Coping: The Weekend Warrior’s Early Start

Not too often that I seek reader input on project around the ranch, but we’ve been busy getting the new sunroom and the new audio/video room ready to “button up” with sheetrock.

And so the question of the morning is:  Between Lowes and Home Despots, who’s got the lightest-weight 1/2 rock for the ceiling?

I know this is a rather esoteric kind of question, but it’s the little decisions that make a difference in home improvement projects.  Given a choice between wrestling around the heavier sheetrock or some of the new (lighter weight) material, this seems like a no-brainer.  Also, the lighter rock is supposedly less susceptible to sag when using 24-inch centers on the ceiling.

Any thoughts welcome, particularly brand.

Speaking of sheetrock…this will be my first time using Grabber GWNS125 Wet-N-Stick Water Activated Adhesive Joint Tape.  I have used the mesh type tape, which is touted as giving a much stronger joint where there might be movement (like along the ceiling-wall joint) but I’m going to see how this goes.

I decided a long time ago down here in bug country, that the only civilized thing to do is buy cases of Alex caulking and caulk everything you can find.  So that’s how we’ve rebuilt the house…probably more caulking than anywhere in East Texas around here.  But we get damn few bugs, says the Orkin man, so that’s a good thing.

Meanwhile,the adventure continues: A large enough part of Wednesday was spent wrangling 3/4” plywood onto the floor of the sun room…so today I will finish up the storm door on that and we’ll be ready to rock that room, as it were.

Then we’ll move on to the real entertainment (after one more bundle of itchyglass insulation to finish off the A/V room.  And today or maybe this weekend, Panama will do the under-house crawl to bring in the feeder line for power from the breaker panel…and then we will be ready for sheetrock.

The most interesting visual feature is the glass block which Elaine insisted on.  5-by-7 block is fairly inexpensive and when framed up with 2-by-4’s, it’s easy enough to put in during the framing and sheathing.  But it will make the sheet rocking a lot slower.  Architectural Digest material it isn’t, but fun, good use of recycled materials (20%) and a check way to turn deck space into something really useful while adding value to the homestead.

As I try to counsel our kids:  If you take all your free time and figure some way to monetize it, like putting “sweat equity” into a home, eventually you’ll come out ahead of the other 99% of humans who sit on their asses and take the dole.

It’s all about wise spending, too:  Thanks to Howard’s visit, we are now the proud owners of a pair of recyled/reclaimed Bose 901’s (series 1) which will be the mid-range speakers at the mixing console/computer.  These will be augmented with a pair of Polk Audio PSW10 10-Inch Monitor Series Powered Subwoofer (Single, Black) (one on each side) and for the tweeters, we’re still thinking about that problem…we may not need them as my hearing is starting to roll off about 14 KHz now, anyway.  And yes, virtually everyone’s high-end rolls off with age….

The cool thing is that thanks to eBay, GREAT 1970’s and 80’s used sound gear on the market, makes it possible to put together a world-class studio (playback) for under $500.  Or, you can just get a pair of Sennheiser headphones and call it good, too, too, I suppose…

For now, my biggest problem in life are mounting a storm door and installing more of that damn itchyglass insulation.

Thursday At the WoWW: Dreamland Ventures

Well, it happened again:  I had another one of those dreams with predictive content.

Rather than bore you with the details (or recount them again, what me being lazy and all…) I will just point you over to Chris McCleary’s National Dream Center site where I posted it (and also on the Peoplenomics.com site).


Also on the topic of dreams this morning, Stu over at the Age of Desolation site – where Nostradamus is the center of focus – thinks with the WoWW dreams I should be ready for what may be out there on the horizon:

George,
Read about your dream today… Holy smoke right on target… very weird about the Frenchman… Henri V perhaps?
I just finished reading Linda Moulton series: http://www.earthfiles.com/index.php?category=Headline+News

April 14, 2014 – Part 10: Hall of Mirrors with A Quicksand Floor

You need to check out the whole series, especially with your dreaming.

Stu

Yep, she writes some darn interesting material, alright.  My dreams haven’t involved any trips to UFOs and such, but if it ever does, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Oh, and if you find me naked by the side of the road in the wilderness, yammering senselessly, get me to a computer.


For now, the focus of my dreaming (off we go into the weird, here, so hang on…) seems to have been this morning’s dream which told me (in no uncertain terms) that I needed to read about “acquisitions in the Boston Globe” this morning and I would find something of interest.

Which I did, and sure enough, there’s there’s story about how Twitter is about to acquire Gnip…but here’s where it get interesting:  Apparently the way Twitter will make dough in this thing is by reselling analytical data from Gnip.

So as near as I can figure it, my “dreamland” input on this stuff is to keep an eye on all the action in data analytics when it comes to social media.

Think the NSA is interested in your personal life?  Well, corporations have an even greater interest because (unlike the alphabet boyz who don’t sell you soap) the corporate customers of all these analytics (read: spying on your habits) ARE going to slice and dice your thinking based on your social and they will try to sell you things.

That, says this morning’s out-take from dreamland, is a very big dead, indeed, and one of the reasons the web is “broken.”  NO ONE reads all the fine prints, but you go write up some social media remarks about thinking about buying a big ticket item (big screen, new car, things like that) and if you watch the web sites you surf and emails, and posts, care to guess what you’re likely to find?

I’ll admit it’s a strange notion to wake up with, but sure enough, “data analytics” is nothing more than “group spying” and keywords and phrases in posts like “I’m thinking about buying…” ought to be a fine trigger.

This isn’t paranoia…it’s just science and Big Data looking at your last social note…in efforts to sell you more stuff – which you may not really need – in order to fatten up their profits.

Now For Some SERIOUS WoWW

All of which is interesting, leastwise to me, but important?  We’ll see. 

But the World of Woo-Woo (WoWW)  has a new resident this morning:  A reader named Ted who has just become a convert:

George:

I have always been VERY skeptically of anything woo-woo. Until today.

This morning my wife said the UPS guy drove up the drive…OK, probably delivering something. Went outside to look for a package…nothing! OK, maybe he just backed in and turned around. They do that sometimes. So went about my day, unloading the step-in trailer, drying some canvas tents, repacking items…back and forth all morning. In the front door,, out the door, moving things no problems…

Then I saw them.

See my attached picture.

Right smack in the middle of the front door stoop…right in my flight path for walking…right there!

There’s NO way possible for me to miss them…two UPS delivered packages. I had been outside all morning, in and out of the garage, with the garage doors open. No sounds what-so-ever.

You talk about time slips..or whatever, rip in the fabric of reality. I have a MS in physics, with PhD in theoretical physics, I believe in the here and now. But, today my opinion of reality has changed. It pays to be aware of your surroundings…so be prepared folks…things ARE changing…

Ted

Subscriber for ever….

Ted, I wasn’t kidding you on this stuff, brother.  I mean the Reality we used to know and trust has become quite sketchy around the edges lately.

There’s a definite uptick in things disappearing and then reappearing and it’s not just a US phenomena, so you can’t go blaming it on cell towers or fluoride.  Take this report from a reader in India…

Hi George,

Not sure (yet) if this will turn out to be a WoWW incident.

Yesterday afternoon I arrived home on my bicycle after running some errands, locked my bike, and, since I had a load of packages to carry, put my bicycle key into my pocket instead of putting into my change purse as I usually do. (Single key, not on a ring with other keys, so the change purse is a good place to keep it.)

Went into my room, unloaded my parcels, emptied my pockets onto the desk, didn’t notice at the time whether the key was there or not.

Later that day, had another errand to run, went down to my bicycle, pulled out the change purse to get the key, remembered I hadn’t put the key there, went back to my room to fetch the key. No key. Checked the desk – everything else I had been carrying in my pockets (comb, handkerchief, half a roll of mints) was there, but no key. Searched all my pockets, looked on the floor, looked everywhere the key might have been, and a few places it almost certainly wouldn’t have been. No key.

I gave it a mental blessing, wished it well on its adventure, and asked it to come back soon.

Found the spare key tucked away in a safe place, so at least I can use my bicycle without cutting off the lock.

Weather was fine – beautiful spring day, not a cloud in the ceiling (PDQ Bach joke), gentle breeze, normal temperature for the time of day and year.

I’ll let you know when/if the original key reappears.

Cheers,

Jean-Philipe

long-time reader in sunny south India

No, I have no idea what causes the phenomena…it’s just plain strange, but it happens to me when I am working in my shop all the damn time.

I will be working with a tool, set it down, go off and work on my project and then I will come back and my tool I was just using on my bench will be back where it belongs.  Or, a hammer that I put back will now be on the bench with me having no conscious recollection of how it got there.

That’s just how the world seems to be working.   I’m sure the key that our reader in India for the bike will be found under the bed, between the mattress and box spring, or downstairs somewhere.

There’s a handed down thing in a lot of religions that goes to the effect “In the end times, men will know all things.”  Around here, I just want to know where all the socks went and how Ted can walk through two UPS packages.

That’d be a fine starting point, so far as I’m concerned.

A Warning About Easter/Passover Weekend

One other little WoWW note this morning because we’re about to venture into a holiday weekend.  The markets will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday and then comes Easter.

Reader Mark has been looking at the dates of April 19 and 20th and says there is a whole lot of spiritual meaning to this weekend…and a lot of it ain’t good:

Hi George,

I just wanted to give you the spiritual perspective of the April 19-20 dates. I did this research back in 2010. 

The Luciferian blood sacrifice of the Feast of Moloch (Tophet) takes place every April 19 and 20 (when the sun enters Taurus). Moloch (Tophet) is the name of an ancient Ammonite god.[1] Moloch worship was practiced by the Canaanites, Phoenicians, and related cultures in North Africa and the Levant (Assyria). 

Moloch is the god of lust and abortion and the satanic blood ritual and sacrifice of infants, where children were burned alive. Moloch is the owl-headed Canaanite god and is also worshipped at the Bohemian Grove festival.

Some dates to ponder:

4/19/1775: Concord and Lexington
4/20/1889: Hitler’s birthday
4/19/1917: First shots fired in WW1, breaking U.S. noninvolvement in Europe.
4/19/1933: FDR announces US off gold standard and Americans must turn in their gold.
4/19/1947: Mysterious explosion in Texas City, TX refinery kills 377
4/19/1978: Senate votes away Panama Canal (as it turns out, to China)
4/19/1989: Mysterious explosion on USS Iowa battleship kills 47 seamen
4/19/1993: Waco, Texas massacre
4/19/1995: Oklahoma City bombing
4/20/1999: Columbine shootings
4/19/2005: Joseph Alois Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI
4/20/2010: BP Gulf Oil spill

Stay vigilant during this time!

Mark

This is merely an advisory note: but with the Russians acting up, something like a Blitzkrieg move into the area just east of Hungary wouldn’t surprise me.  Remember, as G.A. Stewart pointed out in a recent note (on the Peoplenomics side):

Nostradamus called the United States and Russia brothers (Castor and Pollux). After NATO is destroyed, what is left of the United States and Russia will have to unite to fight China.

I believe before the nukes go off, there will be other signs from “Rare Birds“, but my interpretation of that Nostradamus prediction really takes us into the WoWo.

And so we have, to put it in Trekkie lingo “our shields up” and – since we are blessed with access to the finest in Nostradamus interpretation on the one hand, and the www.nostracodeus.com web-scanning, Grady will, I’m sure at “rare bird” and “endangered bird” to our scanning.

It wouldn’t be the first time that humanity has been given the bird…and perhaps justifiably so.

Write when you break-even

George    george@ure.net