Is There Life After Hockey?

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Now that the Chicago Blackhawks have finally done it -- they've won the Stanley Cup after a 49-year drought -- life around the Teeters household can come back to normal. The winter sports season -- on June 9th -- came to an end.

The past seven weeks have revolved around the Hawks' playoff schedule, and the mood in the house has been dictated daily by the recent successes or failures of the team. Robin is a long-suffering fan, and I'm a fully-converted hockey lover. The kids all have Robin's devotion, and if I'm not mistaken, even the dog looked forward to the occasional breakaway one-on-one rush that ended in a Hawks score. When the Hawks won, everyone was happy. After a loss, the mood went dark.

But now it's over. No more planning meal times around the starting time, or planning mid-day naps to accommodate the west-coast late-night finishes. No more scheduling the lawn mowing, car washing, and laundry-doing around the games.

And no more putting off the blog writing. Now I can finally get back to hatin' on my neighbors.

The Hawks' success gave me a period of serenity about my neighbor, the dick -- the Polish feller across the street. He still leaves his garbage cans out in the street for days on end, and his lawn hasn't been mowed in three weeks.

But a while back I made a prejudice-induced guess that he may like hockey, being Polish and all... In my experience, my eastern-European acquaintances -- especially the vowelly-deprived ones -- are more into hockey and soccer than baseball and American football. So I cut him the same slack I expected everyone to cut me when I was too busy drinking to do anything until it became a crisis. But the playoffs ended last Wednesday, and he still hasn't mowed his yard. That leaves only drinking or laziness as his excuse.

He's had a great scam going over the last few years. As a contractor, he has a few connections in the local white-slavery trade. So about every other week you would see a new landscaping company attack his yard. Mexican guys everywhere -- mowing, raking, trimming -- the whole nine yards. Then, I have to assume, the check would bounce. Two weeks later, a different company was on the job, whacking away making a great first impression. Never to return. Eventually I think the word got out, because the weed crop is coming in strong across the street.

He could get my kid to mow his lawn for pretty cheap, as I have an awesome lawnmower. But I don't think he wants to be too friendly with us over here. Maybe it's because when he leaves his garbage cans in the street past Monday, I pull them into his driveway at 5 a.m. Tuesday. Then his wife has to get out of her car and move them in order to go get more vodka and cigarettes. That's the kind of passive-aggressive neighbors we've become.

I really want to steal the cans outright, or lay in some heavy Fourth-of-July ordinance and blow them right off their freaking wheels, but I'm sure that's over the line. Besides, I heard their house is going into foreclosure, and I don't want to be too mean.

Because, like Earl and his mentor Carson Daly, I believe in karma.

Fighting Depression One Toilet at a Time

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Lately I've been fighting depression. Well, not really.

My job situation isn't the best, but a helluva lot of people have it worse, so I'm not really fighting depression, more like Having an Argument with depression every once in a while. And every once in a while things just add up to make a real good case for being depressed.

Not the real shit, like last month when my sister Donna died. That shit would depress the Good Humor Man, for Christ's sake. But the little things that just bum you out. Like the billboard parade this morning.

I'm driving north on I-57 between job sites, and I'm getting paid for windshield-time. So far so good. I spot a cute kid on a billboard just north of 147th Street. Smiley little shit with a knit cap. He seems to be wearing motorcycle-gang colors, and the copy over his head reads "BORN TO DIE."

WTF?

In smaller letters -- probably only as big as my truck -- it says "Arms and limbs form in the first six weeks..." Aw shit, it's an anti-abortion message. Not the thing I want to think about on a day as nice as today.

Next billboard is a clever one. A view of a rear-view mirror, with some teenager holding a sign that reads "Let's go for ice cream after you paralyze us!"

Jesus, I'm behaving! I'm doing the speed limit! But, of course, I have three youngsters to think about -- one with a wife and a baby -- and they could be driving recklessly this very second. So now I've got THAT to think about...

Next sign points me to a great hospital that does Hip and Knee replacements. Nice. I'm not feeling too old already, worrying about my adult children, now hit me with that crap.

After the 1-800-Quit-Now billboard, reminding me about how many people die from lung cancer every year, here comes the Debt Erase offer. Hmmmm... after the paralyzing car accident and the hip and knee replacement, I may need that number. Damn, dude, I just turned off the news radio station two minutes ago because they wouldn't quit yakking about Insurance Reform. Now I'm thinking that if the economy doesn't pick up... and I still have a mortgage and a shitload of education loans to cover...

OK, I have a good sturdy rope in the truck. So I'm thinking about where's the nearest park with a good strong low-hangin' limb when this asshole-with-a-death-wish cuts me off from the right lane on a red motorcycle. Close enough for me to flinch and hit the brakes -- just after the nick of time -- and call him a dick. He wasn't going real fast, and traffic was slowing down, so I caught up with him. He was an older black feller, wearing a leather vest, and I read something about Riding for Christ on the back. "Riding for shit," was my mental response, then I quickly apologized to God in case he misinterpreted my meaning on that one... I'd hate for that fleeting thought to be the "tip in" that sends me where I might be going anyway.

Anyway, my mood lightened right up when I spotted a huge billboard for some new kinda toilet: "Traffic backed up? This baby won't!"

I Love it! A toilet billboard! Maybe this weekend, me and Robin can road-trip up to Wisconsin and score us a nice new shitter in slate blue. On the way home we can stop at Conejito's in Milwaukee, load up on beef-and-bean burritos, and test that baby out on Sunday morning! Now you're talking... fuck suicide, I have a toilet to try and clog up!

It is so nice to have something to live for. Now all I have to do is get Robin to go along with my new weekend plan! Wish me luck!

Lately My Job is Simply Electrifying

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Sometimes my job gives me the creeps.

Like the time we were replacing the skylights in the Reptile House at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Before we started, I had to put plywood over the tops of the snake pens. That meant I had to get up on top of several 50-year-old cages, while underneath me -- some 12 feet or so -- lay a bunch of lazy 20- and 30-foot-long reticulated pythons, boa constrictors, and other legless reptiles. If the cage failed, I'd find myself right there with my least favorite lifeforms -- other than lawyers -- and probably with a few broken bones for good measure. Like I said, it gave me the creeps.

Recently I've been getting the creeps again. My recent assignment has me working in several old electric facilities, part of Metra's electric railroad division on the south side of Chicago. The buildings are part of the former Illinois Central commuter rail division, and they were built in the later 1920s.

With the recent economic downturn, our company is pretty slow. So slow that I have lost my stripes as Superintendent, and have been working as a carpenter, laborer, janitor -- any damned thing to get a day's work on the books. That means I no longer command the construction battles from my windshield. Instead, I'm in the trenches again. With chipping guns, shovels, brooms -- whatever it takes.

What's giving me the creeps is all the live electric equipment I have to work around. The buildings we are renovating are called "sub-stations." Every six miles along the railroad, they need to feed electric power out to the overhead power lines that drive the trains. So ComEd brings the power to the sub-station, where they transform it from high-voltage AC power into lower-voltage DC power. That's done with these huge "rectifiers," which are just giant-assed versions of the transformers we had on our electric trains and slot-car sets when we were kids.

Remember those transformers? They had a vague ozone smell, and hummed when you turned on the power. Now imagine that times 10,000 or so, and you know what the places smell and sound like. A constant hum and buzz all day long in the air. Only now, it's not just a hangover or the dull ringing in my head from the 30 or 40 rock concerts I went to 25 or 30 years ago...

But the really creepy part is all the exposed electric equipment. All of it dangerous.

When we first started the job, Metra told us simply not to touch any equipment. Period. Which was a pretty easy to follow directive.

But as the job went along, you get used to the hum and the buzz and the fact that the electric equipment right next to you -- the thing you just leaned your broom against -- is carrying enough power to blow your ass half way to Florida if something goes wrong.

The basement of these buildings is the wildest thing -- many exposed solid-copper buss bars, switches and taps and levers you haven't seen since the last time you caught "Frankenstein" on Creature Features on Channel 9. When the newer electronic gear fails -- and it DOES fail -- the Metra guys can run downstairs and throw these Franken-switches to bypass the power to other sub-stations. There is virtually nothing preventing a dumbass like myself from reaching out and actually grabbing a live cable. Maybe a sign like "Danger - Alive," or "4000 volts" or, better yet "13,500 volts," but that's all.

There are four types of equipment downstairs.

1 - Live electric, which WILL kill you if you touch it.

2 - Live ground bars, which MAY kill you if you touch it.

3 - Emergency equipment, which will kill you if you touch it when it's energized. How can you tell if it's energized? Here's the fun part -- you can't.

4 - Abandoned equipment. If you touch it, you don't die, you just shit your pants, because you try not to touch ANYTHING at ANY TIME when you're downstairs.

How can they leave stuff exposed like this? Easy. These buildings were built in the good old days, before you could sue someone else when you did something completely stupid. Back then, if you were down there, it was assumed you knew better than to touch anything that looks electric.

When someone fucked up, the widow wouldn't sue. If she did, it would go like this:

Judge: "How did he die?"

Widow: "He grabbed a live, bare 13,500 volt electric cable."

Judge: "What was his job again?"

Widow: "He was an electrician...."

Judge: "Working for the electric railroad company?"

Widow: "Yes, but..."

Gavel: BANG! Case closed.

But the judge still awards her $2.50 anyway because the deceased had already put in his money for the 1934 fantasy football league pool...

The Economic Recovery is On The Horizon

Or maybe that's just another airplane...

That's what it always was when we were kids, laying in the grass at night, looking up at the starry sky, hoping to see a UFO. We'd see something that looked promising, but it always turned out to be another fucking airplane.

Occasionally it was a satellite. That was exciting. And one time it was SkyLab, but we all knew that way ahead of time, and we were all expecting it. It was on the news all day, and we weren't disappointed. But most of the time it was just another airplane.

With the job situation as it is, I spend a good deal of time hoping to see a UFO -- or the economic equivalent, which would be our company landing a big job. Our industry lags the economy by a year or so, which means the crappy economy is just hitting us hard about now. So I've been working with the tools again, not as a boss. Haven't had to do that since 1987, but I seem to remember how it goes...

In any case, I keep looking and hoping for a UFO, and all I see is airplanes.

Happy Freaking New Year

So far 2010 has been pretty damned cold.

Nothing going on around here. New Year's Eve came and went pretty uneventfully. The kids went out and made it home safely. The wife and I went to a friend's house for an early party, then came home to watch the Blackhawks kick the collective shit out of New Jersey. Those Hawks are awesome to watch. We got tickets to see them play Detroit in March. Should be fun.

The party was very nice. The host, Rod, was pretty well lit by the time we arrived. He's a real outgoing dude with a booming voice and a more booming personality. He was making some wicked Cosmo's, and their effect on him was apparent. He was a busy bee, and the Cosmo's made him a most entertaining host.

We met the new superintendent of schools for Libertyville High School. He was nice, and so was his wife. He got me talking about flying small planes, so I was in my element. I couldn't shut up (insert your "Duh!" here...) and yapped for an hour or so. They wanted to hear all about the engine failure we had in my dad's plane a few years back, and I indulged his curiosity until I was hoarse. Then he and his wife wanted my opinion on just how the Hell did John John Kennedy screw the pooch... he looked out the window too long, then didn't believe his instruments when they told him he was rolling upside down. Rookie error -- and a fatal one, at that. Too bad -- that was a nice plane he wrecked.

The party broke up about nine, as it was a "starter" party. After the hockey game, we both fell asleep, but woke up just in time to ring in 12:15 a.m.! I hope that's not an omen about the year to come.

Played a Led Zeppelin tune right away -- Ten Years Gone, off the Physical Graffiti album. Thirty years ago, we played that tune to ring in 1980 at "the white house" I lived in with two of my buddies. It seemed poignant back then, so every year I play that tune, especially to ring in the new decades.

If you notice, the ads next to the blog changed since my last post -- at least one of them did. It's now about snowmobiles, so I'm pretty sure I was right, that Google looks for keywords and posts ads to match the subject matter. No luck on the naked Asian chicks, though.

But I'll keep checking, cause they seem to keep changing. Never give up hope. Naked Asian chicks. There -- I said it again.

I'm Dreaming of a Wet Christmas

I'll resist the temptation to make a joke out of the "wet" and the "dream" part of that title -- it was unintentional, and now it just looks cheap. But I'm too lazy to change it.

Nothing new around here except the wonderful weather. Once again, looking more like Louisiana and less like Wisconsin every day. We have a nice coating of very heavy, wet snow, but the rain is making it look less and less like a white Christmas this year.

Reminds me of Christmas, 1970. Sixty degrees. I rode my Honda 70 minibike around my grade school that day for an hour or so. Then I went home and played the Beatles album (album? WTF?) "Let it Be." I got a new pair of Radio Shack headphones from Santa that year -- Nova 10's! They were made of genuine plastic, and only weighed about 11 pounds. You lost about a pound an hour in sweat alone, since they couldn't breathe. Looked like you worked out, by the time the album was ready to flip... (??)

I have to pretend to work tomorrow... I'm not on salary, and I don't want to take the day off, at least not off my paycheck. I'll miss next Friday, too, and the Friday after that I'm going snowmobiling with my son Steven. So it's three short checks in a row to start the new year. But I'm still lucky to be working -- a lot of others are having a pretty shitty holiday out there.

Including my neighbor, the dick. Poor bastard's too broke to bring up his garbage cans, I guess. But I noticed that this week, he's savvy enough to keep them in his driveway, like the SMART white trash. Tuesday morning I snuck out and pulled them into the street by a few feet, because it was snowing again. But no dice, the snowplow didn't run them over... Damn. Oh well -- they were empty anyway. (But thanks to the commenter who suggested putting a few bags of sakrete in there. That's just evil. I like that in a guy...)

Anyway, I still haven't received a check from Google for the ads that run just to the left of my blog postings... you guys need to help me out here. For every 100 clicks on a specific ad, I get 11 cents. So get to clickin'... I've got a mortgage payment due.

Funny thing -- the ads change after every post. And apparently, they are keyed to whatever is the subject of my rant.

A few weeks ago the ads featured stuff about animals -- specifically raccoons and animal traps. Last week they changed to ads about bear-proof garbage cans and related stuff. I can't believe for a minute that anybody from Google reads this crap, so Google must have a program that selects the ads based on key words. So here's a test: I'm going to put in some key words, and we'll see if the ads reflect the subject matter. Here goes:

Naked Asian chicks.

Sex involving pastries.

Exotic aquarium dwellers.

Snowmobile riding.

Men with "growing" problems. (Don't you love those commercials?)

E.D.

Naked snowmobile riding chicks having sex with men who need Flomax. Eating aquarium pastries with Asian friends suffering from E.D.


That ought to lead to some interesting ads. Or it'll get me kicked clean off this website.

Merry Christmas -- I'd love to keep writing, but after writing about Flomax, I gotta pee......

My Neighbor, the dick -- the Sequel

I thought it would be tougher to get started on this next posting -- the last one seemed to write itself, since I had so much pent-up bitching inside me.

But after I wrote that last one, things just got better around here.

My neighbor, the dick, left his garbage cans in the street last week, as I mentioned before. But it snowed last Wednesday night.

Our little village is small -- it has to hire a snow plow service to do the roads. We have a new company this winter, and the new guys mean business.

The village had sent out a reminder -- which hit our mailbox that Monday -- telling us loyal subjects that we have to keep our garbage cans out of the road on nights when snow is predicted. They apologized, since this might mean a bit of inconvenience to residents, but said it was necessary "for the safety and blah blah blah..." My eyes glazed over.

Wednesday came, and it was snowing like HELL, starting shortly after noon. The dick's garbage cans were still in the street, going on 9 days now. I saw this as I turned the corner, heading for home, and suddenly I remembered the warning from the village! It's snowing like HELL out here, and my neighbor, the dick, still has his cans in the street! And they're still full of garbage! SWEET! I could hardly fall asleep that night... there's NO WAY that lazy fucker will take them up in a snowstorm!

Sure enough, the next morning I awoke to find the street plowed, but his garbage cans were no longer in the street. Instead, they were in his yard -- fully 20 feet off the street -- and garbage was every-fucking-where.

Man, I know exactly what went through that snowplow-driver's mind when he turned to come down Pearson Road... TARGETS ACQUIRED!! My mission: To get some AIR with those fucking cans! I guess he hit them at about 30 miles an hour. Oh Sweet Successful Mission! I bet he shit himself when he hit the cans -- probably thought they were gonna be empty. Hope he didn't bend the plow...

Naturally, being a good, concerned citizen, I called the Village Hall the MINUTE they were open, to complain about the HEALTH ISSUE and the PUBLIC SAFETY concerns I had when I saw this horrifying display of garbage on the side of the street. And since this is a small village, a little gossip goes a long way. Our village motto: "If you can't say something nice about your neighbor, come sit next to me and let's talk..." So of course, I listed a whole 'nother litany of complaints.

I feel better now. Someone took the cans up to his house and cleaned up the garbage strewn about -- it was cleaned up even before I got home from work. The Village Administrator called me and said she left a voice mail on the dick's answering machine, and hoped everything would get better... we'll see.

In the mean time, the Holidays are already a bit happier around here!

And what, you may ask, spurred me to write a sequel about my neighbor, the dick? I got the urge because right now I'm watching the tow truck driver hooking up the dick's wife's Audi SUV to his winch. It appears she ran off her driveway and got the Audi buried in their yard, in broad daylight, once again.

Some things never change.