The Moment Before The Pain, Not For The Squeamish

I don't care who you are, some of these have got to hurt real bad.

Another Detour

Lol, I logged on this morning and the first comment I see is from Judy. It hit the day I had yesterday right on the head. Talk about a detour.

I have been trying to accomplish work on my truck over the weekends. I think I have become a rather ok mechanic in the past few years, lol. Yesterday morning I get the truck jacked up in the air and supported and I climb underneath to get at the oil pressure sensor switch.What the heck is that? Hey, afew weeks ago I would have said the same thing. I use Auto Zone and their website to resolve all my automotive problems and they tell me whats wrong and using their guids I fix them. To be honest though this pressure switch has been like playing a game of hide and seek and between the Autozone web site and my Haynes manual I just can't seem to find exactly where the sucker is located.

So finally I am under the truck after a week of research thinking I have the location of the oil pressure sensor switch. My research shows that it should be right next to  or at the oil filter.. So there I was under the truck squeezing my hand between the frame of the truck and the block of the engine all around the oil filter and ahhhhh haaa, I found what I thought was what I was looking for. After a half hour of trying this socket and that I was able to get the sensor turning. It was loose enough to finish taking it out by hand. The last few turns and then splash, Anti Freeze. AAAAAAARGH!!!

I reach and grab the catch container and shove it under the anti freeze pouring out and I hear my daughter walking up to the truck talking on the phone. I'm thinking my wife got into an accident or something and here I was with liquid pouring out of my truck. Nope, More like  "my parents want you to pick up their counter tops today.

They have wanted their counter tops done for like the last 3 months. I have set aside days for doing them about 6 times and for some reason something would always come up at the last minute for them so I couldn't do them that day. One of the excuses one time was that the counter tops were special order and that they hadn't come in yet.  The counter tops I picked up at Lowes yesterday after spending 1 1/12 hours picking up some and returning them because of scratches to the Home Depot where not special order counter tops. I think at one time they wanted granite tops and through my wife I sent the message that if they wanted granite tops then they should get them through a reputable granite supplier because I did not have the tools and equipment to install granite tops. Nope, no bits for drilling faucet holes or for cutting sink openings and no polishing equipment for stone.I wonder if I threw them a curve ball?

Well, after a bit of searching I found that sensor that I took out which was probably the coolant temperature gauge sensor and reinstalled it. I did notice another sensor up higher under the intake manifold that could possibly be what I am looking for so I am thinking that today I might attempt that one. Socket size is different from the new sensor nut though,  what the heck. I refilled the fluids in the truck and ended up working to about 10pm last night getting the counter tops in and the new sink and hardware. I would have finished the job a whole lot quicker but my father in-law was right up my ass the whole frigging time. I swear, I would turn around and literally bump into him at least 10 times. I have to watch what I say though because he has very sensitive feelings and if I hurt his feelings my wife wouldn't hear the end of it for months. Also the fact that when I arrived with the new tops and went into the kitchen, nothing had been removed from the counter top like the coffee maker and the microwave etc... or was anything removed from the cabinets.

So that was my detour for the day.

Marehaven Cabinets

I did not install these cabinets. These cabinets were importated from Italy and cost over 100,00.00 for what you see. The cabinet install was a mexican that came here from North Carolina to do the install. The cabinets arte absolute garbage and the installation was so bad I xouldn't even begin to explain how bad.
I spent 3 days just doing rapairs to the installation. The day the counter tops were installed there had actually been gaps between the cabinet end panels and the counter tops that went from nothing to 3/4 of an inch. The counter top installer was actually going to try and caulk that one joint.
The counter tops are man made.
Up close and personal this kitchen with the counter tops installed looks and reminds me of being in a public bathroom. The lite you see is what there is. There is a cieling fan about 15" off the floor and maybe 3 sconces in the entire kitchen.
Before I forget, a house this big, the door from the kitchen to the dining room is only a 2' door. Could you please try to imagine a holiday meal and trying to get a 30 pound turkey on a plater through the opening?

The last picture is actually showing the front doors, imported from China. These Teak doors are solid 2" thick doors that are 8' tall. Every door in this house is the same except for the glass. You would not believe the wieght of these doors.
If anyone is wondering, this set alone cost 18,000.00 just for the doors. Sorry about the picture quality. I had just taken my camera from my lunch cooler and the lense kept fogging up.

Addition and Cabinets.

On this job we actually moved the kitchen form the back side of the home to the front of the home. The challenge= The home was on a concrete slab.

The One Week Mac Kitchen Make Over.

I should have taken some before shots. This area was where the home owner had a desk set up.

I walked onto this job with an existing kitchen. On all the cabinets were little post it notes saying either garage or basement. Wouldn't you believe that almost all of the large cabinets and 5 pantry units were all listed for the basement. I actually got them into the basement by removing all the drawers and doors. I was so ticked that I just set all the doors and drawers in a pile. The reason for being ticked, the homeowner had 3 sons ages from 18 to 24 that just hung around the whole time I was there doing the job.
I did get the old kitchen discombobulated on the first day. Fixed all the electrical work to the new locations, patched all the drywall where needed and then started unpacking all the new cabinets.
I had all the new cabinets in by the following Wedensday. Thursday I installed the Crown mouldings, kick plates and all the finished end panels. Friday was the installation of the hardware and clean up.
I'm sorry the granite wasn't in for the final picture but it was off to another job.

NationalAnthem-Cactus.wmv

An Interesting History Lesson

I Just thought I would pass it on.

 

Railroad tracks.  This is fascinating.

 

Be sure to read the final paragraph; your understanding of it will depend

on the earlier part of the content.

 

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,

8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

 

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in

England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

 

Why did the English build them like that?

 

 

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the

pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

 

Why did 'they' use that gauge then?

 

Because the people who built the

tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons,

which used that wheel spacing.

 

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

 

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would

break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's

the spacing of the wheel ruts.

 

So who built those old rutted roads?

 

Imperial Rome built the first long

distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions.  The roads

have been used ever since.

 

And the ruts in the roads?

 

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts,

which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon

wheels.  Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all

alike in the matter of wheel spacing.  Therefore the United States

standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the

original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies

live forever.

So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/Process and

wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate

the rear ends of two war horses.  (Two horses' asses.)  Now, the twist to

the story:

 

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big

booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.  These are

solid rocket boosters, or SRB's.  The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their

factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRB's would have

preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by

train from the factory to the launch site.  The railroad line from the

factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB's

had to fit through that tunnel.  The tunnel is slightly wider than the

railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide

as two horses' behinds.

 

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's

most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand

years ago by the width of a horse's ass.  And you thought being a horse's

ass wasn't important?  Ancient horse's asses control almost everything...

and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else.

 

Robin Williams on whose line?

Robin Williams on whose line is it anyway
(just a bit not the whole thing)

Cat Story Of My Own

A few weeks ago one of our female cats in heat decided to jump from a window in the middle of the night. My wife is overly attached to cats. I myself like them and have been attached to one or two in my life time but at this moment in my life due to my wife's obsession I think that between our house and my shop we have over 15 of them running around. They say rabbits breed quickly. Cats should have the title.

Anyways my wife has been so upset over the lose of this one cat. She has combed the neighborhood daily. Me, I was kinda glad to have one less cat in the house and the other 4 indoor cats kinda liked it too. The escapee was the alpha bitch.

My wife was searxhing the outdoors at night and the cat would come out of hiding but when my wife would get close to it it would run off. A few nights ago I actually wanted to tell her to try a string but of course it being dark and all I didn't think that that would do much good.

Well the last few nights the cat has been hanging out in our yard but still my wife couldn't get her hands on it. She was out stalking the stand of trees on the side of our house during the middle of the night and a couple neighbor kids freaked out a bit when they heard her. She told them she was chasing her lost cat that had escaped. One of the boys whom was over the age of 18 later took off in his pick up truck and when he drove by my wife who was still chasing her cat he yelled profanities out his window at her. The kid must have some set of balls. Personally I am going to have a chat with him when I catch him pulling out of the driveway one of these days.  My wife was running around until 3;00 in the morning with that cat playing games with her.

Last night after watching several hours of this I decided that my feelings towards my wife were just a whole lot more important than having another pregnant cat in the house. I'll regret it later. I could see her frustration  and could sense her pleading for help so I had to intervene. I told her to sit down and that I would get the cat for her.  I went outside into the pitch black and heard the meows from the cat. They sounded really pitiful. I quietly walked over to the direction of the meows and heard them start to change location. I just stopped and sat down on the ground cross legged. This cat has been sitting on my lap for years. Since it was a kitten. On saturdays it sits on my lap for hours at a time at night and watches tv with me.

I made a few cat type sounds and would you believe that that cat came right over to me. I reached out really fast and off it went but I didn't move. It meowed and I made my cat call noises again and back it came I let it come right up to me this time and then I grabbed it before it could get away and pinned it to the ground. It was so scared and tried desperately to get away. I got a good grab on the back of it's neck with one hand and held it to the ground with the other and yelled for my wife to get a towel to wrap around the cat. I started petting the cat and calming it down. I was to the point that she had calmed down enough to carry her back into the house when my wife started walking towards us with the towel. The cat went nuts. It laid it's teeth into the hand that had been petting her. Next thing my wife just threw the towel over the cat. I could not believe how berserk that little cat went. It must have done an exorcist head spin under that towel because it had a finger from that hand in it's mouth. I refused to let go of her though because I wasn't going to see my wife all upset again. my wife managed to get the towel wrapped around the cat and picked it up. I could feel the teeth from that cat ripping the skin on my finger.

Once inside the cat returned to  normal and acted as if it had never ran away.It probably lost about 1/3 of it's body weight. I cleaned my wounds and can't believe the swelling. I have never actually been bit by a cat before. Of course I am hoping that the cat hadn't eaten a rodent that had been rabid or left the debris from dead beast in my wound like a Komodo dragon would do.

Yes, I remember when I actually liked cats..