Mud Mirror

Not a good day yesterday at the green house.

New cell still not "here". Maybe the old one is designed to stop working today or tomorrow.


A frosty December morning in the Trinity Alps, Trinity County, California.

Paid taxes?

North Carolina is a very religious place. The offices were closed this Easter Friday, so forget getting my business "launched", but I did pay my taxes. I'm in the second quarter now. Going to get more organized. I washed my cell phone so a hundred bucks for that. The front walk post at my brown house was cheap at 6 bucks but the router and bits cost $125.00 on sale. The front walk is actually a bridge going from the parking area to my front porch. The decking was replaced last summer.

A is not coming back to the green house so guess who took the siding down off the inside of the back porch. Me. Hardiplank is really not designed to be reused. Still, it was already the right size for the walls and I really did not want to get more. So, first a really nasty glance at it and a nail or two just slid out (with a little help). It's nailed into treated yellow pine cripples. The yellow pine in question is Loblolly. If it had been Long Leaf....forget it.

I did everything I could think of to avoid buying more. Pried from above...gently, below...gently, and behind....gently. Tapped on the back with a wide wood block, and when all else failed, cut the nails with a sawszall. The ends were problematic, and seven pieces suffered. Of that, six were salvaged for other areas of the porch. The door sides were short pieces and there's plenty of scrap, so they got blown out and new pieces cut. So, in the end, no new hardiplank needed.

I'm also adding block to extend a pier. The footing is pretty broad. Need to get that knocked out soonest, as once the green house gets painted, it's time to hurry up and get all the finish in place. The plasterers came and went. Third coat of mud and they fixed my little problem. It also has been below freezing the last few nights, so a heater is on and the house is closed as best as possible.

After ordering my new cell, I remembered people, who for a living, dry out flood-damaged servers and other electronic equipment, and salvage quite a bit. So, popped off the battery on the old one, opened it up and stuck it under a fan for two days. Stuck it all together and plugged it into the charger to see if it would smoke, spark, or melt. None of the above. The LCD lit up and it came back to life. Still, a second phone would be a good back up.

Imaginary buildings

I own a program called Brodurbund Home Architect 3D. It's a version of CAD, but somewhat watered down. Great software though, I've been using it for well over a decade. I also took a year and a half of architectural drafting.

You prospective employers who didn't believe that I can read plans.....I can actually draft them. Not only on the computer but by hand as well. Lettering and everything, No. 2 lead, resin bag, scale, everything. Oh well, you lose. I'm just one step away from being a business. I'm already paying taxes too.

The circular building is called Circus Minimus. It's eleven townhouses in a circle with a community hall. The view is from the arcade toward the hall. It's one of many that I have designed over the years.



























The modern building in split face block with the red framed blue sashed windows is a memorial to my aunt who was a physics teacher for many years at a high school in San Francisco, the same school that my father and my two uncles went to. The teaching faculty have their offices in bays that cantilevers out from the main body of the building. The top floor is for administration, the bottom has the big classrooms, auditorium and student services. The second and third floors are for classrooms.





The pyramids are inspiring, not the shape, but the great blocks rising up in a corner after the smooth casing was removed for more utilitarian needs by the citizens of Cairo. I also like the sheet metal siding saying, "This building is it's own style."

The cabin, just a building that is to enjoy the woods.


Also a street lined with attached villas from my small Roman town.

I also have a version of the grand stair hall from the Titanic, but it's a work in progress.

Enjoy.

No, No, On the Outside!

A did a really nice job of putting the siding on the solid rail over at the green house on the back porch. It's on the inside though. Boss wants it on the outside. I think it looks nice and if it were my house, would run with it. But it's not mine. A was feeling poorly at the time and from what he described, sounds like a mild case of food poisoning. At one point I was below him and he warned me to....move away. Luckily he didn't blow groceries. I'll help him remove the siding this morning. My sawszall has some really skinny blades that can cut the nails neatly, and since it's a reverse, not gonna be any time at all putting the siding on the outside.

I'm running in the black, not pulling in great bucks but enough to get by. The main thing killing my budget right now business wise, is updating and replacing tools. My hundred footer extension cord is too light a gauge for major power tools, so it has been exiled from the job. Minor power tools are fine, but it gets borrowed quite a bit since it reaches everywhere. So yesterday without my long cord, I had to piece together three cords just to get to the spot in the attic where the speaker wires were to come out of the top plate.

So, if Uncle Sammy and Cousin State, not to mention my brown house material needs leaves me a little extra, two hefty fifty foot extension cords on wind-up reels. Only problem is, that my walkway posts have routered tops, so I have to get a router plus bits, to do the replacement of the rotten ones. I did have a shop once with all sorts of stuff, but moving five times in ten years resulted in a lot of stuff being thrown to the wolves.

I really do need to look at the top of my chimney. Luckily everyone else's chimney top is now starting to rust out as badly as mine. Working away on the HOA to look into that. See what happens. If that fails, I need a 32 foot ladder to get up there but I have only a 24 footer. Maybe I can work a deal. Loan me a 32 footer for a weekend, and in exchange, not only do you get your ladder back, you can have a nice new 24 ladder....permanently for free. It's in the way.

Poly-Ticks....Nancy Pelosi went to Syria and is doing a much better job of mending fences and getting an understanding going between parties then our El Grandisimo Jefe Curiso Jorge ever did in six years. Pelosi for President!

Way behind on my punch list, getting sent out for this and that. Hopefully A the former is coming back.

53 Minutes

53 minutes before I have to grab my shower and get to work. So....not gonna waste time on poly-ticks or illegal immigrant incompetent subcontractors. My cup of coffee wandered off....excuse me while I find it.

50 Minutes. My phone bill is getting due again. The reason is, is that it is the one of the last two still done by check. The town water bill too. The latter gets a hundred bucks thrown at it, so it's good for a quarter. The only reason I have a phone bill (land line) is because of my DSL. Cable internet I could get but having worked as a support flunky in the cable (really big national outfit) company as a network operator, the network here is not great. The optical fiber gets dirty and they just don't keep up with it. Also don't watch television....any television. I have a TV but it's just a monitor for my DVD player.

43 Minutes. At the green house (where I work and punch after subs), the shower end wall is finally the way it should be, following the shower surround as it gently curves into the corner, straight on top. It took some hefty shimming and some wedges to make it right. Today I get to run speaker wires into the attic. Also going to put some drywall over the voids in the attic so the blown-in insulation stays out of the walls.

35 Minutes. At my brown townhouse (where I live), one of my walk posts is rotten. Also my neighbor has a rotten one too. I'm going to replace them both with treated four by four's and router the tops to match the others. All mine, all of them have to go. Doug Fir old growth is great stuff but not out in the weather. Also going to get a hundred bucks worth of two by six treated, and get rolling on the back deck. That and the new carpenter bee domicile, they seem to love Kilz primer. Hmmm. Maybe it was a bad idea for the EPA to get rid of the arsenic.....right now, yum yum, spicy bug food. The siding and trim out back at my place will have to wait until the last half of the month.

25 Minutes. I'm going to miss two days of work next week. Really need to get the quarterly gummint extortion payments sent in. One day for that, one day so I can travel up to my mother's and see how she's doing.

18 minutes. My neighbor is getting some kitchen cabinets so I'll help him out. As an owner of a table-saw in a townhouse surrounded by neighbors with infants, I have to keep em' sweet. Also, I'll wait till they are somewhere else if possible, and do warn them in advance. So....they get my service and help, and I can complete my repairs and renovations a little bit faster. Everyone is happy.

14 Minutes. I have the occasional need to carry a 4' by 8' sheet of plywood or Sheetrock. My Baja is a great little vehicle for most purposes, but that pickup box is vestigial at best.

6 Minutes. Time to post and fix the grammar.

More Hammers

Pounding nails at the ceiling joints the other day, my new Vaughan 99 has a nice clear ring to it. Oh, what a sweet hammer it is. I traded the other to A who had been looking for a nice hammer for years too. He'll give me something in return. My old Vaughan 99 now has a longer handle on it. I can drive nails at long distance as if it were. Nail guns are faster and I will use them, but when it counts for sheer quality and just really nice work, do it by hand.

Back at the House again? Think of "The Man Who Could Not Get Off The MTA".

Actually less then thirty feet of ceiling joint I had to nail. Thank all the gods, odd and even, that I double fastened the joints near the reinforcement blocks early last week. Caulked the shower surrounds too. Obsessed over that caulking, over and over again until it was "right".

Looked at that shower wall again. If I could just get in behind it and slip a long thin tapering wedge on the third stud, it would be so right.

Back again at the house today, measuring the soffit. Gonna get there a little early and just measure it and write it all down. Then I call the boss and that's that.

I really need to spend time at my own place. Me and the neighbors plan to wash and stain three of the five townhouse decks later this year (four if we get the guy on the end in on it....more the cheaper it is per capita), so I got quite a bit of deck repair to do (as do they). We did gutters on three and I helped do a porch repair on one. Replaced a rotten post, rail and a few pickets. Next weekend, I stay away from the "green" house and work on my "brown" house.