I stayed in this weekend so I could get some stuff done around the house. Mainly cleaning. I had not done any serious cleaning in a couple of weeks and my house was starting to get funkified. My washing machine ran nonstop most of the weekend. I washed everything, curtains, pot holders, couch pillows and so on. I picked up some sort of carpet spot remover, but it was useless on my living room carpet. It's just too far gone. However, I need a lot of other projects done before I replace it. I ended up spraying the entire can's foaming contents on to my carpet and then vacuuming it up. Did not do shit as far as getting any ancient stains up, but it sure made it smell nicer.
I took a break and took a ride with Alan over the Marina. He had recently bought a Kayak and had gotten into his head the idea of sticking a propeller on it, namely my little silver antique electric trolling motor. He mounted the motor on the side of the boat and stuffed a battery down into the hold of the Kayak. He then paddled out a little ways and turned the motor on. Alas, since it was mounted on the side, all the kayak did was turn in circles. For my own amusement I captured it on video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5gX_1CzsfQ
Sunday I finally got the concrete slab for my shower foundation put in. I had Alan do the actual concrete smoothing because the slab has to be made into a slope so that the water will flow down to the drain. I let him use his expert concrete skillz to shape the slab. It came out pretty nice. Once I get a few more concrete boards I can see about laying down some tile.
Sunday night I went to visit my folks. They had some friends in town visiting and were having a big crab boil. During dinner I brought up the subject of the 'Mystery Shit'. Many years ago my uncle had an old school bus shoved in the woods. The bus did not run, rather this was their cheap 'hunting cabin' that they used whenever they went hunting. (IE, sitting in the woods and drinking and playing cards.) Well, one time when everyone was asleep someone had taken a shit on the stairwell of the bus because they did not want to go into the cold outside. My uncle finally admitted that he was indeed the phantom shitter. So, after several decades, that mystery had been solved.
Nothing else exciting to report.
2026 Update
Dialing the infernal chrono-coal burner back to 2007, where Ed's weekend includes a circular kayak and a decades-old shit mystery.
Ah, 2007. A simpler time, when a man could spray an entire can of carpet cleaner onto a stain-ridden floor, vacuum it up, and call the resulting scent a victory. My favorite part is the kayak: Alan mounts Ed's antique trolling motor on the side, and the craft's sole achievement is spinning in circles while Ed captures it for YouTube. Nineteen years later, that same video would be an influencer's vertical phone clip with a sponsorship for a kayak stabilizer. We've traded camcorders for pocket supercomputers, carpet for waterproof planks we can install while watching a tutorial on the very phone in our hand, and family mysteries for group texts where someone's uncle confesses via emoji. The crab boil still exists, but now someone live-streams it. The 'Mystery Shit' remains timeless, though: no app can solve a secret that only surfaces when the phantom shitter finally owns it. You had to be there, Ed. Or, in your case, you had to be the one squatting on the stairwell.
“2007 Ed, did you honestly think mounting an antique trolling motor on the side of a kayak would do anything but spin it in circles, or did you just need an excuse to film Alan failing for YouTube?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you give me way too much credit. Alan had that motor strapped to the side of his kayak and a car battery jammed down in the hull, and he was explaining to me how it was gonna be a real speed machine, and at that point I knew darn well it was going to be a circle machine. But I also knew it was gonna be funny, and I had my little Aiptek pocket cam with me, so I figured, why not document science? I mean, for all I knew, maybe side-mount trolling was the wave of the future and I'd be the guy who filmed the breakthrough. Turned out the only breakthrough was in the circles department. So, honest answer? No. I just wanted to see Alan do a slow, powered donut in the marina while I stood on the dock laughing. And YouTube needed content. We aim to serve.
