Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Bungee stumping

Yes, we love our abundant sunshine in Colorado, as I just mentioned. Its drawbacks are few. You need to have UV tint on your windows if you don't want textiles to fade to oblivion, and sunglasses and sunscreen are a must.

If you need a reminder that the sun can cause some serious damage, check out what it has done to this bungee cord. The poor thing was just sitting there, wrapped not very tightly around my upstairs deck umbrella to keep the wind from turning the umbrella into a guided missile.

Not that I'm complaining. I used to think that people who kvetched about a few overcast days were wimps, but now if I don't get my regular dose of Vitamin D, I see what they mean.

6 comments:

  1. Same here in CA - nothing lasts long in those strong rays. But, what a joy!

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  2. I have sunshades on my windows to keep it cool enough in summer - at 9.500 feet!

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  3. Sheesh! You've got a whole latte sunlight going on there in Colorado!

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  4. OH, that's a BUNGEE CORD! And for a minute I thought I was going insane because I still could not figure out what it was.

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  5. Reminds me of a story .. I was a young driver, on my way back from Lake George NY Sunday night, with my siblings, 9 PM. On the desolate western end of the MA Turnpike we went through the tollbooth and I eased up to speed in my ’75 lime green Rabbit. A clatter, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a broken fanbelt rolling along behind. No fanbelt, no water pump, no go. What to do. Checked back at the tollbooth, no service station for half an hour in any direction. I thought about it a bit, took a bungee cord off my bike, measured it for length, seemed right, removed the hooks with pliers and Herculean effort, used a wire coathanger to connect the loops on the ends. Put it on the pulleys, voila! We drove to the service station and got a new fan belt, but by the looks of it my creation would have taken us all the way home!

    Rick in VT

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  6. Joy, indeed, Zoomie!

    Sybille, you're that much closer to it!

    Joanne, the weather's quite fine here.

    John, it's freaky, isn't it? It was even cloth-covered once upon a time.

    Rick, that's a great story! Necessity made for some clever invention. I would've been all waaaaah! what now?!?

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