Totally Nuts VII

Here's yet another episode in the Nuts series, passing along the weird dreams of a sick, twisted mind.

It wasn't a large gathering, couple dozen people or so.  Didn't know the whys, whats or wheres of the event, don't even recall seeing anyone there I was acquainted with.  Maybe that's why I was leaving early.  Party pooper.  When I left the building I noticed my car was blocked in by another car, couldn't drive out of the yard the way I'd come in. 

I decided to go around to the other side of the car, see if I could get out that way.  In order to do that, I had to go through a large, 1-story building.  I went in the front door, hung a left, then a right, and entered a long, grassy hallway.  Huh?  Grass growing in an inside hallway?  Whatever.  I continued down the hallway, finally arriving at a door that opened unto a large pasture.   

Standing just outside the door was a 4-legged creature that resembled a horse, but was much slimmer. I was compelled to grab the thing's halter in my left hand, no idea why, just seemed it was what I was supposed to do.  Together, we walked back up toward where I thought my car was parked until we came upon a long picket fence of weathered wood that blocked our way.  I let go of the harness and stood arms akimbo, surveying the situation.

When I turned to look back at the critter, it had morphed into a 2-legged thing wearing a polo shirt and jeans.  Still had the same head though - minus the halter.  It nodded over to the left end of the fence, and said, "Gate."  I was flabbergasted!  "Gee, I'm sorry," I said.  "I didn't know you could talk."

That's it.  Never got to my car.  Never knew what what kind of critter it was or why I thought I needed to take it to wherever it was I was taking it.

Wood

Once upon a time, most rural Midwestern homes were heated with wood.  It was plentiful and readily available, a byproduct of clearing land for crop production and pastures.  The farmhouse where I grew up was no exception.  It had a large wood stove in the living room, augmented by a wood-fueled cooking stove in the kitchen.  The latter was replaced by an electric range in 1950*.

Trees were felled by axes and 2-man crosscut saws, then cut into manageable lengths that the horses, and later on, tractors, could drag to the log pile in the back yard.  Cutting wood was an annual event that required several strong men.  The guy that owned the saw rig - a 3' diameter circular saw mounted on a stand, belt-driven by a tractor PTO (power take off) - would make the rounds to area farms each autumn.

It took 2 long days to cut enough wood to get through the northern MN winter.  The men would squat down and lift the log, placing one end on the wooden apron in front of the saw blade. Then, one man would go around to the other side of the apron; his job was to catch the portion that was sawed off, and toss it onto the pile.  Dirty, noisy, back-breaking work it was; I didn't regret being too young to join the crew.

I didn't miss out on all the fun, though.  Hauling wood into the house every day was a task left to the younger kids.  And, when I got a little older, I inherited the job of splitting wood, too.  By that time we had acquired a chain saw, so I never joined the cutting crew.  What a bummer, huh?

Wouldn't you know it, my folks got an oil furnace right after I left home so I was the last in a long line of splitter-haulers.  As an adult, I actually enjoyed splitting wood - in moderate quantities, in moderate weather and at my convenience.  Good exercise and immediate job satisfaction.  All my Pacific NW homes had fireplaces or wood stoves.

*Well I remember the day the electric range was delivered.  I was 6 at the time, very curious and excited about this shiny new appliance.  The installer hooked it up, turned on a burner which quickly became red hot.  He turned it off, and it quickly became black again.  I was amazed: the thing got hot in seconds, didn't have to wait a half hour for the wood fire to heat the cooking surface.  I remember thinking it got hot in seconds so it must get cool in seconds, too.  I put my hand on the burner right after it turned black.  Ouch!  "Well, he had to learn sooner or later," said the installer to my mother.  Real sympathetic fella.

USS Midway

The USS Midway was launched in 1945 and decommissioned in 1990.  It is now a museum, berthed in San Diego.  My 2 sons (Tod and Adam) and I toured it last weekend.  It was mind boggling.  The sheer size of the thing and its crew, the complex coordination and timing required to operate an airbase on a ship, the awesome power - it's hard to get your mind around it.

Top speed was 35 knots (40 MPH) but fuel economy was lousy: 20 feet per gallon.  You could water ski behind it but carriers can't turn on a dime, so if you did a face plant into the water, you were gonna be there a few hours.  Pack a lunch and take shark repellent.

Speaking of lunch, 225 cooks prepared 10 tons of food per day for the 4500 personnel on board.  Everyone says the Navy eats well.  Reminds me yet again that I chose the wrong branch of the service.  Nobody ever said C-rations were 'eating well.'  Where's my Tobasco sauce?

Berths for enlisted men measured about 30" W x 66" L x 36" H.  All clothing and personal items were stored in the trays below the bunks.  Cozy.

Anchor chain links weigh 156 pounds each.  Dropping anchors produced one hell of a racket.

Boiler room gauges and controls.

This picture was taken from one of the huge elevators that move planes from hanger deck to flight deck.  Note the giant-sized sculpture of a sailor planting a lip lock on his girlfriend, lower left.

The flight deck had about 20 planes on display, each with it's own 2-minute audio story.

The Phantom F-4.  When I called in air strikes in Vietnam, a pair of these usually delivered the goodies (napalm, rockets, cannons).  I'd pop smoke, give the flight leader the distance and direction to the target, sit back and enjoy the fireworks - provided my unit wasn't taking fire at the time.

This shot shows the catapult connected to the front landing gear.  The 2 steam-powered catapults took a plane from 0 to 170 MPH in 3 seconds or less.  Whoopee!  Launch timing had to be perfectly coordinated with the rise and fall of the ship on the ocean swells.  Mess up the timing and launch the plane when the ship's bow is down in a trough, the plane and flight crew would be propelled straight into the water - and on down to Davy Jones' locker.

Communications center.  Urgent messages were printed out and sent to appropriate areas on the ship using the brass vacuum tubes on the right.  Just like department stores back in the day.

Flight deck personnel wore different colored tops to designate their crew and duties.  Adam (L) and Tod (R) opted to pose with the cute little female sailor on the far left.  They're out of uniform but that wasn't always the case: both served in the military.

Today's US carriers (Nimitz Class) are nuclear-powered and are the largest military ships in the world.  The first of the next-gen carriers (Ford Class) is scheduled to launch this year with highly automated systems that will reduce crew size by 1000+.  They'll cost about 10.5 billion $ to build and 1 million $ a day to operate.  A billion here, a billion there.......

Kitchen Sink

Since buying our LHC home in late 2009, we've replaced or painted everything in the kitchen, everything but the kitchen sink, that is.  A few days back, while consuming my morning banana, I checked my email and read a new one from Mama, aka Trish.  What do you think it said?  Yep, you guessed it: she wants a new kitchen sink, and a new faucet as well.

And I thought the kitchen remodel was all done.  Silly me!  You'd think I'd know better by now.  But wait: Mama said she'd spring for it.  Okay, I'm all over it!  And, while we're at it, I'll replace the garbage disposal.  It's 11 years old, which is about 90 in people-years.  So, we ordered all the stuff, Amazon and Home Depot.

Mama asked me if I would do the installation.  No way, Jose'!   For starters, cast iron kitchen sinks weigh upwards of 130 pounds. Yeah, I've installed numerous sinks, faucets, whatnot, but I hate plumbing with a passion.  Seems like every other time I do a plumbing job, I get everything connected, turn on the water, check for leaks, and finding none, put away my tools.  Next morning, sure as hell, there's water on the floor.  I swear, some nasty gremlin or gnome or leprechaun sneaks in when I'm asleep, loosens up a supply line and sneaks off again.  I'd dearly love to catch the little sumbitch in the act, stick his head in the toilet and flush it several times.

Looked at faucets lately?  The latest thing is a touch-on/off feature.  For only $100 more, you get a faucet that turns on every time you accidentally touch the darn thing whilst reaching for the sponge, dishrag, soap dispenser, RO - or just cleaning the sink.  Whoop de friggin' do!  This fine invention is nearly as asinine as a couple other plumbing-related 'innovations', the merits of which I liberally berated in earlier posts.  Copy and paste the links below, might make you chuckle.

https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4575053743717058165#editor/target=post;postID=984565507632208558;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=7;src=postname

http://edgem21.blogspot.com/2011/06/man-in-motion-part-two.html
    

Banana Blues

As a youngster, I had an ongoing case of severe BDS (Banana Deprivation Syndrome).  Dad did all the grocery shopping.  He'd bring home cases of apples, peaches and other in-season fruit - but bananas?  Virtually never.  Guess he didn't like 'em much.

God, how I envied my neighbor and classmate, Bob - that rascal seemed to always have a banana in his school lunchbox.  Mom always put carrots or kohlrabi or some other blah garden vegetable in mine.  I'd watch Bob snarf down his banana, jealous as hell.  Don't recall him ever offering to swap his banana for my carrots, either. Selfish little bugger.

Church bingo/potlucks were the only social events back in the day, and I really looked forward to them.  We kids would tear around outside while the adults played bingo, returning inside when it was time to eat.  And the eats were delicious: hot dishes, decadent desserts and strawberry jello - with bananas!

Nowadays, I do the grocery shopping and there's always bananas in the fruit basket on the kitchen counter.  First thing in the morning - every morning - it's banana time!  That's been the routine for 4 decades.  Although my BDS is in remission I still feel its presence.  It's there alright, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the day I forget to stock up on bananas before setting up camp in a remote area.

Just the thought of it makes me twitch.

Inner Sanctum

It's 1954.  I'm 10 years old.  Our first TV set, a large blonde console unit with a piss ant screen, is 2 years old.  All TV programming is in black and white; color TV still 10 years out.

On a good day, we got 3 North Dakota-based stations, 2 from Fargo, 1 from Valley City.  There was an electric rotor on the TV antenna that turned the antenna towards the signal source.

Dad was the undisputed boss of viewing selections, directing us kids to switch channels while he was lying on the sofa after dinner.  No remotes in those days.  Dad was a great fan of boxing and wrestling.  Mom was into watching religious stuff and The Voice of Firestone, a weekly classical music show, which ran from 1949 to 1963.

Other regularly-watched programs included Flash Gordon, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, The Ed Sullivan Show, I Love Lucy, Adventures of Superman, What's My Line, plus a few other westerns.

My most vivid memory though, is none of the fore-mentioned but rather Inner Sanctum, a horror/sci fi serial.  The show always started with a guy talking like Vincent Price, and a scene showing a heavy metal door.  After a few introductory sentences, the guy would say, "And now we will open that squeaky door."  The door would open very slowly, with the squealing sound of rusty metal hinges.

It scared the crap out of me!  Very creepy stuff.  I'd crawl under the dining room table when the show started.  Actually, no one in our family was much into the show, and we usually changed channels when it started.  The channel change couldn't happen quick enough for me, though.  Gotta give credit to the folks that created that creepy introduction: it left a lasting impression - 60+ years in my case. The show ran for just one season, seems I wasn't the only non-fan.

Kitchen Remodel III

It's done!

New range and dishwasher arrived last week, several weeks later than we'd hoped.  Mama very happy, has already used both the convection and conventional ovens, and the dishwasher a couple times.

Before above, after below.

For the benefit of LHC area homeowners, I offer these comments about our contractors:

     1.  In my first post on the remodel, I said 'more later' in regard to Flakes-R-Us Cabinetmakers, aka Bob's Cabinets and More.  They do quality work but: they didn't build one of the cabinets to my specs, it took twice as long as they said it would, their phone etiquette is non-existent as is their customer service.  I sent Bob a letter, detailing my experience and requesting a substantial cost reduction.  He apologized and discounted the final invoice as requested.

     2.  Arizona Decorative Concrete did the floor and they were everything Bob's was not: good work, courteous, timely and accommodating.

     3.  Painting was done by Tim's Custom Painting and they get high marks, also.  And, they're surprisingly affordable.  I gave them the extra $ I squeezed out of Bob's, even though Tim didn't ask for it.  He had to make several extra trips because the new cabinets weren't here on schedule.

Finally, sarcasm aside, I have to admit that I'm quite pleased with the results, also.