Ok, so I have been planning to build a bookshelf for a few years now. I have a lot of books and magazines that need a home. Right now, they are stashed all over the house in various piles, and that sucks, so I finally decided to get this done.

I should start off by declaring to the world that I am no carpenter. I aint making no Jesus tables or anything. I am handy with tools, and have a firm grasp of how to operate in a shop. I took wood shop class in junior high, drafting and metal fabrication in high school, advanced drafting and metal fabrication in college, and spent some time working in various manufacturing facilities in different capacities, so I know my way around.

I built the bed I currently sleep on. It is a monstrosity that weighs well over 300 pounds, not counting the box springs or the mattress! It is solid as a rock though, and will last forever. If you need a refresher of how that turned out, see: http://www.snotpocket.com/bed.htm

To me, function usually trumps fashion, but I think one can easily achieve a balance of both in a low cost package. Function in this case means a very sturdy piece that can carry the weigh of lots of books, and one that is large enough hold all the books I have. To achieve this, I decided to simply use a 4'x8' sheet of sanded pine plywood for the back, and then basically build the shelf around it. This would make a large shelf and minimize the amount of cutting I would have to do. Perfect.

The first problem I run into when building stuff is finding quality wood. I have no idea where to get quality wood, so I usually just go to Home Depot and buy whatever they have. Most of their wood is shitty and warped, but if you dig around a little while through there pile you can usually pull out a few pieces that are just OK. Also, since I am no superstar furniture builder, I do not want to invest a large sum of cash on wood, and I can usually work around the flaws in the lumber.

The first step was to design the layout, which I did using Google SketchUp. It was quick and easy and it came out roughly like this (click on it to see a larger version):



So to start the build, I had to use a router on the sides to make slots for the shelves. To do this, I had to purchase a 3/4" wide by 1/2" deep router bit. Then I simply measured and made a jig out of clamps and wood to guide the router. Here you can see how that turned out:







So I basically just dug a groove for the bottom, and the shelves, in the 8' 2x12s, that make the sides. The top will screw to the top of the 2x12s, which I will cover later. The side affect from all the routing was a massive pile of fresh pine sawdust shavings which looks like this:



I bagged it all up, so now I am trying to figure out a good way to repurpose it. Best idea so far is to use it as compost or mulch. It smells cool, so I guess I could also just leave it bagged up in the garage.

Ok, that is enough for today, more updates on the way soon.

Two quick things I have been pondering lately...

1. When is the last time you found yourself inside a library, public or otherwise? Do people really even go to the library anymore? And if so, why? I do not believe I have been into a library since I was in college circa 1993-94. That, of course, pre-dated the internet. The internet back then was an elusive cloud of mystery, that boggled everyone's mind. I suppose it could be useful still for entertaining small children in an educational manner, or perhaps for people who are extraordinarily poor or perhaps just really cheap. I like books and all, but honestly, these days, I will just read them on the computer or buy my own. I have heard of people going to the library to use the internet, but even that seems a little odd these days, when computers can be had for literally next to nothing. I could probably assemble a computer out of shitty old parts that would browse the interwebs just fine and give it to someone for free, just to convince them NOT to go to the library. What does this all mean? Who fucking knows, but let's face the facts here... if you go to the library, you're an asshole!

2. Do you have any exposure to mentally challenged people? OK, just kidding, fuck it, I mean retards. I spent the better part of my life avoiding retarded people. If I saw one, I would try to escape and go a different direction, so as to avoid the interaction. I always kinda felt weird for avoiding them. There were a few kids in my school that were pretty bad off, and my friends and I pretty much welcomed them as normal friends, so its not like I do not like these people, its just that as I got older, I seemed to shy away, and I am not sure why.

There is a new show on MTV called "How's your news?", and it is a travelling news show that features only challenged folks of all sorts. Some cannot communicate at all, only spewing gibberish followed up at the end with the word "booya", some have physical issues, but can communicate just fine. Some are borderline vegetative. I enjoy the show thoroughly. I do not laugh at the people's misfortune, I am happy to see them as a part of society and applaud their efforts, as well as MTV for giving them a forum to shine. It is a comical show, seeing people reactions to them, as well as their own special brand of comedy. I highly recommend the show to everyone.

So, last night at my hockey game, on the way into the locker room, I see a guy that has down syndrome or some other type of issue, and he waves at me. I wave back and keep going on my way. He walks all the way over to intercept me to give me a high 5. I high 5 back and ask him how its going and everything. A pleasant interaction. In my mind, I am thinking "Wow, that 'How's Your News' show has reignited my indifference to retarded people, excellent!". I few minutes later, as my teammates and I were getting dressed for the game, he comes in to the locker room and hangs out for a while... randomly. It was a little bizarre, not because he was retarded, but because someone was visiting a men's locker room, it would have been just as odd if it were anyone. So he checks out some of our various equipment, and asks various questions in that stereotypical "retarded" type of accent. Later he introduces himself, and asks our names and stuff. It was all perfectly normal, and we did not care in the least that he was 'special'. A few minutes later, a young boy maybe 9 or 10 years old comes in, and says "Jimmy, get out of there... you are not supposed to wander off, and if you do, you are supposed to tell mom where you are going." He then proceeds to lead Jimmy away.

Anyway, so it was a positive interaction with Jimmy. Next time I see him, I will give him another high 5, and acknowledge that I recognize him, and it will bring both of us joy. So in summary, next time you see a person that has some sort of challenge, pretend that their issues to do not exist, and treat them like a normal person, or I will kick you square in the fucking nutzack.

Lots of shit coming down the way, so there should be a dramastic increase in post count soon.

I suppose it is human nature, but have you ever noticed that a lot of times people will swear off something forever based on a single bad experience. For example, have you ever heard anyone say, "I bought a Ford once, had nothing but trouble with the fucking thing, and I will NEVER own one again... EVER I TELL YOU!" or "Oh yeah, I went to K-Mart once, and saw a man taking a shit over by housewares, so I will NEVER step foot into a K-Mart again, as long as I live, even if it means the death of my children, and my paternal great aunt!"

I am probably guilty of this, but I could also point out situations where I am not. For example, in the computer world, there are basically two type of processors, Intel and AMD. A lot of people got burned (pun intended) a long time ago, by AMD processors falling victim to a design flaw which resulted in failure due to overheating. I'd venture say that most of these folks will never own an AMD again. I am one of those people, yet when it comes to video cards, I have had bad Nvidia cards, switched to ATI, and then switched back to Nvidia later.

Long John Silver is another example. I have gone there, had a horrid experience, and then gave them another chance a few years later to see if their product improved any. Same with Domino's Pizza, I ate one once and my face got swollen up like a boxer after a match, yet, I tried it again years later and everything was fine. The last time I went to Schlotzky's and ate a sandwich, I had the shits for 3 days. That was like 8 years ago. I never went back, but I plan to give them a new shot at my business within the next several months.

There is no point here, just an observation that struck me as slightly odd. Maybe we should all make an attempt this year to maybe try some things that we have previously swore off for whatever reason.


Side note: My bookshelf build has begun. I think this time rather than documenting the entire process, then having a post when I'm done, I will post along the way as I build it, and see how that works out. I think it will produce better results since I won't have to cram so much bullshit into one piece of work.

Ok, go back to fellating your donkey now.

I found a fucking amazing design tool. It is called SketchUp: http://sketchup.google.com/.

It is the easiest, and most intuitive piece of software I have used in quite some time. Within a few minutes time, I was able to create a 3D model of a bookshelf I have been planning to make. I wanted to work out some design challenges before purchasing any wood or materials. I am still working on the design but here is how it looks so far:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=5f825ce7001ffd70f41c354bbc605c91&prevstart=0

I come from a design and computer drafting background. I spent a stint in college learning the craft, and have even worked as a designer briefly, and I can tell you that this is the easiest software I have ever used in my life. A fucking monkey could operate this shit. I encourage everyone to check it out for any and all design projects. Best of all it is FREE!

Also I'll document the bookcase build out of course. I should be starting on it probably this weekend. I know I have this this time and again, but I really do have a buncha projects coming up that will be post worthy. I even made a to do list so I don't forget them. Until then, eat shit!

Wow, forgot to post. Anyway, every once in a while I feel sort of "in tune" with some kinda weird wavelength, and experience a bunch of bizarre coincidences. I may have posted about it before, can't remember. I am in that phase now, and I may have inadvertently killed an innocent fish because of it. A seemingly otherwise perfectly healthy fish. Bongs, Police Academy, and lots of other weird random shit has popped up out of no where and linked directly to some other very recent conversation or experience. It always makes me feel weird when I experience these phases. Maybe I will expand more later, or not. Who cares.

Since my last post I went to Las Vegas again. It was a fucking blast. I cannot express how fun that place is. I am already sort of planning another trip out there. I had a free room, and I had money in my vacation fund to cover the flight. So basically I went for free. We saw 3 shows that we have seen before so nothing interesting to report on that front. I did enjoy sportsbetting tremendously.

I also received the parts and begin my kegerator build out. I will do a post dedicated to that when I get around to it. I also brewed two 5 gallon batches of beer in preparation for finishing the build. That should be good times.

Anyhoo, I'm getting back into the swing of things, so I should get more regular on posting. I have a lot of fuel for posts, I have just been forgetting to do it. I have a reminder in Outlook but it makes me mad when I have to his postpone every time. Yet, I can't always just stop what I am doing and post. I tried to set the reminder to a time when I would be doing nothing, but I am always doing something, so phucket, Charlie Bucket. I guess I'll just post when I damn well feel like it.

Last night I had a dream, that turned out to be really shitty. I had just turned over or shifted in my sleep and I guess I woke up enough to wonder what time it was, or, there is a really good chance I was not awake at all, and that the entire thing was a dream. I thought I was awake, but in hindsight, I probably wasn't. I looked at the clock and it was 3:31am. I wake up at 5:45am, so I had plenty of sleeping time left, so I was happy that I could just turn back over and go back to sleep for a good while. I turned over, went back to sleep, and a couple of minutes later, the alarm went off. So, I suspect I was not really awake when I "looked at the clock", and that part was a dream, but it made me think about something. What if every single night, as soon as you got into deep enough sleep to start dreaming, you dream that your alarm was about to go off, or perhaps even worse, what if right before your alarm goes off every day, you dream that you just went to bed!

So yesterday some shady shit went on a work. Some management types who are afraid of losing their jobs are almost competing to prove that each is more important than the other. A big project is coming up and they both want to feel important by making decisions on their own, and working with a vendor and basically stamping their name all over the project. They have not bothered to engage the team in the project so far, so it was a bit of a surprise to us all. This is an alarming trend I have noticed over the last year or two. Anyway, so after spending 90 minutes on the phone listening to a vendor and our mid/upper management suck each other's ass, we went outside for a venting session. I spent 30 minutes talking quite animatedly about how I was not pissed off or bitter. If I was not angry or bitter, I would not have said anything and just ignored it, so I guess I really was. Everyone else agreed that they were not pissed off or bitter either yet all of continued to bitch about how shitty our jobs are. It was an interesting look at human behavior, and it was not until later that evening that I realized that I spent 30 minutes directly contradicting what I was saying. I wonder why people do that? I see it all the time.

Now that I am aware of what happened, I think I will be able to better control that type of thing. At the very least, if I am steaming fucking mad, it would allow me to retain the upper hand if I didn't spend the time venting. And we all know that having the upper hand is key in EVERY scenario.

Ok. I see that I have made exactly one post since the middle of November. It seems like every new post starts off with my surprise at how long it’s been since my last post. I checked back to when I first started the blog, and I realized that I used to post maybe a paragraph, sometimes two, about random thoughts I had. I believe what happened was that I started over thinking it too much, and forcing the content too much. I realize now that this is exactly the problem. I encountered the exact same thing when working on writing a book. Once I started changing my writing habits to serve the purpose of having a book, rather than serving only the individual stories within it, the work suffered, and I ended up getting burned out. I am going to attempt to take a different approach towards the blog, and take it old school, and feature shorter posts more often. Ultimately, the blog is for me more so than anything else, so if this bothers you, dine on some poo.

So, its playoffs time in football again. I bet on football. I will be in Vegas for the conference championship games, and I am rather excited about it. To prepare for this adventure, I have been doubling up my efforts towards capping the games building up to the conference championships, so that I can make quality wagers. TO do my research, of course I turn to the hard stats, but I also have spent countless hours reading forums, and learning which users on the forum are the best of the best, so that I can use their opinions to confirm my own. Any sports bettor worth his weight in gold knows that YOU cap the games, YOU decide what is right, then, and ONLY then, do you look for confirming evidence from your peers, rather than the opposite. If you go look for a "lock" pick, you will find tons of them, and they will be wrong. The odds makers set the spreads and the totals at exactly the right amount to make THEMSELVES money. These numbers are set based on all the statistics that are available to everyone. Just about any mathematical analysis you can apply to any set of available statistics, will invariably end at exactly the outcome, which will directly coincide with the outcome the odds makers have set. If you go look at polls asking sports bettors what they are going to pick, it will usually land about 50% on each side. So on any given game, half the wagers win, and half the wagers lose. If enough money comes in on a particular side, the odds makers simply move the spread until money starts coming in on the other side, to keep themselves balanced, to insure that half the people will lose.

So what does this mean? Well, I suppose it means you can use math or whatever you like and cap games all day long, and roughly be no better off then simply flipping a coin, because you really never know what is going to happen during a game. Most sports gamblers usually break even in terms of their win percentage, they may make larger wagers on certain bets to try and capitalize winnings, but overall their win percentage will be mediocre. A sports bettor who hits 60% or more is considered VERY good, or extremely lucky, and the latter is more likely the case. A gambler will always tell you about how much he won, and about his amazing win streak, but he will seldom mention his losses, or about his streak of breaking even. What does this mean for me? I guess nothing, cuz I'll be wagering anyway. Maybe I will flip a coin and bet 20 bucks on what the coin decides.