Firing The Neighbor

Working with handymen and contractors can be a crazy experience.

Some are really, really good and those are the ones you try desperately to keep. Some are obviously bad, and you fire them at your first opportunity. But most of them are kind of "middling" and you end up putting up with some things in order to keep your price. I've got a crew like that now. Functionally the things they fix are fine, but aesthetics seem to come second.

We had the hardwood floor in the kitchen repaired under the dishwasher. That went swimmingly, so we went on to the next thing.

I've got a banister at the top of the stairs with a baby gate; originally we put it there to keep babies from falling down the stairs. Now it's in such poor shape that it's the baby gate that keeps the banister from falling down the stairs. We had them replace it, but initially they put the railing up crooked. Didja think I wouldn't notice?

Similarly, our yard gate isn't worth a hoot, so it's perpetually propped open. Well, after Nub escaped out the back door and then out of the back yard and down the street, that had to change. The contractor repaired the gate, but with a mix of the old and new lumber, so it looks funny and the quality is impaired; also the latch doesn't meet up right and one of the posts is lower than the rest.

If this guy's crew doesn't shape up, he's going on the Bad List. I think he's trying to become a General contractor who coordinates work crews instead of doing it himself - and that's a problem if you don't supervise your guys.

If that wasn't bad enough, things are starting to get weird. My neighbor has been painting her fence white. That's fine for her, but I don't want a white picket fence, I like mine au natural. When I went to work, my workmen were installing my fence/gate; when I came home half of my fence had been painted white. (And not the part nearest the neighbor.) And to top it all off she got paint on my house siding.

Of course I confronted her about it, let it be known I wasn't too happy, and expected her to fix it. "You mean like wash it off?" No, like replace it. Still no clear reason on why she thought this was a good idea.

So the workmen will either shape up or get fired; what I don't know how to do is fire the neighbor.
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Read Firing the Neighbor: Part 2.

Me And The Homebrews: Hops, Ice, and Wort

On this edition of Me and the Homebrews, WBN chronicles bits and pieces of wisdom we acquired about home brewing.

One of the strangest pieces of advice we got was about adding hops to the boil. Hops are used to add bitterness and as a preservative in beer (malt adds sweetness). The instructions on our extract kit says to add all the hops if boiling 2.5 gallons of water, but to only add 3/4 hops if boiling a full 5 gallons.

Sounds backwards. If hops add bitterness, then with more water I should add more hops or otherwise it will be diluted, right? Wrong.

It's not the hops ingredient itself that is important, it's the amount of alpha acid isomerization we can get out of it. It's all about chemistry: temperature, specific gravity, and timing. Perfect hops "utilization" comes at a 5 gallon boil with a SG of 1.050; if you add half the water at the end, you cut your hops utilization in half.

The other homebrewing tip is regarding ice. Once you're done boiling this concoction called wort, you have to cool it as rapidly as possible to avoid contamination by bacteria, oxidation damage, and evolving sulfur compounds that make your beer taste bad.

[HTB] People often wonder about adding ice directly to the cooling wort. This idea works well if you remember a couple key points.

• Never use commercial ice. It can harbor dormant bacteria that could spoil your beer.
• Always boil the water before freezing it in an airtight container. It must be airtight because most freezers also harbor dormant bacteria.
• If the ice will not directly contact the wort, (i.e. you are using a frozen plastic soda bottle or other container in the wort) make sure you sanitize the outside of the bottle first before you put it in the wort.

And lastly, don't let your dog eat the hops. It could develop hyperthermia (too hot) and die. I don't have a dog, so that's not my concern, but it might be for you.

Father Brown on Librivox

Over the last year and a half, I have enjoyed G.K. Chesterton's detective stories featuring Father Brown.

I have enjoyed them on CD, DVD, and dead tree form. I just received The Complete Father Brown Volume 2 in the mail and I plan on enjoying them thoroughly. If you have the time, and enjoy mysteries and detective novels, or have a weakness for old movies, then I recommend them highly.
However, there may be a form that you may not be aware of that you can take advantage of for free: Librivox. These are audio recordings in the public domain, and they don't cost you a penny.

LibriVox volunteers read and record chapters of books in the public domain (books no longer under copyright), and make them available for free on the Internet. Practically, this means we record books published before 1923. All our recordings (including yours, if you volunteer for us) are also donated into the public domain.

All you need is a computer and the ability to play MP3 or Ogg Vorbis files. There are titles of every conceivable genre. And, if you so choose, you could be a recording star as well.

At the moment, I'm listening to one of the stories from The Wisdom of Father Brown, The Absence of Mr. Glass.

Front Fell Off

These fellows make about as much sense as any of the other talking heads out there, which is to say not much - only they're funnier.

New Zealand satirists John Clarke and Bryan Dawe talk oil spills.



h/t man with black hat

Days Like These

This weekend I managed to break the lawn tractor, demolish the ramp, and rip off the shed door all in 90-plus degree heat without actually fixing anything.

With days like these, it's good that holidays don't come too close together.

(For those who are keeping score, this isn't my real shed; I was too demoralized to take a real picture.)