October 18, 2019

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 18, 2018, Khashoggi who?
Five years ago today: October 18, 2014, worst bingo yet.
Nine years ago today: October 18, 2010, early vehicle budgets.
Random years ago today: October 18, 2015, the cost of plinking.

           Water. I use 24,000 gallons of it per month, or just under 800 gallons per day. So if that leak was say, 2 gallons a minute, I lost 120 per hour which is around 1,700 gallons. The “new” city council does not forgive honest mistakes. I wonder if there is a handy regulator that checks a flowing condition? I know they make the for washing machine hoses. Electricity I will waste to a certain extent, meaning I’ll use if for luxuries or things I don’t need, like building boxes. Water is probably a minimum for me as I don’t water the lawn or have a swimming pool. Let me look up and see how my usage compares with averages. How are you this morning?

           I’m up at 5:30AM, getting ready to take the car into the shop. If this blog is posted before noon, it means I’m over in Winter Haven. I’m paying for around six hours labor, so I’m using the time in the library to scan hundreds of pages of material on everything from birdhouses to yard trees to house siding to cutting specialty shapes in wood.
           Should be an interesting day. JeePee will be receiving his turtle text about now. The writing was a semi-comical event because I wrote it when there were no attractive women at the Karaoke. When people asked me what I was writing (happens a lot), I was stuck for an answer. Don’t laugh unless you are comfortable telling barflies that you write letters to reptiles. In my off moments, I repaired the signal lights on the scooter. I knew I kept my old garden hose for a reason. Looks sharp.

           I was at the shop on time (8:00AM) but the replacement check for the money had not arrived. Thus, I didn’t even have the money to advance the shop for parts. Stay with me a while and I’ll tell you how this interwoven story resulted in, or may result in, a wagon. Okay, this is my third trip with the bad radiator, so I know the leak is slow enough to drive for an hour. I’m looking at 5-1/2 hours shop time at $95 per hour, but I also know it doesn’t take a seasoned mechanic that long to pull a radiator. So I asked around and folks, much as I’m against illegals, speaking the lingo is a plus. I got a firm quote for $200, and it’s from a specialty shop.
           Looking around takes time, so when I arrive home I’ve missed the FedEx by ten minutes. If you’ve ever had this happen you know they will not try again on weekends and this means I can’t afford the $200 either. This is the check that’s late and I won’t dip into my reserves for car parts. It becomes a game of tag and showing ID, so if I get the check today, FedEx will make sure it is after my bank closes. Or wait until Monday, which is not what I paid for. The good news is this prompted me to finally install that mail slot. Look at the quality and thickness of that lumber. They knew how to build a door in 1945, by golly.

           So this leaves me driving a car that needs minding. I stop over at Agt. R’s to borrow a hammer drill. I know the joists should be bolted, but I have a surplus of 3” galvanized lag screws. Even with pilot holes, that antique lumber will burn out a battery drill. On the way, I stopped and got a container of the most expensive “copper” radiator leak treatment I could find. He opens the reservoir and pours it in. Instantly, the engine smoothes. It sealed the leak instantly and looks, after running a half hour, like it’s a permanent hold.
           The point is if it holds, I’m up the $800. And, next month (for those who remember how long ago my planning centered on November 2019, my car budget takes effect. Up to now all the moaning on my part has been because I’ve taken the $240 per month gas & insurance out of my own pocket, and fielded the repairs same way. Now, I have the car, the gas, the insurance, the repairs, a monthly reserve that builds, a replacement fund for another car if I need one, and $113 hard money left over.
           This hard money immediately had us eyeballing the hotdog cart. That’s enough to supply it for any size event around here within reason. And if something came along so big we ran out, there’d be a ton of money in the till to send somebody for supplies. Somebody on a scooter. So what do we need? That U-Haul enclosed wagon that’s for sale, that’s what. You have to stoop over to walk inside, but you can leave the thing unattended on the hitch. It is one of those low and wide models that the sidecar will just fit inside. The seller wants cash only, so he’s not going to get his thousand bucks. We know who has any cash these days and I’ll start the bidding at $400.

Picture of the day.
Solid marble bathtub.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           A half-hour on the phone with FedEx as they try to extort private information out of me, and they will not attempt redelivery until Monday. Assholes. I know, I should have used the tracking to find out he’d be here and stayed home. So you know, this is the first time in my life I’ve ever had a couriered item, and I see I was mistaken thinking their high-priced service was some improvement over the post office. They have a route-end drop off at the Walgreen’s after 6:30PM. Yes, after the bank closes. This should be fun if they ask for ID. That was not part of the deal and I’m learning. I have a backup check on the way. Because nobody in American can really be trusted to do the right thing any more.

           Have you seem this neat box that now holds all my sockets? Works great and will get a lid once I figure those out. Everything where I need it and the satisfaction I built it myself. I’m going to get maybe an hour’s work done on the house today, commonplace as this activity has become, today was supposed to skipped, so let’s see what I did for an hour. This is the bad joist, shown in the next picture. It extended under the hallway, which you can see half the flooring is ripped up in the left side photo. The joist dried out for over a year before it gave out. Just behind it you can see the brand new treated lumber going in. I have to jack the floor up just enough to slide this in.

           Four hours later, I guess I got into it. The last two big joists are installed, including the tough job under the bathtub. A few minor adjustments and three or four short plastic pipe sections, and that bathroom is ready for some finishing work. Keep in mind, that might be never. The nasty part is done, it seems like it got left for last, but actually, it didn’t get noticed until last. I had to mess up a bit of the pretty electrical work to fit things right, so my plan is to tack down a temporary hatch and leave that hallway until last. Tomorrow for sure I get my dryer in service because I dragged the wire into place. That was dusty. In the end, this part of the job was all done the hard way. Such work is a two-man operation. But it is done.
           One part I didn’t brawl with like before was that old lumber. Even with oversize pilot holes, it was giving my battery drills a hard time. That’s why I borrowed Agt. R’s (De Walt) hammer drill. No nonsense, with a bolt driver bit it plows clear through the nonsense and cinches the lumber so tight the clamps fall off. I’m putting nine lag bolts every eight feet, staggered. Do you think I should just keep the drill? Ha, like, what could he do about that? I still owe him $180.

ADDENDUM
           Today JeePee became probably the first turtle of this century to receive a hand-written letter. General turtle news and diet talk, this activity is considered a relic by those who can’t appreciate the skill involved. To compose and write an entire page to fit and look right is a lost ability to most and it is reflected in a society. I’m in a typical American city where over half the people can’t spell “embarrassed” and won’t use an unfamiliar word unless it is in the spell-checker. Prescriptions are now printed by computer because Doctor’s handwriting was causing nearly 6,900 deaths per year.
           I’m surround by contemporaries who emulate their juniors by staring into smart phones, but it all makes sense. These are the same people who, twenty years ago, often wouldn’t leave the house because “somebody might call”. My personal theory is that knowledge comes in two forms. The kind I like most is accumulative. The brand less in favor causes displacement, and it has become the norm to most. By the time NASA figured out it had fallen behind in heavy lift boosters, there was nobody left who could build the Saturn V. And most people could not, for the life of them, write a proper formal letter. By that I mean with the correct spacing, indents, spelling, grammar, and none of that lazy “block style” either.

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