Friday Wisdom – Astronomy

Posted on 08/18/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

This will be the 345th Friday Wisdom post. I was going to wait till 350 to say anything, but it’s likely that I’d forget to mention it then, so I figure just say something while I still remember that I was going to brag about how many of these posts I’ve done. This last week I watched a documentary on the James Webb Space Telescope. Of course I’m an expert on the subject so here’s everything I know about astronomy:

The moon maybe smaller than the earth, but it’s further away.

The asteroids may be in a belt, but only the earth has leather.

One light-year — the same as a regular year but with less calories.

In our town we arrest shooting stars.

I was having trouble parking my space ship the other day. Let me tell you how hard it is to find a space without a parking meteor.

What is an alien with three eyes? Aliiien.

The moon is bald because it has no ‘air.

I couldn’t sleep last and kept thinking, “Where is the sun?” Then it dawned on me.

Living on earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun.

I was reading about the Earth’s rotation – it makes my day.

Flat earthers have nothing to fear, but sphere itself!

My friend said he wants to take his dog to the moon. Yup, he wants a lunar rover.

Did you hear that our local astronomer didn’t win the Nobel Prize? They just gave her a constellation prize.

Black holes were discovered by depressed astrophysicist.

I was going to write a joke about a desert planet, but I didn’t because I felt the humor was too dry.

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As The Pizza Cooks —Episode 16

Posted on 08/13/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

Last time I mentioned/warned you that this time I’d be discussing the difference between a spade and a shovel. Yup, it’s time to call a spade a spade and a shovel a shovel or as the ancient Greeks said, “call a fig a fig.”  No, seriously, the idiom started with the classical Greek work Apophthegmata Laconica by Plutarch.  He also used the idiom, “call a trough a trough,” but in Greek, not English.

This wasn’t picked up in the English language until 1542 when Nicolas Udall translated Apophthegmes from the Greek to English and replaced the word “fig” with “spade.” I’m not sure what the reason for the substitution was — maybe 16th century England had more spades than figs.  Anyway, we all know that the whole, “call a spade a spade,” idiom is about speaking frankly, directly and truthfully about a subject.  It has been used by many well know writers like Oscar Wilde, Dickens and Emerson.  I did a search of my blog writings and turns out I’ve never used this idiom.

Maybe that’s why I’m not as popular a writer as Charles Dickens.

But I digress … we came here today to discuss differences.  Yes, I know, in this divided world of ours we should be focusing on our similarities — those things that bind us, not separate us.  That’s not happening today.

The simple fact, despite advertising from the big box garden centers, is that a spade is different from a shovel.  Both are tools and in common speech are often referred to as being the same.  Spades are often sold as shovels and shovels often used as spades.  I’ll also admit that many people don’t even know what a spade is and just call all digging/shoveling tools shovels.

So let’s just clear this up, a spade is a metal tool with a sharp blade that is used for cutting into soil and used for digging.  The end can be either a pointed spade like shape (as in the spade suit in a deck of cards) or a flat square shape or even a pointy triangle.  The tool is used for doing things like cutting through roots, turf, and hard soils, to create a hole.  A spade often has treading piece or a place to put your foot on the back of the tool to help push it into the ground.  It can have a long or short handle. I’ve noted that tall people like long handles and short people like short handles.  I don’t know why.

On the other side is a shovel which is used to move lose materials like dirt, snow or coal from one place to another.  You shovel snow off your driveway. A pile of dirt is shoveled into a wheelbarrow while few people shovel coal anymore.  Don’t confuse a coal scuttle with a coal shovel. A scuttle holds a small amount of coal that can be carried from the coal pile in the basement to the stove where it is used.  A coal shovel fills the scuttle.

Not that I’ve ever shoveled or transported coal, but I’ve heard stories.

So again, the difference isn’t the shape or size, but the function.  If it cuts, digs or makes holes, it’s a spade.  If it just moves things around, it’s a shovel.  Some times you can use a spade to shovel, but a shovel generally makes a poor spade.  If you go to the garden center, they won’t care what you call it as long as you pay your $29.99 to buy one.

I should point out that your common hand trowel or garden trowel is just a small spade that can be used as a mini shovel.  Don’t confuse this kind of trowel with a masonry tool that spreads brick mortar or drywall compound.  And don’t step on a garden trowel, you’ll either break it or injure yourself.  I’ve done both and neither are easy to explain to your wife.

I personally own a couple types of spades.  One is the standard American round spade with a long handle.  It’s useful for general digging like planting trees.  Then I have a trenching tool, which is just a narrow blade with a triangle pointed end.  It’s about six inches wide and great for digging irrigation trenches.  I also have a turf edger that cuts through lawn that could technically be called a spade, as it cuts and digs, but it doesn’t shovel at all.

My shovel collection includes a few snow shovels and a couple of square faced square flat shovels that are about nine inches wide that I use for moving dirt from one end of the garden to the other.  That’s the problem when you dig a hole, you often end up with a pile of dirt that needs to be moved.  It’s common for me to have three tools when I’m out digging stuff in the yard – my round spade, trenching tool and my flat shovel along with a wheelbarrow, bandana, water bottle, band-aids and my cell phone just in case things are really going wrong and I sever something other than a root. 

I should point out that the soil in my yard is very rock like and with a lot of clay so digging often requires a large steel digging bar that’s about six feet long to convince the soil to break up. While this is used for cutting and digging, I don’t call it a spade.

I just call it heavy.

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Friday Wisdom – Home Improvements

Posted on 08/11/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

This week we had all the windows in the house replaced with new fancy energy efficient ones with better security locks. We also had a few upgraded to fancy obscuring glass. It’s a big house so it took the crew two days to replace all the windows. It’s a nice improvement to the house. I like making the house better so here’s everything I know about home improvement:

I went to the home center a few months ago to check out my options for buying new windows. An employee came over to ask if I needed help. I said, “No, just window shopping.”

Okay, so an elephant walks into a bar and now the bar is being renovated.

My neighbor was getting his house renovated and it was robbed during construction, but the burglar left his hand print in the wet cement. Police were able to make an arrest quickly based on the concrete evidence.

They were doing some renovations on Big Ben in London. It wasn’t easy — they had to work around the clock.

Circular saw: a portable tool used to cut studs too short.

Belt sander: an electric tool used to turn minor touch-ups into major refinishing jobs.

Hammer: a device used to locate the most expensive breakable items close to where you are working.

I was told I have to install a new smoke detector, or as we call it, “the cooking timer.”

What kind of nails don’t carpenters like to hit? Finger nails.

My friend had to sue his contractor over the faulty window installation. It was an open and shut case.

When one door closes, another opens – the sure sign you hired the wrong carpenter.

They were worried they might drop the new window – that can be pane-ful.

I had to fire my roofer – he couldn’t stop eavesdropping.

At Lake Tahoe there are two seasons: Winter and construction.

I did an interview to become a carpenter. They asked me to join two pieces of wood together. I nailed it.

The tallest building the world is a library — it has the most stories.

I know a contractor who has dogs that work on building sites. They’re woofers.

I had to leave my construction job. I just could lift the boards anymore so I gave my too weak notice.

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As The Pizza Cooks — Episode 15

Posted on 08/06/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

This week I’m thinking about iced tea.  Normally I’m a big tea drinker, as in I drink a lot of tea.

What bothers me about iced tea is the way people pronounce it.  Just listen at a restaurant and you’ll hear, “I’ll have an ice tea.”

No, it’s “Iced tea.” With a ‘d.’  You don’t make tea out of ice.  Steeping an ice cube in hot water gets you warm water, not tea.  You make tea and then “ice” it to make it cold.  Maybe we should say, “I’ll have a cold tea.”  Likely, you’d get a room temperature tea as it’s not hot and therefore cold, but not ice cold.  In the summer I want my tea cold.

No sugar. No sweetener, just tea over ice.  Black tea, none of that fancy herbal stuff on ice.  All I want is just plain, no nonsense back tea poured over a large glass of ice.  I don’t travel much in the south, but when I do, I’m careful not to order a sweet tea, which is iced tea poured over a pound of sugar with a pound of ice.  As I tell the waitstaff, “No sweetener, I’m sweet enough.”

Nobody laughs at that.  I think they’re just so stunned that someone doesn’t like sugar that they just stop listening when I say, “No sweetener.”

In past years I made my own iced tea at home.  Maybe I should say, I ice my own tea at home.  I shutter to think how they make iced tea at a restaurant — likely some weird powdery thing they get from a machine, but I will drink it there.  At home, I’d do the regular, brew a pot of real tea and pour it over ice.  In the last few years I have gotten lazy and will often buy it in bottles at the store.  The local supermarket will often have Tejava black tea on sale at two big bottles for $5.00.  It actually tastes like real black tea and at the price, I’m willing to ignore the manufacturing methods for the convenience of just being able to open a bottle and pour over ice.

I should point out that cold/iced tea doesn’t have milk in it.  Hot tea on the other hand must have milk.  You brew the tea in a pot, pour the milk in your cup and then pour the hot tea over the milk.  Not the other way around.  I’m not going to explain why.

I do find it strange that when I order just “tea” in a restaurant, they’ll ask me, “Hot or iced?”  Which I find weird because should be hot unless it’s iced.  I guess that I’m one of the few who think.  Of course, you don’t get many people in an American restaurant ordering hot tea so I’m just the strange customer who doesn’t want coffee with breakfast.

Summer is the right time to be drinking iced tea, but even in summer I like my morning cup of “hot” tea and my afternoon tea and cookie.  Heather likes that too and most often I’m the guy who makes the tea.  Heather is British and does like to comment on my tea making faults like not enough milk or letting it brew too long.  On these warm summer mornings we often have tea in the garden.  I’ll drink it while sitting and admiring the garden.  Heather has it while she works in the garden.  Often she gets out before I do — be fair, I’m inside making the tea — and I’ll end up having to chase through the yard to find out where she is (it’s a big yard).

This morning I couldn’t find her in the normal places.  Then I saw the gate to the front yard opened and I thought, “Oh no. Someone left the gate open and Heather escaped.”

Turns out Heather was just out digging in a front bed and not really lost.

Next time, I think I’ll discuss the difference between a shovel and a spade, but now it’s time to cut the pizza.

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