A Hero Comes Along ... and Another ... and Another ... and Another

     An aquaintance of mine shared this video on Facebook:



     It reminded me of a quote.  Novelist, poet, businesswoman, and activist Margaret Atwood said, "Men are afraid women will laugh at them.  Women are afraid men will kill them."
     In the last fifty years, women have gained economic and political power.  Statistics say that on the whole we earn 78 cents on the dollar compared to men, but that's an average.  Many women are just as rich and powerful or more rich and powerful than many men out there. However, you can be richer than Wal-mart's Widow Walton or more influential than Hillary Clinton and you will still be afraid of the man in the Target parking lot standing next to a car parked near yours.  You might be a big, strapping girl, trained in self defense, who can bench press 150 pounds, but you will still be afraid.
     I like this video.  I think everyone in this country should see it.  It should be shown in every house of worship since it uses a religious angle.  It should be shown in every school and, since we keep religious instruction out of the public schools, followed by an explanation that standing against wrong doing is not just a religious thing.  The topic would dovetail nicely with the bullying lectures that kids get.  It should be part of every college's orientation exercises since some college boys need a refresher course in these matters.
     Of course, a video can't do it all.  Parents should preach the message, and dads should teach it by example 'cause, ya know, all this stuff starts at home.                              
   



      

Upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10

     My mother had a motto: If it's for free, take.  Our bathroom was full of tiny foil packets of shampoo and conditioner.  The dog ate vending machine sized bags of kibble.  Mom was one of those people who got a free lunch at Costco by accepting the offerings of every vendor hawking a product.
     Most of the freebies Mom snatched up weren't worth much.  She would be proud of my recent score - a free upgrade to Windows 10.  Everyone who bought a new computer loaded with Windows 8 and suffered through the experience, is getting this gift from Microsoft.
     My blog entry from October 13, 2014 is all about how much I hate Windows 8.  I have heard some fellow Eight Haters say they won't upgrade now that they are finally comfortable with their operating system.  Maybe they will change their minds when they hear about my upgrade experience.
     Microsoft added a little icon to the Notification Area on my Start Screen at the end of July when they first told me that I qualified for an upgrade.  I would have one year to make the conversion.  I had all sorts of trepidation about the outcome, so I put off the change.  I decided the other night that it was time.  I found out that you don't need any smarts to do the upgrade.  You don't have to prepare your computer in any way.  You don't have to disable your anti-virus protection.  You simply click a couple of times when asked questions, then you sit back and be patient.  The upgrade took about 90 minutes.  Things seemed to halt when the process was 95% completed.  I resisted the urge to touch the computer, and I waited.  Finally, that last 5% rolled in.  After the upgrade, my McAfee did a scan that took several hours.
     So, how has my Windows 10 experience been?  I'm loving that fact that the Start Button is back.  I also appreciate that the Charms Bar is gone.  I hated when that sucker flew in my face every time I moused too close to the edge of the screen.  I don't have a tablet or a Windows phone, so I'm not taking advantage of the option to integrate a bunch of devices.  I also don't care about Cortana, Windows' answer to Apple's Siri.  Mike sometimes talks to Siri on his iPad, and I don't think she's "all that."  However, someday I might get a microphone and strike up a friendship with Cortana.  The option is there.  Number Ten seems to be a nice version of Windows, and I'm happy with it.
     But will the happiness last?  Some people out there are calling the free upgrade a con.  They say Microsoft will support your copy of Windows 10 for only 2-4 years.  Others are saying 5-10 years.  Maybe there is no such thing as a free operating system.  We'll see in 2-4 years.  I'm here to tell you though, there is such a thing as a free lunch.  You get it a few bites at a time at Costco.  
   
     
   
   
   
                   

Party Invitation for Halloween (Or Not)

     I found this party invitation on Pinterest:

Complete instructions for this project are at
http://mrprintables.com/pop-up-house-party-invitation.html

      I modified this project to make a Halloween invitation.  For my guests though, it's not really a Halloween party since many of them "don't do Halloween."  Mike is an outright Halloween hater. My Halloweeny looking project is really an invitation to a chicken pot pie party that will occur at that time of the year when some people enjoy parading around in costumes.
     Here's my project:

I thought the original card was too small, so I increased it to 125% of the original. 

My template was drawn on 8.5 X 14 card stock.  The black card stock I used to make the house is 8.5 X 11, so I split the template and added a tab for gluing to two pieces together.

I traced and cut out the pieces.

The pieces are cut and most of the folds are done.

I embellished the house with images from my Print Artist program.  The inside and outside embellishments should be glued on before gluing the house together.

The information guests need is glued to the roof.  I used a dimensional to pop out the tombstone.

I put this image inside the house.  When recipients look through the windows, they will see it.  Elvira explains to Dracula, "Sorry, Drac.  They're having chicken pot pie.  Bloody Marys don't go with chicken pot pie."

The card will be flattened for mailing.  I made these pulls for popping it open.  Since there is a left and a right pull, they have to be mirror images of each other.

Fold the pull tab in half to make a crease, open and apply  glue, center the cord, then fold it over gluing the halves together.

The sides of the house are creased in the middle.  I decided where I wanted to place the pull tab and punched two holes.

Push the strings through the holes ... 

... and tie them on the inside.  

The Finished Project
To assemble the house pieces, I glued the roof peak tab first, then I glued the side wall tabs.

This is a scary neighborhood.

     If you want the chicken pot pie recipe, it's in the December 17, 2014 post.

    

Kindling My Love of Reading

     Kindle books are so great - no book shelves to dust.  Thank you Burlington County Library for the following "reads" and "listens."

READS

     The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters - In post World War I London, the Widow Wray and her daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers after the deaths of the male family members.  Not long after the Barbers move in, Frances and Mrs. Barber begin an affair.  The ending is as good as it could possibly be for the two ladies, but life is going to be far from easy for them.

     The Royal We by Heather Cox and Jessica Morgan - This is not a "Read".  It's an audio book, but it is connected to my next "Read."  This book is a fictionalized account of the romance of Kate Middleton and Prince William.  The authors made Kate an American girl named Rebecca (nicknamed Bex) who meets her prince (named Nick) when she attends college in England.  It was cute.

     Kate: The Making of a Princess by Claudia Joseph - After listening to the fictionalized version, I decided to read the true story.  Claudia Joseph must have of spent hours on Ancestry.com researching Kate Middleton's genealogy.  She sets out more information than you will ever need explaining Kate's grandparents' four branches of the family tree.  If you ask me, Kate did a masterful job of reeling Wills in.  I give her props for knowing what she wanted.  I also think she's a poor example for everyone else who isn't royal or filthy rich.

     Blood and Beauty: The Borgias; A Novel by Sarah Dunant - I loved "The Borgias" on Showtime, so it was fun to read this book and compare it to the TV series.

     Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories by Ron Rash - Short stories make great reading because it's easier to put the book down at the end of a chapter.  Some of these stories ended abruptly, and I thought there should have been something else coming.  Most of them left me thinking, Yeah, that's people for you.

     Serena by Ron Rash - I liked Ron Rash's short stories so much that I read his novel Serena. The story begins in 1929.  George and Serena Pemberton operate a lumber camp along the North Carolina-Tennessee border.  They are ruthless people.  If you deal with them, be prepared to be used or die.  It takes the National Park Service establishing the Great Smokey Mountains National Park to run them out of town.  Serena was made into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.  The library owns a copy of this film, so I borrowed it.  The story line deviates quite a bit from the book.  

     How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran - Johanna Morrigan realizes at age fourteen that her parents have not taught her life skills.  The story that follows shows her figuring it out on her own.

LISTENS

     Born With Teeth by Kate Mulgrew - This is actress Kate Mulgrew's auto biography.

     Ruby by Cynthia Bond - There are big sins (baby raping) and lesser sins (holier-than-thou snobs and gossips) and the idea that love conquers all.  In the main character Ruby's case, I think you need love plus a really good psychiatrist.

     Sizzlin' Sixteen, Smokin' Seventeen, and Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich - Who doesn't like Stephanie Plum novels?  They are complete fluff - great fun to keep you company when you cook, sew, or pull weeds.
   

  

Google Street View

Mike and I were cruising south on Route 206 when we saw something that looked like this:

This picture from Google Images.  It's an example of a car equipped for Street View. 

     "What's that?" I asked Mike.
     "It's a car taking pictures for Google," he answered, sounding completely sure of himself.
     It turns out that he wasn't completely sure, just almost sure.  When we got home we did a little googling and confirmed Mike's suspicions.
     Google Street View had modest beginnings in 2001.  Today, the United States, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, Argentina, and the Republic of South Africa are almost fully covered. Russia, Greenland, and most of South America are partially covered.  Only tourist attractions in China appear on Street View.  Most of Africa and the Middle East have no current or planned coverage.
     All good ideas have legal troubles along the way.  Street View has had to deal with privacy concerns.  Google blurs faces and license plates on their images, and they will blur houses if the owners request it.  Google cameras can "see" over fences, so Japan and Switzerland required Google to lower them.  An Edinburgh, Scotland business man heard that Google cameras would be rolling by, so he staged an attempted murder by standing over his friend with a pick ax.  He ended up making an apology to the police for wasting their time.  In 2011 Germany and India ended Street View's operations, mainly because of privacy issues.  Here are a couple of articles:

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217177/Google-Street-View--Please-dont-stand-middle-road-waiting-camera.html

     It seems that after, "Hey, what's that?" the question that follows is, "How can I get a job driving one of those cars?"  Google does not employ Street View drivers.  They use subcontractors, the main one being Immersive Media.  They only strategy for obtaining the job seems to be to apply to Immersive Media or other similar companies and hope for the best.  You'll only earn about $2500 per month, and it's a temporary job.  However, having Google Street View Driver on your resumé is going to impress your next employer a whole lot more that delivering for Domino's.

http://tek-bull.com/2012/02/how-to-get-hired-for-the-google-maps-street-view-car/

Replacing Damaged Vinyl Siding

     A couple of months ago, I was working in the front of the house, and I saw a blemish on the vinyl siding.  It was a Y-shaped crack caused by who knows what.  I slapped a piece of duct tape over the crack, painted the tape to match the siding color, and waited for cooler weather.  The weather hasn't gotten cooler, but with the recent long stretch of sunny days, I decided it was the time to learn how to repair siding.  As with every DIY project I do, it takes lots longer than those grinning experts on the YouTube videos say it will.  Lots, lots longer.

The first thing you need to do the job is to purchase a siding removal tool.  It costs about $7.00, and you get it at Lowe's or Home Depot.

Our broken siding was between two windows, so we had to remove the shutters.  Mike is demonstrating how to do this:  Work a sharpened putty knife under the head of the plastic shutter fastener.  Smack it with a hammer until the head breaks off.  Since shutter attachment is a little loose to allow for expansion and contraction of the vinyl material, it helps to have an assistant to hold the shutter firmly in place when trying to break off the head of the fastener. 

After the fastener heads are gone, pull the shutter off.  The back side is going to be loaded with old wasp nests and other insect crud.  The next thing you have to do is pull out the plastic posts.

You'll need pliers to grab the post and pry it out, but first place a board against the siding to protect it from being damaged by the pliers.  Pull out and roll down using the curvature of the pliers to remove the post.  If the post breaks, you'll have to drill out what remains with a 1/4 inch drill bit.  Here's a video:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QGT7l5ZmTgw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Go to the siding strip that is located above the damaged strip.  Starting at one of the ends, shove the tool up until it catches the upper strip.  I made four unsuccessful attempts to engage the upper strip, so I tried the other end.  I separated the strips and grabbed the upper strip on the first attempt this time.  Slide the tool along the strip, and the two pieces will unzip.  

Raise the upper strip.  It's easier if your helper holds the upper strip out of the way for you.  This is an example of poor nailing technique.  The nails should be centered in the slots, not up against the edge.  The nails should also be driven in leaving room for the strips to slid back and forth.  Imagine all your siding pieces as a sort of unit that floats on the surface of your house.  Draw a line along the top of the strip before you remove it.  The line serves as a guide when you insert the replacement strip.  Pull out the nails with a hammer or pry bar, and remove the damaged piece of siding.  We had some extra pieces of siding in the crawl space, so I cut a new piece from these left overs.  For this repair between two windows, I cut the new strip about 3/8 inch shorter than the space I needed to cover.  This allows for expansion and contraction of the vinyl during the hot and cold seasons.  I was able to reuse the nails.  I centered all my nails in the slots, so I had to make some new nail holes.  I squeezed caulk into the old holes to seal them.     

When the new piece is nailed into place, drop the upper strip down.  Insert the tool into the corner of the upper piece and pull down over the lower piece.  Run the tool along the seam pulling down and locking or zipping up the siding.  Here's a video:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4bh7tHkZBMs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

     You might think I would pat myself on the back at this point and have a nice, cold drink.  Not yet.  While doing the repair, I noticed that there was another piece of damaged siding higher up.  This wasn't a short easy run between windows.  It was a full 12 foot piece that was cut around the porch roof and the top of one of the windows.  After consulting YouTube and learning about J-channels, I decide I should try it.  Things went well until the end of the job.  I pressed against a piece of siding and heard a crack.  A staple that had not been nailed flat punched through another piece of siding when I pressed directly over it.  Oh well, by this time I was an expert.  
     Replacing three pieces of siding was enough for one day.  Washing and reattaching the shutters would wait until the next day.  Mike says I'm nuts, but I plugged up all the shutter attachment holes overnight because I was afraid bees or carpenter ants would crawl into our walls.    

New shutter fasteners look like this.  You can get them at Home Depot in colors to match most shutters.  They cost about $7.00 for 12 pieces - enough to hang a pair of shutters.  These fasteners are not reusable, so buy more than you need.  The barbed design means you can't remove it without destroying it, even if you tap it in just a little bit.

I pushed the fasteners part way through the shutters.  Then I matched the fasteners up to the holes in the house.  Finally, I tapped the fasteners in until they were almost tight.  I left  just a little bit of play in the way the shutters fit.  Be sure to mark the shutters when you take them down, so you put them back in their original positions.  Do this because the holes from window to window might not be exactly the same.    

Job done!

  

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

     Christ Church Cathedral, also known as The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, has a history beginning in 1030 A.D.  It started out as a Roman Catholic church, but today it represents the Church of Ireland denomination.  What is the Church of Ireland?  It is an Anglican church associated with the Church of England.  Within the church, some members are more Catholic-leaning and some are more Protestant-leaning, but overall the Church of Ireland is considered a Protestant denomination.
     The building is the oldest medieval cathedral in Dublin.  It started out as a wooden building, replaced by stone, expanded, and renovated over the years.

Interior of the Church
The church underwent extensive renovations during the Victorian era because it was in danger of collapsing.  Some say it was "Victorianized" too much, but a lot of examples of medieval building show through.   

This is the Portlester Chapel built in the mid 15th century.  It was unroofed in 1773.  The remaining structure was repaired in 1880.  Those slabs are the grave stones of people buried in the church.

The exterior is being spruced up now, so this is the only exterior shot I could get without scaffolding in it.

The is a 9th century grave stone thought to have supernatural powers.  Over the years, it was stolen many times, but it always managed to be returned to the church.  It was taken for the last time in 1826.  The robbers finally abandoned the stone when it became too heavy for the horses to carry.  Some people who found the discarded stone attempted to break it up, but they were unsuccessful.  The stone was set in its present location in 1860.  You are supposed to touch it for good fortune.  

Mike and I touched the stone together.