We’re expecting five storms in rapid sequence over the next week. Some of them hard and windy. So should I go offline at any time, don’t worry. It’s not the ATF, FBI, CIA, or NSA. Just Ma Nature.
This will be a good test of how well my tape job did on fixing Old Blue’s leaks. So far so good after a week of normal wet conditions. Few drops of water in the trunk, but no lakes, rivers, or waterfalls in the passenger compartment.
Another table
The library held a mosaics class one morning last month. While everybody else worked on wooden planks the teacher provided, I decided to do another table. Specifically this one:
The table itself is another “foundling,” of course (aren’t they all?). I chopped it out of overgrown bushes at the last old house I lived in. Its bare wood was warped and its wrought iron rusty and crusty, but you can see it had potential. Yes, it has chicken feet on the bottom and leaves at the top; don’t ask me why.
It’s been following me around for five years (must be those chicken feet!) and I haven’t had any idea what do to with it. I sanded it last summer and sprayed it with Rustoleum in hammered copper color. Didn’t know how to work over that warped wood though.
Turns out mosaic is very forgiving of the uneven surface.
In the three-hour class I had time only to do the top, not the lower shelf or the edges. Also, since we had a scant hour between placing tiles and grouting, the freshly glued tiles moved around a bit. But turned out not bad, even with that. Must finish the rest later.
I still have yet another wrought-iron table I cut out of those bushes. Guess that’s for next year.
Things not important enough for an NYT front-page editorial
Jonah Goldberg has a telling list of a few things the New York Times didn’t think were important enough to editorialize about on its front page over the last 95 years.
The Peace of Versailles, Buck v. Bell, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Ukrainian famine, the internment of Japanese-Americans, the Tuskegee experiments, the Holocaust, McCarthyism, the Marshall Plan, Jim Crow, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy Assassination, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Kent State, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Watergate, withdrawal from Vietnam, the Killing Fields, the Iran hostage crisis, the Contras, AIDS, gay marriage, the Iran nuclear deal
But the non-existent “epidemic”* of guns? Which even the WaPost admits is a phony? That they clear the front page for.
Goldberg also points out something I suspect a lot of people have noticed but didn’t necessarily comment on: The Times’ front-and-center whine isn’t even well-written. It’s just the standard old emotional crap (albeit with the further step of wanting ugly guns not only outlawed but taken away — “give[en] up for the sake of their fellow citizens”). For the first time in 95 years, they cleared page one for an editorial, then somebody hashed the thing together out of recycled speeches to ladies groups or somesuch.
Desperate, they are. Losing, they are. Clueless, they are, about the state of the nation and the realities of firearms and we who own them. Flustered, they are, that We the Peasants no longer heed them. But still arrogant as all get out.
Now if they want to start worrying about “assault clothing” …
They may have to start conducting raids on Home Depot. When even your friendly neighborhood hardware-garden-supply-and-lumber conglomerate sells items like this, you know the times they are a’ changin’.**
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* H/T JB
** H/T LS
“It’s not the ATF, FBI, CIA, or NSA. Just Ma Nature.”
I wouldn’t put it past them to take advantage of the situation 😉
In the meantime it’s a good time to review disaster prep. plans and equipment. Time to stock up on some more amazon linked items.
That’s somewhat amusing, that now even Home Depot is selling “tacticool” stuff. But not surprising. A few years back, I noticed Sears doing this, and Wal-Mart has been doing it for a while too. Retailers are chasing Amazon. Go to Wal-Mart’s web site, and you have to explicitly filter for items sold by them, and filter further for things available in the store. Heck, that’s why I check the brick’n’mortar websites – to find out if I can drive over and pick up whatever thing it is I’m looking for, or stop by on my way home from work.
But I’m pretty sure I’m not the typical retail consumer.
That’s a nice job on that table. If I were doing something like that, I think I wouldn’t be able to proceed with flattening the top and smoothing out the sides. I suppose that having various thicknesses of tile available helps with that situation.
I’m afraid my disaster prepping has gone by the wayside. I do have a lot of stuff, but if I have to bug out, I’m pretty well screwed, I think. And a lot of is still pretty disorganized.
Whether the mosaics remain uneven or not depends on what you’re going to use the table for. I like the tiles-moved-around-a-bit effect of the design–it gives it a more casual look.
That wrought iron table looks as if it might be a ‘genu-wine’ deco or nouveau period piece. Did you ever look for a signature? No matter, it’s beautiful now.
The table looks great! Did you have the tiles or were they provided by the class?
I’ve been too busy raising Giant Puppy to keep up on my preps. Right now, prepping consists of keeping the truck backed up to the garage, with a shovel standing ready. Oh, well, it’s rainy season in the Northwet, so I’ll have a month or so to catch up.
Nice job on the table. It looks like an uneven surface – does the tequila bottle wobble while on it?
You’ll be pleased to hear that the tequila bottle (aka cup of coffee or tea) fits nicely on the center tile. And a plate of decadent honey-dipped dried apricots fits nicely between the four round glass baubles.
Yes, the surface is uneven and that was unavoidable. But if it becomes troublesome, I’ll superglue a tempered glass round to the blue baubles.
The main tiles were among the thousands the teacher brought to the class. The small backgroundy ones I brought from home. I’d been meaning to use them on a table for ages.
As to genu-wine anty-que, could be, but I suspect not. I’m sure the wood rounds are later additions and any makers mark probably disappeared whenever what was originally there got removed. OTOH, it might not have had any shelves originally, just iron rings to hold plant pots or somesuch.
BTW, Unclezip — Good luck with Giant Puppy (what kind of Giant Puppy, BTW?) and for the sake of all us in the NorthWET here’s hoping the storms aren’t as bad as the weatherperson’s warn. One down and four to go so far (though it’s supposed to just keep raining between the “official” storms so how we tell when we’ve had them all, I don’t know).
“I wouldn’t put it past them to take advantage of the situation ;)”
They would do that, wouldn’t they? However, I’m betting that if they haven’t gotten me by now, I’m really too small a target to interest them. Either that, or they don’t want to face the howl of outrage the Commentariat and many fellow bloggers would no doubt raise.
Besides, I’m as innocent as the day is long. Really.
Giant Puppy is a 6 month old, 75 pound Bernese Mountain dog. Quite the handful, and a hoot to have around. He’s getting ready to start cart training in a few months, as Dad will need help transporting beer.
Oh, Bernese Mountain dogs are gorgeous! And transporting beer? Perfect. I can imagine “handful,” though.
Hmm,
Is it possible that it was an umbrella/cane stand with no top piece and a removable [to empty the water] water collection dish/pan/bucket below?
Just a guess.
I like the table but love my kalidescope spy glass best.
stay safe,
capn
“Is it possible that it was an umbrella/cane stand with no top piece and a removable [to empty the water] water collection dish/pan/bucket below?”
Creative thought, but now that I’ve examined the underside again, no. Where the lower shelf is, there was probably just a metal ring originally. But a top shelf was always intended to be there. There are quite substantial tabs for attaching it.
Some of those metal rings had just a glass shelf inserted in a grooved edge. It may have gotten broken.
Ahhh. Quite possibly, Pat. I hadn’t thought of that.