H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-E-E-E-N

Unofficial Count: 844! No words, Just Pictures!!

One Day Until Halloween

Tonight was our Annual Treaters Treat Night. Many of the neighbors get together and do a progressive dinner at three different houses in the neighborhood.

We started with hors d'oeuvres at Marg and Tami's. Then we went for dinner at a house we haven't been in before. The owners are new to the hood...Ashley and Dave, and they have a very cool house. They did some major remodeling before moving in. Their kitchen is killer.

We finished with dessert down the street from us at the Lamanna's, another house we haven't been in. It's a great house with lots of wood and it is all finished. Susan did some major coveting tonight as she is jealous of these people with finished houses.

At left is our costumed get ups for the night.

Three Days Until Halloween

We completed our carving last night. Pictured below is the batch of punkins we completed. Here is a herd of our punkins ready to scare the living shit out of any little child who dares to come to our house begging for candy. Halloween is tough. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be.

It has come to our attention that due to our tremendous talent for crafting truly excellent wines, wines with character, clarity and a touch of animosity, we have won some money from the fair. I thought that there were no premiums given for wine or beer but it appears that has changed.

For our various entries we have been presented a check for $21.00! It's like our Gate Fees and our first Elephant Ears were FREE this year!...or next year.

Crap Load O'Lantern

I have been trying to load a video tour of the Haunted House but it must be too big because it takes 4 EVER to download. So instead, I'll throw up a picture of last nights carving efforts.
We are pretty pleased with our efforts so far. We have four more to carve tonight. That will give us 14 real pumpkins on top of the 18 artificial pumpkins we have. That should lead to a well regulated throng of pumpkins.

Six Days to Halloween

The Punkin Party was a success except for one small item. We invite our friends over to help us carve the pumpkins we have purchased to put in the yard. Part of our Halloween display is a huge number of Jack-O-Lanterns in the yard. After everybody left, we had fewer pumpkins. Some people (kids-and I know who they are) took them home with them cuz they were so pleased with their results.

I still have three more pumpkins that need to be carved. I'll get that done during the week. A good TV watching activity.

In the meantime, here are some pictures.

We got up a lot of leaves, just in time before the rain comes.The Crowd O'CarversThe Pumpkin Carving Award Winners

Punkin Party Time

It's been a quiet week on Lake Waverly Place...at least as far as Tile Work is concerned. I am still waiting for my "contractor", Brian, to get things arranged so I can pick up the marble tile. Since he isn't really a contractor, I'm not high on his priority list. The thing is, I need him but he don't need me. It's not like he's making any money on this. But he can save me about $150.00 on the tile.

Now Halloween is approaching (Se7en Days away) and we probably won't install the tile until after that holiday is in the rear view. I don't want to have a whole bunch of traffic on the new tile right after its installation.

Tonight is our annual Pumpkin Carving Party. I really don't have time to sit here and make this entry. I should be doing something else to get ready for the party. So don't tell Susan I'm up here typing away.

Oh wow! I just looked at the time and it's less than an hour before people start arriving. I guess I better get going. I'll have all the exciting party info tomorrow.

Getting Ready for Tile

The one main obstacle that must be overcome before we lay the tile in the entryway involves humping. Well, de-humping actually. The floor is not level. Here's the deal.

The area we are tiling is 87" x 72". The foundation of the house sits almost in the middle of that area. It's a little closer to the door than the middle. Over a period of 100 years, the house has had time to settle, as you might expect a house to do. The area from the foundation to the front door (approx. 25") has a huge dip...almost an inch and a half.

So here's a series of pictures showing the process of the sub floor going down and then the self leveling compound being forced into self leveling.

So, with the help of my Tile Mentor Ron, we laid a sub floor yesterday and then filled in the dip with mud. It's a self leveling compound that turned out to be very effective. The only thing now is that when you walk in the door, you definitely feel a downward slope as you enter.Above is my mock up of how this all should look when it's finished. The top of the picture is the front door and the bottom transitions to the hardwood floor. The colors still look a little off compared to the real thing but it's a good enough representation to show what we have planned.

Finally, here's a picture showing the results of one of the cats trying to help out.

Tile Arrival

Even though it was Columbus Day yesterday, a day in which the U.S. Postal Service does not deliver, I was very excited to arrive home and find a large rolled bundle of tile joy on the front porch.

I dragged it inside and hid it from Susan because we were going to dinner at Mom's and I wanted to surprise her when we returned.

So we returned and hauled it out. Excited, she was! I carefully cut through the packaging. This mosaic is 50" x 36" so I assumed it would come in pieces that we assemble. I quickly realized that it was all one piece. With great anticipation and a slight fear that it would not be what we ordered, I unrolled the tile to expose its wondrous beauty.

Now I need to get in contact with my Tile Expert, Ron T. Tilexpert. (The "T" stands for "The") I'm hoping we can do an install this coming Sunday. For that to happen, we need to spend a lot of money. We still have to buy the tile that surrounds it. Plus, we need grout, thin set, trowels, ceramic sealer, gopher wedges, smack daddy's, creamo-wheatsters, flange evapuscules, and beer.

Old Wine

When Susan and I got married 4 years, 51 weeks and four days ago, we made a batch of wine to serve at the reception. We called it Matrimonial Merlot. It came from a kit and was a very nice wine. everyone who tried it was amazed at our wine making prowess. Kit wines generally do not have a long shelf life. They do not age and improve over the years. They reach their peak after about two years and start to decline from there.

We gave a bottle to our friend Mark, to whom I delivered a door he bought from us. While at his house, I noticed the bottle of "Mat Mer" in his wine rack and told him it was well past time to drink it. So he brought it over for dinner last night and we opened it.
It was a little off, kind of musty smelling and slightly alcoholic. But after breathing for about 15 minutes, it was very drinkable. We managed to choke it down with no problemo.



It was another razor cold night. I think we may have broken a couple of records over the weekend. It feels so luxurious to walk into a warm house. I'm going to have to drop the thermostat here soon. This bill won't be pretty.

Frosty the Fall Season

According the the AccuStan Weather Station perched high atop our roof, the temperature was 14.5 degrees at 6:30 this morning. It's a good thing I ended the Furnace Game when I did.

The nice thing about the freeze is that it knocked a shit load of leaves off the trees out front. They were nice and dry and crisp and my YardVac had no trouble sucking them up. That thing works great when the leaves are dry. There are still several shit loads up there as well as many chestnuts waiting to bonk me on the head. They tried several times today but their aim is off. I'm thinking they are just getting their bearing and biding their time. We hauled out the Halloween decorations today and spent a good portion of the day and evening putting them up. I have to stop writing now and continue up putting the remaining decorations, lights, ghost, ghouls, goblins and assorted things that go bump in the night.

Later: We worked most of the day and into the evening and we still have a long way to go. There's lots of stuff to get out of the Carrage House yet. All that time I spent doing yard work cut into my efficiency, assuming I ever had any.

Hot Tubbery

I haven't talked much about our new hot tub. And when I say new, I mean new to us. It's a 15 year old hot tub that our neighbors gave us. I guess I'll try to bring this up to date.

We moved the tub from our neighbors yard to our yard back in August. I coaxed about 8 people over here on a Sunday and with the help of a Hot Tub Dolly that I rented, we really had no problem making the move and setting it into place. It all went very smoothly and with a minimum of effort.

Then Jerry came over and helped me lay the electrical line for the tub. Essentially, Jerry did everything else once it was in place to get it up and running.

So it has been working for about a month now and we have hardly used it. Of course, we are just now getting into the more intense Hot Tub Use Season.I was in it tonight because I wanted to soak and because I had some maintenance issues to deal with. The unit has two "Moto Massage" features that have a hose that shoots a jet of water at your back while moving up and down. It's pretty nice. You can see the one "Moto Massage" unit in the left corner of the tub in the picture above. The other "Moto Massage unit is in the adjacent corner of the tub shown in the picture at the bottom middle. That one does not work. The hose has come uncoupled from its connection.

So I donned my Diving Mask and Snorkel and probed the depths of the Hot Tub. I managed to get into the unit and remove the hose but I cannot get it re-attached. It looks like I have to remove the fitting that it attaches to and before I do that, I'm going to get some guidance. Guidance keeps me from doing stupid, expensive things. I am thinking I'll have to drain the tub to properly re-install this dealie but I just don't know yet.

I ended up being in the tub for about 45 minutes. I'll probably still be wrinkled tomorrow.

2009 Furnace Game

It has been pretty chilly the past few evenings. Chilly enough to motivate me to reactivate the boiler and turn on the furnace. So, if you had October 7th at about 6:37 in the P.M., you are the winner of this years competition. Unfortunately, nobody had that date and time so the $100,000.00 goes back in my pocket. I was one day short of last years re-activation of October 8th and I believe that remains the record.

I had a couple of issues to straighten out before re-hydrating the system and lighting the pilot light. We have removed two radiators from the systems (temporarily) in order to sand the floor underneath them. I was able to properly cap off all the pipes except one in the hallway.

It is the valve connection going to the radiator in the hall just outside the kitchen and I figured that closing the valve would be enough. It's a good thing I didn't rely on my figuring.

I could not find a cap that would go on the fitting so I came up with this hokey contraption of a rubber hose that clamps over the fitting and then a plastic cap that fits in the other end, both sides being held in place by hose clamps.

As I filled the system, I found some slight leakage around the plastic cap. I got out the socket wrench and tightened that baby down good and...well, you know...tight.

It seems to be holding as of this morning and I assume it is designed to withstand water pressure in a plumbing system. If it happens to blow off, it could be very ugly for the main floor.

There is a LOT of water in them thar pipes.

Tile Floor Update

I have finally procured a decent looking photo of the mosaic tile we have ordered for the entry way. This one didn't go all negative photo art on me and he detail is pretty good. I got a call from the company we ordered it from and the lady told me (in a very thick accent) that she was ready to ship. I don't know how long it will take to get here but it is now on the move...I think from Lebanon. I suppose I can cont on at least a couple of weeks. I e-mailed her with that question and have not yet received a response.

Sanding went very well on Sunday once we got to it. I am very pleased with my skill level with the belt sander. I have managed to eliminate all the high spots in the hallway hardwood I repaired and I think it will be okay.
Susan worked on the stairs and made some good progress. The stairs have so many nooks and cranny's that you could sand for weeks on end and never seem to each the end. She got to many of the nooks and glossed over the cranny's.It is a very busy month for us and I cannot see how we are going to fit in everything we need to do. We have already scaled back our Wedding Anniversary Weekend. We normally go to some fairly local Bed and Breakfast (within a few hours travel) and make a weekend of it. But we're still stinging from our Iowa trip so things must be toned down.

Halloween is coming up, the tile is coming, we're ready to sand the floors...

Calgon, take me away!

In heating news, we still haven't fired up the furnace.

Ancillary Day

Let me start by saying that everything has been approved with the gas line and I think I have the gas back on. I'm not sure because I was unsuccessful in a half-hearted attempt to light the pilot light and I'm thinking it's not a good idea to do that until I refill the system with water. However, all the locks, blocks and impediments have been removed from the meter so once I figure out all the correct valve conigurations, I should have gas. If not, I'll call Jerry.

I had planned on getting started on sanding the floors on the main floor today. So far, I haven't accomplished anything toward that goal. Instead, I've done lots of ancillary other stuff. I worked at the bar for a couple of hours. I returned some stuff to Home Depot only to buy more stuff. I purchased 120 full size candy bars in anticipation of an upcoming candy related holiday. I picked up a bunch of cardboard that Susan wanted from her job to create coffins for the aforementioned holiday.

I made it home about noon and tried to get started with my flooring goals. I was thwarted almost immediately by Susan who stopped at the Salvation Army Thrift Store on 50% off day. That never leads to any good. We have a new (to us) Entertainment Center sitting in the garage.

So now it's 3:00 and I'm going to try and get started with some floor work. We shall see how it goes.

Problems with Gas

I have the day off from work and I am attempting to end my Summer-long National Nightmare with my Gas Line.

I contacted the City Inspector who told me I had to do a pressure test. I have no idea exactly how to perform this task but what I do have is an extensive network of "Go To Guys" that help through the technical difficulties of old home remodeling. One cannot be successful in old home remodeling unless you are handy (I am not) or you have an extensive network of "G.T.G."!

For general carpentry I have Phil. For tile and grout I have Ron. To haul my ass out of giant emergency dumb shit situations, I have Jerry.

I told Jerry I needed to do a pressure test on my gas line. Within a couple of days, he calls and tells me he has attached a valve with gauge to said gas line. I proceed to pressurize gas line and cannot get it to hold any pressure.

Then I notice a vent on the meter that is allowing all the pressure to escape. I plug it and continue with my pressure test. I find that I am losing pressure. So much so that I can hear it seeping out of the pipe. I spray soapy water around the area of the leak and see that it is leaking from the meter.

The next day, I call Washington Water Power and tell them that their meter is losing air from the end cap around the regulator. (I find that if I use specific technical jargon, they take me more seriously.)

I get a message on my cell phone later in the day from the service guy at my house who tells me that I applied pressure into the meter and destroyed it. He was changing out the meter and scolded me for my screw up. Pictured below is my beautiful new meter. I don't know how much this is going to cost me.

I called Jerry who came out to survey the new meter and the associated new pipe we (Jerry) had to install.

He called me yesterday and said it was ready for the new pressure test. I got home last night and powered up the compressor and pressurized the line to about 15 pounds. It seemed to hold for a while but when I checked it this morning, it was down to about three pounds.

So now we (Jerry) have been searching for a leak. We (Jerry) found several small ones in the pipe that I (Me) had nothing to do with. By that I mean the already existing pipe in the house leading from my point of repair to the furnace valve.
We (Jerry) are now in the process of removing all that pipe and resealing the joints. Right now, as I type, we (Jerry) is fetching a new valve because it was leaking as well as the joints. We (Jerry) will then reinstall all the pipe and joints and pressurize the line again.

Later that Day: Okay, we (Jerry) are finished. I have applied 10 pounds of air pressure and it is holding steady. I have a call into the inspector and I am hoping to hear from him today.

In the meantime, I have harvested my Hops. I have quite a booty haul. Now I have some errands to run around and accomplish and among those, eating some lunch and drinking some beer.