Timmy's Flipped His Go-cart?

Mill Creek Ravine...not to scale.


Okay, so here's the thing...I live by Mill Creek Ravine and like to go walking, running, and cycling around down there. I never mean to, but I usually end up picking up bottles/cans/glass/trash and putting them in the garbage. That's me, Mr Civic Pride. Maybe I'll someday have some kind of pride parade in honour of myself, or maybe some group has an existing colourful pride parade that I can join.

Anyway - sometimes I take the neighbour's dog, Sophie, as an excuse to make me go out for longer. Plus, she's entertaining, really enjoys it, and is a conversation starter. She's black with cute little brown eyebrows - which makes her a chick magnet. Oh, and 99% of the time...when she poops, she poops in the woods somewhere and I don't have to scoop it.

For a few weeks now there's been one of those big plastic water containers sitting in the creek. It was caught in some roots and a fallen tree, the water's been high this year, and it's a difficult part of the creek to get down to with the muddy banks. I decided that I wasn't going to make any more excuses though, and I was going to fish that stupid container out of there this time.

Sophie was off of her leash and running around, and I scrambled down to the edge of the water and surveyed the situation: Too far to reach; too difficult to get to the other side of the creek; stupid tree on the other side overhanging and in the way. Surveying the situation didn't seem to help, so I then proceeded to examine, review, study, inspect, assess, analyze, appraise, evaluate, look over, consider, scan, look at, consider, peruse, regard, think about, plot, map out, chart, measure, graph, gauge, fathom, and plumb it. Nothing.

In my defense, Sophie kept distracting me by running around with sticks. She doesn't have any retriever in her, so this is unusual behaviour - she virtually never plays with them. Like Sherlock Holmes, I'm observant and intuitive, so this really stood out to me.

I did a test-lean, seeing how close I could get. Not close enough. Sophie is standing there with a stick in her mouth. I do another test-lean, this time in a slightly different way. Same result. Sophie is running around behind me with another stick. I turn the other way and try to reach. Nothing. Sophie is grabbing at a sticklike root. I debate going on my hands and knees to really maximize my lateral reach, but I can see that it won't be enough. Honestly, Sophie is not helping the situation at all - she wants to play or something and here I am trying to figure out a complex problem. It's not her fault really, dogs just don't have the brain capacity that we humans have. Or thumbs.

I know what you're thinking: After getting owned by spaghetti last week, he's about to have a Clouseau-esque flop into the muddy creek...likely involving a rambunctious and agitated dog.

Ha! Wrong! But let me continue, please...

I should be able to lean over the creek and grab onto the tree, providing it holds, then reach the container with my foot and kick it back. Yay, me and my giant brain! Just have to figure out a way to get out of that position though...leaning 45-degrees over the creek with nothing to pull myself back. If I tied a rock to my back foot to act as a counterweight like a tower crane...Oh for pete's sake, Sophie, put that long stick down and quit bugging me!

Oh crap.

Um, let's just say the solution might have been me using a long stick to knock the container back towards the bank. It's sad to say, but my ego wouldn't allow me to use any of the sticks that Sophie brought. At least she was good enough not to leave a pile of them there, sketch a diagram, or to actually fish the container out herself with one of her sticks and give me that look that all girls give guys when they've done something stupid and won't admit it. We had an uneventful walk home and I avoided eye contact. True story.



The intrepid hunters with their kill. I didn't have the pellet gun with me - it's just in the picture for big-game-hunter cred. I'm on the left.



I was thinking -- you know who I'd be really bad at? Being Timmy's parents on "Lassie"...

Them: What's that, Lassie? You're saying that Timmy has:
a) flipped his go-cart?
b) fallen down a well?
c) flipped his go-cart into a well?
I see you've got out a stout rope and pulley system already...now show us where Timmy is!

Result: Lassie is wonderful; Timmy is rescued, learns a lesson, and is set for another adventure in the next show. A wonderful and wholesome TV series is born.


Me: For fudge sake, quit barking already! Hey, that's my best block-and-tackle...bad dog! I'm locking you in the barn.

Result: Lassie is wonderful; Timmy dies in the pilot episode, no-one learns a lesson or wants another adventure. Years later, Hikers come across Timmy's body and the remains get returned to Timmy's father...Timmy's mother has died of heartbreak.

Mr Fancy Pants

It all started when I received a coffee press as a Secret Santa gift. One puts in fresh coffee grounds and hot water, then moves the plunger sieve thing and voila - fresh coffee. Actually, it sucks as a coffee-producing unit because there are always grounds in the coffee. But hey, it looks cool sitting there all glass and metal and mysterious. It's a good piece for the arty part of my table or counter. A real conversation starter. Well not yet, but someday. Anyhoo...my arty kitchen crap collection is started.



I'm a sucker for Ikea displays and cooking shows. I like how everything is neatly laid out in proper containers and dishes and stuff. Some of them are see-through cupboards or jars or what-have-you. Look carefully next time - all their pastas are there in glass containers like austentatious displays of cooking talent.

So anyways, I bought a tall glass container to keep up with the fancy pasta-displaying crowd. I also bought a giant box of spaghetti because I'd remembered that I was running low and needed a bunch to fill this huge glass thing. It turned out that I'd also remembered that I was running low on spaghetti on my last trip - but didn't remember that part until I got home. After today I now have a fancy glass container of spaghetti, a 2/3's used big box of spaghetti, and an unopened bigger one. But no matter.




Problem: The box of spaghetti is rectangular and big, and the jar needing the spaghetti is round and less big.


Background: This is an incredibly easy problem for someone with a physics, math, and engineering background - so no calculations are needed. I'll just attack it in a logical order, stepping through the potential solutions until one works:


Theories:

1) Tilt the box, grab handfuls of spaghetti, transfer to jar.

Result: Didn't work - too much spaghetti was coming out, and it was hard to get handfuls, but none was lost. In retrospect, I should've tried harder at this stage.


2) The quantity of spaghetti will easily fit into the round container, providing I kind of hold back the upper layer and rotate the box along its longitudinal axis to make a 'V' with a corner, then simply let the spaghetti slip in.

Result: It didn't work because it was coming out in the wrong shape and the...uhh...variable frictional coefficients were producing an...um...erratic effect - but I lost only a couple of spag's.


3) This is a 'square peg in a round hole' problem; I just have to equalize the shapes and the transfer is trivial. Squishing the box until its end is round turns it into a 'round peg in a round hole' problem. Fantastic idea.

Result: It didn't work because the round carboard peg was bigger than the round glass hole - but a fair quantity of spag's got partially into the container.



4) Assess the situation and check the inventory.

• Standing sheepishly with spaghetti all over the freaking place
• Blindingly obvious realization that it's not close to fitting in
• Messed-up box with spaghetti hanging out
• Breakable container jam-packed with spaghetti hanging out
• Spag's on counter, floor, microwave, and between hip and counter
• Feeling like a Three Stooges fire drill met an I Love Lucy skit

Result: Panic - though I was finally able to pull the two containers apart, shake them until the spaghetti was back in, and put them aside.

This made the rest of the kitchen look like a giant version of a Pickup Sticks game. Or a mammoth explosion at a pipe yard. Or the Whitemud Freeway at rush hour when it's snowing. Or...well, you get the picture. And the bonus was that I got to see it happen in slow motion right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I'm going to be finding pieces for years.


Spaghetti Everywhere


Mitigating Factor: Spaghetti is springy when just the tip is being held.


Analysis: The money saved by buying the big box instead of the convenient packages that probably fit right into the container - shot to hell. Oh, but I'm sure the ginormous box that I haven't opened yet will work just peachy. Nooooo problems at all. You know, I may just give it to a food bank to save my ego from getting another boot to the twig and berries.


Conclusion: Stupid spaghetti.