Dachshund! (OT)

I'm driving to Buffalo today to pick up that pool table light. I'm starting to think I'm just deliberately making this project more difficult than it has to be. It's starting to feel like there will never be a pool table in this shed. It's not like it has to be difficult; but the pool table I want costs $5,000 and another $2,000 for delivery and installation once all is said and done. It's as decisively and emphatically out of reach as that medium-format Fuji. I'm trying to do everything on a budget which greatly complicates the project.

My mother had a dachshund once whose name was Wolfgang. Wolfgang was not an ordinary dog—he was a miniature long-hair silver-dapple dachshund (meaning his coat was black and brown and silvery gray) who had one brown eye and one blue eye. He thought he was Napoleon—he would get in the faces of Great Danes and German Shepherds and bark furiously until the big dogs backed down. To paraphrase Thea Berg, other dogs had bigger sticks but Wolfie swung his harder. Anyway Wolfgang would drive us crazy by barking whenever his ball got stuck under the radiator. He'd whine and whimper and "dig" furiously trying to get the ball out. Finally it occurred to me to wonder why his ball always seemed to get stuck under the same spot, so I followed him around one day. He went here and there, nosed the ball away from him and chased it, settled down to gnaw on it for a while—and then he trotted over to the radiator, set the ball down, and deliberately rolled it with his nose to where he couldn't get it. Then he promptly began worrying it, barking, scratching, and whining. Funny!

Maybe that's me. Who drives four hours in the car to get a pool table light? I'm not even going to save any money on it when all is said and done. Anyway, here's the Wolfgang aspect of today's mission: we're setting out for a two-hour-plus drive West without knowing whether the light is going to fit inside the car. Why do I do stuff like this to myself?

Happy about a heater
Here's the latest on the shed: The drywall is all done and looks fantastic. The walls are going to be the spiffiest feature of the room, as befits their status as the basis for the photography exhibit. The electrical got finished up yesterday too—all the outlets got dug out of the plaster, spacers installed for depth, and the new covers on (I don't know what the damned things are called and maybe there isn't even a name for them—the plates that surround switches and outlets on the wall). The eight-foot baseboard heating unit was installed—with two coats of paint behind and underneath it—and the thermostat went in. You've never seen a guy happier about a heater. I love it.

So—progress. Hopefully, the next thing you'll see is a photograph of the undamaged pool table light, hung on a fan box and emanating photons. Baby steps. Wish me luck.

Mike

UPDATE later that same day.... The mission went splendidly and without a hitch. My friend Eric consented to use his truck (thanks Eric), a humongous vehicle with a 5-liter V8 that can accommodate a large riding mower, and anyway the pool table light would have fit in my car. It took us only four hours, plus a few minutes for stops, and it was great to have company along the way. The pool table light exceeds my expectations—it's really very nice and the quality is excellent. The seller said it cost $540 new, and I paid her asking price of $150. Next step will be to get it installed. Then I'll suck it up and motivate myself to begin the painting.

But right now ah'm tarred, as they say in the South. 

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Robert Roaldi: "I've driven farther for good cheese and cappuccino. What you're doing make total sense. Are we going to get a post about the different kinds of billiard balls they make? I assume that as with everything else, there are all kinds of choices."

Mike replies: Your wish is my command. I'll put it on the list.

Patrick Dodds: "Re 'Anyway, here's the Wolfgang aspect of today's mission: we're setting out for a two-hour-plus drive West without knowing whether the light is going to fit inside the car. Why do I do stuff like this to myself?' This made me laugh harder than anything I've ever read here before. Thank you. Worthy of James Thurber himself."

Kefyn Moss: "The cover around a light switch is called an escutcheon plate."
Tom Burke: "In the UK the front of an electrical socket is known as the face plate."
Ben Rosengart: "They're called switch plates."
Malcolm Leader (partial comment): "They're simply called coverplates."

Mike replies: You see the problem!

Steve Rosenblum: "Jeez, I go for long drives just to get out of the house during the pandemic and I have no other goal in mind!"

Mike replies: ...In your new Tesla! I might go on long drives too...

My favorite story about aimless drives comes from a book in a series called "Witness" by Lee Friedlander about his and Maria's friend the sculptor Raoul Hague, who made giant abstract wooden sculptures out of sections of large trees. Seems Raoul would head off on a journey but get distracted by curiosity and aesthetic promise at every turn and crossroad, and he would simply follow whatever path looked more promising in terms of things to see. In so doing he would get hopelessly lost and couldn't find his way back home. In his later years this problem was solved by his friends who made a rule that whenever Raoul went driving someone else had to go along. It was this second person's responsibility to navigate and keep track of where in the heck they were, so they stood a chance of finding their way back. All in the era long before GPS, of course.

Comments

[Richard de Lhorbe]

You

nearly

had the name twice .....they are called coverplates.

[Andrew J.]

I must have missed an episode. I thought you had a pool table waiting for you in Wisconsin.

[robert e]

You're focused on the absence of a pool table, but that shed right now is filled to the brim with potential and possibilities, ambition and anticipation. I hope you're taking a minute to enjoy that once in a while. Things have a way of working out. But if you get very impatient, why not a print sale? Or live remote critiques? In the meantime, shouldn't all the shelves and other fixtures go in first?

Good luck!

[Malcolm Leader]

They're simply called coverplates. Look into the used pool table possibilities. Those things depreciate faster than a car.

[Richard Parkin]

I suggest a dartboard instead of the pool table, it would be a lot cheaper and fulfil the same function. I am sure even a top flight set of arrows can’t be more pricey than pool cues. ;).

[Rob Campbell]

Your pool table may be like my current object of desire: the Q2 Monochrom. I constantly tell myself that yes, it represents a splendid solution to photographic block - because, largely, of resolution - but that I can't afford it. Which is just myself lying to myself. If by afford, one just means pony up and buy the damned thing, yes, I can certainly afford it. But, I also know that it would actually be just another pointless waste of money when there is no chance of making a financial return with it. Nor any longer with anything else photographic. So I construct these sensible obstacles to myself in order to prevent yet more daft decisions.

Perhaps your pool table is my Leica: possibly fun for a day or three, but then what? Is either one of us a single iota better off from such purchases? Pool tables look cool in pool halls.

Instead, buy a Mustang before they become illegal; at least you could eventually get around the country in it and feel the imaginary romance coursing through your bones. I don't know how you'd feel on that fourth day, though. Lucy Jordan felt pretty pissed off about not driving through Paris in a sports car, the warm wind in her hair. Do a Robert Frank and satisfy your inner cravings; a change of geography does the mind a power of good.

:-)

[DB]

Looks like you are looking for a worthy project to focus on, vs be efficient with resources.

Sounds great.

[John Sarsgard]

You could just strap it to the top of your car.

[Dan Khong]

I'm itching to get a new MacBook and still keep my old MacBook Pro because the ol' one has that useful SD card slot and still runs on OS Mojave that supports my Apple Aperture 3.

In short, I'll dedicate that old one for photo/image management, and use the new one for other stuffs that rhymes better with the latest machine and OS.

About dachshunds, one of my neighbour's dog - when on heat - had a much bigger dog as playmate and she gave birth to a dachshund looking pup. Yup, so I conclude that these "sausage dogs" (as we nicknamed them) have a dominant trait.

[Speed]

"Who drives four hours in the car to get a pool table light?"

Who needs a reason to drive four hours in a car?

Ridin' along in my automobile
My baby beside me at the wheel
I stole at kiss at the turn of a mile
My curiosity runnin' wild
Cruisin' and playin' the radio
With no particular place to go

Chuck Berry

[Ross Attix]

Mike-It’s the journey...

[hugh crawford]

Oh the mutual history of billiard balls and photography, an explosive tale!

[Dave]

"Who drives four hours in the car to get a pool table light?"

SOMEWHERE west of Laramie there's a bronco-busting, steer roping girl who knows what I’m talking about. She can tell what a sassy pony, that’s a cross between greased lighting and the place where it hits, can do with eleven hundred pounds of steel and action when he's going high, wide and handsome. The truth is - the Playboy was built for her. Built for the lass whose face is brown with the sun when the day is done of revel and romp and race. She loves the cross of the wild and the tame. There's a savor of links about that car - of laughter and lilt and light - a hint of old loves - and saddle and quirt. It’s a brawny thing - yet a graceful thing for the sweep o' the Avenue. Step into the Playboy when the hour grows dull with things gone dead and stale. Then start for the land of real living with the spirit of the lass who rides, lean and rangy, into the red horizon of a Wyoming twilight.

Jordan Motor Car Company
Cleveland, Ohio

[Robert]

Hi Mike. Am I correct in reading you plan to build your own table? As someone who has done so (with my Father's help when I was 17)I wish you all the luck.

Ours turned out pretty well, but it was complicated - the plans we purchased had automatic ball return which doubled the amount of work. I was responsible for finishing the top rail - 12 coats of polyurethane sanded between coats - it was a thing of beauty.

We made two major mistakes which always compromised the table. First, we used cushion rubber from a full size table, and then we doubled down by using full sized pockets - this on a half sized table.

Even with an MDF base (slate not in the budget) the table played pretty true. But the big pockets made play pretty easy - we tried to obviate this a bit by only ever playing snooker - on the basis that the extra balls added to the difficulty.

Anyway, it gave us many hours of pleasure, and me a lifelong love of woodworking. I hope you get as much pleasure from it as I did.

[Rob Campbell]

Speed, baby, that goddam safety belt wouldn't budge, wouldn't come off!

Mike, if you do put in one of those tables, you do realise that you've sealed yourself into a situation? Getting the room back will involve yet more expense and thus more overall losses. If, instead, your new room remains efficiently versatile and uncomplicated, the use possibilities are endless. You could start your own magazine and have a ready-made dorm for the new bunnies, or whatever. Learn from history, but preferably not necessarily from mine, which even I don't think of as any great example.

Were I starting today on my own, with a new house or apartment, it would remain clinically empty. Never again matched sofas, but vast spaces for shelves and for shooting distances for the cameras. If there's anything that takes me to the brink of hysteria it's trying to get a big Gitzo with its big legs set up in order to shoot a snap, only to find the legs getting confused with those of a large coffee table, however beautifully made. The very thought of fighting the freakin' furniture has cost me several missed creations because the image in my head of the hassle was too strong for the concept of the photo not shot.

Chasing balls around only makes some athletes rich; for the rest...

:-)

[Roger Bradbury]

Two power outlets together? It's a DSSO: a Double Switched Socket Outlet, at least on the drawing (plans). Just rolls off the tongue...

[Dave_lumb]

The ideal companion for a new light - https://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/magazine/articles/billiards-2020#

[Roger Lambert]

Mike - what is your opinion on the REAL controversy in the world of international billiards - the near extinction of the use of the once ubiquitous black ferrule (that ceramic section just aft of the cue tip)?

Is it a conspiracy by custom cue owners to eliminate the useful contrast of black tip against white cue ball for the hoi polloi? An oversupply of cheap white plastics?

Bring back the black!