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.

She Who Makes the Dust

Susan has been hard at work on this stupid arch, trying her damnedest to bring it up to her standards. I have been less than helpful with the project as I have been continuing to claim to be infirmed with the Shingles. I fear the clock is ticking on this excuse, so I must make the most of it. I think she is getting very close to starting to get ready to begin the process to commence with the wall papering. Unless of course, the arch does not pass inspection. In that case, the house will continue to have this fine haze of carcinogenic plaster dust floating around.

Government Mandates

We lost an hour last night due to the Government Mandated Time Change. I personally like it because it stays lighter later.

Susan and I finally have a day to spend at home together and we are going to try and make the most of it. So why am I sitting at the keyboard typing away? Well, how else am I going to be able to chronicle all the amazing things we accomplished this day?!

What follows is a pictoral and verboral description of our day.

My first task was to remove the studded tires from Susan's car. This went pretty quickly as I am a master with the tire iron. Next I decided to polish up her shiny chrome wheels which were not looking quite so shiny. They develop rust and a good scrubbing with an S.O.S. pad takes care of that little annoyance.
Next I headed for the Carriage House where the shelves awaited a coat of varnish. This went pretty quickly as I am a master of the tire iron, which means I'm pretty good with a varnish brush too.

While I was doing my stuff, Susan was busy in the entry way getting plastered. I found that shocking since we have given up alcohol for Lent, but I soon learned that it was actual plaster she was working with. She is continuing with the large amount of repair she has to do with the arched doorway in the front hall.

It's a real mess!

While Susan spent her whole day doing this one project, milking it for all it was worth, I did a few other things. I raked up some leaves in the yard, cleaned the gutter out front, put chemicals in the hot tub and, because I am a master with the pillow, I took a nap. (I'm still feeling the effects of shingles so BACK OFF!!!)

Post Birthday

Other than having to work all day, my 54th birthday celebration was very nice. I can feel the waning of the shingles virus that has enveloped me for six weeks now. We went out for dinner last night and got the enjoy the Gonzaga Bulldogs on the TV. They beating their arch rival, the St. Maries Gaels, to win the WCC championship and get an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament, where I predict they will lose in the second round.

Susan did a great job of providing me gifts every day for the last week. I got some tools, some Groupons, some gift certificates, and a wine kit.

We hope to use a couple of the Groupons in the next couple of weeks. They are for an evening at the Jameson Hotel in Wallace, Idaho and a day of skiing at Silver Mountain. We would have used them last weekend but the shingles prevented me from going.

At lunch today, I am going to visit my friend Doug. He's in the Hospital. He had a cardiac event the other day...on his birthday, in fact. I'll find out more when I see him but his future is drastically going to change. My sources tell me that me that the State is petitioning to declare Doug incompetent. He drinks, he smokes and he doesn't seem to be taking very good care of himself.

Details to follow. For previous information on Doug, see Nov. 17, 2010.

Later: Okay, I have returned from visiting Doug and am happy to report that he is upright and lucid and much better than I was imagining. I asked him how he was doing without Vodka and Cigarettes and he held up a shaky hand. But he had a real positive attitude about it. He seems glad to have booze behind him. He seems to realize that he was killing himself. I think Social Services will have a very difficult time trying to declare him incompetent.

Skywalk Specs

Today is my birthday. I'm 54...physically. I'm probably more like 74 metabolically.

We spent the day earning large monies by painting skywalks. It wasn't in the plans to do this but the skywalks pay so well and come up sporadically so we have to jump on them when we can. So we did!

You can kind of see our work there in the picture above. It doesn't help that the windows are tinted. It also doesn't help that the little street urchins who abide the downtown area like to scratch their proof of existence into the paint. We have to make the lettering small enough to fit high up on the windows...out of scratching range.

So now we have another couple of months of remodeling under our financial belt.

That's always cool!

I need to get some specifications down in writing for these skywalks. I run into the same problems every year because I don't have this information to refer to. So here it is.

The large skywalks on Main have 14 windows per side. Each pain of glass is 68" x 118"

The skywalk on Post Street in front of RPS has 11 windows per side and the measure 65" x 118".

It took us almost four hours to finish cutting our stencils for the first skywalk we painted. When we finally got to painting, it took us an hour.

We did the two skywalks today in about five and a half hours.

Pre-Oscar Function

Prior to enjoying the Academy Awards, Susan and I did some actual home remodeling stuff. She has been working for three weeks now on the ceiling in our main hallway. If you look back only a few entries, you'll see us scraping the textured crap off the ceiling.

Since I have been down with the Shingles for the past four weeks, she has been continuing the work on her own. Today, she painted. That a good sign because it's the last thing to do. She has to put up one more coat as you can see some of the touch up areas didn't get completely covered by the paint.
I am still not feeling very good but I am uncharacteristically tired of being useless. So I went to work on the new bookcase upstairs. It's been several months since we stained it. Even more months since we had it installed. It has now cured well enough to varnish.

With these two projects complete, we can now do a thorough cleaning of the house, which has been infested by dust from the endless mudding and sanding process on the aforementioned ceiling. It got so bad it even bothered me.

The big snowfall from Thursday has started to melt and is creating wonderful icicles all around. I'm taking pictures of some of them before I knock them down. I'll have more sickles to show off in the days to come.

And now, it's off to the Oscars!

Overnight Snow Fall

I got up at 6 and went out to start removing the eight inches of snow that fell over the evening.

I managed to get the whole block blown before heading off to work. I had more clean up to do when I got home. Everything is cool and I'm ready for the next storm. And if I know more Spokane Winter Storms, the next one will be in November.

Rare Mid Day Comment

I don't usually take time out in the middle of my day to blog but there appears to be a significant snowfall coming down today and I thought it required a comment. Last night, the TV Weather peoples where working every angle to talk about the impending storm due to hit anytime between now and a point in the future with one inch to 27 feet of snow. I got up this morning to no snow and what looked like a pretty decent day. It was cold but the skies were clear and it didn't look like anything was threatening to dump on us. The snow started falling about ten or elevenish and it's been going steady since then. It looks like I'll have at least one more opportunity to ply the sidewalks and alleys of the neighborhood with my Snow Machine. It has been a wet snow but it is starting to stick. I expect there will be a couple of inches on the ground by the time I get home. I hope I'll get one good snow blowing out of the way tonight and perhaps another quickie in the morn. Ah, I love a good "Quickie in the Morn!" Later that day: I arrived home to two and a half to three inches of light fluffy winter upon the driveway.

I fed the cats and went immediately to the task at hand, getting a beer. Then I went out and started the snow blowing. Here is how things looked before I got started.

It took me about 50 minutes to get everything cleared. that's a little longer than usual because I had to stop after my first few swaths because I discovered I had a broken shear pin.

I don't want to get into it too deeply because it is technical, but a shear pin is the thingy that goes in the dealie on the shaft of the roundy thing in order to keep the scoopy thing twirling. If a shear pin brakes, it's bad. If you don't have one to replace the broken one, that's even worse.

Fortunately, who the hell do you think you're dealing with here? Captain Shear Pin, that's who!

I quickly (and surprisingly) located my one extra shear pin and replaced it with alacrity. Then I finished my beer. Then I finished the snow blowing.

This is how the driveway looked approximately one and half hours after I finished.

Those bright, shiny balls are snow flakes. Again. it was clear skies when I finished clearing the snow. This shit is invasive and quick.

They say we'll have eight inches in the morning. My alarm will be set for 6 and we shall see what sort of quality weather casters we have.

Stand by for "Quickie in the Morn!"

The Importance of Being Christian

On our way to church this morning, I was crossing the Monroe Street Bridge behind two cars going about 22 mph. To be fair, the first car was going 22 and the one behind it was matching the speed, which forced me to do the same. I could have changed lanes and gone around but that seemed like a lot of extra work. At the same time, I could see the approaching green light was becoming stale and in danger of turning. Yet, I stayed my course and allowed my temper to build on the first Scum Sucking Slow Ass driver.

The light changed but not before the two cars in front of me sailed on through. Several expletives coursed through my sub-conscious but did not escape the filter to my mouth. I simmered at the light and let it go.

On our return trip home I was driving down Illinois Avenue and came up behind an SUV doing 21 mph. This time, I did not have the option of changing lanes. I was forced to lumber behind this Dumbass, Shit for Brains, Loser Dumbass. We came to a stop and D.S.f.B.L.D. sallied through the intersection with trepidation. I had no intention of staying behind this Asswipe so as we approached the light, I was heading for whichever lane this person didn't pick. As she played guess the lane, the light changed and she sailed on through.

Again the expletives exploded through my head and I was about to let the onslaught loose when Jesus spoke to me. I remained calm, prayed for the Loser Asswipe souls of both drivers who had vexed me that morning, and forgave them.

So you can clearly see, it's good to be a Christian.

Mild Progression during a Recession

I don't have my usual array of progressive pictures so one would have to refer back to other posts to see the progress here. Or I could point it out.

There is now trim arond the new door and the door knob is installed. It's not much, but it's not regression.

T.J. and the Paw Thing

Susan has been getting on me to get this video up.

So now everyone can see the unbelieveably cute thing that T.J. does when he sits in Susan's lap. Look out "America's Funniest Home Cats"! We're gunning for you.

Scraping By

After a nearly two week absence from the Blogosphere, we return with news of progress with regard to working on the house. We have successfully completed the whole house. No...that's not correct.

We have successfully completed scraping the texture off the ceiling in the entry way. Susan spent about three hours yesterday and together we spent another three hours today and got it done. That is a good feeling. Minor victories that lead to ultimate exhaustion.

We are happy because we thought this was going to take several brack baking hours to finish.

Next, we replace the trim.

Now a word about textured ceilings. It is the waste land of the poor craftsman. It allows you to cut corners and not concentrate very hard on making things square. Textured ceilings hide all kinds of imperfections. I know because we uncovered some today. We however, will be diligently attempting create a ceiling free of flaws and bumps and grooves.

May God have mercy on our souls.

Another Weather Update

There are a few inches of snow on the ground this morning. I must commend the weather gypsies this morning as they did a fine job of accurately predicting this snowfall. There was three to four inches at home and the drive to work was slow but uneventful. I did have to pull off the freeway at one point and clean off my wipers. The snow froze to them and created a blurry sheet of thin ice on my windshield. I finally figured out that I was better off not using the wipers.

The gypsies continue to prognosticate that this snow will fall for a while today and then turn to rain later in the day. That will make for a lovely drive home.

I was right! It was a lovely drive home. I was crossing the freeway, about to enter the on-ramp when I saw the traffic was backed up for as far as I could see. I diverted to Trent Avenue, which was slower but moving. My 20 minute commute turned into a little over an hour.

A Journey of a Thousand Scraps

The project in the entryway continues. We have been on sabbatical long enough.


The next thing to tackle is preparing the walls to be papered. We are going from the entryway we have finished all the way to this arch. The wall papering will continue around the arch to the left and down the hallway to the bathroom and alternate entrance to the TV room.

One of the nightmares that has kept us from starting this portion is the ceiling. We have agonized over what to do with the textured ceiling which we find repulsive and not at all Victorian. The section of the ceiling shown below that is at a 45 degree angle will be papered. I have a couple of hours invested into scraping to remove the texture. More scraping is to follow. It is a messy job that travels throughout the house. Taking it in baby steps is the smart way to go for us.

Another project we shall embark upon is the continued restoration of the stairway. It is all but complete except for this little corner shown in the next photograph.


We surmise that sometime around the time when this house was turned into an upstairs and downstairs apartment, they butchered the woodwork shown in the picture in order to build a wall to separate the upstairs from the down. You can see in the wall the pattern of the molding that used to be there. That piece of wood adjacent to the stairs was broken away, perhaps with a chisel in order to accommodate the afore-mentioned wall.

We are getting back to the staining and varnishing soon as well. Stayed tuned to this blog because, well...what else are you gonna do?!

Thaw in Progress

The thaw is well under way and we could have a great deal less snow by tomorrow. Then it is supposed to get much colder for a few days. Whether or not snow will fall during the chill remains to be seen.

It can't be very interesting to read this and only find updates of the current weather conditions. I suppose I should return to the subject matter for which this blog was originally intended...the freakin house!

I did a little maintenance work in the driveway tonight. As sloppy as it is out there, I was able to skim a layer of snow and/or ice from some areas. I like a tidy driveway.

I then removed a few more remnants of Christmas from around the house. The last big thing I need to do is get the ladder out on the balcony and remove the lights I put up on the roof line up there. That's a Sunday during the day kind of job.

We are in talks now to arrange the continuation of the entry way roject. We have trim to put up but it still needs another coat of stain and then varnish. Anyway, we'll be getting to that soon.

Two More Inches

The snow fell steadily pretty much all day. Steady but not strong. It was an easy trip with the snow blower and I completed my rounds quickly.

I met a neighbor who lives behind me. His name is Joey and he lives in one of three apartments in the house across the alley, second one from the corner. He thanked me for clearing the sidewalk and said how much he appreciated it. I told him the Spider Man credo: With great power, comes great responsibility.

I've have come to realize that I am much better at maintaining my yard in the winter than I am in the summer.

The thing that you never know in this snow control game is what is coming next. They are predicting snow turning to rain tomorrow and there's a good chance that the rain will wash all this snow away. If that is the case, it is going to get sloppy again before it gets washed away and I am glad I have removed a lot of snow.

The last time it thawed (about a month ago) that sloppy thick street slush was very hard to navigate through. Susan's car, being as low to the ground as it is, has a real tough time when the snow gets deep.

Here is a picture I took of the house tonight. It's a nice winter shot.

A Day of Rest

We took it easy today and removed just a few of our Holiday decorations. We got the tree down and out, we removed most of the exterior Christmas lights, and susan stowed most of the decorations around the house. The village is still on the mantle as it depicts a wintery scene as well as a Christmasy scene.

Here are a couple of pictures I took of the house today when it was bright and sunny and freezing cold.

The First Day of the Rest of our Year

As commented upon in the previous post, we spent New Years Eve in Wallace, Idaho...a small mining town in the Silver Valley of about 900 peoples. We left Spokane yesterday and drove the hour and a half to lovely Wallace where we checked in to the Brooks Hotel. It's clean, it's cheap, they don't know what four stars means...and that fine.

We got ourselves settled in and then took off to explore the town. It's the perfect time of year for exploring as the temperature was around 9 degrees. In Wallace, you walk as everything you want to see is within a few blocks of wherever you are.


We were most pleased to discover that the Jameson Hotel has reopened. We have stayed there before and really like it. I think I have described it here as the most authentic reproduction of what an old west hotel must have been like. There are six rooms on the third floor. There are bathrooms down the hall. there are no TVs and no telephones. The telephone is no biggy in this day and age because everyone already has one with them at all times. The no TV thing can be a problem.


Fortunately, the Brooks has TVs and we used ours after our night on the town. More about that to come.


We had a drink at the Jameson and then walked over to the Wallace Brewing Company. It is a local micro brew establishment and the bartender was locking the door as we walked up. He reconsidered and let us in. We only had a beer so we didn't keep him long. It was seven and he hadn't had any business for an hour and this twenty something clearly wanted to get his New Years Eve under way.

We finally ended up eating at the 1313 Club and stayed there until about ten. They were actually shutting down and I'm not sure what other bars stayed open until midnight in Wallace.

We walked back to the Brooks and drank screw drivers and mamosas for the rest of the evening. Once the ball in Timesquare dropped, we fell asleep.

We woke up this morning to a report that it was 4 degrees at Lookout Pass. We got up there about ten and were surprised to find a relatively empty parking lot. The sun was out and we got in nine runs throughout the day, which is good for us.


We hit the road about 2:30 and amnaged to roll home and enjoy the hot tub for a nice long while. This is the time of year when it is great to have a hot tub.

Last Blog of 2010

Happy New Year!

We have decided to take New Years on the road so we are leaving shortly for Wallace, Idaho. It's about an hour and half drive on a lovely four lane freeway so it's really a breeze. We are going to spend the night in Wallace and ring in the new year there.

We will arise on January First, bright eyed and not hungover at all, and enjoy a day of skiing at Lookout Pass.

We should be working on the house, but there's plenty of time for that in Twenty-Eleven.

Last Snowstorm of Twenty-Ten

I got home last after about an hour on the road that would normally have taken about 20 minutes. After getting cats fed and beer open, I set about the task of snow blowing. At first I thought we had gotten about four inches but that was under a tree. When I got out into the middle of the driveway, there was easily se7en inches.

I had to narrow the swath of blowing destruction and slow the blower down a couple of gears so it took a little longer than normal. I think I was out there for two hours. But in the end, I was victorious and had a lot of snow replaced. I did a good portion of the street too.

The city announced they laid off six or seven employees on Christmas day (Merry Christmas, see ya later) and that meant snow plowing was going to take longer. I do not try to depend on the city for this kind of thing and so I took care of it. My little corner of the neighborhood, plus the sidewalks around the block, plus the alley are in good shape.

Here are some pictures.

Another thing I had to deal with last night was the Arbor Vitae. As I said, this was heavy snow and heavy snow is bad for tall shrubbery. Here's a picture of the Arbor Vitae after I had banged off about half of them.

Next, here is a picture to give a good depiction of the amount of snow we got since this morning.

Okay, that's it for me. I'm going in to enjoy an evening of television.

Hey! How's come the TV don't work!?!

Snow Day

I awoke to two wet, heavy, sloppy inches of snow and more coming down. I shoveled the area out to the cars and brushed the snow off our vehicles. There was no sense to snow blow since more is coming. I hate to leave my area un-blown throughout the day but sometimes you just have to accept your limitations.

The drive to work was fun this morning. It's the Holiday Season so traffic is a touch lighter than normal. But this heavy snow creates these really slushy berms in between lanes on the freeway and they can be a bit dicey when changing lanes.

1:30PM - The snow is still falling. It's still pretty wet. By now, I would guess we are looking at five inches on the ground...and it's still coming. It's gonna be some fun snow blowing when I get home.

I guess I had better realize that the forecasters that I deride so often have it right this time. The more in depth forecast says that it is going to get very cold in the next few days. So all this wet white snow is going to harden up soon and really be a bitch to deal with. I'll be doing a complete blow job tonight when I get home. Pictures to follow!

Iowa 27 Missou 24

We have cats! Four of em. They are a wonderful addition to our lives, bringing joy and adventure to everything they do. -Or- They are over fed barfing balls of fur that totally complicate everything we do. Pick your favorite.

I got home tonight and my first job is to feed the cats. Their first job is to remind me of my first job. They are usually all there waiting for their dish to be presented. Tonight, Oscar was nowhere to be found. I called him from the front and back door. It was raining pretty hard so I figured he would be along anon.

Susan came in and asked if Oscar was at the door when I got home. I said I hadn't seen him yet and we began the search. A cat not showing up at dinner time is cause for concern.

My go to search spot for Oscar is under the front porch. I shined a flashlight under there and voila!...there he was. He didn't appear to be interested in coming in.

Well, eventually, I pulled the lattice of the side of the porch and crawled under there to flush him out. Remarkably, he let me grab him and carry him out. I thought maybe he was injured but that turned out to be untrue.

We think something freaked him out and scared him under there. I think it was the rain.

The forecasters are going crazy telling us that there is snow a-comin. Well, it is 10:45 PM and the temperature here at the house is 37 degrees. It is cooling and the rain is coming down pretty hard right now so I'm thinking they may be correct. Or, they may be covering their asses...which I think is more likely. I'm going to bed now and we'll see what the story is in the morning.

Iowa beat Missouri in the Insight Bowl tonight. Susan is pleased.

Holiday Hangover

I would like to say I'm hungover but I think I'm still drunk. Had a bit to drink last night. Thankfully, I got to bed early. Well, early-ish! Well, before midnight...I think!

Here are a few pictures from the evening.

It has occurred to me that this picture has nothing to do with what we did last night. But it is a good depiction of our open house party.

Open House Flop

If you were one of the few people that attended our After Christmas Open House Party, then none of this is directed at you. If you didn't attend our After Christmas Open House...what the Fuck!

Okay that's all I'll say.


The people that attended our Open House Event were Mark, Mike, Gary, Kim, Lee, Sue, Ted and Ted's Friend whose name I can't remember. That is out of about 25 people we invited. We do not feel slighted by this lack of attendance. We didn't do a very good job of getting the word out or of insuring that those we invited might attend. You know...the whole RSVP thing.

The unfortunate thing is that Susan worked her ass off to prepare for the party and she wasn't feeling all that great as she prepared. I tried my best to help but I have found it's best to keep out of her way and just do as she says.

I think the timing worked against us. It was the end of a long holiday weekend and I think people were tired of being festive.

For me, I'm glad it's behind us and I wish I didn't have this hangover that I'm going to have in the morning.

Merry Christmas 2010

We have made it to Christmas. I'm glad it's here and almost in the history books. It has become a very stressful time of year and that stress is all self inflicted. Both Susan and I do stupid things to add to the stress. I swear to the Lord on high, I'm going to start buying Christmas gifts NOW. When I see something that makes me think that would be good for (Fill in the name), I'm going to buy it...even if I buy it on December 26th.

The only problem with that is I will lose it before Christmas comes around again.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve day. Susan slept in and I woke up early and puttered around the various shopping emporiums until I had filled my bucket with the appropriate gifts.

At noon we went to church and followed that up by touring the Campbell House. It's a local turn of the century mansion that belongs to the museum. They decorate it up for Christmas and I thought it would be fun to go see it. We even coaxed our pastor and his wife to join us.

It's a very impressive house and it has been expertly restored.

We made it back home by three and lolled about until it was time to go to dinner. We attended the traditional family Christmas Eve Feast and had a great time and enjoyed a fabulous Prime Rib.

Just as we were preparing to head out the door, my friend Mike from Bellingham called and announced he was coming to town. We had spoke to him earlier in the week and he asked then if we could put him up. I said of course and he said he would let us know if he was coming.

We hadn't heard from him so we decided he probably wasn't coming. The late notice was no big deal other than making sure he got into the house okay with us gone.

Susan has been affected by her boss and caught his cold. She has been feeling crappy all day. We have pretty much taken it easy except that now she wants to prepare for our open house event we are having tomorrow. That means cleaning, cooking and ordering me about.

All in all, a good Christmas!

Welcome Solstice

I know I noted it in the last post, but yesterday, I totally forgot about the arrival of the Solstice. It wasn't until late in the evening that it even occurred to me.

This doesn't seem like the kind of earth shattering news that would elevate its status to blog worthiness. But I'm trying to beat my record for posts. I need six more posts to tie my record.

I didn't want to just make a post with irrelevant content (like this) just to beat my record. I don't think that is proper and it would be a hollow victory.

So I would also like to add that, true to form, I have bought practically nothing for anyone on my Christmas list. I know what I want to buy. I just haven't gotten around to the pain in the ass process of buying it.

There! Now this is a post worthy of...a hollow victory.

Mo Sno

Another couple of inches of snow over the night. I would estimate we have aboutthree to four inches on the ground right now. It's still snowing as I write this so we'll see what it brings when it's all over.

Here's a scene of the street this morning at about 6:30 as I was trying to clear a little snow before venturing out to work. I'll finish up tonight when I get home.

I should also like to point out that the Winter Solstice is upon us. Finally, the season matches the weather.

Why Would You Live Here

If you didn't like snow, why would you live here?!

The snow has returned. About two inches fell today and I broke out the snow blower tonight and made it go away, only to have it start snowing again. They are saying three to six inches. If more is to come, I'm two inches ahead of it.

It can take a good hour to cover my snow blowing terrain and I broke it down in segments tonight. You have lots of time with your thoughts when you're doing snow removal.

It takes me about 20 minutes to clear the driveway and the alley. I go about a third of the way down the alley. Then I do the southern portion of the sidewalk on the block. that takes about 10 minutes. Then I finish up with the northern portion which takes about 15 minutes.

This can take longer or shorter depending on the snow fall.

So, there is my breakdown of the snow blowing procedure. What could be more interesting?

Almost anything?

Mickey Mouse Electrical Engineering

I fixed the shower light last night but I'm not happy with the method I used. I simply attached some pigtails to the wires already in the can and connected the pigtails to the socket. It works but I don't think it's a permanent solution.

I am looking on-line at DIY.com to see what the specs are for a shower light. There is no danger of electrocution...in my humble unprofessional uninformed opinion...but I want to make my opinnion less humble, more professional, and more informed.

All our many inches of fabulous pre-season snow is gone. It rained a quarter of an inch on Monday and that pretty much washed away what little snow was left. I guess I'm ready for the next round.

Remodeled Shower Issue

About a month ago, the light in our two year old remodeled shower starting flashing off and on. It was intermittent and would be on, then go off for 30 seconds to a minute, then back on. Last week, it pretty much stayed off.

I haven't had a chance to look at it because of our painting schedule so I tore into it tonight. Now I clearly remember purchasing a light can that is made to go in a shower. When I opened it up, there was a lot of rust falling out of the can. The black wire attached from the light socket to a little relay mounted in the can had corroded loose. This is not a wire I had anything to do with while wiring the light so I am emphatically claiming this is not my fault. I believe I bought a cheap piece of Chinese shit. And THAT, is my fault!

I looked back through the blog to try and find out what I wrote about this light and it's installation and perhaps some pictures.

I learned a lot during my search. I was reminded that I walked out of the house to discover some ass wipe trying to steal Susan's car one late December night in 2007. I learned that the camera I replaced last month lasted me just over three years. I learned I have a lot more misspelled words in this thing that I like. And I learned I installed the shower light on December 19th, 2007. I did not say much about it that was helpful to my current problem and there were no pictures because my camera had broken and I complained about having to buy another.

So in this case, the Blog was not helpful. More my fault than the Blog's.

So we will not be using the shower for a couple of days while I fix this problem.You will note on the picture below that the black wire comes into the can on the left and attaches to the little metal block in the center. There is a little brown spot below the wire. That is where the wire attached to the socket corroded away from.

This is clear photographic evidence that I bought a piece of Chinese shit and it's NOT MY FAULT! Except for buying the piece of Chinese shit.

2010 Carriage Ride

On Friday evening, we finished our last sky walk. We are done for the season. Now we can concentrate on the season.

It is Sunday morning, 10:33AM as I write this and we slept through church. Didn't get up in time. We have much to accomplish this day because this evening is the annual Corbin Park Carriage Ride. Yea!

We have a few friends coming over and we will enjoy some neighborhood frivolities.

In the meantime, Susan is on a cleaning jag and I have many lights to finish attaching to the house.

I shall update this post throughout the day as time permits.

I should comment on the party I attended last night. I guy I grew up with named Brian had a holiday party at his place on the south hill...way up the south hill on Glenrose Prairie. This is the second year he and his girlfriend Dana have had the party. I made a batch of beer and it was well received and enjoyed. Happily, I still have some left. Here is a picture from the fire pit looking towards Brian's expansive garage where some party goers are enjoying shots of Jager.11:38AM - I have been successful on the roof with my heat cable. I wrote in an earlier post about this touchy section of the roof where great icicles form and then proceed to screw up the house. I laid this heat cable up there in the middle of the freeze but at that time, I could only lay it out but not secure it. I remedied that today and I think it will work well. I need to buy and 100 foot roll of this stuff to properly cover the whole area.

Now, it's time to get some lights up.

4:41PM - I am declaring victory over the Christmas Lights. Susan has completed the inside decorating...except for the tree, which we have yet to purchase...and probably won't for another week.

We are now ready for the Carriage Ride. The only problem now is that the friends we invited canceled on us. We were somewhat expecting this because these friends have changed plans on us before. It is too late now to try and invite anyone else over. So, we are going to be Susan and Stan tonight. We will hang with our neighbors and catch up on all the neighborhood gossip. There was an ambulance called to a house across the park about an hour ago so maybe we will find out "wazzupwidat!"

Here's how we look for now!

** Happy Krimble Everyone **

10:39PM - Well, I'm afraid I have no good picture to share from the Carriage Ride. We had a great time though. We got our ride around the park and talked to a bunch of neighbors and then Susan and I finished off the evening watching the most recent Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey, Jr. An okay flick with great effects with a story that followed the Holmesian style but never written by Sir Artie Conan Doyle.

We have decided that it has been a good day!

When it Rains...

I have finished my painting for the evening and I drove home in the driving rain...which is the best kind of rain for driving. It's really coming down. If this continues, it will wash away all our snow on the ground. I'm glad that it is melting in the streets but I would like it on the lawns and out in the park.

The forecast is calling for it to turn into snow tomorrow and Saturday. I guess it remains to be seen. In the meantime, I will continue to clean up the driveway and street as I can.

Only one more sky walk and we are fini! I'm looking forward to it being behind us. I painted in the large skywalk from the STA Plaza to Sterling Savings. I crosses Riverside so is one of the longer skywalks. I did it in just over two hours.

I had a heck of a time trying to find a parking space. I don't know what was going on downtown tonight but it appeared to be a pretty happening place. That's not something you see a lot down there.

Festive Festiveness

Susan had to work tonight and so I took a night off from Sky walk painting to get some Christmas lights up on the house. The Annual Carriage Ride is this Sunday and we wanted the house decorated for that event. I still have some stuff to get up but that will have to wait for Sunday...when I have access to some daylight.

In any event, here is how the house looks so far. The temperature has warmed considerably and we have a window in which to do some clean up of all the snow we have on the ground. I was able to get out on the deck and break up the ice rink. I got it broken up and pretty well cleaned off. I hope I will have the ability to clean stuff up some more this weekend.

We have one and a half sky walks to finish...and then we are done painting for the season. Good thing too cuz I am getting tired of snowmen and I know Susan is tired of snow flakes. I'll be out tomorrow finishing my half of one sky walk and then we will hit the last one on Friday. That will be fabulous!

Ice Rink Deck

We painted two sky walks today. That leaves us with three to complete.


But today, I'm writing about the house. Specifically, the deck. After a long day of painting, we decided it was a good time to make use of the hot tub. That's the hot tub right there beyond the railing. You'll note a line of frozen snow in the middle of the deck. That is from the over hang above dripping down on to the deck. It managed to solidify in the middle there and then all the exta water was able to spread out over the entire deck and form a lovely skating rink.

It also built up around the gate we go through to get to the hot tub. That made it very difficult and somewhat life threatening to get to the hot tub. But, we made it work.We managed to get in and enjoy the tub. It was really needed too.

Now we are enjoying the evening with whatever we want to do. Susan wants to start putting up Christmas decorations and she is doing that as I write.

Also, as I write, I am writing this. I just wrote that. I wrote that too and right now I am writing this. Aren't you glad you took time out of your busy schedule to read this...or that!

Faith Restored

My faith in my fellow human person has been restored. I used to think that most people where scumbags. But I think that is too harsh. I have now come to accept that there are only a few scumbags out there and they all hover around me.


I have two snow shovels. One I leave by the back door and one I leave of the front porch. The front porch shovel is gone. Someone of the genus Scumbagus, has adopted it and given it a better home than I could ever have hoped to give it. Bastard!


We have been painting relentlessly for over a week. As of right now, we have three sky walks to finish. We took Friday off from our regular jobs and painted all day. We may have gotten a couple of other jobs in the meantime. That's the big advantage to being out painting on a regular business day. People ask for a card all the time.

When we paint at night like we normally do, we only see kids and vagrants. they never ask for our card.

I should also mention that the whole snow situation is under control for now. It hasn't snowed since Tuesday, which was mostly rain, and the plows came by today and really cleaned up the streets.

More snow is forecast for later in the week so we will see how this develops. Remember, we are only a few days into December and we have significant snowfall on the ground. No Pineapple Express is expected soon.