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17
Jan 12

Another broken thing

Spent a little time at the hardware store last evening, wondering What else do I need?

This is not the place to have that conversation with yourself.

The self-chat came about because of one we had in the kitchen on Sunday. I remember it well, I was adding food to the cat’s feeder when The Yankee said “I’m having a vision … and you’re not going to like it … ”

Because there was something else to fix, which is always an adventure here, which has been closely documented in this space. This time it was the tank on the toilet in the master bathroom, which has already been fixed once. Or so we thought.

Now, instead of the charm of the occasionally running toilet, we had the fun of a continually running toilet. We’re not talking about the bad seal of a bad flapper in the tank that allows water seepage and requires tank replenishment. No, this is was a malfunctioning float valve, sticking in the wrong position and threatening to flood the room from the storage tank.

If you go to the website for the piece of equipment they have a breadcrumb FAQ that allows you to ascertain what is causing your problem. The fourth level of questioning is “Is your device more than five years old?”

The response, if your answer is yes, is “Buy a new one.”

So I had to buy a new float device. The replacement was an upgrade of the same broken model, which was the second cheapest at the hardware store. I’m beginning to learn a lot about the previous owner of the house.

Bought that and nothing else. I’d gone through a mental walk of the house. Nothing is broken in that room. Don’t have to replace anything in there.

And then home to replace the thing, where I found just one more space that, had it been designed to be just four inches wider, would have been SO much more convenient.

You take off the tank cover, drain the basin, dry the bottom and start disconnecting things. First the old flapper and chain, and then the feeder tube. Finally you make it underneath the tank which almost abuts the cabinet. There is a threaded clamp and lug nut that must be removed from the bottom of the tank’s inlet tube. All three of these piece are made of plastic. One of them is a little more than hand tight.

So I have to gentle try to use a wrench on a piece of plastic, only there isn’t enough space between the porcelain and the cabinet. A lot of time and several mutterings happen. I disconnect the supply tube at the shutoff valve.

At this point I’m wondering if I should know more engineers, because they might get a good laugh out of this.

To unstick the stuck one I must re-tighten the freed plastic lug nut. After several attempts this is done, the offending inlet tube and broken float. Install the new one.

I’ve managed to jab and cut my finger and the palm of my hand in this process.

“Easy installation!” says the box. And it was, even the blister packet, the scourge of western capitalism, wasn’t a difficult obstacle. It was the removal that was tough. But we’ve gone so green with these devices that we’re using twice as much plastic as necessary to make a toilet go. Technology that the Romans mastered has been over-engineered.

There are now two chains in that particular basin, one from the flapper to the handle and another from a guard on the float (designed to save water) which also goes to the handle. This will not prevent anything.

There’s also a plastic roller device, which looks like it would excel at making miniature croissants, that attaches to the line that feeds water to the overflow tube. This is supposed to save water. That’s also the job of that little plastic fake screw that sits just to the side of the float, which regulates how much water goes into the tank before it ultimately goes into the bowl.

There are two pounds of plastic creating a triple redundancy of water usage control on a device which will be broken in five years. That should last just long enough for the plumbing techs to over-design the next chunk of plastic, so there’s that.

You still have to lick envelopes?

I sent letters today. Actual correspondence. With stamps and everything!

Now I’m exhausted.

I also had to prepare new copies of my transcripts for the dean at Samford. Once upon a time you walked into an office or made a phone call and started the process. These days, of course, it is all online. Also, this costs money. I have three colleges to send away to, so it costs a few bucks.

Interestingly the price varies. It seems my grades at one school are more valuable than the other two.

So, to review, you pay tuition to have the privilege to go to classes. You earn your grades. You pay to graduate. Years later, you must pay again, to retrieve the grades you earned.

Terrific scam.

One of my schools charged $11. Another $12. Another $15. The third-party firms will ship an electronic version of your grades, a PDF, which will self-destruct after three views. Printed “allowed.” Copying? Not allowed.

Linky things: Somebody had to do it, may as well be John Archibald, writing the “if only everything else were as important here as football” column:

And never, ever, accept mistakes you could correct.

Alabamians — Alabama and Auburn fans alike — accept no less from their football teams. It’s amazing what they accept off the field.

Alabama was fourth-worst in the nation last year in robberies, and fifth-worst in murders, according to CQ Press.

It ranked in the bottom five in overall health last year, according to the United Health Foundation. It was 49th in obesity, infant mortality and premature deaths.

The state was 47th in teaching math and science, according to the American Institute of Physics.

It was in the bottom 10 in traffic fatalities per vehicle mile, in poverty rates and energy consumption per person, according to the census.

Alabama is not No. 1. Unless you count our highest-in-the-country rate of diabetes.

If life in Alabama were football, somebody would be fired.

Alabama’s last daughter of the confederacy has died. Someone in the comments of the last daughter story says that her father was 81 when she was born. Apparently they have pictures, too. One presumes of sometime after her birth. She is survived by, among others, her brother, who is the last surviving son of the confederacy.

That’s a lot to wrap your mind around, but then the last Civil War widow died just eight years ago.

State of the Media: This is from Vocus, a media software firm:

152 papers ceased operations in 2011. Of the papers that closed, not one major daily went under—the first year since 2009 that a top-tier paper didn’t shut down.

[…]

(T)here were a total of 195 magazine launches in 2011 with the unveiling of new consumer titles taking a modest hit.

[…]

(O)nline streaming of television shows and newscasts continued to increase.

[…]

(T)raditional radio continued to prove it’s a survivor, despite evidence that the majority of people prefer to get their news elsewhere. In all four quarters, reports showed growth in radio listenership.

Vocus’ full, optimistic, report will be out later this month.

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3
Jan 12

I did not use the tape

Lovely day. Even the Committee on Greatest Day Ever, which meets quadrennially in a secure location in the Pyrenees, will be required to consider it for an international honorable mention. It only gets the purple ribbon because it is an especially cold day. This is unnecessary, and will be waited-out until a pleasant April day comes along.

Late breakfast at the Barbecue House, where the place was empty and thus the hash browns were plentiful. Mr. Price, if you’re keeping track, is back to not remembering me. He asked if we needed a menu. No thanks, I’ll just have the usual.

Stopped by world headquarters of The War Eagle Reader. We visited with one of Jeremy’s daughters, talked about tomorrow’s stories today and met Torch, official co-cat:

Later I visited Lowe’s, because they’ve offended me less than Home Depot. (The next time I need a hardware part I’ll visit Home Depot, because I hit up Lowe’s this time.) I needed to address an issue in the kitchen sink. Not the sink itself, but an attachment, that retractable spray hose. Not the spray hose, though, but rather the little plastic circle bracket it rests in.

The old one cracked in two before the holidays. I removed all of the cleaning supplies that live under the sink, crawled inside, reached around and through the various pipes and traced the hose up to where it attaches to the plumbing. There was no easy way to get to it, everything was by feel and felt awkward in every way. This was not going to be an easy task.

So at Lowe’s I walked around with the Confused Looked of Resignation until someone in a vest stumbled across my path. I’d been in three sections by then, when he asked “Can I help you find something?” I was surrounded by sinks at the time, but this was the wrong place to find a sink accessory attachment, which was four aisles away.

The good news, the gentleman told me, was that this is attached at the hose, not under the sink. That’s much better. But you have to buy both the nozzle and the flange. Used to be, he said, that you could buy just the flange, but no more. I picked up the cheapest one, which almost matched the one in our kitchen thinking, That might explain somethings.

There are instructions inside. On the outside it says you’ll need an adjustable wrench, adjustable pliers, needle nose pliers and pipe thread tape. I have the tools, or can make do, but I needed the tape. Found it two aisles over, nearer the sinks, so things are well organized. The tape cost $1.06.

Got home, where we had company. Visited for a while, talking of football and jobs and weddings and things.

Later we visited Target, where we received a gift card for Christmas. We decided to pick up frames and continue the house decorating. We walked out with seven frames, two of them will hold a trip we took to San Francisco four years ago. We framed a lithograph from Rome and two pieces from Greece, from our honeymoon two years ago. Good prints take time, you know. You have to study these things, consider them for taste and durability, before you commit them to a frame.

And then, like later tonight, there’s the pulling out the paper examples, replacing the mattes, cleaning the glass and making it all fit together again. And then there’s the difficulty of finding the proper wall. Where will the sun accentuate the proper setting? Will the ceiling fan reflect off this frame?

These are difficult questions.

Anyway. Saw this at Target:

In one swift, 8×10 motion the designer managed to offend at least two different groups of people. Keeping calm having to do with the Blitz, rocking on antithetical to the stiff upper lip of the English establishment. But when rock has become over-produced pop, and with rocking on now meaning a third thing entirely, we’re really just dumbing down the argument. There is no need, the artist suggests, to understand the origin of these expressions, their historical antecedents and how these two things are actually tied together by pushing against one another. Just appreciate the juxtaposition and this wicked awesome line art of a Flying V. And so it will be that a 13-year-old will have a cute, possibly ironic mantra for the Twilight generation.

Later still I returned to the sink fixture. Turned off the water, made the source pipe leak. Emptied the entire two cabinets in a hurry, mopped up the water, fixed the leak and carried on. The instructions tell you to remove the old sprayer, but not how. (It unscrews. Not to worry, though: I have an advanced education.)

Popped off the little clamp, removed the washers. Dropped one washer down the sink, where it fell perfectly through the drain.

Pull the hose out of the sink, putting the flange in place, feeding the hose back through. Insert the new washers, apply the new clamp. Screw on the new nozzle, turn on the water, give everything a try.

It works!

And then I completed reorganized the things under the cabinet.

Thing I’ll take the pipe thread tape back to the store. It never appeared in the directions, nor did any of the wrenches or pliers, so now I’ll be awake all night wondering if I’ve managed to manufactured by own leaky faucet.

Even still, wonderful day.

errands / memories / Thursday / video — Comments Off
27
Oct 11

A lot of talk about talk

Alabama’s new and controversial immigration law makes an appearance on the Colbert Report:Comedy as commentary is difficult to overcome, is it not?

Class this afternoon, so much of the morning was devoted to preparing there. The students were writing fake stories. Here are the details, write a story based on what you know. There was a fake story about a shooting death, another about a prominent local company moving their operations overseas and one more on a car fatality with alcohol involved.

These exercises are important, because the place we put ideas and the words we use to get there are critical to a story. For most people, winding up in the news is not a pleasant experience. We don’t need to make things worse with a misplaced modifier or some other syntax error.

The future! By Microsoft:

I scrolled down through the comments, hoping the very first one would have some incredible insight. The first three, however, noted that Microsoft envisions better tech in videos than they produce. And then a big argument about Apple and St. Steve inventing the tablet. Also, within about three minutes of each other different people thought this was the loneliest future they’ve ever seen, or the coolest thing ever and “I want one now!”

I’m glad to see that typos will still be a part of our future. Check out the 2:55 mark.

Also in the future, Roy Moore wants his old job back. The last time he had that job he was fired by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. I remember covering that story like it was yesterday. November of 2003 he lost the job, but this fight had been going on for months. I remember sitting in my studio, watching video from Montgomery and a man in a red flannel shirt, red-faced, veins throbbing, screaming at the top of his lungs demanding Moore’s Ten Commandments monument be put back. I was concerned about that guy’s health. Wonder where he is now.

Because I love myself I visited Walmart tonight. I know! And this after getting a haircut yesterday. Haircuts are one of my least favorite chores, because of the conversations. These are is especially awkward if you go to one of those places where you never see the same person twice. The conversation, then, demands a very basic, elevator level of commitment spread out over a longer period of time than a three floor ride in a large box.

The lady that cut my hair this time smelled of cigarettes. She disliked the cold. She could not decide if she’d seen me before. (She had not.) And she had trouble breathing. The guy that’s cut my hair the last two times, elsewhere at an actual barber shop, scares me a little. And his finished job is a bit severe. The lady yesterday, though, did a nice job on everything but the sideburns. This is remarkably hard, trimming things to be level; no one ever does it right and is no longer something that can be judged.

Everything else, though, centered on the awkward conversation. I like conversation, but the hair chair isn’t the place. Cab drivers need conversation because some of them are already on the edge. Plus there’s the where are you going, where have you been, who will you be when you get there mystery of cab rides. Most any other place a little chit chat is fine. Rapport is great, fishing for repeat customers is understandable, making people feel at ease is applauded. I want you to concentrate on what you are doing. Don’t jam my eye with the clipper. She almost did last night.

Having survived, though, why not go to Walmart tonight? Taylor Swift has a line of greeting cards now. Bing Crosby warned that Santa Claus is coming to town. We change the clocks in two weeks. Halloween is this weekend. This might be a little early.

The checkout line was … post office-like in it’s slowness.

Maybe it was the guy trying to get information from the cashier about her coworker so he could go flirt. There’s another awkward conversation, at least no sharp instruments were used.

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21
Oct 11

Hedge hogging

The most productive accomplishment of the day was in trimming the hedges. This is no small thing, as our house is surrounded on three sides by shrubbery. I’m not sure why the southernmost side is bare.

Everything along the front, save the door, the sidewalk and the garage, are bordered with green, growing things. All but one segment was trimmed. The lucky ones — and isn’t that just like a bunch of bushes, bragging to their neighbors? “You got chopped up, but I’m still here. Look at me grow! — I left alone because they’ll probably be dug out of the ground in a few weeks. Others along the front got lowered, including one that borders the garage. We’ve developed a little contour into it for the car’s side mirror.

There are also two at the end of the drive. These must be maintained to preserve the proper turning ratio as one backs out of the drive. This requires the acquisition of surveying tools, and chalk lines. I am the only person in America going through such precise measurements.

The unintended benefit, or consequence, is that one of them is growing around the mailbox post. I’d let it grow over the thing, but that would probably violate some nuance of the neighborhood and only make the mail carrier mad.

I do all of this, by the way, with the 24-inch Black & Decker Hedge Hog, which is like mounting an M-60 onto Excalibur and plugging an extension cord into the hilt. You hit the trigger, feel that dual blade action, wave it above your head and know: your kingdom is only limited by your vision.

And municipally recognized property lines.

Trimming up the northern side of the estate required the ladder, because there are some bushes on steroids on that side of the house. Two of them would have been easier to reach from the roof.

So I’m standing on the top of a multi-use ladder. We have a transformer of aluminum that makes shapes that are only limited by your imagination, and not its contortion. I dutifully set the ladder into a standard A configuration, straddling the center hinge point with a foot on either side. I realized I couldn’t reach the very back of the bush. OK then. So I find myself standing on the top of the A, in the hinge-point, waving about a whirring 24-bladed saw with shark teeth moving at 2,900 strokes per minute.

My kingdom is suddenly a lot less interesting from this vantage point. I climbed down quickly.

The curious thing about the greenery here is that there is a lot of variety. Once the offending shrubs are out of the front there will only be one place surrounding the entire structure where you see two of the same species next to one another. I haven’t yet decided if that’s a feature or a bug. If you had to dig them all up, every annoying root, what would you replace them with? Uniformity or everything that could grow in this climate?

And that’s the sort of thing you think about as you rake away the leaves leavings. That’s some way to start your Friday evening.

YouTube Cover Theatre, where we see the talent that people have, until the advent of webcams and the Internet, people were hiding in their homes. Since Irecently watched the George Harrison documentary, we may as well check out covers of some of his work.

The Beatles weren’t my band. I like them fine, they just don’t belong to me. Wrong generation. But, if I had been in the right group, I think Harrison would have been my favorite of the bunch. And since you can’t have Harrison without the band, we’ll start with a cover of All Those Years Ago:

That looks like an impossibly difficult tune and he did a nice job. Then he leaned back against his den’s wood paneled walls and enjoyed the rest of his evening.

This cover of My Sweet Lord has received 26,000 views, which may be the largest count that we’ve ever seen in YouTube Cover Theater. Aside, is it just me, or has this song always sounded like it should be appropriated as commercial bed music?

One of the cool things about the Beatles, I would think, would be introducing what has essentially become timeless music to kids. I mean the clean cut, less drugs portion of the catalog. And while this is essentially a Paul McCartney tune, Harrison wrote the main riff, which is enough of an excuse to show a cute cover by a father serenading his daughter for her second birthday.

When she’s older she’s going to be humming Beatles tunes and won’t remember why. Then she’s going to stumble through her dad’s YouTube uploads and it will all click. It will be adorable.

Hard to believe it has been 10 years since George Harrison died. I was doing a network newscast at the time, the last segment of which was a 30 second spot and outro. That day I just played this song for 30 seconds and signed off:

Just for fun, here’s a recreation of Harrison’s Bangladesh Concert with members of Wonderous Stories, Alan Parsons Live Project and more, covering Wah Wah:

Other things happened today, too, emails and organizational things. We’ll have wrapped up the latest big project at work by the first part of the week, it seems my part has largely been completed, except for showing up at the various events next week. Homecoming at Samford means advisory council meetings and wall of fame induction ceremonies and all of the attendant activities.

With those things now completed I can return to other work. Like digging up shrubs.