One year ago today: July 18, 2018, plumbing annual coincidence.
Five years ago today: July 18, 2014, big band annual coincidence.
Nine years ago today: July 18, 2010, more idiot designs.
Random years ago today: July 18, 2011, Career Watch, my eye.
In the pit until noon, I’ve got the under-floor drainage segment done, with two ends capped off for the future laundry and kitchen. Still nothing on the radio about the deportations, which probably means something is happening the socialist radio stations don’t like. Possibly, it’s working? They’d hate that. Instead, the leftists are focusing on Trump’s remark about going back where they come from. There was apparently a group chanting it at some function, which Trump ignored. Why not, he made his point. I’ve dismantled the old medicine cabinet and am about to connect the sink drains. If it goes well, I may not have to shave in the kitchen a third day. That would be nice.
Or how about this? Of all the scraps of drywall lying around here, not one of them is the correct depth to use as a spacer to determine what length to cut the faucet stubs. That’s okay, I’m still making headway. I’ll tell you who gets the stoopid-as-shit award today. Stanley, the stapler people The first problem with all their designs is that little clip that holds the bank of staples in comes loose if you drop it, try to take it out of your pocket, or if you just leave it alone in a drawer for a few months. But the real a-holes are the ones who package the staples. Here is a view of the box, quick, tell me what size or model of stapler these are for. Click on the image an enlarge it, but you still cannot tell.
Give up? There is nothing on the label to indicate what gun these are for. There is a size marking says 3/8”, but is that length, width, or height? There is a diagram saying “actual size” but how many of us have fallen for that one? You get it home and the hidden dimension jams every other staple. Now, Stanley has been in business kind of a long time, so if they had any honorable intentions, they would have done something by now. If you turn the box over, there is a strip saying Universal fit, of which one of the items says Stanley TR45. Isn’t this fun? Imagine if you had to turn all boxes over to find out what you need. Well, that’s the little world that Stanley lives in.
But, that is what corporate America has degenerated to. They know you ain’t going back to the store to stand in line and fill out forms for a refund. Like most of us, you have a drawer somewhere with a few boxes of staples that fit nothing. Add up a few million others, and that’s all the justification that some people need to never clean up their act. We don’t need DNA evidence to know some people’s ancestors interbred with the Neanderthals.
And you should be aware that in the state of Florida, you cannot buy suspenders that stay clipped to your trousers when you are doing any construction work. Also, the clips are designed so that if you have to squeeze through a narrow space, any sideways pressure will spring the damn things open. No matter who is watching. It’s always the clips around back, the hardest to reattach.
3D model fort.
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A ten-hour day, but I believe I finally have hot water back. Waiting for the PVC to weld and it’s time for a test. Every imaginable thing went wrong, which was predictable, and I’d have cold water as well except I was one pipe fitting short. If this works, I’m in a bind for the washbasins. You see, they should be purchased as a matching pair. That’s the $100 each I mentioned, but they also require special faucets, which I did not price out. Probably $100 as well. This dents my budget this month since an expected disbursement has not yet arrived. Instead, I was instructed to check on the 19th and phone if there’s a problem Yeah, the problem is where is my money? But, that’s another non-blog matter this time.
I’ll let this panel of photos show the progress today. What you won’t see is the three to four hours I spent crawling beneath the deck to get all these pipes working right. And the drain is still not hooked up. As I mentioned nobody will say how long to make the pipe. A quick run-down for non-plumbers like me, you first see the stubs that jut out of the wall for cutoff valves. These are set back more than usual and the stubs are shorter. Every inch of saved space is precious in this confined space. The second panel shows most of the sound-proofing in place. It should really be called sound-dampening. The room gets quite silent once you know what not to listen for. Like the 1940s spastic jazz that Boss Hogg played all day long.
The third panel is a good view of the heavy duty vapor barrier, 4 mil. The master bedroom is behind that wall, so the sound padding is up to six inches deep. Even the backs of the medicine cabinet cutouts are lined. These batts of insulation-like material cost $5 each, a wall like this requiring four of them. Twenty bucks is not a bad price for not having to listen to music from beyond the tubes. The last panel shows the purple-skinned drywall that’s the existing standard for humid areas. It is not fastened in place until I get that drainpipe dilemma sorted out. Today’s progress is pretty clear from these few photos I’ve managed.
The bathroom will still be somewhat cramped, but at least the sink isn’t jutting out into the walkway. The finishing work can wait. For now, an ordinary set of dresser drawers goes into the space shown, with two sinks the minimum 15” apart at the rims. The faucets and drainpipes are designed to lie flat against the wall where possible. And I have the equipment to shorten the drawers just enough to clear everything at the back and still have access to all nine drawers. There is no space under the sinks for storage, the cleaning materials can go under the kitchen sink, which may soon be just eight or ten feet away.
I’ve completed the measurements for a lean-to on the north side of the building. It will not be accessible from inside the house. There will be room for a washer, dryer, sink, and hot water tank and a bit of storage, but otherwise exposed to the elements. That’s if I decide to risk it. I looked into evaporative coolers and the word is they don’t do a great job in high humidity.
ADDENDUM
My music completion index today is 27.240 %
That Clapton tune “Crossroads” irks me as much as the day I first heard it. Electric blues with white boy lyrics, the bass line is crap. I could learn it, but it is “guitar bass” in a style I never bothered with. I’m going to intentionally slough off the song. I’ll choose three definitive riffs and play those all the way through. A verse, a chorus, and a turnaround. I’m getting a couple hours a day on the song list, but triple that is needed to master the material. Wasting time on Clapton does fit in. He’s one of those guitarists who can’t play two verses the same way and it rubbed off on his bassist.
The fun part of learning is Doobie Brothers. They always put forward an excellent balance of instruments and the bass parts are pure talent. The walk-downs are orchestal and I love playing them to a tee. If you ever wonder what I sound like on bass, “Listen To The Music” by the Doobies gives you my style. Crank the bass before you listen. I never did find out if Blogspot allows sound clips. Even so, I’d rather produce a complete video for the same effort.
The runner-up Stoopy-Doop prize once again goes to Hampton Farms for their plastic bags which cannot be opened by tearing off the top. Shown here, any attempt to do so and the bag is designed to split down the back side rather than across. Even if the contents don’t wind up on the ground, the small tear shown here (I was ready for it) will slowly work its way down the package faster than you can consume the contents. I’ll wager the solution, according to the arse-clowns over at Hampton’s, is to carry a pair of scissors and dump the contents into a serving bowl. Say, you wouldn’t happen to have either of those handy, would you?
I didn’t get out of the house. The day passed without a single word in the news about what I wanted to hear. The onset of the deportations. Every conservative president since Nixon has had to deal with a hostile left-leaning media who are experts at burying their continual mistakes. Big media supports the DC insiders that are the source of our national woes. Inflation, undeclared wars, illegal immigration, job destruction, and centralized power. American people don’t want any of those things, but until Trump came along, they were never allowed to use their voting power to drain the swamp. Much of this happened before when another outsider, Ronald Reagan, gave the two major parties a wake-up call. You might say he paved the way to reform by showing that Americans did not have to put up with having their lives controlled by an out-of-touch elite.
So why the stony silence? My guess is the news people in particular have called so many things wrong in the recent past they have a game plan to sit this one out. They have lost so much credibility that they may well be waiting for a crisis to emerge. Something they can turn into a springboard for 2020 is a better plan than putting their foot in their mouth again. A common question is why does not America have any major right-wing broadcasters? What little dissenting view is alive out there is often confined to radio talk-shows and preppers (the people preparing to hole up in their underground bunkers). Their undeclared leader was Alex Jones, who got wiped out when the Establishment got him chucked off youTube. But why no anti-liberal stations or papers?
Because the first thing the fanatical media does is label any opposing view as hate speech. Even those who are dead center, politically, are tagged as racist and redneck. This is a blatant public shaming campaign to silence anybody who dares to challenge the DC insiders, who in turn sic the IRS and FBI on perceived enemies in a wink. It was a new low in American politics to declare Internet posting services as responsible for the content. It’s as ridiculous as charging a homeowner for the conversation of passersby.
Hence, even being mildly isolationist and patriotic can, depending on your choice of words, get you tagged as an extremist. It didn’t help that the Alex Jones types were also plugging brain pills. And what’s happened to Ann Coulter since she began blaming Trump for the DC foot-dragging that traditionally goes on when any elected leader wants to curb government excess. She should be tracking down which so-called representatives who are blocking the will of the majority and see how they like the same dirty little games they are playing on Trump. Maybe do a survey of who voted the klutz in and see if they are being represented. Hold the voters of a given district responsible for their mouthpiece, it might work wonders.
