One year ago today: July 9, 2018, seems redacted, like a transcript.
Five years ago today: July 9, 2014, everywhere I look.
Nine years ago today: July 9, 2010, a secret pity.
Random years ago today: July 9, 2013, what straighter board?
Kerwham! Told you there was a windstorm. The sound was the neighbor’s tree limbs taking out the pole and transformer shown here. What’s the word when this happens in New York. Plunge? Yep, this plunged the neighborhood, damn Yankees. This was at dawn, so I was quick to use the opportunity to do the rough in on the computer wall. I found enough gear to install 32 of the projected 48 outlets on that all. I said projected, because that would include the required number of receptacles and at least two of the recessed wall mount style for items like a wall clock and the inevitable big screen TV, now that prices are down from the ionosphere.
There were seven trucks showed up for this repair. Three ladder trucks, brush crew with attached shredder wagon to trim the bushes back, two trucks of assorted gear, and a truck with a crane. It had a grappling hook and a robot arm at the end, used to stand the pole back upright, and a tamping machine to keep it there. In all, it’s like the phone company, it takes three times as many men, but the work gets done right. Grant them that. Some guys like this kind of work, myself no. It was enough working inside without light or A/C. It is muggy, uncomfortable work, but I kept at it until 10:10AM when the power came back on.
Once more, things went surprisingly well, as long as you allow that I’m comparing it to my own performance a year ago. Is it ever nice to work with the proper equipment, shown here. You may notice items like the three battery powered drills. One has the pilot hole all-purpose 3/32” bit which serves for both mounting screws, and getting the drill bits started. Then there’s the quick-change bits, one for boring 90% of the hole, that a newer, sharper blade for the poke through. And a drill with a Phillips bit as has been club standard for years.
The camera is recharging at which time I’m sure I have more pictures of the electrical crew and progress on the outlets. This detracts me from the plumbing, which I’m okay with, but the power outage was a prime motive to tackle that computer wall. It also gets dangling wires out of the way. Remember, I had the electrician run in some circuits that are not roughed-in yet. The wires are capped and mostly lying nearby their destinations. (The picture’s of today’s post are not in any order.) How about this video titled, “No Junk Today”.
And they are still flogging that dead Russian horse with that Mueller person who makes Eleanor Roosevelt look like Miss Norway. Remember, this whole age of consent being 18 and digging into the past for sex offense slander is entirely a creation of power-hungry politicians. There was never any referendum or citizen’s initiative that put these unenforceable laws in place. I’ll say it again, prohibition does not work and it never will. It is nothing but a power grab gift-wrapped as protecting children, a club that is there for whenever the political class choose to apply it.
Dunluce Castle, vaguely familiar.
(Game of Thrones.)
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There you have the layout. These are each four-duplex boxes, so that’s sixteen plugs. While this does not exceed code, I still do not like installing even half the permitted number of outlets. What I may do here, since this is wired with 12/2, is install 15A plugs. This is permitted by code. Even it were possible to overload such a line with computer equipment, there’s 20A service backing it up. If I remember, I’ll snap some photos of how I’ve learned to reinforce those electrical boxes. I’ve often thought prefabing a box that makes positioning these things easier for amateurs.
Now, don’t get me wrong, because that is how the entire legal system works. You behave like how they want, or they put you in jail. It’s a matter of overall good, for in theory, the law is designed to make things right for the greatest number. At least it starts out that way. I’m still a middle-of-the-road Libetarian so I draw a sharp distinction between society and individuals. If society says behave a certain way, my reward is that most others will do the same and thus there is some widespread benefit. But if an individual wants me to change my behavior, I expect to be paid. So when some klutz from the northeast wants anti-something laws put into place primarily for her own short-term comfort, she can cyber-kiss my arse.
The new America, a nation of victims. Next time you get over to Wal*Mart, notice how everybody over maybe 35-ish walks or acts like they have something wrong and you should pity them. It’s probably something they get en masse from cable television. It’s too consistent to be natural. I saw this process at work in Canada, which is hugely into welfare. An unfortunate third of the population is taxed to death to support the other two-thirds. What I saw was a disgusting pattern of behavior by the welfare class. They had all learned to walk, dress, act, and talk alike, right down to the dipshit haircuts. A formulaic performance, I often suspected there was a secret university in northern Quebec that taught these people how to play the system. Once in, it is passed from generation to generation. No kidding, gang, I have seen families up there with four generations on welfare.
By dark, I had the car loaded up and stopped at the old club on Highway 60. The gorgeous Shel was there, happy as ever to see me. In her own words, I’m the only one who comes in there that isn’t a creep. The locals slobber all over her, where we have an understanding if I want anything, I’ll just ask. I won’t because she is taken. And I don’t do taken women. The DJ did break his leg, but he’s back on the job. A few singers have improved drastically in the six months I’ve been away. That lady who follows well was there, so I twirled her around the dance floor, all of which was recorded by her friends at the table. Ohhh, but did I see a few barbed looks before they hauled out the smart phones.
Told you, I’m mean that way. I will normally dance with one lady, then sit down. I don’t dance again no matter what for the rest of the time. Dancing makes me remember how I learned. It’s an old tale from the trailer court, but in a nutshell, I had a summer job as a painter’s helper and we were painting a dance studio. They were training teenage dancers, and I literally learned to dance by watching them. Featuring a goodly number of total babes, on my break one day I decided to join in and dance with their practice. The studio owner hired me on the spot. For the next year, I was their top salesman, and I still wasn’t making any money at it. I had to quit.
There’s a point to be made here. At the time, I was dating Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, a.k.a. “Eatmore”, whose dentist father wanted her to marry up, not me. There was little conflict, since I had no intention of marrying anyone before I was 30. When he heard I was a dance instructor, he told Judy he had hoped I would become something more “substantial”. Let me set the record straight. It was a summer job, but I was so poor I had to take a year off, and I recognized the danger of getting a “substantial” job. It’s simple, those who do rarely make it back to school. It’s a fact of life in this society.
In the end, I had to compromise and did not finally finish school until I was 33. By then, I had a full time job that was to be my career, and it had nothing to do with my education. But that is another fact of life. How does this relate to this evening? Well, look at the droves of men who never made it back at all, the ones who took “substantial” jobs at factories and oil rigs. Why, I can look at them by the roomful just by glancing up from my laptop. My question to the doctor is how many of those men still, down to this day, do what they did for a living back then and still enjoy it?
Good old Bradford was there. The Thursday jam guy. Drooling all over Shel, the guy still hasn’t picked up how when there is any quiet time, she is way over at the far end talking to me. She says he’s been mean-mouthing me. He knows I’ve played in Tennessee so he’s telling everybody I must think I’m a big shot. Ah, so the bastard is jealous! Plain, good old-fashioned jealous. I learned from my brother you can never make things normal with a jealous bastard, don’t even try. Besides, the way things are heading, he’s about to become a whole lot jealouser. Did I just say jealouser?
ADDENDUM
Routine maintenance shows why my bicycle chain has been slipping off the drive gear. It had to be inspected link by link to find this broken part. Don’t let the rust fool you, it is ordinary tarnish and this bicycle is in perfect mechanical condition. The pedals move at the slightest touch. Maybe this will get me to finally invest in a pin driver. Nashville has sent yet another update to the music list, a slow piece. True enough, I don’t care to play the slow stuff, but doing so is kind of playing into my hands. For all the blah-blah that a good musician will find something to spice up the bland passages, so few of those who say that ever do it. Or, as I suspect, they are not capable of doing it. This time it is another Broadway tune.
Somehow I’ve come into possession of a book on building small boats. Remind me never to try this. You have no idea how many words the Englishmen have for boards and lumber. There is even a ratio for the size of the rudder depending on how fast you want to travel. Prior to this, the only fancy naval term I knew was plimsol line, the maximum depth a ship can be loaded. It’s that scale you see painted on the bow. The book is a great diversion, though it is written with in that annoying 1960s style where urban legend says any child can grow up to be anything he wants. Complete hogwash, unless you can convince me most of them wanted to be semi-skilled laborers living paycheck to paycheck and quite terrible, really, at Karaoke.
In this case, the author built his first boat at age twelve. As usual with books written by the privileged rich, there is no mention of where he got the money for the wood, the tools, the workspace, or any solid proof that he actually did it himself. So that remains little more than his contention. The book contains the odd gem, such as why a New Zealand four-man racing dinghy has five men aboard. Hint, the racing rules say four men is the minimum, not the maximum, to enter the race.
I’m reminded of the British in 1970 trying to sell the Japanese a field gun with a six man crew. The demonstration went fine, but the Japanese wanted to know what the number six man was for. He just stood there. The Brits were about to launch a full-scale investigation when some old timer recalled the number six was there to hold the horses.
Answer. The New Zealand racing dinghy has up to 20% more sail area than rated for the boat. Having the extra man to help haul the sails more than compensates for his weight. Now, come on, is there another blog in the universe can get you this kind of details?
