Buy now!

In the men’s at a local Wal-Mart is this simple stainless-steel vending machine selling ... well, truthfully, I don't know what’s selling, but it’s only a buck. What the hell? How can you pass up a bargain like that?

This week’s (unexpected) project

Meet the week’s project.

This was a purely unexpected one. Just before leaving for the beach, I was closing the shed doors and noticed that one of the trims boards on the front looked odd. I poked it with a tool and, lo, it was punky. Rotten as hell.

So I ripped it off, figuring to replace it when I got back. I started after we arrived, and promptly found that the entire framing setup and all the trim was absolutely full of carpenter ants. Ripped it all off, and built new doors.

While I was at it, I figured it was time to replace the steps I'd ripped off a while back, so I built new ones. And you know what? The cost of lumber has gone up along with everything else. The steps and doors, plus another two-tread set of steps for the barn, cost nearly $300! Just incredible.

But it's a better setup than before. The steps, previously a wimply 3' wide, are now a generous 6'. The doors are simpler and cleaner, made of paneling and 100% pressure-treated trim members. The hardware is all galvanized or powder-finished, the door fastens top and bottom to keep vermin out, it has internal stops for better weather resistance, a functional hasp and pin, and larger hook eyes on the lower portion for easy fastening. All minor stuff, but it adds up to a real improvement.

Just..expensive for what it is.

Last night's dinner

Last night’s supper. A quickie batch of Annie’s shells and cheese, a little broccoli sauteed with soy sauce, and thumb-sized shrimp cooked with a little olive oil. Deeee-lish!

This is not something I'd advertise

I’m just sayin’ is all.

High School Diplomas!

I’m inclined to believe -- and this is just my opinion, of course -- that anyone dumb enough to call a number spray-painted on a foam-core sign advertising “School at Home” and “HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMAS” probably couldn’t get such an item by any of the other, more...normal means.

Your tax dollars at work!

Do the Kannapolis Police understand that when taxpayers complain about the inefficiency of government service, this is precisely the sort of thing they mean?

I was picking up groceries on the way home recently when I was treated to this...four squad cars (including an unmarked, and five city-paid police officers, responding to a...parking lot fender-bender. Do what?

No, really...two officers, I can understand. More than that, and you're into “more supervisors than workers” territory. Good to see the K-town fuzz taking care of business and keeping everyone safe.

Miss E and the Angry Inchworm

Found whilst helping me dig a flower bed.

Door update

Ta-da! Finished. Landing bar and barrel bolts installed. Just needs caulk and the well. Actually, it’s done already, I just haven’t taken pictures yet. Fear not, valiant reader! I will dampen your spirits with more displays of meatball carpentry in short order!

Update: Forgot I had a picture of it stained. A lovely Amsterdam blue. Pity it covers that neat grain pattern.

Great googly-moogly!

Snapped this at driving by a new “senior village” (trans. - “old folks’ home”). Fifteen flags. Reckon they figure they have a pretty sharp bead on their audience?

Bruce "Utah" Duncan Phillips (15 May 1935 - 23 May 2008), R.I.P.

I missed the news last week while I was away, but Utah Phillips is dead. From a letter written to friends shortly before his death:

“I spent a long time finding my way—couches, floors, big towns, small towns, marginal pay (folk wages). But I found that people seemed to like what I was doing. The folk music family took me in, carried me along, and taught me the value of song far beyond making a living. It taught me that I don't need wealth, I don't need power, and I don't need fame. What I need is friends, and that's what I found— everywhere—and not just among those on the stage, but among those in front of the stage as well. . . . The future? I don't know. But I have songs in a folder I've never paid attention to, and songs inside me waiting for me to bring them out. Through all of it, up and down, it's the song. It's always been the song.”

Go carefully, Utah. You lived well, may you have so much in the next life.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields
Lt Col John McCrae, MD

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Success!

Crawlspace door complete, well in place, pavers laid. All that remains is to touch up some paint and put the Sweep & Lock in place (can't be done on wet brick, and it's been raining).

Ridin' for Jesus

Used the iPhone to snap a quickie of homeboy here at a yard sale a couple of weeks back. Where to begin? How about at the bottom...dig that snazzy belt. Stylin'!

Then there's the shirt. This dude and his spousal unit* are the first living, breathing members of the Cowboy Church Network I've ever come across. This means that they may, in fact, be dressed in their Sunday best. Even though it was Saturday.

The shades don't bear a mention. Every dork in creation** owns a pair of wraparound shades now. I'm somewhat shocked to realize that I was around as they came into style.

But that hair. Oh, that incredible hair. So short and receding in the front, so cropped and clean over the ears, so neatly blocked on the back. Right up until you hit the thumb-size hank of rattail that hasn't been in vogue for any male older than seven since I was in junior high.

Seriously, man..what were you thinking? “Man, I really wanna grow me a mullet. A big ol' shaggy ape drape. But m'wife don't like 'em, and I ain't got so much up top any more. Looks like I'll have to fix me up a rat tail! Yee-haw!"

The goatee and one-day stubble contribute to the image of a hyperpituitary first grader. Lose the 'tail, my friend. Close your eyes, give the scissors to your wife, throw down a couple of shots if you need to, and resign yourself to your age cohort.

It happens to the best of us.

*Presumably churchy types -- even Cowboy Churchy types -- do not, unlike many bikers, refer to their womenfolk as “bitches.” They do, however, use the word “impacting” on their website in a way that's almost as offensive.

**Myself included.

A tree blows in Davidson

On the 10th, a line of storms blew through the area, dousing us with rain and -- in some cases -- hail. That was enough to knock much of the pollen off the trees, out of the air, and so on. On Monday, the wind came along behind scouring the air again, and giving the tree outside my office a blow-dry. If you click through for the large image, you can tell that the giant pecan behind the bank is leaning even further...the wind at 30ft off the ground was nearly constant.

Invigorate?

Dear BP:

Invigorate. Really? Invigorate?

Listen, marketing types -- I don't want my car invigorated. Nor do I want it revitalized, energized, vivified, roused, bucked-up or rejuvenated. Maybe I'm getting old. I understand this. But I'm sane enough at this point in my life to understand that I drive a 90bhp 90's-vintage diesel sedan, not a frakkin' sports coupe, okay?

I'll be satisfied if your fuel just allows me to get from point A to point B without any major engine damage. And without, thank you, any invigoration.

Here's what I ripped out of the crawlspace entry day before yesterday. Tasty, eh? Crappy paint, poorly secured, ill-fitting...all the best features of a quality construction job (and, to be fair, the excellent maintenance it's had over the years...not).

So I tore it out. Finally. Reworking the bed around it was the actual motivator that kicked the job over, but that's kind of immaterial. It needed doing. Once the hole was open, I discovered the reason the door frame wasn't flush with the brick -- the lazy-ass builder had failed to notch one of two joists deeply enough! The first (lateral) cut was deep enough, they just didn't carve out enough depth. Thirty seconds with a saber saw fixed it.

This time, the top member of the frame and the stops are anchored with a series of coated deck screws, while the verticals and the base are set with Liquid Nails, as I mentioned earlier. After a day's dry time, this sucker is rock solid.

As usual, I managed to misjudge my lumber needs just enough to be annoying. I picked up one too few 1x2 boards. Actually, I got enough for the one stop I'd originally planned to install, but when I decided to stop all four sides, that left me one short. But I digress. Come to think of it, this entire blog qualifies as a digression, more or less, so what's one more?

I cut the door from 3/4" sanded exterior plywood. I would have used pressure treated, but they were out. Since the plywood isn't actually in ground or masonry contact, and since my final step will be to stain the entire assembly, I think it'll be fine. If not, I'll replace the panel later, no sweat. I only had to trim it a little to get a good fit, and with the stops, it's far more weather/wind/critter-tight.

All the hardware is run-of-the-mill galvanized stuff for rust-proofing. The bar of 1x2 at the top of the door serves as both handle and “landing gear” -- the door will sit on it and stay level when opened, making it more comfortable to get in and out and easier to pick back up to close. When it's snugged into the frame and barrel-locked, it's surprisingly solid for what it is.

Tonight I'll finish setting the frame for the “well” surrounding the door, and hopefully get the sand and pavers in, as well as drop a bead of cedar-color caulk around it (the caulk is probably overkill, but there are flaws in the masonry in 2-3 places that result in some gaposis, and I want to make sure no baby snakes find their way in). That'll leave Thursday evening to put a coat of stain on everything, inside and out, and then it's ready to have topsoil dropped around it on Friday/Saturday.

Incidentally, I kind of apologize for all the minutiae on my home repairs. It's just what I'm doing at the moment. Work is a dry hole, since the semester is shutting down and I'm prepping for vacation. Emma's antics lately don't bear talking about (well, they might, but it wouldn't be pleasant), and I'm tired to death of politics. So this is what you get.

More Door

Ripped out the crawlspace door last night.

Found out it was only secured by four nails into the (notched) porch joists above. Nice. Had planned to use parasleeve anchors to fix the new frame in place, but opted for Liquid Nails instead, to avoid issues with splitting the brick.

Got the frame set it place, the door panel cut, and the stops screwed in. Tonight I'll put one last stop in, hinge and lock the door, and start building the well. The door, instead of swinging open, will drop down so it's automatically out of the way. Two galvanized barrel bolts will secure it, instead of the rusty rotating hasp-and-key bit that's in there now, and the well around it will be lined with pavers so it's easy to keep clean, and level.

Pictures this evening.

Happy Post-Mother's Day

Saturday was productive, marginally. I finished setting the railroad ties for the front north corner planting bed, and started digging it out. Actually, the soil in this bed isn't awful, just full of weeds, oak and sweetgum roots, and it's not sloped well. So out it came, and I raked the finished slope to the desired grade.

Errands in town were minimal, and were followed by Roscoe's birthday gathering at Bio-M-Bo's (which everyone regards as a strange name...we've resorted to simply calling it "bimbo's"). No live music, regrettably, but the adobado chicken was spicy, and the Negra Modelo was smooth, so that's okay. A stop by the Teeter for yellow carrots -- which we've discovered E consumes ravenously -- then home to bed.

I actually got L's Mother's Day present a few weeks back as part of a silent auction supporting a Charlotte teen theatre group. Yoga lessons. She's had one...if we can stop being sick, she can go back.

Sunday, eh...not so good. Finished the bed digging and headed to Lowe's for materials right before it poured a p all through town. At Lowe's, I'd planned on about $50 in materials to created a well for the crawlspace door, line it with pavers and build a new door. That turned into $175 for materials plus tomato and pepper starts, planting containers, and so on and so on. The rain started, and finished, while we were in the store. Missed it by that much, as they say.

Then off to Starbucks for Mother's Day desserts with Lynn and Steve. What's to say? It's Starbucks...which means it's passable, if not outstanding. Back at home, we hulled, washed and froze a gallon of fresh strawberries for winter consumption. Halfway through that exercise I had to stop and put up the dog and chickens, close up the house and warn the neighbors of a coming tornadic storm. Missed us by a couple of miles to the south, thank heaven, because it had golf-ball size hail (a fact the weather drones seemed to take great pleasure it repeating ad nausaeum). You could, however, hear the rushing wind over all that distance, which was a little creepy.

Oddly, this was the worst we got. Shrop, who lives about 2 miles northwest of us, got this. Strange weather.

The evening, and on into the morning, has been dominated by attempting to reformat and update an Inspiron 2200 for Bob. This has been an exercise.

I'd rather go dig clay.

Everything is Miscellaneous

After six months of dilatory attempts, I have (more or less) finished David Weinberger's Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder.

I wish I could issue a firm pronouncement of my opinions of Weinberger's work, but I can't. So instead, some general observations.

First, Weinberger is in love with metadata, and with systems that mine metadata in an inherently organic, user-driven way. That's all well and good. The problem is that he doesn't seem to see any practical limit to the amount of metadata that's worth accumulating about a given object. I disagree with that perspective, because after a while, the pile of metadata becomes so dense that the marginal return of adding further descriptors is vanishingly small. Pile on enough metadata about an object, and you wind up recreating the object, for all intents.

Second, Weinberger is in love with technology. This should more or less follow from the first observation, because metadata rich organization is necessarily high-technology organization. It is not possible to practically maintain rich metadata sets on index cards. Weinberger's faith that high-technology systems are the savior of organization is touching, but has major flaws. For one thing, it is a hopelessly Western-centric, first-world-centric point of view. It's reliant on broad availability of cheap, high-speed, interconnected computing power that simply isn't a fact of life in the developing world. Weinbergers vision works for me, with my two laptops, iPhone and broadband-wireless-everywhere lifestyle. For Nanook and his sled team, not so much.

Further, for the world to organize (or disorganize) itself in Weinberger fashion, we have to assume bottomless supplies of cheap energy. Energy to build and maintain the technological systems that gather and mine metadata, primarily. I'm not convinced that an energy-rich society is a long-term possibility. If energy goes, or becomes prohibitively expensive, suddenly it becomes a lot less of a priority to have wireless access to a multi-billion record database, compared to, say, walking to the library for a book.

Finally, I think Weinberger is guilty of simply spreading a little technology frosting over old concepts and calling them new. In discussing "new learning," he talks about now in the new information age, recall of facts is a skill more suited to quiz shows than to education. I call philosophical bullshit on this argument from the start, but even if you accept it, it's not new. Instant recall of facts has rarely ever been as important as the ability to know where to find the relevant facts.

Our ability to find the required facts is certainly enhanced by our technology. But the fundamental need is not new or special.

I guess at the core of things, I'd say that Weinberger is a smart guy with a lot of good ideas, and some genuinely penetrating insights. That said, he's also guilty of believing his own bullshit, and that ends up turning what might have been an interesting book into an exercise in pro-technology cheerleading. For me, anyway. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

"Gas Prices Stink"

That was the sum total statement of a 6" circle of vinyl plastered to the back of the vehicle in front of me this morning. The vehicle in question was a Chevy Silverado full-size pickup sporting a V-8 engine that gets, on average, about 15-16 MPG.

For the driver, I suppose the sticker was a statement of rock-bottom truth. I'm sure in his case, gas prices do stink. Nevertheless...

The truck was new. Spiffy-shiny new, I mean. Which means he bought it knowing full well what gas prices have been doing (there's no way the truck could be over a year old). From that, we can deduce that the driver is either (a) clinically insane, or (b) an idiot.

There's an interesting deduction to be made, as well, from the juxtaposition of his mini gas-rant with his other sticker -- "American And Proud Of It." Ah -- doubtless one of Dick Cheney's "The American way of life is not negotiable" crowd.

It figures.

Image annoyance

I really don't like the way ecto handles image uploads. I can't figure out how to stop it clipping the images when it thinks they're too big. Trying Mars Edit to see if it improves the situation.

Ecto does offer full rich-text editing, which Mars Edit doesn't seem too. That's kind of a bother, but possibly not enough to matter.

UPDATE: Hmm. That was...unsatisfactory.

UPDATE: Uploaded an image to Flickr from iPhoto. Inserting via Mars Edit's media manager.



UPDATE: Better, though I just discovered I can accomplish the same thing with ecto. I kind of think I like Mars Edit's interface better, tho.

Dig It, Redux

After some slow going while I was down sick, work on the bed has resumed apace. Digging completed Saturday AM.

Depth is pretty consistent across the bed, except at the extreme upper end, where there's a little downslope to help direct runoff. Or, perhaps, because the vein of undiggable clay ran closer to the surface there, eliciting an exasperated "Screw this noise!" when I tried to even out the depth. You decide which...or maybe both. The pile you see at the top right is five cubic yards of loamy topsoil, delivered that morning.

Spread out, it looks more like this:

I'll be moving the remainder of the fill in by trailersfull in order to avoid the landscaper's exorbitant delivery charges, but the basics are in place, and I've start setting the beds around the front to accompany these.

Next steps:

• Complete topsoil fill of side bed.



• Install stepping boards to control soil slope in side bed.



• Lay ties for front corner bed.



• Filet corner between side and front with steel/fiberglas edging.



• Remove hard clay top in side/corner beds and fill with topsoil.



• Plant!



• Edge beds with liriope and topsoil.

Spring Hill Nurseries and Park Seed are going to hear from me in the next week or so with orders for astilbes, hydrangeas, hostas and other shade-loving plants. By next spring, I should have actual landscaping.

To complete the exercise, once the plants are in place, I'll order batches of ladybugs, red wigglers, nightcrawlers and crickets. A week or so later, I'll half-bury some clay pots to make toad abodes. And at whatever point it's convenient, the liriope planting will soften the edges of those ties. I'll try to get close-ups, but the texturing on some of the ties, where years of trains pressed them into the ballast stone, is beautiful.