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Post by onlyMark on Jun 21, 2023 16:08:50 GMT
He's in Saigon. Probably not gone to the toilet between leaving home and getting to his hotel.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 21, 2023 21:22:14 GMT
Did he get to greet the boiler men before being moved to the front room? It seems he doesn't realize that they're not intruders. We introduced all the engineers as they arrived. Django just barks when he's excited....when he's bored, angry, hungry, happy, eating...*sigh* he even makes wuffly noises when he's asleep. He's just a noisy dog. The engineer was using a lot of dangerous tools so an excited dog might have been distracting. All done now. Took 3 days in the end.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 5, 2023 1:33:02 GMT
I guess this was only borderline a trauma, although it was a little creepy. Last night in the very wee hours I was deeply asleep when something woke me. Coming groggily to, I discerned a sort of thumping noise. Then I opened my eyes and saw something banging against my window. Is it a bat? I thought. It was after all the dead of night, completely silent and dark inside and out. I sleep with the sliding window all the way open because it's high up on a blank wall so I don't have to worry about %^&*@#cats or scorpions getting in as I did at my other house. Squinting at the thing banging itself against the closed side of the window, I finally realized it was a bird -- a bird that had no business being out at that time of night -- and it was perched and jumping on the very narrow ledge outside the window. I pounded my hand against the window where it was, hoping to make it fly away but it just redoubled its efforts, then sort of settled down. I grumpily went off to the bathroom, then got back in bed & went to sleep ............ until the little feathered bastard woke me up again. This time it was sort of jump flying up the window pane. More banging with my hand, & then I closed the window so I could sleep. When I got up this morning there was no poo-poo on the window ledge, nor smashed birdy on the patio below. The window of my discontent ~
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Post by questa2 on Jul 5, 2023 12:41:02 GMT
ouch!
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Post by Kimby on Jul 5, 2023 13:23:09 GMT
Not a personal trauma, and not petty, but I AM feeling traumatized.
Last night we were driving back to the lake cottage after the Fourth of July fireworks, and were just cresting the hill of the mile-long peninsula our cottage is located near the tip of. We saw a big dancing orange glow near, very near, one of our neighbors’ houses, and thought “those guys are nuts to have such a big bonfire so close to their house.”
Then it registered that it was NOT a bonfire, but a small vehicle burning ferociously, mere feet from their garage door! And the loud noise we had heard moments earlier was not fireworks, but an explosion. We stopped the car on the road and while I fumbled with my cell phone (no glasses, no signal, hands shaking) we watched horrified as the flames leapt higher and licked at the eaves of the attached garage and people raced to back other vehicles out of harms way.
The flames had engaged the soffits and it appeared that there might be no stopping it before it took over the whole house. We heard shouts “Get everyone out, now!” and lots of shocked profanities before racing home to call 911 on the house phone. (As we expected it had already been called in, but it took awhile for the fire trucks to arrive.)
It was now after midnight but we were way too excited to sleep, and since terrain blocked our view of the imperiled house, we got back in the car and drove back to see if they got there in time.
They did. No flames and five large fire engines with flashing lights on the access road. Since we are in a fire district served by volunteers it was encouraging that the house wasn’t lost.
This morning we will walk by to see what we can see. We don’t know these neighbors as they only recently purchased the house, but I imagine we’ll get details through the grapevine. The burning vehicle had the shape of an ATV and could have had extra gas cans strapped on the back. Later in the season when the grasses have dried out, something like this could sweep the peninsula, but thankfully it’s been a wet spring and everything is lush and green.
I’m still shook up. A house fire is traumatic, even when it isn’t yours.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 5, 2023 16:00:22 GMT
Gosh...house fires are terrifying. Hope that everybody is ok.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 5, 2023 16:06:45 GMT
I can certainly imagine being shaken up.
My parents' house in California caught on fire when we were all in France in 1968. No telephone, no internet of course. The neighbor just sent a short note by post saying "there was a little fire, nothing much, don't worry." Well, the fire was a bit more than "little" but luckily it was only in the rafters of the garage. We never really knew what started it. It just burned some old suitcases and cardboard boxes, but it certainly made us all feel vulnerable.
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Post by Kimby on Jul 6, 2023 3:53:45 GMT
Update on the almost house fire: it was the ATV that caused the fire. It was new ably 50 miles on its odometer. Had started making funny noises. Bring a holiday weekend, he couldn’t take it back to the dealer. Plus his grandkids were visiting for the weekend and wanted to ride it. Understandable. You never expect something like this to happen.
Shoulda parked it further from the house.
At least they have a large pile of spare shingles to repair the roof with.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 6, 2023 18:16:12 GMT
ATV ? All terrain vehicle ? Electrical ?
Fires are traumatising.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 6, 2023 19:36:39 GMT
Has your bird come back at all Bixa?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 6, 2023 20:04:25 GMT
No, thank goodness. I hope it flew home at dawn.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 6, 2023 20:22:29 GMT
Our cats eat birds.
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Post by Kimby on Jul 8, 2023 1:50:09 GMT
ATV ? All terrain vehicle ? Electrical ? Yes, ATV is all terrain vehicle. Sometimes called ORV (off-road vehicle) though that can include jeeps and the like, too. The exploding ATV was a “side-by-side” which has a bench seat for two, instead of driver and rider straddling the machine like a snowmobile or a jet ski (aka PWC = personal watercraft). Some side-by-sides seat 4 on two wide seats. ATVs and the other “crotch rockets” run on gasoline engines, and besides the vehicle’s built in gas tank, usually strap on one or more 5 gallon Gerry cans. Fuel for an impressive fire.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 8, 2023 2:57:03 GMT
There was a house fire next door to me when I lived in Port Isabel, Texas. We were living on a boat & had a dock next to it whose roof we'd recently tarred. The fire started in a travel trailer parked behind the house that was illegally hooked up electrically to the house. The father of the family lived there. (& no, I don't know what the story was on that.) Anyway, it was a dramatic and rapid blaze. The excellent volunteer fire department arrived quickly and fought it valiantly. Meanwhile, my husband & I had two hoses going trying to wet down our boat and the dock roof which was right next to the blazing trailer. I'd raced outside in bare feet and was running up and down the hurricane fence between the two properties wetting everything I could. Then a fireman came over & told me to get away from the fence as a live electrical cable had fallen across it.
This took place in a little community built on canals off the Intracoastal Waterway. We were somewhat hampered in our hosing efforts by the @$%#^&* neighbors. They all wanted to have a front seat at the spectacle, so walked along the seawall & and the street & on up onto our dock. Then they stood there like people watching a fireworks display, even though we were yelling at them to go away.
The house and the trailer burnt to the ground. The family got out but the man, who was older & very overweight, ran back to rescue his little dog and had a heart attack and died during the firefighting.
The last chapter of all this was the funeral, which was very sparsely attended. I went because the man was the only one in the family I knew and he'd always been very personable & friendly with me. A friend of ours from the town only said, when told of the death, "Ah yes -- the old bridgetender", but didn't expound. At any rate, there I was at the church in a nice dress with stockings & little heels, when I was asked to be one of the pall bearers as there were not enough men there to do it.
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Post by Kimby on Jul 8, 2023 4:56:47 GMT
Poignant story, Bixa.
I added a cell phone image of the ATV/garage fire to my post above.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 8, 2023 5:17:38 GMT
That picture sums up the helpless horror of seeing someones property being destroyed by fire.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 8, 2023 13:33:22 GMT
Quite a story.
Kimby it is a jerrrycan. Called like that because during ww2 ré supply of tanks etc was done with drums of about 220l. Not so easy to handle plus need a pump etc. The Germans devised small containers of 20 l that a man could handle which made result quite faster and easier. The nickname of the Germans was Jerry. Thus Jerry can.
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Post by Kimby on Jul 8, 2023 16:35:28 GMT
Thanks for the spellcheck. I knew it was related to Germans, but assumed that Jerry was spelled with a G because German is.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 8, 2023 17:05:20 GMT
For once that i spell something correctly 🤣🤣🤣
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 8, 2023 17:46:13 GMT
There is also the alternate spelling in English -- jerrican, which is also the French spelling.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 8, 2023 18:12:49 GMT
Mouais. French even spell fuel as fioul and beefsteak as bifstek. I saw biftek in Belgium.
Even if I am accused of preferring French spelling by some there are limits 😂😂
Now even when we keep the spelling we pronounce in a French way. Clown for instance is written like in English but pronounced cloon. Keeper becomes ‘Kaip’.
Etc.
The funniest for me was the fuel company Q8. I never made the link with Kuwait because we say ‘q huit’ pronounce ‘cul wit’.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 8, 2023 18:51:14 GMT
Perhaps because my brain is completely bilingual, I understood Q8 the instant I saw the signs in Luxembourg.
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Post by Kimby on Jul 8, 2023 19:11:10 GMT
That picture sums up the helpless horror of seeing someones property being destroyed by fire. It wasn’t my house but my heart was in my throat and I was so panicked I couldn’t remember how to use my phone to call 911. Fortunately others already had.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 8, 2023 21:04:51 GMT
French even spell fuel as fioul and beefsteak as bifstek. I saw biftek in Belgium. Even if I am accused of preferring French spelling by some there are limits 😂😂 Whatagain, in Mexico a "bistek" can be beef or it can be the way meat is cut. For instance, if you want some boneless pork or chicken, you might be asked if you want "bisteces". If you say yes, you'll get thin filets that might also be pounded. But bisteces a la Mexicana (beef filets in a tomato sauce) are always beef. There is also "panque", which is not a pan cake. Rather, it is pound cake (panque is pronounced pawn kay). My favorite will always be the shops in the Mexico City airport named Dufry. It took me forever to realize that was Du(ty)Free.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 10, 2023 8:54:59 GMT
Actually "bifteck" was a term used in France 20-30 years ago. Now people just say "steak" (pronounced 'stek') as the generic term if they are not referring to a specific cut (entrecôte, onglet, hampe, tournedos, etc.).
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Post by onlyMark on Jul 26, 2023 10:17:28 GMT
Maybe I'm not so clever. It's took me two weeks to realise if I turn the bread sideways it will toast the whole thing instead of leaving the top part not done.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 26, 2023 10:27:52 GMT
A radio toaster?
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Post by onlyMark on Jul 26, 2023 11:29:39 GMT
It certainly is. Cool.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 26, 2023 11:36:19 GMT
Does it play music by Bread?
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Post by onlyMark on Jul 26, 2023 12:03:07 GMT
Bread and The Jam, yes. In Spanish though.
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