One year ago today: April 18, 2025, dimethylsulfide.
Five years ago today: April 18, 2021, Friday jams, I dunno.
Nine years ago today: April 18, 2017, prettier works for me!
Random years ago today: April 18, 2013, fun in Savannah.
Yes! Another of those silent central Florida mornings. Just the faint clock ticking, how I love it. I like noise in the evenings and we shall see, as y’day was quite the day-long adventure. This brought on a good snooze and the tiniest uptick in energy levels—meaning a potential fun day, if only building boxes. Breakfast is mushrooms, onion, pork chops, and an egg, you should also indulge. Limitless coffee, of course. I had decided on a new toy, a small brad nailer. (See addendum for details.)
I warned myself about the slowdown and today was duh-yup. One hour to mail two letters and two hours for groceries. That’s where the Ramen pic is from—I thought Ramen was a brand name, not a flavor. So, does this mean Ramen noodles are Ramen flavored? If such thoughts have room, it’s time for me get some things going in my social life. I’ve had gate arrays on my brain for two days now, can’t shake the matter. Think of it as a big cluster of gates, which are hard-wired, so you don’t actually program those. Gates have inputs and the trick is to time those inputs and let the gate do its thing.
The commonly available gate array is the Alchitry, shown here “programmed” to flash an LED around once per second, look close. I use the term “program” loosely, as it is C-like code that incorporates all the worst features of the language. Worse of the worst is code statements that do not spell out what is going on—you are “supposed to know” what it does.
They claim the code outlines what you want, in this case flash the LED. They lie, for there is no such command. Instead you have the unit count to 49,999,999 and reset itself by overflowing. Got that? How you do this is, well, that’s part of what you are supposed to know.
I could not find a brad nailer except one over-priced Ryobi. It was declined for having a non-standard battery pack. Talking to the sales guy, it may not have been Wal*mart that stopped carrying the 18V batteries on me. It seems Ryobi had some contract disputes and it was they who walked away. Strange nobody said anything, but that’s around the time Wal*Mart began stocking Hart instead of HyperTough. Don’t quote me, this was just a talk about battery packs.
Seeking anything positive today, I noticed the open (it’s not like open, but does not form a healing layer) leg wound is finally healed level with the surrounding area. If it follows the other leg, that is potential I surely welcome. Energy level today maybe 30%, though I did get a haircut. The blog that dares to feature leg wounds and haircuts. What has become of my time?
Casement Park, an Irish fiasco.
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This imposed idleness for most of the day has me reading technical material to stay focused away and that means more navigation. I memorized the steps to use Sight Reduction but did not understand it. I decided to finally tackle it. I can now faithfully do the chore in the western hemisphere but guess what? I don’t have my copy of the tables. They did not match the examples in the books I have to study, so I set them aside before I moved. Like many things around here, if you don’t get used, you get lost. It will turn up, I mean, it is a book full of numbers hardly any use for anything else.
I have the time to explain, if you want. The standard boxes are made from pickets. I also have pallet lumber and often find good pieces too narrow for a full size box. That is what you see here. The boxes are shallower making them easy to fit under a chop saw to make the 45° miter cuts, see pics. Using the same lengths makes these easy to cut using the Z-box templates. What’s happened is I’ve made smaller boxes that are not as wide. Yes, I’ll get you some pictures, you’ve seen them sort of already. They are not that different, you’ll see.
They are thinner wood and I have to design the end cuts for the dowel. These are, as yu can see, added on to the finished box. I do not like the models that cut special pieces for this, they are a headache to cut or repair. The samples you see here that I am touching are too heavy duty, yet the handles have to stay at least 7/8ths inch for sturdiness. I should have got this done today, instead I kind of sat down and wrote letters.
I think Trump has lost his way, but election time will swing him around. Part of the problem is his anti-corruption accomplishments are not heralded by the mainstream people. Here’s an example. EBT cards no longer buy junk food. H-visa workers are not easy to import. Small Business Administration loans are no longer automatically renewed. Is that addressing corruption? Ask 7/11, who are closing almost 650 stores in the USA between now and the elections. It seems 235 judges appointed by Biden are by auto-pen. That’s one thing Trump could be holding in reserve. Fire them all a month before the mid-terms.
Ouchee-wa-wa, I just saw the hospital bill. This does not include the extras, such as doctor visits and extended care. $211,000. I know some of it will be negotiated down but the system now has an interest in my survival. The doctor’s portion, of which only two were surgeons (a total of seven doctors during my stay at intensive care) was $80,000 and we know the room was $2,100 per day. These are approximations, with staff and medicines running as much as another $3,000 per day. Tack on 50+ blood samples and lab tests.
ADDENDUM
Brad nailers require careful shopping. Many are actually electric staplers and that is not what you want for tacking small pieces. (Brad nails have a small head, pin nails don’t.) (I have seen hand-staplers advertised as “cordless”.) Staples have a direction and must be aligned for really small parts, also leaving a visible mark. I always use the brads in conjunction with glue, to hold the pieces in place where clamps or weights are unwieldy. There is another advantage that with brads, almost any glue is good enough, including the cheapest dollar-store brands. With pin nails, glue is a must, the only advantage is the pins are easy to paint over.
The smallest brad you normally want is the 18ga. Less is too weak and can easily bend enough to poke out the sides and more is enough to split your wood. There are many models of brad nailers, the least handy are the type with an external wall-wart charger. Not only do they have no standard plug sizes or polarities, you have to go hunting for the unit. Cordless, battery, and rechargeable are not the same. I want a cordless, which is charged using a USB cable.
Most common error with these cordless nailers is going too fast. You need a full second between shots to let that battery recover. I had an electric that I wrecked this way, thinking A/C meant I could zip right along. I broke the plunger in some way that it got too weak to bury the nails. I have tools that lasted twenty years, but I did not learn to respect them all at once. The next issue is the type of nails—and be careful, some units say brad but they are small crown staples.
Avoid those that require specialized ammo. That includes T15 staples and many of those so-called “5-in-1” units. They say brads, but folks, JT-21 wire staples are for manual guns only, unless you like prying out every tenth staple that bends or does not bury. Another rule of thumb is do not plan on the maximum size of nail, that is, if the spec says 1-1/4 inch, you will be lucky if it sinks a 3/4”. Watch for models that have a hand rest or cushion (called “bump-nailers), it means you need two hands to push on the gun, which also means pushing on your work. And they are hard to use in any orientation except flat down on a work bench.
One facet I don’t discuss is [finished box] appearance. I do not build much where I am concerned with pretty, so I don’t care about exposed nail, screw, staple or brad heads. I consider them a mark of good workmanship. Besides, it takes maybe an hour’s practice to learn to make the heads nice and evenly spaced.
