Shin-ippets

Just a couple of them this time around — since I haven’t bestowed any ippity goodness with you all for a while:

* A while back I posted a query on Facebook regarding an outdoor lamp I was trying to replace at the front of our home. The issue at hand was removing the old lamp: it had (likely) been installed when the house was built in the mid-1970s. And the screws holding the lamp in were more rusted and stripped than Joanna Kerns after shooting a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime.  I received some good advice for extracting the screw (Thanks to MetalMom and her husband!) — which worked to an extent. But the real problem was caulk. Stuffed inside the junction box. Which, when  you’re an immature oaf like I am, sounds really quite funny.

Anyway — after hacking through the mess of caulk, we were finally able to get the old lamp off and the new one installed. And re-caulked (snort).  So the new lamp is up and working! And it has a motion sensor! And a “dusk to dawn” mode! (Which disappointed me a bit; it apparently means that the light goes on automatically when it gets dark out. And has nothing to do with vampires and watching Salma Hayek dance with a snake.)  I’ll post pictures sometime soon…

* My kid is wonderful. Smart. Clever, even. But he doesn’t quite understand how jokes work. Some of the stuff that works (slightly) for him is material which he simply imitates from television.  He doesn’t understand those jokes, but he knows that they get laughs and he copies it with the proper inflection.  But when left to his own devices, he simply doesn’t know how to tell a joke. They often go a lot like this:

Him:  “Hey – want to hear a joke?”

Me: “Sure…”

Him: “I just finished that and now — Meeeshon Accomplished!”

Me  [ . . . ]

Yeah. It’s that random.  It almost makes me want to teach him to say “Ay, Dios Mio!” after each punchline so I know that the joke is over…

* Went to visit my Dad today. On the way back home, I got curious and decided to drive by the old house — the one where I grew up. And the one that, as of two months ago, no longer belongs to my dad.  I suppose I wanted to know if it was still there, still looked the same, had been converted into a convenience store  a la Grosse Pointe Blank, etc.

As I drove by, there was a minivan which had just pulled into the driveway. Out came a mom and a kid, probably about eight years old. She was carrying a violin case and was wearing a Hello Kitty backpack. I didn’t get any other details (I was driving the speed limit at the time) but it seems like this new family is making their own memories in their home. Which is a good thing. I wish ‘em the best.

* I’m impressed with Apple’s “Genius Bar” mode of technical support. The speaker on my iPhone was beginning to die. I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of technical support — as I’ve read about the horrors of Geek Squad and other similar store-brand fix-it departments which have left customers feeling ripped-off and agitated.  Genius Bar, however, was different: First, I was able to pre-book an appointment to bring in my iPhone to a store location. That, in itself, helped to ensure that I wouldn’t be kept waiting. (And it probably helps to diffuse frustrated, waiting customers a bit as well).  I was helped almost immediately.  When the problem was seen and was unable to be fixed, I was simply provided with a new (or refurbished?) iPhone. One that was working. my service guarrantee would cover that one as well. Easy.  It made me realize that some models of customer service actually can work.

* Finally finished the remaining episodes of Prison Break. I had followed the show from day one and have felt that it was one of the better shows that has graced the airwaves over the past four years. I rolled my eyes a bit when they resurrected the character of Dr. Sara “Surprise! I’m not really dead!” Tancredi. But hey — they added Michael Rappaport as a main character, so I found it to be an acceptable suspension of reality.   They managed to tie everything up at the end in a neat little bow, but not without a whole lot of other unbelievable moments.  All in all — glad I watched, but more glad that it’s over.

* That’s all for now. I don’t use bullets for my posts, so I suppose I’ll save the last asterisk for me.