Get Down With Your Own Bad Self, B.
I have been neglecting the blog because I have had to screw with some hosting problems. I hope none of you tried to email me at any address not on the HOI domain, because if you did, your emails are history.
Here’s something fun to keep you entertained while I finish my electrical project.
By the way, Walken now has his own email address. You can find it on the blog.
How?
Surprise me tomorrow morning with some information. How do you drill a 10″ deep hole in concrete with a coring bit that is 4″ long? Seems like long bits are hard to find.
I was thinking there must be some kind of bit extender, and that every time the bit bottoms out, you could knock the core out with a chisely shaped sort of a thing.
But maybe it’s impossible.
No Explosions
Man, I am beat. I haven’t been working that hard. And it’s not really that hot outside. But it’s so muggy, the sweat gushes out of you, and somehow, it’s exhausting.
I ripped out the conduit running from the AC disconnect box to the outdoor floodlight. I rewired the floodlight. I ran wire in through the garage wall. I opened a hole going from the garage into the air handler closet, where there is a handy, unused length of Romex.
The drilling was too easy. I barely got to enjoy it. The rotary hammer just farts once or twice, and then you’re through the wall. As tool experiences go, this is hard to beat.
I experienced severe confusion, trying to figure out how to take wires running from the floodlight’s EMT conduit and run them through a concrete wall. There are a lot of rigid conduit parts made for this, but I couldn’t find any EMT stuff. I guess EMT under an outdoor soffit is less than kosher. I don’t know. I solved it by screwing a 1/2″ EMT connector into the side of a PVC box and screwing the box to the wall. I popped the plug out of the back of the box, and I ran the wires through it and into the wall. I pumped the opening full of Alex caulk to keep bugs from using it as a highway, although I guess that’s kind of pointless in a garage. I may blast the cavity inside the cinderblock full of foam, purely out of spite. This is Miami. SOMETHING will make a home in there.
I suppose a real man would replace all the EMT conduit with rigid. I don’t know what the code is. Virtually every piece of outdoor wiring I’ve seen in houses here has been EMT, but that doesn’t mean anything.
The rotary hammer makes a bigger hole on the way out than it does on the way in, so I patched the holes with crap from a can, and now I have to wait until tomorrow before I can finish.
The wiring from the AC box to the floodlight was fascinating. It passed an outdoor outlet on the way. There was one color code on the way from the box to the outlet, a second between the outlet and the light, and a third in the light. So part of the time I was just replacing wires so things would make sense.
Fixing the outdoor wiring is not what’s exciting here. What’s exciting is getting a new 20-amp outlet in the garage, a new 20-amp outlet in the air handler closet, and two sets of lights on the wall in the closet. But that won’t happen until tomorrow or Thursday.
I am the king of all tools. Fear me. Etc. Etc.
Makita Makes it Easy
I am making a Youtube of the hammer drill versus the rotary hammer. I happen to have 3/4″ masonry bits for each. I started the hole in the garage wall with the hammer drill, and it was working okay. Then I hit it with the rotary hammer. ZAP. I was done. Very nice.
Woody Allen says 80% of success is showing up. I would say 50% is showing up and 40% is having the right tool.
The Garage Will Submit Shortly
It’s an exciting day. Aren’t ALL days exciting? Of course they are. But this one stands out, because yesterday, my ridiculous rotary hammer arrived. This means I can redo the 15-amp 110 circuit some brilliant contractor ran directly to a 60-amp 220 fuse. I get to drill two deep 3/4″ holes in concrete and cinderblocks.
The hammer is kind of scary. And it has several knobs, which means I may have to look at the manual. Yesterday I complained that a contractor had used a rented demo hammer to make a hideous hole in a wall by the AC compressor. I think I understand why that happened. I think the rental people refuse to rent complicated tools to complete idiots, because the rental people lose the manuals, and they don’t want doofuses making dubious guesses. The demo hammer is much simpler. You push button, it go.
I’m psyching myself up, here. I may have to Youtube this for posterity. I think I’ll plug the hammer into the existing defective circuit and see if it burns the house down.
WordPress!
I have had to redo a couple of my websites. If you were on the blogrolls at the old sites, you are gone now, because WordPress failed to transfer the links. I’ll try to replace everyone. Sorry about that.
More
You will be glad to know Wilford Brimley is backing John McCain.
The Sand is Deep Today
I just watched CNBC for a bit. Apparently the world really IS coming to an end. Thought you might want to know.
The Dow went down over 700 points earlier today. At the moment, it’s down about 500. And suddenly that looks pretty good.
They’re saying the Fed is going to cut at least half a point off the prime rate. Will it matter? I don’t know.
I can’t help wondering if deflation is headed our way. The dollar is pummeling foreign currencies, and a lot of things are getting cheaper here, and because people are jittery, things that used to sell very freely are going to have to be marketed aggressively. We’re looking at cheap oil and cheap metals, except for gold. Real estate continues to drop in value. Unemployment is increasing, so presumably, people will be willing to work for less, and wages will drop. If wages drop, things just plain have to cost less, don’t they? I’m no economist, but it seems to me that consumers can’t spend money they don’t have. Okay, I suppose they can, but won’t that be harder to do as credit tightens up?
I suspect that Jim Cramer helped cause this. He went on TV and told people to sell stocks. He said that if there was any money they thought they might need during the next five years, it was time to pull it out. Over the last few years, this man has become extremely popular. He’s like Obama; a “rock star.” Fate raised him to a very lofty place, and this weekend, he dropped a very big rock on us from up there. Maybe he was right to say what he did, but I’m sure he scared millions of people to death.
The Pope says obsessing on money is vain. Here’s a Reuters quote:
The pontiff, using a biblical metaphor, said people who ignored the word of God to pursue wealth had effectively built their homes on sand instead of on a solid foundation of faith.
That is true. I have known a lot of prosperous people, and the impression I have formed is that things go badly for them unless God is in their lives. Their families fall apart. They get caught up in spirals of senseless self-destruction. Sometimes they lose everything. Sometimes they get richer, and it somehow leaves them even worse off.
Godless people with money remind me of socialists in places like China and the old USSR. A few things go right, and they become convinced it’s all coming together. If they just keep headed in the same direction. If you have money, you have power, and if you have power, you can fix your problems. Right? But the horizon keeps receding. They never catch up with the mirage.
I’m with the Pope on this one. I’m saying that publicly, because I’m sure he worries about my opinion. God really is up there, and if you turn toward Him sincerely and persistently, and if you submit, He’ll get you through your problems. Maybe He’ll fix them, and maybe He won’t, but you’ll come out on the other side in one piece, and you’ll be able to bear the journey.
I’m not suffering the way a lot of people are right now; the exposure isn’t there. But I feel very low anyway, knowing what hundreds of millions of people are going through. I’m so grateful that God woke me up and prepared me for this kind of thing.
Thursday is Yom Kippur. This is a great week to try to turn things around.
I Did Sleep at a Holiday Inn Express Once
As the proud owner of a rotary hammer that has not been delivered yet, I have an observation.
There is a hole at the foot of a wall, outside. It’s a three-foot-high wall. During heavy rain, water used to accumulate behind it. Long ago, I instructed a contractor to put the hole in, with a PVC pipe, to let the water out.
They rented a demo hammer with a chisel bit, and they busted a big nasty hole. It took them a long time. They quit before it was done. I had to go behind them with a hammer and chisel and open it up. I crammed a pipe in there and sealed it in place with foam. It looks pretty bad.
After I ordered the rotary hammer, a reader of this blog said I had to get a coring bit. This is pretty much the same thing as a hole saw, except it makes holes in concrete. You can make holes over 3″ wide with the hammer I ordered. Pretty, smooth holes. And if you hit rebar? No problem. The bits are made to cut it. It has occurred to me that this is what the contractor should have used.
Question: how many years do you have to work in construction before you realize a coring bit and a rotary hammer are what you need to make holes in concrete walls? Am I imagining things, or is this yet another example of Miami-contractor incompetence?
More, Please
On Saturday, I had a rare pleasure. I went to a movie about politics and social issues, and I didn’t have to cringe once. I didn’t have to watch American soldiers rape foreign women or use Indians for target practice. I didn’t have to watch fictional CEOs poison people in exchange for nominal increases in their profits. No gays or transgenders or [insert tedious all-inclusive phrase here] were beaten up by jocks. There were no unrealistic nuclear accidents caused by greed and laziness. And I didn’t see Christians portrayed as narrow-minded, unempathetic, self-righteous fanatics who mistreat other people in misguided attempts to please God.
Oh, wait. Actually, that last sentence is wrong. I did see some pretty nasty Christians. The movie was An American Carol, and there was a scene in which Little Satan Bill O’Reilly tormented a fat girl named Rosie O’Connell for creating a documentary dramatizing the many crimes of terrorist nuns and priests. You know their tricks. Exploding bingo markers. Radioactive rosary beads. Votive candles full of black powder and nails.
I guess you’ll want a review. I’ll give you the basics right now. It was broad comedy, and the slapstick accusations are correct. It wasn’t the finest movie I’ve ever seen. Come on; what did you expect? This is the Hot Shots/Naked Gun crew. But it was funny, and I enjoyed it, and I pray it will be the beginning of a whole new anti-socialist-kook backlash in entertainment.
The Christian-terrorist scenes were wonderful. They showed a nun blowing herself up on a bus, and a couple of priests entering a jet cockpit and beating the flight crew senseless with a switchblade cross. Why is that wonderful? Because the scenes were written by THREE HOLLYWOOD JEWS. David Zucker is the ringleader, and the movie also credits Myrna Sokoloff and Lewis Friedman. Yes, I’m assuming they’re Jewish because of their names. That’s okay; Jimmy Carter did it when he kept Jews out of his “peace” organization.
Do you understand what a remarkable thing this is? Three Jews sat down and tried to come up with a way to defend Christianity in a major film. That probably hasn’t happened since Ben Hur. What a day this is! There is a major charity dedicated to bringing Jews and Christians together and channeling Christian money to Jews in need. Christian ministers are being excoriated in the press for supporting Israel too fervently. And now we have secular Hollywood Jews, working actively to defend us!
The movie only took in $3.8 million this weekend, but I don’t think that’s a big deal. It was clearly filmed on a low budget, so they probably don’t have to make a fortune in order to break even. And it wasn’t advertised heavily, and it wasn’t screened for critics (who are overwhelmingly liberal), and the critics who have managed to review it have been nearly as venomous, dishonest, and unfair as the critics who have reviewed Sarah Palin. Give it time; I doubt it will do so badly it will scare Tinseltown away from conservative movies forever.
Conservative filmmakers should probably make a point of keeping budgets low. First of all, money isn’t what makes movies good. It just makes them flashy. Second, low budgets mean lower break-even points plus the possibility of funding more films from the same limited pile of investment money, and third, conservatives are supposed to be more responsible than liberals. Wasting money isn’t the conservative way! Ask John McCain.
If Zucker and the Friends of Abe are serious about making a dent in the entertainment industry, they need to make some effort to organize and recruit. An American Carol had a cast worthy of a major Hollywood epic. Performers are available. I think they need to work harder on the other parts of filmmaking. They need to find good cinematographers, writers, and directors. The stars aren’t going to look good unless they have strong people behind them.
Conservatives need to form their own businesses. We need conservative talent agencies and literary agencies. A conservative network that isn’t a news channel. Working from within the liberal-dominated infrastructure will be difficult and slow. If we’re going to do this, we shouldn’t screw around. There is no point in trying to hide now. The cat is out of the bag. It’s time to sink or swim. If the American Carol folks are brave enough to provoke the jihadists (unlike the gutless Hollywood establishment), they should be brave enough to reach out, openly, to try to find and organize talent.
Go see the movie. If you don’t feel like sitting through it, buy a ticket and throw it out. Show the establishment punks they can’t keep us down. Maybe this will be the start of something wonderful.
Serious Error in Judgment
Kind of busy at the moment, but Uncle Chris just posted.
Only in America
What a horrendous day it is turning out to be.
Mike and I went to El Exquisito and had fried pork lumps, moros, yuca, plantain, Cuban bread, and espresso. Then we went to Gordon Food Supply, purely for the fun. Mike thought he had died and gone to heaven.
We’ll be heading out to see An American Carol shortly.
Here’s a clue what the day has been like:
In addition to a gallon can of Hershey’s syrup, I’m holding two S.W. “Red” Smith products. Mike bought the Big John sausages, and I bought the pickled pig’s feet.
The syrup was just for show.
Now I have to go to a conservative movie, with a loaded pistol in my pocket.
I love this country.
By the way, Mr. Walken is annoyed. Guess we should have picked up a ham.
I’ll Ride Behind it on the Vincent Black Shadow
Mike has just gotten off the plane in Fort Lauderdale, so he’ll be here in an hour, and soon afterward, we will be hitting El Exquisito for a Cuban feast. I’ve been messing with domain issues all morning, so I haven’t eaten much of anything. I am READY.
Mike is a great guy to dine with, because he is one hundred percent enthusiasm. Even at Man Camp, I sometimes hear whiny things like, “Are you really going to eat that?” With Mike, you never have that problem. Mike understands.
I can’t wait to see An American Carol. It has occurred to me that David Zucker and the Friends of Abe might be the beginnings of an entertainment homologue to Fox News.
When Fox arrived on the scene, it had no competition. Conservatives were nearly invisible on news channels. You know how it was. You’d see one liberal after another, and then, to appear fair, they’d wheel Bob Novak out in a cage, and people would poke him with sticks. And Fox took the lead! Because it had the best programming? No, sorry, I wish I could say so. They do a lot of solid work on the other stations. The reason is the cultural difference. Centrists and conservatives can watch Fox without feeling like they’re under attack by lying weasels.
Right now, it’s tough to find movies that don’t reflect the amoral, America-hating coastal culture. It may be that there is a pent-up, unsatisfied desire for entertainment people who aren’t effete socialists can watch. If that’s the case, An American Carol will succeed, even if it’s merely okay. If it’s really good, it could be a monster hit.
I’d kill to work with these people. I wish they had been around twenty years ago. I would have moved to California and slept in the gutter in front of David Zucker’s house to get an interview.
These days I wouldn’t move to California unless the alternative was being boiled alive.
By the way, Christopher Walken hasn’t blogged yet today, but he is awake and full of Bosco and responding to comments. If you haven’t read his blog yet, you are already into him for a thou. And the juice started running in July.
Food, Guns, Hippie Abuse
My buddy Mike is coming down this weekend, so I expect chaos and entropy until Monday. We’ll be hitting El Exquisito for Cuban food for lunch tomorrow. After that, I may force him to watch An American Carol.
We have to support this movie. I know, I didn’t support Fox’s “humor” show. This is different. That show was a disgrace and an abortion. This movie can’t possibly be as bad or as embarrassing. For one thing, the people involved are qualified to do comedy. That’s the main difference. David Zucker has a proven humor track record. Unlike Joel Surnow and his…associates. It’s worth supporting even if it stinks, because there is some possibility that Zucker will eventually hire the right people and make really funny conservative movies. Again, this distinguishes him from Joel Surnow.
It’s probably funny, though. The trailer is a riot.
We’ll be hitting the range on Sunday. Mike now lives near DC, so he is gun-starved. Very sad. I should make him go to Samco with me tomorrow and watch me buy another K31.
Life is great. Over and out.
Moore
Sure looks funny to me!
I Better Buy a Lottery Ticket
Finally, a decent review for my book: CLICK.