Ike Recovery #9

Plumbing! Yes citizens, It's plumbing! It's the latest rage! It's the newest thing to hit Rome! It pipes water from one place to another!

This is the sewer pipe, running from the house...

...into the ground...

...passes two cleanouts...

...to the street...

...to the sewer line.

Fresh water comes from the meter...

...and goes under the driveway

to.... ?
Hopefully I'll get some images of that before it is covered by the ground. Check back later!

Ike Recovery#8

To paraphrase a mythical Scottish Starship Engineer: "Admiral!, there be pilings here!"

Ike Recovery #7

The open pit at the house seems to be an old cesspit or septic tank:

The contractor had put down red paint showing the corners of the house:

Ike Recovery #6

Dirt work was completed at the house. The next step is pilings and the concrete slab.

After walking around the site - now officially "The Site", no longer "The Lot" previously called "The Wreck" and previously called "The House" I discovered this:

The top of some sort of box, made of concrete that was buried in the ground caved in, and filled wth water. I'm not clear what this box did - perhaps a grease trap? a cistern? I may investigate it more this weekend to see if I can figure out what it was.

Ike Recovery #5

Finally the building permit is done, and posted:

Fill dirt is coming in:

It looks like we will have to go with wooden pilings. It's too uncertain if we could drive the concrete pilings the required 10 feet down before they achieve refusal. Cutting concrete pre formed pilings would be very expensive, whereas wooden pilings would be much more easily done. Concrete is stronger, but wood should be sufficient.

The 10 foot requirement come from the county. For some reason we are not allowed to use spread footer bases in our flood zone (V-18). Such is life when the condition of dealing with government entities. None are pleasant to work with, no matter how local they may be.

A Lileks ReTweet Theatre

Based on James Lileks' post of this day.

Bunco - the game that's sweeping the nation!

At least in Mr Lileks' wife's circle of friends.

Found a picture of this game at Big Lots a few weeks ago. Never heard of it before, just thought it was a crime from watching "Dragnet"

There's a wikipedia entry for it.
I guess it is a real game. But I still doubt it's "sweeping the nation" At least not this nation. Otherwise it wouldn't be for sale in Big Lots.

Boorish Bartender

I had an uncommon experience with rudeness in a bartender last night. Met up with some friends after sailing and saw they were having Sam Adams in those interesting glasses the use in their ads, and I thought it sounded good. So I go up to the bar. The guy there says, "What do you want?"
"Sam Adams"
"What?"
"Sam Adams Lager, please."
"We don't have that!" (Tap with big Sam Adams Logo handle is clearly visible behind him.)
Before I can ask for an alternative, He turns around and walks to his cash register and starts poking the screen. I'm standing there, nonplussed.
My internal monologue at this point goes something like this:

"Wait, he’s doing this wrong. The proper response should be 'I'm sorry, we're out of Sam Adams, is there something else I can get you? We have Shiner Bock...' "

I wait, thinking the guy must have had something really urgent come up and was giving me time to make another choice. 20 seconds pass, 30 seconds... That uncomfortable feeling starts coming into my solar plexus. Ummm, no. He's not coming back. I back away from the bar, go to the outside patio where another bartender is, and get something else. Mostly I was shocked. and a little angry as I thought about it.

Needless to say, the next time I’m there I’m not going to him to buy a drink.

Today in History

.... .- .--. .--. -.-- / -... .. .-. - .... -.. .- -.-- / ... .- -- ..- . .-.. / -- --- .-. ... .

A "Rebleat Theatre":

I've been a reader of James Lileks' web site for a while now. I like his sense of humor and his devotion to mid 20th century kitsch. He posted an absolutely hilarious Fisk of a column written by George Will about the evils of (dum Da DUM!) - Denim! Yes! that cloth that only the working class should use!
So, in tribute to the wit of Mr. Lileks, I created this, an homage to his "Retweet Theatre" which I call "Rebleat theatre":

Congress honors Pi

While I appreciate the beauty that is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to it's diameter is, the idea of Congress spending its time honoring it cuts no ice with me.

From this article via the Politico.

“I am asking our nation’s students and teachers, for all of our sake, to go out and have fun around Pi Day,” said Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.) who managed the bill on the floor this week for the House Science Committee.

'Have fun around Pi day'? Huh?
I have visions of urchins running around in circles, screaming "Yay!! It's Pi day!"

“It makes you realize how consequential you really are,” Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) said with a smile.

Really? Pi makes you feel consequential? don't you have something important to do? you are a congressman, after all.

“I’m kind of geeked up about it,” Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) told POLITICO. “It’s crazy, but I’m a whole lot more excited about that than congratulating the winner of last year’s Rose Bowl.

I take it you're not into bowling, Brian.

Now get back to work. Or maybe not.
Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. If Congress weren't busy honoring Pi, they would be passing the Omnibus Porkulous bill, or adding earmarks to other stupid bills.

so, here's an idea:
I want Congress to honor the following numbers:

e: 2.71828182845904523536…. Do it next February 7th.

phi: 1.6180339887... The golden ratio... but some might think we were worshipping the sacred feminine...

i: The square root of -1 But now I'm imagining things, right?

Actually, let's have a day for every mathematical constant yet discovered! That should keep Congress busy and stopping them from restricting any more of our freedoms.

update. Greta Van Sustern on Fox news made the distinction between Pi and Pie... Our educational system is SO bad if people have no idea what "Pi" is.

Where things are

The old house was demolished in January, after a lot of haggling and fighting with Galveston County officials over whether or not it was more than 50% damaged. Considering it was a cinder block house on the first floor, we had 75" of flood water in the first floor and the electrical system was inside the cinder block, the entire bottom floor would have been nearly impossible to re-wire without building new wall inside those cinder block walls and running new lines. Result - loss of square footage which was already cramped for me and my wife (no kids, just three cats).

I took video of some of the demolition, and some photos. I need to post them somewhere. Still trying to figure out how to edit and play with video so it looks decent for an amateur.

I want to change this blog over to Wordpress from movable type, as Word press is open source. Movable type is good but they stopped providing free versions for use on personal websites. If I were to actually gain money or try to gain money or notoriety (God forbid) I'd buy the software, but I've got a day job.

Speaking of which, it's time to get off to that.

Oh, - Sailing season starts in April. Surprise's Log will start to be updated more regularly, and I hope to have on board video a little this year. not real-time video, but playbacks. System is definitely a home brew, so I don't know how well it will work.

Make an entry.

Need to make and entry and justify why I have this thing. no one reads it, not even me. 'Cause I never update it. I admire people like James Lileks who seem to find the time ot find all sorts of interesting ephemera, and subject matter to discuss and can spin it in an interesting way. Me, I sit here thinking the most interesting thing I have is that It's 7 am, I gotta get going to work and I don't have any coffee, breakfast, or socks on my feet, and the kitten is carrying on like a Psycho ball of fur.. Wait. Isn't that the definition of a kitten?

I've gotten a facebook account and a twitter account. If anyone reads this and has one, try contacting me there.

More Piracy

There has been an increase in piracy in recent years. I remarked a few weeks ago it would be as well to deal with them in the old fashioned manner, but regardless they need to be dealt with.

One of the latest stories here, from in the UK guardian:

Joe the plumber is a great guy

Having gone through Hurricane Ike, I have a lot of appreciation for guys like Joe the plumber who allow me to have a hot shower, clean water, and allow me to flush sewage away instead of using an outhouse. I get annoyed when people in the media and in politics put guys like him down because he doesn't like the idea of giving more of his earnings away to the government so thay can "spread the wealth around".