Today is Raymond Burr's birthday. He played Perry Mason on television. In court, he came up with logical answers to tricky problems, but he was stumped one day when he had to do some repair work on his home. The mortar in a few exterior bricks had crumbled and some had fallen away. Thinking "this can't be too hard to fix," he rolled up his sleeves and went to work. After cleaning and clearing out debris, he mixed up mortar and refilled the joints. It looked fine at first, but soon the problem resurfaced. What did he do wrong? He didn't wet the surrounding brick with water before putting in the new wet mortar -- and, alas, the dry bricks sucked out all the moisture before the new mortar could cure and dry. Let that be a lesson -- adding moisture slows the curing process, strengthens the bond and stops premature cracking. Take that Perry (not-such-a-good) Mason. And that's the On The House tip for today.