Please Hijack This Thread...

[OTRA15]

Normal is good.

Ab . . . not so much . . .

[OTRA15]

PS -- Be sure to do your "Ab . . . . . . " exercises regularly . . .

[Gene]

My mother always told me to be normal—actually demanded it. The normality rule did not seem to apply to her however.

Tiling went much better Thursday and more to do today. Ever so sloooooooooowwwwwww. More Schluter Kerdi arrived to do more waterproofing. Not easy to apply and get square corners, but I'll be great at it by the time I finish that part. There is now a spray on waterproofing liquid and I wish I known that before I bought the Kerdi. My first tub/shower tiling job, 23 years ago, state of art as I knew it was 15# felt and green board (somewhat water resistant drywall, then a decade ago in another house, felt and cement board. Each time I new process to learn. The scary thing is every time I do this type of project, we put the house on the market a year or two later. Is that required?

[rmkrum]

Try this for tile being hard and slow. The field is 19 x 16 porcelain floor tile on the diagonal. I’ve already worn out one tile saw blade on this stuff. Been working this for two years, and I have another bath tub area upstairs that going to get the same design.



SWMBO insisted on this pattern. No further comments on the logic of doing that. Sanity around here is highly overrated.

The same tile is throughout the entire ground floor of the house except the living and dining room. One drop, no transitions from front door to back door and around into the kitchen, office and this bath. Had to use a laser to get it straight. And it is square and sure looks nice.

[nitzo]

If you don't know how to properly merge onto a 4-lane interstate highway, you probably shouldn't be driving.

[Gene]

RM, I avoid diagonal patterns because it makes my brain spin, but then I do a design that requires cutting hundreds of tiles in half along the diagonal and making 1x6" strips out of 6x6 tile because I can't get the exact color in strips. Now they may be stopping production of that color ins okie sizes and I sure hope I have enough.

Looks good and I hope we all finish our chores before our expiration dates. I can't blame my wife because it was my idea. We discussed the accent color for a long time, but finally settled on a grey. I am doing the doorway now for the two sliders (no room for hinged doors and ability to get to both shower valves from outside). Very slow work and I had some help yesterday, so it went a bit faster, but each tile has to be buttered separately for a shower as well as the walls to make sure there is 100% contact for water-prevention reasons. Because I lowered the threshold and thus had to also lower the top of the doorway, I have to set a fair amount of tile outside to cover all the changes and damage to drywall on the outside when I removed the old tile. I hope to get to a wide open wall someday because it will go a lot faster.

I have to install the additional waterproofing fabric soon. I wish I had a plain white bathtub, but it has swirls that people once liked, long ago, and I have to cover the top surface with tile too. The front of the tub was a thin panel of cultured marble, so I reinforced it with cement board and have used subway tile on it to cover those ugly swirls. Fortunately the tub interior is all white. I was going to remove the tub and build a low platform for a freestanding soaking tub, but decided that was too much work. I figure the cultural marble tub must weigh around 400 lbs. of rubble when destroyed, the only way to remove it. I also saved well over a grand not doing that. I do worry about all this work damaging the tub interior, but so far so good. I figured I could do this for no more than $1,500, but I think I'm up to $2,000 now—the usual poor estimates that we do to think we can afford another remodel. Thats not bad for more than 1,000 tiles, about $500 worth of waterproofing material, a new tile saw blade to avoid chips when cutting all those 4x4 tiles on the diagonal, bags of mortar (mortar can be cheap, but better mortar costs as much as three times more, though the good stuff is hard to find here), new doors (found them on sale for around $500-600 I think), some new tools and blades and such that I had worn out on previous projects.

Home depot has been selling field tile (the basic white subway tile in 3x6") for $15/100. Great deal and I hope it lasts if I underestimate. The grey tile was almost three times as much for same square footage. Large format tile is popular and standard 4x4 tile is harder to find. I use it for the design so I had to buy 4x4 (4x4 tile is actually 4.25x4.25, but others sizes are the stated size) and 6x6 grey to make triangles from the former and strips and borders for the latter. Last time I checked the 4x4 grey was gone, but still can get larger sizes and cut them down if necessary. I checked the joists underneath and they appear sturdy enough to support added weight. I removed a lot of cultured marble trim and only used porcelain on the floor, bench and threshold—it is a lot heavier than ceramic tile. I'm adding weight, but if a floor can support a grand piano, it can support several hundred pounds more tile and mortar (I hope). Not the best way to calculate floor loads, but a filled tub weighs a lot too—about 650 lbs. of water and we have used the tub maybe 2 or 3 times in 8 years. Water weight is dynamic (it moves) and more tile is static, so less stress on joists. Someday someone else will own this house and I hope they are thin and don't like baths, but FHA regs on floor capacity are very good, so I am worrying too much.

It sure is a lot easier to write about the tile than do it.

I am way over the limit for photos (posted years and years ago) according to what I understand, so I don't post them anymore. I'm not sure I remember how to do it, but someday I'll try.

And Peter, next week for column.

The secret to merging into any traffic is not hesitating, but making your decision fast and carefully and putting down the hammer ("gas pedal").

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by Gene

. . .
. . . I hope we all finish our chores before our expiration dates.
. . .
. . . Peter, next week for column.
. . .

Amen . . . and thanks.

Life is short.

[OTRA15]

Dilbert got it right this morning regarding NDA's!

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by Gene

. . .
. . . next week for column.
. . .

I guess the editors are having a Sunday morning sleep-in?



https://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/columns/

[Jim & Susan]

On this date in 1920, the US Post Office determined that Children could not be sent thru the mail. You can't make this stuff up.


Jim

[OTRA15]

Great column, Gene, about the Medicare etc. price structure, Covid risks still on the radar, and so forth!

https://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/c...c496ae158.html

Last week I just happened to look at the line item for a standard pacemaker I had implanted last fall.

The doctor's fee alone was . . . ready? . . . $99,999 !!! [plus hospital etc. charges]

And your overview of remaining Covid-related risks was good IMO. Of course, the news about Variant D is new this week. Already Britain has announced that its intended reopening, later this month, would be postponed.

As a sign in a local market down the street says:

"This thing ain't over."

Stay safe folks . . . and remember to . . . ----->

[nvestysly]

Originally Posted by Jim & Susan

On this date in 1920, the US Post Office determined that Children could not be sent thru the mail. You can't make this stuff up.


Jim

That's a great post for this thread! Way off topic, doesn't fit anywhere else, this thread is intended to be hijacked with information like this.

I did a little internet searching to understand why the Post Office would find a need for such a rule. It turns out that children had previously been shipped via Parcel Post. Here's an excerpt from the Daily Dose web page:

On January 1, 1913 the U. S. Post Office began parcel post service for shipping packages throughout the country. Pretty much anything could be mailed that wasn’t dangerous or pose a threat to other pieces of mail.

The new service took right off – almost two million packages were shipped the first week of operations alone. A mortuary in St. Louis mailed human ashes to Illinois for burial, while a mother in St. Paul, Indiana sent lunch to her Mailman_with_Childson who worked in Indianapolis. There were a few snags: a package of skunk hides prompted the evacuation of the post office in Decatur, Illinois.

Pretty soon requests began to be come in with special requests. Within two weeks a letter from Fort McPherson, Ga to the Postmaster General requested: “Sir: I have been corresponding with a party in Pa., about getting a baby to raise (our home being without one). May I ask you what specifications to use in wrapping so it (baby) would comply with regulations and be allowed shipment by parcel post as the express company are too rough in handling?”

On January 22 a woman requested rates for mailing herself from Elgin, Illinois to Washington, D.C.

On January 31 in Batavia, Ohio a baby was actually sent by parcel post. A baby boy, weighing 10 3/4 pounds, was delivered safely by the local carrier to the address of its grandmother, Mrs. Louis Beagle, who lived about a mile from its home. The postage was 15 cents and the “parcel” was insured for $50.

On January 27 Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Savis of Pine Hollow, Pennsylvania shipped their daughter via their rural carrier who delivered her safely that afternoon to relatives in Clay Hollow. The shipment cost 45 cents.

In February another baby was mailed from Stratford, Oklahoma to Wellington, Kansas.

In 1914, a mother going through a divorce shipped her baby from Stillwell to its father in South Bend, Indiana. The child traveled in a container marked “Live Baby” for only 17 cents.

A year later a 48-1/2 pound “package” (just under the 50 lb weight limit) was sent in a train’s mail compartment from Grangeville to Lewiston, Idaho. The “package was a four-year old girl named May Pierstorff whose parents “mailed” her to her grandparents with 53 cents (the going rate for mailing chickens) postage attached to her coat.

On June 13, 1920 the headline in the Washington Herald read: “CAN’T MAIL KIDDIES – DANGEROUS ANIMALS”. The Post Office, in its wisdom, had finally ruled that children were not “harmless animals” and because of their potentiality for danger may not be mailed as parcel post. “By no stretch of imagination or language,” said the ruling, “can children be classified as harmless, live animals that do not require food or water.”

[OTRA15]

You can't make this stuff up!

[Gene]

Originally Posted by nvestysly

I did a little internet searching to understand why the Post Office would find a need for such a rule. It turns out that children had previously been shipped via Parcel Post. Here's an excerpt from the Daily Dose web page:

On January 1, 1913 the U. S. Post Office began parcel post service for shipping packages throughout the country. Pretty much anything could be mailed that wasn’t dangerous or pose a threat to other pieces of mail.

The new service took right off – almost two million packages were shipped the first week of operations alone. A mortuary in St. Louis mailed human ashes to Illinois for burial, while a mother in St. Paul, Indiana sent lunch to her Mailman_with_Childson who worked in Indianapolis. There were a few snags: a package of skunk hides prompted the evacuation of the post office in Decatur, Illinois.

Pretty soon requests began to be come in with special requests. Within two weeks a letter from Fort McPherson, Ga to the Postmaster General requested: “Sir: I have been corresponding with a party in Pa., about getting a baby to raise (our home being without one). May I ask you what specifications to use in wrapping so it (baby) would comply with regulations and be allowed shipment by parcel post as the express company are too rough in handling?”

On January 22 a woman requested rates for mailing herself from Elgin, Illinois to Washington, D.C.

On January 31 in Batavia, Ohio a baby was actually sent by parcel post. A baby boy, weighing 10 3/4 pounds, was delivered safely by the local carrier to the address of its grandmother, Mrs. Louis Beagle, who lived about a mile from its home. The postage was 15 cents and the “parcel” was insured for $50.

On January 27 Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Savis of Pine Hollow, Pennsylvania shipped their daughter via their rural carrier who delivered her safely that afternoon to relatives in Clay Hollow. The shipment cost 45 cents.

In February another baby was mailed from Stratford, Oklahoma to Wellington, Kansas.

In 1914, a mother going through a divorce shipped her baby from Stillwell to its father in South Bend, Indiana. The child traveled in a container marked “Live Baby” for only 17 cents.

A year later a 48-1/2 pound “package” (just under the 50 lb weight limit) was sent in a train’s mail compartment from Grangeville to Lewiston, Idaho. The “package was a four-year old girl named May Pierstorff whose parents “mailed” her to her grandparents with 53 cents (the going rate for mailing chickens) postage attached to her coat.

On June 13, 1920 the headline in the Washington Herald read: “CAN’T MAIL KIDDIES – DANGEROUS ANIMALS”. The Post Office, in its wisdom, had finally ruled that children were not “harmless animals” and because of their potentiality for danger may not be mailed as parcel post. “By no stretch of imagination or language,” said the ruling, “can children be classified as harmless, live animals that do not require food or water.”

Can you still FedEx them? I guess it would be best to overnight babies. Maybe UPS would be better.

Now the we are visiting my mother-in-law (96) I guess we could FedEx her so she can visit us at home.

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by Gene

. . .
Now the we are visiting my mother-in-law (96) I guess we could FedEx her so she can visit us at home.

Hope you had a good trip, Gene, and that everyone is doing OK . . . maybe a new column this weekend?

Cheers,

Peter

[OTRA15]

Good morning Gene, no new column listed this morning FYI:

https://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/columns/

Hope your trip went well.

Cheers,

Peter

[Gene]

Peter, column was last week. Should still be findable.

Traveling across Colorado on US 50 is a challenge. Major construction closing the highway during weekdays during the days makes things difficult plus several paving projects, an urban nightmare in Grand Junction beginning and to last for something like 1.5 years while CDOT rebuilds part of US 50 in the city and some other projects between GJ and Pueblo make things hard. Add that to the CDOT "controlled" traffic lights that make you stop at just about every one in Cañon City and other places (how can cities and towns have traffic lights timed and the state utterly fails?). Yesterday I-70 was closed by a mudslide in Glenwood Canyon, leaving few options to get across the state without major delays.

Our trip went well otherwise and my mother-in-law is slowly improving from her hip surgery, but walking unaided may never happen again. We go back at the end of July. The travel trailer had an electrical problem and that got fixed fast, maybe because I told them how to diagnose and fix it. I hope the manufacturer agreed to pay for it because it happened when it was at the factory.

But things aren't hard enough, so a couple of days ago the Subaru died on the way home with Barb's cousin and husband along, take out Chinese food and ice cream (we did have a cooler). We have Good Sam, so we called and they towed it to the dealer (I have had so few needs to fix cars over the years I don't have a garage I use, but in this case the dealer was the exactly the right place). I understand Toyotas fairly well and used to fix my cars myself, but the Subaru is a mass of metal and plastic to me. I did swap out a Subaru engine about 30 years ago, but things are a lot more complicated now. It was covered by the drivetrain warranty—the turbo failed. Haven't heard if there is engine damage (a new free engine wouldn't be bad too). Our neighbor picked us up and the ice cream hadn't been reduced to soup, so a good time was had after waiting for the tow truck for well over and hour. Good Sam is pretty good, but getting through the computer stuff and finally talking-to a real person took a lot of time. It was 102˚, but we were in the shade and after so much hot weather we are getting used to it. Those people in the NW get humid and hot weather without A/C, so I'm glad not to be there.

When I have time and energy, I have been installing more waterproofing material for the shower project. Learning by doing is the best way to learn. I am slow but getting faster. Barb suggested I use a wider putty knife to apply the mortar (why didn't I think of that?) and that and some experience made the second panel faster, but I need some youth serum too. Although hundreds and hundreds of tiles can get tedious, at least it feel like you are doing something. Preparation takes a lot of time for many things, but feels like I never get to what I started this for. Five more panels plus adding strips of this stuff at panel joints to increase waterproofing are on the immediate horizon. It is so dry here the mortar dries fast. You are not supposed to add water once it is mixed, but I spray the surface with some water to imitate a more humid environment. Even that is not enough. Excessive mounts of caffeine aren't enough either.

Time to mix some mortar.

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by Gene

Peter, column was last week. Should still be findable.
. . .

Thanks, found this 6/13/21 column per an earlier post:

Originally Posted by OTRA15

Great column, Gene, about the Medicare etc. price structure, Covid risks still on the radar, and so forth!

https://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/c...c496ae158.html
. . .

. . . but nothing since then from what I can see -- FYI/FWIW -- no worries.

Thank you for the other details . . . sorry you are having to endure all of this. Glad your MIL is healing, albeit slowly. Health issues continue sliding downhill here . . . but I have still been able to prep the trailer for a possible short trip after the Fourth to a nearby state or county park.

Have fun working on the shower!

Peter

[Gene]

While the northwest (or southwest in Canada) bakes, it has been cooler than normal here for a welcome change. My wife's cousin and husband just returned to overbooked Kenewick or Pascoe or which ever of the tri-cities they live in. They said the grass is a foot high and they aren't going outside and even the dog won't go out. Supposed to be 111˚ today there. It actually has rained a bit here for the last several days and I wonder what we did right to enjoy a few days of normality.

And when the turbo failed on our Subaru, it wrecked the engine too, so because the powertrain warranty is for 60,000 miles and the car has 45,000, we get a new turbo and a rebuilt engine. A rebuilt means a used block and all new parts, so pretty much a new engine and certainly newer than what we had. Turbo failures are pretty rare in recent years, so I suppose this is a fluke. Even reliable cars (and people) sometimes go bad. We got our trailer back yesterday and the manufacturer covered the electrical problem they created when they fixed one side of the trailer last winter as a product liability issue. Good to get stuff for free, though free has its own issues—picking up and dropping off trailer several times, being without car for a few weeks (all the loaners were sold) and aggravation, but free is still good.

Never start a major project when you are older than the average American lives. But glad I did because of numerous waterproofing issues I discovered. It goes slower than slow. Have to change truck oil too and wonder why I just didn't pay someone to do it.

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by Gene

. . .
. . . Never start a major project when you are older than the average American lives.
. . .

A good "ABC's of education" column from Abel here IMO.

Have fun working in the shower!



Peter