One year ago today: May 2, 2016 , what's a jointer?
Five years ago today: May 2, 2013, scooter and ‘Coronet’.
Nine years ago today: May 2, 2009, a then-popular chat.
Random years ago today: May 2, 2007, you will be entertained!
What’s a jointer? Me either, but now we have one and it looks in great shape. I’ll pull the manual tomorrow morning. It looks like a mini-planer but the name implies it joins something. The videos I watched would have covered this equipment. I just don’t remember. It looks like a nice rig and I won’t turn down anything that might replace some of the labor on these lanterns. A lot of people are talking about them and my real estate lady gets a free sample. To display at a prominent spot at her place of business, I mean.
[Author’s note: moments later I see it is some kind of planer that kicks out a ton of shavings. This pictures shows one of the oak floorboards I ran through it to test what’s going on and the resulting shavings.
Now I remember, I did see a video of this contraption but can’t remember what is so special about it. I’ll know by tomorrow, but not only do I now have one excellent new sunroom floor in the making, but fitting the little lantern doors just got a whole lot easier.]
The neighbor to the east came over while I was working on the shed, he keeps saying he never works in his. And his is more like a mid-size barn. It has a central shed two stories tall and two enclosed wings like an old Amish barn. In fact, he mentioned once it was an old farm shed that blew over and they put it back together over where it is today. He’s the guy responsible for my sawhorses being so well-known. The ones painted with the amber shellac which has already worn off in the fall rains.
Don’t go thinking the project is a humorless grind, I’m having tons of fun with it. Whenever someone compliments that I’m wearing a lot of safety gear, I just tell then I used to work for the phone company. They assume I mean I learned proper safety rules. Wrong, I learned most co-workers are thoughtless, careless bastards. The one injury I had was when one of them left a soldering iron on the bottom rung of the ladder while I was up it. Nor does this new lantern adventure have a slogan yet, but I can’t shake the feeling they won’t like my offering: “Mrs. Leary’s Favorite”. Comes with milking stool.
Arrested for indecency, 1907.
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First, here’s a better shot of the one surviving sunflower that puts things more in perspective. You can see the dead tree in the background, then the sunflower, and finally the birdbath. The little clay pot in water is to hold the drip string in place as it slowly drains the water into the cat dish on the ground. I read that if the northern cardinals are well-fed and contented, they will brood more than once per year. I’m watching, it’s rare to see such plump little critters. Except for the finches, they have the feeder to themselves. And a cup of seeds how lasts a full week again.
Mind you, chapter 2 might be a better starting point. “Out of Antarctica”, a ply on “Out of Africa”, raises some really valid points events these ancient tales have in common, the most ubiquitous being the flood. This is why I’ve said before I do not find the Bible any more factually accurate than any other book from the same period. Those authors had real mental shortcomings with their similes and metaphors.
What I’m finding equally interesting is when these antiquated tales can’t agree, but get close. Those can be eye openers even if you know the plot. For instance, the book points out that the incident in the Garden of Eden where God casts out Adam and Eve is unique to the Bible. No other religion big or small has any such account or even comes close. And I had to really pause and think when it was pointed out that catastrophism could not account for the tropical plants and animals found on mountaintops near the South Pole. Why? Because even those who believe the entire world was created by one massive upheaval, have to grudgingly agree that event took place a very long time ago.
The dude Ussher who said it was Oct. 22, 4004 B.C. did it by adding up the ages of the people in the Bible, but this has no credibility any more. Ah, some say, that just proves the date is wrong, the cataclysm could have happened millions of years ago. So to believe that is not just maintaining it was a single event, it also means unconditionally insisting that absolutely nothing has happened since. Yet we see geological activity all around us.
“That terrible empty feeling
is all in your head.”
You don’t know this much, but I once swore I would never pile lumber again. I did it for a year in my early twenties after I realized I was not going to get through university without taking entire years off to work. I piled lumber through a cold Rocky Mountain winter, making the then big money of $7.58 per hour. Strange, isn’t it, how all these years later that still is a sought-after income level for some people. I stacked up enough 1x4”, 2x3”, and 2x4” to finish the shed interior and roof. I think. I’ve got the corrugated asphalt also laid out and ready but I would have had to finish the job in the dark.
Instead, I took the piece of wood shown above and subjected it to very close examination. The blades definitely work better with the wood grain and if you want air freshener, run a cedar plank through that puppy. There is an adjustment knob missing and the fence has settings for 90° and both 45°s, but I can’t figure what for. Why is it called a jointer when I can’t see how it could make any joints at all? There must be some setting that makes this tool more versatile than I can figure on my own.
All of this equipment requires plenty of electrical outlets. My estimate is the shed will need 12 duplex receptacles, for a total of 24 outlets. And we know from experience that to do this right, allow up to two hours per duplex. So don’t be thinking I’ll start building the sailboat next week.
So as not to miss a thing, I’m continuing to read the Antarctica book one or two pages at a time, then pausing to think over each scenario. It looks like I’m jumping all over the place where actually I’m being really systematic. Chapter 2 discusses the old maps that show a coastline under the polar ice cap as it has now been revealed by melting ice and sonar sounding. Of most interest are the early European maps. Since the world they depict was, as far as the mapmakers were concerned, mostly unexplored, they must necessarily have had something to go on. What I’m not convinced of is what the something could have been. Here is that superimposed map of 1531 A.D. to scale. The accuracy is 90%, and the entire inaccuracy is strictly around coastlines which would vary with sea level.
As an example, I had a tough time because, like most students, I was taught that geological periods were fairly fixed periods of time. They aren’t. Take the Quarternary period of 1,620,000 years. There are leading experts who state it was between 10,000 (Arcelin & Ferry) and 30,000 (Holst) years. This means it can be whatever you choose it to be. Like people who count to “about a million”, a lack of exactitude is not a standard of proof in the computer era. So, I am going to skip ahead to the section on radioactive dating. I trust it more because I understand it more.
A real hurdle to my grasp on this subject is unlearning what I’ve “known” for years. As presented in the book, the continent of Antarctica must once have been in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We are taught that the tectonic plates move a few inches per year. I think that enough years went by that something finally gave, and the pressure shoved Antarctica 5,400 miles to its present location in a fairly short time period. Like ice cubes on water, one cube got squeezed until it displaced more than the others.
That event coincides, and this is only my unformed opinion, with all the migration and flood stories, the persistent “home of the Gods” legends, and the ancient stories of land that became dark and “no longer inhabitable”. That last clause is important for implying that it was once populated, even a garden. The implication is that everyone’s ancestors were happy campers and for reasons of sudden climate change, hauled ass by boat. And always, that flood, that big flood—maybe it was a continental-sized bow wave. But now don’t go quoting me on this. I’m not an expert and I’ve already skipped over many pages of the book because the reading was too difficult. (The reading was easy, you know what I mean. I’m avoiding having to say I don’t have the brains to comprehend it, okay. Happy now?)
ADDENDUM
Why is it on days I’m busy I have time to write more? Easy, because I’ll take a fifteen minute break and type instead of read or grab coffee. You see, the keyboard is also right near the air conditioner. That might have something to do with it. If it’s a long enough day, I could take up to five breaks and you get the results. That’s how I just found time to tell you about the difference the shed is already making. It stayed half-done from December when I found it had been installed in such a way that it could flood. There is now a raised floor and a swale.
What propelled the shed back into importance was two-fold. The need to get the bedroom clear for occupation and these lantern replicas. I plan to move into the bedroom by the end of this week, so you can time me on that. I’ll write what’s been accomplished, which once more discloses the ancestry of this blog is a journal-like work log. The exact start day was around this time of year in 1979, sketching the important event of each day into one of those calendars with the big squares. The world was simpler back then, no computers, no networks, no mass profiling, and the average woman was markedly more beautiful. And the ugly ones didn’t all look from behind like SpongeBob.
Adultery Radio said 40% chance of rain, so I clicked on my nice new backyard light and walked out there with a tarp. The roof is not done yet, so I spread the tarp inside over the three work benches. The aroma of fresh-cut lumber was magnificent. I went back, made tea, and decided to sit out there in the work shed for a half hour. I must put a teapot in there. Don’t mistake me for a sentimental fool, there were no work sheds in my upbringing. We never had anything that useful, even when we lived in houses that had a suitable shed. Besides, can you just see leaving some power tools in a shed around my brothers while you went into town for something? There was no shed, no memories, I just liked the experience of sitting there. Maybe the scent is because there is now sawdust on the floor. Who knows?
I’m tempted to air condition the shed but so far just blasting the space with three 20” fans keeps it quite pleasant. And it’s been over 90°F during the day, though that is the time I’m least likely to be working in there. I wound up falling into a nap sitting there and awoke at 3:14PM. (Yes, I know the rulebook says that is “3:14 p.m.” but that fusty rule was written before the blog era.) I thought, how neat, there was work I could do at that time of the morning. I could even make a bit of noise, since from the shed the nearest neighbor is a good sixty feet away.
I’ll have the first assembly jig for the lanterns ready any time now. I’m still experimenting and I cannot find any of these dado saw blades so popular in the magazines. That’s for making the glass slots, which I’d thought to rout until I saw the $20 price tag on the bit. I now need that shed. It has room for tools and work, but not for lumber storage. The area I have in mind for a rack cannot be seen from the main road driving past. And there is still that fenced garden area that gets too much shade for a garden.
I can honestly say I have never in my life seen anything like this.
Home On The Range
You'll have to make do with the link. But give these guys an A+ for effort.
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