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Step Beyond

  • Small weekend project? Don't do it!

    I have a few words of advice: Never start a simple home project unless your bank account is bulging with surplus money.
    Unfortunately, mine isn’t.
    But that hasn’t stopped me from making endless trips to the home-improvement store and draining my checking account for what started out to be a very simple and inexpensive painting project.

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  • The driver, the bin climber and me

    No it’s not the happy follow-up to Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.
    Instead, it’s another foray into the world of garbage picking and dumpster diving – though I cannot believe it’s happened again. I believe this is the third time in recent months.
    It happened back when I was using someone else’s car, but I was reminded of it today when I had to fish something out of the office garbage…
    Never mind that, this is about dumpster diving, not the office garbage.

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  • Everybody doesn't love Raymond!

    My cable company offers over a hundred channels, so why is finding a sitcom that doesn’t star a pseudo-intellectual hyper-silly metrosexual male so difficult?
    It’s as though television executives are attempting to make up for portraying women as varied versions of Lucy Ricardo for the first 40 years by stereotyping men as similar dolts for the next 40.

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  • Just a little more ice cream?

    What is it about some types of foods?
    There are a handful of goodies that just don’t seem to allow me to adhere to proper dietary guidelines, no matter how hard I try.
    I know when I buy them that I’m in trouble. But I continually fool myself into thinking I can eat them in moderation. It’s always the same thought process but it just never seems to work.
    Fortunately, I don’t have a lot of food issues but the ones I do have clamp on with a vengeance and don’t let go until an eating frenzy is over.

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  • Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom ...

    I have to say, I was a little surprised during one of last week’s thunderstorms. The postal oath talks about getting the mail to residents, no matter what, through all types of trials and challenges. While she wasn’t a mail carrier with parcels, she was the heart of the matter.

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  • Curses! 'Foiled' again

    In this economy, I would not imagine many people are house shopping.
    Most people would rather rent than buy. For the three people out there looking to buy a house, please let me give you a piece of advice.
    No matter how great a cathedral ceiling looks don’t buy a house that has one.
    I can tell you from experience that it is a royal pain when it comes to replacing a light bulb. I have two lights that have been out for the past three years.

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  • Here's your sign!

    I’m pretty sure it’s spelled,
    p-r-o-c-r-a-s-t-i-n-a-t-i-o-n, but I don’t have time to check my dictionary. Anyway, many work harder at it than they would have by completing the projects they are avoiding.
    That brown spot in my lawn, for example. I mentioned it to a friend during a backyard barbecue.
    “Got to get some pesticide on that before it gets any worse,” I told him, pointing to a small patch of dead grass that my wife showed me days earlier.

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  • Please, not the grocery store

    I don’t like grocery shopping and I’m definitely not very good at it.
    I don’t mind running in and out of the store for an item or two, but to actually grocery shop, well, it’s a task I’ve never really mastered.
    I would do well to have a shopping expert accompany me when more than a few items are needed.
    First problem, I usually want out before I even get into the store. I try and think of which aisles I have to go to and plan a route that will get me out as fast as humanly possible.

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  • You’re kidding, right?

    When it first happened, all I really wanted to do was put a new motor in my car.
    I liked my car. It was comfortable and spacious and just high enough. I loved the fog lights at night that brightened the world, without blinding others, the seatbelt that just clicked right in without stretching. My console armrest was the perfect height and the drop from my seat to the floorboard was a great length for my legs.
    Oh, and my CD player was great!

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  • A failure to launch

    Gary, my wife’s cousin, was showing us around his and his wife Erika’s home near Merritt Island a couple hours before we were to return to their cabin on the Indian River and watch the final launch of the Endeavor. That’s when one of his daughters came out of the house and said “it’s cancelled.”

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