Korey Atterberry’s Idle Chatter

Tonight at 7pm, right after we got home, there was a knock on the door. It was the girl from across the street, whom we hadn’t really met before, asking to use the phone. She’d gone out to walk the dog she was taking care of and discovered her apartment door wouldn’t open with her key. Her cellphone was in the apartment, the landlord was out of the state, it was sprinkling and she was 9 months pregnant.

After she got off the phone with her boyfriend, I went across the street to try to open the door. I messed with the key for a few minutes before deciding that wasn’t helping. The key tumbler turned and the knob turned but the bolt didn’t retract. Thankfully they’d left their front window unlocked so I was able to remove the screen and climb in. I disassembled the lock from the inside, but the bolt still wouldn’t retract, so we decided the best idea was to take the door off of its hinges. The hinges were pretty well corroded, but with a little “finesse” the pins came out, but I couldn’t remove the door from the hinges from the inside. So, my bright idea was to climb back outside and hit the door until the hinges detached. It took quite a bit of force on the bottom hinges, so when I moved on to the top hinge, my strike quickly dislodged the door and sent it tumbling inside. Momentarily forgetting all my high school physics and geometry, I figured I could help the situation by trying to grab the door. That’s where the door-surfing occurred.

Thankfully no possessions or body parts were damaged, and access to the apartment was now achieved. We put the door (sans latch) back onto the hinges and decided that was good enough for now. The good news is that it’s nearly impossible to get locked out by a door with no latch…

Yesterday we were around town and decided to test drive a full-size truck, just to see what it was like. Our salesperson was a young lady who’d only been on the job a couple of weeks. She came out to meet us in the lot and let us take one for a spin by ourselves.

We left the parking lot, drove about two blocks and turned onto a busy road. As I came out of the corner, I gave it a little gas and the engine began to sputter. Looking at the gas gauge, my suspicions were confirmed. We turned into the next parking lot and the engine sputtered to a stop as we were coasting into a spot out of the way.

We called the dealership and our salesperson came to rescue us with a shop employee and a gas can. They were apologetic, but we thought it was an interesting adventure! Thankfully we were able to coast off the road, since there were no shoulders on that road, and pushing a vehicle that size probably wasn’t going to work very well! For the record, we hadn’t even gotten to the nearest gas station when we ran out of gas, so someone was going to have problems in any case!

I’ve always been under the impression that Christmas, regardless of your religious affiliation, was a time of giving and goodwill toward your fellow man. Whereas Christmas might bring out the best in people, Christmas shopping certainly must bring out the worst.

In an attempt to get past some of the incidents of this Christmas shopping season and get back into the holiday spirit, here is a list of people who will be getting coal in their stocking this year.

Diagonal parking lot crosser:
One thing that has always bothered me is people who tear across a parking lot diagonally, without regard for those who travel properly within the lanes. Normally it’s not a big deal, but a couple of weeks ago, I made the mistake of pulling into a space at the end of a row (leaving a couple of empty spots like I always do). Apparently Ms. Diagnonal Crosser wasn’t happy that I’d blocked her way and proceeded to berate me from the safety of her car with the windows up. She appeared to be asking her male passenger to escalate the situation, but he declined.

Intersection blocker:
Sometimes we’re not paying attention and find that due to traffic we don’t have room to exit the intersection we’ve just entered. An unfortunate but honest mistake. Less forgivable are the folks who, seeing that the car in front of them has been trapped in the intersection, enter as the light turns yellow. After watching this happen for three lights in a row near the mall two weekends ago, I gave a short honk to the folks stopped in front of me preventing my turn. I was wrong though – they indicated to me (in various ways) that they were in fact victims, not perpetrators of this offense. My mistake.

Checkout line sore loser:
After waiting for several minutes behind a shopper dumbfounded by the self-scan machines at Walmart, Dusty noticed the next lane over was about to be vacated. I carried Evan to the line while Dusty wheeled our mostly empty cart behind me. This did please another customer (unseen by us) who rounded the corner as Dusty was pulling into position. She immediately entered verbal attack mode and proceeded begrudgingly to the line we had vacated. In fact, the lane she entered opened up before ours, but that didn’t stop her harassment as we left the store. Perhaps the most disappointing facet was the lesson she was teaching her kids.

Parking space squatter:
In a great mood from our encounter with the sore loser above, we headed out to the parking lot. Dusty loaded Evan into the car while I put our packaged in the back. Behind our car was an SUV driven by an able-bodied man, followed by several cars, blocking our exit. The cars behind him were honking as he waited for a family to reach their van, load up, and leave an empty spot for him. I stood at the back of the car with arms crossed and waited for a couple of minutes until he claimed his prize.

Slick road honker:
Last week the roads were a bit slick, and the snow plow crews really dropped the ball. We were out shopping and spent quite a bit of time standing still in traffic near the mall. When the drivers actually left the intersections passable, some cars had problems getting enough traction to get moving into the intersection, since the snow and slush tended to pile up there. The correct thing for drivers behind to do might have been to get out and help push the car to get it moving, or at least leave a little room for the troubled drivers to back up for a running start. One notable offender was a young couple in an old VW camper van. Not only were they honking at a front-wheel drive Chevy in front of them, but they also pulled right up less than a foot behind every time the car made progress. Eventually I, waiting to turn into that traffic (for 10 minutes), honked at the van and motioned for them to stop and leave the car a little room. They got the idea…

Cart flip watcher:
Yesterday I took Evan out and we picked up a few gifts. The parking lots were mostly clear but had snow, slush and hard packed ice in spots. When we were done, I put Evan in the truck and jogged with the cart the 40ft to the cart corral (which no one apparently uses when temperatures are under 40, but that’s another story…) I hit an unexpected patch of semi-soft snow into which the wheels of the shopping cart stuck. The cart came to an abrupt stop, but I didn’t. Some quick reactions and more than a little luck helped me vault over the cart and land on my feet. A girl 50ft away saw my trick and began laughing. Her family was kind enough to wait for me to stand up and say “Tada!” before joining in. Not a big deal, but making sure I was OK first might have been nice.

Ok, that’s all. Thankfully, there have been a number of nice people I’ve encountered, and I will say that Evan’s doing his part to spread Christmas cheer. Very few people can resist smiling when he runs up to them and says “hi!!!” We also made it through a couple of hours tonight without incident, which surprised me. All the same, I think I’ll be doing more Christmas shopping on Amazon.com next year…

This afternoon was the last performance of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” for the season, so Evan and I hung out backstage while Dusty was getting ready. Evan got to meet most of the cast and run around a bit, but his favorite element was the group of cloggers (ladies ranging from teenagers to retirees) warming up on the other side of the lobby.

Before he saw any of them dancing, he ran over to say hi. One of the cloggers bent over to talk to him and gave a few taps. Evan quickly returned the favor, stomping in his non-tapping shoes. Within a couple of minutes the whole group was clogging in a half circle as Evan twirled and stomped in the middle! When they finished their routine Evan led a round of applause and ran up and down the line giving high fives and shaking everyone’s hands. For some unknown reason, he skipped one of the ladies on both passes down the line. I guess now we’d better get him some tap shoes

Last week we had a quick ice storm come through, followed by about a foot of snow. In the area there have been a few roofs collapsing under the heavy snow and some businesses temporarily closed for fear of the same. On the north side of our roof we have two separate rooflines, and a large drift formed on the lower one against the upper one. I wasn’t too terribly worried about the weight of the snow, but I was worried about the many times the temperature has flucuated about the freezing point.

The problem when you have snow on the roof is that it can melt even when the outside temperatures are below freezing, since the air in the attic can be warmer due to heat leaking from the house. The water then runs down the roof until it gets over the eaves. In some cases, the roof is colder there than near the top and the water can freeze. If this happens enough, a dam of ice can build up near the edge of the roof. When this dam forms, melt water backs up and can get into your roof by going up under the shingles (shingles basically only work for water heading downwards).

Well, it appeared that this was happening on our roof, so for the past several days I’ve been trying an array of crazy ideas trying to knock the snow off, from ropes strung over the roof to a rake on a 35ft pole (it’s a two-story roof). I’d searched online for ideas, and the basic advice was 1. use a roof rake, 2. call a professional and 3. don’t get on the roof.

So anyway, today I got up on the roof. I stayed on the south side of the roof, which due to the sun was completely clear of snow and ice. I carefully used my 35ft duct tape-assembled rake to push most of the snow down off of the roof and discovered there was quite a bit of ice underneath, and it was starting to form a dam. Since we’re expecting higher temperatures next week, I figured the dam had to go before it let all the melt water into the house. I drug a hose up onto the roof and cut a small channel through the ice with hot water, giving the melt water a way to get past the ice and to the ground. After quite some time on the roof with temperatures in the teens, lots of wind, and getting wet from my inability to properly hold a hose, a cup of hot tea and a blanket were a welcome site!

From what I read, the icicles are often a sign that you’re getting an ice dam. They also say that the best remedy is to add some insulation to your attic, basically keeping all the heat inside the house, so that the attic is no warmer than the outside air.

For those of you outside the midwest, last night a winter storm came through and dumped ice then snow on us. Though the conditioned varied depending on where you were, we have about 12-16 inches of snow here.

When I got up this morning, it was still snowing and blowing pretty hard. I got phone calls from a few coworkers suggesting I not come in, and my brother called and said he’d made about 4 miles of progress in an hour in his jeep. That’s good enough for me! By the way, if any coworkers read this and don’t approve, just charge me a vacation day- I still have plenty

Around 9:30 the snow let up so I decided to venture out to see what the roads were like. I hadn’t really had the new truck out in the snow, so I figured this was a pretty good chance. First off, they hadn’t (and still haven’t) plowed the roads in our subdivision, so I had to plow through some pretty deep snow. Since I wasn’t having too much trouble I decided to head to the Walmart to pick up a few things we needed.

When I left Walmart, I decided to head home a different way. None of the roads anywhere had been plowed, but this way hadn’t had many vehicles come through. Right away I came across a young couple in a Cavalier with hopelessly bald tires stuck in the drift on the right side of the road. Ah, the first challenge of the day! I tried to push them and dig them out by hand, but we weren’t getting anywhere. I turned my truck around and hooked up a tow strap (it’s hard to find a spot of today’s unibody cars) and without too much trouble get them back onto the road. After unhooking, they started forward again, and even though the driver did everything right, the car slide right back where they were. After some failed attempts at pushing and some deliberation, I offered them the choice of a ride home or something a little more adventurous. They chose adventure. I hooked the strap back up, instructed the driver and proceeded to slowly tow the car backwards in neutral about a half mile to a point where the roads were passable. We pulled that off without incident and parted ways.

As I was looping back around I saw a guy in a Grand Am stuck right in the middle of the intersection of the highway in front of Walmart. He was cussing loudly into his phone, so I pulled up and asked if he needed help. Turns out this guy not only got stuck but locked his keys in the car as well. Nothing I could do for him, but he wasn’t very gracious anyway.

About a half mile past where I encountered the stranded Cavalier, I came across an older guy who had run his Trailblazer off the side of the off ramp. He was busily calling every tow company in the phone book but no one was promising anything. I asked him if he wanted to try pulling it out and he jumped at the chance. So, drove up the road a ways and turned around so I was facing the other way (note to self: get front tow hooks). We hooked up but we just couldn’t budge the thing. Way too heavy and way to stuck for my little truck. Admitting defeat, he accepted a ride and I took him to the McDonald’s up the road where he wanted to wait for the tow truck.

In the parking lot of the McDonald’s I had my first easy encounter of the day. Three guys were trying to get an Accord unstuck. Thankfully I had a shovel in the back, so after a little digging and a bit of pushing he was on his way.

When I got back into my neighborhood and about a block from my house, I had to stop for a couple of guys desparately trying to obey the parking ban by moving their car out of the road. They were stuck about half in an half out of the road and had been trying to shovel a spot for quite some time. A few of the neighbors pitched in and were were able to get the car back fully onto the road and shoveled for a little bit. Realizing how long it was going to take us to move that much snow, we decided the better plan was just to flatten the snow by running it over with my truck. That worked like a charm and saved a couple of hernias.

When I got home, I started shoveling the driveway. Before too long I noticed that snow was drifted up against the doors of the neighbors across the street so I went over and did a quick job of clearing the snow from immediately in front of the doors. About that time a car pulled into my driveway. They were there to help dig out one of the guys in the apartments. Together we dug and pushed his little 2WD S10 out to the road. Unfortunately, he thought it’d be a good idea to head down the road and look for a place to turn around. He got stuck in the middle of the intersection a block away so we took my truck and some shovels down to him. I pulled him back out of the deep stuff he’d gotten into and we got him turned around. Without too much trouble he got back to the entrance of his parking lot.

Meanwhile, his helper, driving another Cavalier, had backed out of my driveway and gotten pretty well stuck in the road. We all dug and pushed for quite a while, but she was pretty well high centered in the deep stuff. Now having experience in extracting Cavaliers, we hooked her up with a strap and got her pulled back into the shallows. A couple of pushings later, both of them were on their way to plowed roads.

Not having made a lot of progress on the driveway, I headed inside to have lunch, since Evan had woken up from his nap. Afterwards I headed outside to finish the driveway. When I’d about finished, my neighbor and her son had the good fortune of a guy on a small tractor plowing their driveway for them. They’d been shoveling quite some time to get their Camry out of the road and into the driveway. I went over and helped finish digging out from underneath the car, which was so grounded out that one of the wheels wasn’t touching the ground With the help of a couple of neighbors we got the car pushed into the clear of the driveway. With that I headed inside to warm up and put on my third pair of pants of the day.

Around dinner time, Dusty was feeling a bit of cabin fever and the plows had cleared most of the main roads, so we decided to head out to see what things were like an find a bite to eat. Only two places were open. When we returned home, I pulled into the deep snow so Dusty could reach out the window to get the mail. The mail hadn’t come. I’d always heard “the mail most go through!” Guess that’s a myth, not that I blame them.

I had to go around the block to get turned around, so I headed up this loop road. It was deep and hadn’t been plowed, but I’d been through stuff like that earlier in the day and knew it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Well, not for US anyway. Near the top of the hill we came across a family in a Trailblazer who were having trouble making it the last half block to their house. I hopped out and helped dig a little bit and before too long they were able to make some progress. Unfortunately, the wife turned a little too sharp making the left turn before their house and got into the deep uncharted territory. We got out again and helped dig and push, but they had a lot of snow packed underneath of them – those Trailblazers apparently don’t have very good ground clearance, especially that spare tire hanging down under the back of the vehicle. Fortunately they had some front tow hooks and suggested I try pulling them. I pulled off into the deep snow and went around the front of them. Once again, however, Cavaliers posed little challenge while Trailblazers proved too heavy. We did manage to get them dug out and into their driveway, though it took a while longer.

Today was fun. It was fun to mess around in the snow and it felt good to be able to help a few people in need. I’m also very proud of how my truck handles the snow. Even snow up the to bumper didn’t cause any real trouble, despite the very non-aggressive OEM all-season tires. I’m also thinking this might be my longest post ever, but then again, it was a pretty long day.