ShopTalk Sunday: Retrograde, Lawn, Rock, Storm Door, Plywood

Two weeks plus one day from now, do you know what happens?

Mercury Retrograde!

Here is why this is important, so follow along:

• When you are young, still think you are immortal and untouchable, you hear stories about “Mercury in retrograde” and you think: “Aw, that’s a load of horseshit.”
• Middle age is when your mind opens up to your real role on this Earth – as a World Observer – and so you begin to dig deeper down in the Many Worlds of Woo Woo.
• When you get older (as in, “I can see the cemetery from here!” old), you begin to really pay attention to this Retrograde stuff.

See, over some period of years, I have learned that whether sailing (grounding risk in unfamiliar waters – even Lake Washington!) or flying (dates when not to practice stalls), there are just date windows where over the span of a lifetime you enter “keep out” zones and “reduce all risks” windows.

Everyone’s window is different.  I won’t bore you with the (speculative) astrology of it all.  I just can testify under Oath that MY personal risk window is centered 18-24 days before Retrograde.

THAT isn’t a Shop Talk column.  But I’ll tell you what is…

Lawn, Rock, Storm Door

We will assume you know the difference between a fairy tale (“once upon a time…“) and an old-fashioned firehouse story (“This is no shit, there I was…”). But Friday morning I had a feverish burst of energy.  I had gotten up at 3 AM, did a serious caffeine loading and 20 minutes of red light therapy.

Mitochondria on overcharge, I wrote a pretty fair column and jumped on the riding mower a few minutes before 7 AM.  I mowed like a rabid ape on speed…yes sir.  Finished that lawn, complete with edging and did the mower hose-off and under-deck power wash – even blew the grass clippings off the front patio by 8:30 AM.

My lawn mowing was…what’s the word for it? Impeckerble!  Walking out to the front gate was like going to my own private park.  Have a look.

Once out to the road, I turned and drank it all in.

One Item Overlooked:

It was the burn barrel. Coming from a firefighter family, we are extremely careful with fire living in the tall pine (crematoria) of East Texas.  Trim and a dust off with the portable air blower. Stgrack returns.

One match to the Amazon shipping box inside and…

Remember, now: 8:30 AM and I head into the house for breakfast.

Then Retrograde is “Discovered”

No, the house didn’t burn down.  But as I headed in for chow, I noticed something was missing from the greenhouse door.  The glass.

(Really look carefully here – because the point is in the pictures. I’m going to show you how to turn a perfectly good glass storm door into a box of glass shards.  Can’t beat that with a stick, can you?)

Unbeknownst to me, while rabidly mowing, a rock had apparently been picked up and launched itself into the glass.  Well, hell.

Crank up Annie Lennox (Walking on Broken Glass.)

Cue the Retrograde Entertainment Module

Loved the Andersen door.  But, I may not be the only tractoring ape around.  Because the lead time this side of Timbuktu was 3+ weeks.  Left open that long, the raccoons would have started dropping litters in there – that wasn’t going to work.

Chatting with the very nice lady in Lowe’s local emporium, I found I could put in a (no glass) solid smooth steel door for just $268. But of course it was already pushing 87 on the thermal pain gauge, so I wanted nothing to do with that.

Besides, in my next book (first part due on Peoplenomics next week) “Timenamics” I point out that there are three or four costs involved with going into town and buying anything.

• The first cost is the item – in this case I think we figured $268.  Toss in something for the Governor (it’s OK, Greg) and then?
• Don’t forget the doorknob (cost 2) and a deadbolt (cost 3 if not a set).  And then a hidden time cost because everything around here is on one Master Key because I hate fumbling for keys in the rain.  Though in recent temps, you bring the rain and however many keys you can find – we’ll be OK with that…
• The next cost is my time.  In the Timenamics thesis, I run through the time cost – which pencils at $28.14 per hour after average taxes of $9.03 per hour on the happy crappy BLS speak of a $37-something average monthly wage. Two hours into town, monkey-motion to load, maybe a hamburger I don’t need and then home again, home again, jiggity jig.
• Final cost item is the 72.5 cents a mile for the operating cost of my old farm pickup – which is what IRS allows.  (NO, I will not expense my own stupidity for this one, but if it was a business related screw-up…).  Instead, I’d eat the 27 miles of costs of $19.57.

Bottom line: The simple answer (a whole new door) because I frame all doors around here to 36 X 80 openings, would be another hour of (monkey motion) to one-man it into place.

All in – real and hidden expenses – we were knocking on $400 bucks in true cost of repairs.  But, time is money at 77 and besides, we’re made of money, so WTF, right?

Not So Fast: Retrograde is Still On Deck

I cannot make up shit like this.

I made the decision, “For 10 minutes, stop buying ham gear and tools, and just buy the silly door…”

I got out to the pickup – which I’d backed out of hibernation two weeks back so passing rain could water it (and turn it into a Tundra if my delusion dream of being a “truck farmer” paid off…( but, nope.  No truck farming for Mr. Ure.

Instead? Flat-ass dead fricking battery. ISYN.

Mind you it’s now up to 92 humidity is so bad my armpits are dropping more liquid than a pee-stop.  So I strung out power, hooked up the (brand new) charger, and 15 minutes later with the “secret decoder ring” on how that POS works, was back to seeking refuge in the only sane place left on the planet: My office.

Ultimately I decided to cut down a four-by-eight sheet of plywood and sheet-metal-screw it into the door frame once the glass was removed.

Pro Grade Tips:  When you are single-handing a big sheet of plywood (remember, I’m not only 77 but lazy as a dog) slice the big sheet in half horizontally.  It really doesn’t even have to be close to square.  Because if you do the layout right, and you’re not a complete doofus installing, anything from a jigsaw puzzle piece up will align perfectly. Just reassemble and line up the cut line – easy as that.

Then all you need to do is install a backer-board on the inside, for those half million, (or more) screws to sink into. It isn’t pretty (inside or out) until you get a good coat of paint on it.  And it doesn’t matter if that sheet of plywood was under cover but getting some sun weathering, either.

The point is that when you get two coats of a good semi-gloss exterior primer and paint on it — don’t cheap out on your paint; it’s covering all your sins, and that’s a full-time gig, right? — the results will be almost indistinguishable from a flat steel door. If the spouse offloads on you, hand ’em a sanding block and a tub of spackle.

Mention to them that T1-11 has several times the insulation value of plate glass, too.  When we cobble, by God, we check the cobbler’s reference. RefDesk.

Well, except who has panel grooves on a door, huh?

Stand back further, if this bothers you. If it still really bothers you, ask whether it bothers you almost $400 worth.

“What’s Ure Point?”

You need to ask?  Seriously? You really need more coffee.  Here’s the takeaways list:

1. Don’t mess with retrograde.  It will get you.
2. Don’t use glass storm doors if an idiot could mow nearby.
3. The cost of repair materials is nothing. Hidden time costs bite.
4. Make sure to do solid repairs when you can –  do a workaround.
5. Keep spare plywood around.  You never know and we are in themicane season (herricane sounds sexist, know what I mean?)

Why, even AI was able to follow along: “Like a reality show this ShopTalk, George. You’re taking the reader along in real time through the wreckage, camera in hand: “Here’s the door. Here’s the glass. Here’s the burn barrel. Here’s the truck that won’t start. We are live at the scene of a developing dumbassery.”

Maybe. But the raccoons haven’t moved in, I’m sitting with the shotgun ready, and the plants are a little cooler thanks to the higher insulation value of T1-11 plywood painted white compared to a storm door.

Oh – and I saved almost $400 bucks and actually enjoyed using my tools. (Please, no “All guys enjoy using their tools…” jokes.  This is a family column.) (Sort of.)

Maybe that’s just Retrograde teaching me something. So I won’t remember it next summer.

Your retrograde offset will vary. Good luck with that.

Write when you get rich,

[email protected]