it.

She stayed with me the other night as I redesigned our marketing piece offering instant feedback which for some people would be some what of a nuisance but I found it helpful.

I told her that I appreciated it the next day in an email and when she saw me in person later that day, she thanked me for the email. I think she now wants to jump my bones.

Today, I worked a bit of overtime for the day job and after that, I worked on kicking out the coons. I guess kicking out is too strong of a phrase. I sort of just changed the locks after I thought they were out.

They were getting in through a dormer, that had some rot. I cut all new pieces of wood put most of them up and them waited for night fall and then waited a little more. After the waiting, I went up to the roof with a flashlight and a cordless drill fit with a phillips head screw bit and sealed up the rest and then I sprayed critter ridder all over the place. I don't know if it is actually called critter ridder or not but it's supposed to make raccoon want to go elsewhere.

I got a call from Little g when I was up on the roof. She asked where I was and I told her. I'm surprised my signal was cutting out up there, I would have thought the service would have been better, four stories high. My house is only three stories but standing on the roof is the same height as four stories. If you don't believe me than google it.

It's late, sort of. I'm outta here.

He caught my eye while I was mowing the lawn

So I picked him up and put him in a coffee mug that has been on the patio table for about two months so I could get my camera. He wasn't too cooperative.

I should clean this place up

I don't mind posting tragedies

I don't mind posting tragedies but I do mind postings that make me look tragic.

I think it's temporary or at least it could be if I said goodbye.


I wrote just to write and the following is what was written.


There are times that I wish that my talents could be more like someone else’s.

There are time when someone else wishes that their talents were more like mine.

I’m of the opinion that if I were to strive hard enough that I could match most anyone’s technical abilities. I have doubts about my creativeness.

I think that I would be happy soldering new waterlines all day long.

I don’t understand people who don’t think for themselves. I don’t understand people who don’t think ahead.

I don’t understand why I would be asked on Tuesday, which is the deadline for advertising for the Saturday paper, if I was going to advertise a Thursday event.

I don’t know why people are so willing to do things that just don’t make any sense.

I’ve lost some of my fight.

I would rather walk around someone than to try to walk through them; but that has nothing to do with the sentence above.


She looks at her map and then off into the horizon and describes the city of gold that she sees in that little glitter. I know that what is glittering might be no more than a broken soda pop bottle. Either or there is still that chasm between here and there.

Thirteen million in project money doesn’t mean much if none of it is going to reach my pocket. I ask myself “Wasn’t that other four and a half million dollar project supposed to have redeemed us?” I ask because I still don’t feel like I’ve been atoned; and I certainly don’t see any evidence of it. I just sit quiet and look past her through the large windows into the world beyond which ends about a block and a half down the street.

I was told bad things come in threes

I know checking my pockets for car keys after the door is closed is not the best time to do it but there I was, in the rain, fifty feet from my truck, checking my pockets. My pockets turned out to be car-key-less, no matter how many times I checked them.

There was only one place that they could have been so I didn’t even bother walking back to check. I got to where I was going a little later than usual but finished everything that I needed to and then asked to borrow her car. The round trip took about twenty four minutes and as I approached my truck, with my spare key in hand, I wondered for a moment about the noise.

The noise was that of a running engine. At least it was purring nicely but it wasn’t the best way to end the day.

The next day, I had put the wondering of how I could have left my vehicle running behind me as I chalked it up to ‘things happen,’ but things weren’t done happening. As I was turning around in the shower I slipped. Occasionally, I do slip but I’m always able to catch myself; what was different about this slip was that there was no way I could catch myself so I did my best to fall well.

The way I was headed I was going to catch my lower back right on the side of the tub and when the results of that got played in my mind: it hurt, so I changed the way I was going to fall, which launched me right out of the tub and onto the floor. I missed the toilet and the towel rack that stands on the floor and landed hard on my ass. It wasn’t the best way to start the day.

I got to work on time and besides a slight ache, I was doing fine, until my cellphone rang. It was my sister and she was crying and in a panic. It turned out that a plastic bolt that holds the toilet tank to the toilet bowl had broken off, which caused the tank to leak. My sister tried to shut off the water feed to the toilet and as she was doing such a joint in the copper pipe came loose which caused fresh water to come rushing out as fast as the pipe could shoot it.

She was calling me from the basement because she couldn’t find the shut-off. Eventually I was able to give her enough direction over the phone as to where it was located.

All the time I was on the phone I was making my way to a company car. I got home in about fifteen minutes.

The pipe gave way at a fitting and pipes only give way at fitting if they weren’t soldered correctly. I cursed the handyman before me for being a hack. The fitting was right where the copper pipe passed through the side of the vanity, as such I could heat the pipe up without burning the vanity so I had to move the vanity.

As I was moving the vanity, the plastic drain pipe popped off at an elbow. I just shook my head because I can understand not being able to solder a copper pipe correctly but plastic drain pipes only need to be cleaned and glued.

I fixed the copper pipe and then looked down at the drain pipe. I had cleaned it the best that I could and felt it would be tight when I glued it back on but I couldn’t remember exactly what the angle on the pipe had been. I could have put the vanity back in place and line it up with the drain on the sink but then I was certain I wouldn’t be able to hold the glued joint in place, with the proper amount of force, for the recommend thirty second. So at least I knew why the guy before me screwed up the glue job. I ended up just best guessing it and my best guess was good enough.

I got back to work within two hours. I was probably not even missed but I had had enough surprises for a Friday so when I had spent enough time at my desk, I took a half a day vacation which I spent at my favorite bar which wasn’t such a bad way to end the day.

So there I was...

So there I was standing at the edge of my deck, still avoiding cooking that Perdue chicken that I bought six days ago, eating a Turkey sandwich containing the last of the deli meat which I bought on the same day as the chicken. The cat was by my side, trying to get me to give him a piece.

It was a simple sandwich: iceberg lettuce, Hellman's mayonnaise, Sara Lee smoked turkey breast, salt and pepper, all on a piece of baguette.

It was good.

Things were good. All of my worries could wait until the next day.

But then I turned around and looked up at the outside stairway that leads to the roof of the second floor.

I don't know what made me look, but there were a few raccoons just lounging about much like some house bound kids who are dealing with the last hours of some 90 degree day the best they could. Kids who have been warned by their mother to "Not leave the steps."

They saw me looking and didn't seem to care. They looked at me much like I've looked at my landlord below. Yeah, it was my house but they live here too - was the vibe I got.

I went inside to get my camera and when I returned only one was still on the steps and he sauntered up to to the rest of his family. So, I went back inside to come out on the first floor roof, to walk up the very steps they were on.

I found the crew hanging out by the back door to the unused third floor. They seemed a little concerned at first but then they seemed to get accustomed to me, quicker than I would have liked. But then they probably kind of know me because I'm no stranger to the roof.

I am

I am mostly an asshole with goofball tendencies

My mom tells a story

That's my mother telling a story to her nephew, in the green, and his nephew, in the red. The other guy is my cousin's sister-in-law's husband.

The story doesn't seem to be riveting.