Verizon called us this morning to let us know we have DSL connectivity. After a not-so-quick online setup process, I was able to set the SMC Barricade and the Airport Base Station up to provide wireless access throughout the house. Thank God.
Jen braved the fumes yesterday and put a coat of Kilz on the Sticky room walls before she was overcome; I followed her up there with a coat on the cieling and then on the walls in the Anxious room. Both rooms look about a million times better with an even coat of paint. Next, we patch and sand up the cracks in the plaster, pull the baseboards to upgrade the electrical wiring, and seal the trim. Boy, it’s going to suck to paint the whole house with that crap.
In sadder news, this past Monday Renie had to put Bear down for his own good. Everybody say a kind word for the god who watches over dogs.
Stuck in my head this morning (after I forcefully kicked “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters to the curb. Don’t ask, because I don’t know how it got in there): “These Are The Reasons”, by Soul Coughing. Not that I even know that’s the name of the song, or what it could be, because the S-C website is offline and the site linked above has no record of this song title.
So sick, it’s wrong. Jen has obviously missed broadband connectivity
badly in the months she’s been out of work. Today I got these
instructions from her: “Do an image
search on Google for Corey Haim and look at the third
picture.” Pardon me now, while I attempt to staunch the
flow of blood from my burning eyesockets.
Until the whole chain went belly-up in an ugly case of corporate mismanagement, I used to walk to the Bibelot bookstore down in Canton to grab a cup of coffee and browse the new books. Usually I’d find something interesting, sit in a big chair, and read through the majority of it until either my eyes got tired or the kid came by to tap me on the shoulder at 11:45. About a year before I left the area, the store was emptied and lay silent, and my quiet zen pastime was lost. (and that zen was good to have after I split up with my girlfriend.)
This evening, I decided to walk across the street to the Catonsville Library to see what their selection was like, and to sign up for my first library card in ten years. I was pleasantly surprised by the selection, the atmosphere, and the computer facilities. The new fiction racks are filled with good hardcover books, the library is staffed by helpful volunteers and filled with people of all ages, and the computers are all current, working terminals with dedicated laser printers. In about three minutes, my Dewey Decimal days came back and I navigated to the computer learning section, where I found not only a good Powerpoint book (the reason for my visit—I have a freelance gig tomorrow) but an OSX book I’ve been wanting to buy, a book on CSS, and an autobiography of Gene Kranz, the former flight director at NASA.
The library also features a historical section with records of old Catonsville, so that Jen and I can research the house to find out what it originally looked like, who built it, and who first owned it.
Speaking of houses, the soulless, brick rancher across the street is on the market for $65K more than we paid for this house. That makes the energy bill sticker shock a little easier to take.
I love the fact that the water is soft, cool, fresh, and clean (not hard, bitter, chlorine-y and dry.) I love the crickets that lull us to sleep each night. I love the space inside the house, where one can find peace in a large, quiet room by themself, or join a group of contented, sleepy cats. I love the light dappled across the back lawn in the afternoon. I love the sound of the kids in the church daycare program drifting across the street. I love the smell of history in the rooms of this house. I love the peeling paint on the windows, because the house is reminding me that it’s alive too, and it needs my help. I love the trees towering over the roof, keeping us cool in the summer sun. I love the wooden floors that don’t creak under us. I love the waves in the plaster from where the workmen applied it by hand eighty years ago. I love the drawings on the walls, hidden under the wallpaper, from children of long ago. I love our two-tub sink in the kitchen. I also love having three hose spigots outside.
I don’t love the fact that the average monthly energy bill for the house was $280, according to BG&E. It could be several things that have run the price up—excessive use of the heating system during the winter (and heating all those empty rooms couldn’t have been cost-efficient), excessive use of the 20-year-old air conditioners, use of an ancient electric oven/range, or just having left the lights on all the time. Whatever the cause, Jen and I are going to become experts on energy efficiency this fall.
The update is that roughly 90% of the bill is for gas and the balance is for electric. We have to find out what drove the price up so high and make some improvements to save money. Ah, the joys of buying an older house.
Even better is the news that Verizon won’t have out DSL hooked up until the 17th, because of a “shortage of technicians”. Thanks. Dammit.
Found this afternoon, via the Rockhaus: Genuine Scooters, home of the Stella. Oh, man, this is cool. Even better are these pictures of a trip two friends took in 1953. Given my love for the design of old Vespa and Piaggio scooters, these are a sweet update on a classic ride. Maybe someday I can afford one.
Where do I start today? In the last 24 hours we’ve dodged a bunch of bullets (not literally), washed half of the house, found a window behind a picture, been visited by a bat, a field mouse, and a dog, and hauled away a ton of trash.
our little friend
1. Our good friend Dave stopped by on Sunday as we were returning from the Home Depot with a rented power washer in the Scout. Catonsville, being a neighborhood full of old houses and even older trees, was pretty well blitzed by Isabel; every third or fourth house had a major tree down in its yard, and the area was loud with chainsaws this weekend. We were lucky there wasn’t more damage. Dave and I hooked up the power washer and attempted to clean the siding on the house, which was a futile gesture. Dirt and mildew is up under the paint on the siding and no amount of pressure is going to change that. So we contented ourselves with cleaning the gutters, moving debris, and pulling two of the mountain laurels from the side of the driveway with the trucks; Dave produced a heavy chain and pulled the first one out with his truck Clifford, and then we pulled the other with the Scout. (Making the appropriate Tim the Tool Man noise here: Arr arr arr!)
2. While I ran out to find food for dinner, Dave pulled the older AC unit from the Sticky room window (on the west side) and he found a camping bat under the drip pan. Thinking it was probably dead, he and Jen got close to take some pictures, until it woke up with a mouthful of teeth and flew off. Not content with braving vampire death, they pulled the bulletin board off the wall in the waiting room to find the original window frame intact behind the wall. Needless to say, we were excited.
3. This morning Dave came back to haul away the combined trash, mattresses, and brushpiles I’ve been collecting since we moved in. We started by removing the debris from the dining room (the mural is now, sadly, gone) and when I knelt to pick up the smaller chunks of wood, I found a field mouse huddling underneath the pile. After a ten-minute atempt to capture it (with no help from an indifferent Teller) we got it in a pint glass and set it free outside.
4. As I stood on the pair of mattresses in the back of Dave’s truck, looking out the driveway, I spied a tiny Jack Russel terrier running down Beechwood (the road directly across from our house), across Frederick Road—oblivious to the morning traffic—and past the truck behind us. He ran into the garage to explore, and I coaxed him into my hands where I could read his dog tag: Chico Pachico, 455-XXXX. We called his humans and a nice perfumed lady showed up about 10 minutes later, happy to see him in good hands (and full of Pounce cat treats.) He was moving too fast to take a picture.
5. Dave has made the huge piles of brush from the front, side, and back yards go bye-bye. Halleluejah, amen.
OK, This is pretty cool.
Also up for bids: UNKLE has released their second album, a follow-up to 1998’s Psyence Fiction, the album that blew me away completely. I found a link to some previews on a UK music site, and this will be an album I buy when it shows up on the Apple Music Store. (Hurry, Apple.)
After that weekend, I’m pretty beat. I ate about three pounds of Jen’s homemade lasagna last night and had two glasses of red wine, and slept the sleep of the dead. There’s nothing like an honest tired. I posted a new series of photos with some before/after shots of the upstairs bedroom, and some selected shots from around the house.
Hmm. Apple just released a new series of iPods, so now the offerings are 10, 20, and 40GB. The 20 might just be the one for me, if and when I can afford it. Drool.
If all goes well, tomorrow Verizon should be flipping the switch on our DSL service, so we’ll have broadband at the house. It’s been a very strange experience to go without it for the past three weeks, sort of like losing cable. If there’s a question about a movie (“Who’s the guy who plays the bad guy in this piece of crap?”) or about one of our appliances (“How the hell do we make this thing stop beeping?”) or how to garden in something larger than a clay pot (“What the hell do we do with this stupid bush?”), the Cat-5 umbilical is not available. What did we do before the Internet?
backyard, freshly mowed, 9.8.03
I never thought I’d say this, but I have to admit that I enjoyed mowing my own lawn this afternoon. My memory of mowing dates back to the days of high school, when I lived in a house on the side of a mountain and my lawn was about the size of a football field and it took a day to finish the whole thing. My Dad had a commercial mower that dated back to before my birth, and weighed more than a Sherman tank. Generally, Diver Down by Van Halen on my Walkman at maximum volume (that was the only way I could hear it over the drone of that 20-year-old engine) was the only thing that made it feasible. Today I put my new Murray 21-inch mower together and did the front and side lawns in 20 minutes. The back lawn is a mixture of grass, exposed roots, downed branches, and English ivy, so it’s a little tricky, but I enjoyed it.
Yesterday Jen and I rented a wallpaper steamer and we were able to get everything of the walls of the Sticky room, the Anxious room, and a large section of the hunting mural in the dining room. The original window showed up in the middle of the mural, covered over with a sheet of drywall and thin skim of plaster. We left the mural in place where it was bonded to the drywall but cleaned up the areas around it in preparation for uncovering the window at a later date. (Say a prayer for us in the hope that the window is still under there.)
Today I ripped about two truckloads of vine from the side of the garage, along the driveway, and beside the property. The tree at the front of the driveway got a pruning as well as the stuff above the garage, and the place looks a lot less overgrown as a result. Jen cooked a huge, delicious lasagna for me, and we devoured our dinner with a bottle of red wine.
geneva, teller, obviously upset with each other 9.5.03
So I replaced the Sears lawnmower (the mystery engine) last night with a Murray machine featuring a 4.5 HP Briggs & Stratton. I figure the rest of the unit is steel; I can’t see myself wrecking the deck of the mower before the engine. Plus, it was $20 cheaper.
Candidate for Worst F**ing Website In Corporate History Award: Intermatic, the folks who manufactured the in-wall timers installed in my house. No mention of how to use the products, reprints of the user manuals, nothing. And their FAQ is a joke. Thanks for nothing.
Looks like we’re going to have to invest in some Kilz for the walls in the house; all of the discussion boards and links I’ve followed regarding nicotine stains on walls have pretty gloomy forecasts for what can be done. There are some recipes for cleaning solutions that sound like a heck of a lot of work, or the simple sealer route where we wash the woodwork and seal the walls.
Postscript to the picture above: Jen told me earlier that Sage and Teller mixed it up for the first time a few hours ago. There’s only so much lovin’ to go around, I suppose.
For about the thirtieth day in a row, it’s been raining here in Baltimore. Since we’ve been in the new house, I think there’s been about a half-day of sunshine—and that was with about 80% humidity. Ugh. It kind of sucks going from central air to open windows and rain; you wind up sleeping in a bed that more closely resembles warm pea soup. Yeah, you say, boo-hoo, Bill; you could be a Marine in Afghanistan walking around in full combat gear, but the fact is, I’m not. My new house is about to float away down the Patapsco.
Last night I was finally able to get some work done in the house; I ran three new phone lines to the kitchen, living room, and dining room so that we don’t have to use the basement stairwell anymore. Halleleujah, amen. Next up is a quick upgrade to the dining room wiring; I’d like to run a grounded circuit to the plug where we have our printer, hub, and power strip so that we don’t fry the 1950’s era wire job.
In other geek news, it looks like Eudora has upgraded their client to version 6. I have mixed emotions about 5.1 (I basically have to use it because my email server requires a client that supports APOP) and the basic usability of the program, but the new spam filtering in the paid version is tempting. I’m going to wait for a few weeks and then see what the feedback sounds like.
Holy crap. I just found out that my high school orchestra teacher, the guy who taught me how to play bass violin, was arrested on charges of child abuse for molesting 6-year-old girls. For the love of God, that is screwed up.
The good Doctor had a variety of phone lines installed over the years, from old four-wire copper to newer Cat 5 eight-wire stuff; as the phone contractor put new stuff in, they just left the old stuff up in the rafters. There’s a mixture of new plastic “network interface boxes” and ancient steel panels with old-school copper nut fasteners. Throughout the house, there are a numbing array of connectors for the phones—all of which don’t work. Currently in order to get online we have to stand in the basement stairwell, plug Jen’s laptop into the test panel for the working phone line, and balance on the stair and windowsill while we type (thank god for laptops.) The good thing is that we’re basing the networking off Airport, so with the exception of the server(s), everything will be wireless, and there’s clean signal all the way out to the greenhouse.
Last night I spent about fifteen minutes attempting to troubleshoot one line to try and put a phone line somewhere inside the main house, and had to give up. In my wake I ripped about eight lines out which started nowhere and ended up noplace. I can see this is going to be only the beginning of a long process (the electrical lines in this house vary from Roosevelt-era post and wire to some new and creative uses of Romex.) Big fun.
For all the folks who thought that our cats were going to draw knives and massacre each other, you needn’t worry. Jen found her cat Sage laying right up next to my cat Penn, each oblivious to each other.
I went out last night and bought a bunch of crap for the house, the largest of which was a Craftsman 4.5HP 21″ lawnmower on sale for $159.99. I walked through the local Sears, which has the eerie ambiance of a sinking ocean liner, until I found the garden center, and bought the last boxed model for sale. Loading it into the truck, I then drove to the Home Depot to compare pricing on some other items (a mixed bag, or at least dead even) when I found a comparable brand-name mower with a better engine for $149.99. D’oh! Luckily it’s still in the box and in my garage (hee hee! I love saying that: my garage) so I can return it tomorrow. Lucky also, that it’s raining right now and will continue until sometime next week, so I don’t have to face my lawn just yet.
No luck with the phone situation; I’m going to continue to troubleshoot the wiring and attempt to get more than one line working in the house. I did buy a geektastic headlamp so that I can see what I’m working on when the lights are off.
Up for bids this weekend: most likely, a steamer rental for the horrendous wallpaper through the bedrooms in the house. We have four:
- The G-Spot, so named because of its bright pink wall paint and matching carpet (as well as the large bulge next to the door where the plaster has separated from the lathe). This room needs new paint and some window work.
- The Sticky Room, where the vinyl wallpaper has collected nicotine from the previous tenant and gathered dust. This room also features beautiful green all-weather carpeting. I need to remove the old AC unit, patch the walls, pull the carpet, and paint the radiator.
- The Library, featuring shelving from the Doctor’s home office, a beautiful oak desk, and a woven oval rug. Probably the best one out of all of them. This room needs minimal patching, but a righteous floor-sanding.
- Finally, the Anxious Room, where the good Doctor made his bed. This room stars an anxious-making red floral wallpaper, which covers the walls, closet, and atrium. It’s paper, probably dates back to the 40’s, and covers the water damage from the roof leak (now fixed). I’m afraid to see what’s behind there. Besides the bulge in the G-spot, this room will need the most patching work, because the west wall has pulled away from the north wall in the corner, and the floor is in bad shape.
I also made arrangements today to pay off the increasing credit card debt that I was hemorrhaging; with one online payment I should be free and clear of a $75/mo. minimum payment and something like a $65 finance charge. That will go a long way to making the monthly bills less of a train wreck.