September 2, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 2, 2015, somebody’s fishing shack.
Five years ago today: September 2, 2011, use only as directed.
Nine years ago today: September 2, 2007, remember the MP3 playback ripoff?
Random years ago today: September 2, 2012,tourist binocular photo.

MORNING
           Ha, solid and calm inside or what. An overnight storm blew my lawn furniture over and swung open the doors of my shed. I slept like a babe, not a care in the world. I told you this place was built right. Storms are my incentive to replace the two sheds shown here with a nice new unit with garage and workshop. The second shed is that piece of white you see behind and just right the red shed. It is too far gone to use for much. The cPod is parked behind there, out of sight from the street.

           Where you see that outline of the old garden at center, that’s where I plan to build my sunroom. It will jut out from the existing structure not quite as far but you can see the rough bare patch where the former owner put down that plastic weed barrier. For now, I’m still busy on the bedroom and in any case, you can forget me working outside until the weather goes mild.

           This photo is a rare lull which I used to scramble out there and clean up. It may look cool, but the heat is muggy enough to make any real exertion uncomfortable. Is that why I went back inside to make biscuits and gravy? Prolly. How else would I know this early that I forgot to buy coffee and onions? Both are staples around here. Okay, I’ll make tea, but the only time tea is tradition is during guitar practice. That reminds me, somebody tell Trent I found the original recipe biscotti again, this time at the local food market. Half again the price, but we’re worth it. The guy will be an accomplished musician if he’s ever allowed time to focus on it.

Picture of the day.
Double take?
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
NOON

           My new Vivitar camera let me down. I took about 30 pictures today during the six hours I worked on the floor. The camera went through all the motions but the photos were not there when I went to download. Just some phony message that the disk was full. A disk that holds a quarter million jpegs and it’s telling me the thing is full. Way to go, Vivitar, and that goes for your camera that eats batteries even when it is off.

           Here is a picture of what I got done today, but not the dirty, dusty work along the way. And this picture does not show the amount of work. The joists were leveled, sanded, spiked, and the sister joists bolted in place. That’s the new 2x4 you can see across the center. Half my gear is on that tiny sheet of subfloor. You can make out the insulation to the left. It is resting on a mesh of chicken wire which you cannot see.

           I’ll have to get you shots of the wire and insulation, as this also acts as soundproofing. I want company to be able to sleep in that room even with, say Tammy Wynette, playing in the kitchen. She’s enough to cause serious sleep deprivation. This tiny corner is enough to show the floor is being not just repaired, but upgraded to a new and higher standard that adds real value to the property Trust me, that 2x4” in the picture is level.
           I’ve decided not to use flooring glue, but to increase the number of deck screws instead. The logic is that if I make a mistake, glue cannot be taken apart and fixed. I intend to make mistakes since this is the first floor I’ve ever fixed. How do you like it so far? I’ve also learned to fix the floor first, since I did manage to tear the insulation backing several times swinging boards around. On the other hand, on cooler days like today, the insulation in place makes work a lot nicer.

           Six hours of sweaty work to get just that tiny corner done and I can’t even stand on it because I need it to prop all my tools. It’s not the sort of work you can hire a helper, unless it is an experienced helper and that will cost you. Ah, well I’ll get ten times as much put in next day now that I have a year’s experience.
           That was also a real workout. No, I’m not stiff and sore, I haven’t forgotten how to work without straining anything. It was a little discouraging to put out all that effort and see such a meager result, eight square feet. I feel great, limbered up, and ready for another session. I’m chewing up supplies at twice the anticipated rate (nails, screws, staples) but how was I to know I can occasionally do heavy physical work. Yes, moving 75 pound sheets of plywood around is work.
           Whatever you do, don’t take this the wrong way, but I haven’t done such work since 1981. See, some of you went and took it the wrong way anyhow. To those people, let me say I’ve worked ten times harder than you, if you only knew what to look for. At least I’m not going to be one of those jerks who says if I can do it, anybody can. That’s bull tweet. I’ve never met anyone who’s done what I have, not even close. They just get better press.


           I happen to like hard work, but being a beast of burden is kind of subhuman in my books. If an animal or a machine can do the job, then that’s how it should be done. And I’ve always said, you learn everything you need to know about hard work in the first five minutes you do it. Those who take any longer are mighty slow learners. Oh, pardon me, make that attention deficit or something. Anything but stupid. No, they’re not stupid. At least not since 1990, in the newspapers, anyway.
           I got sad news for you types who bust your balls: your parents were lying. If that hurts your feelings, good. They also didn’t want you to have any fun when you were a kid. Did they also tell you your family was “rich in other ways”? Mine wasn’t.

NIGHT
           Time for a hearty supper. You know how we working fellers have huge appetites. Pork on rice, that’s the ticket. Takes nearly an hour, so I can read and listen to more Tammy Wynette and wonder how she gets her hair to stay in that Kramer poodle cut. Spray shellac? Crazy glue? She’s got about five hits that I recognize if you include the ones where I just know the chorus. That still beats Michael Jackson, where I cannot name or recognize a single song. Boy, that curried pork smells nice, let me go check on it.

           Lovely, and I finally fixed the fridge in the sense that it was still freezing things on the lowest setting. Then I discovered the knob could be turned way lower than zero. I’m settled in with a good DVD movie, “Roadie” with Meat Loaf and a host of cameos. Roy Orbison, Hank Jr.

           And an excellent book about naval warfare. It was the English Channel that kept Britain from having to maintain a large and expensive field army, though those ships were not exactly cheap, either. A “ship of the line” had a crew of 400, which is probably considerably more than the population of most villages of the time.
           I had been reading about galleys, which were among the first ships to carry cannons. The galley builders seemed to take centuries to learn that one man and one oar was too cumbersome for battle. And three men per oar required so much drinking water that the galleys could never operate more than a day or two from a base. It was really the sailing ship that was the super weapon of the time. Even Scotland built one that took 10% of the countries revenue to operate.

           Shipbuilding is complicated and expensive, yet two countries, England and Turkey, seemed to be able to replace any losses within months. Yet these were two different kinds of ship. The rivalry came to an end, it seems, when the shipyards in Europe learned to plank the boards rather than overlap them. I’m no naval architect but that seems to have been a quantum leap. Can anyone explain this to me, why planked ships are so much better than lapped?


Last Laugh