|
|
|
several critical blue collar white guy stereotypes
Wednesday, July 9 2008
Being that the roofline here is two stories high, I was dreading putting in the gutters above the east slab outside the basement guest room. I don't enjoy working from ladders in cases where one needs to use two hands to manipulate objects, particularly objects as complicated, unwieldy, and obstinate as aluminum gutters. Vinyl gutters are much easier to work with than aluminum, but I've had a stock of aluminum gutters on hand for years and I'm still suspicious of vinyl. One of the main reasons for using vinyl for the gutter along the roofline of the garage was because it would probably stand up better to a hammer or a power drill bouncing down the roof, something that happens now and then when I'm working up on the solar deck.
Today I went into town to get more gutter supplies: brackets for hanging aluminum gutters, an inside 90 degree turn, and gutter junctions. It would be nice to have a device with a big crank on it that could fold a roll of aluminum into a gutter shape on the fly, thereby avoiding junctions. I've found it's very hard to create a gutter junction that doesn't leak. It's also a bitch to cut an aluminum gutter to a certain length.
I had the dogs with me, and on the way back from town I headed down Hurley Mountain Road to Fording Place (41.9074N, 74.0957W), where I collected 25 gallons of sandy soil to use to modify some lawn contours back at the house. As I worked, I was listening to WPDH, the local hard rock radio station. The song was "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns 'n' Roses. I'd put the sixteen ounce can of Icehouse I'd been drinking on the roof of the car while I worked. For a few minutes there, I was fulfilling several critical blue collar white guy stereotypes, although I've found the consumption of ice beer to be a relative rarity in the American population. (At Bonnaroo, for example, I never saw anyone drinking ice beer; most people were drinking light beer made by either Coors or Budweiser. For familial political reasons dating back to before I drank beer, I refuse to drink Coors. I have drunk maybe three of them in my life, and then only in desperation.)
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?080709 feedback
previous | next |
