73 thoughts on “August 25, 2014: Dance Party”

  1. I need some advice:

    My step-dad is giving us some money to build a deck. Now, I have a wife that is completely unrealistic when it comes to understanding just what goes in to home improvement projects. So I'm wondering, how do I tell her that, for our house, a simple, square deck is best and a f***ing Pinterest project is a terrible idea?

      1. Composites are about twice as expensive as wood, so it wouldn't fit into my budget even with a simple design, unfortunately. Then again, Pinterest isn't in my budget (or skillset, for that matter), either.

        I'm convinced Pinterest exists either only to make you feel bad because you are incapable or to make some lying jerk somewhere feel better by claiming to be able to do these things. It is also where technical writing has gone to die.

          1. We have to replace the deck in Scandia. Currently wood, but have been thinking about recycled-stuff. Does anyone have experience with that stuff?

    2. I would be the last person to ask about a) building projects and b) changing your wife's mind.

      1. I'm less concerned about the building project as I am about convincing my wife to scale back the ambition that I don't share.

        1. Perhaps if you let your wife know that anything other than a simple, square deck design will require her to contribute 1/2 of the labor?

          1. That doesn't work, as I've learned.

            You'd think the shelf I built for the basement would be proof enough that I have no idea what I'm doing.

    3. "Honey/Dear/Skittle/Whatever you call the missus,

      That's way too complicated for me to build, but here's the hammer. You're welcome to try on your own."

      I am also single. The two may or may not be correlated.

    4. Pinterest, as far as I can tell, is the social media equivalent of a New Year's resolution: full of good intentions, but inevitably a repository of anxiety over one's body image, personal fashion, diet & nutrition, economic status, domicile, and/or material possessions.

      There are probably two ways to approach this:

      1) Be honest with your wife about what is within your own capacity as a shadetree carpenter. Tell her you'd love for her to have a Pinterest deck®, but that it's just not within your skill set (yet) and might actually be dangerous. (Show her some deck collapse videos on YouTube - it's a serious safety issue). Tell her you'll give her the best square deck you can build, but ask her to respect your self-knowledge and honesty about your abilities.

      2) Approach the negotiation over the deck as a conversation about investments: a square deck will take you X amount of time (remember to double the amount of time you think it will take and add a bit more). A Pinterest deck® will take Y times as long, and even then it likely won't look the way it looks on the computer screen. That's time you won't have to do anything else around the house. You may need her to help you stain the deck, too.

      3) I have a contractor friend who is very reasonable and reliable. He's done great work for us and restored a Pinterest deck® at our previous place. I can give you his contact info if you're interested in a bid.

      1. I'm trying the "honey, I really suck at woodworking, so let's please keep it simple" route. So far the response was: "pergolas and these fancy stairs aren't hard, look at the instructions." Oy.

        I would be happy to contact your friend. I was thinking about getting a quote from a contractor just to see what it would cost. At the very least, I'm interested in contracting the footing holes/pour. Shoot em an email.

        1. Do you have a time frame in mind for the project? I'm asking in anticipation of him asking me. It's getting on toward crunch time for outdoor projects and I'm not sure what kind commitments he has left for the season. (He's a single guy operation.)

              1. Awesome, thanks man. Email address is indeed the same. If he's not available/out of budget, you interested in coming down some weekend and helping out? There will be beer and food as bribes.

                1. September's a tough month now that I'm full-time academic staff, but I might be able to help out for a day or two. Whether you'd actually want my help is another matter. I can do some projects (and demo, obviously), but I'm no carpenter. That's why I'm friends with a guy who is!

        2. I guess there are advantages to being completely worthless at any sort of home improvement project and having a wife who knows how completely worthless I am at them.

          1. You got that right, padre. I've made the mistake of being overconfident in my skills in the past, and now it seems I'm paying for that hubris now.

            1. that's what you get for training in an engineering field. You guys are all like Seabees, amiright?!

        3. Google "Pinterest Fail". Tell your wife to project those onto her proposed deck plan.
          Or just this...

          1. I find myself wishing that Red Green would do a webisode on Pinterest project suggested by Mrs. Green.

      2. Pinterest, as far as I can tell, is the social media equivalent of a New Year's resolution: full of good intentions, but inevitably a repository of anxiety over one's body image, personal fashion, diet & nutrition, economic status, domicile, and/or material possessions.

        Amen, brother. Dr. Chop is pretty crafty, and has completed several Pinterest projects to beautify our space, but that site never reveals the degree of difficulty of a project. I'm a pretty accomplished carpenter, with access to an entire wood shop, and yet I still can't quite manage to figure out the dimensions and cut list of a certain 'floating' plant hanger. I firmly believe sites like Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram create new anxieties by presenting a first draft perfect world at all of our fingertips.

        2. I still can't quite manage to figure out the dimensions and cut list of a certain 'floating' plant hanger.

          This, gods, this. My wife keeps getting annoyed every time I rip on Pinterest, but if the people writing these frickin blogs had any ability to properly communicate, especially in a technical sense, I wouldn't have to. (Or perhaps I should be complaining more about the people who blindly C&P links because of a pretty picture.) The other possibility is that the people writing these things are all lying and those pictures are not from something they did.

          I firmly believe sites like Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram create new anxieties by presenting a first draft perfect world at all of our fingertips.

          Oh man, if only I could convince her that this is the case and how its bad I might not have to deal with about 75% of the Pinterest problems I have to deal with.

    5. I wish Stick were around to give his perspective, both as a guy who worked on his own deck and as someone who's a little more seasoned in the art of marital negotiation.

    6. So, I just have to laugh because this weekend my wife started on a new endeavor to build a new dining room table. Guess where she got the idea!!!!

      I'm actually not too worried about it, despite my horrible track record as a home improvement guy. (I usually HATE projects, and yes, I know hate's a strong word) However, I've decided to have a good attitude about this one. I'm really getting into building it. The way I figure it, it's going to be where I play board games the most, so I want a nice looking table to play them on.

      The only downside so far is that I think this table is going to be HEAVY! Just the top is quite a bit of weight. Hopefully that means it'll be nice and stable, which will be a vast improvement over our current antique table that I acquired from my grandparents.

  2. Foot and Ball Guys league has been renewed. If you played last year, you should have an auto-invite in your inbox.

    I don't think I can set a draft time until there are at least four official players.

    1. On that topic, the B League draft is set for Sunday night at 8:30pm. There's a couple stragglers, so renew if you haven't. I'll note any spots still open later in the week.

    2. I'm out this year. I'm ending my relationship with the NFL as completely as possible, so that means no fantasy.

      1. I kind of want to do that, but I still get excited about fantasy, which I suppose is because of the history of my money league.

        Also, pretty much everyone I work with watches it, and I work every Sunday, so I'm going to see a lot of it whether I want to or not.

        1. I thought I might be able to have a mostly NFL-free workplace considering the field I'm in and the gender demographics of my office. (I'm not saying women can't be or aren't rabid football fans, just that my experience led me to believe they'd be less likely to have the NFL be part of the watercooler talk.) No such luck, because Wisconsin. I've already been hearing about Aaron Rogers and the Packers for at least a month. The social obligation to care about the NFL is easily my least favorite non-political aspect of living in this state.

          1. "I don't follow American football"

            What is how to make a Texan's head explode for $200, Alex?

          2. Or living in a state next to it.
            Sconnie expats always wanna talk about football.
            Never about Brewers.

          3. If you want to be a troll, ask your co-workers (expecially the female ones) if they think now that Michael Sams has crossed the gay-in-the-NFL barrier, will Aaron Rogers finally come out of the closet. After the initial shock and dismay over your comment, they'll leave you alone.

      2. Dido this. I cut it off last year, and was glad for it.

        I've got a slight tug directing me to tune into the games while eating a plate of nachos opening week, and maybe I'll give in to that one, but otherwise my desire is minimal. Occasional exposure is fine, but active following... I've got better things to do. At least until I can gain some respect for the NFL as a league.

        1. At least until I can gain some respect for the NFL as a league.

          hahahahaha!

          You gotta respect their authori-TAH, dude.

      3. I've stopped watching NFL. I don't have TV (living on Netflix and Amazon), and the Vikings and Rams were so awful for so long together that I just really stopped having an interest. Couple that with giving up gambling (including pools), the record of injuries (especially concussions) and the NFL has just really fallen low on the priority list. I'll watch the occasional game on Thanksgiving, and maybe even the Super Bowl (although my wife and I had made a nifty tradition of going out on a date on Super Bowl evening -- until half the restaurants started closing on Super Bowl evening). But no more fantasy or pools.

    3. I'm in the market for a cheap fantasy football league, should you have any openings. I promise not to be any better at it than I was at my first year of Half-Bakef fantasy baseball.

  4. Its a scientific fact that getting surprise cookies can turn a crappy day around to the good side.

    1. Also, every regular player in the Twins lineup currently has a 105 OPS+ or better on the season. The Angels have the top team OPS+ at 109 and even they have two regulars below 100. The A's and Tigers also have multiple players in their lineups below 100.

      1. If you believe the Fangraphs stats, they have the Twins' batters at a cumulative 0.5 batting runs above average (if I have the lingo right; 10th in the Majors), compared to their baserunning score (+3.1 runs above avg; 8th in the Majors).

        1. I'm assuming that's all batters for the full season. I'm talking about all the current regulars, so it wouldn't include Florimon before Escobar took over or Hicks before Santana was called up and took over or Willingham and Fuld before Schafer (although all 3 have a triple digit OPS+ with the Twins) or Morales before Vargas was called up. I'm just pointing out that the Twins have vastly improved their lineup since the start of the year. It should be no surprise that the Twins lead the majors in runs scored since the AS break.

    2. Yeah, once I figured out the theme, that made most of them pretty simple. It's nice to get all of them for once!

  7. The Royals are the ESPN game tonight. They are playing the Yankees, but still when was the last time the Royals were on ESPN?

  8. I may have just found a ???times great-grandfather who died in the winter camp at Valley Forge.

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