The Garden Enclosure

The door is set in place.  Finally.  It was a struggle, and one I didn't expect.  I originally laid the door on the basement place and build a frame around it that seems accurate and solid.  The idea seemed so simple.  Build a frame around the door, measure the distances between the frame parts, and dig holes in the ground to put 4x4 posts to match so that the door frame could be attached to the 4x4" posts.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Reality intruded...  Even with screws every foot. the frame sagged as I tried to put it up to the posts.  And even 4x4" posts move some even when set 2' deep.  It's not like building a door into a house where everything is pretty solid.

I won't bore you with the details.  No, wait, I will.

First, I tried to just attach the hinge side of the door frame to the 4x4" post that had been set into soil and rocks crushed as tightly as I could get it, for 2 weeks.  Well, we've had a lot of rain lately and apparently the soil wouldn't dry deep.  I tried everything I could to keep that post level and packed.  I tamped the soil around it with a short 4' piece of 4x4" post, I stomped around, and I surrounded it with plastic sheeting to keep the rain away.  I clamped other 4x4" posts to it in 3 directions to hold it in place.  I gave it time to dry.

When I finally attached the door to the hinge-side post, I braced the door so it's weight wouldn't pull on it.  It finally seemed to be set in place.

So then I worked on the latch side.  I somehow had mis-measured the first time I dog the hole for the supporting 4x4" post on that side, so I pulled it loose and did it right.  I got it right the 2nd time.  Well, the "distance" was accurate.  But the squareness of the door frame was off.

ARGGGH!

I did some annoying unsquare connections to make the door frame fit the posts.  I had the door fitting properly, but the next day it wasn't.  The latch-side 4x4" post has settled a bit.  I wedged it up a bit with a board on the ground and shims pounded together using the ground board as a support) to raise that 4x4" post slightly (to square the frame).  That worked.  For 2 days...

Then it was out of square again!

There are times when I know I do not really have skills at this sort of thing.  But I can be obnoxiously persistent.  Sometimes dumb persistence and determination overcomes lacks of skills.

I FINALLY got the door frame solid with enough corner braces and screws so that, even if the posts shift slightly, they shift together as a unit.  The door latched.

And then it DIDN'T!

It was REAL close, barely catching or not.  Well, the latch may need some work.  But it was mostly just a matter of 1/16" between "sometimes" and "always" latching.  A professional would have taken some things loose and adjusted them to fit.  But I was at the limit of adjustments and would have had to a lot of filling and redrilling.  But I found some "give" around the metal door frame.

A shim stuck between the post and the metal door frame gained me that 16/th inch.  Hurray, the latch clicks closed with a simple swing of the door.  For now (after 2 weeks of fighting), it shuts and latches smoothly.  And I have a couple ideas to connect the door frame more solidly.

If it shifts more and refuses to latch again on its own, I will just put a hook&eye to hold it shut.

But everything seems to be working on the door a week later now, and I'll declare victory on that part.

It's not pretty, but it works...  And sometimes, that's the best I can do.

Next time, the inside of the garden enclosure...

Headphones

I like to watch TV while I am am working in the kitchen.  But I also make a lot of noise in there (running water, etc) which overwhelms the TV sound.  And that's even with running the TV through the stereo speakers.

So I researched wireless headphones.  Most got poor ratings, but mostly for not trnsmitting through rooms walls.  Well, that wasn't my concern (I'm still in direct line-of-sight to the TV).  So I bought a well-rated wireless headphone.

I couldn't get it to work.  There were 2 ways to connect them.  One was  direct from the headphone plug to the back of the wireless headphone station.  The other was from the back of the headphone station to the A/V controller unit (whatever you call the device that lets you select the various other devices like TV/Stereo, DVD player, etc). 

The cable to plug into the device controller headphone unit was too small though the audio in/out fit perfectly.  No arrangement of plugs allowed the audio-out connection to work.  So I needed either an adapter plug to fit betwee the small plug and the headphone plug.  I hope that makes sense.  I assumed there was an adapter plug to fit from th small headphone plug to the larger one.  

So I went to Radio Shack, of course.  They opened and tried several adaptor plugs which didn't work.  I suggested maybe there was a cable that matched all the plugs.  The salesperson at Radio Shack didn't think so. 

I found it on the shelves myself.  Am I the only one how thinks Radio Shack personnel aren't as experienced as they used to be?  I had to find a rather obvious cable MYSELF!  At Radio Shack!

So back at home, I plugged it in.  It worked perfectly.  The wireless headphones work great.  But nothing is perfect.  Plugging the headset in cuts off the stereo speakers.  Worse, my radio won't play whether the headphone plug is in or out.  I'll have to explore that.

But I have to say that while the dishwasher is running and I an running sink water to clean dishes or get hot water, I CAN hear what is on the TV.

Small victory...

The Garden Enclosure

Its not finished, but I did finally get the door set in properly today.  It doesn't sound like That Big A Deal, but it drove me crazy to the point where I just stopped about it for several weeks (and did other useful stuff). 

But I went back at it 2 days ago.  It not elegant.  The half-lap joints that fit so well on the basement floor didn't fit well out in the garden.  I'm guessing that there were fitting options that options that "from basement floor to reality" were not right.  Putting posts into holes in the ground is not quite like the frames sitting on a nice level basement floor. 

But with enough support (uprights, cross, and sideways), I got the door to close smoothly and the lath to connect.   I bet any professional would cringe at the work I've done.  But as long as it latches closed, it doesn't really matter.  All it has to do is stay solid.

And then its worth finishing the chicken wire.  All I have left of that is wrapping some corners where the 4' rolls didn't quite reach.  That involves some cutting and pacthing using leftovers, but I have enough of those.

It will be SO great to have this completed.  Pictures when it is really completely done.  But the "damn door" was 90% of the unfinished work, so I am about there.

Neighbors

This isn't about a HORRIBLE AWFUL neighbor who does completely TERRIBLE MEAN things.  This is about a long-time merely annoying neighbor who just finally got me all ticked-off today.

OK, lets say you have a drainage easement along a property line.  And that drainage easement is shared by a neighbor.  And you are mutually legally responsible for it (the storm drain itself is a county responsibility).  The responsibility means keeping it free flowing right into the storm drain (meaning around the storm drain and the grate on the top of the storm drain is OUR responsibility).

Let's say you have had that same neighbor for 28 years, they refuse to pay any attention to cleaning (because their yard is higher and the occasional flooding caused by the debris-covered storm drain never causes them any problem), and you have mentioned this very politely several times over the years.

Let us further suppose that you have cleaned the sides and grate numerous times.  And picture the sides and top as "beaver dam material" - interwoven sticks and small branches that fill in with leaf-packed mud like the squishy stuff at the bottom of a natural lake but also plastic bags, fast-food containers, and general trash).

And let us further suppose that you had spent over an hour 2 weeks ago wedging the sticks and branches loose with an iron bar (throwing most of them onto your own side of the property line) before ripping loose handfulls of leaf-packed mud and feeding them into the newly-rushing water escaping into the now partially opened storm drain to break apart in the flood-flow.  And you are doing all this bent over at the waist with pooled water 3/4 the way up your boots.

After doing all this work, you clean up your property side, but also pick up all the trash plastic bags etc on both sides and fill up your trash can.  You leave the 1/4 of the sticks that happened to land on their property while you were pulling them all loose so that they will notice it while mowing and see that you have cleaned the storm drain grate ONCE AGAIN!

I don't usually act passive/aggressive (and it wasn't intended to be the "aggressive" part).  But I almost never see those neighbors outside and I didn't want to go bang on their door with my muddy hands and temporary annoyance.  I figured they would see the branches, see the cleaned storm drain grate and just pick up their minor share of the sticks pleased that I had cleaned the storm drain again...

Nope!  Are you surprised?

And, then imagine that after all that neighborly work, you return home today from errands to discover they have picked up all the sticks and dropped them onto YOUR lawn...

Now THAT's "passive-aggressive"!

I suppose I have to go knock on their door some Saturday afternoon and discuss it.  Again.  Explain the work I did, that I picked up most of the debris and all the trash, scooped the leafy mud with my bare hands, and that I am tired of doing this myself all the time when we are both responsible for it, and that I expect them to clean the storm drain grate themselves sometimes.

Not to get too far afield, but I DON'T like having to tell people what they should be doing.  I avoided several management offers in my career for that reason.  So I really don't want to go knock on their door and surprise them with a complaint (they may be utterly clueless).

Several ideas come to mind...

1.  Knock, knock.  "Hey neighbor are we having a stick fight"?

2.  Knock, knock.  "Did you notice I cleaned the storm drain in June?  It's your turn every November". 

3.  Knock, knock.  "Thanks for the sticks.  Is that a cultural gift I should know something about"?

4.  Anything else.  But please don't suggest "I should have just picked up their sticks as well".  I won't go for that one.

I'm willing to have a minor fight about this if there is a positive outcome.  But they seem to have some problems.  They half-built a garage and then let it stay that way for many months.  They did some yardscaping another year and that stayed half-done for several years.  A psychologist friend of mine said those are signs of personal and/or family dysfunction. 
 

My Deception Detector

Everyone seems to have some special talent.  Some people know instinctively who to trust.  Others can tell compass directions even down in the subways.  Some can choose the perfect gift every time.  Others can field a hard-hit ball, or dodge a speedy object (I saw a guy who could catch arrows aimed at him once), have great balance, etc.

I have a false-statement flag in my brain.  Most people don't (or else there wouldn't be deceptive advertisements).  I call it my "bull-shit meter".  I don't mean that I'm a skeptic who simply suspects every statement.  That's just a negative way of viewing the world. 

But I can hear statements that immediately don't ring true to reality.  Its not even concious, as if I heard the statement, thought about it carefully, and disagreed with it.  It's an immediate "WHAT?"  I don't even have to be paying attention for the "flag" to register.  I just "hear" false statements better than most.

Sometimes I'm doing housework with the TV on and the *DING* happens.  I even have to work to figure out what caused it.  Its usually a commercial and I see the ending of it enough to watch for it the next time, to find out what the *DING* was about. 

The latest one is some drug that specifies that (paraphrased) isnt for weight loss but can help in weight loss.  After paying attention a couple times, I realized that a side effect was diarrhea.  Well of COURSE that causes weight loss, DUH!  But it took several intent listenings to catch the deception.

Well, I heard one a week ago that really bothered me and I couldn't figure out what was getting my BS detector activated.  It was for some astronomy online or DVD class.  I should mention that (so far as I can tell) I am (mostly) immune to advertising.  Well my BS Detector helps, but I also buy products after research, and that helps too.

I finally caught the part of the ad that got my subconcious detector buzzing...

One part said "find out why Venus disappears at Midnight".  That didn't make sense and it really bothered me.  I'm a science-type guy.  And that "at midnight" part bothered me.  Why "at midnight?"  That's a pretty specific time...

I did some back-of-the-envelope" sketches and couldn't find anything special about "midnight.  Well, actually, one part was obvious.  At midnight, we are looking at the outer solar system, and Venus is in the inner solar system. 

Now I know the basic general distances of planets from the Sun.  Each one is "sort of" 50% further from the sun that the previous one.  Its nowhere near exact, but its a general estimation.  So with Venus having a smaller orbit nearer the sun, as the Earth turns, your spot on it turns away from the Sun.  And since Venus is closer to the Sun than Earth, your spot on Earth turns away from Venus, too.  It just takes longer because Venus is further from the Sun.

In fact, Venus is "about" 45 degrees from the Sun from our maximum POV.  Sometimes zero, but never more more than about 45 degrees.



So that ad for the astronomy "class" just burned me up and NOW I know why.  "At Midnight" is a deceptive come-on, it sounds "special" to midnight.  We only see Venus a few HOURS after sunset or a few HOURS before sunrise, not just "can't see it at midnight". And THAT is what set my subconcious BS-Detector off, even though I had to spend some time figuring out exactly why.

Independence Day

Suspicious Investment Advice

I went to the bank to start buying a series of 12 month CDs each month that would mature about once every 12 months for liquidity without penalty.  I can get better returns from my Credit Union, but the bank said they would match that.  Well, OK, that's more convenient.

Instead, I got sales pitches for riskier investments.  GRRR!!!  But on the possibility that I was missing out on some decent investments (and not outrageous "shooting the moon" types), I researched the advice.

I found lies at worst, and evasions at best.  I won't be trusting my commercial bank for any investments, LOL!

A wise person once said that you should never invest in anything you don't understand as well as "they" do.  I agree. 

I was set on guard when the investment guy at the bank started by asking me a lot of personal frendly questions designed to elicit a "yes" reponse.  But I know about that trick.  Once they are friendly and get you saying "yes", it is harder to say "no".  I can say "no" (and did),

One way to judge those questions and statements is to ask, "what would an honest person say and what would a dishonest person say?"  If the answer is the same for both, then be very careful.

As in what do innocent people in jail and guilty people in jail both say?  "I'm innocent".  Or if you are astronomy-minded, how do you know the Earth moves around the sun and not vice-versa.  It looks the same both ways, but only one is correct. 

I did some research on what the bank investor guy said.  Some statements were clearly true, but a few were clearly false.  A single persuasive positively-presented false statement negates all the true ones so far as trustworthiness is concerned. 

So I do not trust my current bank to support MY interests, and will be changing it soon. 

And all because they set up a meeting to do one thing I came for and pushed another I didn't...

Too Busy Too Early

Ever stayed up a few late morning hours just waiting to get some things done?  That was today for me.  Got to the bank to get some account management done, got out just in time for the barber shop to open.  Got to the Home Depot DIY store to get a cordless string trimmer recommended by Consumer Report magazine (and they {HD} sure don't make it easy to make sure the model number was the same).

Back home, hearing the weather forecast was for possibly extreme rain, I got the mattock out and redug a drainage ditch from the patio downhill (its at the bottom of the sloping backyard - one of those things you don't see in The Garden Tour). 

Then I stopped to dig out seeding thistle plants from the place I need to plant the zinnias.  And then, why not dig out the grass popping up in there too.  So, being tired and dirty already (and expecting heavy rain) I went out front to drag all the CRAP covering the storm drain (being at the bottom of the drain slope is no fun).  And if you EVER look at a property that mentions "drainage easement" run like hell!

My neighbor and I are legally equally responible for "drainage easement" maintenance, but his yard is 2' higher than mine so only I suffer from flooding.  I spent an hour wedging loose tree debris, collected mud, and general garbage to make the drain  open again.  I threw most of the junk on HIS lawn (HE's never cleaned it in 28 years)

And halfway through clearing the top of the storm drain, the rain started.  Sure, why not...  "It always rains on the unloved"...  So I finally got inside and changed all my clothes.  I was soaked right down to my socks...

And its only Noon!!!

I've opened a 1.5L bottle of my favorite cheap Zinfandel (pretty good stuff actually),  and I DARE anyone to say I shouldn't empty it.  I have leftovers from the previous 2 dinners (hot italian sausage/white kidney beans/bell peppers for one and chicken/mushroom/noodle casserole for the other, so I dont have to do any cooking this evening.

I have 3 cans of Wellness cat cans ready to go (can't ever forget the cats).

And what would be on the stereo as I type this but "Dancing With Myself".  Yeah that pretty much covers my day...

And its only 12:30 PM...

I'm not sure what I should do with the rest of the day.  I could go to bed and try to sleep til tomorrow morning, put on some soothing Simon&Garfunkle, crank up some Led Zepplin, or fade into mindless electronica CDs.

Well, there is time today, You tell me...

Movies Again

I changed it enough to repost it...

You ever have one movie that you can just watch over and over?  It may seem odd, but for me it it "The Incredibles"; the 2004 animated Disney tale.  Mr Incredible is super strong, Mrs Incredible is super stretchy, Viola can become invisible, Dash can run superfast.  Baby Jack Jack only shows up latter as being able to change his body form and elemental structure. 

They aren't the regular superhero family.  They live in surburbia under a government "superhero protection program" because superheroism is banned due to the massive destruction to property.  Mr Incredible is an insurance adjuster (who quietly helps clients beat the company rules - well he IS a "good guy") going gradually insane from the restrictions.  Mrs Incredible is a seemingly happy mother and wife (and may be showing some angst there - Disney may not have been comfortable getting into that).  The kids have powers they have been taught not to use, but do (guiltily) at times in minor ways.

There is, of course, a villian.  "Syndrome" was rejected as a sidekick by Mr. Incredible years before (having no special powers) and becomes a tech mastermind in revenge.

Mr Incredible loses his job and seeks income when a secret message invites him to "help test weapons".  He sneaks off on a "business trip".  And he and then they get into some trouble involving Syndrome...

I can't describe everything;it would take all night.  But the action never ends, the morals of the story are great, and there are scenes I love over and over. 

Mr Incredible tells his wife (Elastigirl) that he is too weak.  Weak, because he thought he lost her once and he can't handle losing her again...

Elastigirl telling the kids that they aren't going to to die out in the ocean if they just trust her...

Dash learning he can run over water (coolest single scene ever)...

Viola the first time she made the energy field after failures.

Syndrome catching the 4 Incredibles (Jack Jack shows no super ability yet and is back at home) and focuses on Mr Incredible, but then sees Mrs Incredible and the matching uniforms.  "You married Elastigirl"?  Then realizes the 2 kids and says "And you got BUSY"!  Cracks me up every time...

But I can't help thinking they were a homage to the Marvel Fantastic Four.  The leader was strong (like The Thing).  Elastigirl was stretchy (like Mr Fantastic).  Viola was able to go invisible and create force fields (like Invisible Girl), and Dash was able to move real fast like The Torch.

I liked that too.

But mostly, the action is ON nonstop.  If you haven't seen, do.

I can watch that every couple weeks always.  For some years so far...

Not to distract from The Incredibles,  but speaking of scenes in CGI superhero movies, I would like to nominate one scene from an Avengers movie as "funniest".  Loki faces the Hulk and says something like "you can't defeat me, I'm a God".  Whereupon the Hulk grabs him by both feet and beats him back and forth on the floor like me trying to break a baseball bat on concrete in a fit of rage (an allusion, don't worry that never happened).  The resulting immortal Loki is left broken and wheezing noisily and pathetically.  The Hulk walks away muttering "Puny God". 

I laugh at that scene everytime too. 

Movies

Youever have one movie that you can just watch over and over?  It may seem odd, but for me it it "The Incredibles".  The animated Disney tale.

The action never ends, the morals of the story are great, and there are scenes I love over and over. 

Mr Incredible tells his wife (Elastigirl) that he is too weak.  Because he thought he lost her once and he can't handle losing her again...

Elastigirl telling the kids that they aren't going to to die out in the ocean if they just trust her...

Dash learning he can run over water (coolest single scene)...

Viola the first time she made the energy field after failures.

But I can't help thinking they were a homage to the Marvel Fantastic Four.  The leader was strong (like The Thing).  Elastigirl was stretchy (like Mr Fantastic).  Viola was able to go invisible and create force fields (like Invisible Girl), and Dash was able to move real fast like The Torch.

I liked that too.

But mostly, the action is ON.

I can watch that every couple weeks always.  For some years so far...