Tag: neighbors

WD-40 and the Wasp

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog1 Comment

I hate wasps, no I mean I really hate them.  Every time I turn around they are trying to build their nest on our front door.  This image is not the same one, I didn’t think to take a picture because whenever I see a nest I freak out, grab the WD-40 and spray it into the hole then within half an hour I’m knocking it down with whatever I can grab.  It’s like how you freak out when you see a roach then grab a shoe or say, a hammer lol.

It was only a month ago that I had to do this.  A wasp started building a nest on our front door and I spray it with WD-40 then waited about 30 minutes and knocked it down.  I didn’t know it came back and started over, if that is the same wasp, do they even live that long?

The last nest I knocked down shredded because of the WD-40.  It was empty so I didn’t have to worry about anything coming at me.  This time it was full, it wasn’t full of wasps though.  It had maybe 1 wasp inside of it, about 20 spiders and something that looked like larvae, I’m not quite sure.  It looked exactly like this:

They were all dead, probably because of the WD-40.  But I’m wondering why it had all those spiders and larvae inside of its nest.  I don’t know much about the insect world, other than how to kill them but I’ve never heard of this behavior before.  Having spiders in a wasp nest that is.

One of our neighbors a block away tells me every year that there are wasp nests all over her porch and she has to dodge them to water her lawn or do any gardening.  That’s why her garden is such a mess because she can’t go out there to do anything because they keep stinging her.  I told her that she should call someone out to get rid of them or go to the store and buy some wasp spray.  She can’t afford an exterminator and she’s too afraid to try to spray them or knock their nest down because she’s afraid she’ll get stung so she lives in fear of her own garden and porch.

We don’t have a large porch that you can sit down on, or a garden, all we have is our front door.  I have to be able to walk in and out of the house without being stung so I had to act quick before it got any bigger.

I read on eHow Home that if you spray the area that the nest was the wasp will not return to that spot so I sprayed the heck out of that spot and around it and even on the other side just in case.  You can’t be too careful right?

If I never see another wasp I will be a very happy person but I have a feeling that the war has begun lol.  I’m pretty sure this isn’t over and it will be back for revenge.  That is if it didn’t die from the WD-40 that I sprayed on it while it flew away from me.

I’m A Gardening Moron

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Sit me at a desk and I can not only build you a computer but I can also make a slow computer fast again.  Put a lawn mower in front of me and I’m completely clueless.

Darrin bought this lawn mower from the local family owned hardware store maybe 6 years ago because we just couldn’t afford to keep paying a gardener to mow our lawn every week so the job fell into my lap.  Well, that sucks for me because I have really bad allergies.  When the gardeners came and I could smell the fresh cut grass, my eyes would start to water and burn and my nose would get stuffed up and I’d start sneezing.  So it wasn’t good that I had to start mowing, for me anyway.

So every year we have to bring this lawn mower back to that hardware store to have them service it before summer comes because all of a sudden it wouldn’t start up again for me.  We usually have them change the oil and spark plug and clean the filter, you know, the usual maintenance.

So Darrin has been paying them up the nose to do all of this work every year and I get 3, maybe 4 mows out of it then that’s it for the rest of the year and we have to have someone mow our lawn for us because our lawn mower doesn’t work.  We can only afford to have the hardware store service it for us once a year.

Our lawn has gotten so out of control with the high grass and weeds that Darrin decided to ask our neighbors across the street if they could mow it and he paid them $30 (for 2 houses, our lawn is HUGE) and also paid him $20 to look at ours to find out what’s wrong with it and fix it.

He said that the filter really needed to be cleaned so he cleaned it.  Well, I’m so stupid, I didn’t even know how to access the filter to clean it.  Darrin kept telling me it was the filter but I didn’t believe him and I had no idea that that’s what was wrong with it.  All these years he could have saved $60 every time they serviced it because all I had to do was clean the filter.  And, they would keep it for 2 weeks.

And you know, I’ve asked that hardware store to tell me what was wrong with it and they wouldn’t tell me.  Why wouldn’t they tell me?  Because if they told me what was wrong with it then we wouldn’t keep bringing it back to them to have them clean the filter out.  We’d continue paying them every year.  So telling me how to fix it isn’t good for their business.

So, I’m feeling stupid right now but at least now I know for future reference so I can clean it after every use so I never have to worry about it giving me problems starting up again.

You know, I had an issue with our weed whacker.  Every time the line would get small I’d have to unscrew the thing that had the spring in it and pull out some of the line.  Edging with the weed whacker took forever.  I had no idea that all I had to do was smack it on the sidewalk so the spring action would pull out more line lol.  I didn’t even know why it had a spring until I saw a video on YouTube.

Look, I’m not a gardener.  I am so stupid when it comes to that.  Well, knowledge is power and it saves $60 every year.  So screw you hardware store for not telling me how to find the filter lol.

An Idiot Abroad on Science Channel

On By Michel McDonaldIn TV3 Comments

I totally forgot this new show An Idiot Abroad was supposed to be on today. It’s on during one of my shows but being on basic cable it repeats. I thought about it tonight and luckily it was on demand so I could watch it instantly.

If you haven’t seen The Ricky Gervais show on HBO then you probably don’t really understand why they are making fun of him on this show. I have only really seen a few episodes, last night I watched 2 episodes on HBO On Demand to catch up a little on the 2nd season so I can prepare myself for what I’m going to see in An Idiot Abroad.

All I have to say is that Karl Pilkington is HILARIOUS! Some of the things he says is so out there that you just can’t help but to laugh out loud, literally out loud. So loud that your neighbors are like, what the hell is he laughing about over there?

Other times during tonight’s episode I was thinking, if he’s an idiot for saying some of the things he said then I must be an idiot too because I would’ve said the same thing. I mean for instance, he was in the bathroom in China and there were no toilets, actually there was 1 toilet but I’m sure it was for older people who can’t squat. The other stalls were just holes in the ground, or ground level toilets. There were walls separating them but no doors.

I agree with him on the doors part, but mostly I agree with the squatting thing. I am so glad we don’t have those kind of toilets here in the states. Also, no toilet paper… what’s up with that? Can you imagine going to the bathroom and not cleaning it up then going back to work with a stench? Uh no, I don’t think so.

We do have stalls here in Bakersfield in the parks that don’t have doors.  When I was riding my bike to the bike trail for exercise, sometimes I would have to go really bad and trust me, that’s the only way I will ever use a park bathroom, if I just can’t wait to get home.  I’d go in there and there are no doors.  Sure the walls are really high but that doesn’t help me.  I need a door for privacy.  What if someone walks in and passes me?  So I use the one on the far end so nobody can pass me then I have my bike kind of sitting in there so I can hang onto the front wheel if someone tries to steal it.  So imagine me sitting on the toilet while holding my front wheel with no door on the stall.

I don’t think that Karl is an idiot, I mean to the degree they are calling him one. I think that he says some pretty smart things and I applaud him for being able to go out of his comfort zone against his will and just deal with it and do what he was told because there is no way I would’ve been able to do that.

The food alone is a reason I wouldn’t be able to do that. I have so many food issues, I’d end up starving. Or I’d end up getting fatter off all the potato chips. I’d have to pack loads of energy bars just to keep me from starving when I refuse to eat the frogs or the bugs.

Well this is a show I will be adding to my TV page I so I don’t forget to watch it every week.  It’s on Saturday nights at 10 e/p on the Science channel.

Update 2011-02-02: I spelled his name wrong, it’s Karl, not Carl.  Who’s the idiot now?  It looks like I am.

Huge Anticipation

On By Michel McDonaldIn Food, HalloweenLeave a comment

My body must have been very excited about Halloween today because I woke up at 1am but luckily was able to go back to sleep.  Then I woke up again at 4am but was not able to go back to sleep.  Around 5am I went to the ATM machine to get a $20 to give to the milk man.  I was lucky that Darrin insisted on going with me because when I went to the ATM a thug looking guy was walking towards me but when he saw Darrin he went in another direction.

At 6:20am I left to go to the grocery store to buy some coffee and some candy bars for the neighbors kids, they are 5 for $2.00 right now so that was a good deal.  I didn’t want to buy a big bag because I’m not going to pass out candy to the kids who don’t wear costumes and the kids who don’t even live in our neighborhood.  So I just bought 5 candy bars for our neighbors kids Devan, Dougie, Beth and Gracie and the 5th one will go to Karens nephew if he is with them, he’s been spending a lot of time there so maybe he will be trick or treating with them.

After I left Albertson’s I went over to McDonald’s and bought us some breakfast.  Sorry Sue, they didn’t have any Monopoly tickets lol.

8am came and Ghost Hunters finally came on and I’m going to watch that the entire day WOOHOO!

Bike Repairs

On By Michel McDonaldIn CyclingLeave a comment

I rode my bike to the store the other day and I noticed that my back tire has been going flat and it wont stay inflated and so today I decided to go through my boxes in the closet to find the inner tubes that I got when I got the bike originally. When I bought the bike I bought those tire tubes that have the green goo inside of them which is supposed to fix your puncture if you run over a tack or a nail but I didn’t know that it doesn’t protect the sides, just the outer part. So, I took the back tire off and pumped the tube up by itself and held it under water which is what you do to find the leak. Found it, fixed it. All new again hehe.

Then I realized that the seat was really too high up so I lowered it and boy does that make a hell of a difference. So, I feel accomplished today hehe. I rode it over to our neighbors and back and I noticed it wasn’t stopping fast enough so I got off the bike and looked and my front and back brakes are shot lol. Which means I better not even think about getting on it until I go to Snyder’s Cyclery to buy some brakes and while I’m there I want to see their lights and a helmet. Not too many people wear helmets so I’d probably look dorky but I’d rather look dorky than dead.

When I was 16 my parents bought me a bike and they bought me this light set that had front and back lights that ran on a generator (the back wheel and my peddling was the generator) so I’d like to see if they have something similar to that, those are a bit more difficult to steal because it’s a lot of work to get it on so it must be a bitch to get off. I do recall how horrible the lighting was for the headlight. Every time you start to slow down the light started to fade away lol. I’d like to see if they’ve made improvements on that system.

Christmas Tree

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

We are supposedly going to go to Sears and buy a pre-lit fake christmas tree. The last time I had a Christmas tree I was 19 years old and my neighbors in the apartment building who were all gang members asked me to give them my tree with all decorations and I said no and they threatened me and so what else could I do? I gave it to them. So this will be my first tree in 18 years. I had no idea when I was 19 years old that I’d have to wait 18 years to get another tree. I can’t wait to get it. We have some old decorations from our friend Meg from when she passed away, nobody wanted her Christmas ornaments so we took them. Also Opal has some decorations and ornaments which we can dust off and use. I’m just afraid that they are too fragile. I’m also going to be crocheting some snowflakes for the tree so all is not lost. I want to also make those little mini christmas stockings to hang on the tree branches with little mini candy canes inside them. That should be cute. I will have to put those instructions in my crafts section here.