Tony’s Journal

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Our Sights are Set on the YEAR TWO THOUSAND

NCSU is about to roll out a new web site that brings us into this century. I don’t want to speak too soon, but I think it may be useful!

A preview: New NCSU Web Site

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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More on the Tree

So! We chopped up the tree last week — we being me and my neighbors Keith and Tiffany — and put it in piles on the curb. We have curbside yard waste pickup. Because my neighbors are awesome, they not only had started working on the branches without me, but they actually had already called the City to find out how to prepare the branches. The answer was to just cut the branches into less than 4-foot lengths. No problem. So we did that and put two big piles out at the curb.

The piles have sat in the street for a few days, the leaves turning from green to brown, and then yesterday I came home to see bright orange tags on each pile, and on my front door. Turns out the City also wanted us to bundle the branches, AND to put the leaves in clear bags. The upshot is that they were gonna charge me $120 to cart off the stuff. There are different charges for different size loads, and the box they had checked said “$120 – small dump truck.” This was under the one that said “$60 – pickup bed size.”

WHAT. Tiffany said “my family knows dump trucks, and they don’t need a dump truck for this.” I don’t know dump trucks but I have seen them, and she is right. So it happens that she works with a guy who does yard work as a second job, and that he’d come take care of it at once for $50. I went to the ATM, got some cash, and Curtis showed up and loaded his pickup truck twice. He was a really nice guy and did me a hell of a favor by coming instantly — had the pile been there tomorrow morning, the City would have picked up the stuff and left me with that fat bill.

It is annoying that I had to pay at all. I like trees and I like money, and I don’t like paying someone to get rid of my trees. But that is the way things are, and paying a really nice guy who needs the money $50 is way better than paying the City of Garner $120 (or $240 if they considered the 2 piles as 2 loads).

Also! I got a quote to get rid of the 2 leaning pine trees in my backyard and to prune the ones in front. $750. If my neighbor is that worried about the leaning tree falling and crushing her fence, she can pitch in. It’s not aimed at her house, and I am not responsible if my tree falls and messes up her property, so I am not rushing to pay for that myself.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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The Sharks are on our Team

Go ahead, sharks!

ATLANTIC BEACH – A woman vacationing from Ohio became this year’s first reported victim of a shark attack in North Carolina. She was bitten on the thigh and foot Tuesday while wading at Atlantic Beach.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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Who Needs a Tree Anyway

I went out my front door yesterday, heading for work, and it appeared that the previous evening’s storms had knocked a branch off my Bradford pear tree. So I put my stuff in the car and went to survey it and as it turns out-

From My House: Nature

HALF THE TREE WAS LAYING ON THE GROUND.

So now I gotta get that cut down, because half a tree ain’t gonna stand up for too long. I am having a dude come eyeball it and a couple other pine trees tomorrow, in order to give me a quote for dismantling and carting off my flora.

This is awesome for two reasons:

1) I HATE TREES

2) I HATE MONEY

I am gonna miss that tree. It obscured the hell out of my house which doesn’t have all that much curb appeal. Plus I like trees. Plus that was a fine shade tree.

Now, I have heard some bad news from friends lately. Some people have it a lot worse than I do. In the great scheme of things this doesn’t matter worth a damn. I can plant another tree. Hell, it’s not like it even fell on my house. It actually fell towards my new neighbors’ truck, but maybe only the very top thin branches brushed it on the way down, so I dodged a bullet there.

Still, it sucks.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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