Once registration was over, the first thing he said was that he always held these classes in a hotel. At the end of the evening some of us would not want to drive. Anywhere. So we could spend the night. We all laughed politely. It seemed like such a lame attempt at a joke.
We all knew how to drive. We knew the rules and regulations, had likely been driving for many years, several of which had even been here in Arizona. This was just a handy way of getting that pesky little speeding ticket, illegal turn, or whatever minor offense off of our records. Because the first thing different down here was that taking the class eliminated the offense. MVD never got informed in the first place, never mind needing to get it "erased". Our insurance companies could never get the information for an excuse to raise our rates for the next 39 months, because after the class there was no information to be gotten. And hey, if anybody needed it, this could be repeated once a year.
Or we, or our kids learning to drive, could just take it because it was a good idea. We'd learn things. Practical things. Finer points of interpretations of the law, as well as safer driving. Things that should keep us from ever being required to come back.
To emphasize that point, he handed out a test to fill out. We could even chat with our neighbors to discuss the correct answers. Really simple, right? We knew this stuff, had it cold, were positive about our answers, scratched our heads when our neighbors had different answers than we did and were just as positive about theirs.
Need I mention that we all found out what we didn't know? Even the people whose driving had happened solely in Arizona? And as an out-stater, long time commercial driver with approximately 2 million miles under my belt, but in another state, I was astounded at just how much of what I knew was wrong.
It truly is different down here.
Arizona is ranked as the worst driving state in the union. We have three cities that rank nationally as 1, 3, and 5 on the worst drivers scale. We haven't even banned texting while driving yet, though Tempe just put a city-wide law into effect to do that. Also no cells, no cameras, etc.
Do you know where the Tempe city boundaries are?
I have done enough multi-state driving to have made a point of checking which of several laws are in effect where I plan to go. Right turn OK on red? Stay right except to pass? Pedestrian rights / obligations? Move over a lane to avoid emergency vehicles on shoulder? Lights on in the rain? Cell phone restrictions? Once I moved down here, I picked up a copy of the rules of the road before switching my license over to here, and read it, looking for differences. Aside from finding no cell phone or texting restrictions, I thought it was all pretty much the same. If you can drive there, you can drive here; that was my conclusion.
Half my test answers were wrong! Take speed limits. I tend to watch them closely. I also tend to watch other vehicles zoom past as they ignore them, particularly on freeways. I've seen posted speeds anywhere from 15 to 25 in school zones, 55 to 75 on freeways (where 55 means traffic flows at 65, barring accidents, and 65 means 80+), 2-lane streets from 25 to 30, and 4-lanes from 40-45. I found out I didn't actually know what the default speed limits were. For the record, school zones are 15, residential and business streets are 25, highways are 55, and freeways are 65 in the city, and outstate only increase to 75 where there is an actual physical sign that says so!
If you think this only matters when you can identify a squad car nearby, AZ can use undercover vehicles like Mustangs, invite you to race them from a stop by revving their engines, and tag you for rising to the bait. That undercover vehicle is even legally allowed to carry an out-of-state license plate. But who needs a cop when the state is putting cameras up all around, and has gotten savvy enough to take 2 pictures of any offending vehicle, one of the license in the rear, one of the driver.
Back to speeds. Any ticket more than 20 mph over the speed limit, or over 85 regardless, is no longer a civil (pay the fine) offense but a criminal one. Meaning life gets complicated. Any time they can write you up for three offenses at once, it's criminal. So if you speed, forget your seat belt, let a bulb burn out, do an illegal lane change or a sloppy rolling stop, any three, watch out! Even if it's just a "simple" speeding ticket, each community can set its own fine levels, so they can vary from just over $100 to over $600.
Think you know when you can legally execute a U turn? Think again. Any left turn sign either at an intersection, or within a block enabling, for example, entry to a shopping center actually prohibits a U-turn. The only legal U-turn is in a left turn lane without a sign.
They're hard to find.
You may as well take a legal left into a parking lot, turn around and come out, making a right turn to complete your directional change. Of course, when you are pulling our from private property like that parking lot or your driveway, you must first make a full stop. Sign or no
sign. Full stop. Then you must yield to everybody already on the road.
But then again, left turns too are problematic. Yes, they're legal, except....
Understand there is no recognized vehicle right-of-way legally down here, So even if you have a left turn arrow and everybody, and I mean everybody else has a red light, and you're making a left turn, if you get involved in a collision it's your ticket! That holds even if the car which hit you had to break the law in order to do so. Your ticket! It's so bad that companies like UPS and Fed EX have their drivers all make only right turns. If that means passing your turn, taking three rights around the block to be able to go straight in the direction you wanted, it's still all just right turns.
Our instructor recommended that practice to all of us.
There is one situation where you are not at fault if you get hit while making that left turn in an intersection. At the green, pull forward and wait for everybody oncoming to clear, even if they run a red light and you're sitting out in the middle of the intersection unable to move before your light turns red. When cross traffic gets their green, they are legally not allowed into the intersection until all traffic has cleared, including you who have been sitting there more or less patiently. If they start as soon as they get the green and wind up hitting you, it's their ticket, not yours.
That of course does wonders at erasing any crunchies or injuries they may inflict.
Four way stops are another example of there being no legal right of way. It is the usual requirement that if two arrive at the intersection at the same time, drivers yield to any driver on their right. Who also have to yield to anybody on their right before they can proceed. Who also must yield to any driver on their right, who must in turn yield to you. Any time three or four drivers reach a 4-way, legally things proceed one car at a time. Not two and two as most of us are used to and is practiced despite the law down here. So when you're facing north and the southbound driver takes their turn, you are not also allowed to take yours.
It could easily be one of those little extra things to write on your ticket, or that gives a reason for you to be pulled over. You know, by that sporty Mustang with the California plates.
Not only are cameras in place for speeders, they are in intersections with sensors that note just exactly where you stop. Exactly. The legal procedure is to stop at the stop line, the first line you come to across your lane. It's back a few feet from the intersection, and you can't properly see cross traffic for that right turn you want to make on red once it's clear. So after your proper stop you may creep forward until you can see it's safe to make that turn. The sensors are set both before and after that stop line. If you didn't stop in time, the first one is triggered. The only way at that point to avoid a violation is to stop before making your turn and stay stopped. No matter if traffic thins and you could otherwise take that turn, stay stopped. Once you get a green light, the system resets and you can proceed without getting recorded.
Minnesota recently required drivers to move left - or slow way down if that lane is blocked - when an emergency vehicle with lights flashing is on the shoulder, extending the requirement to when utility vehicles are on the shoulder as well. Many states now have a version of that law. Down here, it's - you guessed it - a tad different.
Any vehicle stopped on the shoulder counts for the requirement for you to pull over. If the land next to the road is level and dry and the vehicle pulled off by 30 feet, it still counts! Not only that, they are still legally considered to be using the right lane whether they are partly in it or not. So the next lane over must be kept clear for them, and you need to pull over into the 3rd lane in order to clear them. Of course, you can slow way-y-y-y-y down in order to pass when you can't move that far over, should the desired lane be blocked, traffic be too fast or closely tailgating each other for you to maneuver in, or that 3rd lane not even exist.
There' a twist for crosswalks down here. Pedestrians rule in a crosswalk at all times. That's not different. But watch out for the color of the crosswalk lines. White is a regular crossing, meaning you may proceed once your whole side from curb to center median is clear. Yellow means you're in a school zone, whether you noticed the signs or not, and you may not move across the crosswalk unless it is cleared of pedestrians from curb to curb.
Speaking of curb to curb, when emergency vehicles are approaching you with lights flashing, you must pull over. You think you know that. But many states say that on roads with a center median, if it's on the other side you may continue forward. Here you must pull over and stop whichever side of the road it is on. Even on a divided highway.
Try not to get rear-ended when you are the only one who knows the law.
We thought our instructor was joking when he said some of us might not feel like driving home after class was over. As he dismissed us, many of us weren't sure any more whether it was safe for us to be out there or not.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Give Me COLOR!
I'm coming down (perhaps "up"?) from nearly 30 years of wearing uniforms, most of which required navy as the main part. That, over the years, could (must) be paired with federal blue, black, charcoal, or ... you guessed it ... more navy. Shoes were white, or black: no biggie, because that is what serious shoes came in, white or black. And the navy I didn't mind, really. Being blue-eyed, I had always been told that was "my" color. And it tends to bring out the orange in my skin, an improvement from all the red to my way of thinking.
Shopping was easy. Navy was always a staple, even as jeans became the casual American uniform. All I had to do was pick navy or what blended. See above. And I was very content to hide behind the neutrality of that palette. At work, I was identifiable, not as me but as a part of the uniformed tribe.
Even after retiring, navy was still the primary go-to choice for a while. I still had all those navy or grey pants with very little wear, a sufficient supply to last for years. For the record, the one pair I've tossed was already full of holes, brought down here as something grubby to wear for those jobs that might destroy otherwise good pants. Besides, I love the texture of those pants, probably why the wear pattern was right where my hand rested on them while taking a break from the steering wheel.
Navy so monopolized my life that back in '91 when I had the Minnesota house built I painted my bedroom a shade of blue that blended perfectly with that color, a pale greyed shade called Heron blue, and bought a bed comforter to match. That was ME at rest. Comfortable. Inoffensive. Automatic. Blah.
Underneath the navy, there was white. I grew up being told underthings were white. Just white. Always. If - horrors! - it ever showed, the world could instantly tell how fastidious, moral, and well-groomed you were by how white that white was. Plus, undies with dyes in them would lead to a lady developing a UTI, so for heaven's sake at least buy something with a white cotton-lined crotch if one dared to delve into a little naughtiness with color.
It's been my experience that UTIs are really caused by dehydration resulting in lack of flushing out the system, poor personal hygiene, sex with a partner who didn't consider his own personal hygiene to be of any concern to his partner, or too high levels of blood sugar. Not undies. Especially not colored undies. So those were my first, hidden, venture into adding colors to my life. Now there must be a dozen different colors popping out when the drawer opens, neatly folded and stacked, of course.
With retirement pending, my latest shoe purchase was a pair of very bright blue shoes with touches of yellow, and a pair of green and pink ones. The blue were for work, despite the recent company crackdown on black-only shoes. What? They were going to send me away early when they were already bemoaning how they would ever fill my niche of long days, late hours, and willingness to travel anywhere to the tune, often, of over 500 miles a day? I'd risk it. And did.
Not one word.
With the purchase of the Arizona house, I decided to alter my color palette a little. While the living/dining room is still a pale cornflower blue, and the concrete floor painted slate grey, options being very limited there, the Persian rugs defining usage spaces both have generous patterning of burgundy, and my recliner is all burgundy. The rug in the lanai, otherwise in a very neutral cream, has intense greens and rose shades throughout. My bedroom, for the first time ever, I had done in two different intensities of teal. You can still call it blue, though many call it green, and think of it as a southwestern turquoise shade, but it is color, color, COLOR. Accents in furniture and window blinds are white, bringing out the teal even more.
Of course, the old, perfectly serviceable grey-blue comforter needed to be replaced, though for the record, I still own it for the comfort of cool-weather guests, should there be any who chose to visit during that month. While clerking an auction a few years back, I spotted a bedspread with some curls of a dark teal wandering through the design, and without much thought as to what the rest of it might look like inside its bag, I put in a winning bid on it. Upon finally opening it to lay out on my bed, I was surprised to discover that the rest of the swirls pattern includes deep non-metalic gold, fuchsia, and a violet-purple. Little flecks of black all over too, to keep it from being obnoxious.
I love it!
In fact, I love it so much I have trouble setting it aside during those super hot nights in late spring and early fall. After all, the blankets under it are simply ugly, never mind that they are cotton thermal and nicely cool with just a touch of warmth for the wee hours just before waking. I just love those colors. All of them. All together.
With the old long work days, I basically wore uniform shirts 5 days a week while not in pajamas, also mostly navy by the way. So I needed a new shirt wardrobe. Just in time, a line of cheap, multi-colored, glittery hot-weather shirts became widely available (OK, I admit it was Wal Mart) and I snatched up a few. And some more. In fact, mostly everything in those shirts they sold. Not a single offering on their shelves was in navy. Of course, most of what they will be paired with is still navy, but the pants are still serviceable and I'm neither silly enough nor wealthy enough to toss them all out. So I make do.
Baby steps.
I went out for some new sweats a couple weeks ago. I bet you think I bought a lot of purple, don't you? Well, those had already been picked over and my size was out, so I came home with ... navy.
And grey.
But I did find a pretty (or pretty thin) hoodie and a matching thermal long sleeved shirt in teal too. The matching pants were sold out in my size, of course.
I plan to keep trying.
Shopping was easy. Navy was always a staple, even as jeans became the casual American uniform. All I had to do was pick navy or what blended. See above. And I was very content to hide behind the neutrality of that palette. At work, I was identifiable, not as me but as a part of the uniformed tribe.
Even after retiring, navy was still the primary go-to choice for a while. I still had all those navy or grey pants with very little wear, a sufficient supply to last for years. For the record, the one pair I've tossed was already full of holes, brought down here as something grubby to wear for those jobs that might destroy otherwise good pants. Besides, I love the texture of those pants, probably why the wear pattern was right where my hand rested on them while taking a break from the steering wheel.
Navy so monopolized my life that back in '91 when I had the Minnesota house built I painted my bedroom a shade of blue that blended perfectly with that color, a pale greyed shade called Heron blue, and bought a bed comforter to match. That was ME at rest. Comfortable. Inoffensive. Automatic. Blah.
Underneath the navy, there was white. I grew up being told underthings were white. Just white. Always. If - horrors! - it ever showed, the world could instantly tell how fastidious, moral, and well-groomed you were by how white that white was. Plus, undies with dyes in them would lead to a lady developing a UTI, so for heaven's sake at least buy something with a white cotton-lined crotch if one dared to delve into a little naughtiness with color.
It's been my experience that UTIs are really caused by dehydration resulting in lack of flushing out the system, poor personal hygiene, sex with a partner who didn't consider his own personal hygiene to be of any concern to his partner, or too high levels of blood sugar. Not undies. Especially not colored undies. So those were my first, hidden, venture into adding colors to my life. Now there must be a dozen different colors popping out when the drawer opens, neatly folded and stacked, of course.
With retirement pending, my latest shoe purchase was a pair of very bright blue shoes with touches of yellow, and a pair of green and pink ones. The blue were for work, despite the recent company crackdown on black-only shoes. What? They were going to send me away early when they were already bemoaning how they would ever fill my niche of long days, late hours, and willingness to travel anywhere to the tune, often, of over 500 miles a day? I'd risk it. And did.
Not one word.
With the purchase of the Arizona house, I decided to alter my color palette a little. While the living/dining room is still a pale cornflower blue, and the concrete floor painted slate grey, options being very limited there, the Persian rugs defining usage spaces both have generous patterning of burgundy, and my recliner is all burgundy. The rug in the lanai, otherwise in a very neutral cream, has intense greens and rose shades throughout. My bedroom, for the first time ever, I had done in two different intensities of teal. You can still call it blue, though many call it green, and think of it as a southwestern turquoise shade, but it is color, color, COLOR. Accents in furniture and window blinds are white, bringing out the teal even more.
Of course, the old, perfectly serviceable grey-blue comforter needed to be replaced, though for the record, I still own it for the comfort of cool-weather guests, should there be any who chose to visit during that month. While clerking an auction a few years back, I spotted a bedspread with some curls of a dark teal wandering through the design, and without much thought as to what the rest of it might look like inside its bag, I put in a winning bid on it. Upon finally opening it to lay out on my bed, I was surprised to discover that the rest of the swirls pattern includes deep non-metalic gold, fuchsia, and a violet-purple. Little flecks of black all over too, to keep it from being obnoxious.
I love it!
In fact, I love it so much I have trouble setting it aside during those super hot nights in late spring and early fall. After all, the blankets under it are simply ugly, never mind that they are cotton thermal and nicely cool with just a touch of warmth for the wee hours just before waking. I just love those colors. All of them. All together.
With the old long work days, I basically wore uniform shirts 5 days a week while not in pajamas, also mostly navy by the way. So I needed a new shirt wardrobe. Just in time, a line of cheap, multi-colored, glittery hot-weather shirts became widely available (OK, I admit it was Wal Mart) and I snatched up a few. And some more. In fact, mostly everything in those shirts they sold. Not a single offering on their shelves was in navy. Of course, most of what they will be paired with is still navy, but the pants are still serviceable and I'm neither silly enough nor wealthy enough to toss them all out. So I make do.
Baby steps.
I went out for some new sweats a couple weeks ago. I bet you think I bought a lot of purple, don't you? Well, those had already been picked over and my size was out, so I came home with ... navy.
And grey.
But I did find a pretty (or pretty thin) hoodie and a matching thermal long sleeved shirt in teal too. The matching pants were sold out in my size, of course.
I plan to keep trying.
Monday, December 7, 2015
Shuttin' Her Down ...Oops
For those of you who missed the excitement, or worse, for those of you who didn't but had no idea what was going on, it was all my fault. I freely confess: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
I shut down the whole rec center. Just me. The whole thing. Everybody had to leave.
It started out with perfectly good intentions.
Honest.
No, really.
Joining the lapidary club comes with obligations as well as the privileges of instructional classes, use of expensive equipment, and being able to display/sell your creations in the sales shop. You need to pay your dues and class fees, of course. And you need to volunteer a few hours to the club each month.
For me, that's been a bit of a problem. I could sell other folk's jewelry, but with the scooter I'd be a very unruly bull in the china shop. Same for the parts sales room for the members. I could be a room monitor, but I need silversmithing class (mucho $$$) to understand some of the equipment in order to properly either turn it on or shut it safely off. So finding my niche has been a challenge. I've still been taking classes and using the equipment, but cannot sell anything through the club. There is a definite incentive, besides personal pride, to figure out how I fit in.
Ideas have been proposed. Last year things were going missing, and it was suggested I could review our in-shop security tapes to pinpoint a culprit... or more. But that activity stopped and I wasn't needed. Our outgoing president thought I might be able to take just the equipment/safety portion of the silver class - free - in order to be able to be a monitor, but others shot that idea down. I'd need the whole thing at the full fee. The hunt continued.
Then last week Donna offered a solution: I could clean. Understand, everybody is supposed to clean the equipment they've just finished using. Apparently most of them skipped that part of their classes. I've always tried to be the good Girl Scout and leave it better than I found it- not a difficult thing to do. Most of the cleaning happens at my reachable heights, or does when it happens. So yes, I can do that!
This morning I showed up all gung ho to get going. I had a few stones which needed their final polish with Zam, something I was unable to do last week because lack of a monitor forced closure of the shop just before I got to that point in my process. But that only took a few minutes. I still couldn't use the slabbing saw on a fat rock since it was "red-tagged" for needing repairs. Still. After at least three weeks. But that left me between projects with plenty of time to share with the club, cleaning.
Every step of the lapidary process, from rock chunk to polished jewelry-ready stone, has one thing in common. They all produce rock dust. If you are using the equipment correctly, the dust is mostly contained in either water or oil lubricant. This means every droplet or splash leaves behind a splotch as it dries, white or colored, depending on the stone in use. These are not only unsightly, they can build up and wear down the equipment faster. Even when wiped off hastily with a damp towel after use, the machinery carries a thin rock dust coating on it. If not wiped, it and everything around it will be covered with splotches, running drips, and streaks.
Somebody else was cleaning the saws room, so I started in the grinders room. Just for clarity, this room is not the only location of grinders and polishers, but it is dedicated solely to them. By the time I neared the end of the first counter, over an hour had passed, and I had cleaned spaces where I'd never even thought to look for crap while I had been using the equipment. I started seeing accumulations of stuff in crevices and corners heretofore undreamt of. Mostly I could deal with them "well enough" with my frequently rinsed wet towel. But I finally reached the most-used machines where, logically enough, the deepest accumulations of dirt resided.
I started by locating an old table knife, thin and firm enough to scrape up over a quarter inch of rock dust and lint in narrow spaces between the machines and the frames which secured them to the counter tops. Most of that, once loosened, I was able to encourage to head out the front side where my hand could act as a large scoop to take it over to one of the trash cans. Some of it, however, exited out the back, into a narrow space between parts of the equipment where nothing really reached.
Not to worry: one of the guys had the perfect idea! (You notice this was a guy, right?) He turned on the shop vac, aimed the hose into the narrow area, and... well, maybe somebody could locate a narrow crevice tool to fit the hose another day. He had his own project to get back to. I plodded on, doing what I could, leaving what I had to. But notice, please, that the shop vac worked perfectly for him.
Remember earlier where I said the rock dust mainly was confined to the water/lubricant areas? Well, the machines I was cleaning have trays underneath, partly to hold the water running through, partly to evacuate water out a tube attached about half an inch up from the bottom. While nobody has explained the purpose of its height to me, I assume it is to keep the worst, aka heaviest, of the particles in the tray so the water exits with the least clogging of downstream plumbing. If that's not the reason, it's certainly the result. After months of use without cleaning, the bottoms of those pans hold a thick slurry. Any stone dropped in them is instantly invisible, and fingers that go fishing them out come out coated in the color of the month which is never the color of one's skin or nails and which defies all washing and brushing attempts to effect removal. I'd been thinking for a long time that somebody ought to clean those out.
Today that somebody was me. The thing is, one can only really clean them out while they are dry and caked, meaning before somebody uses that particular machine for that day, leaving me two that could be cleaned. A wedge of wood (there are plenty around, just with a different use) will scrape up and break up the sediment for fairly easy removal.
Or at least it should be easy. Access to the tray bottoms themselves involves enough angles and obstructions that what appears a wide space is in fact quite narrow. But AH-HAH! I had been shown the way: the shop vac. Its hose was both large enough for efficiency and small enough to maneuver in the spaces required. And let me mention, once again, that a GUY had just used it for exactly the same thing, just different spaces. And with no problems.
Murphy's law has a new corollary. The time it takes for a shop vac without a filter on the back end to kick enough dust into the air to set off the smoke detectors is only a quarter of the time needed to for a person using it with their back turned to the machine to notice what is happening and shut it off. You know: two seconds.
We in lapidary all knew what the cause of the alarms and evacuation notice, loudly and constantly repeated to the point of ear pain, was: me. And rock dust. There was no fire. No emergency. One of the club members trotted down to the main desk to explain the situation so the fire truck callout could be cancelled. We were still all evacuated, staff members checking rooms to chase us all out. It took about 10 minutes for the alarm/notice to shut off and for staff to allow us back in.
I finished cleaning the area I had been working on. There was no point in leaving it a worse mess than I'd found it. After that, I decided I'd roll on home, relax, have lunch, read a book. You know, before I managed to create another incident.
It's a rare and unique talent.
I shut down the whole rec center. Just me. The whole thing. Everybody had to leave.
It started out with perfectly good intentions.
Honest.
No, really.
Joining the lapidary club comes with obligations as well as the privileges of instructional classes, use of expensive equipment, and being able to display/sell your creations in the sales shop. You need to pay your dues and class fees, of course. And you need to volunteer a few hours to the club each month.
For me, that's been a bit of a problem. I could sell other folk's jewelry, but with the scooter I'd be a very unruly bull in the china shop. Same for the parts sales room for the members. I could be a room monitor, but I need silversmithing class (mucho $$$) to understand some of the equipment in order to properly either turn it on or shut it safely off. So finding my niche has been a challenge. I've still been taking classes and using the equipment, but cannot sell anything through the club. There is a definite incentive, besides personal pride, to figure out how I fit in.
Ideas have been proposed. Last year things were going missing, and it was suggested I could review our in-shop security tapes to pinpoint a culprit... or more. But that activity stopped and I wasn't needed. Our outgoing president thought I might be able to take just the equipment/safety portion of the silver class - free - in order to be able to be a monitor, but others shot that idea down. I'd need the whole thing at the full fee. The hunt continued.
Then last week Donna offered a solution: I could clean. Understand, everybody is supposed to clean the equipment they've just finished using. Apparently most of them skipped that part of their classes. I've always tried to be the good Girl Scout and leave it better than I found it- not a difficult thing to do. Most of the cleaning happens at my reachable heights, or does when it happens. So yes, I can do that!
This morning I showed up all gung ho to get going. I had a few stones which needed their final polish with Zam, something I was unable to do last week because lack of a monitor forced closure of the shop just before I got to that point in my process. But that only took a few minutes. I still couldn't use the slabbing saw on a fat rock since it was "red-tagged" for needing repairs. Still. After at least three weeks. But that left me between projects with plenty of time to share with the club, cleaning.
Every step of the lapidary process, from rock chunk to polished jewelry-ready stone, has one thing in common. They all produce rock dust. If you are using the equipment correctly, the dust is mostly contained in either water or oil lubricant. This means every droplet or splash leaves behind a splotch as it dries, white or colored, depending on the stone in use. These are not only unsightly, they can build up and wear down the equipment faster. Even when wiped off hastily with a damp towel after use, the machinery carries a thin rock dust coating on it. If not wiped, it and everything around it will be covered with splotches, running drips, and streaks.
Somebody else was cleaning the saws room, so I started in the grinders room. Just for clarity, this room is not the only location of grinders and polishers, but it is dedicated solely to them. By the time I neared the end of the first counter, over an hour had passed, and I had cleaned spaces where I'd never even thought to look for crap while I had been using the equipment. I started seeing accumulations of stuff in crevices and corners heretofore undreamt of. Mostly I could deal with them "well enough" with my frequently rinsed wet towel. But I finally reached the most-used machines where, logically enough, the deepest accumulations of dirt resided.
I started by locating an old table knife, thin and firm enough to scrape up over a quarter inch of rock dust and lint in narrow spaces between the machines and the frames which secured them to the counter tops. Most of that, once loosened, I was able to encourage to head out the front side where my hand could act as a large scoop to take it over to one of the trash cans. Some of it, however, exited out the back, into a narrow space between parts of the equipment where nothing really reached.
Not to worry: one of the guys had the perfect idea! (You notice this was a guy, right?) He turned on the shop vac, aimed the hose into the narrow area, and... well, maybe somebody could locate a narrow crevice tool to fit the hose another day. He had his own project to get back to. I plodded on, doing what I could, leaving what I had to. But notice, please, that the shop vac worked perfectly for him.
Remember earlier where I said the rock dust mainly was confined to the water/lubricant areas? Well, the machines I was cleaning have trays underneath, partly to hold the water running through, partly to evacuate water out a tube attached about half an inch up from the bottom. While nobody has explained the purpose of its height to me, I assume it is to keep the worst, aka heaviest, of the particles in the tray so the water exits with the least clogging of downstream plumbing. If that's not the reason, it's certainly the result. After months of use without cleaning, the bottoms of those pans hold a thick slurry. Any stone dropped in them is instantly invisible, and fingers that go fishing them out come out coated in the color of the month which is never the color of one's skin or nails and which defies all washing and brushing attempts to effect removal. I'd been thinking for a long time that somebody ought to clean those out.
Today that somebody was me. The thing is, one can only really clean them out while they are dry and caked, meaning before somebody uses that particular machine for that day, leaving me two that could be cleaned. A wedge of wood (there are plenty around, just with a different use) will scrape up and break up the sediment for fairly easy removal.
Or at least it should be easy. Access to the tray bottoms themselves involves enough angles and obstructions that what appears a wide space is in fact quite narrow. But AH-HAH! I had been shown the way: the shop vac. Its hose was both large enough for efficiency and small enough to maneuver in the spaces required. And let me mention, once again, that a GUY had just used it for exactly the same thing, just different spaces. And with no problems.
Murphy's law has a new corollary. The time it takes for a shop vac without a filter on the back end to kick enough dust into the air to set off the smoke detectors is only a quarter of the time needed to for a person using it with their back turned to the machine to notice what is happening and shut it off. You know: two seconds.
We in lapidary all knew what the cause of the alarms and evacuation notice, loudly and constantly repeated to the point of ear pain, was: me. And rock dust. There was no fire. No emergency. One of the club members trotted down to the main desk to explain the situation so the fire truck callout could be cancelled. We were still all evacuated, staff members checking rooms to chase us all out. It took about 10 minutes for the alarm/notice to shut off and for staff to allow us back in.
I finished cleaning the area I had been working on. There was no point in leaving it a worse mess than I'd found it. After that, I decided I'd roll on home, relax, have lunch, read a book. You know, before I managed to create another incident.
It's a rare and unique talent.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Busy Post-Turkey Day Sunday
When Steve sets the TV / DVR to watch/record not one but two football games, it's time to move off the chair, quit trying to read, and find find something to actually do. You might think the Cardinals would be one of the teams he follows, but after three winters down here, they've not even crossed his horizon yet. His teams are the Vikings - when he can stand to watch, and this year is OK so far for them - and the Broncos, unqualified. Occasionally he'll watch the Packers in hopes that they'll be humiliated.
Oh, disappointment.
But holiday gifting nears, and following my tradition of making gifts whenever possible, there is much still to do. Yesterday I tried a couple of ideas in the "how to" category. This follows months of work, parts hunting, ordering, and waiting, and anticipation of final products. Tiny details and needing to still develop skills have been holding the projects' completion back. Yesterday's results needed to be evaluated, glue strings removed, one failed project disassembled in favor of Plan B. One fix visited me as I woke from a dream, and it's been adopted now in several cases.
Hey! I can't get much more specific without spoiling surprises, but I'll share the idea with my friends in Lapidary shop. It works. I'll just say it employs a use of wire rather than glue.
So, much of today was continuing using the new technique with new projects. That of course meant spending about an hour sorting through supplies, figuring out which are preferred to use with what, what is on hand and what needs to be ordered or designs changed. In the sorting process I also came up with what I think will be an excellent idea for organizing all my supplies so I more quickly know where to look to see what I have.
In no way confuse that with actually doing any of that organizing, of course. Consider, for both needing and putting off the organizing: just the first case weight over 30 pounds. Then there are two more large cases, two sacks full of supplies for works under way or soon to be, but where an actual specific concept is in place, and four boxes of chunks to be sawn into slabs or slabs to be cut and shaped. And let's not forget the stack of rag towels to clean during the various stages and eventually cleaned and returned to use.
So no, semi-controlled chaos still rules. In fact, semi- may be a bit too optimistic.
Once today's projects were done, aka glue drying before absolutely final assembly tomorrow, and plans made for the next round, there was a meal tucked in. 60 degrees was almost warm enough to eat outside, so long as the sun shone on my chair. With both lasting 5 minutes, that worked. In the meantime - my version of multitasking - I noted the hummer feeders needed cleaning and refilling, so on my way inside I also collected both of them. While the new syrup boiled, dishes were done, including those from Turkey Day.
Yes, we had dishes from Turkey Day. Of course we went to celebrate with friends. But this required bringing a dish to share, one of my few excuses to actually cook each year. There were the remains of last Sunday's turkey carcass in the fridge. Even when we eat elsewhere, we both love our own turkey, fresh as well as leftovers for the next week plus. Thus, dishes.
Add all the little usual tasks of feeding and watering dogs, picking up the biggest, most visible Fred fur bunnies du jour, thinking about doing laundry, counting carbs, thinking about when new plantings need watering next, watching the hummers fight over feeders including the one that tried to dive bomb me - such timing! - as I was hanging the newly filled one up for it, thinking about.... Well, you get the drift.
The first football game is over and the next doesn't start for a bit, so I'm using the break for blogging and reading. I'm halfway through the third book in a series, wondering how they are going to all get out of this particular predicament. It won't happen before the next game starts, but I plan to see how far I can get.
Later, all.
Oh, disappointment.
But holiday gifting nears, and following my tradition of making gifts whenever possible, there is much still to do. Yesterday I tried a couple of ideas in the "how to" category. This follows months of work, parts hunting, ordering, and waiting, and anticipation of final products. Tiny details and needing to still develop skills have been holding the projects' completion back. Yesterday's results needed to be evaluated, glue strings removed, one failed project disassembled in favor of Plan B. One fix visited me as I woke from a dream, and it's been adopted now in several cases.
Hey! I can't get much more specific without spoiling surprises, but I'll share the idea with my friends in Lapidary shop. It works. I'll just say it employs a use of wire rather than glue.
So, much of today was continuing using the new technique with new projects. That of course meant spending about an hour sorting through supplies, figuring out which are preferred to use with what, what is on hand and what needs to be ordered or designs changed. In the sorting process I also came up with what I think will be an excellent idea for organizing all my supplies so I more quickly know where to look to see what I have.
In no way confuse that with actually doing any of that organizing, of course. Consider, for both needing and putting off the organizing: just the first case weight over 30 pounds. Then there are two more large cases, two sacks full of supplies for works under way or soon to be, but where an actual specific concept is in place, and four boxes of chunks to be sawn into slabs or slabs to be cut and shaped. And let's not forget the stack of rag towels to clean during the various stages and eventually cleaned and returned to use.
So no, semi-controlled chaos still rules. In fact, semi- may be a bit too optimistic.
Once today's projects were done, aka glue drying before absolutely final assembly tomorrow, and plans made for the next round, there was a meal tucked in. 60 degrees was almost warm enough to eat outside, so long as the sun shone on my chair. With both lasting 5 minutes, that worked. In the meantime - my version of multitasking - I noted the hummer feeders needed cleaning and refilling, so on my way inside I also collected both of them. While the new syrup boiled, dishes were done, including those from Turkey Day.
Yes, we had dishes from Turkey Day. Of course we went to celebrate with friends. But this required bringing a dish to share, one of my few excuses to actually cook each year. There were the remains of last Sunday's turkey carcass in the fridge. Even when we eat elsewhere, we both love our own turkey, fresh as well as leftovers for the next week plus. Thus, dishes.
Add all the little usual tasks of feeding and watering dogs, picking up the biggest, most visible Fred fur bunnies du jour, thinking about doing laundry, counting carbs, thinking about when new plantings need watering next, watching the hummers fight over feeders including the one that tried to dive bomb me - such timing! - as I was hanging the newly filled one up for it, thinking about.... Well, you get the drift.
The first football game is over and the next doesn't start for a bit, so I'm using the break for blogging and reading. I'm halfway through the third book in a series, wondering how they are going to all get out of this particular predicament. It won't happen before the next game starts, but I plan to see how far I can get.
Later, all.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Not Exactly A Hummer
The flowers are mostly done from summer and early fall blooms, so now the hummingbird feeders are up. One hangs in front, visible out the living room picture window from where we sit. One sways in back. positioned along the many hook options under the patio roof where, again, it is visible from the living room chairs. Judging from the noises they make, and the bird guide book descriptions, they are most likely Costas that grace our yard and enjoy our hospitality.
I could be wrong, of course. Last year I was convinced for the first part of the season that they were Lucifers. But those are not noisy, at least according to the books I have. In addition, Costas are supposed to be rare. So someday I may change my mind again about the identity of our visitors. The only thing I am positive about are which are male and which female. And that each feeder has a fiercely territorial visitor.
At lease, insofar as what other hummers are welcomed to approach, meaning none except when young are being raised and can first fly. But there are other visitors. Both feeders have perches, meant for the hummers to rest while feeding rather than having to hover. Other birds try to take advantage.
We occasionally see finches, or something similar in size. The shape of finches' beaks makes me sceptical of their ability to garner a sip. Occasionally we see what may be a catbird having a go. Again, I'd have to consult the local guides to be sure of which birds of similar size and coloration are possibilities. The only year-round local birds I'm sure I can identify are roadrunners and gambels quail. Cardinals tint orange down here, and Canadian geese fly overhead to the local grass supply (fore!) with their unmistakable honking, but they are seasonal. I'm positive which birds are hummers, but not what species unless it's a rufus or broadbilled. All the others fall into the category of pink throat, purple throat, or female. That covers a lot of species.
But there is one frequent visitor that is unmistakable, somehow managing to get enough of a reward from the feeder to ensure its frequent returns: a flicker. The feeder tilts precariously, sways wildly when it leaves, but it keeps coming back, several times daily that we notice. After all, who has the whole day to watch a feeder?
Since the syrup level doesn't drop precipitously, I don't mind its visits. There is still plenty left for its hummingbird "owner". And at least it's not apparently drumming major holes in the trees or testing out the house for its habitat. We got enough of that back in Minnesota, including one pileated who thought our screen house was his perfect sounding board. Shoo!
I could be wrong, of course. Last year I was convinced for the first part of the season that they were Lucifers. But those are not noisy, at least according to the books I have. In addition, Costas are supposed to be rare. So someday I may change my mind again about the identity of our visitors. The only thing I am positive about are which are male and which female. And that each feeder has a fiercely territorial visitor.
At lease, insofar as what other hummers are welcomed to approach, meaning none except when young are being raised and can first fly. But there are other visitors. Both feeders have perches, meant for the hummers to rest while feeding rather than having to hover. Other birds try to take advantage.
We occasionally see finches, or something similar in size. The shape of finches' beaks makes me sceptical of their ability to garner a sip. Occasionally we see what may be a catbird having a go. Again, I'd have to consult the local guides to be sure of which birds of similar size and coloration are possibilities. The only year-round local birds I'm sure I can identify are roadrunners and gambels quail. Cardinals tint orange down here, and Canadian geese fly overhead to the local grass supply (fore!) with their unmistakable honking, but they are seasonal. I'm positive which birds are hummers, but not what species unless it's a rufus or broadbilled. All the others fall into the category of pink throat, purple throat, or female. That covers a lot of species.
But there is one frequent visitor that is unmistakable, somehow managing to get enough of a reward from the feeder to ensure its frequent returns: a flicker. The feeder tilts precariously, sways wildly when it leaves, but it keeps coming back, several times daily that we notice. After all, who has the whole day to watch a feeder?
Since the syrup level doesn't drop precipitously, I don't mind its visits. There is still plenty left for its hummingbird "owner". And at least it's not apparently drumming major holes in the trees or testing out the house for its habitat. We got enough of that back in Minnesota, including one pileated who thought our screen house was his perfect sounding board. Shoo!
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
72 Virgins?
It's been a few days since the Paris attacks, with much still unknown. So this is not a definitive commentary. It's more stray thoughts.
To all you terrorists and wannabes out there, extremists everywhere who think there will be afterlife rewards for spreading earthly hate and terror: I cannot comprehend a philosophy/religion that teaches such. Oh yes, I can put the words together and get the concept. But as Heinlein would say, I just can't grok it. How disaffected must one be, how angry, how self-entitled, how insane, and how evil must one be to consider the concept, much less spread it?
Steve showed me a posting on Facebook with a pair of soldiers, captioned (I don't pretend my memory yields a direct quote) "72 virgins? Let's go get these guys laid!" That sentiment, the retaliatory rage, I grok. I merely hope it is properly channeled, narrowly aimed at the terrorists and not at just any "other" that may be deemed similar and therefore, with most of the perpetrators already dead from their actions and immune from us, suitable targets to vent our fear and frustration on. Let's not turn ourselves into them. And let's not escalate their justifications for their rage, for recruiting more to their philosophy by our own bad actions in the face of theirs.
At lease one of the terrorists is believed to have entered France as a Syrian refugee. My immediate reaction to that news is fear that most of the world would now react by closing borders to the masses of real refugees, people genuinely without options for survival beyond fleeing the horrors of home. Being a refugee is so awful and risky, imagine how much worse it must be to remain behind with absolutely no hope. Let's please not react that way. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... without the religious tests that Jeb! would have us institute: Christians, fine. All others, not so much. Because no Christian has ever been violent, crazy, evil.... Right? Not during the crusades. Not during WWII. Not in Ireland. Not at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Not at Waco. Not in any of the militia groups springing up. Not in street gangs or prisons. Not in domestic disputes anywhere. Not a one.
Nor have any Jews, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Humanists, Atheists. Never. Nuh-uh. No sirree. And no religion ever has spawned extremists of any kind. Nope. Never happens. So let's not isolate Muslims for retaliation under the illusion that we are doing something to make the world our better, safer place. Let's properly target the individuals responsible, understanding that they are indeed individuals and not typical representatives of whatever their religion may be.
And let's understand that there is no safe place, no guarantee in this world. Nor can we make it a safe place. We can only make it a more loving place, and that is on each individual one of us, not our group, not our government, not our military. Just each of us, alone.
And as for your 72 virgins, you martyred, vicious, violent extremists, may they all be old, ugly, crabby, insane and diseased!
To all you terrorists and wannabes out there, extremists everywhere who think there will be afterlife rewards for spreading earthly hate and terror: I cannot comprehend a philosophy/religion that teaches such. Oh yes, I can put the words together and get the concept. But as Heinlein would say, I just can't grok it. How disaffected must one be, how angry, how self-entitled, how insane, and how evil must one be to consider the concept, much less spread it?
Steve showed me a posting on Facebook with a pair of soldiers, captioned (I don't pretend my memory yields a direct quote) "72 virgins? Let's go get these guys laid!" That sentiment, the retaliatory rage, I grok. I merely hope it is properly channeled, narrowly aimed at the terrorists and not at just any "other" that may be deemed similar and therefore, with most of the perpetrators already dead from their actions and immune from us, suitable targets to vent our fear and frustration on. Let's not turn ourselves into them. And let's not escalate their justifications for their rage, for recruiting more to their philosophy by our own bad actions in the face of theirs.
At lease one of the terrorists is believed to have entered France as a Syrian refugee. My immediate reaction to that news is fear that most of the world would now react by closing borders to the masses of real refugees, people genuinely without options for survival beyond fleeing the horrors of home. Being a refugee is so awful and risky, imagine how much worse it must be to remain behind with absolutely no hope. Let's please not react that way. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... without the religious tests that Jeb! would have us institute: Christians, fine. All others, not so much. Because no Christian has ever been violent, crazy, evil.... Right? Not during the crusades. Not during WWII. Not in Ireland. Not at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Not at Waco. Not in any of the militia groups springing up. Not in street gangs or prisons. Not in domestic disputes anywhere. Not a one.
Nor have any Jews, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Humanists, Atheists. Never. Nuh-uh. No sirree. And no religion ever has spawned extremists of any kind. Nope. Never happens. So let's not isolate Muslims for retaliation under the illusion that we are doing something to make the world our better, safer place. Let's properly target the individuals responsible, understanding that they are indeed individuals and not typical representatives of whatever their religion may be.
And let's understand that there is no safe place, no guarantee in this world. Nor can we make it a safe place. We can only make it a more loving place, and that is on each individual one of us, not our group, not our government, not our military. Just each of us, alone.
And as for your 72 virgins, you martyred, vicious, violent extremists, may they all be old, ugly, crabby, insane and diseased!
Monday, November 2, 2015
And The Ground Shooketh
Earthquake! Three, actually! OMG!
Down here, everybody is going bonkers over them. I expect Californians and Alaskans who hear about it - should it even make their news - are more or less politely covering their yawns and hiding their snickering. After all, the magnitudes were in the 3.2 to the low 4 point almost nothing range. They occurred a bit north of The Valley, up by Black Canyon City. A few doors rattled. A few people were awakened and got out of their beds, wandering outside to confer with other befuddled neighbors as to what had just happened. (One popular explanation at the time was The Big One had hit California and we were feeling it this far away.)
More than one person reported grabbing their gun and racing downstairs to see who was trying to break into their house. I dunno: can you shoot an earthquake? Is a gun their solution for everything?
Steve and I were still awake for the first one. It passed by unnoticed. No wobble. No rattle. No doggy meltdowns.We apparently slept through the next two, though Ellie did go a little bonkers at about the right time. But then that could have been due to a passing truck, a coyote howling in the distance beyond our hearing capacity, or sheer boredom that there was nobody to give her attention.
I find I am disappointed. Not that it wasn't any bigger or that it did no damage. No, nobody wants that sort of thing. I just feel like I missed out on having felt something that everybody else is talking about this morning.
Maybe next time.
* * * * *
While we're on the subject of earthquakes, I have a hypothesis that I can't get anyone serious to pay attention to. I believe we will find a correlation in the coming decades between global warming and increasing frequency of earthquakes.
Here's my reasoning. There is a huge amount of water still trapped in glaciers at the poles. It's heavy (duh!), pressing down on whatever tectonic plate it happens to be over. Once they all melt, scientists estimate a rise in sea level over the planet of up to 3 meters!
Yikes! That's a series of disasters in itself, topic for another time. Think dislocations of populations, wars over territory, destruction of coastline buildings especially in major cities, storm damage, disruptions in agriculture. All at once.
I'm just looking at a shift of the distribution of weight over the planet's surface. The poles will rebound, to whatever degree, and the ocean areas will be pressed downward. It may not be much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. But it will be there. I happen to think it logical that earthquakes will increase as the planet adjusts.
Down here, everybody is going bonkers over them. I expect Californians and Alaskans who hear about it - should it even make their news - are more or less politely covering their yawns and hiding their snickering. After all, the magnitudes were in the 3.2 to the low 4 point almost nothing range. They occurred a bit north of The Valley, up by Black Canyon City. A few doors rattled. A few people were awakened and got out of their beds, wandering outside to confer with other befuddled neighbors as to what had just happened. (One popular explanation at the time was The Big One had hit California and we were feeling it this far away.)
More than one person reported grabbing their gun and racing downstairs to see who was trying to break into their house. I dunno: can you shoot an earthquake? Is a gun their solution for everything?
Steve and I were still awake for the first one. It passed by unnoticed. No wobble. No rattle. No doggy meltdowns.We apparently slept through the next two, though Ellie did go a little bonkers at about the right time. But then that could have been due to a passing truck, a coyote howling in the distance beyond our hearing capacity, or sheer boredom that there was nobody to give her attention.
I find I am disappointed. Not that it wasn't any bigger or that it did no damage. No, nobody wants that sort of thing. I just feel like I missed out on having felt something that everybody else is talking about this morning.
Maybe next time.
* * * * *
While we're on the subject of earthquakes, I have a hypothesis that I can't get anyone serious to pay attention to. I believe we will find a correlation in the coming decades between global warming and increasing frequency of earthquakes.
Here's my reasoning. There is a huge amount of water still trapped in glaciers at the poles. It's heavy (duh!), pressing down on whatever tectonic plate it happens to be over. Once they all melt, scientists estimate a rise in sea level over the planet of up to 3 meters!
Yikes! That's a series of disasters in itself, topic for another time. Think dislocations of populations, wars over territory, destruction of coastline buildings especially in major cities, storm damage, disruptions in agriculture. All at once.
I'm just looking at a shift of the distribution of weight over the planet's surface. The poles will rebound, to whatever degree, and the ocean areas will be pressed downward. It may not be much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. But it will be there. I happen to think it logical that earthquakes will increase as the planet adjusts.
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