Andrew's View of the Week

Friday Wisdom – Neighbors

Posted on 08/25/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

This week the topic at the church writing group was, “Neighbors” Here’s what I learned:

Late at night I’ll go into my backyard and dig a hole – just to keep my neighbors guessing about me.

My neighbor plays his trumpet late at night so I changed the name of my Wi-Fi network to “I can hear you.” He changed his to, “I know.”

I know my neighbors love my taste in music because the call the police to come over and listen to it.

My neighbor was knocking very loudly on my door at 3:00 am this morning. Good thing I was still awake playing my drums.

Our neighbor named his dog, “5 miles,” so he could say, “I walked 5 miles today.”

I think my neighbor is stalking me. Well, at least I think it was my name I saw her googling – my telescope is a little shaky so it was hard to tell.

I have an annoying, loud, obnoxious neighbor. This must be how Canada feels.

If I’m reading their lips correctly, my neighbors are talking about some creep who lives next door.

I’ve decided to take up fencing. The neighbors say if I don’t put it back they’ll call the police.

My new neighbor has two German Shepards, one named Rolex and the other Timex. Yeah, their watch dogs.

What is 668? The neighbor of the beast.

I thought my neighbors were nice people, but I just found out they added a password to their Wi-Fi.

Posted in wisdom | Tagged humor, neighbor jokes, wisdom | 24 Comments

Wednesday Working

Posted on 08/23/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

Big mile stone this week: The gabion wall is completed.

Here it is:

I made the baskets and Heather filled them with rock. These create a new planting bed at the base of our hill. We were at the nursery last week and bought a couple of plants for the space. We hoping to get a basic set of plants in this fall. The area was covered in rock and we used that rock to fill the gabion baskets which create a small retaining wall about two feet high.

I also mowed the lawn this week:

I still find it strange that we have lawn in the desert and yes, I mow the lawn most weeks, but rarely take pictures of it.

That’s it for this week, next week I’m starting on building a table so if you need me, I’ll be in the shop.

Posted in garden | Tagged gabion basket, lawn mowing, retaining wall | 30 Comments

As The Pizza Cooks — Episode 17

Posted on 08/20/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

Today I’ve been thinking about things I’ve said that I never thought I’d say while living in a desert. I grew up in the SF Bay Area where the weather was mild and it rained in the winter. Here where I now live in Northern Nevada, it’s high desert which before I moved here brought to mind vast dry, hot stretches of sand, cactus and tumble weeds.

The reality is a bit different. So here is a short list of things I’ve said since moving here that I never thought would need to be said in my new desert home:

It’s too wet to mow the lawn.
I think we need another snow shovel.
Yes, I’ll need a pair of snow boots.
It’s rained every afternoon this week.
Unless an earthquake is above 4.0 it shouldn’t be reported in the news.
I think that new housing track is in a flood plain.
The hurricane path will go just to the east of us.

I know, but when you go to the National Hurricane Center’s website, you’ll see that hurricane Hilary ends as a tropical depression just to the east of where I live sometime tomorrow. Now we don’t expect there to be much impact on us, just colder than normal temperatures and maybe a little rain. One thing about the desert is that rain doesn’t really soak into the ground that fast so flash floods are common here when it does rain.

There’s a lot of local press hype about Hilary, but I doubt it will do much here in the north except get us wet and make me haul in a few tools. Southern California and Southern Nevada are getting lots of rain and I expect to read a lot of stories about flooding in the southern desert areas. Here I expect to read a lot about how the press is over reporting the event – a common theme on the Next Door social media platform.

There was an earthquake here a few weeks ago. I didn’t feel it, but there were news reports of it being something like a 3.0 on the earthquake scale. Sorry, but my California brain doesn’t even register that as being important. When it gets closer to 5 or 6.0 then call me, because then I’ll be impressed about how strong it is.

I’ll just say this – unless the weather, flood, earthquake, wind storm, wildfire or other natural disaster interferes with me cooking a pizza on Sunday, it’s just something to read about before bed.

Posted in As The Pizza Cooks | Tagged As The Pizza Cooks | 19 Comments

Friday Wisdom – Astronomy

Posted on 08/18/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

This will be the 345th Friday Wisdom post. I was going to wait till 350 to say anything, but it’s likely that I’d forget to mention it then, so I figure just say something while I still remember that I was going to brag about how many of these posts I’ve done. This last week I watched a documentary on the James Webb Space Telescope. Of course I’m an expert on the subject so here’s everything I know about astronomy:

The moon maybe smaller than the earth, but it’s further away.

The asteroids may be in a belt, but only the earth has leather.

One light-year — the same as a regular year but with less calories.

In our town we arrest shooting stars.

I was having trouble parking my space ship the other day. Let me tell you how hard it is to find a space without a parking meteor.

What is an alien with three eyes? Aliiien.

The moon is bald because it has no ‘air.

I couldn’t sleep last and kept thinking, “Where is the sun?” Then it dawned on me.

Living on earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun.

I was reading about the Earth’s rotation – it makes my day.

Flat earthers have nothing to fear, but sphere itself!

My friend said he wants to take his dog to the moon. Yup, he wants a lunar rover.