One year ago today: November 27, 2016, my kind of day.
Five years ago today: November 27, 2012, Justin Bieber who?
Nine years ago today: November 27, 2008, another Thanksgiving.
Random years ago today: November 27, 2013, entering California by sidecar.
Car travel will never compete with motorcycling. It was four hours into Miami with nothing worth reporting for the journey. I took Highway 27 most of the way and to my surprise found it to be twenty miles shorter. The last hour of the trip is the time it takes to fight the Miami traffic now that the city has totally degenerated into multiculturalism. The place has become a sewer and I take pride in being the first of “my crowd” that got out while the going was good. It is not the same city I moved to in 1999. But I can’t afford Nashville, so here we are for a few days.
You can stomach Miami for a while, but nothing will ever bring back the romantic days of sub-tropical paradise unless you ship all the riff-raff back where they belong and do something to bring all the good people back. Since this has never been accomplished in recorded history, I think you can kiss Miami good-bye as far as a worthwhile destination. Myself, I have four more years of ties to the area, and even that is like once every other month for a couple days.
Odd as it seems, it has not been easy to find pictures of the porch style that I want. It takes a real sub-moron type of person to publish articles on porch styles without supplying pictures. Yet the Internet is full of such idiots. This photo is the generic type of what I want, but with the railing solid and the open areas screened in. A reminder that Lakeland is surrounded by old mining pits that are mosquito Nirvana. No need to memorize that fact – you will relearn it the first time you try to sit on an open porch in central Florida. It’s not as bad as your average day in Alaska, but still.
Rail fence.
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I went over the plans I’ve made with JZ and it turns out he’s never built or repaired a porch either. Rather than try to repair the old foundation wood, I’ve elected to run in a completely new set of cinder blocks a foot out from the front of the old building. Then, by securing 16-foot sister joists to the old joists, we have a new support system on the entire front side. It is only the very ends of the old joists that were in bad shape, the remainder of the wood is still fine.
But no help is forthcoming, so it looks like this is something to do on my own. Once again, the repair exceeds the quality of the existing building, but I’m no longer concerned with that. My estimate shows the proper design is no more expensive than trying to fudge the repair. And it is not lost to me that the joists in the other bedroom are in a good location and shape to do the same addition on the sunroom, should the porch prove itself successful. I have to forego my original idea to have these two additions sunken by 5-1/2” as recommended by contemporary builders.
I’ll be glad just to have the extra square footage. So JZ and I headed out to the cowboy bar in Coral Gables. The only place I like around here. We drank some Ying-Yang (Yuen-ling) draft and chatter up all the women in the place. Nothing serious, they were not in our league.
Last Laugh
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