I am going to get a pressure washer today

and try and blow all of the paint off of the basement walls.

I did it to the garage a while ago and I was amazed at what 4000 pounds of water pressure can do. Most of the garage is down to bare concrete now. We shall see what happens in the basement. I doubt I can get it as clean as I got the garage but you never know until you try.

  

My MIL died 15 years ago today. I miss her. She was a wonderful person.

I see where the governor of Ohio was injured in East Palestine.

Most people that catch the headlines wonder what the governor of Ohio was doing in the Middle East.

They don't know that East Palestine is a village in Ohio.

Hell, I bet a lot ot people that live in Ohio didn't know that until the recent train crash.

  

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The illegal lemonade stand subject came up again

It makes me want to go and get a business license to sell dope to teenagers on the street corner.

Idiots!

Leave the kids alone.

Now that I think about it, I wonder what would happen if I really did try and get a business license to sell dope to kids. 

Would hilarity ensue or would I be carted off to the screw factory for rethreading?

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One of the historical people I would NOT like to have been

was the third person to join the Marine Corps at Tun Tavern.

That poor bastard!

The first two probably made him but the beer and bent his ear all night with stories about how it had been in the Old Corps.

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So put me in jail

is a pretty good comeback but not my favorite.

My favorite is "Ya gonna tell my parole officer on me? Get me put back in the joint? That's not fair! I just got outta the joint!"

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So your son wants to marry a halibut?

Yes! A halibut! A fish!

"Yeah, so?" I replied. "How big is this fish?"

"About 42 inches long."

"You DO know that when the fish grows another couple of inches it will change sex and become a female, don't you?"

"Yes. They are waiting for the halibut to change sex, after all my son is not gay."

"What does the halibut have to say about this?"

"The fish is good with it and wants to marry my son."

"Well, I guess I'm good with it. If the fish is happy, your son is happy then it's fine by me. You're sure gonna have some ugly grandchildren, though."

As you can plainly see, I'm a Libertarian.

If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket....

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Update.

Say the guy is gay and wants a gay relationship with a halibut.

So they grow old together and the halibut changes from male to female at about 45 inches long.

In order to continue to have a gay relationship the guy is going to have to trans gender.

Thank God! Not my problem. 

 

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I actually got something done for a change and it felt pretty good

I also got a little more organized and made a 'punch list' of dopey little things that have to be done. 

In the bigger picture I'm still at a standstill of sorts because of choices that have to be made by someone else.

Still, I have taken the Japanese warrior attitude of 'Forward, with even a spear'.

It's starting to help me a little to climb out of that mean funk I have been in for some time now.

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It's 0800 and I'm at it and it feels pretty good for a change.

I'll probably get something done today!

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Well, it's 1100 and nothing got done this morning

through no fault of my own.

I might just as well take the scrap to the scrap yard and see what I can get for it.

I have been meaning to do that since the other day when the plumbers left. They were pretty good about keeping the copper they yanked out in as few spots as possible and every so often I'd take a tubing cutter and cut the brass fittings off of it to keep from having then short me on my money by calling it 'mixed'.

We'll see what I get for it.

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Frew plumbing and heating.

As any regular readers know, I have only endorsed three products over the entire decade plus that I've written the Hash. 

It was well past time to rebuild the plumbing that was pretty much destroyed in the fire. I had jury rigged a toilet, sink and in the basement, a makeshift shower. Living this way has gotten rather stale.

It took some time to find a decent plumber. We were shopping around and on a whim she noticed a Frew Plumbing and heating truck, scribbled down the name and handed it off to me to see if they would give me an estimate.

They would and Jim Frew showed up. 

Now I'm a recently retired Merchant Mariner and at 71 I've been around the block and when I met Jim I knew he was an Old School type. Old School works for me because the Old School guys are straight shooters. 

I mentioned that we were also trying to bring the plumbing up to code as the wife and I are getting up there and somewhere probably sooner than later we know we'll have to sell. Getting it up to code makes the place more marketable.

We just had the electrical brought up to code very recently.

He pointed out a couple of things and I agreed to it. I guess code had changed a bit since I redid the place over a quarter of a century ago.

He gave us a straightforward bid and we accepted it. We gave him the requested down payment and got on the schedule. We were given a date and on schedule two plumbers showed up. Frankly to me they looked a little young but they were in their 30s and that's kind of young to me.

They were polite which was nice but more important they were totally competent and well trained. They were a young man and a young woman and they were a team!

As I have said before I have been around the block and it was a joy to see the two of them work like a well oiled team. They knew their jobs, performed them well both seperately and occasionally together.  

On top of that both of them loved their work (rare in this day and age) and they were also enrolled in a school to learn more about their trade and advance themeslves. In short, the pair of them were motivated. That's rare, too in this day and age. 

This team was a pair of go-getters!

One of them said to me, "It can be hard work, but it's really rewarding." That's another rare comment from a man his age these days. They both obviously enjoyed their work and I noticed they carefully checked their joints as they went along. They obviously wanted to do it right the first time and they did.

They worked carefully and efficiently, checking their work as they went along. It was obvious they took nothing for granted.

I'd wander in and out and make a comment here and there and occasionally say something amusing but in fact I was watching them like a hawk. They did damned good work.

There are no plumbers, electricians or carpenters at sea so I have learned a thing or two in my career. While I am no tradesman myself, I do know good work when I see it. Those two were great.

Later on during the day Jim wandered in and would look around. I could tell he had an eagle eye and was watching his plumbers carefully. I noticed the relationship between the employees and the employer and it was obvious that 'The skipper' was keeping his eyes on his crew and was rightfully proud of them.

The two of them rebuilt my entire plumbing system sans bathtub in two days. 

On the third day they showed up with the bath tub and out of nowhere two more plumbers showed up and helped horse the tub into the house. It's cast iron and heavy!

Once they got the tub in they went back to where they came from. The two of them took it from there.

In addition to this, the plumbing inspector showed up to inspect the rough-in and it passed with flying colers as I expected it would.

The tub was installed, leveled and plumbed in by the end of the day, on schedule.

I am now up to code and after the sheetrock is installed I think I'll call them back to do some of the final that I won't do myself.

It's a rare treat to find a company like that. Jim Frew sure knows how to do something rare. He knows how to build teams.

Five Stars! HIGHLY recommended! It doesn't get better than this!

These guys are the Official Go-To plumbers of the Piccolo family. 

  

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There are two veterans I REALLY respect and admire.

Cesar Romero and Elvis Presley

A lot of people know Elvis served as a common draftee after being offered a skate job entertaining the troops and so on. He refused, opting to serve as a common soldier and rose to the rank of sergeant inside of his two years service which speaks highly of him.

The other is Cesar Romero.

Romero joined the Coast Guard and refused OCS, preferring to just be one of the guys. He gained an earned reputation as one hell of a good crane operator and during the invasion of the Marianas donated blood to wounded Marines.

When asked why he didn't accept a commission he replied, "I just wanna be one of the guys." He also lived on his Coast Guard pay which wasn't much. I can picture a big shot movie star asking a bunkmate to loan him two bucks until payday.

He rose to Chief Bosun's Mate during his hitch.

I like guys like that.

Romero later said he thought the wartime Coast Guard duty he served would be a lot harder than it was.

Coasties were part of the Navy during wartime.

As for Elvis? During my hitch one of the senior NCOs served in a unit close to where Elvis was barracked and laughed like hell about it when he told me. 

According to him, Elvis was generous to his fellow GIs. He'd bring a fellow GI or three along when he went out on pass, often leaving in a limo.

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Late night/early morning post.

It had been probably two decades, maybe longer, since I've had a breakfast beer until a couple of weeks ago. About two weeks ago I had a friend over and we had a Guinness with Piccolo's World Famous Biscuits and Gravy (Patent pending)

I didn't drink anything else that day but it sure tasted good with breakfast.

The last breakfast beer I can recall is on a Baltic 42 sailing from Honolulu (with a stop in Maui) to Tacoma, Washington. I sailed as navigator, shooting stars and sun lines with a sextent.

I think I am not going to wait another two decades.

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In other news, back when I was an Ordinary Seaman on one of my first tugboats we had a skipper that was pretty cheap with the grub.

(The OVERWHELMING majority of them maks damned good and sure their crews eat well. Seriously. I ate like a hog my whole career.)

Anyway, I had a pal ashore grab me a bag of limes and when I cooked the evening meal ( Deckhands double as cooks on tugs) I started serving a quarter of a lime on everyone's plate.

The entire crew picked up on it and it took a couple of days for the skipper to figure it out and he went off like a skyrocket on me only to get rat packed by the rest of the crew.

Meals got a LOT better after that.

For those of you that don't understand, the Royal Navy served limes aboard ship to prevent scurvy.

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The plumbers got it done

The rough-in is done.

Sorry for no post yesterday.  

Tomorrow I have a little backframing to do.

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One of the things I have to deal with

is people that don't understand terms like 'about', 'pretty good', 'around' and a few others.

For example the other day I said to someone that a Criterion barrel is a pretty good barrel they countered with "It sucks. Kreiger is a better match grade barrel."

Actually Kreiger is a better barrel but it's also a lot more money and depending on what you are using it for it may not be worth the extra money. The Criterion holds about a minute to the Kreiger's sub minute. Fine. The Criterion's pretty good.

Once I said something cost about $20 and someone looked at the recept and commented that I lied because the reciept said $19.98.

"Bull$hit, I countered. If you knew how to count you would plainly see that $19.98 is ABOUT $20. Whaddaya going to do with two cents?"

It's a pain in the ass when you have to deal with things like that and it happens too damned often.

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"Do you know what day it is?" she asked.

to which I replied, "Yeah. It's the 94st anniversary of Al Capone's boys gunning down seven of Bugs Moran's boys in a Chicago garage."

Wrong answer.

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I missed the Superbowl...again.

and I don't know who won the World Series.

I guess if I forget the password and some guard asks me who won it I'll get shot. Oh, well.

One time a guard I posted stopped the Divarty CO and the Divarty Sergeant Major and they didn't know the password so he held them for me.

I said to the Sergeant Major, "OK, Mac. Who won the World Series?" and he went off like a skyrocket.

I turned to the guard and said, "Yup. That's the Sergeant Major and it's a safe bet that that officer with him is the Colonel. Let him in."

I turned to the Colonel. "Ya gotta think on your feet, Sir." The Colonel laughed and the SGM turned purple.

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Well, we signed on a plumber finally and he starts some time next week.

Plumbers have been responsible for the eradication of far more disease than all doctors combined.

Of course when you point that out to the suburban Karen types they give you a deer in the headlights look but it's true. Modern sanitation has done more for us than anything I can think of.

While doctors have found ways to cure diseases, plumbers have kept people from getting them to begin with. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Anyway, while I do have a running toilet and a Mickey Mouse rigged shower and can get by, it will sure be nice to have things up and running properly.

Ten years, or maybe even 5 years ago I would have hung my own sheeetrock but I now have to find someone to do it for me. I've got a couple of leads lined up. After that it'll just be a garage door, painting the garage and basement walls  and little carpentry and we're back in business.

The garage door is going to be a pain for reasons I won't get into here.

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This house is just a simple Cape and as such was designed for simple living. I grew up where they were first designed.

The place is a simple layout for a small working class family and too simple for a lot of people that were raised differently.

It's not one of those places where the kids come home and do their homework in their room at their own desk. It's the kind of place where they do that kind of thing at the good Ol American kitchen table where generations of Americans did their homework and learned heir ABCs.

I guess in this day and age it's where the kid plugs in their laptop and learn. 

This is kind of an old house. It's not an OLD old house, it was built in 1948. Back in the day my neighborhood had several homes built in the 1700s.

Still, I suppose that in this day and age to make it convenient it would need a few more electrical outlets as people use more electrical gadgets than they did back in the day.

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Speaking of old houses, on my street people that lived in theise historical old homes would put a small sign on them with the original builder's name and the year it was built.

I grew up in a relatively new house, built in 1925.

In response to the neighbors putting up the signs, I put one up that said: C. Colombus 1492.

It actually lasted a while until some historical club snob gave mmy mother crap about it.She took it down after that. I would have replaced it with a bigger one but it wasn't my house.

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I have not hung out in a bar since I moved here from Alaska

where I virtually lived in one when I was not working.

There are a couple of reasons for this, the original one being culture shock. I noticed that things Stateside that would not even make an Alaskan bartender raise an eyebrow sent one straight to the phone to dial 911.

That was a bad sign and I immediately realized we were playing by a new set of rules. The second thing I saw is that the local ginmills were just plain watering holes. Little good could come out of them other than a loss in cash reserves from overpriced drinks.

The bars in Alaska were a lot different as they were not only frequented by practically everyone but served as message centers, employment agencies and a lot of other things.

If I wandered in and someone needed something I'd hear, "Hey, Pic! You busy?" That usually meant a job opportunity of some sort. It was astonishing how much work I could drum up simply by walking into Tony's.

Sometimes the bartender would see me and say something like, "Hey, Pic. Call Ted and Alice." Or maybe, "Sue is looking for you."

One time I said to a bartender, "I wanna get out of town for a while." The bartender said, "Let me work on that one."

Sure enough, a couple of days later I was on a boat headed for Dutch Harbor where I spent a good part of a season fishing for black cod and halibut and did OK financially.

Then there was the social aspect. You'd meet people you wanted to see, some you didn't want to see and a cutaway of the entire town. I'd sit down next to the mayor one day and a hooker the next while I got my intelligence reports.

Incidentally sitting next to either of these people was a pretty safe bet because they both knew how to behave themselves which was a plus.

Needless to say, people drank there and sometimes in copious amounts but they were not only watering holes but social/financial centers, also.

Sometimes on Sunday mornings I'd grab a paper and a cup of joe and park myself in a corner somewhere and just read and enjoy the ambience of the smoky place while I read about the goings-ons in the Lower 48. 

Of course there were times I'd idle a night away because the place didn't close until 0500 and reopened at 0800.

Still, after the culture shock I simply avoided Stateside bars.

 

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Where did I go to school? I didn't. I passed third grade and it ended there.

is what I told someone a while back when he found out I was a licensed captain.

"But that requires a college degree!" he said. (It doesn't) "How did you get your license?

"I got a waiver," I replied. "I studied at the kitchen table nights."

"And they gave you a waiver even though you didn't even finish elementry school?" He was stunned.

"Yeah. I guess some Coast Guard officer decided that if I could study at the kitchen table with my wife bugging me to fix the toilet I had what it takes to be a licensed captain," I said, and wandered off.

(Much to her credit the wife encouraged me to hit the books.)

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Someone mentioned having a paper route as a kid and asked about mine.

I said, "My route was 26 miles long, uphill both ways, them Sunday editions wuz a foot thick and my bicycle only had one pedal."

"Really?!"

Duh!

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To the jerk that stole my anti-depressants

I hope you're happy.

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One of the tricks to successful suburban living is to

NOT have the nicest lawn on the street. Stay in, say somewhere around the middle third of the neighborhood.

People out drinking are far more aware than they used to be. They no longer throw their empties on the crummy looking lawns anymore.

They have not done that in decades.

They throw them on the nicest lawns they can find with a homeowner that takes pride in the appearance of his home. 

That way they know that the empties will be picked up and properly recycled.

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One of the things I like about most of my friends is that

when they hear someone shout "STOP!" they freeze right then and there because they instinctively understand that something is wrong and they are either walking into something or going to be creating something bad if they proceed.

Today I am painting near the front door and have to be damned careful where I put the paint can down because someone is likely to open the damned door.

There is always that one person that gets confused when you tell them to stop. They have to answer "Why? What's going on? I don't understand!" as they continue to bull their way through things, generally creating much grief and discontentment.

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Last night was a night of night vision at the range.

A lot of what I saw there is much too rich for my blood.

I think I'll stick with Service rifle competition.

That's expensive enough!

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WTF am I going to write about now? Who knows?

I have a package of pastrami. I bought it because the last time I got some I made a sandwich and the cat jumped up and ripped a piece out of my sandwich.

I hacked up the last slice slice and put it in his dish and he devoured it. Later I noticed he was drinking more waterh than usual so that ended that. 

It looks like my problem of the day is how to sneak a pastrami sandwich past the cat come lunchtime.

That may not sound like much of a problem but YOU try and sneak ANYTHING past a cat!

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I just saw an inexpensive table saw on Craigslist and I am going to check it out as I have a few trim boards to rip to use as mopboards along the base of a wall.

I put the tape to them and they are 4.5 inches wide and for the life of me I could not remember where I bought 1x5s until I noticed the base of an electrical outlet. Then it all came back to me.

I had ripped 1x6s down an inch to clear the outlets which were just a skosh over the mopboards. Now, 25 years later, I remember ripping them on another flea market table saw I had snagged for short money.

It had resided unused in the garage for several years and a few of the components started to seize up. Leaving it outside after the fire put the final nail in it's coffin and it wound up on the curb to mysteriously dissappear by a scrapper.

I figure an inexpensive used saw is the way to go. It's not going to get much use although maybe this spring I might make a couple of birdhouses.

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One of the things my wife has done is warn people NOT to recommend I go on an ocean cruise

My entire LIFE has been a cruise on Petro Chem Tours. The LAST thing I want to do is go on some kind of cruise boat.

The FIRST thing I would do is hunt down the skipper and tell him to give me a set of coveralls and put me to work, preferably in the bosun's locker or somewhere AND make sure I was welcome in the crew's mess ESPECIALLY if the crew was Filipino.

Of course I can hear the poor skipper saying, "But don't you want to enjoy the activities? Play shuffleboard or maybe enjoy a nice refreshing cocktail next to the pool? Or try your hand at gaming in our excellent casino?"

"How about NO? Just give me a watch to stand and let me eat with the crew."

"But our gourmet buffet is open and you could enjoy fine dining."

(Fine dining is a waste on me. I'd generally rather check out the meat loaf at Moe's Diner or something like that. Yes, really. Besides little diners like that generally make the best fries and shakes)

"Nah. You guys don't put enough grease in things, especially breakfasts. Hell, you don't even make a decent SOS!" 

Actually that wouldn't be too bad hanging out with a bunch of Filipinos and eating Filipino food. It kinda sounds like a pretty good time but I doubt the cruise line people would permit it.

Instead I'd have to dine in a dining area with a bunch of pretentious jerks and listen to how their wonderful son got into Hah-vud Medical school when most likely their little Einstein is sitting in the stir somewhere cooling his heels after his third drug related burglary arrest.

I'd have to deal with the social director who would try and steer me to go and play Bingo with a bunch of fuddy-duddys when actually I'd probably rather get rip roaring drunk with some working stiff that feels the same way I do about things like that.

Or worse yet, picture finding out at the last minute that it's a Disney Cruise aimed at children and having someone wake you up to bring the kids (which I DON'T have) to the exciting Mickey Mouse Morning Extravaganza.

That happened to a friend of mine that went on one that was a Disney cruise and while he did have small children, they woke him up to bring the kids to whatever.

He blew a fuse and told her that (in so many words) he was going to sodomize her if she ever woke them up again.

My wife would go off like a skyrocket if I said something like that to somebody. His (immigrant) wife had a pretty good sense of humor over his conniption and said, "I bring camera!"

Of course they got to sleep in as they saw fit after that but who needs it?

Then you have the idiots afterwards that want to hear all about the wonderful time you had and you can't really tell anyone you spent it working in the bosun's locker or the engine room getting greasy or splicing a 9 inch deck line or six.

I'd probably say something like "I had a great time! Why I have not been in a knife fight in over 40 years!" 

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One thing I heard about Shaq that I respect.

He reportedly said to his kids, "I'm rich. You're not." and told them they have to make their own money.

Smart man.

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Oh well. It's a new day and I ate too much pizza tonight which kinda sucks.

I'm full and generally don't sleep well on an empty stomach.

I have a plumber coming in tomorrow and I have to get up a little early maybe.

We shall see what we shall see.

Instead of a pizza and two tallboy beers I should have had a salad and a drink of bourbon.

Sucks to be me when I sack out in about an hour.

My laptop is set to UTC for ham radio use so sometimes I post 5 hours earlier than it is here. I'm on Eastern.

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Happy 1 February.

Winter is rolling along and I see about 6 more weeks of this misery.

I really do not like cold weather anymore. It's 13 degrees now and will be slipping into the low single digits later on in the week.

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Major news.

My fifteen year old coffee cup started leaking so I guess it's off to Amazon or eBay to find another one.

Actually coffeee cup was only a part of it. It was my coffee and general beverage cup I used day in and day out for practically everything except beer and liquor. 

Want a glass of water? Grab the mug.

Protip got guys with kids or visiting kids.

Grab a bunch of USGI canteen cups and with a lead pencil put their names on them and issue them to each kid. It's win/win.

They learn to keep their eye on things and every time they want a drink of water you don't have to get them a glass.

When they leave you wet your index finger and rub their names off of them.

The kids are usually tickled to have their own canteen cup issued to them. I passed that tip on to somebody's grandmother and she reports the kids love it when Grandma gives them their own cup.

She also reported that her daughter asked where she got them.

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Another protip for when you are entertaining if it is centered around an activity that means people are probably going to be moving around.

Serve the meal on those USGI stainless steel mess trays. Screw Martha Stewart and her crowd.

The first time I did that was with a couple  and we were doing a ham radio thing. The wife was kinda dubious at first but the first time she had to do something she just dropped her silverware on the tray, grabbed her beverage and took the whole thing with her and decided that it was a pretty good idea to serve that way.

Actually on a different but similar note, I have a couple of people I have over for breakfast sometimes and if I decide to cook up biscuits and gravy I sometimes serve it on a WW2/Vietnam GI mess kit which seems to be appropriate for that particular meal.

One time I made GI SOS and served it in mess kits with black coffee in canteen cups. It was a cold, snowy morning and my guest had a pretty good sense of humor and said, "THIS meal does not belong to be eaten inside a warm house!"

We took it outside and ate it standing in the driveway and we both agreed it actually tasted better that way. But then again he's another sick puppy like me.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY