American flag compliance

Post title sounds important, huh? Well, maybe it is. 

Flying a flag does come with responsibilities. http://www.almanac.com/content/american-flag-guidelines

HOW NOT TO DISPLAY THE FLAG

• The flag should not be dipped to any person or thing.
   
• It should never be displayed with the union down, save as a signal of dire distress.
   
• It should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.
   
• It should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.
   
• It should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored so that it might be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.
   
• It should never be used as covering for a ceiling.
   
• It should never have anything placed on it.
   
• The flag should never be used for any advertising purpose, nor embroidered on cushions or handkerchiefs, printed on paper napkins or boxes, nor used as any portion of a costume.
   
• When the flag is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem, it should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

Since I made my pallet flag, I've been violating some of the rules. Mostly the illumination rule, which you don't see here. So I set out to change that.

I made a bracket to mount it to the wall, so it's not leaning against the wall anymore. You can see the bottom had a base on it to keep it up off of the ground already, but now snow removal will be more fun.

Cost: 1 pallet board, 4 screws, some paint, water, time and electricity.

I bought 2 rolls of LED lights, from ebay. Cost for a 16.4' roll was about $5. There's an LED about every inch, and you can cut it every 3 leds. (Tired of capitalizing the led.) These are coated with a soft rubbery stuff, seems a lot like silicone, billed as "waterproof". 

Cost for this project? $1

The pallet is 40" square, and I built a bracket to hold the lights just above and in front of the flag. I painted the inside of the bracket white to reflect the light and the outside black to blend with the rest of the flag. Clashes with the garage, though. OH well. The LED strip is 34 or 5 or 6, something like that, and has pretty good tape on the back. Of course, soldering the wires onto the strip destroys the tape for the first little way, and if you don't use a mechanical cable holder on the wire you solder onto the strip, the weight of it will pull it off. Curious as to how I know this???

Cost: one pallet board, 2 screws, a staple, paint, time, electricity, etc. The wire I got from a dumpster. 

Right now it's powered by a "wall wart" transformer. Curiously, the leds will work on a variety of voltages, the pkg says it wants 12, but they work fine on 9, also. I meant to look to see if a 9 volt battery will light a strip for any length of time.  Anyway. Right now there's just wire nuts connecting the wall wart to the strip. I'll drill a hole thru for the wire and then it might get interesting. See.....the garage door opener has a circuit on it that runs to the switch by the door....and that is approx 12 volts. So I'll probably wait until a warmish day and tap into that to power the light. 

Cost: more wire. Dumpster wire, of course. 

The flag is illuminated all the way down, but not so well that the phone camera can see it. The light is on day and night. I can buy a photocell that will turn it off during the day, cost of about 3 dollars...and I may do that, but the strip only uses about 6 watts, I think. It'll take a long time to use $3 worth of electricity, I think. 

Happy New Year

Lazy. Kinda sick. malaise?

I'm less than an inch into my old fashioned and I'm not too sure what malaise is. But I'm certain that I have some.

Yeah, kinda sick. On Friday, I soldered on a stained glass panel and after that, way back in my throat it hurt to swallow. Coincidence? Not sure. I soldered an entire panel on Sunday, dripping snot on it. Hey, sometimes you can't take time to wipe the nose. Monday a little worse, very snotty, went thru quite a few tissues. Tissues made of the same stuff as gas station toilet paper....the stuff that sands the "residue" off your rump. 

Not drunk enough to go all out on that description....but tempting.

BTW, I modified a baked oatmeal recipe, and had some for supper. (spell check says "sof" does not spell "for)(spell check is correct)(fingers are not always following orders) Modifications included adding dried cranberries (craisins) and a few lumps of orange that I didn't eat or put into my Old Fashioned. (Yes, it deserves capitalization now.) I should have thought of the orange addition sooner so it could have cooked in a little more, but it was still good. And BTW, I put in the rind, too. Hey, it's full of essential oils. I'd post a pic, but I already ate the oatmeals and the Old Fashioned looks a little unpleasant, if I'm honest. I muddle the hell out of that orange.......

I made my muddler, of course. It was part of a pallet, or skid, and there is a difference. If you want to know the difference, just ask. Anyway, it's white wood, a hardwood, but pretty plain. Might be poplar.....I really don't know.

Today started off worse than Monday; very coughy. I only ate one cough drop, though, because I would sort of pay attention to myself and before a coughing fit, I'd take a big deep breath. And I'd hold it awhile. It helped, I didn't cough near as much, which is good since it seemed as if I could taste some bloood. That's not a flavor profile I much like. Too coppery, like licking electrical wire. 

I have not actually licked electrical wire. I might have held some in my teeth or stripped some very small wire with my teeth in the past. This bloggy is getting confusing.

But as soon as I figured that out, I got to feeling better. Much less snotty, I only sneezed a few times and blew just a few more times than that. And as previously mentioned, only 1 cough drop. 

Is it allergic reaction to the solder/flux fumes?? I don't know. I'll be sure to use a fan next time to test that hypothesis. 

Lazy. Yes, lazy. I've got work to do in the basement. I've got work to do in the kitchen. But what am I doing? Watching Utube videos and tapping this bloggy. I sat and watched videos all last night too.  During my daytime breaks I have worked on a gift, which I'm not going to talk about because the recipient may actually read the bloggy thing. 

Can you imagine?

Oh, I suppose you might. LOL

Malaise. Holy crap: 

Malaise | Definition of Malaise by Merriam-Webster

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malaise

1 : an indefinite feeling of debility or lack of health often indicative of or accompanying the onset of an illness. 2 : a vague sense of mental or moral ill-being <a malaise of cynicism and despair — Malcolm Boyd>

Yup, I guess wait, what the hell happened to the font. That's better. Yeah, I guess I do know what it means.

Someone said to me: "It's Christmas week......"

And I thought, "yeah, so?" I don't even know what Christmas means, anymore. And so then I think about fun stuff, like the meaning of life, and my contribution to society, or lack thereof. 

And then I come home and eat oatmeal and drink Wild Turkey 101, BTW, the bottle is empty, and a fresh new one would make a great gift. It'd be nice if someone would come over right now and fetch me a couple ice cubes. But since I'm flexible and the door is locked, I'll manage.

Is it normal to feel your pulse in your head after some drink? Hmmmmmm

I found an ice cube in my cup of water. Original storage location, don't you think? Next I'll be putting them in my segmented parts storage bins. 

Actually, I won't because I think I remain somewhat logical even after a big slug of bourbon. I'm not driving anywhere, though. Either? Whichever is more appropriate. 

Pretty sure I know what's actually causing my malaise, but I don't know what I'll do about it.

Crash update? sure. Nothing. 

That's right. nothing. I got a bill. But UWhealth says nothing has been paid, but nothing is due.  It's very rare that I have a bit O dizzy, my elbow remains the same. I don't really notice anything with anything else....unless I look at my toes in the light, and I see that my toenail is still a bit purple.  My hands still have scars. I don't notice the sharp pain in the belly when I sneeze now, guess I've had enough practice. *shrug*

See how trendy I can be? J/K

recovery ??weeks, lost count. And some other stuff.

Recovery. Guess what? nothing much has changed....so nothing much to report. If I put any pressure on my elbow, it is painful. The left index knuckle can be painful if a lot of pressure is put on it, too. Can you imagine what I do? I avoid putting pressure on those areas. 

Amazing logic, isn't it?

If you've got tubes of crescent rolls in the fridge from Jan 2015, don't bother opening them, go ahead and toss them, errrrr, donate to the Michelle oBama school lunch program.  I'm baking a tube of biscuits from this summer, they should be ok. And I know they'll go great with my crockpot of buffalo chicken chili, which is actually turkey and I didn't put any buffalo sauce in yet, so I'm not sure what it is, other than turkey, beans, corn, tomatoes and some herbs.

Tomorrow is week 9 of my community ed class. Are you ready to learn what it is?

Biscuits are done. You'll have to wait.

Just like a cooking show, huh? You can see that the biscuits cooked a little faster than expected. Could be because they're old and a little dry, or it could be the toaster oven, temp might have been a little high. Tasted fine.  I may add the buffalo sauce.....

The class....starting a new hobby. See if you can tell what it is.

yup, not too hard to figure out, right?

The first and last pics are of the class practice panel. Basically choose some glass from the box the instructor brought and cut it out. The pic  of George is my project, that I picked out to do for the other class project. It turned out ok, I think. It's half the size of the other student's projects, and in some ways much simpler, in some ways more complicated. 

So there's a better pic of the practice panel, I know you want one....and then some pics of other stuff I've done.  I'm willing to sell this stuff. Or if you ask nicely enough, I might give you one.

I'm using the bench/table I made years ago for my router, and wood storage. I removed both, filled the hole left from the router insert panel, and converted the wood storage to glass storage. It's a good height for me to stand  to work, so now I'm extra trendy with a stand up desk like all the rich kids have.