New Year Disasters

OK, so I talked more to my cousin about AR-style rifles and how useful they are for hunting. And since I wrote so disparagingly about them I researched them further and found that there are a million different things they are used for. Shooters have been customizing them for various purposes for a very long time, and loving the accuracy of them. Although apparently hunters find their .223 caliber weak for hunting, they can be purchased or altered for other calibers, larger and more powerful. Even in the .223 caliber, apparently with a longer barrel and a few other adjustments they can be made to produce enough velocity from the undersized bullets to be effective for hunting.

So anyway, I eat my words about the AR-style rifles. I never owned one and didn't realize that I even knew anyone else who did.

Soooo, I was cleaning up in my bonus room upstairs, emptying boxes and throwing them over the railing, down the stairs. I was sick at the time and not thinking or functioning clearly. One particular box which I thought I had emptied, I had unfortunately not, and when I threw it over the railing and down the stairs a flashlight flew out of it and hit the wall, making a big old hole in the sheetrock. Oh joy! The hole appeared to be directly across the railing, easy enough to fix. But when I stood on the stairs looking up at it, trying to decide how best to position the ladder so I could reach it, holy hell, it was HIGH!

So I bought my ladder in, wrestled with it for quite awhile, and finally determined that I couldn't reach it. So I hired someone.

Just over a week later I was home alone. I had been asked to clean the bathmats and a carpet that I don't recall where it came from. It was some carpet that we put in front of one of the doors. Anyway, I threw them all into the washing machine. And then I went on about my business cleaning the floor. Suddenly I heard a loud CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK coming from the washer. I had heard this sound once before. It is a bad sound. I ran to the washer and turned it off. I pulled the carpets/mats out of it. I messed around with the drum of the now-empty washer and tried running it again. CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK. No luck. I turned the dial until I got it to drain. Once it was empty I tried again. CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK.

So, it's broken. I've ordered some new parts for it and I'm going to try to fix it. Apparently this is what happens when I'm left home alone for extended periods of time - I break everything. Not just small things, but big things. I'm hopeful that the parts I ordered are all it needs and things will be alright again once I replace the old parts. If not, looks like I'll be hiring yet another repairman to come to the house. And that'll mean taking time off from work so I can be here.

This is not how I'd wanted to start my new year.

So, how is your new year going so far? Anyone burned their own house down? Wrecked a car? Broken a window? Am I the only walking disaster here in the world of the Blog?