Stijn!!

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, Christmas music needs to be banned in all stores after December 25th.

[RKDinOKC]

Good Morning and post holiday depression is verboten.

Talked to broke back Bob fer Christimas. Only a couple of minutes then he had to go back to sleep. Was really proud that he sat up and went thru his emails for an hour. Says he is mostly sleeping off and on. Told him after a couple of weeks on pain killers for my foot I couldn't sleep at all. Spent all my down time watching TV and playing iPod games. That is why I bought my 65in TV with internet and the iPod mini.

He still sounds pretty drugged up. The thing I noticed was he did not complain. Nothing about the pain and nothing about not having any money, or that his 2 kids won't talk to him. That was different. Especially about his kids it being a holiday. His only concern was that he only had 4 more days of pain killers and did not have a doctors appointment with his regular doctor for another month. Told him to call the doctor's office of the doctor whose name is on his prescriptions (the surgeon) and don't let the person that answers the phone tell him they can't extend his prescription, that he wants to talk to the doctor. And pharmacies will deliver. And to start calling today! Said I went thru similar when I had gut surgery and my foot both.

Nephew had power problems where he built his home. For gas service he had a propane tank. It was under ground and had a filler at his gate. On the back of his property he had a shed with a propane powered generator system. The power was always going off and on and his house never even noticed. Had a couple of times this weekend the power when off around me.

The nurse taking care of the lady behind me called to see if I had power. Since I did she asked if the oxygen tanks got to low could they run a extension cord to my house. Told her to just call and I would hang a cord over the fence. Evidently the power did not stay off long enough for her to get low on oxygen.

[RKDinOKC]

One February was sitting in a big theater to watch the first showing of Dune. There weren't many people in the theater, guess Dune wasn't that big of a deal. Anyway, the theater was still playing Christmas music, in February. The small group I was in started discussing the timeliness, or lack of in playing Christmas music in February when I very loudly blurted out..."Ha ha haaaaa...Melly Clissimus!" The whole theater cracked up. Guy two rows in front of us gave me his bucket of popcorn for the pre-movie entertainment.

[RKDinOKC]

Welp, gave up on finding my Cayenne key and/or getting the keys I have cut. Ordered a new key fob key, $395 plus $100 to reprogram all my keys. Ouch! Still haven't found any remnants of the key I left on the corner of my desk. It's got to be around here somewhere. I either always have my key in the car, my pocket, or the bowl I keep all my keys in when not wearing anything with pockets. Only carry the key for the vehicle I am driving. Everything else is electronic, if the power is off I'm locked out. This one time I got busy, had my hands full, and set the key down on the corner of my desk.

If I do find the key, it is somewhere, it will cost me $100 to have it programed to work with the Cayenne again.

All they could say at the dealership is it makes it harder to steal. I said, yeah, now they just wait, hit me over the head, then take the Keys AND the Cayenne.

[GH85Carrera]

Dune was a stinker of a movie. Or maybe it was just my opinion. I never cared for the books, and the move was almost unwatchable.

I remember taking a date to a late movie at a now closed up mall. It was the movie "Trail of the Pink Panther" Seller's last movie. We were the ONLY people in the theater. I bet the projectionist was cussing at us for coming to that one. He could have gone home.

[GH85Carrera]

My biggest anti-theft part of the El Camino is the totally worn out keys. After 27 years and 364,000 miles, the brass keys are so worn down that I have to hold the key just right to open the door. Even my wife can't do it. When I had my colonoscopy I forgot to bring my spare keys for her to drive me home. She went to get the car and could not open the door, so the nurse went out to try. They both gave up and said it was not possible. So I had to go out to the parking garage and open the door like always. I handed my wife the keys and went to the passenger side. The door locks are 100% manual so someone has to reach across and pull the lock knob to unlock the passenger side. The windows a re manual roll up as well. The backup set of keys work fine, and anyone can use em as designed.

[RKDinOKC]

When mowing yards in the late 70's met a guy casing neighborhoods as a window washer. Thought he was just washing windows when I met him. Told me which houses needed a mowing service which got me several yards to take care of. Anyway, seemed like he could open and/or drive anything using a flat bladed screw driver. He just jammed the blade in, twisted it and he was good to go. Tried to stay on his good side until he got tossed in the slammer with multiple counts theft and stolen goods. They had been watching him, guess they found me clean Tried to stay on his good side not wanting me or my family to become a victims.

found that as long as was considered a friend, we were safer than I imagined. Gave me a pair of tickets to a concert once. The girl I took was kind of freaked. All the seats around us were full of undesirable looking thugs. Evidently he had stolen a whole section and I was the only one that brought a date. Told her I got the tickets as a gift from a friend, and all these guys got their tickets from him too and knew that I knew him so were were in the safest place we could be. She felt better, especially after overhearing my explanation the grim looking characters around us smiled and nodded acknowledging what I had said.

Have met some interesting people.

[GH85Carrera]

There was a neighborhood kid (about 15) at my old house that was the resident drug dealer, and burglar. Several house in that area were burgled. His mom died when he was in the single digits, and his dad was just a professional drunk. I could see his house from my front porch. I saw the constant string of people coming over for a short visit.
One day he was looking in my front bay window. I was outside in the back yard and had walked around the house so I came up on him from behind and caught him in the act. I pinned him in the corner of my porch and in my meanest snarl, Clint Eastwood mad as hell voice told him if my house ever get burgled, I will come kill him. He of course started off with what if I didn't do it? I told him, I don't care, he will die, so pass the word to your punk as buddies, I get burgled, he dies.

My next door neighbor a retired cop, got hit, but I never did. He finally turned 18, and he kept getting busted. He finally got to the three strikes and yer out, and he went away for many years. The neighborhood instantly went back to no burglaries.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

There was a neighborhood kid (about 15) at my old house that was the resident drug dealer, and burglar. Several house in that area were burgled. His mom died when he was in the single digits, and his dad was just a professional drunk. I could see his house from my front porch. I saw the constant string of people coming over for a short visit.
One day he was looking in my front bay window. I was outside in the back yard and had walked around the house so I came up on him from behind and caught him in the act. I pinned him in the corner of my porch and in my meanest snarl, Clint Eastwood mad as hell voice told him if my house ever get burgled, I will come kill him. He of course started off with what if I didn't do it? I told him, I don't care, he will die, so pass the word to your punk as buddies, I get burgled, he dies.

My next door neighbor a retired cop, got hit, but I never did. He finally turned 18, and he kept getting busted. He finally got to the three strikes and yer out, and he went away for many years. The neighborhood instantly went back to no burglaries.

We had a kid in the neighborhood just like that when I was growing up. Maybe 3 years younger than me. Habitual.
Last I heard he's still in prison.

[GH85Carrera]

It was a good neighborhood for my income level at the time, and a great bachelor pad. I bought it back in the good old days of 18% 30 year mortgages. I got a smoking deal, only 12.5% for 30 years. I paid it down to the point that when I sold it, there was just a couple of grand left for the mortgage holder. Getting married and moving away from the neighbors was tough, but it was great for me.

[sammyg2]

I remember those days, late 70's to early 80's. If you had an assumable mortgage you had it made, unless it was abustable tied to interest rates.

Sumthing about a ligor?

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, I had a fixed 12.5% mortgage. The 82 year old man that had lived in the house just financed it himself. We shook hands, and then I bought his lawn mower and some furniture he did not want to move.

I fired up my Commodore 64 and rand an amortization table. I almost fainted when I realized my first payment was like 8 bucks of principal and the rest interest. I re-ran it for a 20 year note and it only added a few bucks to the monthly payment, and took 10 years off the note. I started adding extra money when I could.

We rolled the sale of that house and my wife's house and bought this house. We are done moving. Next move is to the funeral home or the nursing home. I prefer straight to the funeral home in 40 or 50 years.

[RKDinOKC]

The house across the street from our old house was possessed. Watched every family that lived there would start fighting and break up. The first two women moved away. The rest stayed some guy would move in then the house became a trashed out crack house. It happened exactly the same to 3 more families and the next had started fighting when we moved away.

Two blocks away a guy hit a neighbors trash cans coming home. The cans were always in the way out in the street not close to the curb. The trash can guy went over and bashed the windows out of the car with an ax. The guy that got his car widows bashed went the trash can guys house and stabbed him to death. The wife of the dead guy had an 8 ft chain link fence with razor wire put around her property then started driving a new Mercedes. About a year later she moved.

The neighbor hood was great when my parents first moved there. Current neighborhood is pretty nice.
However, just this past month someone has started breaking into cars that are not garaged with things visible in them to take.
They have been caught on camera and it is not teens. Happened between 5-5:30am.
We have a neighborhood watch that fires up when this kind of thing starts happening.

Was out in my front yard with the garage door open. A neighbor was walking by and commented "So that's where that cool Porsche lives." I said "Shhhh, don't tell anyone. It's a secret."

[RKDinOKC]

How long after Christmas to you get to take down your Christmas decorations?

[Jim Richards]

All of our Christmas stuff’s coming down this weekend.

[GH85Carrera]

We de-Christmas-ised our house yesterday. The tree is down and up in the attic. All the decorations are boxed up, and in the attic. We worked hard on decorating for the new year. It is very subtle, it looks just like the house normally looks, soon it will be 2019. Wow, that just blows me away. I remember reading 1984 back in Jr. High School and 1984 was several years in the future. Then in 1968 when 2001 A Space Odyssey came out that was WAY in the future. The sequel 2010 came out and that date has blown past. I don't think I will be around for the final book in the trilogy, 3001.

I still laugh at the fact that Stanley Kubrick tried to get insurance against the possibility that extraterrestrials would come to earth, and ruin the plot of his movie. Not one insurance company would write that policy. I hope to live long enough to see proof of any other complex life form in the solar system or the galaxy. I know they will not be coming to visit, it is just too far, but a signal or artifact would be cool.

[RKDinOKC]

i was hoping I had past the first trash collection day after Christmas (yesterday) to take down the wreath on the gable over the garage.

Hot water tank pilot went out. Didn't have any flashy light showing any errors or anything just out. Relit and is heating water with no flashy lights. Wonder what is up with that. HVAC next to it chuggin along just great. No evidence of power outage.

[GH85Carrera]

Usually when that happens it is the beginning of more problems. It might be just a bad thermistor, or the burner, or just crap that needs to be cleaned. If it happens again soon, get ready to spend some money on it, or live without hot water.

When I bought me first house long ago, on the day of the signing, the water heater started leaking. They put it in writing that the seller would replace the water heater. I got lucky by one day. He hired Sears to replace it. I moved into the house, and woke up to take my first shower, and the dang water was cold. I went and lit the water heater, and waited. Took a shower and all was fine. The next day, it was out again. Lotsa cussing did not fix it. I called Sears and they came out and looked at it, and the pilot had gone out already. So he re-lit it and said that fixed it. I told him that will not be enough. Sure enough I looked a few hours later, it was off. Same guy came out, and replaced the themistor. That solved the problem, it was defective from the factory.

[Porsche-poor]

Merry post Xmas folks. Have a great day.

[RKDinOKC]

The one was the same brand as lasted 20 years when the house was built. OA or something like that. Only one I saw with brass fittings instead of plastic. It has been in since 2012. It also has a light on the controller that is supposed to flash different sequences for different things like thermistor failure or sensor out of range. Reports six different failures. It was just dark with no flashing which means no pilot light. Gonna hafta keep and eye on it. Hope it don't asplode and launch like a missle thru the roof!

Don't need a hot wather heater repair right now. Just dropped off the Cayenne at the dealer for new motor mounts. The thing I really like so far is they are texting me on the status of the car. They offered to give me a loaner as well. But since have the GTS and the weather forecast looks good...They shuttled me home in a Cayenne. It looked like they were doling out Cayennes for loaners. Didn't say whether or not they would pick me up since it is a whole 2.3 miles.