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hinge pins
Saturday, January 18 2025
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
While Gretchen spent most of the day in the kitchen making various pasta dishes for her big birthday party tomorrow, I spent most of my time in the laboratory cleaning it up so that it could be used as expansion space for that party. (I'd taken a recreational 150 mg dose of pseudoephedrine to get into the properly obsessive mindset.) I typically clean my laboratory every three or four years, when I may or may not also repaint some or most of the colored shapes on the floor. Then the cleanliness gradually degrades as the vast expanse of floor gradually fills with piles of stuff, usually half-finished projects, thrift store finds, and things (usually sentimental things) salvaged from the ruins of my childhood home. The last time I'd cleaned the laboratory was in 2021, when I'd made a special push to repaint along the west edge, where the wall-ceiling meets the floor behind a desk and various shelving units. As part of that repainting I'd moved some piles of things that had been back there out into the main floor of the laboratory, where they'd remained for years. Only today did I finally get around to putting them back, along with new items I'd accumulated in that time. There were also things in the main part of the laboratory floor dating to when I had to make space to run refrigerant lines for the air handler I installed on the first floor about a year ago.
As I was sorting and reorganizing things, I couldn't figure out how to make a guitar stand be in the correct shape to support a guitar. As I tried rotating a fork-like item, it broke in my hand. So I immediately went into the garage to weld it back together. The key to doing this turned out to be the use of two different vises, neither of which are bolted to anything. I could position them on the floor and their large mass would keep them from moving while they held the two pieces needing welding in the correct position. Without those vises, those pieces, which were essentially just thick wire, would've immediately come out of alignment.
Once I had the laboratory floor nice and clean, the white steps leading down to it from the teevee room started looking very dingy, spattered as they were with tea and what not. So I repainted them in gloss white and then waited for the paint to dry before attempting to leave the laboratory. While the steps were drying, I also locked the laboratory door to keep Gretchen out. (She tends to barge in unannounced, and would definitely step in wet paint if she were to do that.) But then when I left the laboratory, the door was still in locking mode and it locked behind me, the first time this has happened in at least a decade. (This happened once in the summer when the laboratory window was open, and I was able to get in using a ladder to the laboratory deck.) I searched the usual places for a key, but evidently all of the ones to that lock were locked away in the laboratory. Gretchen saw me being flustered by this and suggested first removing the doorknob (something that couldn't be done non-destructively) and then removing the hinges. I didn't have access to the screws attaching the hinges to the door or the door frame, but I did have access to the hinge pins. Using a suitable punch, I was able to drive them all out and pull the door loose. Once that crisis was over, I added a key labeled "laboratory" to the basket of keys we keep in our key basket.
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