This blog is closed and will stay closed until I get my Opera House.

I WANT MY OPERA HOUSE! I WANT MY OPERA HOUSE!!!!

Deer Season

  Deer season opens on saturday. Golly, where does the time go? Like many things in this neck of the woods, the Smoothstar blog will remain undone until Dec. 21st when deer season closes. Thanks for your forbearance and I will let you know how it shook out when I return on the December 22nd. Happy hunting.I gotta go wax my string, so to speak.
   best
         smoothstar

Una Semana de Aqua

   That would be a week of water, to my non-Spanish friends. Who said "Apres' moi, Le deluge." ? After me, the flood. I know I heard it somehwere.( some plumber probably)
     OK, we have looked at sailing and plumbing. We have flogged porgy fishing so thoroughly I can't look at another porgy. I kinda like that TV personality, Jennifer Anniston. She's not real glamorous, but seems kinda like the girl next door. She's always shilling for some bottled water company. I used to like Perrier. We used to call it Perrier Duryea Water, after a New York legislator named Perry Duryea. We thought that was pretty clever.
    I am working on my boat this week. I like to work on crappy old boats and put them back on the water. They are still crappy old boats. Everyone should have at least one in their yard. Even if they take twenty years to get them back in service, like my current project, it's nice to be able to say, "Maybe I'll work on the boat, this weekend." An old car or motorbike can serve the same purpose.We need these projects. We can't die until they are done.

Plumbing Tips for a Tuesday

  "There's no grave, like a watery grave."  So they say in the plumbing game. Plumbing tests our mettle. It makes men and women of us. So here's a few mysteries of modern plumbing revealed.

1. The Jet Sweat. It's a tool that slides into a pipe to stanch the flow of water so you can slide a ball valve on a supply line and it can be quickly and easily soldered on. The rest of your day is cake. I buy the cheap knock off brands. No monkeying around with shoving bread in a pipe and all that nonsense.
2. The sharpie pen. Make register marks on all your pvc drain lines after you get them together dry. Take it back apart then glue 'em back together. Those little register marks make it so you don't have some gluey contraption that just used up all your fittings and doesn't even resemble plumbing.
3.Forget the propane. Use at least MAPP gas for your torch. Acetylene is even better.(don't burn the house down)
4. One word. Pex. You know what I mean.
    So keep a mop and a sponge and a bucket handy. Don't start anything after noon. Don't start drinking beer before you're finished. Good luck. You're gonna need it.
            (tomorrow plumbing tips for a wednesday)

Christopher Columbus and the New World

      Sailing is sport worth trying. After you have been at sea, sailing towards an unkown destination for a couple  of months or even years such as in  the cases of Captain Cook or Magellan, you know it's not such a small world after all. How long did it take to sail from New York to San Fransisco, not all that long ago? Around Cape Horn ? Boo yeah, that be character building! Stalled in the Sargasso, nothing but you , a hundred million eels and the sun hammering down on the sheet of iron, anvil like ocean. Yopiks! Even voyages undertaken for a few laughs can turn precarious. A trip across the Hudson can have an uncertain outcome for the unprepared.
     Want to be a sailor? Of course you do, but be warned. During the last round the world clipper ship race in nineteen thirty something, ten ships set sail from the Faroe islands . Five were lost with all hands. Three others foundered off the coast of Africa. Only one actually completed the journey losing more than a few of it's crew to disease and accident. They won that race.
      Tough sport, not for everyone.

If you don't like it......Move!

    Morin Wack , a business asssociate of mine, was a great proponent of this philosphy. Often times we find our selves in what might be called transitional neighborhoods. Appartments that were once OK are turning into roach infested hell holes and our once friendly neighbors can no longer be counted on for a cup of flour and  our new neighbors are probably selling the stereos out of our cars at some local chop shop. It is time to move.
   We wear the rose colored glasses that tell us it ain't so bad. If there is a trail of blood down the sidewalk to the corner bodega where you buy the paper and some smokes, it's time to move , dude. Your apartment is cheap. Man in this neighborhood , life is cheap. Move.
   The suburbs aren't for everyone, but  I have rarely, make that never, been punched in the face for no real reason in my new neighborhood. Take some of your beer money and put it towards rent. Take a good look around and pretend you are looking at where you live for the first time. Time to move?

So the Sun Sets on Senior Week.

   What a week it's been. We have covered finance and fitness, sex and romance; heck, I can't  rememeber without going back and re-reading the stuff, and who has time for that. We are all getting older, but it seems to mean so much more to our oldsters. The rush of time acclerates as one ages, until the gaping grave seems like a whirlpool, inexcorabley sucking you into it. With little left to lose and little time to lose it, today's modern senior is grabbing for all of life's passions and pleasures with both hands.
    So as we recklessly plunge forward , we defy the common wisdom that with age comes wisdom and dignity, but rather give credence to the old saying," There's no fool , like an old fool."