Neighborhood Coordination

The Corbin Park Homeowners Association, of which I am the Presiding Grand Homeowner, has decided to purchase wreaths for the neighborhood in order to try and develop a neighborhood wide ornament.

We sent out a flyer and offered to pay for half the cost of the wreath ($15.00). We got over thirty responses, which I think is pretty good.

I received the first delivery today at work. I had them sent to work so they would n't be sitting on the front porch for any roving scumbag to abscond with. I have eight giant boxes containing 30 wreaths. I could only bring four of the boxes home today.

Here is how the wreath looks.

Until I can figure out how to secure it, I think I'll be bringing it in at night.

Last Day of Thanksgiving Weekend

It's a chilly Sunday with an ever so very slight threat of snow coming maybe. Since we are now done with our sky walk painting, we are free to do whatever. 

This is Susan's first day off in at least a couple of weeks so we have no plans for the day. We are just puttering around the house, watching Gonzaga play Iowa State, (they barely won) watching the Seahawks (they totally lost) and basically hanging out (Winners).

While Susan works to pack up the Fall decorations and starts to bring up the Christmas niknaks, I'm going to renew my search for the missing shower surround parts.

Later: I have struck out as far as my search goes. I don't know where else to look. I'm sure I haven't thrown it out. Why the hell would I. I just can't seem to find an extra box hanging around anywhere. 

Now I have to go to the Home Depot and see if I can order the parts that are missing. CRAP!

I decided to go to the Depot tomorrow during lunch. I had other fish to fry today. My rear passenger side tire has a small leak. I have been adding air every few days. It got so low today that I had to fire up my compressor in order to get enough air in it to drive to the local air supply station and really get it filled.

I made a deal with my Pastor last week. He had a generator he was selling for 75 bucks and I told him I would buy it.

Today, while arranging to drop by and pick it up, he told me he didn't feel right charging me for it because his brother had given it to him. So now I have to figure out a way to pay this forward.

In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to the next time we have a power failure.

TMI-at the start

8:02AM: I got up early at the urging of my bladder and noticed my neighbor Lou was putting out his garbage cans. I forgot that Garbage Day was a day late this week because of Thanksgiving. 

So rather than go back to my warm bed with my cuddly wife, I got dressed and went downstairs to get the cans out.

Now that I was up, I didn't really feel like going back to bed, despite the prospect of my cuddly wife. But I wasn't so active that I was ready to face the day. So I made some coffee and lowered myself into the new bath tub. I even filled it up with water. It was lovely.

Okay, enough for the sharing of Too Much Information.

We have one sky walk left to paint and we are hitting it today. I'm letting Susan sleep in a little because she worked Hockey last night. I think I hear her stirring so we will be heading out in a little bit. 

I'll bring pictures of the final sky walk.

3:07PM: Oh no I won't! My camera was low on battery power. No pictures of the last sky walk.

That's okay because it does not alter the fact that we are still done with sky walks. Now I have to assemble my various invoices and get them e-mailed to their respective places.

8:44PM: I had every intention of starting on assembling the shower surround in the bathroom. Unfortunately, I'm missing some components. I can't find the lower track that attaches to the base. It is the very first thing you put into place so I haven't really gotten started yet. 

I know I've seen another box somewhere...perhaps in the garage, perhaps in the Carriage House...but I cannot find it now that I need it. I'm going to start an intensive search tomorrow as it is a day of freedom. Nothing for us to do but hang around the house.

Thanksgiving Day 2016

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are the many things we are thankful for.

We just returned from painting the windows at the Northtown Office Building. I think it's one of our best windows ever. 

What do you think?

So we're thankful we have another window done and that it came out so well.

We are hosting dinner tonight for our friends Randy and Karen and Mary. We may have an extra that Karen met today while serving Meals on Wheels. She's a gal in the military with nowhere to go. So we are thankful we can offer someone serving the country a little bit of home.

Okay, I have to stop writing now and do some pre-guest cleaning. So I'm thankful for my Shark Steam Clean Mop and a container to put ashes in.

The fireplace is cleaned and stalked. The front porch, steps and walkway are free of detritus, although there are some chunks of pumpkin still laying about.

I have moved the laptap upstairs and am currently writing from the office, which we never use. Someday, it will be a sewing room. Then we will never use that.

We have less then three hours before our guests arrive and Susan does not seem too stressed. I had better get to mopping or that will not be the case.

It is now after 10PM and the evening has passed and was a success. We are full. We are winding down our day in preparation of another sky walk to paint tomorrow. Then there will be one.

How I ended up in the Hospital

It sure is nice to have a Saturday when you can kick back or not, and do whatever you want to do.

We don't have those kinds of Saturdays. We were off to church at 9AM to prepare tomorrow's Thanksgiving Dinner at Plymouth.

We do it every year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving right after the service. We cooked and carved fi5e turkeys this morning, prepared mashed taters and green bean casserole. And we got the dining area all set up. 

I like to consider it my dress rehearsal for the REAL THING.

We got home about 1:00 and Susan immediately took off to the grocery market to collect the fixins' for our feast on Thursday. I practiced my song I'll be playing tomorrow during the Offering.

Then I did a few assorted jobs around the house. 

One of those jobs was to replace the missing down spout from the hapless gutter shown above.

The spout has been missing for a couple of years...maybe four. The gutter doesn't really collect that much because it is installed at such a severe angle. But the runoff it does collect flows down to the empty downspout which dumps a surprisingly verbose amount of water right onto the middle of the steps. If it's raining, you will get wet.

I was surprised that I found the old downspout AND the angle joint as quickly as I did. Almost immediately, in fact. It's been in the garage for a couple of years...maybe five. 

I was also able to find a compatible adhesive, something I failed to use when I installed the downspout. Hence, the reason I'm doing this job again.

It was really a simple procedure. And I completed it really fast. But I'm getting to the age where climbing ladders and walking on roofs isn't as fun as it used to be.

I sucked you in with the false headline and I apologize for the cheap manipulation. There was no hospital visit...this time. But I'm sure I'll visit within a couple of years...or sooner.

Weekend in November

It is the end of a long and busy weekend.

Susan had appointments and Hockey yesterday so there was no sky walk painting.

Instead, I concentrated on the yard. I pulled out the mower and went to work on the lawn. Mowing had the double benefit of cutting the grass and mulching and picking up leaves. I had to empty the bag every couple of passes so it really took a long time. All together, I must have been out there for a good two hours.

After having it sit outside for over a year, I finally got around the taking the old door that was in the bathroom, to Brown Building Supply. They offered me $25.00 for it but I ended up doing some trading with them to get some chain for a Halloween fence for next year. 

I was able to get Jerry over here to finish hooking up the heater in the bathroom. That's one more thing to cross off the list.

Today we had a full day of sky walk holiday painting. We did two sky walks today which gets us up to six completed, half way to being finished.

The theme this year is "A Charlie Brown Christmas". The civic theater is putting on the play and so we are able to use their license to paint Peanuts images.

We are finally home now and winding down before bed and another hectic week of work and painting.

Sky Walkin'

We have been going out every night after work and decorating sky walks. It's that time of year again. When we are finished, we will have added a good solid three grand to the remodeling fund. It's a tough couple of weeks but a good payday when it's over.

2016 Punkin Toss

One of the last events to officially close out the Halloween season here at Casa del Scary House is something that I have never written about here on the Blob.

I'm really surprised I haven't mentioned something about it or at the very least, posted a picture or a video of the event. It really has come to be the slime on our decaying Halloween Brain.

The event is the annual Punkin Toss. We take the pumpkins we have left over and move them up to the balcony. Then we place the Garbage Can, I mean the Punkin Toss Receptacle below the balcony and attempt to throw the pumpkins, toss them actually, into the receptacle.

Well I am finally posting a video. And here it is. This is me tossing a pumpkin from up on the balcony as Susan looks on whilst being videoed by Camera Man Mark.

I really don't think I have to say anything else.

Clean Up and Stowage

Faith Bible Church is having a free leaf dump today. It goes from 9 to 1. I have a few bags ready to go but a whole bunch of leaves that still need to be bagged.

This pile of leaves is equal to the one I had on the other side of the yard. I also still have some Halloween remnants.

So I'm in a race to get as many leaves bagged before 1PM as I can.

I did pretty well and had the car loaded at 12:30. Now I just had the short three block drive to the church.

When I got there, they were shut down. A kid told me they were full. I have a car full of bagged leaves so I have no choice but to drive out to the Waste-to-Energy Plant and pay to dump them. 

It only cost $9.95 but it took a lot of my time because it took 20 minutes just to get into the facility. The line was clear out to the road, which is probably a quarter of a mile.

In any event, the yard is pretty well cleaned up for now. There are still leaves to fall so there is no point in going nuts on raking right now.

I am happy to report that last years removal of the post holder sleeves was not a fluke.

I came up with the idea of spraying the spike of the sleeve with WD-40 prior to pounding it into the ground. Last year, they came right out of the ground. 

I had the same success this year. I just applied a little leverage with a shovel on a block of wood, and the sleeve lifted right out of the ground. It 's nice to have an occasional success.

I got most of the Halloween stuff put away last night. There are only some bits and pieces that have yet to go up. I'll get to them today.

2016 Halloween Wrapup

It rained for most of the day. The wind blew at a pretty good clip for a good part of the afternoon. Plus, it was just plain cold.

And yet, it did not stop over 1,600 witches, warlocks, super heroes and assorted ninja turtles from stopping by for a visit and a candy bar.

The Horobometer, which is my neighbors with a clicker, cut off at 1,555 at about 8PM. We went for another half hour passing out hands full of Twizzlers. So my over 1,600 is an estimate, but one I am comfortable making.

The first Trick or Treater arrived at 4:30 and after that, the flow was pretty steady. I saw a lot of Bat and Spider Man. Wonder Wonder and Super Girl were represented as well.

At one point during the evening, there was a line down the walk and down the sidewalk for a good 20 minutes.

 My Flying Ghost operated well all night. It did not jump the line once. That's probably my best results since building the Axworthy Flying Ghost five years ago.

Here are more assorted pictures.

Next year, we need a fence for both sides of the yard. We already have one for the Tombstone side of the yard. We need a fence for the Pumpkin side of the yard. Too many people just walk right on through and over a bunch of decorations.

Lots of people like to take pictures in front of the pumpkins, which is fine and I fully support. But poking and prodding carved pumpkins is not cool.

Many thanks go out to Ron, Kelly, Karen, Randy, Mark, Olga, Natalie, Rob and Mike for helping out. We could not pull all this off without their help.