I promised myself when I started this blog that I would limit my posts to one a week. Then it stretched into two.

Carving one of my weeks into just two slices makes for very long posts which I don’t have time to write and you don’t have time to read.

Since I’m getting backed up more each day when I don’t post, I therefore must flush posts more often than originally planned. Perhaps every time you are seated in one of your pre-flush activities, you can utilize your time better by grabbing your phone and check out my after-flush post.

My day today included calling Karla O’Malley (who I labeled yesterday as a girl who had a crush on me in high school and looked at me with adoration on the school bus every night). I warned her that I had posted our prior romantic information online for the world to become familiar with. She was nice, didn’t have a problem with my description of our relationship and we had a nice talk.

I have never met her son Shawn but watched him played Spring Ball with the Mariners in Arizona this last March. Didn’t get to meet him but I did get to meet a few fellow fans in the crowd who wanted my autograph after I introduced myself as the guy who Shawn’s mom had a crush on in high school. My wife was not one of them.

 

After we hung up, my first business of the day was dismantling the multiple framuses that I’ve installed on grain bins over the last several years. One of the counterweight cross pieces I took down caused me some problems on the underneath section as can be seen above.

I should have started this dismantling process last December since I would have had a few less dogfights in the sky with this squadron of wasps. My manlift is not near as agile at bin roof altitudes as these little stingers with wings are.

Unlike most fighter pilots, I didn’t have a parachute on. So, I resigned myself to staying in the cockpit and swinging wildly in the air until I finally got my manlift basket landed. I think the trip down this morning was the slowest those hydraulics have ever gone.

Several people drove by during the battle. They probably thought I was just being overly emphatic with my waves to them. Actually, my waves had nothing to do with them.

My next order of business was cleaning out some rotten corn that was on the floor of  a bin containing a bit of bottom-dwelling corn that got some rain damage. I should have carried it out in a bucket but took the “easy” way of using an auger. Pretty quick the pit auger froze up and you’ll never guess why.

I popped the top off the auger tube to find the problem. At first, it was difficult to find the problem because there was a concrete-like compaction of newer and older corn hiding my view of what was wrong with the auger.

The multi-colored mosaic initially was quite eye-catching and interesting. I thought about putting a couple coats of varnish on it before photographing just to make it a little more shiny and impressive.

I’m glad I didn’t. Soon I realized that perhaps this tube full of vulcanized corn was not hiding the problem. It was the problem!

Hammers, pry bars, skinned knuckles and fairly loud and exuberant exclamations filled the bulk of the morning hours after Karla’s pleasant call.

 

When I finally got it cleaned out I kicked the power on and walked around to make sure everything was running properly. Walking back into the control room, I noticed a smell similar to an overheated car and flames on the wall like a boy scout campfire. (Notice how I didn’t capitalize the boy scout portion since I’m a little at odds with the way they’ve radically changed their program in order to be politically correct.)

Back to the out of control fire. I flailed away and finally got the flames out. The afternoon was spent replacing and repairing burnt electrical components. By the time I finished, I decided to take a break from the hot afternoon and relax. I figured if I did nothing else, then nothing else could go wrong.

 

My buddy Scot stopped by and I sat down on the concrete ledge to show him the burnt electrical breaker. The breaker can be seen next to where I was sitting just before the next round of bad news.

I had no idea Scot was going to grab the tube of the framus housing the wasp nest. Scot had no idea there was a kingdom of wasps just above his hand. Who’da thought he’d bang it against the bin in an apparent effort to dispel the boredom of me talking to him.

His idea worked. Two seconds later there were two grown men running for their lives. Let just say there was some stinging going on and Scot should have been but wasn’t the recipient.

Another day in paradise. Maybe I should just stay in bed tomorrow.

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