Weekend update

Friday:

Babysat foundation crew

Lunch at Red Top

Work

No Aikido - bad weather

Saturday:

No Jodo

Babysat foundation crew

Dinner at El Centinela with K

Sunday:

Football

Pralines

Weekend update - COVID-19

  Friday:

Short walk with the Blokes

Plumbers in the house

Refrigerator repairman in the house

A couple of hours of work

Lunch at Taglia

Aikido

Saturday:

Jodo

Leather Journal work

Tricorn hat work

Football

Dinner with K at El Centinela

Sunday:

Blueberry pancakes

Worked on Lego Mustang

Football

Fudge

Weekend update

Friday:

VO auditions
Oven repairman
Putt-Putt with K. and C.

Saturday:

Work on Ron's keyboard case
Aikido at Trey's
ArmadilloCon work
WFC work
Dinner at El Centinela with KWSOP on TV

Sunday:

Work on Ron's keyboard case
Nap
Steaks grilled out by in-laws

Weekend update

Friday:

Lunch at Andiamo
Aikido
Still no water at home

Saturday:

Storms, so no plumber
Blueberry pancakes
Aikido
Dinner at El Centinela with K and the in-laws
Half Price

Sunday:

Still no water at home
Read a Pern book picked up at Half Price
Lunch with the family at Killen's BBQ
Lost power

Power outage

We lost power this morning around 3 am.  Prior to that, apparently, one of my dogs (Jack) got sick between my feet. 

I slept through it all.

K. woke me up a bit later to shut down my computer.  The UPS it was attached to was operating on only battery power and was beeping to let us know that fact.  Beeping items are not one of Tank's favorite things, so I had to gracefully shutdown the computer and power off the UPS to shut up the beeping.

Apparently, the power came on again about an hour later.  I slept through that, too.

Power

It came back on at 7pm last night. 10 days, 17 hours after it went out.

A. I. Day 8

Trees left to process: 0

State of power: off

Estimated power turn-on: unknown. I'm guessing 1-7 days.

State of the weather: fabulous, all things considered.

I cut up the last pine tree and the tallow tree that were in the creek/ditch. I did not complete it, but until I get access to a chainsaw, I'm done.

We've hauled all of the debris to the curb, except some onesies and twosies of limbs. Nothing major is left to get to the curb

A. I. Day 6

Trees processed today: 1

Trees processed previously: 4

Trees left to process: 2

State of power: off

Estimated power turn-on: unknown. I'm guessing 3-9 days.

State of the weather: fabulous, all things considered.

I cut up one of the pines that had fallen across my creek/ditch. One of
the branches was under far more tension than I thought it was. It
released the tension quickly when I made the final cut. I was not in
its path when it did so.

The next two trees are going to require getting into the muck to make
the cuts, so I've got to find my rubber boots.

No cutting tonight as the dojo is up and running and it's a night for
aikido.

Hurricane Ike: a summary of events

Thursday, Sept. 11

8:15 am: Friendswood announces voluntary evacuation

8:45 am: I decide to evacuate and head home

10:30 am: Finish packing, with K.'s help. Say a tearful goodbye and head north

1:30 pm: Arrive at the in-laws' place

Friday, Sept. 12

9:00 pm: Take Jack and Tank out for the last chance to relieve themselves before the storm

Saturday, Sept. 13

1:30 am: Call from K. giving the conditions in Friendswood

4:30 am: Hurricane Ike arrives, causing the structure to sway slightly for the next 7 hours

6:20 am: Power goes out

10:30 am: Attempt to take Jack and Tank out to do their business. Jack cooperates, Tank decides it's too windy.

1:30 pm: Storm has abated, leaving a very light rain falling. Tank decides he can go to the bathroom now.

Sunday, Sept. 14

3:00 am: Call from K. with conditions in Friendswood

10:00 am: Finish packing to go home and head out

1:00 pm: Arrive back in Friendswood

End of timeline

Surveying the damage, we got off very lightly. A total of 7 trees lost major limbs or gave their lives in the storm. The bamboo plant also lost a number of shoots. None of them damaged the house.

Trees left to process: 3

State of power: off

Estimated power turn-on: unknown. I'm guessing 4-10 days

State of the weather: fabulous, all things considered.

Pictures when I can get them off the camera

Hurricane Ike, still

Picked up more plywood for the protection of windows and doors, along with some more Plylox. Spent the time after volleyball sizing the plywood and the 2x4s necessary as adjuncts. So, should we decide to do it, we can board up the final windows and doors in an hour or so.

I don't expect to do it, as it looks like Ike will come in south of us. We will likely get some rain, but not the really high powered winds.

The shop has, according to K., been filled with loose stuff from the yard.

Unless things change, I'll be riding the storm out at home.

Hurricane Ike

It looks like Mr. Ike might be headed my way.

Yesterday afternoon, I got home and saw the projected path. It looked like he was likely to come straight up the gut. So, I went out to the shop and got down all of the storm boards.

I spent some time spray painting them with labels that are easier to see than the Sharpie I had used previously.

I also cut the plywood for the windows of the addition, and figured out how they were going to get installed.

K. came home and helped me get the last board down from the shop and we started installing them. We had to do some size adjustment along the way, along with learning some tricks of using Plylox. If you place the Plylox further away from the ends of the board, it makes it easier to install them.

It took judicious use of prop boards and cinder blocks to install the boards on the addition, but we got it done.

We got in from the installation and sat down to check the news on Ike. Now it looks like he's going to hit South Texas instead of the Upper Texas Coast. Grrr.

We need some more plywood for two doors and the big windows (107" x 52" and 107" x 72"). K. is out picking that up now, with her dad. We're going to need 'em at some point, so might as well have them ready.

I'm really glad I've got the shop now. I've got a plywood cutting methodology down after doing so much for making the cabinets for the shop. It made the cutting of the new boards, and adjustment of the old ones relatively pleasant.

One car is gassed up. It's the one that will be staying in town with Kim. She's a part of the city's emergency team.

She's using the truck to get the plywood and will fill that up during her errands. I'll use that to transport myself and the animals to our chosen destination. That might be the family place in Granger. I haven't checked to see if there are prior claims on the space there.

But, I'm now thinking I won't need to leave. And, I'll be busy unboarding the windows this weekend.

Weekend update

Friday: aikido

Saturday: chilled around the house while Kim was out and about. Our Taurus is a little iffy on the reliability side (i.e., it will die while moving at 55mph and not restart for a while), so I chose to hang out instead of going any where.

Aikido after she was done with her truck-necessary stuff and back at work.

Her parents and I then went to the library to help her close up the Book Sale and get the room clean for the next week.

Then off to Joe's for dinner. I made a pig of myself as I had not eaten much all day.

Sunday: Packed 'em all off for a cruise around the Caribbean for a week. I'm staying home due to a lack on interest in being stuck on a boat for seven days. I did some boat work in high school and I'm terribly interested in doing it again at the moment.

Went to see Redbelt on the way back from dropping them off at the cruise ship. Great movie!

Grilled some hamburgers out for my meals for the week. Mmmmm. I added some onion soup mix and some Dubliner cheese. It gave it a very nice flavor.

Most of Friendswood lost power for about an hour, so I went out and chatted with neighbors down the street. Everyone knew me as soon as I was introduced as "Kim's husband". :D

Garage sale

Due to the construction, we put a lot of stuff into a storage unit. Now that construction is *this close* to being complete, we're slowly getting stuff out of storage. However, some of that stuff does not need to come back out. It needs to go away.

To achieve that, we had a garage sale on Saturday.

A bunch of stuff from my in-laws, a couple of items from my mom, and a bunch of our own stuff.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous. In the past, we've had a garage sale in the summer and we've closed up shop by 11:00 am to get out of the heat. Saturday, the high was in the low 70's so we were quite happy to stay out selling stuff until 2:00pm.

All of the big stuff (lawn mower, picnic table, table saw) sold. Most of the little stuff sold, too. What didn't sell is now out in front of our house, free for the taking.

While we didn't make a lot of money in absolute terms, we did bring in enough to make it worth our while. And we cleared out a bunch of junk.

Construction update 12/10

We're getting very close. We've planned to start moving furniture in on the weekend before Christmas. Let's hope it happens.

Status:

Exterior still needs:
x - new driveway
yard grading
guttering

Shop still needs:
Lock on roll-up door
floor outlets leveled with slab

Apartment still needs:
minor touchups

Garage still needs:
x - water heater
washer (we'll do this ourselves if it gets done at all)
dryer (we'll do this ourselves if it gets done at all)
ramps to doorways
x - garage door opener

We walked on our new driveway Saturday morning. They poured it on Friday. The builder does not want us driving on it for 28 days. The supervisor for our project says we can drive on it starting today. We might wait until the end of the week. We were without a functional driveway for about 3 weeks. A real pain.

They're planning on grading the yard toward the end of the week. That will require driving a Bobcat on the driveway, moving quantities of sand around.

Weekend update

Friday: Zip off to Pasa-get-down-dena and pick up 15 sheets of MDF slatwall for a song. Drive home. Move some Nandina plants in preparation for the construction. Dinner at Durango's.

Saturday: Up early to get to the chili cook-off. Spend all day at said chili cook-off. Earn 10th place.

Sunday: Move more plants, bricks, etc. and install construction fencing for upcoming construction. Dinner at Joe's bar-b-cue. Kim moves Pypn's grave out of construction path, not without a few tears.

Storage unit acquired.

Part of the construction project will require installing sheetrock in our existing garage. This is a fire code issue, I believe, and is done to give more time for the residents to escape should a fire start in the garage. Sheetrock burns more slowly than open 2"x4" construction.

Currently, the garage is a mess. Well, before yesterday it was. Woodworking tools (lathe, table saw, radial arm saw), gardening equipment, bikes, etc. filling it up. It's less of a mess now.

In order for the sheetrock to go up, the workers will have to have someplace to move while doing it so the garage has to be emptier.

Kim rented a large storage unit for the next 4 months on Friday. We spent a good portion of Sunday filling it and emptying the garage.

We made 3 or 4 trips with the truck over to the unit and barely made a dent in the amount of space we have available. We did clean out a good portion of the garage. The main items we have left are the stained glass work table, the lumber, and the miscellaneous tools. We should have plenty of space left in the unit when the garage is empty.

We found the skeleton of a rat as we were cleaning out the garage. Apparently, the garage was messy enough to kill a rodent.

The bid is in

We received the bid for the add-on apartment and workshop. The cost is
about 150% of what we paid for our existing property in 1991.

Ouch.

But I'm pretty sure we're going to go through with it.

1st step done.

Can you see me now?

After getting our house re-roofed in December, the reception on our TV went South. Way South.

This was due to getting the decking replaced with some thermal shielding decking. It's essentially aluminum-backed plywood. I looked up the stuff prior to getting the roof done and saw that there were occurrences of people getting much worse TV reception from in-attic antennas once the new stuff was up.

I'd hoped that we would not be subjected to that result. Alas, 'twas not to be.

I've had it on my list of things to do for a couple of weeks to move the antenna from the house attic to the garage attic. The garage did not get re-roofed and has plain plywood decking.

Steps to accomplish the task:

1. See if the garage had a spot for the antenna
2. Remove antenna/pole/wire from house
3. Install antenna/pole in garage
4. Wire up the antenna

It all went well until step 4. The prospect of threading coax from the garage through a very long, tight space into the house was not good. Kim was up in the attic, examining the very tight space to thread wire, and we determined it was not do-able.

I then remembered that the house had been wired for cable when we bought it. Cable uses coax. Cable has been run from outside to the attic of the house. Therefore, there will be cable running from the outside, likely through the garage, into the house.

Step 4a. Find cable wiring in attic
Step 4b. Find cable wiring in garage
Step 4c. Get cable wiring in garage disconnected from cable connections and ready for antenna
Step 4d. Buy cable coupling device
Step 4f. Install coupling device in attic
Step 4g. Test the two cable wires in the attic and see which provides a good picture
Step 5. Enjoy the AFC Champoinship Football game in HiDef.

Sweet.

Total cost: 2.5 hours of work. $3.56 for a pair of coax couplers.

Rain ramifications

Leaks. In the roof.

They weren't too bad considering the amount of rain we got. They still need to be fixed. And, since the roof is about 17 years old, that likely means a completely new roof.

Ouch. After some extensive car repair and Vlad's surgery.

I hear the bank account screaming : Uncle!