Go Ask Your Father: Vibrate, Thieves, Asphalt, and Decency

We survived our double header ball games last Sunday. My ass cheeks beg to differ, though. I just gained a new level of respect for my parents. With the amount of sports I played growing up, they must have spent a total of a gajillion years sitting in the bleachers watching and cheering. Soccer in the fall, wrestling in the winter, baseball all spring and summer. Now it’s come back to bite my arse. Literally.

Anyway, Crash didn’t get a hit. Notta one. Didn’t even make contact. Well, he did once. One pitch hit him on the head. Thanks to his helmet he didn’t even feel it and off to first base he went. He was walked a few times (I say they were afraid to pitch to him) and struck out once. We have another double header tomorrow. My ass is dreading it.

How does the roller vibrate?

Lots of things vibrate. And they vibrate for very different reasons. However, it is an asphalt compactor, affectionately known as a “roller”. The vibration adds a dynamic load (aka a load in motion like a car or a roller) to the asphalt. The vibration moves the asphalt particles into a position that allows for more friction. Friction is good. Ooohhh soooo good. The asphalt roller vibrates the same way a pager does (remember those ancient things?)… with a rotating eccentric weight. Think of it as a wheel with the axle near the edge instead of in the center. Then speed it up to million miles per hour and you’ve got a machine that’ll rattle the dishes in the cupboard from a mile away.

What’s a thief?

I consider their mother a thief. She stole my heart. That’s way up there on the cheese factor. This question arose from our most usual source, a book. As usual it was about trucks. This one was about the armored bank truck. In this case, a thief is someone who steals or takes something that doesn’t belong to them. Stealing from an armored truck is difficult (but not impossible). The Black Liberation Army did it back in ’81. They were later caught and sentenced to three consecutive twenty-five year-to-life sentences, making them eligible for parole in the year 2058. Proving it’s better to steal warm hearts than cold cash.

How hot is the asphalt?

As I’m sure you remember, we had some big machines in our driveway: excavators, dump trucks, rollers, a grader and a paver. I think there was one Friday that consisted of nothing but machine questions while they were here. A little boy was in his glory. One of the questions I missed was this one. How hot is it? When it arrives at the site via dump truck it is roughly 275 – 300 degrees (F). Basically hot enough to cook your turkey. It will lose a few degrees in transport from plant to site so the paver reheats it to the required temperature. Then the roller will take over and pound the shit out of it and shake the shit out of your house.

What is decent?

Hopefully this post. I KNOW this one is decent. I was apparently decent enough to marry, eh babe? We tell the boys dress decent because they LOVE what we call scruff clothes. Ratty, torn, worn out clothes. I can’t blame them. Those are bestest, mostest comfortablest clothes to wear. They got that way by being worn every god damn day. It took work to get those clothes that comfortable. But they’re not decent any more. Decent means good or acceptable. It can be used as a compliment or an insult.

Exhibit A:
We got a decent deal on that new car!

Exhibit B:
Was it good for you?
It was decent.

It’s good enough. It’s certainly less than breathtaking, awe-inspiring, magnificent, wonderful, amazing, stunning, staggering, or mind blowing. But certainly more than boring, awful, disgusting, boring, or unimpressive. Well, was it good for you?