Sparky and Alley send their empathies to D-Dog and Dixie.  The two of 
them insisted that something was going on in front of the house last 
night long after the fireworks had finally stopped.

This surprises you that an architect would pay no particular attention 
to the shingles that are on location and instead draw something 
"special"?  (You've been hanging out with APT type Architects too long. 
  Real architects respond to the vision thing.)

My daughter has agreed to do some work for/with me.  I'm hoping to 
overcome my reputation here at home for being a tyrant and a 
perfectionist.  I'm going to start her off with an all expense paid 
trip to Mall of the Migraine to sit in on the Apple Store's weekly 
presentation of iPhoto.

You went big time right from the start, with an orfice and everything.  
It makes you look like a big success.  Obviously you are going to be 
somebody's client, so they might as well get to you early.  Now I'm in 
no position to give advice, but I've been happy with the results when 
I've been real straight with folks like that.  I think the mill work 
guy is gonna give me that fine box of wood samples, even though I 
didn't want to do the box lunch and seminar.

Working on the fourth...hey!  I took the early morning off for yard 
work...6 to 9am and then I took the evening off too.  You've got to 
lighten up!  Actually, the complaints are accurate, I do work seven 
days a week, but not all of the work is work and most things are being 
done for the first time and its very inefficient.  But it will get 
better.

Hey, I got to get to work.

-jc


On Friday, July 4, 2003, at 06:05  PM, Gabriel Orgrease wrote:

> Pyrate sure writes a good story.
>
> I woke up this morning reading Twain's account of the slaughter of
> Captain Cook.
>
> For the weeks leading up to the 4th of July in the unHamptons the two
> dogs get the jitters with loud explosions going off at odd hours of the
> dark. The older of the two, D-Dog, is pretty much deaf but he does not
> see this as a reason to not go out late at night and stand at the 
> corner
> of the yard and bark at phantoms beneath the street lamp – I’m the mutt
> with the ears that hear in sleep and that wakes up to rush out barefoot
> in skivvies to prod him with a quick toe to the rump to go inside.
> Dixie, who hears just fine, has been freaking and panting all day,
> hanging close to anyone that will sit still. On occasion she huffs or
> barks right out as if to tell “them” to stop. Tonight when dark comes…
> we hear it arriving and banging and crackling as the day grows long and
> the heat sets in… we can expect that the whole area will be a
> free-for-all. Later we will leave the dogs shivering together in the
> house, even the deaf dog will hear. We will wander the dirt streets of
> the neighborhood, swatting skeeters and sucking our long necks, we will
> turn in all directions, pointing and exclaiming, to see where the next
> display will flash out over the warm scent of Atlantic bay water. All 
> of
> the show is illegal by NY law… but damned if it is not all the more to
> savor for the outright civil disobedience.
>
> Today my son and I did an inspection and survey of an obscure 1750’s
> timber frame structure, a small house within five minutes of our house.
> The developer for the local mall can’t get a Certificate of Occupancy
> until he shows that he has a reputable preservation contractor under
> contract to dismantle and rebuild the house. Don't know why I got
> involved. We have until Tuesday to put a price together. We need the
> work and working on the Fourth feels a whole lot like we are working 
> for
> our liberty. We are happy with the task. I don’t know diddly about
> timber framing and my son follows me. Though I tend to bark like a
> mason, I had almost as much experience as a stick framer. I’m reminded
> myself of advice I gave to a young mason at one of the first IPTW’s who
> was nervous that he did not know enough… I told him if his heart was in
> the right place to want to do the best work he could then he would
> figure it out just fine.
>
> Our middleman for the project, a fellow mason from Queens who says the
> house is all put together with mortise and tendons, remarked that there
> was nothing special about the building and that is where I told him he
> was wrong for the fact that in the unHamptons though there are a few
> heritages for the most part there is nothing much for anyone to claim.
> All the more reason the local preservation community would value this
> simple house. Anything old around here has been torn down. It was
> because people wanted to stop the development of the mall that they
> figured out how old the house was. Before that nobody noticed. It 
> served
> as a lawyer’s office for many years up to recently. I’m a bit 
> concerned,
> though; the architect the developer hired drew a cartoon for plans… it
> is fairly obvious this fellow has no clue about preservation, and there
> is zero spec… even more odd that he wants fancy cut wood shingles (the
> guy is real good at drawing shingles), the ones with the corners
> trimmed, when the old shingles that we found there were plain cut and
> random.
>
> This week we made a deal with the stock car race team on the opposite
> corner up the street, a decent bunch of guys hustling for the sport
> (their driver told me about his competition in the figure-8 school bus
> race out at the track in Riverhead, a small track, to give them the
> mini-bus, the one that was supposed to prevent people from driving into
> Kathy only she don’t like driving it, in exchange for their fixing up
> David’s fire-engine red Pontiac. The race team likes the bus so that
> they can use it to tow their car and keep themselves comfortable in the
> pits. So we had the bus on the corner of our lot, sitting there for a
> few days with no plates, and the county tow guys came and stole it. [At
> the time I was sitting in our "orfice" wondering why big bills come in
> easy and checks to pay them don't -- I know one principle of starting a
> business is for everyone you never ever heard of before in blazin' hell
> to figure out a smart way right off to suck out all the money and the
> fun and to kill off the enterprise.] We had a big sign in the window of
> the bus but they ignored it. Somebody in the neighborhood must have
> complained. The tow guys never bother to knock on the door or call and
> ask why the hell we have a bus sitting there… they just come and hook 
> it
> up and drive off. So, Jerry, the guy on the race team that wanted the
> bus, saw what was happening when the white bus in tow went past his
> house and he jumped out and took off after them in his blazer. They had
> got out on the highway with it and he pulled up right in front of them
> at a light and started yelling at them for stealing his bus. They 
> yelled
> at him to leave. He told them he would not leave unless the cops made
> him. The cops showed up and told him to leave. And he got in his blazer
> only it would not start and he had to ask the cop for a ride to his 
> shop
> to get his jump pack. When he got back to the blazer it started right
> up. Jerry says when he gets excited he sucks all the electrical energy
> out of his vehicles.
>
> ][<en
>
> --
> To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
> uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
> <http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
>

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>