Saturday, August 13, 2005

Just Moved to North Carolina and BEES

My wife Wendy and I just moved to North Carolina from Illinois about 3 weeks ago. We went from renting a pretty large duplex to a somewhat smaller home, but with a nearly 5 acre yard. Suddenly, I'm responsible for mowing a big yard.

No big deal, with all the costs of moving we can't afford to get a riding mower, but I still got a self propelled that works pretty well. Well, now that I figured out how to make the propelling part work on its on. Last time I mowed, well - I got stung by a bee for the first time in my life. I've had a huge fear of bees for as long as I can remember. Not that I have any good reason - just I figured I could be allergic or something. It wasn't all in all that big of a deal.

So this time I'm mowing approximately the same area and I get stung AGAIN. Hmmm....now i'm thinking i'm either:

A. I'm really unlucky
B. I'm mowing low flying bees - and the ones that survive are really angry
C. There's an underground beehive

I go back inside, relax for a second, and then go back out there. This time I'm really, really careful looking closely for any bees that appear to be in the area. I see none, and relax for a little bit. As I approach the area where I was stung earlier I think that the coast is clear because well, I don't see any bees. I can finally focus on the task of finishing mowing for another3 or 4 hours without having to worry.

Suddenly and without warning I'm being stung by somewhere between 9 and 10 bees. Some of them repeatedly. I didn't this was possible but as I was swatting them off, then were coming back! I ran off and screamed like a little girl and got back into the house - where I found there was still a bee in between my sandal and ankle still stinging me. I threw him outside and I figured it was probably time to stop mowing.

So I guess my answer has to be C. After I mustered enough courage to go back out there and put the mower away so it wouldn't get rained on, I found a small, but possible entrance to an underground behive. Does anyone know the right way to get rid of these? I mean, I don't mind getting stung once by one bee each time I mow - but getting a dozen stings on my legs pretty much incapacitates me for the day.

I wouldn't say I did anything important today but I did figure out how to add wallpapers and ringtones to my LG VX4650 phone. I didn't want to pay Verizon's $3 or $4 for a ringtone that I'd have to rebuy if I lose, so $43 later for a data cable and a couple of hours of tinkering with the software and drivers and I'm there. QPST and BitPIM seemed to both be needed to make this happen, but ultimately I only need QPST to keep doing it. I'm post step by step instruction at a moment when I've got more time.

Also to be posted soon - the CVS digital camcorder hack that has been posted in many other locations - http://www.gideontech.com/content/articles/285/1 gives a good step by step process of one way to do it. I made a cable out of the centronics end of a parallel cable and a usb cable, both of which I had lying around. The video quality isn't that great, but hey, for $30.

I'll check in later on.

2 comments:

Tony Real said...

Geez Thorr...how did you know I had a blog? Andy i'm guessing.

Our garden hose won't reach - its pretty far out in the yard. And believe it or not, the gasoline idea is something that some people actually recommend. And you're right, bees can't swim, but dog that shoot bees out of their mouths when they bark can.

Anonymous said...

bees cannot swim.. but they'll certainly sting you in the pool those bastards..

/a