March 22, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 22, 2024, reviewing Caltier.
Five years ago today: March 22, 2020, biggest noticeable effect.
Nine years ago today: March 22, 2016, common whirligig mistakes.
Random years ago today: March 22, 2011, yep, by golly.

           Another cold snap, but we are ready. Inside the cabin it was down to 61°F on the recording thermometer. But who cares once under the electric blanket. Good morning, it is 5:30AM and I’d rather stay here all day. Let’s see what happens instead. It’s not accurate but the calendar says my peach tree is now five years old. The tree that needs freezing weather to fruit. George Foreman, the heavyweight boxer, died y’day at age 76. Makes me wonder if I’ll make it that far. But today just let me make it under the house. If I do, the worst part of this chore will be over.

           The impetus is coffee. All this back and forth under the building has brushed away some of the somewhat crunchy insulation and exposed the inner wires. They are still adequately coated with much the same plastic material as contemporary wiring, but I mentioned they had been spliced to new breakers using only 15amp wiring. That, plus the runs are longer than they need to be means I cannot use my hotplate and coffee maker on the same circuit. And that will never do.

           Trump has pulled another host of security clearances, this round including the Hildebeest and the Biden Crime Family. They can no longer enter government buildings without escort, but the real loss is no more advance notice of Federal operations. Less time to smash hard drives, shred documents, dump stocks. I had my share of let-downs, starting with this adhesive. Close examination shows the Wal*Mart brand is not as strong, despite having the same brand name. This “blue” states heavy duty and is a dollar more per tube. We shall see. The wood is already glued up and clamped.

           A perfect winter day by noon and I spent most of it on one joist. Yep, it was the one I pointed out, and I cracked the joist next to it trying to get the flooring up to level. It is not the same as one might think, rather the joists and flooring both have to be leveled wherever I tore out the original oak, which is beyond salvage. I was in and out of the workshed all day getting tools and such, noticing again a large number of raccoon tracks. They come and go as the city sets up the traps.
           This Rosie O’Donnell person I do not know except for Trump’s comment, but apparently she left the USA for Ireland—and they told her to get out. She’s Irish by delineation but also rumor has it she is insane and they don’t have to take her. Disney’s woke version of “Snow White” has be rated visually repellant. How much more can they afford to lose? It is doing so badly Wikipedia and IMDb (Internet Movie Database) have turned off their rating functions.
           How about the announcement of an underground city beneath the pyramids? Some claims say 4,000 feet deep. That smart aleck posted again saying that Elvis lived there with Hoffa, Bigfoot, Nessie, and Hitler, all driving cars that get 1,000 miles on a gallon of water.

Picture of the day.
The Sneaky Tiki, Pensacola.
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           Six hours on this joist, I miss the days before COVID when people walking past asked if you needed help and worked for cheap for an hour. This shows the major work that went into that bad corner of the building. It is also perceptibly twice as heavy as the other walls and did not cooperate at all. Here I am using a landscape timber to pry interior floorboards that will not budge any other way. Sad to report, those timbers are not a strong as they should be, considering they are almost 4x4”. They creak and bow and have to themselves be propped every few feet.

           Shown here the 30-ton jack is just visible under the timber. Inside it is across another timber and running under the kitchen cupboards, which had cause the floor to sag just enough that I could not stand up the new joist. I took three twenty-minute breaks to pace myself and to think outside the box, which is rarely as easy to do when you start a real task. I’m raising the floor across the way it is sagging, using the house itself as leverage. I can hear the old walls easing back into shape, it’s a bit eerie. One might say stridulating.

           The result is a cracked sill plate and end joist this morning. I was ready, where before they were propped in two places, so I had placed five new pylons for safety. Thus, the floor fell only around a quarter inch, but seized the joists I had already installed. Now they won’t move. So, I decided I king of like them where they are. The floor doesn’t know what gives, so some of the joists are now 12” on-center.
           Here is a quick video of the progress, this is most of the joist work on the traffic area of the kitchen. While moving the jack which is heavy and unwieldy, I took a break every few minutes, if you want to call pulling old staple off the electric wiring a break. I moved both the stove and old hot water wiring, placing them to rest on wood until I can decide how to proceed. Some of the wiring is under the north part of the room where I left coils of extra 12/2 cable bought back in 2019. Smart move, I just hope I left enough of it.

           This stage of the work took a lot of time and I had the electric shut off, meaning no hot coffee, but the fridge is old fashioned and stayed cool. I’d made up two big glasses of iced coffee, making survival possible. I am toying with the idea of running in a terminal box with the wiring from the meter into the building, leaving the panel accessible from inside. If I do make it into my 70s or 80s, I never want to deal with the floor or wiring again. I’m getting weary of it already.
           There are five Sundays this month, and I missed Apple Sunday last weekend. Blog says mention food, which is not as random as you think. Remember that old drinking game where you counted but left out number what ended by or were divisible by seven? That’s where the blog food equation comes from. So, tomorrow, we skip pancakes and go for cheesy grits with sausage, onions, and red peppers. Sounds good to me. And what's with the second lowest number of view this year on y'day's blog. Am I to take it the planet has lost interest over what happens to my kitchen floor? Am I losing ground to cat pictures?

Last Laugh