Overhearyouwillseethewaterdepartmentwhohandlesalotofthingsincluding...
Having a discussion with friends Greg and Dave about T.V. shows, it came up that Dave really doesn't like Aaron Sorkin. He doesn't find his dialogue witty, or the pattern and cadence of his characters' speech to be true to life.
Fair enough. That rapid fire give and take (banter) which is often incisive can come across as a little disingenuous. I mean, who doesn't pause for a breath, or have to restate something in another way to clarify once in awhile? Is it really plausible that people could really have that much give and take?
Well, starting this new job, in a busy office during a busy time I can say one thing unequivocally - people DO talk like that.
I am the FNG (GoshDarn New Guy) and as such I am an utter hindrance. My mere presence represents an unneeded and unplanned variable in the day of people who constantly deal with variables. They have all been very nice and patient and for that I am appreciative. But man, do they talk fast. I think I had a twenty-minute conversation with one department head in a minute-and-a-half! To his credit, he was concise and realized I was picking up what he was laying down so there wasn't a lot of need for expository language.
But it was a very Aaron Sorkin exchange and it is one of many I have had this week. So, with all due respect to Dave... People absolutely talk this way.
We Need To TCB For This VIP and Get Him to HQ Before He Is AWOL
Those acronyms are all pretty well known. Acronyms are needed and when used well are a huge time saver. It falls under paucity of verbiage... say it in the most efficient way possible and it is usually a good rule of thumb for business language especially.
Recently, I have been a little obsessed with learning about Diesel engines. Who knows why? I'm a boy. Is there a reason better or more illustrative than that? Anyhow, I had spent a fair amount of free time before starting this job on learning about these things on various internet forums.
They are rife with acronyms that are all "shop talk", or specific to the narrow genre. And they are not helpful if you don't know what they are referring to. For instance in one comical post, one contributor uses no fewer than thirteen (thirteen!) acronyms that I had no idea what they meant. They included FICM, HPOP, DPF, SCT and others. Some I could decipher by context, others are still a mystery to me, even after a fair bit of detective work.
There is of course no glossary on the site to illuminate the possible meanings of these. I wonder if the people who are using these acronyms are even doing so because they are accepted and well-known tools on this sight, or if they are just too lazy to type Fuel Injection Management Computer (FICM), or High Pressure Fuel Pump (oddly shortened to HPOP).
Beware when you are trying to send a message that needs to get across... sometimes you can say too little.
Being The FNG
I am pleased that things are going as well so far as I could have expected. It is a good atmosphere here. I hope it stays that way as there are some items that are giving me pause which originate from the old regime. I will hold my tongue for now and hope that those storm clouds don't materialize into anything. But, please keep my in your positive thoughts during this transition. So far, all your efforts have helped. Thanks!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
First Morning
So far, the first day is going well. I have a minute to put down some thoughts before I am shunted off to the next thing.
1. People seem very nice.
2. Nice Office space.
3. They are really busy.
4. I will have more support than I thought I would from the corporate side of things.
5. There are lots of ways to make money.
6. Setting up Blackberries sucks (But I knew that- I am just reminded of it today).
7. Can't get on Facebook from the office network, which is bullocks, but I knows there is a
good reason. And I'll hardly ever be here after this week.
8. I have to put one of those stupid magnet things on my car with the company logo. Boo.
9. I am hungry.
10. I need a piece of gum.
That about sums it up so far for the first half of the day. Not bad at all considering! Stay tuned for more after a break.
1. People seem very nice.
2. Nice Office space.
3. They are really busy.
4. I will have more support than I thought I would from the corporate side of things.
5. There are lots of ways to make money.
6. Setting up Blackberries sucks (But I knew that- I am just reminded of it today).
7. Can't get on Facebook from the office network, which is bullocks, but I knows there is a
good reason. And I'll hardly ever be here after this week.
8. I have to put one of those stupid magnet things on my car with the company logo. Boo.
9. I am hungry.
10. I need a piece of gum.
That about sums it up so far for the first half of the day. Not bad at all considering! Stay tuned for more after a break.
Monday, February 28, 2011
More Bad Commercials
The Ped Egg... How could I have forgotten the Ped Egg? We were talking about bad commercials last night at youth group and the Ped Egg comes up as universally hated. Why? Because feet are disgusting. All feet. I don't care if you think you have cute feet. You do not. Nobody does. Feet are gross.
Even in the most exquisite homes, should you pry off the molding from around the ceiling, you will find and unfinished edge that looks dry and cracked and disused from being out of sight and hard to reach. You may even find a gaping unfinished gap where the drywall of the two were to meet but didn't. Besides, put the trim back on and no one is the wiser. The trim is shoes, the rough, unfinished corners are feet.
There is not a great amount of fine design that went into making feet look pretty. They are far away from the eyes and should always be that way. Feet are not to be regarded so much as they are to be cared for. Minimally.
I know I am going to die from slipping in the shower with one foot in my hand and the rest of me balanced precariously on the other. This is why as soon as I get done washing my feet, I know at least I will live another month before I have to do that again!
What, you wash your feet every day? Listen, I don't have that kind of faith. Cheating death can only lead to death. Besides, all the soap and water rush down there anyway! Your feet are the cleanest part of you after you shower. Until the second you step out...
You know that bathmat? Riddled with germs and fecal coliforms; to say nothing of the bathroom floor. As soon as you put your feet down, the jig is up. Feet are gross. They cannot be made ungross by polish and pedis or any other matter of dressing them up; except to cover them completely. For those of you fetishists out there, I think you are sick. You have a sickness. Feet are gross.
And the commercial for the Ped Egg, you know the one made famous by the shot of the clear plastic collector filled with what is ostensibly "foot shavins'" but looks for all the world like grated Parmesan cheese? Never should have been allowed to happen.
Which brings me to the next series of commercials that ought to be outlawed now and forever more; hair removal.
If something is called the "personal groomer", why do you compel me to watch you use it? I don't need to see some lady of a certain age hacking back her 'stache, (which by the way so thick I have second-thoughts about shaving mine off because it is comparatively wimpy), or god forbid demonstrating the use of the product in the "gentle areas" which this thing is really designed for. I just hope she cleaned the thing before she went from her "gentle areas" to her mustache.
And do these people know that gentle and genital sound a lot alike? What happened to the old days when the commercials referred to this region as the "bikini line"? I can live with that, because as much as I don't want to hear about bikini line maintenance, at least I can think about bikinis while the announcer is talking. And that's not half bad.
But what of feminine hygiene commercials? Never bothered me. They don't show the use of their product. And for good reason! They just allude to it. The target market gets the message and the rest of us are able to go about our lives living in blissful ignorance, just as it was before the commercial. That's good advertising!
I was regaling the youth about another hair removal product whose advertising we could not escape, NADS - the Australian hair removal system. Sadly named, NADS was like a do-it-yourself (with the help of a friend) at home waxing kit. I don't know if NADS means colloquially the same thing in Australia as it means here in the states, but if there is one place you would not want to use NADS was on the nads (they're testicles, Mom). That can only lead to bad things.
The worst part was the actors who were trying their level best not to look like they were in excruciating pain for having used the product. And then the really worst part was when they proudly showed the hair that had been removed on the patented removal pad, which was now mixed in with the sort of amber-greenish tinged NADS product itself. It made a terrible emetic melange. And if you were unemployed or worked third shift, you were exposed to this commercial more times than I believe could possibly be healthy.
You may notice I did not take the time to link any of these commercials to the blentry, because like horror movies or porn they should be viewed only by adults at their own risk with full knowledge aforethought of what you may see. After all, like the popular phrase goes; "You've seen it, you can't unsee it". I will not be party to spreading the message of these purveyors of personal hygiene. After all, the first word of personal hygiene is 'personal'. I for one think we should keep it that way.
Even in the most exquisite homes, should you pry off the molding from around the ceiling, you will find and unfinished edge that looks dry and cracked and disused from being out of sight and hard to reach. You may even find a gaping unfinished gap where the drywall of the two were to meet but didn't. Besides, put the trim back on and no one is the wiser. The trim is shoes, the rough, unfinished corners are feet.
There is not a great amount of fine design that went into making feet look pretty. They are far away from the eyes and should always be that way. Feet are not to be regarded so much as they are to be cared for. Minimally.
I know I am going to die from slipping in the shower with one foot in my hand and the rest of me balanced precariously on the other. This is why as soon as I get done washing my feet, I know at least I will live another month before I have to do that again!
What, you wash your feet every day? Listen, I don't have that kind of faith. Cheating death can only lead to death. Besides, all the soap and water rush down there anyway! Your feet are the cleanest part of you after you shower. Until the second you step out...
You know that bathmat? Riddled with germs and fecal coliforms; to say nothing of the bathroom floor. As soon as you put your feet down, the jig is up. Feet are gross. They cannot be made ungross by polish and pedis or any other matter of dressing them up; except to cover them completely. For those of you fetishists out there, I think you are sick. You have a sickness. Feet are gross.
And the commercial for the Ped Egg, you know the one made famous by the shot of the clear plastic collector filled with what is ostensibly "foot shavins'" but looks for all the world like grated Parmesan cheese? Never should have been allowed to happen.
Which brings me to the next series of commercials that ought to be outlawed now and forever more; hair removal.
If something is called the "personal groomer", why do you compel me to watch you use it? I don't need to see some lady of a certain age hacking back her 'stache, (which by the way so thick I have second-thoughts about shaving mine off because it is comparatively wimpy), or god forbid demonstrating the use of the product in the "gentle areas" which this thing is really designed for. I just hope she cleaned the thing before she went from her "gentle areas" to her mustache.
And do these people know that gentle and genital sound a lot alike? What happened to the old days when the commercials referred to this region as the "bikini line"? I can live with that, because as much as I don't want to hear about bikini line maintenance, at least I can think about bikinis while the announcer is talking. And that's not half bad.
But what of feminine hygiene commercials? Never bothered me. They don't show the use of their product. And for good reason! They just allude to it. The target market gets the message and the rest of us are able to go about our lives living in blissful ignorance, just as it was before the commercial. That's good advertising!
I was regaling the youth about another hair removal product whose advertising we could not escape, NADS - the Australian hair removal system. Sadly named, NADS was like a do-it-yourself (with the help of a friend) at home waxing kit. I don't know if NADS means colloquially the same thing in Australia as it means here in the states, but if there is one place you would not want to use NADS was on the nads (they're testicles, Mom). That can only lead to bad things.
The worst part was the actors who were trying their level best not to look like they were in excruciating pain for having used the product. And then the really worst part was when they proudly showed the hair that had been removed on the patented removal pad, which was now mixed in with the sort of amber-greenish tinged NADS product itself. It made a terrible emetic melange. And if you were unemployed or worked third shift, you were exposed to this commercial more times than I believe could possibly be healthy.
You may notice I did not take the time to link any of these commercials to the blentry, because like horror movies or porn they should be viewed only by adults at their own risk with full knowledge aforethought of what you may see. After all, like the popular phrase goes; "You've seen it, you can't unsee it". I will not be party to spreading the message of these purveyors of personal hygiene. After all, the first word of personal hygiene is 'personal'. I for one think we should keep it that way.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Straight Arrow
Among my favorite commercials on T.V. right now is the one for an attorney trolling for clients who have taken Accutane, the acne drug. It says something like:
If you or a loved on has taken Accutane and sustained a serious injury or death; call the blah blah blah law firm. Are you for real? How am I going to call you if I am dead?
I know what they are trying to say, but English teachers all over the land should be using this as an example of how not to write. Not that I know any better - I can't imagine how my friend Regina, the English Professor, feels when she is bombarded with the myriad egregious grammatical travesties I commit each and every blog. I mean I love commas, this much is clear, and I overuse the parenthetical thought. I mean, why not just include it in the text? And where it this all going anyway? He is talking about commercials for no good reason! He's hit rock bottom. He has nothing left to write about.
The poorly written lawyer commercial made me nostalgic for the old "Head On" commercials they played at the end of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy:
"Head On, apply directly to the forehead..."
I decided to get online and look it up to see if it was still in the stores. It apparently is. Does it work? Not according to any of the research I read. It certainly isn't as affective (effective?) as an aspirin.
Which brings me to aspirin, I guess. We have all heard that it is quite a miracle that aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) in its current form was discovered a long time ago 1899, lest it would have been caught up in the rigmarole of today's pharmacological industry. Though the plants from which it is synthesized has been known for thousands of years to contain broad therapeutic powers, Bayer was the first to put it to market in the all important pill form. In fact, the lead developer of aspirin for Bayer is also credited with the creation of the water soluble pill. There is some tongue in cheek data that indicates that a drug indicated affective (effective?) for so many maladies would cost $90.00 a pill and be available only by prescription.
And yet, for such a magnificent drug, it is marketed straight down the middle, without using gimmicks and shouting. Who thinks that shouting a slogan like "apply directly to the forehead" is helpful to the curing of a headache? But it was crude and it worked. It sold tons of product that didn't work.
Did I stumble on something obvious here? The more capable a product is, the less it has to be shouted about. Conversely the more shouting being done might seem to indicate that this thing might be something less than what it is purported to be.
Right. Not a revelation I admit, but important none-the-less. Here's why. I am about to go back into sales. Instead of shouting about how good I am, or my company is, or my product is, I am going to show it. I am going to make sure I don't need to be marketed, but instead known and trusted. I am going to quietly (as much as that adverb can be attributed to any verb being performed by me) go about proving my effectiveness.
Sorry no jokes or punchy twists of phrase. Sometimes you just have to be straightforward. And lately I haven't been feeling the funny. Not that I have been sad - far from it, just not witty as such. Which usually happens when I am essentially content. My humor comes from the same place as the poorly written law firm commercial... when life isn't working out, sometimes you gotta shout about it.
I am sure there will be ample opportunity to be funny in the future. After all, the newness of the new job will wear off and the realization that I am still working for a living will sink in and I will find something to be funny about. For now, though, it's straight down the middle.
If you or a loved on has taken Accutane and sustained a serious injury or death; call the blah blah blah law firm. Are you for real? How am I going to call you if I am dead?
I know what they are trying to say, but English teachers all over the land should be using this as an example of how not to write. Not that I know any better - I can't imagine how my friend Regina, the English Professor, feels when she is bombarded with the myriad egregious grammatical travesties I commit each and every blog. I mean I love commas, this much is clear, and I overuse the parenthetical thought. I mean, why not just include it in the text? And where it this all going anyway? He is talking about commercials for no good reason! He's hit rock bottom. He has nothing left to write about.
The poorly written lawyer commercial made me nostalgic for the old "Head On" commercials they played at the end of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy:
"Head On, apply directly to the forehead..."
I decided to get online and look it up to see if it was still in the stores. It apparently is. Does it work? Not according to any of the research I read. It certainly isn't as affective (effective?) as an aspirin.
Which brings me to aspirin, I guess. We have all heard that it is quite a miracle that aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) in its current form was discovered a long time ago 1899, lest it would have been caught up in the rigmarole of today's pharmacological industry. Though the plants from which it is synthesized has been known for thousands of years to contain broad therapeutic powers, Bayer was the first to put it to market in the all important pill form. In fact, the lead developer of aspirin for Bayer is also credited with the creation of the water soluble pill. There is some tongue in cheek data that indicates that a drug indicated affective (effective?) for so many maladies would cost $90.00 a pill and be available only by prescription.
And yet, for such a magnificent drug, it is marketed straight down the middle, without using gimmicks and shouting. Who thinks that shouting a slogan like "apply directly to the forehead" is helpful to the curing of a headache? But it was crude and it worked. It sold tons of product that didn't work.
Did I stumble on something obvious here? The more capable a product is, the less it has to be shouted about. Conversely the more shouting being done might seem to indicate that this thing might be something less than what it is purported to be.
Right. Not a revelation I admit, but important none-the-less. Here's why. I am about to go back into sales. Instead of shouting about how good I am, or my company is, or my product is, I am going to show it. I am going to make sure I don't need to be marketed, but instead known and trusted. I am going to quietly (as much as that adverb can be attributed to any verb being performed by me) go about proving my effectiveness.
Sorry no jokes or punchy twists of phrase. Sometimes you just have to be straightforward. And lately I haven't been feeling the funny. Not that I have been sad - far from it, just not witty as such. Which usually happens when I am essentially content. My humor comes from the same place as the poorly written law firm commercial... when life isn't working out, sometimes you gotta shout about it.
I am sure there will be ample opportunity to be funny in the future. After all, the newness of the new job will wear off and the realization that I am still working for a living will sink in and I will find something to be funny about. For now, though, it's straight down the middle.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Dog Days Are Over
This is it. My last weekend of unplanned, though much needed furlough from working. I start on Tuesday in my new capacity as an account executive for Jarvis Property Restorations and Great Lakes Cleaning. I am really excited to work for a new company and continue on with my current company in a different capacity.
My brain is liquefying from being at home so much. I admit to be so stir crazy that I have become ineffective. You know how sometimes you just curl into a ball and the world goes by you? I am in the ball. Thoreau would say my hodiernal circle is out pacing me. Thoreau was a goof. Don't get me started on Thoreau.
So, I can't wait. I awoke this morning the the song "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence and the Machine running through my head. Click the link if you would like to hear the song. For those of you not so inured, the lyrics follow:
My brain is liquefying from being at home so much. I admit to be so stir crazy that I have become ineffective. You know how sometimes you just curl into a ball and the world goes by you? I am in the ball. Thoreau would say my hodiernal circle is out pacing me. Thoreau was a goof. Don't get me started on Thoreau.
So, I can't wait. I awoke this morning the the song "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence and the Machine running through my head. Click the link if you would like to hear the song. For those of you not so inured, the lyrics follow:
Happiness / hit her / like a train on a track
Coming towards her / stuck still / no turning back
She hid around corners / and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fl-ed
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink.
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are comin' so you better run
Run fast for your mother; run fast for your father
Run for your children all your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind.
You can't carry it with you / if you want to survive
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cos here they come
And I never wanted
anything from you
Except
everything / you had
And / what was left after that too / Oh!
Happiness / hit her / like a bullet in the back
Struck from /a great height
By someone /who should have known better / than that
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cos here they come
Run fast for your mother / run fast for your father
Run for your children all your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you / if you want to survive
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cos here they come
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horse-s are comin'
So you'd better run
Coming towards her / stuck still / no turning back
She hid around corners / and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fl-ed
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink.
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are comin' so you better run
Run fast for your mother; run fast for your father
Run for your children all your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind.
You can't carry it with you / if you want to survive
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cos here they come
And I never wanted
anything from you
Except
everything / you had
And / what was left after that too / Oh!
Happiness / hit her / like a bullet in the back
Struck from /a great height
By someone /who should have known better / than that
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cos here they come
Run fast for your mother / run fast for your father
Run for your children all your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you / if you want to survive
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cos here they come
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horse-s are comin'
So you'd better run
Indeed. The dog days are over. I suppose that this level of optimism is unwarranted given that my crystal ball is still in the shop and I have no idea what the future holds. But isn't that the great thing about optimism (or faith or hope)? You do it even though you have no right to. Hopefully attitude is everything and I have everything under control.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
This Old House
My house was built in 1926 which makes it - well, past its prime. No longer can you just put on some new paint to cover over the ravages of age. This was made painfully obvious by the previous owner(s) who tried to do just that. Our Realtor, who is also a good friend was circumspect about us buying the house in the first place, because of all the paint on all the trim.
The house is full of trim and molding from floor to ceiling. And all of it was caked, (literally caked) with layers and layers of paint. It was to the point in some areas where you could not even make out the detail of the piece of trim. Corners resembled more like acutely angled arches. There were drips everywhere. The good news is that much of the original wood is unpainted and gorgeous, so it's not all bad. I'd attach some pictures, but Em has them all on her computer and she is in Chicago.
This is why it took us the better part of 8 months to strip and paint one room. Sure, it's a big room but some people can't imagine why it took 8 months. All I can say is, you go one inch at a time with a heat gun and various sharp implements pulling off strips of paint in many layers each with varying properties.
For instance, one layer would come right off like a big piece of dead skin, (sorry for that simile, but it's apt), whereas the next layer would simply turn to muck and need to be worked very slowly and deftly. This of course is due to the differences in paint over the years. The original lead based oil paints simply don't want to come off. And it is pretty apparent that the modern paints over it were not applied sans primer.
The faces of the walls themselves were in no better shape. Clearly there was wallpaper at one point over the original (forest green!) paint, over which someone decided to paint. And so with heat and scraping and not a little swearing, it all came off, too. After that, the walls were sanded and the plaster fared to as smooth as I could make it. Then it was all primed and painted properly.
God, I just went back and read the last few paragraphs. Sorry. If you think reading about it is boring (it is) try doing it (no, don't!). What brings this up is that I am now taking all the paint off the door casings upstairs and I am reliving the horror all over again. I started this endeavor immediately after finishing the other painting and then just ignored it for a year leaving them in situ. However, there is only so much sitting around I can do and I have been doing a lot of it the last two weeks, so it was time to make some progress.
I have done a couple hours a couple days over my hiatus. Today was the third two-hour session. It is terribly difficult work. It is terribly boring work. I have to wear an elbow brace and a wrist brace to keep my carpal tunnel down to a dull roar, (a condition which not incidentally became exacerbated during the initial scraping/painting job). The job is mad no easier by the fact I have limited motion and the paint chips seem to have a malevolent sentience in as much as they seek out the space between my arm braces and my skin. Add the paint chips and the sweat and the chaffing is nearly unbearable for more than a couple hours; even though I put on powder before hand.
It is notable that after two hours of labor, I can see that despite the piles of paint chips and dust that now live on the floor instead of on the trim you can note exactly zero progress. As soon as I get done I see whole sections of my work area that I simply did not get to. It is frustrating. No matter how many times I try to coax myself to stay in one area and move on only when it is done completely, I can't. I will step outside my mind for a time and whence I return, I am surprised to find myself scraping in a whole different area, starting something new when the area I just left is patently undone.
This short attention span is my bane. I suppose I would have been diagnosed as ADD as a child if my parents hadn't been more patient. It is amazing to think that with different parents (as an adoptee it is not out of the realm of possibilitly) I could have been drugged just for being a little flighty and precocious. Thankfully my parents simply tried their best to keep me in some sort of envelope. It was a big envelope.
I digress - see how easy it is for me to get off topic? I just had to go back an re-read the last paragraphs to remember where I was going with this. The point is that these maintenance jobs are a labor of love. And in order to do something right and be proud of it, you just have to suck it up and do it. So what if I don't get it done all during my hiatus from work? I also did taxes (which was preferable to scraping paint just to frame it another way) and got a lot of other things done, too. The time hasn't been wholly unproductive.
When the door casings are prepped, I will pull the doors themselves. I hope to have them "dipped" so I don't have to put a bunch of labor into pulling the paint off them. Under the paint is some sort of finish which will have to be sanded right through to the wood. It would be much better to have a professional dip strip them so I can go about the work or making doors open and close the right way in openings that long ago lost any semblance of being square, level and plumb. We bought some period correct bone white porcelain door knobs on this past summer's trip to Pennsylvania to trim them all out nicely.
Once that's all done, we can prime and paint which is so easy compared to all the work it takes to get there. And it will look great. So great, we will be able to more easily spot all the problems in the bedrooms; namely the painted over wallpaper, the popcorn ceilings, the paint glommed trim and the ill fitting doors. Sound familiar?
It's a good thing we opted for the 30 year mortgage. It is going to take at least that long to get it how we want it. This disregards the dyer need to restore all the wood casement windows (it took me all summer to do one, poorly, and there are 15 more to do) finish the basement (complete with new plumbing and wiring) and build a new garage and pour a new driveway. The latter couple items so expensive and time intensive I can't even wrap my mind around them.
I need to get back to work, this being unemployed is going to kill me.
The house is full of trim and molding from floor to ceiling. And all of it was caked, (literally caked) with layers and layers of paint. It was to the point in some areas where you could not even make out the detail of the piece of trim. Corners resembled more like acutely angled arches. There were drips everywhere. The good news is that much of the original wood is unpainted and gorgeous, so it's not all bad. I'd attach some pictures, but Em has them all on her computer and she is in Chicago.
This is why it took us the better part of 8 months to strip and paint one room. Sure, it's a big room but some people can't imagine why it took 8 months. All I can say is, you go one inch at a time with a heat gun and various sharp implements pulling off strips of paint in many layers each with varying properties.
For instance, one layer would come right off like a big piece of dead skin, (sorry for that simile, but it's apt), whereas the next layer would simply turn to muck and need to be worked very slowly and deftly. This of course is due to the differences in paint over the years. The original lead based oil paints simply don't want to come off. And it is pretty apparent that the modern paints over it were not applied sans primer.
The faces of the walls themselves were in no better shape. Clearly there was wallpaper at one point over the original (forest green!) paint, over which someone decided to paint. And so with heat and scraping and not a little swearing, it all came off, too. After that, the walls were sanded and the plaster fared to as smooth as I could make it. Then it was all primed and painted properly.
God, I just went back and read the last few paragraphs. Sorry. If you think reading about it is boring (it is) try doing it (no, don't!). What brings this up is that I am now taking all the paint off the door casings upstairs and I am reliving the horror all over again. I started this endeavor immediately after finishing the other painting and then just ignored it for a year leaving them in situ. However, there is only so much sitting around I can do and I have been doing a lot of it the last two weeks, so it was time to make some progress.
I have done a couple hours a couple days over my hiatus. Today was the third two-hour session. It is terribly difficult work. It is terribly boring work. I have to wear an elbow brace and a wrist brace to keep my carpal tunnel down to a dull roar, (a condition which not incidentally became exacerbated during the initial scraping/painting job). The job is mad no easier by the fact I have limited motion and the paint chips seem to have a malevolent sentience in as much as they seek out the space between my arm braces and my skin. Add the paint chips and the sweat and the chaffing is nearly unbearable for more than a couple hours; even though I put on powder before hand.
It is notable that after two hours of labor, I can see that despite the piles of paint chips and dust that now live on the floor instead of on the trim you can note exactly zero progress. As soon as I get done I see whole sections of my work area that I simply did not get to. It is frustrating. No matter how many times I try to coax myself to stay in one area and move on only when it is done completely, I can't. I will step outside my mind for a time and whence I return, I am surprised to find myself scraping in a whole different area, starting something new when the area I just left is patently undone.
This short attention span is my bane. I suppose I would have been diagnosed as ADD as a child if my parents hadn't been more patient. It is amazing to think that with different parents (as an adoptee it is not out of the realm of possibilitly) I could have been drugged just for being a little flighty and precocious. Thankfully my parents simply tried their best to keep me in some sort of envelope. It was a big envelope.
I digress - see how easy it is for me to get off topic? I just had to go back an re-read the last paragraphs to remember where I was going with this. The point is that these maintenance jobs are a labor of love. And in order to do something right and be proud of it, you just have to suck it up and do it. So what if I don't get it done all during my hiatus from work? I also did taxes (which was preferable to scraping paint just to frame it another way) and got a lot of other things done, too. The time hasn't been wholly unproductive.
When the door casings are prepped, I will pull the doors themselves. I hope to have them "dipped" so I don't have to put a bunch of labor into pulling the paint off them. Under the paint is some sort of finish which will have to be sanded right through to the wood. It would be much better to have a professional dip strip them so I can go about the work or making doors open and close the right way in openings that long ago lost any semblance of being square, level and plumb. We bought some period correct bone white porcelain door knobs on this past summer's trip to Pennsylvania to trim them all out nicely.
Once that's all done, we can prime and paint which is so easy compared to all the work it takes to get there. And it will look great. So great, we will be able to more easily spot all the problems in the bedrooms; namely the painted over wallpaper, the popcorn ceilings, the paint glommed trim and the ill fitting doors. Sound familiar?
It's a good thing we opted for the 30 year mortgage. It is going to take at least that long to get it how we want it. This disregards the dyer need to restore all the wood casement windows (it took me all summer to do one, poorly, and there are 15 more to do) finish the basement (complete with new plumbing and wiring) and build a new garage and pour a new driveway. The latter couple items so expensive and time intensive I can't even wrap my mind around them.
I need to get back to work, this being unemployed is going to kill me.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Shock of the Class of 1993
I have been recently thrust back into the early 1990's due to certain events that have caused a lot of us from East Kentwood H.S. to become nostalgic for the "good old days." It was enough to compel me to dust off my old yearbook and take a little trip back in time. This is indeed a rarity for me. I am not so misty for my high school days. In fact, I have said it before and I'll say it until I have drawn my very last breath; you couldn't pay me a million bucks to go back to high school. Not even knowing what I know while inhabiting the body of my former glorious (in relation to the present) self. Not as the mind of the older me but with the hair of the younger me; and the Mustang and the spending cash and the many soft lips of many pretty girls.
I hated high school. I suppose in that I am not alone. My dad used to revert to the old- "these are the best days of your life"- line that we have all come to know and love. It made me want to punch him. I am glad to say that these (the ones I am living now) are by far the best years of my life so far. My 30s have been mostly awesome, even though I am not wealthy as I had hoped, or famous as I had once imagined. I am happy. On that you cannot put a price.
Back to the yearbook. In the first pages is a small graphic called: How Much Was It? It goes on to tell me that gas was $1.03, a school lunch was $1.45 (and not altogether terrible for that price), almost all fast food value meals were $2.99 (it was the middle of the now infamous "burger wars" and I was on the front lines) and cigarettes were $1.99 a pack.
Let's pause here, shall we? What a different world it was that the cost of cigarettes would be referenced as a casual metric in a school yearbook! Imagine if you will the yearbook committee of any school in the land of ours doing this today! They would be on the six-o'clock news for Pete's sake!
Our class songs were Forever Young (and not the good one by Bob Dylan, but the shitty one by Rod Stewart) and End of the Road by Boyz 2 Men. This was back when Bobby Brown hadn't squandered all his talents and become the rusted out hulk of a crack-head he would become. Oh well, it's his prerogative. See what I did there? Two of you will get that joke and it isn't even funny.
Best hangout and worst restaurant honors both went to Denny's. That's like winning an Oscar and a Razzie for the same movie! We were slackers, indicating that "NO JOB" was the best after-school job. The beginning of the apathetic "so what?" generation had begun.
I am glad to say that by and large, except for some large-ish hair, we don't look silly and outdated like the yearbook pictures of my parents. Most of the fashions can be recognized as the progenitors of today's fashions. I smile when I see a lot of people I had completely forgotten about.There are others who I am Facebook friends with, today. Some faces pop out and still create in me an involuntary seizure due to the rushing back of some repressed bad memory. Dude, let it go. It's been almost twenty years.
Robert Gaines is one of the people pictured. He was (and I imagine still is) a big man. He literally stood head and shoulders above everyone in the school and was broad as he was tall. His skin was very dark and his smile was very wide. That dude scared me. He never gave me a reason to be scared of him, but he was a big black man and to the eyes of a mid-sized white kid from the 'burbs, he was scary. We were a predominately white school with a close knit African American population. Robert was a "crossover" kind of guy. He was revered by students of all races. In that sense, I suppose he was a unifier of sorts.
Robert had a lot of friends and was our Homecoming King. He was a state champion wrestler and a standout on our football team, which at that time was a perennial contender in it's division.
He was, I recall a nice fellow. And many people lately have recalled that, too. I don't remember having classes with Robert, or spending a lot of time with him outside of the weight room. I didn't know him well at all. But I knew him well enough to be shocked at the recent news he was being extradited from his home in Illinois in connection with an unsolved murder of an eight year old girl here in Grand Rapids all the way back in 1993, the year we graduated.
According to reports Gaines and another man, Bobby Brown (not the famous one from the song) were involved. Brown is alleged to have done the shooting into a house- a supposed retribution for being mugged earlier. It was thought, apparently that the muggers lived in the house. Instead of hitting any alleged muggers, eight year old Lativia Johnson was struck and killed while getting a late night glass of milk out of the fridge.The family has not been able to rest; and who could blame them? The tragic and random death of a young person is that hardest thing in the world to cope with.
Why this is shocking is Robert is just not "that guy." I know in my heart he did not do the shooting. I cannot say how I would have reacted in the same situation if I were present when that went down. It is beyond me to judge the actions of any man. It is my hope that Robert is heard in court and that he is to some extent exonerated. Surely if he was there and if he knew what happened and did not report it and withheld information during the investigation (he was investigated at the time) then he clearly did wrong. But that kind of wrong is a far bit off pulling the trigger and killing an innocent little girl and for the sake of Robert Gaines getting a fair trial, I would like the news to draw that distinction when they are reporting on the more sensational aspects of this tragedy.
As for the people on the various message boards who without information, without knowing the people involved, without having been there- you can all shut up. Withhold your opinions as you have nothing to add. When Robert's friends and classmates express their shock and disbelief that this was "their Robert", let them. It is shocking and it is unbelievable. And for those who would immediately judge and call these men scum and worthless, I say to you there is nothing to be gained from that debasement. Especially because you don't know the people involved. Lastly, I touch on this point again, you were not there. You don't know. You can't know everything that was involved.
I have done some things in my life that I am deeply regretful for and at one time or another I have said I would never do that. Then it comes time to walk in those shoes. I do not take away the grief or closure to the family of the slain little girl. I could not possibly understand their pain. I would never try to make it small.
But I also know that there is more to this story that no one but two people who are alive on this earth knows. One of those is my friend, Robert. I for one am sticking by him, regardless of what happened that night, what has happened since and what happens at the trial.
I hated high school. I suppose in that I am not alone. My dad used to revert to the old- "these are the best days of your life"- line that we have all come to know and love. It made me want to punch him. I am glad to say that these (the ones I am living now) are by far the best years of my life so far. My 30s have been mostly awesome, even though I am not wealthy as I had hoped, or famous as I had once imagined. I am happy. On that you cannot put a price.
Back to the yearbook. In the first pages is a small graphic called: How Much Was It? It goes on to tell me that gas was $1.03, a school lunch was $1.45 (and not altogether terrible for that price), almost all fast food value meals were $2.99 (it was the middle of the now infamous "burger wars" and I was on the front lines) and cigarettes were $1.99 a pack.
Let's pause here, shall we? What a different world it was that the cost of cigarettes would be referenced as a casual metric in a school yearbook! Imagine if you will the yearbook committee of any school in the land of ours doing this today! They would be on the six-o'clock news for Pete's sake!
Our class songs were Forever Young (and not the good one by Bob Dylan, but the shitty one by Rod Stewart) and End of the Road by Boyz 2 Men. This was back when Bobby Brown hadn't squandered all his talents and become the rusted out hulk of a crack-head he would become. Oh well, it's his prerogative. See what I did there? Two of you will get that joke and it isn't even funny.
Best hangout and worst restaurant honors both went to Denny's. That's like winning an Oscar and a Razzie for the same movie! We were slackers, indicating that "NO JOB" was the best after-school job. The beginning of the apathetic "so what?" generation had begun.
I am glad to say that by and large, except for some large-ish hair, we don't look silly and outdated like the yearbook pictures of my parents. Most of the fashions can be recognized as the progenitors of today's fashions. I smile when I see a lot of people I had completely forgotten about.There are others who I am Facebook friends with, today. Some faces pop out and still create in me an involuntary seizure due to the rushing back of some repressed bad memory. Dude, let it go. It's been almost twenty years.
Robert Gaines is one of the people pictured. He was (and I imagine still is) a big man. He literally stood head and shoulders above everyone in the school and was broad as he was tall. His skin was very dark and his smile was very wide. That dude scared me. He never gave me a reason to be scared of him, but he was a big black man and to the eyes of a mid-sized white kid from the 'burbs, he was scary. We were a predominately white school with a close knit African American population. Robert was a "crossover" kind of guy. He was revered by students of all races. In that sense, I suppose he was a unifier of sorts.
Robert had a lot of friends and was our Homecoming King. He was a state champion wrestler and a standout on our football team, which at that time was a perennial contender in it's division.
He was, I recall a nice fellow. And many people lately have recalled that, too. I don't remember having classes with Robert, or spending a lot of time with him outside of the weight room. I didn't know him well at all. But I knew him well enough to be shocked at the recent news he was being extradited from his home in Illinois in connection with an unsolved murder of an eight year old girl here in Grand Rapids all the way back in 1993, the year we graduated.
According to reports Gaines and another man, Bobby Brown (not the famous one from the song) were involved. Brown is alleged to have done the shooting into a house- a supposed retribution for being mugged earlier. It was thought, apparently that the muggers lived in the house. Instead of hitting any alleged muggers, eight year old Lativia Johnson was struck and killed while getting a late night glass of milk out of the fridge.The family has not been able to rest; and who could blame them? The tragic and random death of a young person is that hardest thing in the world to cope with.
Why this is shocking is Robert is just not "that guy." I know in my heart he did not do the shooting. I cannot say how I would have reacted in the same situation if I were present when that went down. It is beyond me to judge the actions of any man. It is my hope that Robert is heard in court and that he is to some extent exonerated. Surely if he was there and if he knew what happened and did not report it and withheld information during the investigation (he was investigated at the time) then he clearly did wrong. But that kind of wrong is a far bit off pulling the trigger and killing an innocent little girl and for the sake of Robert Gaines getting a fair trial, I would like the news to draw that distinction when they are reporting on the more sensational aspects of this tragedy.
As for the people on the various message boards who without information, without knowing the people involved, without having been there- you can all shut up. Withhold your opinions as you have nothing to add. When Robert's friends and classmates express their shock and disbelief that this was "their Robert", let them. It is shocking and it is unbelievable. And for those who would immediately judge and call these men scum and worthless, I say to you there is nothing to be gained from that debasement. Especially because you don't know the people involved. Lastly, I touch on this point again, you were not there. You don't know. You can't know everything that was involved.
I have done some things in my life that I am deeply regretful for and at one time or another I have said I would never do that. Then it comes time to walk in those shoes. I do not take away the grief or closure to the family of the slain little girl. I could not possibly understand their pain. I would never try to make it small.
But I also know that there is more to this story that no one but two people who are alive on this earth knows. One of those is my friend, Robert. I for one am sticking by him, regardless of what happened that night, what has happened since and what happens at the trial.
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