Monday, February 21, 2011

Texas Survival Rules

A full blown Norwegian Minnesotan friend of mine was making his first visit to Texas a while back (George W. was still in office).  Since I had lived in that glorious state twice in my lifetime, and had lived to tell about it, I decided to give my friend some advice on what to prepare for and how to behave.  Below are the contents of my "Texas Survival Rules" for him.

John,

Since you are about to embark on your first visit to Texas, there are a few things you should know.

1. Repellent. You will need it.

• Not only mosquita repellent (yes they do have them down there),

• Rattle snake repellent (also Copperhead and Cotton Mouth),

• Poisonous Spider repellent (Black Widow and Brown Recluse, they use gopher traps for the tarantulas),

• Scorpion repellent,

• Big Huge Ass wasp repellent (they have a hornet down there which is at least 2" in length and they affectionately call them "bird killers"),

• Red Ant repellent,

• Fire Ant repellent,

• Killer Bee repellent (they have made it that far north),

• Roach repellent (they call them sewer roaches and the AKC is considering naming them a new breed.),

• Bull repellent, lots of 'em and mean.

• RedNeck Repellent, lots of em and mean.

• And I know there's more, but it's been a while since I've been down there.

2. Oh, yes. Armodillos are known to carry leprosy so don't pick up any road kill no matter how well intact it may seem. I learned that one from a guy we called no nose lefty.

3. Leave any and all of your accordians at home. If it ain't a fiddle, guitar or piano, you can't make music on it!

4. Learn to say ya'll and intersperse it into every sentence. And it is only one syllable.

5. Chewing any tobacco product will get you in good with just about any Texan, especially if you don't spit. Real men only spit goobers. Learn to swallow. You should be able to control the vomitting in about a week.

6. Start now and learn to eat really spicey food without gagging, screaming, or whimpering.  You should be able to control the vomitting and/or diarrhea in about a week.  Also, after eating real Texan spicey food, try to control the screaming or whimpering while in the bathroom the next day.

6. Don't try to fake the cowboy dress thing. They can smell a drugstore cowboy a mile away. Pointy toed boots are only worn north of the red river or maybe in East Texas which isn't considered a real part of Texas anyway.

7. Remember our President is from Texas and Texas invented the concept of "home boy". Keep your opinions of him to yourself unless you want to be lumped in with the Dixie Chicks.

8. Liquor. It is not easy to find around there. Parts of towns, and counties are still dry down there. You will be looked down upon for having a drink. However, snake repellent is another matter. It is encouraged.

9. Last, but not least . . .. Don't mention you know me. It’s been thirty years. Boy, can those people carry a grudge.



Anyway, I hope this has helped and you truly enjoy your first trip to Texas.


Your Buddy, Stud Terrapin

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Man Handling the Ice Dam

I live in Minnesota. It has its blessings and curses. We usually have beautiful summers. Rarely does it get over 90 in the summer. One of the curses is, summer only lasts for a few hours, and if summer comes on a Sunday, we usually have a picnic. The jokes abound about our weather. We really don’t have summer in Minnesota, just three weeks of bad snow skiing—or ice fishing— or snowmobiling—or whatever winter sport you desire. You may get from my drift (ha, get it?  drift?) that I am NOT writing this during our beautiful, though fleeting summertime. I am writing this in the Long Dark Tea Time of our Souls called winter in Minnesota. It is in this setting that anyone even slightly familiar with Shakespeare understands the term, “winter of our discontent.” And this winter has definitely brought its share of discontent.  As of today, January 30, 2011, we have had officially 55 ½ inches of snow in the Twin Cities, with 4 to 6 inches more promised by tomorrow night. This snow has also come with the attendant low temps which have reached an actual 16 degrees below zero in our area (we don’t worry about wind chill in our state because the actual temperature is bad enough). North of me, it has been much colder, but I think this has been cold enough. Of course there’s always some moron who will ask, “Cold enough for you?” to which I usually respond with a well placed punch to the face. I know I’m not the only one. Once I actually got arrested for this action. When I went to court, all I had to do was tell the judge why. He considered it justifiable physical assault and threw the case out. In fact, he sentenced the other guy to thirty days of shoveling my driveway. His reasoning was a legal term I hadn’t heard before. He called it criminal annoyance. Personally, I think it should be enforced more often.

As I said earlier, this winter has been one that memories, albeit bad ones, are made of. One thing that all Minnesotans are dealing with this year is ice dams--record setting ice dams. If you are not of the initiated, ice dams are ridges of ice that build up along the lowest edge of a snow covered roof. They form by snow melting on the upper parts of the roof and upon reaching the cold air at the edge of the roof it refreezes. This happens over and over until a large “dam” of ice has built up on the edge of the roof. The problem with ice dams is that they then “dam up” the flowing water made up of melted snow forcing it back under the shingles where it can leak through the roof and cause damage in the house. I’ve heard from a number of people this year who have suffered water damage in their houses from ice dams. I am lucky in the fact that I have long overhanging eves on my house, so the water doesn’t get in the house, but it does get into the eve portions and I get a lot of water in the soffits. This disturbs me since I just put new fascia and soffits on the back side of my house this year. I Do Not want to do it again. So I, like almost every other house owner in our area have been faced with how to get rid of the ice dams.

Earlier this winter I went to the hardware store and got a new big cold chisel (interesting name for how I planned to use it), a small pick axe type hammer, and a long handled special chisel used to chip big holes in the ice on frozen lakes for fishing through said ice holes in quite inclement weather. Another great winter sport partaken of in Minnesota. I wasn’t planning on any ice fishing expeditions in the near future. I was going after the ice dam. I then spent hours busting up part of the dam on the south side of the house where it was worst. I didn’t get far, and afterwards, due to the joys of arthritis, I was in some significant pain for a couple of days. I also had numerous small lacerations scattered all over my face, neck and ears from flying shards of ice. Who knew that frozen water could be so sharp? Anyway, my efforts were somewhat successful, and the forced back flow of melting snow was abated for a time. I knew it wouldn’t last, however. As I said earlier, we have had a lot of snow, and that snow has to melt and refreeze some time.

One of those sometimes—I’m sure others will come—came this weekend. We have had a few warmer days which are just made for melting snow on the roof, coupled with cold night temps which are quite effective in refreezing it on the edge again. Yes, all over the neighborhood, the tink tink tink, tap tap tap, and chip chip chip of home owners doing battle with the ice dams could be heard on Saturday as I looked up at my eves and cringed in trepidation. I knew I had to face it, but was putting it off. I wasn’t really procrastinating; I was trying to figure out a way I could tackle the daunting task with more efficiency and less pain. I had already spent $40 on specialty tools earlier. They had worked, but not to the efficiency I had hoped. So while I was mulling this over, I openly mused to my wife, Gayle, “I wish I could get hold of a small jack hammer to handle the ice dams.” While she voiced her concern at that concept, a light bulb lit up over my head. She didn’t see it but I knew it was there. I didn’t have a small jack hammer, but I did have its smaller, hand held, air operated cousin. I, being the tool monger and sometimes mechanic that I am, did have a pneumatic air hammer in my possession. I have used it on many occasions to noisily chisel through steel, so why not use it on ice? I believed I was on to something here. A quick stop at the hardware store for a new chisel to use with the air hammer and a protective face shield for reasons alluded to earlier, and I was ready to tackle the ice dams like the man that I am.

So, after running the air line from my compressor in the garage, I climbed the ladder and went to work. It was a beautiful thing! Ice was flying! Big chunks! Small chips! It didn’t matter. I was on a roll. I was master of my ice dam! I was having a ball, and the testosterone was runnin’ high. A man and his powerful tool—it doesn’t get any better than that. Air hammers, however are definitely not the quietest tool in the box. They are, in fact quite noisy, but that’s part of their appeal. That’s part of what’s cool about any power tool—noise! How can you tell that they are power tools unless they make noise? And that noise seems to have a strange pied piper sort of allure to men. Johnson from next door, his arm now in a sling from his non-powered ice dam removal, peeked over the fence in envy. Hammel from behind took a peek. I’m sure Fredrikson and Haynes took a look too, but they were a bit more stealthy than the others. I had, in a single moment, with my ingenious employment of an air hammer to blast away my ice dams, become the unrivaled hero of all men in our neighborhood. And I was liking it. Take that Johnson with that big new fancy truck of yours—and you Hammel, you and your swimming pool—and how about you Fredrikson, with your zero turn riding lawn mower—and finally you Haynes, you and your fancy power boat. None of you have the ultimate ice dam air hammer, do you? Arghh, Arghh, Arghh!

So, yes, its winter in Minnesota, and in the cities, they’re carrying on the annual winter celebration. One of the big draws of this celebration is the ice sculpture contest. I can’t believe some people do this stuff for fun. The rest of us do it because we have to, to save our homes. Mine may not win any prizes. What I had left did not resemble anything that someone would marvel at, but I did accomplish the task set before me in record setting time. I think, maybe this could be a competition for next year’s Winter Carnival—speed ice dam removal. Now that’s one competition I could get into. I may even try it, but only if I can use my monster air hammer.

So the ugly, daunting task is done, and I don’t ache too badly from it, though with 3500 blows per minute from the air hammer pounding the palm of my hand, I may soon be a candidate for carpal tunnel surgery.  Oh, well.  Sometimes glory comes with a price.  But, oh, the glory!