- Objectivity, how does it work? (Does it make me a bad person if, every time Chris Matthews talks about the president now, this will be the first thing that pops into my head?*)
- If you work with unstable heavily-armed 'roidheads, don't tease them about their poor shooting.
- I LOL'ed. (As I'm sure the government knows, because I think my cell phone was in the room at the time.)
- Much like booming beachfront real estate contributed to hurricane damage totals, there's an argument to be made that vast new swathes of vinyl-sided 2x4-and-particle-board slab covers in tornado alley may be running up the tornado tab.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Tab Clearing...
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24 comments:
WRT: Chris Matthews. No. What would make you a bad person would be if, every time you hear him speak about the President, the image that pops into your mind is a shaking miniature Peke-a-poo wetting itself in excitement.
Oh. Wait. Not. That would be me.
Sorry. Carry on.
M
You ain't just kidding on house construction. When I was a boy growing up in Florida, most houses were built of concrete blocks. Most were 1-story ranch houses, too; low to the ground and built of blocks, your typical tornado would be as out of luck as the Big Bad Wolf.
re: tornado proofing
FEMA has invested more than $57 million in 11,768 private and public safe rooms in Oklahoma
They could have done it for 10 million but...it's FEMA.
"Lobban claims he only meant to hurt Santiago, whom he accused of tampering with the gun in order to "punk" him, but accidentally shot the other two as well."
See, he really is a bad shot.
It's strange how the light makes Barry O' look just like Mark Wahlberg, in this documentary clip of Chris Matthews' personal interactions with our President.
"Lobban claims he only meant to hurt Santiago, whom he accused of tampering with the gun in order to 'punk' him, but accidentally shot the other two as well."
This is not the irony that they were looking for.
Florida Man continues his unending run as the worlds worst superhero.
...just how long has Matthews been in the habit of shark-jumping?
I almost had a bad accident while working in my attic. The floorboards gave away suddenly. Fortunately I was spanning a few studs during the failure.
You cannot expect to take "sawdust and glue" ersatz plywood, put it in an attic for 30 years and expect it not to catastrophically fail.
Talk down the firefighters down at the station about the new, lightweight construction and how they have to be ver-ry care-ful about working on the roof to ventilate a fire in those new homes and low-rise apartment buildings.
Chris Matthews: yes it's wrong.
The idea of Chris Mathews have sex on a desk with anything calls for very strong mind bleach.
Curse you Tam, curse you!
Gerry
Sorry, didn't finish the thought . . . It's not that the new stuff won't support your weight when new, but it burns faster, so there is less time before it becomes dangerously weakened.
And the smoke is nastier -- see vinyl, etc.
There is a general tendency to look at things being built today and lament that they “just don’t build them like they used to.” In some cases, this is, indeed, lamentable, but I assure you that this is NOT the case when it comes to home building.
I am a construction project manager specializing in commercial and institutional construction. Some of the stuff that I do includes remodeling and structural upgrades to old, existing buildings. When people tell me that “they don’t build them like they used to” my response is invariably “THANK GOD!”
Even your typical, mass-produced, cookie cutter house being built today is almost INFINITELY more capable of withstanding a tornado than a house built even as recently as 20 years ago. I won’t go into the particulars of balloon framing vs. stick framing, but trust me on this one – if you ever find yourself in a twister, and you have a choice between running into a “vinyl-sided, 2x4 and particle board slab cover” or one of those well-built homes from pre-1990, choose the former instead of the latter. Hurricane straps, anchor bolts, steel press-plates, and steel lumber connectors are standard now, whereas the old method was “drive a nail in it” if you were lucky, and “gravity will hold ‘er in place” (way more common that you’d ever want to imagine) if you weren’t.
As for particle board, they don’t use that in construction. They use an engineered product called “oriented strand board.” It has gotten a bad rap as being a cheap, recycled lumber item that is reminiscent of particle board, simply because it is a newer product and looks hokey as hell, but it is stronger on both axes and in shear than any similar dimensioned piece of plywood ever could be. They use it because it is better, not because it is cheaper (because it isn’t cheaper, for one good start). My guess is that when plywood first came out in the 30’s that people were lamenting it as being “thin, glued together pieces of trash wood” and were touting how houses built with old strip-sheathing and ship-lap were way better (never mind that strip and ship-lap has zero shear capability) just because that’s the way it’s supposed to be done.
And no one uses 2x4s anymore. Structure walls are invariably 2x6 by code. Back in the day, however, 2x4 framing was all the rage.
Hate to say it, Tam, but I’d put a cheap-assed cookie cutter built in the last 10 years up against Roseholme as far as durability against a tornado any day of the week, and I’d win.
Bob – Oklahoma has never been, nor will it ever be, a big concrete block building area. Nor, contrary to what you would think would be pretty logical, are concrete block houses any more resistant to tornadoes than a well-built wood framed house. In fact, the reason that concrete blocks fell out of favor for home building (or one of the reasons) is that they proved to be pretty damned fragile without putting a bunch of money into reinforcing them with bond beams and rebar.
Goober:
There is a lot to be said for making disposable homes in tornado alley ... and requiring a near atom bomb-proof shelter be built into the slab is sits on.
It might be cheaper in the long run in some areas. And safer.
I think that tingle crawled up Matthew's leg and took over what remains of his brain.
Goober,
Not to short-circuit your diatribe, but when you state, "Hurricane straps, anchor bolts, steel press-plates, and steel lumber connectors are standard now," it tends to weaken your standing. The linked article specifically listed at least two of those items as NOT required in OK building code.
I'll give you that construction-science progresses, but one particular theme of the article was that OK code hasn't kept up (intentionally) with the most recent advances or code-items.
> Obama Has ‘Never Done Anything Wrong in His Life’
I recall that some conservatives and libertarians mocked Obamaphiles as thinking that their man was basically Jesus Christ with a suntan.
...and were mocked in turn for this assertion.
So let's make a list of people who, theologically speaking, never did anything wrong in their entire lives.
* Jesus Christ
* Drone Operator in Chief
Pour me a bowla granola, Lola,
Put on an old protest song,
Bust out some coca (without any cola)
While I get to packin' the bong.
We still don't know $#!+ from shinola, Lola,
But that never stopped us before,
So pour me a bowla granola, Lola,
And we'll swoon for Obama some more.
(Disclaimer: I actually like granola.)
TJIC,
Point of order: Jesus was Middle Eastern, not white.
Oh, yeah, about the flimsy houses. The semi-sweety owns one of those, in a nice situation next to a pond in Gwinnett County. She bought it free and clear with her inheritance and doesn't intend to move again, except to a hole in the ground after assuming room temperature.
However, she is under no illusions about the flimsiness of the place. One could easily bypass the bugger alarm by prying loose some of the plastic siding and punching in through the sheetrock with one's hands. The joists are not solid wood, but built-up, with upper and lower stringers glued to a plywood web, much like the wing spars in a wooden airplane. When some of her rowdy drunken guests jump up and down in there, you can feel the whole house shake.
P.s. I think the part she likes the best about the place, is that the master bedroom is on the ground floor, for fire safety, and also for ease of access with gurney and wheelchair as she gets older.
Her quite magnificent study, with books, computers, and other media, is up on the second floor, supported by said flimsy joists.
Also, the place has an excellent large farmhouse-style kitchen.
Not to short-circuit your diatribe, but when you state, "Hurricane straps, anchor bolts, steel press-plates, and steel lumber connectors are standard now," it tends to weaken your standing. The linked article specifically listed at least two of those items as NOT required in OK building code.
I'm more of an expert in Washington and Idaho building codes, so I'll concede that I may be wrong, but from what I could find in a quick googling, it appears that OK uses a modified version of the IBC, which means that unless they specifically REMOVED all of those items from the IBC for some very odd reason, they're in there.
That being said, IBC has only been around for 6 or 7 years in most states that have adopted it, so it is possible that while NEW building codes require them, MOST homes in OK still don't have them.
"Anonymous said...
TJIC,
Point of order: Jesus was Middle Eastern, not white.
12:33 AM, June 11, 2013"
So what are you saying, Anonymous 12:33, that 'wogs begin at Calais?'
Well, yes, wogs do begin at Calais. Frogs are silly, Germans are really annoying and dangerous even when they're not being Nazis, and it only gets worse the further East you go.
I still haven't made up my mind about the Irish. My own pastor is Irish and is mad at me, and complains about Sassenachs all the time, so this complicates my thinking somewhat.
I do still prefer Tutsis to Hutus. My former Archbishop is a Tutsi, and he's really cool.
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