OSB, NBC, and SPG

Oriented Strand Board, National Broadcasting Corporation, and Slate's Political Gabfest.
With that out of the way, let me explain the probable form of this post. It might change half-way through. Or not. I'm not sure yet.

Today was my day at the Habitat site, working an 8 hour day, and having a lot of fun. A lot of what I did was putting up OSB, which, as I briefly explained, stands for Oriented Strand Board. Basically, little scraps of wood, all pointing in the same direction, which are pressurized, and more sturdy than plywood, while easier to nail into than some other of the treated and pressurized woods. What we were doing was taking big boards of this, (side note-These boards are about 1/4 of an inch thick. Half the size of a piece of toast.), and then putting them up on the outside of the framed walls. They were flush with the bottom, or mud sill, and nailed into the top plate, mudsill, and studs. Basically, we were nailing into the top, bottom, sides, and the lines between the top and bottom. But the wood isn't the easiest to nail, and is sometimes flopping around, and needs to be really pounded into the wood, particularly for the first few, we were using nail guns. Oh boy! Excitement! I was working with a team of 3 adults who were all willing to let me do more than a fair share of the nailing. My shoulder is pretty tired now.  Air-powered, with some serious heft. These guns drive the nails right through the OSB, and solidly into the studs. That's a fair amount of wood. I enjoyed it for a while, but eventually, I got tired, and it got a little monotonous. All in all, it was still pretty interesting, and enjoyable. The most interesting part of the day was the weather. No joke. It must have been getting close to 70, which, if you notice the date, is not exactly the kind of weather we expect the 25th of February. My face has that borderline sunburned feeling. Good times.

Now NBC. The Olympics are still happening. I'm starting to get bored. I'm not an ice skating fan, and cross-country skiing is like watching a marathon. A snail marathon. On snow. So now I'm falling back to my default, mocking, sarcasm, and pointing out stupidity. Case in stupid point. We were watching the women's ice skating, and the commentators were talking about one of the skaters, Turkish lady. The female commentator remarked "She is a very exotic skater." She wasn't skating differently, she was just dark. She had darker skin, darker hair, nice brown eyes. She was still beautiful, a great skater, but I just found myself noticing that there aren't a lot of dark skaters. Why? And why did the commentator feel the need to say that?

Bob Costas. One of the main NBC guys working the Olympics, and he still can't get a tie that doesn't clash with his shirt and jacket. Why can't newscasters just look classy, and stop trying to be fashionable?

Mary Castillo continues to irritate and inform me through the Games. Yes, she is doing cool stuff, and telling people all the cool things about Canada, blah blah blah. But its like a commercial that NBC is paying for, and there isn't really any substance. I mean, how important is a blind sled dog? Seriously?

Some of the events don't really need an explanation. We can see what the figure skaters are doing, we don't need a explanation and parsing of every little triple this backwards that. It is like sports spam. Just be quiet! When you have something worthwhile saying, say it, otherwise, just be quiet! There are other events where we do need some explaination. I have no clue what is happening in curling, or ski jumping. Please, explain why that dude went farther, but snowboard cross needs no explaining. It is a race! They race, and what order you cross the finish line, that is the order of the medals, or advancements or whatever. The Olympics always have this cocktail of effects on me. And I always find myself a little surprised by it. Grr!

One final Olympic thought. Everyone is comparing Apolo Ono to Michael Phelps, but I think that is actually the wrong comparison. It should be Ono to Usein Bolt, the sprinter. Much more similar sports, still the same kind of movement, just different strategies.

All right, the Slate Political Gabfest. I am actually going to add to this, with a few other podcasts, but let me just say, if you are interested in understand the big political events, and don't mind some liberals having a good time, and being pretty irrevent on occasion, listen to this podcast. Slate has put up a nice little post about how to subscribe to podcasts, in all the variety of wats that it is possible. It's right here. http://www.slate.com/id/2244964/
That's all for now, but I am going to try and post some catching up stories.
Night!