Mastered a new task! Opening the pool salt bag! (I'm so happy!)
You know when someone does something that looks so easy, and then when you try it you make a complete hash of it? It was like that years ago in Melbourne when I decided that I was going to learn to windsurf. It couldn't be too hard, could it? Lots of people did it. Well, I did get to be competent enough that I could stand-up, turn the board around (both tack and gibe) and get back to shore. But it was a major lesson in humiliation. Beth still has a photo of me falling-off the board, head and upper torso in the water, bottom and legs sticking straight-up out of the water. Funny what one's partner decides to keep, isn't it?
Learning to back a car trailer was kind of the same but with the added pressure of it being a masculinity indicator - a bloke can't go to the tip and then not back the trailer to the edge of the pit to throw-in the junk. Worse would be having to unhook the trailer and manually wheel it to the edge, then reconnect to the car later. Oh! The stories that would be told over a cold brew later, 'didja see the wanker with the green trailer today? I bet his mum still wipes his bum!' Ha-ha-ha...
But I can back the trailer and I don't disgrace myself at the tip. One would hope so, as a holder of an articulated truck driver's license that theoretically enables me to drive semi-trailer, it would be pretty ugly if I couldn't. Has anyone developed a Wii or xBox game that teaches how to back a trailer? What about an iPhone app? You could change the colour of the car, decorate the practice backing area to make it look like a shopping mall carpark or something... maybe not.
Back to the present! Something I've always wanted to know how to do was to open a feed sack, or salt sack, or any large sack at all that is closed by stitching on the top. The cool way to do this is by tugging on the strings that results in a wonderfully satisfying almost uncontrollable unzipping of the bag. I've seen it done so many times, mainly in a rural setting like around horses or other animals. And it's not a gender specific knowledge - I've seen more women do it than men. Not sure what to make of that so I'll just walk away.
Why? We had to have our swimming pool resurfaced. The fibreglass gel coat died and was flaking-off making a real mess and stuffing-up the automatic pool cleaner.There were all these dirty looking black spots where things were growing under pin-hole cracks and fissures in the gel coat. A guy who came with high recommendations did what appears to be a lovely job grinding-out the old crap and recoating the pool, and we refilled it once we got a permit from SA Water.
Our pool uses a salt water chlorinator, and that needs salt water to work. At this point, perhaps until the new desalination plant goes on line in Adelaide, SA Water supplies fresh water through the pipes. We needed salt water in the pool. That meant buying 10 x 20kg bags of pool salt from our friendly pool supply shop. I don't know why pool shop people don't wear all their gold and diamonds when working in the shop. It must get really tiresome going home from the shop looking all daggy like they are 'regular folks' then dressing-up and getting on the glitter that I've paid for. They aren't fooling me - they probably make more money than plumbers do! 'Pool salt' from a pool supply shop costs a fair bit more than pool salt from the hardware shop. I can only guess that in the warehouse each special, expensive Pool Shop Pool Salt bag is kissed by 10 virgins before being sent to the pool shop.
So I had 10 bags of salt to open and I didn't want to repeat the normal process of hacking the top of the bag in frustration after trying what seemed every variation of string clipping only to find the string won't budge. Before leaving the pool shop with my very special bags of pool salt I asked the guy who tests the water samples if he knew how to open bags by unzipping the string. He shook his head and said the foreman on the cattle station he owns does it but he keeps well away from the animals so he didn't know. No one else did. Perhaps they are't as well-off as I thought; maybe they don't buy their diamonds in feed sack quantities yet.
One of my best friends is Google. It doesn't argue with me. It doesn't sit in my chair. And it's always there for me, just about. Except when Mr HP has a bad day. It took a bit of trial and error to find the right search term to get my answer but I finally did at www.motherearthnews.com which has a brief and very effective explanation about how to orient the bag, and which loop to cut, which strings to pull when, and voila the bag throws itself open at you.
So I literally get 10 out of 10 today - ten bags attempted, and ten bags successfully opened with nary a fuss nor cuss. Ah, the simple joys in life - mastering a new small task.
Will I tell the pool people about my success? You bet. Will I tell them how I did it? Not sure yet - might see if I can negotiate a deal or something. Don't tell them about motherearthnews.com, okay?
Learning to back a car trailer was kind of the same but with the added pressure of it being a masculinity indicator - a bloke can't go to the tip and then not back the trailer to the edge of the pit to throw-in the junk. Worse would be having to unhook the trailer and manually wheel it to the edge, then reconnect to the car later. Oh! The stories that would be told over a cold brew later, 'didja see the wanker with the green trailer today? I bet his mum still wipes his bum!' Ha-ha-ha...
But I can back the trailer and I don't disgrace myself at the tip. One would hope so, as a holder of an articulated truck driver's license that theoretically enables me to drive semi-trailer, it would be pretty ugly if I couldn't. Has anyone developed a Wii or xBox game that teaches how to back a trailer? What about an iPhone app? You could change the colour of the car, decorate the practice backing area to make it look like a shopping mall carpark or something... maybe not.
Back to the present! Something I've always wanted to know how to do was to open a feed sack, or salt sack, or any large sack at all that is closed by stitching on the top. The cool way to do this is by tugging on the strings that results in a wonderfully satisfying almost uncontrollable unzipping of the bag. I've seen it done so many times, mainly in a rural setting like around horses or other animals. And it's not a gender specific knowledge - I've seen more women do it than men. Not sure what to make of that so I'll just walk away.
Why? We had to have our swimming pool resurfaced. The fibreglass gel coat died and was flaking-off making a real mess and stuffing-up the automatic pool cleaner.There were all these dirty looking black spots where things were growing under pin-hole cracks and fissures in the gel coat. A guy who came with high recommendations did what appears to be a lovely job grinding-out the old crap and recoating the pool, and we refilled it once we got a permit from SA Water.
Our pool uses a salt water chlorinator, and that needs salt water to work. At this point, perhaps until the new desalination plant goes on line in Adelaide, SA Water supplies fresh water through the pipes. We needed salt water in the pool. That meant buying 10 x 20kg bags of pool salt from our friendly pool supply shop. I don't know why pool shop people don't wear all their gold and diamonds when working in the shop. It must get really tiresome going home from the shop looking all daggy like they are 'regular folks' then dressing-up and getting on the glitter that I've paid for. They aren't fooling me - they probably make more money than plumbers do! 'Pool salt' from a pool supply shop costs a fair bit more than pool salt from the hardware shop. I can only guess that in the warehouse each special, expensive Pool Shop Pool Salt bag is kissed by 10 virgins before being sent to the pool shop.
So I had 10 bags of salt to open and I didn't want to repeat the normal process of hacking the top of the bag in frustration after trying what seemed every variation of string clipping only to find the string won't budge. Before leaving the pool shop with my very special bags of pool salt I asked the guy who tests the water samples if he knew how to open bags by unzipping the string. He shook his head and said the foreman on the cattle station he owns does it but he keeps well away from the animals so he didn't know. No one else did. Perhaps they are't as well-off as I thought; maybe they don't buy their diamonds in feed sack quantities yet.
One of my best friends is Google. It doesn't argue with me. It doesn't sit in my chair. And it's always there for me, just about. Except when Mr HP has a bad day. It took a bit of trial and error to find the right search term to get my answer but I finally did at www.motherearthnews.com which has a brief and very effective explanation about how to orient the bag, and which loop to cut, which strings to pull when, and voila the bag throws itself open at you.
So I literally get 10 out of 10 today - ten bags attempted, and ten bags successfully opened with nary a fuss nor cuss. Ah, the simple joys in life - mastering a new small task.
Will I tell the pool people about my success? You bet. Will I tell them how I did it? Not sure yet - might see if I can negotiate a deal or something. Don't tell them about motherearthnews.com, okay?
posted by Rick's Rambles at 11:07 am
1 Comments:
Hey, thank you very much, Rick. I loved reading your ramble, and my father-in-law and I are now happily looking forward to opening our next pool salt bags with ease. It frustrated the heck out of us this morning, when we tried with each of the three bags to magically unzip the stitching, with no success. We should have searched and found your advice BEFORE salting the pool. Many thanks (again) from Queensland, Australia. x
Post a Comment
<< Home