Six months ago stocks went down because oil prices were going up. Today the market took another dive and one of the reasons I read for today's drop was falling oil prices and the fear that this could be an indication of recession.
We hit a high of 86 today with some pretty stiff winds - gusts in the mid-20's. That fills the valley air with desert dust. But what struck me was the 3% humidity reading. Made me wonder how low it can go. Can it hit 0%? BTW, right now (6:30 p.m.) it's 79 degrees with 5% humidity. That gives us a dew point of 1 degree F. This is the desert!
Here is a hi-def picture of St. Peter's Square in Rome taken from the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.
St. Peter's Square
Click anywhere on the image to magnify it, then use the scroll bars to move around. Pretty cool IMHO.
I don't know who those big statues are supposed to be. Can't see their name tags from behind. But to get a sense of scale look at the people standing on the roof behind the fencing, lower right corner. And the date on the corner thing in the lower left says Anno 1780. That's 150+ years after the basilica was finished so I'm not sure what that's about. When the statues were added?
BTW, a basilica is often used as an architectural term that describes a church which, when viewed from above, has the shape of the cross. The portion above the "cross bar" is sometimes just a semi-circle containing the altar. The word can also refer to a Roman Catholic church that has been given elevated status by the Vatican.
Today was a first for me. I took this job installing two hundred 12" square mirror tiles on a stairwell wall thinking the biggest challenge would be building a platform to reach from the bottom steps to the ceiling 18' up. I got the platform built and then the trouble started.
The owners had purchased the tiles and put five adhesive tabs on the back of each. I had about two dozen tiles installed up at the highest point, when they started falling off. I've since learned that the tile instructions should be ignored; adhesive tabs are not adequate for the task, especially if the wall is painted with semi-gloss.
That was Monday.
They spent Tuesday taking the tabs off the tiles and I was back this morning armed with six tubes of mirror adhesive. I talked to people at Lowe's, Home Depot, the customer service people at Liquid Nails back east somewhere, and a local glass & mirror shop. All of them told me adhesive was the way to go. The directions say to use mechanical fasteners to hold the mirror in place until the adhesive dries - 24 hours later. But you can't do that with mirror tiles that will cover an entire wall. No problem, the folks at H.D., Lowe's and the glass shop assured me. It will be OK. (The folks at Liquid Nails, not surprisingly, wouldn't tell me anything except what they already had printed on their tubes.)
I'll spare you the blow-by-blow account of my efforts today. Suffice it to say I have a goose egg and sizable cut on the top of my head and several smaller cuts on my arms. Mirror tiles falling from 10' overhead have built up a head of steam by the time they hit your head.
So I've taken the unprecedented step of backing out of this job. What happened Monday was not my responsibility; Using the adhesive pads was their call and they were just as surprised as I when they didn't work. But today was my best effort and it was wholly inadequate. They deserve a good job done well, and what seemed on the surface like a pretty straightforward project has turned out to be nothing but FAIL.
So tomorrow after lunch I'm meeting a rep from the glass & mirror shop I talked to to get an estimate on having them finish the job. I'm hoping it is no more than what I quoted for doing it. Should be less, because I built into my estimate the construction of the platform and I have about 20 tiles up. At least they were up when I left.
I told her I wouldn't be charging them anything since I couldn't complete the job. She insisted I give them a bill so I may write one up for the 2x4 and plywood I have in the platform. That way I recover my costs.
I'm not sure which bothers me most - and I'm plenty bothered. I got outsmarted by a wall and mirror tiles. I disappointed a customer, and they're very nice people. I'm losing out on the paycheck, and because it has been weeks since I've had a job that paycheck was important. Last, and probably least, I wasted the better part of two days with nothing to show for it.
I prayed a lot through this adventure. I prayed Monday while I was up on a ladder in an awkward position building the platform. I prayed during stage one of the installation - the phase where the sticky pads didn't work. And I prayed a LOT today, before, during and after a mirror tile split my head open. And the result was still FAIL.
I have a sermon in my head - haven't preached it yet - titled, "Some Pray and Die."
Subtitled, "Some Pray and Bleed."
How do you explain unanswered prayer?
1 comment:
It seems to me that considering any prayer "unanswered" is very anthropocentric. No?
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