I’m on the 14^th Street Job – putting in the other two curved beams, but first, I got to rout out the set-in places for the north ends of the beams.  Not safe, and not precise, but good enough.

Afternoon seemed over long.  Primed some plastic fascia around the lower aspect of the new turret.  Handed out Last Saturday invites to Ben and David.

9 23 –

I am not ready for the Carpenter Olympics, just yet.  Spent too much time trying to adjust the chop saw to trim ¼” from the upper ends of the Grande Salon beams, but it wasn’t my fault: corrosion on the limit set prevented easy adjustment.

Spent 9.3 times as long nailing back in the blocks taken out to put in the beams and posts than either David or Ben would have done.  And badly.

Re-work; pounding in nails for the blocks that should have been pounded in last week.

I do not know why this team tolerates me.

“Johnson, rip out all this bead board and this door trim!” And I thought (hoped) that I was through with demo….

9 24 –

14^th Street to spend the morning ripping out MDF beadboard, which I am here to tell you is A LOT more agreeable than tearing out sheet rock.

In other happy news, We pass building inspection on the off-plan, three curved beams.  The on-plan original was a single, straight beam.

Trailer arrives and we can clean up the dunghill.

You don’t want the insulation fibers in your lungs.

PM: hanging insulation.  A disagreeable task.

Worse.

Tom: “Would you like to dig a hole?”

“Never.”

604 Spruce Street, 0730.

Marvelous.

9 25

The unpleasant – not frightening, but disturbing – dreams led to morning pre-dawn happiness.

Drizzle.  In September.  Enough on the radar plot to make me put out the Winter Rain Collection Plates.

I hate shovels, I hate digging, I do not hate rain.

Motor over to 604.  Nobody there.  But soon Tom shows with a thoughtful tarp, two poles and some clip clamps.  We made a sort of shelter off the roof of the former garage, now tiny efficiency apartment to keep most of the drizzle off my neck as I dig.

Dug for three lines: hot & cold water, and gas.

After scraping away the cosmetic bark chip topping, the digging was, while confined by the garage/apartment wall and hindered by having to frequently scooch the water out of the pockets before it cascaded onto my head, relatively easy as the soil was dry and loose.  But resorted to some additional stays to hold the tarp in proper position.

Pipe found, hole caused.

Found two of three lines before Tom returned to check progress, then just after he left, discovered the cold water pipe in a way that you do not want to discover a buried pipe.

Fortunately, the shut off valve was right on the house a few steps away.

Tony the Thirteen Year Old Looking Plumber arrives and sets to work installing the on-demand water heater.  Every dwelling in America ought to 86 their 150 year old technology tank water heater to install four or eight of these tankless jobs.

My thankless job was near an end when Tom arrives; doesn’t bitch me up too bad for the holed line, and as I was off to the Shop to get the percussion hammer to chisel out around the line where it entered the garage/apartment so as to grant Tony sufficient clearance for a splice I hear him say to Tony that the line would have busted anyway.

By the time I get the half mile to The Shop and back, the sun is beaming and chipping out around the pipe is quickly effected, although I wished that Tony, who had buggered off, was there to tell me that I had indeed granted him sufficient clearance.

I’d been instructed – I didn’t know – to return to 14^th Street, which I reached at Lunche.

Following, it was install more insulation, but happily, not in the roof joists or the attic.  Semi-lazy afternoon.

And yes, there is an air show in Salinas this weekend.  Missed the F-18 inbound, did not miss the C-17 outbound and later, homing in from Grocery Cheaplet caught a glimpse of an F-16 inbound.

9 26 =

Nothing is constant.  I’m to the 14^th Street job, but transferred to the 7^th Street Job.  I knew it would happen, but didn’t want it to happen.

That’s Luis, Don the Ramrod, Raymundo, and half of Marcos, from left to right.

A New Hometek Horror.

Nothing about the job is as terrible as concrete pounding or stucco chipping … except for The Sun.

The first floor of the 7^th Street house is being framed out.  There is no shade on the site.

I’m put to task: clean up the job site.  Fine.  I like cleaning up.  But not in the glare of the sun.

I lash together the steel stakes and the wooden stakes and police the area and organize the lumber pile and pick up nails.

The Thunderbirds roar over head.

I think about walking off the job, want to walk, but don’t.

The Plan?  It’s to be a modern bungalow.  It’s boring; nothing of interest and the rooms are all too small – The Fenstermakers will regret it later.

I regret it now.

Of Course I Iike the crew: Don the Ramrod who is a good soul, Marcos, Luis, and Raymundo, but it doesn’t make up for how low I feel.

Of the evening I cannot but park in my garage when The Prof arrives.  We repair to the Penthouse and start the weekend off properly.

SABADO –

The productive hours of the day were devoted to doidling with the Spectacles Case, in this case futzing with the base, blind routing out the back edges of the rear uprights for the back panel, and then rounding over the show edges.

Last Saturday Party Time: big Surprise: Pennington and Poodle Dumpling, Plus Rich Purdy, Plus Curtis, Plus Mullins, Plus Jerry Horn and the Lovely Kelly and the Behrens and later, The Prof.

DOMINGO –

Pennington, before he left, gave me two pipe clamps with Mastodon extensions, and pointed out that he had bent my camp cot.

So it was.

The crtumpled strut was re-aligned and braced on all four sides with a pair of aluminum angles bolted through.

After sizing and cutting glass for the top of the Spectacles Case, pre-drilling for the side mounting screws and lightly sanding, I turned to forming a splint for the crumpled leg of the cot.

Seems successful.

9 29 –

Walked to the job site, almost pleasant, except for the ever-present crows.

Jobsite trash trailer spotted on the street and so had useful employ as I policed the area and raked up the concrete debris.

After re-arranging the lumber stack, walked around just to keep moving – happily in the morning gloom, which parted about 11.

Became almost useful again handing tools and moving ladders.

After lunche, more nothing to do, day dragged.

Injured the knee by slipping on a hose.  Bad.

9 30 –

Phone message(s) from Jerry Horn, help him “set some posts.”  He even tells me which job: The Eastfield Horror.

I drive by the 7^th Street job to tell Don, and then motor up the hill.

The left shows the original stucco, the right the newly applied glop – that blue glim is an adhesive.

Much work has been affected by the dry wall crew in a week since I’d seen the place; the stucco men are hard at overlaying the rear exterior.  What a waste of money: cloak the exterior in a new coat just to change the texture.

Inside, we’re setting the stairway posts.  Good.  Challenges abound.

Post #2 is wicky wacky and requires significant unseen in the end surgery to the surroundings.

Post #4 goes in easy and is pretty much plumb out the gate.

Post #5 was set by Jerry already.

Post #3 requires bits Jerry forgot to get and so he boodles off leaving me to putty and put back the floor removed to insert #4.

Post #3 is a bitch.  Jerry seizes the drill bit which eventually snaps off.  We move the hole – it goes on.  I do not believe that the Rossi’s realize just how intrusive this post will be – it is the one on the landing where you turn 180 to take the second flight.

They will.

Post #1 will require significant behind-the-scenes surgery which await the morrow while Jerry goes off in search of his lost debit card.

And all that oak trim on the stair case that I spent a day and half sanding to finish quality?  Half of it was ripped out, the rest of it will be painted, as will be the delicious maple posts.  Painted!  FEH!

WEDNESCHRIST –

Don had pity on Limping Around Johnson and sent me on ill-advised errands to find what he called a ‘knuckle-buster’ at the Hometek Mothership.  Jim is there working up windows on stain-grade mahogany and doesn’t know what a ‘knuckle-buster is.’  I score some luscious mahogany scraps.

I take a large crescent wrench back to the job site, already searing in the cloudless sky, and that’s not what is wanted.  Somehow, I assumed without Don being explicit that what was wanted was an oversized, elongated socket; and this proved to be the case.  Phone calls to the Headmaster are exchanged – well, fill in the rest.

Trailer it was

Trip to Trailer again for tie plates, Margie cookies, Area 61, Hayward, break.

I’m pretty useless all morning under the cruel, relentless, grilling sun.

Marcos and Raymundo called to the Eastfield Horror to glue and screw underfloor layment.

Poor sods.

That left Don, Luis and Limpy Johnson on 7^th Street.

And then my eyes begin to boil

Couldn’t see out my right that evening.  What will the morrow portend?

ALMOSTFRIDAY –

Another wretched cloudless morning and day.

What you do not want when using a nail gun – they are called ‘shiners’ and must be pounded back out and aim corrected.

Johnson’s education in wielding Heroic-sized pneumatic nail guns commences, fortunately on the shady side of the framing, which in the morning is the 7^th Street facing front.

Havoc, but learning.

At break, Don asks am I taking any drugs.  My response launches him into a 15 minute discourse on his son who has been on methotrexate since he was a toddler, and has had FOUR hip replacement surgeries.  Current age?  29

Don is an interesting person.  From Jacksonville, raced motorcycles, still hang-glides.  Acerbic, yet friendly.  Knowledgeable, but down to earth.

I like him.

Mahogany schwag courtesy of Jim Ream.

Jim Ream saves me an entire bin full of mahogany scraps – must be worth $100.

If today does not break high temperature records, I will be gormed, as well as sun-boiled.

After lunch, I await my eyes boiling, but they do not.

More nailing and helping Luis as best I can.

Only re-injured the knee a few times.

VIERNESS –

Another cloudless relentlessly torpid day on the job site.  Good news – I am engaged.  Nailing nails, cutting ply, installing joists.  And light on the beam unloading.

TOURDAY –

Pacific Biological Laboratories tours, that is.

I not only had my regular 1030 and 1230 shows, but was wingman for John McCleary, a long-time Rickett’s Man, sometime tour utility gatekeeper and today, 0900 Tour Leader.

McCleary honestly earns a D+

I would like to tell you that his inaugural effort was a jolly good show.  I would like to tell you that.

But I cannot.  While on the plus tally he spoke slowly, carefully and deliberately; on the other hand he got facts wrong, exhibited the amateur’s typical hand and body aerobics-in-place, and least savory of all, had no story, no theme, no tendril of a tale.  He started somewhere, led no where and spent most of his soliloquy simply piling anecdotes upon anecdotes.

A poor showing.

Thus motivated, I resolved to give the best performance of my tiny docent career.  Then all of a sudden, the game changed.  Just as I was launching into the intro for the 1030 show, the expected Michael Hemp, who runs the Cannery Row Foundation arrives – late – but with him is Frank Wright.

Frank Wright is one of only three surviving members of the original PBL Club who purchased The Lab in the late 50’s.  And he is the only living person I’ve ever met who knew Ed Ricketts personally.

I am honored and encouraged.

There’s a bloke from New Zealand on the tour who has venerated Steinbeck’s Cannery row since his youth and has ever afterward yearned to visit The Lab.  And here he is today.  It was a pleasure to see his pleasure.

You get lucky sometimes…