What boredom can lead to.

OK, so I don't make much money. A sick cat, dead battery and a dying motherboard having rendered me dead in the water as far as even contemplating doing something new, let alone finishing the kitchen. Boredom sets in though. A garage full of blunt instruments, drills, saws and other tools of massive destruction. Sitting here, being good, not even starting the car this weekend. It's too much. Something had to go.

Opening not even the right size, and some scabby header just screwed into the ceiling. Hmm.......




















The molding went away. It was shot in with a brad nailer. Popped right off. Then I cut the drywall tape that stood out so proudly from the wall.



















So yet another color in this room. There's medium blue, more then medium blue, dark red, pink and.......International Orange?















At first I tried just unscrewing the header but my impact drill and tool sat for so long, the batteries were flat. So this called for ...War!















Buh-bye sheetrock......




















Whack! Wham!




















Gone. Some deliberate collateral damage. All the interior walls in the house proper are truly non-bearing walls. As in incapable of holding anything up but themselves and that, just barely. The game plan is to put a built-in bookcase on that side and to frame it out with 2" by 8"s. A 4' foot opening with a bookshelf above and two bi-folds below. It will be put in the old fashioned way. Two top plates, full jack studs up to the header and if occasion calls, some fire blocking as well.
















Demolition can get noisy.

















Every corner needs a little something.

Bracketed

Dead car battery last week of 2011, dead motherboard first week of 2012. Yeah....depressing.
Ah well. Fixed.


This thing called work is calling. This is as much post as I can do.



The "music" room. Untouched except for ripping out the carpet, mirrored doors and reinstalling a ceiling fan. Note the closet header and the paint job.

It's been awhile

I've been busy shoveling away the obligations of this year, wanting to make 2012 a "fresh" start as if it were. Property taxes will all be paid by next week. After repairing that corner of the roof in October, it was best just to place the house on hold.

I definitely need to make more money. Roofs are spendy here. And if there is one thing I really need, it's one of those. The car has some original parts. Wheel bearings being some of them. By themselves, wheel bearings are cheap. Getting them in where they should be is the expensive part. Especially up front. At the very least, I need a twelve ton hydraulic press (harbor freight, hundred bucks plus) and then the struts have to come out, the brakes get dissembled, the front drive axles, et al. A nightmare by any account.

Other things on my plate. Sick cat for one. Make that an elderly sick cat. 14 years might be all she can do. Gonna have to be a vet visit soon. Need to go east sometime this year. Every time I get close to thinking about it, the TSA makes life more "interesting" for air travelers. Or the airlines come up with new ways of torture, making Greyhound look like a desirable alternative. So ground travel it's gonna have to be.

The house, yes the house. Things I want to do. Finish the kitchen for one. The old insulation in some of the walls must have an R value in the single digits. Finished floors. Yards......want to go to a dry-scape. When the water meter shows up, the last place money needs is to be sprayed on the outdoors in a liquid form. Did I mention the roof? Two bedrooms do need work on the closets. I might just frame the door openings down to four feet, or make two walk in closets, which would involve subtracting and adding walls. Pretty easy actually as there is no electrical in those walls. Also want a hatchway into the crawl space so I can add more...surprise...insulation. Also do some seismic reinforcing down there.

On the bright side, Petch House is back. I was kinda worried. He makes my life look easy actually. But he keeps going on. I'll let y'all Google it. I won't even do a link without a say so, these days.

Dog Eared Roof

That last corner was looking pretty bad. The shingles were put down with staples. Apparently they waited until the earlier roof was in really bad shape. This might even be the original shingles under that corner. As one can see, the holding power of staples is just above nil. Most of the shingles on this place are just sitting here by gravity alone.















So with my trusty pry-bar and just fingers, I cleaned away the broken bits in the late Sunday afternoon.


















First course of shingles go in upside down. The second course goes in over that with the tabs down. The third course goes above the second course. The nailing pattern got weird. The builder put down a rather thin roof deck so the nails had to go into whatever that would hold them over the overhang. Wherever the lookouts and the eaves were.

Yet another thing that has to be done when the new roof shows up. Thicker plywood.












All done. This will do until the new roof happens. Which will only happen if my income goes up. And that's if I do it.


















When I was done and finally got everything put away, the moon was out.

Roof Patching Blues

Whoever re-roofed the house used the cheapest possible shingles. They get old and brittle and then the tabs blow off in a stiff breeze. So it was two shingles the other day.





It will still stop most water at this point but the underlying layers start to degrade early if exposed. I bought up some fresh shingles from my stash.
















I cleaned out the old broken part up under the existing shingles. My Wonderbar did the honors. Have to do this carefully.
















All done. Carefully nailed off and sticky stuff squirted in to keep down for a year or so.

















I'm not the first up here to do a little fixing. Oh well. I personally have put three quarters of a bundle in patching the roof. The garage mostly. It seems to catch the most exposure.


Someday new roof but need to earn some bucks for that. They ain't cheap.

A Day at the Museum

I have driven by this place quite a few times. Then my cousin and I went there. Liked it so much, I got the coffee cup. It's one of the best collections of tractors and old trucks that one will ever see. Also the collection is the important part. No new shiny building or fancy displays here. The jewels are what's parked around the place. The passion of the place can be seen in how well maintained and clean these machines are.









Not just tractors and trucks here. An interesting old grader from CalTrans. So how many arms did the operator have here?

















Before electricity, streetcars used cables. before cables, they used horses. This is possibly the last remaining physical property of the Woodland Street Railway, one horse-drawn street car. According to the placard, every bit of wood in it had to be replaced.


















For the summer, the side windows slide down, the clerestory windows tilt open and there are vents in the back of the benches.
It's remarkable how lightly built this car is. If it's past two tons, that would be a surprise. I actually got to ride a horse-drawn trolley once. They still run at both Disney parks.



















Early rack & pinion. Armstrong power of course, but these machines didn't go very fast.

They didn't start out standardized. Each manufacturer had their own idea of how to go about things. Like who says a radiator has to face forward? They didn't go fast enough for that to matter. Also the radiator fan is belt driven.

















1930s Pierce-Arrow truck. Got Al Capone written all over it.

Then there was this 57' GMC pickup made of wood. No metal fasteners and it even had moving parts.





















A Corvair pickup. Note the side gate.

Dodge fire engine. 50s of course. Note the doors.















Woodland is about ten minutes north on I-5 from Sacramento. Only eight bucks to get in, free parking unlike some places I could name, and some friendly people. Heidrick AG History Center.

I got more pictures but I have to fix them. Lack of flash and half-dead batteries.

Odds and More Ends

Chew Toy

"Drug Free Zone"...."Just Say No Drugs"...., Uh no.

I've been to the dentist and had a drug free root canal. Many years ago. Was memorable, to say the least.

I was sound asleep and rolled over. Cat got her tail caught under my shin. She was not happy. Started chewing away at my right shin. I'm a very sound sleeper with a very high tolerance for pain, so she was probably on her second bite at the least, before I woke up. She did get my attention on the third bite. I reached down to push her off and she shifted her attack to my hand. Chomp.

So being still half asleep, I tended the holes in my thumb and just spritzed the right shin in the morning with hydrogen peroxide. Fast forward a week and the thumb is doing fine. The shin started turning red around the cat's autograph. So I'm on drugs. A rather potent antibiotic. So that's doing fine now.

The cat just looks at me as if to say, "It's your own @@#$@ fault for flattening my tail". Big cat. Big teeth.

Das Haus

Not much happening here at all as money has to be saved for the trip. The sprinkler system finally got so it doesn't leak when off. All the CFLs were swapped out for new lower wattage ones. I went from 19 14-watts to 19 9-watts. In the past it would have been a mixture of 60 watt incandescent bulbs with some 50 watt halogens. LED bulbs would be nice but the cheapest one is still above twelve dollars. Not until they get below five dollars will that start happening. Still, 19 time 4 watts (86 watts) is tempting when that happens. Only reason the CFL swap happened was that they were on sale. Still have 16 14 watt CFL's in the ceiling fans. But those particular 9-watts are not on sale....yet.

The kitchen is in full stop. The cabinet doors and drawers will start happening after the trip. Roof needs a few new shingles but it isn't raining, if one knows the old joke.

This Thing Called Work

It's going. Still shaking out for the new season.

Yeah, I Got Issues.....Not As Many as Some

The less money one has, the fewer issues there are. If one has no money at all, no issues, if one wants to go off the cliff in logical terms. Seriously, I make enough to get by, make some repairs, and keep afloat. That's a whole lot better then what some people are doing right now. It would be nice to make a little bit more though. To be able to start hiring people to do routine maintenance like oil changes and tire rotations.

The budget is pretty bare-bones already. The worrying thing is that the utility bills are going up. The city has already added a dollar per month since last year. The only reason it's only a dollar, is that I gave up the street yard waste pickup and down-sized the trash can. Might be time to go through the utility statements again and see what extras that crept in.

I could get a second job but that isn't happening. Go into business but California sucks for business owners........ I'm reluctant to go look for a new job because where I work, the pluses outweigh the drawbacks. So what to do, what to do...... ?

At the moment, keep a very tight line on expenses. Still I do need a whole new roof next year. Not just a few shingles.

So read on.......

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Yet another vacant lot is turning into a shopping center. Down in the 'hood', no less. Next to our new drugstore (not in the 'hood'), a vet is building a rather impressive place. Maybe a new supermarket soon. Rumor has it a new Safeway will be going up on the corner soon.

Nothing much in particular

Well, here I am. What did happen this weekend? Fuel, food, and then a visit to Border's Books. It was a crowded mess and the people doing the out of business sale brought in some nonsense to stuff the shelves. Some less then desirable stuffed animals and geegaws. Ten minutes of my life that will never be recovered.

Democrats and Republicans, what did they do? Slapped yet another band-aid on the oozing sore that is our gummint deficit. Yes, the can was kicked down the road. Ten years, no less. Even the Know-Nothing Party is starting to look good at this point. Even if they did throw the cornerstone of the Washington Monument in the Potomac*.

Why I have a Lotto ticket. My chances of being hit by lightening is much greater but I needed the morale boost. And if I win? Unlikely. The odds suck. But my morale sucked even worse. But if I win? Seriously, if I win....

Well, usual advice is to get a lawyer and do a blind trust to avoid really distant relatives,... heck no! I'd be there with bells on, right at their doorstep. I have no difficulty saying no, as some people can well attest. That and one can not trust lawyers as far as one could throw a shark tank. Talking National Aquarium sized ones here.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Work goes well. Well, not a hundred percent, but what does? It does go better then the rest of my time at present.

I still have to disappear for a week back east. Been dragging my heels and the bills have been helping in that regard. It's now looking like late September at this point. But it keeps getting pushed back. October is Dentist time. November gets nuts as does Christmas. And the TSA is doing the unfriendly grope at every airport now. I used to like flying once. Now it's...yecch. Hey, buy dinner first, will ya?

Mebbe next week will look better.

* So did they ever find the cornerstone? Nope. Probably buried under fill at this point. Builders went and made a replacement.

Bit's o' wire......

It turned out that this x-acto blade shank was just right for a jig.
















Fiendish this kit is. Just enough wire and no room for error. Error there was in plenty. So the side grab irons will need to come from somewhere else. Or will they?

It's been sitting like this for awhile now. Dabs of Ac are holding the hand rails. Barely. One sneeze and it's over.

Might necessitate a visit for attempt #2 for a fresh kit and the right stuff.

Brass Handrails

Take one impossibly thin brass wire and refer to the drawings. Squint through the magnifier while doing so. Is that it? Hmm. Think best to start with something "easy". Handrails?














So with a pair of needle nose, the first bend.















This will be the master for the other three. Also need to get a new drill bit. I leaned a little hard and that was that.

Wondering at this point if I need to start over. It's only 23 dollars. Add three more bucks for the proper paint and a few more for some small drill bits, ......and then it turns into a government project. Well, it got started so it gets finished.

Manana for now.

Illusion of Progress

Red?

Why it isn't boxcar red,.......could be because I have no red paint? Note the fine brass wire...that has to be turned into railings and brake lines. Then gotta turn those white metal castings into trucks.

Been awhile since I did scale modeling. A good time waster. It cost $23.00 more or less and and managed to kill a good part of the weekend and some evenings and mornings.


















The HO scale is one real foot equals eighty seven scale feet. The dime is there for reference.

Consider this the analog to those one thousand piece puzzles. Been there, done those too. Will there be a railroad...no. That would be a one hundred thousand piece puzzle. My craziness is not that extreme.











Yeah, the house. No big progress. Had to render unto the insurance company my bet that I would have an accident. I hope I lose. Still, that's some hinges and cabinet doors that won't be here til next month. Re-glued the sprinkler system though so that leak is now gone. Only had to dig up that spot of front yard twice.

Early Dark Thirty......

At Early Dark Thirty.....

A little glue, some caffeine, and some paint. My old Fuji, ancient as it is from the prehistoric digital camera period, does pretty goon for close, close, close ups.

Pictures speaking.....

What to do with leftover counter sections and plumbing. Build a standing hobby table.






















Then move in.



















It looks simple.....



















But it isn't.