Definitely not.

So... how does one end up at the urgent care facility having one's thumb glued together, from installing path lighting? Allow me to 'splain...

So, the path lights we bought a dozen of came, as such things do, in pieces. First, you turn them on (or rather to "auto"), then you place in the inner diffuser, then the outer light cover (this to defocus the blue-white LED that is the rather pretty light source), and then you do the stake. This consists of a plastic ground stake, and a length of rather crappy quality pipe. The ends of the pipe are rather rough and sharp. You place the spike on the end of the pipe, and you push this into the ground.

Or rather, you attempt to. We're on a heavy clay, and so on several attempts, the spike merely telescoped into the pipe. Naturally, I had to fix this; I did so using the handle of the two-part lug wrench (wheelbrace, for the British audience) which came with my car (newly furnished with a locking filler cap, thanks to the flap's untimely departure; I keep at least $70 worth of petrol in there, I'd like a little security if the cap's sitting out fully exposed), pushing the substantial length of metal into the pipe and forcing the spike back out.

Until one, where I was a little too vigorous, and succeeded in slamming the end of my thumb into the mouth of the pipe.

We initially attempted a fix with a knuckle band-aid; I bled right through depressingly fast, and so it was off to urgent care we went, to wait a long while (I had a book, the LA her puzzles; we coped), where I was the demonstration model as the medical assistant was shown the use of Dermabond. Dermabond, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is simply very pure, hypoallergenic cyanoacrylate. Superglue.

And so my thumb is glued together, and should heal with little scarring, although if it does scar, it won't be alone. I do wonder, though, if it scars, do I have to notify the INS? And will their scanner error out like it did on several of my other fingerprints?

Not the best of weeks.

So far, at any rate. The LA has had trouble remembering to keep herself supplied with soda at the office, and as for me... well, I've been forgetting to get stuff when grocery shopping, and yesterday was a really un-fun day.

It started with a cold shower. The water heater's pilot light had gone out. I relit it, and got on with the day... making an emergency soda run to the LA's office, where I arrived just while she was out of the office, of course. Then I had to fill up my car... and the hinge of the flap covering the actual petrol cap broke, causing the flap to fly about four feet forward as it detached itself by means of the spring which keeps it closed. The resulting lack of flap is ugly and unaerodynamic (insofar as my brick is at all aerodynamic) and so I've ordered a replacement hinge (which should, per the Post Office's FAQ, arrive on Monday) and wil be enjoying the process of installing that when it gets here. By mid-afternoon yesterday, I was triggery and unhappy, and finished up having to call short the knitting evening I regularly go to on Wednesdays, forcing the LA to drive me home (and normally, I drive; yesterday, I was in no fit state to).

And this morning... the water heater was out again. Burst, in fact, and pouring water into the crawlspace. The owner of this house is notoriously difficult to contact, and today has been no exception; fortunately, the property management company is willing to take what heat there may be and has said "This needs to be fixed now. Do it." The plumbers are, as I type, finding a suitable replacement water heater for the 1994-vintage one we had been using.

I'm at a loss as to why the intake pipe was lagged while the output one wasn't. Ah well.

A nation of shoppers.

I'm rather lucky where I live; ignoring the abusive employer, I have three different supermarkets (US English: grocery stores) within a reasonable distance of my home. I shop at all three; one is good for basics, but doesn't do produce well, one does produce exceptionally well but can be tricky to find basics in, and one has more esoteric stuff (such things as cheese with flavour, beer with flavour, steel-cut oats for my breakfasts, and so on) that the other two don't carry.

Unfortunately, until today, all three of them lacked something I wish was more common: peeled shrimp/prawns. Shell-on, sure. Tail-on, sure, but you know what? Like everyone else on the planet, I don't eat the tail. It has no place in my food.

Fortunately, today I found such shrimp. They'll be a regular item as long as I can get 'em.

Now, if only I had any idea how to cook swordfish...

Take care with your advertising.

There's a discount grocery store chain that has branches in this area. There's one very near me, in fact. They advertise heavily on the annoying radio station the LA and I use to get ourselves out of bed in the morning, and so I hear their advert on a regular basis.

It's convinced me regarding my custom there; I'm never going to set foot in that benighted place.

You see their one advert is presented as an "interview" with their "whistleblower", otherwise known as a mystery shopper, who price-checks other places. They proudly proclaim that "he" works sixty hours a week making sure their prices are the lowest. Let me reiterate: sixty hours a week.

No company that considers 60 hours an acceptable work week deserves my money. Whether it's six ten-hour shifts or five twelve-hour shifts, that's too much work. I have this crazy idea that everyone deserves to have a life outside of work.

Linguistic diffusion

Those of you who've spoken with me will know of my affinity for wordplay, silly turns of phrase, and general tomfoolery with language. I enjoy producing intelligible sentences which express my meaning in unexpected ways.

One turn of phrase I particularly like is noting that "his budgie's fallen off" when seeing a particularly pronounced spoiler on a car. It expresses the disdain I feel for someone who actually thinks such a thing does anything but cause drag on a road car.

Tonight, the LA made me rather happy, as we were circulating looking for a parking space at the knitting group; she commented upon "the car with the missing budgie". It took me a moment to realise she was using the wordplay I'd picked up from my father; she was commenting upon the Subaru with the huge spoiler which was badly parked right where I'd have liked to park.

I do believe I'm rubbing off on her.

An interesting diversion

Last Monday, my younger sister arrived on a plane. She'd decided to come and play tourist, since last time she was over here (almost two years ago; I really have been married for that long!) she was only here for three days, and didn't get to do much. She certainly fixed that this time!

We started off with a jaunt to Muir Woods, via the Golden Gate. That was a full day, and very enjoyable; quite apart from the attractions, I got to drive some very nice roads! We also went up Mount Diablo, and then she started going into the City, without me or the LA with her. She's a big girl, and can handle it; and besides, I was coming down with lurgi.

Of course, as you no doubt know, while she was over here, Iceland got a zit. It's a young landmass, one must expect these things; but it closed British airspace. We're accounting her very lucky to have been minimally disrupted; she's at the airport now, and her flight is scheduled to leave today as planned.

Reading the instructions

I'm rather atypical for a male. Reading the instructions is something I do as a first resort, not the last resort. I'll cheerfully leap into a job and work out how to do it as I go, but if there are instructions, I'll read them, and despite my ancestry, I'll generally make the effort to use the correct tools.

In the case of Silas vs. the Alloy Wheels, that meant a torque wrench for setting the wheel nuts correctly. The spider I keep with the spare is excellent for taking off the nuts, since it's got rather more leverage than the included two-part wrench, but since today I was performing a long-term swap from the steel wheels the previous owners had on the car to alloys, I wanted a better metric for how to set the torque than simply noting how much I had to grunt to break the nuts free.

This is rendered important by the spec for this car. Most cars specify wheel nut torque in the region of 85-100 foot pounds, while applying that much torque to the nuts on this car would be Bad. It's specced at 85Nm, which translates to roughly 65 foot pounds. This little detail is stamped into the front hubs, visible while torquing the nuts, and so one would hope that even places which don't know this already would notice. Sadly, when I removed the front wheels, I found that they'd been set to typical torque specs - the 85-100 foot pounds that flirts with stripping the studs on this car.

Still, I now have Volvo alloy wheels fitted, and they do look nice. Quite an improvement in looks over the steel wheels it did have, especially considering it was using the original, much-abused hubcaps. The alloys are also lighter, which will translate to improved ride and handling due to the lower unsprung weight. This may also improve fuel economy, although this will probably not be significant. And finally, I'm feeling a nice sense of satisfaction in having achieved the swap without help (and, usefully, without a peanut gallery) and not broken a single thing, or found anything bojangled. The latter part is somewhat rare; it can be unwelcome to begin a repair, as one will almost always uncover another problem in the course of reaching the first...