A draft to our Silent Neighbor

Here’s the draft of the letter to the neighbor. I think it’s mostly a vent right now, and that this won’t actually be sent to him.
Still. It’s freaking hilarious.

Clicky clicky the photos to see bigger…they’re calculations pulled straight from the county website on noise ordinance 🙂

Dear Jack,

We found your last email to be quite offensive, un-neighborly and not in the least humorous.

If you had simply stated “I can hear the hum of your pool pump motor from inside my home, is there any way that we can work together to minimize the sound?”, that would have been a courteous way to communicate your desires.

Instead, you felt it necessary to launch into a pedantic condescending bloviation in which you re-stated (as you did in your last email concerning noise emanating from children playing), your aversion to any sound that derives its source from anything outside the sounds of nature, specially those emanating from the presence of human beings.

If you had cordially communicated your concerns, we would have informed you that we had already taken you hyper-sensitivity to sound into account and were in the process of enclosing the unit in a sound reducing enclosure, placing the unit on vibration absorbing foam and surrounding the pump motor with thick Styrofoam to render the unit virtually inaudible.

Even worse, you made the errant assumption that we are completely ignorant of acoustic calculation and audio engineering and issued a boorish dissertation on the effects of audio physics relating to the decibel level occurring at your location.  Your careless hurling around of audio terminology infers that we are completely ignorant of acoustic calculation and audio engineering.

In the future, if you have the need to communicate issues relating to sound to another that you use the following formulae to provide specific mathematical data and utilize the sums of the data to justify that the sounds that you are hearing are above the legally acceptable level of OUR COUNTY ordinances:

We feel, at the very least, you owe us an apology for being so un-neighborly, making us feel unwelcome, as well as insulting our intelligence.

Oh, dear neighbor. Go f*ck yourself.

LETTER FROM OUR AWESOME NEIGHBOR. Names have been changed, because I really wouldn’t put it past him to sue for defamation. Not like he has ANYTHING ELSE TO DO.

The pool pump is the quietest one on the market. Our house is approximately the same distance from the pump as his is, and we can’t hear it at all. Hardly even with the windows open.

Also, we’re pretty sure that he needs to go live in the middle of Oklahoma, where his nearest neighbor is 15 miles away and can play vuvuzelas all day without fear of email retribution.

Hi Folks,

It’s “Jack” your neighbor here. HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm. I saw that you erected a swimming pool in your back yard. HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm. If we ever get any hot weather that should provide hours of relief and fun for you. HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm.

It looks like an inflatable pool, very clever, and no doubt much more affordable than an in-ground, cement job. HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm. Well, I do hope you enjoy it, just be safe: i.e., no high-dives from the basketball hoop! HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm.

Oh, I guess there’s just one more thing. HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm. Have you noticed that the pool’s recirculating pump-motor emits a constant HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm sound? We have, every hour since it was turned on last week. While we can easily hear it through our closed windows and walls (especially at night), I think much of the sound is coming through the roof and down onto the living areas. That would explain why we can hear it in all areas of the house. Turning on the bathroom exhaust fans seems to mask it, but I’m hesitant to put so much wear-and-tear on those littlemotors by running them several hours a day.

Sound harmonics are tricky, because you can often be standing near a sound source and actually not perceive it as loud or objectionable. But when you are standing beside or inside a structure (i.e., fence, house) that has building materials which reflects sound or physically vibrates from sound waves, the resultant pressure wave reverberates and can createmore sound/noise than expected. Even if the decibel volume remains relatively low, it’s the penetrating frequency of the lower amplitude sound waves which seems to effortlessly pass through structures, and ‘thrum’ against our ear drums, incessantly. And monotonous “thrumming” is what the swimming pool pump is producing, hour after hour, without a break.

So I guess I’d like to ask if you would be willing to moderate theHHRmmmm-HHRmmmm sound in a couple of ways. For example, could you check with your pool experts and determine if the recirculating pump actually needs to run 24 hours a day. If not, perhaps a timer could be installed which would allow running thepump for shorter periods through-out the daytime, with little (or no) operation in the evenings when some of us enjoy the remarkably quiet nights on our back decks: listening to the croaking of distant frogs, the light twittering of nesting birds, and the occasional fly-overs of ducks and geese as they beat their wings, are rare and prized luxuries for city living! Presently, the dominate night-time sound is (you guessed it) HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm.

A second idea might entail building a simple, insulated, sound-box around the pump motor in order to contain its noise and perhaps redirect it away from the water membrane of the pool itself; which might be amplifying the sound as well. That’s kind of what I did when we installed our outside A/C unit years ago; I had the additional option of locating it on the downhill side, away from your side, between the Smith’s and our garages. Obviously, you don’t have that option of strategic location, but the sound-enclosure principle could help. If you wanted to undertake that project yourself, I have new tools that are begging to be used (andpurchases justified), just let me know. : )

Anyway, thanks for being such good neighbors, and anything that you can do would be much appreciated by your side- and back-yard neighbors.

HHRmmmm-HHRmmmm. Ha, Ha, Ha, I crack myself up.

thanks again,
“Jack”

Editor’s note: as in ASS.

Captain Question

Today was a hard day.

I’ve been researching the hell out of this microinvasion cervical cancer thing, because I feel knowledge is the best weapon in cases like this. The internet is a great resource, and after a morning of surfing while Chuck played with the remote, I felt better.

My doctor meant well enough, in trying to inform me the best he could. But for a man who delivers babies and usually gives good news, having to tell someone their reproduction had come to an end because their baby cooker has gone haywire must be uncomfortable.

If someone reading this ever has a similar problem, my one piece of advice is to ask questions. Lots of questions. And don’t be afraid to ask what you might think is a dumb question, because you need that information so you’re not shocked by things like the fact that you can’t have nail polish on when you go in to get a hysterectomy, or that you’ll have to have radiation afterwards.

Ask questions until you’re sated. Then ask one more. Then make sure you have a number where the doctor can be reached when you have some more questions.

I’m carrying a spiral reporter-style notebook around and writing down questions if I’m not near a computer. I just want to be well-informed when I get to the oncologist.

It pays to learn…cuz knowledge is power! (what’s that from??)

Fuck Cancer. For serious.

For those of you not following my incessant babbling on twitter, I found out today that I have cancer.

it was kind of an odd experience…me, sitting there pants-less with a piece of wax paper stuck to my butt, covering my bits with a sheet that has the transparency of tracing paper while my nerdy doctor tells me that my baby-making equipment has malfunctioned and is trying to kill me.

the conversation went something like this:

me: so what was the result of the pathology thingy?

doc: uh…..well….

me: I have cancer, don’t I.

doc: well, we removed the [medical terminology I don’t remember], but the pathologist found a [more medical crap I don’t recall, that included the term “micro cell invasion”].

me: the army is marching through my cervix?

doc: [trying to be serious] the cells are…

me: (totally interrupting) I have cancer.

doc: yeah.

me: (giggling uncontrollably) ok, so now what?

doc: [lots of words I wasn’t listening to] and in 2 wks when the 2nd opinion comes back, we’ll send you to the oncologist, and she’ll most likely recommend a hysterectomy.

me: ……

doc: so let’s take a look.

I’ll spare you the rest.

So i told Chef, and he switched into Super Helpful mode and spent most of today distracting me and making me laugh. which is awesome.

I tell Mommy Dearest, and she gets mad at me. My family is so messed up. She is under the impression that somehow this is my fault.

Bizarre.

And then she proceeds to tell me that I shouldn’t tell anyone but my closest friends about this and that I need to take down the facebook post because her FRIENDS can SEE IT and that is not something they need to know, for god’s sake!

so I deleted it, AND all of her friends 🙂

question for today: would you tell your internet friends if you had cancer? would you be ok with your kids telling theirs (after they told you, of course)?

Effing Friday June 18 Edition

Today was an odd day…woke up at the normal time, but about an hour into the morning, my back started spasming, and the backs of my eyeballs felt raw.

So I handed off the baby to Chef, and passed out for 3-1/2 hours of coma-like sleep.

And I don’t nap.

Must have been a little catch-up from Monday’s procedure.

Anyhoo, went shopping with the MIL and she ended up telling me a bunch of stories about Chef when he was little, and a pretty great anecdote about catching a foreign exchange student growing pot in the bedroom closet.

And the pool set-up begins…the thing must weigh a hundred pounds, and it’s a whole lot bigger than I thought! But we got a life jacket for Chuck, do it should be fun.

If it ever gets set up.

Testing Pictures

Just ignore me.

Nothing to see here.

Move along. 🙂

A Missed First

When Short Stack was little, I was a single mom. I lived with my parents for some time, but I worked a lot to try and pay off debts to get out if my parents’ house, and I was pretty young, so I was selfish and ridiculous and did a lot of stuff that kept me away from my baby.

I was, however, there for all of his “firsts” but one: his first haircut.

My mother decided one morning that he needed a haircut (which was super true…he looked a bit like a tiny hippie), so without saying anything to me, she took him for a cut. I came home, took one look at my tiny boy, and promptly burst into tears.

So you can imagine my heartbreak when, despite being home with Chuck virtually 24-7, I missed her first haircut. Which was performed without my knowledge/permission.

(One time a month, I’m gone for a roller derby bout almost all day. The Overlord is nice enough to watch Chuck while I scamper about and play with my derby friends and yell at people.)

I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable, but I’m upset. It’s not like Chuck’s hair was life-threatening and The Overlord had to cut it or Chuck would cease to exist.

How far is too far? What would be your “line” you’d draw with your parents/in-laws with what they can do with your kids without checking with you first?

Thanks PayPal! *insert sarcasm here*

Awesome.

So I got a notice yesterday from my bank account that I never use. (I put money in there every month to pay for my Zibbet account. So I must have it hooked to my PayPal to do so.)

They say I owe them $175 in overdraft fees for two transactions that PayPal charged to my account. 2 times each. Plus an additional charge for excessive late fees from my bank. (UPDATE: PAYPAL CHARGED THESE TRANSACTIONS AGAIN LAST NIGHT, FOR A GRAND TOTAL OF $245 IN NSF FEES AND LATE FEES)

Funny thing is that I specifically added a credit card to charge these two transactions, and verified that PayPal would charge it. Apparently, since it’s my Chef’s (my fiance) card and we don’t have the same last name, they decided they wouldn’t accept it, and started charging my bank account for the $10 and $7 items I purchased on eBay.

And now, PayPal is saying that they’re considering my transactions as “rejected”, and informing the sellers for these items that I have not paid for the items.

I just checked the PayPal account, and the credit card is listed, but they won’t charge it.

Hey PayPal, do you think you could maybe do me a solid and answer your customer service emails in a timely manner? That would be great.

UPDATED: Bank of America is the greatest bank ever, besides our local credit union (which rocks). They refunded all $245 that PayPal incurred on my account. With no hesitation at all.

Hey PayPal, your turn to fix your end! 😀

**Can someone please tell me how to put spaces between the paragraphs? It’s driving me bananas…I feel like I’m trying to learn to drive a stick shift all over again, trying to fix this blog 🙂

Random Thought Wednesday

Ever since Twitter came along, I don’t really have random thoughts. I have tweets. But occasionally, my random thoughts are longer than 140 characters, which is why I haul off and do things like this.

* I have been watching entirely too much television. So much so, that there is now not a single episode of CSI or Law & Order that I have not seen.

* Somehow, I do not find the above to be as pathetic as I should.

* I am attempting to teach myself calligraphy. I don’t recall writing to have been this difficult the first time.

* I have decided to start this P90x program. It apparently involves dieting and working out (possibly until you pass out or throw up), the latter of which causes something called “muscle confusion”. Which, in my case, is confusion caused by the fact that we’ve done very little moving in the past year, and now I’m trying to strain every muscle I have with lots of moving.

* The baby now has cut her first tooth. Someone remind me of the screaming and no sleep that we endured during the last month to get to this point, next time I start having uterine twinges.

* I am almost ready to start the big planning for Frosting for Good. This is super exciting for me.

* I need a laptop. Blogging from my phone is nice and all, but I’m pretty sure I’m close to capacity with all of the apps I’ve crammed on this thing. Plus, my thumbs hurt. So if anyone knows of a good deal on apple laptops, hit me up. 🙂

Ok, I have to stop because Chuck is screaming “DADA” in her crib, and Dada does not seem to be responding.

happy hump day, my little monkeys!

Hello world!

Hi kids!

Since I have a droid phone and the blogger app doesn’t like me, i switched to wordpress.

So far I don’t hate it. 🙂

Stay tuned for posts about my awesome kids, my fantastic fiance, my crazy family, my journey towards becoming a roller derby referee, my awesome job as a massage therapist, my never-ending knitting projects, probably some product reviews, and some killer giveaways.

As always, feel free to comment…i do love to chat 🙂