I spoke previously of the cursed tree that wouldn’t hold ornaments and gave me hives. We’ve since blamed it for a shared allergy-turned-sinus-infection that’s turned the house into a mass of hacking, spitting, and overall generally miserable group of barely-animate skulking human flesh. So after Liz packed up the ornaments and I the lights, I decided upon a solution more efficient than lugging the thing through the house once more. I would take my revenge upon the arboreal abomination and in the process use a power tool. How manly is that combo: violent revenge and power tools? …even if it was the reciprocating saw– AKA the small penis saw aforementioned.
Mua HAHAHAHAHA!And out the windowEven with the wider hose, the needles clogged up the new shop vac tooSomeone got yelled at for getting in the way
I plan to institute a new holiday: Christmas Tree Burning Day. It will be held on the first weekend day that it isn’t unbearably cold. I find that appropriate, seeing as the tree itself is a take on the pagan yule log thing (and it totally is, despite having heard ex post facto attempts to explain the tree’s origins in Christianity).
That statement carries heavy implications, to which family men everywhere shudder from mild PTSD.
Seriously, it’s a lot of effort for such a bizarre holiday decoration. In years past we had opted for an artificial tree, mostly because we lived in rented property, but also because I didn’t want to deal with the mess. That’s when we acquired would would be known thereafter as “The Martha Stewart Tree”, because we bought it at K-Mart (of all places that’s where Martha Stewart had her brand sold at the time), and it looked better than any artificial Christmas tree we had seen elsewhere.
But the tree came with very questionable pre-wiring (which I later removed), and the clipped wires of the tree’s frame were lethally sharp. And the damn thing dropped fake needles everywhere which the vacuum refused to pick up. Fuck that tree.
So we’ve since made the switch to real trees.
Of course, real trees have their own set of problems, but whatever kind we got this year has been especially awful. This one doesn’t have any real branches, just a bunch of fluff that can’t support any weight, so I only have half the lights on it that I would normally. And the sap gave me an allergic reaction.
Plus, the ornaments keep falling off. Look at the kid’s consternation as she debates their placement:
This was a terrible species for a Christmas tree. I sure hope Liz remembers what it was so we don’t get that kind again. I’m about to go Griswold on the neighbor’s spruce.
It’s been unexpectedly difficult finding a TV stand. There isn’t a shortage of course, but their contemporary designs don’t trend toward accommodating my setup. They tend to be too tall, with compartments too small. Were I to use a common design, my TV would be uncomfortably high, and my audio receiver would need to sit on top–obviously not a practical configuration.
Wondering why this was even a dilemma, I discussed the problem with coworkers. I quickly discovered that most people do indeed mount their televisions up high, like a movie theater. I also found out, to my surprise, that people don’t generally use audio receivers. No one wants to bother with wiring speakers, and so forego surround sound configurations in favor of sound bars which provide a small improvement over TV speakers, and they don’t require an external receiver since they have built-in input switches.
Older TV cabinets have massive compartments, probably due to technology being physically bigger back then, and in a time before high-resolution viewing there seems to have been a greater interest in high-fidelity audio, and so audio receivers were more commonplace. But these older cabinets can’t accommodate a modern TV’s size, so again we were stuck.
And so we’ve kept an old and ugly particle-board stand, bought on the cheap from Target. And ever since, Liz has been on the lookout for a new stand. And then, finally, she found something. We took very careful measurements of all components, and behold! They would fit! My normally frugal nature gave way and I not only didn’t dissuade her from making the purchase, but I actively encouraged.
Although she probably would have bought it anyway
I spent 2 hours rearranging and rewiring everything, but now we have completed our setup of adult furniture. And since everything’s now behind glass I don’t feel quite so nervous when the kid walks past with a beverage.
“Adult” maybe being defined a bit loosely here (note the Elder Scrolls YouTube soundtrack on screen and the Ghost in the Shell DVDs on the shelf
Liz then immediately decided we needed a bigger TV, now that there’s more room on the stand. Sigh.
When we bought the house, we had a fence installed. Factors such as the pipeline and the honeysuckle hedgerow prevented a full circumference of the lot, much to our dismay (see any post where I talk about a certain neighbor). But, we at least needed a corral for the whippets, since their potty runs can measure into the quarter-hours.
And so, we ended up with a nice little 4-foot gothic picket fence. The quality of the install was, shall we say, mediocre, however; and the railing spacing varied from 4 to 8+ inches. Consequently, the little whippet quickly figured out that the fence was a mere suggestion–a suggestion which became less and less considered throughout the summer months. So when I let her out, she would chase a squirrel, immediately slip through the fence, then when she decided to wander back, mysteriously couldn’t figure out how to slip back in, resulting in me having to go get her.
This culminated in a recent day in which I was working at home, had joined a conference call, then had to let the little whippet out (because she always waits until I’m busy to tell me). I quickly became occupied with work and forgot about her…until The Heckler (The Village Elder’s wife), returned the dog to the front door. True to her name, she then offered select commentary on my negligence, ultimately telling the rest of the village an embellished story about how I was mindlessly engaged with something unimportant and consequently unobservant to the world around me.
It was the final push I needed to proceed with the project I had already considered: attaching wire to the fence, thereby sealing in any canines wishing to turn feral. Thus, as part of the shop light project, I acquired 150 feet of fencing wire.
Armed with staple gun, wire clips, fencing pliers, gloves, tape measure, and determination; I got to work. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so easy as stretching the wire for the entire run. Since my goal was to also make it aesthetically-pleasing, the wire couldn’t be simply attached to the posts, 4 inches away from the pickets. Nor could the wire be attached to the outside. This meant that I needed cut-to-measure individual segments. And, since the segments weren’t always rectangular, but various forms of parallelograms, I often had to cut to fit while in the process of stapling. In short–it was incredibly time-consuming and physically painful. Between squeezing wire clips and the staple gun, my hands and forearms got a good workout.
I also greatly under-estimated the time required. My 2-hour prediction turned into 6. And it was the last hot day of the year too. But my stubbornness was rewarded and it looks quite nice, or as nice as fencing wire can look anyway.
I feel I need some sheep in there with this setup. And then I wouldn’t have to mow inside the fence! Bonus!
And the best part was when I let the little whippet outside to test it. She quickly returned, and after being let back inside, laid down in her bed and started me down with indignation and betrayal.
During my recent plumbing project, I considered that connecting pipes, if done wrong, at least wouldn’t kill me. Still, I found the process irritating, and after the pain of cinching down threaded pipe connections took its toll on my elbows, I concluded that I would much rather be doing electrical work. Besides which, if I wear leather gloves, the shock of 120 volts is reduced to a mere tingle even if I screw up the breaker.
Still, despite this mitigated lethality, when I find something done wrong, I grow concerned. So it was that I decided to tackle the unattached electrical outlet in the garage. I really should remember to take before pictures, but I didn’t this time, so I’ll have to explain the setup.
First, I’ll mention that it was a 2-pronged ungrounded outlet. That was part of the problem, as an obviously bad choice for the garage, which would presumably be more likely to power higher-amperage devices. More troubling was that the outlet wasn’t bolted into the wall box, and the wall box itself wasn’t even attached to either the adjacent stud nor the drywall. In short, there was an electrical line leading into a loose box, then wired into an ungrounded and unattached outlet–a hole in the wall with exposed hot wires. What could possibly go wrong?
My main concern was that the kid might poke a finger in there, so I had taped up the cover. And as the outlet lacked a ground, as mentioned, it was of limited use anyway. But then, as I was shoving rolls of carpet into the attic one day, I considered: how hard would it be to run a separate ground to that outlet and make it serviceable again? The basement has a ground line running through the joists, so perhaps the attic had one too. I searched around, but no ground wire was to be found. That seemed odd, seeing as this was the only outlet in the house which didn’t have a ground. For a moment, I panicked, thinking that none of the outlets were grounded, but these fears were quieted when I opened a junction box and discovered that all the wiring was modern Romex with connected grounds.
I followed the wire from the box to the obvious spot where it dropped down and fed the outlet in question. This wire, too, was grounded, which begged the question: Why wasn’t the outlet grounded? And where was the ground wire?
Climbing down, I checked the outlet box again. Turns out that the wire did indeed have a ground, but it had been clipped off at the point where the outer insulation had been stripped to separate the wires. So someone had deliberately installed an ungrounded outlet on a grounded line, and had removed the ground. Why? Tugging on the line, I discovered there was no extra wire, so I couldn’t simply connect the ground to a new outlet as-is. And of course, the box wasn’t mounted so I’d need one that would. Sigh.
My motivation to complete this project coincided with Liz re-painting the living room. With my entertainment center out of action, and the threat of being drawn into a painting project looming, I concluded that this electrical problem needed an immediate resolution. Off to Lowe’s!
In the electrical isle, I wondered why both metal and plastic boxes were the norm. Why would one be used over the other? Maybe metal was for industrial buildings. But for me, I rather preferred to use non-conductive material to house electrical wires. I also bought a roll of 14 AWG wire to extend the ground.
Back at home, I followed the usual procedure of sequentially flipping breakers until the correct (and least logical) circuit was found. Then I got to work removing the unmounted box, which wouldn’t fit through the outlet’s hole in the drywall. I wonder how it got in there to begin with. Was it installed before the drywall, but never mounted? The prior owner had done some weird electrical projects in the basement, none of which inspire much confidence, so this could very well be one of them.
At least it was the garage, and the drywall isn’t painted out there, so I didn’t feel much hesitation in sawing through it. I removed the useless metal box and installed the plastic one, having poked the wires through and extended the ground. The outlets in this house are worn out, so I’ve been replacing them as demand necessitates. This is the 5th such outlet to need replacing, so I have a supply of them on hand.
I patched the hole with leftover drywall and spackle. It doesn’t look very clean, but it works and is far safer than the prior potential disaster.
What the hell was wrong with this guy? You’d think that electrical work is something worth doing right the first time.
Fortunately, my project was finished quick enough that I was able to help out with the painting after all…lucky me.
