Refinishing the garage floor [i]

Here's my summary/how to on concrete floors.



Rent a terrazo grinder, mine ran about 70 for the machine and 60 for three blades. Clear the garage because it'll be out of commission for a week.



Being able to hook the hose up to the grinder is immense. The applied water whisks away the concrete dust instead of letting it be thrown into the air. Concrete dust is fearsome.

You'll know you've ground enough when the floor becomes nice an white, see right side compared to left above. The grinder will leave swirl marks that will be visible, make sure this is the look you want. Machines that hone concrete are not used on existing residental applications.

A two car garage won't take more than a couple hours, so an overnight rental is entirely reasonable. An angle grinder with a concrete disc can take care of corners if they matter to you.

Don't worry about the smoothness of the floor, the epoxy layers will take care of that.



Notice how white the floor is when dry (and powdery). Years of wear had both smoothed and stained the concrete. My best guess is that doing the acid without grinding would mute the colors and leave artifacts where there were stains - could be good or bad.

Buy the chemicals. I picked up five gallons of acid for what I generously estimated to be 1000 square foot of concrete (including the inside of the house). When all was said and done I had only used half.

The shop had prescribed two overlayers, epoxy then urethane. In retrospect I might have just tried a couple layers of urethane, but more on epoxy troubles later. The square feet/gallon estimates here were pretty good.



Power wash and/or brush away the concrete dust and whatever else may have accumulated on the floor, the acid should be applied to a wet surface so don't worry about planning for any drying time.

I sealed up a crack knowing full well it wouldn't be hidden by the chemicals. Some might count this as a bonus for the distressed look. I hear there are elegant methods for blending patch jobs into the process, but I didn't take this route.



Applying the acid stain is best at night since you can wet the whole floor and not have to worry about it drying before you're done. Also, the acid works as long as it's wet, so the longer it takes to evaporate, the better.

Pump spray acid on a portion of the wet concrete and quickly brush it in. This is crucial and in the end you'll see any areas that weren't brushed. Then apply a top layer of the stain to eliminate brush marks and create some natural variation. Generally the mistiest setting works best here, if you streamed your name into the job it would stay.



The instructions advise removal of excess acid. I did not, since it would require retracing my steps and then spraying more on to cover my tracks. Kind of defeats the purpose. You'll see a layer of oil float to the top of the wet stain but this will just dry on top of everything and it all has to be washed later.



You're supposed to wait at least six hours, it's easiest just to sleep on it - not literally - and the fumes aren't bad so you don't have to worry about waking up dead.



When the acid stain dries it will leave a powdery residue. This should be neutralized with ammonia and removed.



The clean and wet floor will look like a marble, though notice some haze where there's just water sitting on top of the concrete. I can't explain it, though some of it's the fact that I don't have a polarizer for this lens.



The next step is to apply the epoxy. The instructions say the floor should be clean, but it must also be dry. Very dry. Even though the epoxy is water-based. And water should not contact the floor in any amount for several days, even though the urethane is water-based.

The epoxy goes on pretty easily with a sturdy roller on the end of a sturdy pole - it's much tackier than paint so the entire mechanism bears significantly more stress. A thin layer is best, I found success going over each spot once with lots of muscle, then very lightly to pick up excess and even it out. Any globs or thick areas will haze and that's quite bad.

I'd recommend against a second coat, but stay on the long side of the prescribed recoat time.



The epoxy goes on white, it'll dry clear.



The next layer is urethane. In the image above you'll notice the lamination where the epoxy has been put down, and that the colors of the stain are brought more to life. On the right you'll see the wet urethane.

The urethane is as sticky as the epoxy, but it goes on easier because it's thinner and the already-coated floor isn't so porous. It rolls on just like the epoxy. This is the chemical that gives stained floors their shine, though a satin version is also available.



The urethane dries pretty quickly, but has a longer cure time according to the spec sheet.



There's the white haze again, called blushing when referring to epoxy. I'm not sure what to make of it, I might point my finger at the epoxy, but it seemed to also be there when water was sitting on the unlaminated concrete.



Maybe the blushing will go away with the cure, maybe it'll be covered in road dust before then. It's local to some areas and depends greatly on how the light strikes it.

Other than that, I declare success.

Preparing for the future [h]

There've been a few great quotables of late. I'm publishing these mostly for nostalgia's sake, but if you're real bored at work, read on. First, a discussion with my postdoctoral associate about the best course of action when the zombiepocalypse comes:
C:
Link [Ed: Humorous zombie survival guide from Wired how-to wiki].

PA: Shipping container? As shown in that Will Smith movie, zombies learned how to use tools and simple associative learning (low level brain function). Living in a container would be akin to being a tin of potted meat. The authors of the article would be the first to be eaten. To survive, you either live on a large ship, an island like Hawaii (UK has the Chunnel to mainland Europe - very bad) or oil platform. You would also need lots of guns and napalms like the ones in Aliens. Also, play RE.

C:
Pretty nuts the statistic that police have a less than 25% hit rate within three feet. Makes Rambo movies significantly more plausible.

I think the shipping container is based on the premise that you're coexisting with photophobic zombies, so you just need to hunker down at night. I'd be hard pressed to open one of those things if it were locked from the inside (which would require a hack for obvious reasons), zombies would need some serious tools to break in within one night.

The ship's not a bad idea, some of the denizens of Fallout live on a docked aircraft carrier and it's pretty effective. Has zombie effectiveness in the water been demonstrated anywhere? Hawaii is big and populous enough that any contamination would easily survive. Remember the 28 Days Later virus didn't start in the UK, it came over on a plane.

And consider the possibility of zombie birds. It just takes one peck, and they can spot and reach you from far away.

I'm going to say a remote location that cannot sustain itself - like an oil platform - will suffer the fate they mention where you go to the grocery store, are not on your game, and die. If you're lucky you can get freshwater from rain and grow your own food, but this is not an option for non-vegetarians who dislike fish.

How about Montana? First, it's often cold which, as discussed, severely affects zombie metabolism. Second, it's got a statewide population of 12. You just have to split a few wigs and you're in relative safety, assuming zombies don't make road trips. And though you'll always have to be on your guard, it's not much worse than living in LA or New York.

Montana is large and flat, there are no sewers to hide from the sun or plan a subterranean assault. Life is good when you can pick off the undead with a psg at 2,000 yards (and miss a few times), instead of duking it out with a chainsaw and hoping their blood doesn't mix with yours. Also there's a grip of self-sustaining land up there with roaming animals that will be uninfected if you do your job.

Napalm booby traps, lights, motion sensors, you'll have plenty of time to set it up and everything works on x10!!!

PA: I did not consider birds as a biological vector. If this is a factor, then no island or boat is safe. On a boat the radar operator would tell you if there was a flock of birds in the area. A single bird would not appear on the screen. I think cold is a pretty good deterrent. I don't care if the muscle cell is dead or alive, the effects of extreme cold temperatures would mechanically limit motility. Plus, there are no birds in cold places. I guess you could live in Iceland, Greenland or dock your boat in Antartica?

C:
Plus you're on a boat so there's always going to be a flock of birds in the area. Especially after the outbreak when there'll be lots of decomposing corpses for them to pick at.

The only problem with cold is that it's cold. Brrrr. One could definitely go for severe cold, but it's a tradeoff between zombie deterrance and providing for your own survival. You wouldn't last long in Antarctica, though it'd be a great place to find non-infected if you like scientists (I do not).

And from a recent Mazda 3 purchaser:
Freezing, foggy, wet, and muddy the whole time. However, my car is
thoroughly broken into now! We were rolling in mud and dirt... I wanted
to spin donut holes but Ryan had to remind me that I wasn't in an
off-road vehicle.'

And regarding the recent Casbah concert featuring Canadian band F*cked Up, two buddies of mine separately decided to attend and invite me. Alas, I was in the darkroom that night:
Concertgoer 1:
When the naked 300 lb Canuck covered himself in honey, I was amused.

When he walked around the audience giving hugs covered in honey/sweat/hair, I thought to myself, "Please God, let it be me."

It was not to be. I was forsaken.

Concertgoer 2:
Yes, but did you happen to see the coup de grace? Pulling his shorts down, revealing his ample and fleshy buttocks, immediately ending my life.

I write this email from beyond the grave. My only advice is Chris, quit being such a photography maniac so you can have ringing ears like me and [CG1], go to the Saturday Coachella show for a second chance at a hug.

CG1:
Ah yes, I am trying to repress the memory of his hairy plump ass. Thanks for ruining my day man.

I am buying tickets for Coachella. Sunday night will induce face melting. I saw MBV played at 132 db in LA. I want to re-live the 30 minutes of 132 db's. It was like staring at the face of God.

Did you buy a mixtape? I bought the old one, I wish I bought the newest one also.

PS. I hate the bald bouncer. He is always harshing on everyone's vibe.

C:
Hah hah hah, clearly I should have blown off class and attended. But I was torn, I had received two concert invitations the same night. What's a girl to do?

CG1:
A simple choice really, there was no other show of note last except the one we attended. Even the opener Miko Mika were great. I am a sucker for props, in this case a telephone microphone.

The city's purveyors of hipness were in full attendence, as evidenced by [CG2] and I making an appearence. The Artfag and Skullcontrol people were also attending.

After much labor I turned in my first and second assignments. The 6x6 was very challenging and rather unfulfilling. Next up: portraits that tell a story. So, like, photojournalistic portraits or something.

Brakes and such [s]

Ferodo pads on the front. They're supposed to be stoppier than the Brembo ones, I'll let the car in front of me be the judge of that.



Crg levers to replace the stock ones.



I'm trying header wrap on a few sections of pipe to avoid any more pants-on-fire incidents or melted passenger shoes.

Great news, I've got Speed in hd for this wonderful new year in motorsports. Highlights:

• gp: Hayden joins Stoner at Ducati. Nicky's bike broke too often last year for he and Pedrosa to properly be crabs in the barrel of catching Rossi. Maybe now...
  
• sbk: Enter Aprilia and bmw. Alas, no more Bayliss.
• f1: Considering the end of the last two seasons, things are looking good. Plus the fia is pulling out all the stops to make passing very frequent.
• wrc: Hah hah, if only. Oh well, at least we'll have thrice the nascar coverage.
  

Maui wowie [s]

Monday

Some how, some way United managed to bollox my flight from SFO to OGG. That's normally not a problem, I'm well versed in the practice of checking flight info and I never plan to come and go as expected. But in this case my SAN to SFO flight was on schedule and so I found myself with quite a few hours to kill between my 18:30 arrival and 00:30 departure.

It has been said that crappy situations are the mother of ingenuity and indeed this was the case. I discovered that the Japanese restaurant in the food court serves bottles of sake for just five Washingtons. This compares well to the eight wingwangs I spent on Guiness while hanging out with Connie at SAN. Now I've always believed that reading books is for prisoners and vegetarians, so it was a great relief that I didn't have to occupy myself with the pages of Treason for the full twelve hours of travel.

Happily, Ted's car rental choice (Dollar?) has a policy of remaining staffed until the last flight arrives - about 03:30 in our case. I was finally able to hit the fold-out at about 0:600 Chris Standard Time after the drive from OGG to Kaanapali (in the 'resorts' zone of the map below).


The insider's map of Maui with several surrounding islands depicted but not labelled.

Tuesday

Sleeping in was the first order of business, however around noon Ted, Christine, and I headed down to meet the rest of the family at Black Rock. The ocean was a delightful 80ish with endless visibility. There were no waves, however, and this was just the first disappointment for the third of me that wanted to surf (the other thirds set upon riding and diving). Word on the streets was that the best break was at the northwest tip, near Kapalua, however I avoided the area. First, the plantation course was hosting a PGA event and, second, it's simple courtesy to leave the best waves to the locals and settle for their less aggro spots.

Wednesday



The crew headed back to the saddle to check out the north shore, since Ryan would be flying in that afternoon anyway. We checked out Hookipa (above), which was supposed to be a pretty good surf spot. I paddled out on a bodyboard since renting would have taken more time than it was worth. The waves held up well against winds that were not insignificant, and they were consistently waist high. The break was extremely peely, even Del Mar waves would have some face at that height.

I was pleased to find that there were quite a few locals hanging out and barbecuing, although a number of them could have been east county kids both for their excess of branded apparel and obvious lack of familiarity with the water.

Posers aside, the area (above labelled 'beach towns') was the most inviting part of the island. It maintained a fair balance of Maui country club, traditional beach town, and working class. Paia even had a small downtown that served as a refreshing break from the tesselated resorts that offer lavish grounds but fail to provide any semblance of a social environment.



After grabbing the cousin from the airport, the group split based on y chromosomes. The men headed to a golf course over in the seedier part of the island while the ladyfolk did... I don't know, hiked or something. The oceanfront location was unbeatable, the onshore wind was blustery, and the temperature was just right. The five of us split among two golf carts meant someone always had to ride chariot, as such the cooler and fifth golf bag were always in peril. Good fun.



Finishing 18 well after sunset, we drove back to the west end of the island to have cheeseburgers in Lahaina. The bigger, slower, older car arrived well ahead of the PT Cruiser that decided to attempt the north highway. But as we descended from the hairpins and single lane of crumbly asphault I noted the island's small import/tuner/drift community out for an event.

Lahaina is skippable. There are many pleasant blocks of shops that resemble the looped backgrounds of a cartoon. Inland some you can find useful, however unremarkable businesses. East of the highway the scenery becomes very rural.

Thursday

We journeyed to Wailea Thursday morning. This area had to be on par with Kapalua for lavishness. After stopping at three different Maui Dive Shops, Jon and I managed to rent scuba gear for the reasonable price of $35 apiece. Dive people are good people, and the rep that helped us (Ben, I think) was no different.



Jon and I had 3100psi of fun at the Seven Caves spot in Makena. We never found the 'bubble room', but happened upon a large sea turtle in one of the three caves we navigated. We followed the lava reef quite far out but never dropped below 40 feet.

Friday



The morning came early as we took the Pride of Maui boat trip to Molokini and 'Turtle Town'. The first dive was at the mostly-submerged volcanic crater. Divemaster Larry took us down 130 feet of steep reef where we saw white tipped sharks and a large lobster. Apparently there were quite a few eels, I didn't notice any because I was looking closely at the coiled sea slugs wondering if they were eels.



The second dive was back in the Wailea area. Much like the Seven Caves dive, we were navigating a lava reef at about 30 feet. There were quite a few sea turtles, including one sleeping under a rock.

Saturday



One of my goals for the trip was to ride a dual sport around the less accessible portions of the isle. Unfortunately, the one offroad rental company appears to have gone under. I wasn't too disappointed because I had yet to see the 10,000 foot Haleakala summit and it could be reached by common street vehicles. Island Riders in Wailea had a Ducati Monster for the renting so away I went.



The M1000 was noticeably lighter and easier to manage than my Supersport. Power comes in spurts though, I would often remark that the gears were tall and promptly bounce hard off the rev limiter just after shifting. Maybe I misjudged the bottom of each gear, stock pipes and a wet clutch tend to mute an engine's ability to communicate with the ears.

The road up to the crater is a glorious ribbon of winding tarmac. It is well maintained and hazard free, save for the unfenced cows that occasionally stray onto the road. The scenery at sea level is tall cane that quickly gives way to eucalyptus trees and large houses. A little higher up is a brief patch of rainforest followed by low shrubs that thin and disappear into red rock as you summit the dark beast. Each 15 mph cutback affords a fantastic view of the island below save for the thousand foot band of clouds swirling and parting around the shoulders of the mountain.



I was happy to see very few cars on the road up, and even passed a couple of Yamaha riders with leathers and knee pucks. The temperature dropped from a toasty 80 to a chilly (when riding) 65. The summit was quite spectacular with terrain as colorful as it was desolate.

Sunday

My penultimate day on Maui was a relaxing one. Sleeping, reading, watching football, swimming, and playing Settlers of Catan were the primary activities. I took a casual ride into Lahaina as well.

Monday

The departure was an unhurried gathering of things and drive to the airport for a 14:00 flight. Unfortunately, the United desk was an ugly mass of frantic travellers. The airline personnel spent an inordinate amount of time explaining that the situation wasn't their own fault. One industrious rep split the travellers into an LAX 14:00 group and an SFO 14:30 group with the goal of expediting the earlier flight. My SFO-bound family easily beat me to the counter. Of course the screens told me - and those behind me - that the gate was closed but miraculously the plane waited up for us and our baggage.

Odds and ends [s]

I cleared out the car hold on Sunday thanks to the garage-media room proximity. I was able to relocate all of the tools to the adjacent storage room, though they've been in disarray since being displaced from the upstairs bedroom.

Now there's room for a work bench, should that be a pressing need when the indentured serv- family comes down for turkey and A Colbert Christmas.



And perhaps I'll I find myself in an industrious mood wherein the garage is a fine test spot for concrete polishing (Jay's garage, above). On the subject, a good amount of dust has accrued in the media room - and it's not like I've been sloppy down there; the couch, et al, are still pristine. Concrete's a quick clean, not so for carpet.



I think the shiny, minimalist garage will be a boon for the eventual sales process. Most of the houses I looked at months ago used the garage as storage locker, dog house, evil dungeon, or all of the above.



There's shelving to be done. First, a few for helmets and such to be located where my riding and surfing gear hangs. Next, some small ones for the sound system rescued from Casa Morelos. Apparently the thing only likes me- it would continually overheat and shut down for my old roomies and did the same for Rob when he tried it recently. Last night it worked seamlessly with my mp3 player.

The next step is to move the extra tv down there since garage activities mesh well with American sports. Then hook the ol' laptop up to the tv and audio system for access to Pandora and internet accessibility.



Now, Alfa owner I am not (yet). Nor do I wish to act the Ferrari owner. But how awesome is the above dude's place?

I'm a fan of lighting- flashes for photography, fluorescents for wrenching, and accents for everything in between. So I'd like to install some red, recessed led bulbs on a motion sensor. Red because it's close to safe light color, leds because they're instant-on and I could leave them going overnight and use less power than thirty minutes of tv. And it'd go nicely with a chair out front and some sort of beverage. My block isn't quite as interesting as the Adams-Morgan strip where I learned to love the practice, but excellent nonetheless.



So, those vents on the side of the garage. Are those for thermal equalization or what? Cause honestly I'd much prefer to close them up and stem the flow of moisture to my sensitive metal products within.



I'm still unsure how to execute on the storage room. It's a convenient way to access much of the house, so I'd like to keep it uncluttered. It's an accessible but unseen storage spot for garage materials and that will be its primary purpose. The room is also ideal for wine, perhaps the northernmost section could be outfitted with a rack. And there's the choice of ground cover for the exposed hillside.



I found some black crg levers on the Pro Italia site, so on Saturday I stopped by the Glendale store - yeah, the one from Entourage.



Good spot. I've never had any serious complaints about GP or Forza, but the shop is certainly much friendlier than their southern equivalents. They even knew Chris from Ca.



Barring any bad scoring corrections, looks like I have a shot at the Medieval Gridiron playoffs.



The Raiders game was a breath of fresh air. The recipe for success was a pretty obvious causation: half of Denver's defense was on the bench -> the Oakland offense could be somewhat effective -> the Oakland defense was not stuck on the field for fifty minutes -> there was no fourth quarter defensive collapse.

Rob Ryan is brilliant. I didn't need a victory to say so, this is just the first Monday I've actually wanted to think about football. Oakland has put up some fantastic challenges (remember how they dominated SD through three quarters) but the d would always falter having been saddled with spending the most time on the field and putting points on the board.

Russell and McFadden may be developing, the only thing to say for sure is that they need time on the field. Fargas is solid.

Cutler had a less-than-stellar day. Perhaps Shanahan trusted his second string defense a bit too much against an ineffective Oakland attack. Against any other team he may have tried making the game a shootout a la the Browns. The Raider secondary is good, but Cutler had a solid pocket all game and with receivers like Marshall and Royal, it's surprising he only completed 43% of his passes.

And then there's the absence of Jason Elam...

Portfolio fin [i]

The portfolio class final presentation was yesterday. There were a lot of visitors, much love to the people that came out. I don't have a copy of my artist statement at the moment, but it basically said "I'm shooting street bikes, cheers."

Check out Connie's photos here. A sample:



And here's what I matted...