So, What's Up With Candace Owens?

I used to catch the Addisons (in the linked video) on the radio when I was driving a lot more than I do now.

Lately, many people (*) are asking, "What has happened to Candace Owens?"

So, what *has* happened to Candace Owens? In a word: Catholicism. To be a bit more precise, much as leftists in general, "right-wing" Catholics tend to imbibe Jew-hatred. Obviously, not all do, but it is a general tendency. Also, as a convert to Catholicism, it's not at all surprising that she is going to start trying to equate Protestantism with Satanism.

(*) Though, Bob Parks is probably not asking that question, as he never trusted her "conversion" from leftism to conservatism was genuine.

Shock: Candace Owens believes Protestantism is rooted in Satanism

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

(click on photos for a larger image)

As I mentioned in the last post, thanks to prodding by my sister, Karen -- and her active help in doing the work -- I have finally started the much-needed project of re-siding my house.  In the last post, I focused on the easiest part of the project: re-siding what remains as exterior of the east wall and gable of the original structure. This post is about the west wall of the house: half being original and half being the 1930s addition to the house.

First, a couple of photos to illustrate just why residing the house (and especially the west wall) is so necessary.

As I'd said in the last post, part of the problem is that the wood siding I had installed in about 1990 wasn't the best quality wood -- what is, these days? And part of the problem is due to a mistake I made in installing it.   We see the result here: rotted wood -- my attempt the forestall this very problem actually contributed to causing it.

This photo was taken after we had ripped off about half the siding of this "bay".  This "bay" is part of the original structure, which was three rooms at ground and two rooms above.The (barely visible) "bay" to the right is part of the 1930s addition to the house.. 

The sunburst in the gable is from a demolished house, as are the pillars on the porch (not visible in this photo). The octagonal window and cedar shingles below the sunburst are my doing from about 1990. The triple window (for the kitchen) is also my doing (as are all the windows); when I bought the house, the original window in the kitchen had been replaced with one not much larger than the octagonal window.

This photo shows the start of re-siding this "bay". The white board above the foundation is a 1x12 PVC board -- expensive, but impervious to water. I'll run a band like this all around the foundation.  To be honest, it's strictly for appearance, as a visual "base" of the walls. 

The vertical 1x12s, on the other hand, which divide the walls into "bays", are not just visual, but also serve the purpose of allowing me to cover/protect nearly all the joints in the siding from weather/water.  The siding boards are 12' long, and fit between the vertical 1x12s; then I install a vertical 1x3 at the two sides of the vertical 1x12 to cover the ends of the siding.  Only on the front room (which is 20' wide) and the south wall of the dining room and master bedroom (which are 16' wide) will I have exposed joints in the siding in the expanses below the windows.

 

This photo, taken from the south-west corner of the house, shows the west wall with the new siding and trim up, as yet unpainted. I decided to forego painting it just yet as I wanted to move the scaffolding to allow us to install siding on the south wall of the sun-room (recall, that wall is in effect on the third floor). Even with the two of us, it took several hours to raise the five levels of scaffolding necessary to work on the sun-room south wall.

 And from the north-west.

As the west wall of the house gets the worst of the weather, I decided to build "false roofs" over the kitchen and dining room windows to divert some of the rainwater away from them.

The to-do list for this side of the house is:

1) install soffits under the "false roofs";

2) build/install the window treatments for the kitchen and dining room windows;

3) decide how I'm going to finish that bedroom dormer;

4) paint it all

This photo, taken from the south-west corner, shows the south wall of the house ... or rather, of the "main" part of the house -- there is a whole house-sized extension to the north-east. To the left, at ground-level, the basement door. Above that, dining room windows. To the right, living room windows. To the right, a covered patio (I originally intended it to be open to the sky, but I eventually roofed it, fearing that freezing water in the substrate would over time destroy the retaining-wall). Above the dining room is the master bedroom -- Yes! I still use that term. And to the right of that is the sun-room.

When I bought the house, where the sun-room is now was just a flat roof above the 1930s extension of the living room. I turned what had been a small bedroom and a small bathroom and hallway into the master bedroom (12x16), and replaced a small door which had opened from the hall to that flat roof with a large sliding-glass patio-door.  I thought, "Great! I have a private patio off my bedroom!" However, water always finds a way, and a few years later, water dripping from the roof above was leaking in at the patio-door. And that is why I built the sun-room ... which also has a flat roof, but it's tied into other roofs, rather than abutting walls, as the 1930s flat roof had,

I didn't have scaffolding when I installed the old wood siding in about 1990. What I had was two ladders -- of different lengths, and thus often different angles when extended -- and ladder-jacks, with a 2x12 bridging the gap. Can you imaging how much fun it was to install the siding above the master bedroom window?

 

Maintenance-free ... Or, at any rate, Better Weather Protection

UPDATED, showing almost completed result (click on photos for a larger image)..

I'm finally re-siding my house, which I have needed to do for several years -- the wood siding I installed about 1990 wasn't good quality, and, frankly, I made mistakes in installing it. So, sections of the siding, especially the west wall, were badly deteriorated.  

The biggest drawback to starting this project sooner was that I wanted the result to look much like the house's original look, but the nearest I could get was in vinyl ,,, and I detest vinyl (*) . The house's original siding is a style/design called "Dutch lap".  After I removed the (badly deteriorated) Masonite, which had probably been installed in the 1960s, I re-sided with pine "Dutch lap". Other than the knots showing through the paint, I was pleased with the result ... for a while. But, as I said, it wasn't high-quality siding, and I had incorporated a design flaw which allowed water damage.

The siding product I have finally settled on, after much resistance, is a cement/composite clapboard siding. I was able to get a smooth version of it; that is, without the fake "cedar grain" surface such as they sell at Lowe's.  Naturally, the smooth product that what I want costs more than that with the "cedar grain". Other than the original wood soffit/fascia at the roofline, I'll replace all the trimwork with boards made of PVC. Once painted, it will look look wood.

This first photo is of what is left of the east side of the original house.  By that I mean that my "great room" addition extends to the east of the original house, leaving only this bit of the second floor gable still expose to the sky.  This gable is my favorite of all of them -- I love how the cedar shingles and window-frame I installed in 1990 turned out. But, unless one is standing on roof of the "great room", the gable really isn't visible.

One of my sisters (Karen) volunteered to help me reside the house; that's what motivated me to finally decide on a product and start the project.  She took this photo of my progress as of her arrival in Mansfield last Friday noon.  

Because of the "great room" addition, there wasn't much tear-off to do on this wall: just a bit of siding below the frieze, the frieze itself, and the window frame (except for the top treatment, as the cedar shingles were cut and installed around that).  The sort of taupe-colored siding to the left of the window is the new (unpainted) cement-board siding. The body of the house will be painted to the color of these cedar shingles; the cedar shingles in the gables will be a lighter grey (I painted these with the body's color to see what an expanse of this color would look like; the trim will be a yellow close to what it now is.

 

 

 

The first photo was taken on Friday (June 27). This second photo was taken on Sunday. I think. There is a bit more detailing to do, and of course, the painting.  The trim which is yellow in this photo is either original to the house, or, in the case of the window frame header, what I had made in 1990. The trim which is still white is the new trim made of PVC.  The still-raw wall to the left of the photo (above the original gable) is part of the "sun room" addition.

It has been terribly hot and humid (and raining!) since my sister arrived, so we're moving slowly.  With this being to the east, we could work on this area only a couple of hours in the morning and then in the afternoon once some shade had developed.

 

 

 

===================

(*) Why do I detest vinyl siding? It's not the fact that it's vinyl which I detest, but rather the way it's manufactured, and intended to be installed, and that it tends to provide a foothold for the growth of algae (and I have enough problem with that).

 

1) Properly maintained wood siding does not show wood-grain; but vinyl siding is made with an ugly and pointless faux "wood-grain" ... which just happens to provide a convenient home for algae to anchor itself in.  Why do you think you see so many 'nice" houses with a hideous green film down their sides?

2) Vinyl siding is hollow, and it shows from a mile away.  Now, IF they would cover a solid wood or composite substrate with a vinyl coating -- smooth, of course, no faux "wood-grain" -- I'd have no complaints about vinyl siding.

3) Because vinyl siding is hollow, separate pieces don't butt together, but rather one overlaps the other. And it shows (from a mile away).  This "feature" also provides a convenient access for high winds to rip the siding off an entire wall.

 

4) Because of the way vinyl siding is designed and intended to be installed, there is a high probability that water will get between the siding an the structure.  

 

Water is the great enemy of buildings; well, water and the myth of "maintenance-free"  When I first bought the house, I had to rebuild an entire wall because water had gotten behind the Masonite siding which had been installed at some point with the (false) promise that it would make the house "maintenance-free".

UPDATE (2025/07/14):

This is almost finished result of the re-working of the east bedroom gable, after I decided on the color to paint the gable's cedar shingles (the color in this photo isn't the best: the blue of the cedar shingles is indeed a "deep" color, but it's also "vibrant" -- Ah! The color does show better in the "expanded" view). I still need to scrape and repaint the original-to-the-house soffit and fascia; that won't get done any time soon.

Finally, here is a wider view, also showing the east wall of the sun-room addition. I still have to build the window framing/treatment for both walls of the sun-room.

We managed to install siding on both exterior walls of the sun-room.  I use the word "manage" because the (unseen) south wall is in effect on the third floor, as the basement floor is grade-level on the south side of the house.  We had to put up five levels of scaffolding to be able to work on the south wall.

Lest you think that this is all we accomplished during the two weeks my sister was here, I'll make another post showing how/where most of our time was spent.

 

A Working 1st-floor Bathroom

(now updated -- click on the photos to see a larger image)

2025/01/04:

My sister, Karen, came over from Indiana for a week to goad me into getting some work done on my house.  One of our projects was getting the downstairs bath operational again.  I still have some detail finish work to do, including re-surfacing the tub. This is what the room looked like as of New Year's Day -- 

This bathroom had been a "junk room" for many years, ever since one winter day when a cold draft coming through gaps in the old dry-stone foundation froze the supply line to the toilet and caused the shut-off valve to disconnect from the line. Fortunately, I was home when it thawed, and so I was able to shut off the water in the basement before too much flooding occurred.

Yes, I used a windowed door for this room -- I wanted more natural light to be able to reach the interior/central hall from which one accesses the foyer, the living room, this bath, the "front room", and the stairway.

You might notice the two rust-stains on the door-jamb to the left (fortunately, they will be hidden under the door-stop trim work).  That is from a massive water-damage event several years ago when the supply-line to one of the sinks in the second-floor master bath froze and burst due to raccoons getting into the lower attic and ripping out a lot of insulation.  I was out of town when it thawed (at the time, I worked a 2+ hour drive from home) -- every room in the house, but two, suffered water damage.

 

EDIT 2025/04/ 12:

The downstairs bath is fully functional and is nearly complete; just a few trim pieces to cut and install, and a bit of the woodwork to stain and finish.

This photo is of the bathtub, refinished both inside and out. The outer refinishing involved striping multiple payers of old, probably lead-based, paint, and then applying primer and enamel paint.  While the directions for the refinishing kit (for the inside) say that that it can be applied with a brush, we found that we got a much better result by using small rollers, and the work went much faster.

I may someday look into finding a more decorative faucet for the tub, but for now this functional one is fine.

As mentioned above, the door into this bathroom is a "french" windowed door.  On the inside is mounted a sheet of plexiglass with a decorative film applied to it. I wish the photo did it justice. I'm really satisfied with how it turned out, especially when the door is viewed from outside the room.

In the corner, behind the door, is a cheap kitchen wall cabinet mounted atop the baseboard, for linens and such.  We continued the wainscoting around the side of the cabinet (thus hiding the "raw" particleboard of which it is constructed ... as I said, it's a cheap cabinet).  I built the cabinet's countertop from strips of oak flooring glued together.

To the right of the above photo, you can just see the edge of one of the two in-the-wall shelving units we built. They're to the same design as the open-shelf spice cabinet I built for the kitchen (as seen below).

 

This photo is from the doorway, toward the outside wall. This bathroom is a roomy 8 feet by 8 feet. My mother, who was wheel-chair bound, was still alive when I first designed the room; I wanted to be sure it would be comfortably usable for a person with limited mobility.

The wainscoting is a PVC-based product which I got from Home Depot.  It's lightweight and waterproof, of course, and can be cut with a simple utility knife. But, the ease of cutting it is also its one drawback -- it can be easily dented/deformed by localized pressure.

This photo of of the door, taken from the hallway. It's a better view of the result, but still doesn't do it justice.

I miss beautiful buildings

The linked page has pictures of the old Richland County OH courthouse and one picture of the older courthouse. Both were beautiful buildings, and both are long since demolished.

The current county courthouse is an ugly modern monstrosity, built in 1968. Similarly, the current Mansfield city hall is also an ugly modernist thing.

Come to think of it, Anderson IN, where I lived/worked straight out of college (1980-1982), had also replaced both the beautiful old court house, which was of a similar style to this one, and the old city hall with hideous modern buildings. In the case of the courthouse, it was already falling apart -- there were barricades all around the building, with covered walkways to the major entrances, to protect passers-by from bricks falling from the facade.

My hometown of South Bend IN converted the two most recent "old" courthouses to other uses, rather than demolishing them.

THE OLD RICHLAND COUNTY COURT HOUSE

Non-Familial Males ... and Miscarriages

During the time when the commies had Forced The Shutting Down Of The World's Economy, I saw a mainstream news article stating that gynecologists/pediatricians were reporting a noticeable decrease in miscarriages.

This immediately brought to mind the scientific observation that when pregnant mice are exposed to "strange" males, their incidences of spontaneous abortion increases.

And, this lead me to wonder whether the *reason* that almost all ancient civilizations segregated their wives from most contact with non-familial males was precisely because there is a similar, albeit weaker, physiological effect in humans as in mice to cause spontaneous abortions upon contact with "strange" males.

This question will never be studied. of course -- feminism will not allow the question to be asked, nor an honest answer to be given.

Is This Really the "Win" It's Portrayed As Being?

According to the CDC (see link below), before the US chickenpox vaccination program started in 1995, there were:

4,000,000 cases annually;

50 to 150 deaths annually, with half being children;

So, if we use the high number (as they want us to fixate on), that is 1 death per @ 26,666 cases (i.e. 4M / 150)

In contrast, since widespread use of the chickenpox vaccine, there have been:

"fewer than 150,000" cases annually;

"fewer than 30" deaths annually;

That is, that is 1 death per @ 5,000 cases (i.e. 150K / 30)

Now, for persons who might have been among the 20-120 "extra" deaths per year without the vaccine, that's certainly good news. However, as a *percentage* of cases, the death-toll is far worse since the vaccine roll-out.

And that's not counting whatever damage that the vaccine may do to the developing bodies and brains of very small children ... and which damage they most certainly hide from us.

This is ONE MORE EXAMPLE of why vaccine mandates are EVIL and sinful/immoral: leave the decision to vaxx or not in the hands of the parents, and give them *real* information so they can make informed decisions.

CDC: Chickenpox Vaccine Saves Lives Infographic

Won't Someone Please Think of the ... Bees?

The Earth's magnetic field is decreasing exponentially, as shown by measurements going back 150 years or more. If I recall correctly, at the measured rate of decay, Earth will have no magnetic field at all in another 2000 years. Which would be very bad news indeed for all living things on Earth.

However, according to Standard (i.e. Uniformitarian) Science the Earth's magnetic field has reversed polarity -- that is, the magnetic field had collapsed or vanished and then reestablished itself but with opposite polarity to the previous -- many times over many millions of years. If this is so, then bees. and all other species which rely upon the magnetic field for navigation, have lived through magnetic "irregularities" many times in their histories.

So, it would seem that -- according to 'Science!' (*) -- there is really nothing to be concerned about: the bees have been through far worse than this article discusses.

But, I have long wondered -- what if 'Science!' is wrong? What if we are not living through a periodic Magnetic Pole Reversal? What if:

1) Earth is simply "winding down", as it was never intended to go on and on for millions of years?

2) Earth isn't "winding down", but rather, we ourselves are accidentally *causing* the measured weakening of the magnetic field due to generation and transmission of electricity?

Also, what if 'Science!' is right, and we *are* going into a period of Magnetic Pole Reversal? Do you *really* think that our electronics-dependent civilization can survive that? A collapse of the magnetic field would wreak world-wide havoc, and at least many millions would die in the immediate aftermath. If the planet were without a magnetic field for any length of time, billions would die.

But now, ask yourself this: Why do the Climate Cultists hypocritically fixate on ever-more disastrous, yet even-more future-offset, "predictions" of Coming Catastrophe Just Around The Corner, and yet totally ignore something that *can* be measured and which *will* be world-wide catastrophe should it happen? The answer is obvious -- they can't see how either to monetize this looming disaster or to use it as an excuse to arrogate to themselves the power of life and death over other people's lives.

(*) 'Science!' is how I refer to scientism, or worship of "science" and scientists

GUIDED BY EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD, BEES SUFFER MYSTERIOUS CATASTROPHIC LOSS

Have I Changed, Really?

 Recently, I posted a semi-meme on FascistBook, which said this: 

"Democrats, please clam down. Musk can't become President. Unless ... he can find the guy who made Obama's birth certificate."

A few days later, a woman I had known in college (i.e. 45+ years ago), made this comment, attached to the above:

"Troy, what has happened to you? The guy I knew in college wasn't full of spite and meanness. Do you really think this is helping anything? I guess "love your neighbor as yourself" is just a nice little phrase reserved for Sunday school. It's crap like this that is driving young people away from the church, and vitriol never won a single soul."

Now, this is the same foolish and absurd woman who, in 2016 (*), I think, though it might have been in 2220 (**), said something on FascistBook to the effect that she couldn't fathom how people who call themselves Christian could even consider voting for the man who said the sort of things about women that he had said.  She was referring the the "leaked" "Access Hollywood" tape, in which Trump had crudely -- but accurately -- stated a basic truth about women in general, and certainly about the sort of women who gravitate to the circles in which he moves.

This foolish and absurd woman accuses me of being "full of spite and meanness", in apparent contrast to what she imagines I was like 45+ years ago.   I am, in fact, a very kind man, as I always have been ... but I no longer hold my tongue in the presence of lies and intellectual dishonesty, as I did when I was a conflict-avoidant youth.  You could say, I have grown into myself.

But, so too has this foolish and absurd woman grown into herself. You see, way back in 1979 or 1980, I noted to myself the trajectory she was on.  One spring day before I graduated (so, probably 1980) both Debra and I happened to be hanging out in her mother's office (oh, that poor woman!), and she opined about how it was the moral duty of mankind to protect and preserve every living species.  I said nothing to the contrary, because as a boy and young man I was extremely conflict-avoidant, but I thought to myself, "I can think of any number of species I'd eradicate in an instant, if I could."

"It's crap like this that is driving young people away from the church, and vitriol never won a single soul."

This foolish and absurd woman isn't concerned with saving souls -- she supports the Party of Baby-Murder, she supports the Party of Enforced Sexual Perversity, she supports the Party of Sexual Mutilation of Children, she supports the Party of Destroying the Working-Class (****), she supports the Hate America First Party.  I could go on, but you get the picture -- she supports the Party of The Lie; everything follows from The Lie.

In truth, it's only "crap like this" -- speaking the truth, no matter how loudly the leftists shriek -- which has any chance of drawing young people to Christ.

No, it's not me being "full of spite and meanness", to which this foolish and absurd woman objects, but rather that I mock the lies with which she chooses to swaddle her mind.

(*) when the presidential choice was between Trump (a '90s Democrat; a sort-of "pro-life" (***) lite adulterer) and Hillary Clinton (a Current Year Democrat, a rabid promoter of abortion, and an enthusiastic participant in the destroying of women who brought credible accusations of sexual assault/abuse against her husband).  As I've said a time or two, I voted for neither of them; I voted for the Constitution Party, a party whose platform was unashamedly Christian.  

What do you think are the odds that oh-so-Christianly-concerned Debra did likewise?  No, she voted for the Democratic Party, the same one she's trying to shame me for opposing.

(**) when the presidential choice was between Trump (a '90s Democrat; a sort-of "pro-life" (***) lite adulterer) and Joe Biden (a very pro-abortion adulterer, credibly accused of rape, who fondled women and children right out in public view, with the cameras running)

(***) As I've said before, I despise the label "pro-life": it's the sort of pablum served up by 5th Avenue to appeal to weak-minded women (and womanly men). I'm not "pro-life", I'm anti-murder.

(****) Her father was a university instructor, and I believe her husband is also; that is, she has lived most of her life in the sort of social and intellectual cocoon in which it doesn't affect you, personally, if your ideas and ideology are for shit.

===========
Edit:
By the way, I'm a bit mystified as to how she even saw that I'd posted the original semi-meme. I mean, it's not as though we are "friends" on FascistBook.

Also, have you ever noticed that these tone-police sorts are always such flaming hypocrites?

A "Canning Kitchen" in the Basement

 Ah. I did have a photo of the "canning kitchen" I built in the basement a couple of years ago.

I had bought these cabinets (and more I've not used yet) from a neighbor a few years ago, as I couldn't bear the thought of them sitting out in the rain and being ruined. Someone made these cabinets by hand from quality plywood, possibly as long ago as the 1950s, and certainly before the end of the 1970s. They're far better quality than anything regular people can afford these days.

I'd been thinking for some time that it would be nice to have a "canning kitchen" in the basement. So, after I replaced the kitchen cooktop, I decided that rather than tossing the old one, I'd use it and these cabinets to make a kitchen in the basement.

It has occurred to me that this "spare" kitchen is nicer than any kitchen my mother ever had.

 

 

 

 

Saturday's Child

I noticed that my upcoming birthday is on a Saturday. I thought I recalled that I was born on a Saturday, so I looked it up. Sure enough, I'm a "Saturday's child". According to the old rhyme, "Saturday's child works hard for a living." But, truth be told, I never had to work particularly hard for my living.

Sometimes, Impatience Works Out OK

 A few weeks ago, I bought several pounds of peaches at Meijer's for less than $1.00 per pound.  My thought was to can them as sliced peaches.

However ... I got impatient when blanching them (to remove the skin). On the second batch, I didn't let the water get hot enough before I dropped in the peaches. So, of course, the skins didn't come off.  I tried again and again on that batch, and never got it right.  By the time I gave up on blanching that batch, and just pealed them (which wastes a lot of the flesh of the peaches), the seeds themselves were warm. 

And, because peeling peaches really butchers the fruit, I wasn't getting nice, attractive slices.  So, I decided that instead of canning the peaches as slices, I'd make a peach version of applesauce or apple butter.  And again, impatience hit.  It was getting toward evening, and I didn't want to leave the peach puree simmering in the crock-pot over night, so I canned it while it was still too runny.

However ... the result is so good: it's like the "peach nectar" we were sometimes served in grade school, but thicker/pulpier.  I had sprinkled in some cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice (*), which does make a nice addition to the natural peach flavor.  I wish I could share it with you, it's to tasty.

I liked the result so much that I bought more peaches to do it on purpose.  On the second go, I didn't even bother removing the skins; I decided to see whether the immersion-blender would puree the skins after the peaches had cooked down. It was a success.

I also canned a few quarts of mixed apples and peaches.

(*) I've never bought -- or used -- any of those seasonings, myself. I "inherited" these containers from my mother back in 1988, and had never used them.

This picture is of some Asian lilies which used to grow near the front door.  But, after a doe and her yearly fawns made my yard their home-base, they kept eating the plants.  Before the deer killed the plants entirely, I moved the bulbs to the fenced-in garden, and they have finally recovered.  These things are 7-feet tall!

Speaking of deer -- the other morning when I went out to see whether the groundhog who keeps trying to get under the fence into the garden had managed to do so overnight (as it turns out, he tries several times per day during the daylight hours), this year's twin fawns were near the garden. I didn't notice them at first.  As I was pulling weeds, they came over to investigate me.  I heard/saw them and stood up.  I motioned with my hands to the braver one to come closer ... and it did, a couple of times. But, finally, the more timid one spooked and took the courage of the less timid one with it.  The fawn *seemed* to want to come closer to me, it was practically frolicking. 

And, speaking of that groundhog -- the other day, when I went out to check on his latest attempt to get under the fence, he was at that very moment so intent on getting under the fence that he didn't notice me until I was just a few feet away. And, as I hadn't yet cut back the herbs growing at the base of the fence, I didn't notice him until he spooked.

These next two pictures are of opposite ends of a bed beside/above the driveway which had gotten out of control when I worked out-of-town.  This is *after*  I cleaned it out the overgrowth (and poison ivy). I now need to rebuild the retaining wall. That's a good 30 feet from the garage around to the sidewalk, and another 20 feet past the sidewalk.

The first phase of rebuilding that retaining wall is to build some steps from the driveway up to the yard (and giving access to that side porch).  I just finished the steps today. It was like putting together a 3-D jigsaw puzzle ... but the pieces don't have pictures on them, and they are from several different puzzles. But, I'm pretty satisfied with the result:

This last picture shows the retaining wall from the new steps toward the sidewalk.  Those stones on the driveway are not from the retaining wall, but some of them will end up in it.  These are the rejected candidates for the new steps.

UPDATE (2024/07/20): Today, I got that groundhog which had been getting into my garden: stabbed him with a potato fork.

A couple of days after I first wrote this post, he finally found a place where he could dig under the fence.  So, I spent a day digging out the soil on the outside of the fence along that side, and buried lengths of cement-board siding just below the fence (**). Of course, there were still other sides of the fence where I can't dig up on either side of the fence without killing plants.

This fellow was stubborn ... and really pissed off that he couldn't get into the garden as he had before. For several days, he tried digging all along that side of the fence: he'd toss out most of the soil, I'd put it back, and he'd do it again. Then he tried the areas where in the spring I had buried cement-board on the inside of the fence.  Finally, he moved to the side with no cement-board below ground (I had planted this area before I thought of the cement-board solution).

For the past several days, he had been getting into the garden and eating my plants.  It's possible that he even climbed the fence to get in.

He was in the garden when I left for the hardware store earlier today. He was still in the garden when I got back, though I didn't realize that until after I had filled in the hole he'd dug at the corner of the fence.  So, I got the potato fork and gingerly went after him ... and, much to my surprise (and delight), he cooperated with me and let me spear him.

(**) ,,, on the outside of the wood "skirting" at ground level. Due to the fence-posts being on the outside of the "skirting", it's not a snug fit.  In the fall, I plan to move these cement-boards to the inside of the fencing

A Prodigious Feat

A couple of days ago, I had four more spruce trees cut down (2 living and 2 dead -- and that will be $2000 plus tax). The tree service company got to them two weeks earlier than expected.

For the past two days, I've been working at getting the debris out of the yard. Today, I finished cutting up and rolling into the woods the largest log (@18" in diameter and perhaps 20' long), which was blocking getting the lawn tractor into the side yard, where two of the others are located.

I should have taken a picture before I started cutting up the big guy, as a memento of what a prodigious feat that was. Prodigious feat though it was, it might easily have been worse, as the log was lying on a slope.

One of the dead trees might well have taken out the power line when it fell, so it had to go. Due to its lean, the other dead tree would almost certainly have hit the house when it fell.

The two live trees might also have hit the house had they fallen (the big one was less than 10' away, the other simply that tall). It turns out that the live trees weren't diseased, but I'm glad they are down. A few years ago, a buddy of the farther one just fell over one day -- it's base was riddled with fungus mycelium.

It's too bad that I don't know anyone who could have used the wood of the big spruce. It was such a nice length of perfectly straight wood.

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The Emerald Ash Borer is killing ash trees all across the US. Naturally, a lot of the trees on my property are ash -- and the woods are full of dead fallen trees.

Last year, I had some ash trees along the property line dropped. A couple of them were close to 24" diameter. This spring, a couple of large (and very dead) ash on a neighboring rental property fell over, fortunately not hitting the building. Recently, the owner had a crew in to clean up the fallen trees (they were at it for at least a week). The crew cut up and hauled away not only the recently fallen trees, but also some of the ones I had had cut down. Now, I didn't mind that too much -- less work for me -- BUT, they also carted off the wood I had already cut and split and which was clearly on my property.

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A groundhog has made a way into the garden.  So, come spring, I'll have to figure out a way to groundhog-proof the fence.  That will be fun, I'm sure.  So far, the only idea I have is to dig out the soil all around the perimeter so I can staple a width of hardware cloth (i..e wire mesh) to the garden's wooden skirting, having the mesh projecting below ground level.  Then fill it back in, of course.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

I *hate* animals.

The Chinaman's Cough and me

I was a computer programmer my entire adult life. I've retired from that. Since last year, I've been working for a non-emergency medical transportation company (*), driving a wheel-chair van. Most of the people I transport(ed) are on dialysis, quite a few (whether or not on dialysis) are in nursing homes.

I was beginning to worry back in early March, both for my own safely, but even moreso for our clients. Back in those days, it was being reported that one might be infected and spreading spreading the virus for as much as two weeks before showing any symptoms oneself. My great fear wasn't that I'd catch it, but that I'd catch it and spread it without knowing I had it.

I had scheduled to be sure I wasn't working on Saturday, March 14; planning to go visit my family in Indiana. My sister called the afternoon of the 13th to suggest I delay the trip, in case I couldn't get gas for the return trip -- panic-buying hadn't yet hit my area in Ohio, and the various governments in the US had not yet announced that they were going to destroy the economy, but she suspected that that was on the way.

Then, that night, I woke up sick. So, I didn't go to work for the next week and a half. I was scheduled to work on Wednesday, March 25 -- one trip only (but the guy cancelled as I was on my way to get him): in that week and a half that I'd been home mildly sick, everything had crashed, and just about the only trips my company was still making were for dialysis.

Since there wasn't enough work for all the drivers, and since I can get by without the income from that job, I told them to give preference to drivers who need the income. So, for the next couple of weeks, they called me every day with the message that I wasn't scheduled to work the next day. Then, a couple of weeks ago, they shut down operations entirely ... until July 1 (or even later).

So, I haven't worked, or earned any money, since March 13. And, while I can get by without that income -- at any rate, until the economy collapses and destroys my IRAs -- I *had* budgeted for it, including that I'd not even need to touch the IRAs, but rather let them grow.

I don't *know* that I've already had the Kung Flu (if I did, for me it presented as a very mild flu) -- for, despite that they seemingly have a levy request at every (**) election (**'), the local Board of Health (as also the State Board) was utterly useless. The bureaucrats didn't even extend their hours ... which were already shorter than people with real jobs work.



(*) I could easily be earning 2 or even 3 times what they pay me were I to un-retire.

(**) At any rate, seemingly every off-election, preferably the primary. The only time a levy request is on the ballot during a general election is if it has previously failed to pass.

(**') Either: "This is not a new levy, so renew it!" or, "This new levy will cost the average homeowner only $.35 a day, so pass it!"

The Senate ... and The Constitution!

O.M.G. ... the US Constitution *forbids* an Amendment to create "proportional representation" in the Senate.

One may recall that the one of the drums the leftists are pounding is about how "unfair" and "undemocratic" it is that North Dakota has equal weight in the Senate with California and New York; and that they seem to imagine that they can "fix" this "problem" by decree. To which many on the right have responded to the effect that, "No, you can't do it by decree ... but you're welcome to try to amend the Constitution to get the result you desire."

Well, it turns out that the US Constitution forbids such an amendment --

ARTICLE V: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Again: "The Congress ... [may] propose Amendments to this Constitution, ... Provided ...that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"

So, it wouldn't be enough that California and New York might agree to deprive North Dakota of its equal vote in the Senate; North Dakota would have to explicitly agree to deprive itself of this fundamental equality as a Sovereign State of the Union.

h/t Francis W. Porretto at Liberty's Torch

The presence of that clause in Article V, the Amendment Article, excludes the equal representation of the [S]tates in the Senate from the possibility of amendment. This is beyond dispute. The Senate, in other words, was created to guarantee that each [S]tate would have a voice in the Senate equal to any other [S]tate. The electoral system for choosing a president reinforces this oft-neglected aspect of the Constitution: it was intended to protect the small [S]tates from abuses perpetrated by the large ones.

The phrase “checks and balances” should come to mind at this point. My Gentle Readers have no doubt been muttering that phrase for some time already. Lesser intellects might consider suing their civics teachers.

The Framers knew full well what they were doing. The very last passage of the Constitution emphasizes the importance of the [S]tates as elements in the Constitutional design:

ARTICLE VII: The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

The Constitution was conceived and ratified as a compact among the [S]tates. The [S]tates retained nearly complete internal sovereignty. Their equal representation in the Senate was intended, in part, to preserve that sovereignty, the exclusions in Article I, Section 10 being the sole exceptions. This aspect of the Constitution’s design is sometimes cited as an argument for a [S]tate’s power to nullify federal laws on the grounds of federal overreach.

The federal government has done many unConstitutional and extra-Constitutional things since the Wilson Administration. Some of them have been undeniable encroachments on [S]tate sovereignty. (Where, for example, is Congress given the power to legislate a federal penal code? But that’s a subject for another day.) This latest talk - of amending a part of the Constitution explicitly protected against amendment! - merely indicates how far Americans’ knowledge of the deliberately designed-in features of our Union has slipped.

ps: Repeal the 17th Amendment!

About the Dems' 'Trump is Caesar' Murder Porn

An amusing thing about the Democrats' "Trump is Caesar" murder porn is that Caesar was of the party of the 'Populares', rather than of the 'Optimates'. That is, according to the Democratic Party's own self-serving mythology about itself, Caesar was one of them!

Grrr ... age!

So, several days ago I *finally* tried to park (*) my truck in the garage I've been working on for the past couple of summers (**) ... and the garage is too short. If I touch the back wall with the front bumper, there is still just a bit too much truck to allow the door to descend.

Here is how that came to be.

When I laid out the dimensions (20 years ago), I based it on the old double garage on the property. Also, I didn’t have a truck at the time. Then, the backhoe I’d hired to excavate broke down before the guy had finished digging the hole, so I ended up finishing it with a shovel … and I expect that at some too-early point I convinced myself that “that’ll do”.

I have decided to bump out the front of the garage by 4 feet. Once the construction is done, I’ll have to uninstall and reinstall the doors (***). Yesterday, I mixed and poured 1/2 the concrete I’ll need for this extension. Thank goodness I bought that cement mixer all those years ago (****)



(*) What with both stalls being used to store building materials and there being no driveway surface to the one side, I just hadn’t tried to put the truck inside.

(**) Or longer, if you take into account that I built the foundation about 20 years ago.

(***) Uggh! It took me a full day to install each one of them. Fortunately for me, when I framed the garage, I hadn't yet decided whether to use 7' tall doors or 8' tall doors, so I made the openings tall and then filled them in after I bought the 7' tall doors. So, I won't have to change any *structure* to allow the doors to lift into the space that is currently exterior wall.

(****) As I recall, I hauled it home on a Fiero.


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Edit (2017/05/11):

The photo shows my progress as of yesterday extending the garage (click the image to see a larger view).

The extended foundation is in (or course!) and the walls and ceiling are framed. A stringer to support extending that little porch has been attached to the foundation.

I plan to extend that porch over to the new corner of the garage, with the extended deck being a step down from the existing deck, and with a door in the corner of the garage opening onto the porch. This is the northwest corner; I may put another door at the northeast corner. I mean, it's only money, right?

Now, the tricky part will be tying the roof of the new construction into the existing porch roof to make it look as though I had planned it all that way.


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Edit (2017/05/16):
Keeping the Pioneer Spirit alive --

The stump of a sapling I'd cut last fall was right where the corner of the porch extension needed to be. So, in the spirit of my pioneer ancestors, I used it to support the deck as I framed it. I did later cut it out and put in something more permanent and rot-resistant.


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Edit (2017/05/25):
Kill it! Kill it with fire! --

A couple of nights ago, I noticed that I'd left a work-light on in the apartment addition. So, in my jammies and bare feet, I trudged -- the trip is about half a mile, I think -- down the stairs from my bedroom, through the front hall and foyer, through the "library" (the north side of the unfinished "great room" addition), through the passageway (between the "great room" addition and the garage/apartment), up the stairs to the apartment, and disconnected the light.

I *almost* didn't turn on the light before going up to the apartment. Thankfully, I did ... else I'd have met this charming fellow with my foot --

I don't mind telling you, I didn't much care for his attitude at all. He was all, "What you gon' do 'bout it?" But, since he was about the size of a dinner plate, or at least a half dollar piece, I skipped that step and prayed he wouldn't jump up to prey on me.

And, as I have the picture, you can see that he was so unconcerned by me that waited for me to go back and get the camera -- recall, it's about a half mile trek -- and return to take his portrait.

Will code for food

As of yesterday (2016/11/29), I am unemployed. On the bright side, at least the monkey of having to justify my continued employment by taking those stupid MicroSoft certification tests every few years is off my back.

A better job than I could manage

Nikki Green (YouTube): Star Spangled Banner MAGA -- she hit a few flat notes (including in the easy parts), but still does a much better job than I ever could hope to do. I simply cannot sing, much less sing that song.

I saw this ad

... for a cool-looking shirt (*) (here). And then, I remembered: dammit!


(*) even at pushing sixty, I could see me wearing that (**) ... except for the implied politics

(**) which is kind of funny, because I'd never at any point in my life have worn anything tie-died, and again because of the cultural-political implications

Meanwhile, this is the humor article I had started to read when I saw the ad -- Babylon Bee: Police Calm Millennial Protesters By Handing Out Participation Trophies