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Wednesday, 22 February 2012 2:59 |
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by Mark Hunter
Over the summer I demolished my home’s chimney, as a result of the earlier discovery that the chimney was trying to demolish itself. Many people, when faced with such a chore, will bring in various power equipment, up to and including such things as portable generators and air compressors, and maybe a lift to get them up to the top safely.
I did it with a hammer.
The bricks about halfway down my chimney started deteriorating not long after I bought my house, which as nearly as I can determine was built in 1879 by two drunk teenagers and a trained monkey. The monkey did good work, for a monkey. I had the chimney patched at the same time a new rubber roofing was put over my kitchen twenty years ago, and they both held up longer than expected.
But over last winter the roof started leaking again, and when I went out in the spring (I don’t go outside during winter; instead I send a robot who looks like me) I discovered a hole the size of my head all the way through the bricks to the liner. I’m not talking a normal head, either: I’m talking a big head, like the swelled one I got after my book was published but before I realized I still had to work for a living.
Chimney experts – graduates of the Indiana School of Understanding Chimneys, or I-SUC – informed me it would cost more to fix the chimney than it was worth, something I’d already figured out for myself. They didn’t mention how much trouble it would be to vent my furnace and water heater a different way … that’s a whole other expensive story.
Faced with a chimney that could go over any which way in the next strong wind, and with election season promising many strong winds in 2012, I searched my heart and my wallet, and decided to take it down myself.
Okay, say it all together. Ready:
“What could possibly go wrong?”
Well, the thing was literally falling apart; how hard could it be to help it along? I determined to save what bricks I could for use later, possibly in a fire pit or an Occupy Wall Street protest. Then I armed myself with a hammer, chisel, and crowbar. My intention: To pry out each individual brick, saving them and doing a controlled demolition to prevent property damage.
Stop laughing; it seemed like a reasonable plan.
I put my 20 foot extension ladder against the flat roof, then hauled up a roof ladder borrowed from a retired fire truck. These ladders have hooks on them, and I was able to slide it up to secure over the top peak on my two story house. That put me about thirty feet in the air, although after I crossed the flat roof, climbed the short peak, clambered across the second pitched room, and got to the roof ladder near the edge, I discovered the obvious: it was a lot higher from that position.
I don’t need to add, this all happened during a heat wave.
At the top of my chimney was a cap, made of slabs of concrete much heavier than a single brick. Truth in advertising: I had already experienced all this up to that point, having been called to many chimney fires over the years. At least this one wasn’t puffing smoke in my face.
From then on the surprises started.
I put the chisel in one hand and experimentally tapped it with the hammer, trying to loosen the mortar under the cap. Nothing. No surprise: I hit it harder. Nothing. While clinging to the chimney, with the rungs of a ladder keeping me from sliding off the roof, I hit the chisel as hard as I could.
It put a tiny dent in the mortar. The mortar was, in fact, still as hard and strong as the same year the chimney went up. Not only that, but there at the top the bricks were so solid and whole that I suspect everything above the level of the pitched roof was newer than the rest of the chimney. Unfortunately that wouldn’t help, as it only made for one big solid hunk that could crash through my roof when the stuff below it finally collapsed.
It took me all day to get just the top cap off.
You’re no doubt wondering what I planned to do with the bricks once I loosened them. Thirty feet in the air, remember? Well, my solution was brilliant and without flaw: On the ground about fifteen feet behind my extension ladder was a pile of brush, thanks to my constantly shedding bushes and trees. I would throw the bricks onto that pile, which would help cushion their impact and keep them from bouncing into the neighbor’s yard. So, once I got that first capstone loosened, it was a fairly simple task to stand on the edge of the roof and completely forget how much heavier the capstone was than a brick.
The capstone didn’t arc. It dropped.
BAM!
Dogs howled. People a mile away paused, their hands hovering over 911. Seismographs registered in Missouri. My neighbors shook their heads and went on about their business.
I was left staring at my now lopsided ladder, which took the impact on its lowest rung with such force that one of the beams bent in.
That’s when I started laughing. Because, really, what else was I to do?
(Next week: Demolition Part 2: The Fall) by Mark Hunter Over the summer I demolished my home’s chimney, as a result of the earlier discovery that the chimney was trying to demolish itself. Many people, when faced with such a chore, will bring in various power equipment, up to and including such things as portable generators and air compressors, and maybe a lift to get them up to the top safely. I did it with a hammer. The bricks about halfway down my chimney started deteriorating not long after I bought my house, which as nearly as I can determine was built in 1879 by two drunk teenagers and a trained monkey. The monkey did good work, for a monkey. I had the chimney patched at the same time a new rubber roofing was put over my kitchen twenty years ago, and they both held up longer than expected.
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Wednesday, 15 February 2012 3:03 |
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by Mark Hunter
This week – being Valentine’s Week – I must pay tribute to those who’ve fallen in love with questionable taste: people who choose to be with the crazed, the obsessive, the workaholic, and the occasionally moronic.
In other words, I’d like to pay tribute to my fiancée.
We met on a writer’s website, one of those places where geeks and nerds escape jocks, haters, yuppies, and the establishment, otherwise known as real life. You couldn’t see who you were messaging (which may explain why she fell for me), and based on my writing style she thought I was female, at first. I choose to take that as a compliment.
If anyone there made a pass, it would be with such sexy lines as, “So … what are you typing with?”
“A Mac.”
“Oooooohhhh…. Talk Apple to me.”
You’ve heard of the May-December romance? Ours is an April-December romance. (March is illegal.) I no longer bother correcting salespeople who call her my daughter, although I haven’t yet given in to the urge to let them believe that for awhile, then start making out with her. These are the things humor writers think are funny.
Because of our age difference I’m very close to being on the same emotional level as she is, although she has me beat on both overall maturity and intelligence. You might think she’s part of my midlife crisis, but I’ve yet to buy a sports car or get hair plugs; and she’s clearly not gold-digging, as my entire fortune consists of a collection of wheat-head pennies and a Johnny West action figure (both in fair to poor condition).
So it must be love. And in honor of Valentine’s Day, that tribute to pink and chocolate, I’d like to tell everyone just what I love about my Emily:
I love the fact that she doesn’t always have to get girly: She can be up and ready to head out the door in twenty minutes, no need for a bucket of makeup or a shelf full of powered devices that look like they belong in a torture chamber.
I love the way she slaps me oh-so gently on the back of the head whenever my verbal stream of consciousness gets out of control.
I love the fact that she loves knowledge, and that we can sit together and watch a PBS documentary without either of us saying, “Huh? I don’t get it.”
I love the way she doesn’t seem to mind when I break into song (at least, not when I do it in private); she just smiles and turns up the stereo volume on her noise-cancelling headphones.
I love how all the sports channels on TV could have gone off the air two years ago, and no one in the house would notice.
I love how we can be walking on a trail in the park one moment, and the next moment be climbing a brush-covered hill that no one’s stepped foot in for decades, just to see what’s on the other side.
I love how she tries to keep me healthy just for my sake, but doesn’t stay mad for long when she catches me cheating with a Snicker’s bar or Moose Tracks ice cream. When she asks for ice cream herself, I know it’s time to tread carefully, because she’s having a bad day.
I love how she encourages my writing by throwing small household items at me until I sit down at the keyboard. Although, really, I think she enjoys the throwing a bit too much.
I love how she taught me snakes have personalities. Her snake is both cowardly and curious, and doesn’t like wearing Santa hats.
I love how concerned she gets whenever she hears a loud falling noise in the house and isn’t certain where I am, and I love how good she is with first aid. On a related note, I love the concerned look she gets whenever I open the tool box.
I love how she didn’t give a word of protest when I headed to the roof to demolish my chimney, even after I accidentally smashed the ladder. Did I mention she’s good with first aid?
I love how we both like the same TV shows, and how we sit down together to devour our limited diet of science fiction, fantasy, and silly sitcoms.
I love how she makes me put money in the pun jar all the time, but doesn’t actually try to make me stop punning. We should have vacation money saved up in no time.
I love how books are just as important to her as they are to me – and how they’re usually the same books.
I love how she’s interested in everything (except sports and politics).
I love how she calls me “Mustache.” As nicknames go, it beats “Hey Stupid.”
If none of that seems too terribly romantic, well … what it is, is love. Romance is a great thing, but it’s not sustainable; you can’t be romantic all the time. True love? That’s the everyday items, the little things – the stuff they don’t write songs about.
And since I have her – I have it. by Mark Hunter This week – being Valentine’s Week – I must pay tribute to those who’ve fallen in love with questionable taste: people who choose to be with the crazed, the obsessive, the workaholic, and the occasionally moronic. In other words, I’d like to pay tribute to my fiancée. We met on a writer’s website, one of those places where geeks and nerds escape jocks, haters, yuppies, and the establishment, otherwise known as real life. You couldn’t see who you were messaging (which may explain why she fell for me), and based on my writing style she thought I was female, at first. I choose to take that as a compliment. If anyone there made a pass, it would be with such sexy lines as, “So … what are you typing with?” “A Mac.” “Oooooohhhh…. Talk Apple to me.”
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Tuesday, 07 February 2012 8:57 |
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UNDERWEAR MEME GOES OVERBOARD
by Mark Hunter
Do you know what “meme” is?
Me neither, so I looked it up on that paragon of accuracy, Wikipedia. Turns out it’s a shortened version of “mimeme,” an ancient Greek word meaning something imitated, or to imitate, or in this case maybe to irritate. The concept propagated through the web, often in the form of a question and answer quiz you’re supposed to fill out, then pass along to all your friends.
I was sent an underwear meme.
Seems a bit personal? Well, that’s the nature of memes. Many are designed so people who become friends online get to know more personal details about each other, just as they would if they became friends in real life and, say, sat around talking about their underwear. ‘Cause that’s what my friends always sat around doing.
“Say, you try them new Fruit of the Looms?”
“Yep, they seemed a bit binding.”
No, I never took it easy around the poker table, drinking beer and discussing undies. Not only did I have no desire to, but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing my friends want to hear. In fact, I was going to fill the meme out as if written by one of my book characters, which I thought would be more interesting and less embarrassing; not to mention the idea that the more a writer knows about their characters, the better he can write them in a story.
I’m not sure I buy that on an underwear basis.
Still, it only seems fair: My friends were being up front about underneath, so shouldn’t I be? So here, for the first time: All about my underwear. Make the kids turn away.
What do you call your underwear/undergarments? Do you have any commonly used nicknames for them?
In a word, no. What, people nickname their underwear?
“Yeah, let me put on Slim Jim and I’ll be right there.”
“Honey, have you seen Eddie Elastic?”
I don’t think so. I call my underwear … underwear.
Have you ever had that supposedly common dream of being in a crowded place in only your underwear?
Sadly, yes. Speaking as a person who rarely wears shorts and has been made fun of for not removing my shoes in my own home, I can tell you I wouldn’t be thrilled to run around publicly in my tightie whities, or even my Pink Power Rangers pajamas. (What? She was my favorite.)
My dream usually involves not only being in my underwear, but walking around the school in my underwear, unable to find my classroom or books, and realizing I’m late for a class I didn’t prepare for. There’s often some falling involved, too.
In other words, my dreams aren’t all that much fun.
What is the worst thing you can think of to make underwear out of?
Poison ivy laced steel wool. I find the fact that I can imagine that to be extremely disturbing.
If you were a pair of panties, what color would you be?
Um … red from embarrassment? Or pink, I guess, since that’s my general skin color. Guess what – these questions get stranger, as tends to happen with memes.
Hm … why do they call panties a “pair,” but bras singular?
Have you ever thrown your underwear at a rock star or other celebrity? If so, which one(s)? If not, which one(s) would you throw your underwear at, given the opportunity?
Yeah … no. I’ve never understood the point of celebrity crushes to begin with, although I do admit to having something of a man crush on talk show host Craig Ferguson and his stirring Scottish brogue. (And Sean Connery, come to think of it … maybe it’s the accent.)
I understand the possibility that some male celebrities may appreciate the underwear toss, assuming they don’t get knocked over by a girdle or a pair of granny panties. However, I can’t imagine any female celebrity being impressed by some guy hurtling his boxers onto a stage, which would most likely cause her to hurl. And not her underwear.
You’re out of clean underwear. What do you do?
I always keep an emergency stash of older underwear in the back of the drawer, just in case. No, I do not go commando. I only saw the movie “There’s Something About Mary” once, but it left an indelible impression on me, and I always keep a layer of cloth between any zipper and my … self. If you haven’t seen the movie, you can probably guess by context what I’m talking about.
Are you old enough to remember Underroos? If so, did you have any?
Underroos, for the uninitiated, were underwear that had the pattern of superhero costumes on them. You could be Batman, Superman, or if you were a girl, Wonder Woman. Or if you were a boy too, I guess, but then you’d face the possibility of your parents sending you into therapy. I never had them, but I now own a fetching Batman … never mind.
I just Googled “Underoos.” Note to self: Tighten up that adult filter setting.
If you could have any message printed on your underwear, what would it be?
“Have you seen my classroom? Can I borrow your notes?”
How many bloggers does it take to put panties on a goat?
Um … huh?
There’s always one last weird, unrelated question tacked onto these memes, just to make people do a double take. I’m not sure how PETA feels about forcing animals into tightie whities, but the goat’s bound to be displeased.
By the way, the actual number of bloggers it takes is 42. It may seem like a lot, but bloggers are generally an out of shape bunch, and the goats can get very displeased.
Maybe they should try boxers. by Mark Hunter Do you know what “meme” is? Me neither, so I looked it up on that paragon of accuracy, Wikipedia. Turns out it’s a shortened version of “mimeme,” an ancient Greek word meaning something imitated, or to imitate, or in this case maybe to irritate. The concept propagated through the web, often in the form of a question and answer quiz you’re supposed to fill out, then pass along to all your friends. I was sent an underwear meme. Seems a bit personal? Well, that’s the nature of memes. Many are designed so people who become friends online get to know more personal details about each other, just as they would if they became friends in real life and, say, sat around talking about their underwear. ‘Cause that’s what my friends always sat around doing.
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Tuesday, 31 January 2012 6:01 |
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by Mark Hunter
Oh yeah, I know headaches.
Headaches usually come in two types: The one that starts with the body and the one that starts with the mind. I suppose if someone decided to smash a bottle over your head, it would be their mind and your body. I don’t recommend this.
There’s the “You screwed up your spine and the pain’s radiating into your head” headache. I screwed up my spine at a fire in downtown Albion, in 1983, and it’s been screwed up ever since. Just for fun, the location of my back pain changes frequently: lower, middle, upper, up and down like some manic kid is playing air guitar on my spinal cord. I suppose the headache comes when he smashes my spinal guitar on the stage.
There’s the “You have kids” headache. Early on it’s caused by noisemaking devices, or by common objects being turned into noisemaking devices, such as pots and pans, window panes, small pets, and siblings. Later it’s caused by wondering what your kids are doing, and remembering what you were doing at their age. This headache commonly lasts from 40-60 years.
There are two kinds of cluster headaches: One is characterized by severe pain on one side of the head. The other has a variety of causes, such as studying politics, getting stuck in traffic, or trying to figure out a family dinner seating arrangement when half the family hates the other half. This second type of cluster headache is often characterized by people moaning, “What a cluster …”
Only a few times have I had headaches that met the definition of a migraine, and they were mild by migraine standards – which means I overmedicated, rather than begging someone to just shoot me.
Overmedicating leads to the next type of headache, the rebound headache. Take too much headache medicine, and it gives you a headache. The irony … well, the irony makes my head ache.
Then there’s the bean headache. No, not from eating beans – that problem’s at the other end. I’m talking about when you bean yourself on something, such as a low hanging branch (as in my front yard) or a badly placed pipe (such as my basement). Not that it ever happened to me.
The stress headache is caused by ... well, a lot of the stuff above can cause stress headaches. When my doctor asked me if I’d been stressed lately, I just laughed. Laughter is a great stress reliever, although maybe not the kind of sarcastic, half-hysterical laughter the Doc heard from me.
Then there’s the sinus headache.
The main cause of a sinus headache is living in the Midwest. Not just here, though: Experts believe that not only are sinus headaches common, but that they progress to sinus infections for 30 million people every year, just in America. Untreated sinusitis can cause permanent damage to the sinuses and lead to meningitis, bone infections, heavy drinking, or throwing people through windows when they ask how you feel. Knowing that causes stress, which leads to headaches, which leads to medicating, which leads to rebound headaches …
During December I embarked on an epic journey into the medical world, involving a full blood draw, multiple office visits, lectures, and two courses of antibiotics. I had a bunch of problems that needed to be looked into, so as long as I was going in about one I asked about all of them. That was my mistake. By the time the testing was done, the Doc had me on so many medications that the pharmacy named a filing cabinet after me.
There was heavy-duty ibuprofen for my back pain and tennis elbow; baby aspirin and fish oil for my cholesterol and family history of heart attacks; some stuff that I can’t pronounce for acid reflux; and of course the antibiotic. They also put me on an anti-depressant, telling me it was for my seasonal affected disorder. I suspect they really gave that to me because of the look on my face when I realized I was now taking more drugs than my grandmother.
Then, because my sinus swelling wasn’t going away, they gave me a shot of Cortisone.
I haven’t had a shot in – that place, shall we say my hip – since I was a kid. It went in very smoothly; then I couldn’t sit or walk straight for an hour.
Now, here’s the fun part – and those of you over forty who have to take more than one medication probably see this coming: Instead of the headache going away, it moved. Over the next few days it migrated from the sinuses behind my face to the top of my head, the back of my head, my jawline, my upper neck – pretty much everywhere else. The drugs forced my sinuses into retreat, and now they were taking over the rest of my head!
I sat there, sweating, feeling hot even though it was December, unable to sleep, feeling anxious, and after awhile I thought: “Hey. I don’t ever sweat or feel hot in December, and I can always fall asleep. What a cluster.”
A little research revealed that both the anti-depressant and the Cortisone had the following symptoms: anxiety; insomnia; and, of course, headache. (The Cortisone threw in the sweating, which – ew.)
I had been victimized by modern medicine.
So that’s the story of how, in the space of one month, I moved from being a young man to a broken- down middle-aged mess. I thought this was supposed to be a gradual thing … but fast or slow, it sure turned out to be a headache. by Mark Hunter Oh yeah, I know headaches. Headaches usually come in two types: The one that starts with the body and the one that starts with the mind. I suppose if someone decided to smash a bottle over your head, it would be their mind and your body. I don’t recommend this. There’s the “You screwed up your spine and the pain’s radiating into your head” headache. I screwed up my spine at a fire in downtown Albion, in 1983, and it’s been screwed up ever since. Just for fun, the location of my back pain changes frequently: lower, middle, upper, up and down like some manic kid is playing air guitar on my spinal cord. I suppose the headache comes when he smashes my spinal guitar on the stage. There’s the “You have kids” headache. Early on it’s caused by noisemaking devices, or by common objects being turned into noisemaking devices, such as pots and pans, window panes, small pets, and siblings. Later it’s caused by wondering what your kids are doing, and remembering what you were doing at their age. This headache commonly lasts from 40-60 years.
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Wednesday, 25 January 2012 9:03 |
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by Mark Hunter
This winter I switched writing modes from fiction to non-fiction and back again, which made me ponder the difference between the two. In a way it’s something I do every week, since I write news articles in addition to my column. News is news, but my columns … well, granted that they sometimes have news in them. Still, they’re intended to be humor or opinion, or both.
The great thing about a column is that even when you’re telling a true story, you can embellish just a bit. For instance, my lawn mower really did explode; but does anyone actually believe the Great Exploding Lawnmower Incident led to a FEMA investigation and the discovery of a broken mower blade in the fuselage of a 747?
If I’d written that as fact, I’d have probably been hired by the White House Press Office.
I slowed down promotion efforts for my novel some (but not enough that I won’t remind you about the January 30th book signing) so I could finish the text for my non-fiction book, tentatively titled “Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or So With the Albion Fire Department.”
Catchy, huh? No?
So the question is, what’s easier to write? Fiction or non-fiction?
That’s easy. With fiction, you can lie.
Not that people haven’t fibbed in non-fiction works. It’s also true that real life creeps into fiction, from time to time. In “Storm Chaser,” the main character is made up, but he’s a member of two actual organizations, one police and one firefighting. Many of the scenes take place at real locations, such as Chain O’ Lakes State Park.
Still, real life has challenges that fiction doesn’t. If my story isn’t working, I can change the order of scenes, stick in a new character, or bring in an evil twin. If I don’t like the way things happened in Albion in 1930, I’m pretty much stuck with that sequence of events.
Also, facts can be hard to come by when writing an historical book. I recently discovered, after some 20 years of researching, that Albion’s first fire chief lived on West Main Street. Exactly where? Don’t know. What did he look like? Don’t know. What was his personality like? Beats me.
I invented Chance Hamlin for “Storm Chaser.” He lives at the end of Prickett Street in a little village called Hurricane; he’s a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy; and he’s kind of a jerk, although for good reason. Pretty much the opposite of me.
So yeah, fiction is easier, with one exception. What if I wrote a novel about A.J. Denlar, Albion’s first fire chief? I could turn him into a living, breathing person. If I’m wrong about his personality … who’s going to know?
Oh, but historical novels have their own danger. You have to do an insane amount of research, and get every detail right. Would Albion have telegraphed for help during a fire? What would Denlar have worn? How did the people of 1888 power their video game systems? Many people who love historical novels love history, and believe me, if you screw something up they’ll call you out on it.
That’s also a problem in non-fiction, of course, and therein lays the danger of writing my book SDaSL: ACosWTAFD.
Um, maybe I should skip the subtitle.
I may not have to worry about vocabulary or dress so much, but I still had to figure out what actually went on, and sometimes that wasn’t easy. There’s a tendency of newspaper writers to assume their readers know certain things – they write for the present reader, not the future reader. It was true with official records, too: Not much detail. Even right up to 1988, where I stopped the narrative (gotta leave room for a sequel), I sometimes didn’t have all the information I was looking for.
If I get the date that the 1929 fire engine arrived in Albion wrong, it’s not likely I’ll get caught; but if I screw up the details of the 1976 truck’s purchase, somebody’s bound to call me on it. To make matters worse, I didn’t interview any of the people who may have remembered something from half a century ago, both because I ran out of time and because I hate conducting interviews. Okay, what I mean to say is I ran out of time because I put off doing interviews. Besides, the manuscript length hit 45,000 words, which is short for a book – but had two zeroes more than I originally planned, when I started 25 years ago. Once you figure in photos, I didn’t have much space left for quotes.
So I researched as best I could, surmised and guestimated on the old-time stuff, and I think I’ll be okay for at least the first fifty or sixty years. Hopefully my status as amateur historian will bring me some forgiveness of any mistakes, but I have to admit it’s a scary thing.
I mean, you’re writing about people who actually existed, and some still do. I don’t care to dive into personalities – I’m just in it for the fun of discovering history – but it’s scary. Suppose I get beaten up? They don’t sell angry reader insurance; I checked. Still, I’m going ahead: Finishing the manuscript, looking for more old photos, getting set to publish.
Yeah, fiction just isn’t this scary. I’m not likely to get chased down by Tom Sawyer, or even James Bond.
Although with Bond, you can never tell. by Mark Hunter This winter I switched writing modes from fiction to non-fiction and back again, which made me ponder the difference between the two. In a way it’s something I do every week, since I write news articles in addition to my column. News is news, but my columns … well, granted that they sometimes have news in them. Still, they’re intended to be humor or opinion, or both.
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