December 15, 2015

Yesteryear
One year ago today: December 15, 2014, New York Times backs down.
Five years ago today: December 15, 2010, advanced soldering techniques . . .
Nine years ago today: December 15, 2006, dead-end sidewalks.
Random years ago today: December 15, 2002, Asian cruelty.

MORNING
           Animal lovers beware, this is a really sad tale from the trailer court. Blog rules say this must be reported. This morning, JZ and I had to make a run up to the hardware store. I noticed something on the road ahead and asked him to slow down. It was, shown here, a full-grown male iguana, around five feet long, snout-to-snoot. It was crawling in obvious pain down a laneway of Sheridan Avenue. Unhappily, the poor creature was blind and partially decapitated.

           It happens often in Florida, the lizard crawls between canals, which invariably involved crossing a roadway. The head of an adult male is just high enough to let a non-alert driver straddle the animal and allow the axle of the car to clip off the skull cap. The lizard, if not killed, is stunned and rendered senseless. They typically revert to yellow and black stripes, as seen here.
           This unfortunate beast had its skull torn off, exposing the still-living brain, which I did see. I believe both its eyes were missing and it was helplessly inching down the roadway, alive but quite unaware of its surroundings. However, I did not have the rifle with me and there was no place to stop and put it out of misery. Nor was anyone else inclined to do so.
           What a terrible, pitiful end to a magnificent, specimen.
           And this line is here because it is needed to balance the nearby photo. Because only function retards work over at Google. If you disagree, make the arrangements and I'll put it to the test. Any time.

NOON
           You know if you keep reading here, there will be something we happen across. How about this? A car on fire. Despite the danger of an explosion, we had little choice but to go right past this unique site on Taft & 28th. Emergency vehicles were on the way but the car seemed to be abandoned by any occupants. Hmmm, that already smells funny--and I don't mean just the odor of scorched paint.

           We got into a squeeze play. Florida issues driver’s licenses to just about anyone, regardless of whether they have even the most basic driving knowledge or the ability to learn the same. So while emergency vehicles were bound for this dangerous fire (I hesitate to call it an “accident”), vehicles in the same lane were reluctant to pull over.

           This means the fire truck swerved into our lane and came head-on toward us. Causing us to leave the roadway and drive onto the swale toward a row of trees. That is, because obvious “types” of drivers would not pull over, the emergency vehicle forced us into a game of chicken. We ran over the sidewalk and made it safely back onto the street.
           This is so typical of Miami. It was so obvious the emergency driver would rather run us off the road than inconvenience drivers who were disobeying the law. I’ll give you one guess about the difference in race between us and the other drivers. Makes me wish there was a Liberal on that sidewalk we had to careen over to avoid a collision.
           The oblong dark object on the bottom of the picture is the rear view mirror on JZ’s truck.

NIGHT
           This hot water tank episode was excellent grooming for how things will go when we move to renovate a property, probably within the upcoming six months. For all the talk and preparation, JZ and I have never before worked a full day on a focused project. And it did not go easy. Suspecting as much, I divided the chores into separate spheres, to monitor the relative efficiency of each man’s approach. It was depressing to find JZ has the same “tradesman” approach as Wallace.

           That is, he will make everything into a major job and seems to cause as much damage as he could get away with. I took a half hour to solder three joints, he did five in the same time. But my joints held 100% while four of his sprung leaks that took the rest of the day, including three trips to the store for replacements of ruined fittings. Yet, it is difficult to argue with a plumber who has been to plumbing school who knows I have never had a minute of training.
           I further built a stand for the new water heater in less tha 15 minutes. Of the 8 foot 2x4 I started with, the only piece left over as a ¾” saw end. JZ considers that to be beginner’s luck. My eye. Plus he got himself a headache breathing solder fumes. I ain’t never been to no plumber’s school, but I know way better than to breathe construction fumes. Yet he insisted I turn off the fan I so painstakingly hauled in there last night and ran the extension cords.

           The outcome is, like Wallace, that the job gets done. But at twice the cost and JZ has to drive back out here tomorrow, making for a total of 132 mile round trip. Just to replace a water tank. I feel if the job had been done my way, it would have taken just 3-1/2 hours. I saw the weird four-stage adapter the last workman jerry-rigged. I wanted to untwist the plastic end, cut the copper end a foot away. Then take the entire plastic-copper assembly to the hardware store and get things matched up. Then, we need only screw the plastic end back on, and put a simple butt-splice on the copper end. One cut, one splice.
           Instead, we wound up with two men, wasting an entire day (now two days), finally making eleven solder joints, two three of which are still leaking. And round and round we go, just because nobody will take the time to hear me out. For instance, if the water won’t drain, let me get in there with my compressed air tank and blow the water out. No, they would rather waste valuable propane torches boiling the water out.
           Then when the expensive propane runs out, we make a forty minute round trip to the store for more, while I listen to the stories of how this always goes. But nobody will explain why we did not at least try to use the air hose. New ideas do not "take time". Plus the implication is that I'm not a discerning enough learner to do things right. Air is cheap.
           For the record, later in the day we tried the air hose theory and it works perfectly. You plug the far end of the line and blow 80 psi into the top of the tube. The tube turns cold and the water sprays out. When the tube warms slightly, it is bone dry. And my pal wants to know why all plumbers don't do it that way. Possibly they were taught not too? Or maybe they don't build robots? You tell me.
           Drop back tomorrow or next day to see how this difference in work philosphies finally pans out.


           In the end, all my joints held. Perfectly. Zero-defect, done right the first time. Yet, the lesson was not learned. The lesson is not learned because the other guy does not want to learn it. Still, I can work with this situation. It’s those who are inconsistently incompetent that give me the gears. They are so scatterbrained you cannot work around them without mortally offending them every time you do something right. I wasted a few working years of my life around people like that at the phone company.

           And unlike plumbing, with bass playing you cannot drive back the next day and fix the mistakes. My solution is the same as forty years ago. Divide the work into two equal halves and let the other guy take first pick. When you are finished hours ahead of him, don't stick around to help, go downtown and work the crossword. He'll complain, but eventually he will catch on.


Last Laugh


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