600 Chicken Dinners

A couple of weeks ago I was conscripted by my church to help out with a fund-raising chicken dinner. Well, not really conscripted, but I didn't exactly volunteer, either. But, let's face it, you would have to be some kind of a jerk to say "No. I'm busy. " when directly cornered in the vestibule of the church... what with Jesus lookin' right at you and whatnot... Besides, I do not think on my feet all that well.

Even if I had been able to come up with a 100% plausible excuse on why I couldn't possibly be bothered my body language and facial expressions would have totally given me away. See, when you ask someone something and they respond with 10 seconds of stunned silence followed by a total failure to meet your eyes while they mutter into their chest and shuffle their feet, you can be pretty sure they are lying. I just don't have the knack.

I also didn't come up with a counter-attack until just now. Maybe I should have just said "You scheduled and advertised a giant cookout knowing full well you didn't have the labor resources to pull it off? Well done. Did you also neglect to buy food and charcoal fully expecting to Stone Soup that problem away, too?" Then I could have followed up with a "talk to the hand" gesture, Z-snapped, and strutted away.

Ok, ok, calm down. In all actuality I was pretty happy to be invited to help out. First, helping out is the right thing to do. Second, I want to be a part of stuff like this so my kid learns to be involved in his community. Third, I sincerely wondered "How do you cook chicken for 600, anyhow?"

This is how.

The firepit you see here is 4 feet wide, 3 feet high, and 50 feet long. To start, the pit was filled with 320 pounds of charcoal briquettes - another 100 pounds were used as the two hour long cooking time wore on. The coals were all lit and the chicken was placed on the grates starting from one end and working toward the other.

The grates are actually the neat part. As with most ingenious ideas, they solve a problem in a "Oh, I could have told you that" way. In this case the problem is how to turn each of the birds without having to have a bunch of people run up and down the firepit with sets of tongs. Not only would that probably destroy the chicken from the constant manhandling, people would be dead of exhaustion or smoke inhalation or both before they got to the end of the production line.

Each of the 16 grates that made up the grill held 36 (or so) chicken breast halves. A 17th grate is placed on top of the chicken to be flipped (sandwiching the birds between two grates) then one person on each side of the firepit hoists the 60 pound units to shoulder height while turning it over. The bottom grate becomes the top grate and is moved to the next set, and so on down the line.

Neat! A great shoulder and forearm workout, too, btw.

Like I mentioned, the grates are several feet above the surface of the coals, so it is a relatively slow cooking process but you still need to baste the birds occasionally (right after you flip, actually) to prevent them from drying out . How to do this? With a garden pump sprayer filled with secret sauce, of course! With this many birds it is a way more efficient way to keep the chicken moist than painting them individually. Another guy with a sprayer full of water hits the coals as needed to manage flame-ups caused by the basting process. The downside to doing this instead of using a brush is that the huge, thick, (albeit delicious smelling) cloud of smoke that is generated is visible from over 1/2 mile away. This is good for advertising that there is a massive cookout happening somewhere but bad for the flippers and pumpers if the wind is exactly wrong (meh... it happens).

Speaking of advertising, how do you prevent turning a poorly advertised church BBQ into a tragically well-advertised mass-poisoning? The meat thermometer guy walks up and down the line pretty much the whole time measuring the internal temperature of random samples of chicken to make sure everything is done perfectly (about 170 degrees).

After his final approval, food is taken off the firepit in the order it went on and goes to join the rest of the coleslaw, beans, and cake production lines inside for packaging and later distribution.

I learned a lot from this process although I think I worried a few of the old timers with my barrage of questions which, to them, must have seemed like I lacked even the most basic grasp of "heat plus meat equals eat". That's fine. I appreciate their patience and admire their ability to hold off the traditional Mocking of the Noob and the eye-rolling until I was somewhat out of range.

I think I am going to try and apply what I learned at this cookout with my firepit out back. But I need to make a couple of grates, first... Hmm, I guess that means I get to learn how to weld a little sooner than I had planned... Stay tuned.

Book Review: Stony Man: Season of Harm

I finished Stony Man: Season of Harm a couple of weeks ago - here is my review.

There is nothing I can say about this other than it was loaned to me by jimmydunes as retribution for recommending The Gray Man to him. I feel that, in reading this book from cover to cover, I have more than atoned for that sin.

You might note that I have rated it "liked it" in the sidebar on the right, and wonder why I am being negative about it. Well, that's complicated.

I liked this book in much the same way someone might like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Plan 9 From Outer Space, or Reefer Madness. Some things are so far past the point of your expectations for "awful" you are actually shocked into liking them.

I liked the over-the-top cheesy dialog, the near-superhuman capabilities of the protagonists, and the plot holes you could fly a passenger airliner through. One example is the ability of one of the Super Secret Awesome Team Omega Ninja Bravo members to blow into anywhere (alone!) and procure the most unlikely items from “The Black Market”... like fully armed mint condition attack helicopters. Props to jimmydunes for pointing out the “alternate ending” plot hole: obviously American black market shopper is found dead in an alley in Marrakesh with his clothes and dufflebag full of unmarked cash missing – mission scrubbed.

I also liked this book on a level that made me extremely envious of the publishers. Since this is book #105 (!) in the series they must have some ingenious formula or production line or software or some other way that these books can be pumped out twice a year or so. I would be extremely interested to hear how these stories are created, so if anyone has an idea let me know, cuz I want in.

It's All Over But the Groutin'

While we were shopping for granite countertop materials "we" decided that I would install a tile backsplash since it would be about 4 times cheaper for me to do it myself than to have the stonemasons do it.

“Can you put in a backsplash like they are talking about,” the wife says. “Yes. Yes, I can.” I say. As with the plumbing project this was my first try, so up the learning curve I went yet again.

There are about a million videos and step by step guides out there on how to do this, so let's just jetison the detailed "Tale of Adventure" and just hit the main "What I Learned" list, already.

1. The videos make tile backsplash installation look easy. That's because tile backsplash installation is easy. Your apprehension is perfectly normal, though. It scared the hell out of me to try this. Don't worry - you can do it.
2. Natural tiles vary in color, texture, etc. Make sure you buy similar tiles from the same manufacturer lot number so you don't end up with transitions that don't quite match. Fortunately I did not have that situation pop up.
3. Seal slate tiles before grouting to help keep them clean during the grouting process.
4. If you are using the 2” Indian tumbled slate tiles from Lowe's like I did you are going to find grouting tough going due to the hugely uneven surfaces involved. A damp rag is your friend, there, to help get the grout out of the nooks and crannies. Yes, it takes a while but the results are worth it.
5. Ryobi sells a 4" tile saw for $79. It is a joy to use. Buy one. Why? It costs $44 per day to rent a hugely overcomplicated and intimidating tile saw from Home Depot. I am sure it is awesome for huge floor projects but you just don't need it for this type of job. But let's say you plan on taking 2 days during the week to do the job (after work, say), you don't have to stress about watching the clock, you have actually saved money if you choose not to rush the job, you get to learn how to get comfortable with a tile cutter in the simplest way possible, and at the end of the project you have a tool for doing other jobs, too.

I should be able to finish the rest of the backsplash grouting tomorrow (the area by the microwave is what is next) after mowing the lawn. I hope to follow this by sealing and caulking the next day, then performing a final seal, then the outlet covers, then cabinet-matching trim pieces.  Then back to the garden.

And maybe I can use the tile cutter to help me make a copper and stained glass light catcher for the to-be garden area... we'll see.

Baby Back Ribs?

Free range children are waaayyy more delicious.

A Most Manly Montage

Note to the Reader: Please feel free to hum Bone Symphony's "One Foot in Front of the Other" while reading this. It goes with the tone of this post more than usual circus/calliope music that would normally compliment my rants.

Hey, guess what! The garden project is still on hold!

But why, SnowUrchin? Whyyyyy?!

Well, I'm going to tell you... ;)

New countertops were installed in the kitchen last Thursday. As you know, in 2010, it is really unusual to have actual craftsmen show up to do a job instead of the more traditional ex-carny-esque folk that you would never in a million years normally consider allowing access to your home.

Happily, the guys who arrived to do this job (the company owner and another worker) showed up when they said they would and proceeded to install the new countertops in the most efficient, quiet manner I have ever seen.

Teamwork does not begin to describe the spectacle I witnessed. During this hours-long process there was no unnecessary chit chat. There was no dead time. There were no mistakes. It was like watching a collective of Amish Borg work.

Awesome.

After they took off, it was my turn to do some work - I got to pretend like I knew how to do plumbing and connect the new sink and faucets to the outside world.

Why didn't I just hire a plumber to do it since it would have been a small fraction of the total job cost anyway? Because I didn't know how, and I needed to learn. For this project, the short term drawbacks of me climbing the learning curve are absolutely dwarfed by the long term gains. "Plumbing" is a vital, useful skill I would like to pass on to my kid, you see. "Learned Helplessness" is a less useful skill I hope he is lucky enough to avoid acquiring.

Without getting into details, here are things I learned from my very first go:

1) YouTube is your friend. So are your friends. Do searches. Ask questions. Think: Would you rather look stupid while asking questions or look stupid while standing in ankle-deep water?
2) For any beginner's plumbing project you will need anywhere from 2 to 4 trips to Lowe's to get the stuff you need. Yes, you will.
3) The purple PVC primer and the glue is the out-gassiest stuff I have ever run across and should not be used in enclosed spaces under any circumstances... like under a sink, for instance. Opening either can while under the sink is sort of like swabbing the inside of your nostrils with acetone.
4) The assembly drawing on the side of the box the sink strainers come in should be replaced with something more useful like a horoscope or a sports trivia question because the artist simply doesn't care if a noob knows what part is what or where the plumber's putty actually goes and if you have done this before, you don't need the drawing anyway.
5) It matters what direction the compression fittings face. Really, it does! It is sometimes not the way it came with the pipe section. Those lazy, lazy sweatshop children - No attention to detail, I tell you.
6) You know that scene in "The Matrix" where Neo says "Guns. Lots of guns."? The plumbing section at Lowe's is sort of like that, but in complete disarray. Don't be afraid to ask for help - it's what those people in the blue vests are there for. It will help them help you if you have taken photos of your plumbing situation.
7) Once you are done plumbing your whatever you will feel so manly that is will be hard not to light up a cigar, pop open a beer, put on the game, and demand a rare steak be immediately placed in front of you. This might explain the demeanor and price structure of some professional plumbers.

Once the sink was done it was time to pretend I knew how to put in a slate tile backsplash because the walls need covering more than the garden needs completing. It is mostly up and sealed now, but I will post on that next time.

Slightly More Important

I have not gotten a lot of work done with the garden project this week, but I don't care.

My 21-month-old was home sick with Mommy earlier this week. I got a phone call at work letting me know he was doing fine. He wanted to talk to me so mommy put him on the phone. He said “Daddy, come home now? I wannoo go outside play bat and t-ball game. Pleeeeeaaaasssee!?!?”

If this were a Hallmark commercial, I would tell you I signed out of my computer at work with a mischievous grin and drove home and played baseball with my son, consequences be damned.

But it's not, and I didn't.

Due to one thing or another my Vacation Time/Sick Time “bucket” has been running on fumes for over a year now. I have zero Comp Time. I couldn't just make up the time this pay period – countertops are being put in today. Besides, I had three project milestones to meet this week, so I couldn't just take off for that reason, either.

“I had three project milestones to meet this week.” Nice.

I am very good at my job. I met the super-mega-important milestones even though I spent a lot of the time listening to “Cat's in the Cradle” on continuous loop in my head and staring through my desktop...

So the construction of the stone garden walls has been put on hold while I build sandcastles instead because, in a lot of ways, the sandcastles are a hell of a lot more permanent.

Garden Project (Part III)

I am gonna keep this project update short, since it is just more of the same dismantling of the old garden stuff.

In my previous post I mis-identified the snakes I found as Southern Ringnecks.  They were Northern Ringnecks.  Sorry herpetologists - no offense meant.  In any case, "let God sort them out" was my thinking at the time.

Black Widow Myth: Discovering a Black Widow Spider while building a backyard garden will instantly cause you to fill your drawers from fear.  False: Actually, you only poop a little.

Yes, I found a Black Widow nestled between two of the stones I was removing from the existing garden wall.  Based on its size, I guess it was female (females are bigger).  I was able to suppress my first instinct which was to let out a sustained high-pitched scream while mincing around the yard and flapping my hands at the wrists, but just barely. 

Maybe if I lived by myself I would have ended the project then and there and just had the whole place paved.  Yeah, right.  Why don't I just live in a hot air balloon while I'm at it?  At this point in the project my startle reflex was worn down to the nub from lizards, salamanders, snakes, and other critters so I just squished it.

Maybe I should have left the snakes alone...

Here is where I left off today.  The last of the old garden bricks have been moved and the primary bounding trenches have been dug.  You can see where I have been playing Shawshank Redemption with the leftover soil, filling in the low spots in the yard where old tree roots are still decaying away.

Garden Project (Part II)

(Continued from Part I)

I have had an enjoyable couple of days digging up the old garden and moving the stones off to one side. The weather has been a little hot but I am mostly working in the shade of the house so its not too bad. Here is a pic from the completion of work yesterday.

*sigh* I managed to slice half-way through my cable with the shovel yesterday. As much as I would like to blame someone else it was totally my own stupid fault - the line was marked accurately and whatnot.

I reckoned I was being really careful around the critical area, but not careful enough, it seems. Frankly, I thought that cable/Internet cables were buried more than 3 or 4 inches into the ground. They aren't.

On the positive side its not like I hit a power or gas line so this is just a "minor inconvenience" and "learning experience" rather than a "horrible tragedy".

Also, when I say "half-way" I mean it. I was thinking I sliced the old, unused cable since I remember them laying out new orange cable when they last came out (this stuff was black). Alas, when I checked the modem the lack of front panel lights confirmed my fears. I went out to take a closer look at the damage and it looks like I sliced partway through the center conductor.

Those of you that know how a cable is built already know that the odds of doing that are really, really low. For those of you that don't and have managed to read this far in this post, the odds of doing that are really, really low. I was able to clean the dirt out of the shiny copper cut and regain my Internet access just in time for my kid to get his daily streaming Netflix Monster's Inc. fix. If you are reading this, it was probably fixed properly today.

On a completely unrelated note, did you know a "dunce cap" is a piece of headgear with a history that spans hundreds of years and is not just an invention of 1930's cartoons and the like? I didn't until just now...

Anyway, because of the location of the cable, I will move the garden further from the house by another six feet or so (rather than moving the cable closer to the house). That should give me enough room, but it is not as simple as that. I don't want to be too close to the ditch out back because it routinely floods during heavy rains, and I don't want to place the walls anywhere near where the still-decaying root balls from former trees are buried...

I quit today after bagging my quota of Southern Ringneck Snakes. Here is where I ended up at end of work.

(To be continued...)

Garden Project (Part I)

We are really behind this year putting in the garden but I guess that's ok. The cold winter and the late freeze we had makes me feel a little less lazy for not getting to it sooner.

The old garden area served us well but the dry-stacked faux stone walls did not hold up so well from the winter ground heave and mole runs. The back retaining wall leaned out a lot and even collapsed in one place (that may have been due to the many deer that live in the woods out back, though).

My wife saw a picture of a dumbbell shaped garden area in a magazine and asked if we could do that.

Why, yes. Yes we can.

I have learned a lot from putting in stone walkways, firepit, and the old garden, so I think I am prepared to do a pretty good job with this new stoneworking project.

If I do it right, it should be functional (can plant stuff in it, that is) in a couple of weeks. I hope to have it looking roughly like the sketch you see here by the time all is said and done. How it currently looks will be posted in the sidebar.

(To be continued...)

Site Update

New Poll!  It's in the sidebar on the right.

New Project!  We are replacing the elevated garden area with something a little more visually interesting and a lot easier to maintain.  Updates to come.

New Book!  Jimmydunes force-loaned me Don Pendleton's Stony Man: Season of Harm.  Apparently it is book 110 of this series and apparently he is trying to pay me back for recommending The Grey Man to him...  This is gonna be bad.

Desk Update! No takers on craigslist.  Even lowering the price to $25 resulted in no movement on this item.  I looked into it and it seems that the price point for desks is like $20.  So off to the local charity it goes this week.

Rockin' the Periwinkle

My wife, despite all evidence to the contrary, thinks we live in a Norman Rockwell painting. I guess this is why, for her, Easter is a time for new outfits and big ham dinners after church, whereas I "look forward" to weeding the garden or cleaning the garage. I swear, sometimes I am surprised she isn't walking around in an Easter bonnet and twirling a parasol while suspenders-wearing street urchins race by whilst pushing a hoop with a stick.

But let's talk about ham.

Ham has never been delicious or undelicious to me. If offered some, I would say "no". If it was already on my plate or in my sandwich I would eat it, but I would never ask for seconds. I don't know who ham's publicist is but it definitely gets my vote as The Other Overrated Meat. I just don't get the draw.

"Ham... Meh." is the point I am belaboring here.

Now let's talk about Easter outfits. (We'll come back to the ham - I promise.)

"I want to buy you a new shirt for Easter," the wife says as we are folding clothes on the floor of my son's room. "Um, why?" was my response. "Everyone needs new clothes for Easter, and I think a pastel would look good on you." she replied. "Whoa, whoa, whoa... Where did 'pastel' come into play, here?"

Fast-forwarding a bit. The hugely one-sided conversation that I lost contained phrases like "It's traditional" and "I think you'd look nice" and "C'mon... Please?"

"Fine. But the boy gets to pick the color. Let's ask him. " This was a stroke of genius on my part for two reasons. First, I just knew his 20-month-old experience with naming colors was limited to whatever was in the Crayola box, so he wasn't gonna come up with peach or lavender or aqua. Second, there was no way that my wife was going to buy me a bright orange dress shirt even if the kid chose orange (his favorite color). I couldn't lose.

The wife agrees, so we ask "What color should daddy's new shirt be?"  He looks up from his toys and says "Ummmmmm... PINK!"

Oh, come on! You have got to be kidding me! Curse you, River Dolphin episode of Go, Diego, Go! Curse you! At that point I picture myself either twice my current age and calling out bingo numbers at the Moose Lodge or strutting around in a matching fedora with a huge peacock feather sticking out of the top.

Ok... A deal's a deal. But maybe the situation can be salvaged: "Ok, buddy, a pink shirt it is. What color should daddy's tie be?" I ask. "Ummm... green polka-dots", came the reply.

My wife giggled and I glared at her with the firm belief that she had been taking ventriloquism lessons on the side. Well, that's just great. I get to spend Sunday morning preemptively explaining to people that nothing the hell, in fact, is the matter with my eyes and occasionally saying "Hey, pal, that's MISTER Watermelon to you!" as I storm off in my big floppy shoes.

As it turns out that they don't sell green polka dot ties at the store where my wife bought my salmon dress shirt, probably because we don't live in a cartoon. She just bought the tie they had on display with the shirt instead - it was also salmon-colored but had small blue diamonds on it. No polka dots.

I had to admit the ensemble wasn't half bad and it even went with my sportsjacket (you know... the grey one with the thin blue checks...). Not bad at all...

Yeah, but what about the ham?

After I came in from mowing and trimming the lawn and leveling and filling the sandbox I discovered that my wife was in the process of making a huge dinner of mashed potatoes, collard greens, macaroni and cheese (with 3 kinds of cheese!) and, yes, ham. There was even apple pie.

Everything was good but the ham was awesome. There really is no other word for it. I don't know if it was because I was happily tired from my labors in the yard or because we were all enjoying a meal as a family or simply because my wife makes a damn good ham, but it was a terrific experience.

So what has changed? "What, all of a sudden I am some sort of ham-enjoying, pastel-wearing freak?!" I can hear my 17-year-old self bellowing across the decades. "Shut up, you little punk, you don't know jack." is my reply.

I think what has changed is that I have reached an age where I am old enough to admit I don't know everything but young enough to not be firmly entrenched in my ways. I can look forward to new experiences and while reassessing the worthiness of old beliefs. I am eternally thankful for my wife to help me question my various long held (and occasionally idiotic) "wisdoms". My world would probably be a far darker and definitely a more boring place without her "Norman Rockwell" point of view.

So bring on the green eggs, Sam I Am. I'll give 'em a shot after all.

P.S. I love you, baby! Thanks for a wonderful Easter.

Sandbox Project

Recently my kid woke up from a nap and the very first words out of his mouth were "Me and Grayson and Logan and Trey dig in the sandbox make sand castles." It was immediately obvious to me that he was blearily describing a dream he just had where he and his daycare friends were having a fun day. This wasn't the first time he has mentioned a sandbox, but I now know that it is an important enough idea to him where it is actually being incorporated into his dreams.

Well, that's one dream I can help make happen.

A sandbox is simple enough to put together: 4 walls, 4 seats, a bottom, and lid. It's a box you fill with sand, you see. The DIY Network website confirmed there was nothing tricky about it, but the plan they had online didn't have a great description for the lid. Also, I need to stain the wood to match a pre-existing cedar playset and nearby shed so it doesn't look out of place in the backyard (also why I am not simply buying a big plastic turtle, say).

I tried to do this on the cheap but I also needed to keep it as bug-proof as possible.

I decided to make the box a little smaller than 4 feet by 4 feet so I could just use one sheet of plyboard for both the bottom and top without having to get too fancy with it.

The lid will also need to be re-enforced with a couple of strips of lumber because, in addition to preventing the sandbox from turning into a litterbox, it will definitely be something that will be climbed on. On the other hand, it can't be so heavy that it is hard for my wife to move. On yet another hand, you don't want it flying off in a windstorm, and I want to minimize tiedowns and other trip hazards like that. So my lid looks like the pic you see here.

For those of you wondering why I am even bothering with a bottom: I need to prevent moles and other critters from coming up through the sand and having a bottom helps keep the entire thing sturdy (at least during the construction phase).

I used cedar landscaping timbers for the skids, since they were 4 times cheaper than the 4x4s I was going to use. Why use skids? They help keep the bottom elevated off the ground and can be used as a place to level the sandbox before half a ton of sand is poured into it.

Not too much more to say that isn't said on the DIY site. A couple of things, though.

The seats are a great idea but I moved them to the inside of the corners of the box to make the lid easier to build.

Build the lid first. By building it this way you know how everything is going to fit first and it is easier to make the sandbox a little smaller than it is to make the lid a little bigger.

According to Wolfram Alpha, the density of sand is about 1.79 g/cc, so a 4' x 4' box 8" deep will take about 23 50-pound bags to fill. If you are shopping at Home Depot, the cost for the sand alone will be about $80 (I don't feel the DIY site takes that cost into account). It should be needless to say that you will need a vehicle capable of transporting over 1,200 pounds if you plan on making only one trip. Ford F-150 = good. Ford Escort = bad. Don't be the guy loading a couple dozen 50 pound bags of pulverized rock onto a cart in the store only to discover you can't steer (or move!) it. Think, wouldja!

I was happy to discover that, since I'm not the first person on the planet to wonder how much room 50 pounds of sand takes up, they printed it on the bag. The bags say a 4' x 4' x 4” volume requires 11 bags. So, doubling that, they reckon 22 bags... really close to my geeky and totally unnecessary calculations described in the paragraph above. Sweet.

For some reason, though, I only needed about 10 bags to fill the sandbox. I knew I probably over ordered the sand because the box is actually a little less than 4 feet by 4 feet but to over estimate by 100%?!? I needed a few bags to help with the leveling since the land slopes where the sandbox is, but I still have 8 leftover bags. I suppose I thought that the sand would pack tighter in the box than it actually did. I Luckily I have a masonry project coming up next so they won't go to waste...

My total cost for the project was about $180, but you could knock off about $50 if you choose not to stain it and buy less sand. I don't see how they (DIY network) came up with a price range of $50-$100 unless they had a lot of the stuff on hand (I even used 2 x 8's instead of 2 x 10's). Also, I feel 2 hours is a little on the quick side for this project unless you are not going to build a lid. It took me about 4 hours.

One other thing, please remember that Lowe's or Home Depot will not cut treated wood for you, so you are on your own for making that happen.

You can see the corner of his playhouse in this pic – that's the color this sandbox will ultimately be.

My son loves it! I look forward to building sand castles with the little guy for as long as he will let me. :)