One year ago today: July 17,2022, Hornblower is safe!
Five years ago today: July 17, 2018, the attic is wired.
Nine years ago today: July 17, 2014, on picking up women.
Random years ago today: July 17, 2004, El Mago de Ponche.
Well, those who doubted it when I said the polls were purposely understating Trump’s lead should take a look at the straw polls in Florida y’day. The mainstream media tried to sell you the 60% figure. Ha, it is 87.5%, the most solid lead in American history. DeSantis came in at a pitiful 4.3% but that’s entirely his own doing. Russia has expelled the WHO like the USA should. The Barbie movie may flop. She’s already had every job, they say, doctor, vet, astronaut. Now add nose and boob. Ladies, Barbie’s shape was made so the doll clothes would slide on easier. Get over it.
Today we have a go at that water heater. The pipes are installed, but not the electric. The wiring is under the house but that’s another day. As we found out, Intertherm no longer makes water heaters. Did you know in 2021, industry tried to convince Americans there was a hot water heater shortage? This is how crooks raise prices in America, blame it on somebody else, when in fact it was massive price fixing. I have a 30 gallon model, but it will be teamed with an ambient tank with the combination able to provide close to sixty gallons on demand. I got in ober 2-1/2 hours this morning in a truly stifling heat, but the growling horizon says get the work done while you can. Just now I’m trying to find the correct size coupling for the tank. Not easy and of course, it is not printed on the tank.
Here is the next installment on the Squirrel Hex, showing the improved but still labor-intensive glue-up of the onion rings. They are finicky to work with and need a pilot hole to be attached to the frame. I’ll try a brad nail later but it has to defeat a squirrel. There is also a critter again getting into the silo. There’s no food he can get at but it is a comfortable place to sleep. I just don’t have time to seal the place up, not until my hot water is rerouted and I get my kitchen back.
And that kitchen will not be ergonomic. The most successful designs minimize the travel between stove and fridge. I will be moving them ten feet apart with the prep counter on the opposite side of the room. It’s my combo living room dining room, so there are some compromises if I want to sit near the window instead of the middle of the room like now. I would eventually also like a small work area, my kitchen table, near the coffee machine. Who knows, I might learn to appreciate the exercise one day.
Copper “disease-repelling” jacket.
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Rather than burn up time looking for that medium-sized box of 3/4” fittings, I spent the $13 and got enough to rough in the main pieces, leaving stubs for the ambient tank later. The supplier was out of valves. That’s another problem we don’t have in America. I’m also going to test the hexagon in two ways, one with plastic, the other with wire. I believe I mentioned finding a whole roll of wire in the dog pen, where I’m planning to take down the wire fence along the shed. It is far more likely the space will hold chickens than dogs. And wire is an excellent raccoon deterrent.
It was a six-hour day, total. Seven if you include the trip downtown, I’m impressing myself. Twenty-years ago they said never again. That’s right, this December, twenty years. Here is a view of the hot water half of the lines. The entire ambient tank system utilized the cold water part of the circuit and I’ve figured a way to do it with two valves instead of three. Right there earns me the evening off, have you see the prices on those things. In these photos, the cold water line is the one at the top, with a red handle on the master valve.
The other two valves are totally to bypass the ambient tank in case anything goes wrong. I could hardware all this in place. But if I’m able to put in a few hours a week without complications, this piping may have to do me for a long time yet. I should point out that this work goes too slow to be gainful. For all that, I have seen professionals who got the work done no faster than I did. The actual cutting and glue-up accounted for not much more than an hour.
You’ve not heard of the red scooter for the simple reason it quit after that expensive carb job. I have several theories to test but the backlog of other work has not let me focus on that for months. It will start, but it won’t keep running very long, same problem as the lawn tractor. That is sitting under a tarp until the water tank is installed and the bathroom fixtures repaired.
JZ gets a letter detailing much of this work, the reason is historical. I had wanted us to begin renovating a place but he never came up with his half of the goods. Now, fifteen years later, I completely understand. JZ, like so many others, does not trust the system and won’t invest in anything that he does not completely control at all times. I may sell him on Caltier, as he needs something to go by but the very thought of letting someone else manage his money is not compatible with his world view.
I’m getting somewhere with the plants now that they get the proper attention. The most trainable is the oregano, if you trim it back it keeps sprouting smaller and smaller leaves. I’ve got one pot aside to see just how far this can go. It must eventually crowd itself out. I’ve put the avocado that half-sprouted into a mini-greenhouse and plan two more under the same conditions. They are slow-growing trees. A real garden is out as planting now will be harvest right at the time I have to be out of town at least a few weeks. This has cost me garden plants before.
Here are the two avocado pots. They are dollar store ice buckets, two for $1.25 so let’s see how well they work. Both af filled with yard dirt and full of worms, and a cover of potting solid which seems to give the seedlings a head start. That’s oregano in the background. I don’t know why this month seems to be dragging on forever. It is now 8:30PM so let’s head over to Bartow, the old club. Why? Because I don’t feel like dusting off and that place is Deadsville early in the week since COVID. All the other clubs stayed open so obeying the idiotic mandate cost them around fifteen of their best regulars. Abe for instance, does not even drop by for Karaoke any more.
ADDENDUM
Family Offices. With the big media focus on Blackrock, few have heard of Family Offices. They are a management company that bypasses individuals to work with entire families, and their clients are some of the wealthiest of families. My interest is because Caltier follows their advice and the big families are cooling it with retail and industrial, moving assets into residential. These big money people are enough to move the market in their favor even when they make mistakes.
Did you know Blackrock is owned by seven people? Contrary to popular belief, they do not actually have $10 trillion dollars, rather that is the amount of money they manage for others. Still, to put that in perspective, which they like to do, that is ten times the GDP of Canada and forty times that of South Africa.
It is almost half the GDP of the United States, which has been the world’s dominant economy since 1871, by the way. Sadly, we are falling faster and faster as the last three generations have failed to keep the American spirit of invention and innovation moving along, preferring to slice up the existing pie and let the place go to blazes, blaming everyone but themselves. They seem to think life was easier for earlier generations, but you get that way when the world hands you everything.
It was Caltier purchases in Texas that caught my attention, although it was another six months before I decided to invest. Looks now like my investing days are far from over.
