- emergency vehicles
- radar detector
- phone ringtones
- car part failures
Speaking of NPR, which doesn't always annoy me, I'm donating to the cause for a "Wait, Wait! Don't tell me!" ticket next week.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Hip Hop Blues
The three clearest radio stations in my little valley are NPR and two hip-hop stations. While I could blame it on the al-al-al-al-al-alcohol, it's more my ears and wiring that are weird. I have such paranoic tendencies when I drive that I have to change the channel whenever a song contains noises that are too similar to:
Speaking of NPR, which doesn't always annoy me, I'm donating to the cause for a "Wait, Wait! Don't tell me!" ticket next week.
Speaking of NPR, which doesn't always annoy me, I'm donating to the cause for a "Wait, Wait! Don't tell me!" ticket next week.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
How to Patch an Aerobed
I think I've come up with two reasonable ways to patch an aerobed. It's harder than slapping the provided sticky plastic patch on. In my experience, the holes occur at the edges of the tufts - the tie-down like areas that keep it from being an aeroball. These are hard areas to get to and to patch. They're even harder to find. A mere 2mm hole will empty the bed in 2 hours, a pinprick will take several more What is necessary is a patch that is permanently affixed but preferably flexible.
aerobed patches that work, both require purple primer:
1) reach the inside of the bed through the outlet valve. Scrunch up the bed until you can reach the hole it took you 2 hours to find. (Ok to mark with permanent marker.) With a q-tip, apply purple primer to the area around the hole and to a bit of that provided plastic patch (or some other bit of vinyl from the junk drawer). Then coat the patch bit with PVC Cement and affix it to the inside. Hold until it stays by itself. Let it set for 30-60 minutes before re-inflating halfway to check the bond. Wait another hour or two for full inflation.
1a) Ok to put similar patch on the outside with purple primer and PVC cement because it helps the interior patch bond.
2) Purple primer and caulk. From the outside, with the bed deflated about halfway, dab on a small amount of purple primer around the hole, using enough that some goes inside the hole. Then squeeze in caulk. I used DAP Kwik Seal. This should form a plug on the inside which is what we're looking for. Mine has been drying for 5 hours now, so it should be fine (2 hours sets the stuff). I'll let you know if it holds during use. I should probably reinflate the mattress to full before pronouncing this working, but it didn't bubble from the start and the purple primer holds it to the bed.
After the patches, I put a bandage of sorts over them to prevent chafing by the bedding. I use an isotonic foam topper on my aerobed. I have a sheet between it and the foam, and a mattress pad over the foam. To prevent all this from causing even more friction, I put a cotton ball and tape over the patch after it's dry. The tape doesn't stick fabulously, but it works well enough. (Duct, pipe, or electrical works best.)
I do love sleeping on my aerobed, but I am getting a little tired of these little holes popping up. For $200, I expect a little more than 16 or so months out of the thing. Here's hoping the $2-6 each for purple primer and PVC cement and $3-5 or so for a tube of kitchen caulk does the trick. If the plain ol' caulk plug doesn't work, I'll put the inner patch on it before I give up, probably using a combination of PVC cement and caulk. Theprevious inside patch seems to be holding up ok.
Aerobed Patches that don't work (w/ or w/o patch):
- sticking that provided patch on as-is
- hot glue
- caulk without primer
- contact cement
- super glue
- duct tape (inside or out)
- electrical tape (inside or out)
- yarn covered in glue that is shoved through the hole from the outside like fixing a flat (although I haven't tried it since I discovered the purple primer trick)
aerobed patches that work, both require purple primer:
1) reach the inside of the bed through the outlet valve. Scrunch up the bed until you can reach the hole it took you 2 hours to find. (Ok to mark with permanent marker.) With a q-tip, apply purple primer to the area around the hole and to a bit of that provided plastic patch (or some other bit of vinyl from the junk drawer). Then coat the patch bit with PVC Cement and affix it to the inside. Hold until it stays by itself. Let it set for 30-60 minutes before re-inflating halfway to check the bond. Wait another hour or two for full inflation.
1a) Ok to put similar patch on the outside with purple primer and PVC cement because it helps the interior patch bond.
2) Purple primer and caulk. From the outside, with the bed deflated about halfway, dab on a small amount of purple primer around the hole, using enough that some goes inside the hole. Then squeeze in caulk. I used DAP Kwik Seal. This should form a plug on the inside which is what we're looking for. Mine has been drying for 5 hours now, so it should be fine (2 hours sets the stuff). I'll let you know if it holds during use. I should probably reinflate the mattress to full before pronouncing this working, but it didn't bubble from the start and the purple primer holds it to the bed.
After the patches, I put a bandage of sorts over them to prevent chafing by the bedding. I use an isotonic foam topper on my aerobed. I have a sheet between it and the foam, and a mattress pad over the foam. To prevent all this from causing even more friction, I put a cotton ball and tape over the patch after it's dry. The tape doesn't stick fabulously, but it works well enough. (Duct, pipe, or electrical works best.)
I do love sleeping on my aerobed, but I am getting a little tired of these little holes popping up. For $200, I expect a little more than 16 or so months out of the thing. Here's hoping the $2-6 each for purple primer and PVC cement and $3-5 or so for a tube of kitchen caulk does the trick. If the plain ol' caulk plug doesn't work, I'll put the inner patch on it before I give up, probably using a combination of PVC cement and caulk. Theprevious inside patch seems to be holding up ok.
Aerobed Patches that don't work (w/ or w/o patch):
- sticking that provided patch on as-is
- hot glue
- caulk without primer
- contact cement
- super glue
- duct tape (inside or out)
- electrical tape (inside or out)
- yarn covered in glue that is shoved through the hole from the outside like fixing a flat (although I haven't tried it since I discovered the purple primer trick)
Friday, September 11, 2009
Butters' Birthday
I caught the South Park rerun last night where Cartman pretends to be a robot called A.W.E.S.O.M.-O to get some secrets from Butters. Butters has a throwaway line mentioning tha this birthday is 9/11. So Happy Birthday Butters! Have some patriotic donut holes.
Me, I get to spend the afternoon in a federal building trying to fight a speeding ticket. I still find it suspicious that the only speeding tickets I get in a dozen years or more occur during a downturn in the economy. Especially since I got laughed at by colleagues claiming, "but that's standard cruising speed on the 101". I know!
Me, I get to spend the afternoon in a federal building trying to fight a speeding ticket. I still find it suspicious that the only speeding tickets I get in a dozen years or more occur during a downturn in the economy. Especially since I got laughed at by colleagues claiming, "but that's standard cruising speed on the 101". I know!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Known Noses
Whoo hoo! Our little two lady team came in first again at trivia. We got two double or nothings and could have gotten three. Our weakness, sports, was listing losing baseball world series teams. Turns out we knew those. Actually felt like I contributed this week - especially on the picture round! It was people with weird noses. THAT was a picture round I could do. As someone who has issues with my own nose, I notice other people's noses. Double or nothing for 20 points :)
The upside of going to college in New England was seeing just how much worse a nose could be. I actually considered not moving to the LA area because I was worried that the old desire for a nose job would re-emerge. It kind of has, but not in an "I can't think about anything else with this honker in the way" way, but in a "they do know how to do that here, maybe I should consider taking advantage" way. But I think I should take care of my eyes first, although the down economy has me waffling.
I am, however, going to be lasering my toenails tomorrow because they are awful and 3 years of near daily treatment with anything I can try and they're only getting worse. Prescriptions, OTC, herbal, plain ol blach - nothin' doin.
But back to the trivia. The drinking round was flying a paper airplane for distance and we missed it by a nose. It was an overlap into 2nd place. But since we won both the trivia AND the drinks last week, I think it was healthy for us to not quite win that, as the competing teams on the patio let us leave alive.
The upside of going to college in New England was seeing just how much worse a nose could be. I actually considered not moving to the LA area because I was worried that the old desire for a nose job would re-emerge. It kind of has, but not in an "I can't think about anything else with this honker in the way" way, but in a "they do know how to do that here, maybe I should consider taking advantage" way. But I think I should take care of my eyes first, although the down economy has me waffling.
I am, however, going to be lasering my toenails tomorrow because they are awful and 3 years of near daily treatment with anything I can try and they're only getting worse. Prescriptions, OTC, herbal, plain ol blach - nothin' doin.
But back to the trivia. The drinking round was flying a paper airplane for distance and we missed it by a nose. It was an overlap into 2nd place. But since we won both the trivia AND the drinks last week, I think it was healthy for us to not quite win that, as the competing teams on the patio let us leave alive.
9-9-9
I love fun happenstance of number patterns. I find that I very often notice the time when it's 12:34, for instance. Today has a bunch of nines. I wonder if I'll remember to be by a clock at 9:09:09 PM?
Monday, September 7, 2009
Mad Dogs and Englishmen
I spent a good deal of time in the noonday sun this weekend. I always forget how much making vitamin D exhausts me, so this was written after a pretty long nap.
Saturday I met up with some book club ladies. One of us is moving out of the country in a couple weeks so we used a going away party as an excuse to drive to San Diego for a sandwich. Sadly, it was about 2 weeks too late to catch the lady merely moving out of state. The destination might seem far for a sandwich, but it's not much farther to SD than to Santa Monica from where most of the ladies live in OC, our inland attendee can get to SD easier, and I like going there. We met for lunch at the Hotel Del Coronado, had drinks and delicious sandwiches then shopped for a bit at the Hotel (no new sandals for me this time) and meandered into town for some decent gelato.
We rescued the car from valet parking about 10 minutes before the parking charges went out of control, and decided not to re-park on the street and head back to watch the sand sparkle in the sun. It was the right choice as we were all pretty tired after getting up early on a saturday and driving, but it still feels weird as that beach is one of the draws. We did walk along it, but didn't get the sand in the tootsies. And the cute valet boy liked my car. Me too. It got 4 of us back safely and in style.
Sunday was slow - I met up with my trivia friend to see Inglorious Basterds. When we got to theater, we realized it was only playing in the spiffy theater that costs an extra $10 so couples can share a loveseat. We didn't really need the date special or the extra cost, and decided to look elsewhere. Thanks to her iPhone, that was no challenge. We did get an hour or so to kill so we headed for Anthopologie and went shopping. I found several things that not only fit, but flattered and were on sale so I went crazy. She found an expensive shirt but it was unique and cute as a button so she splurged too.
The movie was odd. It had little bursts of violence but not anything like what one might be used to from QT. I think the tough thing was that while the antagonist was obvious (antagonists/were), there didn't seem to be a clear protagonist, especially not in the first scene. And even the good guys were not so good and pure in heart and soul - there was definitely the issue of when in war, people do things that are awful, even the ones who are ultimately doing good. Odd bursts of humor were scattered thoughout. I noticed that the movie was a little slower paced, but don't really have a judgment on if that was good or bad. The camera wasn't all jumpy and for that I have to give thanks. Lastly, those were the fastest credits I've seen in 15 years. It left me feeling good about the film.
Today, I met up with another book club friend for lunch and a walk. We checked out a furnishings store near the restaurant that had a really unique square dining table that rotated slightly and flipped out to an octagon. After that brief foray in the shade, we got down to business and went over to get our walk on. In that noonday sun. With hats, water, and a moderate pace, it was a nice little walk, but dang it was hot out. Over the mountains at the edge of the valley there was a largepyrocumulus cloud mar, king the fire on the far side. It looked like a mushroom cloud when I first saw it but had streamed out into a blah sort of thing by the time I got somewhere I could take a picture. We resolved to walk at a more sensible time on our next outing and parted ways. The park was very crowded, the guy who got my space after waiting for me to brush some serious dust off my feet liked the car too :)
I washed the rest of teh dust off my feet by swimming a few laps at the pool. Before I was overcome by napping, I tried once again to use PVC glue to fix the slow leak in the aerobed. But my cement was old and set so I tossed on the hippy housedress and ran out for more. I picked up a watermelon while I was at it. I don't think they like me much, but there was nothing else in the world I really wanted today, so what the hell. After the nap, it's been TV, slitherlink puzzles, and blogging. No scrabble today, since I stayed up too late last night with it.
Well, aside from 2 calls from work, that was my labor day weekend. Not bad, not bad. How was yours?
Saturday I met up with some book club ladies. One of us is moving out of the country in a couple weeks so we used a going away party as an excuse to drive to San Diego for a sandwich. Sadly, it was about 2 weeks too late to catch the lady merely moving out of state. The destination might seem far for a sandwich, but it's not much farther to SD than to Santa Monica from where most of the ladies live in OC, our inland attendee can get to SD easier, and I like going there. We met for lunch at the Hotel Del Coronado, had drinks and delicious sandwiches then shopped for a bit at the Hotel (no new sandals for me this time) and meandered into town for some decent gelato.
We rescued the car from valet parking about 10 minutes before the parking charges went out of control, and decided not to re-park on the street and head back to watch the sand sparkle in the sun. It was the right choice as we were all pretty tired after getting up early on a saturday and driving, but it still feels weird as that beach is one of the draws. We did walk along it, but didn't get the sand in the tootsies. And the cute valet boy liked my car. Me too. It got 4 of us back safely and in style.
Sunday was slow - I met up with my trivia friend to see Inglorious Basterds. When we got to theater, we realized it was only playing in the spiffy theater that costs an extra $10 so couples can share a loveseat. We didn't really need the date special or the extra cost, and decided to look elsewhere. Thanks to her iPhone, that was no challenge. We did get an hour or so to kill so we headed for Anthopologie and went shopping. I found several things that not only fit, but flattered and were on sale so I went crazy. She found an expensive shirt but it was unique and cute as a button so she splurged too.
The movie was odd. It had little bursts of violence but not anything like what one might be used to from QT. I think the tough thing was that while the antagonist was obvious (antagonists/were), there didn't seem to be a clear protagonist, especially not in the first scene. And even the good guys were not so good and pure in heart and soul - there was definitely the issue of when in war, people do things that are awful, even the ones who are ultimately doing good. Odd bursts of humor were scattered thoughout. I noticed that the movie was a little slower paced, but don't really have a judgment on if that was good or bad. The camera wasn't all jumpy and for that I have to give thanks. Lastly, those were the fastest credits I've seen in 15 years. It left me feeling good about the film.
Today, I met up with another book club friend for lunch and a walk. We checked out a furnishings store near the restaurant that had a really unique square dining table that rotated slightly and flipped out to an octagon. After that brief foray in the shade, we got down to business and went over to get our walk on. In that noonday sun. With hats, water, and a moderate pace, it was a nice little walk, but dang it was hot out. Over the mountains at the edge of the valley there was a largepyrocumulus cloud mar, king the fire on the far side. It looked like a mushroom cloud when I first saw it but had streamed out into a blah sort of thing by the time I got somewhere I could take a picture. We resolved to walk at a more sensible time on our next outing and parted ways. The park was very crowded, the guy who got my space after waiting for me to brush some serious dust off my feet liked the car too :)
I washed the rest of teh dust off my feet by swimming a few laps at the pool. Before I was overcome by napping, I tried once again to use PVC glue to fix the slow leak in the aerobed. But my cement was old and set so I tossed on the hippy housedress and ran out for more. I picked up a watermelon while I was at it. I don't think they like me much, but there was nothing else in the world I really wanted today, so what the hell. After the nap, it's been TV, slitherlink puzzles, and blogging. No scrabble today, since I stayed up too late last night with it.
Well, aside from 2 calls from work, that was my labor day weekend. Not bad, not bad. How was yours?
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Scrabbled Brains
My word recall is heading straight for the express handbasket, so I've pulled out my scrabble set and am practicing. For more entertainment, I found a scrabble word finder and use that to check the other option I come up with something. kind of addicting.
yes, I'm using it to procrastinate uploading pictures. But I did make kitchen progress, finally! Flake boy stopped being flaky for a brief moment of time and lent me his grinder and backyard so I could raise a cloud of dust to rival nearby ash plumes. The tiles, they are clean, the floor has been scraped, and the tiles can be re-laid. whoo!
If you're wondering, I'm actually not close to the current fires. I'm not even seeing any ash in the air. It has been hot and dry and wonderful. It's like having a second week of summer!
yes, I'm using it to procrastinate uploading pictures. But I did make kitchen progress, finally! Flake boy stopped being flaky for a brief moment of time and lent me his grinder and backyard so I could raise a cloud of dust to rival nearby ash plumes. The tiles, they are clean, the floor has been scraped, and the tiles can be re-laid. whoo!
If you're wondering, I'm actually not close to the current fires. I'm not even seeing any ash in the air. It has been hot and dry and wonderful. It's like having a second week of summer!
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