Sundry Thoughts

It’s amazing how far plasma cutters have come in the last few years…from the giant clunkers that would use different gas mixtures, depending on what you were cutting, to the new machines as big as a shoe box that use compressed air. Now, you just need to turn the dial and pull the trigger.

I actually don’t own a plasma cutter of my own, and there are a few reasons for it. The consumables are expensive and you’ll go through them very quickly if you don’t have clean air for your cutter; get a good dedicated air cleaner for your cutter if you use one.

My biggest reason for not having one is that in most situations there are better ways to cut metal:

-While a plasma cutter is amazing on thin material, a torch in experienced hands leaves a better finish on thicker pieces; plasma cutters tend to slightly bevel one side of the cut and it’s much more apparent when cutting thick material.

-For Aluminum, if a shear won’t do it, I find the cheapest and cleanest way to cut it is with a chop or skill saw and a cheap carbide blade.

-For stainless, I use abrasive wheels, which is a relatively expensive way to cut, but I don’t have much stainless work to do.

In spite of my opinion of plasma cutters, they’re amazing and are very useful; just not for the work I do. I’ve always had a bit of an anti-plasma cutter attitude, and was set straight one day by a coworker who was cutting up an old truck box. Unsolicited, I gave him my standard poo-pooing of plasma cutters. Instead of telling me to buzz off, like he could have, he grabbed his plasma torch and burned his signature into a panel as fast as he would if he were using a pen and said that a machine that could do that was very useful and worth the cost; I had to agree.

For non ferrous cutting and thin steel sheets or heavier pieces where you don’t want as much heat input, they’re amazing. I do have to confess that they’re nice for cutting copes in pipe joints but I’m small potatoes and unless I end up doing a big stainless job, you won’t be seeing one in my shop.

I’ve been taking a break from following the news for a while but I briefly broke my fast a couple weeks ago and listened to a show on Vancouver Coop Radio about relief efforts in Haiti and became angry when the host and speaker complained about the military presence. It’s been bugging me and I have to write about it.

The host and guest speaker were going on about empire building, the insult of men carrying guns on aid missions, and NGO’s being pushed aside by military efforts. I won’t debate the empire building side of things. The different political and economic forces exerting their influence on Haiti are a complex matter, so let’s put all that aside and get down to the meat of the matter: relief.

We all know that Haitians need aid. If you give it some thought, I’m sure you’ll agree that the organizations that are the most effective at doing tough logistical work are armed forces and I’ll bet that the Americans do large scale logistical jobs better than any other army.

The tough conditions and problems faced on a job like this are an armed force’s bread and butter. I have to say that I don’t know anything about NGO’s or the personnel they employ, but I do know that the regimented work life of soldiers that seems excessive or even preposterous to so many of us is PRECISELY what allows all of these men and women to to pile into planes and boats, travel thousands of kilometers to do a job, and come home again when the work is done. You can debate how effective their mission might be, but I don’t think you’ll find any organization more qualified to do this sort of work than an army; at least not on such a large scale.

As for guns….People waiting for aid can’t be trusted to remain restrained when you bring in supplies. I don’t care how civilized and nice you are; when you pile hunger, thirst, stress, grief, and sleep deprivation on top of each other, you will be seriously tested. If you’ve ever been truly hungery you’ll understand why nice good folks can, and do, mob aid centres and trucks.

Generally speaking, I believe that armed aid efforts help keep everybody safe. Would you reach out to a drowning man with your hand if you had a pole? Most of us know that you can’t judge him for grabbing at you and maybe dragging you in too; you’re not rational when you’re drowning.

On the radio show there was talk of a Vancouver based relief group that was turned away from Haiti twice because the airstrip they were to use was reserved for military flights….People who have survived a near drowning, fire, or any survival situation where rationale goes out the window can personally understand why you use a pole to help a drowning man and also why so many don’t stop and think to use a pole.

I always chuckle when I hear a mention of NASA’s shuttles or the ISS and somebody feels the need to pipe in that, “we made that robotic arm!” I can almost imagine a news anchor saying that the Canadarm went up on a mission…and brought along the shuttle too…

Once I was eaves-dropping on a nearby conversation while riding the ferry to Vancouver and heard someone say that the first feet on the moon were actually Canadian, because the feet on the Apollo lander were made in Montreal!

I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t care. I wanted to tell them that there’s nothing wrong with being proud of the smallest contribution to a big project but there was no need to be snide about it or inflate its significance; trust me, they sounded snide. Like I said, I wanted to tell them….but I’m too pretentious to admit that I was listening in on their conversation.

It reminded me of a dishwasher who told me that without him, the restaurant couldn’t run. I corrected him: The restaurant couldn’t run without clean dishes but without him, they’d hire another dishwasher.

While flipping through channels on the television the other day, I paused to watch a horror film for a few minutes. I thought about what could be learned from horror films, and all I could muster was this:

If the lights are out in the basement, brother, you better not go down there.

I was reading in an online forum about a fellow’s mishap with the battery on his tractor; oversight and a little hydrogen gas conspired to complicate his day. Below is a portion of the comment I left on that forum that I consider one whale of a cautionary tale.

There’s an old legend, back in the village where I grew up, about a fisherman who made a nice little explosion down at the wharf while charging his boat’s dead battery bank. He wanted to take a look at the terminals while it was charging but it was dark, so he used his cigarette lighter. He wasn’t seriously hurt, but the incident earned him the nicname Die Hard; after the battery brand.

Different people are motivated by different things. For many people, including myself, the threat of humiliation works very well. In addition to the normal health and safety concerns, the fear of pulling a, “Die Hard,” makes me careful when charging or using improvised methods with batteries.

Behind every cautionary tale is some guy responsible for the situation that spawned it… Maybe sometime I’ll write about why there was a period in my life when I was called Lug Nut. For now, let’s just say that I was a kid, and that it has made me much more thorough in my work.

A few weeks ago I was giving my annual “Grinch gripe” to my wife. It’s a well rehearsed rant about the senseless, arbitrary materialism that has come to be associated with a religious holiday…and has nothing to do with my antisocial leanings or general dislike of shopping. You don’t believe me either, eh?

My wife, Janet, said that I could skip all the mid-winter consumerism if I went to Midnight Mass; being a Grinch and a backslider go hand in hand. I said it was a deal, yet I found myself spending more time in stores this month than I did during the eleven before. We’ll see if there’s a suit hanging in the bedroom when I get home from work….

Update: No Midnight Mass. My wife slipped, hit her head, and has a mild concussion. She’s fine, but we spent the first few hours of Christmas in triage. We’ll see what next year brings….

Let me start by saying that I don’t know who said it first, but I once read that the difference between a civilized man and a domesticated man is that a civilized man has savage urges but controls them while the domesticated man doesn’t have those urges in the first place.

This old memory surfaced after buying gasoline the other night. At the station I was using, customers need to pay at an outside window. What happened involves a truck that pulled up to that window while I was pumping gas.

The man driving the truck bought some cigarettes and stepped back into his truck; he sat there with the door open. I noticed a sticker on the truck that said, “Got MILF?” I thought that sticker showed a total lack of class, but would rather not say how I know what MILF means. It’s called Google, people.

The guy in the truck looked like a real looser and his female passenger looked dopey, strung-out and was dressed like a tramp. She jumped out of the truck and got into line as I was filling my tank; when I got into line, she was immediately in front of me.

I didn’t really care about them or what they were doing until the young woman started haggling with the cashier about how much cash they’d let her get from her debit card. I was getting a little impatient and I guess the fellow saw this and he gave me a funny look but turned away when we made eye contact.

For the most part I didn’t really care, but a very small part of me wanted him to ask me what I was looking at; whenever I’ve been asked this question I’ve answered with rude, brutal honesty. After being told no by the cashier for the third time, the young woman climbed back into the truck and they left.

Here’s what bothered me:

I don’t think it’s right, but there was a period in my life where I would have asked the woman, in front of her boyfriend, if she charged him by the hour or if she had a day rate just to relieve the monotony of waiting in line with a fight.

I thought that getting married and getting a little longer in the tooth had civilized me a bit, but the truth is that night, I only would have done something if they provoked me. I mainly wanted them to leave so I could pay for my fuel and head home.

I guess I’ve actually become domesticated.

In some recent correspondence, the expression, “God never gives you anything you can’t handle,” came up and it made me wonder if that really was true. You see, we would only get testimony from the survivors.

What a warm, cheery thought!

What do you call a welder who is wearing a suit? The accused.

That joke sums up the stereotype, as far as wardrobe is concerned, but to be honest, I’m comfortable wearing a suit. I’d be even more comfortable if I lost 20 pounds.

This thought surfaced when I needed to go out tonight. Often, when I’m going out, my wife asks if I intend to go, “like that.” She’ll say something but I’m responsible for dressing myself; sadly, on many days this is very obvious. The thing is, I’m always doing something and I can’t risk ruining good clothes. Even if I weren’t going to do dirty work, the upholstery in both of my work trucks is off limits for good clothes.

When I need to keep clean, I sneak away with my wife’s car; a Plymouth Neon. You can laugh. The way I see things, driving a girly car is just proof that I have a girl.

I’m watching a Christmas movie and it reminded me of an old joke:

One of the great things about being a blacksmith is that you get to be naughty AND Santa brings you coal.