Last week we paid $5 to salvage stuff from the dump. We left with a sheet of stainless steel, a beat up Cornelius Road street sign, a few pieces of plywood, and a sizable aluminum box. We got the box home and i hammered on the bottom of it because it was sort of bowl-shaped on the bottom. Once it was concave, (Or would that be convex? I can never keep them straight.) Amy cleaned and dried it.

She then spray painted a white primer on the interior and exterior of the box.

Next step was to spray paint the box white.

Then i laid out, traced, and hand painted the stencil.

The addition of some industrial casters makes it easy to roll the whole load into the laundry room. One finishing touch – a wood trim bolted to the top where the perforations are – and this project will be complete.

Overall costs were a bit higher than one of our normal projects. The dump fee, spray primer and paint, stencils, brushes and paint for the lettering, and the casters and hardware brought the total cost to about $56. The wood trim addition will be negligible since i have some trim on hand to use and the hardware will come to only a few dollars.

I suppose $60 is a small price to pay to prevent incidents like the one that happened last week. Amy washed a load of clothes and they came out of the washer stinky. She washed them two more times and then put them in the dryer and they still smelled terrible. I know because soon after that dryer cycle she held a shirt up to my face for me to judge. I said it smelled like something dead. (She had been thinking it was a pair of my gym shorts.) She asked me to stand by as she shook out each piece of clothing. Starting with the shirt i had sniffed she shook it a few times and – plop – a mouse carcass flopped onto the floor. I said – “Yep. Something dead alright.” Then Amy began a strange series of shrieks/yells and arm and leg motions to indicate her displeasure. One of the cats apparently thought that they needed to have their toy washed. I think this bin will prevent future washing and drying of small critters with our laundry.

(See the finished product here.)

When i posted the link to the create your own Southpark character a few friends asked how i was able to save the image. I used a free screen capture program available here. You can set the preferences to capture your whole desktop or an area you select. The program is designed to print the current screen but i have mine set to save the capture into a folder as a jpeg image. The program is also handy for saving images from websites with right clicking disabled or where the image is a large bitmap.

Why is it that every time i run out of heating oil that it is a Sunday?

Another twist on the Nigerian spam…

Subj: Urgent Attention Needed
Date: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 7:05 AM
From: danieldavids@moldova.cc
—————————————————————-
Dear McFarland,

I am Barrister DANIEL DAVIDS, personal attorney to Mr. Agas McFarland, a
citizen of your country, who worked with Shell Development Company in
Nigeria and a one-time secret agent who transfers money overseas for the
late head of state of Nigeria Late Gen. SANI ABACHA. My client, his
family were involved in a car accident along Sagbama express road on the
21st April 1999 and all died. He deposited the sum of $17m in a bank here
in Nigeria.

Since his death, I have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate
any of his relatives but to no avail. I decided to trace his last name
over the Internet, to GET ANY ONE THAT BEARS THE SAME NAME WHO WOULD STAND
IN AS THE COUSIN TO MY LATE CLIENT, TO CLAIM THE MONEY.

Hence, I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money before
the account is confiscated or declared unserviceable by the holding trust
where this huge deposits valued at 17million Dollars has issued me a
notice to provide the next of kin, before the end of this quarter or have
the account confiscated.

Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 2 years
now, I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased
since you have the same name so that the proceeds of this account will be
paid to you, then, you and I can share the money,
50% to me and 50% to you.

I have legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we may make.
All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us seeing this deal
through.

Please note my alternative email : doubled4all@email2me.net or my phone
number 234-803-7251-423.

Best regards,
Daniel Davids Esq.
_________________________________________________________

Mr. Makudi,

I am quite interested in your proposal. I would be happy with a 25% share of the amount.

I would like to know more about this Daniel McFarland. I have been tracing my family history and can not go very far back with the McFarland side of my family. I have McFarlands with the first name Daniel and Archibald (possible middle initial for your client?) so I’m hoping there could be some distant connection.

I look forward to your reply.

Richard McFarland
____________________________________________________________

Subj: Detail Information
Date: Friday, March 26, 2004 3:30 AM
From: jm2002@ciaoweb.it
—————————————————————-
Dear Macfarland,

I received your mail with contents well understood. Acturally Daniel A
Macfarland is not your relation but for the fact that you people bear the
same last name and also from your country that is why i contact you so
that i can present you as the next of kins so that we can collect this
money from his account since he has no next of kins or family relation to
collect this fund.

To be precise here is full details of how this transaction will be achieved.
Firstly, i will like to clearly make you understand,that legally, you have
nothing to worry about, as far as this inheritance claim is concerned. as
a lawyer with thirty years of experience, i make bold to say with full
authority, that this business is 100% legal, and safe.

I was the deceased attorney.this legally, means that i am mandated to
carry out any business dealings on his behalf, as if he was present. i was
his attorney for several years, until his death.i was his closest
confidant. As explained above, the deceased had no next of kin to inherit
the mentioned amount and his entire estate. been the deceased attorney, i
am the only person who can confirm to the bank, the claim of any next of
kin, and also advice the bank to effect payment to such a beneficiary. And
the reason that you were contacted, is because you bear the same surname
as the deceased, and that the deceased migrated from your country down to
nigeria.i want you to put in a claim as the next of kin to the
deceased.when i authorize the payment to you, and the money gets into your
account, you will take 50% while i take 50%. if you agree with this, then
this is how we are going to progress with business-:

(a). I will provide you with the recent bank statement of the deceased,
and his death certificate.
(b). You will be required to engage the services of a lawyer, who will
professional act on your behalf, as your attorney. such a lawyer so hired,
must be duly registered in nigeria, and practices in nigeria. the attorney
will process all the required legal back up documents from the high court
of nigeria, an forward same to the bank with the banks application form
for inheritance claims, on your behalf.

(c). When the bank receives your claims application, they will immediately
draw my attention to it, notifying me that some one has put in a claim as
the next of kin to the deceased. i will be asked by the bank to verify the
genuiness of the said claim, and recommend to them, what action they
should take . as regards payment.

(d). The bank on the receipt of my confirmation, will now get in touch
with you, through your attorney, asking that you present them with your
banking coordinates, so that they can transfer the money into your
norminated account.

(e). When the bank receives your banking information, they will release
the money into your norminated account. The above is a very concise
explanation of the entire process of this business transaction. this
mentioned process, will only take ten banking days to complete, from the
day that your attorney submits the papers to the bank.
now, i will only do this business with you, on the condition that you will
promise to be absolutely honest with me, and that you will respect the
confidentiality of this business transaction, and keep it as such. Again
we will have to familiarize ourselves, by providing a picture identity of
ourselves, so that we can both know whom we are dealing with business
wise.

I will need to see your identity, and your postal and residential address.
Warmest Regards
Joseph Makudi
________________________________________________________________

Mr. Makudi,

Please, call me by my first name. Or better yet, my friends call me Dick.

I’m a little bummed that Daniel was of no relation. What a sensational story to tell the grandchildren about their distant relative that was a secret agent. Now wait a minute… let me look through my email. Yes – I have another email message from someone named Daniel Davids who is an attorney for a Mr. Agas McFarland. Agas apparently worked for Shell but was also a secret agent. There is $17 million in a bank account in his name and Daniel has contacted me about a similar scenario where we make a claim of ancestry and split the money. Any chance that Agas and Daniel were related? Both died in car accidents in April of 1999. How horrible if they were brothers or father and son and both died in the same accident.

Are you familiar with this attorney Daniel Davids? It seems that if the deceased McFarlands are related and they each have millions in similar accounts that I could simply file one claim of kinship and that would suffice as proof for both. Perhaps you could contact Mr. Davids and see if this could work out. His phone number is 234-803-7251-423.

If we can get all that straightened out then We can go ahead and pursue the documents you need to process the claim.

Thank you and have a wonderful day!

Dick McFarland
____________________________________________________________

(I really did get these two spam messages confused. The first one I posted is not the one I replied to.)