cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bad Mother Yesterday I heard the most awful thing as I was walking to my car. This little girl, about 6 or 7 years old, was climbing up on to the top of the corner of a wooden fence. A normal kid thing to do, nothing particularly unsafe. The over-weight, white trash mother (I assume it was her mother) turns her head and yells at the girl; "get off of that! Get down from there! You're not a boy!" What. The. Fuck. I mean, telling your kid to get off the fence, fine. Whatever. But ordering her to stop climbing something specifically because she is a girl? Holy fuck. What fucking century is this bitch living in? I wanted to walk over and slap her. I would not even remotely consider telling Ida not to do something on account of being a girl, except maybe for wandering into the boys' bathroom. Just imagine all of the possible paths in life that will be invisibly closed off to this girl because of her stupid, sexist, bitch of a mother. Because you just know that if she spits that out so easily and off-hand that the attitude must infect most of her dealings with that kid. Interests and potential careers that she will never be able to pursue and perhaps will not even consider because her mother is instinctively training her not to behave like a boy. Engineering, management of a corporation, running for Congress, police work, head surgeon of a hospital, firefighting, construction, the military, flying airplanes, etc. A girl that age could still turn out to be anything. The possibilities should be endless. But not for this girl. No, all of those stereotypically male paths in life have probably been closed for her by HER OWN STUPID MOTHER. What is that famous old photograph of a woman with a rabbit's head, sitting in a chair, slouched over, poorly dressed and smoking a cigarette? The one that is supposed to represent a bad mother? I can't remember the title or the artist. Erin will know what I mean. Anyway, this woman I saw yesterday looked like that photo. She was sitting on the ground, slouched forward with a sort of pissed-off scowl on her face for no good reason. She was dressed in a way that invoked the photo and she was smoking a cigarette. ___________________________________ I got some sample rafters cut yesterday after work. The first one was way off. The second one looked close enough that I thought it was right and that with the pressure of another rafter lined up with it on the other side of the ridge board, it would be exactly right. So I cut 3 more just like it. They aren't quite right. So that's probably 5 perfectly good pieces of wood totally wasted. Great. However, I am thinking that maybe it's just the length that is off. In which case I might be able to re-cut the miters where the rafters connect to the ridge board and just set them back a couple 8ths of an inch. Then I'd not be wasting the wood. It's worth trying. I don't think that I have much room to fudge here, since the rafters are 2x4s and if the heel hangs off the top plate by more than 1/4" I bet that the rafter will start to sag within 5 years at most. Ida hung around for most of the process, to her credit. She wanted me to teach her how to cut rafters. She's not good enough with math yet to be able to do her own measurements. But for a 4 year old, she seemed to absorb a pretty good idea of the basic concept of how I was surveying the angles off the ridge board and translating that data into cuts on a 2x4 that become a rafter. She was able to carry on a reasonable sophisticated conversation about it. Meanwhile she's quite helpful sometimes, fetching clamps and tools or holding things in place while I measure. Cutting your own rafters is just a pain in the ass. I'm going to learn how to do it right and then avoid repeating the experience in the future to whatever extent is possible. The next gabled roof that I build will damn well be built with trusses. I'm kinda tired today. I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night on account of staying up several hours later than usual in order to fuck. Getting up was rough. I momentarily considered calling in sick but there's way too much email in my in-box right now. I don't want anyone else having to dig through that and deal with any phone calls or whatever about it. I don't think I've taken a single sick day in at least 6 months. Maybe as long as a year. I wouldn't feel bad about the basic concept of calling in like that just in order to sleep in. That CVA Wolf muzzleloader came yesterday. I'm pleased with the quality, especially given the price. The open sights are the best I've ever gotten on any factory rifle. I'll probably be using the scope for the most part but I'm all about having good sights as a backup. The weight feels about right, a touch heavier than, say, a typical .30 caliber cartridge rifle. But I like a barrel a bit on the heavy side for good balance and steadier off-hand-shots. That extra weight seems to keep the muzzle end from wobbling around so much. This .50 caliber barrel is heavy all right. The trigger is surprisingly crisp. Probably set for about 4.5 pounds, I would guess. That's heavier than most rifle geeks like, but I don't want a hair trigger on a hunting rifle that's getting carried through brush and woods, where a stray twig could accidentally pull your trigger and cause an unexpected discharge. Super-light triggers are great on target rifles but just not what I want for safety in the field. Ergonomically, the rifle is pleasant to handle and simple to operate. The cocking hammer is nothing fancy but it's shaped exactly right for my thumb to quickly and securely grab and lower. I haven't shot the rifle yet since I have to get some black powder or more likely Pyrodex pellets for it. Maybe I'll manage to get out to the gun store this weekend. I've read that it typically prints 2 inch groups at 100 yards, which I consider perfectly acceptable for even a cartridge-based hunting rifle. To get that kind of accuracy from a muzzle loader that costs less than a hundred fifty dollars un-scoped would be way beyond what I'd expected. 10:51 - 2008-04-25 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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