Stanleyturner

2008-07-16 02:31:39′,

‘When I got home from work today. There was about 17 messages on my answering machine. 16 of them were just a long series of beeping sounds. I got a call later and when I answered it, I got a loud beeping in my ear. The call was from some orthopedic place. When I called the number, I got fax sounds. Nobody answered. I figured that the Ortho place had tried to send a fax to my home number and since it was unsuccessful, it would keep trying it every 10 minutes. I was bummed. I didn’t want this to go on all nite. I remembered that the printer I just bought had a fax option so I hooked it up to the phone line and waited. When I got the call, I received a fax from the ortho company asking that some lady named Ruth to pay a late bill. It was only $83. There was a contact number which I called and told them to get rid of my phone number from Ruth’s account. We will see if I get any more faxes from them.’, ‘

2008-05-22 03:03:30′,

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! It is official, Big Ed was witnessed doing a catch and release of 3 different fish from the Dry Pond. Rejoice and bask in Ed’s glory, because he was the first, and must be acknowledged. There will be others. But, For this story to be complete, A frog must be caught there. And a snake or Snakes. And a Newt. And a Turtle.  Ducks and Geese must be seen cavorting. And maybe, just maybe, A deer, with sunlight glistening from its 23 point antlers must be seen drinking from the calm clear waters of the pond. Coyotes will be heard howling to each other across the waters. Someday, a skinny dipper will be spotted hiding behind the Island. Row Boats with couples singing to each other will skim in intricate patterns across the pond. And last, but not least, I look forward to having many many Dragonflies patrolling the waters and keeping us safe from mosquitoes. It has started. Let it Continue. I patiently await fulfillment.’, ‘

2008-04-25 23:07:59′, ‘2008-04-26 03:07:59’, ‘

Eddie and I joined the Cub Scouts to sleep on the USS Torsk, a WW2 submarine that is set up as a Museum piece in the Inner Harbor at Baltimore. A group of kids and their parents sleeping in close quarters on tiny bunks stacked 3 high surrounded by metal. Originally I did want to attempt to sleep next to other loud snoring people. But I found out that ear plugs are actually rated by the amount of sound that they block. So I researched on the internet and found some that had a maximum sound blocking rating of 32. I ordered a bunch of them and put them to the test when Paul and I shared a Canvas tent at Cub world. Paul’s tree-rattling snores did not disturb me so I agreed to get sardined in the Sub for the ultimate snoring earplug test. One feature that the submarine museum wanted the adults to experience was “Standing Watch” throughout the night to protect the Scouts from raiding pirates. We were to each pick an time during the night for our hour of standing watch. I drew 5 am. Other adults who drew 1,2,3 and 4 am wanted to trade with me but I figured I could handle 5 am. I picked a middle bunk that had lots of space between me and the bunk above me. I ended up with a woman above me and another below me. Sounds great, but the whole experience left a lot to be desired. It turns out that I accidentally kicked the lady above me a couple of times but she did not retaliate. Another man did not pick as wisely. He complained in the morning that his nose kept touching the stainless steel bunk above him. He also said he did not get much sleep. Something I discovered while attempting to sleep in the skinny little bunks on the submarine was that the bunks padding are covered by NaugaHide. I found out that after about 15 minutes of contact with bare skin the NaguaHide will begin to bond with human skin and it will strongly resist separating as it would yank on every exposed nerve in the skin that it had assimilated. Since I felt the need to turn over about every 20 minutes, I would notice an intense pain as the NaugaHide would separate from my skin. This tended to wake me up a little. But Not enough for me to want to worm my way out of the bunk and put on a shirt. Each time I rolled over I kept anticipating that it had reached 5 am and I would be woken up to stand my watch. But it turns out that the lady who had 4 am did not wake me up. She felt that she could not get back to sleep so she did not wake me The submarine captain lady had warned us that she would be waking us up at 6:30 am by sounding the Ah-oog-Ga horn. This had all the kids so freaked out that they all woke up at 6:15. When the horn went off, I was disappointed that it did not have a speaker in the sleeping quarters. So it was not all that loud, but I was awake anyway.

2008-03-24 01:51:35′, ‘

For Spring Break the TurnerClan went to the Lake house. Many Lizards were caught.   We lasso’d a snake and I pulled it out of its hidie place.   Then I let it poop all over Ryan. Anna helped to lasso a different snake the next day but failed to get it to come out of its hole.

One day, Nick took Brenda for a ride in his jet boat. While they were using the Electric trolling motor, the steering mechanism for it went out.    Once they came in, Eddie and Zack got Nick to agree to take them for a boat ride.  Nick decided that I had to go along to help.  As we were launching, I got Laura to hop on for the ride.  As we are heading for the No Wake zone, Nick informs us that he does not have much gas so we have to keep the ride short.  His gage is showing empty as we head out into the lake.  So Nick does a couple of high speed circles and then shoves the throttle forward.  The boat starts to accelerate then BAM!!  The boat stops accelerating and the engine revs.  Nick plays with the shifting system but the boat does not want to go anywhere.  Nick mumbles something about a Shear Pen snapping.  After about 30 seconds  of playing with things, the Overheat alarm starts to go off and Nick Kills the engine.  I inform Laura that this is bad.   I dig out a Paddle and start waving at a boat that is about 500 yards away.  It ignores me and speeds away.  We are about a half mile away from the dock with a very light wind blowing us towards the dock. Nick goes to the front of the boat and drops the electric trolling motor.  He lays on his stomach on the bow and  reaches down to grab the trolling motor.  He tells me to sit on the front seat and push the trolling motor throttle button.  It starts up and we move.  Nick adjusts the motor with his hands so that we are sort of heading for the dock.   Eddie and Zack keep asking when we will make it back to the Lake House.  I notice that our course is drifting away from the dock.  The drifting keeps getting worse and Nick seems to be just lying there staring at the water.  I let him know and he looks up and re-adjusts the motor with his hands and we start heading back to the dock.   After a while we start drifting again and I let him know once we start heading back into the lake.   A couple more repetitions of this and the trolling motor suddenly stops.  Nick pulls it out of the water and starts disassembling it using his Leatherman.  We are about 200 yards outside of the No Wake poles and the water is WAY too cold for Laura to get out and start pulling us towards shore.  We dug up 4 paddles and Zack, Laura, Eddie and I start paddling for the Dock while Nick tries to get the Electric Trolling motor working.  The wind helps a little while I worry that Zack or Eddie are going to drop a paddle and we will have to go after it.  Nick eventually gives up and takes a paddle and tries to order us around to make us paddle properly.  I ignore him and paddle the way that I want to.  We make it back to the Dock and celebrate that our ordeal is over.  Yeah!

2008-02-23 21:16:23′, ‘

Even though he did not get to race his car in the finals he still got 3rd place for Show (For some reason the Scouts call it Concourse). The reason we probably did so well was that you get a couple extra points if you have a Scout theme on the car. So we had glued an old patch to it. Otherwise it was totally an Eddie design from how it was cut to the color scheme. Next year Eddie wants to make a car that will win both the Race and the Show prizes.’, ‘Eddie took 3rd Place for Show in the Cub Scout Bears PineWood Derby District Finals’

2008-02-17 14:16:50′, ‘2008-02-17 18:16:50’, ‘

In our back yard, there was a pine tree that grew ThisClose to another tree. It died about 10 years ago and for the last 4 years has been leaning over more and more. So I decided that I needed to cut it down. I got my electric Chain saw plugged in and was working on cutting the wedge of wood from the tree so the tree would fall in the right spot. After some cutting, I saw the wedge break free from the tree, and I pulled the chainsaw out. The tree cracked and leaned over and pinched the wedge into its slot. The tree did not fall down. The wedge would not come out. I was bummed. I tried a crowbar on the wedge. I tried to knock it out with a sledge hammer and a long bar. The wedge was wedged. My tree felling instructions really wanted the wedge removed so that the tree would fall in the right direction when I did the cut on the back of the tree. So I started to cut at the wedge with the chainsaw. As I cut at it, the tree would make a little crack, I would step back with the chainsaw and the tree would not fall. This happened a couple of times so I cut at the wedge a little deeper. This time the tree did not warn me with a little crack noise when it shifted. It also pinched my chainsaw in the the slot with the wedge wedged on top of it with the whole tree on top of that. I was bummed. I yanked at it, wiggled it. It would not budge. If the tree fell now it might fold my chansaw bar right over. Which is why I did not go get my brand new Christmas chainsaw to try and rescue it. I went to my wood shop and got some long wood chisels and started chipping away the wedge above the chainsaw. I discovered that trying to watch the tree, the end of the chisel, the base of the chisel, the hammer and planning my escape route was too many things to watch and think about simultaneously. The end result of which was the hammer striking my hand a number of times. Like ouchie. After about 15 minutes of this. I was able to pull the chainsaw out. I decided to forget about the wedge and go for the backside cut. The tree fell right where I wanted it to. Yay! This little 3 minute adventure only took me about an hour and a half to complete along with a sore hand. I hope that all my future trees are much simpler.

2008-02-05 03:55:00′, ‘

Nick had a problem this morning. He heard a thumping about 6am and went to yell at Chris who wasn’t up yet. It was coming from the bathroom where Brenda was banging the trashcan on the floor because she was too weak to yell. And for some reason Brenda feels a need to lock the bathroom door at 6 in the morning. So anyway Nick has to go find the key to unlock the door and found her lying on the floor hugging the rug. According to the Appendicitis entry at Wikipedia, if she had an inflamed appendix which lies on the psoas muscle then the patient will lie with the right hip flexed for pain relief. She tells him to call 911. Nick takes her to the Hospital in one of his snow plow trucks with the lights flashing. The doctors there decide that she has broken her Appendix. So hers probably looked something like this. I don’t know much about what happened next but She underwent surgery and seems to have survived. She will be allowed to go home on Tuesday afternoon to experience all her post surgical pain. Nick has asked the Doctor to save the video of the operation. When he gets it, you will be able to watch it here. There is also a good chance that she will be able to take the little black piece of appendix finger home in a jar so they can display it over the new Television. That would be cool.

2008-01-21 01:48:11′, ‘

I was having a wonderful time playing Battlefield 2142 against other people on the Internet with my computer when I heard Laura start screaming from down stairs. I wasn’t sure what was up so I decided to go check it out. She kept screaming so I started moving a little faster. When I got to the stairs, she was still going strong and I heard the word “Fire”. I started moving a lot faster and almost fell down the stairs as I tried to figure out where she was. When I got to the kitchen, she said the Dryer was on fire and she handed me the fire extinguisher which was still in the box. I looked at the dryer and saw light coming from a crack in the front panel. I finished opening the box, took it out and pulled the pin. I could see the flames flickering from the crack and tried to pull the dryers front panel off. It would not come off. I stuck the nozzle of the extinguisher in the crack and discovered that the little lever on the back of the extinguisher does not make it do its thing. You have to push the lever on the top of it. After two shots into the crack, the flames went out and the laundry room was filled with smoke and fire extinguishing powder. It tastes funny. I ran downstairs, got my crowbar and tried to get the panel off. It wouldn’t come off. I had to dig up the instruction manual and finally got it off. The bottom of the inside of the dryer was covered with lint about 3/4 inch deep. The top layer was black from burning and there were spots where the flames had burned in much deeper. Insulation had melted from some wires underneath. We were lucky. When I went back to my computer game, the punkbuster part of the game had kicked me out of the game because I had stopped moving my character. I forgave the game.

2007-08-22 00:02:56

Today I had to drive my car into a secure Government Facility. When I showed my ID to the guard, he commented to me that something very special just happened. So I asked him what and he said that 3 out of the previous 4 cars ahead of me were driven by a “Turner”. My immediate thought was to make a joke about the counterfeiting equipment getting stuck on the last name. But considering where I was, I felt it would not lead to him laughing at the joke. Then he showed me his badge and his last name was “Turner” also. So I just said “Wow what a coincidence!”, congratulated him on his name and drove in.

2007-08-17 02:30:13′, ‘

Paul, David, Eddie and I spent the weekend at the Cub Scouts Cub World for the Family weekend thing.  It was fun, we went up Friday nite, slept on skinnie crummy cots in canvas tents and worked on bonding with our Sons while they shot BB guns, Bows and Arrows and dug for Archeological treasures.  We came home Sunday morning. I let Paul, Eddie and David go to the pool while I tried to take a short nap.  I got up, put my swim suit on and headed for the pool.  Halfway there, Paul called me on my cell phone which I dug out of my backpack and I told him that I was on my way.  I put the phone in my swim suits pocket and kept going.  When I got to the pool, Paul was waiting and rushed me run over to the Head Life Guard Eagle Scout so that I could get certified as a swimmer ASAP.  They hiked me over to the edge of the pool and told me to swim the length of it. So I put down my Back Pack and jumped in and swam my lap.  As I got out, I realized that my cell phone was in my pocket.  I blame Paul for this.  I went over and got my certification tag with my name on it from the Eagle Scout and Paul made me put it on the “I am swimming in the Pool” tag board.  When I get out of the pool, I am supposed to remove my tag.  The Eagle Scouts will look at this board at the end of the day, and if any tags are left, then they know to go look for a drowned body in the pool.  And if they look at the tag, they will know the name of the dead body.   The flaw with this system is that if more than one person drowns, the identification will be more difficult.   I was not in the mood to explain this to them. Anyway, when I looked at my phone, it wasn’t working.  It had water in the display.  I took out the battery and put the phone in the sun.  I was sad.  I cooked the phone on the dashboard of my car.  It had less water in the display.  I read about 140 suggestions on the internet on how to dry out a phone.  I found out that there is a little water detector sticker on the phone behind the battery.  Mine was red.  It meant that my warranty was void and the internetters said that it would have also voided the Insurance policy if I had purchased one. Five days of drying later, It still does not work.  I guess I will replace it.  I went to the ATT web site to see what it might cost.  The web site told me to register on the site before they could give me a price.  I started to register and as the final step of the registration process, the web site informed me that it would send me my password as a text message to my Cell phone.  I gave up on the registration process. Paul is a lot of trouble.’, ‘