Low Prices Sometimes Result from Pain

I appreciate all the helpful tips on the table saw. I hope it works out. I believe the main reasons for the good price are that nobody around here wants a big saw, and very few people have a circuit which will run a 5-horsepower motor. I guess the good Lord had something on his mind when I went crazy and put three 220 circuits in the garage.

I don’t want to miss the more important issue here. The seller no longer needs the saw, because his business went under. That is a very sad reason for a bargain. And he is not alone in these tough times. The other day I learned that a family I know has been under great financial strain.

In the past, when I prayed for people, I just prayed that God would fix their problems. I now think that’s wrong. Aaron informed me that one of the Jewish words for prayer really means something more like “self-examination.” Problems are often the result of the way we live. Virtually everyone has something in his or her life that needs to be made right. These days, I pray that God will help people with their adversities, but I also pray that he will help them search themselves and change and come to serve and know him better.

Maybe you could join me in praying for those things today, for the guy with the saw, and for my friends.

Today my sister and I are going to Wayne Cochran’s church. She’s disappointed because they’re putting on a Christmas play. She wanted to hear him speak. Oh, well. It sure beats what we were doing on the Sunday before Christmas last year.

New Old Saw, Bought

Okay, let me take a minute to thank all the enablers who read this blog. Enjoy a good laugh at my expense.

I decided to make a deal on the table saw. I didn’t see how I could lose. The saw is clearly not stolen; the guy knows way too much about saws and Corian, and I found his business on the Internet. It’s a table saw, which means it has about four parts, all of which can be replaced when they go bad. It’s a Powermatic, which means it’s US-made and pretty unlikely to drop in value. It’s old, so it was made before the WMH buyout everyone whines about. And he is willing to DELIVER.

I can forget about building a router table now. I can put an insert in the table saw surface. I can get rid of my existing table saw and get all of my money back, except for what I paid for zero-clearance inserts. This thing will take up less room than the stuff it replaces.

I am insane; I know it. But I should end up with a tool that will last for eternity, perform like a dream, and remain worth more than the price I paid. The cost of owning and using the Ridgid will turn out to be sales tax plus a few bucks for some inserts.

That 220 witing is paying off. I think he was stuck with this thing because no one who called about it had 220. I don’t just have 220; I have a SELECTION of 220 circuits. I have 40-amp with one style of receptacle, and I have 60-amp with another style. Because I am crazy. Learning how to do wiring can change your life.

The 64″ fence is not ideal. Maybe I can find someone who will trade a smaller one for it. It will have to be taken off so I can park the car. I don’t know if it works with the usual accessories. Maybe the extra length is not an issue.

It would be fun to yank the guts out of this thing, sandblast it, prime it, and paint it. I don’ t think it would be hard. I believe cabinet saws pretty much fall apart with the removal of a few bolts and screws.

I guess this means I better go back to Home Depot with all the crap I bought to make the router table work.

I blame Og for this.

I Have a Sickness

I need psychiatric help.

The saw guy says the saw–a Powermatic 66–is in good running shape. He says he will guarantee it runs and so on. He is willing to BRING it to me. I am sweating with temptation.

This would be a nice addition to the garage. I could get rid of my Ridgid portable for what I paid for it (I got it for a third off), and I could set this thing up permanently, with a router insert and a caster set from Grizzly. It would wheel out when I needed it, and it would wheel in when I was tired of it. And I could resell it for more than I paid for it, unless it’s got real problems.

Arrghh. Jonesing. Bad.

Sometimes Craigslist Works

I’m stuck here waiting for someone, so I’m looking at power tools on Craigslist. Usually this stuff is awful. “DRILL PRESS – HARBOR FREIGHT – 5 YRS LIGHT USE – PAID $250, YOURS FOR $245.” And half the ads have no pictures, and they usually don’t have model numbers.

Here’s how selling used junk works. You do not get 75% of what you paid. You get 50% or less, barring weird circumstances. And unless you provide photos and model numbers, no one has a clue what you’re selling, so why would they call you?

Anyway, look what I found today: CLICK. That’s a huge Powermatic table saw with a big extension. It has a 5 HP motor. It’s 220. They want $495. How can that be a bad deal? If you have to replace the motor and clean up the entire machine, you still come out way ahead.

This ad is of no use to me. I can’t use a cabinet saw, even if it’s free. But it restores my faith in Craigslist.

I probably should have bought a Rigid 3650 saw and mounted my router on a wing, but I had no idea what I was getting into. That saw comes with rollers. You can keep it alongside a wall until you need it, and then you wheel it out and go to town. It would actually be more convenient than my portable, except that it could never leave the garage.

The saw I have is great, but there are limits to how you can accessorize it. You can’t put a wing on it. No router. Nothing magnetic. No tricked-out fences.

Someday, when I have my semi-rural compound with machine-gun nests.

Guess Who Leads?

This morning, while enjoying my delicious end-of-week McDonald’s breakfast, I saw a trailer for the new Tom Cruise movie. I have to tell you, I think this guy has finally lost the last fragment of his ability to perceive himself as others do. I mean, he’s in a trailer for a movie, and we are supposed to sympathize with him as the hero, and he’s a NAZI. I just can’t buy it.

I guess he was one of the NICE Nazis. The GOOD ones.

????

I think when you notice your boss shipping trainloads of Jews and gypsies and gays off to be gassed and turned into lampshades, and your big concern is that he may lose a war and cause problems for your country, you can be said to have completely lost sight of the high moral ground. Maybe I’m being unfair to Claus von Stauffenberg–the man Cruise plays–but judging from this quotation about Poland, I sort of doubt it:

The population here are unbelievable rabble; a great many Jews and a lot of mixed race. A people that is only comfortable under the lash. The thousands of prisoners will serve our agriculture well.

Oooookay.

Let’s take away Edward Teller’s house and make him spread manure for a living. Because he’s a JEW.

I am not seeing the warm and fuzzy side of this character.

Maybe Cruise is the Titanic, and destiny created this iceberg for him. Take a look at a bust of von Stauffenberg:

Come on. The resemblance is incredible. It would even fool L. Ron Hubbard. You can almost hear him yelling, “SP? PTSSP!!! I have CANCELLED that in my AREA!!!!!!”

This is the second “nice Nazi” movie in a decade, to my knowledge. The first was The Pianist. I guess you could throw in “Max,” because Hitler was so pathetic and wimpy in that one. I hope we don’t reach a point where confused Hollywood hipsters decide we have been unfair to the Thousand Year Reich and start issuing torrents of films with lovable Nazi protagonists.

Maybe we were asking for this when we laughed at Hogan’s Heroes.

Now This is a Church

I gave up trying to write music; I’ll pick it back up tomorrow. Software issues aggravated me for so long, I didn’t really have time to write anything. My computer’s audio circuits must have had corrupted drivers or something; I had to go to Asus’s infuriating site and download things. I think it’s okay now.

I got the birds out and listened to a disk I got in the mail. It came from Wayne Cochran. He and his crew are good about communicating with people who visit their church. They send emails and snail mail.

The thrust of the sermon was that we needed to set aside more time to spend with God. And he also talked about a couple other things that surprised me. He mentioned the book of Enoch, which I’ve been writing about, and which I bought recently. It seems like a lot of Christians are taking an interest in it these days. And–I think this may be the best part–he talked about pork. I am not kidding.

Toward the end of the sermon, he started talking about the kind of food he liked. He said some of the best eating he had ever had was cheap food. He mentioned fatback and biscuits and red eye gravy. You think I’m bad? He said he used to eat fatback and biscuits with Karo syrup. I loved hearing that stuff. My sister is anxious to visit his church again, and she has given up pork, and she wants me to give it up. I guess she has a surprise in store.

He also said he had a .357 by his bed and a Chinese assault rifle. And he has a motorcycle.

I don’t know if Wayne Cochran has the best doctrine, but I know this: as long as he keeps his accent and talks about pork and guns, I’ll be comfortable sitting in his church.

You Can Help

Yesterday, I somehow came upon a commercial blog (owned by the Chicago Sun-Times) written by a newspaper reporter and Baptist minister. The man’s name is Lacy Banks. I don’t know him from Adam, but I read what he wrote, and he says he has a brain tumor and prostate cancer. The brain tumor is benign, and the prostate cancer is in remission, but the treatment is unpleasant, and he is worn out. I forgot to mention, he also has congestive heart failure. He hasn’t been able to get a transplant because of the cancer issues.

When I started writing about God, I learned I had a large number of Christian readers who were always happy to learn of a chance to do someone a good turn. Maybe you would like to read what Mr. Banks wrote and offer up a holiday prayer for him.

His determination is inspiring; he is bent on serving God until the final second of his life. So many of us give up on God as soon as the wind changes. It gives me strength to see someone who can hold on while dealing with life-threatening disease in the autumn of his life.

While you’re at it, Mish and Leah can always use a mention. Mish is still battling her way back from a bone marrow transplant, and Leah–as if she hasn’t had enough problems–is fighting pneumonia.

Back to Finale

A few years back, when I first got interesting in writing music, I got a program called Allegro, which was the wimpy version of a program called Finale, which was a piece of composing software. I could not make heads or tails of it. Everyone on the web said Sibelius was the way to go, so I tried that, and it was not fun. When I sat down with the computer keyboard, the MIDI keyboard, and the manual, I was able to use it, but it was counterintuitive, and after a certain amount of time away, I forgot everything I had learned.

Today I decided to check out another Finale product: Finale Songwriter 2007. They have a fully functional demo you can try. It takes a month to download, but once it’s set up, it seems to work extremely well. It appears to be a very easy-to-use notation scratchpad, with MIDI playback and printing. Hard to complain about that. I have seen comments about it, saying it’s hard to do musically sophisticated things with it, but if you can print with it, presumably you can then scan the music into a more complex program.

Seems like a good choice so far.

Sibelius = Ulcers

I am totally determined to write some music. I have never been able to make much sense of Sibelius, but then I didn’t really try all that hard. I have moved it back to this computer, and I’m going to give it another shot. I’ll have to get the manual out. It’s like 9000 pages long.

I was probably stupid to buy Sibelius. The reviews said “Intuitive!”, and I believed them. There is nothing intuitive about it. Computer users don’t start with notation software. They start with word processors. Therefore the people who write notation software should fix their programs so they work like Word. Things like cut and paste should be available, and you should be able to put a cursor wherever you want and enter a note or a rest. Sibelius isn’t like that. It won’t let you copy notes at random and paste them where you want them; you can only put them where Sibelius thinks they fit. You can’t put more notes in a measure than it will hold, with the intention of removing the extra notes later. You can’t easily copy a measure and paste the copy where you want. You have to learn a bunch of weird rules that are hard to remember because they go against common sense.

I’m sure that if I used Sibelius every day for eight hours, at the end of a week, I’d be able to use it, but the pain of the first two or three days is pretty bad.

I used to have a cheap program called Rhapsody, and it was easy to use. As I recall, you could pretty much put notes where you wanted them. There must be something else like that out there. I used Rhapsody to create this soon-to-be-Grammy-nominated piece of music:

loobner4

I realize this is the most annoying non-Kenny-G. song ever written, but I had a reason for writing variations on it.

If I could write music that simple and add lyrics, I’d be thrilled. Maybe Sibelius is too big. I think you can use it to create orchestral scores.

I’m going to root around on the web and make sure there’s no better software out there, and then I’m going to get to work. I can’t take this any more. I have to make this work before my head explodes.

Deus, Yes; Ex Machina, No

I went to the mall with my sister to buy stuff for Christmas and my dad’s birthday. If you think God doesn’t work miracles, the fact that we manage to shop together without bloodshed is proof that you’re wrong.

Like most men, I go to stores mainly when I realize I need something. Usually I know which store has it, and which aisle it’s in, and I can often tell you which shelf it’s on. I walk in, I grab it, I pay, and I leave. Once in a while I walk around and look at stuff I want but will not buy, but that takes five minutes, tops. My sister, on the other hand, enjoys being in stores and needs no other reason to enter one. I have to keep telling her, “There will still be stuff here next week.”

We accomplished our mission, and my old man has some good stuff headed his way. Now I am exhausted, and I have missed my bedtime for the third day in a row.

I got a call from Mike today. He wants to collaborate on The Armageddon Cookbook. He figures the US is tanking, much as I do, and he is really enjoying maxing out the power of his food dollars by shopping at Costco. His new thing is baking bread. Everyone should be doing this. It’s ridiculously easy, and you get a great loaf of bread for something like fifty cents. He just bought a fifty-pound bag of flour. He already gave a lecture to some lady he knows, who has to buy bread for five kids every week.

I honestly think I could feed myself very well for ten bucks a day, without even growing food. Maybe five bucks. I might get bored after a while, though. You can only cook beans and rice so many ways, and even pizza gets monotonous after about three months.

Okay, six.

Mike is really glad I’ve become more religious, and he wanted to talk about it. That’s fantastic. No one ever listens when I try to share what I’ve found. No one who hasn’t already found the same thing. Mike is a Christian, but he doesn’t go to church, and he wants to get more serious. I suggested he tag along to church the next time he’s here, and he was all for it.

When we were kids, he lived on the southwest corner of a busy intersection, and I lived on the northeast corner. Our neighborhood was full of successful professional people with extremely messed-up families. No one we knew attended church seriously. My mother dragged me and my sister to church sometimes, but you need a father to get that job done consistently. And she could never settle on a denomination. Depending on the month, we might be Baptist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Catholic. My mother was always drawn to Catholicism by the pageantry, and like a lot of women, she was mesmerized by the Pope, as if he had all the answers.

Mike says his family attended church on Easter.

Most people think God is smart. That’s obvious, but what I see in God’s work is more like talent than intelligence. When a talented person starts a creative project, it may not be clear what his plan is. He himself may not be sure. But something inside him remembers where all the loose ends are, and somehow, they wrap themselves up. I believe God always knows what he’s doing, but other than that, watching him work is very like watching a person engaged in the creative process.

Mike disappeared from my life. I thought he was gone. Now he’s back, and he has an interest in God, and it just so happens that I’m a few steps ahead of him in the same direction. When we got back together, I think we were both surprised how much we had in common. I had written a cookbook. Mike had become an amazing cook, and he fixed the same kinds of things I did. When we were kids, Mike got me interested in motorcycles, including Moto Guzzis. When we got back in touch, I had a Harley and a Moto Guzzi in my garage. Mike missed shooting. I had guns. Mike lived in New Hampshire, but he happened to have a new company with an office an hour away from me, guaranteeing he would get to come down and visit fairly often. On a couple of his visits, we talked about God, and each of us learned that the other had had supernatural experiences. Now we’re probably going to go to church together.

My sister and I were estranged. There was no way we could ever hope to get along. It just could not happen. It was not a possibility. That’s what I thought. But one day she saw a copy of God’s Smuggler on my table, and we started talking, and I found she had gone to a church two years earlier for baptism, and she was earnestly seeking God. Now we visit churches together and talk about our faith. And we pray our father will eventually join in.

There has to be a reason for all this. For the way the loose ends are coming together. I have to wonder. How many other people from my past will be brought back into my life, and what will the reasons be?

I guess before I go to bed I should share an experience I had today. I was trying to find more stuff to give my sister for Christmas, and I remembered that she said she really liked a Christian band called Third Day. While we were at a bookstore, the proprietor recommended their Christmas CD to her. I got on the web today to see if they had any more stuff she might like. Was I surprised! These guys are shockingly good. They’re not just good by Christian standards; they’re good by any standard. I can’t think of any country or Southern rock group currently working, which approaches their level. While I was checking out their music, I came across Brooke Fraser. Have you heard this woman? She’s so good, people who have no interest in God whatsoever buy her music.

It made me wish I could master Sibelius. I would give my eye teeth to write and publish really excellent Christian music. What better thing could you do with your life? Isn’t that better than being a lawyer or teaching people to overeat? Even with the dramatic improvement we’ve seen in Christian music, a lot of the stuff they play during worship is just not good. And it could be sublime.

In the past, I’ve always been able to write musical variations at will, but I’ve always had a hard time writing original melodies. I don’t know why; it’s really the same skill. Recently, though, I’ve been hearing the most wonderful tunes in my head, and I know I need to transcribe them. Maybe some of them have value. I shouldn’t let them disappear. I’ve always had a tough time writing lyrics, but maybe that will change, too.

I try to remember that I am now part of a plan, and that my life is being guided. I am sure I’m going to begin harvesting things God has been waiting for me to be ready to accept. Things are going to work out. That is what I believe. And the seemingly random or pointless or wasted events and experiences in my life will turn out to be meaningful and useful. God knows where all the bodies are buried, and he also knows how to bring them back to life.

I think that is true, and I try to keep it in my mind when things don’t seem to make sense. To me, more than a far-off promise of eternal life, this is the real magic of belief in God.

No One but me Touches the Remote

I think I may have developed the Dad Trunk Talent.

You have seen this gift in action. Your family gets ready to go on vacation. Mom and the kids have too much luggage. They put it in the trunk haphazardly, so it sticks out in all directions. Dad comes out with his one bag, and steam shoots out of his ears. Everyone hides behind shrubbery while he takes everything out of the trunk and puts it back in. Suddenly, it fits, with room to spare.

Everyone gets in the car, and you drive in silence, and Dad won’t stop to let anyone pee for 500 miles.

I rearranged my tools today, and now the garage looks almost empty.

Shopping is Unavoidable

I read the most disturbing thing in my comments today. Someone said I was “setting up a shop.” Is that what I’m doing?

What a way to look at it. It’s distressing. Here is how I saw it: I was “buying a reasonable variety of tools in order to be able to handle fairly routine jobs.” Now it’s a shop? Only freaks have shops! Ack. I’m in trouble.

I wanted to do stuff with tools. I used to go in the garage, get ready to work, and realize I was doomed, because I didn’t have the right equipment. I figured I could buy a few things and reach a point where most tasks would be within reach. But it doesn’t work that way.

You know how it starts. You get a bunch of wrenches and a small welder and a miter saw and some drills and drivers, and you think you’re set. Then you try to build something, and you find out you can’t do it without a grinder/dry cut saw/router/table saw/vise/whatever. Or you can do it, but it’s so hard without the required tool, the tools you already have are about as helpful as your former tools, the butter knife screwdriver and the scissors with one broken tip. Which you kept in your former shop, the funny drawer in the kitchen, which also contains old rubber bands, twist ties, and the short pieces of phone cable which come with cordless phones, which are too lame to use and too good to throw out.

I was tired of dealing with people who did not return phone calls, ran off during jobs, did incredibly bad work, overcharged, and/or had a bad attitude. I also wanted to have a way of implementing my whims and creative ideas, in 3-D. I thought tools were the answer. I was right, but I didn’t realize how much junk you have to have in order to get these people out of your life. You probably need to spend five thousand dollars to get a reasonable degree of tool independence. You probably have to spend ten to approach having a realistic hope of limiting outside hires to one or less per year. Maybe I overestimate. But you can’t do it with one trip to Sears.

I probably made some stupid buys. A drill press might have been smarter than a giant sliding miter saw, for example. It’s tough to know what you need, when you’re as clueless about tools as I am. And a great buy will always warp your judgment. I got that saw for a third off. The price made my palms sweat. And I’m trying not to drive to Pompano Beach and buy a Steel City drill press while they have their hundred-dollar-rebate going. I may fail.

Temptation is everywhere. Every time I go to get bird seed and toys, I grouse about the bird toy selection and the hideous prices. A good bird toy costs a minimum of eleven dollars, and some sell for 25. Some last for months. Some last an hour. In five minutes, with a drill press and miter saw, you can create something as good or superior, from scrap. But I continue to resist the drill press bug.

Tools are going to win. I can see that. They already have. I have a beautiful stainless tool chest, three sets of sockets, a welder, a compressor, two miter saws, an impact driver, a very nice router, a table saw, and a bunch of other junk. I am not going to stop. I just felt like whining about it. You can understand that. Surely.

My sister and I didn’t get to shop yesterday, so it’s happening today. I am steeling myself in preparation for braving the mall. Wish me luck.

I Had a Cunning Plan to Solve the Problem

I tried my clever idea for using a router to plane a board to use as a router fence. The results were…interesting.

I know this works, but you have to have some stuff I don’t have. You have to have clamps that are way lighter and shorter than mine, to hold the whole mess together while you run it over the router bit. And you really need some means of making a true edge on a board. I hate to say the “J” word, but I think you know what I mean.

I can make a true edge on a board, using a table saw. IF I already have a straight board equipped with toggle clamps, to attach the first board to while I run it through the saw. I can make a true edge with a router, IF I can clamp a straightedge to the work and use a bearing. I can make a true edge on a board using a circular saw, IF I have something to guide it and I can get the saw set up at a perfect 90 degrees to the wood.

Then I still have to plane it.

The only jig I know of that allows you to plane (“thickness,” really) a board with a router requires you to have some pretty precisely cut wood to begin with. The upshot of all this is, if I already had a lot of this stuff, I could probably make some of this stuff.

Perhaps the time has come to buy a piece of straight hardwood.

Woodworking for Dwarves

I’ve been watching my box-making video, with Doug Stowe. If you’re a tool person, you have to get this disk.

Doug Stowe is an old guy who lives in Arkansas, and he moves and talks slowly, and he has such a soothing voice, the DVD would be worth it purely as a relaxation video. He makes furniture, but between big jobs, he builds weird boxes. He has a workshop with a Shopsmith, a 1948 Atlas table saw, and a jointer, plus a few other unremarkable tools.

One wall of the shop is obscured behind shelves of lumber. He finds bits of it here and there, and he buys pieces he finds interesting, and he stores it up for later use.

It’s really neat. For decades, I have fantasized about making furniture, but that is not likely to happen. But you can have the same kind of creative experience–cheaper, faster, and easier–making small stuff like boxes. Stowe says he likes it because he can try out new ideas on a small scale, before applying them to big projects.

I think I may try this. It might be tremendous fun.

Take a look at this guy’s website. The furniture is wonderful.

It makes me regret selling off the land my relatives and I inherited, up in Kentucky. If I lived up there and I wanted a nice piece of maple or oak, I could walk outside, apply the chainsaw, maul, and wedges, and get what I needed. It would be wonderful to have some wood from that land. Too late now, though.

We still own the main barn on my grandfather’s Powell County farm. Maybe I could manage to get a few boards. They make barns up there out of white oak.

I had a swell time at the dentist’s office. I’m not totally positive the anaesthetic worked; I felt some pretty unpleasant sensations while he was reaming out my vintage filling. I told him I’d kill for a chair like his. He said it was possible to buy a dentist’s chair all by itself, without the other stuff. “Let me guess,” I said, “seven thousand dollars.” He said, “Eight, actually.” He said he didn’t understand why they were so expensive, and I said maybe the manufacturer figured insurance was paying for most of it. And my dentist said that was incorrect. He said the money came from ME. Apparently, most dental work is not covered by insurance. I feel like I ought to be able to go over there and sleep in that chair whenever I want.

I asked him whether the filling would be a big job, because it had been so long since I had had a filling done, I did not remember. He said, “You’ve never HAD a big job.” I guess that’s true, although I did suffer for four years with braces.

Once again, my phone went off during the visit and informed me I had to go to the dentist.

I don’t know where my sister got off to.

Witness the Depravity

My good friend Elisson has outdone himself. He has a recipe for turkey legs floating in fat. I am not kidding. Go to his blog, where you will see the meat in question, swimming in a big container of pure duck and goose schmaltz. Where he got that much bird fat is beyond me.

One of my favorite lazy-day dishes is roasted turkey leg with stuffing. I take a crappy turkey leg, season it, put it on a pan, surround it with stuffing, and bake. I don’t know why I make that so rarely. I think it’s because the price of turkey legs went up. I resent having to pay big money for dark meat, even though it’s the best part of the bird.