In the Court of the White Bear

Please!…

Polar — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:13:23 +0000

I just got word that one of my contractors has been killed in a car crash. He lost control on a turn, over corrected and rolled his truck. He was not wearing his seat belt and was ejected from the vehicle. He died at the scene. His wife who was wearing her belt suffered minor non-life threatening injuries, was treated then sent home. The contractors eldest son is home on leave from the Navy. The family was together to attend the youngest sons High School graduation tonight.

Please! if you are in a car put your seat-belt on. There is no logical reason not too. DON’T BECOME A STATISTIC!

Chaos

Polar — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:59:56 +0000

The quick & dirty for this weekend goes like this.

The Wife and I are painting the foyer. Late Saturday night Kid One trips over the bucket of paint sending it down the stairs. The stairs, banister, & floor are unpainted wood, or were. Not only did the paint splatter the woodwork but it seeped through some backboards and ran down the basements stairs too. Coming to rest in a pool on the downstairs rug. Unfortunately, as if the previous wasn’t unfortunate enough, the foyer is adjacent to the living room we had a new floor put in a week ago. While I was desperately toweling the paint off of the new living room floor I realized I had not yet replaced all of the table lamps. Meanwhile the paint is seeping into the joints, permanently like. I desperately need enough light to fill the room so I can see all the spots. I yell at Kid One to ‘get me a light fast’. Two minutes later he shows up with a small flashlight.

>BOOOOM!<

Any rationality I had left…Left. I went off like a bomb. I over reacted. The poor kid. He’s a klutz. Just like me. The wife said I sounded like my father but not in the good way. More like ‘this guy needs an intervention or medication or both’ kind of way. I don’t go by the moniker of Polar because I like the cold folks. What an ugly scene. There is nothing good about a gallon of paint cascading through one’s house. But it’s worse, I think now, to down dress your kid for doing it accidentally. essentially I made the situation much worse for everybody in earshot. Yeah, yeah, it was a unusual paint in that one MUST maintain a wet edge while painting or the job goes to hell. Which means one cannot just stop halfway through a wall for an hour to clean a spill. But once the can went down the stairs all that became moot anyway.

I wish that I had said something like ‘Um, your supposed to play Kick The Can with an empty outside in the yard.’

I wish that I had made like a foreman on a Exxon Valdez clean up crew calmly pointing out missed spots and issuing towels. letting Kid One learn how to clean up paint.

I wish that I had made this a lesson instead of a catastrophe.

I wish that I had laughed instead of panicked.

The real mistake here was not made by Kid One but by me.

The real damage here was not done to the house but to the relationship between Kid One & myself, Dad Zero.

Wednesdays Walk

Polar — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:10:16 +0000

*BLACK SNAKE IN TREE STUMP

This is to show how docile black snakes are. You can pick them up with relative ease. The worst thing that they’ll do is to skunk you. They will produce a musky oil on their skin which gets on you when handling them. To get it off requires only a few washings of the hands & arms. I’ve never had one try to bit me. They prefer to escape by speed or burrowing. I would have liked to pick this guy up to give you the full tour. However, this is in a large poison-ivy patch. Not a good place to tangle with snake. Enjoy.

The Buzz…

Polar — Mon, 05 May 2008 02:42:57 +0000

This weekend kicked-off my new hobby, Beekeeping. first we bought two hives from a local farmer. He’s eighty-six and can no longer tend his bees. Second I bought a book to learn what I needed to know. Third I inspected the hives. If this sounds off-the-cuff, it is.

The Wife has wanted bees for twelve years. More than once she’s mentioned that we need to get bees. Two factors working against us getting bees has been: bees sting and I hate the taste of honey. Well last month she informs me that two hives are for sale by a farmer with health issues. Recognizing the subtle poke-in-the-ribs ploy and realizing that I’d put it off long enough I acquiesced. Usually she has to drag me kicking & screaming towards anything good. This time was different. I’m in a very good place now and can stand to deal with something new. So I simply said, “Great. When can we go get them”.

Please note that I know nothing about bees. That, however, changed immediately. Apparently you can only move hives at night! Which means that I had to manhandle two hives in the dark without any prior experience. Noooo…that wasn’t intimidating at all! Yikes! I felt like I was a bomb technician on his first day trying to disarm The Holy Hand Grenade. Lift them up, whole hive. Place in back of truck. Drive home. Carry hives down dewy grass hill to place in prepared spot. IN THE DARK! Real hives. Fifty-thousand bees each. Yet, it went off without a hitch!? Hallelujah!

Well we bought some basic equipment and did the inspection this weekend. We learned a lot more. Namely that bees are loads of fun. We also found out that Farmer Ben did not (could not) do any maintenance last year. I’ll need to replace several of the ‘Suppers’ and get some hive structures he never had.

The inspection was a real family event. Kid One hasn’t been that excited since he caught his first fish. He was helping me whether I wanted his help or not. After I cracked open the hives the whole family just walked up and stuck their heads next to the buzzy bees to see inside. I felt stupid since I was the only one wearing a bee net yet all of us were poking around in the hives. I though Kid Two was going to climb into the hive and take up residence. After all she is a Princess & I did tell her about the Queen.

Well After taking a full inventory of what parts of the hives need to be fixed I began looking at it’s health. One hive had lots of brood cells and one short super must have weighed forty pounds with the honey in it. The other hive was producing Queen cells (not good) because they are out of room. I will add suppers to that hive. All in all I can’t complain. The hives are healthy enough to grow as big as I want them to. With the fixes I have to complete (I’m taking a half day off of work tomorrow to deal with it) I will learn much in the way of maintenance that a book could not convey. All’s looking very good for my new hobby. Especially since the taste test went very well and got six thumbs straight up.

Who wants a taste?

Can’t take it back

Polar — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:01:46 +0000

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At the speed of sound

Are words etched in this moment

Forever branded

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Unreasonable & Yelling

Polar — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:01:35 +0000

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I’m assigning blame

To common imperfections

Hand picked illusion

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T.V.

Polar — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:46:29 +0000

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With absolute power

Reality is altered

Fitting the desire

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NO, I’m not in Jail!?

Polar — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:16:59 +0000

And which one of you jokers wrote that on the stall door? Jeez, can’t a guy put in some extra time at work? Oh and to the person who took the Sharpie into the bathroom; I’m not from Nantucket! And I never said anything that crass!

Through my Office Window

Polar — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 02:26:45 +0000

I am sitting in my office banging away on the ‘puter when I see a flurry of activity out of the corner of my eye. I turn to look and see a Sharp-Shinned Hawk take down a pigeon. Fortunately the windows at my office are one-way so the hawk can not see that I am only EIGHT feet away from it. To top it off my handy-dandy camera is sitting on my desk. Below is one minute out of about fifteen it took for the hawk to eat lunch. Pigeon, Mmmmmmm..

Wednesday’s Walk

Polar — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:32:51 +0000

At the beaver dam

The Water is flowing & the Spring Peepers are peeping