One year ago today: August 1, 2015, life without porn.
Five years ago today: August 1, 2011, on the Hunt Bros.
Nine years ago today: August 1, 2007, Pudding the guard cat.
Random years ago today: August 1, 2009, where I lived 25 years ago.
MORNING
To head things off, here by semi-popular request is a photo of the floor from y’day’s post before the sheets of subfloor were slapped on top to form a work surface. To describe what you see here, look at the joists on the floor. Notice the center 2x6 running along the center of the room. Beneath that are the concrete cylinder blocks that were warping the joist upward. It turns out I had correctly picked that as the culprit.
The shelf-like item leaning on the left wall is just the bed and drawers stood up on its side so we could get at the floor. This looks like major work but it was really not even much of a task. We pried up the equivalent 83 boards each a few inches wide and stacked them outside beneath the window to the left. We were neither winded or even dusty, it was that easy. The hot weather was a bigger deal.
It was more work to rake up the debris, so that what you see here is the relatively clean sand under the building. This is clean and dry and it is my doing that we’ve begun to call it “the pit”. There is a plastic planter lying there, we used this as a scoop. It is not part of the renovation going on here. In this photo, all the joists had been custom cut to depth except the last one. This is now known to be a five-minute job.
The joists behaved as expected, or at least as I had expected. But optimism is comparative. You can see the red-handled tool I used to knock the cut wedges out of the way. JZ was getting brave enough by the fourth joist to poke it through with his finger. Not me, I kind of like the way I play bass. In the upper right corner is the plywood panels that were placed over these newly leveled joists. You see, not one part of the job was as drastic and dirty as the pundits predicted against me.
Some may not like my next revelation, but too bad. It’s the term I found out that describes my plan it as we go along method with this work. The term, which should not be considered that derogatory, is “afro-engineering”. I sense that implies to work without direction, to fix things and plan as you go along. I would point out that is not the case here. While yes, the flooring had to be removed before I conducted the next step, this was a far cry from random. I had several alternative plans ready before the go-ahead, and they were clearly spelled out here often weeks in advance.
That means I wasn’t really deciding what to do on the spot. There was an alternative arrangement for pretty much every reasonable situation that got uncovered and it was in place before I started. That makes the progress more of a decision tree than trying to come up with solutions while standing in the pit. I still found the term amusing, “afro-engineering”. Ha!
U-127.
NOON
I have for you a treat, an example of how to make something over nothing. Try playing bigshot around me on my time. That always works, especially around people who think nobody is going to fight back. I have plenty of experience dealing with guitar players who think they are the boss. So before I tell you the tale from the trailer court, here is a nice picture of the train tracks leaving Lakeland for Winter Haven. Notice the single line of rails, meaning one train a day back and forth.
So this little bug-eyed man is standing there and I thought he was getting dissed because he wanted by. Anyway, the conversation is going nowhere because it soon becomes obvious this “manager” has no authority to write off the drinks this time, which is the obvious solution to diffuse the situation. Instead, he keeps repeating the story that the cans are not refills, not listening that the customer did not know the soda was from cans. The little old man starts getting antsy.
Wait, you can see this one coming. Finally, the “manager” begins to waver, he’s going to only charge for one refill. That’s partial resolution so I gather my newspaper and get ready to leave. But at this point, the bug-eyed man butts in and starts the conversation over again at square one. And at that point plus about a half a second, I tell him not to interfere with what is going on. Mind his own business. Should be the end of it, right?
Nope, the little man turns on me and informs me he is the restaurant owner. I inform him I don’t care who he is, he has no right to interfere. Owner or not. Good owners and good manners involve themselves right away instead of eavesdropping like a bystander and jumping in when the customer proves a point. Whell (that the Family guy version of “Well”) guess who takes offense that I don’t care? Suddenly there are two disagreements. One about the soda and the other about me informing some dumb dinosaur to get lost I really don’t care who you are, pulling stunts on my time usually gets this reaction.
I don’t negotiate with ugly people, my goal is not reconciliation, but to put a stop to the nonsense first. After that, you can talk to the hand. Sort of a Trumpian philosophy. You can argue all you want after the wall is built.
But his little macho Latino pride kicks in. He’s offended that I recognize and point out all the tactics he tried. He tried talking in circles, restarting the conversation, and pulling rank, none of which work on me. I could not believe the guy, escalating over $1.45 can of soda. Though I understand his hurt feelings, he should have clued in he wasn’t going to impress me. He even went so far as to inform me the “manager” was his son and tried to play the family card. Among other numbers he tried were:
Asking if we spoke to the waiter in Spanish when everybody at the table was obviously not.
Asking if we knew “how to run a restaurant”, a question with no answer.
Needing to be told everything several times by pretending not to follow.
Intentionally misinterpreting everything you say as a personal threat.
Pretending to be the first-offended at every turn.
Continually touching on racism as the source of the situation.
You talk about slimy. At that point, even though he’s losing ground, he’s winning because he’s actually learning a lot from the situation and I’m not. He’s got a customer who cannot be buffaloed. So I paid the bill and walked out. Never to return. That’s the Senor Café that I’ve praised so often over the years. Nice staff, but one total prick of an owner. Thinks he’s some brand of American hero. Yes, it takes two to have a spat, but it only takes one to start it. Later in the day, we over here still disagree over why he was so mulish. I say it was because I stopped him from interfering with an on-going conversation, the others say it because I kept ignoring his claim to be the café owner. I will admit only that I was not pretending anything, that is, I sincerely didn’t care who he was, and if it showed, so be it.
AFTERNOON
Yep, the system is tightening up. When a friend of mine went to renew his ATM card, he was informed as I was, that he must accept the new “chip” version. The one that is suspected of storing the ATM camera pictures when you use it, and suspected of collecting bio-data, such as the speed at which you depress the PIN keys. He had to state the color of his eyes. Those who even think such information gathering is part of legitimate banking procedures are in so much trouble they can’t imagine. The banks already know who the bad guys are, but they are using it as an excuse to track everybody. You’d have to be really stupid not wonder why. This is why I always wear sunglasses when using an ATM.
There could hardly be a better example than an Olympic swimming pool full of infectious water. They only see the pool, not the millions spent on a clean water-supply system. I suggest you cannot understand the significance of that attitude without visiting these countries to see for yourself. It is a two-stage process. First, they consider their culture superior to America, this is always a factor. So they covet American possessions and toys but not the American way that says you should clean up your own mess. Until I read this, I was unconcerned with any Olympics, now but I’ll be watching this one hoping for disaster. To see who messes up first.
I would like few things better than to see this useless entity called the Olympic Committee get its nose bloodied in the worst way and sent packing. The only finer example of self-aggrandizement is probably the Academy Awards. You cannot “award” your way into solving world hunger, or curing AIDS, or feeding Bangladesh. And I’d like to see those lying money-grabbing committees get their comeuppance. This pending Rio fiasco is an excellent place for it.
Note: this feature has been withdrawn.
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NIGHT
The books are done for last weekend and I came in under budget thanks to that easy fridge repair. JZ still has fits over how safe the neighborhood is. You don’t have to lock your bicycle. Or lock your vehicle to run into the store. It’s all I can do to remind you how that was highly influential in the decisions I’ve made over this project. Fact: south Florida has gone third world with the crime rate.
It is nice to again walk into a shopping mall without persistent beggars accosting everyone. Yes, I have begged in the streets myself (ask my mother how that came about), but I was a teenager at a time when there were no food stamps or welfare available. Asking for spare change because you really need a cup of coffee is a far cry from institutionalized homeless grown men doing it for a living.
Yes, you read that right. I begged in the streets when I was seventeen—but during the day I was taking college courses.
I’ve not seen any beggars in Lakeland, though they probably exist in some form. I haven’t lived there very long, but the area is impressively well-to-do. Or maybe like Texas, where the poor people don’t go out of their way to be obvious. Either way, the festering rat-hole of Miami where every third person is on welfare. It looks to me like in Lakeland, everybody who has a job is making good money. Like Denver, “What recession?”
Of course the area is a bit redneck. I view the majority of urban plagues as the result of Liberalism. Poverty, teen pregnancy, ghettos, criminals let loose, intergenerational welfare, illegal immigration, income tax, these are all caused by Liberals. They claim to want to solve these evils, but they are the cause. I mean, who gives unwed mothers more money for more babies but a Liberal. Who refuses to report the truth but a Liberal? Who wants lenient courts and “equal rights” for thieves and prostitutes? I’m not making this up.
Last Laugh
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