Halloween In My "Wee Pub"

Now Hiring Bartenders And Waitresses...

Some of my Blog Readers have been asking me to post pictures of "The Wee Pub" currently under extensive slow construction in my basement. My Old HP laptop has historically handled the Cannon photo download duties but it's been driving me crazy with some "Issues" related to stupid viruses and my Server PC has had compatibility issues with my older Cannon G3 when I updated to handle Pat's newer Cannon G series camera.

So any way, this morning I went out to a bunch of websites and updated a half dozen drivers on this stupid MS Vista powered server machine, and to my surprise my camera would talk to at least one of my computers and so for your enjoyment here's a month old photo of...

THE WEE PUB...

(The fellow standing there in what appears to be a window is actually an old Halloween prop I made and there is now a hinged panel supporting a flat screen TV in that spot today.)

There's been a bunch of extra trim and stain and paint work done since this image was taken--but I'm too lazy to go shoot more photos this morning--and the handrail there in the foreground has been removed and a new much more elaborate one is taking shape today and later this week in it's final form.

Too bad I'm hardly going to get to use the room because of upcoming travel this winter, but still it was a nice project and I think you will be impressed with the final results.

More photos to come...Y'all...

I'm Standing On My Head In My Basement

On A Ladder...Don't Look...It's Dangerous...


My stairwell going between the main level of my house and my basement is currently driving me crazy.

At first I was just going to do a simple paint job and leave the stairs alone, but then one thing led to another and now I'm struggling with the process of putting in new stained stair treads, painted risers, and stumbling around on a cobbled up platform/ladder trying to reach the two levels of ceilings within a space 3'-6" wide holding a paint brush or roller in one hand and my ass in the other.

I'm really not afraid of heights, but I am afraid of falling from a height of 12 or 15 feet with a little pan of paint in one hand and a painting utensil in the other.

So any way, I've almost got the paint job done on the walls and ceiling, and today I'm cutting the new treads and riser covers which have been pre-painted in a giant 4'x8' sheet, and all the time I'm cursing under my breath because it was ME that came up with this grand IDEA in the FIRST  place.

Time to get back to making Sawdust and Paint spatters...

Regards...Y'all...

Unexpected House Fire(Works)

Been There Myself And Got The Tee shirt...


So I was cruising along nicely yesterday morning happily making sawdust and torturing the Turbo Pup with her new box of 140 squeekies I had received to replace the innards in dead toys she is always chewing up.

Progress was slow but steady out in the carport and by just before noon I came back into the house to rest a few minutes from the 90 plus degree heat...promising myself that I would fire up the construction effort again (excuse the unintended pun...you'll understand when you finish reading this posting) at noon.  I had smelled smoke a few minutes earlier but just attributed it to someone burning lawn debris.

Unfortunately from about 12 PM on things didn't quite work out the way I had planned for Saturday, July 2nd, because when I walked back outside to start work I noticed that two houses down our street on the opposite side from our house black smoke was billowing out from under the partially open garage door.

I knew that our neighbor--a widow lady ten or fifteen years my senior--had just finished mowing her grass and running the weed eater, and apparently one of the two devices had mis-behaved after she put it away and she was in the house IN THE SHOWER.

I ran inside and called 911 while Pat ran next door to get our neighbor who knew the woman well and together they were able to bang on the storm door and storm windows and get her attention.

She came running outside clad in only a silk robe with no shoes, and then proceeded to run back into the building two times before we could physically restrain her and talk her into staying outside.

Here's a look at things about 15 minutes after I first noticed the fire:

Here's one of the brave fire fighters finally getting some water on things:

And here they've basically stopped things from progressing and are just beating the final hot spots down:

This whole experience strikes very close to home for me, because I had the unfortunate experience to have my house burn to the ground in April of 2001. Since I was not home at the time things were happening I had the good fortune to not having to sit there and watch the disaster unfold with a giant shower of electrical sparks when the breaker panel finally gave way or listen to the gas tanks on the lawn equipment, propane tanks, and the car gas tank and air conditioner system explode in the inferno.

Having already lived through the process however, I was amazed at the insight it gave me to help move everyone through the process. I'm not saying I'm some kind of hero or anything, I'm just saying that having dealt with the process from the inside personally gave me a punch list of things I could regurgitate in sequence/order for others to worry about from memory in the middle of the excitement.

I had to wander around trying to keep people off of the hot electrical wires--the next door neighbor insisted on trying to use his garden hose to defend his house and in the process was risking electrocution if his water stream came in contact with the current.

We basically spent the rest of the afternoon working with another dozen of our neighbors consoling the woman and helping her contact her family and the assholes at her so-called insurance company.

I use profanity--the word "assholes"--because that's the way I currently feel about the people and the corporation called Farm Bureau here in West Knoxville.

Do you know what the person which answered the telephone told us when we finally got through to them on Saturday before the Fourth of July?

"We can't possibly get anyone out there until TUESDAY because it's the WEEKEND and Monday's A HOLIDAY."

You might be "in good Hands with Allstate," but from my personal experience this year with a roof damaged by a hail storm, and now with this deal with a house fire which caused at least a loss of 50% of the property rendering it inhabitable, is that you are "shit out of luck with State Farm and Farm Bureau"...and that's a crying shame.

This woman has lived in the neighborhood for over thirty years, raised two sons, and burryed a Husband all the while paying premiums for her "Homeowner's Insurance" and just because her house burns at an "inconvenient" time they leave her sitting beside the road in a borrowed chair with no shoes.

Now here's the part of this story which could be considered a political commentary but which makes me proud that I was able to contribute and further, the way our neighbors and even some total strangers rallied around someone in need.

Don't get me wrong here...this lady was comfortable financially so she could afford to go rent a motel room and buy shoes and clothes, but she was distraught and losing her mind to the point of fainting and having to sit in an Ambulance for a half hour while they checked her out.

In the three hours following the start of the conflagration some total strangers from a nearby condo development brought her some shoes that fit and some pants and a top to wear.

When the smoke had proverbially cleared and the fire department had left the scene I was going to help her sons board up the broken windows and doors, but other people were tripping over me to help and I ended up managing the scene and watching other people swing hammers.



No FEMA.

No state or federal declaration of disaster areas.

No government supplied Trailers and Debit Cards and Free TV's and other crap paid for at taxpayer expense.

I know I hate what happened to our neighbor this Fourth of July Weekend, but at the same time it did my heart good to be able to participate in an exercise which demonstrated that the real, fundamental, core of the American Spirit is still alive and well here in West Knoxville in July of 2011.

I wish that we could all...using an unfortunate metaphor...take the time to "fan the flames" on the embers which are left laying around in places like my neighborhood on my street in other places around the country, and restore the fundamental ideals and self sufficiency on which our country was founded in the minds of the voters before the 2012 election takes us further down the road to socialism and destruction.

O K?

Working Holiday Weekend

Me And My Zanny Life...


Well, the good news is, after a hectic couple of weeks spent out of town on jobsites almost non-stop, that my brain has stopped rattling around in my skull and things have settled back down a good deal here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

The Turbo Pup isn't mad at me anymore for leaving town without her, and for some unknown reason I also actually managed to stay focused and work a "normal daytime" schedule on both Thursday and Friday--sort of.

I guess it was because I had to interact with a bunch of people that have real jobs and only show up at their offices between 8 AM and 5 PM.

Then I was sitting around in my office Friday morning contemplating things which needed doing here around the Turbo Pup's house, and since I am basically on vacation 365 days each year unless I accidentally trip over something in the professional "paid work" category of endeavors--I felt it only fair that while the rest of the country with "real jobs" took a long 4th of July holiday weekend vacation that I should be required to WORK this weekend...at least until Independence Day.
 
Thus in support of the festering Carport storage closet design project I've been fooling around with for the past year, and with the idea of putting the final touches on the "Wee Pub" in our basement, we ran over to Home Depot for an hour of picking various sizes and shapes of lumber out of bins and off of racks...

...and then we borrowed one of HD's "$19.99 for 75 Minutes" Rental Flat Bed Trucks and dragged a load of lumber back home by mid afternoon.

So now this morning I'm doing the final AutoCAD drawing tweeks and getting ready to start making sawdust ...

...hopefully by 7 AM...

That is, IF I can keep from getting distracted or hurt myself working in my basement shop on a new PLC system simulator panel I've designed. 

I have to use my saber saw to cut a precision square hole in a thermoplastic box, then drill a few dozen holes in the box for lights and switches, and then use a hot soldering iron to hook a bunch of wiring together.

Any one or all of those processes could, with my luck, cause a visit to the emergency room.

Then again, hopefully NOT.

That said, I hope everyone has a LOVELY Fourth of July Independence Day weekend, and besides just standing around drinking beer and burning stuff on the grill or baking your flesh at the beach I hope you take the time to pause and consider what this celebration really means...

...and what you can do personally to help restore some of the "Independence" and self sufficiency which the Government has slowly robbed from our population over the past 200 plus years.

In the very near future none of us are going to be either "Independent" or "Free" if we keep going down the path we are on. 

In my considered Redneck opinion, the government and the hoards of "moocher class" so-called citizens are going to end up legally owning at least half the lives of the "producer class" of patriots, and when that percentage finally exceeds 51% there will officially be a legislatively mandated system of "reverse slavery" in our country in which I will refuse to participate.

I'm going to "live free or die" as the New Hampshire State Motto says...

How about YOU?

Not Much Going On Around Here

...At Least Not Worth Talking/Writing About...


I spent another three hours wrestling with homeowners insurance related issues yesterday--trying to get decent pricing coming even close to matching the ridiculous low ball number which the State Farm "insurance adjuster" has thrown at me over a month ago.

It's been all I can do to restrain myself from grabbing hold of the little sucker and doing some "adjusting" of my own on his head and arms.

I'm really tired of wasting my time on such a simple project as this--getting a hail storm damaged roof replaced.

I guess that the main result which has come out of this irritating convoluted process is a vivid reminder of how inane and inept sales people are that are forced to deal with the "public" on a day in day out basis.

I've spent tens of millions of dollars personally/professionally through the years doing complicated industrial design and construction projects and I'm here to tell you that 99% of the idiots which have shown up at my door or that I've talked to on the telephone about replacing a simple roof would be escorted out of my office or kicked off of my job site the second they opened their mouths to utter a broken incorrect sentence if they were trying to sell products/services in the industrial/commercial market.

Not to insult my regular and "drive-by" readers because I know that if you are here longer than five seconds each day that you are by and large of a intelligent conservative bent...

But still...in a "chicken and egg" kind of question...I have to ask this.

I don't know if it's that the people in the consumer sales profession just start out feckless and stupid to begin with...

...or if it's a matter of dealing with the public all day every day--a group (the public) in this country many of which are becoming dumber and dumber on an ongoing basis--which causes them (the salesmen sales persons) to be and act that way (stupid).

"Stupid is as stupid does" to quote Forrest Gump...but is "Stupid also contagious?"

Any way, I'm pretty much annoyed as heck at the entire process and ready to bring it all to a conclusion shortly.  To that end, I finally found a company yesterday and if they can do what they say and get the insurance company to agree with their price, they have the job.

They're the same people that put our next door neighbor's roof on over two weeks ago without any heartburn for Danny.

In other news, I couldn't care less about the Weiner's weiner photo story any more. I've seen the photos over on gawker.com  and my philosophy of "if you've seen one prick you've basically seen them all" still applies.

The little bastard should just resign and slither on back home if his wife will let him and let the country and the world and the media get on with worrying about something that really matters in the big picture (no pun intended.)

It's still hotter than a blast furnace and dryer than the Sahara Desert around here in Eastern Tennessee.  We're having to water the plants and the garden every day and now the front lawn is starting to dry up and needs to see a sprinkler out on it shortly if we don't get some rain.

Even the Turbo Pup has been sitting inside instead of lounging out on her spot on the deck after about 10 AM each day.  You have to wear flip flops because even the pressure treated wood will burn the bottoms of your feet.

I could use about a week on St. Simons Island--where it's ten degrees cooler each day recently--right now to recharge my spirits, but that's pretty much out of the question right now due to funding considerations.

That said, I guess I'll go take a nap for a few hours so I can get up early and plant another load of Tomato and Pepper plants before the thermometer hits 80 degrees.

I trust that you will have a LOVELY day, and regards Y'all...

Idiots In The Roofing Business

How Do I Hate Thee? Let me Count The Ways...


It's pretty much common knowledge that I've been in the "Industrial Injuneering and Construction Business" on and off for a good part of the past 30 years.

I've also on a much more limited basis been in the residential renovation and construction business for about that same amount of time.

All of the above said, it blows my mind this afternoon that with the current employment situation and economic conditions there is such a large proportion of idiots--many if not most of which probably didn't even manage to graduate from HIGH SCHOOL--which can't manage to answer their own telephone number published on business cards on in the Yellow Pages or on Internet Web Pages...

and in some cases to respond back to me with an intelligent quotation after taking the time to drive up to my house and knock on my front door asking to fix my roof.

Seriously, Ladies and Gentlemen, in the THREE AND ONE HALF WEEKS since my roof and yard was pounded with a golf ball sized hail storm, I've only managed to get two written proposals in hand while at the same time talking in person with six or eight different inarticulate, dis-organized morons representing themselves on the telephone and/or on my front stoop as "professional roofers" or representatives of companies involved in the aforementioned "roofing business."

The "feeding frenzy" surrounding this latest natural disaster is a textbook study in human nature.

These idiots want me to sign a contract...

RIGHT NOW.

...with basically no written proposal in hand...

...and because they can see by the look on my face and the light burning in my eyes that I am not an IDIOT and that I will proceed to "tear them a new asshole" at least proverbially if not literally they don't want to deal with me when they can simply wander on down the street and take advantage of some of our old widow ladies or some absentee owner with a bottomless checkbook.

I offer a sincere "Sorry" to all of you asshats posing as "roofing contractors", but not now or tomorrow or next week or next month will I deal with such a stupid group of (un)professional idiot opportunists.

I believe that I'll just wait for the dust to settle and take my chances on getting someone that actually knows what they are doing rather dealing with those of you out there just responding to the smell of blood CASH in the water.

You know?

Lucky To Be Alive

Counting Our Blessings...


This morning and early afternoon finds me on an emotional roller coaster attempting to keep things moving professionally, while at the same time trying to assess the damage from last night's rain/hail storms and get a few things cleaned up after the furry subsided.

The basement floor is a mess but pretty much dried out except around the edges and in corners, but Pat's carpeted office floor is most likely going to be a total loss because the carpet and pad was a bit old and stinky to begin with and the water I'm pulling out of it with a shop vacuum is the color of swamp water.

Outside, I still have a few tomato plants standing but the hail and water onslaught probably killed half of them and even my new Azalea plants had the blooms beat off of them and stems broken completely off by the hailstones.

Just when I start to get all cranky and feel sorry for myself I catch another news story on TV about the things which went on over in Alabama and down in Georgia and in places nearby here in Eastern Tennessee yesterday afternoon and evening.

We were within a few miles of at least two separate funnel clouds last night, so I guess that I should be happy I still have a roof over my head...all-be-it a damaged set of roof shingles

I have three roofing companies scheduled to come look at my roof in the next few days, and in the mean time I guess I'll go climb up there myself and see what's going on.

No leaks as far as I can tell so far, but I can't believe that my shingles weren't torn up based on the other damage I see on the ground.

Regards Y'all...

"Batten Down The Hatches Captain..."

...And Full Speed Ahead...


I'm sitting here in the dark in my basement shop this evening working on the Old HP Laptop computer running on batteries...

by the light of a flashlight...

...fortunately with the internet Cable modem and router powered by my UPS in the upstairs office.

Right now I'm surrounded by a puddle of water about 1" deep in places around my feet.

You see, we have been POUNDED not once...but TWICE this evening with powerful thunderstorms which I'm sure at one time or other each contained a tornado, and while we missed the tornadic winds we did get excellent examples of pingpong ball to golf ball sized hail for five or ten minutes in each storm.

Then the second storm finally managed to inundate my gutters with torn leaves and other debris, and pile a two foot high dam of hailstones up against my basement door causing my floor drain to stop up and inundate half of my basement including my shop and storage area with about an inch of standing water in some places.

Now the problem is that there is more rain I can see coming on the internet radar, but it's still raining and lightening so much I'm afraid to go outside and try to stand on a ladder and to clear the gutters in the dark.

Maybe I'll get a new shingled roof out of this adventure, else go the path I'm taking with my bank and fire the insurance company and find someone that actually gives a damn in the process.

I knew I should have been working on the roof cleaning gutters rather than chasing a lawn tiller around the back yard last weekend.

Am I getting too old for this crap, or is it just me being lazy?

Lawn Tiller Induced Coma--Part Deaux

I'm Officially A Yard Whimp?


There was a time about a hundred years ago about 20 years ago when I did 99% of my own yard work and generally had one of the best looking yards in our little neighborhood of new houses.

I had a Snapper "high vac" riding lawnmower and a Snapper self propelled walk behind, and a weed eater and a leaf blower and a de-thatcher and a drum aeriator and a gas powered chain saw and just about every hand yard tool known to man.

If something needed cut or chopped or trimmed or killed or planted or otherwise maintained, I was your man and had the knowledge and tools to do it.

Fast forward to the year 2011, and I'm not quite sure what happened (except the ex wife took everything but the little Snapper and the weed eater and the leaf blower in the divorce,) but somehow I've turned into the biggest Lawn Whimp in the annals of recorded history I think.

Today all I have in the way of lawn tools at my disposal is a crappy push mower I resurrected from a neighbor's curb side junk pile (I did rebuild the motor however), a couple of garage sale weed eaters, and a (gasp) ELECTRIC chain saw.

Where I come from no self respecting country Redneck would ever be caught DEAD using an ELECTRIC chainsaw. But I'm a City Redneck now so I can balm my conscience a little...that, and I keep it (the electric chainsaw) hidden in the basement most of the time so family and visitors won't see it and only bring it out to use in emergencies. (Things like a tree or tree branch sticking out of my own forehead and such...)

I was thinking of starting a support group for guys that were raised using a real manly GASOLINE powered chain saw and are forced through age and/or circumstance to use the electric powered toy models like I'm forced to operate these days.

So any wayyyy....as I reported on Saturday, being lacking in the home lawn tool department these days, I ran out and rented a Lawn Tiller from Home Depot for a 24 hour period to use getting my garden plots into order.

Twenty four hours would seem like plenty of time to most people, but for me it's in effect a bit of a rip off considering I can only manage to hang on to the thing for about 15 minutes of each hour.

Then if you deduct the time while I'm hanging onto the handles and the engine is actually running (I'm hanging on the rest of the time to keep from falling down), and you'll find that on average I managed to operate my rented lawn tiller for about 5 minutes each hour.

Doing the math, 5 minutes per hour x 24 hours yeilds a grand total of operating time equal to 120 minutes.

In other words...

TWO HOURS.

Of course I didn't actually come outside after dark and run my rented lawn tiller for five minutes each hour...I was real brave and stacked those minutes up for efficiency sake.

Then I started the motor and plowed around in the dirt until one of two things happened.

A. The tiller ran out of gas...only managed to live that long once.

B. Something broke. Since the tiller was a pretty new Honda model, generally whatever broke was inside of or attached to ME.

Going down the list of aches and pains this morning, besides feeling like my brain has sloshed around inside my cranium like I was a Rodeo Rider on a Bull named "Tornado," I guess that the number two area of damage would be my shoulders around my neck, followed in a close third place with my hands...my callous-less hands which are puffy and don't hurt but actually have no feeling in them right now as I try to type--presumably from the nerve damage.

So after going back to WalMart to buy a quarter ton of "Manure" in neat little 40 pound bags, and some more $1 sale tomato plants (I have a dozen now), I grabbed the tiller motor starter rope and got started about noon yesterday and by about 3:30 PM I was ready to surrender the infernal machine back to it's owners in the Rental Tool Department at Home Depot.

Then we stopped by the local hole in the wall Mexican Restaurant and after consuming an order of Pollo and Carne Fajitas and a couple of Jumbo Gold Margaritas on the Rocks with Salt, I came straight home and landed in my bed.

I woke up about Midnight in a stupor, and I swear I could feel EVERY SINGLE MUSCLE IN MY BACK, LEGS, AND ARMS. 

That is, if you can call what I have in my body these days Muscles. 

The way my body is declining I think that even the word "Flab" would be an overstatement. 

If I used the words "my flab is hurting" I think that I'd risk insulting  Richard Simmons and his swarm of "Sweating to the Oldies" followers.

Hold on...wait...oh no...I think that the top of my head even hurts right now, but I can't feel it because my hands are numb.

OK, I have to go now and see if I can find a position in bed which doesn't make me want to call 911...

Pray for my recovery...and regards Y'all...

One Step Forward

Two Steps Back...


Well, yesturday I spent four hours playing "ditch digger from hell" to no avail...

The water line here was installed 27 years ago and additional driveway surface has been installed since and we have only a very general idea where it runs through the property.

I removed the St. Augustine Grass sod in chunks and dug a a ditch 15" to 18" deep along a 20' section of the drive adjacent to the leak and didn't find anything.

Today I'm going for getting another 6" of depth in some of the trench and after that it's up to the professionals to find it.

Then because I couldn't find THAT leaking pipe, just for fun I started fooling around with the water heater flushing the pressure/temperature relief valve and when I was done IT STARTED LEAKING.

Then for even more fun I tried to turn off the cold water supply valve to the water heater and it was STUCK from probably not being used in 15 or 20 years , and then when I managed to break it free it wouldn't close completely and get this...

IT STARTED LEAKING AROUND THE SHAFT!

Probably from the age of the valve and sediment building up in the valve seat and around the seal on the shaft.

So after I managed to screw the top back on the top of my head covering my exploded brain, we had to turn off the water to the whole house and make the obligatory trip to Lowe's for two valves and PVC pipe and fittings and so on and so on.

Now I have about 7 hours left after daylight to fool around in my ditch and install two valves on the water heater and get back to the airport for the return flight to Knoxtown later this afternoon.

If on FOX News you see anyone killed in a water heater explosion or drowning in a freak water pipe accident, check the name and location on the story because--the way things are going right now--there's a good possibility it might be ME. 

Injuneering Pop Quiz

Keeping My head Warm Like A Serving of French Fries Under a Heat Lamp....


Tonight I'm going to wander around in the basement with a pair of wire cutters in my hands and try to finish installing the six recessed Can Lights and three or four outlets in the new Wee Pub A.K.A. "The Turbopup Bar and Grill."

I mentioned earlier that I had pulled the two new electrical service feeds into the basement through a new conduit run bolted to the wall in the carport from the breaker panel, and then Tuesday I drilled out all of the floor joists and pulled the wire up overhead out of the way.

Tonight I'm planning on finishing up the wiring to the Can Light Fixture bodies in the Bar ceiling  and anything else I can think of because...

I have two brand new unused TWENTY AMP BREAKER CIRCUITS!

(My bellybutton has been puckering and unpuckering for the past few days I'm so excited.)

For the laymen in the crowd and those of you that went to engineering school at Fatima Tech or LSU, let's review the design calculations:

Assuming 110 Volts AC as the input power source, a 20 Amp breaker can in theory handle 2200 Watts (2.2 KW) of load, but then reducing things by a 80% safety factor that's still 1760 Watts total...

or an amount equal to a little more than seventeen 100 watt light bulbs.

Since I'm only using six fixtures and the fixtures are rated at 65 Watts each, my lighting load is only 390 Watts.

And then I want to add two wall receptacles and a dedicated 110 VAC outlet for a recessed flat screen TV behind the Bar area, and thus I still have 1370 Watts of capacity to serve the receptacles with all of the lights turned on and Bing Crosby or Elvis playing on the faux wood grained enclosed eight track tape deck.  I also have an old turntable which might appear to play a few albums I still have in vinyl format.

Come to think of it I also have an old Victrola sitting under a layer of dust in the back corner of the basement so I may end up with an addition which is "standing room only" when it is virtually empty.

Things will be getting out of hand if they keep going like they are, and people in Egypt and Iraq probably envy the dirt I walk on these days, if they even have electricity or live in houses with basements and floor joists to drill holes into.

Excuse me for gloating I guess...but still...

Now...has anyone seen my wire nuts and electrical tape because it's time to get to work?

Self-Induced Home Improvement Insanity

What Ever You Do...Don't Listen To The "Professionals"...


So there I was, sitting around all comfortable on my sofa some time last Summer--I think it was in June or July of 2009--when I put down my beer and I said to my self...I said:

"Self...you need get up off of your butt, drive down to Home Depot, and get the stuff needed to replace that old crappy 48 year old painted carport door you have there in the Kitchen with a nice stained wooden French door with lots of windows."

Then in an extended conniption fit of mental malaise, I said..."and while you are at it, why not cut a hole through the wood and bricks in the back wall of the dining room and put in another Painted French door with a bunch of glass..."

And then, for the grand Finale...

"If you do all of that stuff, you're just gonna have to buy a another 6'-8" high by 3'-0" wide 100 pound slab of wood and replace your front door, but this time make it solid and just drill a little, itty, bitty hole, in it and put in one of those peep-hole thingies so you can spy on who ever is at your door rather than just looking out the giant picture window two feet away."

And so I did.

BUY all of that stuff needed to do all of those projects last summer.

Problem is, by the time I got the hole pounded through the back wall of the house through the bricks and the associated new deck finished...

and did I mention the new Turbo Pup door in the wall, also cut through solid brick?

It was all I could manage to do to get the old carport door taken down and the new bare door slab cut to match the existing hinges and door strike positions in the old hand built, vintage 1963 wood door frames.

Thus through last winter and all of this spring and summer until about three weeks ago two of my three new doors (not counting the Turbo Pup door) hung un-stained/un-painted in their openings.

And the new front door slab?

It's a random piece of art still today out on my carport (hoping to be installed next week.)

And any way, recently I opened up the year old cans of wood grain sealer and Maple colored stain and Spar Polyurethane and proceeded to slather a new color and finish on the bare wood of the Carport door.

Problem was, instead of using blue painters' masking tape to cover the glass of TWELVE GLASS PANES, I listened to an acquaintance's father who is a self proclaimed "professional" house painter and he told me to just slap the finish on the door and then use a razor blade and mineral spirits to clean the stain and paint off when I was finished.

I'd like to just write the word "W R O N G" here and be done with the subject.

But...

I my considered Redneck experience the guy just wasn't  W R O N G, he was freaking stoned or hallucinating.

I've just gotten through with three days working part time dealing with the biggest clean up mess ever seen since a buddy's wife decided to give her dog an enema  (don't ask.)

At first I swore that dynamite wouldn't get the crap off of the glass panes of my new door.

But then finally, using  a combination of razor blades, a chemical called "Goof Off" (Imagine that), and some 000 steel wool along with a pint of Vodka (internal operator lubricant) and some massive personal determination as of about three PM today I have a fairly nice looking new French door.

And all I know is my "Professional" painter might have suffered a good cursing out if I had seen him this past week while I was suffering (and twenty five years ago there might have been black eyes and broken noses involved in the proceedings.)

But any way, one and one-half doors installed (paint on the rear French door going on tomorrow), and then next week I hope to get the front door cut in and installed before the first snow storm.

Wish me luck...If you will...

Age Old Old Age Paranoia

Am I Getting Ready To Hunker Down Or Just Bug Out?


I just realized today that looking at me and my stuff from the outside, one could easily accuse me of becoming paranoid in my old age middle age.

For instance, ever since I moved to Florida back on September 12, 2001 (I was supposed to leave Atlanta on 9/11 but the dang Saudis got in my way), and continuing over to St. Simons Island, Georgia and now the past few years up here in Knoxtown at the Turbo Pup Compound I've spent more and more time and money on stuff that I don't need yesterday or even today, but that I might need in the event of an emergency next week or next month or next year...

...or the year after that.

Stuff like gallon jugs of drinking water sitting around in the bottom of hall closets.

Or the 1.5 KW electric generator that's still shrink wrapped in it's original cardboard box.

How about dozens of candles and matches and lighters and the two antique oil burning lanterns and wicks and fuel in the Dining room Sideboard cabinet?

And then there is the kerosine heater likewise sitting in it's original packaging unopened in the basement beside the generator.

Now it's come to my attention that not only do I need to worry about living past a Hurricane when residing on the Ocean or a snow/ice storm here in Knoxtown, but now with Obama and the Democrats' lax attitude toward the production of Nuclear weapons by North Korea and now Iran...

I'm still short of some other critical components in my ultimate dooms day inventory.

Things like extra charcoal for my grill to be stored in the basement for future use.

Or some additional canned non-perishable food stuffs--possibly some military style MRE's (meals ready to eat)--to cover a few weeks if not months,and now I want to build something to protect a few pieces of electronic equipment in the event of an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack by some wild eyed towel headed morons.

I have an extra laptop PC and a AC/DC radio and some other stuff that would be valuable in the event of an infrastructure breakdown and I've learned that in order to keep a giant blast of electrical noise from frying everything that it is possible to build what is called a "Faraday Cage"--basically a metal screen enclosed storage box, area, or even an entire room...which is connected to a dedicated ground wire and grounding rod.

The idea is that through the laws of physics (which I understand but won't bore you with Gausian surface theory this morning) the system will collect the burst of energy from a lightening strike or nuclear EMP bomb and short it around the shielded area and into the ground in an effort to protect the delicate chips in modern electronic devices so they won't fry themselves.

So any way, now instead of spending time blogging further this morning, I'm going to go back to my research efforts and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll add this feature to my ever growing basement bunker complex.

Meanwhile, don't be a stranger. Just call before you stop by, and knock before you enter, because until after the November election my trigger finger is a little twitchy for some reason.

Regards Y'all...

Construction Progress

Diggin' Holes And Makin' Sawdust...


Fortunately for me and the American Healthcare system I'm the Architect/Engineer on this adventure, and as a result younger, stronger, more flexible and resilient men are making good progress on my Neighbor's sun room addition project.

Here's a look at the first 10 days (16 days on the calendar) of work.

A ditch full of re bar waiting on concrete:

A Cement truck load slopping in the ditches:

Footers and back fill in place ready for the slabs:




Walls framed up, waiting on a roof:






Ridge beam in place and rafters set...






It will have a roof skin and shingles by the end of the day Wednesday...

...and it sure is easier to stand around taking pictures and pointing at drawings rather than running a saw and climbing scaffolding.

And of course I get some credit for the design.

It's Saturday And I Should Be Working...

I'm An Expert At Procrastination...


Dang It...

It's already 10:30 AM and I'm still sitting here in my underwear my PJ's doing anything and everything but what it is I'm supposed to be doing this morning.

Normally we do our grocery shopping early on Saturday morning, but today I slept in late after being up until 4 AM thrashing around in the shop and smoking the last couple of inches of yesterday afternoon's cigar on the front porch listening to the crickets chirp.

I'm having a hard time getting motivated because this current project has been laying around on the test bench for so long and I'm just generally tired of looking at it but somehow I'm going to have to muster a Herculean effort to wrap things up and get it all out the door in a cloud of dust on Monday...TWO WEEKS LATE.

Better to be late had have a product that works than be on time with something that at best makes a nice giant desk paper weight...you know?

Of course as is usual I have a multitude of distractions which are infinitely more interesting than the things in front of me which must be done...on time hopefully.

There's the new front porch decking design and installation...

Or the new Carport storage/utility closet design...

Or just sitting around on my deck watching the Turbo Pup give the world a good barking while contemplating my belly button...

You get my drift.

I'm so distracted and lazy that I can't even take the time to bitch about the stupid goings on in Washington DC...so I'll leave all of that stuff to you and your own devices.

Time to go do today's crossword puzzle, clip my toe nails, wash a little laundry, do some dishes...

anything but stagger around in my shop looking at electronics will do right now.

Oh...

And Y'all have a LOVELY Saturday...if you will...

Sunshine & Cigars

Lethargy Sets In Again...


Between raining most of the first part of this week since we've been back home from Lower Alabama, and with low temperatures creeping into the upper 40's last night, I've basically spent most of my time the past three or four days goobering around here in front of the computer or sleeping trying to catch up from missing most of my daily naps last week.

Then yesterday afternoon I made a half hearted effort to install a couple of new downspouts on my rain guttering system--getting one cut to size and half way hung up into place but not ending up being in a satisfactory condition by happy hour time yesterday evening.

I left the ladder standing against the house and the semi-finished run of pipe dangling there in suspended animation, so now I'm trying to force myself out from in front of the computer screen with a burst of energy sufficient to finish that effort and then duplicate it on the other side of the carport on the front of the house.

And then of course the deck and deck chairs are calling to me because it's warmed up into the mid 70's and it would be easy to ignore all of the "homeowner crap" that needs to be done and just pour a mid afternoon drink and go sit and squint in the sunshine for a couple of hours listening to Rush Lindbaugh spit on his microphone.

OK...taking a big breath...I'm going out to the jobsite driveway and see if I can get something done now.

Regards Y'all...

Toys "Stuff" In My Attic...

"The trouble with owning a home is that no matter where you sit, you're looking at something you should be doing."


So on a whim I went up into my attic this afternoon. For some reason I hadn't had reason to make that journey since we had the home inspected prior to closing in 2008.

The visit lasted about 15 minutes but only covered the area that the previous owner had decked out with wooden planks for storage...I didn't feel like sticking a knee or foot through the hall or dining or kitchen ceiling and/or having to tape and mud "Virgil shaped holes" in the sheet rock.

I just got through climbing back down, dusted the insulation off my elbows and knees and folded the attic staircase back up into it's hole in the ceiling and as usual with home ownership my head is spinning with ideas and a list of things I need to do up there.

The real purpose of the journey was to look at the wiring in the master bedroom and at how hard it would be to add a light or lights in the expanded walk-in closet I'm planning on building this spring.

The good news is that adding lighting will be a piece of cake, the bad news is that I just can't leave it at ten feet of 14/2 wire and a 4x4 ceiling box...I noticed another half dozen things that need to be done before the temperature returns to spring/summer daytime levels.

Heck, I've got plenty of time on my hands...all I need is THE MONEY...

Re: No Re-Bar In Haiti?

Stealing Steeling Safety & Prosperity


A couple of things have bothered me the past couple of weeks as I have watched the TV news footage and look at newspaper photos of the damage and desperation after the earthquake down in Haiti.

I'm not talking about looking at things from the standpoint of being a God fearing Human faced with unbelievable amounts of carnage and death. What I'm talking about this morning is a subtle point which to the layman could be easily missed when in passing you see all of the scenes of death and destruction and suffering...

UNLESS you can take the time to clear you mind and see the details beyond the humanity and mortal horrors you're seeing.

Excuse me if I am wrong, but I'm pretty darn sure that I haven't seen much if any structural steel reinforcement---what we call "re-bar"--in the concrete walls and floors and ceilings in most of the photos of the collapsed buildings in Haiti be it a Cathedral or a "Palace" or a peasant's home on the side of a hill.

I guess it's just my "Forensic Injuneer" senses activating when I see something that has broke and hurt/killed someone.

In my considered Redneck opinion, I say that the people of Haiti, sitting on a known seismic fault line (which is beyond most of the indigenous population's control) and building everything out of hand mixed and hand poured concrete or cement or whatever they call their "cast and precast masonry construction methods," without secondary steel tension reinforcing, are the victims of a horrid infrastructural framework which could have done nothing but lead to eventual failure and disaster.

Any second year engineering student which has taken Statics and Dynamics and Deformable Bodies and a couple of quarters of materials science knows this to be a fact.

I ask myself..."Where do they go from here?"

I've spent a good deal of time in South Florida, the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and the Caribbean and have always been envious of the solid concrete construction methods covered with stucco and tile.

Problem is, that in practice these methods as implemented originate with the "tabby" form of primitive concrete fabrication also used here in Coastal Georgia and Florida in the 17th and 18th century by colonial settlers who, faced with limited wood resources (or in Georgia trees so huge like the giant "Live Oaks" so as to be unsuitable for being used for construction of anything smaller than a navy sailing ship keel.)

Salty water and sand and limestone in the form of ground up sea shells and bits of ancient coral reef fragments make a lovely fireplace or impromptu footing for a patio gazebo and is fairly stable when the wind blows at hurricane force.

But when the ground starts jumping up and down and shakes five feet from side to side things aren't worth a crap unless there is some steel inside, in the form of high strength rods buried somewhere there in the middle or a couple of inches in from each surface.

In the end it's all a reality of simple physics...readily understood today.

And yet it doesn't take new and improved and ever more intrusive "building codes" to drive home this grim realization...but that seems to be the only rationalization and realization and solution I keep hearing tendered by the idiot talking heads in the newspaper and TV news blurbs.

All of that said, my problem is...

What can we do about it all?

Passing a new building code won't undo the destruction which has already been done, and raising the cost of construction to meet codes like those in Atlanta or San Francisco or Knoxtown or on the gulf coast in Panama City Beach Florida today in Haiti-- a country which can't afford running water and indoor toilets--is counter-productive if implemented in a typical government induced heavy handed fashion.

Earlier this morning I wandered over to the Habitat for Humanity Website trying to see what they were up to, but all I see is platitudes and requests for money to send down to Haiti.

I'm proud to tell you that I'm not sending the government and country of Haiti one single dollar until I see some resolution to change what has been going on down there over the past TWO HUNDRED YEARS.

Encouraging poor people to live in mud stucco huts while they produce generation after Generation after GENERATION of little humans in squalor, without any hope of financial success and a lifestyle above abject poverty unless they escape to the US or get a job in major league baseball of the NBA is not in my mind a good use of my time and effort and currently limited financial resources.

Falling back on my experience as a volunteer project manager with Habitat for Humanity, I would, however, enjoy the opportunity to help design and build some sort of shelter or home or condo or abode of any/every other description which is feasable for erection in this geographic situation.

I guess it's just a little too soon to get started with the implementation of that sort of effort until the dust settles. It would be cool to come up with some idea besides government trailers like FEMA foisted on the Katrina Victims, but maybe that's the way to go.

Hey, that's it...let's put all of those used and new left over government trailers which were misused and abused three and four and five years after the hurricane onto a boat and ship them down to Haiti.

You and I have already paid for them with our tax dollars, and selling them for scrap is an inferior resolution to GIVING them to someone that actually deserves them and could put them to good use.

Works for me...

How about YOU?

Cold Snow Day

Hot In The Basement...


Well, I'm back up thrashing around this morning trying to avoid the inevitable 8 hours slaving away building stuff people want to pay me to do, and looking at the Internet weather sites I see that the snow has made it somewhere between here and Nashville this morning.

According to my back yard weather station it's 18 degrees F and the projection is we'll have a major heat wave arriving after noon with the temperatures climbing all the way up to FREEZING for the first time in nearly a week.

The forecast is for 1 to 2 inches of the white stuff with flurries continuing over the next couple of days, and since everything outside my front and back doors is frozen solid I expect that it will stick around for a while this time.

The good news is that the newly installed insulation and space heater has half of the basement warm and toasty.

Honestly I should be working on control panels rather than blogging right now, but my brain is fried and I have some sort of mental block which is keeping me from making some of the program logic work the way it's supposed to--I'm still saying the first PLC is possessed by some demon...

Any way, my Sales Rep for the PLC's and IR Probes is stopping by later today so I have to clean up the kitchen after last night's Pizza construction extravaganza and go pick up the socks and underwear and puppy toys out of the living room floor make a little more progress on the second panel so I have something to show him while asking him idiotic clueless questions.

Y'all have a LOVELY day in the cold...if you will...

I Can't Leave Well Enough Hard Enough Alone

Additional Pain & Suffering Courtesy of Home Depot...


I was staring at my railing painting project the past few days and couldn't help notice the pealing reddish/brown paint on the front porch and guess what???

I went BACK to Home Depot and spent another hundred dollars on Muric acid and paint stripper chemicals and grinding stuff and exterior concrete patio paint and now I have to go and burn my eyes and skin removing the crappy paint off the railing and the porch surfaces.

Did I mention getting the existing paint splatters off the front brick wall surfaces?

I'm crazy I guess but I've started and now I have to finish.

Dang it...