Steampunk is Still Pretty Cool

Ganymede by Cherie Priest
My rating: 4 of 6 stars






Long, long ago, I picked up a book that scared me. It was called Boneshaker .

This book scared me because it had the potential to be super-awesome. It had:
Zombies
Dirigibles
Steam and punk elements
Violence
Alternate history
Takes place in Seattle, where I was living at the time

I figured it couldn't be good, despite my infatuation with Whitechapel Gods . There was too much riding on it. On the whole, I loved it (even though, for some reason, I forgot to review it). I give it 4/6, due to obvious flaws in the prose and some other issues I'll discuss.

So here we are, with a sequel to a book I enjoyed, and again with guarded enthusiasm. I have to confess that I'm writing this review before writing a review of the other books, mostly by chance. I accidentally skipped Clementine and have yet to finish The Inexplicables, but I have read Boneshaker and Dreadnought. But here we are: Ganymede, which I'd have to say is my 3rd favorite, behind the two books previously mentioned. It is, however, still better than the one I'm currently reading.

The good news is that the world is still intact, and it's still 20 or so years into the American Civil War. Texas is still a Reb-leaning but "neutral" 3rd party, with all its oil reserves creating a Diesel Punk kind of culture and technology. I love this world. It works for me.

So a character from the first book reappears as the hero of this one, working with the other hero, a madam in New Orleans, to get a submarine out of a lake and into the Gulf. I won't spoil the story for you, since it's worth a read. The story is great. I loved it, and it's not the issue.

Here's where we talk about the issues in the book, which are relatively minor, but I'm way too much of a snob to let them pass. There were two main issues: Pacing and style.

In reverse order, I'll start with something that bothers me every time, which is a major part of Priest's style. It is the setting off, as a new paragraph, a single sentence that is supposed to carry more weight or create more drama/tension than just some regular sentence tacked on to a paragraph. The problem is, they don't really do that. It's a gimmick.
And I hate gimmicks.
(See what I did there?) Anyway, this is just lazy and should not be done by anyone. Most of the time, the sentences could have been left out entirely, or at least moved up to the end of the previous paragraph. They are jarring and bump me out of the story, and the damned things are everywhere. Just a small annoyance, but repeated often enough to be worth mentioning.

The pacing of this novel didn't work too well for me (though not enough to kill my enjoyment). I felt like it really got sluggish a time or two in the middle. I know that stories need to slow down and catch their breath before the climax, but here it felt like it almost stopped, then surged forward with a tacked-on ending that held no real suspense for me.

Spoilers here.

So they're in the damned submarine, and they're never caught or seen by the Texans or the Rebs, they have no mechanical issues, and they succeed at everything. Then it's just over. From the ease at which Cly and his crew could handle the sub, I was not left feeling like he was the only man for the job. I just was not given the impression that the average seaman could not have pulled this feat off. I know that the difficulties were referred to in the text, but those references were forced in to heighten the drama artificially. It went from steampunk fantasy to Action Flick right in the last parts. But maybe I'm nitpicking.

Also, since the novel contains characters from other books that I hadn't read or read a long time ago, I kind of felt like I was missing something every time they were mentioned. I would recommend reading them all in a row, so you can stay up-to-date.

All in all, it's a fantastic romp through the war-torn Clockwork Century, and I had a great time burning through it as quickly as my free time would allow.

Read this book if you've read the previous ones. And read the previous ones. Best Steampunk I've ever read.
4 of 6

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Eat More Meat! A positive review.

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
My rating: 4 of 6

This book is both brilliant and somewhat hard to read. It is not a nonfiction novel, but a scientific paper written for the layperson to understand.
Sometimes it's dry. Like, really dry, and goes way into listing references and studies and whatnot, even after the author has made his point.
There's a reason for this, you see: This book is powerful. And powerful things beget enemies, and the only defense this book can muster is Science! So many times, I have a discussion with someone about why I eat the way I do, and they whip out some arbitrary "common sense" "fact." I ask them for a source, and they don't have it. Then I skip the fries.

So let's get into the meat of it:

What's this book about? It's a very long-winded study of the idea that refined carbohydrates (and their affect on hormones [insulin]) that make us fat and give us diseases. That's all that it's about, and it's still a huge book. Why? See above.

What's good? I lost ten pounds (180 to 170) following this basic plan: no sugars or flour if I can help it. None at all. Also, my chronic upset stomach mysteriously vanished.

What's bad? Well, after I lost ten pounds, I kind of hovered there, unable to go down. But I cheat on the diet a lot, because CHOCOLATE. But I'm buckling down, trying to lost that last 10-15 pounds, get that six-pack (currently hovering at almost 2), and rule the world. Results on the latter may vary.
The damned book is long. It's sometimes hard to read. For a while there, I averaged a page a day. To put that into perspective, I read Jurassic Park in a single day. Fun book. Geoff Goldblum dies.
Also, Gary Taubes tends to take his own word as gospel. Yes, he's right about a lot of stuff. Yes, sugar and flour are bad for us. But he makes some dodgy assumptions, like maybe insulin causes anorexia. Um... citation needed.

All in all, I've seen two camps on this one: Absolutely Right and Absolutely Bullshit. I'm in the former, for the most part.

But I still can't live without chocolate.

Read this book if you just can't seem to lose that weight.
Book changed my life, changed my eating, partially cured me of a chronic ailment, and might help me avoid dying at 40 like my grandfather. 4 out of 6.

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On Zombies and Being a Man

No cable in the house, but, just on a lark, we grabbed Netflix for the free monthly subscription. We haven't had it for a while, so I figured their selection would be a bit better. It was, a bit.

So Kim got season three of Parenthood, and I got to spend my whole Saturday immersed in the land of the Walking Dead. I know it's in its 3rd season, but it will NEVER stream until it hits Netflix sometime next year, so I'm stuck with my season two, and it was awesome.

He's not walking, so he must not be dead.

So I got to wondering, what is it about this series that gets me going? I mean, I hate hate hate the horror film genre. You know that feeling you get when you're scared? I get that, too, I just don't get that high from it that others do. I hate being frightened. So why do I like The Walking Dead?

Let's start on the face of it: Yes, it's zombie apocalypse/survival horror, but it's also politics and family and ideological. I like watching the process of rebuilding, seeing the ups and downs of gathering or rejecting people, of trying to create a life. It's fun to watch it all go to shit, in a schadenfreude kind of way.

I like the zombies as an enemy, too. They follow rules, they can be worked with. Sure, they show up unpredictably at times, that much is true, but they don't suddenly change how they're made or what they're purpose is. They don't all the sudden manifest the ability to turn to smoke or something. They're ruthless, impractical, and legion. They move. If they bump into anything living, they kill the shit out of it and eat it raw.

Rules. I like 'em.

Also, the writing's pretty damned good. I get all the feels from the cast and the lines they deliver. It's just good television, and you all know how picky I can be about the writing.

But let's go deeper. Let's examine why I thought the first season was cool but the second season actually moved me. It's pretty much the same plot; survive and build a life after the zombie apocalypse, so what's different?

I am, that's what.

And then I realize that the plot of The Walking Dead is a perfect allegory for becoming a man. It's about finding something grander, about leaving childish ideas behind. It's about growing up. But most of all, it's about fear.

The Walking Dead's not just an allegory for growing up, it's an allegory for the incredible fear that sets into a man's soul when he finds out he cares about some people just as much if not more so than for himself. It's about the fear of losing control, about the world becoming more dangerous, about outsiders not being friends I haven't met, but being dangers that I haven't neutralized.

When I leave my wife at home to go to work, I get that same fear that I feel each time Rick and Lori get separated by the events or needed actions of the show. It's about control. Shane is a perfect example of the Full Grown Boy pseudo-adulthood. He's got the brains and the brawn to be a man, but his mind and desires and views are that of the simplistic child. So he's a man-child, only caring about himself and those he views as extensions of himself (who happen to be his best friend's family) and nothing else.

Rick is trying for more. He's not just about survival, but about building something. It's not just day-to-day, because Rick is mature and a grown-ass man, and knows that if you're not building something, you're not living, just surviving.

So when I first saw The Walking Dead, season one, I thought is was cool. I was like, I'd be badass in the zombie apocalypse, because I'm trained in firearms (thanks, Dad!) and can build stuff (thanks again, Dad!). But this time, Season Two, I've got a wife and kid. So now I view things like fucking up at work as near catastrophic, because it could crush those that depend on me to bring home that bacon on a semi-monthly basis.

That fear that Rick's character feels when he looks out at the zombified world around him is the same exact fear I'm feeling when I look out at the world around me: Every man a potential violent thug, every child a potential corrupter of my unborn (can't wait for high school!).

In short, if you want to know what it's like to have a decent job, a wife, and a kid, and no savings, don't watch Parenthood (though it is pretty good in a continually uncomfortable sort of way), watch The Walking Dead.

Mini Update

I know I haven't updated in a while. Money's been tight, so the projects are on hold. Also, I've been reading Good Calories, Bad Calories pretty exclusively, so there hasn't been anything to review. On top of that, I've stopped with the quasi-daily sonnets due to lack of personal interest. Perhaps haiku, starting with the new year.

Anyway, more is to come, but slowly. I am, after all, but one man (Kim's pretty much decided that blogging is not for her).

Structural Fixes, Part 1: The Basement Landing

I've already told you about the mess I found in the basement, as far as structure goes, but here's another picture:

This is the main support for the center of the stairwell. It runs from base of the attic, all the way down to one half inch above the basement floor. That's right. It doesn't touch, and therefor, everything is kind of resting on everything else, with nothing taking up the real work. Like a house of cards.

To hang the heavy bag in the workout area of the basement, I have to:

• Support the floor joists for the living room that make up the ceiling of the basement. Before I can get to that, I have to:
• Build a structural support wall, wide enough to support both the main beam and the un-notched portions of the floor joists. To get there, I must first:
• Build a temporary wall of jack posts and headers and, more importantly:
• Cut the side of the basement landing away to make enough room for the new wall. Of course, I'm not ready to do that. First, I need to:
• Reinforce and support the basement landing.

So that's where we're at. And I'm working with my hands, so I don't care overmuch about perfect grammar.

I bought the following:

• 2 - 2x4x12 (pressure treated), cut in half to make 4 - 2x4x6 from the local hardware store
• 1 - 4x4x12 (pressure treated), cut in half to make 2, to use as supports
• 1 - 4x4x8 (pressure treated)
• 1 - 2x4x8 (pressure treated)
• 1 pound of combo head 3-inch deck screws
• Several Coke Zeroes and a handful of candy bars

First thing's first, I reinforced the existing structure:

Next, I cut off the extra bit at the end, that needed to go to make room for the new wall:

You can see the edge of the 4x4 that I put in for support before the demolition began.

Then I built the wall and set it in place, ready to be hammered home:

Here's where I hit the wall. You see, I didn't just need to put something in place to continue the status quo. No, I needed to lift the whole fucking house. That was easier said than done. Some highlights of fail:

The "twist a strap to force the ends to come together" idea.

The "hammer wedges under the center support to lift the whole thing" method.

My favorite, of course, is the "break the car's jack by doing something it's not intended for and is probably suicidally dangerous" fail.

In the end, I happened upon this:

I went to AutoZone, bought a 12-ton capacity bottle jack, put the support right on the wall I was trying to put in place, and lifted the whole house. It was scary, but it worked. Behold:

For now, everything is secure. And a door on the second floor went from sticking to working, and the one beside it went the other way. But that shows how connected everything is, and why this needed to happen.

The problem is, I haven't secured it yet. It's in place via gravity, friction, and the Dear and Fluffy Lord. But that's for next time. The path is paved, and it's time to build a temporary wall support.

Another Taste of Things to Come

I had this great idea: I was going to build a workout room in my basement. I bought a punching bag (100 pounds), got a hanger, and even drilled to holes to pick it up. And then I saw this:

And I thought, "Hey, what's that little piece of wood there for?"

I had previously though that these boards were leftovers from some other project:

Turns out, no, there were there to keep the middle floor joist (under the living room) from splitting in half.

You see, instead of the floor joists resting on a load-bearing beam, they're just tacked onto the frame for the basement landing. Then someone cut out a notch from the bottom of every floor joist. You can tell from my italics that I just can't believe it. I wonder if they truly believed that it would not compromise the structure. Anyway, here's the notch-and-2x4:

Look close, I took the picture with my aging iPhone 4. You'll see it. Now, here's the horizontal split down the middle of the defective floor joist:

What's the big deal? Well, the whole structure is sagging, and pretty soon we'd all be suddenly sitting in the basement to watch a movie. Here' another floor joist, whose top has peeled off as the weight of it sagged down:

What can I possibly do? I'm going to fix the fucking thing, like Mike Holmes on a budget. More to come on this one. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

A Weekend Full of Projects

Kim and I really kicked off the homeowner thing this weekend. I bought a bunch of wood and built a work bench, and Kim picked out all the colors for the Master bedroom.

The bench was a joy to do, though I did manage to screw it up. It's basically a 2x4 frame, eight feet long, with two 19/32" plywood shelves. Attached to the back using a 2x3 frame is a pegboard that I had brought with us from the last house (apartment).

My tools are finally up! And, boy, did we need them. Or at least a few of them. Because Kim got a wild hare up her ass and decided it was time to paint the master bedroom. Grey with white trim and a black accent wall, plus pops of yellow, and maybe some other colors. I think it will look great.

I've also moved my desk into the tiny 3rd bedroom, which will eventually be a normal bedroom with a lofted sleeping area.

The bedroom is mostly finished, but will still need a couple coats on the accent wall. I'll post pictures when we're done.

A bit of a tip on painting prep, especially if you like your floors:

I bought a two-foot high roll of brown construction paper (available in the painting aisle) and a few rolls of masking tape. After taping around the perimeter of the baseboards, we papered the entire floor. Judging by the huge number of paint drops and splashes, it was a really good idea.

Oh! and the workout room in the basement is coming along pretty well. The heavy bag's just arrived, and I'll get to hanging that tomorrow morning, probably.

Stay tuned for individual posts about each of these projects.

Thanks for reading.

Milestones

July was an incredible month. Let's recap:

1. We moved into our new house.
2. We went on vacation with dear friends, beating the heat and hanging out on various lakes for 2 solid weeks.
3. We paid off Kim's credit card.
4. I started losing weight again.

1: Now, it might be odd that someone looking to get out of debt may be buying a house, but let's check out the bare facts:
Wherever you are (unless you're rich, retired, or living with your parents), you've got to pay to live there. I was paying rent--$790--which included all utilities, basic cable and internet. And all that money was leaving. No equity was built. Now, I pay $590 for the house and, so far, 100-ish for the utilities. I'm still waiting on the first cable bill and the water/sewer/trash/recycling bill. Either way, it's either the same price or cheaper.

How can I do this? I moved to a small city, where housing prices are a fraction of the cost of a comparable neighborhood in a major metropolitan area.

2: The vacation is self-explanatory, but I'll drop some details: We went to a lake in Upstate Vermont, rented a house and split it with two other couples. If you pay for hotels when you travel, you are missing out. For a full week, it cost each couple $530. How much would that have been for hotel rooms? And we had our own kitchen, beach, and BBQ, so we saved money on food and travel, too.

3: Kim's credit card was the low-hanging fruit of the debt-snowball tree. It was only about $2400, and my August 1 bonus covered it with lots to spare. The next-lowest debt is my own credit card, some $8000. That ain't nothin' to sniff at. I'm hoping that will be paid off by this time next year. Then comes the car and the big debt ($9100 and $13500, respectively), and we're clear of consumer debt.

Of course, there's still student loans, some $100,000 worth, and the $71500 worth of mortgage. But we've engaged the debt snowball, and it will only roll large and faster as we go along.

4: Now, I'm not a huge guy, but a certain svelteness has always eluded me. Plus, I've been influenced by the movie Fat Head and the book Good Calories, Bad Calories, about the science behind the Fat/Carbohydrate debate, and how fats are actually good for me. As a result, I've started a high-fat, no-carb diet, with the exception of Saturdays, during which I eat whatever I want. I've lost 4 pounds in 2 weeks, with my goal being to lose 20 pounds, ending up at 160.

This diet that I'm on is far from gospel, and many people poo-poo the science behind it, mocking the "Atkins Diet" and whatnot. I'm not going to preach to you, but I eat exactly what I want (except sweets, bread, and pasta), in as much quantity that I want, and I work out no more than I did previously (1-3 hours per week, plus household building projects on the weekends), and I'm losing weight.

I'm conducting an experiment on myself. If you view the results as compelling, well, perhaps you should experiment more yourself. Science is fun.

Thanks for reading.

Old Man's War: [Negative Pun About Old People]

Old Man's War by John Scalzi
My rating: 2 of 6 stars

Old Man's War is about old people giving up their lives on earth to join the colonial forces as supersoldiers to help defend humanity. That's a solid premise that I can get behind. Old Man's War is, however, not written well.

This book is bad. As I write this, I'm remembering that I only finished it to provide the most honest review. It was fun in spurts, but, on the whole, this book was, as I said, bad. The writing is pedantic at its best and horrid at its worst. Why do I keep expecting more from Science Fiction? Why, oh why, do I injure myself so?

I'll focus on one small issue and one large, big, huge issue. The former is the issue of the use of Old Men in Old Man's War, and the latter is the introduction of exposition.

*** Caution: For Those Who Care, Minor Spoilers Ahead ***

Old Man's Wars are fought by old men and women. That is true. The only thing young about them are their genetically-engineered bodies. So why do they all talk like wise-cracking 20-somethings, fresh off a network sitcom? I mean everyone, as well, from the good guys to the bad guys, the chicks and the dudes. Everyone, and I mean everyone, talks the same. They crack wise all the time. There's no flow, and everyone is just as adept as everyone else.

It's no secret that the bar by which I judge books is painfully higher than that of the average reader, and I feel that that's a shame. So far, I really can't trust other people's ratings or reviews to give me a clue as to what's good. And, to be fair, I don't really find anything all that good.

Which leads me (jarringly) to my second point: The exposition. FOR THE ENTIRE NOVEL, whenever the main character (who is just the same as everyone else) is kind of out of the loop, someone near him (who is just like him), postulates WITH INCREDIBLE ACCURACY as to the nature of the conundrum. What's with this ship? (wisecrack) Answered. (wisecrack) What's going to (wisecrack) happen to us? Answer. Ugh. There is no subtlety, no nuance, no story craft.

There are parts of this novel that raise interesting points on the ideas of life and soul and existence, but for the most part, it's a scifi nerd's two-dimensional wet dream, complete with meaningless animalistic sex without any kind of lead-up or gender politics, and with everything drawing our hero in "over his head," though he manages with identical ease in every situation.

Lukewarm scifi at its most meh. Read this if you hate yourself and have no standards.

2 out of 6

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The Best Chicken

Yesterday, the unthinkable happened.

Kim asked me to cook dinner.

I know you're all thinking, "Whoa, dude! That's intense!" and I'm right there with you. And stop saying "dude."

Thing was, she wanted to hit the gym before dinner, but the chicken was already marinating, and the acids in the marinade can actually "cook" the chicken. I say "cook" instead of cook because I'm pretty sure you'd still get really sick if you just left something to marinate overnight and then just dug in. I think it chemically alters the meat without the helpful side effect of killing bacteria. But you can get back to me on that.

Anyway, we're out of charcoal, and our grill absolutely sucks. We bought the cheapest one at Walmart that didn't need to be put on a table to work. Maybe I'm just not talented when it comes to things like this, but it just seems that it doesn't get hot or stay hot, no matter what type of charcoal (lump, briquet, real wood) that I use. I do use a chimney starter, however, and still recommend it to everyone. Seriously, they work awesome. Get one with air holes in the side, though. If you go super-cheap, you may end up having to light it a couple times, or even use lighter fluid, which effectively ruins the whole point of the things.

Taken from my supposedly normal habitat of the grill, I'm left with a cast iron grill pan, an oven of dubious reliability, and my swingin' cod, as Jayne Cobb would put it.

I heated up the grill pan to a medium, but our stovetop ranges from Warm to Cook Eggs and Bacon to FIRES OF HELL. That's one hot grill pan. (I can, by the way, make a perfect plate of eggs and bacon). I also preheated the oven to 350, so it heated right up to about 400. We're about 3 days from the move, so all the baking pans are packed up, but I made one out of tin foil and put that in the oven to preheat, as well.

Throwing the chicken breasts on the pan, I covered them with our biggest frying pan. It's no longer nonstick, so it's basically just an uncomfortable hat at this point. I figured this could bring it new life. Three minutes on each side, and some tasty grill marks were etched into the meat. Then I threw them in the oven and brought out my secret weapon: a remote read digital thermometer. Thanks to you guys who gave it to us for Christmas!

Then I cooked them until the thermometer beeped at 165.

It was perfect. The sear gave it that flavor, and the meat was cooked through but still juicy and delicious. Even Kim said so, and she usually just laughs when I cook. How anyone can laugh at a breaded pork chop deep-fried in bacon fat is beyond me, but that's the wonderful mystery of marriage.

The First Bid

Around the corner from Kim's work was a side split-level home across the street from a nice sized park. It was in a good area of town, walking distance (10-15 minutes) from the local hipster district, and only $30,000.

We put in a bid.

Fortunately (as it turns out), we were outbid. It was going auction-style, so certain criteria had to be met, and the highest bid is usually the criteria. The house was bank-owned (former foreclosure) and needed a ton of work. But what a bargain!

We came very close to bidding on another bank-owned property, but managed to find our "dream home" in the meantime.

What was important about this house was that it made us think, it made us check boxes, and it really woke us up to the fact that, despite our inclinations to avoid further debt (see: the title of this blog), we were ready to buy a house.

Starship Troopers is as Fun to Read as it is to Watch

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 6 stars

This book is pretty freakin awesome. That has to be said. Maybe it's because currently raping my own eyes with the cosmic wonderturd that is Old Man's War by John Scalzi, but I really look back with teary-eyed nostalgia on the late nights I spent curled around my Nook with this book.

Let's be clear: I loved the movie.
Let's be even clearer: Apart from names of people and locations, this book resembles the movie based upon it only in the most tangential way. That's not a judgement, it's just a fact.
And, to be even clearerer: I love the book and the movie, on their own terms. They're like Fight Club in that way (and pretty much only in that way).

You've got troopers. You've got government, and you've got bugs. I couldn't wait to see what's next. What came next was a simple sci-fi story about a kid growing to adulthood in the hyper-violent Mobile Infantry. There are mech-ish suits, explosions, death on all sides. I kept reading, long after I should have gone to bed ("Should we go to the gym in the morning?" "Nah."), as it kept pulling me along.

I seem to remember the plot dragging a bit, like Heinlein was in love with his idea about how the world was formed and just could not keep from prattling on about it, but it was interesting enough to not hate. It also gave me clear times to put the fucking book down. I still enjoyed it when I picked it up the next night, though. And, maybe because I'm feeling both a little disenfranchised and heavily disappointed in the abject laziness and complacency of the American voting public, but I really enjoyed the type of government that this future human civilization had, and how it came to be.

Simply put, this book is a must-read. I don't know how often I'll reread it, but it was definitely worth my time.

I recommend this book for people who enjoy well-written novels about violent stuff.

4 out of 6

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High Adventure from the Times of Christ!

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
My rating: 4 of 6 stars

I've always been curious about this book. Actually, I've had very high expectations.

It's a tale of grand adventure on a grand scale. As boy, I loved My Side of the Mountain and Hatchet (I think I read Hatchet, though maybe I didn't), or even The Boxcar Children. I wanted to be a rugged loaner who carves his destiny out of the wilds of the world with his wits and bare hands.

So, naturally, I figured that I could get behind Robinson Crusoe. And I could, mostly. His adventure actually has more than three parts. He goes, gets enslaved, escapes, lands in Brazil, and then heads out and gets shipwrecked, whence the meat of the story takes place.

But, man, is it dated. There are long winded, hit-you-over-the-head passages extolling the virtues of Christ and Providence and the influence of the Almighty on Crusoe's journey, though there isn't much in the way of Deus Ex Machina, especially by today's standards.

Regardless of the pedantry, it's a fun book. I did sometimes wonder about the veracity of the claims that the title character makes, and it was woefully lacking an epilogue, but it was fun.

For those who love adventure, and have a hole in their reading schedule, I say read it, and learn your roots.

4 out of 6

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End of An Era: or, Why I'm Never Using Pallets Again

My latest two creations are an end table and a TV stand that go with my coffee table. I say "go with" instead of "match" because the construction methods and styles vary, if only slightly. Here they are, standing tall and proud in my (soon-to-be-former) living room:

We had two ugly pieces of furniture, which were basically just slabs of wood stuck on rebar and painted. We tried painting the end table white to make it prettier, but that just made it ugly and bright.
In the end, I figured that I could cover them up they way you would a bad tattoo (I'm looking at you, tramp-stamps, and not in a good way).

Here's a "before" picture of the entertainment center, belched up from the archives:

So I framed them out with store-bought wood and industrial-looking metal features, just like the coffee table, only they had a solid base instead of just a frame. I also attached slats to the back to cover up wires:

This was a brilliant move on my part, assembling them this way, because I could then use my awesome Dewalt circular saw to cut them all off at the same length, in line with the top slab. All the home improvement shows have this kind of thing, where you just zip along and everything's nice and even. Let's just say that I made a total cock-up of it, but at least it's all hidden now. It's never as easy as it looks.

Here's the full framing:

And now primed:

Looks so much better, doesn't it? You might think that all those layers of color and bare wood looked neat, but that's just the magic of television. In reality, it looked like shit.


At this point, I was thinking that the thing looked weird and top heavy, especially after all the black paint was applied, which, apparently, I forgot to photograph. Please paste a picture of a bucket of your tears in the comments.

You also may be wondering why I didn't photograph the end table. Good question.

Then I bought a belt sander because you MUST have a belt sander, table sander, or planer to do this. It's still a ton of work, to scrape the hair and stains off the warped and brittle wood. I threw some polycrylic on them, which is super, super good stuff. Cleans up like latex paint (soap and water), and protects the wood without staining it. Three coats and it works like  a charm.

Anyway, here's some pallet wood:

The assemble of the tops took on many forms, but in the end they turned out like variations on the theme of the original:

This marks the end. I will do no more furniture using pallet wood, except for my next project, where I use some of the stronger pallet slats to shore up an engineered-plan tabletop for a platform desk. That's a fancy way of saying "19-inch high tabletop."

It's the end of an era in more ways than one, faithful reader. Those of you who made it to the end of this blog get treated with the future:

That's right: Kim and I bought a house, and that's an actual picture from the real estate listing. You thought maybe building furniture was my thing? Hell, I was just getting warmed up. First things first: I'm going all Mike Holmes on a drooping wall in the master bedroom. That's right: spray foam insulation, motherfuckers.

We move in just about a month, if all goes well.

Thanks for reading.

If You Like Top Gear and Have Time To Waste...

Don't Stop Me Now by Jeremy Clarkson
My rating: 3 of 6 stars

Jeremy Clarkson is funny. If you want to see him at his funniest, watch Top Gear (not the crappy American remake).

I read a chapter or two of this book every night before bed, sometimes more. Each is basically the same as a Top Gear car review (and my head read it in Jeremy's voice). It's a fluff piece, but an enjoyable one. I didn't learn too much, though there was a bit more insight into the differences between the expectations of British Petrol Heads and their American equivalents, which was nice.

Pro: Funny (like, laugh-out-loud, wake the wife and read the passage to her funny), sometimes.

Cons: Rambling, off-track much of the time. I can't tell you how irritating it is to have to page back to the chapter head on a Nook once I've realized, nine pages in, that amongst the entertaining descriptions of Norwegian royalty or whatever, I've totally lost the plot. Sometimes he barely names the car he's reviewing.

Long story short: If you need a Top Gear fix, read this. If not, don't bother.


View all my reviews

How You Built An Awesome Coffee Table from Scratch

You wanted to build this table:

You obtained the following materials:

• 1 - Wooden pallet
• 1 - Pile of wood, preferably on a neighbor’s lawn. Use gloves to avoid those brown recluses.
• A bunch - Screws, preferably of the star drive and self-tapping variety
• 4 - Metal corner supports
• 4 - Large L-brackets
• 2 - Spray cans of grey primer
• 2 - Spray cans of hammered metallic black finish (exactly like the paint used on the couch frame)
• A handful - Finishing nails
• 1 - Bottle of wood glue
• 2 - 1”x3”x6’ lengths of cheap pine wood, hopefully straight
• 1 - 1”x3”x4’ length of cheap pine wood

You also needed, or should have had, the following tools:

• Belt Sander: Pallets are made of notoriously unfinished wood and need to be smoothed out
• Compound Miter Saw: For cutting angles and cuts across small distances
• Circular saw: For removing planks from pallets and longer cuts, since you, like me, probably don’t have a table saw (yet)
• Screwdrivers: Both electric (like a drill) and manual
• Hammer: Don’t hurt ‘em
• Pry bars: For getting nails out of pallets

An Aside: Creating lumber from a pallet

I could do an entire post just about working with pallets, but I won’t.

Pallets are, to put it mildly, pains in the ass to work with. They’re put together using spiral shanked nails, which are just not made to come out. Therefore, with pallet planks being so brittle and thin, you need to cut them off. Hence, the circular saw.

Once they’re cut from the ends, which loses 2-4 inches of overall length, you have to remove them from the middle support, which is just slightly less destructive than removing them from the side supports. You have the same nails, which gives you the same difficulties, but you don’t have the option of cutting them away.

I used so many different techniques involving various tools. Long story short, I pulled muscles that I didn’t even know I had. A lot in my legs, weirdly enough.

Once you get the planks off, you need to remove all the nails, since the supports will be part of this, too.

Step One: You Built the Frame

You cut the 1x3x6 at the 24” mark at a 45-degree angle, so that, when put together, the two halves will from a right angle, one arm being 4 feet, the other being 2 feet. You made identical cuts for the other board, and for the ends, so that you made a rectangle.

It is vitally important that your measurements be just a bit off so that you basically screw the whole thing up. That way, you have an excuse to look for a cover-up, in this case the triangular metal corner caps you see here:

Now you’ve cut the legs and mount them to the inside of the rectangular frame.

Between the legs, there are supports for the top slats. These can be made of anything. In this case, they are made from the beefy supports that give the pallets their 3D shape. These, also, are hardwood, and very difficult to work with. Plus, they’re too tall and you don’t have a table saw. So you hacked them lengthwise to halve their height, using a chisel. It was very hard and very thankless, and ugly and mostly successful.

Across the middle and ends, you fashion more supports. Between the legs on the ends, too. After you sanded the whole damned thing down, it now looks like this:

Step Two: Painting

It’s just naked wood and metal at this point, so priming is essential. You waste 2 cans of the soon-to-be-invisible paint to create this grey monster:

See how it rears up, as if mocking you? It knows you don’t have enough time in your day to finish up.

Anyway, you now sand the whole thing with 220-grit sandpaper until it is smooth. This helps the real paint go on better and give you a polished, finished feel, especially because the textured paint you’re using cannot be sanded.

So the frame is painted:

But your day’s not over, not by a long shot.

Step Three: The Deck

Here are your slats, all cleaned up, sanded, and wiped down:

How did you get here? Three hours of using an electric palm sander while sitting on a bench swing in front of a makeshift workspace and drinking a beer. There’s good and bad in all that.

After that, you applied a Satin Coat of Polycrylic.

A Word about Satin Coats of Polycrylic

Satin means “totally fucking invisible.” So, unlike a polyurethane, that leaves the wood with a smoky, wet finish that is just to die for, this does not give you any show for your efforts. And you need a few coats.

Here, the result is good, because the raw-looking (but waterproof and spillproof) slats contrast brilliantly with the hammered-metallic look of the frame.

Good job.

So you’ve fitted the slats as best you can, glued them and nailed them down. Then you’ve sanded the raw (looking) surface and applied a topcoat of polycrylic. The result:

Step Four: The Test

Now is the tricky part. Now you have 1/100th of your wife’s giant family over for dinner, and there’s not enough room anywhere to eat, so people use every available surface, including your brand-new, handcrafted coffee table. There’s kids, too.

And, due to awesome construction, materials, and petrochemicals, your new table is still awesome. And it matches your recycled couch, too.

Technical Difficulties

I have this fun post detailing how I built my coffee table, but the technology for importing pictures to Blogger somewhat eludes me. I'm not trying to make excuses, just venting my anger. This interface is buggy and it sucks. And uploading the daily sonnets, when I remember to do them, is, well, a daily irritation. Tumblr, anyone?

Update on the Debt

Since this blog exists, at least a little, to get our debt managed, and maybe help others with similar situations out by living the experiment, it's time to get an update.

Our situation is pretty slick, because we can basically start at the beginning of the year, since we had finally moved into the new place, gotten the new jobs, and settled into what, for us, is just about normal life.

Our total debt load as of January 2011, came in at just a hair over $120,000. I'll write it out so it looks scarier: One Hundred Twenty THOUSAND Dollars.

It broke down like this:

Debt Title                   Amount Owed             Minimum Per Month

Student Loan #2         $59,500.90                  $275

Line of Credit              $14,221.11                  $278

Student Loan #3         $12,677.14                  $50

Student Loan #1         $12,071.19                  $78

Car Loan                    $9,977.27                    $220

Credit Card #1            $7,662.57                    $188

Credit Card #2            $2,415.78                    $60

Student Loan #4         $1976.54                     $50

Macy's Card               $256.18                       $26

Following the principles of the Debt Snowball, and beginning with  the lowest total balance. With our tax refund at about 2600 buck, we paid off some car stuff and still had money left over for Student Loan #4. The following month, we had more car stuff, a trip, and were still able to get the Macy's card taken care of.

This is big! This is two expenses totaling 76 bucks each month that we've gotten rid of.

So now it (sort of) looks like this:

Debt Title                   Amount Owed             Minimum Per Month

Student Loan #2         $59,500.90                  $275

Line of Credit              $14,221.11                  $278

Student Loan #3         $12,677.14                  $50

Student Loan #1         $12,071.19                  $78

Car Loan                    $9,977.27                    $220

Credit Card #1            $7,662.57                    $188

Credit Card #2            $2,415.78                    $60

With two-three months interest and payments accumulating, the total amount owed is a little different, but the minimums are the same.

It will take probably 3 months to pay off the next lowest debt, Credit Card #2. I'll give you an update when we've accomplished that.

Three months, by the way, to save up for an pay an amount that is a whopping 4% of the largest debt, to say nothing of what's between them. We have a long, long way to go, and I'm not getting any younger.

Cerebreality

All my work and hobbies alike are cerebral. I sit at a computer, resolve issues remotely, stare off into space, and basically think my way through the working day.

My passions run in that vein, as well; I enjoy writing and collaborating (as in this blog), as well as composing sonnets. Two other projects, at the moment, consist of a short comic book, book reviews, which I haven't gotten to in a while, and intend to bring to this blog, and rewriting my Masters thesis into a script, which will be the basis for a graphic novel and then (in my dreams) an animated movie.

So that's why I build stuff. I'm not saying that building things doesn't engage the mind. Anyone watching me stare at a pallet or a pile of wood or tools knows that the machinery is grinding away. What I am saying is that it's engaging an entirely different part of my mind.

As Lifehacker is keen to point out, willpower is limited, and writing is all about willpower. Some say that facing a blank page is overwhelming, but I get that feeling just thinking about it. I do know how to write. Lord knows I've got the education (and huge fucking debt) to back that up, but it's nose-to-the-grindstone willpower that creates productivity, and it's productivity, above all else, that separates a successful author from a dude/chick who writes stuff.

That also explains why I built a table two weeks ago and have yet to write a post on it. It's coming. Hopefully this weekend. I've already got the pictures labeled.

So I get out there and create with my hands because working in an office all day drains the willpower from my mind, even though I do like and enjoy my job. In the end, I'm not sure if it saves money on the furniture itself, but it sure as hell beats sitting in front of the TV, watching other people live life while I do nothing, and it keeps me from spending ungodly amounts of money on grand and strange travel or dining out, which I can't afford (calorically or monetarily).

In short, I'm advocating getting off your ass. That's some great advice, and I'll stand by it. Be a maker, be a coach. Or not.

I mean, what are your hobbies? Is this too modest a forum in which to discuss?

Thanks for reading.

Weekend Project - Modern Industrial Couch

We had this couch:

Midcentury modern, retro, 50s, 60s, whatever. Kim grabbed it at the local discount furniture outlet for about 60 bucks. It’s 6 feet long, and upholstered in off-yellow vinyl or leather or pleather or somesuch.

And I hated it. It had no arms. I mean, look at it:

And the cushions were held up by this rickety scaffolding that was attached to the base of the thing, without much thought to support. So if you sit in the middle, the two cushions squish down and your back is rubbing on spiky metal.

        

Not comfy.

So I said that I hate it, and Kim said, “Tough. Live with it.”

And history was made.

Inspired by this project, I went out, bought a ton of black metal and galvanized piping, and I was off.

The Plan

This took a lot of measuring and planning, and some dry run trips to Lowe’s (more on them later). The raw materials would eat up all 150 bucks of my savings, but I thought it worth it for essentially a brand new couch.

Essentially, I bought all the pipes and put them together, spray painted them, and attached them to the couch.

The Problem

Okay, so I bought the wrong pipes a bunch of times, and had to go back 3 times to Lowe’s to come up with all the parts that I needed, but the big problem wasn’t execution, it was planning. You see, in order to make a rectangle with threaded pipes and fittings, something, at some point, needs to be reverse-threaded. Let me explain:

Say you have the piece for a rectangle, which includes four sides and four right-angle fittings. With me so far? Now, you put them together so that you have three sides and all fittings. Now you screw in the last side on one end – perfect – and then try the other end. It goes in, but the other end (the perfect one) unscrews itself. See what I mean?

This was my resolution:

Basically, we were using ½ inch pipe, so I bought T fittings that had the two ends ¾ inch and the side ½ inch. This allowed me to pull the ½ inch bar through the straight part of the fitting. Thus, if I put the parts together in the right order, everything would go together. Drill a hole through the fitting with my Dewalt Titanium drill bit (easy as pie) and blast a self-threading screw in there, and it’s good to go. As you’ll see, I did that four times.

The Process

First, I cut a 1x6x6 down to the right size, cutting the ends at a 45-degree angle so they wouldn’t peek out from under the couch so much. Then I attached that to the bottom with screws to reinforce the whole frame and give the rear legs somewhere to grab.

Second, I bought all the pipe pieces and put them together. Then I went back to Lowe’s and bought more pieces. Then I did that again. Then I had them all, and did a test run.

I laid them all out and washed them with dish soap, because they all had this oily coating that keeps them from rusting.

Once they were dry, I assembled the frame outside and Kim and I spray painted it. After two days of curing, I attached it with 20 self-drilling, star drive wood screws and BOOM! couch:

The Ingredients

I know this sounds like product placement (if only it was!), but Lowe’s was essential. I took two 10-foot lengths of pipe and had the awesome dudes at Lowe’s cut and thread them for me. It would have cost over 40 bucks to buy the smaller pieces individually, but I got them all for around 12 bucks and 10 minutes’ wait.

So we used:

1x6x6 pine board, cheap as I could find

1 10 foot galvanized pipe

1 10 foot black metal pipe (slightly cheaper than galvanized and, hey, we were gonna paint it)

11 ½ inch L fittings (right-angle fittings)

2 ½ inch T fittings

6 of the aforementioned ¾ to ½ T fittings

2 eight-inch lengths of ½ inch threaded pipe

2 ½ inch flanges

6 ½ inch pipe straps

Tools:

Miter saw and stand. I got the saw for Christmas and bought the stand at Lowe’s, because a miter saw’s no good without a stand. I didn’t really need the saw, since I could have gotten the lumber cut to fit, but I really really wanted to use it, and it’s awesome.

Electric drill (no substitution is possible)

1 ½ inch star headed self-driving exterior wood screws, which rarely strip out or shear off, unlike cheaper woodscrews that I’ve used in the past.

Lessons learned:

1)      Preparation is the key, baby. We thought about this project for forever, and did a couple of dry runs and lots of other prep. In the end, it went together easily, but only because it was ready to.

2)      You can’t make rectangles with threaded pipe. This has already been covered.

3)      When you’ve help create or improve something, it’s so much harder to hate it.

One more time:

BOOM! couch.

Thanks for reading.