President I'm yer Jimmy Dad.

Just a couple random thoughts on some of the cr*p we have to endure on the TV over here. Seems the news mongers think we give a rat's tiny behind about some guy in the middle east who clearly is in need of a shave.
Shouldn't we be sending these people razors?

OK so, this guy ....... gets "elected"....(wink wink, nudge nudge) and a bunch of towel heads are protesting in the streets.

And somehow I need to know this?

(seems to be getting that thumb awfully close to his nose, isn't he?)

Isn't the supreme towel head the guy who's really in charge? Isn't that why they punted out the Shah?Ya....that guy.

Personally I'm not sure I could wander around a hot country like that with a towel on my head, unless of course there's some way of getting and keeping it wet.

Maybe that's it! I've figured it out! It's to hide from your enemies!


Get the towel wet and wrap it around yer noggin'!



OK so, shopping list for the care package we ought to be sending these guys.

(hey, I'm trying to be generous here)

1) Razor blades.
2) Fresh towels.
3) More of those GPS tracking device remover thingies so they don't need so many towels. Note glowing red object in Arnold's schnozz.

No shaving cream, they can dry shave....to hell with 'em.





Now while we're on the nauseating presidential theme, this story reminds me of a more recent development, where three "tourists" were captured on the border between Iraq and Iran.
All I want to know is, what were they doing there? What were they thinking?
Same here....there are some countries you need to stay away from. Unless of course, you don't mind if they decide to keep you.

What makes you think you're so special?
"Oh I'm an American Journalist....I can go anywhere!"

Not.


Is there going to be a list of damsels in distress that need saving? Who decides?

I guess if they were my two daughters then yes, I'd certainly be concerned. But I think I would have been more concerned much earlier on when they started to show signs that they were total retards.....

This is a very strong argument for teaching your children throughout their formative years that in fact, there are some things that you simply cannot do....

Such as...

1) Dash out in traffic without looking...
(how many times have I seen hapless parents telling their children to "stop", only to have their head strong little miscreant do what ever the hell they want anyway)

2) Go to foreign countries and think you can do whatever the blazes you choose.
(I've been in a few "foreign" countries so far, and I've really tempted to just slap some of the visitors I've seen. Honestly! What? You don't like it here? Go home!)

3) oh...I could just go on....


Now that I'm in a thoroughly pissy mood, I'll leave it at that.

No travelogue today. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.

A brief diversion.

We'll get back to the "travelog" at some point in time.

I'm sure you care.

Remember when people would go to far off places and bring back slide shows, and you'd pay a couple bucks at the library and they'd do a little show and tell?
I guess blogging pretty much put an end to that little cottage industry.


But I digress.


Today's plan involved Gabe going to the salon for "kleur" (colour) so I had made an appointment yesterday for first thing this morning. That's because I'm the "go to" guy when it comes to making reservations or appointments on the phone. Ya gotta know the lingo...
This usually involves me dropping her off with the car and then fetching her again after an hour or so. There was also some treats to be picked up for the accounting staff (I guess since she's getting out of Dodge).
and well, the long and the short of it is, I ended up with the car for the day.

This meant I could go to my favourite store ever, and see if I could find a couple things.




Here's the thing.

If all goes according to plan, and notice is given to our Landlord by the 15th of this month, that means we're still effectively here for another 60 days.

That's the deal.

What this means is, Muggin' here has to cut the grass what? eight? nine more times? That would be my guess.

Now, last year sometime our good ole' landlord said he would fix the lawnmower, since the handle was showing signs of wear but alas, that never happened. He was also going to come around and fetch the thing, have the blade sharpened.....bla bla bla.....

(Hey....it's his flippin' lawnmower, OK?)


Whatever. In two months, he can....well, I won't say what he can do with his "wonder machine" or the dryer....or his lawn mower. But you kind of have the idea that there's a metal recyclers around here somewhere who really needs to be paid a visit.

The thing is, I don't really mind cutting the grass. I never really minded cutting grass. It all has to do with the equipment. If you're using a piece of junk, it's not a lot of fun. Our last lawnmower was a two stroke, and in spite of the several good features that it had, the fact of the matter was, it stunk.
So getting others to use the thing was a bit of a chore, and I wasn't overly keen on using the thing myself either.
What that meant was that way, way back when we went to Puerto Rico and got a lawn service, we decided that grass cutting was no longer going to be high on our list of things one simply did as a matter of course.

Meanwhile, here I am, once again stuck with a piece of junk, and I somehow have to keep the handle from breaking off.
See, the machine is heavy, and under engineered. To simply order a new handle isn't going to fix the problem, since it's too frail to start with. It was beginning to give up the ghost last summer already.
If you look closely just to the right of the knob, (click the pic) you can see the bloody handle is nearly fatigued all the way through.


Ideally, finding a piece of tubing just one size smaller and inserting it would probably work.
Good luck with that.
I could probably come up with a couple places around Burlington where I'd begin to search, but over here? C'mon!

So....here are the items that we have to work with.
Oh ya. That's duct tape. I do have some grey in my tool box, but decided to spring for some black, just for the aesthetics. Plus the hope is that the little "splints" will keep the thing from completely coming asunder for a few more weeks.

I just can't wait until next week to try it out. Phuh.


It's still a little bit wobbly, but the handle's not going anywhere.

Keep yer sticks on the ice.

(just in keeping with the duct tape theme)

A need to be consistent.

Remember the analogy I gave not long ago to sailing? Well, that seems to be my problem since, in spite of my best intentions, I failed to utter a peep over the last several days. (we've been frantically tacking....or something)

The thing is, after traipsing around Paris for an entire day, it was all I could do to even turn on the computer, let alone figure out what to say.

Meanwhile.....since our guests were going to be taking the train to Paris on the Wednesday, I offered to once again get them to Amsterdam. This time though, by making a slight detour to have a look at the Afluitdijk

We were making use of the replacement car, which surprisingly had enough room, including for four suitcases. By enough, I do mean barely, but we did it.
Betty is pretending she doesn't mind sitting there....
On the way, we stopped in a little village called Giethoorn

..to snarf down some lunch since, even though we wanted to look around a bit, we really weren't too sure how much time we actually had, since the train was leaving Amsterdam Centraal at something like 16:20.
Giethoorn is supposedly the "Venice of the north", although we all agreed that it was certainly on a much smaller scale. If you wanted to step out your front door and go almost anywhere in the Netherlands on your boat, like these folks...



Giethoorn is the place.

And now for a brief Dutch lesson. Like the "ch" in the scottish "loch", the "G" in Giethoorn is pronounced in a similar fashion. Also, the verb "gieten", means "to pour" and a watering can, is a "gieter".
Not like James Cagney carrying a "heater", but the pronounciation is close.


We did manage to get to the train station at something like five to four, which worked out perfectly. I only took the following two photos to give an impression of the bike parking at the train station. Some quarter million passengers go through this station every day, and around 6000 of them leave their bikes. That's just an estimate however. Could be more.
I didn't quite make it back to the Hengelo area in time to pick up the Audi, so we had to do that in the morning. Since we were on the way to Bonn, that meant having to transfer luggage yet again...
They had drained the fuel, changed the filters and acted like it was not a big deal. Total cost €270. The biggest surprise was that the costs were covered by the leasing company.
Huh?
They must have some sort of idiot clause in there some where...

I had a fairly good idea that it wasn't that big a *deal, but you just never know with car dealerships. I figured we'd be in for some sort of nasty surprise.

*there are those who will run up to 20% gasoline in their diesels when the temperature gets down below -20°C. Keeps the fuel from crystalising....

That's going to be about it for now.....with just a couple interuptions, this has already evaporated a considerable part of the day. I might just float on in later though.