November 25, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: November 25, 2015, first mention of Mulberry, FL.
Five years ago today: November 25, 2011, a closer look at a sidecar.
Nine years ago today: November 25, 2007, a feeling of control.
Random years ago today: November 25, 2008, ass-hats with sailboats.

MORNING
           Did I just temporarily save myself $2,000? See this thrilling picture and you tell me. I might have another shed, but first Dunkin Donuts it was at sun-up, since I knew the phone conference would be lengthy. Nearly an hour, the Mutt & Jeff meeting. To any youngsters, those were two comic strip characters of long ago who never got anything done right the first time. That’s why you like this blog, it is one of the few that admits the cast are all ordinary humans. Well, ordinary that is until it comes to bass playing and the amount of varnish they could come up with. Here’s more detail.

           Circled in red is the damaged roof, with the brown arrow showing a direct line to the old tree stump in the corner. Circumstantially, if that tree trunk fell across the roof and the collateral damage was from branches, we have a matching pattern. I priced out the rough lumber to put in a roof and the 12” tiles to pave the floor.
           Shown in this picture also are my small trailer in the foreground, now being prepped to haul lumber. Of course it is fully functional, licensed, and workable, because it is a budget item. I’ll get to that in a moment. On the extreme left is the door, which looks like it was whacked off the hinges by the alleged fall. It would have to be replaced completely. Inside, those are just junky old political lawn signs. I’ll have a price estimate by end of today.

           The convo then moved to the predictable issues of shed cost and shed replacement. The shed is located where I wanted to put the barn-like structure originally planned, but the existence of a shed in good condition lessens the chances of that being built very soon. I got that JZ, so my budget for this shed is maximum $200 in materials. I will not begin any major work until after next Tuesday because JZ has located a decent truck for a price he’s willing to pay. If so, he’ll be here by the next day because the women are prettier, younger, blonder and anyway he has to get out of Dodge for a while, sanity-wise.
           Now back to the budget. You see, I’ve reported all along about extraordinary costs. It should not have cost $531 to move here. I could hardly have known from 250 miles away about the $600 required in utility deposits. Other costs you are already aware of. So what is so hard to understand that the money came from the materials budget for this place? What part of extraordinary don’t people understand? It means the item was not budgeted.

           Next point to stress is that over here we are efficiency-driven. Without JZ to help with a truck and my curtailed ability to put in heavy labor, there was no reason to not raid the renovations coffer to pay for said home ownership costs. It is not like I blew the money holding neighborhood barbeques and touring the Smithsonian. If I de-select those big items on the spreadsheets, there was an overall decrease in total spending by nearly $1,400. So cut me some slack here.
           The opposing view is that those expenses were all anticipatable which is true. But let’s backtrack a bit. Who knew I would get a place this year? I had only a down payment and was hoping to get a place in 2017 that didn’t require quite as much attention. I would be making rent-to-own payments which would have gobbled up a projected $1,000 per month. You can’t pick when you want to take a budget seriously one day and literally the next. A budget is a guideline.
           The factor not seen over the phone is that I want an extra storage and work space so I can begin some of the finishing work on the master bedroom. You know, it has been six months and I think I’ve only slept in there once. Half the room is my workshop and while right-sized for robots, it is cramped for construction. There, how was your post-Thanksgiving Friday morning?

Picture of the day.
Rare cat picture (in this blog).
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NOON
           Here’s the unusual event of the day. Cleaning out the aluminum shed, this is what JZ and I at first thought might be old telephone equipment. But, it turns out we have the innards of an old mechanical pinball machine. See the scoring numbers, that’s back in the pre-Millennial days when 9,999 was top score, leaving no need for all those trailing zeros to occupy little minds. Alas, all the working parts are rusted away.

           But there are quite a number of good wires, relays, and a lot of copper in good shape. The shed itself is salvageable. Actual measurements are 11’-7” x 7’-7”, making it large enough to park the batbike. Maybe. The flooring was one sheets of lumber which has rotted to nothing. I got too weary to dig away one of the corners to see why the shed remains so solid. It does not even rattle in the wind.

           Examining the roof shows that it is merely stove in, it does not leak. Do I venture a guess that somebody was restoring a pinball machine when the tree hit, and the project was abandoned? There were also several gallons of good rust-proofing paint left. But no varnish.
           Here is the view of the top of the shed. All that dead plant matter will be raked away tomorrow. The ribs are bashed in, but they are a convenient 12” on center and the thickness is identical to a good old 2”x4” laid flat on edge. Meaning if the metal can be simply bolted back up into place with capped sheet metal screws, this shed could be in operation by this weekend. Mind you, there is one hell of a mess inside. Where the old floor rotted, it left around a quarter tone of metal and wood fragments mingled in with the sand on the floor.

           The ceiling height would be 6’-2”, with about an even 6’ of that good usable space after it is braced. I priced out the 12”x12” paving tiles. That’s 77 square feet since I have no idea if those concrete paving tiles can be cut in half. I’ll leave that for library time on Monday.
           The shed door was also damaged, but it is an aluminum sheet over a wood frame. We robotics types know a lot about building cheap but sturdy frames, although that does not mean I could handle any finishing cabinetry work. If it can’t be fixed, I’d rather throw a window on that side of the structure anyway. As it is, you have to walk around back of the shed and enter from the east side. That indicates the shed was purchased as a pre-assembled unit and just plunked there.

           Work with me, gang, and I’ll have a nice work shed by early December. That would free up over a hundred square feet of floor space inside the cabin. I also bought a half-inch hardened steel rod which I hope I can adapt to work the scissors jack.

AFTERNOON
           The shed measurements are done, I’ve got a mind to head over to the Kensington for an afternoon brew and plan out the costs. I was going out tonight because a brunette lady approached me a couple days ago and said she would be at a certain place on Friday. Not my type, but then again, she also said I was not hers but she would not mind some decent company. Ladies, that is generally how you get me to relax the rules.

           As for mystery, well, you know I do not find anything mysterious about older women, but here is something. On the north side of the aluminum shed, I cleared away some debris in the corner chosen to dig and what do I find? Mystery pipes. They run from the garden area toward the shed. A sprinkler system doesn’t make a lot of sense, because it never was a garden. It was a fenced area for some kid’s dog. I just happen to think it looks like a dandy spot to grow some edible tubers.
           I further measured out and priced some gutters and underground drainage pipes. There is a nice but barely perceptible slope from the back of my property to the street and it is clearer each time I go over the yard that the house setting is a result of uneven water drainage. I’ll set up the laser and measure the exact drop. If it is over a foot, it would be easy enough, it seems to me, to put a drainpipe directly down the driveway swale and put a stop to the water seepage problem. When I say easy, I mean brainwise. As for the hard part, there would be a week’s labor digging the trench.

NIGHT
           Yes, I could bring the shed into shape for a few dollars, so I took the remainder of the evening off to write letters. Another pal from forty years ago has been added to the inner circle as we agreed in 1976. But he’s forgotten so it will be a surprise. I later stopped to see the little lady and she’s for real. However, she’s the classic small town date and every guy in the place was after her, including the married men. Once again I was reminded that certain tunes have become my songs in the area. More than one guitarist has been treated to the spectacle of hearing people tell him he’s playing my song.
           I put in some hours on the yard today, so I came home early and watched the DVD “Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King”. A typical latter day Sony production using standard material and effects as known by 2006. Nobody actors, and we all enjoy those fake scenes of people sword-fighting with those club-like weapons of northern Europe. The scenery is nice but always a little too foggy and the plot is identical to every other dragon-slaying plot. But you can’t beat the beauty of those Scandinavian women back when it was Scandinavia.

           That means I had the movie playing while I was busy. And I was pricing the materials for my planned new bathroom. That natural marble can’t be beat. Cultured marble isn't marble. The size that would be required (61” long) is $1,026. But, that makes it the nicest bathroom you ever saw in a cabin around here. Why would I consider such an expensive countertop? For starters, the fake marble material isn’t that much cheaper. Let’s stay focused on that shed for a bit. It should not take more than a day or two before I could move stuff in there. It would not be finished, but I need storage space. For example, I bought the insulation on sale and that is taking up floor space inside the house right now. As always, check back later.
           Then I listened to some Pavarotti. Pardon my lack of culture, but he’s not that great, though he is pretty damn good. Imagine memorizing all those lyrics in Italian, just kidding. He does have great piano players. For a fat guy, he doesn’t sweat that much and I have to commend him for his stage banter—the only thing he ever says is “Gracia”. Isn’t it amusing how gangster movies like to portray the thugs as Pavarotti fans? Because the criminal elements around Miami prefer “Los Lobos” on the jukebox.
           In reality, I can only take Pavarotti a few songs at a time and the only one I recognize is “O Sole Mio”, and only that part. Though I would like to hear him sing some Johnny Cash. And I figured out a bass “finger-picking” riff to that old Peacenik song, “Made of Sand”. And that even older tune, “White Lightning” has even more potential for a bass solo. It’s a matter of time, and if you get the idea there’s not enough time, there never has been. Consider the alternative.


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