John Lindal’s Blog

The Princess Bride

It’s been a long time since I watched the movie, but I found myself thinking about it again recently. At the beginning, the main characters all climb the Cliffs of Insanity. Logically, it follows that once this is accomplished, they have reached the Heights of Insanity. It’s all downhill from there

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I finally watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a few days ago. It’s a great movie. I’ve seen the original version, and this one definitely had a better ending. But what really got me was when Mike TeeVee was enjoying himself in the first scene inside the factory. He was smashing pumpkins.

Why pumpkins? Well, I’m old enough to have spent way too many hours playing Doom back when it was state-of-the-art. Enough hours that I still remember the cheat codes for it. “idspispopd,” the command to allow you to walk through walls, was a real finger-full to type. I did some research way back then and discovered that spispopd was the name of a game: Smashing Pumpkins into Small Piles of Putrid Debris.

And, yes, I’ve played that, too

Squirrels

I was driving to work this morning when a squirrel ran out in front of me. At first, I didn’t slow down because it was so far ahead, but then it decided to stop right in front of me! I slammed on the brakes, which promptly locked up, but at least I managed to stop with a couple of inches to spare. Then, to add insult to injury, the squirrel ran back where it came from! What is it about paved roads that makes squirrels stop half way across??

Le Betulle

When the Italian owners of an excellent Italian bakery recommend an Italian restaurant because they use it to cater for their own family gatherings, you have to at least give it a try

Le Betulle, at 2383 Foothill Blvd in La Crescenta, serves excellent food and is also inexpensive. Leave room for dessert!

Left Turn Pockets

Not too long ago, I had just passed the bend from Lankershim onto Cahuenga and was heading toward the first stoplight when a car going the opposite direction turned into my lane at the intersection. Luckily, I was far enough away to be able to stop quite easily. He just sat there, and I think he even honked at me. Apparently, he seriously believed that he was in a left turn pocket and that I was in the wrong lane! What part of “double yellow line” did he not understand?

Installing a Screen Door

I finally finished installing a screen door for our backyard door. It turned out perfectly, but what an ordeal. Not that it was conceptually difficult, but the instruction sheet was 5 inches square, so I had to think pretty hard before I started.

The first step was to make space for the hinges. It’s a bit scary when you have to chop out pieces of the door frame, because it’s really hard to put back. After three tries, the cuts were deep enough to allow the door to fit, but not too deep, so the door would still close. It’s the tightest fit I’ve ever seen — sub-millimeter clearances! There isn’t even space under the door to install the bottom sheath — not that I could figure out why it is necessary…

Of course, I messed up at one point when I thought that I needed to make the bottom cut deeper. It turned out that the screws poked through the door frame and refused to go into the wall, so they ended up pushing the doorframe out from the wall! So now there’s a shim to pad the cut. I’m going to buy shorter screws later today. Right now, there is only one screw — a lucky find from my collection of miscellaneous screws.

The next step was to install the handle. There ought to be a law against selling idiots like me a bi-directional drill. But, on the other hand, it was useful when the drillbit jammed… And I was really tired at that point. Hey, I only broke one bit.

The real fun was when I dropped a screw down through the handle hole. My first thought was to disassemble the door, but that would require re-installing the screen afterwards. After considering buying another screw, which wouldn’t have it’s head painted white and would therefore look pretty ugly, I decided to use the awesome power of magnetics. After unmounting the door, I put a strong horseshoe magnet near the holes that I had drilled and turned the door upside down so the screw would slide by the magnet. Unfortunately, magnetic fields don’t go through steel very well, so this didn’t work. Luckily, my multi-bit screwdriver includes a small magnet on a thin, telescoping rod. I was able to stick this through the hole at the appropriate crazy angle so the screw hit and stuck to the magnet as it slid by. Note that this is easier said than done. It took me at least five tries!

The last step was the latch bar. This was pretty simple, once I figured out where to put it to keep the door closed tightly against the frame.

All’s well that ends well…