The Mighty Big Heat Wave

It's upon us. Like white on rice. Well starting Friday anyway.

Forecast for these parts, which is North J for all you new townsfolk, is HOT. Sizzling. Hot.

Friday, 90. Saturday, 93, Sunday 103! Then some mid-90's days for the foreseeable future.

I will be floating in my pool. Bet that.

YSSS at CWS!

He's only finished his junior year in HS, so he's attending game 1 tonight in Omaha. Arkansas Razorbacks vs. Oregon St. Beavers.

YSSS aka Ryan is playing in the Baseball Factory tournament wayyyyy out there. Left early (and I do mean early) Saturday AM (we were at EWR at 4:30AM). Flight to Omaha and staying with tournament in Council Bluffs Iowa. Never been there. Game stared yesterday, he went 1-2 with a sacrifice and 3 RBIs in game one. Walked a couple of times and scored a run in game 2.

Told him to send me some pics from TD Ameritrade Park tonight. Can't wait to see them. Also, I'm very proud of my youngest son. Hope he has a time to remember this week.

Bleak

Do you watch The Handmaid's Tale? You should. But be warned, it's Bleak. Capital B.

WC Soccer

There's a World Cup going on...USA, Italy and Ireland not included. So unless your a major soccer fan, it's under the radar round these parts. SoulSlam is not interested in the least.

The Recycling Dopes

So in my burg, we do curbside recycling. They gave each home two (2) barrels; a small blue barrel for co-mingled (plastic/aluminum/glass) and a bigger yellow can for cardboard and paper. Which the DPW dopes proceeded to break in short order (handles cracked off, split bottoms, etc). When this program was started 10 or so years ago it was ostensibly to keep our carting fees from garbage disposal company down. So recycle away!

I also remember the d-bag that actually started this (he's low on my list of humans) said you can recycle "any plastic". As a matter of fact, these cans are a treasure trove of recycling info, including the line that any plastic 1-7 can be inserted for recycling. Times change though.

Apparently, the town pays $10 a ton for recycling. Unless there's contaminents, then it's $175 a ton. Big jump. I have zero doubt that people are putting things in there they absolutely should not, so I get it. But now, they are basically capping the recyclables to plastics 1-2 (Plastic #1: Polyethylene Terephthalate PET ...Plastic #2: High Density Polyethylene HDPE). Wow. What the hell are we doing with numbers 3-7?

Apparently they want it thrown in garbage.

So the cartage fees will inevitably go up. Any schoolkid will tell you that.

What we have are people running things that have zero vision and clue.

THE NEW YORK METS

Awful. That's the best word to describe this mess.

Constructed wrong. Even Paul Loduca thinks so.

Worst situational hitting I've ever seen. Re: Adrian Gonzalez (bye bye) double in top of 7th inning on Saturday vs. NYY and the Asdrubel Cabrera "bunt" last Wednesday. Two exhibits in a massive shit museum.

Hurt. All the time. Cespedes? Really? This guy has the quads of a 90 year old man apparently. Syndergaard? The king of the finger injury. It is mind-boggling.

Who's to blame: Us, the fans. You, me, all of us.

This ownership (The Wilpons) and front office management (Sandy Alderson) think they can bamboozle loyal Mets fans with their bargain-bin signings and cheap-ass ways. Because enough of us show up time and time again to allow them to turn the dollars of profit. Everybody was positive giddy after 12 games of the season. But this is not the NFL. You play 162 in this man's game. Right now, the Mets stand at 28-34. Probably won't end up in last place because the Triple A Miami Marlins plan on that this season. But now they go on a 10 game road trip to Atlanta, Arizona and Colorado. Coming home 3-7 on that is probably optimistic, you'd do backflips if the could go 5-5. In any case, they have a long way to go before they are in the plus column after this roadtrip.

So what do you do? They waived Gonzalez. They will most likely jettison Reyes within two weeks. You can start looking to trade off players, but the problem is, "who wants them?" You could easily deal deGrom and Syndergaard, but at that point you should plan on a lot of empty ballpark games. Those guys aren't free agents for another couple of years so that's best done in off-season. Familia (who just went on DL) is an FA after this season and will bring you back a young A-level player, nothing more. Gsellman could probably net you something decent. Other than that, nothing is viable. Bruce has a 3 year deal (Thanks Sandy), so nobody is touching that the way he's hitting. Cabrera? Maybe a team that needs a veteran utility guy. You're not trading Nimmo, Rosario or Conforto. So you have what they always seem to have: a team nobody wants. Including me.

Mr. Fixit

SoulSlam has a lot of praise for youtube. If you have an issue with something mechanically, you can generally find a video so you can attempt a DIY fix. That happened this weekend with washing machine.

Before I left house Friday AM, I wanted to wash the bath mat from the downstairs bath (it's actually a shower). Open up front door and there's water sitting in tub. OK, maybe one of the Sons of SoulSlam grabbed something before we were ready. Happens. I guess. So I turn it on and away I go.

Come home in afternoon, dress for the gym and go downstairs. Notice that said item is still in washer. Open door and...can't open door. It's in locked mode. What? Turn on and I have an error code! I HATE ERROR CODES!!!

So, I unplug and plug in again, and washer at least now lets me open door. And I pull out a drenched bath mat...still lots of water in this machine. OK, must not be draining. So for the next two hours, I pull out hoses, run rinse cycles, try everything I can at time...but no. We try to call service dept. where we purchased but it's Friday and they are gone for weekend. Will have to wait for Monday.I ended up going to GYM at 6:30PM.

Now, as I'm aging, I get more and more ansty with broken shit. Add to that the fact that two teenage sons and four people who go to the gym every day are going to make some soiled clothes. So a few days without a washer could be an issue. So Saturday AM, while at the GYM (I was deadlifting), I decide to start looking at some youtube videos. Drain motor didn't seem to be making any strange noises. I watch one video in particular, and it inspires me to try. So I go home and start taking off the covers. Which is a task on a full-size washer. Anyway, with covers off I locate cointrap and bladder house by drain pump. I do some recon in this area...seemed like door to cointrap might be stuck? Not sure. Anyway, I replace the covers in reverse and cross my fingers.

Washer fixed! The rest of the day was a breeze.