Nope.

Nope, no cigar. Going after job was interesting, three tests, two of which I passed with flying colors, a week of time, and ten gallons of gasoline burned. Then there was a week of paid work I gave up. One can get a little bummed after this. Going to hit the libraries for some good reading.

Later......

Job hunted some more.... Arrgh. Just not my week.
While job hunting, the router up and died. So I got a new one of those.

It may be time for The Handyman Can biz to get going. My fee is twenty-five (wish it was Euros) an hour, no minimum, and free estimates. Just need the biz license and insurance. Hey, I'll hire me.

Even Later.......

Someone's been scraping the public resumes again. This time, mine at Monster.

Hi, My Name is Deleted. I came across your resume while doing a field search. And everyone else's. Sometimes they screw up and give an "offer" several states away.  Your resume matched my search criteria for a sales and leasing consultant's position at Local Car Dealer. Search criteria .....NONE. .(Edited a paragraph out for brevity) All the while, making friends, and helping people! Smell fertilizer...fresh. For us, car sales is about building relationships, value, customer satisfaction and personal wealth for our family, and future! Fertilizer deeper. In addition, we'll help you get off to a great start with cutting edge training techniques that will apply to many aspects of your life, not just sales.  All the tools you will need will be turned over to you this week. BUT, you have to get through this first interview for the doors of opportunity to swing open.

You will receive dynamic training, medical benefits, guaranteed training salary*, additional monthly bonuses, 401K, fast track management program, and paid vacations.

Name of local car dealer here is a family owned and operated business that believes secure and happy team members will exceed their patrons' expectations. Along the same lines by company policy they maintain professional and respectful work environments. They are not your average car dealer.

I will be conducting interviews in the Brand here New Car Showroom on Monday October 1st and Tuesday October 2nd ONLY from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm.

No appointment is needed. Please show up dressed and ready.  If you have any questions you may call my cell phone at Deleted, or Email me at Email deleted.  Otherwise, I will see you at the interview. I look forward to meeting with you soon.

INTERVIEW LOCAITON: Spelling bee runner up?
Local Car Dealer
Brand here New Car Showroom
123 Main Street
Raleigh, NC Zip here

If you need directions you can go to the dealerships web site at Deleted link or mapquest.com

Sincerely Yours,

Deleted Name


P.S. If you are curious how much the AVERAGE employee makes at a dealership in North Carolina.....money hook here..... multiply that number 50 weeks, and you'll see what I mean.  Here is the link.  See you at the interview!

Link 

*Unit/Performance Based Net Commissions

Did I get it?

In a little while, I'll be either employed or still looking. Long test today. Can't describe it except to say, harder then one thinks. Just in case, applied for yet another job via internet.....

Go here to learn about the wonders of unemployment.

www.dvorkin.com/essays/unemben.htm

Some caustic but wonderful observations about having more free time then one wants. Other good stuff too, some astute looks at job scammers and whatnot. I bookmarked it of course.

I'll know in a little bit.

Third Time's the Charm......

Third evaluation coming up at the new "job". Those of us that made the cut in the second evaluation were like me, older, still in shape. The younger ones were sent away to try again, . . . . a year later. The place is going to do well, going to ship a lot of heavy machinery thanks to the softer dollar. Start at O-Dark on Friday for the third evaluation. Looking forward to steady work and income. Also really nice not to do the quarterly thing anymore. That's a bite if not planned for. If I'm in, going to stay there for quite awhile. Real estate market won't be back until summer of 2009, if then.

Green boss was unhappy that the younger workers just don't have it. Some of em' do. The smart ones stay in school. See a lot of young polished office staff and managers these days. There used to be quite a few that wanted to do houses but they take one look at the housing market and the surfeit of illegals in the biz, and say, "Forget it!".

Got to move my medicine cabinet around in the front bath. It's a bit too high as I tried to give plenty of clearance to the faucet. Going to hide the holes with trim. Painting primer on my remaining replacement siding for today.

Later.....

Didn't paint board one. The front bath is hereby declared finished though. No more touch ups, no more tweaking, and no more hardware. Also a few weeks off until I clear out the back bath. That has been given back to the cat for the time being.
Art is needful in bathrooms. Something to look at while meditating, so to speak. The medicine cabinet is a bit small mirror-wise but it beats rummaging through the vanity drawers for floss. A little off center to the light. The light stays where it is though, to move it would require official sanction.

Latest most pessimistic word on real estate, is that it won't be back at par until 2011.

Multiple Choice? Wowza!

Hot Dog! Good day at the new "employer". Blew through the test in record time. Well, multiple choice.......I can beat anyone on the planet. Not smarter then most, just I have the widest mental download bandwidth that I know of. Just means I can screw up faster then light......

Friday, they see if I can screw stuff together. Out of nine of us, they kept four.

To celebrate, I threw caution to the wind and stopped at Lowes. Nice new medicine cabinet in keeping with the faux period look of the room (Greek Folk Revival), complete with cornice. Pretty decent for the money, i.e., 98 bucks plus tax.
Image is from Lowe's online catalog. No flowers, let alone roses, in my bathrooms.

No work on the chimney today.....just too hot.

Money Runs In, Money Runs Out

What can I say? Holding my own? Yep. Kinda. Sorta. Was hoping to get up enough scratch to get the tank-topper and the medicine cabinet for the front bath but the water bill, the phone bill, the other phone bill, and two gasoline fill ups for the Subaru ate most of that up. Add in the next tankful of gas and the new belt to be, uh, formal, (Why I do this for the HR types? So I impress them? Wished it work.) and I'm back to square one. Don't owe anyone anything but it would be nice to be able to finish off one damned room at least.

Nice road trip to Loudoun. Gentle rolling hills of McMansions as far as the eye can see. Same horrible traffic in Leesburg. Best friend was back in hospital, apparently getting warranty work done.

I was watching Extreme Makeover with the sound off. No shot over five seconds, lots of cuts, and product placement like crazy. OK, so they do nice things for unfortunate people, but does everyone need a huge house that looks like it was decorated for theme parks?

Heard someone say that the inflation rate was two percent. Uh, try to build a house recently? Price of twelve foot long sheet-rock just jumped by two dollars.

Big day at my prospective employer. Things I now live by.

1. Don't fall in love with the job.
2. Don't expect it to be steady.

I'm also starting up the biz. If it gets going well enough......

Water Water Everywhere, but Where?

My water bill was waaay up there. 3280 gallons of water? Last month it was high too. I'm thinking it was the back bath toilet before it was repaired. Oh well, since the old overflow pipe is the last original part in the thing, it's been shut off until the back bath gets repaired and refreshened. Navy showers and flushing only when needed now. See if I can get it under a thousand gallons for the month. For every gallon under a thousand, I'm going to award myself a cent toward frivolity.

Back at the Garage House, helping out the boss. He's gotten the Carolina Cold, a nasty regional cold. I had one two years ago, sneezed so hard I'd get nose bleeds. Sprayed insulation. Nasty stuff....air one can see. The place needs doors and trim and finished floor, then done.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, road trip. Then Tuesday is an evaluation day at my prospective new employer to see if they like me. The job is going to be 80 miles round trip but if it's the only game in town.....I'll do it.

Strange offer from a health insurance agency, googled them and looked at their website as requested.Nothing in relation to my resume and the only openings were sales. There were no openings for claims personnel, customer service representatives, mailroom, adjusters, underwriters, and other functions that any insurance company has. Decided to pass. Another one from someone looking for car salesmen. We call these guys, resume scrapers. Basically, they scrape public resumes off of sites like Monster and Careerbuilder and make questionable job offers.

Kick out flashing

Job hunting like crazy. If no response, I keep on sending and sending, pushing hard. Road trip to Fuqay Varina today. Also got to fix up the business application and get that done.

The chimney got some attention yesterday. The flashing is much better on one side and it's got some new cedar siding, back primed and painted. Other side to be repaired today, then cutting out old caulk and scraping and painting. I found out that kick out flashing is needed if a roof stops alongside a wall. The water gets diverted away from the wall instead of running down it. The gutters were also full of acorns, including shells and fragments. Messy eaters those squirrels are.

Much heavy editing on the blog. Just too wordy, so snip! Sometimes a word, sometimes a sentence, or whole paragraphs.

Just Chillin'

I heard on C-SPAN radio a long time ago, a tape recording of Johnson discussing the Vietnam War with his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. Both of them wanted out but they just couldn't figure out how. It was something to hear, the quiet despair in the conversation.

Job hunting goes and goes. There is a promising opening about forty miles away...one way. Long way to go for a job though. I test drove it today.

More "forward motion therapy" on Tuesday. Me and my Fuji will be exploring Umstead Park in the morning. The Peugeot is parked. It was not happy with being taken out Sunday, so it blew it's front tire after being put away by the television downstairs after being ridden quite a few miles. The two wheeled Christine, apologies to Steven King.

Fire engine red with plenty of chrome. It's the original Peugeot UE8M of 1984, but was upgraded extensively a year later by yours truly so it could be ridden up the hills. This means quite a few steel parts got replaced with alloy. This was my primary means of transport for three straight years.


Two years ago, it was refreshed again. Not easy to get original Peugeot parts so I settled for some generic French parts instead.


Well, mostly.....




Being a "Sports Tourer", it came with fenders. Nice to have with mud and water on the roads.

I thought of being the Bicycle Powered Handyman and Punch Guy. Big rack, also French but only a few years old. Only problem though, is the beast is already just shy of thirty pounds and the gearing is a bit tall. A thirty pound toolbox and a few more pounds of power tools? I'll need some serious Wheaties!

The Nervar crank set. I tried to get dust-caps for it but got a very strange look instead. Something about long orphaned French bicycles and parts just does that. Want to drive your friendly bike shop nuts.....just show up with one of these and ask for an inner chain-ring.

Peugeot Electrical Power Company.
The infamous Simplex plastic bodied rear dérailleur. People keep saying unreliable and all that, but somehow, it's always worked for me.

Just hire the cat.....

Lets face it. The real reason I'm looking for work...is to feed this.
There are smaller dogs in the neighborhood, or were.....

Somewhat shy or just bored, hard to tell.


I needed some FMT (Forward Motion Therapy), so I pulled my two old beauties out of their long rest. I thought of my old Peugeot UE8M but it's very sentimental for me, so only on nice days.
So it was my "Crackhead Special" as my bro in law calls it. I found this late-70s Fuji Supreme at a thrift shop for ten bucks. It took a month to get it back to roadworthiness. It's a fun ride. Even when you're tired and the legs have had it, somehow, you just want to keep going.Note the rack. Someday, this may be all that we can afford to "drive", so it's rigged as a commuter special. Completely legal for most European streets complete with lights and bell.


Thirteen miles of American Tobacco Trail later, complete with dust and horse dung. I should have been touching up my bath and the old resume and pleading on bended knee for employment, but heck, it's Friday, cool and cloudy, so ...... I .......pedaled my heart out. I feel much more optimistic and better at any rate, must be the endorphins from when my body said, "Thank God, he's gonna stop!".

Ah, the front bath. Just more touch-up. Mostly done and still cheap.


The wall-side of the door casing is always the same color as the wall. Just like it that way.

The "tile" lines up with the threshold. The base-top on the casing gives the door more depth. Also helps hide the fact that the door casing is only 1/2" thick and the base board is 3/4ths.

Bath bling of sorts.....Stainless steel supply lines for both the vanity faucet and the toilet.

Last of the caulking except for the shower. Off white to match the "grout". Shower had a good clean, just need to bleach treat it. Then the recaulking.

Touching Up

Not much today beyond painting and touch up. Lots of touch up. Big touch up, then medium touch up, then small touch up, then..., and so on. Cleaned house, organized tools (lots), and figured out that my tax payment for the third quarter will be painful but not agonizing. Oh yeah, job hunting....


The color is decent. The threshold is "Venetian" baseboard tile. Sports section of the N & O for protecting the floor. Speaking of flooring, the leftover vinyl from the front bath is enough to do the back bath. Not bad for one roll of vinyl, 6' by 9', and only thirty bucks. The pattern also lines up....talk about serendipity.


Best bathroom light in terms of light production and light quality. there are three 13 watt compact fluorescents in them now. There were four but no need to be wearing sunglasses while brushing teeth.


Maggie, part Manx and part something rather large. Anywhere from 16 to 18 pounds depending on exercise and grazing habits. Not bright, but very amiable.


Medicine cabinet, half bath. Eventually two more for upstairs.

36" vanity, Colony by RSI. I wanted the 30" model for the front bath but the last one at the store got ...... clobbered.

That's about it. Tomorrow, set the rest of the shoe mold, install toilet and door and then just wait.

Greek Revivial on the Cheap

The front bathroom gets ever closer to done. Yesterday, between job hunting and hearing, "We'll give you a call.", the vanity plumbing was finished and working. I managed to outsmart myself by installing the wrong supply hoses, but, if sufficiently motivated, I can work in tight places. No leaks and all good.


I like white porcelain and chrome knobs and handles. I just do.

My baseboard is pretty hefty compared to the sample of standard baseboard. I like a good solid trim-out.

Mitering corners is fun.

Note the tile in front of the shower.

Some Greek Revival going on.

I solved the problem of the molding on the door casing running into the base cap on the baseboard with some fast coping and caulk.

I can wash my hands to the right........


.....and to the left.

So today, pretty good. Trimming, caulking and setting nails.

I spent how much?

Why so long?

It's been awhile. Just too busy to write. My last day at the Garage House was Friday. I'm still self-employed, but no longer a sub. Boss got a good worker in A anyway and he was trained as green builder, so all good. It's in the plastering stage, electrical mostly done. It's going to be a nice space, high board ceiling reminiscent of the old country stores, nice view out the windows, and last but not least, solar hot water. It's also going to be well insulated and an almost zero net load on the HVAC

Job Hunting and the Question

Job hunting goes well. A temp agency pinged me with an offer. I also passed it on as requested. Seeing a lot of self-employed though, wondering if that's the way to go. The jobs aren't too great as it is, so that might be why there are so many on their own.

The two not-so-cheap baths

I found a matching vanity to my half bath's on clearance but it looked like it got hit by a truck, so what I got is still white, but has three drawers instead of two and cost me 208 bucks as opposed to 168, less the tax. Still, cheap enough as it is. Lowes also sold me a relatively inexpensive white cast marble top, side strip, and enough trim to install behind the toilet location. The front bath is the current focus.

Last night the sheet vinyl was cut to size and fitted. Not bad for a first go. The bare spot behind the pipes is going to be under the vanity.
Then came time to glue it down. A little too much glue. After all was said and done, it took some time to get the excess out. The hammer is for those pesky staples that I didn't smack flat the first time.
I dragged the vanity upstairs and stuck it in the front bath. The first picture shows the vent being laid out on the toe kick, the second, cutting it out, and so on.



More work to be done in shifting the cold water line so it doesn't interfere with the drawers, silicone caulk for the faucet and sink drain, and getting as much done before tomorrow.

Much later in the afternoon.....

I got as far as getting the vanity in, top glued down, and installing the faucet. Nothing is hooked up yet. I also painted the baseboard. The baseboard will be built up out of some very nice clear 1" by 4" Yellow Pine (species Longleaf), an inch high base-cap and a narrow shoe.


Nothing like getting the first fixture in a room to boost morale. It's always in the "Are we there yet?" phase until that happens. Then it's, "Almost there.". A bit of a gap on the wall side of the top. What can one say if the place isn't plumb? Caulk will fix that. I got some cheap stuff but want to use the good stuff by General Electric instead. The drawers are staying out until everything is working.

This is my favorite bathroom faucet. Porcelain handles have a nice feel to them and having a separate control for hot and cold makes it easier to set a water temperature. What is also nice is the clearance under the spout. It also swivels from side to side to make filling large awkward containers easier.

Time to chill and clean up and get some food for the mind. See ya later, Gator.

Drought

It's been ridiculously hot. Still we got the sheet-rock up at the garage house. Drought going on here too. I drive across Lake Jordan and there are ever more lake bed showing.

My front bath is mostly painted, just touch-ups. Something called "Silver Spoon".

Death in family out west, trying to find out. See what happens. Might mean flying the unfriendly skies....

Mudding and Patching

More progress on the front bath. The toilet was overhauled. The gap between the framing and the door jamb was shot full of foam. It pushed the jamb out, so a quick trip to my parts closet, a few 12d galvanized common nails, and whacked it back in. The bottom plate in one wall was never there as it turns out. They just toenailed the studs into the subfloor. Ah well, foamed that too. No point in fixing it, non bearing wall and it didn't fall down in the last twenty years..... The electrical outlet and switches were caulked as well.

There be mud in and on the walls. Strange thing about this townhouse, apparently they ran out of half inch drywall, so they used in it's place, a lot of fire rated stuff. The entire bath was done with it, as was my kitchen and quite a few other places. Much sanding ahead.

Found decent paint at four bucks at Lowes for the back bath, got more shutoff valves and stocked up on drywall nails and screws since I was out. The old vinyl floor is gone, pulled up and neatly folded to fit into a trash bag. Have to keep a low profile at the dump, they nearly choked on the toilet. Pictures soon, promise.

Water Off, Chilling.......

Well.....hmmmm. The two bathrooms are still cheap. I'm keeping the front bath toilet and it will get the valve body and flapper from the old half bath toilet. The supply valve was bad. Didn't expect that. So a few more bucks. Toying with the idea of getting a new toilet but the old one isn't cracked.

The damage from my last foray into Lowes comes to $57.52. That's for one 6' by 9' roll of cheap sheet vinyl flooring, a quart of glue to stick it down with, and a gallon of paint to match the walls to the vinyl. Not least but last, two tubes of caulk since one cannot have too much of the stuff. I gave up on the mauve paint. Eyes just hurt looking at the test patches. Imagine a whole bathroom that color.

So far, so good. Typing a bit now, waiting for the glue to cure on some of my plumbing. Water's off till then. A plate has been bolted down where the toilet was. It's gonna be a-while before any fixtures go back in since the walls will now need more work.