Warm Weather's Going To Kill Me

Carefull What You Wish For...


It was over 60 degrees here at the TurboPup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River this weekend.

Closer to 70 degrees in my back yard this afternoon I think.

So...you know me... in a spastic fit of home improvement and landscaping efforts employing pent up energy from enduring a couple of months of snow and ice and just generally crappy weather, I wandered out into my yard with my chain saw and wheel barrow and some other tools and a bunch of good intentions.

I was determined to clear the small overhanging trees and other crap off of my back property line which was shading a good portion of my garden plot last summer.  I also have a gigantic Crepe Myrtle tree on the Southwest corner of the property which was shading another portion of the garden from the sun in the late afternoon which in my mind had to go.

Three hours on Saturday, and another three hours today, and now I have a pile of logs and limbs the size of a small school bus laying there annoying me.  It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow and turn cold again this week so processing the pile further and getting a burn permit and disposing of the mess is out of the question for a while.

You know what?

GOOD THING, because I'm such a middle aged wimp that I've seen all I need to see of the Chain Saw and other yard tools for about a month.

So it's back onto the Patent Engineering work and more PLC programming this week sitting like a little nerd in my shop in the basement.

I hope Y'all have a LOVELY week also...

Southern Snow

Missed Us Again...


So I'm sitting here watching as my Mom's getting 3" to a foot of snow today in LOWER ALABAMA within 110 miles of the Gulf Coast of Florida.

A giant swath of land between there and Atlanta...extending all the way to our little Island on the Georgia Coast to Savannah and Charleston are getting weather they only see every ten or fifteen years, and yet...

I've spent the last month and one half freaking out because I don't have a fireplace in my house and although I have a small electrical generator still in the box...left over from living in the occasional paths of summertime hurricanes, I have nothing to make heat with here but a blow dryer and a heating pad if we finally get the two degrees and 100 mile shift in the moisture and cold air needed to really dump some winter weather on top of our heads and onto our electrical power lines.

All of that said, I'm pleased to report that I just returned home from Home Depot with a lovely kerosene fired heater and a Five Gallon Kerosene container...both of which are now resting happily on top of my unused Electrical Generator in the Basement.

I also received my Chocolate flavoring and coloring oils a day early, so when I'm not banging around on pneumatic valves in the basement or entertaining company I might just throw together another batch of Truffles just for fun with Valentines Day approaching.

Hope every body's warm and safe and enjoying the winter weather if they can, I'm having a L A R G E time all day every day if you haven't noticed...

The Weather's Here

Wish I Were Beautiful Was 20 Years Younger


OK, we officially have a winter storm going on outside my back door.

The forecast has bounced all over the chart today, steadily rising from the 4" to 6" range this morning to a high of 8" to 12" around dinner time, then settling back to 7" to 11" right now...looking at the deck we've already had a couple of inches and they say most will come after midnight.

Toss on top of that the predicted extra 3 or so inches tomorrow and this will probably set my personal record for the second or third largest snowfall outside a building I owned.

Of course the "Blizzard of '93" in Atlanta is still the record for me and will hopefully continue to be if I have anything to say about getting the hell out of here and back to the Georgia Coast sometime in late 2010 or early 2011.

I like snow still, don't get me wrong...I used to love it and pay money to travel to ski slopes and ride cabled contraptions to the top of mountains so I could slide down on a pair of expensive rented planks, but with my bad circulation in my legs and torso and 50 years of mileage on the rest of my body a good snow once or twice every ten years is about all I need to feel fulfilled in life.

You know you're getting old when you see a "snow event" as they call it on the Weather Channel as an annoying inconvienance or a "Photo Opportunity" rather than a good reason to miss school or work and run around outside like an idiot doing cartwheels and getting soaking wet and risking frostbite.

Since everyone at my house works from home, and since this storm hit on a Friday it really doesn't provide anything but a little drama and an opportunity to try out the new snow shovel and sled tomorrow.

Twenty five years ago I'd already be outside walking around in the stuff as it comes down tonight, but more recently we've had three or four small snows in the past two winters that I didn't even put on shoes and leave the house until most of it had melted.

I guess that there's a time for most everything in life, but these day's I just look for some Spanish Moss draped Live Oaks, a little beach sand, and warm coastal breezes and leave the frozen powder to the youngsters.

Things I'm Recently Responsible For...

(And I Bet You Don't Know Anyone Else What Did All These Things This Week...)

I Was The Only Local Veteran On Veteran's Day - This year found me to be the only Veteran in my workplace...which is pretty strange to a guy that grew up outside an Army base and yet only served in the US Navy Reserve for two years as a volunteer during Carter's so called "Presidency."

I did my time concurrent with my tenure in the Navy ROTC at Georgia Tech, and today I'd gladly jump back on board any boat they'd fill up with gas or diesel and give me the keys to; or climb back into the cockpit of anything with wings they could cram my crumpled up middle aged ass into, but as it is right now I guess I'll just settle for pounding on my keyboard in support of the efforts of men and women who need the work, feel the call to duty, and care about kicking the asses of the sniveling bastards overseas that want to run over the helpless and the hopeless peoples of this planet.

I Made A Roux--My own personal flirtation with Cajun Napalm--which would consist of about a cup of Peanut Oil and a little bit more than a cup of plain old white flour, heated up in a big skillet on my stove and stirred continuously until the mixture is a color somewhere between that of Peanut Butter and Chocolate.

I Put My Roux In My Gumbo--A stock made from a whole chicken, cut up and cooked slow in a giant pot along with chunks of garlic and carrot and celery and onion, then after straining everything but the clear liquid and the edible chunks of meat out...

tossed back into the pot with a couple pounds of Andoilli Sausage, more of the Holly Trinity (Onion, Celery, and Green Bell Pepper), the aforementioned Roux, and simmered slowly with things like salt and Cayenne pepper and finally the coup de gras...

a couple of pounds of Okra

thrown in for good measure.

All of this stuff, along with about ten cups of rice and Pat's dessert efforts, will be showing up at my office about 7 AM this morning to meet up with my fellow injuneer Tony's Cornbread.

Feel free to get yourself a bowl and spoon and come join us about noon...

If you will.

The Three Hundred Dollar Sixty Dollar Doors

Nearly Out Smarting Myself...


When we exited our recent real estate closing, one of the only things that still hadn't been refinished or replaced inside of our new/old house here in Knoxtown was the interior doors.

They were actually still in pretty good condition considering that they were over 40 years old, but through the years the old luan finish had been painted on the side facing into the individual rooms and the hinges and knobs were showing their age and I--being the self proclaimed king of "Do-it-yourselfers" in Eastern Tennessee--decided they needed replacement about the time we moved in back in late April.

The process of replacing an interior door today on a newer home can be as easy as pulling out the old pre-hung door/frame/casing and sliding in a new door/frame assembly, securing it in place, and installing new trim.

Home Depot and Lowe's have entire isles filled with assemblies from which to choose if you're interested.

Not so in houses built in the days when Men were Men and battery powered screw guns weren't invented.

My Old doors were custom built into the rough 2x4 openings and the edges were hand cut to accept the hinges and knob assemblies. Further, as I learned this weekend, in 1966 in Knoxtown a 24" door was actually 23-3/4" wide and the 32" doors varied somewhere between 31-3/4" and 32" wide, depending on the room (and mood) you were in while holding your saw and chisel.

So any way, back in early May when I ordered and had delivered the picket fence panels I've since returned for Missy the Turbo Pup's Country Canine Compound, I also had a single 32" x 6'-8" interior six-panel door slab dropped in my carport with the intention of testing my ability to complete the necessary replacement process on a single door.

Silly me...

What has ensued since in my well intended saga was a tool purchasing orgy verging on the absurd, delayed by weeks of time spent at first waiting on tools to arrive from E-bay vendors and most recently by sheer procrastination.

Regardless, I'm proud to report that as of about two PM this afternoon I had successfully hung SIX new door slabs in all of the interior door openings of our abode.

Take a look with me as I reminisce about all of the contraptions and doo-hickies I had to acquire and add to my ever growing tool collection in order to accomplish this super-human feat.

Here's a view looking at one of the old doors covered with the weapons used to wrestle it from it's frame and install it's replacement.



See that long thin ominous looking thing there on the right stretching almost the full height of the door?

That's almost $200 worth of Bosch door hinge template designed to make cutting the little depressions needed in the door frame and slab easier. Since my door frames already had hinges previously, my project was supposed to be half as hard and twice as much fun, Right?

It only took about three weeks after the template showed up in a box at my front door for me to actually USE IT for it's intended purpose.

And here's what really started it all--a nice glass covered box featuring router bits of all sizes, shapes, and purposes. (Anyone but me notice that only the 1/2" straight bit is missing? Why pass up the opportunity to buy a "set" when you only need one item is my policy--it should be yours too.)



Next we come to the router motor department. I already had the big old cheep Black and Decker router there on the right...the little Bosch Palm router was purchased while still under the mistaken belief that the router bit template which worked with the aforementioned router door hinge template required the Palm router to complete my new project.



Turns out I was wrong, and the new bit template only fits routers built by Bosch that have been discontinued and only are available used on E-bay. Since the word "return" isn't in my policy statement when it comes to new tools, the little palm router still sits unused in it's plastic storage box as I write this evening.

Finally, we come to the mundane tools that are a necessity on every project...things like clamps and cordless screwdrivers and stuff:



I will point out that that yellow and black thing there on the right below the Dewalt Screw gun is a Dewalt door knob template that lets you cut the hole for the knob and the strike without having to make any measurements except the distance from the bottom of the door slab to the center line of the holes.

I'll never live without one again, and I just may mount it in a frame and hang it on the wall in my office because it was worth every penny when working on six doors in one effort.

And regarding my original posting title? What started out as one three hundred dollar door (actually four hundred if you include the palm router) has been reduced to six sixty dollar doors through the economy of scale and mass production.

Regardless of the cost, I still claim the self-appointed title of KING OF HOME IMPROVEMENT in Eastern Tennessee this evening. Who cares about actually saving money if you're having fun in the process and not causing any fatal injuries?

So now all that's left to do now is take them all back outside after work this week to add some paint, and then bring them back inside and re-install them each in their own little openings to hopefully provide privacy for the next fifty years.

Time to tackle some electrical wiring in the basement now...a home owner's work is never done...

I've Been Unfaithful

A New Blog Has My Attention...


Sorry for the light posting the past couple of days, but the effects of 10 hour work days and the demands of my home improvement projects, not to mention the two to four hours spent in the wee hours of each morning finishing up the Certified Construction drawings for the Mississippi stack project just haven't allowed time for much of anything else except sleep.

I did manage to put together the new Knoxville Tenn CANstruction Blog template in about an hour on Tuesday night after Pat and I had lunch with the President of the Eastern Tennessee chapter of the American Institute of Architects regarding restarting the CANstruction effort here in Knoxville after a four year absence.

We're hoping for fifteen teams to put together structures in late October and be able to raise about $25,000 worth of food and cash as a result of our efforts.

Time will tell...I guess.

Time to go back to the AutoCAD drawings now...y'all have a good day.

A Bird Snake In Hand...

What About TWO Snakes In One Day???


Yesterday was our first official "Yard Day" here at the new homestead in the "Knoxtown" section of Eastern Tennessee.

Being the obstinate SOB that I am, I was intent on standing up all day and sweating my ass off in whatever heat Mother Nature threw at me, but just to be sure I got started by 8 AM and I hired a crew of guys to handle the real heavy lifting.

As I doddered around in the back yard working on my picket fence project surrounding Missy the Turbo Pup's new Country Compound and Resort Hound Spa (hereafter referred to as the CCRHS), I had major chainsaw work going on in the front yard removing a Forest of overgrown shrubbery and two medium evergreen trees that had outlived their positions in the landscape.

About an hour into the morning's ceremony yard guy #2 (also known as "Mr. Leaf Blower Man") reported that we had (A) a Mockingbird's nest full of baby birds in the aforementioned overgrown shrubbery and (B) a large rat snake chasing said birds in same.

After a little program plan adjustment and screwing around, the Baby Mockingbird's nest was salvaged and Mr. Rat Snake--a four foot long specimen--shown here, was captured and relocated to the back yard (is that Mr. Leafblower Man or some just some Construction Hippy that showed up in my yard?):



As the sun rose in the sky and the heat index climbed past 100 degrees F, I switched into my middle aged yard wimp mode and came inside to shower and make a trip to the grocery store in anticipation of our weekly upcoming Pizza night extravaganza.

By Three PM my hired yard crew had cut and hauled away two thirty foot trees and a bunch of overgrown shrubbery and departed the scene, and while preparing for the late afternoon phase of the day's work I found yet another smaller Rat Snake moseying across the back lawn toward the house:



As you can see, I captured the little booger and returned him/her to the tree line behind the house. What blew my mind was that not thirty minutes later I had to capture the Son of Gun AGAIN within ten feet of his first known position.

I don't mind snakes of the non-poisonous variety, but I also hope that we've seen most if not all of our scaly slithering friends already this weekend and that I don't spend my time chasing snakes through the balance of the summer.

Someone Beat Me To The Thought

The Old Doctor Had It Right...


A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

Hippocrates, "Regimen in Health", Greek physician (460 BC - 377 BC)

Things That Make My Life worth living Easier

Simple Pleasures


In the kitchen there's this contraption...




In the car this strange thing keeps Pat from getting lost in a new town while I'm at work...

And when I get another boat, this old friend will tell me where I've been and where I need to go at the end of the day:



Life truly is grand, even if I can't see the Ocean.

Fruits Of My Labor

A Weak Day Week Day Off...


Well folks, I can check "Work Week II" off the old To-Do list this morning.

So far so good, and working four ten hour days every other week to get in my 40 hours will definitely yield benefits necessary to balm my professional beach bum spirit...

...two three day weekends every month this summer, without taking a day of vacation!!!

How cool is that?

Meanwhile, even though today is a well earned "holiday", I plan on spending the morning putting together two of my patented home made Pizzas--one Hawaiian and one "Garbage" (everything)--and delivering them to the lunch room at my new office about noon today.

I let the word leak out earlier and one guy (Russ) that's on my "four-ten" schedule is driving in for lunch even though he's supposed to be off today because he can't stand missing the event.

I hope I don't freeze up under the pressure...wish me luck...if you will.

Quote O' The Day

More Samuel Clemmons...


"It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them." (would someone please call John sKerry?)

"I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell -- you see, I have friends in both places."

"Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon."

"Sometimes too much drink is barely enough."

"Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody."

--Samuel Clemmons (1835-1910)

And finally, this original proverb:

"All work and no play makes me a dull boy..."

--Sir Virgil Rogers (1959- )

Quote O' The Day

Listen....


"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day."

Then there is this insightful gem:

"I'm gonna live until I die."

- Frank Sinatra


More (a few minutes later)...

“All day long, they lie in the sun, and when the sun goes down, they lie some more.”


“I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn't be a staring contest.”

“When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out.”

“Oh, I just wish someone would try to hurt you so I could kill them for you.”


And finally...the greatest Sinatra line of ALL TIME:

“Do be do be do.”

Successful Week Ends

None Too Soon...


Dang am I ever happy that this past week is over with. Not to say that we didn't get a heck of a lot accomplished, but I can't expect to continue the pace I had set for myself and maintain my sanity and ever improving health.

To start the week out, my delinquent Suburban unexpectedly arrived by auto carrier late Monday afternoon--undamaged.

Then as the week unfolded I actually was busy at work catching up on using AutoCAD 2006 while developing a couple of projects for a Coke (as in steel mill Coke, not the soft drink) facility up in Ohio.

Meanwhile I worked six out of seven of the past evenings for at least three hours finishing up the design and drawings for the Mississippi stack project. The calcs and drawing go to the customer later this morning.

Missy the Turbo Pup had a busy week keeping everyone in line with her little herding standards, then she finished with a flourish by JUMPING OUT OF THE BASKET ON PAT'S BICYCLE WHILE ROLLING DOWN THE ROAD AT 10 MPH.

I was driving at the time and freaked out as she lept over the front of the bike, but other than bruising her ego apparently she was uninjured by the impromptu gymnastic feat. I scooped her up and hauled her little butt home without further incident.

Then we learned by telephone that our old Condo neighborhood at Sea Palms on St. Simons took a direct hit by a tornado late yesterday afternoon. I hope everyone is OK down there, but I'm glad we're a few hundred miles north of the action this morning.

This week will feature work during the day and continued organization of my home office and basement workshop--areas that have been neglected thus far in our efforts to move in and settle down into a new ritual in a new setting.


Hope you all have a lovely week, and I'll try to come up with something glib to rant about now that I've got a little spare time on my hands.

Am I Totally Wrong?

To Put Grecian Formula on my body hair?


OH Yeah...you know what I'm talkin' about ladies and gentlemen...that hair that started out living up there on top of my 6 foot plus frame... and now resides in other lower level places (other than on my face and on top of my knotty head...)

Can you say RHETORICAL Question?

(Regardless of your position on the matter,now I dare you to try to put THAT mental picture out of your shuddering head this evening (whether you actually know me or not...)

Haaaah...Got 'Cha...

PS: I really didn't do it...I just thought of it for a while and wrote about it because I'm desperate for Blog content.

'Nother Day...

...'Nother Dollar


If you don't count entertaining guests, I'm happy to report that I did virtually nothing after 5 PM yesterday for the first time in a month.

Wooo Hoooooooooooo...

What I did was that I managed to get finished with a quickie project at my day job by 4 PM and was home a few minutes later, then after another round of hanging artwork for Pat and Ski I spent a few hours co-hosting our first Open House party.

I think a good time was had by all, and when I laid my head on my pillow a little after ten, the next thing I knew it was nearly daylight and the computer and the spreadsheets were sitting here alone, feeling neglected.

So sue me...

Pre--Occupation

Is THAT...What I Used To Do For A Living?


Constipation...

Consternation...

(Pre)Occupation...

They're basically all the same in my book.

Each one inevitably leads to the other.

Think about that bit of keen insight while I get back to work this morning.

(...and BTW, I know that you are happy I pointed that out... you're welcome.)

Meteor Shower Tonight

Take A Bath With Me In The Cosmic Glow...


Being an Astronomy nerd, I elect to get E-mail notifications of things going on in the sky from a website called Spaceweather.com. The really send out some interesting stuff and if you're inclined to wander outside in the middle of the night and take a look at what they're talking about I think that you'll rarely be disappointed.

Tonight we'll see the peak of the "ETA AQUARID METEOR SHOWER", an event caused by the Earth passing through the dust trail left by Halley's Comet each year.

They claim that if you will look to the eastern sky before twilight sunrise on Monday and Tuesday morning you can expect to see as many as 70 meteors per hour (a little over 1 per minute for the Florida grads.)

Grab a coat and a lawn chair and meet me outside about 4:30 AM, if you will...

I Am A FREAKING GENIUS

Worship My Pants...


Dang I'm Tired...This working for a living is harder than I thought.

Add to the new day job the tasks of finally finishing removing my life and possessions from boxes and having to spend the evenings and weekend trying to explain my stack calculations to some old Geezer an insultingconsulting engineer with an apparent agenda counter to my best interests, and you can understand why I'm tired.

I just spent three hours writing an Excel spreadsheet to do something called a Wind Gust Response Factor calculation to prove that some numbers I routinely use are correct. I lost all of my stack design software in the house fire a few years ago and I've been slowly re-writing each section as each job requires the data.

Any way, having run a few thousand gust factor calculations over the past 25 years, I've basically settled on numbers between 1.0 and 1.5 for most of my designs, and I let my big right toe my gut tell me what to use on each project.

On the current new design on the Mississippi coast I used a 150 mile wind velocity with a 1.5 gust factor.

Massive bitching and complaining ensued, because our customer failed to tell me that their customer--a petroleum company--had their own standards and required a 183 MPH design wind loading with a .85 gust factor.

Problem is, the 0.85 number is for short fat stiff structures like buildings, and I have a tall flexible structure with a frequency of around 1 Hertz, but I could see an inquisition coming featuring highly educated people whose experience with stacks consisting of designing two or three and having stood by a smokestack once in a paper mill.

I, on the other hand, have designed and built (and in some cases installed) over 400 stacks in my career and by default have a pretty good idea what is going on with tall thin tubes standing around with smoke coming out of their tops.

So any way, I just finished the spreadsheet and ran some test numbers to check the accuracy, then I plugged in my stack design and guess what???

The actual gust factor is 1.472!!

For those of you that went to Georgia or LSU, 1.472 easily rounds up to my original number of 1.5.

It's time for a celebratory cocktail, I think...

New Engineering Job...Day ONE a Success

And The Boxes Were Still Waiting For Me When I Got Home


New Dell Computer with 22" monitor.

Premium Cubicle next to the Chief Engineer and President's office.

Lunch with the Operations Manager.

Turbo Pup kisses at the end of the work day.

Nice pasta dinner courtesy of Pat.

Big fat Cigar with a glass of Porto in the porch swing at sunset.

Who could ask for more?

UPDATE:

I almost forgot...The stupid auto transport company called and they're retrieving my Suburban from the driveway of our old house on our Little Island tomorrow afternoon.

With any luck it will be up here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River sometime in Mid-May...Call me an optimist...

Distant Relatives Arrive For Short Visit?

Old Building Goes Home


Take a look at the goings on at my house this afternoon:







I'd like to tell you that you're looking at Gypsies hauling the world's largest outhouse, but in reality our neighbor Susan, the daughter of the man who built that cute little storage building next door in about 1965 was reclaiming it from the end of our driveway.

Apparently her Dad sold the building to the previous owner of our new house in the mid 1970's and it's resided here ever since. (She lives a few houses further down the road today.)

I was happy to give it to her and help her load it on the trailer behind the old "Hippie Wagon" because it saved me the trouble of cutting it apart with a chain saw and throwing it into a dumpster later this spring. I must admit that I was worried about the brakes on the old VW bus handling things going down our driveway, but they made it out of sight up the street and I washed my hands of any responsibility.

I guess that everyone was happy at the end of the day except the resident Groundhog who will probably have to relocate before Missy the Turbo Pup finds her/him and we have to call in a backhoe to dig her out of the hole located under the old foundation.