One year ago today: October 6, 2018, now it is 42 outlets.
Five years ago today: October 6, 2014, remember “the rat”?
Nine years ago today: October 6, 2010, remember the Honda 70?
Random years ago today: October 6, 2011, resistors.
Rain, so I made three pies, baked chicken, rice, and cookies. Shown here is a variation on apple pie. We have sunflower seeds and ginger, a break from cinnamon. This one will be baked to perfection since it is a first in quite a while. The diet thing again. I should have been working on the floor but a random downpour this morning made the world too soggy. And too muggy, that is also a Florida concern. You don’t wear a shirt, you get covered in grit, you wear a shirt and in an hour you can’t peel it off. This is why one decides to spend Sunday morning baking pies.
We’ve become a nation of wimps. Actually, let me refine that. We had lots of wimps, physical and mental, back in my day. We had the bullies, too, but neither group was a social norm. An hour ago I open my K-cup coffee container and see a new warning on the package. It informs the user that the coffee cartridge remains hot after use and may drip. Please help, it goes on, by tilting the K-cup slightly during removal. This, despite the fact the coffee maker has a removable assembly with a handle for this purpose. This takes wimp-hood to a new level, so I propose a new term: whimp.
Remember how Quagmire hates people who say “wh-ell” instead of “well”? Same concept. Let me spell it out. It would be impolite to say that equality doesn’t apply to whimps and ninnies, so I won’t say that. The problem is not the condition, but their demands. When they demand their “rights”, it results in warning labels that insult people’s intelligence. Even that is not a worry. The problem is the big picture. These warnings cost money.
Over time, that cost gets serious, considering this nation’s infinite supply of whimps, idiots, drop-outs, snot-noses, welfare queens, C+ coders, queers, telemarketers, vapers, single mothers, pot heads, and tattoo freaks. Each one demanding their metaphorical warning sticker until they become a collective majority but all at each other’s throats. It was all predicted, you know. I’d give the downtrodden my last dollar voluntarily. But never because they insist, because those who insist planned on it. People who insist need their troddens downed a bit more. With a riding crop. There, I’m back to my old self.
Several times now I’ve run into situations with this renovation where I could take shortcuts. Generally I chose not to take them. I put the new bathroom “closet” on hold while I run in the drains in a better configuration and rough in the plumbing for the new hot water heater. It is tempting to put the ambient tank up in the attic where it is out of sight and nearly 112ۥF most sunny days. I happen to have a closet where the gauges and valves could be installed quite easily. But I know tanks are heavy when full and don’t know the long term consequences.
This photo shows six hours work. It’s only half done. I need some pieces that I didn’t know existed until a week ago. Shown here is the washer drain, to be hidden in the back closet and behind the drywall. The big pipe is the drain and the smaller tube is for an air stack. I didn’t need one but wanted the experience. Notice the u-trap is two feet inside the building, at the lower left corner. Code is silent on whether the trap has to be under the sink in this configuration. But I noticed the trap is not under the sink in lots of two-sink installations and often a drain pipe runs several feet to the connection.
Still, I want to avoid that bureaucratic bull where they won’t say it is unsafe, just that it doesn’t meed code. I can’t put the trap under the tube because that is where the new building support pylons are fixed in place. The entire old plumbing arrangement is removed and I’ve decided to use the existing drain if the kitchen is moved across the room. The joists make that a simpler and more direct path.
Big magnifying glass.
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The next photo is directing traffic around a jaywalking box turtle in Punta Gorda. These land turtles move fast, but not fast enough on the main roads. This one was an old timer, I finally picked him up, an illegal activity, and put him in the grass. Don’t try this at home, turtles have claws. And they bite. And all reptiles carry salmonella. I have turtle experience on my resumé.
Next, I had a go at changing a drill chuck. Strange how on the demo videos it all goes so smoothly. Have any of you done this before? Help me out here. I’ve determined the problem with my drills is there is a way to push the entire chuck far back enough into the casing that it won’t close all the way. It’s a matter of prying the piece back into position. I would still like to know how to change the whole assembly. They show putting an Allen wrench into the throat where no such receptacle exists. I’d rather be in Tennessee walking the dogs.
The “Book of the Dead” is getting hackneyed. Great writing but uninspired threads toward the end. Now we’ve got some magic potions and immortality happening. The bad guy is named Dimogenes and his brother is Aloysius. No less. If this is science fiction, it’s borrowing heavily from the low-budget movie field. I suppose one could mix up nitroglycerine in some handy champagne ice. The most precise part of the tale so far is how badly the politicians have allowed Amtrak to fall behind. America is ideal country for train travel but somebody back east doesn’t want that to happen. At least the book and I agree on that.
I’m now down to 100 more pages and while they’ve quit bringing up more names to remember, the plot has degenerated to one of those ho-hum chase sequences where they try to impress the reader instead of get on with the tale. Like those 1960s novels that think you are awed by what they order in a French restaurant. In this case, you are to be wowed by knowledge of the back alley system of Florence, I think it is. You might say they’ve cut out with the new names of people and gone for Italian streets. Why merely turn left when you can round the corner onto the Ponte Santa Trinità, designed by Ammanati.
I have a group reply to some comments the last couple days, but this isn’t that kind of blog. It concerns the animals rescued from Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. I don’t have pictures, folks. I understand they were dogs, and really cute ones, but they were still segregated when we arrived. Even Alaine’s volunteer pass could not get us into the compound. I never remember the name of the shelter, but it’s the big famous one in Punta Gorda, though it is really in Port Charlotte.
ADDENDUM
Staying home to make ten pounds of chicken quarters gave me time to check a couple things I’ve put on hold. One was a large capacity bird feeder. I think I’ve lost the red cardinals from being away so long this year. I knew they’d find alternative feeding grounds if I didn’t keep stocked, but they don’t make a bird feeder that big. Or don’t they? Who recalls that contraption from Agt. R that nobody could identify? Here’s a picture to refresh your memory. It’s much too big to feed hummingbirds, so let’s continue.
I discovered it was a hotel cereal dispenser. See picture, the large clear container (in front of the wall thermometer, oops) and the twirly dial on the bottom right? That handle flips a plastic vane that drops down one serving of breakfast flakes. But the rats got at it, destroying the moving part. However, the remainder of the unit seems solid metal and plastic and I believe this can be adapted easily to a five-pounds-at-a-time bird feeder. And I know just how to implant a post sturdy enough for the task. I’ll figure out how to keep the squirrels and larger birds away from such a tempting feast. And chickens, too. The hens can hear me opening the kitchen door from 185 feet away.
Now that it’s established I will work in my own yard, there is another objet d’art I want. Lots of people have relics and such, but I like my decorations to have purpose if I can. And I always wanted a sundial. Any would do until, guess what, I studied celestial navigation. Did you know each location on Earth would require a customized sundial to be really accurate? There are a number of sites you can visit that create a template for any chosen longitude and latitude. I believe I have the tools to make something out of wood. Even the gnomon has a technology behind it. That’s one day, if I ever finish working on this house.
A birdfeeder and a sundial. Hmmm, is there any connection? I grabbed a refill and ran over the question. I’d thought of a light sensor for the sundial, but maybe there is something more creative. I’d thought of prisms to create hourly rainbows. I’d prefer something using a microcontroller. Let’s give this one a few days. Can I come up with the first electronic sundial? Something, say, as the shadow falls over the photosensors, it displays the digital time. That’s new.
Maybe have a feed back to a computer and put the time on-line with some stats, maybe. Give me your latitude and longitude and get your real time. No more railroads and their time zones telling you how to. The world’s first “solar powered” clock of classical design.
Now, let me ponder on the bird feeder. A bird feeder that responds to the exact chirp frequency of your flock, but not anybody else’s? End corporate bird feeder raiding. No more Democrat feeding at the public trough. Let the noisy crows and cowbirds find their own free lunch. All power to the songbirds.
