Sunday with a Chance of Rain

What started out as a very nice day turned to rain by 1:30 so my project of the day got cut a little short. I was able to move on to another project and so it was a successful day around the house.

Susan had planned on hanging some very difficult wall paper but ended up with a plastering project that prevented her from continuing with the paper. Perhaps tomorrow.

I decided it was time to get something happening with the deck. I tore off the rest of the horrible outdoor carpet and then proceeded to removing bits of the decking...plywood really.

I needed to see the frame of the deck and see if it was going to work with the new decking I want to buy. There are a couple of ugly, rotting pieces of wood but it looks pretty good for the most part.

The rain cut short the deck work so I moved into the house and worked a some pieces of trim I have to cobble into place. It required lots of measuring and cutting little bits away and then returning to the measuring and then the cutting and then the measuring and then...you get the idea.

In the four hours it has been raining, we have seen a quarter inch of rain fall. I of course know this because of the WeatherRanger 5000. It is working well and capturing rainfall.

Below is a picture of the trim I replaced yesterday. The picture doesn't show it very well but it's that whole section starting on the right, continuing north to the little jog and then ending into the dining room bay window.

I am showing this off because I am happy with the job I did on the joints. I re-learned something I had un-learned a while back and then forgot. A compound miter joint is not a 45 degree cut. It's a 33 degree cut. That makes a big difference. How many joints have I screwed up over the years because I forgot that.

Probably only about two.

A Day of Accomplishmentation

It is just after nine in the morning and I am preparing for a day of accomplishment. Won't you join me?
First off, I have to turn off the computer and pull the CD/DVD player. It does not work and I need a new one. So I'm going to pull the old one out and make sure I get the right new one.

While I'm out, I'm going to "the Depot" to get some trim for item number one on "The List".

My third item to do while I'm out is to stop at the Farmers Market and check out my friend Brian's booth. He's in the coffee biz and he has a booth there. I may be helping him out during the summer by working the booth for him. I'll be checking that out and while it is the third item on this "to do" list, it's my first stop today.

Later in the Day:

Here is a shot of Brian's booth at the Public Market. It wasn't really busy but he was selling some coffee. I'm going to go down there again in two weeks and help man the booth.

I left the Market after about an hour and headed for the Home Depot to get the trim in need to fix Item Number One on "The List"!

I ended up going to three places, ending with Windsor Plywood, before I got the trim...and it isn't a match of the old stuff. It's close, but not quite. It has the same profile but it is about a quarter inch short in the width.

I had to replace a long string of the trim in order for it to look right. Now it looks right and I have officially crossed of the first item on the "The List!"

While I toiled in the lovely spring day, Susan continued hanging paper and is almost to the end. Tomorrow she is attempting the 45 degrees angled wall above the arch. That will be tense!

I bought the SuperStan-Climat-O-Tron 2000 a couple of years ago. It's my bitchin' Weather Station that I have in the kitchen. I put the collectors up on the roof and have pretty much left it alone. I had to climb the roof today to replace the batteries in the various Weather Apparati. It is all back together and running well so I am happy.

It looks like I got the Climat-O-Tron back on line just in time. The wind is starting to increase and the are some dark clouds approaching form the west. I'll have great data to share and this storm will live in Blogging History.

Yeah, I don't feel very self-important.

And then there is the DVD/CD player. There doesn't apper to be anything wrong with it now so I didn't need to get a new one...at least for now.

Out of Sinc

I have some issues with Blogger right now. 

I access this site through two different computers and I ran the upgraded version on my work computer.

I like to return to posts and edit them as I see fit, especially if I find a typo or something.

The new version of the Blogger software  updates the date of the post. So all of the sudden, the post I wrote about Bloomsday last week looks like I wrote it yesterday. I haven't been able to find the way to fix it so a few thing are not chronologically accurate...and that drives me nuts!

Editors Note: I figured it out the date thing. Everything should be cool. I shouldn't even write about it but I like to allow a look behind the curtain every now and then.

Mutha's Day

High five! Susan and I are quite happy with the results of our weekend. The Mother's were all pleased, we had a great time on the tour, and the house is all clean and ready for us to start making a mess of it all over again.

M.A.C. @ Corbin Park

The Northwest Museum Of Arts & Culture (Mac) has an annual fund raiser in the form of a Tour of Homes. They hold it every year on Mother's Day weekend. This year, after an 18 year absence, the Tour returns to Corbin Park. Our house is of course, not ready for this kind of scrutiny, but six others are.

Susan and I volunteered at one of the houses today. We just took our stations in rooms in the house to keep people moving in the right direction and offer some information about the home.

We went the extra mile and dressed up for the event.

Right off the bat, I had four comments that I look like Laurel and Hardy.

We will be going on the tour today with a gaggle of Moms. We are hosting Mother's Day Brunch at our house for five Mom's, all women I've known most of my life.

Normally I would mention something here about Susan's stress level, but everything seems to be under control. I expect a spike in the stress level just before one o'clock.

The Day the Boiler Went Dark

At 6:00 P.M. today I shut off the gas to the furnace. We will now save about $80.00 a month for the next four months. Hopefully, we can go five, we've done it before!

While I am not able to cross off anything from "The List", I can make a couple of check marks on a couple of items. I worked on the front flower beds a little bit tonight, and I cut a large portion of the stump into a smaller, much lower portion of the stump.

Star Wars Day 2011

May the Fourth Be With You! And also with you!

I was looking at the house a couple of days ago, taking a few pictures, and I remember thinking that the leaves on the trees are way behind this year. That was on Sunday, I think. In fact, if you look at the picture in the last post about the Rain Gutter, you'll notice the leaves and barely budded.

Here is how the leaves looked today. All of the sudden, they are everywhere. It won't be long now before they fall to the ground and clog up my Power Vac.

We are in Massive Clean Up Mode in preparation for Mother's Day and the big tour of homes around the park.

Our house is not on the tour but people will be stopping by.

I'm in charge of the upstairs and Susan is meticulously cleaning the main floor. I should probably stop writing this and get back to work. Eh! It's no biggy. She never reads this!

The List!!!

It is time to try an experiment. There is a lot to do around this house and I really want to get some of it done. But, we have a problem. I lack focus! So, how does one create focus?

That's Right! A List. You create a list of the things you want done. And so, I have scribed and dated

"The List".

It will serve as my guide for quick easy things to be accomplished.  It's dated so it will remind me how long I take to do stuff.

What follows now is a pictorial guide to "The List".

T

 Fix Squirrel Damaged Trim. I intend to fix it by replacing it.

 Remove stump and roots. "This will be a fun day", he said sarcastically.Easier said than done but it must be done. This area pictured above is the future home of some sort of bricked breezeway sort of thing. I want it bricked in the area where the hose is. It gets crappy light there and the grass grows poorly. Probably because it's in competition with all the roots!

 Clean the East Front Flower Bed. Lots of roots!

 Smell the Tulips. For the sake of momentum, it's important to have an item on the list that's easy to
cross off.

 Finish cleaning West Front Flower Bed. Yeah, Dumbass! Finish what you started!

 Move Arbor Vitae to Hole. See that Arbor Vitae on the right? See that hole back by the fence? I believe you get the picture!

Rain Gutter on Front of House. What I mean here is to install a rain gutter and place it on the front of the house...in an area that is consistent with the smooth operation of a rain gutter. I might even consider those decorative chains or something like that for the down spouts. I've already priced this job out and I can get the stuff for about $150.00.

Okay, I'm about to hit "Publish",upon which time the clock starts ticking on....

..."The List".

Bloomsday, May Day, Osama Bin Dead Day

Susan ran Bloomsday today and did it in one hour and twenty-two minutes and an unimportant number of seconds. As with every year, she is happy it is over. Now we move on to the next challenges life has to throw at us. Next up, Mother's Day and the Tour of Homes on that weekend.

Today was pretty much a waste as far as getting anything done. I went canoeing while Susan ran and had fun doing that. Then I scurried back downtown to get a table at the traditional post Bloomsday feast. We drank quite a portion of beer and then came home and napped.

We woke up around five and managed to get ourselves together enough to go across the park and enjoy a party one of our neighbors was having. Diane and Eraz moved in last year. As you might guess from his name, Eraz is not from here. He is Israeli. That is, until today. He became an American Citizen after quite a long ordeal.

On a day when we were able to celebrate a new citizen, it was appropriate and poinient to celebrate the demise of Osama Bin Laden. We got the news late in the evening of some announcement coming from the President. After 45 minutes of speculation by the various news outlets we watched, President Obama came on the tube and made the announcement.

This is not the type of thing you would want to go out and start partying about, but I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over the death of that Asshole.

It's a Weekend!

It is looking like Bloomsday is going to be a Weather Appropriate event...meaning the weather is going to cooperate for mild to warm, semi-comfortable temperatures. It of course, remains to be seen and lived through.

We have just returned from picking up Susan's race packet and attending the trade show. We came across an unusual workout machine the vibrates the shit out of you. The vibration is supposed to work your whole body and you burn about 300 calories in ten minutes on it...or maybe just near it. The lady trying to sell the thing was very new agey and into crystals and bio-rhythms. I must admit that I felt better when I got off the machine. I don't think we are going to spend a grand on it though.

Next weekend is a big tour of homes around the park. This is something that is sponsored by the museum as a fund raiser and it usually gets pretty good attendance.

I made up a flyer to pass around to all the neighbors to remind them of the event.

We're going to pass them out later.

I hope they are accepted in the spirit with which they are intended. I don't want anyone to get their nose out of joint because they think I think their yard is a mess.

Mid Week and the Living is Queezy

For the uninitiated, Spokane has an annual rite of passage into Spring that we like to call Bloomsday. We call it that because that is the name of the event. They named it Bloomsday and so we call it that. I should get a crap load of hits on the blog now that I have used Bloomsday in the text. Another good way to get hits is to write "Beer".

I managed to get a picture of Susan as she was training for Bloomsday. It was a terribly rainy day when I took this picture and as you can see, she was going really really fast. I barely managed to squeeze a photo off before she was gone. Coincidentally, she looks just like this when I have a hangover.

We have been working on the house little bit by little bit. Susan is well into her paper hanging and is making good progress. She put up a piece last night that I thought was going to give her a stroke. It was a long piece that butted up against the trim of the living room archway and it was not cooperating. It didn't help that I was in the way holding the paper and preventing Susan from repositioning the ladder. We really need to get some scaffolding in there.

But, we will make due with what we got , as we always have and manage quite nicely, thank you!



I said, "Good Day!"

Gardening in Corbin Park

From my experience, it does not appear that there is a single area of ground anywhere on our property where I cannot put a shovel down and hit a root. Our soil must be primarily made up of roots. They are everywhere and they are extensive.

The picture below is not a bunch of branches I picked up from around the yard. They are roots that I dug up from under the yard.

Roots seem to be the main ingredient with which we have to deal and not something that will be dealt with easily. I am moderately sore this Monday morning after a day in the yard picking at and removing rootses.

I got out and watered all my new transplants before leaving the house this morning. So far, everything looks good but it is really too early to tell if the transplanting will take. At this point, the patient is still critical.

If It's Easter, This Must Be My Beer!

It has been a very nice weekend for working in the yard. Even though we have lots to do inside, I managed to get out and be productive in the yard. Here is a brief recreation of what I did today.

Susan got started on wall papering. She is into the main part of the entry way now and got up three sheets after another long day o mudding and sanding.

Here's how it looks so far. It sure is nice to have a professional paper hanger in the marriage. I don't have the patience for this kind of work.

Today is Easter and that means that Lent is over and that means that we are back on the sauce. Beer, Wine and alcohol of all types is again ours for the drinking.

What I learned from Lent this year is not to give up alcohol ever again.

Finally, here is why I love my wife. She can't just make deviled eggs. She goes the extra mile to make deviled eggs that look like little chicks hatching.

Quite tasty!

Pictures of the House

 Here's a nice spring like picture of the house I took this morning. The day looks promising in this picture but it was essentially cold and windy...as if it were January, or Alaska.

It looks much better than the other side of the house. Ronnie is about half way through the scraping, patching, and priming stages.

We are really looking forward to having this project completed. We will add it to the very short list of completed projects.

Return of the Odious Menace

Much accomplishments was made on the days of the weekend. Yard works and remodeling works and a new door in the back one might call...a new back door.

We purchased a replacement door for our beat up, ratty old back door. It looked like it was going to be a relatively easy project, but I think we all know better. It ended up taking about four hours. After placing the hinges on the new door in the only places that were provided, I came to realize they did not match up to the hinge placement of the old door. I had to break out the router and create a new inset for the slightly repositioned hinge on the top and bottom of the door. The middle hinge was just right.

Then I had to move the hole for the door latch. Nothing matched.

Today was a nice enough day to get outside and do a little yard care. We raked the front and I mowed for the first time. I would like to gt some fertilizer down but the weather doesn't look cooperative.

I came upon a horrible sight on Sunday. It appears a skunk has taken up residence under the Carriage House. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet as I would have to fill it in and cover it with rocks during the night when the critter leaves to forage. I'm not so dedicated as to stay up late and wait the skunk out. That's what traps a for.

That's the tunnel the little bitch has dug under a considerable length of debris.  Anyway, they're back!

One Week to Drinks

We gave up booze for Lent. It's been Hell! Susan is allowing herself a couple of glasses of wine a day but I have sworn off liquor of all stripes and I'm really looking forward to beer.

I've fallen off the wagon several times during this Lental season. Some were planned, others were more impromptu in nature.

I bring this up because we kind of thought that not drinking would spur on our evening home improvement sessions. It has not. We have to start getting our evening act together and accomplish something at night other than who got voted off "Dancing with the Survivors of America's Next Biggest Idol Loser".

Window Repair Seminar

It was a chilly morning when I set off for work but not so chilly that I couldn't have ridden my bicycle. That's something I'm going to have to start considering more and more as a viable option to driving the car. It's becoming expensive. $4.00 a gallon is the price where I have to reconsider all my driving. Today I paid $3.79.9. At that price, it's costs me ten dollars to go 45 miles. That is very close to the distance I drive to work every day.I got my windows replaced last night. I was happy with the results once I had glass that was the proper dimensions.

Pictured above is the bay window in the dining room. The large middle pane was the one I had to replace. The plexiglas fit badly into the space and was seriously effecting that value of the house. It was easy to remove and I got it out in one piece. That will make it valuable for uses in other places yet to be named...or discovered.
I am concerned about the caliber of the wood on parts of this sill. It has had a very rough fight with Mother Nature and the wood is not winning. The picture below shows how badly it is peeling and cracking. Since we are in the scraping period of painting this side of the house, I'm going to try and give this window some special attention. That attention will of course be chronicled here.
Now it's time for the seminar portion of the Blog. Here is how I do my glazing. I've never been taught the proper method and so I was forced to develope the Stan method. And this is how it goes.
Let's start with points. Points and the little metal keepers that hold the glass pane in place. I use them liberally, generally three per side.

Next I trowel out large blobs of glazing compound and press it into a section of the window. I don't know if it's better to start on one particlular edge over another so I pick the one that feels most natural. The one you would go to first. It will be different for everyone and that is part of the zen beauty of window glazing.

Anyway, I get the blob in place and try to squeeze it into the corner of the sill and glass as tight as possible.

I like to use a wide width putty knife. I squish the glazing compound into the sill and pull the excess compound off the blade. As I squish and remove, squish and remove, I add the excess putty to the line I am working. I continue until I reach the end of the line or run out of putty. Repeat!

Finally, I use the wide putty knife to smooth the glazing into place, giving it a nice smooth finish. Dipping the knife in some water and keeping it clean of putty is helpful.

Measure Twice

I have probably discussed this before but reiteration is a staple of my writing style.
When one purchases a home, one often misses many minute details concerning certain amenities of the house. Perhaps balusters in the staircase don't match. Possibly, light fixtures are precariously glued together. Perchance a window pane or four are not glass but plastic. We encountered all of these situations when we moved in and I admit to a wee bit of buyers remorse for a short time.

But then you get to work on the house and start to discover all the other things that are wrong with it and the buyers remorse turns to homicidal rage. Before you know it, you're off to an all expense paid life time of incarceration and your home owning troubles are over. Or . . . you just fix all that stuff. And stay out of jail.

Today I got to work on replacing a Plexiglas window with a real glass window. Our painter has returned for the third and final season of house painting. In the midst of power washing, she noticed a sizable gap in our pleiglas window pane in the dining room. After six years of living here, it was time to replace the plex. It's all very easy to do unless you measure incorrectly...as I did.

Once the caulking was removed and the sill cleaned of all the crap, I realized I mis-measured by half an inch. That's a LOT! So, I'll get a new piece of glass today and get it installed tonight.

Other weekend projects included draining the hot tub and refilling with pristine clean water. This was long over due since I didn't do my winter cleaning.

Susan continued her work in the hallway as she has become quite anal about the smoothness of the wall. She will not be happy until that wall is a flat plane with narry a ripple, knot or impingement.

I would like to conclude by saying that I am familiar with the concept of paragraphs but the code that controls this damn blog seems to care not for them. I have tried three times to punctuate properly and it is all for not. That drives me fuckin' crazy! And that makes me swear! Shit!

Editor's Note: Okay, I think I have now fixed the paragraph problem. I'm leaving the original post as I first wrote it to maintain the concept of a free flowing dialog...but mostly because it has salty language.

Here Comes the Spring

I must owe money to this website because it is not allowing me proper punctuation. My previous post has no paragraphs and all my efforts to fix it have failed. So, I am assuming I must have to pay some money to someone in order to have access to the paragraph button. We shall see how it works out for this post. Here is a definite sign of Spring. My hops is starting to push up out of the ground and begin it's long tangled journey up the arbor. Yea!

In 1933, President Frank D. Roose-something signed a bill called the Cullen-Harrison Act. This bill made legal once again, the sale the beer. At midnight on April Se7enth, Prohibition effectively ended and now that hallowed day is commemorated with the designation of "National Beer Day!"

I am therefore going to allow myself to have another amnesty day from my Lental obligations and enjoy a beer this afternoon.

YEA!!!

Busy Busy Busy

Wow! There has been lots going on and lots to report and here I am finally getting around to it. We skied today. Perhaps the last day of the season for us. There's just too much going on to fit it in, although we managed to ski four times this year and each time at a different resort. We had a nice ski weekend last week as well. It was a make up trip for skiing on my birthday. We didn't go because the shingles was hampering my enjoyment of life. They are pretty much gone now although I have occasional twinges. The Shingles Tingles lasted about eight weeks. For the past se7en years, I have been bartending on Saturdays at Scotty's Bar & Grill in the Spokane Valley. That job has now come to an end. Last Saturday, March 26th, was the last day. Sadly, the bar has closed due to...well, there are a shit load of reasons but let's say, inefficient management. So now, unless I can find something else that will allow me to work only on Saturdays, I have my time freed up. It works to our advantage right now because we are keeping busy with skywalk painting. We have two more to do this week and perhaps it will become a more common place kind of thing. That would be great for us. Now it is Sunday evening and we have just gotten out of the hot tub after soaking our tired ski ravaged muscles. This is the time of year and the sort of occasion where I am glad we have a hot tub. The other 90 percent of the time, it's a hassle.