Althouse: At the Arborist Alehouse...

February 10, 2009

At the Arborist Alehouse...

The Arborist

(Enlarge.)

... I'm hanging by a thread. Talk me down from here.

62 comments:

KLDAVIS said...: Arborist Alehouse?

Althouse Or Rabies? I'll take Althouse.

Althouse A Bore Sir? Never.; 2/10/09, 9:15 PM
The Dude said...: That picture needs the caption "Tree work, you're doing it wrong".; 2/10/09, 9:15 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: Every night, Althouse puts up one of these "open threads"

It's as if she needs her readers to babysit her, and she must prompt and prod them into keeping her amused.

http://twitter.com/maxinesplace; 2/10/09, 9:25 PM
MadisonMan said...: That kind of thing can stick around for a long long time; 2/10/09, 9:25 PM
MadisonMan said...: ...by that kind of thing I mean something hanging by a thread. Not the arborist. He is paid by the hour. You don't want him around for 30 years.; 2/10/09, 9:27 PM
The Dude said...: Project much, Maxine?; 2/10/09, 9:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Mmmmm....trees! Arborists! CHAINSAWS!

Whatta waste! Can't see what that guy's using. We need a Zoom. Need one of the bar and chain too.; 2/10/09, 9:38 PM
Ann Althouse said...: This is just an open thread. I think my readers get the idea. It's a place to write what you want. Be interesting!; 2/10/09, 9:39 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: An arborist alehouse? Let's get drunk and hang from trees! That can't possibly end badly.; 2/10/09, 9:46 PM
Palladian said...: "This is just an open thread. I think my readers get the idea. It's a place to write what you want. Be interesting!"

Um, it's Maxine we're talking about. She ceased being interesting when she started ritually defacing dolls of your sons.

I like how "she" now has the nerve to spam your comments with links to her "Twitter" feed. I can't think of anything less interesting or less appealing than listening to Maxine "tweet".; 2/10/09, 9:47 PM
Palladian said...: OMG are you having Agatha cut down?!; 2/10/09, 9:48 PM
George M. Spencer said...: So, uh, how did India exactly go after Pakistan for harboring that terrorist group that trained those terrorists who went wild in Bombay?

Funny how things slip from the news.

Seems like Pakistan denied everything, and that was that.

A real problem when your neighbor has nukes, is starving, and its political leaders don't really control its secret police/military establishment.

Good thing we're sending more troops to Afghanistan to do community development.; 2/10/09, 9:49 PM
Simon said...: My confidence isn't hanging by a thread, but it's taken a dent. I spent about ten days at the start of the month trying to make sense of a seventh circuit case, United States v. Turner, and particularly the interplay of another seventh circuit case called Kwiat with a Supreme Court case called Schmuck (no kidding - it's a case about a fraudulent used car dealer from Wisconsin called Mr. Schmuck). And I just couldn't get my head around these three cases well enough to write a post. Came back to it about a week ago as a break from writing a post about a fun little issue arising from the history of impeachment), read through the cases, still didn't make sense. Read through them again tonight - still can't make sense of it. But for the fact that it took three of the best judges on the federal bench more than a year to hash out the opinion in Turner, I would feel like a total failure. Nevertheless, I'd built up a certain amount of confidence, a feeling that given patient application of thinking and researching, I could plow through mostly any legal problem, and it's really shaken my confidence to have essentially hit a brick wall.; 2/10/09, 9:49 PM
Anonymous said...: I used to hang out at the Arboristsite.com...the chainsaw forum. Awesome. Souped up Huskies and Stihls. Those guys are nuts. Never knew people could get obsessed with chainsaws.

Some saws are hot right out of the box. I got one. Dolmar 5100S. S is for screamer. Right after I got it, the chain went dull when I hit some dirt in a hollow tree. Could hardly tell the difference. Only knew there was a problem when the paint melted off the bar sawing black locust. Dang thing hurts my ears, though.

My 359 Husky's good too, but the 24" bar slows it down some.; 2/10/09, 9:58 PM
Meade said...: That arborist appears to know what he is doing.

Beware "low ball" tree services. Not only will they butcher your trees but they probably don't have adequate insurance and they very well might have substance abuse problems. Like this guy who ripped off neighbors of mine 15 years ago. He robbed them, and then fell out of their tree, drunk. How he survived I'll never know but afterwards, I wrote a little poem about him:

Dan, the alcoholic tree man
Dan, the alcoholic tree man
He's Dan, the alcoholic treeeee man
He's a stupid alcoholic,
a crazy alcoholic
You gotta be crazy
to be an alcoholic tree man.; 2/10/09, 10:00 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "OMG are you having Agatha cut down?!"

No, that's not my tree. (Or my house.); 2/10/09, 10:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Simon, you need chainsaw therapy. Buy a saw and cut up some wood. You'll feel better.

All this thought is hurting you. It used to hurt me, but I learned.

When we all become hunters, gatherers, simple tillers of the land, and woodcutters, you'll have a useful skill.

Don't flinch from the future, embrace it.; 2/10/09, 10:05 PM
Simon said...: On the plus side, having spent a couple of weeks steeping myself in the history of impeachment, I think I finally understand the Blount impeachment. Some of you may remember, the earliest federal impeachment was the kookiest: a Senator, who couldn't possibly be impeached (legislators not being civil officers of the united states), was impeached. But the history is interesting and illuminating.

Impeachment -- I didn't know this history, so I mention it because I think maybe others don't either -- arose in 14th century England. Parliament could impeach any person in the king's realm they deemed a danger to the public, officeholder or not, for anything. And the remedy, logically enough, extended not to the removal from office that we know, but to the full range of criminal penalties. The sword largely rusted in its scabbard until a 17th century resurgence - just about the time that English settlers began eyeing these shores. In colonial America, colonial assemblies arrogated Parliament's power to impeach, to the extent they could get away with it, but in America, impeachment developed a distinct character wholly different to its life in England. It was only ever levelled against - and thus developed purely as - a weapon against officeholders for malfeisance in office. Accordingly, in the colonies, in America, punishment for impeachment only ever ran to removal from office.

John Adams should take a great deal of credit for domesticating impeachment and making it a tool of republican virtue, dragging it from its origins into revolutionary America. Even at this point, however, the American tradition of impeachment seems to have been viewed as a weapon with which to remove any public officeholder for malfeisance and maladministration.

In the federal Constitution, impeachment was both narrowed and broadened. Broadened to include "high crimes and misdemeanors" (a phrase, by the way, that is first met in the 14th century impeachment of the Earl of Suffolk), but narrowed - significantly for Blount - to be a tool exclusively against Presidents, Vice-Presidents, and civil officers of the United States. I have an inkling - I'm not finished my research, but it's an impression - that in 1788, legislator was a public office, but not a civil office, and that the distinction was not entirely clear. Further, the early Congress may simply have not grasped the full meaning of the limitation on the impeachment power, assuming that Congress enjoyed the same power of impeachment against any pulic official that the state legislatures had enjoyed, and the colonial legislatures had claimed.

Or, perhaps it was simply the case that then, as now, there were ambitious men willing to ignore the Constitution for political expediency. But this history - new to me - suggest suggest that maybe they acted with honor if not calm reflection.; 2/10/09, 10:11 PM
chickelit said...: Unless you used some sort of fish-eye effect in the photo, I'd say that is some serious sag in that roof. It looks as if it would collapse under a heavy snowfall, or if somebody tried to reshingle it.; 2/10/09, 10:13 PM
Simon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/10/09, 10:14 PM
Ron said...: Man, all of Rome is here! So what's the next sign that we're all totally down the crapper? Scarlett Johannson moves to Europe? Instapundit is now in Chinese? We gotta get some kind of odds on something...; 2/10/09, 10:16 PM
Ann Althouse said...: chicken: The roof is built like that.; 2/10/09, 10:20 PM
Anonymous said...: Palladian said...Um, it's Maxine we're talking about. She ceased being interesting when she started ritually defacing dolls of your sons.

When I first started reading this blog I didn't know why Ann allowed Maxine to continue posting. I didn't get it at all. He was weird, crude and always off topic.

And then I started to find the guy to be really funny. Some of his teasing psychobabble about Ann's personal life was really funny.

Then he started to go hog wild and he was really awful.

He's seriously weird and yet I picture him looking like Richard Deacon but with a bow tie and flood pants.

I don't know why because really it should be Palladian as Richard Deacon/Mel Cooley and Maxine as a perverted Morey Amsterdam/Buddy Sorrel.; 2/10/09, 10:31 PM
Anonymous said...: Pictures I took over the weekend of trees.

I don't think anyone will ever trim them because they are in watershed property so it's up to age, lightning or heavy winds to bring them down.; 2/10/09, 10:38 PM
chuck b. said...: This is too nasty for my Twitter feed. So, erm...here.

http://tinyurl.com/dhzsnh; 2/10/09, 10:40 PM
Anonymous said...: This is totally unfair but I like it.

You have to click the image to expand it to get the full image.; 2/10/09, 10:41 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: jdeeripper,

Interesting choice of names for those picture files.; 2/10/09, 10:46 PM
Icepick said...: Simon, thanks for the thumbnail history lesson on impeachment.; 2/10/09, 10:49 PM
traditionalguy said...: Another case of the overbearing tree syndrome. The developers like to clear most trees from a new subdivision tract, build the houses, and then plant saplings in appropriate landscape planned areas of each lot. That's fine until year 35+ when the trees begin to overbear the views of the house. Then those trees need to be cut down and replanted. But no one will do that until their houses have disappeared from view, except in the winter.There must still be an unhealthy fear of hurting trees. Do they represent Strength? Are they a coveted covering symbol like men/womens hair? FYI planting a magnolia tree is a bad idea if you are not ready to practice cruel tree neutrality.. they grow like weeds, up and out.; 2/10/09, 11:14 PM
Donna B. said...: H.R.1 has been my stimulating reading tonight and I don't think we're really going to like to be stimulated in that manner.

Yet, it did stimulate a headache.

778 pages of dead trees if anyone wanted to print it out.; 2/10/09, 11:37 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Seems like a lot of trouble just to get at a squirrel nest.

Here, have yourself a plate of aglio e olio.; 2/10/09, 11:59 PM
Revenant said...: This is totally unfair but I like it.

It raises the unnerving possibility that Andrea Dworkin's looks were significantly improved by death.; 2/11/09, 12:06 AM
chickelit said...: The Althouse said: "The roof is built like that."

Really?- that's different. Most rooflines on old houses like that either are rectilinear or curved. That looks angular down. Are there other gables that slant too?; 2/11/09, 12:15 AM
chickelit said...: "rectilinear" should be "rectangular"; 2/11/09, 12:22 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Oh. Built like that. I assumed a large branch bashed it down, then the owners called in the tree trimmers to clear it out. What an odd design.; 2/11/09, 12:48 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: "The roof is built like that."

Sounds like something a realtor would say.; 2/11/09, 1:05 AM
Maxine Weiss said...: Palladian: On Twitter, I have over two dozen followers (and they're not all me).

Apparently, there is some demand for my prattle.; 2/11/09, 1:31 AM
blake said...: Don't do it! You have so much to live for!; 2/11/09, 3:00 AM
Mr. Forward said...: If your cold
And your heat ain't free,
Or your stuck up in a tree
Contemplating massacre,
It's time for chainsaw therapy.; 2/11/09, 5:04 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Sounds like something a realtor would say."

One way I'm sure it's intentional is that that is a newly build roof, enclosing what was once an upstairs terrace. It matches the original roof of the house (which is perpendicular to it) and that roof is straight across the middle but tips up at each end exactly like that. It's not a big curve, but a tipping up at the end. The whole house is a very stylish prairie style house, with many charming touches of that sort.; 2/11/09, 5:11 AM
blake said...: Plus, it has "curb appeal"!; 2/11/09, 5:29 AM
Michael Haz said...: One way I'm sure it's intentional is that that is a newly build roof, enclosing what was once an upstairs terrace.

Speaking as a home builder, that roof is a major leak problem waiting to happen. Water should drain away from, not towards, intersecting structures.; 2/11/09, 5:50 AM
Ann Althouse said...: It reminds me of some ancient Japanese buildings. That may have been the influence.; 2/11/09, 6:22 AM
KCFleming said...: That charming roof sounds like another successful roof design inspired by Mr. Prairie Home Leaking Water Damage hisself, Frank Lloyd Wright.; 2/11/09, 6:26 AM
Michael Haz said...: It reminds me of some ancient Japanese buildings. That may have been the influence.

Sounds about right. I'm not familiar with the neighborhood where the house was built, but I'd bet that the house was built in the 1930s-1940s, during the American Craftsman Bungalow era. The owner, builder or designer may have wanted to distinguish this home from other bungalows by adding a faux Japanese design element to the roof line.; 2/11/09, 6:59 AM
The Dude said...: As a builder and a tree guy, you have got to be shittin' me - that roof was built like that? Terrible design. I assumed, as had others, that the tree had stoved it in. But it is, in its own small way, a stimulus plan waiting to happen - when it fails, there will be work aplenty.

I use a Stihl 088 with a 36" bar - that is one cutting saw. Top that, Maxine! My big saw is a Stihl with a 60" bar. I rarely drag that one out - it frightens the women more than a trillion dollars worth of debt.; 2/11/09, 7:16 AM
Positroll said...: "Arborist Alehouse" posted by "Ann Althouse" -
> 50 comments and nobody even mentioned Ann Arbor (e.g. in combination with student drinking habits)? Strange ...; 2/11/09, 7:30 AM
kjbe said...: another successful roof design inspired by Mr. Prairie Home Leaking Water Damage hisself, Frank Lloyd Wright.

No kidding. They look nice, but are famously drafty and leaky. This roof looks like trouble waiting to happen.; 2/11/09, 8:14 AM
Meade said...: No roof; no house.; 2/11/09, 8:16 AM
Bissage said...: Last Spring I threaded a 50 foot, 28 inch caliper walnut between three other trees and smacked the bucket on the lawn I was aiming at dead on.

I did it with an ancient 18 inch McCullough hand-me-down my father-in-law got at Hechinger’s or someplace.

And it only took 30 minutes and three beers.

Not bad for a dumb lawyer!

And yes, I’m just boasting, here.; 2/11/09, 8:37 AM
Darcy said...: And it only took 30 minutes and three beers.

I once hit three double bullseyes consecutively while playing darts.

Less than a minute, and less than three beers. ;-); 2/11/09, 8:51 AM
Meade said...: I once hit my head on a low hanging limb I didn't see and all I had was a cup of tea.; 2/11/09, 8:56 AM
The Dude said...: I dropped a pine tree Satuday, missed all the structures in the yard and hit the ground. I don't drink.

I knew a drunken tree guy - he kept hitting the ground, too. Drunk, but not smart. He only had a masters degree. Master of none.

How anyone can consume alcohol and then run power tools is beyond me, but like the roof, it makes for plenty of work for others, namely ER docs.

Around here, when there is severe weather, you get two waves of patients at the ER - the ones injured in the storm, then, a day or two later, those who injure themselves cleaning up. Chainsaws are not forgiving tools.

And Hechingers - is that a blast from the past or what? Imagine riding the wave from a small hardware store to a chain of stores to political office then bankruptcy. If only Obama had ever worked in the private sector we could analogize his career like that, on a grand scale...; 2/11/09, 9:26 AM
traditionalguy said...: We need to know the address of the Zen roofed house so we can visit this now famous roof job on our next Madison visit. It can become a major tourist attraction in Fodors guide to Cheesey Country.; 2/11/09, 9:26 AM
chickelit said...: ...Mr. Prairie Home Leaking Water Damage hisself, Frank Lloyd Wright.

*sprays first sip of coffee*

LOL Pogo!; 2/11/09, 9:40 AM
chickelit said...: It looks like that white baffle just above the intersecting gutters may have been installed to cope with the increased flow of rain water from the altered roof line.

People will go to great lengths to be different, won't they?

When the Rain comes, they run and hide their heads...; 2/11/09, 9:57 AM
former law student said...: Mr. Schmuck

In English he would be Mr. Jewell.

Only in Yiddish, (you schmuck, you putz) would the family jewel be a pejorative.; 2/11/09, 10:00 AM
Michael Haz said...: It looks like that white baffle just above the intersecting gutters may have been installed to cope with the increased flow of rain water from the altered roof line.

Yep. The goofy roof line directs water back toward the house, where it merges with other water and runs down a valley at high volume. The white deflector is supposed to keep the water from cascading past the gutters.

Heck of an ice problem in winter, I'd bet.; 2/11/09, 10:43 AM
The Dude said...: FLS - you are a dick. That's English. You need to finish your education.; 2/11/09, 11:05 AM
Bissage said...: CORRECTION: Regarding my 8:37 AM comment, I made an error.

I just measured the stump at the top, 16 inches high, bark removed. It was 37 inches IN CIRCUMFERENCE.

Now you know . . . and so do I.

Ha!; 2/11/09, 7:55 PM
The Dude said...: I was wondering about that, but since I have sawed walnuts that were over 3' in diameter, I figured you were a demon with an antique saw.

Biggest logs I have worked with have been red oaks just under 6' in diameter. Folks would tell me "That tree is 400 years old". Sure it is, but funny thing is, there are only 120 annular rings on the stump. Red oaks grow well here.; 2/11/09, 8:22 PM
Meade said...: But, Bissage, that would still be about a foot in diameter. And you dropped it without breaking any windows or killing any kittens. AND you were drunk on your ass.

I'd say that's still pretty impressive. Especially for a white-collar kind of guy who probably fully understands the potential liabilities involved.; 2/11/09, 9:21 PM

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