SchadeBLOG

Okay, most of you by now know that I’m running a little bit of a side business over at Twilight Teez. The truth of the matter is this little business has taken over a lot of my spare time, which is why this blog doesn’t get updated as often as it used to. But it’s taken over a little more than just my spare time. It’s taken over my house. So I had to go buy a new play thing - my new shed.

Actually, it’s not my shed, per se. The company paid for it. It’s just sitting in my back yard. Technically, since I own half of the company, and I own a goodly portion of my backyard, I own half of the shed. My half is the outside of it.

Mrs. Schadeboy gets the inside. Mainly because she’s the one who takes care of most of the administrative duties for the company, including the fulfillment of everyone’s orders. And because she gets the inside, it turns out that’s the most important part. But because I’m the technical part of the company, I get to be the one to build out all of the upgrades we’re making to it.

Now, strictly speaking, there’s nothing particularly impressive about this shed. It’s got a floor, four walls, a roof, two vents, and a window. From an outsider’s perspective, if I were to show it off most people would say, “and…?” But this is not just a shed, but a much needed storage solution. Until this thing is completed, our inventory and order fulfillment center is, quite literally, my living room, family room, and portions of a small storage closet. We have boxes all over the place, and this doesn’t make for a very comfortable environment to entertain. Or even function as a family. A typical conversation in our home lately has gone something like this:

Mrs Schadeboy: Can you hand me that box over there?

Me: Which one?

MS: The one by the piano.

Me: There’s six of them by the piano.

And so on. Needless to say, this kind of conversation gets old very quickly. So it became more than apparent that we needed an actual place to put our inventory. Thus, the shed was purchased.

Now the hard part comes in. It’d be one thing to simply have a water-proof place to put all of our inventory. But we also want a place that can be out of the way to fold the shirts and pack them for shipment. Which means someone will need to work in the shed. And that someone will most likely be Mrs. Schadeboy.

I’d like to remind you that my home is based in a Sunny Sierra Vista. A lovely small town in southern Arizona with a population of approximately 42,000 at the base of a very large mountain range called the Huachucas (you can see their outline in our logo). The problem is, if you know southern Arizona well, you know that we are also right smack in a desert. The word desert is a combination of two Latin words; des which means “place”, and ert which means “that is hotter than Hades.”* In other words, it’s very hot here. And hot plus uninsulated, non-climate-controlled shed equals heatstroke in a matter of six seconds.

All of this to say that my new project with the shed is to get it insulated and wired for air conditioning. I’m also putting in some lights, a phone line, and a data connection. That’s what I did most of the weekend. I had some help from my beloved brother-in-law (who happens to know a thing or two about electricity) and we wired the place up for all of those things. This included digging a 15-foot-long trench from my electrical box to the shed.

Again, I remind you, we are in a desert. Desert not only means hot, but when combined with the word Arizona, means “hot and full of hard dry ground that will cause you to have a heart attack if you try to dig through it.” I was fortunate. I did not have to dig through our famous Arizona Caliche (pronounced cuh lee chay). According to dictionary.com, this stuff is “a surface deposit consisting of sand or clay impregnated with crystalline salts such as sodium nitrate or sodium chloride.” That makes it sound so nice and soft, right? When talking about caliche, the word soft would be like saying that Kevin Federline was a talented musical genius. And I mean that only in the best way possible. Caliche usually resides mere inches under Arizona soil. This stuff will eat you for lunch. I am delightfully surprised that I did not hit a single inch of it. But digging that (naughty word) trench is probably going to be the death of me anyway. I am not anywhere near the caliber of someone like, say, Dog.

So that’s where we stand. We have to wait for the inspector to come by and - I am not making this up - inspect it. Then I can finish off with insulation and drywall (or wallboard, gypsum board, or whatever). Then we can move our inventory into it and then things will really be rocking. Until then, we have to suffer with “hand me that box over there” type of conversations.

*It would be very wise not to use SchadeBLOG as your sole source for word definitions.

My home town of Sunny Sierra Vista, Arizona isn’t a big city.  We’re not a small town, either.  We’re right in between.  I’ll leave it up to your imagination as to what that makes us.

Being at just over 40,000 in population, we have a number of benefits that most big cities don’t have.  First of all, we’re just big enough that your secrets can remain your secrets for longer than a day, as opposed to a small town in which your secrets stay yours for about 30 seconds.  We’re big enough to have more than one traffic control signal, and we now boast not only a full-sized Home Depot, but now a fully functional Lowe’s as well as a Best Buy complete with Geek Squad counter (this should not be interpreted to say that I think Geek Squad is a good thing).  We’re also big enough to have an incredibly impressive fireworks display for our Fourth of July.   In fact, I will go as far as to say that we not only put on a great fireworks show, we put on the fireworks show for southern Arizona.  In fact, the show is so good, we draw people from as far away as Tucson (75 miles away).   I do not know of any other place in my neck of the woods where you can be right up where the fireworks are being fired off and stand in serious risk of having the actual fire of the fireworks land right on top of you.

It’s so cool.

I took some photographs. Here are a few shots from the show.

 I’ll have to post more later.  It’s late, I’m tired, and tomorrow is a long day for me.  I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.  The USA Rocks!

One of my greatest influences and inspirations claims to have turned 60 today.  Frankly, I don’t believe him.  He plays in a rock band, for the love of Chad!  How can anyone who plays in a rock band be 60?

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Dave!  Here’s to yet another 20 years of great work!

You’re sitting in your pool lounge, sipping a lovely refreshing beverage, thinking to yourself that life couldn’t get much better. The phone rings, and you begrudginly get out to answer it, and that’s when you realize the the person who called you at that precise moment saved your freakin’ life!

Key Quote: “A county spokesperson said the guide rails would cost $50,000 and that it is not in the county budget.”

The question I pose back is, I wonder if it’s in the county budget to pay for a multi-million dollar lawsuit?

If you can’t drive a Manual, stay out of the driver’s seat.

You get research like This.

You’re starving.

You decide that the only thing that can sate your esurience is a simple conveyance built of two sides of baked wheat-gluten encasing a slice each of swine victual and aged bovine extract. A delight that many people have…delighted in…for centuries. A simple design with long lasting results.

That’s right, a ham and cheese sandwich.

You construct your delicious lunchtime meal with the eagerness of an East German Shepherd typing away at his keyboard, placing just the exact right amount of cheese perfectly in the center of the first slice of bread and topping it thusly with the exact right amount of ham. Your mouth salivates with the anticipation of soon being able to consume your delightful delicacy, knowing full well that your hunger will soon be satiated and you will be able to continue with…whatever it was you were doing before being interrupted by your lunch.

You take that second piece of bread and place it ever so lovingly on top of the ham and stand back to take in the beauty of your creation and behold…you suddenly realize that the second piece of bread is not perfectly matched to the first!

GASP!

You try as hard as you can to match the symmetry of the first piece, but you find it impossible. The only thing you can do is…flip the second piece of bread over! You realize that doing so would break the symbiotic relationship between the ham and the bread because you will separate a small portion of the ham’s juices from the rest of the otherwise well balanced sandwich. Those juices will be on the outside of the sandwich. You know that this will effect the overall satiating capabilities of the sandwich and now you are faced with a decision:

Do you flip the piece of bread, or leave it as is?

Either way will destroy the complete effect that the sandwich will have on your hunger. You know that eating the bread with ham juice on the outside of the sandwich will leave you with a feeling of emptiness, despite the fact that your belly will be full. And yet, could you comprehend even nibbling on a sandwich that is the least bit out of symmetry? While both options leave you with a feeling of disgust for yourself, you must come up with a decision. Your are hungry, and the sandwich in either state will alleviate your discomfort. You know that you will not be complete either way, but which is the lesser evil?

You make your decision…and flip the bread.

You consume your sandwich and in spite of your hopes for a feeling of utter satisfaction, you are filled with utter despair. For it will be a full 24 hours before you will have another chance to apply the lesson from this experience, which is to flip the bread before mating it with the rest of the meal. But hold your head up high, dear friend. You are not alone. Many have learned this lesson and have survived. And tomorrow is another day!

Multiple Micturation would be a darn good name for a rock band.

Trust me, this is not the kind of thing you want to deal with when you’re still experiencing the pain of wisdom tooth  extractions!

Train/Woman tagteam: 1

Man: 0