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Without Sin

Sometime in my early career I was forced to buy new tires for my car. As I could barely afford gas in those days, this purchase was beyond my immediate means, so I financed it from the local Sam’s Club (via my employer’s private label card program)…responsibly. I paid them off before the interest accrued. Still, it sucked.

Then, a month later on my way home from what was of course second shift, in the dark and rain I failed to notice a road obstacle. A chunk of concrete was laying in wait to ambush me, because life kicks you when you’re down. The rock immediately blew both left tires and bent the rims. I had to have the car towed. I left it in the local Sam’s Club parking lot for the night.

Sam’s Club did not have replacement rims for my car, so I had to call around. Eventually, I located two repair shops who each had a singular rim in stock. Borrowing Liz’s car the next morning, and taking a personal day off work, I drove around the city and procured them. I then took them to Sam’s and threw them in my car, proceeded to walk into the service garage, and ask if they had any problem with installing new tires on the rims not already on the vehicle. Fortunately, they did not. Also fortunately, they honored their own warranty on road hazard damage to the new tires and replaced them free of charge. Unfortunately, however, they didn’t have the same Michelin tires in stock and I ended up with Bridgestone. The Michelin were radials. The Bridgestone were not. This led to years of incompetent auto shops rotating tires incorrectly and leaving one of each type on the same axle. I eventually stopped having my tires rotated altogether.

But back to the rock. As I was waiting for the tow truck, I walked back and searched successfully for what I had hit. As an anti-trophy, I threw it in my trunk. It would eventually make its way to my desk at work as a persistent reminder that life will grant no favors even when trying to do everything right. I was severely underemployed at that time. Like the rock, The Great Recession took its toll mercilessly.

At one point, I wrote “Without Sin” on it with a sharpie, as a veiled threat that I might throw it at someone. But, despite the constant temptation, I never did, and it followed me from desk to desk as I gradually advanced my career.

Then COVID lockdowns happened. Given limited notice to clear out our desks for full-time work at home, I haphazardly threw the contents of my cubicle into boxes. That which I needed for my job was retrieved from the boxes, while the remaining contents sat forgotten. Now, 6 years later, I decided the boxes were taking up too much space and proceeded to clear them out. A full audit revealed the rock, which now, once again, sits upon my desk.

Is its resurgence an omen, or just chance? We shall see. For now, I find it reassuring that the struggling days of my early adulthood are over. My fingers are becoming arthritic and I have this new sciatica problem, but at least I can afford tires.

–Simon

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Blue Collar Cost, Revisited

Market conditions drive pricing. I mean, I’m not an economist, but I feel confident in making this statement. So when I dropped a chunk of change on a water heater replacement/installation last year, I didn’t think much of the exorbitant price. They have the skill set, and while I could probably figure it out myself, I would have had to have contended with numerous auxiliary activities beyond the unit itself: draining, plumbing, water, gas, disposal, permits, etc.. Skills and convenience are why contractors exist, but you pay more, obviously. This is why I had calculated the Blue Collar Cost, to set this expectation:

Blue Collar Cost

I had landed on a price expectation of:

Estimated Materials Cost * Materials Upcharge * Labor Cost = Final Cost

And where Materials Upcharge = 1.45

And where Labor Cost = 4

Using this, I could predict the cost of a professional solution and compare that to what I was willing to learn and attempt on my own. If the final cost of the professional route didn’t invoke vomiting and weeping on my part, then I’d entertain the idea. It has proven to be somewhat reliable.

So when the water heater needed immediate attention, I made an assumption that the cost was in alignment with this formula (due to a lack of puking and weeping), and so I didn’t shop around. But recently I researched the cost of the unit, out of curiosity, and came to the sudden realization that my calculations were out of date, and more in my favor. Pre-COVID, labor costs appear to have been much higher, and despite the years of companies justifying price hikes due to “supply chain issues”, the product markups have dropped as well. Here are the new coefficients:

Materials Upcharge = 1.34

Labor Cost = 2

I admit, I am surprised. It leaves me to ponder the reasoning. Maybe the labor pool in trades has increased in the last 7 years due to skyrocketing tuition, driving down wages. Maybe COVID beefed up factory production and supply chains in response to the disruptions. Maybe more trades business have opened shop, increasing competition. There’s certainly a litany of speculation that I could dive into, but for now, I’m just happy that the skilled labor and appliances I need are dropping in price.

Cf​=Cm​Um​Cl​

–Simon

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Prize Tomato 2026

It’s a sad year for prize tomatoes. What should have been the flagship brandywine ended up stunted from a heatwave that hit while I was in Wisconsin and unable to attend to its needs. Here’s a recap of prior champions:

  • 2019: 24.8oz
  • 2021: 16.8oz
  • 2023: 19.3oz
  • 2024: 14.2oz
  • 2025: 17.2oz
Prize Tomato 2025

This year? A paltry 10.8 oz:

And to rub salt in the wound…

Blossom end rot!

This nefarious condition arises when a tomato fruit receives insufficient calcium during its growth. My soil is not deficient in this micronutrient, as my tests have confirmed. In my case, it’s simply another consequence of hot weather fluctuations. Sudden heat spells interfere with nutrient uptake. I lost a few tomatoes, but the plants always stabilize and recover. It just happened to coincide with the prize tomato’s development. Inconvenient timing.

This is not the year of the prize tomato, but it is looking like the year of tomato quantity. I made some strategy and soil amendment changes this year that are showing much promise. Photos of harvests forthcoming.

–Simon

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Albatross Lodge 2026

Following a visiting hiatus related to a certain broken ankle incident…

Crunch Time

…we returned to the cottage this year. The building itself aside, the general area has taken on a new vibe. The “you can’t go home again” phrase is applicable here. The combination of time and place with its distinct parameters is simply now non-existent. There are no longer cellular dead zones. Getaway nooks on the lake have been replaced with AirBnBs and permanent residences whose gauche edifices offend the very essence of what a small lake neighborhood in Wisconsin should be, and once was. Family-owned and operated supper clubs still exist, but are losing ground to the invasion of chain restaurants. The area isn’t becoming gentrified, but rather being ground slowly into sameness by the inevitable march of investment capitalism. The cottage resists the onslaught for the time being, though as a result it now also exists out of time – the present one. It has a future, but it will be vastly different from the memories of Liz’s childhood.

However, that’s not to say such a fate is all necessarily bad. I have great hopes for its future, even if its present state is a work in progress. It needs more manpower, but I myself am too far away to regularly contribute, and when I am there I hesitate to make any executive decisions out of fear that I lack the background knowledge to do so safely, e.g. the electrical.

Oh well. I’ll do what I can. This year was pulling Romex and ductwork through the ceiling.

How old is that switch?
This is partly why I’m afraid to touch the electrical.
I hate fiberglass insulation soooo much.
But there’s a bathroom duct at long last! Just waiting for a fan to be wired.
And a kid’s old enough to do the needed yardwork! Just don’t let her touch a hedge trimmer.

Sadly, events conspired against enjoying any outdoor activities. Even if the stairs to the waterfront were completed to allow safe transit, which they aren’t yet (that’s my sister-in-law’s project), the heat index for the week hit triple-digits. And even if I were willing to tolerate that level of discomfort, fish wouldn’t be biting in those conditions either. So I paid the Wisconsin DNR $45 for nothing. You’re welcome, Wisconsin.

Then Canada started burning again.

I had never before been under “Hazardous” AQI conditions. I also haven’t been near an erupting volcano. I imagine the experiences are similar, with the exception that Wisconsin’s flatness precludes any incidences of pyroclastic flows. We didn’t auto-ignite and get buried under ash for future archaeologists to discover with plaster molds, but that fate would have seemed kind compared to the omnipresent suffocation we endured.

Look at that haze

But any day not working beats…any day working. There were some highlights. Relaxing, some sightseeing:

And yes – a genuine supper club.

To try a new place, the girls decided on Sky Club. The claim of this place, which I found to be an odd bragging point posted on the signage, was that they had the first salad bar. Even if that were true, I would still be indifferent because it’s a frigging salad bar. Whenever a restaurant offers a salad bar, I decline, because I didn’t go out to eat to have someone send me off to a counter with chopped lettuce next to a bowl of ranch on ice and make me mix the two myself. It’s very similar to my disdain for breakfast restaurants: 3000% markup on eggs and pancakes (water, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, butter, syrup). But, when in Rome, right? Or Wisconsin, rather.

In terms of salad bars, it wasn’t too bad. Different greens mixes, their own greasy bacon dressing for the spinach, cheese sauce (which didn’t make much sense aside from it being Wisconsin), and a quivering gelatinous bunt-pan mold of unknown ingredients. The latter itself made the experience worthwhile, just for the novelty. It turned out to be a quiche with chicken organs. It certainly gave us a good laugh. But even by my standards…why?

The kid, bravely giving it a try – chicken organ quiche in center bottom.

It would also turn out that the salad bar claim was true. Or rather, claimed to be true and generally accepted by the foodie community to be at least grounded in truth. How about that? I have now eaten at the first salad bar.

My stroganoff was serviceable.

Then there was a trivia night at some other random place. We did reasonable. I hate sports.

Any place with food in Wisconsin, if not a chain, is a supper club.

And there were deer, for which every driver should watch out for. The deer we passed were noticeably more street-wise than their Ohio counterparts, I’ll note. One in particular repeatedly looked both ways before crossing. Apparently it had been paying attention in gradeschool. It probably knows about stranger danger too.

And they’d have to be street-wise when albino! We have albino squirrels in Ohio and they don’t last long, and there were several deer up there still kickin’.

Is it difficult at all to hunt deer in Wisconsin?

Wisconsin just didn’t seem to like us this year. And the sky agreed, as we passed out of smoke and into Illinois’ clear air, with the universal symbol of positivity:

God’s promise to never again burn Canada to the ground?

But Wisconsin didn’t stop there. As a lingering reminder that we weren’t welcome there, the night we got home Liz suffered an allergic reaction to the air and had to spend the night in the ER.

She has an epi-pen now.

There’s good family up there, but without an emotional attachment to the place itself, it’s only a symbol now. And having been denied the outdoor activities that I’d normally partake in, combined with the kid’s increasing reluctance for any activities with her parents, the primary assets of the cottage’s location were, for me at least, rendered moot. Once the kid leaves home, it may have renewed purpose for Liz and I, but that’s down the road and, unfortunately, an unknown.

A bit of a melancholic conclusion, I suppose.

–Simon

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Cemetery Restoration

To the attentive traveler with a curiosity for such things, there’s always an old cemetery tucked away in unsuspecting places. There’s one down the street from the Dayton mall, by I-675. There’s one in Toledo on Central, by a BP gas station. They blend into the background, because we have the space for them here. In more populated areas, the grave sites are exhumed for reuse, with the prior tenant relocated to a mass crypt.

Yet despite the differences in space, while I never see anyone landscaping, cemeteries are always properly mowed, no matter how dilapidated the gravestones.

My former dogs posses such a plot, and with plenty of room. They are properly cared for, but have also sustained years worth of environmental damage, it was time to restore their graves.

Tori
Faye

Their markers had sunken beneath the sod, and squirrels had toppled the shrine. So this time, I employed construction adhesive and firmly cemented everything in place.

May it last another 9 years, properly prepared to receive the next round of canine souls who, unlike their predecessors, always enjoyed the benefits of a mowed whippet patch.

–Simon