Leaf Day 2007

My Tecumsah 2000 Leaf Sucker is out of order. Not sure what happened but I believe that it has something to do with the safety interlock connection to the bag assembly. If that is not in place, the damn thing won't start. I think I can do a MacGyver style repair on it, but maybe I'll just take it in to the repair guy.

So we had to resort to manual labor and we are beat. Thankfully the leaves were dry and light so they were easy to load. But there were so many of them. I took three loads to the dump and I'm going to take one more tomorrow morning.

Back on June 18th, I wrote about power washing the deck and this wayward spacey guy named Brian who came by the house looking for odd jobs to earn a little money.

Today he showed up with his Fiance. They had just been evicted from their apartment up in Mead. He went through a lengthy soliloquy about their hard luck times. It essentially all came down to the fact that they hadn't paid their rent.

He initially showed up while I was on a dump run and Susan was raking in the yard. She told him he would have to wait for me to return. I saw him as I drove up the street and started wondering what was up. Susan told me he was looking for work and we decided we could have them rake a little. We would throw him some money and perhaps a bowl of Chili. We had a whole bunch left over from Halloween.

Anyway, Susan and I where busy loading leaves and we put Brian and the fiance to work in the backyard with a leaf blower and a couple of beers. The fiance didn't seemed very inclined to work and let Brian do everything.

We got the truck loaded and I had to get to the dump as it was approaching Closing time. I didn't want to leave Susan with Brian and the fiance still there. So, I told him I had to get going and he had done enough. I gave him $15.00 and two beers for about 45 minutes worth of leaf blowing...and a little raking.

So what have we learned here today? That I am a soft touch!

Halloween Rules

I have spent some time reflecting on our recent Halloween experience and I have decided that next year, we must post some rules.

The following is my preliminary list:
1) No Costume, No Candy
2) A Sweatshirt and a bandana is NOT a costume.
3) If you don't have a costume & you come up for candy, you better have a damn good reason.
4) Move it along! Take your Candy and Begone!
5) It's Halloween and we are trying to be spooky. If your little darling is too scared to come up and get FREE CANDY, don't get pissy with us!
6) When the lights are out, the Party is over!

I'll be adding to that, I'm sure.

Another Major Holiday in the History Books

With Halloween out of the way for another year, we can concentrate on getting back to the Bathroom project. Remember the Bathroom Project? It has been 112 days since we started.
I've been trying to do some little things here and there but I have been unsuccessful at making it happen. It is time to buckle down and put Phil to work.

So, Halloween has passed. We had well over 650 Trick or Treaters come by the house last night. We spent well over $150.00 on candy. But that was spread out over the year. I'll probably be buying my first box for next year during our next visit to Costco. The first 312 were full size Candy Bars, which ran out at 7:00. After that, we went to Fun Size and had about 400 pieces of that variety.

Susan and I both dressed up. She was a witch and I was a skeleton. I would stand motionless out in the yard and scare the unsuspecting little urchins. It was great fun.

The best comment of the night I heard was one kid who probably got a full size candy bar. He and his friend were leaving the house and he said, "Wow! These guys must be RICH!"

No, kid! Not rich. Just stupid! And, I Loooooooove Halloween!

We finally quit about 8:30. For the first time we ran out of kids before we ran out of candy.

Ancient Egyptian Stone Moving

Now that we have removed the wheelchair ramp from around the deck, I have several footings in the yard that I want to dig up and remove. I started with the most obvious and dangerous one. It had a bent up post mounting that was easy to trip on.

So, one day some time back, I started digging away the dirt that surrounded this big block of cement. I ended up digging about two feet down around this thing before it even started to wiggle loose.
Once I had it uncovered and moving, I couldn't figure out how to get it out of the hole. It is one large Mofo piece of cement. I have no idea how much it weighs but I'll guess it's more than I'm able to lift by about 273 pounds. As such, it has sat out there in its hole for a couple of months.

I finally got tired of it sitting there and went to work on the project today. I decided to employ a complicated method of pulley and fulcrum use...but without the pulleys.

So I took this beat up old piece of 2x4 and used it as a leaver. I lifted one side of the cement block and tossed a block of wood under it. Then I lifted the other side and threw a block under there.
By going back and forth with the leaver and adding more and more blocks of wood under it, I was slowly lifting it up out of the hole until I was able to just roll it away from the hole.

I was pretty pleased with me for figuring out how to return to the ancient ways and move my Block O'SeeMent. I think I would have been a good Egyptian Slave. Perhaps I was in another life.

More Raking

I have very little to report concerning the progress on the bathroom. With Halloween approaching, work has been directed to and around the house.

I spent about an hour last night with my Leaf Shredder 2000 cleaning up the front yard. I figure that if I go out every couple of days and get all the leaves that have fallen, I will keep ahead of the game and not end up spending an entire dreary Sunday raking my arms off.

We have completed the tombstones. They look pretty good. Here is picture of them set up in the living room. There are a total of ten. They feature cleverly ghoulish names like Rigg R. Mortis, Manny Wurmfude and Frank N. Stein.

During my raking last night, I took a short break to look for some garbage bags. I went up into the upstairs portion of the Carriage House and turned on my CB Radio that I have up there. In Spokane, Channel One is where all the activity is. I have found that there is pretty much the same group of people on there every day. There is one guy in particular whose handle is "Pipe Layer". I get the impression that he is an Electrician. On the CB, he is nothing but a Bully. He is constantly telling people that he will kick their ass and is always trying to goad someone into a fight. Last night, Pipe Layer and another guy who goes by the handle of Laser Beam, were picking on a guy named Bob. They refuse to give anyone the respect of calling them by their handle. Once they find out your name, that's all they use.

I don't even know why they were pissed at Bob. But they just kept on calling him a dumbass and a Mama's boy and many other colorful names. I don't think it matters what the consternation is over. They just want to fight. That is a mentality that I have no understanding of. I don't think I have been in a fight since grade school. I think it is safe to say that if Mr. Pipe Layer and I ever met, he would kick my ass.

Anyway, I was sitting there listening to this for about ten minutes and I was starting to get pissed off. It was from the accumulation of listening to Mr. Pipe. I wanted to join in to the conversation and tell theses guys what losers they are.

Then I got to thinking if this was a field I wanted to play on. I mean, I have nothing in common with this collection of Spokane's Finest White Trash. Why should I engage them?! And so I turned it off and went back to leaf shredding. I think my time was better spent.

Weekend Get Away

Since we had our third wedding anniversary last week, Susan and I decided to get out of town for a night to celebrate. We didn't want to drive for a long time so we headed East and North into Bonners Ferry, Idaho. We stayed at a nice little motel called the Log Inn. As you might imagine, it was made of logs.

We didn't do anything special other than get out of town. It was a great weekend and now I'm ready to face another week.

Like a I had a choice.

Construction@Work

I can't seem to get away from remodeling construction.

We started a big re-model job on the Art Department (my Department) at work. We have been slowly moving away from creating film in our own darkroom, a technology that now seems so 1950's.

So, we are opening up the Dark Room and using the space for our Production Area. This means we will operate the many varieties of graphic equipment in that area. That will free up a bunch of space in the main office, which will better allow for the creative flow and ideas, designs and creative flow.
The problem with this construction is that is being done by MY contractor, Phil. So while he is working on this, he is not working on my bathroom. I need to be doing some stuff on my own on this bathroom project so it's probably for the best.

Bathroom Progress

Well, we are cruising along in the bathroom but slowly. The latest development is that I installed all the light fixtures. That will probably end up being a mistake since we still have painting and sanding and stuff to do in there. But what the Hell...it looks fabulous!

So those are the before and after pictures of the lights in the area of the vanity. A medicine cabinet of some type will adorn the wall between the two lights.
And here is the B&A pictures of the main light. You will also note the fan cleanly mounted in the wall, where it harmlessly vents into the open attic. In 100 years, the rot from the moisture up there will cause the roof to collapse.

Productive Sunday

Wow! What a day as far as the weather goes! It was very nice out today. It was probably in the 70's which is very unseasonable. I'm not complaining. I got some yard work done and Susan painted some tombstones.

That last comment probably needs some clarification. Susan has been making tombstones out of blocks of styrofoam for a couple of weeks now. Today she painted them. Pictures below. The purpose of the tombstones is of course to adorn the yard for Halloween.

I was out with my Leaf Vacuum. It's the Tecumsah 5 1/2 H.P. Leaf Shredder 2000. I bought it a couple of years ago at a yard sale. It works great but only under certain conditions. Wet leaves are a lost cause with this thing. It just won't suck um up. And it jams pretty easily if you take on too many leaves.

It worked perfectly today. You can see the swath of leaves I sucked up already. I think it is easier than raking...although I may have to get out and do it more.

The one weak link with this machine is when it comes to unloading the leaves. I finally figured out that the best way to empty the bag was to roll the thing up on a tarp and then scoop out all the debris onto the tarp. Then I take up the tarp and dump it into a garbage bag. It's a bit of a pain but it's still better than raking!

We also attending a Home Ideas Show which didn't really give us any ideas. Besides, we are still dealing with the ideas we already have.

Heat! finally

I'm not sure that I wrote about the following subject before. At the time that it all occurred, I wasn't very pleased with myself concerning this whole affair. That is most likely the reason I left it out.

I have a ceramic wall heater in the bathroom. That is the main source of heat since I removed the radiator. I wanted to connect the heater to a programmable digital thermostat. In that way, I could have the heat come on in the morning automatically and have the room nice and toasty when we go in for a shower.

So I went to "The Depot" and bought the heater and the thermostat. I followed the instructions and got it all wired up. I hit the breaker to turn on the power and went upstairs. I immediately noticed this burning smell before I even entered the bathroom. I knelt down to the heater and couldn't see any problems there. I stood up and caught a glimpse of smoke streaming from the thermostat.

I tore down to the basement as fast as I could to shut off the breaker but by then, the damage was done. The thermostat was FRIED!

What bothers me most about this incident is that I should have figured it out before I ruined a $50.00 thermostat. I knew in the back of my head that I was putting too much voltage through it. That information never managed to make it to the front of my head.

Anyway, yesterday I returned to "The Depot" and scrutinized the collection of thermostats they had on hand. I finally found one that would take the 120 volts. I found it, bought it, wired it, and with trepidation, powered it up.

Fortunately for my checkbook, it worked. So another hurdle has been crossed as we continue toward the far off finish line of completing the upstairs bathroom.

Just as a reminder, we started the bathroom remodel on July 10th. Today is October 10th. That's three months...or a month and a half longer than I was hoping. But of course, I am not surprised.

A Floor, Part One

Phil started tiling the bathroom floor while we were gone for the weekend. We returned to this stunning sight. We hope to get this done quickly so we can re-install the toilet and end the long long nightmare of midnight dalliances down the stairs to Evacuation Town.

California Dreamin'

Along with our friend Mark, Susan and I have spent the last three days in San Francisquin, Cauli-Fornia. We flew down to attend the 35th Annual San Francisco Blues Festival. I took over 150 pictures while there and so I have decided to limit myself to only one here for the blog.

And this is it! It's not a great picture but if I had to produce one to portray our weekend, this would be it.

We took it while Sailing on Friday. We stayed with my childhood buddy, Arnie. He conveniently lives in San Fran with his wife Hayley and his daughter, the Princess Rebecca.

Arnie is one of four or five partners in a 30 foot Newport. He was gracious enough to take us out on the Bay for about five hours. We took some lunch and sailed in a big circle around the bay. It was great!

We also ate at several fabulous dining establishments, drank at some seedy Watering Holes, and partied like it's September.

On Saturday and Sunday, we attended the Blues Fest at Fort Mason Park and heard band after band of great Bluemanship. We also drank, ate, and came home with an incredible contact high from all the Marijuana going up in smoke during the event.

I have a bunch a good pictures of just bizarre San Francisco people. We could have had more if we had time to attend the Folsom Street Leather Fair. Many of those pictures would have had a Triple X Rating attached to them.

We are home now and back to reality. that means that it is time to turn on the gas and fire up the boiler. So...for those of you who had October First in the betting...you win. Hey, I had October First. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Ha Suckas!

Well, to apease your hearts and soothe your troubled minds, I have provided this warming photograph of the boiler just after it was fired up today. Enjoy!

Day 74ish

Here are a couple of images to show the progress on the bathroom. Remember the bathroom. We started on it a while back (July 10th) and it is almost a month past it's finish date...and counting. No problem! I'm confident we will be in it soon. We are getting to the part where everything starts to take shape. Below is a set of before and now pictures of the shower. As the drywalling continues, you can start to get a sense of how it will look.Next is a shot looking into the bathroom from the hallway. Eventually, there will be a toilet there by the window. And that red wire hanging out of the wall is for the thermostat that will control the wall heater...providing I can figure out how to wire it. So far, it eludes me.

Sunday Special Project

Susan has been upset with the state of affairs in the basement for quite some time. So she scheduled today for the re-organizational disembowelment. It was quite a mess and well over due for a cleansing. The area where I keep all my wine and beer making stuff was particularly cluttered. One of the painful but necessary jobs I had to do today was dump a bunch of bottles of wine.Specifically, we had 13 bottles of Homemade Rhubarb wine from 2003. Homemade wine does not have any preservatives in it and therefore, it is not the type of thing that you put away for a long time. Two years is about the limit. We tried opening a bottle earlier this summer and it was clear that it was no good. At one time, it was a delightfully sweet little white wine. But that was about two years ago.

As we cleaned further, I found some bottles on the bottom of the wine rack that had no labels. I assumed they were Beet Wine, part of a failed experiment were I learned that you do not make wine from beets.

There were four of these unlabeled suspect bottles but when I opened the first one, I discovered it was not beet wine. I think it was Huckleberry from about three years ago. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't worth saving.

We managed to get the whole basement back to a state that Susan could live with. I was able to live with it as it was, but I must admit that this is much better. I don't have to climb over crap and I have a better idea where most of my tools are.

New Camera

I gave in and purchased a new camera. I decided to stay true to my roots and what I know and bought a Canon. I have always had luck with Canon and they accept the abuse I subject them too.

I just looked back and found that I bought my previous camera, the generally unimpressive Kodak EasyShare 340C last September 19th. It lasted me a year and cost about the same as this Canon, if you include the rechargeable batteries I kept buying for it.

I really don't know much about this new Camera yet. I was able to use the same SD Media card I used in my old Kodak but was unable to use the rechargeable battery pack. It looks like I'll have to buy a set of individual rechargeable batteries and go that route.

Anyway, I'm back in the camera world, and that makes me happy!

Countdown to the Furnace

I woke up this morning and it was 41 degrees outside and 61 degrees inside. I moved the heater into the bathroom so it would be warm in there when Susan got up. I have not yet turned on the furnace.

As long as the house maintains a temperature of around 60, I don't think I'll need to turn it on. Sixty is the temperature I plan to keep the furnace at. I'll probably up it 65 as it gets colder.

But for now, we are quite comfy with the space heaters going in the kitchen. That is where we seem to spend our evenings.

It makes sense to heat only the areas we occupy and these heaters we bought are much more efficient than the furnace. In fact, they are much more efficient than your garden variety space heater. They better be for what we paid for them.

The upstairs bathroom remodel is progressing. Dry wall is going up. We should have all the dry walling completed by this weekend. Then we need to purchase our wainscoating supplies and tile for the shower. I also need to buy a small window for the shower too.

Pressure Test

I spent last night working on our Central Heating System. I capped the pipes I cut and filled the system with water.

As you will recall, the pipes are part of the heating system in the house, which is a gas fired boiler attached to a network of radiators. I cut the pipes that used to feed the radiator in the upstairs bathroom because we removed that radiator. In its place, I installed an electric wall heater with a programmable thermostat. That way, we can set the thermostat to turn on the heat at 5:30 AM and the bathroom will be all warmed up when we go in to use it.

We are trying to get away from using the main furnace as much as possible. We will use it to keep the house at 60 degrees, thereby preventing the pipes from freezing. We will use our various space heaters to heat the rooms we actually occupy. The hope is that we can avoid the $400.00 a month heating bills we got last winter.

So, I capped the pipes in the basement where I cut them. I used these plastic fittings that snugged over the pipe end and then sinched down around a rubber sleeve as they are tightened. So far, they are working fine. I filled the system with water and there are no leaks coming from the caps.

The next test will be when I turn on the gas and actually heat the system up. Then I will find out how well these PVC fittings work.

I would like to add that we are now up to September 20th without the main heat turned on. I am hoping to make it to the end of the month.

Wiring and Respect

Last night was Wiring Night. I'm getting pretty good at it. I wired a light in the shower and I did it without turning off the juice.

Don't think I'm getting cocky. I still respect electricity.

But sometimes, it's worth the risk to get a little shock rather than crawl down from the attic, go all the way down to the basement, turn off the breaker, go all the way back up the stairs, crawl back into the attic only to discover that I turned off the wrong breaker.

The light in the shower turned out to be an essential item. It's pretty dark in there without the light. I have left a opening on the end by the windows to allow some natural light into the shower but it is nowhere near enough. I will of course, be closing it in with glass.

It does appear that my camera is toast. I thought that perhaps I was having a problem with my battery charging properly. But I re-charged it and that didn't make the camera come on. I tried brand new Energizer batteries and that didn't make the camera come on.

This is particularly distressing to me as I really need my camera. We are going on a trip soon and I need to be able to record the event in pictures. I would hate to have to resort to my 35mm camera. It's not that I mind the camera. I have a great old Canon SLR. I mind missing the instant gratification that comes with the digital age. Plus the savings from the film processor.

I would also like to add that the furnace is still off. It's getting chillier in the morning but we are making due with area heaters. So we are now five days past last years record...and counting!

Done Deck Deal

We officially closed the Deck Painting Debacle on Sunday. As you can see from the picture, we done good!
If you go back and look at my post from June 18th, you can see what we started with and how much we have done to get it to this point. That's the main reason I started blogging. Now I have a place to keep a record of stuff we do and when we do it.
These may very well be the last pictures that I post for a while because my camera seems to have gone tits up. I guess I have to start looking for a new and more durable one. I only spent about $100.00 on this little Kodak thing. The lens won't pop out when I turn it on. I'm quite certain it is not worth the money to take it somewhere and have it fixed. What a throw away society I am.

The Busy Weekend of Many Activities

We have made it one day beyond last years record for keeping the heat turned off. The weather does not appear to indicate that it will be cooling off dramatically soon. That is good news for us as the longer the furnace is powered down, the more money we have to spend on beer.

I did preform a winterizing chore today. I removed the air conditioner from the window in the Master Bedroom. I used it one night last week but didn't really have to. Before that, it had been weeks since we had used it.

We are closing in on being finished with painting the deck. Susan did some work today and I did a little work this evening after returning home from working at the bar. Tomorrow, I hope to wrap the whole project up. Plus, we'll be working on the bathroom.

Finally, I have one project remaining to preform before I can power up the furnace. I have to cap off those pipes that used to go to the upstairs bathroom radiator.

I decided I would feel much better if the pipes were capped off in the basement where there is access to them, rather than under the bathroom floor were there is none. The pipes are cut but I have some issues with removing the elbow joints so I can use existing threading to cap the pipes. The issues involve not being able to remove the elbow joints. They are screwed down very solidly. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by pipes that are still solidly connected after 98 years.

If I am unable to remove those joints, I have to use this semi-funky system of PVC connections that will cap off the pipe but look like they have tremendous potential to not seal properly.

I guess I'll have to see what I end up with and then I can provide pictures which will describe it better than I have here.

The Return of the Heating Game

Last year about this time, we began an informal contest to see how long we could go before we had to fire up the boiler and turn on the heat. We only lasted until September 14th. I have much greater faith in our ability to undure further into the approach of Autumn. Not because it is staying warmer this year. And not because we have developed thicker skins.

No, this year the difference is a network of regionalized space heaters that will allow us to heat just the areas we occupy rather than the whole 2,800 square feet of the house. We are hoping that this will substantially drop the gas portion of our heating bill, which can go as high as $300.00 in December or January.

I should add that it got down to 36.4 degrees at 3.41AM. Also, I had to turn on the heat in my car on the drive to work this morning.

Moving on now to Spokane Interstate Fair News, Susan and I can now claim that the wine
coming out of the Waverly Place Winery are "Award Winning Wines".

I was totally amazed to walk into the Beer & Wine Booths at the fair yesterday to discover that both our entries had won Third Place Ribbons.

It is the first time we have entered beer and/or wine in the fair so I was not expecting anything. Especially since I was not thrilled with my beer and the wine is just barely in the bottle.

However, I must assume that all the Judges are Professional Wine Drinkers and their decisions must be respected.
Here is a shot looking towards the Midway as the sun sets on a wonderful Sunday at the fair. We had a Fair Time and I got to eat all kinds of unhealthy fair food like Corn Dogs, Elephant Ears, and Greasy Blocks O'Fries.

Oh, by the way, we have not finished painting.

The Terrible Conflict

On Saturday's, I work at a local bar from 8:00 AM to 5:00PM. We serve breakfast and get a fair crowd in for that. Now that Football has returned, we are much busier for lunch and then throughout the afternoon. At least, that was the case today. We were slammed pretty much all day. I am quite tuckered out at this point and don't really feel like going out on the deck to paint. I only have about another half hour of good light with which to paint with remaining.

Susan was not able to finish today. She came close but there is still about two hours of painting to complete the job. Well, it's not getting done by me tonight.

And yet, I feel guilty and conflicted that I should be doing some painting out there.

I think instead, I will do some work on the bathroom. I don't need the sunlight to accomplish that and it will salve my guilt.

Painting goes On and On and On and On and...

We are still painting! We have been out every night after work this week getting in as much painting as light allows. We don't have far to go. Susan should be able to finish up on Saturday and then after I get off from Bartending, I'll go over everything for some touch up.

It really is a tedious job. Getting paint into all the nooks and cranny's of a railing is drudgery at its finest. Add to that all the arbors up above, and there is a lot to paint.

In the meantime, we haven't done ANYTHING to the bathroom this week. I am going to try and get the radiator pipes capped off tonight. If that goes smoothly and there are no leaks, then I can finish the sub-floor. Then we can get to work on the shower and then the tiling which will hopefully then be followed by the end of waking up in the middle of the night and going allllllll the waaaaay downstairs to use the toilet.

We will be going to the fair on Sunday so stand by for pictures and results of our entries into the Beer and Wine Judging.

Finally, I would like to add that my Weather Machine is now fully operational. I had to wait for a mounting shelf for the rain gauge. It came the other day and I finally got it installed on my Weather Machine Mast last night.

I have been poking around the Internet for like-minded Weather Junkies such as myself. I am gratified to discover that I only have a minor Weather Fetish as compared to others. There is a whole network of people who have Weather Machines like mine that are perpetually connected to their computer and delivering their local Weather Machine info to anyone who wants (or needs) it via the World Wide Web.

In fact, thanks to this kind of information, I can tell you that it is currently 76 degrees out and the wind is out of the South Southwest at 1mph. Furthermore, the Humidy is at 25%, the Dew Point is at 38 degreesand the Barometer is at 29.88 inches and steady.

That's the News and Weather together from RadioBlog KSJB. Film at Eleven!

On Schedule to be Late!

As I was working out in my head what I was going to write in today's blog, I fully expected to talk about how sore I was from the previous days' activity. I was writhing in Soreness ALL NIGHT LONG. I had no idea how I was going to get up and do all the stuff we had planned to accomplish.

But I got out of bed about 8:00 and started doing stuff to get ready for the day, and the soreness kind of went away. Besides, I'm not one to complain. (10.5 on the Sarcasometer)

We did okay today even though we are light years away from completing this project by tomorrow. I don't really care. It was a nice day to be outside, we were working on the house and we were progressing towards the completion of a worthy goal. Besides, the only real issue with getting the painting done is whether or not it is going to rain. By tomorrow, that won't be an issue for us because we will have painted all the critical areas that might be setback if it rained.

The Great Under-Estimater

It is Day One of the Labra Dor Weekend and we are about two-thirds of the way through the prep work on the deck. We got a late start, around 10:30 or 11:00 and sanded and scraped until 4:00. The prep work sucks! It seems to take forever. But we had a nice time doing it, drinking an occassional beer and listening to the Washington State Cougars as they lost their first game of the season. I am still holding out hope that we can finish this project by Monday.

Tonight, we are riding our bikes downtown to enjoy "Pigout in the Park". There are a bunch of restaurants with booths set up in the park as well as a multitude of Bands to listen to and many Perveyors of Assorted Crap.

End of Summer

Well, here it is. The start of another long weekend. I always find this particular Holiday Weekend a bit lugubrious as it signals the end of Summer. However, now that I have been out of school for 30-some years, it doesn't have quite the same impact. At any rate, have a Happy Labra Dor!

We will not be working on the bathroom. We will be painting the deck. It needs it BAD! We bought the paint the other day and now we are ready to rock. There will be some scraping and some sanding but for the most part, we will be ready to roll in the morning and I expect to have it complete by Sunday.

There are lots of events we want to take in this weekend as well as completing some work on the house. There is "Pigout in the Park" downtown and the annual Labra Dor Concert in Comstock Park on Monday. Aside from those events, there will be sleeping in for three days in a row. That will be great!

Finally, I would like to announce the arrival of my latest toy. It's the Oregon Scientific Mega Weather Station 3000. It keeps track of indoor and outdoor temperatures as well a Relative Humidity, Wind Speed and Direction, and Rainfall. I will be mounting the mast for all the components on the roof tonight. I still haven't figured out where to put the actual unit itself. Susan has definate opinions concerning where it will NOT go...which severly limits the choices.

Last night the Unit was saying it was going to rain. The forecasts on TV were talking about scattered storms with lightning but they did not really say much about rain. I told Susan about the impending rainfall and she wasn't very impressed with the accuracy of my new toy. She was singing a different tune this morning when she got up and saw it had indeed rained.

I'll be looking forward to all the information I'll be getting. I think maybe I should start a low wattage Corbin Park Radio Station where I can broadcast all the local news AND weather. Radio Station KCP, or KWAV, or KBRK, or KSJB. I always liked KRAP for call letters.

LATER THAT SAME DAY: The clouds were pretty ominous looking on my drive home and all the Weather Forecasters were going nuts with a Severe Storm Warning for the early evening. I managed to get my mast up for my Weather Machine Components before all hell broke loose. Frankly, not much occured here at the house. Other parts of town got wind and hail and lightning and rain. At left is a picture from up on the roof looking west with my new anometer in the foreground. There was a little lightning so I was glad to get off the roof under my own power. The wind gauge worked great and I recorded some excellent gusts of wind...some reaching speeds of more than 10 mph.

Countdown to Deadline

As I have already related here, we will not make our Labor Day Deadline for the completion of the bathroom. We have decided that Labor Day will be spent painting the deck. Susan wants to put down the Duration Paint from Sherwood and Williams, which I'm sure is going to cost us a Pretty Farthing.

In bathroom news and progress, the wiring is complete. I do have to do a little framing to install the sconce lights that will be on either side of the mirror, but all the wiring is in place AND it works. That's always a huge relief for me when I finish a section of wiring, flip the breaker to power it up and it doesn't spark, spit, sizzle or flame.

A Time to Reflect

I am contemplative today as I celebrate the first anniversary of this Blog. I haven't done a very good job of keeping it current. I have only posted 80 times out of a possible...oh let's see...well, about 300 days. That 's less than 25%.

I got the important stuff down though and that was my goal with this thing.

I had a pretty good night of wiring. I'm not quite there but I am close. I still have to run wire for the heater and the fan and then get it all hooked up. Plus, I have to put in the lights that go on either side of the mirror.

And now for my "Construction Tip of the Day!"

When you are remodeling and you go for the total teardown gut the room remodel, you will find a number of nails that need to be removed. The most difficult nail to remove is the one fuzzily featured in the photograph above. The Lath Nail. The Lath Nail is not hard to remove. Generally, it pops right out. The problem is that there are so many of them. I have thoroughly scoured the bathroom for these little devils and I know there are still more there. We will find the stragglers when we drywall.

Attic-a Attic-a

A great deal of progress was made last night in the wiring of the bathroom. I should have everything pretty much wrapped up tonight. I have most of the wire run and I got the main light hooked up to the switch.

It turned out to be a good thing that I couldn't find my staples. I bought some yesterday and I bought a style that is much easier to nail into place. I pulled out a bunch of ugly staples and replaced them with the new bitchin' staples.

Below are a couple of pictures of the attic. I have not included any attic pictures to this point so this should be very exciting for you. If you are excited by these pictures, get a life!

What I like about these pictures is all the dust you can see in the air. That is from the insulation stuff spread around the floor. As soon as I go up there and start moving around, it begins to fill the air. If I'm doing a lot of activity up there, it can get pretty thick. You can also see all the wire we've run up there. The picture on the right even shows some of the old knob & tube wiring running along the floor.

Still though, you should really get a life!

Can't Find Nuthin'!

I wonder how much time I have wasted throughout my life because I can't find stuff. I'm not terribly organized and it seems as though I have never been able to establish a rhythym here at this house as to where things go.

I am speaking spacifically about tools. I have them in various places around the house. I have some tools out in the garage. I have some tools in the basement. And I have a variety of tools spread around the house...right now near the bathroom, since that is the current construction zone.

I bring this up because I was working on wiring the bathroom last night and I spent a good portion of the evening looking for stuff. I ran a bunch of wire for the light switches, fan, heater, and outlets. When it came time to staple up the wire into the rafters and walls, I could not find my jar of large staples.

I finally gave up and decided to buy more staples today, as well as wire and a couple of boxes. Of course, when I get home tonight, the missing staples will be somewhere right in front of me.

The good thing about my search was that I found a couple of other things I had been looking for. My wind up Emergency Radio/Flashlight was in a cabinet that I never use and my coffee from Sunday morning was down in the Laundry Room.

Two Weeks to Deadline

I do not believe I am going to beat the Labor Day Deadline for completing the bathroom. We have a long way to go and a lot of money to spend.

I have had a slow week in the Bathroom. I got a little wiring accomplished but nowhere near what I wanted to get done. I guess my biggest accomplishment of the week was figuring out the circuits that I will put the lights, outlets and heaters on.

I also put a call in to my Radiator/Boiler guy but he never called back. I'll call him again today. I am trying to decide whether to keep the pipes to the radiator and use them for a towell warmer or just cap them off. I have gone on-line to find towell warmers and they are available but they are incredibly over priced. The thinking must be that if someone can come up with the concept of putting a towell warmer in their bathroom, they must have a crap load of money to throw away. The most basic model costs $1,200.00.

Did We Get Screwed?!

The Plumbers have come and gone and we are now $1,200.00 poorer. I have talked to a few people who think I was hosed. One was Mark, who recommended these guys. Another was Phil, who has been helping us with all the technical building procedures that I cannot do...like swinging a hammer. Here are a couple of before and after pictures.

Anyway, I have no idea what this should have cost. Twelve Hundred does seem kind of high for an Under-the-Table kind of job but it is three hundred dollars less than the worst case scenerio bid he gave me at the start. I know Plumbers get paid a lot. I didn't bother to get other bids because I thought these guys were going to give me a deal. And still, I don't know that we didn't get a deal.

Anyway, we put the sub-floor in yesterday and now I can mostly walk around in the bathroom without fear of falling through the Living Room Ceiling.

I would like to add that I have the most recent Skunk Report. The accuracy rating is at plus or minus two skunks. I counted five of them Saturday night. That Accuracy rating is wrong right off the bat cuz I know there is not a minus two skunks. There are five! There is one large "Mother" skunk and four smaller utility skunks, also known as "the Kittens."

I really need to trap these guys and re-locate them, but they really haven't been a problem. I will get the occassional skunky smell in the yard but other than that, I would not even know they are there.

Back in the bathroom, this week I will be working on getting the room wired. We will also do a little framing around the shower.

Clean Up & Plumbers

As you may recall from my last entry, I have this area to clean up in the back corner of our property. If you compare this picture to the one in Tuesdays entry, you can see that I have accomplished almost nothing in cleaning this out. This picture shows 1,200 pounds less of detrious material, but it sure doesn't look like it.

My problem is that it costs too much to dump this at the Waste-to-Energy Plant. There's too much non-detrious material mixed in to make it good compost, so I am charged the garbage rate. I have been calling around about fill dirt but I'm not having much luck.

The Plumbers are coming on Friday. I think I'll wait around for them tomorrow morning to get everything started and make sure they know what they're doing and where they are doing it.

I still have to buy a shower fixture. I was hoping to get something cool and fancy with body sprays and oscillating rotors, but one needs a second mortgage to afford those things. I'm going to get the basic chrome single handled fixture and up grade the shower head later.

How I Spent my Day of Rest

The Bathroom is on hold until the Plumbers show up. I hope to hear from Craig the Plumber today. I hope he will be telling me that they will be in today. More than likely, he is going to tell me, "Not Today!" Then I will pout and furrow my brow and quiver my lower lip.

So I worked in the yard on Sunday while Susan did her cleaning thing in the house. That Bathroom Project is creating more dust than the Floor Sanding Project ever did.

This was one of the items I planned to accomplish on Sunday. This was a footing for the old Wheelchair Ramp. I had to dig down about two feet.

This was the other project I wanted to accomplish. I didn't even come close. What you are looking at there is a pile compost composed of leaves and grass that was left by the previous owner. That's YOU, Dave! The pile was much worse when we first moved in. You couldn't walk through that space. The pile has been there, decomposing for at least five years...probably longer.

It actually is very clean fill dirt. The problem is that there are chestnut hulls that are mixed in, along with bits of plastic, your occassional shipping peanut, rocks big and small, twine, parts of old toys, a pipe or metal fence post, and a former lawn chair.

I over loaded the trailer by about 300 pounds and it cost me $77.00 at the dump. I have to find a hole somewhere.

Gutted Shell

I was talking to my neighbor, explaining what I found in the bathroom with all the cement, and he said that was a Mortar Bed. They put that down so the tile had a good solid foundation to rest on. So, there is that question answered.

The bathroom is now ready for the Plumbers to come in and spend a lot of our money.
Here is a dusty shot of the bathroom as it stands now. We vaccuumed out a bunch of plaster and plaster sand that had fallen down between the joists, as well as about 90 years of general crap. You can also see that we have removed a portion of the wall on the left. We hope that creates the feeling of a larger space. I could not of course, remove the whole wall because of the Plumbing Stack that goes up through it.

This weekend will involve general cleaning around the house and a few loads to the dump. I am trying to clean out an area next to the Carriage House. Once I have that area cleaned up, my next job is to evict the skunks.

Three Inches of Concrete

It is Sunday and there will be no rest for us this day. We are on a mission to take some crap to the dump. We have a bunch of stuff in the backyard that has to go and we have a bunch of stuff from the bathroom that has to go. I feel like I should be making a joke about the bathroom and having to go but I can't think of the proper sequay. So I won't!

Under that tile floor, the builders built a sub-floor between the
joists . . . about half way down the width of the joists . . . and then poured concrete into that space. I am not sure of the methodology behind this. Nobody I have talked to has ever heard or seen such a thing. I guess it makes for a very solid barrier between the second floor and the main floor ceiling. Other than that, I can't think of any good reason for having done this.

I do imagine that there are some long deceased builders who are having a laugh right now because this cement is in our way.

Susan and I had a very productive day today. I rented a trailer and we made TWO (2) trips to the dump. The first load was all the debris in the backyard from the demolition of the Wheel Chair Ramp. The second load had the remaining Wheel Chair debris and a shit load of concrete.
Here is a great picture depicting the cement between the joists. That covered the whole area of the bathroom floor . . . on the SECOND FLOOR. You've got to have some pretty good faith in the quality of your structure to put a load of concrete ON THE SECOND FLOOR.

A Visit from the Plumbers

Through my friend Mark, I have contacted two competent Plumbers named Craig and Dave.

They came by the house a few weeks ago, before the demolition of the bathroom began, to survey the situation, find out what we wanted to do and give me a worst case scenerio bid. That bid was $1,500.00. That was within our budget, so I have picked them. As far as the quality of their work goes, a recommendation from Mark is good enough for me.

Craig told me that they are not available to do anything on the bathroom for another week and a half. That means we are looking at around August 6th before they do anything.

That works for me cuz we still have a shit load of work to do before they can get started.

The first thing I am going to do is make some beer.

I am using a recipe that is different from anything I have ever made before. As I write this paragraph, the wort (my Beer) is boiling. It contains some water, some syrupy malt extract, and a half ounce of Polish Lubin Hops. That mixture has about 20 more minutes to boil before I add a quarter ounce of Crystal Hops. After five minutes, I will add a quarter ounce of English Kent Goldings Hops and let that boil for another ten minutes.

Just before I end the boil, I will add a quarter ounce of U.S. Ultra Hops and then remove the mixture from the heat.

Now comes one of the unusual steps with this beer. I will add a mesh bag of Indian Sassparilla Bark to the wort and steep it for an hour.

By then it will have cooled enough for me to pour the wort into my Primary Fermenter and top it off with water. When the temperature reaches the exactly precise temperature of about 70 to 75 degrees, I will add the yeast and let the magic begin.

What follows are a procession of pictures from the brewing session.

The picture at top left shows my cooking apparatus. As you can see, I am cooking my beer out on the deck. It is much too hot to be doing this on the stove in the kitchen. The middle picture shows a pan with a cup of Malt extract. I carmelized it and then added it to the boiling wort.

Here I added some Hops. Also pictured is the bag of Sassparilla Bark and then the Fermenter filled with the wort and topped off with water and ready to receive the yeast. It should be bubbling away when I return from work tomorrow. More pictures to come at that time.

40 Days To Go

We took a little time off last week to visit some friends who where staying at Flathead Lake in Montana. We had a great time. We ate a lot, drank a LOT, and I still lost 2 pounds. THAT's a good vacation.

Now we're back and it's back to work.

While we were gone, Phil continued work on the destruction of the bathroom. The floor has become a problem. Under two layers of linoleum, was the original hexigonal tile floor. Check out the picture of a large chunk of tiles we were able to save. It was imbedded in about 6 inches of concrete that was just poured into the floor joists. That floor has been holding up about two tons of concrete for nearly 100 years.

I haven't talked to the Plumber yet but I think we need a substantial portion of the concrete removed before he can lay the new toilet line. Hammering the concrete out will be a bit of a problem for the Living Room ceiling. Cracks are forming already and chunks are probably going to fall down. We are making arrangements to collect what debris we can. WE will eventually cover the plaster ceiling in drywall so whatever falls is not a concern. Unless it falls on the piano.

On a side note, Susan and I are participating in a protest this morning against the Mayor. He is running for another term and is hosting a "Breakfast with the Mayor" event in the park.

The city recently changed our Garbage pick up from the alley to the streets. Many neighbors are quite pissed about this and have already been riding the Mayor in e-mail and phone call form.

Basically, the city bought new trucks that they say are too big for the alley. So rather than buy trucks that fit the neighborhoods, they have decided to re-design the city.

This is a very small issue that will probably not get a lot of sympathy from others. Hell, it sounds stupid to me to complain about such a small thing. This hardly effects me at all because I live on a corner and don't have to move my garbage very far. But, alleys are MADE for service vehicles. Ours is a historic neighborhood with lots of trees that will be pruned to accommodate these trucks. This is not something that the neighborhood is going to let go of.

It should be a fun breakfast.

53 Days To Go

Bathroom Demolition continued last night as we removed the sink. We didn't really run into any problems and it all came out rather smoothly...except for the dent I put in the stairway wall when carrying the vanity out.

I don't think I will repair that until I have the shower/bath tub out.

It Begins Again!

And now for the Bathroom.

We started on Sunday with a whimper. I wasn't really in the mood to work on the house. It was approaching 100 degrees outside and it was just too darn nice to be inside.

Still we wanted to accomplish something so we began by removing the built in cabinet and drawers in the anti-room to the upstairs bathroom.

They came out quite easily in two pieces that we put into the garage and will use for storage.

My original plan was to remove that wall entirely in order to make the bathroom one big room. Unfortunately, that wall is what we call in the construction and remodeling business as a "Wet Wall". It contains the water lines and the drain and ventilation for the toilet. It cannot be moved.

So what do we do with that space? One possible possibility is to possibly put the toilet there. We could create a little private water closet. We would probably have to move the back wall a few inch back to make the room large enough to be comfortable and that means we would loose some room in the closet behind the wall.

Another plan would be to put the sink there. Here's a picture of how that might look. I think it is a workable alternative but we still have some mulling to do.

However, the main thing I wanted to state here is that the bathroom remodel has begun. And I expect it to be finished by Labor Day. That is 54 days away.

What a Country

Susan and I had an excellent Independence Day!

We started by not starting. We slept in until 9. That was great!

Then we had a delicious breakfast on the front porch with coffee and mamosas and lots of cheese eggs.

We have some friends coming to stay for a couple of days so Susan had to finish her scrub down of the house. I went to work outside and did some work on the deck. I finished the decorative railing. The picture on the left is the railing that was already there. The picture on the right is of the work I did. I had to make two of those and they came out okay. Not great, just okay. They'll look better after they're painted.

About 3:00 and 98 degrees, we went out to the Little Spokane River and floated. It was just absolutely perfect. There were a lot of people floating the river but we were all spaced out and therefore, we felt like we were all alone.

Until we met this guy.

We floated by quietly and as far away as possible but he didn't seem interested in us at all.

There was a lot of wildlife activity on the river. Along with the usual ducks and geese, we saw two beavers, some muskrats, and a Partridege in a Pear Tree. Oh, and a Moose.