"A Socialist is only a Communist without a gun."
Rodger, the Real King of France (as quoted by)
--Dolly
Saturday May 10, 2008...
Girl Genius ::.
WHEN YOU FIND OUT ABOUT a comic eight years after it started, you're not allowed to say you discovered it. M'Kay?
But...
I'm guessing almost none of you know that the masthead pic of Dolly is not my first choice, or even my tenth choice of the image of her I'd want up there. I have not, however, been able to draw the images I have in my mind because, well, I've been busy. And I draw REAL slow. I can paint in Photoshop pretty fast. But the drawing with pencil and paper... real slow.
Nine years?
Well, no. Not dwell time, anyway. I haven't been working on it full time all those years, no. I just... I haven't been able to carve out free time in sufficiently large blocks to get it done. I'm working on that.
If I could have everything I want in a masthead picture of Dolly, it would borrow a lot from Alphonse Mucha and Maxfield Parrish and some possibly obscure comic artists. And the aesthetic that informed it all would look a lot like Girl Genius.
Not that there's any resemblance between the characters or that I'd want to ape the artists' styles, but that I like their stuff and I'd like to think they'd like mine.
Maybe someday we'll get to know.
Maybe, Dolly. Meantime, I recommend it as a great read. If you're into that kind of thing.
Oh! I found GG via a banner on Old Grouch's blog. Just so's he gets the credit, if any is due.
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Saturday May 10, 2008...
Well, Duh! ::.
INSTY POSTS THIS:
IS HAPPINESS IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY? If so, does that mean that politicians who are always trying to make people un happy are bad for democracy?
Am I allowed to suspect that question is rhetorical?
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Saturday May 10, 2008...
It's the Throwaway ::.
LINES THAT MAKE Ann Coulter such a joy to read:
Mind you, that was before we even knew that Gore was a deranged conspiracy theorist who believes the Earth is in serious peril from cow flatulence.
Of course, that discounts the notion that Gore might be deranged because he got waxed in '00.
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Thursday May 8, 2008...
Observation #690 ::.
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Thursday May 8, 2008...
Mee-shell, Dumbell ::.
SONT LES MOTS qui vont très bien ensemble. **
Michelle Obama seethes with bitterness. While she preaches the gospel according to Barack, she wears resentment and bitterness on her sleeve. It is therefore painful to listen to her. She's apparently even still angry about her SAT scores. She didn't test well in school, she explains.-- Scott Johnson at PowerLine
Johnson goes on to say, "Somehow, she has overcome." Me: I have my doubts.
People always seem to give glib leftists points for intelligence that I don't really think are earned. Just because somebody has managed to appropriate and regurgitate a pat line of stupidity and do it well doesn't excuse them the underlying... well, stupidity.
Obama (and Clinton, for that matter -- as well as the entire Left) is running around the country mouthing all manner of witless inanities posing as thoughtful public policy prescriptions. And, because he can unspool the talking points without stammering or apparent embarrassment at their idiocy does not make him "bright and articulate." A well-trained parrot can appear to be "bright and articulate," too. But if what he says doesn't track with reality, you wouldn't elect him President.
Would you?
Well I sure as fuck woon't.
And there you have it.
So here again, I find reinforced my impression that both of them are affirmative action babies and should be the farthest thing from a viable candidate as the "first" anything.
Some times, Michelle, the test results are valid.
** Oh, hell! I lost track of where I stole that from. ::wince:: Sorry!
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Thursday May 8, 2008...
So. It Comes Down ::.
TO THIS: Harry Reid refuses compromise on ANWR. They'd rather take on the oil companies to get lower gas prices.
If they really intend lower prices and not permanently depressed demand.
Right.
Rather than go out and make more, the Democrats would rather play thug -- despite myriad object lessons as to the futility of beating milk out of a cow.
It's not a wonder they have supporters. There are stupid, greedy, evil people everywhere. What is somewhat disappointing is that they have so many.
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Thursday May 8, 2008...
Kane and Indo ::.
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Wednesday May 7, 2008...
Observation #689 ::.
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Wednesday May 7, 2008...
She Says She Says ::.
SHRILLARY PROCLAIMS
"I WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR YOU:"
Thanks for nothing. What do we have to do to get you to leave us the hell alone?
Gabrielle Francesca East (Dolly) | | |
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Wednesday May 7, 2008...
These Things Keep Cropping Up ::.
LATELY LIKE MUSHROOMS after a warm, pre-dawn rain shower. Here's another in the Mahmet mold (albeit earlier). Keith Thompson on Leaving The Left.
My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.
Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.
RTWT.
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Wednesday May 7, 2008...
Figures Don't Lie ::.
BUT LIARS figure.
I c'n make my figure lie.
Yeah, well...
...
You know...
...
A lot of... No.
...
Not goin' there, huh?
No.
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Wednesday May 7, 2008...
I Think Obama's **GASP** ::.
RIGHT ON THE GAS TAX HOLIDAY THING, albeit for the wrong reason. I think it would be a mistake because it could implant in the public psyche the notion that a temporary abatement of taxes -- whether for a few months or a few years -- is a reasonable or acceptable fix to over-taxation.
No.
No.
And HELL no.
For a case in point, take the "Bush" -- scorn quotes -- "Tax Cuts for the Rich." Scheduled to expire in the out years. The half-a-loaf crowd told us we could fix the problem permanently later on.
And we know how that one's working out.
Black folk have fallen for that line of crap from the Democrats for 50 years, and look where it's got them. Let's not fall for the same shit from Republicans.
The fix to over-taxation is to cut taxes. Permanently. With prejudice.
Gettit?
Gottit.
Good.
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Wednesday May 7, 2008...
Irises ::.
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Tuesday May 6, 2008...
Observation #688 ::.
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Tuesday May 6, 2008...
Hey, Folks! ::.
IF YOU HAVE A BLOG, by all means put your URL in the box when you comment. Might's well get all the traffic you can, right?
Gabrielle Francesca East (Dolly) | | |
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Tuesday May 6, 2008...
Heads: She Wins; Tails: You Lose ::.
SO HILLARY GOT SOUND bitten on the radio news Monday morning. "Barry baby wants YOU to pay the gas tax this summer. I want the oil companies to pay it out of their profits."
Hillary, you ignorant slut. That means the people pay it either way. That's not much of a bargain.
Of course, we've known for a long time that all leftist policies work that way. They're appeals to the ignorant in a grab for power.
Power to do what?
::shrug:: Dunnot anymore. Used to be I thought it was the enact their agenda. 'Cept they never do. So all I can figure is they want power for its own sake.
A government make-work program -- exceptin' they don't really work.
That's work as in function, as opposed to as in force acting on mass over distance?
Um... yeah. I think so.
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Tuesday May 6, 2008...
A Fast One? ::.
MARC SHEPPARD writing at The American Thinker, asks Are Global Warmists Pulling a Cool Fast One?
Na-a-a-a-aw. Ya think?
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Tuesday May 6, 2008...
Things I Observed ::.
Random Brain-Farts
DRIVING BACK AND FORTH between Indy and Cincy.
K.T. Tunstall is great driving music when you're doing 70 with all four windows down.
Sugarland... not so much.
I don't mind driving alone for two hours. Much more than that, I tend to get antsy and want to get out of the car.
I shouldn't sing along with Crowded House for an hour. My voice can't take it.
Tears for Fears, too.
People drive like assholes pretty much everywhere.
Cops laying in the weeds for speeders are pretty obvious unless you're not paying attention. Maybe that's the point.
Google maps can misdirect you. I'd rather have a real folding street map, so I can find alternate routes in case a bridge is closed. Mental note: buy a street map of Indy.
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Tuesday May 6, 2008...
Staircase Wit ::.
I SHOT MY MOUTH OFF at the blogger meet Sunday and said something provocative. I got the impression some there thought it might have even been dumb. There might have been a glint of, Oh, so you're one of those! in Tam's eye. But the conversation quickly passed me by, as bar conversation is wont to do, and the thesis was left somewhat undeveloped.
I'd like to try to fix that.
And I suppose I should say at the outset, that somebody may have already tried this or something the like, though I've never heard of it...
As though that were dispositive.
Well, yeah. That's kinda the point of mentioning it. You know -- in all modesty and all that?
Oh. OK.
The brain-fart is one that's been percolating around in my alleged mind for awhile now, and it goes something like this: A great deal that the federal government does is extra-constitutional. (And therefore is, I suppose, by definition unconstitutional.) To whit:
While the 16th Amendment definitely makes an income tax constitutional, it also defines it (according to Supreme Court case law) as an indirect tax -- in the language of the Constitution, a duty, impost or an excise (take your pick). And, as it says right there in the first 'graph of Article I Section 8, "shall be uniform throughout the United States...". Does a graduated income tax sound uniform to you? Doesn't to me. Nor do all of the myriad perversions of the Internal Revenue Code (read: loopholes) add to that perception of uniformity.
And then... there is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) (ATF: We don't make the government, we make the government unconstitutional.) Get any two gun nuts together and sooner or later this bête noir will raise its fugly head.
And my take on that is this: The Second Amendment reads, in relevant part: The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed. This is not a prohibition lain on Congress alone, else it would be phrased as is the First -- Congress shall make no law. Nor is it a prohibition lain on government alone, else it would be phrased, Neither Congress nor the States, nor any city, town, village, or township... or however they say that in Lawyer. No. It simply says, The Right of the People... SHALL NOT Be Infringed. That means, to my simple little mind, that no actor -- public or private -- may infringe upon the right of citizens to go armed. Period. End of discussion.
By definition, a government agency purporting to -- scorn quotes with italics -- "regulate" firearms infringes upon that right.
Nor do I accept the "compelling public interest" dodge. The very idea of a compelling state interest (tell me you can see the bright line in law dividing "state" from "public.") ought to be anathema to a free people.
Needles to say, this is at odds with the conventional wisdom.
There's a story -- which shall remain apocryphal unless the individual in question cares to become un-anonymous -- of a blogger who attended an ATF briefing of FFL (Federal Firearms License) holders on the rules for FFL compliance.
A good thing, he thought. You'd think this would be the kind of information the ATF would want spread far and wide. Record away, gents. Report at will. We want this to get out.
Ummm... notsomuch axshualy.
He was told not to record, and asked (most politely, I'm sure) not to report on what he heard.
Right about now, you should be going -- all caps, bold, italics and underlined -- W!T!F!??!1!!.
But it made perfect sense to me. The ATF is, by nature, an opressive organization, operating outside the law. Although its agents will no doubt profess to be law-and-order sorts, in their deepest, darkest, most-secret hearts of hearts, they must know that the very existence of their organization is an affront to liberty and the Constitution.
And, as such, when thinking of the ATF, one must remember the trope from Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged) --
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
And that, in my mind, is why our blogger friend was told not to report. If FFLs understand the rules and comply, there is no leverage for the ATF to act against them.
At least, not without manufactured evidence.
Yes. And, of course, once the river of state jumps its banks, how you ever going to stem the flood? A government agency which operates outside the bounds of the nation's supreme law can be trusted in nothing.
I tell you that to tell you this: at the gathering Sunday, said blogger avowed as how nobody wanted to go up against the power of the ATF. I snorted and -- as I said above -- shot my mouth off.
"I'd like," I said, "to get into a real court battle with the ATF. My advocate's instructions would be to press the argument that ATF's very existence is unconstitutional and the Bureau ought to be abolished."
Overt reactions ranged from a derisive snort from Og to variations on the theme of "No you wouldn't" from Tam, Roberta, Caleb, and (I think) Old Grouch. And I'm sure that at least one brain spun through the "agent provocateur" side track, if only for a second, and even I had the "Yeah, right. Big talk." thought, even as I spoke.
And I should say here that I was and am talking big to this extent: I am utterly unqualified to be this test case on two counts: 1) Except for my possibly toxic views on the subject (and I think we still have a First Amendment protection of free speech at this point), I am completely off ATF's radar. I can guarantee that I am 100% in full compliance -- or not covered by -- any and all ATF regulations at all times. I am certain of this for reasons I don't care to discuss publicly. Just trust me, I am. 2) I don't have and don't anticipate coming into the resources to carry out the fight.
But that doesn't stop me from theorizing. Or building castles in the air.
The reason that any government agency has an apparent dominance of the battle space -- especially in cases of existential nature for the agency in question -- is the perception of supremacy. The "full force of the law" is sort-of believed to carry with it the weight of that three-trillion-dollar Federal Budget and the assumption that they will spend every red cent of it and go into deficit to grind you into the dirt like the cretinous bug you are.
But you know, that's not true.
Any agency of the government has a budget. Yeah, sure, it's in the billions in the case of any TLA-fief you've ever heard of. But they have to justify that budget before Congress (or to their department superiors) on an annual basis. And they have priorities. They can't spend their entire budget just to crush one bug. So, if you can outspend (or, better yet, force the agency to spend out) the case-budget for one agent -- the one immediately before you -- you have a good chance of winning.
And, if you can get support from your Congresscritter -- the more powerful the better -- you have an even better chance.
What's it gonna take? Dunno. I speculated six figures at the BR Brew Pub, but the more I think about it, the more I think it might run to mid-eights. So... how many people can you think of who might be willing to spend thirty-to-eighty million dollars to give an overweening government agency a BIG black eye -- possibly even laying the leviathan low?
That's a rotten metaphor, Alger.
I know.
And, of course, you know there are lots of people out there with that kind of cash -- even R2KBA supporters. But they think strategically. How many times have you heard or heard of or read of an ILA spokesman saying, "We have to pick our battles"? It's true. If you shoot your wad the first crack of the bat, you'd better kill the king, 'cause if you don't, sure as shit, there will be paybacks. And they are, as 'tis said, a bitch.
Which is a hell of a thing to say in a notionally free country, when you think about it.
Lean hard on that "notionally" button, Dolly.
True dat. And, BTW, way to mix them metaphors.
KTHNXBAI. But fortune favors the bold. And can you think of a bolder maneuver than to carefully prepare the battle space, marshal your troops, line up the logistics, choose your ground, and beat the motherfuckers into the ground?
By all means, PLEASE -- discuss.
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Tuesday May 6, 2008...
Sunny Bank ::.
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Monday May 5, 2008...
Observation #687 ::.
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Monday May 5, 2008...
Played Out ::.
WHICH USED TA MEAN back in the gigging days that one had actually gotten one's self and one's axe to an actual public venue and, like, performed 'n' shit. You had played out.
These days, it's more like I've gone past my sell-by date. I'm played out. Like a gold mine where there's no more gold.
Had an away date Sunday in Indianapolis -- a meet-up in Broad Ripple, a section of Indy that's ... well ... If you know Over the Rhine, it's what OTR wishes it could be. Not terribly hip, I wouldn't think, because that implies too much black clothing and emo makeup and attitude and all that. From what I saw, it looked pretty ... normal. Indiana corn-fed, if you get my drift. Just crowded, busy, lots of people around doing people stuff. Funky little bars on every corner -- sometimes all four at once -- neat little shops. A definite self-awareness with a marketing plan. And spread out over what seemed like a larger area than most of these little bohemian 'hoods spread out over. Of course, the fact that I got lost in it probably magnifies it my mind. But... yeah.
Oh, yeah. And a river runs through it. Well, in most places they'd call it a river. In Broad Ripple, they have the grace to call it a creek -- which it is. But the bridges are kicky.
The meetup was Indiana gun bloggers, but other folk were welcome. Since I'm not from Indiana and only peripherally blog about guns (I mean, Tamara is a total gun nerd -- and I mean that in a good way. At my Shooter's-Bible-memorizing-best*, I could never have summoned a tenth -- a billionth -- of the offhand trivia she has at her mental fingertips.), that's probably a good thing.
Whew! I thought sure I was gonna haveta send the St. Bernards out after that sentence. So glad to see it finally got where it was going!
Me, too.
About ten or eleven showed, including self, and Og, and Tamara K and Roberta X. You've met Og here and Tam and Roberta have both commented here, but you should go read their blogs. Oh! And a real-life bona-fide BNA, Frank W. James. Ain't that cool? And as soon as I've figured out who everybody is, there'll be additions to the blogroll. Always nice to put face, voice, and mannerisms to a name. Adds depth and flavor to text on the screen.
And for those of you who have wondered about Tam and Roberta, yes they are...
I thought they were just friends!
...very, very tall. What were you thinking I was going to say, Dolly?
::blush:: Oh, nothing.
Uh huh. Sure.
Tam has got real bigleagues writing talent. I say that because she manages to put her personality across DEAD ON on her blog. If you think that's easy, ("All I gotta do is act naturally.") try it sometime. Roberta on the other hand, has a layer of warmth that -- while not absent on her blog -- isn't nearly as dialed up against the snark as she is in person. There are good reasons these two are stars of the blogosphere.
Also met a young man named Caleb, who -- though he has his doubts about his generation -- is yet another in a long line of youngsters this aging Boomer has encountered who give me hope for the future of humanity.
And now, my eyelids are drooping, so I need to fall into bed before I faceplant on my keyboard.
Thanks for pulling it together, ladies. Well done, indeed.
*Yes, I used to memorize the ammunition ballistics tables in the back of the Shooter's Bible. But I'e slept since then.
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Monday May 5, 2008...
The Boyz ::.
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Sunday May 4, 2008...
Archives Gone ::.
I'VE BEEN BLOGGING FOR over six years, now, and this edition of BTB has been up for five. Up to now, it's all been contained in a single MS Access database file. That file peaks out at 100+MB and takes fifty minutes for City Desk to publish. Eventually, I will have to devise or buy a better method of handling the thing. But for now, I'm taking the view that no archive file past two years old is so worthwhile as to need to be preserved online. I have, accordingly, cut off the archive at the beginning of June, 2006. Anything older than that will not be accessible for a while. And, if I find it's no loss, that "while" may become permanent. We'll see.
I'm betting nobody will notice.
No bet. I agree.
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Sunday May 4, 2008...
I Don't Sweat ::.
--JOINTS, THAT IS, often enough to be really good at it. No points for style tacked on to my performance. I'm in the If-it-works-it's-good category. I sweated 5 joints today and only one of them made that slurping sound of flux sucking in the solder that you're supposed to get. I got entirely too many of those silver spatters on the floor. And the copper is scorched. Like the sun is a light source. Excess solder all over the joints. BUT... the darned thing DOES NOT leak. Whereas, the valve the pro (who put in our new water service -- all props to him) put in DID.
Be fair, Alger. You sprung the thing on him by surprise...
I seem to recall he volunteered to do it in odd moments while waiting for things like his crew ruining SWMBO's beloved front flower beds with a backhoe. But he hadn't expected to do it when he left the shop that morning, yes. And he did have to use the materials on-hand -- including the valve that was in situ. But I'd have to give him at least a small ration, because I'm guessing the corrosion that caused the washer's retaining screw to snap off in quarters under my screwdriver was pretty well advanced a year ago. "Hey, Jimbo. I'm guessing you must have looked real close at that valve stem when you were putting it back in..."
But you're getting a head of yourself.
Quite true.
Last episode, we had promised that we would be laying sod in the front yard this Saturday. SWMBO had contacted a sod farm and been told that I could pick up a load (all of 9 square yards) Saturday morning, weather permitting. They open at 8. Orders can be picked up after 8:30.
Meanwhile, we also had a rescheduled appointment to have our furnace cleaned -- factory required warranty keeping-upage kinda thing -- between 10 and noon.
Friday night, I got the last cabinet hung.
Therefore, Saturday, the plan was:
1) Pickup sod at the sod farm. (Take plastic drop cloth to protect the back of the Jeep.)
2) Bring it back to Casa d'Alger and begin laying sod until furnace guy shows.
3) Finish laying sod.
4) Spend the rest of the day pleasantly puttering around doing things like putting the knobs on the doors on the cabinets and cutting and affixing the dentil molding.
...
Saturday morning, it rained.
I called the sod farm, hoping they'd say, "Nope. Sorry, boss. No can do in the rain." But they -- wiseasses -- had cut the sod Friday. Bleah.
I took a look outside at the cold and wet miserable rainy weather that was making the front yard into a mud bowl and copped an attitude like a teenager. "I don't wanna do it and I'm not gonna."
So I didn't. Instead, I put the knobs on the doors on the cabinet and affixed the dentil molding atop the east wall cabinets. And did the prettiest job coping the...
Coping! You used a Dremel!
(Rotary tool, registered trademark of Dremel, Inc.) So?
You didn't use a coping saw!
So? If you cut a miter with a regular saw, is that allofasudden not a miter because you didn't use a miter saw?
No. But...
No buts.
::twists and checks:: I got one!
Two "t's".
Them too! See?
No! Two t's in "butt".
Ew!
What!? Didn't you read LabRat's essay?
ANY way...
Anyway.
Sometime, SWMBO remarked that the supply valve for the outside hose bib leaked. I allowed as how that ought to be fixed, since we're gardening and yarding again and will want to have the hose working. So I went down and checked it out. Turned off the water to the house and took the valve apart -- thereby starting the clock.
I think we went ten hours without water.
More like eight.
Whatever. For somebody who hates to have his hands dirty unless he's actually working on something dirty -- and sometimes even then -- it was an eternity.
OK. Twelve. WHAT everrrr.
I had actually had the nerve to grab the drawer from the little Drawer Thingy™ that holds all of my various plumbing repair kibbles-and-bits -- like washers and screws and stuff -- and take it with me when I went to inspect the valve. Thinking, you see, that it would be an easy fix.
"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." --Amanda Marshall.
As I think I may have implied up there ::points::, the washer retaining screw was so corroded it disintegrated, leaving a bright pink screw shaft right up the center of the valve stem.
Nothing to be done for it but to head off to the Home Despot to find a replacement. I did not have a warm-and-fuzzy about this, either. I seem to remember trying to get a replacement valve stem for the hose bib (which I'd had the plumber replace because of this problem), and fruitlessly chasing it all over town. This current valve in hand we're speaking of is of the same vintage -- and probably the same vinyard -- as that hose bib.
But it would have been foolish to simply give up and buy a new valve without first checking for a replacement valve stem.
The difference in price being...?
Having to sweat the old valve off and the new one on, with all the tsuris that implies.
But you ended up having to...
Who's telling this story?
You are. And you're doing such a brilliant job of it, too!
Dolly? Stifle!
I should mention here that I have a bad back. Not an official Bad Back, mind, with doctors and prescriptions and time off work. Oh, no. That would make things too easy. This is a kind of a biscuit bad back (Pooh reference). The kind you don't tell anybody about. But it keeps me from being able to stand comfortably for longer than -- oh, say -- thirty seconds.
I went to Home Despot with a list. A 3-pack of furnace filters. Replacement valve stem. Something to build up the door jamb to support the casing molding at the level of the battens for the bookshelves. Ten rolls of sod (net wt 500#).
They didn't have the filters in 3-packs in our size. I ended up getting one stop-gap. What Mom used to call a lick and a promise. I'll get a three-pack some other trip.
What they had in the way of wood might have worked, but it didn't suit my mood and it was all in 16-foot lengths, which meant I would either have to cut it -- back starting to act up, making me REALLY want to get OUT of that place -- or tie it on top of the Jeep. Half-inch by three-quarters pine molding strips sixteen feet long. Tied ontop of a Jeep Cherokee in high winds and rain. There's a recipe for getting home without the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth.
The replacement valve display at our local Home Despot is chest high on a tall garden gnome. Finding your valve is a bit like deciphering Linear A script. While I was standing there stooped over in the valve aisle, trying to find my valve stem, my back began to spasm. I really wanted Mommy to tell me I didn't have to do it and I could go home and take a nap.
Nope. Not happening.
I went over to the valve display and dithered between basically what I had and a ball valve and a gate valve. After a half-hour of pain and dithering, I got gate valves in half-inch and three-quarters (I can never remember which is the right size) and fled the scene.
But what about the sod? I can hear you ask.
I feel I would have been justified at that point in saying, "Sod the sod." But NOOOoooo. I have this overdeveloped sense of duty...
More like incurable muleheadedness.
Didn't I tell you to stifle?
Stifling.
...so after I checked out, I dumped my booty in the car and went back in to the garden store and got my ten rolls of sod. As I was struggling to load it -- keep the cart from escaping down the steep grade of the lot, get the rolls on to the drop cloth without scattering dirt all over the inside of my Jeep, what am I going to do about my hands, which I can't wash until I get the water back on at home -- this Arab-looking guy asks me, "How much is the sod?" "Five bucks a roll," I told him.
And I drove home, wondering as I went whether I had enough propane for my torch. Feeling very nervous about the impending doom -- er, repairs -- because it's been (I think) fifteen years or more since I sweated a joint.
And, of course, I made a total disaster of it. I overheated one section of pipe and ended up having to remove it (It was 1.75" long, OK?). Which wasn't as easy as it should have been. It was attached to a tee and I was trying to keep from overheating the tee as well...
Well, long story short...
Too late!
::picks up a Stilson wrench and menaces Dolly with it::
Stifling!
Long story short, I ended up having to essentially rebuild the entire union to get the valve back in. And, as I said, made a dog's breakfast of the solder joints.
But it doesn't leak.
Looking for my tube cutter, I pulled down the plastic shoebox in which we keep an assortment of plumbing-type stuff. It's not the exclusive destination for plumbing stuff, mind. The plastic shoeboxes are just a system for corralling miscellaneous clutter into categorized containers. It's that kind of a thing.
When I pulled that plastic shoebox off the shelf and opened it up, lo! And Behold!, evennn, there was another valve -- just like the one I'd just de-sweated from the pipes. Brand-new. Which could have supplied a replacement valve stem, had I only remembered I had it.
I washed my hands and, at about quarter to nine, went outside to lay the sod.
Long story short, I got that done, too.
But I got all my chores done, so I can go to Indy on Sunday. Yippee!
Well! That was boring!
The beatings will commence immediately!
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