Re: Reasons To Be Grumpy thread

[Biggus Dickus]

The city is in the process of redoing the streets in the small neighborhood I live in. Not only the streets, but new sewers, water and gas lines.
They installed the gas-lines last fall, which included new meters for our homes which are now located on the exterior rather than in our basements. This included tearing up portions of our sidewalks, and even parts of our lawns, and a portion of my in-ground sprinkler system. All of which will be fixed when the project is completed.
I'm in favor of all of this, in fact we are the very last neighborhood on this side of the city to have this work done, and our street is in desperate need of repaving, so I will be extremely happy when the work is completed.

Of course it is going to cause some inconveniences for us in the neighborhood while the work is being done, currently there are large cement pipes, joints piled up along the front of our homes, and yesterday they began the process of removing the asphalt in order to exposed the original cement on the street.

The city sent out notices informing us that they would be working on this yesterday, and subsequently cars would not be allowed to be park in the road and the streets themselves would be closed to through traffic.
There are now huge piles of broken asphalt pile along the street waiting to be picked up by crews, and it was difficult to maneuver around yesterday.

What has made me grumpy over this matter isn't the work being done, or the fact that a portion of my in-ground sprinkler isn't working, or that portions of my sidewalk and driveway have been broken and pulled up, or the portions spray painted with strange, cryptic engineering terms, or even that parts of my lawn have been destroyed. Nor the fact that it will certainly be a strain for us to maneuver around what with jostling our three cars in/out the driveway, etc...

No what has me grumpy about this situation is when I came home Wednesday evening after my yoga class, I was met by a gathering of my neighbors both young and old who seem to think that I am the spokesperson and go-to man for the entire block. I couldn't even get down my street to my house when an older gent came out and waved my over to complain and question. (He was at the time conversing with my son, who was on his way out for a bike ride. My son apparently is now the number 2 man in the block, a position he seems to enjoy)

Anyway, I had about 8-10 people on my lawn asking me questions and looking to me for answers. Now I'm the point of contact for these folks, they all have my cell number, and I spent yesterday afternoon on the phone with the city engineer getting answers for everyone.

I told them to stop by my house Saturday afternoon and I would fill them in on what's going on...one old bloke just called and left me a five minute message on my phone.

This is not good.

I feel like the character "Ove" from the book we are reading in the book club here.

Grumpy indeed.

[jumbojak]

Bruno, as much as it pains me to say this, I have a feeling you're probably the right guy to be the point man for your neighborhood. Fairly level headed, reasonably intelligent, and a people person - even if you aren't really a people person you put on a good show. My neighbors are a bunch of nutwads who can't figure out that a notice saying that the power will be cut off for new overhead line installation means (gasp!) that the power will be cut off during the hours listed.  I don't have the patience to be the go between but I can tell you the linesmen working on the lines that day were very frustrated by the number of people driving over to see why their TV and ac stopped working...

They were a nice bunch of guys. I talked to them when they were posting the notices and when the trucks were leaving that day. Apparently they get a lot of people asking the same questions over and over again. If only I was nicer and actually talked to my neighbors.

[Dave]

You come over here as an extrovert with an opinion, FB, ideal material for a representative.

[hermes2015]

I told them to stop by my house Saturday afternoon and I would fill them in on what's going on...

Please don't forget to bake some lovely scones with strawberry jam and cream to serve with the tea you will be offering your guests.

[Dave]

I told them to stop by my house Saturday afternoon and I would fill them in on what's going on...

Please don't forget to bake some lovely scones with strawberry jam and cream to serve with the tea you will be offering your guests.

Do Americans indulge in cream teas? Though it was all milk and cookies!

[hermes2015]

I told them to stop by my house Saturday afternoon and I would fill them in on what's going on...

Please don't forget to bake some lovely scones with strawberry jam and cream to serve with the tea you will be offering your guests.

Do Americans indulge in cream teas? Though it was all milk and cookies!

Yes, and "biscuits" for breakfast.

[Biggus Dickus]

I told them to stop by my house Saturday afternoon and I would fill them in on what's going on...

Please don't forget to bake some lovely scones with strawberry jam and cream to serve with the tea you will be offering your guests.

Do Americans indulge in cream teas? Though it was all milk and cookies!

Yes, I grew up eating scones, and drinking lots of tea...and tea is still a favorite and regular beverage in our home. I had a lovely Chai Latte yesterday with my son, though we now prefer macaroons over scones

Bruno, as much as it pains me to say this, I have a feeling you're probably the right guy to be the point man for your neighborhood. Fairly level headed, reasonably intelligent, and a people person - even if you aren't really a people person you put on a good show. My neighbors are a bunch of nutwads who can't figure out that a notice saying that the power will be cut off for new overhead line installation means (gasp!) that the power will be cut off during the hours listed.  I don't have the patience to be the go between but I can tell you the linesmen working on the lines that day were very frustrated by the number of people driving over to see why their TV and ac stopped working...

They were a nice bunch of guys. I talked to them when they were posting the notices and when the trucks were leaving that day. Apparently they get a lot of people asking the same questions over and over again. If only I was nicer and actually talked to my neighbors.

I appreciate the compliment, especially coming from you JJ, thanks-

I am less flippant in the real world, my online persona differs slightly in that regard, I've been told I come off as quite affable, though I am still very sarcastic in the real world as well, and I suppose I'm a pretty helpful guy...I do still like to mix in some good swear words when possible.

I spoke to some of the guys early yesterday who were dropping off more concrete piping, and like you said JJ they get asked the same questions over and over. The one guy said when they see someone from the neighborhood coming towards them they usually cringe with dread.

They city did send out a notice about the recent work, but not everyone receive one. In fact the neighbors who didn't receive one live on one side of the street so they were wondering out loud if maybe the street closing only apply to the "other" side of the street? I had to tell them no it applies to the entire street.
So we had our meeting and I think it went well as I was able to give them some reasonable suggestions as to where they could park there cars as well as a decent timeline of events, at least for the next week or so.

Now I'm getting grumpy because I can't get the blade off my lawn mower as I wanted to sharpen it, could really use JJ's impact wrench.
I soaked the nut with some oil, and going to attack it after breakfast with a wrench and hammer, hopefully that does the trick.

[Arturo]

If you can attatch a steel pipe to the wrench, that would help too.

[Dave]

If you can attatch a steel pipe to the wrench, that would help too.

Providing you don't end up rotating the mower as well! 

[jumbojak]

But the box end of the wrench on the arbor nut and wail the piss out of the open end with a hammer. If the blades haven't been changed it usually takes impact to knock em loose. I think every lawnmower factory employs a giant to install blades. A 50/50 mix of acetone and automatic transmission fluid helps too. Best penetrating fluid I've come across. Oh, heat too, if the above fails.

[Biggus Dickus]

But the box end of the wrench on the arbor nut and wail the piss out of the open end with a hammer. If the blades haven't been changed it usually takes impact to knock em loose. I think every lawnmower factory employs a giant to install blades. A 50/50 mix of acetone and automatic transmission fluid helps too. Best penetrating fluid I've come across. Oh, heat too, if the above fails.

That worked, but I had to hammer the shit out of it, strange this is I've changed the blade on this mower in the past, so not sure why it was froze like that. (Normally take it off in the fall, but I forgot)

Neighbor let me borrow some Kroil Oil..never used it before, but that seemed to help. He swears by it.

[jumbojak]

If you removed the blade to sharpen before I might wager there was some corrosion between the arbor nut and the blade. A tiny dab of anti seize on the back of the nut would prevent that issue in the future. Just take care you don't wind up looking like the tin man. That stuff gets everywhere if you aren't careful.

Kroil is good stuff, but very expensive and not as effective in head to head testing as the 50/50 mix. It's also much easier to contain. Kinda like hydrofluoric acid eats through most lab glass the 50/50 mix rapidly dissolves most plastics. I use an old fashioned metal oil can. The Goldenrod.

[Arturo]

Well since I moved this week, I have only done TWO homework assignments out of 7 that are due tomorrow. Also I think when every teacher tells me not to wait til the last minute to do home work that it subconsciously makes me wait to the last minute because I like a challenge.

[Davin]

When a user says, "all of the work orders are popping up an error."

When it turns out to be that only one work order was popping up an error.

And the error that it was popping up, is an error that is supposed to pop up so that they don't try to do something at that work station before they're supposed to.

[Dave]

When a user says, "all of the work orders are popping up an error."

When it turns out to be that only one work order was popping up an error.

And the error that it was popping up, is an error that is supposed to pop up so that they don't try to do something at that work station before they're supposed to.

When you mix hyperbole with stupidity do you get hypidity or stuperbole? Whichever, you get a fecking headache!

My unfavourite was the "I must have it by tomorrow!" that started the day before, four layers of management up, as "We need it in three weeks time."