Regimental Crest

Colors:  Blue and Gold, the colors of the Chemical Corps.  Meh.  Apart from the fact that they are the same as the Los Angeles Rams, not much to say.  B-

Tree Stump:  That’s right.  A tree stump.  Yes, there is a story behind the fact that there is a tree stump on the crest.  However, the story is not good enough to justify a tree stump on the crest.  C-

Motto: Elementis Regamus Proelium  “We rule the battle through the elements.”  I’m not sure I understand this because every branch uses elements because, you know, elements are what make up – and I don’t want to get too technical here – “stuff.”  It’s not like the chem corp is using pure chlorine or nitrogen or carbon or whatever – they aren’t using pure elements anymore than the artillery uses pure elements.  The bigger problem, however, is that it sounds like Harry Potter trying to defend against a dementor.   D+

Dragon:  A green dragon that breathes chlorine gas.  This might get a higher grade if it weren’t for the fact that it is lifted directly from Dungeons and Dragons.  Seriously, the crest was adopted in 1986 and D&D was introduced in more than a decade before.  I’m a little concerned that we have any heraldry in the military that was stolen from 1970s era nerds.  Between the dragon and the Harry Potter sounding motto, I wouldn’t be surprised if they replaced the entire thing with a picture of Frodo.  D-

Overall:  Although the entire project is about as geeky as Albert Einstein making out with Neil Degrasse Tyson, somehow when it’s all tied together, it works.  That’s what you call intangibles.  It’s Bill Belichick taking a sixth round quarterback, an undrafted receiver and a couple of fourth round defenders and winning a Superbowl.  A 

 

Branch Insignia

Colors:  Blue and Gold again.  Which makes sense.  Bumped slightly up for consistency.  B

Crossed retorts: These are old timey laboratory distillation devices, that were developed by an Arabic alchemist named Jabir ibn Hayyan in the 8th century. Pretty cool, with the exception of the drawback that he may not have, technically, existed.  Still, retorts look vaguely like ball sacks and crossed long wieners.  Hilarious.  A-

Benzene Ring:  Now we’re rolling into super geek territory.  Not D&D or Harry Potter geekdom, but legit, Nobel Prize level geekdom (Robert Mulliken was a WWI chemical Soldier who later received a Nobel Prize for his molecular orbital theory).  The benzene ring is the chemical symbol for the hydrocarbon C6H6 which is generally used to make most of the terrifying chemical warfare agents of the past.  A+ for next level nerdiness.

Overall:  Drooping wieners crossed over a symbol of horrifying chemical death.  Works for me.  A

 

 

In a recent critique of Back to the Future that I saw, a major complaint was that the movie implied a white man actually wrote Johnny B. Goode.  Now, let’ get a couple of things out of the way.  Yes, I am talking about a movie over 30 years old.  Yes, the critique I am referring to is a Cracked After Hours episode that, itself, is several years old now.  Yes, the movie has upsetting racist overtones throughout (the only way a black man could become mayor is if some white guy encouraged him to?).  Yes, given the creepy attempted rape and “we’re all pretty much ok with the rape” scene that took place moments before the supposed theft/invention of JBG, it seems like copyright issues my be the least disturbing thing in the movie.  But let’s set those things aside for another time.

All that aside, the criticism that Marty McFly wrote JBG is ridiculous.  In this universe, there is no way MM wrote this song.  In this universe, McFly didn’t write it and neither did Chuck Berry.  The song exists in perpetuity and the argument about who wrote the song becomes useless.  McFLy definitely did not write the song and it sort of looks like Berry didn’t write the song, either.  Chuck, that is, not Marvin.

But now that I think of it, maybe Marvin gets as much credit as anyone else.  In this universe, we’re basically told that art exists independent of artists or creators.  If neither Berry nor McFly wrote JBG, then JBG just existed and they both discovered it.  And if that’s the case, didn’t Marvin Berry play just as big a role in it’s discovery?

Which makes this movie way deeper than a guy who goes back in time to almost have sex with his mother and then watches her get sexually assaulted in front of him.  It’s a movie about art existing in the ether, just waiting for someone to pull it out of thin air.  Which is awesome, because it increases the likelihood that I could someday “create” a best selling novel.  All I need to do is have some cousin call me up and nudge me along.

18 years, 28 days. Not a bad streak, no matter what you’re talking about. But it came to an end on Saturday night. I threw up. Blew chunks. Vomited. Barfed. Booted. The technicolor yawn. Prayed to the porcelain god. Hurled. 

Puked. 

Worst of all, it wasn’t from drinking, meaning I had to survive the tossing of cookies while I was stone cold sober. That’s some BS right there. Last time I went through this was definitely alcohol related – ringing in the new millennium, which is how I remember the date. 
The last time I experienced calling up Ralph on the big white phone when I was sober I think I was probably five. For all my digestive problems – and there are many – coming out this end is not one of them.  

I’m guessing this is how Cal Ripken felt when he ended his consecutive game streak – accomplished, but sad that it’s over. 

Yeah, I just compared myself to Cal Ripken. I bet he’s never gone 18 years without puking. That’s a damned fine achievement and I’ll stand by it. Well, I knelt by it in the toilet, anyway. 

I know there is a lot going on in this country and I’m concerned about a lot of issues all at once. But I stumbled upon a study today that horrified me to the point where I’m definitely never visiting the Amazon River Basin and I might never go in any water again. Ever.

Electric. Eels. Somehow I had forgotten these abominations from God. Like, just blocked it out of my mind entirely. But they exist – they’re a thing. 860 volts and 1 amp is what they create. And while Wikipedia claims that amount of electricity is “extremely unlikely to be deadly to an adult human,” it doesn’t say “impossible.”   And let’s not overlook the fact that it’s basically a snake that lives in water – gross.

Setting those disturbing facts aside, the article gave me one more bit information guarantees to cause a near fatal case of the heebie jeebies. These damn slimy eels will actually jump out of the water to attack a predator if they feel no escape routes exist. Yeah, that’s what I need – an airborne nightmare fish coming to shock me to death because I accidentally startled it while walking by on the shore.
To finalize my decision to never enter the water again, I found a YouTube video of an alligator getting killed by an electric eel. Yup. Never going in the water again.

Warning: Loud obnoxious laugh at the beginning from the guy who posted this video. Annoying, but way less creepy than the rest of the video.

I’ve been in Washington, D.C. doing a little consulting work for the last week (Mostly consulting with people about what and where to eat for our next meal – everything else has been white noise.  Was there something else going on here?).  I spent the morning writing replies to people on Facebook and then deleting them before I posted them or sometimes when I was feeling edgy, actually posting them and then deleting them.

But I’ve decided maybe my blood pressure, my family and my career would all benefit if I took a break from anything political and instead focused on something more wholesome.  With that, I give you my latest update about the Barracks at Oyster Creek.

Let’s start with a nice, wholesome picture to remind us all that there are more important things in life than arguing with strangers on social media.  Here’s one of Grandpa doing an airplane imitation with Layla.

After the holidays were over, I turned my attention to getting the woodworking shop set up and ready to work wood.  Heh heh – working wood.

Step one was to put some heat in there because frankly, it was a little cold.  Like, being outside cold.  I had a stove insert laying around that was in my father’s house.  I thought maybe I would set it up myself, but my wife overrode that idea and flatly stated that under no circumstances was I to work on anything that might potentially burn down the house.  To strengthen her argument she likes to bring up the fact that I once cut through a live gas pipe in our old house.  Which happened like 13 years ago and I haven’t cut through any gas pipes that she knows of since then.  Way to hold a grudge.

Against my wishes, I shelled out a lot of money to get a proper system set up.

Note the fact that there are two table saws in the photo.  The one on the right is my older Craftsman.  The fence is not aligned and was kind of cheap anyway, so I found this awesome Delta 10″ on Facebook’s new marketplace app for $75.  Sweet.  The guy I bought it from was so stoned when I got to the house to pick it up that he didn’t know why I was there, despite the fact that we had texted back and forth a few minutes before.  The old table saw is going to a co-worker who just bought his first home – with a new fence he should be good to go and ripping wood with the best of them.  Ripping wood – I don’t even know what that means, but it’s funny.

Other items of note in the photograph.  New 12″ sliding miter saw from Harbor Freight.  At some point I’ll go ahead and do a mini review of some of the Harbor Freight items I’ve bought and we’ll see if they end up being good enough for my level or work.  Beside that on the bench is a Ryobi drill press.  Both the press and the saw have lasers that, as far as I can tell, are absolutely worthless.

If you direct your attention to the ceiling, you’ll notice a new LED light on the left.  I pulled the old single lightbulb seen on the right and wired it in to the new unit.  Don’t tell my wife I’m wiring things, because that’s a grey area in terms of what I am supposed to be touching.

The next step toward becoming Sam Maloof (not to be confused with Sam Malone one was a wood worker, one worked…see the earlier jokes about working wood – that was the last one, I promise) is a sturdy workbench.  After watching several YouTube videos, I’ve decided to go with a 2×4 table top.  It’s cheap and still strong enough to withstand years of abuse at the hands of this master craftsman.  All I have so far is three sections glued up, which I will peg and glue together when I return from my trip.

Before I can attach these pieces together, however, I want to purchase a power thickness planer and even them out.  Yes, I could do it with a hand planer, but that would take forever and be a little less accurate in terms of a level plane.  There’s a reason I decided to go with a power shop instead of an old timey wheelwright style shop – I don’t have the time or patience required for the latter.

Other projects in the pipeline include running new outlets into the shop and  joint project with my wife to build a pantry in the kitchen.  And before you know it, the weather will change and spring will be here and I’ll be planting and working outside again.  I can’t wait.

You’re on Jeopardy and going into final Jeopardy you’re in third place with $6000. Second place has $8000 and first has $9000. Regardless of how much you think you know about the final Jeopardy category, how much do you bet?

NOTHING!  The answer is nothing – you’re in third place and you’re only hope is the other two answering incorrectly, so you just need to keep your money.  I’m amazed at how often I see people who would have won with this strategy but instead they bet everything they had so they lose. 

So, I was at a gas station filling up the other day when I noticed this truck with an FBI sticker in the back. Since my son and I had recently been quoting The Other Guys, specifically the Female Body Inspector scene, I knew exactly what this sticker would say and I wanted to get a picture of it because it’s so hilariously dumb. 

But then I noticed the other two stickers, which in case you can’t see them read, “Ass, gas or grass – nobody rides for free” and “Certified sex instructor. First lesson free.”  Honestly, I’d like to know which venerable institution certified this man as a sex instructor. 

Maybe I’m being unfair. Perhaps the owner of this truck is, in fact, a woman. I mean, I didn’t see the owner, so how do I know?

Still, man or woman, I feel like people of all genders should avoid getting into this truck – I’m pretty sure your next stop is a milk carton if you get in the front seat.  
P.S.

Note the commercial plate – mad props to a degenerate so creepy he put these stickers on his work truck. Should be great for business. Really strikes a tone as the kind of guy you want working around your yard. 

Not a great self-esteem boost before after a four day holiday weekend where I did nothing but eat and drink. 

I know I haven’t been a ball of fire with posting since I started this blog, but that doesn’t mean I am not working around the farm.  I plan to be a little more attentive to the blog in the near future, but for now I’ll at least post a few pictures of what’s been happening around The Barracks at Oyster Creek.

 

An explanation for the well shocking:  as shown in the photos, our well cap is actually underground in this ridiculous configuration.  That means it’s susceptible to all sorts of things that run off from the ground (it had e. coli when we were buying the house).  So until I can get around to extending the well pipe up, once a year or so I have to shock it with chlorine tablets.

Tablets go in, hose gets run until it smells like a pool coming out of the well.  Then run all the faucets in the house until it smells like a YMCA, turn them off and let sit for an hour.  Then run all the faucets until it no longer smells like chlorine.

Pro Tip:  This is best conducted on a day when you can leave your windows open.

And, finally, I got the open fireplaces inspected and they are ready for business.  Take a look at this sweet, sweet video (originally sent to my wife, so that’s who it’s being narrated for).

Click here for the YouTube exclusive.  I think.