January 28, 2020

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 28, 2019, 25 years later.
Five years ago today: January 28, 2015, jerkasses.
Nine years ago today: January 28, 2011, early MakerShed mention.
Random years ago today: January 28, 2014, who’s who movie-wise.

           I ate beef. I was on the road early and had to stop, so I made it Burger King. Normally I only have coffee there, though I’m okay with chicken nuggets at time. Not today, I went for the 5 for 4, and this picture shows the aftermath. How was it? Delicious. They do something to the food to make it addicting, I swear it leaves you craving. This order includes the coffee, hash browns, nuggets, a bacon burger, and a cookie. I didn’t dare look at the calorie chart. I picked up supplies for the house, over the next couple days I’ll try to give you some insight into the amount of work required.

           A morning on the laundry electric and pipes. And Boss Hogg radio. They had the show by that Lady G, who is okay but a bit too much of a leftist. The feature was about poverty and she suffers heavily from the popular misconceptions of social scientists. That’s where all poor people need is a decent job and an income and they will rise in status to the point where they turn around and help others do the same. A deeply flawed concept at best. The whole idea in America is to get on welfare or disability since they rarely ever take these things away. You can live better than 90% of the world by getting into this country and chopping off your little finger.
           She is also a believer in registered charities. I’m the opposite, saying the instant a charity registers anything, it is no long charity but a tax dodge. My contention is that poverty should be addressed by the churches or tax the churches. I don’t mean in a religious way, but to give the homeless temporary shelter and that’s about it. It doesn’t help matters that the libtards let in 30 million unskilled laborers who took away all the jobs these now homeless people used to do for a living. I understand there are churches that have programs for the downtrodden, but they try to force religion down their throats along with the watery porridge. No wonder so many of them prefer to live under bridges.

           If I could point to one single factor that caused the decline of America, it is the loss of the work ethic through taxation for the purpose of wealth redistribution. Bread and circus schemes have never worked. And now that Trump has shrugged off the ridiculous cloak of political correctness, I demand to know how somebody voted when they start looking for a handout. I maintain that all people on government payroll, including civil servants and welfare cases should not be allowed to vote. Conflict of interest. That crowd will never vote for a balanced budget.
           And while I’m griping, how does anyone figure Boston bands with horn sections rate as rock and roll. Face it, that’s the wrong sound and their lyrics are always about either extreme or unrequited love, another issue that doesn’t dovetail with rock, which is about the good times, not the consequences. Kind of the antithesis of country music. Say that was neat how I just made that contract. Rock is about the fun, country is about the consequences. Now I’m going to go glue up some more pipes.

           This will be another day of grunt work where the results won’t show. I’ve got to replace a section of drain pipe because I installed it right where I need to put a concrete support. And there was not convenient studs where I needed to locate the outside taps and outlets. With the old and settle existing structure, I had to custom cut brace for each port. That took time, and I’ll need to make a supply run because one of the sections broke as I lifted it out. I thought PVC was a little tougher than that.
           The progress is there. Now I can finish the second closet floor and the north wall section I had to leave open for this stage of the work. Don’t let me forget to insulate that part of the floor and wall, it’s been so long I don’t exactly remember the order I did things in that part of the house. As for the PVC, now I’ve got experience. If there’s a spot where they won’t match up, but I’ll just Fernco it.

Picture of the day.
Brook Shields today.
I’d tap that.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Mid-afternoon and my rule of thumb of 3-1/2 hours per outlet again shows I could not make it as a contractor. I could have beat the timer but one strange event slowed me down nearly an hour. That makes it bloggable. I drilled the regulation hole through the studs and came to a corner. This should not have been anything difficult, but I had to drill from both sides because of the corner box offset. No problem, I know how to do this and I could see the light from the other side of the wall. I was through.

           Except no way the wire would fish. The way it circumstanced, I could not both feed the wire and see the other end. Nearly 45 minutes, that wire would not poke out the other end. I went back and forth how many times? I was about to give up and cut the stud when I gave it one more push and it went through just that easy. The next challenge is the electrical box. For exterior outlets I use the proper metal box and code calls for GFCI. There’s the rub. The largest single box made is a super tight fit for the smallest GFCI. That’s unless they make a special box that I never heard of and is consistently not mentioned in my collection of five wiring books, including the superlative Black & Decker.

           Here’s a clip of the dryer circuit done right. Note the double depth box. You can see me fitting a brace where I had to miss the studs. Note the proper wiring, now finally identifiable by color. This is a 240V circuit so soon we’ll have a real dryer. That’s a dig at Tennessee, where the dryer there takes two hours lead time before you get dry jeans. Plus all my clothes come out with a bit too flowery an aroma. Like roses or lilacs. I expect another day to finish roughing in this tiny corner of the house. And another two weeks to get the room completed to the point I’ll live in it permanently. Up to now, it has been back and forth depending on the phase. Sometime I think it was the moon phase, but I say I’ve learned a lot.

Last Laugh