Potpourri of Pertenant Pictures

I got home from working at the bar last night and had been thinking about something interesting to eat for dinner. I really wanted to use the new rotisserie again but since it was just me, I was limited in what I could cook.

I ended up going to my favorite local butcher shop, Sonnenberg's, and purchased a stuffed Pork Chop. I tied it up with string to keep all the stuffing in place commenced to roasting the sucker.

I am again caught in a quandary of whether to use indirect heat with the cover on or direct heat with the cover off. I ended up going with the latter and it seemed to work well. My pork chop was tasty and not too over cooked. This will definitely be a continuing experiment in progress. I am anxious to try a prime rib but not so anxious as to jump into scorching a $30.00 chunk of meat.

I also stopped by the local hot tub shop and purchased a new set of filters for the hot tub. I knew they were overdue for replacement but I had no idea how much of a difference it would make in the operation of the tub. It was noticeable and substantial. Of course, a substantial change would be noticeable so please forget the previous idiotic statement.

We invited some friends to join us at church today and then join us for a nice Palm Sunday brunch. It was quite tasty and I think our friends enjoyed the service and food.

We returned home and immediately proceeded into our respective doodies of the day. I was going to do some various ends and odds around the house and Susan was going to sand walls in the entry way.

Here she is all gloved up, masked up and shower capped up as she diligently scours the walls in search of smoothness.

One of my outdoor doodies was to try to eliminate more mos from the roof. Below is a before picture.

I got up there on the ladder and started raking the moss off the roof. It came off pretty easily but it took with it a lot of small shingle sand. that's the only name I have for it. It's the little granules of stuff on the shingles that help protect the roof from all the enemies it faces.

I think I did a pretty good job of attacking the problem. I need to get up there with more bleach water to continue the attack. It's raining right now so hopefully, some of the bleach water I sprayed up there the other day will trickle down and start to influence more moss in a negative way.

Now we have to clean up all the sanding debris that went everywhere in the house. It is as if Mount St. Helens blew again and inundated every part of the house.

Work vs. Enjoyment

For all the entries I make here about the work we do on this house, it occasionally needs to be balanced by how much we enjoy living here. At some point (which will never happen), I need to make an analysis of these entries to figure out the percentage of work entries against enjoyment entries. Clearly it is going to be skewed to work entries because...well, let's face it. That is what this blog is about.

But for tonight, let's put this entry squarely in the category of enjoyment. It is an un-even enjoyment because it was only experienced by me. Susan had to work a hockey game tonight. But that may have been part of the enjoyment for me. Time all to myself to soak in Lake Stan. I do not feel guilty because I know Susan enjoys her Saturday mornings when I have to work at "the bar".

But let's talk about me.

I stopped at "the bar" on my way home to check in with "the gang" and see how I'm doing with my NCAA brackets. I pretty much suck. I picked Syracuse to go all the way and they lost tonight in the Sweet Sixteen. I have two teams remaining so the only real shot I have at recovering any money is with my chance in the "Closest to the Final Score" competition. I think i picked 173 for the total combined score.

I continued on my way home where I performed a few perfunctory "kind of" jobs. I kind of cleaned the fish tank. I kind of cleaned up my debris on the kitchen table. I kind of organized the front entry way. I kind of drank some wine. I kind of got caught up on some important TV shows I taped. I more than kind of drank s'more wine.

Then, it was time for a dip in the hot tub. What a pleasure on a semi warm early Spring night to take my wine and a cigar and loll about in steamy water under the cloudy moonlight. It was wonderful. I think I'll wait up until Susan comes home and invite her out for s'more sultry soaking.

As I was getting out of the tub and drying off, I watched a medium sized skunk scurry under the Carriage House.

Oh joy!

Moss Menace

Our roof is turning a nice shade of mossy green. That's because of the green shaded moss currently proliferating on the roofal area. It's really getting thick and out of hand and somebody needs to do something about it. When you are talking about a steeply pitched roof two stories above the ground, it's unfortunate that the somebody has to be me.

Tonight was a perfect time to get started because Susan had to work a hockey game. That means I didn't have to worry about her worrying about me worrying about falling off the roof. I had all the worry to myself.

The first thing I did was climb out on the roof from the front balcony with an ice scraper. It's the perfect tool for removing moss. The steeply pitched roof heavily laden with moss and greatly affected by gravity somewhat hindered my ability to make very good progress. I got a little moss removed but for the most part, it just laughed at me.

Next I decided to use gravity to my advantage. I loaded up my weed sprayer with a 50/50 mixture of bleach water. Then I climbed up the roof from the deck which is a much easier ascent.

I moved myself into position on the chimney and commenced to hosing down the roof with my poisonous mixture. I am aware that this mixture could easily drip into the front garden and kill the couple of pitiful shrubberies trying to eek out an existence there. I don't care. I can replace bushes easier and less expensively than I can a roof.

I'm going to buy more bleach tomorrow and hit it again. Once I see that it is doing the job, I will haul the hose up there and give the whole thing a good squirt down. Once I have eliminated the dreaded moss, I will lay down some zinc strips into the shingles. The rain washes the zinc down the roof which prevents moss from growing. This is the natural, tree hugging way to eliminate the menace of moss.

Searching for...whatever!

Susan had a good day of plastering in the entryway and I think she has everything plastered that she wants plastered except for her husband. Fortunately, her husband is more than capable of getting himself plastered.

My project (other than getting plastered) was to get the area surrounding the light switches into a usable condition. I've been trying to fill the holes with foam and all sorts of other unconventional methods. It finally occurred to me to just bust away the plaster and fill the space with a piece of drywall. It occurred to me right after I heard Susan suggest it. My space kept expanding as I broke away the old plaster. I finally figured out that I could control the breakage better if I scored the wall with my matte knife. Then I was able to create a space that was mostly squarish. I got my drywall into place and left the rest for the Spackle Queen.

I think she did a great job. She has to fill in a bit more and then there is a lot of sanding that needs to happen. This wall is going to be wall papered by the Wall Paper Queen so it doesn't have to be perfect. (The Wall Paper Queen told me that!)

Since the Vernal Equinox happened on Saturday, it seemed a good time to change the water in the Hot Tub. I got the hose out and it took a good portion of the day to get it drained. I gave it a good cleaning and then refilled it when I got home after work today. It is warming now but won't be up to temperature until tomorrow.

Not long after we got the tub operating, I purchased this little hand held vacuum pump that helps to remove dirt and chunks of debris from the tub. I used it one night and it was okay...not great but okay. One problem with it is you have to be in the tub to use it. You gotta get right up on the debris to suction it out. But it does an okay job and I am more or less happy with it.

I haven't used it in a while and that is because, like my drill bits, it is missing. I put it somewhere and have no idea where that somewhere is. While the tub was filling, I commenced to searching for the missing vacuum pump. I checked in all the likely places that I might have left it. One of the places my search led me was the Carriage House. This was actually the most likely place I would have left it.

During my search, I found my drill bits. I'm never going to find this pump until I start searching for something totally unrelated. I can't wait to discover where I put it.

Tools...and where I put them?

One of the best presents Susan gave me for my recent birthday was a Rotisserie for the barbecue. This is something that I have wanted but never really pursued because it didn't even occur to me that I could get one for my old Weber Bar-B. Well, Susan is accustomed to thinking and when she does it is often outside the Bar-B.

We decided that the first day of Spring was the ideal time to try it out. I have a very difficult time with new barbecuing techniques. I didn't know if I should use direct heat or indirect heat and put the cover in place.

When I saw the initial flames licking at my bird, I decided on indirect and covered.Wrong! I know it doesn't look very appetising, but when we peeled the charred skin away, the meat was quite nice and tasty.

Clearly, this will require much more experimentation.

I had to work today at my regular job because we are swamped in these dire economic times and I am waaaaaaay behind. Susan stayed home and enjoyed her day with a two mile run and some cooking shows on PBS, followed by some wall plastering.

I am now trying to do some productive work on the light we plan to put on the Newel Post but I am stymied by my lack of organization. For the Eleventy-Millionth time, I am spending all my work time looking for whatever rat hole I stowed my tools in last time I used them. In this case, Drill bits. Don't know where they are...don't even have a clue.

New Screen and Old Camera

I think my camera is running out of steam. I need to look back on this blog and see when I bought it. It's only been a couple of years. The problem I'm having with it right now is that it doesn't seem to operate very long without saying the batteries are dead. Either I have a whole package of batteries that suck, or my camera is experiencing a power drain.

It fell out of my backpack last Friday and hit the floor pretty hard. Hard enough to break one of the clips that keeps the battery door secured. That may have something to do with it. The next step...duct tape. Good thing the camera is duct tape silver.

I did a little work on the entry way tonight but nothing substantial. Just a couple of baby steps. But it's another item out of the way. I had to fill a space near the light switch box. We've placed some dry wall patches around the switches and they felt a little bit flimsy due to the fact that there was nothing but air behind them. I sprayed a little expanding foam into the space in hopes of adding a more solid backing.

Now I must go and fill out my NCAA brackets.

Annual Spring Loss of Time

It's officially Daylight Savings Time which is the antithesis of my favorite time of the year, Standard Time. Specifically, going on Standard Time. I love gaining that hour. Today, we lost it. No big deal, I'm spending it at work because we are very busy here. Only until 1:00 though. Then I get let out.

I think Susan will be working on her walls again and if I get the chance, I will be working on the stairs. We have sluffed off again. We spent yesterday skiing...AGAIN! The interesting thing was that we did not enjoy ourselves as much yesterday as we did last week. I'm not sure if it was being at Mt. Spokane rather than Lookout Pass or a slightly chillier day or not being able to drink beer.

We feel the effects of skiing activity today whereas none was felt last week.

I'll check back later in the day with an update on the days accomplishments.

Success on the Drill

Susan and I took a well deserved mini vacation. We drove to Wallace, Idaho, caroused around town, spent the night and went skiing on Sunday at Lookout Pass. It was a gorgeous day and we had a great time.The occasion was my 53rd birthday. Thank God I have a birthday in March otherwise we would never ski.

We skied until they threw us off the hill. We then drove home and enjoyed the hot tub. That was very therapeutic and I think it kept me from feeling horrible today.

We took today off as well to get some work done on the house. Susan did some sanding in the entryway and I spent a good portion of the morning with my friend Jerry trying to figure out the front porch light situation. It didn't take long to fix and thankfully, my fears about having to tear up a wall or floor or both were unfounded. There was a bad connection in one of the junction boxes up in the attic. Jerry found it pretty quick and the lights are working again.

I then enlisted him to help me drill the hole through the Newel post on the stairs. This took much longer. We hit a couple of nails on our way down and had to stop several times and change bits and sharpen bits. I also had to duct tape a small hose to the shop vac to suck out the saw dust that was building up.

We finally prevailed and I now have a wire run through the post. Now we need to get our light rebuilt to how we want it and then get it in place.

Lights Out!

While doing a little work in the yard last Sunday, I noticed that the front porch light was not on. That in itself is no big thing as Susan could have easily turned it off. We have been leaving it on 24/7 because this time of year it gets dark so early and stays dark so late that it just made sense to leave it on.

When I checked the switch, I got nothin'! Additionally, the entry way light was not working. Both switches are located in the same box right at the front door. Upon further investigation, I found I had power to the switches, it just wasn't making the trip to the light fixtures.

The main reason I started this blog was to be able to easily refer back to projects we have done to discover the who, what, when, where and why of the projects. I went to work to find my entry pertaining to this particular Electrical Event. I thought had written something back in May of 2007 when I was laying the wiring for these lights. I can't find any reference to it. So I delved into my picture file to see if I could identify the date I wired these lights.

I came to discover that I had done this project in March of 2006, five months before I started this blog. This project might have been the catalyst that launched into Bloggery in the first place.

Travel back with me now to the Ides of March, 2006. I was running the wire for the front porch light and the entry way light prior to patching the area of floor shown below.

While I had this raw open area, I decided to use it to run the wire I needed. The power came from the attic and I had to run a switch leg down through the wall below. In my inexperienced and unthoughtful manner, I ran the wires and connected them below this floor.Then I went to work putting the new flooring into place.
When I was finished, I was pretty pleased with myself. This was one of the first pieces of finish carpentry I had ever performed on the house. I thought it came out pretty good.

The next night Susan said the front porch light wouldn't come on. I went out there thinking she wasn't flipping the switch properly or something. Sure enough, the light wasn't coming on. On a hunch, I went upstairs to the approximate location where that hole in floor was where I had connected the wires. I stomped my foot and the porch light came on.Caption: "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I had to pull up all the flooring in order to get to the wiring. I knew I couldn't leave a soft connection like that under the floor where you can't get to it. But I didn't run new wire, like a you know, professional would. Instead, I really hard wired an extension onto the wires and ran the extensions over to the wall.

By "Hard Wire", I mean that I twisted the wire ends together really really well and then taped them up really really well. I then replaced the flooring which we have since sanded and stained and everything has worked really really well...until last Sunday, March 1st.

I am afraid that the problem I'm having with these switches involves this run of wire. My pal, Jerry the electrician is coming over on Monday to confirm or deny my suspicions.

Shit!