Cat Craziness Explained: Part 2: Big Cat Craziness

Back in 2014 I wrote this blog post:

Cat Craziness Explained 

Adam Corolla explained what "Cat Craziness" was.  The short version, is that, Adam had a chart to measure how crazy a person was by the number of cats they kept.  He said it wasn't as simple as one cat plus another cat equaled a level of two cat craziness.

No.  Cat craziness was exponential.  Here's a chart to help.

1 Cat = 1 CC.
2 Cats = 2 to the second power (2 X 2) which = 4CC.
3 Cats = 3 to the third power (3 X 3 X 3) which = 27CC.

As you can see, the more cats you have the faster it goes up.  Anything beyond two cats is starting to border on cat craziness.  A month ago comes this show on Netflix called "Tiger King."  Yeah, we've all heard about it.  We've all watched it whether you admit to it or not.

As I was watching "Tiger King" I kept thinking to myself, "What level of cat craziness are you to work around any big cat?  Yeah, you may have a fat housecat at home.  But honestly, what does it top out at?  30 pounds?  Do you know the stats of a Bengal Tiger?

The male tigers can reach a length of 10 feet and a weight of 550 pounds.  Let's stop right there.  That's one hell of an apex predator twice the size of a human.

I realized keeping full grown big cats (tigers, lions, etc.) was a whole new level of craziness.  It now occurred to me I needed to make a few adjustments to my math.  If you are keeping even one tiger the cat craziness level has to start at 100CC per big cat.

But let's talk about Joe Exotic.  He said several times during "Tiger King" he had 277 big cats at his zoo.  Again, that's not 100 X 277 = 27,700CC.  No.  It has to be exponential.  That means 100 to the 277th power.  Let's do that math on that.

      277 (exponent)
100 (base)                 = 1e+554

So you are wondering, "What the hell does that mean?" That's okay because I was wondering, "What the hell does that mean?"

Here's the best explanation:

https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/e-eulers-number.html

Okay, I'm not going to pretend that I can come up with a number that gigantic.  Let's just say it's a one with more zeros than I know what to do with on this page.

This reinforces my point that when you start messing with big cats the cat craziness is literally off the charts.  Just watch "Tiger King."  Any and every one of the zoo owners are nuttier than squirrel poo.  I mean, who knew it only took meth and tigers to turn straight boys gay?

So before I go I suggest we all just stick with dogs or fish.  I think they're the pets that keep us the most grounded.  I can't deal with housecats, and there's no way I'm going anywhere near a full grown tiger.  Let's just all have one dog, or one fish tank and call it a day.

And I can't end this post without this song.  Because this song says everything we were all thinking.

Guitar Repair Day: Dean Resonator Edition

So with the Covid-19 bug going around there hasn't been much to do.  However, my friend Phil found something for me to do, by accident of course.  He owns a Dean resonator that has been his number one personal guitar for years.  And during all those years I have repaired it numerous times.  Let me think off the top of my head what I've done.

1.  Complete re-fret.
2.  Fixed a broken headstock.
3.  Repaired the electronics a number of times.
4.  This includes replacing pots and capacitors.
5.  Buffing out the guitar.
6.  Replacing both pickups.
7.  Repairing/replacing the screws that hold the tuners in place.
8.  Set-ups (of course.)

So yeah, I've tweaked it a few times to say the least.  Well, this last time the guitar ended up falling and putting a hell of ding into the binding and fretboard.

So, what to do?  Well, if this was an episode of Dan Erlewine's trade secrets here's what he would do.  He would take out all the frets.  Then remove the binding.  Next, he would fill the small pieces of the wood back in.  Then it would be time to install new binding.  After that was set, new frets would be installed and dressed.

That, of course, would be something like a $700 job.  For $869.00 Phil could buy a brand new Dean resonator from Musician's Friend.

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/folk-traditional-instruments/dean-chrome-g-acoustic-electric-resonator-guitar/515945000457000?rNtt=dean%20resonators&index=2

So I had to fix it in a way that wouldn't interfere with his playing, but not cost an arm and a leg.  Here's what I decided to do.

First up, it was time to break out the C.A. glue.  I was simply going to fill the crack, and sand it smooth.  It sounds easy, but a lot of things can go wrong.  Here's what's going on in the photo.  I filled the crack with C.A. glue, covered it in cellophane. and clamped it tight.  C.A. glue won't stick to cellophane which is why I used it to protect my clamp.  

Now let's see what we are working with.

The good news, is that, it's holding all together.  The bad news, is that, it doesn't look great.  But that's to be expected.  That's what the next phase of the project is for.

I normally don't put duct tape on guitar, but this called for special circumstances.  I planned to use my rotary sander, and I didn't want it sanding parts that weren't the binding.  Important note: With a rotary sander I made sure to wet sand with a fine grit sandpaper.  In this case 600 grit.

Since I can't hold the guitar, sand, and take photos at the same time, we're going to fast forward to after I've sanded.

The side is getting there, but let's concentrate on the top.  I took a straight razor blade, and shaved the binding flat.

Now, to smooth this down I needed to sand it with a high grit sandpaper.  Luckily C.A. glue sands out extremely nicely.  I used 1500 grit automotive sandpaper.

The trick is to wet sand.  Keep plenty of water on it, and don't be afraid to wash out the sandpaper.

If you look up on the neck you can see where the neck had previously broken.  But back to the sanding.  The sanding smoothed everything out.  I also shaved down a few places on the fretboard with the straight razor again.

But my next tool is the real secret that shouldn't be a secret to anyone in the luthier trade.  Break out a buffer!

I've found a buffer to be my best friend in my workshop.  It can take care of all sorts of things.  In this case, it smoothed out where the wood met the binding.  It also smoothed out the hardened C.A. glue.  This is the result.

I should have taken a better photo, but good news is that, the side of the guitar and fretboard are smooth once again.  The binding is whiter where I repaired it, but it is smooth.  After this, there is one last thing to do.

Don't forget your Ken Smith polish.  That stuff is great.  It's getting kind of hard to find these days which I don't understand.  It's the best stuff I've come across in over 20 years of repair.  

After all the work that came before, the next part was easy.  I set her up, double checked a few things, and make sure everything was right.  Phil was happy with her.  So yeah, it was a tough break, but at least I kept the cost way, way, way below the Dan Erlewine special of $700 or so.  And if Phil puts another ding in her, he knows I'll be here.  Repair's my thing, and I enjoy doing it.  

Idiot Scoutmasters: No Pizza For You!

You can't spend almost 13 years in any organization without a few wild and crazy stories.  During that time you are also going to catch people on a bad day.  However, some Scoutmasters always seemed to be having a bad day.  Due to all the time I spent in the Boy Scouts of America I have managed to write quite a few stories in my "Idiot Scoutmaster" series.

What makes this story so strange is I think my patrol just happened to catch our Scoutmaster, Mr. Brasher, at a bad moment.  I'm sure something had to have happened to him earlier in the day to put him in a foul mood.  What's funny, is that, I wasn't even the one who was:

A:  Being a pain.
B.  Running my mouth.
C.  Trying to get his attention.
D.  Or even talking in general.

The conversation started with two of my Patrol members, Mark and Brian.  They were top notch quality human beings.  Eventually, they both ended up earning their Eagle Scout rank.  This was back before they changed the rules and made it much easier to do so.

We were talking about our upcoming campout, and what we should cook.  We had gotten into a bit of a rut.  You know, sandwiches and hot dogs.  Brian brought up the question of if we could actually make a pizza outdoors?  The flour didn't need refrigerated.  We could carry a stick of pepperoni as well as vegetables.

The only question Brian had was how to keep cheese from spoiling.  Mark brought up that we could carry a can a parmesan cheese since that didn't need to be refrigerated.  Brian immediately thought, "Oh yeah!  That's a great idea!"  He couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of it.

It was at that time that Mr. Brasher came out of nowhere, and laid down the law.  "We're not cooking pizza out camping!"  I have to admit I was completely caught off guard.  I said, "But we have the grill that we use for hot dogs.  Couldn't we just set the pizza pan on top of it?"

Again came the stern and final decision.  "We're not cooking pizza on a campout!"

I have no idea what set Mr. Brasher off.  I mean, our patrol was just spit-balling ideas when he came in with the drill sergeant routine.  What made him so angry about pizza.  Had he never heard of wood-fired pizza?

Was he afraid our pizza would turn out ugly?

I want to reiterate that I've been in troops with Boy Scouts who didn't act like Boy Scouts.  But Mark and Brian were some of the best troop members I've ever come across.  They really were model Eagle Scouts.

I think back to the words of wisdom from my Father.  "I don't know why you stayed (in the Boy Scouts) as long as you did?"  Maybe I was gathering material for all this writing gold?  No, that's not it.  But if art is suffering, then I suffered during quite a few backpacking death marches.  So now I don't feel one bit terrible about writing my "Idiot Scoutmaster" series.

For more great reading of my Idiot Scoutmaster series, follow these wonderful links:

Idiot Scoutmasters: I'm The Idiot Scoutmaster! 

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2020/03/idiot-scoutmasters-im-idiot-scoutmaster.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Idiot Committee

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/12/idiot-scoutmasters-idiot-committee.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Dishwashing Paradox

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/02/idiot-scoutmasters-dishwashing-paradox.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: Once Bitten, Forever Stupid

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/01/idiot-scoutmasters-once-bitten-forever.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: A True Story of a Scout's Canteen

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/09/idiot-scoutmasters-true-story-of-scouts.html

Bored Scoutmasters and the Tale of the Wampus

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2014/07/bored-scoutmasters-and-tale-of-wampus.html

Adrian reminisces about his childhood days with the Boy Scouts

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2011/02/adrian-reminisces-about-his-childhood.html