Computer Dump

Sometime last Friday my computer took a dump. Let me clarify that, not just my laptop, but the desktop downstairs, my wife's laptop, and my laptop. It was so bad that even the IT wife couldn't get it back online. Now that's bad. I had no Internet, I couldn't access my files and folders, basically I had nothing. This morning she called our Internet provider and according to them "everything was OK".

After checking all the IT stuff she does, the only option was to reinstall a backup from last Friday. I don't know how all this stuff works except that I'm up and running and don't think I lost anything. At least I haven't found anything missing yet.

So, to start off your week, let me give you another short story from the annals (a concise form of historical representation which record events) of the stupid kid who survived growing up.

Story #6 - Drain Pipes.

In Fishing, Ghosts, and My Mother’s Gray Hair ere isHchapter 5 I talked about where a drain canal poured out into a lake. Here is the paragraph: This drain poured out into a small man made lake that eventually emptied into the Intercoastal Waterway. I don’t recall ever fishing the lake, but I do know there were gar fish in it and probably several other species of fish. Just outside the lake, we fished for snook and other fish that resided in the waterway. What I didn’t mention about this lake was how they made it. The optimal way to create land was to use a dredge to open up a lake by sucking the sand and shooting it up onto land creating high ground. Now this kind of activity was just the thing to attract a young boy and his friends. Why you ask? First and foremost it was wet, sloppy, and it stunk. It was perfect for young boys because as we were told on more than one occasion, boys are gross.

So, as the gross boys we were, we ran across where they just piled wet sand until we sank up to our knees in the, well I guess you could call it quick sand. See sand, being porous as it is, doesn’t get solid until the water brought up during the dredging process has a chance to drain away leaving the area mushy. It was great fun for young boys. The thing that never crossed our minds is what if we sank beyond our knees?

Right about this same time, at the point where the drain/canal ran under Hillsborough Boulevard, the storm drain project was going on. Twenty-four and thirty-six inch storm concrete drain pipes were being installed parallel to the boulevard and about five feet deep diverting water from “wherever” and dumping into the drain/canal that flowed into the lake and finally the Intercoastal Waterway. Cool, places for young boys to explore. We always had a supply of candles and matches, mostly shoplifted from the local convenience store (I never said I was good boy, just never killed anyone), to use in our “forts” or, in the case, exploring drain pipes. 

Now a twenty-four and thirty-six inch storm concrete drain pipe doesn’t give you anywhere to turn around. It is straight in and back out unless you make it to the place, you know the box under the man hole cover, and then you can do an about face. But you don’t know how far away that is when you start into the pipe. Ten feet, fifteen feet, twenty feet in and claustrophobia starts to set in. Once it gets a good hold on you, then panic sets in and once panic sets in the only place you want to be is not in that concrete pipe. There is a lot of screaming, pushing, and shoving to get out. Of course the most logical thing to happen is you drop the candle and the flame goes out leaving you in total darkness. Then you really start to panic. But once you get out, you’re cool again and making plans for the next siege of the concrete tunnel. Who said young boys are smart. 

Well, that'll do it for today. Fishing later in the week.

Mark