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So, we loved our fireplace contractor so much that we hired him to do our back deck and our bathroom. He's an amazing flake, but once he shows up, he does top-notch work at a reasonable price.
As I've mentioned, the bathroom project ran just under 5 months late. The first week, his team showed up, set up the temporary shower, tore out the old bathroom, and we were up and running!
Then... he put in the subcontractor who even he describes as a "total flake".
This guy's been working alone for 2 weeks now. He shows up between 11 and 12, works 'til 4 or 4:30, cleans up, and calls it a day. His work is top-notch, but in 2 weeks he's done the wiring. And one pipe. And today he hasn't shown up at all.
Plus side: Great work, all up to code, work site 100% COVID-safe (can't transmit with just one guy on-site)
Down side: At the rate he's working, we might not have a bathroom 'til August.
He needs to focus on his work, dammit.
Or maybe he has no other work to do so he spreads this one to cover longer time instead of having to sit doing nothing for the next three weeks...
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I know when I work on a project it seems like at first I'm going slow but really I'm just laying the groundwork so I pick up speed as the project unfolds.
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I guess I can give a small update on my folks. Had a text conversation with my Mom today. She's doing a little better, not much, but better is better. Dad, on the other hand, isn't. He isn't getting any worse, but he isn't getting any better either. His O2 levels just won't come back up. So he's supposed to get a chest CT Thursday afternoon so they can see if there is any fluid buildup in his lungs or something. Hopefully they'll be able to find something that they can work with to get him feeling better. So I guess there's some good news in there.
Really hope your mom continues to improve and that your dad's health turns the corner for the better. There was a segment on tonight's evening news about how many hospitals have received monoclonal antibodies for treating COVID, but have been slow to use them. Basically the gist was you had to talk to the doctors and be your own advocate for treatment options. I don't know what hospital options your parents have, but you might bring it up next time you meet their doctors.
Best wishes they both pull through this with minimal complications.
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I will, I've had crayfish, I don't get why people eat them.
Crayfish (crawfish, crawdads, crawdaddies, mudbugs, etc...) are, in my opinion, not great, and certainly not worth the effort to eat them. But maybe that's because I wasn't drinking for the 3 hours of prep that goes into a boil.
I've never cooked crayfish at home, but a decade+ ago, I used to be able to get them at the local Shell's Seafood restaurant (a chain). They were in just a simple cream & white wine sauce with linguine and a generous seasoning of Cajun spices, and the (shelled) crayfish were cooked to be juicy & tender. Served with a good chunk of extra-garlicly garlic bread and a couple mugs of peppery Irish red-amber lager from the taps... OMG, that was the only times I was ever close to re-enacting Meg Ryan's restaurant scene from When Harry Met Sally. My mall job was close by, so I used to pop by there 2-3 times a month and get it for takeout (sans beer), then eat it sitting in the car in the parking lot involuntarily making slightly carnal noises. If the chain hadn't overextended themselves and closed that location, my cholesterol level would be over 9000.
I've got a close approximation of recipe written down on an index card somewhere, and it's pretty good with chicken or shrimp, but I never figured out their exact blend of Cajun spices. And crayfish are too damn expensive.
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I keep seeing signs for a person who lost an election months after the fact.
Think if I put signs that say "lost and cried about it like a child" next to them they'll take them down?
This isn't political. I didn't say who or for what election. It's about visual pollution needing to be cleaned. Yeah. That's it.
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We discussed the fact that Wolverine is just two Batmans kissing.
And the ideal gathering places for milkmaids.
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I will, I've had crayfish, I don't get why people eat them.Crayfish (crawfish, crawdads, crawdaddies, mudbugs, etc...) are, in my opinion, not great, and certainly not worth the effort to eat them. But maybe that's because I wasn't drinking for the 3 hours of prep that goes into a boil.I've never cooked crayfish at home, but a decade+ ago, I used to be able to get them at the local Shell's Seafood restaurant (a chain). They were in just a simple cream & white wine sauce with linguine and a generous seasoning of Cajun spices, and the (shelled) crayfish were cooked to be juicy & tender. Served with a good chunk of extra-garlicly garlic bread and a couple mugs of peppery Irish red-amber lager from the taps... OMG, that was the only times I was ever close to re-enacting Meg Ryan's restaurant scene from When Harry Met Sally.
My culinary skills will not fall to a distant second behind my carnal ones.
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I keep seeing signs for a person who lost an election months after the fact.
Hilariously, I received an add begging for my help on inauguration day.
I actually started laughing - especially as I only read it the day after.
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When you have about 20% of a normal sense of taste and smell you become more of a visual eater.
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I keep seeing signs for a person who lost an election months after the fact.Hilariously, I received an add begging for my help on inauguration day.
I actually started laughing - especially as I only read it the day after.
Years ago I told a democratic fund raising caller if they ever called me again I'd vote for Mike Huckabee.
It worked until the primary when a certain candidate from New York's people accidentally called me, I told them no, they weren't getting any of my money and that was that.
Two weeks later I started receiving mailers and calls from the opposition.
Coincidence? Probably, but it's still pretty hilarious.
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Never had crawfish. Every once in a while I'll buy a bag of mussels and a cheap bottle of white wine and steam them, or I get imitation crab/pre-cooked shrimp to add to a butter/garlic linguine. That's about as fancy as my seafood gets these days. My ex was the real shellfish fiend, I never really acquired the taste I guess.
Part of that is just geography. It's really hard to get actually good seafood in the Midwest. It's one of those things that really needs to be fresh to be at its best.
Now, walleye, lake trout, catfish, etc...Minnesota and Wisconsin definitely has you covered. Beef and pork? Absolutely.
There's a guy who, in The Before Times, ran a Cajun restaurant just outside of LaSalle-Peru and a little north of Utica near Starved Rock. I don't know if he's been able to stay open or not, or if he's going to reopen if he couldn't, but under normal times he would only be open 4 days a week. The other three days he would drive halfway to Louisiana and meet his brother, who was driving north from Louisiana. Then they would swap trucks and that's the week's supply of fresh oysters, alligator, fish, etc straight out of the Bayou. One of the best Cajun places I've ever been to, but it only happens due to extraordinary effort and love of what he was doing.
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As far as we can tell, there's a certain flavor element in shellfish that makes them delectable to most people. Unfortunately, for me that flavor element comes through as a taste of rotting seawater. So if I get crab or lobster, it always tastes like it's rotten, even when GothBard gave me "the best crab you'll ever taste".
When an entire section of the seafood department always tastes rotten to you, you tend to avoid it.
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Never had crawfish. Every once in a while I'll buy a bag of mussels and a cheap bottle of white wine and steam them, or I get imitation crab/pre-cooked shrimp to add to a butter/garlic linguine. That's about as fancy as my seafood gets these days. My ex was the real shellfish fiend, I never really acquired the taste I guess.
Part of that is just geography. It's really hard to get actually good seafood in the Midwest. It's one of those things that really needs to be fresh to be at its best.
Now, walleye, lake trout, catfish, etc...Minnesota and Wisconsin definitely has you covered. Beef and pork? Absolutely.
There's a guy who, in The Before Times, ran a Cajun restaurant just outside of LaSalle-Peru and a little north of Utica near Starved Rock. I don't know if he's been able to stay open or not, or if he's going to reopen if he couldn't, but under normal times he would only be open 4 days a week. The other three days he would drive halfway to Louisiana and meet his brother, who was driving north from Louisiana. Then they would swap trucks and that's the week's supply of fresh oysters, alligator, fish, etc straight out of the Bayou. One of the best Cajun places I've ever been to, but it only happens due to extraordinary effort and love of what he was doing.
You forgot Perch.
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This sounds more like a gypsy curse. When you were a kid, did you ever violate someone's sacred burial ground or perhaps spurn the love of a beautiful traveler girl?As far as we can tell, there's a certain flavor element in shellfish that makes them delectable to most people. Unfortunately, for me that flavor element comes through as a taste of rotting seawater. So if I get crab or lobster, it always tastes like it's rotten, even when GothBard gave me "the best crab you'll ever taste".
When an entire section of the seafood department always tastes rotten to you, you tend to avoid it.
Oh, many times on the first. Especially if you count jumping into the back of a squareback VW while it was peeling away with a bunch of screaming young punks after accidentally disturbing a funeral.
On the second, not so much...
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Just a reminder:
For the Romani people, 'gypsy' is a racial slur. And a lot of dictionaries and writing guides now flag it as a perjorative and/or warn that its use is not acceptable in formal writing.
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I eat fish.
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Today's Big Fail: trying to play the harmonica. All you have to do is huff into a sort of grid filled with vibrating reeds, but I couldn't even make a success of that. My life.
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I've had a harmonica since I was a baby.
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I've had a harmonica since I was a baby.
I've had them in the past; I'm sure I could play them before, but I damn' well couldn't this evening. Horrible.
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Limey may fall into a creature type without the need to breathe.
Can't breathe to save his life?
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And WandaVision absolutely nailed the target TV era yet again.
I am loving this show.
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I don't understand people who don't love good seafood, particularly shellfish, in precisely the same way that some of my atheist friends, particularly the Ersatz Russian, do not understand people who feel the need to pray to a Divine being.
Personally, I need both.
So it's probably no coincidence that I consider a good crawfish boil a religious experience.
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I'm sure this is political, but I'm insulting Texas, so I can get away with it.
I just have to say, it's a darned good thing I don't live there.
I was reading an article by a Californian who'd moved from the Bay Area to Austin to enjoy a "similar political climate" while at the same time saving massive amounts of money and stress on housing and commuting.
His litany of woes was extremely telling, but the one that really resonated with me was his section on "The Dishonesty", where he went into great detail about how if you're living in the Austin area, you're supposed to assume that everyone is trying to rip you off, so you have to do due diligence on every garage, every restaurant, every contractor, and every landlord you ever do business with. If you don't do due diligence, you deserve to get ripped off.
It comes up because my contractor pointed out that all the pipes under the bathroom were corroded and it'd be $2000 to fix them. I said, "OK."
Shiro said, "That's enough to re-pipe the entire house!"
This afternoon I called down to one of the guys working, "Geez, it seems like you're re-piping the entire thing under there!"
"That's what we're doing, dude! That's what you paid for!"
So I had no idea what I was paying for, I just said, "Fix it and make it better," and they're doing everything for me honestly and with excellent quality.
Apparently in Texas I'd be toast.
EDIT: Here's the article, though it's behind a paywall so I don't know that you'll get much out of it. (I run Firefox with NoScript, so apparently I accidentally pierce paywalls with some regularity because site designers don't know what the heck they're doing.)
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I don't understand people who don't love good seafood, particularly shellfish, in precisely the same way that some of my atheist friends, particularly the Ersatz Russian, do not understand people who feel the need to pray to a Divine being.
Personally, I need both.
So it's probably no coincidence that I consider a good crawfish boil a religious experience.
Eh, it's fine if they don't like seafood; that's just more left for those of us who do.
Although, I'm not sure I like crawfish* themselves so much as I love that they are a superb vehicle for conveying garlic + fat (butter & cream) + carbs (pasta) onto my tastebuds and into my stomach.
* Also includes shrimp, lobster, and escargot.
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I eat fish.I eat fish as well, but I've rarely been impressed by it.
I haven't eaten your fish before.
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Hope your family is getting better gran.
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We discussed the fact that Wolverine is just two Batmans kissing.
And the ideal gathering places for milkmaids.
I saw that picture and now I am traumatized thank you.
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well or a too Mature reply.
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I'm sure this is political, but I'm insulting Texas, so I can get away with it.
I just have to say, it's a darned good thing I don't live there.
I was reading an article by a Californian who'd moved from the Bay Area to Austin to enjoy a "similar political climate" while at the same time saving massive amounts of money and stress on housing and commuting.
His litany of woes was extremely telling, but the one that really resonated with me was his section on "The Dishonesty", where he went into great detail about how if you're living in the Austin area, you're supposed to assume that everyone is trying to rip you off, so you have to do due diligence on every garage, every restaurant, every contractor, and every landlord you ever do business with. If you don't do due diligence, you deserve to get ripped off.
It comes up because my contractor pointed out that all the pipes under the bathroom were corroded and it'd be $2000 to fix them. I said, "OK."
Shiro said, "That's enough to re-pipe the entire house!"
This afternoon I called down to one of the guys working, "Geez, it seems like you're re-piping the entire thing under there!"
"That's what we're doing, dude! That's what you paid for!"So I had no idea what I was paying for, I just said, "Fix it and make it better," and they're doing everything for me honestly and with excellent quality.
Apparently in Texas I'd be toast.
EDIT: Here's the article, though it's behind a paywall so I don't know that you'll get much out of it. (I run Firefox with NoScript, so apparently I accidentally pierce paywalls with some regularity because site designers don't know what the heck they're doing.)
There's so much more to insult Texas for.
But they sure have cheap land and delicious food.
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At least Texas has natural beauty, even if most of the people are b~+!+#+ crazy.
Iowa on the other hand...
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I cannot fault either of those statements.
I know absolutely nothing about Austin, other than the fact that it is the capital, it's the heart of the Texas music scene, and its reputation throughout the rest of the state is roughly equal to that of Berkeley, Ashland, and Portland combined.
If you want to see someone sing bluegrass in Bulgarian while spinning poi on a unicycle wearing a save the gay baby whales for Jesus t-shirt, that is allegedly where you would go. But, the venue would be a killer local craft brewery with some of the best damn barbecue you've ever eaten.
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In other news, I finally got my second permanent crown this morning, only a freaking month after the root canal and the temporary. Now I have absolutely no pain on the left side of my mouth for the first time since before Val was born.
Which is pretty awesome.
And I have an appointment to go in next month for a consult on the upper molar on the right side where I got the failed root canal and crown in 2007 to see about an extraction and implant, so my mouth will finally be back to "normal".
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In other news, I finally got my second permanent crown this morning, only a freaking month after the root canal and the temporary. Now I have absolutely no pain on the left side of my mouth for the first time since before Val was born.
Which is pretty awesome.
And I have an appointment to go in next month for a consult on the upper molar on the right side where I got the failed root canal and crown in 2007 to see about an extraction and implant, so my mouth will finally be back to "normal".
I'm glad to hear you are no longer in pain.
Women handle pain far better than men for the most part.
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I also need one more part to have a fully functional Treppa.
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In other news, FAWTL almost became allied with Comstar. I found out that if you do that EVERYONE will hate you. So we are still a regular mercenary company at this point.