Tag: Herself

Voodoo child

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 54 Comments
The old Voodoo Wazoo will be my daily driver for the foreseeable future. Toward that end it got a couple upgrades, including slimed tubes, Jandd Grocery Panniers and Egg Beater pedals.
The old Voodoo Wazoo will be my daily driver for the foreseeable future. Toward that end it got a couple upgrades, including slimed tubes, Jandd Grocery Panniers and Egg Beater pedals.

Damn, what a week. Another Bicycle Retailer deadline, the Giro every morning, and an abrupt and unwelcome thinning of the vehicular herd in the garage.

No, we didn’t lose any bicycles. That would be unbearable. But we did say sayonara to Herself’s 2002 Subaru Outback, which has been donated to KUNM-FM after the wizards at Reincarnation said that just about everything between the bumpers was completely fucked.

What began as a timing-belt replacement quickly blossomed into your basic nightmare, in which one repair leads to another: head gasket, clutch, tranny, front rotors, struts front and rear, wheel bearings, tires all around aaaaaaahhhh Jesus make it stop!

When the discussion starts with, “How much does your wife love this car?” you know it’s going to end badly. So, yeah. Off it went. Some cars you’re only gonna get 205,000 miles out of. We was robbed.

Happily, as Master Yoda said, “There is another.” My ’05 Forester. Guess who’s driving that now?

Right you are.

And my vehicle? That’s pictured up top.

• Editor’s note: What are you mutts using for motor vehicles these days? Subarus and Toyotas have been pretty good to us over the years, but we’re always willing to entertain other possibilities. Please to keep in mind that we’re (a) cheap, and (2) have nothing to use as a trade-in.

Friday the 13th

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
The skies are rarely boring above Duke City. Looks like we're getting a visit from an alien spacecraft that overshot Roswell.
The skies are rarely boring above Duke City. Looks like we’re getting a visit from an alien spacecraft that overshot Roswell.

Eek eek eek eek eek, etc.

I’d hide under the bed with Turkish if I didn’t have so much to do. Plus it looks like a nice day to ride the old bikey bike, if you’re not allergic to cedar, juniper and/or elm. Snurk. Honk. Ptui.

Herself and I popped round to Scalo last night to celebrate her (mumble-mumble)th birthday and it was a pleasure as always. Tasty food, excellent service, reasonable prices, and someone else does the cooking and cleaning up afterward; if you’re ever passing through town, feel free to take us out to dinner there. I had the penne con salciccia, and she had grilled sea bass over polenta. We split a plate of insalata di cavolo.

In other news, the MacWizards are still waving their iWands over my sickly computer down to the Apple Store, and this being a Friday the 13th I’m anticipating evil tidings and contemplating strategies.

I have the MacBook Pro, but I can’t say I’m a big fan of extended work on laptops. It’s hard on the neck, and the screen real estate is extremely limited for a guy who’s used to running side-by-side 22-inch monitors. There are workarounds, obviously— add an external monitor and a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo — but it’s kind of a clunky setup, and my office already looks like the den of a crackhead who’s great at stealing technology but poor at selling it. Plus one must leave room atop the desk for passing cats. That’s Scripture.

Then, this morning, I happened across a news item I’d overlooked while sneering at Apple’s new MacBook and Watch. Seems Cupertino also dropped the price of its Apple TV to just 69 smackers, which is less than we spent on a birthday dinner last night. We’ve been using a 2010 Mac Mini to stream our TV, but it’s total overkill, about like driving a tack with a barrel bomb. What if I were to buy an Apple TV for streaming video and repurpose the Mini as my main work computer? Other Pat is using one and early reports are encouraging. Eureka!

It’ll take me down to one 22-inch monitor, but that means more room on the desk for cats. Another First World Problem solved. Winning!

 

Apple, Samsung and Hanes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 34 Comments
What director Quentin Ferrentino sees just before the iMac hiccups, stutters and croaks.
What director Quentin Ferrentino sees just before the iMac hiccups, stutters and croaks.

Is the Super Bowl finally over? No, I see we’re still second-guessing coaches, lip-syncing sharks and that crucial, botched call — Nationwide’s decision to run that dead-kid ad instead of throwing it into the trash.

We didn’t watch any of it here at Rancho Pendejo, not even the ads. Herself was on a mission from God to clean up the joint, and I was doing a job of work, hammering away at a video review of the Novara Mazama for Adventure Cyclist and trying to troubleshoot ongoing technical glitches with the old iMac.

At 6 years of age, this ‘puter may be nearing the end of its useful existence, though a 15-year-old G3 “Pismo” PowerBook is still ticking right along with all its original equipment. Not so the iMac. Its optical drive croaked a while back, and ever since I “upgraded” to Mavericks I’ve been enjoying occasional and inexplicable freezes that force me into an irksome hard reset that occasionally costs me a bit of work. Kindly old Doc Google tells me I’m not alone in my suffering, and this is one of the reasons I’m dragging my feet on the Yosemite and iOS 8 upgrades.

Last night after a weirdo crash that left both monitors black, but with a moveable cursor, I booted into Safe Mode, which runs a few diagnostics, then said fuck it and booted again, this time into the Recovery HD, and ran Disk Utility.

The hard drive “appears to be OK,” says DU, so I repaired permissions and called it good. This morning nothing was on fire or defunct, which is better.

Now if Samsung will get around to installing a new drain pump in our 5-month-old washing machine, we’ll really have it going on. The goddamn thing has been on the sidelines for a week and I need to upgrade my undies to something a little, um, fresher.

 

Hallelujah, everybody say cheese

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Merry Christmas from the family.
Merry Christmas from the family.

Herself wished to take a family portrait on Christmas Eve, and as you know, her every wish is my command.

It took some doing — the specter of blood loss kept rearing its ugly head, personified by Turkish, who loathes the paparazzi — but we finally managed to get one shot in which the primates looked vaguely human, at the expense of the menagerie.

The cooperation, as per usual, was at U.N. Security Council levels. The Turk was wondering whether giving me a quick right cross would be worth the consequences (no lap time come evening); Mia was egging him on (“C’mon, do it, y’big pussy!”); and The Boo turned a blind eye (ho ho ho) to the entire endeavor.

Herself, whose idea this was, remained serene as always. Someone has to be the rock around here, and while I have certain millstone-ish properties, these are rarely helpful in moments of crisis like this.

I did manage to trip the shutter, though. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Merry Christmas from the family.

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
The previous owner of Rancho Pendejo called this time of day right around sunset "the golden hour" for its effect on the Sandias.
The previous owner of Rancho Pendejo called this time of day right around sunset “the golden hour” for its effect on the Sandias.

December? Sez who? The calendar? Well, all righty then.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday are in the rear-view mirror — and also in the toilet, holiday-sales-wise — and Cyber Monday is upon us, with Solstice dead ahead.

Herself the Elder has been shipped safely back to Tennessee, Herself the Younger is back at work at the Sandia National Libraratory, and I am overseeing various maintenance operations at The House Back East® from Rancho Pendejo.  (Handy Household Hint: Never own more than one house at a time, and make sure it has wheels, an engine and a parking spot down by the creek. And yes, this is strictly a First World problem.)

I won’t torture those of you in wintry climes with reports of our weather (52 and sunny) or my plans for the morning once I hear an electrician’s report (hourlong run through the desert). Neither should you expect me to threaten anyone on Facebook, not even the Supreme Court, which lord knows has it coming.

Finally, Little Chris Horner seems to have stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum in the form of a gig with the Continental team Airgas-Safeway. No word on whether they’ll have the 2013 Vuelta a España champ bagging at the register, working a wet cleanup in aisle nine, or delivering propane to my new home down by the creek.