Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, February 26, 2019

  • Little did I know, I’ve been breaking a city code ordinance for the last fourteen-or-so years.
    • GeedingManor has a two-car garage at the back of the house. Like most houses in the neighborhood, it’s about darn near impossible to park two vehicles inside of it. And when we can manage to get two vehicles inside, opening the doors wide enough to get in and out takes Andy Dufresne like effort.
    • The houses in our neighborhood were built in the mid-Nineties and it boggles my mind why they all have small two-car garages. Meanwhile, the houses in my old neighborhood in Mineral Wells, build in the early Sixties, It think, could easily park two large vehicles and still have plenty of room for storage.
      • I looked up my childhood home on GoogleMaps. It appears to be the only house on the street with a car parked in the grass, under a tree. Man, that house hasn’t been taken cared for over the years and is full of overgrowth. I assure you, that yard was well kept by some previous tenants. Oh, that house doens’t have a garage, it converted into an apartment so grandma could live there.
    • I’ve always parked a little bit in the grass because I don’t want my one-eyed wife backing into our second vehicle (again). Back in college, she once drove into a bit yellow school bus. And, since we now have a basketball goal, I want to give the kids a bit more room to play.
    • It’s hard to tell from the picture, but when I park partly in the grass, it’s not viewable from the front street. There are some HOA rules which state certain things are acceptable in the back as long as it’s not visible from the front street, so I thought I was in the good.
    • Was I upset? Nah. It’s a small thing. As I said, I’ve been doing this for about fourteen years and only now have been cited, I just didn’t know I was doing something wrong. Do I think it’s a bit nitpicky of the city? Maybe a little, I understand why such ordinances exist and do recall some cars parked in the front yard of neighboring houses in Mineral Wells, and I was only partially parked on the grass on my own property. It’s just one of those things which you think you can do what you want on your own property only to find out it’s not quite that way.
    • Now that I’ve been cited by the city, I think this ruins any political aspirations I had. There’s no way I can survive this scandal. When someone searches for my name online, this grievance act will always be the first result which pops up. I’ve embarrassed my wife and kids, and they will have to live with this shame. The only just thing to do is to hire a lawyer and get their names changed to protect their identities and future.
  • I recently read somewhere that “liberal” in “liberal arts” is meant to be interpreted as “to liberate the mind from ignorance and to understand how to learn”.
  • The crash of a that Atlas Air Boeing 767 cargo plane in the muddy marshland near Houston reminds me of the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades in 1995.  That crash stands out for two reasons. NFL player Rodney Culver was on the flight, and the plane was basically buried in mud and the crash site was especially hard to get to.
    • Additionally, recovery of the aircraft and victims was made extremely difficult by the location of the crash. The nearest road of any kind was more than a quarter mile (400 m) away from the crash scene, and the location of the crash itself was a deep-water swamp with a floor of solid limestone. The aircraft was destroyed on impact, with no large pieces of the fuselage remaining. Sawgrass, alligators, and risk of bacterial infection from cuts plagued searchers involved in the recovery effort.
    • Recovery of the passengers and crew took several weeks and little in the way of intact human remains was found due to the sheer violence of the impact, immersion in swamp water, and scavenging wildlife. About 68 of the 110 persons aboard the plane were identified, in some cases from examining jawbones, and at least one individual from a single tooth. 
  • President Trump will be meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam for their second summit. The first summit was surreal seeing U.S. flags next to North Korean flags. It’s going to be even more surreal for me seeing U.S. flags displayed along North Korean and Vietnamese flags.
  • The first Trump-Kim summit was in Singapore, which had two months to prepare for the event. Vietnam only had about ten days of preparation. I’ve read several Secret Service books and all the planning which goes on for a presidential trip overseas. Think about all the logistics and safety concerns and coordinating with two communist governments. The agency is certainly up to the task, but I’m sure most people don’t realize how much work goes on behind the scenes to pull off such a thing.
  • Man emails Taylor Swift to sing at his engagement party — and she shows up
  • A dog reacts to the death of Mufasa. He’s not going to like the remake, I predict.

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10 Responses to Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, February 26, 2019

  1. Bizarro Big Tex says:

    It hurts my nature loving soul to recommend this, but pave that grass over with concrete. The extra parking space peace of mind and Wife Geeding’s safety are worth the sacrifice of green space. If City Code permits the added paving on your lot.

  2. Alan says:

    Cutting corners to cut costs on home building. Zero-Lot-Line properties. Smaller cars than in the 60s, all add up to the situation. Not to mention more family members with vehicles that park in the street, narrower streets in neighborhoods. It’s a mess that just keeps getting bigger.

  3. Andrew K says:

    I got a ticket once too and I immediately went to Home Depot and got concrete squares. 6 will do.

  4. Bryan B. says:

    I have a neighbor that regularly parks with his tires on the grass to give his wife more room to get in and out of the garage. I’ve never paid much attention to it or let it bother me and that’s with a front entry garage where it’s more obvious. Strange that something like that would catch a code enforcement officer’s eye.

    My cousin’s stepfather was the first officer on the doomed ValuJet flight. As the article mentions, just a piece of one finger was the only part of his body recovered. Her mother had a very difficult time collecting any kind of death benefits prior to that discovery.

  5. John Mackovic says:

    A loyal Democrat like yourself should know that some government bureaucrat is vastly more qualified than you are on correct usage of your property. 🙂

  6. Read it in a book says:

    Rescuers for Eastern Airlines #401 that crashed in the Everglades in the early 70’s faced many of the same challenges (snakes, gators, sawgrass, mud, etc).

  7. RPM says:

    Can’t park on the grass? City folk problems. ; )

  8. Alec666 says:

    It seems to me you got the liberally lean lawyer all worked up about your ticket. Will an alliance come about? will you finally meet said lawyer?
    I’m very intrigued.

  9. Scooter says:

    NOFEDS…Fight the Man Keith

  10. Former Neighbor Payne says:

    No doubt about it, Kay Fox reported you (assuming she still lives there). We ended up pouring concrete that side of our driveway when we did our new fence but then moved 2 months later and never got to enjoy it after living there for 10 or so years.

    I wonder what would happen if you put gravel down where that is and see if they still cite you for it since it’s not “grass”.

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