The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Home 2010 Archives for July 2010

Archives for July 2010

Irrigation Pipe Issue Resolved

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Along the lines of sharing my life with both of you readers, I wish to report that the irrigation pipe leak saga has successfully concluded, thanks to Big Aaron, who once again saved my butt at the expense of his.

Recall that I had a gusher on Tuesday evening; I had great fun times trying to isolate it and shut off the supply. It was an intense leak, causing my water meter’s dials to spin like a whirling dervish. I finally got the irrigation system water shut off,  which made the repair far less time critical. I could have waited a week without feeling any adverse effects.

Big Aaron wasn’t available yesterday, but he came out first thing this morning and started digging. Aaron needed all of his muscle to uproot a large viburnum bush that was impeding his shoveling effort. Said Aaron, “Nothin’ like a little bush rasslin’ to get your heart started in the morning!” The next obstacle was a collection of roots from the turkey oak that had died and was removed last year. Some of them were as thick as my wrist. With loppers,  a saw, and eventually, an ax, Aaron finally got to where the pipes were, about a foot deep.

Of course, as luck would have it, there were three other irrigation pipes lying on top of the main, where the leak was. Thus, Aaron had to cut out a section of one of the pipes to give him access to the leak, which turned out to be in a 90° elbow in the 1½” main line (see photo above). I had never seen a thick PVC fitting eroded in such a way. Aaron said that it probably started out as a pinhole and the water pressure took care of the rest. He cut out the bad section and replaced it, using normal PVC dope plus what he called “blue glue”, which forms a tight, hard seal even if water is running in the pipe. The blue glue reminded me of that plastic bubble stuff you had as a kid. It came with a little straw to blow through to make the bubbles. I never had enough lung power to make the bubbles in the blue plastic stuff, so I was content to sniff the fumes. But I digress. After replacing the bad pipe plus the 1″ pipe he had to cut, Aaron had to wait 30 minutes for the blue glue to cure.

So, he and I went to the shade and started telling dog stories for a half hour or so. Aaron’s wife works for an animal rescue organization. My neighbor, who is the guy who discovered the gusher in the first place, came over to join in the bullshit session. He had his son-in-law’s yorkiedoodle or yorkapoo or poodledork — whatever one calls a Yorkshire Terrier and French Poodle mix. So we had more dog stories. We talked about poodle mixes of all kinds, we talked about pit bulls that play gently with Maltese Terriers, and we talked about the same pit bull taking apart a raccoon. And thus, the thirty minutes passed pleasantly and it was time for the pressure test.

All was well. I went into the house to make a phone call, leaving Aaron with a huge mound of sandy soil, a downed seven-foot bush, and a couple of big holes to fill. I came out ten minutes later to find everything in place and Aaron in his truck writing up my bill. I gave him a check for $185.62, which I consider a bargain for this back-breaking work, and sent him on his way.

Another calamity resolved for the big Turkey. What is next?

One of those days!

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We all have them every now and then. Today was one of them for me.

I am writing about my crappy day not only as self-serving catharsis, but also as entertainment for those of you who are into Schadenfreude.

It started pretty early. Morning came and I awoke. Jenny was sleeping, but I automatically wake up at 6 am on garbage collection days to take the garbage can to the street for pick-up. Why not the night before? Because we have suburbanite bears roaming the streets at night, and they can smell a good garbage can from half a mile away. (If you’ve ever seen a job done by a raccoon on a garbage can, it ain’t pretty. But a hungry bear will scatter garbage all up and down the block, and will all but eat the can.) The county’s solid waste people tell us that we have to have our detritus ready by 6:30 or risk having to wait for the next collection day. I had already skipped last Friday’s, so no way I could let the compressed, odoriferous, 80 pound block of garbage in the compactor fester for another three days.

I wrestled the hefty bag (no pun intended) out of the compactor. It seemed stuck, so I yanked the heavy gauge plastic bag really hard. As I unintentionally tore the bag, the ensuing explosive decompression of garbage undid a week’s worth of compaction and I was faced with the task of putting 80 pounds of crap into a 40-pound bag. Helluva way to start the day!

Actually, I used two bags, because there was no way I could compact the decompacted stuff by hand. Took a while, but I got it all cleaned up and into the large can for transport to the street. I had a bowl of cereal with some blueberries, then climbed back into bed to await Jenny’s arousal — read that any way you want — because my next task of the day would be driving her up to Deltona.

“Are we taking the M3?” Jenny asked as we entered the garage. She saw that I had opened the garage door on the M3’s side of the garage when I brought the emptied garbage can in.

“Yes, we are,” I responded.

“Well, hang on, because I left the rice in the Jeep because I thought we would be taking it.” She had bought a couple of ten pound bags of Basmati rice at the Indian emporium yesterday, hauling them home in the Grand Cherokee because of its capacity to carry huge quantities of rice as well as the fact that Jenny had never learned how to use a stick shift, ruling out the M3.

“Wait!” I said. “Before you move the rice, I better make sure the M3 starts.” I had noticed that the five year-old battery was showing signs of behaving like a five year-old battery. Having recently replaced a five year-old battery in the Jeep, I knew all about that behavior.

I depressed the clutch and turned the key to start the M3.

Click! Click! Click! was all I got.

“Never mind. Leave the rice in the Jeep. We’ll take it.”

Now I knew what my next task of the day would be.

I called the dealership and got a price for replacing the official BMW battery with an official BMW battery. Once I scraped myself off the floor, I asked if I heard that price correctly. They wanted over $300! If wallets were human, this would be classified as statutory rape. So, I did some on-line research about replacements, found what I needed, and bought the battery on-line from AutoZone for in-store pickup. The cost was around $150.

Within an hour, AutoZone confirmed my order via email. In the meanwhile I needed to remove the old battery from the M3. It is under a plastic cover beneath the floor in the trunk. I removed the interior trim first and then remembered that I needed to do something to provide power to avoid losing the radio settings and Bluetooth pairings. Glad I remembered. I hooked up a charger to the jump start terminals under the hood, and then removed the battery from its compartment in the trunk, loading it in the back of the Jeep to take to AutoZone so I didn’t have to make a second trip to get my “core credit” of $12.

The AutoZone transaction was slick. I had my new battery and they had their old one in a couple of minutes. Someone even carried both of them for me to save what was left of my back. [Read more…]

Redhead Gets Hers

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Those of you (both of you) who have been following The Nittany Turkey for a long time know that an anonymous writer called “The Redhead” pops in here occasionally to spew her vivacious verbiage—as opposed to gregarious garbiage, which is what the Mouse and I spew—when she feels the need. Apparently, she’s decided that she’ll be feeling the need more often, and with greater specificity toward some of the issues directly affecting her and her circle of friends, for she has created a new blog of her own called Trails of the City.

The Redhead, whose hair has not been red for several years, now calls herself “pmrunner.” I should speculate on the meaning of that name, because—well, just because. She is a runner, so that part is obvious. She does marathons and half-marathons, so that could be the “M”. So, how about “perky marathon runner”? Nahhhh. That’s inane. If she ever heard me applying the term “perky” to her, I am certain that she would give me the tongue lashing I deserved. What, then? I thought about it some more and then, it finally struck me: “post-menopausal runner”. That’s got to be it. I mean, what else could it be?

If you haven’t experienced the prose of The Redhead (aka pmrunner), please give it a try. Although she has a Larry King obsession, that should soon abate as Larry fades into post-retirement obscurity in the fall. And, hey, don’t even mention Tom Cruise to her unless a barf bag is available. However, for the most part she writes about life experiences with which most of us can identify, with a wryly humorous touch and a dash of quasi-sarcastic cynicism. Here’s an example of something she wrote a while back about one of the top five things she despises dealing with medical issues:

Male gynecologists. Sorry, but I’m pretty sexist on this point. We still live in an era when male gynecologists think it’s okay to treat women’s hormonal issues with Valium and Xanax. Face it. You want to be a GYN because it’s the only true way you can act out your fantasies of domination over the female form and get paid big bucks to do it (other than direct porn films). If you want to be a doctor and you like dark, cavernous spaces, go to dental school.

This Turkey is not a professionally licensed gynecologist, just a hobbyist, but if the reader is a male gynecologist, he now knows what this possible ex-patient thinks of him, in no uncertain terms.

In her first post at her new location, pmrunner gives us this tidbit:

I had owned a Honda Civic for more years than I care to admit and after three summers of driving around with a broken a/c, I knew it was time  for a trade-in. After scores of tests drives, it came down to going with another zippy little semi-sports car or a smallish  sedan. The smaller car was peppy and a blast to drive. The sedan, well, it wasn’t that it was a bad ride, in fact, it was excellent. But it was so cushy and comfortable, so…old.  Now I clearly understood the irrational need for the new Mustang/BMW M3/Porsche 911. It wasn’t about the car. It was about reassuring yourself that you weren’t, pardon the pun, further along life’s highway.

Uh-huh. I have an M3. My license plate reads “M3 GEEZR”. ‘Nuf said.

If you want to check out The Redhead’s corpus of work on this site, just select “Redhead’s Reality Rants” from the drop-down Category menu at right. Please be certain to visit her new site, Trails of the City, too. It is a work in progress, but you’ll love the stories. Someday she might even finish the Larry King saga!

Red, best of luck in your new venture, and you know your rants are always welcome here, too!