In fact, Dan of Buffalo won second place with a fetching tune from Garth Brooks. But the modelves and axtors who won that day were shams. It seems that the night before, the judges got wasted in a tavern downtown. They then burned the few notes they had taken, and instead put all the numbers in hat. (Each modelf and axtor was given a number at the time of the initial competition the day before.) The then randomly pulled forty-eight numbers, and those were the finalists. (The few who opposed this method were promptly consumed by the tarp-wearing judge.)

In fact, one of the finalists announced for the acting category seemed very surprised. When he got up to the stage and gave his name, he confessed his shock was due to the fact that he hadn’t even auditioned for the acting portion of the competition. He was promptly eaten by the tarp’d judge.

The axtors were atrocious, and to watch them was to snort anthrax. Jesse conceded that he knew little of modeling and so could not truly judge. although he could not see the method in the madness. But as for the acting he knew poo when he saw it. And what he saw was poo after poo after poo. In fact, a very acute logic struck him. See if you can follow along.

There were six different rooms with different judges in each one. The auditions weren’t recorded. So how did the judges determine the top 12 male and female actors. And so on and so forth? If each panel of judges convened (which is doubtful) and agreed on their top 12, that’s 36 of the best guy axtors. And if they picked the top two in each room, who is to say that the third pick of one room wasn’t actually better than the first pick of another room?

Whatever the logic, whatever the circumstance, those axtors picked didn’t seem to know what a stage was, let alone what to do on it. But at last, the torment ended. The winners were declared and the mass was dismissed for call backs.

Callbacks

And so begins the shortest chapter in this tale. Jesse The Gray had to stand in line under the letter “G” for his callback. By no random twist of fate, it happened to be the longest line in the whole alphabet…dwarfing even “A” and “B”. All 3,000 modelves and axtors got callbacks, guaranteeing that no one would leave consciously feeling pillaged.

After an hour, Jesse got his callback envelope. He had a total of four-three of which were the ones every mother’s son and daughter got. He made his way upstairs and waited in the main line for two and a half hours. Then he went into the different rooms, where the callback lines wound around and through each other like the many snakes of Madusa’s hair. Another two hours.

Reaching the front of the line, Jesse was given a card, and a lady behind the fold up table said: “Here, o’ victim of perilous scams! Take this card and visit my website. Send me a headshot and we’ll talk. Farewell.”

And thus ended the callbacks for Jesse The Gray.

Epilogue

Thus the quest ended for Jesse The Gray. He left the Conference hotel a good four hours later than he had planned on-and empty handed at that. He made his way back to the coast, stopping and slowing and accelerating sporadically as he went.

His Bird O’ Fire began to sound very worn out and all 175 ponies heehawed in protest. Upon reaching the main road, he spent a good two hours sitting in traffic. As luck would have it, there were three different accidents several miles apart involving young guys who had modified rims, lowered bodies, and windows that were tinted black. It may very well have been that they were painted black, for that at least would have given just cause for why their drivers couldn’t drive.

Jesse could not make it back to his little home in Spotsylvania in time, and so had to make an unplanned stay in dump that passed for a hotel only because someone charged people to stay there. The room reeked of cigarette butts and human butts, and was falling apart in countless places. Jesse mused that the inn must have been built when the Earth was very young…perhaps on the eighth day of creation. But he weathered the night, and finished his journey home in fifty-degree weather.

Upon arriving at home, he took off his One Ring and threw it in the fire to feel like he had accomplished something, but then regretted it because it was very precious to him.

The next day he fell ill with ear infections and bronchitis, and so lay on his back for a week.

Thus ends the merry quest and adventures of block machine, who traveled through four states (twice), paid $240 for gas, oil, and inns, put another 3,000 miles on his Bird O’ Fire, and caught a horrible cold and then had nothing better to do but write it all down in a mostly non-fictional third-person narrative.

Concrete blocks are used in building everything from huge buildings right down to the smallest backyard compost box. Demand is constant and will never die as long as building is going on. You can count on a good market for your cement blocks. You are not making widgets which go out of fashion in a short time.

If you do not have a lot of money to invest,but are looking for a way to start your own business,concrete block manufacturing may be your opportunity. You can start from home working with hand molds in your garage. With this method you can turn out 100 blocks per day quite easily. At a later stage your business will have grown and you will need more blocks to supply your customers. You can buy or build a concrete block machine capable of making hundreds of blocks in a working day.

Plywood and sheet metal are needed to make hand molds. They are easy to make from available plans. You simply fill the molds with the appropriate concrete mix and turn out the blocks to dry. Plans with instructions are available to show how this is done. All you need to get started are some plywood and sheet metal to make the molds and a supply of Portland cement,sand,gravel and water. All of these are easy to obtain locally at your lumberyard.

When your concrete brick machine production using hand molds is no longer sufficient you will want a machine to manufacture the blocks. There are a number of commercially made machines available. They do a good job but are quite pricey. Buy one if you can afford it and it will pay for itself with increased productivity. Building your own machine is the cheaper way to go.

Build your own machine? Yes you can build an excellent machine from new or used auto parts and a few odds and ends. It is easy to make and a welding shop can do the welding if you are not competent at this. This machine can turn out 800 blocks in a working day and is as good as or better than the commercial models.

When you are manufacturing concrete blocks you will naturally want to add other concrete products to your line. There is a strong demand for bird baths, sundials,garden furniture,patio slabs and a variety of other products. These additional products will add considerably to your profits when you offer them to customers. The markup on these is often much more than on cement blocks. Plans and instructions are available for all these items and they are certainly worth adding to your business line of products.

The small business which you started part time in your garage can in a relatively short time become a full time very profitable enterprise. The sky is the limit depending on how hard you are prepared to work at it. Go to it and soon you will be making a far better income than you could expect at any job.

Making your own block machine is reasonably easy if you have any mechanical ability. The saving over purchase of a machine is big. You can also build a smaller hand operated machine which is of simple construction and can turn out 200 blocks in a day. When you have a machine going you will need help to operate the machine and move the completed blocks to the drying area. To house your blocks while drying you will need more space.

Old, spotty paint and graffiti also make brick and concrete surfaces unsightly.

What do you do when you want your building to look nice, respectful, professional, and inviting, and you’ve got problems like these all over the exterior? Calling up a brick and concrete cleaning contractor could be the beginning of a solution for you.

But what do these cleaners do, and how do they do it?

Brick and concrete cleaners will use what’s called abrasive blasting. It’s the process of harnessing pressure to propel abrasive material directly at the brick and concrete surfaces, in order to remove the contaminants, and to make the surface smoother and more handsome.

Here’s a list of some of the abrasives the contractor will use: glass bead blasting, sand blasting, soda blasting, or shot blasting.

Compressed air or liquid propels these materials onto the target surface. In the case of compressed air, the materials are propelled dry; in the case of liquid, they are propelled in a concentrated jet of water.

Some of the abrasive materials used are silica sand (this is the most common one); coal slag; metallic, synthetic, or mineral abrasives; and organic materials. The organic materials are comprised of ground nut shells, fruit kernels, and baking soda. They tend to be the best abrasives for cleaning brick, stone work, and for removing graffiti. That’s because they pose the lowest risk of damaging the contact material.

When it comes to equipment, brick and concrete cleaning contractors will bring in highly specialized tools and protection because of some dangerous health hazards associated with this type of work.

The basic components to the abrasive blasting mechanism are the mixer, an exhaust hood, a nozzle, and a gas supply line (for compressed air, the dry blasting technique).

The brick and concrete cleaning specialist will contain the area within a blast room. In here all the blasting goes on, and the blasting system is housed inside, too. They’ll place a dust collector in the containment area.

What’s called a “blast cabinet” is similar to the blast room but with one addition, a “closed-loop reclaim” system that recycles the abrasive blasting materials.

Talk with your brick and concrete cleaning service about how it plans to treat your surfaces. You should know that brick requires a significantly lower pressure than concrete: between 500 and 1000 pounds per square inch (PSI). The brick and concrete cleaning contractor should know that blasting on brick should not exceed 1500 PSI, and that 5000 PSI would ultimately damage the brick, possibly causing much more harm than the substances you’re trying to blast off of it.

Here’s a partial list of the services brick and concrete cleaning can provide:

Building exteriors; brick restoration; monument and statue cleaning; mold, smoke, and water damage cleaning; graffiti and paint removal; sidewalk cleaning; and oil-stain removal.

Who should hire a brick and concrete cleaning service?

If you want to clean up the weathered look of your property, business, or manufacturing facility, a brick and concrete cleaning contractor can definitely help.

Then there’s the question of erosion. Are those materials that stain your building doing more than aesthetic harm? It’s very likely. They could erode the materials, and a brick and concrete cleaning service can help you determine if this is the case.

How about the benefits and drawbacks to brick and concrete cleaning?

Let’s start with the drawbacks. They mainly have to do with health hazards. Silica and sand blasting creates huge clouds of dust. Exposure to silica dust can cause Silicosis, a nasty lung disease.

Heat exhaustion and excessive noise are two other threats to abrasive blasting workers.

But some of the abrasive materials available pose much lower health risks, and if the work environment is treated correctly, and the right precautions are taken, health hazards are greatly diminished.

Coal slag contains very low silica levels, so it doesn’t contribute to the risk of developing Silicosis. (The con with coal, though: it can release other pollutants into the air.) Metallic, synthetic, and mineral abrasives cause much lower dust and waste levels than sand and coal. And the organic abrasives won’t damage the contact material.

Consider the safety equipment available to the workers: Blast hoods and helmets; an air hose that filters out hazardous gases like carbon monoxide; special lenses on the helmets; ear muffs and body protection (gloves, overalls, leather coats, leather pants, a canvas blast suit).

Here’s the bottom line with brick and concrete cleaning:

The elements – and graffiti artists – can make your brick and concrete building surfaces unattractive (or can threaten to erode them). Brick and concrete cleaning can bring these materials back to their brand-new look, and can protect against erosion.