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Tuesday, June 10th, 2003
I originally posted this as a comment to a good post of Dr. Quiggin's regarding the ethical value of striving to acquire goods. It is something I'm meaning to flesh out more fully in the future. This is sort of related to the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE hereafter). Mark Kleiman has a very good post up criticizing an article in the NY Times magazine last week, which pointed to the decline of the PWE as the reason for Europe's impending collapse. The article seemed like bollocks to me but I am not an economist so what do I know. The only justification I can see for the consumerist "getting and spending" impulse which is under discussion in this thread is, it elevates demand for goods and services, so makes the economy grow faster than it otherwise would, or at all. I don't know if capitalism would work sans acquisitivity over and above people's basic needs -- well looking that sentence over I guess I can say I'm pretty sure it would not; but the lack of acquisitivity could be on a sort of sliding scale; what I mean to say is I don't have any clear idea how far down that scale you can go before capitalism either stops working or becomes something radically different. Anyways: it sounds like Dr. Quiggin's problem with the "getting and spending" is that it encourages the wrong sort of economic expansion. (Correct me if I'm putting words in your mouth, sir, this is what I took away from your post but that could be transference since it was already about what I thought.) I believe this impulse -- in its present manifestation -- is wrapped up historically with the development of the PWE. Update: Tom Runnacles offers further insight. And, Update: I think this article and question may have played a big part in generating the thoughts I am having now about effort vs. ease.
posted evening of June 10th, 2003: Respond
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Sunday, June 8th, 2003
I want to tell a story about the work I did today on the shoe rack I had previously built -- and think I should make clear beforehand what I have in mind, so that I don't bog down in details. My basic points here are, that I succeeded in the task I took on largely through dumb luck; and that I ought, when I noticed that my initial design would not be an adequate solution, more thoroughly to have investigated the alternatives available. The problem was, I wanted to bolt my shoe rack to the wall, since it is tippy and hard to avoid jostling against. However there is an obstacle at floor level which prevents the rack from backing up hard against the wall. Initially I thought this obstacle was the saddle in the door to the left of the rack, and my plan was to cut a square out of the back of the left leg so that it would go around the saddle. But when I took the rack away from the wall, I noticed that there was also a baseboard, which started about where the saddle left off, on the right side of the rack. My immediate thought was, I'll just cut a similar square out of the back of the right leg; I took the rack downstairs and got ready to do it. But I noticed when I was laying out the cuts, the baseboard is too high; it will butt up against the bottom rail of the rack and keep it from going flush with the wall. More quick thinking; I decided to cut a mortise out of the back of the rail, to fit the baseboard. This is where I think I goofed; if I had been thinking more clearly, I would have just taken the baseboard off the wall. As it was, I made the mortise -- it took only about an hour -- and it is testament to the solidity of my joinery that the rack was able to take all that force without racking or breaking. But it is not an ideal solution -- the rack is now permanently wed to its current location, among other hassles.
posted evening of June 8th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, June 7th, 2003
10 years! Ellen and I have been married 10 years now. Last night to celebrate, we went out for dinner at Artisanal, in Murray Hill, with Ellen's brother and sister-in-law; Ellen's parents babysat Sylvia and joined us for dessert. Ellen and I arrived early for martinis and escargots. Nice! Mixed strong enough for Ellen to lose her cool; and the olives were very pungent, stuffed with a little tidbit of pecorino cheese. Be sure to get the escargots, they are wonderful. We took Robert Sietsema's advice and skipped the main course. We started with two fondues, Stilton with Sauterne and the fondue of the day, which was some brie-like cheese with apricot chutney; the Stilton in particular rocks. We drank Willm Gwertztraminer, which complimented the cheese very nicely. Then some gougeres and mussels, some of the best mussels I can remember eating. Be sure to get some bread with the mussels so that none of the delicious sauce goes to waste. For dessert we had chocolate fondue (served with marshmallows, cookies and fruit) and a cheese plate, goat cheese, istara, and aged gouda. Sylvia (who had joined us along with grandma and grandpa) just about went apeshit at the idea of a big pot of chocolate that you could dip things in. (Me too!) Of the cheeses, I would strongly recommend the goat cheese, and weakly the istara. The gouda was not my thing. The goat cheese was amazing, about halfway in both texture and flavor between sour cream and cotton candy.
posted afternoon of June 7th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, May 31st, 2003
We had all Ellen's cousins over today for a barbecue, and everyone had a good time. The rain held off just long enough for us to have lunch outside -- it was drizzling a bit while I worked the grill, and we all sat on the porch -- and then started pouring, which it still is doing. I just now looked at the rain gutters and noticed that I need to clear out some debris, especially from the one in back of the house. I will do that tomorrow morning.
posted evening of May 31st, 2003: Respond
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Thursday, May 29th, 2003
Tonight I screwed together one wall of the sandbox and planed it fairly smooth. On the way home I had an idea for how I could avoid needing to worry about the squareness of the through holes (see below); I would re-mark those holes on the bottom of each board and drill from the bottom. As it turned out this seemed like too much work so I just drilled from the marks I made yesterday; and it seemed to work fine. My idea for planing was that since I am not particularly worried about straightness, I could go straight to the smooth plane. I tried this out and it seemed to work pretty well. The douglas fir planes pretty easily except where there are knots; and my ECE smoother can handle the knots. I got one section of really bad tearout when I was starting out; but it is on the inside of the sandbox toward the bottom (where it will be quite covered with sand), so I am going to leave it and figure noone will ever know. I will need about 12 cubic feet of sand for this, which it looks like will weigh ½ ton. I am thinking I will get the sand in two trips but I will contact dad to check if that is a necessary precaution. Update: Yep, Dad thinks it would be a good idea to take two trips.
posted evening of May 29th, 2003: Respond
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I'm building a sandbox for Sylvia and I came up with a pretty neat technique for marking the screw holes. The sides of the box are going to be 2X4's screwed together to make a wall 3½" wide and 7½" tall, with a 2X6 on top to provide a wider ledge. Reducing sanding work requires that I get the boards aligned as well as possible when I am screwing them together. There is an offset in the length of the boards so that the walls will interlock at the corners. So: I made a story stick as long as the length of the walls, excluding the corners. I marked the stick with 6 points, 3 pairs of points about an inch apart and roughly equidistant along the length of the stick. I used my marking gauge to scribe a line down the center of each board and marked the end which will be going into a corner with an "X". Then I transferred the marks from the story stick to each board, working from the end with no "X"; one of each pair I marked "x" and the other "o"; the "x"'s are to be screwed into and the "o"'s are to receive the heads of screws. Each top board got only "o"'s, each bottom board only "x"'s. Now I'm all set to go! The only worrisome point now is that the through holes, those that receive the head of a screw, need to be quite square to the surface of the board. I was thinking I would use the drill press here but on second thought that does not seem to make sense. I believe I will just try my best with the hand drill.
posted afternoon of May 29th, 2003: Respond
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Monday, May 26th, 2003
Today I put stones in the back yard to make a path between the lawn and the driveway. They were slate that I took out of the ground at the back of the garage. Very thick, about 2", so I dug holes of the appropriate shape to receive them. It worked out very well -- although a couple of them rock very slightly, I am thinking that will go away after they get walked on some. If not, I will take them up and redo. I am seeing this as practice for the back patio, which is going to be a huge project. Maybe I will do that during my August vacation. For that I need to: measure the area of the patio; buy stones and sand; take up the old stones; level the ground; put the old and new stones down.
posted evening of May 26th, 2003: Respond
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Friday, May 23rd, 2003
I was most happy tonight to find a good restaurant not too far away from our house (raising the count to 2 full-service restaurants and a couple of miscellaneous fooderies) -- Leone's Kitchen in Montclair, corner of Bloomfield and South Park. (Or "So. Park" as the street sign would have it.) Mussels marinara were okay -- but the marinara sauce in which they were served was far better than okay, it grew on me to the point where I was wolfing it down by the spoon full. Followed by pork chops gambiotta (? this is not the name of the dish -- it is however a fair approximation) which knocked me for a loop. Seared enough on the outside to have a little smokey flavor and a nice texture, quite tender within; and the vegetables around and on top of them were excellent. Then we went to the used bookstore across the street, which Ellen had been to before but I had not; what a great store! On a par with Moe's, or at least Shakespeare & Co. (Berkely, not Paris). Lots of great stuff; I ended up with Fine Furniture for the Amateur Cabinetmaker by A.W. Marlow, and Krazy Kat: the Cartoon Art of George Herriman, plus a book of historic photographs of South Orange.
posted evening of May 23rd, 2003: Respond
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Ellen's keeping me up to date -- she just called in to let me know what Sylvia's doing. She started playing with the belt from my bathrobe: "It's a caterpillar." "It's a very long caterpillar." "It's my favorite one." As we were talking Sylvia put the belt around her shoulders and said, "I'm getting ready." Then Ellen put her on the phone, and she laughed and laughed.
posted morning of May 23rd, 2003: Respond
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I had a good time playing with Sylvia yesterday evening -- when I came home she was in a really good mood; we played with her stuffed animals, blocks, trains, etc. for a good two hours. She can stack a very tall pile of blocks before it falls over -- she would not let me count them but I think it must have been 10 or 11 blocks high! Also a long sentence, "My kitty cat is not feeling well."
posted morning of May 23rd, 2003: Respond
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