Macumber Macblog

Thanksgiving was yesterday and we had a great Thanksgiving holiday this year. I took off for a week of vacation and Melissa and I did some shopping on Monday. After shopping we went out for Indian food for lunch as a sort of belated Wedding Anniversary meal (our anniversary was the day before). We got the Christmas tree setup and Melissa put all the Christmas decorations out and the house has a total holiday feel to it now.

I also turned 39 this month, Justin turned 37 and Mom turned 61. A lotta aging going on!

All of the photos we took for November and for Thanksgiving are here.

written by mark

Today is the last day before I take a week of vacation for Thanksgiving. On Wednesday Melissa came in and informed me that we apparently had a critter in the garage and that it had chewed/frayed the wires to our garage door sensors as well as leaving a couple of large patches of poop to let us know it was there. We come-and-go through the garage and not the front door, so our garage doors are usually open all day unless no-one is home. We shut them before bed at night but they are open all day.

I went out and cut, stripped and reconnected the garage door sensor wires because without the sensors the garage doors won’t close without manual override. Without the sensors, the garage doors wouldn’t close at all from the remote controls we use in the cars. I noticed the garage was pretty messy and had collected a lot of leaves that were blown in from the yard. Toys were everywhere. Generally a dirty place all animals aside.

Well, this morning (Friday, two days later) we awoke to more varmint poop and this time the little bastard had completely chewed the wires bare at the connecting point to the sensors. I opened up both garage doors and could not find the thing anywhere so I started emptying out the garage and got my shop-vac and the blower attachment setup to begin cleaning the garage. I got the motorcycles started and ran them a bit and cleaned them up. I got all the toys out of the garage. I threw out about 1/2 trashcan of debris, leaves and other crud that had accumulated. I pulled out a folding table that Melissa suspected the animal was hiding behind but there was no sign of him/her. The only things left in the garage were a freezer (I knew the critter wasn’t in there nor behind it because I had checked) and two metal shelf racks that are full of all sorts of cleaning supplies, chemicals, solvents, seeds, fertilizers, etc. I got the blower going and was blowing the dust and a few leaves that had accumulated behind the racks and got a surprise that made me jump up and let out a most effeminate yelp …

If you click on the small image above you will get a better look at our uninvited guest.

Shortly before I took this photo an odor overtook the garage that left little doubt as to what I was dealing with.

I tried shooing it away by poking a golf club under the shelf/rack but have to admit I was having paranoid visions of the skunk popping out and “gittin me”.

I tried a few ricochet shots with a BB gun (by this time the skunk had retreated well under the shelf due to my golf club strategy) but had no luck and realized that if I incapacitated the skunk then I would have the lovely job of pulling it out and disposing of it.

Finally I got the blower going again and just applied a steady and unpleasant force of air under the rack. The skunk poked its head out 2 or 3 times to make sure the coast was clear and then waddled on out of the garage.

We have been using our home’s front door for ingress/egress and keeping the garage doors shut ever since.

written by mark

I leave for a week in California later today. These last several weeks have been crazy with work at Cisco, the kids having a week off for Fall Break and getting everything done for Halloween. This year the kids did what is becoming a tradition, they went to the neighborhood of some of their friends and trick-or-treated there all night while I held down the fort and passed out candy to the children in our neighborhood. It’s funny how many neighbors I catch-up with by standing in the front door and shoveling out candy to their kids. I found out that the father of one of Sharon’s friends is a former colleague of mine. I hadn’t seen him in years and he ends up living right down the steet from me and his daughter (Meredith) plays with Sharon all the time.

All the kids had a really good haul of candy this year. We had brisk volume at our front door but the festivities ended a bit earlier than usual this year due to it being unseasonably cold for late Fall.

November is already upon us and I find myself thinking of Christmas shopping and the nearness of my favorite holiday of them all – Thanksgiving.

All the photos from the Halloween parties and from trick-or-treating are here.

written by mark