johnrobe

Whenever I do home improvement projects, I always emerge feeling manly and satisfied. Unless they don’t work. After one of those, I emerge feeling sweaty, inferior and seriously questioning what my fate will be in my frequently-imagined post-apocalyptic future.

This last weekend my project was finally installing the motion-sensitive light fixture that my brother gave me on the back of the house. I figured this wouldn’t be too hard, if everything was up to code in terms of junction box etc., with the light that was there now.

My house has some quirks with its electrical system as we’ve discovered. The previous owner was quite a capable handyman, but his profession was paint and drywall, not electrical, and sometimes the things he did … well, let’s just say they worked, but few were able to figure out how exactly. I hate to make a joke that sounds like a culturally insensitive Polish joke, but the light switches in my house are backwards – up is off, down is on, and apparently that’s the way it’s done in Poland, where the previous owner was from. I tried to rewire it myself, but 20 minutes and several visions of toiling in Lord Humungus’ sugar mines later, I let them be and decided I could learn to love the Polish way.

When I took the old light fixture off the wall, I was very happy and relieved to discover that there was a standard, up-to-code junction box underneath. I happily rewired things, installed the mounting plate, and then spent 90 minutes trying to fit the light onto the mounting plate.

I don’t know wtf was going on with that mounting device, but the one of the screws just wasn’t long enough to mount the damned light fixture properly. I was able to mount it, but there was a gap of about a centimeter on the one side because of the too-short screw. Making it worse was the issue that once I had wired the light fixture into the junction box, I couldn’t just set it down to figure out what to do, I had to mount it or unwire it. Net result was that I had to hold the thing up there with one hand while I worked on my tiptoes with the other hand.

I was frustrated, perspiring, and ready to throw in the towel and contemplate a world with no light in the backyard, when Timmi came down with a great idea – why not use the Mighty Putty we got for Christmas and see if that helped. At first, I thought her idea was crazy, but honestly, I was supposed to use putty or caulk to seal it after the fact anyway, so I thought, what the heck?

Very long story short, fast forward a half hour later, and that light fixture was securely affixed to the wall and nicely sealed to boot!

Now all I need to do is work up the courage to leave the light on without me standing there with a fire extinguisher. We’ll deal with that bit of paranoia in another post.

John General, Rants, Shameless Consumerism

I curled. We won our first game.

I fell and hit my head. It hurt lots, but I’m fine.

We went to Medieval times for the first time in my life. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. The night was made when, after the show, a little girl behind us skipped along exclaiming to her dad, “That was the bestest thing I ever saw in my life!”

Then I had a carrot cupcake that I think (in cupcake terms) was the bestest thing I ever ate in MY life.

And now, my head hurts and I’m going to sleep for 2 hours, until I get awakened by my “brain buddy” to make sure everything’s good. It will be.

John General

I’d be lying if I said this was the best thing I got for Christmas (that was actually the hand-written book of her recipes that my Mom gave me), but this gift from Chris and Tash was definitely the most fun!

The best part is they also gave me a ShamWow, some Mighty Putty, and all the fixins from the Slap Chop commercial.

John General

One of the reasons the blog hasn’t been as active as it used to is this has been a very rough year for my family.

In the “searching for a silver lining” sense of it, here is a story about my mom and Dad, from the Woodstock Daily Sentinel Review.

Dad used to call it the “Sentimental Review”, and in this case, it’s definitely true.

http://www.woodstocksentinelreview.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2243397

John General

I don’t know where to sneeze anymore. I had a sneeze coming, took off my glasses to prevent them getting blown across the room, then went to sneeze in my sleeve.

Then I realized I had no sleeve. (I was wearing a short sleeved shirt.)

So I went for a Kleenex from the box across the table, but at the last minute, I realized I wasn’t going to make it.

So I went to sneeze into my hand, but, and I am not making this up, jerked my hand away because I have been so brainwashed to not sneeze into my hand that I couldn’t do it.

So instead, I ended up sneezing all over my glasses.

Please forgive any typos, I can’t see what I’m typing here.

John General

There are things I love about Europe that are getting drilled home on our trip. There are things I don’t like as well, but I won’t call them out unless they are really egregious.

Likes:

- All the public transit everywhere is on the honour system. It is dependable. Every stop, subway, tram or bus, has a timer telling you when the next vehicle is coming.

- Beer. How can it be better and somewhere between half and one-tenth the price? Economics doesn’t work that way.

- Movie theatres. Okay, the sample size is tiny (I have seen one movie in Europe (it was Sunday night and Vienna doesn’t do Sundays)) but I love that the seats are assigned. Takes all the rushing for seats, worrying about who you’re sitting next to etc., out of the equation, and that’s great.

- Toilets. Almost all the toilets have very sensible “big flush” and “little flush” buttons. The one in the Vienna apartment just has a sort of on / off switch - flush as much as you need. Such a smart way to save water.

Dislikes:

- Stairs. See picture. Those are the stairs up to our apartment in Vienna. There are 96 knee crackers in that picture.

- All beverages besides beer. Are you thirsty? Tough! They aren’t going to bring you water unless you pay a lot for it. Want a diet coke? Be prepared to pay cognac prices for it. Europeans probably go into a 7-11 and look at Big Gulps the way I look at beer here.

- The remotes in our apartment. One is for the TV, one is for the “satellite cable” box. Both have one red button and one green button on the very top row of the remote. Both remotes have power one/off and mute in the top row. But with one remote, power on/off is red and mute is green, with the other remote, mute is red and power on/off is green. Makes you wish you were colour blind.

John General

Today I had a conversational exchange with someone that took a familiar shape. It was so familiar, I think it’s safe to say I’ve had the conversation a hundred times before. It wasn’t with a guy called Bill, but to protect the innocent, I have renamed him.

It goes a little something like this:

John: Hey Bill
Bill: Hey John
John: How’s it going?
Bill: Pretty good, how about you?
John: Meh

This is what I call “standard walking-past-each-other-in-the-hallway conversation #1″

Problem is, there were some words in the exchange that my brain supplied that my ears never actually heard, namely the “How about you?” part.

So the ACTUAL conversation went like this:

John: Hey Bill
Bill: Hey John
John: How’s it going?
Bill: Pretty good
John: Meh

Unfortunately, this is what is known as”standard John-is-a-jerk conversation #1″

John General work

John General

According to the New York Times, 95% of blogs are abandoned. Anyone still checking here probably feels like this blog is one of them, but not so.

I have a lot to write about, but I’ve been having a bit of a hard time lately.

I promise to you all these topics, as soon as I’m able to bring myself to write again:

• My review of Star Trek. I owe it to you after all the foreshadowing.
• My response to Mike’s tagging of me about 5 or 6 months ago
• A post about Rock 4 the Kids, something I am so very proud of, but haven’t spoken about here.

All this and more… soon. As soon as I can actually think and type and write again.

John General, Music, Rants, Television

If there are two things I love, it’s Iron Chef (the original from Japan) and Les Miserables.

Well, that’s overstating it a bit, I love them both, but that makes it sound like they are the only things I love. Suffice it to say, I really love them both.

So that’s why I was especially surprised when I found out they were related!

This video, which I have seen several times, originally aired on PBS, and is a production of the music in Les Miserables on its 10 year anniversary. This particular song is “Do You Hear the People Sing?” one of the greatest songs from the musical, and this version is sung by 17 different Jean Valjeans, the performers who made it most famous from different countries.

And then look there — 41 seconds in! The Jean Valjean from Japan — It’s Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef!

Sure, he’s not yelling “Allez cuiscene!” and he’s wearing a much less ostentatious outfit than he normally does, but it’s him!

Now we know where he got the money to form his world famous culinary institute.

John General