Today I had a little side project: to see if the Internet has brought about any improvement to that totally degenerate process of “construction estimates”. Apparently not. All I could find were those hated cost per foot formulas and other sucker traps. Even the DIY articles don’t get to the point where they list the materials and let you price it yourself.Seriously folks, if I trusted a contractor, tradesman or architect to give me an accurate price, I wouldn’t be looking, now would I? I felt that by now, somebody would have published to the nail what it takes to build a house. Wrong. Everybody I asked thinks I don’t understand the complexities and I don’t think the understand the simple question I am asking. (Then again, in their own sick way, they do understand.) Like, who buys a square foot of plumbing, you numbskulls.
I know that to stick-frame a twenty-foot wall 16 inches on center takes 25 studs and 80 spikes. That is it. I don’t see what is so difficult about it that they have to haul out the slide rule and put on a big show. We all know one can go to college to study estimating, but I happen to know a wall is built one stud at a time. I’d like an exact list of materials to build a small house and I can price them out myself. That appears to be the one thing they don’t want to happen, but they wouldn’t be that obvious. Would they?
Yesterday was so fine, I went back to the bookstore tonight for three hours. I figured I deserved the treat because this morning I figured out a complete lead guitar ruff on my own, by ear. Thanks to my piano background, I never could do that. I know it is right, because the way I had to place my fingers to play those two-note patterns reminds me of what real guitar players have to do.
I’m at the bookstore and it happens again. A decent looking lady and I make plenty of eye contact, but she won’t even smile. Gals, unless you are a movie star, I still require some tiny gesture before I’ll make a move. This one just sat there, watching me out of the corner of her eye. She was visibly impressed by my handwriting. I looked up and nodded to her a couple of times but she reacted like she’d been “caught”. Maybe she’s never met a man who could write. That can happen when you’re dumb enough to play hard to get at the wrong times.
I did some more research on the iMake, the machine that builds components out of plastic. The cartridges containing the plastic cost up to $50 each, emphasizing that this is not a toy. Design takes place on a tablet with a stylus that is smart enough to guess what you want most of the time. I wish I could live another 100 years just to see where this will take us, although I’m sure the dating clubs will find something to cheapen it.
Last, I missed the video of the day. I had just walked out of Publix when a shoplifter came bolting past the bike rack with three employees in pursuit. In the few seconds it takes to bring the Jazz camera into use, I missed the real action. They ran him down when he paused to jump on his bicycle. In another split second he would havegotten away clean, he was wearing a spandex riding outfit.
But a desperate lunge from the security guard made his bike wheels wobble and they were all over him.
Funny thing, the shoplifter must have known he was going to jail or something. He fought like a madman. It took all three burly employees to wrestle him down and get the cuffs on him, even though he was on the ground the whole time. Here is a still from the video I managed, but I’m sad to say I missed the good part, the chase. Nor could I get any closer to video the fight, I’m saying that guy was on major drugs, ten feet tall and bulletproof.
