Sneaky Bastard

I’ve been listening to the recent political posturing about “stimulating the economy” with a package of government spending. It seems that the President and Congressional leaders from both parties are stumbling over themselves to propose the biggest and best. I agree that maintaining a healthy economy is a good idea — who wouldn’t? I even think that business tax incentives to encourage increased employment is appropriate. I’d love to see some new public works projects, such as mass transit, used to prop up that part of the economy (not holding my breath on that though). The Federal Reserve has dropped the funds rate aggressively, which should make capital more available, and appears to have settled the stomach of Wall Street. I’m fine with all of this, but what pisses me off to no end that as soon as the stimulus package legislation has been completed, and someone suggests that Congress should require some regulation regarding investor fraud, predatory lending, corporate collusion, or repeal of sweetheart subsidies, we’ll start hearing “No government interference with the Free Market!” For better or for worse, there’s no such thing as a free market.

While knocking out items on my to-do list, I thought I’d try ordering some replacement parts for my truck on eBay. I was hopeful that I’d be able to accurately identify the auction items as the parts I need. Sure enough, I found the exact OEM parts I needed and bought them within a couple minutes at very reasonable prices.

Last week I listed my Palm T|X. It sold within a matter of minutes, and I was paid promptly via PayPal.

What did we ever do without eBay?!

I thought that I blogged about this topic several weeks ago, but I can’t find the post (or only imagined that I wrote it). I was listening to Fair Game with Faith Salie last October when she had John Bowe on the show to discuss his book Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy. It was an interesting show. I’ve uploaded the clip here, and you can see the transcript on Bowe’s website.

I intend to read Bowe’s book, although I can’t imagine when I’ll have the time. ::: sigh :::

I signed up for a Boot Camp program at Gold’s Gym. It’s conducted by Steven Davis and Vickie Olney and starts at 0600 hours every weekday morning for six weeks. The cost is $299, which works out to about ten bucks a session. It started on Monday with measurements, body weight, and percentage body fat. Hopefully I won’t be insanely sore for much longer. It feels a lot like Hell Week from hight school football, but with more women and less whistle blowing. Getting up at 0445 to choke down some coffee and breakfast is not pleasant, but maybe it’ll force me to have a normal sleep schedule.

I’ll be happy to have this week of workouts behind me. Hopefully I can build up my core strength quickly, as most of the exercises make use of abs and back. Just doing the strength portion, I average 150 BPM and max at 175 BPM. Who knew that the act of moving one’s body around could take some much energy. It’s easy to understand how quickly a human would turn to Jell-O in a weightless environment (or a desk).

I recently finished a Christmas present for my friend Bob. Yes, Christmas. Yes, last Christmas. It’s a mission style plant stand with a granite top. I started by modeling the piece in Google SketchUp. The proportions seemed right on the screen, but it’s hard to tell what it’ll really look like until it’s a tangible item. I’m happy with the design. It feels solid and substantial. It also weights a ton! The legs are cut from the big slab of 8/4 red oak I used for the shadowbox frame.

Much of the joinery in the project is done with pocket-hole screws. I bought a Kreg system more than a year ago, and I’ve wanted to use it on a project for quite a while. Of course, the square spindles are joined to the apron and stretcher with traditional mortise and tenon joints.

I probably could have found an easier way to mount the granite. I bonded a piece of 1/2″ plywood with polyurethane adhesive to cement board, and then used mastic to hold the granite in place. I cut the granite from a 12 inch square tile with my wet saw. It cut remarkably well with a diamond blade. Using some 400 grit wet-dry sandpaper, I chamfered the cut edge to match the factory cut.

The frame surrounding the top is mitered and reinforced with biscuits. I cut them on my table saw with a new Frued 80 tooth blade and my Rockler miter gauge. I tried using my old blade, but it just burned and glazed the wood. The new blade sliced through like butter. The finish is three coats of Watco Danish oil.