Beam me up. Har har.

When contemplating a home improvement project, there are three distance phases:

• Phase 1- Concept
  
  "Honey, if we're going to stucco the house, we should have stone lintels over the windows like an Irish cottage. That would rock."

• Phase 2- Modification due to budget
  
  "Holy crap, there is NO way we can afford stone. But I found this cool company on the Internets that makes faux wood beams. They'd be perfect"

• Phase 3 - Settling for something else (due to the intrusion of reality).
  
  "They want HOW much just to ship a fake wood beam? Ok, what have I got sitting around the yard that I haven't burned yet?"

I really put entirely too much thinking into what should have been a pretty straight forward problem. How do I make it look like the windows have antique beams above them. I contacted companies that sell old barn beams and tried to figure out complex cuts so that they would fit into the window frame. I stressed myself out because I couldn't make it work. Eventually I had to walk away from the problem. Too much thinking. Thinking bad.

They yesterday I picked up a scrap piece of 6X6 left over from the roof project. I held it over the window and heard the sound of Angels blasting trumpets. I could use chunks of WOOD!!!!

I know, it seams pretty obvious to YOU. But I'd been trying to figure out ways to cut materials to replicate a lintel exactly. Using an actual beam would not be perfect, some of the existing window frame would be visible, but it would certainly work, and time is a big factor here.

And since our budget won't allow for buying real 200 year old hand worked beams I had to come up with my own. The solution was simple and very effective. A super tough wire wheel on a 4" angle grinder. The wheel strips away the softer wood fibers, leaving the harder wood in a great raised pattern. It's just like sandblasting. I also took chunks out at random spots and rounded the edges to give the appearance of having been hand worked with an adze.

Voila! Instant antique beams. They look great and didn't cost an arm and a leg. Rossana loves them and now wants to know if I could do the same to the main beams for the roof. That would be about 20 times the work. Plus the beams would be dark whereas the rest of the roof is pretty light colored. Maybe I could use a lighter stain. We'll see. I'm just grateful to get something off my to do list.

Balls

According to Wikipedia, today marks the anniversary of the attempted theft of the crown jewels of England in 1671 by Thomas Blood (yes, that was his name).

Have a read, it's short and simply amazing. This guy not only tried to steal the Crown Jewels, he told the King the jewels were only worth 6,000 pounds, not the 100,000 they were valued at.

Then he talked his way into a pardon!
He're to you, Thomas Blood. And your 15 pound balls.

Point of no Return

This is me taking an air hammer to my house. This seemed like a good idea at some point. The theory is to round the edges of the doors and windows so that when the stucco is applied we soften everything up a little. Knowing this doesn't make it any easier to take a chisel to a perfectly good brick wall. I mean, I'm past the point of changing my mind here. That ship has sailed.


Then there are the repairs to the roof. When the orginal repairs were done, a huge industrial strength ruber sheet was installed to prevent leaking. Alas, it wasn't installed quite right. When we get too much rain, the water creeps over the edge of the ruber and seeps into the cinderblock leading to small leaks. But small leaks take their toll. Plus the material doesn't drain away from the house enough and the topsoil isn't thick enough by our garage. So we're digging, adding new material, sealing it, covering it and laying new topsoil. Joy. The first job was so close, but just didn't get it right. Everything about this house is a learning experience, sometimes a painful one. The good news is that they're bringing over a kind of mini Bobcat front loader. I'm hoping to get them to level out some of the pits in the yard and clean up by our burn pile. I very much doubt they will let me operate this machine, but a man can dream can't he?

New Orleans Redux

I'm still writing up my recallections of Pirate Con in New Orleans last week, some of it is understandably a litle blurry. I didn't see any of the 9th ward this time, although I did find an old friend who I'd lost track of who now lives there with his wife. They spend six months in their own house while they gutted and rebuilt it. They had water but no official power. They hooked up an extension cord to a neightbors house. That's hard core.

So what do I read today? That most of the foreign aid for Katrina victems was uncollected, refused or wasted.

Do you know what a lot of the attendees did early morning Saturday at Pirate Con? They went to a grade school in the area with much needed school supplies. $60 million dollars and it isn;t getting to where it needs to. This is what makes my brain hurt.

People laugh at Denis Kusinich for trying to get Cheny impeached. Why is this crazy? If anyone focused on any ONE of the disasters this administration had been either responsible for or has exacerbated, they would quickly come to the realization that we and our country are being forced into a flaming nosedive by a corrupt idiot. It's just that there are SO MANY fuck-ups, mistakes, miscaculations, missteps and wrong turns thay we just can't catch our breath. You can't keep up! Is that their strategy?

BONUS ROUND

It seems seven of eight "Successes" in Iraq in fact, aren't. Have a read. Your money and blood at work.

Good touching

I can't make this stuff up. Thanks to Monkey over at HappyBubble.com

I give you: Busty Mouse Pads

Ugly Americans

The last weekend of North Carolina was a mixed bag. Saturday was great. We kicked ass. Good crowds, Midas touch. Then Sunday hit. Torrential rain during the night and on and off during the day. No one shows up. They call the show at 12:30.

Then the sun comes out. Of course.

But it doesn't matter. We break down, load out and get on the road early enough to get home last night. We had to fight our way through snowstorms in the mountains. This was Snow Giant country and the wind pushed us all over the road. But we made it. It feels good to sleep in ones own bed.

During the trip we listened to 'Babylon by Bus'. This is the true story of two slackers who's primary occupation was selling 'Yankee's Suck' t-shirts in New York to earn enough money to travel. At some point, they got it in their bright heads to go to Baghdad and try their hand at humanitarian work the CPA (The Coalition Provisional Authority). What follows is a strange tale of good intentions gone wrong, stupidity, drugs, booze, hope, violence, despair and death.

There are a number of books examining the War, but this one provides a unique ground level view from outside the system. It is Baghdad as seen through the eyes of 2 twenty-eight year olds. Not soldiers or politicians or reporters. What's more, these aren't peacenicks or hippies or experienced volunteers. They are in short, ugly Americans with a tendency to be assholes.

I highly encourage you to check out this book. It can be found used on Amazon.com or on audio CD from your local library.

A picture is worth...

This was posted in a comment threat over at Fark.com and I just had to pass it on:

Oddly Hypnotic

This is a small Japanese dancing toy that will dance to any beat you play for it. Honestly, it dances far better than I ever did. In a real word bar situation, it could probably pick up chicks to. Chicks dig cute.

Kittah!

This is the kind of responsible behavior I think we can all approve of. Cats using public transport.

I hate this state

And I' m sure the feeling is mutual. Last year we bought an expensive GPS navigation unit. One of the KEY selling point I used to convince my wife to agree was that we would be able to get around Raleigh NC without having a seizure. This city is a massive clusterf@ck of roads, most leaading anywhere but where you want to go.

The GPS got us to the site, which wasn't hard as its right off the highway. But when we entered the address of the motel and told it to take us there it simply sat in stunned silence. We tried several options, but nothing worked. The road system is so bad here that it made my GPS break down and cry. We found the motel ourselves and yesterday morning on a lark I asked it to find its way back to the Fair site. It clicked and whired and what do you know it found a route. In fact it was a faster way to the site than we currently use. So last night I asked it to take us back to the motel and again it just sat there whirring and sobbing.

I can't blame the computer. Really. I absolve it of any wrongdoing. It's this city.

The show is off to a good start. Good weather and good attendance. Next weekend however we will be open during Easter weekend. They want us here FRIDAY from three until ten pm. That's messed up. I plan on bringing something thick to read. And maybe a sleeping bag.

Pirate Season

As Rossana and I loaded the van with stock, racks, dress forms and other sales gear something kept niggling at the back of my mind. Like I was forgetting something.

"I feel like I'm forgetting something dear." I said to my lovely wife.

"Well, you're wearing pants, so you're ahead of the game today".

"True, so it must be something else."

My eyes wandered over to the pond and suddenly I had it. I ran downstairs and checked my Outlook calendar.

"Sweet Blackbeard's ghost! It's the first day of Pirate season!"

Why hadn't I realised it sooner? I immediately eschewed my duties and ran to get my Pirate ship. And after a few minutes of struggling to install batteries I skipped (yes, I skipped) down to the pond.

Behold, the maiden voyage of The Spanish Harlot.




She's a beauty. I tested one of the other ships, but one of the propellers doesn't go forward. I may have to operate. I haven't tested the third yet. And I still have to find a way to change the frequency they use so they don't conflict. But for today it was a shakedown cruise and a chance to scare the fish.

Since I likely won't have time enough to develop actual firing cannons, I'm thinking of having a sort of obstacle course/race at the next Bag End party. Captains will need to steer their ships through a set of buoys, dock at certain islands and avoid cannon fire from shore. I am beyond geeked.

Free Hugs

I do not like sappy shit. When people send me chain letters with hearts and unicorns and butterflies that shit gets deleted. Well, most of the time.

Then I found this video on Youtube. If you aren't smiling like an idiot by the end you are a heartless troll and should just die now. Some acts are so simple and pure and yet can have a kind of ripple effect on the world. This is one of them.

Just Married

I alluded to this incident a few posts ago, but just now found my camera and got the picture off it. The scene, somewhere in Kentucky I believe. Tired from a long haul we search for a motel with reasonable rates. Our first two stops are a bust. Then we pull into a no-name budget motel. Rossana hops out to inquire what the rates are. I look out the van window and see the following:


There are no cans and no other signs of decoration. After a minute or two a young mans steps out of the motel office. He's dressed in a cheap windbreaker and a baseball hat and jeans. He gets in the truck and pulls up to a parking spot. Some kind of intense discussion is taking place.

Rossana comes out with a room key. The room rate must be acceptable. We pull ahead and park the van. As Lindsey and Rossana haul the overnight bags to the room I stare back at the truck. Who are these kids? One can create a pretty good narrative just looking at the situation. No friends or family with them, plain dress, and now debating whether they have the funds to get a cheap motel room. Part of me knows that these two are not in for an easy go of it. That they might well be divorced in a year, maybe less, but not before she gets knocked up and goes back to living with her mom. There was just something so sad about this little drama.

I walked back to the office, the young man had found a coupon from one of those travel magazines they have at the rest stops and was literally counting change.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but are you the man who just got married?"

The kid blinks at me and grins sheepishly. "Yeah, I am."

Man, this kid is what? 19? 20? I recall how I both had and knew jack squat when I was his age, but was smart enough not to consider getting married.

I looked at the motel manager. "I'll be paying for this gentleman's room for this evening. How much is it?"

The manager does a double take and looks down "Um, $51.85"

I pull out a fifty and a one. "Can you cover the eighty-five cents?" I ask the kid.

He's looking art me like I just grew a new eye on my forehead.

"Uh, sure. " he fumbled for a single "I must say sir, that's about the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me" His drawl is thick and twangy.

If this is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for him, he's had a far shittier life than me. I've been blessed by good luck and a lot of help over the years from all kinds of people. Thanks to them I never had my gas turned off or a car repossessed or went hungry or had to sleep in my car. And I never forgot it. I never once have thought of myself as a 'self made man'.

"I've had people do nice things for me over the years. Someday you might be able to do the same for someone else."

I wanted to pass on some words of wisdom. Something that might bring about some epiphany or grant him some level of enlightenment or encouragement. But I couldn't think of anything. Besides, the lobby of a cheap motel is not the place to pass on life lessons, also, I didn't want to seem like some weird stalker type. I shook his hand and wished him good luck and safe journeys. Then I walked out.

As I walked back to our room a small part of my brain wondered if maybe this wasn't some kind of scam. Hang around a motel looking forlorn and hoping someone, either the motel manager or a passerby will take pity of you. Was I a sucker? If it was, it was a pretty clever scam. But no, they were already there when we pulled up, and the manager wasn't giving him any kind of break.

I think things were as they seemed. And my stepping in isn't going to change the course of their lives any. It's likely things will unfold as I predicted. But maybe not. Sometimes one small break can make a difference. That's good enough I guess. Anyone else done something strange like this?

This is CAKE TOWN!!!

This had GOT to be the funniest thing I have seen in a while. (I know, I keep saying that). I present to you "300-The PG version"



My wife literally called it 'blasphemy'.

If you have it, you don't need it.

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Take the test and tell me how you did in the comments.