wrinkle-free clothes the easy way

I really enjoy ironing but I've never been very good at it. I'd like to think the problem is that I've never had a very good iron. It's much easier to admit to haveing a bad iron than lacking ironing skills. To me, ironing is a bit like spackling. They both give you an unjustified sense of accomplishment. When I get all the wrinkles out of a shirt, it's as though I'm smoothing out all the wrinkles in my life.
My mom taught me that you can dampen clothing and then throw them in the dryer and the wrinkles will come out without ironing as long as you hang everything up just as soon as the dryer is done. My problem is that I often forget about the clothes in the dryer and then end up at square one, with wrinkley clothes.
I've figured out a trick that works for me. I put the wrinkley shirt or pants on a hanger and then I lightly soak them in the shower and then hang the hanger somewhere where the water can drip out of the clothing, taking the wrinkles with it. It usually needs to dry at least overnight. It's not the same look as a perfectly pressed shirt but you can't really tell that it was previously wrinkled. Of course, only try this on clothes that are allowed to get wet (No DRY CLEAN ONLY clothes!!!)
Amen.

Spackle

The people who lived in my condo before I did finished the basement, but some of things they didn’t do such a great job with. So I’ve been spending a lot of time in my basement trying to make things right. The first thing I wanted to do was paint all of the wood paneling. I’m not crazy about the way wood paneling looks and think that painted paneling is more aesthetically pleasing.

Before I could paint, I pulled out all the random screws and nails that were in the wall (about 40 of them). The Pittsburgh Paint store hooked me up with some sweet spackle and I spackled my little heart out. After it dried, I sanded and then wiped down the all the walls. (Are you picking up on how labor intensive this was?) Finally, I could start painting with primer. After applying the first coat, I realized that some of the gaps between the sheets of paneling were quite pronounced. So then I had to spackle some more, sand and wipe the walls again before applying the second coat. Anyhow, I’m getting into a bit of a rhythm now and was telling my dear cousin about the joys of spackling. She summed up my sentiments exactly. “When you’re spackling and patching holes and smoothing walls out, you feel like you’re making a difference and you can fix all the world’s problems.” Well said.

Yeah, so what do you do for fun?

I’m ready to blog again. Enjoy the fact that I am a nerd.

My first incident has to do with the movie Dumb and Dumber. I love that movie and watched it recently with a friend of mine who also has experience in air bag engineering. The two of us were watching the beginning and Jim Carrey is driving a limo and rear-ends the car in front of him. His driver air bag goes off. It is huge and stays inflated for a long time. It sort of resembles a balloon. Both of us looked at each other and said, “Hey, that’s not how that works...” That scene is completely ruined for me now.

The second incident is that a year ago I bought a fun book of number and logic games. It comes with a magnetic flap and magnets so that you can play them while traveling. I spent 2 hours on Christmas working through the first problem in the book. (I think Christmas is about doing things that make you happy.) I was convinced I just needed to be more creative about my problem solving. I tried attacking from a couple different angles but in the end, I gave up and looked at the solution. And the damned solution appears to be completely random. I think I might be done with the book until next year.

The third incident revolves around a weekend in Cleveland with the old engineering posse and their significant others. V showed me a problem he’s working on at work. (Can you believe an engineer had to do a real engineering problem at work?) He’s building this tall, mobile, load-bearing thing and wants to make sure that it won’t tip over when it comes to an abrupt stop. I tried a bunch of crazy engineering math while I was with him but we were stumped. I decided that Christmas Eve would be a good time to re-learn Dynamics problems so that I could solve V’s problem. So I sprawled out on my living room floor in my jammies with a cuddly blanket, some pillows, hot cocoa, every text book that I thought would be useful, my calculator, a mechanical pencil, and a pad of paper (NOT yellow engineering graph paper. That’s only for writing love letters to Joey Harrington. Shoot…). It felt like old times. Except that I was doing it for fun and didn’t have a deadline. I relearned lots about conservation of momentum and energy but still can’t figure out how to solve the real world engineering problem. After two hours though, I seem to hit the “I don’t care anymore” wall and temporarily gave up. I’m thinking about going back to it.

Item 4: Picture me on the elliptical trainer at my gym. I’m probably in minute 27 of a 40 minute workout after running for 20 minutes. I’m getting tired. I’m reading my Shape magazine to keep my mind away from thoughts of eating M&Ms while cuddled on my couch. I see an ad for a new line of Columbia outerwear called Titanium. (Everyone knows how much I love titanium right?) The line in the largest font says, “Titanium melts at 3034 degrees Fahrenheit. It never freezes.” That catches my attention. I become agitated and start to twitch as I scream inside my head, “What advertising dumbass came up with that line? LIARS! Anything that is solid is considered to be frozen, you twits.” I’m so embarrassed for them that I’m writing them a letter. Who in the hell is doing quality control?

So I guess my point is that I'm having a hard time doing real engineering calculations and "fun" logic puzzles but I think entertainment and advertising companies could hire me as a consultant to "keep it real."

I regret to inform you...

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I will be taking a break from blogging for a bit. I will return when the blogging spirit returns to me :-(