Monday, April 15, 2019

When things go wrong you have to solder on

This falls into the category of how learning new things can keep an old mind from turning to Jell-o. Um, as long as you don't burn the house down.
     The last thing I did when I left the cabin besides lock the door was disconnect the propane tank from the house distribution system to bring the regulator and hose indoors. Unfortunately in removing the assembly from the tank the wrench slipped and my hand slammed against a joint in the main plumbing and the joint came apart.
     This whole system was put in by a friend of mine who was a licensed plumber and I can't really complain about the work after more than 30 years. However if I am going to have lights and a cook stove when I go back it is going to have to be fixed.
     And as much as I have learned over the years, I have never learned how to solder, and this joint needs to be soldered. Soooo I guess I still have more to learn. I sure can't call the guy to head out into the bush to solder one joint. What it all boils down to is I've got some learnin' to do.
     I watched the plumbers who did the two houses I built and the one who works on this house, so I have a pretty good idea what's involved. From internet sources I made a list of tools I will need and I've already bought them. I'm thinking now it might be a good idea to buy some copper tubing and fittings and practice a little before I go back and attempt the repair. One of the difficulties is the break is under the house in a rather tight space where I will have to be working over my head, so some planning is necessary for that as well. And yes the pipe is tight against floor joists and exposed insulation, so some protection is going to be needed there to prevent a fire. What fun, huh?
Here's what's involved: The example in this video is pretty much the connection I have to make.
     I do have a plan B. If I fail at soldering, I will take enough fittings so I can jury rig a connection cobbled together with pressure fittings. I've done some connections that way and I know how to do that. And, believe it or not I also have a plan C. I ordered a basic Coleman stove just in case nothing works. At least I will have two burners and I can run the generator longer for lights.
     And the process goes on. Today (three days later) I bought about $30 worth of copper tubing and fittings to practice on before I head out there to make the fix. Plan A under way.

Let's talk about taxes

First of all every year these days I have to write a check (electronically) for the entire amount of my federal income tax obligation. Every time I do I think everybody should have to do it this way instead of looking forward to receiving a refund as if it were a birthday gift. If you had to face the dollar amount and watch it disappear from your bank account, you might take more interest in how much of that money goes to pay for the #fakepresident's million-dollar weekends at Mar a Lago.
       This year there's even more, I live on a relatively fixed income, the largest part of which is a Social Security benefit, a fund I paid into since 1958. Another Republican, Ronald Reagan, took a chunk out of it already when he started taxing Social Security payments to pay for his adventures in the Middle East and South America during the 1980s.
       Then, this year, with the #fakepresident's ballyhooed tax cuts, I was allowed to pay $400 more than I did last year  for just about the same amount of income. We did get a slight increase in the payments this year but it barely covered the withdrawal to cover an increase in the Medicare premium we have to pay. That's right, we old folks get to pay for that "entitlement," as the GOPpers dreogatoraly call it. Specifically, it IS an entitlement; having paid into the fund for 60 years I am entitled to that money.
     Mind you, I am not complaining generally about paying taxes. Despite the efforts of the #fakepresident, this is still a good country to live in and it costs money to make it work. I just want my money to be used effectively, not for caging children, or for golf weekends or to finance a cabinet whose main purpose is to undo a century of progress in this country. If Medicare for all means some of my money goes to pay for an abortion in New York City, or a hip replacement in Helena, that's OK with me. I am sure in the long run as I age and go through one infirmity after another some emerging master of the universe starting out on Wall Street will be paying for my arthritis medicine as well. It's all good.
      I just think if we all physically wrote that check every year for the full amount instead of happily planning what we'll buy with a refund, we might give the people we vote for and how they distribute our money a little more careful examination.
     Now comes the kicker. I mentioned my "relatively" fixed income. Well I do have some other income, about ten percent, that varies from year to year and arrives at unexpected moments, I've written before about how my father would shake his head every time I hit the bottom of my barrel, a check would fall out of the sky and save me. How about this?
     Today April 15, income tax day 2019, I received a royalty check in the mail that was only $100 short of paying my entire tax bill. And we get to vote for a new president next year. You just have to have a little faith.

A SIDE NOTE: As if piling on the lower tax brackets wasn't enough, there's an effort afoot in Congress to make the IRS charge for electronic filing. Chief among the lobbyists for that move are the representatives of the huge online tax preparation company #turbotax. Where it has normally cost the price of maybe two stamps to file a return, electronic filing has been free. Who knows what the IRS might charge at the behest of #turbotax. So, at the end of the #turbotax process is a form to send the company comments about using the application. Here's what I sent in the comments section:
Given Turbotax executives' efforts to change free filing, I have used this product since the days when it was Macintax. I have been generally satisfied with it. However if the IRS begins charging for electronic filing the direct result of your lobbying, I will dump you like yesterday's mashed potatoes and find another provider.
If anybody who reads this uses turbotax, please do the same. You can do it by going to the "file your return" section and click to the end of it.
Congress considers ending free filing -ProPublica

Sunday, April 14, 2019

'Slaughterhouse-Five,' Baghdad redux


One of my all-time favorite books is Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five," his masterpiece World War II (and before and after) novel. The attached essay gives it new meaning in a changing world that has not changed all that much. It's a long read, but so telling,

Reading Slaughterhouse-Five in Baghdad: What Vonnegut taught me about what comes after war

Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel