I was supposed to see a client in-person yesterday for the first time in four months, but even though we scheduled the appointment a few days ago and I reminded the mom half an hour ahead, nobody was home, and the mom did not confirm until hours later.
Not for the first time I wanted to rent a Uhaul to take a load to the dump, take a load to storage, and bring home materials for a number of projects.
I passed the main Uhaul location driving from the no-show to my next appointment, but I did not feel like pulling up in a moving truck. I did not necessarily have the time to pick up the most important materials, so I parked around the corner and tried to plan before the appointment. Then I went straight to Show Low Block, because apparently we have a brick store, and apparently they sell fire brick.
I didn't refer to anything, I just figured that I needed two bricks for the bottom and eight for the sides.
Well, kind of. I forgot about the corners. I do not know why I thought it was a good idea to split two fire bricks the long way and put them in the corners. It makes far more sense to just put two on opposite sides and three on the others.
Either way I needed twelve, which I did not realize until after the brick store closed. Also, I wrote that I should see how concrete worked as mortar, since I did not want to buy a fifty-pound bag of mortar mix. I decided to just use the furnace mortar, but I quickly ran out, and the store did not have any more.
I tried to find somewhere else to buy fire bricks around here and for some reason one of the top results was making your own--using the King of Random's formula of seven parts plaster of Paris, seven parts play sand, and five parts of water. Many people like that method, but when I looked into it, people who used forges said "your ideas are bad and you should feel bad."
I hoped that it would be good enough. I hoped that I had enough left over. Home Depot had more furnace cement, so I wanted to run there and to Wal-Mart as quickly as possible and make fire bricks as early as possible because they needed time to dry, and the mortar needed time to cure.
The nearest store [that I knew of] that sold fire brick is the next Tractor Supply an hour away.
They opened at eight and I hoped to have my bricks drying by then, but of course I did not.
Not only does Show Low have one brick store, but we have two, and the second one is open on Saturdays!
I called after they opened at nine and they had fire brick, but the guy said they were 4x8x1. The ones that I had are 4.5x9x2.25. I spent a moment trying to figure out how to make it work, and then I made my third recent brick run.
So, there I was, with all of the materials that I needed, fully confident that everything was coming together, and Mom started telling me to buy one.
One that we would probably never use again.
My sister seemed impressed by what I put together.
Then she went and bought one. She had better take it with her because we will never use it.
Anyway, this is what I had last night when I needed to stop:
Today
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