I am pleased to announce, as a new feature of the FRL Friends Forum, a thread to “Ask The Injuneer”. This will be personally answered by that most effluent fount of wisdumb, our own Sir Robert Cook, P.E. (That is, I hope he’ll answer them, because I haven’t actually asked him, or anything)

Through the years, we have been blessed with his succinctly worded insight into all manner of life’s meanderings, so don’t be afraid to ask about problems with your rotten love life, your rotten kids, your rotten in-laws, or anything which enriches your daily life. Of course, all questions should be extremely concise and logical, as you know this is the manner in which the FRL Injuneer always thinks and posts.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), May 08, 2001

Answers

Dear FRL Injuneer,

I noticed today that my plum tree wasn’t exactly plumb. My question is, will the plums be plumb or crooked? Will they plunge straight to the ground, or plummet plum crazy, and maybe plunk some punk plundering plums? Should I try to re-plumb my plum tree, and if so, do I need a plum plumber, or can I, plumb dumb about such, plumb it myself. How complicated can plum plumbing be, anyway? I know a guy who plumbs plums, his name is Bob, they call him “Plumb Bob, The Plumer’s Friend”.

I also noticed that the plums from the un-plumb tree didn’t have any pucker. my wife, who is rather plump, loves plums and says she’ll pluck the un-plumb ones, but is it plumb dumb to pluck un-plumb plums without any pucker - won’t that overly tucker the poor plump plum plucker (without a pucker!)?

Please hurry with your answer, Sir Injuneer, you’re our last hope. (I also got wood peckers in the pears. but that can wait.)

Desperately, Elwood Rench

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-- gardener guy (lgal@exp.net), May 08, 2001.

Hummmmmm.

Plump puckered un-plumbed plums plummetting and plopping from providently proper pruned previously plumbed tree .....

Sounds like a gravity problem to me.

You must move to New Zealand.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 08, 2001.

Bye Elwood! We'll miss you! :-) (Maybe if he moves down under he'll finish the story!)

Since the other thread loads so slowly:

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Robert and Veronica!!!

Like Tricia, I've been married 22 years. I was 22 when I got married, so I'm exactly at the half-way point. Oops... I just told you how old I am. :-) (I like the way Robert says he's 45 or thereabouts. I'll have to remember that.)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), May 08, 2001.

Hiya Gayla! It is too bad about Mr. Rench, though isn't it. I hope it ain't too hard to learn New Zealaneze. But it was a goooood answer, wasn't it, and did you notice how fast he answered? Almost as if he didn't have to think atall. Just amazin', I tell you, amazin'.

Now quit buttin' in on this serious-like thread unless you got something to ask the Injuneer. (like how to remove a Harley Davidson tattoo from one's posterior - betcha thought THAT was a secret, huh?)

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), May 08, 2001.

That's not a Harley, it's a Kawasaki! If you're gonna peek in the window, at least wear your glasses! ;-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), May 08, 2001.

Hmmmmmn.

We appear to have a problem deciding whether the bike on one's rear is a harley or a kawasaki.....with an ethical problem also in that there might be two rears invalved - Is this a four cycle or two two cycle problems? (Do four cycles have half of two halves of two pairs of two wheels in New Zealand? Or are they also on the metric system and need 1/5 of ten wheels?)

In my Humble opinion (which might now have to be a Mobil opinion, unless they two were bought out by BP or Gulf Oil or Exxxxoooonnnne.... but I digress) one good honda deserves another, so the best solution would need to be defurred until more evidence is available.

Perhaps we should examine photographs of both......and then think about it.

Butt then again.....

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 09, 2001.

Robert, how assssstute you are! :-)

I think I left Lon speechless. Imagine that! ;-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), May 09, 2001.

Butt then again, getting the evidence under the microscope might cause some problems in the lab ....

Unless we did a cat scan. (Then we wouldn't need a lab, or even retrieve a boxer to put the lab in.)

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 10, 2001.

If you try to scan a cat anywhere near a lab, you're gonna need stitches.

-- helen (uh@uh.no), May 10, 2001.

What if we retrieved the lab, put the cat in the boxer, and then tried the cat scan of the harley?

Butt would the parties at the bottom of it all sit through it all?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 11, 2001.

Why would you feed the cat to the boxer instead of the lab? Do you prefer boxers over brief labs?

And it's NOT a Harley, it's a Kawasaki. You need glasses, too! ;-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), May 11, 2001.

Welllll. Hmmph.

Technically, I said to put the cat in the boxer, not feed him to the boxer. Are you implying something there? ....8<)

Now, about this matter of the drunken cycle. (You did bring up the subject of kewi saki's there right?) Isn't that a bit tart?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 11, 2001.

OK....

So we have a brief lab looking for a lost cat drinking fermented japanese kewi juice from a boxer?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 11, 2001.

LOL!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), May 11, 2001.

If you had briefed the lab more thoroughly, the cat would have been found by now.

-- helen (look@it.this.way), May 11, 2001.

Is it the cat or the boxer that required the defurring of the kewisaki?

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), May 11, 2001.

I would like to take this opportunity to invite all FRLians over to the NEW TB2K. LINK

No flames. No SPAM. Just old friends. Hope to see you there...

Dennis (Jor_el)

-- Dennis Olson (djolson@pressenter.com), May 12, 2001.

Dear Mr. Injuneer,

I know you've had lots of experience with packing musical equipment into a too small area; do you have any hints on how to pack a family of 4, the smallest of whom is 5'3 and 100lbs, into a compact car? Add 2 cats and a parrot's cage if possible ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), May 12, 2001.

Hmmmmmn. More cat problems.

Have you tried putting the cats in the cage with the parrot, then tieing all four to the top of the car?

(This will defurr problems with the other occupants of the car until the cage is untied from the car at the end of the trip.)

Compact car? Most can pull a LITTLE trailer (stress on the LITTLE) with few problem. A light duty hitch is 50.00 (installed, it's actually less expensive to get a permanant hitch (attached to the frame) rather than a "bumper clamp-on from U-haul); U-haul then can get you a small trailer (low, you don't want a tall one!) to put all the extra stuff in.

Gives the 2 footed occupants much more room (which can save a life atfer several cramped hours holding things in one's lap!), and the catty parrot cage can even go in the trailer too......

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 14, 2001.

Dear Mr Injuneer,

I'd like my parrot to survie the trip, so I don't think I'll use your cage idea. And I don't think a compact car pulling a trailer would make it through the Rockies to Nana's house. Oh, well, maybe we need a bigger car ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), May 19, 2001.

Hmmmn.

Four-footed critter inside (in the cage), 2-footed critters outside pushing?

In the mountains, going downhill would be easy........

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 21, 2001.

Robert, your answers are certainly... um, well... creative!

So here's a sneeze just for you:

.

Small arms' tender hug

Rosebud lips in happy smile

Grandfather's delight!

.

Hope your summer's going well :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), August 03, 2001.

Hug received .... much new pleasures.

Daughter now driving .... such new concerns.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 05, 2001.

LOL, Robert. Our daughter wanted to go to camp this summer instead of having us pay for driving lessons and licence. I'm so thankful!!! :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), August 07, 2001.

Aaaaaaaaack.

Coffee pot broke.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

This after a summer when...

... the TV and VCR broke,

two brake jobs happened,

three alternators busted,

four new hard drives formatted,

my wife went to Texas for five weeks,

six new locks were cut,

seven dental visits,

eight tires wore out,

nine oil filters changed,

ten VISA checks were mailed,

eleven summer movies (seen by kids),

and twelve light bulbs failed.....

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 09, 2001.

Robert, I'm sorry you had all that trouble, and sort of relieved that we aren't the only ones!

-- helen (bad@luck.or.none), August 09, 2001.

Gayla hands Robert a partridge in a pear tree. ;-)

Sorry to hear about your summer blues. I'm a coffee addict, so I can definitely relate! Don't tell anybody, but I have a brand new coffee pot on the shelf as a back-up for when mine bites the dust. :-)

Your daughter is driving??? Gayla makes note to self... STAY OUT OF GEORGIA!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 09, 2001.

Note to Gayla.... Too late. Jean did all the driving while we in Houston.

Danger areas successfully navigated: I-10 from Beaumont to I-45 up to Conroe, around Conroe (for several trips on 105), I45, 610, and 59 (to Astroworld/Six Flags/Seaworld/Fiesta Texas/whatever it is called now by whoever owns it now....) and then out to Sugarland to see my sister; and from Sugarland back to Conroe.

We waved as we went on 610 over Westhiemer....did you wave back?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 09, 2001.

NO WAY! You didn't REALLY let her drive here? It's scary for even the most experienced driver! YIKES! (Actually, I don't think you came near my house. Whew! LOL! I live west of Hwy 6, but north of I-10.)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 09, 2001.

Too late.

But the thread is now upside down.

So obviously, you're now living south of I-10. Probably closer to to Veronica's sister used to live ... before she moved north of the south border of the next county north of Houston..

Which might now be south of the north of the next county north of Houston. Or south of the next county south of the north border of Harris county.

Since you're upside down.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 09, 2001.

HALP!!!

All the blood is rushing to my head, and I'm prone to nosebleeds. Is this now the yoga forum. being that it's downside-up? Or have we been invaded by insidious down-under posters coming to upset our bottom line? If I could think, I just know I'd figger it out.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), August 09, 2001.

Ok, lotsa times things are my fault. But not this time. I didn't turn us over. I wasn't even here. I didn't touch nuthin.

-- helen (upside@down.downside.up), August 09, 2001.

I figger helen diddit when she was itch'en her figgers after them chiggers bitter figure.

So go figger 'er figure.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 09, 2001.

Welcome back, Lon! The forum is fixed now. I don't think Helen did it. It was Robert's fault! He's always wantin' to go 'down under'. ;-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 10, 2001.

Not me......Not me!!!!

(Pointing the other way....towards the Candaian/Near Zealand border.)

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 10, 2001.

Well!

I didn't know that we shared a border with Near Zealand!

I don't even know what Near Zealand is....

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), August 11, 2001.

Well, it's okay (now -that is.)

See, before, whenthe thread was upside down, Near Zealand was flipped over and running on inverted AC power - so their sine waves were really cosine waves - but then the threads got flipped over back upside-right-side up ----->

So now Canadadadadadaddada is back where it should be (up somewhere south of Kansas I think - so Oklahoma doesn't slide south into TX - and so now you're no longer near Australia.

That clear enough?

Anyway - I'm in North carolina for two days on usiness, so I'll miss Jean's start at college tommorrow.

Darn it!

Anyway, she's got two courses advanced placed already - and is going to be able to "reverse credit" the college standard courses like calculus and physics and english and government .. (and whatever else) to get credit back for her "real" high school degree. That should get her HS degree in two years, and a BS in Physics in three- and half from now.

Lettuce see, lettuce see how she does.

So: Wish her luck and good graces.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 15, 2001.

I can GIVE her a good Grace Goat...

Best of luck to her, but more than that, TIME to study.

-- helen (college@is.harrrrrrd), August 15, 2001.

Best of luck, Jean! (I can't believe she's taking college courses at her age! Wow!) My daughter and niece both started at 17 and I thought THEY were young! Will she be studying 'skunktology'? ;-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 16, 2001.

Robert, that's great for Jean! All the best to her; done her first degree at 19 or 20? Very impressive!!

Hope your business trip goes well too... and thanks for your usual clear as mud explanation of Canada's geographical location... my hubby says that we do still border Aus/NZ if you count Ocean as a border :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), August 16, 2001.