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smoking drill
Thursday, August 10 2006
Today was the day of the alleged thwarting of a big "tair attack" planned to start from Heathrow Airport in London. For those reading this account in the distant future, this was the one where the tairists planned to bring liquid explosive onto airplanes in conventional drink containers, wire them up to detonators disguised to look like ordinary electronic equipment, and then blow those birds out of the sky. There were going to be lots of planes all being blown up at once, a real badda bing for Al Qaeda. In order to prevent such a thing, British fliers were no longer allowed to fly with carry-on luggage. In the United States they were still allowed carry-on luggage (though you'd never know this listening to the news), but all liquids were banned, including such things as gel caps, lipstick, and all beverages. Someone like me would be affected in two ways: no longer can I bring my own booze for the purpose of getting my in-flight drunk on. And, if I happen to be flying through England (a strong possibility for, say, a trip to Madagasgar), I cannot bring a laptop or a portable music player. The new dullsville of international flight includes reading SkyMall cover to cover six or seven times in a row. The only fun way to fly to Britain these days is with advanced Alzheimer's disease.
This evening I took delivery of the huge eighteen inch long 1.5 inch wide masonry bit, the tool I needed to fight my way downward through eight or nine inches of solid concrete slab and foundation wall, ultimately to daylight, from beneath the new shop sink. I was using a cheap Chinese-made power drill, the only drill I have capable of turning bits with half inch shafts. I worked the poor generically-labeled thing so hard it began smoking so I had to stop. I've had a drill smoke before (a Black & Decker cordless) and it survived. But one must always stop at the first sign of smoke! In the end, the best way to drill through all that solid concrete in a timely manner was to stop every so often and spin the drill at top speed with no load, allowing its built-in fan to cool it down. By the time I broke through to daylight, it was well after dark.
Somewhere in there Gretchen and I met our friend Susan at the Reservoir Inn for dinner. Our waitress was unusually spunky, in a working class waitress kind of way, so on top of her game that she knew when she could get away with insulting us. After she found out how old we are she wouldn't shut up about how well preserved we were. She singled Susan out for particular youthfulness accolades, well deserved ones at that. Susan could easily pass for 21, even on close inspection, yet she just turned 40. Her nerdy bookish has allowed her to escape the many photons whose tiny hammer blows have slowly converted the pelts of her peers to rich Corinthian leather.
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