Roof Update

In out last episode, Jesús, former employee of Ben’s roofing company, said he would be here today to fix my roof before tonight’s expected rain. So at 2 PM I called him to check his status. He said he planned to be here around 3 PM.

While talking with Jesús I learned that Ben, former owner of the defunct company that re-shingled my roof, would not pay to fix the roof. That didn’t surprise me. Ben’s primary vocation is Preacher. He probably has more Biblical things on his mind than standing behind his work. Jesús asked if Ben had called me and seemed surprised to learn Ben had not.

You may remember a previous post in which I described the three kinds of people you can meet in a business transaction:

The first kind will tell you they won’t screw you, but they’re lying. The second kind will tell you at the outset that they’re going to screw you. The third kind will assure you they won’t screw you, and they really mean it, but they screw you anyway.

I don’t think Ben intended to screw me. But after all is said and done, Ben has my money and I have a leaky roof. What a deal.

Since the old roof didn’t leak, I see an alternate scenario for what happened. It goes like this: Ben and I discuss the roofing job. We agree on a price. I write Ben a check. Ben puts the check in his wallet. Then he takes out a pistol and fires a bullet through my roof, gets in his truck, and drives away. The result is the same: I have a roof that leaks. The difference is: using a bullet eliminates the labor-intensive process of removing the old shingles, putting down new tarpaper and new shingles, and cleaning the yard of nails and debris. A bullet is simply more efficient at creating a roof leak than having a crew of laborers take shortcuts on the job. Oh, I see I’ve wandered into Sarcasm. I’d better wrap up this blog post.

By the way, Jesús never showed. Are we surprised?

Roof Job: The Second Coming of Jesús

This post is for RefugeeGuy and anyone else following my miseries with the new roof.

Jesús the roofer came by this morning. I talked to him Thursday and he said he would come by the next day around 1 PM. But he didn’t, so at 2 PM I called to see if he still intended to come by and he said he had one small spot to finish and he would be on his way. At 4:45 I called him again and got no answer. At this point I thought I might see the actual Second Coming before I saw Jesús. But he showed up at 9 AM.

The first time Jesús came to my house was two years ago when he re-shingled my roof. This time he went upstairs to examine the site of the leak, and he went up on the roof and pondered things, looking all around the dormer very carefully, feeling around the vinyl trim, then he came down and explained things. Here’s the gist of what he said.

Two years ago when he re-shingled the roof, Ben owned the roofing company and Jesús worked for Ben. Jesús said he told Ben that the dormers needed new flashing. Ben said to use the old flashing; that would save money. Jesús then told Ben that he (Jesús) would not guarantee the roof would not leak if they used the old flashing. Ben said to use the old flashing anyway.

Right away, one dormer leaked and they had to remove the siding and install new flashing. That stopped the leak and there were no more leaks until last month.

After inspecting the roof, Jesús called Ben to explain the situation but got Ben’s voicemail. I asked Jesús if he thought Ben would pay for the repair, inasmuch as I had already paid for a new roof and expected one that didn’t leak. Jesús said, “If he’s got a conscience.” I told Jesús that no matter what Ben said, he should return and fix the roof before the next rainy day, and if I had to, I would pay for the repair. I emphasized that the leak had to be stopped whether Ben paid for it or not, so be sure to return and install new flashing. Jesús said he would return tomorrow or Monday. Then he got in his truck and drove off. He’s a busy guy. He has five other roof projects he’s working on and he’s behind schedule. Fixing a roof he got paid for installing two years ago is a nuisance job.

Taking a shortcut to save money can be an expensive way to waste money.

Roof Leak Hits New Low

In my last edition of Roof Leak, I wrote about a conversation I imagined to have taken place in a small Mexican border town:

“When you get across the border, call my cousin Jesús. He’s a roofer, he’ll have a job for you.”

“But Pablo, I know nothing about roofing.”

“Don’t worry, Juan. My cousin will explain what you need to know. It’s called on-the-job training. The important thing is to work fast. The faster you work, the more roofs you do, and the more money you make. Don’t worry about being perfect.”

Sunday evening I located Ben, the former owner of the defunct company that shingled my roof two years ago. I told him about the roof leak and he said he would get in touch with the boss of the roofing crew . He said the man’s name – wait for it, wait for it – is Jesús.

Now it’s Wednesday and it’s raining and snowing and I haven’t heard anything from Ben or Jesús. But now I have a leak in my living room ceiling. I have a bucket sitting on the floor below the leak. My plaster ceiling is being damaged, eaten away by water running through it, with streaky water stains extending from the original leak and birthing several new leaks.

My first thought was the drip catch tray under the roof had filled and was overflowing. I hurried upstairs to inspect the catch tray. To my surprise, the tray was empty. I saw some wet boards but no drip. Rainwater was entering around the dormer but instead of dripping it was running down the dormer structure to the plasterboard of the living room ceiling. There was no place to intercept the leak.

The thing that annoys me most is: the old roof wasn’t leaking; I paid $5000 for a new roof to ensure that I had a sound roof that would not leak and ruin my ceiling, and since then the new roof has developed two leaks in different locations.

It reminds me of something I read long, long ago. The writer said that, in business, there are three kinds of people. The first kind will tell you they won’t screw you, but they’re lying. The second kind will tell you at the outset that they’re going to screw you. The third kind will assure you they won’t screw you, and they really mean it, but they screw you anyway.

I called Ben, and he told me he hadn’t been able to contact Jesús until just an hour before I called. Maybe there is a fourth kind of person in business: the kind that stands behind the work they do. I hope there is, because I’m beginning to feel a little bit like Diogenes, who wandered ancient Greece with a lantern, searching for an honest man.

The Old Couple

From a blog I had in the last millennium:

I have just finished my lunch when I notice a very elderly couple. They have finished their meal, also, and are preparing to leave. The man goes to the restroom, leaving this very elderly lady, presumably his wife, standing near the kitchen entrance.

Now, when I say elderly, I don't mean she is just a "senior citizen". I mean she could be ninety easily. Anyway, she gingerly seats herself at one of the round tables near the kitchen. I notice how she moves - like she is afraid she will disturb something. She looks around the room as though she is a little "out of her element". She sits there, waiting for her spouse to return, maybe a little confused by the commotion and the rock music playing on the Muzak system. I notice how fragile she appears, how almost childlike. Her movements are cautious and tentative. Something about the way she looks makes me want to smile at her and say "Don't be afraid, you're very welcome in here, we're glad to see you here today."

The waitresses bustle past her, not glancing at her. Other customers are animated in conversation, wrapped up in their own worlds. The little old lady looks very out of place and looks as though she feels very out of place. I feel sad for her. What experiences she must have had. Perhaps she was a child during the Great Depression. Perhaps she was a young woman working in a factory during World War Two. I imagine she had children, had watched her children grow up, get married, have children of their own, and become old themselves. Perhaps she has even watched her grandchildren grow to adulthood and have families of their own.

What crises she must have gone through in her life, what sadness, what heartbreak and loss. And what happy times as well: childhood friends, trips eagerly planned and awaited, marriages, births, family gatherings. Once she was a vigorous young woman. Now she is old, and her time is nearly at an end. Is this the reward for a life well lived? A lifetime of experience, a lifetime of knowledge gained, and yet, now the world is ready to discard her - ready to presume there is nothing in her that we could benefit from knowing. What marvelous secrets she might know, what marvelous stories she might share, if only ... if only she had the strength to sit and tell us, if only we had the wisdom to listen.

Chili Day

It’s 45°F and raining now, and tomorrow will be colder with a 70% chance of rain or snow, so I went to the store and bought makings for chili with beans. Tomorrow will be a “chili day.” I say “chili with beans” instead of “chili” because, as fans of The Big Bang Theory know because Sheldon told us, true chili has no beans.

Chili cookoffs don’t allow beans in contestants’ recipes. I’m going to quote the first two cookoff recipe rules from the International Chili Society:

1. Traditional Red Chili is defined by the International Chili Society as any kind of meat or combination of meats, cooked with red chili peppers, various spices and other ingredients, with the exception of BEANS and PASTA which are strictly forbidden.

2. Chili Verde is defined by the International Chili Society as any kind of meat or combination of meats, cooked with green chili peppers, various spices and other ingredients, with the exception of BEANS and PASTA which are strictly forbidden.

The capitalizations for emphasis are on the official rules page. They really want you to know: no beans, no pasta.

I’m making Chili Verde because I’m using green jalapeños. I prefer hotter serrano peppers when I can find them, but I couldn’t find them today.

But I suppose “true” chili also doesn’t have meat. Because when you add meat it’s called chili con carne (chili with meat). But the name “chili con carne” is usually and confusingly shortened to “chili”.

So what is chili – without beans and without meat? It’s chili peppers, spices, broths, tomatoes, and whatever else you put in your chili other than meat and beans. To that you add meat and then you have chili con carne, which everyone shortens to chili. Then you can add beans and you have chili with beans which, again, everyone shortens to chili.

If you want to try something sweet that leaves a burn on your lips, try Strawberry-Serrano Preserves.

If you want to try some championship winning recipes, go to the website of the International Chili Society and click on Recipes.

Maybe Ludwig Wittgenstein Was A Little Bit Right

Some quotes:

“I ought to have... become a star in the sky. Instead of which I have remained stuck on earth.”

“I won't say 'See you tomorrow' because that would be like predicting the future, and I'm pretty sure I can't do that.”

“I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”

“A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.”

“Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic.”

“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.”

“If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.”

“One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.”

“Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystery.”

“It is true: Man is the microcosm:
I am my world.”

“We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.”

“Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.”

“If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.”

“Only describe, don't explain.”

“Don't think, but look!”

“How small a thought it takes to fill a life.”

“Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.”

“I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.”

“Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.”

“If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God.”

“It is a dogma of the Roman Church that the existence of God can be proved by natural reason. Now this dogma would make it impossible for me to be a Roman Catholic. If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him.”

“Make sure that your religion is a matter between you and God only.”

“The primary question about life after death is not whether it is a fact, but even if it is, what problems that really solves.”

Unplugged

March 1 – 2, 2013, was this year’s National Day of Unplugging, a 24 hour time period running from sunset to sunset in which people are encouraged to put down their gadgets and spend more time doing things with family, friends, neighbors – in other words, take part in life. I didn’t stay offline but I did unplug, in a way.

March 1 was the day I opened my Comcast cable bill and saw that it had gone up six percent. Comcast raises the price every year, so it wasn’t unexpected. But Comcast, in my opinion, has gotten greedy. They’ve already bought 51% of NBC Universal and they’ve announced plans to buy the remainder. They’ve got more money than they know what to do with.

And what entertainment do they provide? Reality shows about hillbilly catfish grabbers, shows about guys looking through old barns for trash to sell to people with more money than sense, shows about people who are famous only because they are on a reality show, shows about pawn shop employees, game shows, soap operas, right-wing cable news, left-wing cable news, the transvestite golf channel – the list of what I don’t want to watch on cable TV is a long one.

Not only that, the number of commercials is out of control. One of my favorite shows is The Big Bang Theory. It seemed to have a lot of commercials, so one night I put the commercial break times into a spreadsheet so I could easily calculate how much of the show was “content” and how much consisted of commercials. The “30 minute” show was actually 20 minutes, 15 seconds. One third of the show’s 30 minute time slot was filled with commercials.

So I called Comcast and told them to drop my cable TV. The lady at customer service explained that the price increase was to cover the cost of all the fantastic new services that Comcast is rolling out. I have only the “extended basic” TV plan and Internet service, so I asked her why am I being billed more each year to cover the cost of providing services that I’m not buying. I already knew the answer, though. They’re billing me because they can.

I receive several local channels on an indoor UHF antenna, though I’m in a fringe zone and sometimes weather affects the picture. But usually I can get CBS, ABC, and PBS. I used to get NBC but on the day when the country transitioned to digital, my local NBC station transitioned from the UHF band to the VHF band, and when I rescanned for them they were gone.

CBS, ABC, and NBC offer free, full episodes of most of their shows online, as do Comedy Central and MTV. Some shows and movies are available through services like Netflix, Hulu, Fancast, TV.com, Veoh, and Joost. Classic TV shows are available on In2TV, and many sporting events are streamed on ESPN3.

I can watch shows on my TV as they stream in to my computer. So I’m not entirely unplugged. But instead of turning on the TV and flipping through channels to some mind-numbing show I didn’t even intend to watch, I must now either settle for a local channel or make the effort to seek out and stream an online show, so maybe I won’t “tune in” as often.

This isn’t the first time I’ve canceled cable TV because of a price hike. The last time I canceled, I was without cable for several years until one day a salesman from the cable company offered a discount if I would sign up again, and on a whim I did. As I said, it’s not the first time, but I think this is the last time I will cancel cable.

Carving the Bird

Tonight I am carving, if one can call it that, a rotisserie-cooked chicken that I bought on a trip to the store a couple days ago. It’s a treat I don’t often indulge in.

I love the taste of rotisserie-cooked chicken. Unfortunately, whole cooked birds are not a good bargain for me because I waste about half the bird. You see, I never learned how to carve a bird. I’ve seen people do it, of course, and I’ve watched it done on TV cooking shows. But when I’m standing, knife in hand, with the bird before me, my non-existent carving skills quickly become obvious.

At first, things go smoothly enough. I cut off the legs, right through the joint; I cut off the wings. I begin to carve the breast meat. But then everything goes haywire fast and I end up with what looks like an unidentifiable creature, possibly of alien origin, that exploded in some violent manner such as by being shot into the vacuum of outer space with no protective suit. Eventually I discard the all-but-useless knife and begin picking and tearing at little pieces of meat and stuffing the tiny morsels into my mouth. The little morsels are too small to do anything with, except make chicken salad, so why not nibble on them as I inflict further destruction on the carcass. Finally the entire procedure becomes too tedious and I throw the carcass into the garbage can.

I’ve actually seen garbage-pickup men jump back in horror, covering their mouths with their hands to muffle their screams, upon seeing the chicken carnage lying atop the other trash in my can. What happens to whole chickens in my kitchen is as bad as it gets.

As for turkeys, I wouldn’t even make an attempt. Well, if you paid me cash money and promised not to hold the results against me, I could get enough meat off a turkey for two or three people. The thing is, long before I finished with the bird, horror and disgust would drive you to intervene. You’d take the knife away from me, with a look of loathing and contempt that I already envisage on your face, and you would begin trying to restore some manner of organization to what was left of the bird, so that it might, in the end, be identifiable as once being some manner of flying creature and not a visiting extraterrestrial who was torn to shreds by wild dogs.

The carving is finished. I think I have enough meat for a sandwich. Let’s raise our glasses in a toast. “Bon appétit.”

Sinkhole

I feel sorry for that Florida man who was in bed when suddenly the ground under his bedroom opened up and swallowed him. Just like that, he and his bedroom furniture were gone – swallowed by the earth. He is now missing. No body has been recovered so the authorities can’t say with certainty that he’s dead, but it would be a miracle if he’s not. And if he is dead, then what a ghastly way to die.

Florida is notorious for sinkholes. The ground in Florida is pretty much like Swiss cheese. Add to that lots of groundwater and underground streams. There have been so many sinkholes in the state that people have made sinkhole maps of Florida’s counties. You can see an index of sinkhole maps at this page.

In parts of Virginia there are lots of limestone caverns. There are few sinkholes, however, probably because the ground is not saturated with water. Some Virginia caverns are famous. Luray Caverns is a U.S. Natural Landmark that has attracted millions of visitors since its discovery in 1878. I’ve tromped through it a couple of times and can assure you that it’s an impressive place.

One day I was walking through a newly-built neighborhood in southwestern Virginia, and I happened to walk across an empty lot that was being prepared for a new house. Bulldozers had scraped away much of the topsoil and left behind bare earth. In the middle of this empty lot I chanced upon a small hole in the ground. I picked up a pebble and dropped it into the hole. A few seconds passed and then I heard a splash. I mentally pictured what must be beneath me. There was was a void in the earth beneath my feet; a limestone cavern, perhaps, and at the bottom of that void was water – a flowing stream or still lake. It made me uneasy and I walked away. The next time I walked through that neighborhood, a new house stood on the ground where I had dropped my pebble into the earth and heard a splash. I wondered if the people living in that house would sleep as easily in their beds at night if they knew that their house was built atop a void in the earth – a void that could possibly swallow their house on some random future day.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from all this, it is this: attention Floridians – your state is not safe; get out while you can! I hear Georgia is nice.

Obama’s Budgets

I keep hearing this statement: the Federal government has not passed a budget since Obama was elected. Fox news says so. CNN says so. Well, if they say it on TV, it must be true. You can’t lie on TV. How do I know? I heard it on TV.

I’m not sure but I think the implication is supposed to be that President Obama is sitting in the Oval Office spending money right and left that Congress hasn’t authorized him to spend. Therefore, the budget deficits and the national debt problem must have been created by Obama. Or maybe the implication is that Congress is incompetent. Do we really need an email campaign to make Congress look incompetent? Aren’t Senators and Congressmen doing a good enough job of that all by themselves?

The President has Constitutional authority to spend money only in the amount and for the purposes that Congress has authorized. In recent times, whenever we get near the start of a new fiscal year we begin to hear dire warnings: if we don’t pass a new budget by such-and-such date, the U.S. government will default on its debts. And that is exactly what would happen. Without Congressional authorization to spend money, the Federal government would simply shut down.

And yet, it hasn’t shut down. The reason it hasn’t is because Congress has authorized the government to continue spending. Every dollar the Federal government is spending today, every dollar spent yesterday, every dollar spent last month and last year and so on back to the beginning of the Republic, was authorized by Congress.

I can hear you guys now, “But Congress hasn’t passed a real budget – those bills were continuing resolutions and consolidated appropriations and supplemental this-or-that, not real budgets.” I hear you. In other words, Congress has instructed the President regarding how much he must spend, when he must spend it, and what he must spend it on, but they haven’t provided him a budget. Excuse me if I don’t see the distinction.

No doubt some of you have heard of the duck test, which goes “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

If Congress passes a bill that authorizes the President to spend a stated amount of money for a stated period of time for a stated purpose, then I don’t care what words you put at the top of the bill; according to the duck test, it is some kind of budget. It might be a budget for the Defense Department; it might be a budget for the Commerce Department; it might be a budget for Education – but it’s still a budget. And if Congress passes this type of bill for each department and agency of the government, then we have a de facto Federal budget and we’re just arguing over semantics.

The Fiscal Year 2013 budget request was submitted to Congress by Barack Obama on February 13, 2012. At this date, March 1, government is funded through 3/27/13 by a continuing appropriations act, Public Law 112-175 enacted on 9/28/12 and subsequent disaster assistance supplementals. Details at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app13.html

The Fiscal Year 2012 budget request was submitted to Congress by Barack Obama on February 14, 2011, and was enacted in November and December, 2011, as P.L. (Public Law) 112-55, P.L. 112-74 and P.L. 112-77. Prior to passage of the budget, government was funded by continuing appropriations acts. Details at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app12.html

The Fiscal Year 2011 budget request was submitted to Congress by Barack Obama on February 1, 2010, and was enacted in April, 2011, as P.L. 112-8 and P.L. 112-10. Prior to passage of the budget, government was funded by continuing appropriations acts. Details at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app11.html

The Fiscal Year 2010 budget request (the first Obama budget) was submitted to Congress by Barack Obama in February, 2009, and was enacted as a series of appropriations acts passed on different dates. Details at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app10.html