Hurricane Dolly

Here are some images of Hurricane Dolly Damage and the restoration of our building

Tha Poo Poo Phone, Tha Poo Poooo Phone!

About five weeks ago, I was taking a dump in the toilet.  And a problem I had been ignoring finally got me.  Everytime I got off the pot, my personal cell phone holster would fall off in front of the toilet.  Well that day, it did not fall in front ot the toilet, it landed right into the toilet and into the poo(It was not solid >P).  I was able to get it out of toilet by pulling it out by the lanyard.  It was coated with, uh well, you know.  So I took the phone out and washed out the clip on holster with hose outside.  Then I wiped off the phone with toilet paper and wondered what to do.  I remembered that a computer tech I regualrly turn to to fix my computers told me to wash out water damaged computer boards with alcohol. I also remembered my late uncle told me that if you drop your phone in the water, pull out the battery if it is off and dry it out before using it.  Luckily I forgot to turn it on that morning.  So I wiped off the phone with alcohol, cleaning it.  Then used cotton swabs to clean all the crevices.  I then opened up the phone and washed off the parts, especially the speaker, with 50% isopropyl alcohol.  Then I let the parts dry in the sun, carefully knocking out the excess.  After 4 hours in the sun(which I was careful to cover any e-proms by the way), I put the phone back together and it intially it didn't work.  I dispared, as I wanted to call my girlfriend.  But in my panic, I put it on the charger without putting in the battery.  I put the battery in and then put it on the charger.  After two hours it charged, and it went to working.  I called my girlfriend and told her the story.  She laughed.  It's got named the Poo Poo Phone.  Today I replaced it finally, as I got tired of the * Key not working and not being able to lock it.  I did have some fun with the Poo Poo phone and handed it to my nephew,  I asked him to look at my old phone.  He asked what was special about it.  I told him the story, he dropped it and yelled Ewww!

Turning lead into gold!

I collect scrap to make extra money, as there is a lot of damage thanks to the hurricane and there aren't many customers who call apon my techinical services during the summertime. Also I kinda doing my thing for the environment (How McCain of me!) as I am taking metal that normally would go in the land fill down here and taking it to the junkyard where they will recycle it (for money of course). It can be dirty, as some things can be wet, muddy, or plain jagged, so I tend to wear gloves when I need them. But this last Sunday, I found a strange sheet of mysterious material. It was plaible as rubber, but had no foam pores. It was a dull gray color. It had corrosion and was full of holes. And it was shiny where if was scratched. I picked it up after I decided it was some kind of metal and found it very heavy. I took it home, where my partner in scrap collecting, Lee told me it was lead. It used to be used in the construction of old houses, before they found it was toxic. So I took down to the junkyard on Monday morning. I asked the clerk there if they took lead. He wasn't sure, but the guy who weighed things told me they did. For 44 lbs of lead, I got $17.89. If lead is going for that price, it might be worth scrapeing some Chinese painted kid's toys.

War against Killer Bees!

Unlike most people, my father doesn't see bees as a threat as he is an amateur apaist(bee-keeper). So when a hive of honey bees was found in an old water heater on the property, he hoped he would be able to find them swarming and use the bees to create a free bee hive so he could raise bees again like he has done several times in his life. So we left the bees alone, but some how a swarm got into the underside of the house trailer that Chewy and his family were renting. Soon we had very large hive develop this summer, much to our surprise. Chewy's son Angel got stung and found out he was very allergic to bees as his left eyebrow swelled up to the size of a golf ball. The individual bees would chase anyone including me around the trailer, menacing them. Chewy tried to kill the bees by spraying wasp posion on them, but each time the hive would just grow back. It got really serious in August of this year as Chewy had hired a local handy man, Lee to mow the yard around his trailer. What we didn't know was that after the recent Hurricane, the bees had come back again and the flowed to attack Lee as he was mowing the lawn. Lee had to go to the hospital as he was very allergic to bees, and which we didn't know about (I would've never let him mow that lawn if I had known that). Lee survived the attack, but he won't mow my lawn anymore. The bees would strike again as one stung me in my scalp shortly afterward(first time a bee had stung me in my life). I followed my father's advice he had given me long ago, never squash a bee near it's hive, as the smell of bee blood angers other bees and they will all sting you. The next day I saw Chewy, I had bought him lots of poison and asked to kill the bees again. As I walked out the door after talking to him a bee immediately stung me in the neck. I walked back into the house with the still angry bee buzzing to get free it's stinger from my neck and calmly took the stinger out as I used meat tenderizer to calm the wound. Chewy poisoned the bees again and I thought that was that after they disappeared. But on Sunday night, I was laying out some important paper that got wet during the rain inside an old room inside the trailer Chewy's family was renting. I knew the Hurricane had weakened the floor of this trailer's west end, as it was made of particle board and the hurricane force winds had soaked the bottom of the floor. I took one step away from the drying documents and that foot went through a weak spot in the floor into a new honeycomb that bees had been building under the house again. Luckily it was still dark, so I only received 6 or seven stings before I quickly yanked my leg out of the the hive and the bees didn't come out in force to attack me. I treated my wounds and then hobbled over to the building to the steel pile we use to build machines with. I took a small sheet of stainless and used it to cover the whole. I don't know if it was just that many sting for sure as my leg is still itchy from the stings. I bought more effective foggers to deal with the bees. But the strangest thing happened the night afterward as a mosquito had landed on that smarting stung part of my leg and began to drink blood out of it. The mosquito's action actually made my leg feel oddly better. When I looked down at the mosquito, it had bloated to it's full size and then dropped off my leg and onto the floor dead. Had it died from the bee venom?

When Javelina's Attack!

Last year during the summer I had another adventure when a very old and large female Javelina( also known as the Peccary) decided to take up residence with in the building. I tried to chase it out, but it snapped it's tusks at me and refused to budge from under an old sink we had on the builing west end. I was attending long days at TSTC going to my welding classes, so I let it be as it wasn't really hurting anything. Though my dog Chrissy tried once or twice to attack it and was promptly chase away by the Javelina. And my cat Shrodie would made it angry when she got to close to it. Chewy Gonzales, whom I've mentioned before as the renter of my father's old house trailer on the property, is an avid hunter. When I showed him the Javelina, he went for his shot-gun and planned to make Javelina barbeque. When the Javelina saw the Chewy with the shot-gun, the old sow shot between Chewy's legs and knocked him over. It ran out of the building was never seen on the property again.