As of this morning, I’ve got a patch made for the large section missing from the face of the wall and another section cut for the area behind the backsplash. There’s a 1″ brace built to hold the entire area in place, as well as anchor the plastic edging strip that will make up the corner. I’ve got to buy some decking screws long enough to reach the studs behind the tile, backing board, and lathe. This evening the plan is to finish the patches, fasten them into the wall, and get mud on the walls to dry.
My plans for the weekend were pretty simple. I was going to get a few supplies, turn on the TV, and listen to football while I installed some window balances, recaulked the bathtub, and finished cleaning up the mess of wiring in the basement. Sunday morning was bright, warm, and clear, so I pulled the Scout out of the garage for the first time in three weeks, fired it up, and headed to the hardware store.
Unfortunately, my trip was cut short. The temperature gauge went from you’re fine to you’re fucked in about two minutes of idling through downtown Ellicott City, so I pulled off into the International dealer’s lot at the top of the hill to let it cool down (fitting, I know). The radiator cap was cool to the touch, but when I loosened it, a great mass of burbling steam rose from the depths of the radiator and hissed out the top. While I waited for it to cool down, I went and did a little snooping up the hill where the dealer parks the vehicles they have in progress, and found that a diesel Mr. Scout had found almost abandoned off of Rt. 40 is now hopefully getting a new lease on life.
After waiting a half an hour and calling Jen, I crossed my fingers, prayed I’d make the lights going back through town, and pulled back onto the road. Luck was with me, so I made it up the hill to Dmitri’s (a strange Greek-ish restaurant perched on the side of a hill) before the needle told me to pull off for another half-hour. After making it to the Candlelight Inn, I had my ladies come to pick me up, and we did some errands while it cooled off long enough to make the trip home.
I have a long history of ownership with cars that overheat; from the CRX that disliked idling in traffic (requiring full-blast heat in the middle of July) to the Taurus that resisted all repair attempts to the coolant system (and very nearly derailed our rehearsal dinner with an ill-timed coolant failure on the way back from the caterer’s) to the Saturn’s recent troubles, it seems like my lot in life is to sit on the side of the road waiting for the engine to stop ticking. What was going to be my first water pump replacement will now be handled professionally in order to ensure things are done correctly, but I was really hoping to avoid that repair bill.
Upon our return, I started removing the caulk from around our tub in order to hunt down the odor of mildew we’ve been noticing lately, and found a surprise I wasn’t looking forward to at 6:30 on a Sunday night:
The area next to our tub, where water sometimes runs down—especially after Finley pulls the shower curtain open to say, “Hi!”—has been wet for some time now. I pushed a screwdriver blade into the drywall and it felt like peanut butter. As I dug deeper, it got nastier, and the reason why it’s been smelling like mildew became more evident: When the bathroom was last “remodeled”, new sheets of drywall were nailed up over the old tile and tileboard, effectively sealing an airpocket inbetween the two layers of wall. When water got in there, it had a whole lot of dark room to grow mold, so when I pulled off the outer layer, the tile was splotched black and the adjacent wallboard was damp. I kept pulling until I hit dry wallboard and then I pulled another foot beyond that to make sure there’s nothing left, and what you see above is what remains. That thick wooden stud to the immediate right of the tub is original, and got a nice bleach bath once I was done cleaning the dust. The tile is straight-up 60’s stuff, an off-white with gold speckle. I’m glad it was hidden, and I’ll be even more glad to rip that shit out, along with all three layers of wallboard, nasty mismatched linoleum tiles, poorly milled moldings, balky light fixtures, broken concrete slab, and the ancient, crumbling sink. I admit, it took a lot of willpower to put the crowbar down last night. But for now, the plan is to dry it out, put some green wallboard (moisture-resistant) back in, smooth out the seams, repaint and make it through the holidays.
I’ll sign off with a little humor at the expense of my daughter: Don’t drink and drive.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
This marks the second time in a month when we’ve lost power for no good reason. It’s getting to the point where any loud bang during the day or night could signal the implosion of the transformer at the corner of our property and another day of darkness while we wait for the crew to come and patch it up with duct tape or replace the car battery or whatever it is they do after standing around and scratching their asses. This used to be a common occurrence when we first moved in, happening roughly once every three months or so, and predictably during high winds or fierce storms. Then you came out and did something, and sent us a letter and claimed you’d made it all better, and the problem went away for a brief while. Now I’m afraid we’re back to random deer farts or squirrels chewing on the line or whatever it is that blows up the buzzing green box on the pole.
Here’s a suggestion: Remember the crew you sent out to hack a huge hole in the front of our tulip tree, the one right out in front of our house? Send them back down the property line, where you’ve let trees grow intertwined with the high-voltage lines, and hack the shit out of that stuff. Heck, I’ll help you haul it out of there. Or, better yet, just disconnect me from that pole and send my power line out to the front like my two neighbors, who seem to always have the lights on.
Thanks for nothing,
The Idiot.
After some wrangling, several phone calls, and a weekend of frightening media darkness, we’re back online. A Verizon dude came to the house, looked at the outside boxes, mumbled something to Jen about “going back to look at the mainframe”, and left. Hours passed, and then another nice man came out to make sure service had been restored. His efforts to make sure the DSL was working were thwarted by the updates I’d made to our cable routing during the downtime; I set up a honest-to-god punchdown block in the basement and commenced to rerouting and sorting miles of data cable hanging from the rafters like so many burmese pythons. After I got home from work, I made a few quick changes to the patch cables and restored the internet to glorious cinemascope. I still have to tighten up the remainder of the wiring, reroute coax that’s mixed in with the data cabling, and finish cleaning up the punchdown block before I can call it done, but it’s better than before. Oh, yeah, adding a 24-port switch to add into the rack would be nice…but it’s not necessary.
* * *
Over the weekend our neighbors invited us to a “green” meeting (local folks coming together to talk about environmentally friendly methods and practices at the Lutheran church), and while the speaker was relatively good (a semi-nervous woman who sells eco-friendly products), it just so happened there was a used tool sale going on in the back of the room. For $15, we walked away with a 22″ hedge clipper, a full-size shovel, edging tool, and gravel rake, a pipe cutter, two channel locks, several snap-on wrenches, two unused paint scrapers, a sharpening stone, and the big find: a shaft-driven Bolens edging trimmer in unknown condition for the princely sum of $3. If I can get it running and swap out the gas tank (there’s a hole in it), my days of hauling 150′ of electrical cord around the yard will be over for good.
* * *
After some confusion and a misplaced paper were cleared up last week, I finally got a box this afternoon containing ten window balances from Pullman, which will go into use just as soon as I can block the time out to install them.
Well, it’s official: Saturn is dead. I kind of knew it would happen, even when they claimed that Roger Penske was going to buy it (buy what, exactly? Build what? That whole story never made sense).
I’ve spent a good deal of quality time with OS X Server (Tiger) over the last couple of weeks, and my experience has been very good overall. I had a previous install to learn from, so doing things like setting up users, groups, share points and sharing were a lot easier to do than if I’d tried it out of the box. Opening up ports for HTTP, FTP and VNC went smoothly, and I followed some helpful directions to log into the server using SSH and then share via AFP over a secure connection. I’m curious to get a copy of Snow Leopard Server and look at the differences.
I also bartered some networking help for a used G5 tower, which means our setup here at the house will be current as of 2004. The big thing is to have a machine that will take a SATA drive, which are cheap and plentiful—I’ve been cobbling together servers with ancient hardware for years, so when I can put an enterprise-level terrabyte drive in a five-year-old machine for ~$100, it means I can finally collect all of our photos, music, video, and backups in one place. I started moving files last night, and with the help of a utility called SmartReporter, I’m hoping I can avoid the catastrophic failure of our last music server.
I did not know this before, but the 3rd generation iPod will not charge from a USB connection, which sucks, because Apple decided to drop FireWire 400 ports from the back of new Intel iMacs. Which means I can listen to what’s on my iPod from my work computer, but I can’t charge it unless it’s plugged into the wall.
We are inching closer to that new car, but it’s slow going.
I’m going to have to break down and dip into the home equity fund to buy three more windows for the front porch before the really cold weather hits. It’s chillier at night now, and I’m too used to being able to work out there quietly. Also, having two computers on the dining room table for a second year in a row is unacceptable—especially with all of the cords hanging at Finn-height. Meanwhile, I just ordered ten more Pullman window counterbalances for the rest of the upstairs windows. Ten is about all the budget for this month will allow, and it’ll take me a weekend or two to get them all installed. The next step is to figure out a good way to blow paper insulation into the empty window pocket cavities without getting it all over the house.
Jen and I joke that every year we make a list to do a certain number of specific things to make ready for the parade, and every year we wind up doing something completely unrelated to that list, and then scramble at the last minute to complete everything we originally intended to do. (Sometimes this is entirely my doing, but sometimes we are co-conspirators), This year, we decided to re-arrange the office around a new shelving unit, which meant moving a heavy three-drawer file cabinet and two bulky flat files to the other side of the office.
Preceding any completion of housework, I filled up the Scout Saturday morning with a final load of yard waste and construction debris and narrowly skirted self-immolation courtesy of a leaky gas tank (more on that here). Once that drama was over, we continued cleaning around the house until the girl awoke from her nap, and then it was time to run to the IKEA in White Marsh to purchase a shelving unit. Finn was content to bounce around in the backpack for one half of the trip, and then she rode in the cart through the Marketplace, flirting with the other customers and making friends while we browsed the as-is section and wrestled 150 lbs. of shelf onto a dolly.
Once home, we put her to bed and grilled some kabobs before doing battle with the allen wrench. We (well, I) failed to properly read the assembly directions for the shelves and made an hour’s worth of work into three. Sorry, Jen.
Sunday morning, after making some adjustments and leveling off the unit, we filled the shelves with three tons of printed material previously stored in various areas around the house, thus consolidating 90% of our design resources in one place.
I then cut a leftover piece of sanded birch plywood down and made a custom tabletop for the flat files with a beveled edge.
Sunday afternoon we were invited to a family crab feast (thanks, guys!), and Finn played happily on the floor while we got elbow-deep in Old Bay and Harpoon Summer Ale. I would share pictures here, but they came out all blurry.
There was a lot of activity this weekend at the Lockardugan compound; in between feedings and naps, we got the lawn mowed for the first time in two weeks, a garden plot dug in the backyard, more seedlings planted (and cucumber sprouts showing), doors on the garage and the Scout started (cough cough), attended a 1st birthday party, and found a secondhand backpack carrier for Finn. All that activity must have worn on me more than I expected, because I’ve been dragging ass ever since.
We have a new dryer cooling its heels (or, warming our socks) in the basement as of 8:45 this morning, courtesy of Sears. The old Kenmore unit got hauled away, which means the last of our legacy appliances is now gone, and hopefully this one will last longer than the GE washer we bought at Sam’s Club when we first moved in.
There are a few things to look out for when trying to identify the approximate age of an appliance. Unfortunate color palettes, faux woodgrain, ancient, outdated couplings, ungrounded, fabric-wrapped wiring, and cast iron are all usually pretty good indicators of impending failure and borrowed time. I’ve got another one to add to the list: anything that proudly trumpets “Solid State” across the front faceplate. Like our dryer, for example. “Solid state” usually means transistors; the new big thing back in, oh, 1970 or so. It makes me wonder if they actually used vacuum tubes in all the models previous to that era? We knew the dryer had one foot in the grave the minute we looked at the house; we knew that every day it continued to dry our socks and not explode into a lint-fueled inferno was another gift from the heavens. I guess it kind of makes sense, then, that only a month or so after our hot water heater blew up, the heating element in the dryer would finally give out. So I’ve got to do some quick research and score us a dryer in the next three days so we can get our clothes washed before hitting the road for Easter.
I hit some consignment stores a week ago or so and scored a bouncy seat for Finn, who should probably be practicing her balance a bit more.
70° days are rare in Maryland this early in March, so this weekend we tried to balance spending as much time as possible with Finn and as much time as we could outside in the fresh air. Saturday was dedicated to long-overdue yardwork, which consumed a good portion of our afternoon, but, what a beautiful afternoon to do it!
I made the mistake of wearing work jeans, and after a half an hour raking leaves off the foundation, I had to switch to shorts because I was too hot. We had five inches of snow last Monday. I am surprised I did not blind the pilots of overflying passenger jets with the sunlight bouncing off my pale knobby knees.
Anyway, while Finn slept off her second breakfast, Jen and I filled twenty bags of leaves from the back of the house, the driveway bed, and the odd area under our back porch, which seems to attract all of the loose leaves in this zipcode like a great sucking vortex.
Once that was accomplished, we three got a bite to eat, changed our diaper, brought the swing outside, and commenced to cleaning out the sad, dilapidated tangle of weeds that was our garden while Finn supervised. I cannot describe to you the sense of satisfaction it gives me to look out on that bare patch of earth and know the neighbors aren’t cursing us under their breath anymore.
While raking up the leaves, I reflected on the sad harvest we reaped last year (mainly due to the toll taken by varmints), and decided that this would be the year I modify our greenhouse to grow vegetables properly. Doing some research, I found online suppliers who sell polycarbonate glazing and ventilation systems, which will be an up-front investment and take some engineering to install, but should turn our useless sealed hothouse into a productive greenhouse.
Meanwhile, I straightened up the pots and barrels and soil and made way for seedlings.
Then, I moved out to the garage and straightened up as much as I could around the Scout without actually diving into doing something on it. I did break down and disassemble some of my new parts–but I’ll go into that elsewhere.
Sunday we got the girl up early—or is that the other way around?—and made preparations to take a long walk around a lake in Columbia before doing our grocery shopping. After her first bottle of the day, this child, who almost never stops moving, did something she’s never done with me before—she leaned her head down onto my chest, under my chin, and quietly nestled up against me for three of the longest and best moments of my life.
Once we got out onto the trail, she was fine for the first fifteen minutes or so, but soon decided she wanted to be facing forward, which meant we wound up carrying her like a football for two and a half miles. Once out of the stroller, she was her usual observant self, appraising each new passerby with a taciturn stare, careful to warn away strange ladies who, no doubt, were plotting to rush over and pinch her chubby pink cheeks. Touch my face and I will projectile vomit all over your track suit, that glare said. And it worked.
Jen and I are afraid nobody will ever see the inside Finn, the girl we get to see who is giggles and smiles and gets so happy her entire body spasms repeatedly like she’s hooked up to a car battery. When she’s around us, she’s Miss Congeniality, and when she’s out in public, she’s Steve McQueen, staring down a hostile world with those steel-blue eyes and a .44 magnum. I will show you proof that she can smile:
After our return to the car, we hightailed it over to the grocery store, where Mama stayed with her in the parking lot while I hustled around and got our shopping done. A quick trip to the health-food store, and we headed home for a three-hour nap and some more yardwork: the front hedge got cleaned out, the greenhouse got a final sweep, and the toolbench in the garage got cleaned off.
About the time I was finishing up for the day, Finn woke up for dinner: avocado and pears. MMMMMMMMM, avocado. And then it was bathtime, and as soon as she was diapered and dressed, it was time for sleep. I’m exhausted just writing about it all.