Yellow Bricks Redux

A cat nearing the end.

2012-02-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

Another too quiet weekend. The cat is eating better but not really doing all that well. It seems her fungus has been ignoring the drug. So they upped the drug. Back we go to the vet in another week. The appointment is at 1400 hrs so it means I get to start work at 0400 hrs. Such joy. What sucks, is if it wasn't for her illness, is that the second half of the property tax payment would be done by now. The car insurance would be paid in full. The kitchen would have drawers by now. And last but not least, I could go tooling around on weekends and not have to combine chores with commutes. I even gave up a haircut for that animal. Urg. Well, that's happening next week. Another month and I'll look like Sasquatch.

So to put it bluntly, is when is too much for the cat to go on? Several factors here. Age, fifteen years. Arthritis that's pretty severe and a life long epiletic grand mal every month. Senile dementia just starting, and the fungus that not been responding to the drug. Also money. I really can't do anything heroic for the cat. It's already cut into the emergency reserve.

If and when it happens, it's not going to be easy. Fifteen years she's been my shadow.

What boredom can lead to.

2012-01-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-09T02:51:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-12T03:47:00.000-08:00

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

2011-10-11T04:49:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-30T03:11:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-14T13:28:00.000-07:00

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......

2011-08-12T02:36:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-02T03:13:00.001-07:00

Red?

2011-08-01T03:09:00.000-07:00

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......

2011-07-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

At Early Dark Thirty.....

2011-07-27T03:22:00.001-07:00

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.....

2011-07-25T19:26:00.001-07:00

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

Then move in.

It looks simple.....

But it isn't.

Space.......Someone else's frontier....

2011-07-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

When Atlantis landed, something happened.

The "S" went away from NASA.

It's the NAA now......

So we have to have Russian taxi rides now?

US Manned Space Flight......1961 - 2011... Rest In Peace.....

Slowly going along

2011-07-19T03:27:00.000-07:00

That's it. Four weeks and one lousy duct chase & fan hood?

I'm not all the way happy with it. See what caulk and paint will do.....

Ah et an Ah et an then ah et some moah

2011-06-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

Sitting here...digesting. Ah et an Ah et an then ah et some moah. You-all can figure that one out. Usable kitchens are nice. For lunch I had a pseudo Greek salad. Can't do any dairy but I did have olives. Lettice chopped, tomatoes qaurtered, cucumbers sliced, celery diced, and a simple dressing of olive oil, vinegar, salt and black pepper. Usually has powdered garlic in it with some generic Tabasco-like sauce in it to give it bite. Ah well, was good. Next go around, maybe a boiled egg.

For supper it was meatballs made of 27% fat hamburger (not near enough fat, need at least 35%) mixed with a touch of salt, black pepper, cumin, and some sage. Dropped those in a pot of water with some macaroni and some mushrooms. Boiled, then dumped into a colander, then dumped into a bowl with some tomato sauce and more black olives. Canned olives are super cheap here...and good. Stirred it up and chowed down. Did I chow down........all.....ambition.....is......G.O.N.E...... Good stuff.

The ice maker was got going last weekend so I'm having iced coffee. Like sweet cold tea, only better.

The disposal remains unwired. I looked at the old ducting from the old range hood and then left it where it'd been for the last year....on a floor in a closet. The grass did not get cut.

I will water the grass.

Counters

2011-06-21T04:21:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile. Had to deal with the medical profession. Yep, I'm good for another three years.

The kitchen got counters. Someone gave me some granite a while back so of course some of it had to go in. It wasn't easy getting in the bottom of the "U". That was a tight fit and the wall suffered somewhat. More plastering and sanding later.

Counters.

The longest section.

The granite section.

Whoop! Whoop! Oh @#$#!

2011-05-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

So I'm blowing the dust out of the smoke alarm and it goes off. Loud. And then a big red fire truck pulled up. Betcha there will be a bill in the mail. Arrgh. Do I even want to keep ADT next year? On the bright side, no one will ever break in to this place. Not that I have much worth stealing besides tools. And even then not much.

Did I promise pictures? Guess I did.

When I brought my 2003 Subaru Baja Sport, it had exactly 24 miles on the odometer. And much less dust.

Early morning before going into work. I get there about a quarter hour before the shift starts. Sneak a look at the production board. See what the bad/good news is. Friday afternoon there was a large pile of stuff that I sorted out for Tuesday. Really like to hit the ground running. Helps to have one's shoe laces tied, so to speak.

No, no one needs to know where I work.

My ongoing project. I gave all the lava gravel to a neighbor. The stream rocks were probably ripped off from the city by the previous owner. Wondering how to get rid of those. Any takers? Spent much quality time picking gravel out of the dirt and the weeds.

The sprinkler system is dying a slow death. Leaks pretty badly now. It is what happens when PVC pipe is glued together with ABS cement. Just unsticks after five years or so. So yet another repair project is on the spike.

Eventually this gets covered with pavers with a bench for sitting.

It's still there. Maybe next week. Strangely enough, my neighbors could care less. Still, it needs to go away.

Three more unwanted brick piers on the other side of the front yard. I put some new nails and a spare board in the neighbor's fence. It needs replacing but it will keep going another two or three years. Also she did appreciate it and gave me some home-baked chocolate chip cookies. Was delicious.

Nice thing about older houses is the size of the lots. Nice big front lawn and the back yard is no slouch either.

No clue what this is. Aloe perhaps? "Shrug".

My bushes are flowering and yes, I don't know what these are either. Face it, I grew up with Mid-Atlantic flora. About the only things I can tell apart out here are the oaks, redwoods, and palm trees.

Hey, I worked on this floor. Enjoy the picture.

Just another slow afternoon. Mummified slug on the top of the security door which is stuck on pretty well. If I get a significant other, she can pry it off. Security sticker right on the door to get the point across. It's really a metal sheet with little holes. My boxwood along the garage wall along with a grate over the window.

My cousin gave me some plans for a semi-scale hydroplane. Boat shed in the back?

Windows

2011-05-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

The modern trend for windows, especially in tract housing, is to just wrap them in drywall. If one has paid a little extra, one might get a sill. Somehow, a recess with glass in it has never cut it. It is an opening and in my theme of creeping vernacular Greek Revival, it just doesn't go. I did have to do just that for the sink window since it's lower then the counter. It may change once the counter is in. Some ideas like going part way or doing a simplified pediment. Somehow Greek Revival needs a pediment somewhere.

The "cheap way", wrap it in Sheetrock and mud. I did sneak in the 1 &1/2" sill of Doug Fir. It"s a little bit more rugged then a half inch of plaster.

The dining area window. The sill will have to be extended 3/4" each side to make it look better. Easy enough. The header was crooked so the top of the casing was "adjusted" to look right.

Detail of the molding.

They Got Him

2011-05-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

Osama Bin Laden....by US Forces. Just announced.

What now?

2011-04-26T05:25:00.001-07:00

Some Progress.....

Still two weeks away from a finish floor but had to stick in one piece of underlayment. Just could not wait. Yes, a Subaru Baja can haul 4' by 8' sheets of plywood. Just don't do it on the main drag. Three and half feet of serious overhang out the back. Took the back way and had no "blue light specials".

Upcoming projects....

1. Burn up what's left of the baseboard molding in the coat closet.
2. Case in the dining area window.
3. Get the kitchen sink window ready for cabinets. This one will have a narrow well since the countertop will be at least four inches higher then the sill.

Foreign Entanglements

The Father of Our Country is getting dissed. George Washington warned us against foreign entanglements. Predator drones in Libya Now? Hey, liberation from a head of state is up to the people of that country to make it happen. Not us. Not our problem.

Toekick before base cabinet, like a cart before a horse.

2011-04-18T04:15:00.000-07:00

Not all sloth and indolence this weekend. My neighbor gave a huge bit of prickly pear to me so it's leaning against the fence for the moment. I'll stick it in the ground pretty soon. Have to prop up all the other cactus around the patio. They fell over during the winter.

I was trying to capture an early AM in California and this is as good as I could get for now.

So there was this forty eight feet of baseboard right where I could trip over it, and did at least twice, so I started putting it in. I always wondered how cabinets would look like if I used that instead of the usual toe kicks. Also cheaper. So what the hey...off it went, creeping around the walls and bases like ivy on a house.

As seen, it's a little high but that didn't stop business. A quick pass through a saw and on it went. I use caulk to stick them on and nail away when it gets where it should be. I may nail a few days later....

Oh for a sink, counter, dishwasher other then my two hands, let alone running water.......

It's a pay as I go kitchen though. Not borrowing a red cent. Means when I get paid it gets a little bit more done. I have even been tempted to nuke what's left of previous 401K just to move it to mostly "done",but resisted that for the nonce.

No cabinets yet but plenty of toe-kick/baseboard. Guess I could have waited but nah, was antsy. Looking at the future Northwest easy-reach. Two pieces left to go under the coffee cabinet and the remainder of the baseboard goes in the coat closet.

I did order a microwave shelf but it stuck out too far. I guess they are still designing for big humongus 1980- monsters. I like the little ones anyway. Guess it could have had a dedicated outlet but just not happening. Been enough work in that wall.

So what happened to the microwave shelf? Did I give it back. Nope. Might need that faux maple for some patching. And it is a shelf so it became an interim counter. Interesting thing about IKEA base cabinets is that they were designed to hang off the same type of rail that the wall cabinets do. The front has legs to prop it up. Too late now. They get screwed down into the platform. The top back gets screwed to the wall. Two ways of doing it, 1/2" ply scrap for a brace or drill into the top back counter support and use that. Both work, see which works best.

The future hood and chase for the range. No cabinet here as it is just a waste to have two doors covering something full of vent pipe and surrounding wood. So the hood chase going to be built out of either real maple plywood or a re-purposed IKEA wall cabinet. The front and sides will be wrapped or covered with stainless steel or maybe some tile going up the front. I might do a mixture of stainless and white but really prefer all white for appliances.

The jobs are starting to come back. There was a janitor job that requires a security clearance but it would have to be a lot more money for cleaning up after other people. Not for me.

Turning yet another corner, or two, or three.

2011-04-11T05:14:00.001-07:00

I was busy this weekend. Another T-Mobile customer (me) defected....to Verizon. I wanted to get all eight base cabinets but economic reality interfered so it was three. And not full cabinets but shells at that. Still enough to get rolling on the baseboards later in the kitchen "dining" area. The economic reality was the bills. They gotta get paid too.

On to the pics.....

Newest home of the coffee pot.

West of the dishwasher.

Trained Termites........the dishwasher supply and drain line route.

It took nine months to turn the corner here.

Then thirty minutes to get to the next corner.

Muddy picture and I can't find the better camera at the moment. I'm using my ancient Fujifilm beast. Still works.

Water

2011-03-28T04:26:00.001-07:00

The parking lot is under the bridge...and under the water. It has to be least six feet of water if not more.

The Freeport Bridge....I like it.

Some kind of water tower along the levee. The interesting part is the graffiti.

A lot of water. Taken at fifty miles per hour. The video upload crapped out so that will be tried again later.

Fan

2011-03-28T04:11:00.001-07:00

I was at The Restore for Habitat for Humanity and found this fan. It had been painted by the previous owner. Really nice job too. Art, definite art. So I took it home. Wish I could have seen the room it came from. Detail, the whole thing and a video. Mondrian influence, might stick it on a wall.

Shiny

2011-03-10T04:30:00.000-08:00

Work had sent me out and as I was waiting to go to the next stop, there was a quarter on the ground. A shiny new state quarter. South Dakota. Left it there. I just didn't need it.

Something in me said," Leave it, it's not yours."

At least one knows now, there's a South Dakota quarter out there.

Ceasar still wants his

2011-03-08T04:24:00.000-08:00

So this thing called work, early dark thirty again. It may be awhile before sawdust happens again. My energy level is just getting back from when the sinuses went south. That and the money tree needs to give it's crop of leaves for the second property tax bill.

If anything happens, it will be on materials already on hand.

More cabinets

2011-03-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

The kitchen crawls onward. Three more wall cabinets. The refrigerator is finally back in it's place after half a year. The platform on which the IKEA base cabinets is in progress.

Once this is in place and leveled out, just drop the bases on top.

"Fine" Cabinetry

2011-02-28T04:35:00.000-08:00

Start with a blank wall. Carefully set the height of the rail. Being that I'm not vertically challenged, I set it a bit high.

IKEA cabinets are flat packs and assemble easily. Ignore the instructions and use glue and pneumatic tools too. Blocks with bolts slides in the track. The cabinet hangs off of those and you just push it wherever you want.

One More.......

The range is up, screwed together and cranked down.

Shelves.......

I moved right in of course. Total cost of this side, just over a hundred dollars.

More paint and IKEA?

2011-02-22T04:38:00.000-08:00

A nice white ceiling and now much touch up. The paint on the floor is where the rollers got the excess paint rolled out. Cabinets start real soon. Skipping the cabinet over the fridge as it's hard to get to. Makes no sense at all except for the bottom line of cabinet companies. Same goes for the cabinet over the stove. Open the door and most of it taken up by duct work. Why not just a chase with decorative panels or tile work?

Thinking IKEA cabinets now but making the doors instead. I like the hanging rail. The chase over the stove will most likely be a re-purposed 30" by 30" IKEA wall cabinet (It's cheap enough-almost), but I do got a lot of lumber cluttering up this joint.

There was something called Allure vinyl plank but I decided against it. Too new and they need to work out the bugs. Beta testers do not lead untroubled lives. Leaning back to sheet vinyl now.

This thing called work...., hope today is better then Friday. That was an exceedingly weird day.

Painting at Oh Dark Thirty

2011-02-17T05:08:00.000-08:00

Painting at 0400 in the morning. Not as bad as it sounds. I went to sleep at 1930 hours anyway. Ceiling next. Gotta patch the minor stuff, scrape it a wee bit, texture, then prime. That's tomorrow and possibly after work.

Almost

2011-02-16T05:07:00.000-08:00

The kitchen walls were almost painted then I ran out of paint. The old underlayment was almost out except for that part under the "interim" kitchen*. The ceiling was smooth except for that part above the lights.

A sea of almost done going on. After fixing some of my roof on Saturday, sloth and indolence set in. So this morning one "almost" turned into done. The old underlayment is now a new pile in the garage awaiting a trip to the dump. Tomorrow I paint, the day next is the ceiling.

Paint

2011-02-06T16:07:00.001-08:00

So finally rolling again. Well, rolling primer and cutting in the finish coat. Before I got to this point, procrastination was setting in. I hate sanding drywall. Then the light bulb lit. Most of this will be behind cabinet, baseboard and tile. It just doesn't have to to stick out a lot. So only what is going to show got the elbow grease.

See just how narrow this kitchen is. The color palette will have to be medium to light. Dark, it will look like a deep slot. At this point the walls are somewhat sanded. Note the windows were not cased in drywall. I'm old school. Wood casings only please.

One coat of primer and working around the infrastructure with finish paint. Nice new chop saw after I destroyed the old one which belonged to my cousin. So I got him a new one. This one also has two axis as opposed to one so the miter cuts will be much easier.

Turning the corner...again.

A scrap of birch veneer ply with the wall colour and some poly. Yep, the cabinets will be Birch ply and Birch hardwood. The tile behind the counters will be subway tile, 4" by 6", running bond. The counters might be tile but not looking like tile. Still got to figure that one out.

Art.

2011-01-25T03:16:00.000-08:00

It was really foggy and I had my camera along. Might have been safer to be using a non hands-free cell but for the sake of ART, one must make sacrifices.

More Accidental Art.

This thing called work....extra hours..... trying to clear a bottle neck. Some stuff has to go into storage but it would be nice to know what it is. Sorting, lotsa sorting. The other lift drivers are far faster then me and could run laps in warehouse like Mario Andretti. I'm still like that horse that finishes first in the next race. Where I shine is getting stuff ready to go up. They pull in, I load em' up and it's off to the races!

Future Views

2011-01-24T04:05:00.000-08:00

O Dark Thirty on the way to work on a drizzly morning.

Streetlights.

Traffic lights.

What the future kitchen may look like. Still haven't decided if I want a pantry cabinet at the end or in the far corner. The coffee cup shelf may change too.

Who's looking in the window?

I didn't want to widen the kitchen. The living room is barely wide enough anyway. So I get to live with 7'11" across. That's adequate for this place.

The important thing is counter space. Miserly builders like to put postage stamp sized counters sprinkled around the kitchen in odd corners and beside sinks and ranges. They must think people will eat nothing but take-out and frozen meals. So this kitchen will have plenty of elbow room for proper cooking.

The floor, cabinets, and counters are the default textures for the CAD program.

Sal Mon Nella

2011-01-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

I really didn't expect to go down so hard.

It could have been the Mexican sardines. Or was it the Texas flour tortillas? So I'm able to run at dead slow right now. Tried speeding up to slow ahead but the cramps came back. Lot of , uh, ralphing in most of the night and the morning. Around noon, risked moving. Very....slowly....very...carefully. Of course the attendant chills, fever and feebleness.

I'll be able to function tomorrow but I'm gonna hurt. I have a lot of empathy for the guy who had the the chest-burster in Alien. Know exactly how he felt.

Got to get rolling on that kitchen. Home cooked food is much safer.

Jerry's here.

2011-01-04T04:11:00.000-08:00

It's his second day and he probably is still asleep. It is 0428 hrs after all. Bet before noon he will be making a slow news day faster. So one could start a betting pool. I'm thinking hiring freezes at the moment. There was a cartoon in the local McClatchy rag. It should Jerry puttering down the road in a beetle with Meg in a humongus SUV towering over him. Well. perhaps it should show Jerry put-putting around the corner and Meg wheels up in a ditch.

Gonna be a lot of surprises.

Road Snow Trip

2011-01-01T18:30:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve, I headed north to watch the next year arrive. Flying low over the asphalt.

See that white topped range? Snow.

Before Geico used a lizard with an accent as a mascot, there were two rodents with fluffy tails that dashed across a road just before a car. After the the car screeched into a skid, they would do the high five. Well, ain't totally bogus. There is a turn on Rte 36 that a squirrel has dashed across the road just about every-time I went around. I first saw them 15 years ago. In all those years in the warm weather, one would go for the glory. Never did see a dead one, but the scavengers up there are pretty good about snarfing up free protein.

I've never used Geico and probably never will. The price point is too high. But someone there or at their ad agency, at the time had to have driven around that corner.

The shoe tree. Some of those shoes are in better shape then mine. Someday I'll leave a pair.

Detail......shoe fruit.

Eventually I reached white stuff. Lots of white stuff.

Some good views up this high. I pulled off on a wide shoulder and took pictures.

My Subaru in it's natural element. When I came back, there was fresh snow on the road too.

Looking through the high voltage lines....

What a view.

Imagine skiing downhill through those trees. How far would one get before a Sonny Bono happened?

Lights......

So I was at the house up in the mountains watching the New Year come in. Or tried too. I dozed off. I woke up when the guy in the next house fired four shots.

When I got back there was still some snow left in the bed.

A lonely oasis

2010-12-21T09:34:00.001-08:00

Just running water in the kitchen now. A lonely bedraggled sink base sitting in front of the window. A folding table with a microwave, coffee maker, coffee grinder, and a crippled bread machine on it. This is the Interim Kitchen. I've decided to make the cabinets. The cheapest off-the-shelves cabinets average 150 dollars per unit. For that, its' mostly vinyl paper over pressed wood. Nice fronts if one goes for the "wood" look, but not much else. I figure half that cost if I build them and that includes the tools.

I'll also scope out Habitat's Restore here. They have to have one in a city of this size. Might have former kitchens. Piles of former house that have to go to the dump. Twenty bucks a trip. That will be happening second pay period in January. I've been shoveling away my obligations to Caesar and his minions. The last half of the property tax will be the first pay period of February. After that, somewhat smoother waters.

Work is in that particular state of stuff going from where it was to where it's supposed to go. Simple in concept but can be difficult in execution. For every intended step I did yesterday, there was an unintended step. Move stuff into place but then remove excess stuff. Find space for it but then find more space for other things in that space in other spaces. Just part of being in logistics. I got to point B after a while but it was a scenic route unfortunately.

Cold Food in a Bare Kitchen?

2010-12-14T08:18:00.001-08:00

I looked at my stats. Two spam-sites from Russia? Hmm. Anyway, the question of the day is, does the hot food or running water go away in the kitchen? Or both? Ghosts of previous cabinets on the wall show that the original builder kitchen wasn't much either. I found scrawled on the existing kitchen cabinets something like, "1979 Canyon Falls". It was a mismash of cabinets. Mostly Canyon Falls cast-offs with one cheap Home depot oak cabinet and a Millspride.

I am tempted to nuke both the hot food and the running water and just get the walls done. Too bad I deleted the sink hookup in the coat closet. Thing is that funds for the next two months are allocated for clearing the insurance and taxes. What I'm going on right now is existing material that was brought previously.

Bernie Sanders, great filibuster he did. Yes he's more liberal then a
Democrat and a Socialist to boot, but he did lay out the whole financial mess. I hope this tax and unemployment extension deal goes down like a house of cards. This could mean a trillion less in the National Debt if it fails. Would be a good thing.

Work goes. Winding down the remnant of the year for the preparation for next year. This week is going to be a real bear, then it gets easier.

Pictures in a bit but not of work.

How Many?

2010-12-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

The Four days of The Turkey, how far did I get? Well, the wall needs sanding now. The remnant of the old kitchen is grimly hanging on. Did get all the leftover lumber out of the way.

I might be working for a government contractor. Or not. In any case I'm avoiding Wikileaks like the plague. Still why did the big G build that huge database and dump all that stuff in it without compartmentalization? And get this. It had, depending on the news source, anywhere between half a million to 2.5 million users. Aside from Assange, I betcha twenty Zorkmids, every halfway competent intelligence organization from the rest of the world has already compromised it.

Whomever implemented this turkey and set the permissions....they are the ones who need to be nailed upside down to a wall. Maybe Julian Assange did a favor by outing this idiocy.

Jeez, they teach how to set up databases correctly in community colleges!

Four Days of The Turkey2

2010-11-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

I went up into the %$#%$ attic and fed phone wire. Fiberglas is fun. Itches! Nail plates over where the wires run through the studs and fire blocks. Galvanized steel nail plates prevent nails and screws from making one's day interesting. Boring is good. Tomorrow is sheet-rock time. Oh, happy dry white turkey meat day....

I'll have to go up in the attic again.

Four Days of The Turkey1

2010-11-25T07:48:00.000-08:00

If anyone remembers 6 days of The Condor with Robert Redford. Probably not. Instead of International Intrigue, it will be banging on an old tired house. Listening to C-Span's Washington Journal. North Korea better pull in it's horns. Someone might decide that they may need a terminal whacking.

The Wall

2010-11-18T10:04:00.000-08:00

It's like a journey fixing up a place. The wall is like crossing a river. I have to rebuild the bridge and I'm almost done. Next month I'll reach the other side. Soon it will be ready for paint and then onward I go.

Glad it's over

2010-11-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

The elections are over. Thank all the odd gods. Now it's back to the holiday advertising. Merry F***ing Christmas.

Saturday was work and a road trip. Sunday was getting groceries. It rained. And that was the weekend.

Some aphorisms for warehouses.

1. Clutter is real bad.
2. Rule of Five,.....move at least five small items at time, two medium, or one large. Set a minimum and try to work above it.
3. Track everything. Trust no one.
4. Cardboard is not your friend. Once a box is empty, lose it. The stuff attracts dirt, gets underfoot, and last but not least, is a fire hazard.
5. Broom it.

At times pallets get damaged or broken. I've been gathering up the loose boards and pieces. Want to commit art. Just need time.

Just do it.

2010-11-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Voting is more important then who we vote for. If you don't like what you see, write something in. Doesn't matter who. Tomorrow is our day to remind our public servants that they are public servants.

Feeling very uneasy. Seeing more trucks parked then recently. Stores are busy only in some places. Thinking it's going to be a hard Christmas season. Work is going. Hoping the volume stays up.

So the economy isn't so hot. I don't make much. But then why do I work on the house? It's a metaphor for improving my life. As the house gets better so hopefully does my life. And that's it. Time to get ready for work.

Broken Bread Machine Baking

2010-11-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

Find a large bowl or pot. Toss in three cups and bit of whole wheat flour. A largish dash of ground cinnamon. Some sugar and a dash of baking soda. Do the cement mixing bit with a fork. Add a small hand full of raisins. A largish cup of water and some olive oil. Repeat the cement mixing bit. Add sprinkles of flour or water to get the , ugh, clay-like consistency. Knead it for a few minutes.

Punch/flatten/fold.

Punch/flatten/fold.

Punch/flatten/fold.

Punch/flatten/fold.

Feel much better now.

Drop the lump in the busted* bread maker.

Set to bake only.

Push the big RED button.

Wait an hour and a half.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Wish I didn't work swing. I'd rather do this after the workday. Picture forthcoming when it's done.

Not pretty but it is good.

*Ultimate Bread Machine 2500. makes good bread but the bread pan tends to metal fatigue. It did. For hundred bucks I can get a new one. For $40.00 I can get parts. Or just use it as is.

Glocks 1, Knife 0

2010-10-31T21:13:00.000-07:00

Some Halloween. I still got candy left. Work just lucked out. No grandmothers this time. But some of these trick or treaters were not young.

No rain this weekend so I watered the window. Dry as bone. So I watered the wall above it. Some water was collecting behind my levee of caulk but not enough to go out the holes. Need a good rain to test my waterworks. Maybe I'll wash my car.

I was driving to work one day and this side road was closed off. Someone had a death by cops. Yes, cops. He came at them with a knife. Extremely bad idea. I know there are better pictures but here's mine. Looking down Truxel from Del Paso.

Treasure Trove

2010-10-24T19:27:00.001-07:00

I did get the stick out of the mud. I had four cups of coffee today. The wall is more complete. A slight drip from the top of the window in a driving rain. Much better then before but dry is preferable. Caulk might do it but the best way would be Z flashing.

Listening to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams was a genius.

So I was pulling the drywall away and pulling and pulling. I heard a "clink". Not quite a chest of gold, but a lost treasure all the same.

So I counted it. $8.76 worth.

Mired

2010-10-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Procrastinating. Once the wall gets finished up, I can continue on with painting, trim and journeying on toward my goal of washing dishes by machine. 1004 hours and not a second cup of Joe yet. Nuts, time to get this stick out of the mud.

Rock collecting.

2010-10-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

There was a small feature by the front steps. Some river rock with lava rocks. Hard to trim around. So it's going away now. Probably dump it on the back patio for storage.

Lessee, the State of California wants to nick me 192 bucks for the car, and the County of Sacramento wants 788 bucks for the house. Insurance is almost due. That's around 800. It';s gonna get tight.

Das Fenster

2010-10-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Looks innocuous, one insignificant window in the wall. I put something called Sikaflex Concrete Repair around it and on the crack above. It might work. It's deadly enough. Says do not breathe, eat, nor drink, in short. That and it can catch on fire too. Must refer to smokers and such. Big warning to use outside....so I did.

Much work behind the window. The rot is gone, the structure is sound once again, and the stucco is no longer doing all the work. The only thing left to do is the water test to make sure it stays out.

A whole freaking weekend on that wall. Not a blade of grass got cut. The leaves are still where the wind and gravity put them.

It's awake?

2010-10-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to C-Span and swilling my third cup of coffee. I used a cut-off tool on the window flange that's nailed into the last piece of wood that has to come out. Up since 0521..... Go figure.

Wishes.......

2010-10-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

If the wall would just fix itself. Still got to figure out to flash the top of the window. That was a significant water ingress point. Once all that is done, the water hose will be used to test for leaks.

My hearing protection broke. The plastic is brittle. Must be old product. Next place I buy em' will be Lowe's.

Sunset

2010-10-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

It took most of a day but the structure below the sub floor was repaired. Screwed, glued, nailed, and even Simpson Strongties beneath. The rotten wood was replaced with treated where the weather could get at it. Plenty of brain cell killing wood preservative was used. The leaning Pier O' Pizza is still there. Maybe next week.

This was sold to me as treated wood. Sure..... Hence the mass slaughter of brain cells. I drowned anything that was within a foot of the wall with a copper salt solution. Note the discoloration is only a quarter inch at most.

Sunday Sunset.......

Sloth and Indolence

2010-09-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

I even left the last leaning pier alone. Speed and Industry is only happening at work. The only action of note is taking place at the south wall. Yet more rot being cut out. Might have to earn more money soon. The roof can go this winter but barely. Ah well, time to make tracks. Gotta set up an appointment for the car. Weird that in this state they care about emissions but could care less if the thing can stop or not, let alone having lights burned out.

Going....going.....

2010-09-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

The last pier in the row which is now on its last week of existence. It actually does tilt that much. The neighbors are happy that these are going away.

Eventually this will be below ground level. The white stuff is concrete covering the cut off steel fencepost that was used as reinforcing.

Look behind the rose bush. It's the last one left.

Eight 5 gallon buckets of broken pavers and mortar per pier. This is the bulk of my weekly dump run. The intact pavers are being used by my neighbor in his back garden.

Subtraction

2010-09-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

This thing called work real soon....that is work for money....not much money at that. Ah, so be it.

The important thing is that there is one less leaning pier and that thirty-two square feet of underlayment was pried up and piled in the indoor landfill. Interesting stuff. 3/8" chipboard nailed down atop hot asphalt. They really were experimenting with new building techniques. The side of the window was de-drywalled. The thing was leaking from the top. It does have flashing flanges but they are behind the stucco which is the sheathing. No good what so ever at keeping the water out.

Pics later. Promise.

One less leaning tower

2010-09-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

One less leaning tower of "pizza" as my neighbor calls it. Good exercise. Note the existing (Only for a week) pier was built without plumb lines nor any effort for nice tight mortar joints.

Coming soon, the south wall follies.

2010-09-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

Finally

If I don't get gouged on the car's emissions test tomorrow, the kitchen wall will be under way. The game plan is to replace the sill with treated and then start replacing the rotten studs one by one. Since the stucco is the sheathing, it will have to be painted with a shellac primer before any new wood goes against it. The tar paper did not survive the moisture.

Things that work for me

1. Always show up for work or any other appointments, fifteen to twenty minutes early. Not only does one impress people (well some), but it also builds in a safety cushion in case of traffic or Martian Invasions.

2. Before buying anything, visualize it with a thick layer dust on it. Then imagine tripping over it.

3. Money is energy. Conserve energy.

4. Be wary of free lunches.

5. Prevention is much cheaper then a cure. Maintenance is much cheaper then a repair.

6. Always demand three sources for a statement. If a rumor, four.

7. Income should always exceed outcome.

And with that, this thing called work.

Fun with air tools......

2010-09-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

It was a fun weekend. I went to the auto museum. Pictures soon as I fix the dark tone. I went flash-less and it didn't work out well. Some early Toyotas. They were very solid. All steel and paint and chrome. No plastic.

In my own lackadaisical way, things did get done at the house. Two coats of Valspar indoor/outdoor high gloss white enamel on the coat closet doors. The hardware goes on as soon as I can find out where the other knob went. Baseboard soon too.

There were five leaning piers when I bought the place.

Then there were four.

Now only three. Air chisels are fun. Also managed to salvage quite a few pavers for later. On a real roll here now. By October this row will be gone.

I had to cut the steel fencepost out of it, and put some concrete over it. Kids running around the place from next door as the sounds of destruction tend to draw them. I'll dig the footing out later.

Usually they go play in traffic.

Hot day in the asylum

2010-09-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

I'm getting better. I can actually breathe through my nose part of the time. Having a cold at 102 degrees F in the shade is interesting. Sweating and sneezing at the same time.

The bulk of my energy is expended at work so I'm only to having actually just hanged the closet doors. Straight and plumb is later. I had to stick a block under one bottom pivot. The floor isn't very level. Also had to redo a roller in the garage door. Mini sledges are great precision whackers.

Stumblin' on

2010-08-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

Slow going ahead. Leaned the bi-fold doors against the wall and piled the hardware on a shelf. Nice doors though. Also more touch-up. Ah well. This thing called work. Nasty sinus thing going on. Sneezing so hard....

Pics when the doors go up, primed, painted and with knobs.

Oh My Ears......

2010-08-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

I just heard ten seconds of Sarah Palin. I was having breakfast at the time. Not a good combination. She was free-associating as usual. Almost like a beat poet, but not in a good sense.

Checking babies....?

2010-08-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

Please Check Oversize Baggage and Infants

Semi-somnolent at RDU, waiting for my flight back home. Maybe the announcer got her script wrong. Anyway, it sounded cool. Putting infants with the checked baggage. Alas. Was not to be. Last leg of my trip home, there was a howler in the front and a seat kicking shrieker in the back.

Couldn't find any batteries in the terminal and I had a dead camera. Seems that they have fallen victim to the security rules. Ah well. Picked up a biography of Henry Adams who was the grandson of John Quincy Adams. That will be my entertainment during breaks.

The car had quite a layer of dust on it.

On my trip to Raleigh, I had to run for a plane in Minneapolis. I only made it since it was broken. As soon as I got on board though, somehow it fixed itself and we were off.

Das Haus

Now that I can get on with my life for another year, it was time for forward motion. So I now have a working linen closet again. Doors and trim for later as I have gumption. Also going to start peeling the rotten wall. Neighbor had quite a pile of pine straw so I grabbed it. Mulch is mulch and the price was right. Free.

Attic hatchway all nice and touched up. Handles for ease of use.

More touch up. No room for a shelf and rail so it has wardrobe hooks.

Just one more.

Detail from my sister's house. I like these. Gonna copy them somehow. Different molding for the pillars. Perhaps a modified Doric?

Other side.

Here they are used as a means of delineating a space from another. It's a Baroque spacing. Two together, then a space, then two together.

The end of the new mother-in-law suite on my sister's house. It's a nice big room with plenty of light. Screened in porch. A play room beneath.

One could give a speech here.

A place for ease. Bob the Cheatin' Bunny lives in the corner. He gets to come out and play.

Down under. This will get a slab and some screening too. My bro-in-law plans to do some grilling down here.

Das-vedanya

2010-08-19T04:57:00.001-07:00

One more day. Then off into the blue skies. Taking bets if my luggage actually shows up on the same side of the country, let alone the same city.

I am looking forward to coming back, and I haven't left yet........

Miscellaneous Thoughts

2010-08-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

The Uh, Recovery, Uh.

About that recovery..... hmmm ..... why are the various store shelves getting emptier? Oh yeah, they try to hide it, but not even the cleverest merchandising will disguise lack of product. I got some replacements for my wardrobe at a mall that is usually packed on weekends. Looking not so packed now-a-days.

The people who I work for (and you don't need to know about), is still pretty well stocked and they at least intelligently manage the inventory so there is always something for the customer. Good to fall in with a bunch of smart cookies.

Some stores just take out shelves and even rows of shelves, some just put out whatever didn't sell. At the Sears I went to, there was a plethora of size 13 shoes. Very few 9s and 10s. Odd sizes don't get replaced often. Especially wide 10s. I finally found a pair. Paid more then I wanted to but had no choice. Old shoes were getting nasty.

Wires

I have internet again. The cord goes out a window to the box. I stuck in a splitter so the @#%##^ alarm system will have a connection too. As for the house wiring, it's shot. Gonna be much quality time in the attic running new phone lines.

On Strike.

Yep, the construction team of M.M.I., otherwise known as me, myself, and I, has downed all tools. Just have to get a matter of a family visit out of the way. If by some fortuitous chance the flight doesn't go and I have to stay on the Western side of the country, will definitely be not too brokenhearted.

Droid/Kleenex

George Lucas came up with the word "Droid". It's a contraction of "Android". Being no slouch , he of course trademarked it. The word is escaping into public usage much like "Kleenex" did. Although Kimberly Clark still tries to control the usage of the word/term "Kleenex", it has escaped into the popular lexicon. To most of us including me, Kleenex means any tissue paper despite the best efforts of it's trademark owner.

Wiki refers to this as the generalized use of a trademark. Guess time will tell if George gets to keep "Droid", or if it escapes into the wilds of popular usage. Sounds better then "Robot" though.

Google may not like it when I say, "Go google it". but that been a done deal for some time now. Oh, they still try and protect it, but it's become a popular substitute for "Go look that up online.". One could almost hear Google's head honchos grinding teeth if one was to say, "Go google that on Bing.".

The State

There is the not-so-slight matter of the upcoming elections. If one had to bet money, the safest bet would be Meg Whitman by a nose. I just know she is gonna be firing people. Lots of people. I put them in the high risk of job terminations employer section. Also the pensions are going to be whittled down and the employee unions will have a tough time as well.

Lasik. LASIK. Flap and Zap.

I got LASIKED eight years ago. It was state of the art then but since has been replaced by safer means of going to 20-20 vision. Things such as "In-tacts", and just ablating the surface of the cornea (LASEK). In Lasik, (Laser in situ keratotomy) a flap is cut in the cornea and the underlying tissue is vaporized to correct the myopia.

The fly in the ointment is that there are nerves in the cornea surface for feedback to regulate tear production. The nerves get severed in part or in whole, depending on how the flap is cut. Sometimes they do grow back together, sometimes not. If the nerves aren't providing feedback for tear production, then there is no or little tears being produced. This is called Dry Eye Syndrome or DES. Mine is pretty mild. It's only a bear at night and if the humidity is low.

Dry eyes is the Achilles Heel of LASIK. I've heard as high as 85 percent of people will develop it. That and if it does go away in the first year, will return several years later. If I could go back eight years and not do LASIK, I would. My time machine unfortunately is broken. I sincerely suggest anyone who is considering LASIK, not do so.

Just one more shelf......

2010-07-29T05:45:00.000-07:00

DSL as translated by AT & T this morning could stand for Dial-up Simulation Line.

Three shelves are not enough for a linen closet. So some sawing, nailing, and cursing in the wee hours later, I had this.

Work is pretty soon , so gotta go.

Shelves and more shelves.

2010-07-28T04:45:00.000-07:00

Since the books took over the old linen closet location, I had to find another. The coat closet is a huge space and so it gave up one end. Granted, it's the furthest spot from the bedrooms but the prime spot was taken up by wiring, an alarm system, and the attic hatch. So onto the pictures.

There was no way to move this without ripping apart and rebuilding two bedroom closets. The attic space is limited anyway and with a huge garage attached to this small house, no need to have better access for more storage.

The hatch was re-trimmed and given handles and some paint to make it look nice. It was the last vestige of hot pink left. But not for long.

Are your eyes bleeding yet? This was beyond baaaad......

The first mark was set at sixty-six inches from the floor. A level was used to transfer the height around the walls.

I nailed up the combination shelf ledger/coat-hook rail.

No primer on this part. Since the alarm wiring is on the outside of the old ledger, it was left in situ and painted the color of the wall.

The lower ledgers are in. Since the next stud in the back wall is six inches beyond the ends of the lower ledgers, the brackets transfer the load to the corner.

Two coats of Valspar enamel later.

Blank Wood Canvas

2010-07-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

I found this slat, broken and with bent nails. The grain and colour looked interesting. So I asked politely and fed it to my power tools. I cut the nails out of it, then sawed the broken edges off on the table saw. After which it got sanded.

It's a blank canvas for me. I do have some ideas.

So, more later. Gotta go and do this thing called work.

Of iPads and Mice and Men and Other Things

2010-07-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

The No iPad Theory of Money Management

The inestimable Quinn*. A brilliant post on why she wasn't buying an iPad. Go look it up. I can't do all your work. I'm not buying an iPad either. Same reason. No funds. Also I'm not that stupid with the money I do have. If Apple comes up with an iWhatever, by the time it hits the market, there will be a cheaper, more capable, and probably more durable clone available.

I don't worry much about money as I don't have much money. I do worry about optimal utilization of my money. I'll admit I didn't need to buy my project yesterday but we all slip now and then. Still, it has 570 parts, most of which are very small. I could make it last years.......

There are some very simple rules that I do follow about money.

1. If I don't have the money to buy something, I do without.

2. Never buy anything on the same day that a need for it arose. Think about it for awhile. If it's a physical object, try to visualize it with an eighth of an inch of dust on it. The only exception is fuel and coffee.

3. Always review the bills as they come in each month. Utilities such as phone companies are always sneaking in some new feature that isn't needful nor free.

4. Randomly and periodically, change the debit card to lessen the chance of it getting hacked. Always sign it, "Please check ID".

5. Don't borrow money if at all possible. Save up for an item. Again, visualize one's self tripping over it.

6. Preventative Maintenance is always done. It doesn't matter if it's me or the car or the house. Problems that get fixed before they happen are the cheapest of all. Floss is cheaper then dentures. Oil changes are cheaper then engines. And so on.

Money is a form of energy storage and also the medium in which we swim. Conserve energy!

Das Haus

Oooh, spell check hates German. Tough. The wall cabinets are now all down, knocked apart and de-nailed. Next I gotta get the underlayment all up and pull the stove out and mothballed. Then and only then can I start repairing the South wall of the kitchen. Also got to do touch up on the walls that are finished and get the doors painted.

The Baja has commercial tags now. I can haul away bits of former house without worrying about John Law. Eight dollars to the DMV, fifteen to the weigh station. Just one load out so far but it was sitting on its axles. I'm really looking forward to a nice clear garage now.

*Heard that phrase so I shamelessly reused it. At least I don't lie about it like the notable plagiarist, the Honorable Joesph Biden, Vice President of the United States of America.

I slept through the Annual Armageddon Again

2010-07-05T16:46:00.000-07:00

My muse was on holiday. A long holiday. Busy doing nothing....including writing...nothing. House repairs....a new section of fence and two outdoor bulbs replaced. Other then that...nada. I cut the grass every other week. Really glad there's no HOA here. Sloth and Indolence at the house. Speed and Industry got used up by work. Actually not much speed. Checking serial numbers is not a speedy process.

A day off at the paradisaical resort of the DMV this Friday. Thinking three hours. Then it's off back home and turning the Baja back into a beast of burden. One of the joys of renovating and repairing old houses, is the amount of debris produced. I have a two car garage and half of it is full of defunct house. Probably two trips at least to the dump before I can start ripping out stuff again. Twenty bucks a trip.

The new fuel injectors are all in. The car runs like a champ. Still got to put the sound proofing and the rear seat back in.

The Fourth of July was apparently noisy by all accounts but I slept through it. How soundly do I sleep? The world would be ending and I wouldn't know until I had my first cup of coffee. My driveway appears to have been used as some sort of launch pad. Small scorch mark and a burned out propeller thingee. Snored right through it all.

This thing called work.....gotta go.

The economy as a muddy pond

2010-06-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

I ate that?

I wanted to work on my house but then the fuel injectors showed up. So two of em' were installed Sunday on the right side. The car runs better already. The other two will be an all weekend job. Quite a bit of plumbing on that side of the engine room.

Saturday was a bit of incompatible food. One should know better but it was good. The after effects....not so good.

Deflation on the ground

I'm starting to see some deflation happening. Nine dollars for a twenty dollar thermostat. The fuel pump assembly for my car, two hundred dollars for a five hundred dollar item. An example would be the power tools at Home Depot. I was lusting after a scroll saw that was priced at half of what it was a year earlier. Not just that. Some decent stuff like a drill press and a band saw as well. Passed on it though as I have a trip to do. Also as the economy keeps bumping along the bottom, it will get cheaper. I'll just wait.

The fuel injectors are refurbished. Normal price would be at least sixty bucks each without a guarantee. They were 30 dollars each and have a two-year guarantee. Lower prices for products would be good if it weren't for the reduced compensation that is going to the people who produced them and in the supply chain. It means that the economy is shrinking. The pool of money that we all swim in is getting shallower.

Look for for more job losses this summer and reduced hiring in the fall.

In the main.

2010-06-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

What Ads?

There is no advertising on this blog. If I like something, I'll mention it. If not, I' probably keep silent as bad karma seems to happen anyway.

A lot of blogs are just engines to drive advertising revenues among other streams of income. This one is because I like doing it. Also if I take money and then say I like something, it's a form of biased reporting regardless if it is money from the producer of the product, or even its competitor.

Times are tough, no doubt about it. Jobs are just not coming back. People are only buying what they need to live on. Don't think for a minute that this hasn't been considered as a way getting a few cents. But I do like to sleep at night.

Also no one reads this thing.

Misc.

This thing called work will be happening soon. Still putting stuff away. I'm looking forward to a calm summer. Here's what bugs me. I ordered some stuff from a big retailer that is more modern then who I work for, with a huge online presence.

People I work for, for the most part, the customer has their order the next day. Sometimes even on the same day!

The people I did business with, they didn't even ship it until four business days later. Stuff was in inventory too. Not good.

The house is slowly getting worked on again. Had to put my energy toward work, so for the most part, just stared at stuff here. Only thing I did was the thermostat (Nine bucks) transplant. AC can be nice at times. Some of the prices are getting lower. I hope that we don't go deflationary. That would be bad.

Cheap but works.

This thing called work.

2010-06-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

I may be working tomorrow. It's up to them.

I usually calculate my gas and food to run out at the end of the pay cycle. It does work out as I refill the fuel tank of the car and the larder at the same time. I also get what further materials the house needs in its ongoing repair/renovation, and pay what bills that had the temerity to darken my mailbox.

Ah well, Sunday will work for that. Wasn't planning much beyond repairing the back fence.

Tail end of the cycle and way too much stuff coming and not enough bodies. Tis a short term thing though. Once the mad rush stops, got all summer to put things where they should be for the next go-round.

I will have to do the family thing then. Save up enough money for the airline tickets, find out when would be good for everybody, and then start lining up the ducks.

Da blog

2010-06-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

I edited the last entry a bit. Just thought ya all should know. The grammar just didn't hang.

Abe's Flatboat.

2010-05-31T13:04:00.000-07:00

I'm working on Carl Sandburg's Lincoln at the moment.

These books are thirty-five years old, three volumes, in paperback, and on acid pulp. Stuck some packing tape on the second volume's back as it broke right down the spine when opened. Acid pulp is a cheap way to make paper but it doesn't last for the ages. In a few more years, these will be to the point of turning into dust. Despite the poor condition of the books, it has been an enjoyable read so far.

What struck me was the description by Sandburg of Abe's two flatboats. The flatboats were themselves cargo. Rough sawn planks and logs for the cities downstream. From the photographs of a house built with flatboat lumber and of a wreck in Southern Illinois, the dimensions of the lumber appear to be two inches by twelve for the boards, eight inches square for some of the framing and up to ten inches thick for the gunwale logs which acted as an outside keelson. Also some six by six inch bottom framing for the wreck. For the most part they were put together with wooden pegs, known as trenails.

The bottom planks were side to side. The gunwale logs were from bow to stern and of one piece. They also looked like the main structural pieces of the boat. Depending on the mood of the builders, the ends could have been slanted or it could be just a floating box with flat sides.

So what about Honest Abe's flatboat? Going by Carl Sandburg and the internet, it was most likely white or red oak. Sandburg says 18 feet wide and 85 feet long. It had a false floor sitting on the bottom framing.

The draft couldn't have been much more then two feet. The free board was probably three feet. Since the crew did their navigating (i.e. not running into things as they drifted down the Mississippi....) from the top of the deck shelter, it had no covered bow or stern decks.

As for the cargo, Sandburg only describes it for the first boat. Hogs, preserved pork and corn.

It was fun going off on a tangent. Knowledge for the sake of just wanting to know more. What more does anyone need?

It's Alive! It's Alive! Semi-qoute from Young Dr. Frankenstien.

2010-05-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

It's almost eight o'clock and I'm running on one cup of coffee. Talk about a slow start!

Yesterday was a wash. I just chilled out as my energy level was blahs-ville.

The water heater door is now propped against the wall. It got a quick coat of primer and will be lightly sanded. The HVAC got a new filter. As it was built, had no provision for a filter. This time, I took a 12" by 24" filter and cut it down to fit behind the intake grill. Talked to the neighbor behind me. We will start on the fence next week. The posts are OK, so just planks and cross pieces.

Work is winding down from sending stuff out to putting stuff away. It's a lot of stuff. No, you don't get to know where I work. I've been beyond footsore but hey, that's the way it is.

That pink billboard.

2010-05-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

"No cuts!", the California Teacher's Education cries. The state is twenty billion with a capitol B in a deep deep hole. The bond rating is shot. The taxpayers that remain here have been squeezed past what would be called reasonable.

Got no choice, people. You get to share the pain that the rest of us had for a long, long time.

Welcome to my world.

Painting away.....

2010-05-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

Have paintbrush, will paint. Good slogan mayhaps. My feet still ache but forward progress just drags me after it.

Front door casing at one coat of finish paint.

Garage door casing at same. See why I took out the underlayment there?

The magic of wood filler, caulk, primer, and three coats of finish paint.

I'm hoping to knock out the linen closet shelves, paint up the doors, and get a start on the rot in the wall this weekend. Some of this almost looks like Andrew Wyeth's art.

One thing leads to another.

2010-05-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do nothing today but then there was that blemish in the front door casing. So it got filled. Then it seemed to be a "why not this then" sorta thing. So the front door casing got a coat of primer to hide the blemish repair. Wandering around with a loaded paint brush, moseyed past the garage door casing and noted how the previous coat of primer had soaked in. Yep, another coat for that. I saw some marks on the water heater closet door and slapped some on that too.

Forward progress despite a lack of intention for same. I'm a bit footsore from work so really did not want to do anything unless at gunpoint. Ah well.

Before the primer

Rot, fungus, and mold.

What pictures? What USB cable?

2010-05-24T09:59:00.001-07:00

I do have pictures, but I have no USB cable, or more correctly, the right USB cable. So why is it, every camera has it's own frickkin sized USB fitting? Standardize, d*** it!

The front door has been done just like all the rest. New top piece and molding all the way around the casing. The drywall is gone under the window. The stucco is indeed structural since what's in there is no longer holding anything up. Sturdy stucco too, it has to be over an inch thick.

More Paint

2010-05-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

I tried following the end of my USB cable to the camera, but....no camera. Then I found another USB cable and followed that to....another camera. My ancient Fujifilm FinePix. It's a thick bulky relic with 16 megabytes of storage. The Samsung has 4 gigabytes. Still, for some reason, the old Fujifilm takes better pictures.

A second coat of Valspar enamel. It will probably get a third coat. I haven't put any casing on the inside of the closet yet. It's just going to be a thin strip of wood ripped from scrap as the shelving on one side needs to be within two inches of the doorway to be useful.

Ranchers by their very nature are strong horizontally. The door casings and higher baseboard is giving some much needed balance here. The door casings are massive. They are 3.5 inches wide and the base cap makes them stand out 1.375 inches from the wall.

It was a happy accident. The flipper installed 4.5 inch thick prehung doors in 3.5 inch walls, and only in some did he make up the difference. The only way to make the casing look right, was to rabbit out the edges of .75 inch thick trim. Once those door casings were in, all the other ones had to match.

The aftermath of a failed attempt to have my own vernacular Vancouver Greek revival doorway. Not to worry, I'll try again.

Still slow forward motion which is better then none.

High Gloss

2010-05-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

Still no camera. Might be time to clean house.....

First coat of "Valspar Ultra Premium Interior/Exterior High Gloss Enamel" on the coat closet doorjamb. Definitely not a paint for the "slap it on" crowd. It's also pricey. Thirty bucks and up. Worth every penny.

It has some things that people need to be aware of. It goes on very thin. Needs at least two coats, if not three, for a good result. You will see everything, hammer dents, paint drips, whatever, so your woodwork and surface prep had better be good. Always wait a day between coats. Still, high gloss beats the pants off of semi-gloss, any day of the week.

Dogs and Paint

2010-05-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

The garage access, water heater closet, and coat closet door casings got another coat of primer this morning. I still don't know where my camera went. A huge prickly pear got cut down by the next door neighbor and was dumped out front. Four more parts of that stuck around the patio in hopes it will root.

The back fence needs work. Neighbor has pit bulls and if they wanted to, they could come visit. I'll bribe him with an offer to do all the work on the fence myself, including materials.

Four steps forward, one back.

2010-05-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

Step Back

The front door casing did not look right. I tried to copy the door casings I saw on Stargate when some scenes were set in old houses obviously in the Vancouver area. Two plinths running up to a simplified yet dignified entablature. It just didn't work. The top part got the crowbar. I'm just gonna make it look like the rest.

The coat closet, water heater closet, and the garage door casings got their putty though. Next step will be primer and sanding.

No pictures. Camera has to be somewhere.....

Snip

I'm trying to lose my health insurance. It's a value-less policy that comes out of my pay. A full grand deductible for each occurrence and/or visit. It means I have to raid my retirement anyway. I can't use it.

Another day, another doorway.

2010-05-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

The water heater closet trimmed out this morning. The old hardware will go away. It's just a matter of doing up the filling and painting first. This thing called work, that and I got to pick out the baseboard pieces from the wood pile for the entry.

Attic Hatchway

2010-05-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

Just got trimmed out. Pics later....this thing called work.

Trimming it out.

2010-05-12T08:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the coat closet door jamb went in . These are the boards that line the door opening itself. Normally the jamb is assembled as one unit, gets propped in place and then shimmed to be square and plumb. I went ahead and framed in the opening to be plumb and square to begin with. So all I had to do was bang them in. Or shoot them in with my super-duper staple nailer.

Today it was time to start on the casing. It gets nailed to the door jamb and into the studs. The nails are placed to be covered up by the base cap when possible. Since I don't have a 16 gauge nailer, it was old fashioned hammering time. Not many of us old time nail drivers left. For good reason. The air nailers set the nails too. Only reason I still do it by hand, is that the 16 gauge nailers cost two hundred bucks and up. Still, it is a very nice skill set to have.

Always set the nails with a nail set. Note, NOT a nail punch. A nail punch is what the blacksmiths used to make nails.

There is the adage, "Measure twice, cut once". I learned from my great uncle who was a master builder and cabinetmaker, "Always mark before measuring.". So I squared off one end of the top piece.. When the squared off end was where it should be, I marked the place where it was to be cut. Only do mitered joints when necessary.

Not bad, eh? But wait, there is more.

So after all that, then the moulding........
I put on the base-cap.

The magic of wood filler and paint will make this look nice.

Priming it

2010-05-10T09:22:00.000-07:00

It's going to take awhile. The trim has to have paint on it before it goes up. At least one coat of primer. I'm thinking at this point, maybe Wednesday at the earliest before the first part goes up. Most likely it will be next weekend. At least I'm in forward motion albeit slow forward motion.

Priming it.

Hitting the edges.

Some of the old stuff will be used on the backside of the coat closet door casing. The last piece of framing left from the old closet door header was ripped for trimming out the attic hatchway. That got a layer of Kilz as well.

Doorcasing ahead!

2010-05-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday. It was supposedly a day of rest and reflection but then I found a huge prickly pear trunk in the brush pile in the street. It's now in my backyard. I wonder if it will root. If it doesn't, the wood has a future as pen blanks.

After I cut in the paint in the living room, it was time to patch the wall. The floor is the only rotten part. The living room wall framing is fine.

So a piece of dry wall was screwed in place and slathered with mud. Later it got sanded and textured and then the whole room turned grayish blueish green.

The underlayment is 3/8ths" chipboard set down over hot asphalt on the subfloor. It was air chisel time. Since the door casing is the next project, it was only necessary to take out that much for now. The rest of it comes out when it gets time to roll on the rotten wall.

The history of flooring so to speak, laminate over sheet vinyl. The kitchen is still hanging on by a thread.

Why windows should be flashed, or the flipper flipped this in the summer...... He did not care if the place leaked or not. All he cared about was what he could put in the listing. Double glazed windows was one of the items. Flashing, who even sees flashing? So the window has none. Four years of water in the wall. Just pull that piece of blue plastic out and its......

Daylight!!!!! Right where the bottom plate of the wall used to be. Easy fix though. The rot is no higher then the window. The affected span is less then six feet and the stucco is still sound. Means nothing has sagged or dropped yet. Cut out the rotten bits. Then put in a section of new bottom plate and then sister the studs.

Of course the window has to come out and be reinstalled....correctly.

I'd rather be doing this. My future door casing already ripped to size. Priming it tomorrow. A pile of the old moulding. Might use some of it in a closet. Maybe not. Who knows?

"Just go away and take that flashy thing with you."

Cleaning away......

2010-05-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

This thing called work real soon. Ah well. That didn't stop me from cleaning away most of the detritus of recent activity. Touch up of the painted walls followed by putting back the covers on the electrical stuff. Shot another tube of caulk into various gaps. Most of the interim kitchen has been set up in the living room. The south wall rot clean out is on hold at the moment. Just too big a pile of former house stuff in the garage. Thinking at least three dump runs. Pics when it's cleaner.....

The weekend will concentrate on getting the trim ready to go up. One gallon of really good trim paint. Valspar high gloss enamel too.

Daylight in something other then a tunnel

2010-05-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

The Economy Just Isn't

I keep hearing that this or that for an economic indicator is up. Oh, if it were true! The FDIC failed banks list just keeps getting longer. In fact it's almost exponential. Go look at the recent month of April. Scary, isn't it?

That old song, "Brother, can you spare a dime?" just keeps playing in my head. The job openings are almost non-existent. I went to to a grocery store last weekend. Even the traffic in there was light. OK, so this IS California where things will stay worse, but even here, there should be something happening. I don't see it though.

I see daylight!

There's daylight through the kitchen wall, and no, it isn't the window. At least the wall connecting it is textured and sanded. I can roll on the paint tomorrow. Flipper did not flash the window correctly if indeed he flashed it at all. Rotten as a politician.

That new law.....

2010-04-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Patch

The patch is in place. No pics as I'm too lazy. I figure Saturday evening is the earliest I can be ready to roll the paint in the living room. The sliding glass door was installed inside out. Very easy to take out and put back. Unfortunately the alarm sensor will be buggered when it's done. Means a service call and a day of missed work when I get mad enough to reverse the door.

Arizona

The Arizona law was gonna happen. The big problem with Arizona's law is that it will be analogous to racial profiling which is frowned upon by me and everyone else.

Illegal immigration wasn't a big problem when our economy was booming. We could absorb them and in time their offspring and their offspring's offspring would be a part of what makes this a great place to be. In fact I was for the first immigration reform, amnesty and all. Anyone who jumped the line afterwards would be paying the consequences. It would have worked.

It's not their fault that they are here. They are just looking for a better life which is what all human beings do. It is the fault of those employers who aren't willing to abide by our labor laws and protections. It is the fault of people who refuse to enforce the existing laws. In part that is what Arizona's law does. It enforces the federal laws that the federal government has shown no or little interest in doing.

Cutting it in

2010-04-29T10:09:00.001-07:00

Getting ready to roll the wall. That bit of damaged drywall will be done tomorrow.

The utility bill can be cut back to a ninety cent increase coming in FY2011 if I downsize the trashcan to a third of it's current size. Do-able. Yup, City of Sacramento is hiking rates again.

Texturing

2010-04-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

Un-smoothing it.

Texture for drywall can be done one of three way. Buy a can of oil or water-based texture for 12 bucks or more. Done that, only goes for 110 square feet or less. Use my cousin's sprayer and blast everything including the cat. She already had an ear painted green. Ain't happening.

Or roll it on. Drop a glop of mud in the pan and go for it. Turned out pretty close to what I wanted. Waited a little while and knocked it down a bit. Painting tonight and tomorrow.

What trim paint?

2010-04-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

I got the wall paint. I got the primer. I even got new door hardware for the water heater closet door. I did not get the trim paint. Whoops. If a space is tight to work in, it's much easier to paint the trim ahead of time. No problem though, plenty to do in the living the room. Sanding and texturing to be done where the chair rail used to be.

The roof is not leaking. It's the patio door. Some genius installed it in such a way the track drains into the house. Evidence of some repairs but they never did fix the cause. Not much rot and Doug Fir is impressive stuff. Almost like treated wood when it seasons up. So I gotta chisel out the rotten bits. A little bit of floor plate and plywood patching. No biggee.... done it before. The big thing is fixing the door so it doesn't ever do that again.

Gratuitous shot of the entryway.

Really nice day today. Do the serious stuff later. Manana.....