We’re hunkered down under about 20″ of snow here in the ‘Ville, and it looks like it’s finally stopped falling. The roads outside are quiet, and there are 3’ icicles hanging from the fancy new LED streetlamps.
Finn and I spent the morning in front of a DVD of Mythbusters building her Christmas LEGOs, warm and cozy in the den. After a late lunch we got curious, bundled ourselves like eskimos and crawled over the drifts outside to make it to the road. I borrowed my neighbor’s snowblower and cut a path on the front sidewalk. By the time I was done the first stuff I shoveled was under 3″ of new snow.
We came back inside and made some dinner, then watched it in front of Hotel Transylvania 2 while the wind and snow howled outside. It finished at about 11 or so, but the wind is still shaking the trees and lifting the eaves. I’ll be out tomorrow shoveling but I doubt anything is happening on Monday.
Here’s an interesting guide to identifying The Best and Worst Projects for Increasing Your Home’s Return on Investment, via Lifehacker. Some of these are no-brainers and some are surprising.
I love how excited Finn gets for Halloween every year, and I hope she continues to enjoy it for as long as possible. We’ve got a nice tradition of joining some friends in Arbutus, who feed us and take us with them through their quiet little neighborhood, and we look forward to sharing it with them every year. This year Arbutus wasn’t as into the spirit as they have been in years past, but we still enjoyed ourselves, and the girls had a great time together. Finn was on her best behavior, and her careful “Thank-Yous” and “Happy Halloweens” were rewarded by several people, which made her dad super proud.
After a couple of weeks and several Craigslist repostings, the Xerox Phaser we had sitting in the home office has left the building. Ever since I got the new job, and sold the huge HP to my last employers, this one wasn’t getting any usage at all, so I cleaned it up, took some photos, and put it on the market. A nice man came on Sunday with a friend and a truck, looked at some test prints, and carted it away. This is good, because our trusty B/W printer died a few weeks ago without warning. The Wirecutter says Samsung makes a good B/W printer that will do duplex for about $100 with a per print cost of around $.02. So I’ll wait to get paid tomorrow and order that sucker right up.
Now that the sewer line has been fixed, we have no more gray water in the basement, which is a nice change. The gray water left a lot of yuck behind, though, so I picked up some bleach cleaner, a pole-mount scrub brush, and some mop heads, and got to work disinfecting the basement floor. When I was done with that, I started re-organizing stuff to go back on the shelves and off the floor, cleaned off the workbench, and made the space usable again. At some point this winter I’m going to upgrade the lighting to overhead fluorescents that come on with the switch, because there are whole sections that have no lighting at all.
What didn’t get done: Any work on the walkway, as Sunday started rainy and only cleared up after noon. There was no brewing, because I ran out of time. And the yard is still a mess; I’ll have to call my bro to come and rake some leaves.
I came to a realization early on Tuesday morning. I was in a Dupont Circle soup kitchen taking portraits with Jen for an annual report she’s been working on. I was shooting with my Nikon D7000 and she was shooting with a borrowed Canon 7D. The results I was getting were just not as clean or as sharp as hers. A big part of this, as I admitted later, was due to the skill of the photographer: Jen has an innate knack for framing and shooting people that I don’t naturally possess, and was immediately connecting with her subjects and knocking off professional shots with ease. But another big part of this was the feel of the shots I was getting and how they differ from the shots I’ve seen and taken with the Canon–they just look better to my eye in a way I can’t describe.
This could be due to several factors. The photographer, as mentioned. The glass, which is the key difference in quality: She was shooting with a full-frame f/1.4 L lens, which is a full order of magnitude better than the crop-sensor f/1.8 lens on my Nikon. Faster, sharper, and better. It also could be shiny new toy disease, wherein some small part of my lizard brain convinces the rest of it that we’d be much happier with that more expensive thing over there instead of what we’ve got in our hands.
I’m curious if the camera body is as important as the glass. I’m considering the rental of a Nikon full-frame body and FX lens to see if I like the results–I’ve always liked Nikon’s approach to ergonomics and user experience more than Canon’s annoying scroll-wheel/joystick controls, and the way things work is very important to me. I haven’t given up on Nikon yet, but I’m seriously evaluating a (costly) migration to Canon full-frame gear.
One thing I didn’t mention about last weekend was the fact that I picked up another 100+ bricks from Second Chance for the front walkway. For the grand total of $50 I got a bunch of oversized, weathered brick that then got cut down to size (adding a $45 rental fee) and stacked under the back porch. If the weather holds out this weekend, I’ll get the supplies needed, rip out the hedges on either side of the walkway, and get the last of the brick installed before the ground freezes up.
The other major project I’m hoping to tackle is getting the hardtop back on the Scout while it’s still somewhat warm. I spent a good bit of time last weekend attempting to get her started, to the point where I ran the battery down. It just wouldn’t get any gas into the carburetor. Then, after taking 10 minutes to cool off, I dumped a gallon of gas into the tank, jumped it from the Accord, and it fired right up. I must have backed it into the garage on fumes before I left for Abu Dhabi.
Sewer lines are like arteries; you never really think about them until they clog up and you have to spend thousands of dollars to have them excavated, and then you’re left with a terrible scar and an empty feeling. Our sewer line went in relatively painlessly, but the magnolia tree had to die for its selfish ways. Along with 20 feet of hedge in front of our house.
A nice bunch of men came with a cute little backhoe and went down nine feet to get to the pipe; as part of the process they disconnected the copper ground from the electrical panel and blew out four breakers. If you haven’t guessed, that’s not supposed to happen. It turns out BG&E never properly hooked up the main ground going back to the pole with our service, so the backup copper wire attached to our water pipe has been carrying the full 220 volt ground. When he disconnected the ground, the breakers blew and fried four power strips. (Pro tip: always buy high-quality power strips). Our plumber, shaken, suggested we call BG&E to have it checked out. Um, yeah.
And, it turns out there was a cleanout for the sewer, but it was buried under the magnolia.
So at the end of today, we’re missing one whole side of hedge, the west side of the front lawn is one huge mound of dirt covered with straw, the magnolia tree is gone, but we can again poop in dignity without raw sewage flooding the basement.
There was a time, long ago, when your correspondent hoarded several tons of brick in his backyard, with the idea that he would mix concrete, lay water piping, and build a patio to escape the city blues in Baltimore. It came to pass, after a few long months of planning, construction, and hard work, and for a short while into the fall of 2001 I had a lovely oasis with lighted steps, trees in planters, and a deck leading to my back door.
That November, the ancient terra cotta sewer line collapsed, and I had to call a man in to demolish half of the brick I’d laid down to dig out the yard and repair the pipe. Discouraged, I waited until the spring and Jen and I replaced the brick, fixed the planters, added fencing around the walls, and made it new again. Then I sold the house. (I think the new owner is using it as a parking pad now).
I’m telling you this because I’ve been feeling a keen sense of deja vu lately. I was feeling great about the progress I’ve made on our brick walkway, which is only about 8′ from being finished. Last week, our basement started filling with water.
It turns out the magnolia tree in the front yard has been looking really healthy for a reason: it’s broken through the sewer pipe and is drinking straight from the tap. So we have to dig up the front yard to replace the sewer line from the house to the street–there’s no cleanout anywhere outside–which will eliminate any funding for further renovation this year.
Am I discouraged? Yes I am. Could it have been worse? Certainly. It didn’t happen in frozen February, they’re coming out on Tuesday to fix it, and we have the Oh Shit cash to make it better. But I really would like to have spent that money on new windows.
I sold one of my duplicate Nikon lenses (a 55-200 zoom) this afternoon in order to finance the purchase of a new lens in a focal range I don’t already have: a 35mm f/1.8 that just appeared on Craigslist. The seller is out of town this weekend but hopefully I can meet up with him on Tuesday to make the deal. In a coincidence, I relisted the Xerox Phaser that’s been sitting in the office taking up space, and got a hit on that after a couple of weeks of silence. Getting rid of that will free up space and some cash to replace the ancient Laserjet 4000 we’ve had for years, which is suddenly throwing memory errors and refusing to print.
My lovely girl turned seven on Monday. With every day she transforms into the young woman I glimpse ahead of us: brave, mature, smart, and strong. And every day I see the little girl still inside: stubborn, mischievous, innocent, and curious. There are many, many days when I have to stop and remind myself how old she really is, that she’s not a fully grown adult yet, and give her the space to be a kid and make mistakes. But that’s hard when she splashes water out of the tub and creates a leak in the downstairs hallway ceiling.
Mama and I have rented a pavilion at the tire park this weekend, and we’re going to have a small group of friends come for pizza and cake, let the kids play outdoors while it’s still warm, and get the last summer out of the summer.
I took Monday off this week so I could make three days of uninterrupted progress on the front walk. Saturday I broke out another 8 feet of concrete, moved it, and cleared the bed. Then I bought crushed gravel and sand, prepared the bed, and got about halfway done before the brick I was working with stopped fitting correctly. We inherited a mixture of different sizes and makes with the batch we got, and the first bunch I used was smaller, squared off stock that fit together pretty easily. As I kept pulling off the pile, the bricks got bigger and rounded off, and didn’t fit the pattern we started at the stairs.
So I bought a masonry blade and started chopping them with my miter saw to finish the next section. On Sunday morning I knocked out the next slab of concrete, prepared the bed, and started cutting brick but by the middle of the day I knew I wasn’t going to make much progress: the blade just bounced off of some of the brick I was cutting. The wet tile saw that I rented from Home Depot made short work of the bricks I needed to finish, and by 3:00 on Monday afternoon I’d made my way through the rest of the remaining brick and returned the saw. The pile of brick shards I created was almost as high as the first load of concrete I hauled. The bad news is that we don’t have enough to make it to the front sidewalk; by my calculation we’re about 200 bricks shy. I’ve got enough to finish another 8 foot section, and then we have to go find some more salvaged stock to work with.
It appears that Volkswagen has completely shit all over itself for the last ten years in search of higher sales volume. Their strategy of selling decontented, unreliable cars and touting green diesel as an alternative to hybrid technology has been soundly debunked as fraud. I don’t know if this could be any worse for them or for diesel technology, which has never really recovered from the tarnished legacy of the 70’s, but I have a feeling things are only going to get worse for the company. What a colossally stupid decision.
Money for new windows isn’t falling off the trees this summer, so we decided to make some progress with the stuff we have on hand. Now that the front stairs lead up to a fancy new door, it made the janky concrete walkway we inherited look that much shittier. (The light-colored patch in the photo above was concrete I mixed and poured two days before I owned the house, in order to make someone’s insurance agent happy).
About six years ago, our neighbor asked if I’d be interested in some leftover brick he got from a friend, and I eagerly accepted. He loaded his truck up and we stacked it all under the side porch by the garage, where it’s been collecting leaves and bugs ever since. I’ve always had a plan for it, but it was pointless to start anything until we replaced the stairs.
I got busy with my new sledgehammer on Saturday morning, and to my surprise, the slab closest to the stairs came apart pretty easily. Instead of the poorly poured, varied-depth slabs going around the house, this was an even 4″ from edge to edge. A few choice whacks and I was able to pry it up and out easily. Sadly, after being clear of debris for the summer, I’ve started yet another mountain of concrete next to the driveway. Sigh.
Among many other awesome tools, Dad sent me home this spring with his mattock, which is a tool I wish I’d had years ago. The wide blade made short work of the clay our yard is cursed with, and I was able to easily go down 6″ and flatten the base.
My only real tactical error was buying 8 cubic yards of pea gravel because Lowe’s didn’t have crushed gravel. Luckily, I stopped for the day before cutting any of the bags open, talked to my neighbor, and learned Home Depot had it in stock. So, Sunday morning I loaded 8 cubic yards of that, returned the pea gravel, and got to work filling the hole back up. Dad also gave me his tamper, which made things smooth smoothly, but I had to go back out for another six bags of gravel to get the depth I was looking for. (I spent a lot of time humping heavy bags of shit to and from the Scout).
Then it was time for sand. I laid down two 2×4″s and nailed them level in place, made a screed with another stick of wood and some leftover drywall, and set the sand in place. At this point I got smart and put up our collapsible event tent over the workspace, which made being outside in the afternoon sun much more bearable.
Then plastic edging went in to hold things in place, and we got to work laying brick.
From this angle it doesn’t look like much, but that’s over eight feet of brick from the foot of the stairs. There’s a cool stamped brick in the lower right that says CALVERT, which needed a good place to live.
We have another 20′ to go before we get to the sidewalk by the hedge, but I’ve got a good system down now. I’m hoping that the concrete is an even 4″ all the way out, and that we’ve got enough salvaged brick to make it out there (Home Depot sells new brick that looks similar, but not identical to our salvaged brick). The other trick is going to be allowing for some of the odd-sized bricks we inherited; there’s a bunch out there that are wider and thicker than the stuff we’ve got, which means I might need to cut it down as we get further along. I was hoping to avoid renting a brick cutter…
Friday evening I found myself at a neighbor’s house watching a skilled man with dreadlocks mix fancy craft cocktails with a bunch of other guys I didn’t know. I was invited by the father of one of Finn’s friends and walked down the street to his house after dinner.
The first cocktail I tried was a barrel-aged Manhattan, which was served over a hand-carved chunk of ice and went down a little rougher than I’d anticipated. Next up was an old fashioned, and by this time I’d made acquaintances with some of the other guys as well as run into another Dad I knew from the playground. As the evening went by I met some other men from the neighborhood, played a few games of darts, sampled a Ho-Ho from the dessert table, smoked a decent cigar, and sampled three more drinks, which were enough to tilt Beechwood Avenue about five degrees on my walk home. And: a true whiskey sour is a new go-to drink for me, because nobody will know how to make a Blood and Sand.
Saturday I recovered quicker than I fairly should have and we made preparations for the annual Ice Cream Social put on by our friends the Wards. Finn got her face painted, chased bubbles, watched the cows walk up the path, and played with balloon swords under a perfect blue sky. We made a brief stop at IKEA for a roller shade part and then got Jen home into bed, after a late-day migraine came on. Finn and I stayed up to watch Monsters vs. Aliens in our Pjs and then went to sleep.
Sunday I hit the Lowe’s for shingle supplies and started peeling 20-year-old layers off the far side of the garage roof. It’s been leaking for a couple of years and this winter it just stayed wet and disintegrated. A closer inspection revealed a hasty patch job over the old shingle but no attempt to repair the sheathing underneath–which was completely gone in some places. I removed several layers and cut bad wood back to the joists, then laid in new sheathing and started tacking shingles back in. There’s about three layers on there in total, which didn’t surprise me, but the amount of water damage was actually less than I thought there would be. I didn’t lay any tarpaper down, which may be a tactical mistake, but we’ll see how it holds up when the next rain falls.
While that was under way, I stoked up the smoker with charcoal and mesquite chips and dropped a 5-lb. bird on the grill. Following the directions, I used about 150% more charcoal than was needed, and so the fire was too hot. As we all know, there’s no turning charcoal down, so I had to pull it off and let the fire die down for about 20 minutes. The final flavor was OK, but the bird was dry, so there will be lots of experimentation and testing before we perfect this method.
Friday morning I worked from home because there was a water main break at our office, and apparently they don’t have sprinklers or flushing toilets. Whatever! It was nice to chill on the couch and catch up on small things.
Saturday I spent the entire morning moving concrete from a pile next to the garage over to the dumpster in our neighbor’s driveway. It took a lot of time and energy, and by the time I was done, I was ready to be done. Luckily we had a low-impact evening planned with friends, and grilling food and drinking beer was a great way to cap off a long day.
While we were sitting in the backyard, this fox trotted brazenly into the yard, sniffing out some scraps under the picnic table, and made off with them before we could pick our jaws up off the ground. He was within easy throwing distance, and not the least concerned with us at all. I saw him again on Sunday afternoon cruising past the house, obviously looking for more picnic treats.
Sunday Finn and I took in the Farmer’s Market for some veggies, and we did some light chores around the house. I hung new hooks on the back of the garage for the second ladder my father sent me home with, and took the old rusty mailbox off the front of the house.
Then, Finn and Mama went to the park for a playdate with a friend, and I brewed up a batch of Session IPA with the propane burner.
After dinner, I helped Finn finish her homework, and then I took the girls out for some gelato to celebrate a fine weekend.