2 October 2015
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Posted:Oct 2, 2015 5:13 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:58 am
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We had another magnificent day here, sixty degrees and sunny. There was a stiff breeze blowing and it was really pleasant hiking. The wind was brisk enough to hear it whistling through the trees and it was even knocking some leaves down.
Like I said, I finished my shingling so I don't feel too guilty taking off for the woods, even though there's still painting to do.
We may not hike tomorrow since PD is going to visit her daughters, but we got a nice walk in today- about three and a half miles. We found a turtle basking in the sun at the landbridge. We may not see much more of that, if the weather turns cold. There are a lot fewer dragonflies too, and they're smaller. Today we took the Mandala trail through a mature oak/beech forest. The trail winds around a couple of small bogs and I love seeing the sun glinting on the trees in the bog from the darkness of the forest.
Maybe I'll paint tomorrow. It's supposed to rain and that will give me a good excuse to put off finishing again.
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My photos are back! (For now.)
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Posted:Oct 1, 2015 10:29 am
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:47 pm
31516 Views
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In the middle of the morning, while I was sleeping late, the site stole away with my photos. What do you think the little turds DO with them? It isn't like there's anything in my blog for the geeks to masturbate to. And if there is, maybe I should be thinking about changing the theme of my blog. As if I had a fucking theme. I've gone over my older posts, and the seedy little rats have pilfered a bunch of those too. This is a far better social networking site than AssPlace, but I'll say this for AssPlace- when I post photos there, they stay posted!
Consider this post as a marker, a timer. I just reposted my photos before I slapped this up. So we'll be able to see how long the creaky and antiquated code here can bear up under the strain of holding those pictures in place. Hell, I'm creaky and antiquated myself, but I can still hold a damn picture motionless!
Anyway, as a bonus you get one more picture, just for bearing with me, to show my gratitude.
Editors note: And this photo INSTANTLY disappeared too!
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30 September 2015
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Posted:Sep 30, 2015 6:27 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:57 am
32730 Views
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More pictures from Al Sabo Preserve- the little pine seedlings I've been watching have survived a winter and now the summer:
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We hit the trail again!
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Posted:Sep 30, 2015 6:16 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:56 am
30745 Views
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We haven't hiked for two months. We don't care for hiking in hot weather. And PD decided the house needed an upgrade, so we spent the latter part of August and most of September painting, and I reshingled the front porch and the north and south walls of my shop. The house has cement shingles. They last forever if you don't break them, but they aren't great to look at so I removed them and nailed up cedar shingles, and then trimmed it in white. I finished that Monday, and so it was time to hike again.
It's cooled off a bit. September was one of our hottest months this year, but today was sixty degrees and sunny- an absolutely perfect autumn day. We started our hike a little after two this afternoon and there weren't more than four of five other hikers out.
A lot has changed in the two months since we last walked Al Sabo. The lush greens of June are gone and the riot of wildflowers has disappeared. The grasses are drying out and now we see milkweed pods, goldenrod and ragweed. There are still a few blooms- I found coneflower near the landbridge, but the color you see now is in the leaves that are just beginning to turn, and in the berries, like the black pokeweed berries on bright fuschia stems.
We got a reward right away for our trip. PD spotted a red tailed hawk on a limb along the swamp trail, and he let me take a lot of pictures of him. I failed to get a clear close up shot, damn the bad luck, but I was pretty excited to get any at all.
We walked about three miles and it felt good to be back in the woods. Gracie was beside herself with excitement, and we worried that she'd forget all her trail manners, but she was quite the polite young lady, and left the trail to sit and wait while other hikers passed without being told. PD did a couple off headers when she tripped on roots. She wasn't hurt but Gracie ran to her side both times and immediately sat and waited. If she keeps it up, this year is going to be fun hiking with her. I'll probably let her run off leash more this year if she behaves that well.
Climbing ladders for the last couple of months was hard on my legs so I was thinking that the hike would wear me out, but it was so relaxing to be on the trail again that I hardly noticed. The colors will be at peak in a couple more weeks, and that's a gorgeous time to be in the forest. With a little luck we'll be on snowshoes in December, just two months away!
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Billy Whisky
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Posted:Sep 19, 2015 5:10 pm
Last Updated:Aug 7, 2019 6:31 pm
36476 Views
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Unknown
Billy Whisky, Being a Brief Account of just one of the True Adventures of my Childhood Friend and Erstwhile International Smuggler and Entrepreneur Extraordinaire, Billy Whisky, his Whereabouts being Presently Unknown to the Author
When I was a our paperboy was Billy Whisky, a guy I went to grammar school with, and a nice guy, too. He came from a family with a single mom and he was a hard worker and a smart student. My old man wanted me to be a paperboy too, because he had been one and he was always holding Billy up to me as someone I should be more like. As in, you oughta be more like Billy Whisky. I had a job on a dairy farm, milking cows and making hay, and I didn't want to be a paperboy. Billy always got better grades- if I got six A's and a B, Billy would get all A's. But I liked Billy anyway in spite of the fact that the old man tried so hard to make me resent him.
Billy had a couple of sisters and an older brother, Eddie. When Eddie went away to college he started getting high- it was 1967 and it seemed like everyone was getting high, and getting laid a lot, too. It was Eddie who turned Billy on to smoking dope, and in his turn Billy went on to Michigan State University, following in Eddie's footsteps. Like a lot of , when he went away from home to school, the family pressure disappeared. He found out it was a lot more fun to smoke pot and party with beautiful young women than to study hard and focus on getting ahead. Billy may have peaked as a stand up citizen at eighteen, because he began to party hard and started dropping acid too at MSU. I was doing the same at a different school.
I didn't see much of Billy for a couple of years- he was in East Lansing fucking up and I was in Kalamazoo fucking up. There's no mystery here. Dangle a bag of dope and a whiff of pussy in front of a young man with one hand and offer him blood, sweat, toil and tears with the other and see which one he picks. We were good at prioritizing but bad at backup plans. The war in Vietnam was in full swing, and college deferments had ended in 1969. We didn't think we'd survive to see twenty five- who the hell needs a backup plan? Life is short and uncertain. Eat dessert first.
So eat dessert we did. The next time I saw Billy we talked over what we'd been doing and compared notes. He was as usual ahead of me on points, but he had some real accomplishments under his belt too that kind of shocked me. He had, by way of his brother Eddie, started shooting heroin. He could score some if I wanted to try it. It scared me, this first time, but he was one of my best friends and peers, and had always been held up as an example to me. What could go wrong? We were - we really did think that way. So much that we had been taught had turned out to be bullshit and the best plan our country had for us was to bleed to death in a rice paddy several thousand miles away. Or else the nuclear holocaust would fry us all.
So he introduced me to smack that night in a little park in our home town, where we sat at a picnic table in the dark and I snorted my first heroin. It made me vomit, but then it started to feel good. It's been described as euphoria but that doesn't do it justice. There's a lot of don't-give-a-fuckoria in there too. Your pains- like you have a lot of pains at nineteen- melt away and any vestiges of work ethic that might remain after a year or two of staying high and fucking vanish. You just want to stay high, and when that wears off you want to get high again. The next time, I let Billy inject the junk right into a prominent vein in my arm. It was heavenly.
I entered Thomas DeQuincey country, the realm of Coleridge, Verlaine, Rimbaud. William S. Burroughs had been there before me, and now I knew why. Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin would go there too, and not come back.
Billy and I parted again, and I found new connections for heroin, but as usual, he outpaced me. He moved on to selling to support his own use, learning from his brother Eddie, and acquiring Eddie's connections and contacts. It was at least a year before I saw him again, and by then he had a beautiful blonde junky girlfriend, Gwendolyn, and a new baby girl, but that didn't slow them down. Billy was managing a print shop in a nearby town, and making runs to Toronto two or three times a month for Turkish white. It was the old French Connection, the scag coming the length of the Mediterranean to Marseilles for shipment to the U.S., where hungry junkies had plenty of money for junk.
Billy would find a source for reefer in America, and smuggle that reefer into Canada to trade for heroin or cash to buy heroin on the waterfront in Toronto. He had a solid connection in the city, a half Arab half Italian guy with a full afro named Tim Bourza. Good pot was harder to come by for Canucks than smack, and there was a good market for Billy's marijuana. The heroin came back with Billy under the Detroit River in through the Holland tunnel. It was a sure thing.
A typical run would involve renting a car for the trip. He liked expensive cars, but not too expensive. No Cadillacs or Lincolns. He'd rent a Buick, an Electra 225, what all the spades back then called a Deuce and a Quarter. (Spades was THE term for black folk circa 1970, '71. It was complimentary. Us hippies never referred to our black brothers in a derogatory way back then. All spades were cool. All spades had dope.) And we traded a lot of dope with them. I'm not sure there was complete reciprocity of feeling, but we got along.
Billy never drove the car across the international border in Detroit, and he never let Gwen do it either, even though she was pretty enough and sexy enough to pull it off. He'd hire a good looking girl to do it for him, and make sure she was dressed to the nines. A short, short skirt was a requirement, to distract those border guards. Toni Moth was a favorite driver. He'd promise to keep her high for the duration, except for the crossing, and offer her a couple of hundred bucks too. Mostly she was in it for the excitement- she wanted to be a mob girl, a moll, and this was the closest she had got to that.
Toni was very thin, and tall. We used to joke that when she stood in profile and stuck out her tongue she looked like a zipper. But she was damn good looking! When she got all dolled up for her short drive through the tunnel she was fine! She had those long, long slender legs. Her skin was dark, olive dark, and she had a vaguely Asian look to her. The spades loved her. They were always trying to get Toni in the sack. The border guards loved her too. They never questioned her much, and kept their eyes on her gorgeous legs, and those big brown eyes and long dark hair. Hell, I succumbed to her charms more than once myself. She had very small breasts, and went crazy when you played with her nipples.
Ah…we were smuggling reefer, weren't we?
Billy would ride a bus over to Windsor himself, and Toni would pick him up at a stop on the southern side. Billy would take over and drive from there to Toronto. Billy had a small entourage, and it amazed me that with three or four hangers on, he never drew attention to the operation. Maybe I was just paranoid. Every trip, he'd drive to Toronto and hook up with Tim. Tim had a buyer set up, or a straight trade. Sometimes there was haggling, but not a lot, Tim having ironed out most of the kinks ahead of time.
But one trip, there was trouble.
Billy knew a reefer seller, a black guy, Lurch, who apparently wasn't aware that we thought all black guys were cool. This guy wasn't that cool, and he wanted to be a big player, and he wanted that big city connection over the border. He didn't like his profits being shared by a honky middleman, and a young punk at that. He got demanding, and started raising his prices. Someone in Billy's entourage suggested jokingly, that hell, Billy was running a print shop as a front…they ought to fire up the offset press and print some special play money for this seller. So they did. They got some bands to band the counterfeit money, and placed two real twenties on the top and bottom of each stack. The phony bills didn't look that good. They could never pass even a cursory inspection. But guys stoned on junk and pot aren't all that discerning, and Billy managed to buy two hundred pounds of pot from Lurch with counterfeit money, and change.
When Billy got to Toronto with his haul, there was no deal. In an unrelated development or maybe not so unrelated, Tim was getting strung out on smack himself, and for the first time had proved unreliable. So Billy hung out for a couple of days waiting for something to turn up. Tim didn't come up with a deal, but a friend of his did. They loaded a couple of kilos of pot into the car and headed southeast to the waterfront. At an intersection halfway there, they were suddenly surrounded by unmarked cars full of Mounties. The Mounties confiscated the two keys of marijuana and hauled everyone off to the city jail.
In the meantime Tim, who had got wind of the bust, threw the remaining hundred ninety six pounds into suitcases and spirited them away in a taxi waiting up the block. He threw the luggage over backyard fences and crawled over after them. When he got to the waiting cab, he tossed the bags into the back seat, dove in himself and told the hack to step on it.
The next day after Billy was released from jail, the Mounties gave him half an hour and then raided the rooming house, tearing that Deuce and a Quarter apart as well. There was no reefer, and they went away mad.
There wasn't much question that it had been a setup. When he came down from his high Lurch found out he'd been had, and was the not so proud owner of several thousand dollars worth of not very artfully printed twenties. He felt a little foolish, and he wanted revenge. He made a few phone calls. He couldn't exactly say, now, "I sold this dude some smoke, and the bastard passed counterfeit bills on me." But he could call the Secret Service and give then a heads up on a print shop that might have some illegal printing plates in it, and that the printer was right now in Toronto with a rented car that was never contracted to cross an international boundary and was being used in commission of several crimes. The Secret service was interested in the funny money, and the FBI was interested in the rest. So were the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The Feds never found any printing plates. Billy had disposed of them. But it was hard for him to explain what had possessed him to drive a rental car to Toronto while also in possession of a couple of bricks of reefer. The other hundred ninety six pounds weren't anywhere to be found, but two kilos were enough. They tossed a coin and the Mounties gave him up to the FBI. Billy spent a year in prison- Jackson Prison. His brother Eddie was there too, on an armed robbery conviction.
I never mentioned any of this affair about Billy to my old man, and he never mentioned it to me either, even though I'm pretty sure he heard of it.
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It's International Intrigue by a Nose!
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Posted:Sep 14, 2015 9:00 pm
Last Updated:Sep 21, 2015 10:09 am
33821 Views
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Which I suppose indicates that three votes equals a nose. Some noses I've seen are worth a hell of a lot more than three votes. I had a date with an Italian girl from Pittsburg once, and I want to tell you, her nose....but that's another story. It did tickle me though.
So! The topic of the Twelfth Virtual Symposium will be International Intrigue, whatever that is. I reckon it has more to do with noses than you might sniff out at first whiff. And THAT reminds me of a joke told just today by my sweet friend and sweet blogger sweet_VM, in her post A few laughs I sure needed this one today. It's about a man and a woman in an elevator. So this is something of a double pimping. She's Canadian, and that's another story, and another country too, so there's your international intrigue for you right there!
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to inform folks that a topic has been chosen for the Twelfth Virtual Symposium, and it's international intrigue. The virtual symposia are the invention of another sweet friend (He'll bridle at being referred to as "sweet" here, and that's reason enough to do it.) That friend is humorlife. Any blogger who wishes to participate can post on the topic in any fool way he or she wants- in posey, prose, pictorially or in video. If you can figure out a way to do it mathematically, go for it. My old friend normalisoktoo could probably have pulled that one off, but he hasn't been seen much around here lately. I sure miss him , and I wonder who'll take up the slack and respond numerically. Or algebraically.
At any rate, The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic. Visit humorlife and read the details for yourself. It's an easy and entertaining thing to do. We write our posts and then spend a few days burning our eyeballs reading the other bloggers' posts. We scramble to respond to the comments others make on OUR posts- if we get any comments. But we will get comments! This is a terrific exercise in building a community of thought here. We share ideas and chew the fat about those ideas. We laugh and think and scratch our heads, like: "What the fuck is this... individual... getting at?" And all the while we are meeting new people and getting to know them a little better. It's the best thing to happen since the invention of the free porn video clip.
humorlife, The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic
And one more thing- it took me til the next day to realize that I had pasted the link to the wrong post! And even nightsoul1962 didn't give me a heads up on it! The blog is humorlife but the post is Unknown. You can get there with either post, but Unknown is the correct one, so visit Unknown instead.
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The Twelfth Virtual Symposium!
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Posted:Sep 11, 2015 6:29 pm
Last Updated:Sep 13, 2015 7:34 pm
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The Virtual Symposium Returns: Let’s Pick A Topic!
It seems like just the other day we were writing and reading posts for the Eleventh Virtual Symposium and now another one is lurking in the near future- the twelfth, already! Lurking is a precise term to use on a site like this, unless you can figure out some way to participate. I think only a minority of members read blogs, and a smaller minority write posts of their own. The symposia are the creation of humorlife, a nice Jewish boy from the Big Apple. As a hobby, he could have taken up model railroading, or even drones, which are becoming ever more popular. Strategically mounted cameras on either device would open up a world of perverse surveillance opportunities for...well, for spying. but that is not his style. Instead, once a month the man subjects himself to the torture of attempting to wrestle the laocoon of antiquated code for the purpose of herding a gaggle of recalcitrant, vain and fussy bloggers through an experiment in writing on a single chosen topic.
The rules are simple and loose, in that there aren't very many rules. Anyone can play- you don't have to enter or apply for admission. One of three of four topics are voted on- by anyone who wants to vote- and bloggers then interpret that topic in any way they want, pictorially, poetically or in video or prose. It can be your very first blog post or one of thousands. Visit humorlife and read the few details in his post The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic. And DO participate! Taking part isn't just about writing your own post- it's also about reading what creative ways other bloggers have used to express themselves on the chosen topic, and it's all great fun, as much fun as you can have with your clothes on. That's optional too, naturally. There's no rule that says you can't do this naked, but if you do you are required to post photos. It will increase your chances of meeting new bloggers and perhaps engaging in coitus with one of them, and after all, that's why we're here.
A little over a year ago the First Virtual Symposium debuted and was an instant hit. I've been an enthusiastic supporter ever since. I thought that writing on a topic not of my choosing would be onerous and restricting, and I doubted that I'd be able to express anything of interest with even the most libertarian of restrictions. I don't know if i succeeded, but I had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.
That first post follows below.
A Treatise on Age and Amorousness
As suggested by [blog humorguaranteed] the topic of the first scheduled symposium shall be "Age and Amorousness." I offer this as my contribution.
Age and amorousness. What could I possibly write that hasn't been better said before? People are easily obsessed with sex, usually their own, but not always. It's also pretty easy to get fixated on the sexual habits of others. We wouldn't have Kardashians or Miley Cyruses without that fixation- clearly they can do nothing other than project a certain sexuality. When Madonna was a new phenomenon I recall women hoisting their noses into the upper atmosphere, where it is very cold, and declaiming that as long as there are men there will be Madonnas. It was just what I needed- more disapproval from women simply for being male. Some women I knew were really creeped out by Bob Dole's ad spot for Viagra. I, on the other hand, thought it was very cool that he made erectile dysfunction easier for older guys to admit to and talk about.
When men are young they will fuck anything that moves and a number of things that can't. They will also jump off high bridges attached only by a rubber band. The young man's motto is "Hold my beer and watch this!" That motto is generally believed to apply only to rednecks and hillbillies. This is an error. There is a reason the military is heavily populated with young men- their brains are not fully developed. Football is a sport for young men. Now and then you will find an older man, still believing himself to be young, still playing football. He isn't hard to locate. Google "emailed dick pics" and he's sure to come up. This also serves as a gauge of the state of brain development. The man may still be technically young.
Old men are also willing to fuck anything that moves. They simply lack the energy or the erection to do so. George Burns famously said that trying to have sex at age ninety is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. It can also be dicey finding a willing female partner as old age encroaches. Usually large amounts of money are required. I checked yootoob and found no video of buxom young women chasing homeless men down the street, overcome with lust. Put an expensive Italian suit on that same man, give him a private jet and a mansion with multiple jacuzzis, and an entourage of celebrities will magically appear. Young women will naturally want to know what all the fuss is about and thus are drawn into the trap. Once in the snare, they will actually be found competing for the attentions of a decrepit and wizened old lecher. money may not buy happiness but it can procure a reasonable facsimlie. Most of us do not imagine Hugh Hefner sitting alone in one of several bedrooms pondering what fate has brought him to, what he has become. He may do it, but it's hard for us to believe it.
If a man makes his money early in life it may alter his perspective on amorousness. It may also alter his perspective on a great many other things, insofar as it can still be called perspective. George Bernard Shaw once said that William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon was the kind of place God would have built if he'd had the money. But that is another post. This one is about amorousness. If a man can afford women, and also afford to pay them to go away, it's bound to put ideas in his head. He might just slide from monogamy to serial monogamy to open adultery as easily as I slide into the seat of a twenty three year old pickup truck. I might want to slide into a twenty three year old, but all I can afford is the Ford. Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, the consummate craftsman of the written word in English, commented on this practice, in particular as it was engaged in on our side of the pond. "Like so many substantial citizens of America, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag." Here is demonstrated the beauty of quotes- I need write no more- the paragraph is complete.
It would be presumptuous of me to attempt to deliver the woman's perspective on this topic. She can speak for herself, and in fact that is the reason I got hooked on this site. I liked reading what women thought and wrote about sex. I still don't know quite what that is. I get the impression that some of them are angry about something that involves men. Apparently a number of the men are also angry about something that involves women. I think that this is an entrepreneurial opportunity for the right people to seize- a website for people who are angry with one another and wish to copulate. I'm not wishing them away from Swampflounder- I love a good rant and a diatribe is even better. I am giving this idea away for free. I don't need the opportunity. I'm content with my pickup truck. At least some of the time it still works.
If nothing else, I felt some small pressure to contribute, not the least of which was my friendship with humorlife. He gives a good deal of his time to bring this thing off once a month and is wonderfully supportive of the bloggers who contribute. Try it! You'll like it!
The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic
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About doors
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Posted:Aug 22, 2015 7:25 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:51 am
40958 Views
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Unknown
Doors can be seen as a barricade or as a portal. They're both. Very likely the first doors were rocks piled at the entrance to a cave or hut, and it would have been discovered that draping a hide over a small opening in the barricade would further cut off drafts. The earliest villages discovered by archaeologists are clusters of houses with no doors or windows. Access to the inside of these houses was gained by climbing a ladder to the roof and entering through a hole in the roof. The ladder could then be pulled up behind you and you descended another ladder, or the same one lowered into the room below. Neolithic man was not technologically stunted- they were inventing at a pretty good clip in the context of the times. Generations build on the knowledge acquired by those who came before. They were using a relatively clean slate, and we've forgotten much of what they had to teach us.
A five thousand year old door has been unearthed in Switzerland, from the late Neolithic period. Using tree ring dating it's estimated that it may have been built about three thousand sixty three B.C. The door was made of aligned planks and appears to have been held together by splines and pegs. This door has hinges, another invention of Neolithic man and deserving of its own historical examination. The door was found on the site of a village of stilt houses, where wood would have been plentiful and woodworking an accomplished art.
A Swiss wooden door, circa 3063 B.C.
This construction method is similar to the sliding dovetail door that I made for my own cellar. The planks are laid out in the pattern of the finished door. The planks are tongued and grooved to match each other and eliminate gaps. Two grooves are cut laterally in the surface of the planks, one near the top and one near the bottom. The edges of the cut are angled to match an angle on the spline- a dovetail- to be slid into the groove, preventing it from simply popping out and precluding the use of any fasteners or glue. In fact, you don't want any glue in this case because wood moves with changes in humidity and the planks need to be able to move as they expand and contract when they absorb moisture and then dry out again. Four glued wooden pegs on either end of each of the splines keep the spline from sliding out again and secure it laterally to the plank door. I might have made wooden hinges and latch for my door, but I was content to simply make the entire door of wood without nails or screws.
My cellar door. Made with joinery instead of nails or screws.
Some of the earliest doors on record are those on Egyptian tombs. These are often made of a single plank. In the dry desert climate warping would not have been the concern that it was in Europe, and there would have been minimal movement of the wood. Stone doors were often made for very important or sacred buildings. They would be very durable and not at all subject to expansion and contraction. Those at Nippur, an ancient Sumerian city, were of dolerite, a sub-volcanic rock, and swung on dowel like pivots that fitted sockets in the lintel and sill of the doorway. The construction in stone mirrored that used in wood, the masons cutting mortises and tenons on the stone beams and columns just as a joiner would in a timber frame building. Some early tenons were also sheathed in bronze.
A Roman basalt stone door from Azrac, Jordan
In the west it wasn't until the industrial revolution that iron and nails became commonplace in buildings, but doors were a place to spend the money. Nails had to be made from a plank of iron heated in a forge by a blacksmith and then tediously cut by hand, hence the term "cut" nails. A head was then formed and after the nails were driven in a plank door they were clinched, or bent over, to prevent them from retracting. So, "deader than a doornail". It wasn't unheard of in this country to burn down an old building and sift the ashes for the nails to reuse them in a new project.
A clinched nail door.
Plank doors can benefit from using a diagonal brace, and often this is just a board with the ends cut on a bias and pegged, nailed or screwed to the planks, but it helps to let in the ends to add strength. I copied a pattern, called a bird's mouth, from a wicket door- a walk through door in a larger door- on a barn I once owned and use it in all my gates now. It's sturdy, not difficult to cut and takes a lot of the stress off the screws or nails. The brace is set on a diagonal for the same reason that knee braces are needed to buttress a post to a beam in traditional construction- it's harder to deform a triangle than a square. If you keep in mind what you're trying to accomplish here- keeping the door or gate from sagging under its own weight- it isn't hard to let in a brace that will firm things up.
My garden gate with birdsmouthed diagonal brace.
Raised panel doors are beautiful to look at and it takes some skill to build them. It isn't conservation of materials or aesthetic considerations that gave rise to the method though. Once again it's that fact that wood takes on moisture from the air and expands, and contracts again when drying out. The parts of a panel door are the stiles, the upright boards that frame the edges of the door vertically, the rails, which complete the frame horizontally and tie the stiles together, and the panels, which fill the gaps left over. Stiles and rails have a groove cut down the length of the interior edges and a panel is loosely inserted in that groove, so that it can float freely as it swells and then dries naturally. The smaller amount of wood in the stiles and rails of a panel door means that there will be less expansion and contraction going on than in a solid door. Mortises- merely rectangular holes- are typically cut near the bottom and top of each stile and a matching tenon or post cut on the ends of the rails to fit closely in the mortises. A haunch is often cut as well to fit the groove cut for the panel. Raises are formed on a panel by beginning with a panel that is thicker than necessary. The perimeter of each panel is planed or sawn down to match the groove on the frame, leaving a raised field. The embellishment of the field by special cuts and the addition of molded cuts along the stiles and rails creates shadow lines on the finished door and makes it a thing of beauty, and a showpiece of the craftsman's skill.
A simple utilitarian panel door.
An old raised panel door.
I once made a pair of raised panel cabinet doors for my house entirely by hand, using wooden planes, hand saws and chisels. I lost that house in a divorce and unfortunately have no photos of those doors, but I was proud of them. A panel raising plane would have been used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to form the panels, if the craftsman could afford one, but it's a complicated and somewhat rare find among antique tools, and kind of pricey, too, so I used what I had on hand. I planed a groove describing the rectangle of the field with a wooden plow plane that plows a quarter inch groove. That plane has a fence regulating how far from the edge it cuts. A rabbet plane would have done the entire job, as it cuts clear across its width- and then used a regular bench plane to cut the bevels down to the correct thickness. I mixed a stain to resemble fumed oak- the real thing is dangerous to try, using toxic chemicals. The whole pair of doors were made from scrounged wood- oak pallet lumber and a couple of old oak planks from the stable floor. It didn't cost me a nickel.
Wide doors are often seen as inviting, welcoming, while narrow doors appear restrictive. But all doors, and doorways, make us curious as to what lies beyond. When visiting someplace new, we want to open doors to rooms and cabinets and see what's in there- if nobody's looking. Locked doors will make us even more curious. You want in! If it's locked, it must conceal something worth seeing.
I always want to see how a door is made, most especially in an old building. They were often thrifty with materials, but in some buildings would spare no expense and it's interesting to decide if the doors fit the rest of the building or if they're a bit of an extravagance. I found a wonderful old "primitive" cabinet in an antique store with handmade raised panel doors. The panels had no sharply defined field. The cabinet maker had simply feathered the panels with a plane or drawknife to fit the groove in the frame. I wanted that cabinet but I couldn't afford it. Now I can't remember why I thought I couldn't afford it.
Modern doors sometimes mimic the appearance of old panel or plank doors, but they're usually made with veneers or synthetic materials that won't expand or contract with changes in humidity and the look is just that- a look, and serves no structural purpose. I hate these doors. A thing should look like what it is. You can dress it up to show off your talents at carving and your own sense of whimsy, but I never see this in plywood or aluminum.
Steel doors that you might find in a home center frequently have moldings applied to the surfaces to make them look pleasing and traditional to the eye, or they might be stamped, but they look like plain steel doors with stuff glued to them to me. They may be stronger doors and might resist the elements better, but I'm not convinced. Mostly, I think they're just cheap- real craftsmanship costs money. How many of those things will future archeologists discover five thousand years from now, and what will they think of us for making them and buying them?
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"Doors and/or Bridges and/or Gates"
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Posted:Aug 17, 2015 9:19 am
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:51 am
34173 Views
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Unknown.
The eleventh virtual symposium is coming soon- Midnight on 23 August is the very flexible deadline. This is the brainchild of humorlife and it's been a wonderful exercise for bloggers here. Writers choose from three or four offered topics and may interpret that topic in any way they choose. You can post graphics, music, video, poetry or essay. This has strengthened a sense of community here and introduced all participants to new bloggers, who they might not have read before. I've enjoyed every Symposium thoroughly and had great fun with my own offerings.
Visit humorlife, Unknown for details. Anyone can play and the rules are liberal enough for the wildest anarchists and libertarians among us!
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Hmmmmmmm....
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Posted:Aug 4, 2015 12:51 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:46 pm
38495 Views
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sssssssssssssssssssssss.................
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Errata
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Posted:Jul 31, 2015 1:46 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:49 am
36532 Views
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About a week ago, when it was nice and cool, we hiked Al Sabo and when we got back I wandered around the yard taking photos of whatever caught my eye. There are lilies, Rose of Sharon and Queen Anne's lace blooming in profusion, and thistle. So here they are.
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The King of Filth and the Slut Chorus
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Posted:Jul 25, 2015 12:32 pm
Last Updated:Feb 18, 2023 12:59 pm
39538 Views
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On Slut Is The Topic For The Tenth Virtual Symposium
The King of Filth and the Slut Chorus- by PD
The King of Filth will not have the Slut Chorus, and this pisses them off.
They disgust him. Dirty, vulgar, and loud, they are barely girls. They are vermin. The King of Filth does not run vermin. Men who pay for vermin have nothing for him to steal. He is a business man. He is not a fucking social worker.
Lacey, the leader of the Slut Chorus, is the most dangerous one. You don't ever want to fight her. Her cousin Lena is bigger and glued to Lacey's side, but Lena has soft eyes and huge hips. Even with her blue-black hair and brown roots and kohl-rimmed eyes you can see some mother in Lena, some pillow sense. She could carry two toddlers on those hips, easy. I think someday she will.
Lacey though is hard all over and quick. Her jet hair hangs in dirty strings across her forehead and neck. Her mouth, rimmed with white lipstick, is shaped like a gash, a wound made with a crooked piece of glass that emits sounds no girl or woman ever made, sounds that would send a harpy fleeing for cover.
What does she do with that mouth I wonder? How dead would a man have to be to put his dick in that on purpose? How suicidal? The Slut Chorus always wears torn leather and black stockings and boots, and this is before goth even existed, before time even existed. The Slut Chorus came forth from a time where there is no time, a time before time, an Other space where no light is.
They do not care. They do not fucking care and they want you to know it.
Lacey and Lena are conjoined in some invisible way, but Pearl stays close by too, always. Pearl, the worst-named girl ever. Round as a soft melon but gray as ash, Pearl's pock-marked face and flat nose already anticipate years of work behind a Stop n' Go cashier counter, followed by too many babies with a black dropout with an anger management problem. Pearl is there to nod and provide bulk while Lacey issues threats and profanities. Pearl nods. Her eyes are small, sunk deep in her big plain face, and a little bit scared, always.
Then, there's Leslie. Leslie is the only one who doesn't dye her hair blue black. Slight as a garden fairy but so cold, she dyes her hair blonde but doesn't wash it much. It matts in back and frames the mask of foundation and blush that hide Leslie's skeletal face. Wispy, her hair is wispy and so is she. She wears an unzipped pink windbreaker, white flats, and no stockings at all, even in the dead of winter. Leslie's stepfather is a drunk. She has no mother. She smiles all the time and is friendly. Leslie will speak to anyone. And smile.
But she's a cutter. Leslie cuts the inside of her arms and thighs, and she has also learned to ink some of the cuts and leave them to heal, making blue tattoos that would match Lacey's hair perfectly, but on Leslie they just look like emaciated bruises. She is a bruise of a girl, really, a cypher, but she is full of some kind of batshit crazy hope that is more terrifying than foul-mouthed Lacey's most vengeful rage.
The King of Filth, by contrast, he makes his girls dress like it is always Sunday. Like good girls. Clean skin girls, shiny shoes girls--girls he can sell a million times over, over and over. And then, once he has their secrets, afterward, he can steal whatever his stupid marks think they own. Because a man who is stupid enough to let the King of Filth steal from him is too stupid to have anything. Men like that are not even men. They're worms.
You can't steal from worms. Worms own nothing.
The King of Filth helps worms understand this basic truth about themselves.
You have to pay attention, he says a lot. You have to know your place.
The Slut Chorus, what is their place I wonder? They are throw-away girls. No one wants them. There is power in that, I think. Some kind of seductiveness that isn't even about sex. Me? I have no power. I can stand in front of a brick wall and disappear. I can stand in front of an automatic door and it will not open. I can be a wounded in plain sight and no one sees,
One day after school, I have to go with Jill to collect five dollars Lacey owes her. I am surprised Jill knows Lacey well enough to give her five dollars. I'm scared and excited too. Jill knows Lacey. I am with Jill. I get to come along. This is real adventure.
Lacey is OK, one on one. I do not speak of course. I am too busy watching out for the King of Filth's Lincoln. I'm small and invisible but not I am not as crazy as I seem. I'm relieved when we go around to a staircase on the back yard of a boarded up house and climb. No one can see us there.
Lacey pushes the door at the top open and we all step inside. It's dark, and it smells. Mildew, stale beer, piss, decay. A small black and white TV in the center of the room casts a cool blue glow. The afternoon stories are on. One Life to Live. The Guiding Light.
Well, if there was light, maybe it would guide something. But there is no light. Just that blue, burning.
Sitting in front of the TV on what might be a couch is an enormous damp woman with the same blue-black hair Lacey has, and the same brown roots. All around her empty bottles, dirty plates and half eaten bags of chips and cookies and such pile up, fan mags, cigarette cartons, used kleenex. The enormous woman wears a stained pink muumuu and not much else. Her pores are so big I can see them from the door. She holds a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of Irish Rose in the other, and a dick is in her mouth, half-blocking the TV but not quite.
The owner of the dick, a thin, jumpy sort of man in mechanic's overalls pulls out and zips up quick, hands the steaming whale of a woman a twenty and pushes past us so fast I catch my breath and immediately regret it. Not a good place to breathe, this place. Better to wait and breathe later.
"Baby," the moist pink whale gurgles at Lacey, "Be a doll and get me some more fags, will you?"
She holds out the twenty and Lacey is down the stairs even faster than the foul mechanic, waving it around once we reach solid ground. At the Stop n' Go she buys a pack of fags, gives Jill the five dollars she owes her, and pockets the rest.
"What about your mom?" Jill asks.
"Fuck that ," she shrieks, laughing harder. Then, looking at me, more quiet-like, she adds, "She don't care. She really don't."
I look away.
The next day I am at my locker and here comes Lacey, cushy Lena, and Pearl the pug, all together as usual, but Lacey has been crying--I can tell because her black-rimmed eyes are rimmed red inside in blood red, and Lena and Pearl are blubbering like someone died.
"I'm gonna cut you," Lacey spits at me as she passes, and it's like a slap, like a hard slap with a cold hard hand. But she keeps walking, because she is not gonna cut me, I see that the moment she says it, and she knows it too, and it hurts in the center of my chest, like she did cut me. But she didn't.
Later, I hear what happened from Jill, walking in the hall between gym and study hall.
Leslie cut herself in the tub the night before and bled out.
When they found her, Jill said, she was ice cold. The cops took photos. But her skin was white and pure as clean linen, like the most beautiful most fragile ghost anyone had every seen, peaceful. Like a cold angelic ghost.
Like the sweetest dead ever.
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We're here, we're sluts, get used to it.
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Posted:Jul 25, 2015 12:17 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:43 am
40146 Views
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On Slut Is The Topic For The Tenth Virtual Symposium
Sheela na gigs are figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva. Such carvings are said to ward off death and evil.
We're here, we're sluts, get used to it.- by Bill
Bend to the oars, you lousy whores, None is bigger than mine.
She hoisted her garments for me to see all
Overload by spectators during a wedding
Gloria! Gloria! You were my queen and I was your fool
She screamed and she hollered, and tried to recoil
When I pulled out Old Satan, and went boring for oil.
The pup yelped; the slut barked and leaped furiously at the offender
You have to pay attention, he says a lot. You have to know your place.
Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.
She began to gently run her hands over Little Red’s creamy white buttocks and thighs
People had crowded onto the bridge to see a clown go down the river in a barrel;
Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates
Tits and clits! Tits and clits! That’s what all this is about! That’s all they are ever after!
It’s a harsh and difficult thing for a woman to go to sleep, alone. Without a prick, I mean.
Ten Gates To Heaven where we connect the Mind, Body and Spirit
Collapsed beneath the overnight train
"We're here, we're sluts, get used to it."
Illustration by Charles Eisen for
The Devil of Pope-Fig Island
by Jean de la Fontaine: Tales and Novels in Verse. Vol. 2
Yea, with elegant little itchy-bitchy curly whirly penny royals growing
So neatly and tightly all around that lovely meadow!
The battleships sail In and out, And never a bother to me
79 people drowned, mainly .
The King of Filth will not have the Slut Chorus,
“Do you know that slut who writes that column?
She replied: “I know her very well... that slut is me.”
The future's uncertain and the end is always near
American Feminism Wants All Girls To Be Fat Sluts
Overload by attackers during the Battle of Stirling Bridge
"Boys will be boys" I suppose they would have said.
He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards ...
Because There's Always a Slut Ready to Get Caught on Tape!
Slut-Shaming, Eugenics, and Donald Duck
Jane, you ignorant slut
Slamming sluts heads in doors cause your a ruthless cunt ...
Horror movies are a staple around Halloween
but ever notice how the slut always dies first?
If movies are making girls sluts, what da fuk
made you become an internet ?
Show me the way to the next whiskey bar
"Man, I want to find a club where the door sluts are not the only women."
It’s not that I minded whores and sluts livin’ in the neighborhood.
It wasn’t that great of a neighborhood anyway.
"We're here, we're sluts, get used to it."
feelin’ affectionate toward this lil slut all jizzed up
She fell in love with me cause of my big cock
snapped due to mechanical resonance caused by marching soldiers
Aerodynamically poor design resulted in aeroelastic flutter
Yet I do know that they have hopped off their cunts early
Darling, I think you could strangle a bull with this cunte!
Butt-Fuck Sluts Go Nuts Vol. 29
and I go through every bit of me, every bit of me – including my bumhole!
“Wipe your face off you, lil slut,” I told her gently.
“You were OK at first, but in the end you just lay there like a bucket of dirt.
Sluts Don't Knock On Doors. for free.
Of course there are different levels of “slut”
Which one are you? Twitter Sluts are just a nuisance to everyone
Once she has your guy, she doesn’t want him
Sorry...Sluts r'Us is two doors over
The taste of pure slut is all that keeps me here
"We're here, we're sluts, get used to it."
"You know, I think we're beating around the bush here,"
The Drunk Sluts are an edgy and raw melodic punk
hunt sluts from a helicopter with an AR 15
Candid Panties gets bought under the bridge
"I've been told I'm not supposed to say this
you don't have to wear your sexual proclivities on your sleeve
acted cook, slut, butler, page, footman, and valet de chambre.
Our radiant Queene, hates Sluts, and Sluttery.
women should avoid dressing like sluts
A slovenly, untidy person, usually a woman.
Our Polly is a sad Slut! the only true emotion; lust
was only kept from biting him by Roughing it in the Bush
in order not to be victimised."
Our little girl Susan is a most admirable slut
the slut takes on a sheen of unreality
When-cut-won-t-slut-looking-men-like-
"We're here, we're sluts, get used to it."
Crime and deviance: nuts, sluts and perverts?
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE - Doors Unlocked And Open
but unlocked doors were an invitation to come inside.
Crawling King Snake fucks The Crystal Ship
Collapsed because of a sudden washout
Heartless Bastards, 'Gates Of Dawn'
At the first gate, we ask ourselves,"Are these words true?"
cast away honestie vppon a foule slut
the market is flooded with sluts that drown
Tanker Franz Klasen rammed Three old whores in Winnipeg
Don't you love her madly? Yea, all your love is gone
no holding back the SlutWalkers now
"being a slut and getting pissed off"
Being an impudent .
nor heeds what we have taught her
bestowing a savage kick on The Diary of Samuel Pepys
"We're here, we're sluts, get used to it."
As you like it Come walk or roll or strut or holler
The Ethical Slut The Last Living Slüt
The Collected Horny Biker Slut
cum guzzling The poor lil slut
fall in love with a slut and a
sluts- That’s what your tongue is for
10 wanton black cock sluts next door
"You're a liar," says the other old
tit-fucking, blow jobs, The freshman slut
you’re a slut with rugburn on your knees.
like getting a cancer diagnosis off of Web MD
stories from over a hundred girls
Obvious sluts will be obvious sluts Met a slut today?
Sluts are old and boring Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut
on Facebook not sexist it's 'just the way it is'
seek out a girl with a low notch count.
"We're here, we're sluts, get used to it."
So sing a lonely song Of a deep blue dream
R*pe and sexual assault culture protested
Stop the violence! Stop the hate!”
a safe space for survivors and allies
the word "slut" is being reappropriated.
"SlutWalking" is attracting thousands
BECAUSE WE'VE HAD ENOUGH ...
victim blaming and slut shaming in regards to sexual assault
WE'RE HERE, WE'RE SLUTS, GET USED TO IT!
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To link to this blog (kzoopair) use [blog kzoopair] in your messages.
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