Category: FWIW

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Amateur Flooring Project. . .

. . .is proceeding at a snail’s pace.

But, overall, that’s a Good Thing. For example, lifting two layers of vinyl flooring in the kitchen, at the garage door entrance, uncovered. . . rotting particle board. Particle board?!? Yep. And it seems to be original to the house, which is around 45 years old. Fortunately, as I began removing it, I discovered that the rot

a.) only extended about one foot into the kitchen from the garage
b.) did NOT include rot of the sill plate on the structural wall
c.) did not extend to the one inch (nominal; really ~3/4-inch) wooden boards that were the subfloor.

Well, as everyone knows, particle board is crap, and unsuitable for virtually ALL construction, but I wasn’t about to begin tearing up all the entire kitchen floor, once I got back to still solid particle board.

So, what to do? It looked like all the rot had been confined to directly un front of the door entering the kitchen from the garage, so, in fitting with my original thoughts for that entry, I

1. Cleaned a 2’x4′ area in front of that door, all the way down to the solid, unaffected (real) wood subfloor;
2. Caulked all cracks with “40-year” paintable caulk;
3. Painted the subfloor with Drylock™ where it had once been covered with tar paper (likely what prevented the rot from proceeding to the subfloor);
4. Put down “hardy board” backer board;
5. Laid and grouted ceramic tile, bringing the level back up to juuuuust barely over the level of the current floor+2 layers of vinyl.

That will, I think, adequately protect the subfloor from any insult, and provide very little transition downward for the laminate I am finishing up installing in the kitchen. BTW, the laminate is very water and moisture-resistant, but I am gluing the joints with a waterproof glue designed for laminate flooring, as an added precaution. A 2’x7′ area in front of the kitchen sink and dishwasher will not be getting laminate flooring but a fairly thick adhesive vinyl tile that is designed to be grouted. (I’ve already used the same vinyl tile for the front entry, and it has performed like a champ there, with heavy traffic for several months.) Same treatment in front of the French door exit/entry from dining area to deck.

After this flooring is down, since the bedrooms on this floor will only need carpet and staples removed, and some cleanup, minor restoration, I’ll then be able to start on replacing all the trim. Oh, yeh, I think I mentioned a month or two ago that the bedrooms have some nice oak flooring under the carpet. *smh* Means we have more laminate that we need for this floor. Hmmm, the laundry/pantry is begging for a reno (could be a half bath/cleaning supplies pantry), and the garage needs to be emptied for a conversion to laundry room/pantry/workshop. Laminate flooring used those places?

*huh* Will STILL be some left over. Probably enough to do the deck, once it is fully enclosed, eh? 🙂

Oh, and methinks my Wonder Woman wants new cabinets in the kitchen, too. And the master bath needs an update, and. . . 🙂

I’ll never have time to die. Especially since my amateur “handyman” approach is slow, largely from excessive creativity (or so I tell myself *heh*).

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“Alright” Is NOT All Right

I know I have already said things like this before, but whether you are all ready to read it again or not, here is is again. All together now, repeat after me: “Alright is altogether all wrong.”

OK, I will make an exception. If a writer seriously wants to indicate that he is faux literate and does not want me to purchase his book or lend him my “eye time,” then he should go ahead and use “alright.”

That is all.

No, it’s not. Completely unrelated sidebar: Brit writers who set a story in the US? Stop referring to the second floor of a building as the first floor. Do that for stories set in “BrE-land.” Give “boot” the boot unless you are referring to footwear or kicking something. And for the sake of all things linguistic, learn how to express the subjunctive mood!

NOW that is all. For now.

*grumble-grumble-gripe-complain*

BTW, it’s not just me.

https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/alright-vs-all-right

And there are more such worthy commentaries. Many, many more. And a few quislings who are perfectly happy to sully the English language with such despicable monstrosities as “alright.” And yeh, James Joyce apparently used “alright.” Once. That only condemns his “suckitudinous” writing even more. (That he used “all right” the rest of the time does not excuse the shitty nature of his books.)

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“Grammar Nazi”

“Grammar Nazi” is a term widely used by illiterates in an attempt to demean those who appreciate good speech and writing. It is used by people who do not know–and do not care–what the meanings of the words are.

Grammar “is simply the collection of principles defining how to put together a sentence.” It is the structure–more the internal logic of the structure–of a language. It is not spelling or word meanings or the like; those are the separate issues of orthographic representation of phonemes, and semantics or meaning (the whole reason for language to exist–the transmission of meaning in a clear, comprehendable format).

However, those who reject good grammar also usually reject clear communication in text via orthographic reproductions of phonemes (AKA, “good spelling”), and useful distinctions between words (semantics, or meaning), thus demonstrating that their committment to poor reasoning extends to a committment to poor, fuzzy (or non-existent) reasoning.

Marshall McLuhan was someone whose work I might generally dismiss as, in large part, “academic twinkletoes” bushwah, but I have to admit some of his intellectual BS made some sense (blind pig, and all that). One of his assertions (in Understanding Media, IIRC, though it’s been 45 years since I read his work, and it might well have been in another) was that simply reading the written word (in English, though I believe it works in many other languages, as well, from my own experience) teaches inferential or logical thought–both strict logic,deduction, and induction, as well. The reasons for this seem to center not so much around the semantic content as simply around the structure. . . the grammar.

N.B. The below is more or less a stream of consciousness piece, a rant if you will. So, FWIW, here it is:

Good grammar = sound structure = the internal logic inherent in putting together a sentence that–at the least–has even the remote possibility of making sense. (The rest of the responsibility of “making sense” lies with selecting and using words that can convey the meaning one wishes to convey.)

Here’s an exceptionally minor example of syntax–the essence of grammar at its least form–changing the meaning of a sentence. Note the difference in meaning between:

“the internal logic inherent in putting together a sentence that . . .has even the remote possibility of making sense.”

vs

“the internal logic inherent in putting together a sentence that . . .even has the remote possibility of making sense.”

A minor change in syntax changes the meaning of the words, at least for the careful reader.

And syntax is only one element of good grammar.

Learning the logic of a language, the orthography of a language, and its content (word meanings plus structure of sentences, plus context) and then attempting to reproduce these elements clearly and unambiguously is not a trivial task, nevertheless, it is one that countless folks have accomplished for millennia.

Until the Internet, where doing so is derided by lazy-assed know-nothings who are proud of their ignorance and laziness, and would prefer to demean those who make an effort to use their language well, especially if they should happen to point out that the know-nothing tyrants are wearing no clothes.

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Hmmm, Addicted Much?

The printed page is my chief addiction (well, apart from procrastination, I suppose *heh*). Sample: a “My Books” filter at Baen results in nineteen pages at 20 ebooks per page, plus another page of eleven ebooks. Three hundred and ninety-one ebooks at a site where I purchase books maybe a couple of times a year.

Amazon’s listings of my ebook purchases run to the “many more than a few”. . . thousands.

Gutenberg doesn’t have a way to track all the books I’ve downloaded from its site, but I started there with a set of optical disks that–at the time–had everything Gutenberg offered (haven’t yet gotten all the way through that collection, and probably won’t, since some of the offerings are not necessarily to my taste).

And then there is my print collection, which beggars all the ebooks combined.

Yeh, the printed page is a trap for me. Ah, well. It could be worse. I could be addicted to Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind *cough* “news” *cough*.

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Costume Party Idea

I don’t generally like costume parties. The last one I went to, about 42 years ago, was a Halloween costume party. I went as a nearly penniless grad student. *pa-dump-bump*

But, if I were to go to costume parties nowadays, in this age of SJWs berating folks for racism (and all other kinds of pseudo-“isms”and -“phobias”), methinks I might dress up as my favorite characters from books read as a young lad or from even earlier childhood: Little Black Sambo (eschewing the blackface makeup, just cos I don’t wear makeup well, at all, at all ?), Mowgli (now there’s a sight: Mowgli as some Olde Pharte in his seventh decade. Pass the mind bleach, please. *heh*), Uncle Tom (again, no makeup — it’s not you; it’s me 😉 ), etc.

Why? I dunno. Just to provoke some lame brained (or brain-dirtied) idiot into mockable behaviors. Because.

Now you know why I no longer get invited to parties. Works for me. Too many people give me a rash.

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Sometimes, I’m a Bit Slow. . .

All this time. *sigh* I just had the bright idea of saving some of my Open Document files that I want access to–just for the info I’ve stored–w/o having to open them in an office app in a different format (for quick reference). . . as html files. Bookmark the location on a NAS and I can make the info VERY quickly accessible.

Works on my LAN only, though, because I do NOT make local docs available over a WAN, no matter what security I can use. All my browsers, in all devices, are synced (yeh, cross-browser, cross OS), though, so it is very LAN-handy. Perhaps this sort of use is idiosyncratic, but it works for me, and it’s just an extra couple of keystrokes saving the doc in another format, then bookmarking it once. To access, open bookmarks, type in search term, bang!

Maybe it’s just me, as I implied above, but *shrugs* it does suit me.

Of course, I could save the odt (and other Open Document format) files as pdfs or plain text files (even Epub or other) for viewing in a web browser, but html works.

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One Can Only Hope. . .

I have searched and searched (OK, occasionally and lackadaisically *heh*) for the source of the comment, “Let hope be not dismayed,” and found references that almost but do not match the lil five word sentence. It popped into my head and out of my mouth one day when someone said, “I hope you have a nice day,” but from whence I know not. Nevertheless, when hope is all one has, “let hope be not dismayed” is a worthy hope to pile on top of that hope, eh?

(Ps 69:6; Rom 8:24-25)

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He Never Learns

Ya know, every time Olde Guye tomcat walks right UNDER my foot, then squawks ‘cos he made me step on him, I think, “Seventeen years old and he hasn’t learned yet? Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.”

Oh, well, he’s good at other things, like keeping my left leg warm. (His fav “lap” position isn’t actually in my lap, but snugged as closely as he can get to my left leg. Oh, sometimes he crawls into my lap, very, very sneakily, but his default location is purring on my left leg *shrugs* He’s a cat. He doesn’t have to “conform to standards.” *heh*)

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The Difference Between “Uffda” and “Feeda”

Uffda and feeda are two words commonly used by folks of Norwegian extraction, and while they have some similarities in meaning, the differences were graphically illustrated for me in the summer of 1978, when I visited my Wonder Woman’s family in Minnesota for the first time. One afternoon, while there, my Wonder Woman’s sibs took us to see “Grease” at a local movie theater. The movie was OK, but the highlight of the day came as we exited the theater and made our way toward the car. A couple of guys were walking in front of us, and one of them pointed at some gum on the ground and said, “Uffda!” The other guy didn’t see it in time, stepped in it, lifted his foot and looked at the gum on his shoe and disgustedly said, “Feeda!”

So there you have it. If one merely _sees_ something unpleasant, the proper expression is “Uffda!” But if one _steps_ in it. . .

YW. 🙂