The Internets Cannot Repel Headspew of This Magnitude

Hey kids! Pull up a chair and grab the Valium, ‘cuz it’s time for Uncle Spam’s quarterly dissertation of mind-numbing drivel! Photos, videos, and headspewage abound!

When our hero last wrote in this space, he was laying it all on the line in clutches of some pretty dark terrors. Far from being a coward, he’s left the evidence, but not dwelling on it. He would, however, like to acknowledge the thoughts and prayers that came his way - all heroes need allies, after all. And then apologize because, with regards to living up to my own promise to finish that series for those who may relate, all I can say is: "someday." The victory requires no rearward glancing in the near term. Pity the tortured writer, because it’s not just a cliche.

But our hero isn’t done! He’s been fighting lots of projects, and it’s time to update this space. Tune in below for:

• Cra(p)ft Room Conundrum!
  
• Basement Beautification!
  
• Model A / Mustang Madness!
  
• The Continuing Saga of Adventures in HVAC!
  
• Radio Rehab Retrofit!
  
• Railroad Requisition!
  
• And more...!
  

Cra(p)ft Room Conundrum!

One of the features that attracted us to the new digs in 2008 was the presence of an 8x16 addition built off the back of the original house. Too small to be a bedroom or parlor but too big to waste as a closet, it was a nice cozy room with a somewhat rustic flair: ideal for sitting, reading, or creating. We decided this would become Anna’s crafting room for beadwork, sewing, and the like - a necessary trade-off of sorts since I had nearly the entirety of an unfinished basement at my own disposal*. Once we got settled in, I’d get it retrofitted for my sweetie, who long suffered in the half-re-purposed laundry/bath in the old place.

Except a few problems arose. First, it was built atop the foundational concrete slab that used to be half the rear porch, so it was “carpeted” with glued Astrocarpet-turf, which was then later covered by an unpadded berber remnant. Secondly, because the room was framed off an exterior wall, no code-level electrical service was available. At some point when the high-efficiency central HVAC was installed, they cut a hole in the brick to face a duct into the wall. Someone then ran electrical service by patching speaker wire grade cord from a light fixture in the basement through the duct, and tapping 1960’s style baseboard outlets into this. What in the-?! Needless to say, I ripped that crap out of there immediately and subbed a proper extension cord around the doorway to an outlet inside the house for the time being.

But the worst problem was the water issue that revealed itself shortly after we moved in. 2008 was an epic drought, but the monsoons arrived soon enough to tell us “Yeah, about that room: ha-ha!” when the carpet got squishified. Drat!

So I found and patched the leak sources (bad gutter in the corner eave, plus puddling on the slab outside). In the meantime, the room devolved into a catch-all zone of crafting crap and family detritus and round tuits all haphazardly tossed in... for 18 months. I eventually quit going into the place until April, when finally, after weeks of prodding and goading and selectively donning my bastard hat, I finally convinced Anna to sort and haul the mountain range of crap er, stuff out of there so I could really take stock of just what needed to be done.

Which was to essentially rip the entire room apart: everything down to the bare stud framing, leaving nothing but exterior walls and ceiling intact. I naively thought the rebuild project might take a dedicated weekend or two, tops. To say I was in for a rude, prolonged surprise is just a wee bit of an understatement:

• When I ripped the paneling off the original exterior wall, I was impressed with its build workmanship, but found the original brickwork to look too beautiful "inside" to cover up again. Hmm, time to rethink the aesthetic approach...
  
• When I ripped the panels off the 3 framed walls, I found insulation that was pitifully thin, studs that had molded in some spots, and gaps between the footers and slab. Hmm, time to budget for insulation and additional moisture prevention...
  
• When I ripped the insulation out, I found eight different ant colonies, and pinholes in the exterior boards. Hmm, time to budget for REALLY GOOD insulation. And expanding foam. And RAID!
  
• When I prepared to drill the studs to run properly coded electric service into and around the room, I learned my trusty cordless drill was no match for aged oak 2x4. Or 4x4 corner posts. Or brick walls. Heh. YES!!! Time to budget for MOAR POWA TOOLS AURGH AURGH AURGH!
  
• When we finally got samples of vintage barn wood from the farm, that we planned to repurpose as interior paneling to imbue a rustic “log cabin” feel into the room, we discovered that barn wood looks great outside, but darkens by an order of magnitude when brought indoors. And actually smells like a thousand sorrows. And is leagues more warped and crooked than what you already thought you allowed for. And is so thick it throws the windows and crown moldings and other related dimensional & structural framing items all out of whack. And... is just too big a PITA all around! D’oh, time to budget for new walls, not “free” ones...
  

Undaunted, I found solutions to all the above. I comparatively measured the original brick wall vs. the interior side and discovered the lone electric outlet on the interior side, conveniently had its rear knockout in line with a mortar run on the exterior side. Tapped into this and ran racetrack on the mortar line, NM cable through the studs around the room, and a new exterior outlet outside to cap it off.

I exterminated the mold, treated the frame and exterior walls with Thompson’s, sealed the joints and gaps with Great Stuff, and installed new 1 3/4” R-13 insulation and a vapor barrier.

I only had to go to Lowe's three times before I discovered some exterior-grade oak ply paneling with a 4-inches-on-center textured plank pattern, pre-primed and treated; it just needed a bit of trimming, and for a friend and I to NOT get ourselves posted on “MoronsOfLowes.com” when we ski-sloped all this stuff into his newly acquired beat-up Dodge Ramcharger (I TOLD him the seats wouldn’t come out!!). Net profit? All of the barn-wood rusticness, none of the stank and woodworking expense, and only a little dignity lost from the granny-seat drive across town!

The end result? A room that came together so beautifully - and looked so fantastic with the colors Anna chose - that I decided to abandon my laziness plan and replace the floor with hardwood. Well, hardwood was the plan... but when the timeframe crunched down toward the end, the “free” hardwood stock we had left from the kitchen was was going to cost us $150 in installation / prep materials, and several more days of Astrocarpet adhesive removal and floor prep. Why not get the floating laminate wood floor which could rest atop for $80 more? Why not indeed! So on July 4 I loaded up on Pergo, and put the coup de grace in the room.

(Only trouble is, when they say to use 1/4” blocks around the perimeter to maintain your gap, don’t be lazy and assume - like I did - that the weight of half a floor already laid properly will be enough to keep it there as you finish the rest. Just find some damn blocks!)

And so - 3 months after I started - the CraP Room finally transformed into the CraFT Room. And it’s wonderful! And it really probably could have been done in only a week or so, but this is my life we’re talking about - nothing ever comes easy. But it’s oh so worth it in the end! My wife gets a space of her own, and when she’s happy, I’m happy!

BASEMENT BEAUTIFICATION

So yeah, I got an unfinished basement to play in, but it kinda sucks. I mean I like it well enough, but the layout is wonky for my preferred purposes. I know exactly how to fix the issues and could do it all once the money’s in the kitty, but in the meantime it’s just the simple unfinished ceiling that’s the biggest drag on things. Since I love to build and create down there, lighting is important. But a grid of unfinished floor joists is basically a matrix of black holes that suck the life from everything. And the fabric sheets we used as a too-cheap-not-to-try stopgap sorta worked, but... well, they’re fabric - I don’t think velour ceilings were ever popular, not even in the 60’s. Plus they leak when one of the girls spills an overloaded juice cup on the kitchen floor above (which is not what I had in mind when I said a model of the CSX “Tropicana Juice Train” would be neat)!

But since the ceiling is only 7 feet high, options are limited: a drop ceiling is out of the question. And with all the access requirements for old-scool HVAC and electrical items, a fully-finished drywall solution would only prove an aggravating barrier in the future. And really, there are plenty of other issues to invest money in before the ceiling merits priority spending. Sigh, what to do, what to do...?

How about the old standby: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle?

Those are the standard-issue “70’s swank” panels that used to be in the Crap Room. Anna hated ‘em and they got a little dinged up in the demo work. But, coated with ceiling paint and screwed into the joists, they’re reflective, insulating, dust/dirt/juice-proof, and removable should the need arise. Best of all, they were free!

I kept from stuffing a landfill, and solved a nagging issue in the process. I love it when a plan comes together, especially when it's EPIC WIN.

Model A / Mustang Madness!

Remember the “Where’s Waldo” picture from a few months ago (April)?

Here’s what it looked like as of June 23:

And as of June 26: it was all gone, except for the car... holy (lack of) crap!

But the best part is: During this excavation I only got attacked by one swarm of bumblebees this time, unlike 8 years ago when I dug out the dryer that I fixed and still currently use. But I digress: Did you know bumblebees don’t always construct their own nests, but often scavenge their nests from existing structures? I found this out in the Dryer Incident: they’d taken residence in a former underground mouse nest that was under an old electric dryer stored in a barn. When I moved the dryer, it uncorked fury like I had never seen, and I was suddenly doing a very impromptu - but doubtlessly hilarious, you should have been there - Winnie the Pooh impression.

So here’s the thing: When the top photo was taken, there was a bumblebee with some sort of Insect Down’s Syndrome hanging around. I mean, this little guy was such an aimless drifter, I watched him smack into the shelf, into the car, into the debris, into me... the last time I saw insects that blindly stupid was in 2008 when the 17-year cicadas came out and smacked into everything in sight, including themselves. So I sort of developed an affection for this fuzzy little guy - enough to suppress my baser instinct to crush bee or run away. Especially when he was still there 3 months later, in June...

...but it was a trap!

Oh, my week’s "vacation" to continue The Dig started well enough, and the bee was still there, hangin' around. Actually, it seemed like he wasn’t quite as disoriented, which was nice to see; I guess three months must be good for a bumblin’ bumble. So from Saturday through Tuesday afternoon I worked and dug with all manner of insects buzzing around in the static June Kentucky heat. The bee was always closer to the car, but he didn’t seem to mind me there. We had a mutual idiot's understanding: I was there to move some stuff and clean out the bay, I wasn’t there to bug him. And he was there to, uh, well... how the hell am I supposed to know?

That all changed when I finally exposed the front end, rear end, passenger side, and most of the interior of the car - leaving a pile of stuff on the driver’s door and windshield as the last inaccessible bits to sift through that evening. But that should be OK, right? I mean I'd already cleaned out the shelf on the wall next to it, and that was pretty close...

...so I tugged on a coil of rope buried under a tractor inner tube in the pile, slung it over my shoulder and felt a prick; I thought the rough tines of the rope got me. Then I heard a loud buzz near my ear, ducked, got pricked again (damn rope!), moved to investigate, saw another bee and heard another buzz and OW OMG HEY WTF WHATS GOING OHSHITOHSHITOHSHITSHITSHIT RUNAWAYYYYYYYY!!!!!

Winnie-the-Poohed myself all the way back to the house, slammed the door, and watched as one bee actually circled around it for a full 3 minutes. Then watched as my arm and finger and chest turned red and swelled up. Holy hell! They didn’t even get me that bad during the dryer incident, what the deuce?

Regained my composure and went back out, where I could now see what happened: unbeknownst to me, bumblebees had built a nest in the firewall/cowl of the car, accessing it through a void created naturally by the stamping and assembly process. Buried under years' worth of afterthought junk, this nest had been long undisturbed until it just so happened to be the last place for me to “attack” during the cleaning process. Amazingly, I'd always and only ever seen just one bee at a time - even Anna had seen watched it, since the retarded one was easy to recognize - but now there were at least 20 of them swarming about.

Needless to say, not much got done on Wednesday morning, as my father in law, brother in law, and I all had slightly different ideas as to how to deal with the bees. I voted for straight-on chemical warfare, while Stacy (brother in law) decided to take a decidedly more short-term low-tech approach. He decided to plug the hole, and did so. When I plaintively told him “Um... there’s more holes for them to go in and out of if you do that...” his response was, “Yeah, but they’re not gonna come out of that one, are they?” My father in law just chuckled... I'm not really sure whose side he was on.

Stacy was right of course: they didn’t come out of that hole anymore. Unfortunately the bees that were returning, upon finding the plug, started to circle and get very agitated. 15 minutes later, 30 angry bees made getting anywhere near the car a fool’s errand... such that I had to chuckle when Stacy himself got attacked and ran away, even if he was saying “Well I gotta go fill the fert tanks, you have fun with those!” as he did so.

In the end, chemical warfare did the trick. And the bees DID have alternate routes.

No matter now - it’s done and the car is empty (!), and even though I don’t have a picture, there’s actually a bonafide concrete floor in the two bays now. Which means the Mustang was rolled out to do that. Which means come this fall, some actual meaningful work might begin. The Model A will get moved there at least, for starters. Heck, I might even be able to get my sidelined Angstmobile taken care of down there too!

The Continuing Saga of Adventures in HVAC!

I seem to have a weird fascination with residential HVAC systems. I could never leave the one in our old place alone, and the system in our new place, while efficient and sleek, was nonetheless a candidate for investigative open-condenser surgery last year, when it seemed just a *tad* too noisy to me. But it was working, so I left well enough alone.

I’m sure I don't need to tell you how horrible the summer heat has been this year. So it’s a good thing I let my curiosity do me in sometimes, as the condensor finally bit it this June - right smack in the middle of our first (of many and ongoing) unseasonal and unreasonable heat waves. Thanks, Murphy!

To wit, our AC was completely friggin' SHOT. The condensor was making a racket to wake the dead (and neighbors), and spewing enough heat while cooling not-a-damn-thing-indoors to make me briefly wonder if Bethany had seen too many Real Ghostbusters cartoons and reversed the polarity on something.

Now, faced with such a tragedy, the average person will throw themselves upon the feet of their local HVAC specialist, damn the expense. Which - considering the vast mysteries in the average HVAC system and the emergency nature of such calls - leads to any number of expensive repairs. I, however, usually figure “What’s the worst I can do to this now, since electrocuting myself doesn’t count?” so out came the tools and camera and internets...

Diagnosis: Necromancer racket courtesy of a fan motor with bad bearings (arguably a normal wear item)... but I’d suspected and caught the issue before the compressor was forced to commit $eppuku. Which meant that a new motor alone would likely fix the issue... at a cost of only $120 shipped. Leave the unit disassembled while waiting for the replacement to arrive, and it’s only a couple hour job. Even when faced with a “dual run” capacitor I’d never seen before, the wiring diagrams are all right there and hey, did you know you can find ANYTHING on YouTube these days?

I know from others’ experience that a call this year for that problem would have cost anywhere from $500 to $2,500. I did it myself for $120 and a couple hours’ research, learned something in the process, and it’s COLD in here now. Pass the salsa!

Geeks: we may not always get the joke, but we get the last laugh every time. Bazinga!

Radio Rehab Retrofit!

Two side projects that are in the gestational stages:

The console you see above is a 1957 Zenith Hi-Fi AM/FM/Phono console that my brother found abandoned years ago, considered destroying for fun, but then decided I should check out first. He finally brought it up here last Christmas. After rewiring the speakers, cleaning the tube contacts and freeing up the tuner plates... it is a BEAST. If you have any doubt that vacuum tubes render a superior, warmer audio wave, I invite you to come over and listen to this 53-year old MONAURUAL system absolutely C R U S H your eardrums with all of just SIXTEEN WATTS. And it’s not even up to spec! The guts of the amplifier are filled with obsolete wax-lined capacitors and other aged, worn bits of the era - to say they’re running on a miracle of borrowed time is putting it lightly. I have the diagrams, spec sheets and parts lists and will be rebuilding the amp soon (once I find the the cross-checked parts list I made and then lost, sigh...). Sadly though, the original turntable - a unique Zenith Cobramatic made only for a few consoles - is proving to be elusive, but no matter, I’ll get something in there.

The next radio was unearthed in the Mustang Dig, and is a disaster. BUT! It was absolutely stunning in its day. Just look at that dial - an exquisite rendering of art-deco class and Egyptology inspired typefacing! What else would you expect from 1936? Even the control knobs look like little ivory safari hats!

My plans for this are to rebuild the structural cabinet and then send it out to have it re-laminated; I already have a source and rough quote for that work. The original amp and circuitry is too far gone to salvage in any reasonable fashion, so I’m going to replace it with a modern solid-state unit and basically turn this into a streaming internet radio and media player. I plan to preserve the chassis and control interface, and create a new dial using the original vintage typefaces, but labeled for modern functions. Instead of "AM /Shortwave /Phono", I’m figuring something like “OTA Broadcast /Local Media /Aux Input /Internet Radio". I’m thinking to adapt the World Band dial indicators to something like “Internet Band” - indicated with IP blocks mapped to assigned host countries - would be fantastic! But I’ll have to get an Arduino Board and learn how to program it to operate the needle indicator accordingly.

This is an overly ambitious concept, but one I think would be incredible. No promises for updates... as I said, the concept is very gestational right now. But I’ve done a lot of clean and prep so far and should have the cabinet rebuilt soon.

Mark my words: the next time you see the wreck above, it will look like this, but better.

Railroad Requisition!

Remember the New Hope & Ivyland caboose I made in the Shop Update? It was a surprise for a friend, who then promptly said thanks by upping the ante by asking me to make THIS:

out of THIS

To the untrained eye they’re close enough, but once you start looking at them, the differences are both subtle and extensive. Sadly I’ve had the model in the shop since June, but haven’t had time to pay it more than a few cursory / analytical glances. However, a trip to Chicago last week afforded me the chance to pick the expert brain of Bud at The Golden Spike Train Shop in Burbank, who helped me identify and source most of the signature parts I’ll need to pull off the conversion...

...which will be my first steam kitbash. I’m not aiming to count every rivet, but get most of the signature details and differences accounted for. My working timeframe for this to be meaningful may unfortunately be short - if you’re reading this GHB, I’m really wanting to get this done for you so hang in there!

Wanderlust Wonderful

Speaking of Chicago, we just returned from a great trip up there... one of the best in a long time. Anna’s health issues stayed in check, enough to make mine flare up for Karmic balance, oops. The girls were angels, my parents and girls had some wonderful bonding time, and my extended family was absolutely great to visit on the scenic swampy shores of the flooded Des Plaines river near the Cal-Sag channel. I burned out some bittersweet memorial laps at the site of the dearly-departed Santa Fe Speedway (take that, McYuppie bastards), Anna and I had our minds thoroughly scrambled by Inception, and then we met a dear friend and her wonderful family, which netted some new friendships for everyone, as well as one of the most brilliant photos I’ve ever seen of the true joy of kids. It was just a superb trip.

On the way back we took a long detour to check out the Rochelle Railroad Park - a long overdue pilgrimage for me, but one that kept the rest of my family entertained for far longer than I expected (CRANK UP THE VOLUME)...

Still, it wasn't long enough to make a random detour out of the way, south through IL on the way home, not worth pursuing. It's hard not to feel better about things when the majesty of creation's abundance lies all around you.

Also, I’ve been at work getting my youngest to get some musical acumen. Bethany seems to take to my whimsical and techno minded tastes, while Beverly - feisty thing she is - leans toward the harder end of the spectrum....

What lies ahead? The KY State Slog Fair, Ginseng season, the above projects, the rest of life, my ongoing insanity... and oh, Bethany starts kindergarten soon. Like tomorrow. OMGWTFBBQ

And my ongoing health issues I’ve made fleeting references to in the past, have been building up to a crystal in the fog... hoping for some answers soon, and the energy to go about life with zest, start writing for Hooniverse again, and get back in the swing of things...

So with that, the drinks are on me if you made it this far. Thanks for reading and tune in next time...