Hashing — More Than A Hobby, An Affliction
Driving to lunch along Hammond Drive the other day it happened again. I was stopped and saw something that looked suspiciously like a blob of flour on the curb. Driving down the road I saw a blob on a telephone pole, and then an arrow at the corned. I was on-on.
While I am far from the most regular hasher (Memorial Day will mark ten years and I’m stuck at ninety-nine Atlanta Hash), but my eyes have been tuned to see flour. Stumbling onto a trail is the strangest, and yet one of the coolest, experiences that occurs in my life.
A little research revealed that the trail I found was part of last Saturday’s Wheelhopper 300th / Atlanta hash.
Junky Yard Wars ’09 : My Mower Is Going To Need A New Blade
Last night I fired up the mower and tackled the backyard to the mockingbirds’ delight. The grass in the “back forty” had gotten tall, but the mower made the job almost simple — almost. With my success on the grass side of the back yard I decided to throw caution to the wind and tackle what had become the ivy (privet?) side. Surprisingly, the mower made quick work of that side too, probably because the vines sat atop a bed of spikey balls from my neighbor’s gigantic Sweetgum tree.
During the mowing process I hit a few hidden branches, and at one point “found” an old plastic planting pot (ooops!). I think it may be time to replace the mower’s blade, unless someone knows of a service which resharpens them.
I am pleased with the start of my backyard work. If I can get my chainsaw running, borrow one in the near future, or get a little help working the back, the next task is to open up the backyard by taking down a bunch of the bushes and scrub trees, and chopping up downed limbs.
ITP Flickr Pic
Another from last weekend’s Inman Park Festival. This is a shot down Edgewood Av.
I was struck by the number of people in the street, and this was fairly early in the day.
RealiTV Update : The Chopping Block Is Over And I Feel Cheated
If you’ve been reading along you know that I’ve had a love/hate relationship with The Chopping Block. Last night Hulu had the finale posted so I decided to reward myself with a little “tv” time.
Last week we saw Lisa and Anapol do battle with Kelsey and Vanessa. This week the teams arrive at the old restaurants to find them gutted (a standard trick pulled by RealiTV shows). The teams were given three days and a boatload of money to rebrand the spaces as their own. Lisa and Anapol opened “Bite Me” and went with garish red/Asian, while Kelsey and Vanessa opened “Restaurant C” and went with the contemporary, and overused, light blue, white, and brown.
Each restaurant seemed to have their head up their asses when it came to food presentation. “Restaurant C” had a taco emergency when Vanessa dropped a taco and “Bite Me” inexplicably put tall glasses on plates — always a serving nightmare.
As expected Vanessa kicked Anapol’s ass when it came to the front of the house. Anapol should not be interfacing with customers. Surprisingly, I think Marco Pierre White preferred Kelsey’s food over Lisa’s, mostly because Lisa made her food too complicated — something MPW has constantly warned people about.
I will admit to no one’s surprise that I think Vanessa is stunning. It may also come as no surprise to believe that Kelsey and Vanessa were the winners given all of the difficulties Kelsey displayed in the kitchen over the eight week season. In the end I can’t imagine that is going to make a good chef, she just doesn’t seem to have the personality to drive a kitchen.
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – fair
Current Music – listening to Leo Laporte’s “The Tech Guy” podcast
Website Of The Day – The internet is wonderfully strange. Go to Sometimes Red, Sometimes Blue to see what color is showing today.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – an hour of yard work
Monthly
Foot Mileage – 3 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 4 (25)
Vegetarian Days – 0, Carnivorous Days – 29
Marta Rides – 0
April Goals
none, and this is not an April Fools joke
2009 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 190 pounds (today’s weight was 199.5 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in Objective-C (iPhone development) and Ruby on Rails (Black Sheep web page concept)
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
If it was white flour, it was thrown there by Allan (or Jack*ss). If it was red flour, it was thrown by Lick-hole-ah. I wasn’t there, but I think both trails were on Hammond at some point.
There are lots of lawn mower repair places, and I’m sure they sharpen blades. I’m sure there is one nearby – I’m sure the Buzzers could give you way too many suggestions. We use one way up here in East Cobb, so I doubt you want to roadtrip. Allan beats the hell out of our mower, I really think he thinks anything can be mowed. some English Ivy was a bitch he said, but he conquered it.
It was white flour.
I think what I cut was English Ivy, it was very reminiscent of what I used to see growing over buildings. Like I said, I think that I was helped out by the Sweetgum balls, which made a huge racket as they got churned up.
You too can sharpen your mower blade- all it takes is a file. We aren’t talking about Henckel knives here. And unless you wer hitting lots of things harder than the blade (rocks, concrete, etc.) it’s unlikely it needs sharpening.
Sweetgums need a disease to wipe them all out. No redeeming quality whatsoever.
-FP
I think a new blade is less than $15, I would either just replace it or take Steve’s advice. You can come by and have mine, it was replaced two summers ago but was hardly used last year. I think I may hit the pawn shop for a ‘new’ mower this weekend.
If you can’t work out a schedule with one/some of us. Just go and hire someone for the day, it will make the work go much faster and be worth the money.
I’m taking a mental health day today and I’m going back to bed now.
Good point Steve, I think I’ll try sharpening it myself.
Martha, I replaced my blade a few years back (and for those keeping score, this is the tenth anniversary for me and this mower — Good On Ya, Briggs & Stratton!). I’d buy another one, but I’m trying to reverse my mindset of buy v. repair. I know it’s a losing battle but someone has to try.
Regarding Sweetgum balls: we mowed on Saturday and your are right, they make a racket (and a mess). There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to get them out of the yard either….
Regarding mower blades: Drew sharpens the blades on our mower…you might ask him for some DIY tips.
Michelle
I should look at that website that taught me how to wire a picture frame.
Woot! My wine from Wine.Woot.com arrived!
No drinking at the office!
-FP
Steve is right, sharpening isn’t hard and can be done with a hand file.
My current collection of mowers has 1 of 3 up and running… broke the starter cord on one last time I mowed (but got it started with that last pull!) My newest acquisition, a 19 hp riding mower with a 42 inch cutting deck, has yet to make its debut, as I can’t keep it running well enough to mow with… starts but smokes buckets… too much oil I think.
Your backyard will look amazing if you can just get the trees cut back.
FYI, I have never bought a mower. I snag them off the street, dump out the gas, blow out the carb, spray starter fluid in there and give it a pull… works 4 out of 5 times! H20 condenses in the gas and causes these issues I think… folks don’t want to fool with it so put them on the curb!
10 years for a mower has got to be a record in your neighborhood!
And one thing I’ve learned… put good gas in your movers and you’ll really be suprised how much better they run.
-FP
Premium, that is.
-FP
I was speaking with one of Jerry’s friends a couple of weeks ago, mentioned hashing in passing. She said she use to hash all the time when she lived in Asia but didn’t know there were any kennels here? What?!? Really?!? I don’t know how anyone that knows anything about hashing could miss it here.
As for the sweetgum balls…mine are all confined to one corner of the yard but it is a mine field if you happen to wander in that direction barefooted.
Someone remind me next time to make sure my ‘mental health’ day isn’t the same day as yard waste pick-up. They’ve been making quite a racket all day.
Damn, I was just about to open a bottle and then I read Steve’s comment about not drinking in the office.
I think that my mower has lasted mostly because if the drought. I think I mowed my lawn no more than six times in the past two years.
Martha, my yard waste day was supposed to be yesterday, but all lawn bags were still on my street as of this morning.
So has anyone gone to today’s Website Of The Day? It’s so stupid that it makes me laugh.
OK, you made me go to the site of the day. I like how it’s random, refresh the page a couple times and see what happens.
Website of the day is great – nice two minute break from work. I wonder how many variations on this theme are out there.
If you want to get a head start on tomorrow’s WotD check to see if it’s still part of my last Twitter tweet under “Instant Karma”