All posts by wessew

Science, The Baboon Congress

A Sticky Situation

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Today’s post comes from Wessew

I’m going to write about glue. All Trailbabooners know about glue. Some of you are/were teachers and may even have made your own glue using flour and water. I recall being taught the recipe in first grade to finish paper-mâché projects. At the time, it seemed rather messy so I have my doubts that process is popular today. The history of glue goes back thousands of years. Affixing one item to another was a challenge to be met by tool makers and construction laborers. Tar, eggs, starch all found their way into everyday use.  For most folks their experience with glue is limited to the basics: Elmers and Super Glue. And typically their knowledge of glues is also basic: “Glue is glue”. Well, that is not true. Indeed, it can be quite confusing to go to the glue aisle of a Lowe’s or Home Depot and be confronted with a dozens of varieties of glue. As reading the fine print seems a lost “art”, I surmise that many failures arise from the assumption that all glues are pretty much the same.

In my floor covering trade, there are hundreds of different glues. Each has specific qualities and recommended usages. But the basic guideline for use is: Read the label. Well, back in the early 70’s, we were doing a project at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The material was delivered to the job site along with buckets of glue. It was cork tile. From Portugal. With instructions in Portuguese. There was no discernible contact information in the material so as Portuguese is not a common language in North Dakota, the University did put me on to a Spanish translator. As these languages are related, I hoped for the best in getting a fairly good idea as to how to use the glue. I missed a step in translation. The glue had to be used over a porous subfloor ie wood or properly prepared concrete. Our concrete was polished meaning it was now a non-porous subfloor. We came in the next day and found the tile we had laid expanded about 1/32 of an inch in each piece causing a peaking effect. The glue had no where to go except into the cork itself. I panicked. Then I remembered a little physics and what could shrink material: Cold. We obtained dry ice and moved the chunks around the floor for hours. It worked!

We still get material from foreign countries but most often it comes with instructions in multiple languages… including English.

Have you ever had a problem with translation?

 

 

The Baboon Congress

I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed

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Header image by Kathleen Tyler Conklin via Flickr – Creative Commons 2.0

Today’s post comes from Wessew

I cut myself again today.

I mention “again” as cuts are an all too frequent occurrence in the flooring installation trade. There are sharp thingys everywhere just waiting to deliver a laceration. This time it was the sheet vinyl itself that I mishandled resulting in what can be described as a paper cut that bleeds. But, as Governor Ventura famously said in the movie Predator, “I ain’t got time to bleed”, so I put a dab of antiseptic on the wound and covered it with duct tape. (I confess to have watched too many Red Green Shows) The damage today was minimal. No sutures required.

On one occasion I had just finished gluing a floor in an empty rental apartment and stood up to roll the material into the wet adhesive. Unfortunately, the stove exhaust vent got in the way and delivered unto me a nasty gash in my scalp. I had no choice but to take my shirt off for use as a compress and finish that part of the job one-handed.

Scalp wounds bleed A LOT but I had no time to bleed as the flooring material needed to get into fresh adhesive. The emergency room gave me a dozen sutures that day. Duct tape would not have been effective in this case.

Another notable cut happened when I was cleaning a glue-coated trowel. The material had to be scraped off, so I was using a razor sharp, four inch wide, half inch deep wall paper scraper. It slipped and my left thumb got in the way. It was bad. Very bad. About two inches long and a quarter of an inch deep. I squeezed it together and proceeded to the emergency room which was one sixteenth of an inch away; just behind a sheet of plastic. It comes in handy to sometimes work in a hospital. They didn’t even make me wait and
fill out the paperwork. From the time of the accident to the time the doctor gave me a local anesthetic, was less than five minutes. The doctor and I chatted a bit as he worked on me and I casually enquired when I would be able to play the piano. For some reason he didn’t see the punchline coming because he said, “Probably in two days”. To which I replied, “Two days? Wonderful. I never could before.” His assistant practically fell on the floor laughing. He groaned and gave me an extra stitch.

What keeps you in stitches?

The Baboon Congress

The Hand You’re Dealt

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Today’s post comes from Wessew.

I love playing cards. I rarely ever make a wager on card playing, so my love is not based on avariciousness.

I enjoy making the best of what I am dealt. Early on Crazy Eights and Go Fish were my games of choice. Then, several winter nights in 1963, my whole deck was changed. My sisters and I were taught how to play Pinochle. There was a three day blizzard with little to do except watch the white world outside or the black and red world inside at the table. Pinochle is a great card game. The card combination of Queen of Spades and Jack of Diamonds is key to play and from where the game gets it’s name. The worth of those two in one hand depends on the scoring system you use. In our home system, a single Pinochle was melded as 4 points and a double Pinochle as 30 points. Thus were we trained that Spades and Diamonds go together.

Then we learned the game of Hearts. The object is to score the least points. Typically a heart card in your hand at the end of a hand of play counted one point against you. The Queen of Spades counted 13 against you; a very, very bad card unless you also took ALL the other Hearts in which case you have “shot the moon” and now give every other player 26 points. “Shooting The Moon” was always a coup. Being the last player below 100 points meant you were the victor. One summer, my workmates and I engaged in a four player Hearts tournament. The first guy to win ten games was the winner. We played at break and at lunch for days on end until it came to this: We had each won 9 games and each, in what had to be the final hand, had 90 points each. We were so evenly matched that it reminds me of a Vulcan mind meld. Whomever was ahead was to be dealt with harshly. We knew who needed to get the queen and just enough hearts to keep the game alive. Now we were at a final reckoning. No longer allies. I will never forget that moment. We were working laying carpet at a school in Cannonball, North Dakota. (Very near the site of the present civil disobedience action regarding the pipeline.) We declared victory for all of us and never played the last hand. It felt wonderful.

I play Whist, Canasta, Cribbage, Rummy and Oh Heck among many other card games but the one game I have yet to learn is Bridge. I would love to learn for one simple reason: I understand that in trying to score the best hand possible one can declare “NOTRUMP”. Let me learn and may the Gods of Luck deal me hands for which I can bid….NO DAMN TRUMP.

What is your favorite suit? Why are Clubs so neglected in card playing?

The Baboon Congress

To the Moon, Alice

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Today’s post comes from Wessew
My car is now named “Alice”. On November 6, 2016, my 2007 Impala attained average earth/ moon perigee. According to the odometer, it had traveled to the point in the heavens that on average is closest to the moon’s orbit of the earth. I named her “Alice” in honor of the long-suffering wife of Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason of Honeymooners fame) who frequently threatened to launch her toward that celestial body.  If the Chevy reaches the orbit of Mars, 46.8 million miles, “Alice” will transgender to “Ray” in honor of The Martian Chronicles author, Bradbury. It seems unlikely that I will witness that event given the time necessary to achieve it. I think I’ll give “Alice” that opportunity by putting her disposition in my last will and testament. The person who gets the most monies must also take care of the car. Thereafter, my forebears can effect the renaming rites.
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This is the first automobile I’ve had that has recorded such a distance. I bought it new, so all but 50 of those 225,884 miles are mine. Alice did reach the milestone of closest lunar approach to earth, the Beaver Moon, earlier then the actual event. On November 14, 2016 the moon will be at perigee 223,000 miles, the closest to earth it has been since 1948, an event not to be repeated until 2034. So either she is early or I am late with this article. In either case, she and I are well on our way to apogee. Also, I’m quite certain that my total mileage logged driving cars puts me on the return leg of a second lunar round trip so there is no need to quibble over a few thousand miles when were talking about nearly a million.
My driving career began with tooling around the farmstead in a 1948 Studebaker Champion. It was no longer road worthy and hadn’t been licensed for years but for the sake of driving practice it was perfect for my needs. My Dad had given it to me with the thought that I might become some sort of restoration mechanic. Well, that never happened, although it would be great to still possess what is now a classic automobile. We also had a 1964 Rambler station wagon with a push button automatic transmission. My sisters liked learning to drive with that car as it relieved them of having to shift gears using a clutch. Wimps!
Many makes and models have now come and gone. Most of the time they were good companions but the brand that caused the most trouble was the 1983 Renault Alliance. It was Motor Trend and Car And Driver magazines Car of the Year. Those publications have since apologized for their recommendations; hundreds of repair dollars and tons of frustration too late for me and thousands of victims. The gas pump failed. The oil pump failed. The transmission failed. The air conditioner failed. Even the radio failed. It never even made 30,000 miles. The model did make Car Talk several times and Tom and Ray had some sympathy for the people who owned that junk but none for those who made it.
“The Renault Alliance proved the adage that nothing bad will happen to the person who owns a French car, because it already has.”
What is the best thing to come out of France?
History, The Baboon Congress

The Day the Music Died

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Today’s post comes from Wessew

For me the music died on Monday, October 24, 2016 with the death of Bobby Vee.

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Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) and pilot Roger Peterson left Clear Lake, Iowa for a flight to Fargo, North Dakota. They were to perform at the Moorhead, Minnesota Armory as a continuation of the Winter Party Dance tour. They never arrived as they died when the plane crashed into an Iowa cornfield, February 3, 1959. As news of the tragedy spread in the Fargo-Moorhead area, word went out for performers to substitute for the lost tour members. Fifteen year old Robert Velline and his newly formed group volunteered, were chosen to play and the show went on. The Shadows, as they called themselves on the spot, were well received and Bobby Vee went on to a stellar career before succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease. My parents attended that event. It’s not that they were big rock and roll fans but we lived just a short walk from the Armory in Moorhead and were acquaintances of the Velline family. So they went as a show of support for Bobby and his brother Bill, one of the guitar players in the band. My sisters and I remained at home with Grandma. I have no recollection of disappointment in being excluded from “making the scene.” Seeing as how I was only 6, the entertainment value would likely have been lost on me.

Over the years, the significance of the deaths and dance became more pronounced for me. Collecting the recordings was a given. I’m not big into memorabilia but if only Dad and Mom had kept those ticket stubs what a treasure they would be! I became a fan of Holly and Vee. Not so for my parents. It never seemed to matter much to them that they had been part of music history. I have been able to piece together a pretty good picture of what they experienced. They were in their late twenties so were a bit out of place among a crowd of teenagers. Not surprisingly, given my Dad’s two left feet, they didn’t dance at all. They did watch the Shadows perform but left early and didn’t see Dion and The Belmonts.

Time marches on and it is now the late sixties. KQWB radio began promoting a celebrity basketball team composed of the station’s DJ’s and a few college players. The advertising spot included a sampling of the backup singers for Bobby Vee’s hit record, “Rubber Ball” which in 1968 was now a golden oldie. They sang, “Bouncy, Bouncy. Bouncy, Bouncy.” KQWB 1550 was always on our car and home radios so we heard that little jingle frequently. Well, my Father swore that Bobby Vee had sung that song in 1959. The song wasn’t recorded until 1961 but no amount of evidence could disabuse him of the notion that he had heard it years before. The Vellines were no longer in our social circle, so there was no appeal to authority from that source. Now with the Internet, it is easy to prove how wrong he was but back when I was in high school, information resources were rather meager and it was probably best to let the matter drop in any case. But every once in a while the “issue” would come up. Dad would reaffirm his theory that many musicians play songs before they record them. The fact that Gene Pitney and Aaron Schroeder wrote the song, not Bobby Vee, leaves him unfazed. The mysterious song had become part of a conspiracy. The voices in Dad’s head are like a rubber ball going “bouncy, bouncy.”

Do you have a favorite conspiracy theory?