cool.

PROOF! Right?

I've always posited that The Simpsons was set in Springfield IL. My only basis for that was that there is an actual Shelbyville, IL about 60 miles away. And because I want it to be Illinois.

So I was watching an episode from 1991 called "Blood Feud" where Bart gives Mr. Burns some of his blood. Homer expects a reward in the mail, and as he's opening his letters (or more accurately, throwing them away) he comes across one from Mr. Burns:

Ok, so the first letter of the state could be a J, but I like to think it's just a sloppily made I. And that second one is definitely an L. The zip is illegible, and one digit too long, so that's not much help (Of course that didn't stop me from trying to look it up).

I just think that if they wanted to be intentionally confusing they would have been more obvious about it NOT being IL. For example, a clearly written "JL" would have done it. I mean, the animation's not that crappy. And when they've wanted to show the state on Homer's driver's license, it was NT, for North Tacoma, with a zip of 49007, which is Kalamazoo Michigan.

Plus, this episode is from 91, when the series was only about 2 years old. So maybe they weren't doing things to intentionally obfuscate the real location yet.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure I just solved this riddle forever.

I SAID I SOLVED IT. CASE CLOSED.

Unemployment Project II: Cat Tree: Level Four

Ok let's see where was I? By this time I'd cleaned up my apartment at least four times, and my friend still said it looked like a carpet exploded in my living room. Ah, well. It's like eating chicken wings. You might as well not even try to clean up the mess until you're all the way done.

So. While kitty did what he could to help tidy up the place, I set about finishing this damn thing.


I attached another 2 x 4 and tube the same way I'd done the last one, just a little longer this time for height.




Then I attached another wood round, and to do that I had to lay the whole thing down, cause it was too tall to work on otherwise.


For this level I decide to make a little backstop since I didn't want him falling off the very top. I cut the remaining piece of the Sonotube and used that as a wall, stapling and gluing it. It didn't seem totally sturdy, and it had seams, so I used a small piece of wood at the seams to secure it. I put another piece or two along the inside so I'd have something to glue the carpet to.



I glued pieces of carpet in between as spacers.

Then I glued a strip around the edge.



Finally I used the leftover scraps to carpet the rest, and voila! A big ass cat tree in 383 easy steps. Believe it or not, I considered adding more, but I was just about out of carpet. Anyway, it was time to return the jigsaw to Home Depot, if I could get the cat to give up the box.


Anyway, the kitty city/ewok village/spaceport is done, whatever it is.

He loves it. Thank God for that. Every morning he peeks over the little crow's nest at me like "What the hell? Why aren't you building me something?"

Unemployment Project II: Cat Tree: Level Three

I'd seen some sort of U-shaped platforms on cat trees in the store, and I thought those seemed like a good idea. I also wanted a little tunnel type thing, so I decided to combine the two. Before I attached the tube (and after I had cut out the carpet circle on the top of the platform) I cut a hole within that circle, much like I did for the level inside the platform. This way kitty could jump up through the bottom of the tube.

Now I took the other half of the Sonotube and cut it in half lengthwise, to make a "U."

I glued and stapled a strut on either side of this, because I wanted to hang it (hence the extra support). Then I carpeted the inside.

Next I glued carpet to the oustide.


Kitty seemed to approve of the idea.



Next I shoved the whole thing up under the platform and cut out the carpet along the sides. I don't mind telling you, this sucked. Bigtime. When that was done I did the drilling/screwing thing til it was secure.

I carpeted the hole, and now he could climb from the tunnel up through the tube all the way to the top.


If you thought the tube looked a little crooked in some of the pics, that's because it was. Turns out I hadn't screwed all the screws in completely, so it was sitting up on them on one side and leaning over. Being OCD like I am, I HAD to fix it. I tried to convince myself not to, but I couldn't do it. So I had to unattach the tunnel part, which involved finding all the screws. I ended up stripping most of them, and had to cut one to get it out. I finally got the tube screwed down and replaced the tunnel, and that wasted an entire afternoon.

Now I wanted to go higher with it, so I attached a 2 x 4 and slid a plastic pvc tube over it. I glued the tube at the bottom and then bolted it through the 2 x 4 and into a hole I had cut in the tube top. He he. Tube top.




Then I attached a smaller carpeted wood round.



Next I carpeted the tube and held it on with shoestrings till it dried.


And bam! Level Three is done.

Next Up: Level Four

Unemployment Project II: Cat Tree: Level Two

Next I thought something round was needed. I decided some kind of tube was in order. I researched on the Interwebs and found that other people used Sonotubes, or Duraforms, which are cardboard tubes used to pour concrete. I went to HD and got one. It was four feet long, so first I cut it in half. Then I cut two holes in it by tracing a bowl or a coffee can or something.

Then I glued carpet around the outside and cut out the holes:

Since this was a load bearing tube, and I needed a way to attach it properly, I decided to put some struts inside. I traced and cut out carpet where it was going to go on the platform:


Then I marked out areas around the circle where the struts would go and drilled a hole in each area. Then I placed the tube over that.

Now I could place the struts inside and mark lines on the tube so I could glue them on. I made them only half the height of the tube because I had the ambitious idea of a level inside the tube that kitty could rest on.

Next I cut a piece of plywood using the jigsaw I'd bought from HD (and would later return). I cut it the size of the inside of the tube and then cut out a smaller hole from that, so I was left with a crescent moon shape. I placed this inside the tube and glued it down on top of the first struts.

Kitty decided it was break time.


Next I repeated the process, gluing in struts on top of the "level" inside the tube, and cutting them off even with the top. Then I proceeded to carpet the inside by gluing a piece to the struts. After that I cut, measured, recut, remeasured, recut (you get the idea) til I had a piece that would fit the crescent shaped "level" on both bottom and top. Then I glued a strip to the sides. No cuttin' corners here, dammit!


Finally, I glued strips around the outside of the holes and used my "glue and pinch method" to hide the seam some.


Making the tube from start to finish took an entire day. I'm talking about starting at 10am on a saturday and finishing at like 11:00 at night, only stopping to scarf down some tacos. I have learned the meaning of labor intensive. But I was in this now. No turning back.

Next I attached the tube. Later I would realize something terrible that would cost me several hours of dismantling to fix, but for now it was on there.

Now the topper. I already had a carpeted round, so I placed that on top of the tube and traced and cut the carpet off it to make a lid.

I cut a circle out of this, making a "lip" that could be attached to the top of the struts. Then I carpeted the rim.


Now kitty had another level to play on, and he could go from the bottom hole all the way up through the top, and sit on the level in between inside the tube.



Or, he could just hop right up there from the outside and....sleep.


Next Up: Level Three