Basically, all legal free speech is allowed. We will assist the authorities in dealing with illegal speech. You are each other’s moderators. Have fun. And don’t forget to MAGA at nuclear levels.
After going through the elements, we now enjoy a sequence of RANDOM somewhat pseudo-random topics that will be thrown out for investigation and commentary on each open thread. At some point, in a way something like composite numbers, I will accidentally hit a second occurrence of one of them – that’s just normal.
Have fun!
Citizen U
(a.k.a. W on the OTHER site)
Day 140 – Hardwood Floors
The U Tree 
Hardwood floors?!?!?!? *Rolls eyes*
OK, we’ll try this with one hand tied-behind-my back. First, what is a hardwood? Contrary to some who might think it is a wood that is hard, it is actually the wood of most kinds of deciduous trees. There are several “hardwood” varieties that are, in fact, softer than some of the hardest “softwood” trees. Evergreens are entirely softwood — so pine, douglas fir, hemlock, and redwood are all softwoods.
Most hardwood flooring done in an area is of a type of wood that is commonly and inexpensively available. Red oak is popular in California. It wouldn’t surprise me if some areas in the East favored hickory. Ash might have been a popular choice in the 1920’s — it’s nearly as hard as oak and shrugs off moisture that would make oak pucker — but there was a terrible plague (hmmm, was it from China?) and ash became scarce for almost 100 years. It’s coming back, and you’re beginning to see quality ash available. [When I remodeled my kitchen in 2004, the cabinets were ash. We sent back a couple of drawer fronts and cabinet doors because of bad wood selection — mainly pitch pockets — and pointed out a bunch of of other defects that were either minor or on the insides of cabinets. For knowing which things were not right and which things were bad, we got adjacent drawer-fronts — over 6′ long — made of one continuous plank, with the grain flowing straight through.]
As a completely off-the-wall reference — you may be remotely familiar with “Arts and Crafts” architecture, the phrase “ultimate bungalow”, or maybe even “The Gamble House” or the famous architectural firm “Greene & Greene”. If you’ve ever been in Disneyland’s “The Grand Californian” Hotel, you’ve seen a giant homage to the style. G&G specified everything inside their commissions — from the wall panelling to the light fixtures to the furniture. And there was one that was a masterpiece of wood — their client was a lumber baron, back when there were such things. I believe it was the Bradbury House (but I’m doing this comment from memory), and it was looted by its heirs within my lifetime. They sold off the custom furnishings at garage sale prices and stripped the place. I vaguely recall hearing that someone had recently bought one of the light fixtures for a couple of hundred thousand dollars….
In most cases, you have a foundation that supports an underlying structure — perhaps floor beams between foundation piers. On this structure are laid floor joists — 2xSomethings depending on span (2×6’s are popular) that are on edge. Over this is laid your structural floor (around here, popularly 2×12’s laid flat, parallel at an angle of about 15% to the outer walls). Your interior walls — both bearing and non-bearing — are built on the structural floor. In between the interior walls, you may have a subfloor, and/or moisture barrier, and/or underlayment, and then you’ll have the floor that people actually see.
Different decades have different styles. In my subdivision, there are a number of telltales to indicated if a hardwood floor is original to 1955 — the outer edge of rooms are always parallel to the walls for several rows, and herringboned into corners. The field is all planks perpendicular to the floor joists with two finish nails into the joist, set, and puttied over. The planks are, IIRC, 3/8″ thick and are good for seven sandings. When a hardwood floor is laid, all gaps are filled with putty, and the surface is sanded perfectly flat. It is then stained, then covered with a hard coat.
One of our early projects was to replace the floor of the living room (along with the large, heavy, single-pane sliding-glass door to the backyard [we still call it the door/floor project]). We went with 3/4″ red oak in the current style — which uses milled planks that lap (or tongue and groove, I wasn’t watching), where all nailing is done under the surface. The way that works is that the nail goes into the tongue and the joist, but is covered by the next groove sliding over it — it’s very easy to do with pneumatic nail guns but nearly impossible with hammers and nailsets. It’s a more beautiful and cleaner look, but I was talking to a floor guy recently and he said that he had only one of his 20+ installers who could even begin to attempt a herringboned corner. Being twice as thick, it’s probably good for twice as many sandings — and probably more.
So, there’s your basic hardwood floor overview, from the cluttered memory of a CPA.
(Someday I might tell you how I was in a G&G bungalow in Berkeley, slamming a 100-year-old original G&G French door on the face of a German Shepherd.)
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Ah, another lover of HARDWOOD FLOORS – and one who knows a lot more about them than I do! 😉
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So, the update on the continuing Linux saga (which, you can tell, is more of an annoyance than a catastrophe).
I was going to be updating grub entries so that I could boot off the SSD and update the SSD configuration to recognize the rust system, and got myself a nice UUID cheatsheet to reconnect which things pointed to where…..
….and discovered that I’ve been running the SSD kernel on the rust filesystem all along — which is probably why my audio dropped out (all the applications that play audio are configured to use the rust kernel to play it). Nearly busted a gut laughing, but things are clearer now.
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Sounds like Linux! 😀
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With Linux, EVERYTHING is possible.
But this freedom does certainly encourage you to get out over your skis. And once things go sideways, EVERYTHING is possible yet again. On the flip side, you learn a few things every time you go off the trail and manage to get back.
I’ve been on Linux since 2015 — I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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It was the Blacker House, not the Bradbury House. Read it and weep —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_R._Blacker_House
If anyone has the opportunity to visit a G&G artwork, I encourage them to do so.
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I should also mention the time that we were near Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Gordon House” and decided to visit….only to find it was closed for a private event…..attended by our goddaughter, who ran outside to give us a hug (but couldn’t smuggle us in — we’ve still never seen the inside).
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Musical Interlude #1 —
I may be getting more inured to the iPad’s peculiarities….
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A man is walking through the woods when he stumbles on a suitcase with some puppies inside. He calls up the local veterinary centre to ask for advice.
“Hi, I was walking through the woods and I found a closed suitcase, when I opened it there were 5 little puppies inside,” said the man.
“Oh no, that’s horrible. Are they moving?” asks the receptionist.
“I’m not sure,” replies the man, “but it would explain the suitcase.”
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Musical Interlude #2 —
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This fellow is looking to buy a saw to cut down some trees in his backyard. He goes to a chainsaw shop and asks about various chainsaws. The dealer tells him, “look, I have a lot of models, but why don’t you save yourself a lot of time and aggravation and get the top-of-the-line model. This chainsaw will cut a hundred cords of wood for you in one day.”
So, the man takes the chainsaw home and begins working on the trees. After cutting for several hours and only cutting two cords, he decides to quit. He thinks there is something wrong with the chainsaw. “How can I cut for hours and only cut two cords?” the man asks himself. “I will begin first thing in the morning and cut all day,” the man tells himself.
So, the next morning, the man gets up at 4 am in the morning and cuts and cuts, and cuts till nightfall, and still he only manages to cut five cords. The man is convinced this is a bad saw. “The dealer told me it would cut one hundred cords of wood in a day, no problem. I will take this saw back to the dealer,” the man says to himself….
The very next day the man brings the saw back to the dealer and explains the problem. The dealer, baffled by the man’s claim, removes the chainsaw from the case. The dealer says, “Hmm, it looks fine.”
Then, the dealer starts the chainsaw, and the startled man blurts out, “what’s that noise???”
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Musical Interlude #3 —
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Too short to count:
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He’s not breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls 911.
“I think my friend is dead!” he yells. “What can I do?”
The operator says, “Calm down. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”
There’s a silence, then a shot. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”
********************************
So a guy is walking with a young boy into the woods. They boy turns to the man and says, “Hey mister its getting dark out, and I’m scared… Can we go back now?” And the man says: “How do you think I feel, I have to walk back alone!”
********************************
One day, three boys are walking through the woods….
While walking, they come across some tracks.
“Those are deer tracks,” said the first boy.
“Those are bear tracks. I know for sure,” said the second.
The third got hit by the train…
********************************
A priest, a minister, and a rabbi want to see who’s best at his job. So each one goes into the woods, finds a bear, and attempts to convert it.
Later, they all get together. The priest begins: “When I found the bear, I read to him from the catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his first Communion.”
“I found a bear by the stream,” says the minister, “and preached God’s holy Word. The bear was so mesmerized that he let me baptize him.”
They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a gurney in a body cast. “Looking back,” he says, “maybe I shouldn’t have started with the circumcision.”
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A rabbit is hopping through the woods. Hop, hop, hop, when he comes upon a giraffe. Now, this giraffe is about to smoke some weed. The rabbit looks up at the giraffe and say, “Giraffe, don’t smoke weed. Weed is a drug and drugs are bad, come running with me through the forest.”
The giraffe looks at the weed, then looks at the rabbit, then back at the weed. The giraffe tossed his blunt aside and they go running through the forest together. Run, run, run. Hop, hop, hopping along.
Soon they come to a clearing with a sheep. This sheep is about to shoot up heroin. The rabbit says to the sheep, “Mr sheep, don’t do heroin. Heroin is a drug and drugs are bad for you. Come running with us through the forest.”
The sheep looks at the heroin, then looks at the rabbit, then back at the heroin. The sheep tossed his needle aside and they go running through the forest together. Run, run, run. Hop, hop, hopping along.
Soon they come to a clearing, and in this clearing is a tiger. Now, this tiger is about to drink a can of beer. The rabbit looks at the tiger and says, “Mr tiger, don’t drink beer. Alcohol is a drug and drugs are bad for you. Come running with us through the forest.”
The tiger looks at his beer, looks at the rabbit, and back his beer. He takes a claw and cracks open the beer and proceeds to carefully place it down beside him. He gets up and walks over to the rabbit, lifts up a paw, and starts mauling the shit out of this rabbit!
The giraffe and sheep are in shock. And they say, “Dude, what the fuck? He was just trying to help you!”
The tiger turns to them and say, “Every time that fucking rabbit does cocaine, I end up running through the fucking forest!”
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It’s late, I’m shutting down tabs, and this joke hits me with clue-by-four about how badly we measure things…..
Two economists are walking through the woods and walk past a pile of bear shit.
The First Economist says to the Second Economist, “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of bear shit”. The Second economist does and they continue their walk. They walk past another pile of bear shit and the Second Economist says to the First Economist, “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of bear shit”. The First Economist does and they continue their walk. The First Economist then says, “I cannot help to think we both just ate bear shit for nothing”.
The Second Economist replies, “well not quite nothing, we did cause the GDP to grow by $200”.
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Sometimes the best jokes are when you’re closing tabs….
Deep into the woods there was bunny rabbit, hopping and prancing,
when he saw a monkey about to drop acid, so he yelled
“STOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP, THAT’S BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH COME JOIN ME HOP THRU THE FOREST”.
So the monkey said fuck it, let’s do it rabbit.
So the monkey and the bunny where prancing through the woods when all of a sudden, saw a giraffe about to do a line of coke, he got a leave rolled it up put it on the nose, and just about when he was about to do the hit , the bunny yelled:
“STOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP, THAT’S BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH COME JOIN US HOP THRU THE FOREST”.
The giraffe looked at the bunny and monkey, and said: “Fuck it, im too wired lets do it guys”.
They where all prancing through the forest, when they saw the lion rolling a joint, the lion rolled the joint licked the paper, and as soon as he was about fire up, the bunny screamed:
“STOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP, THAT’S BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH COME JOIN US HOP THRU THE FOREST”.
The lion looked at the bunny and said: “Fuck it, im too high anyway, lets do it guys”.
Now the bunny, monkey, giraffe and lion are prancing through the forest, when they see the fox about to shoot up some heroin , the fox put the needle in his mouth, extend the arm, tapped it and just when he was about to shoot up, the bunny screamed:
“STOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP, THAT’S BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH COME JOIN US HOP THRU THE FOREST”.
The fox looked at the bunny and said,”Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!”
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Musical Interlude ultimate —
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Just dropping by…I was curious if the shut down and quarantine were making people grumpier and therefore maybe more feistiness at the Utree but I see all is well, peaceful and serene. Good! 🙂
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