.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
These are two cactus spikes that I just pulled out of my leg with tweezers. Note to self: always pay attention in the driveway, because you have cacti there, ninny.
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
Home safe at last. Trip report and more pictures on the way, after I catch up on some sleep tonight.
Just bought $10 worth of T-Mobile WiFi while I wait for my flight in 4 hours. Checking email and have Party Poker open; already made back the cost of my access plus more in about 10 hands. Flying on a holiday weekend is just an extremely bad idea. Even Tucson's airport was busy, and it's _never_ busy. I'm excited about my weekend, but the travelling is just going to kill me. I'm en route pretty much all day today, and then I'll be driving from Pittsburgh to Wilkes Barre to Baltimore to Philly to Byram to Bridgewater to Pittsburgh, all starting Sunday morning. Whew! At least my next couple of days are going to be mellow... just seeing some friends, having a nice meat-fest BBQ tomorrow, and catching my breath.
Last night and this morning were surreal; all sorts of emotions flowing through me all at once. It's going to be nice to be 2000+ miles away for a few days, even at the expense of sleep and unreasonable driving time.
*Update:* Oh, joy! 2 hour weather delay, so now instead of getting in at 11, I'll be getting in at 1 in the morning. At least it'll only feel like 10 p.m. to me.
_(title from a good-premise-poor-execution book that Paul had with him this weekend about people who live in abandonded tunnels under NYC)_ The fun never stops! The service tech dispached by AHS(American Home Shield) showed up around noon today. First thing he asked when he got here was where my ground level "cleanout":http://www.csd-1.com/faqs-cleanouts.html was. "In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary":http://imdb.com/title/tt0208092/quotes... come again? It should have been "popping out":http://www.colantonio.net/home/sewer26.jpg somewhere near the foundation, so we walked the property, but couldn't find it. That meant having to go up on the roof. He called AHS to find out if they covered that or not, which they didn't. They only covered blowing out a main line stoppage from the cleanout. If I wanted it done, I would have to call a plumbing guy myself and have him come out and do it off a vent on the roof. Off he went.
Calling around to a few places I gathered that it would be about $150 or so to have this done. One place I called had the bright idea of calling Tucson's "Maps and Records department":http://tdotmaps.transview.org/mandr/ to find out what the sewer plan looked like for the property. I called, told them I didn't have a fax number, and was told they'd call back with a location. About 10 minutes later I get a call back, and it's like my own private version of The Goonies:
bq. If eastward from the southwest corner, fifteen feet you be Take five paces south to find the poop and pee Dig ye down several inches, at least twelve to twenty The smells ye shall find will be varied and plenty
I call the plumbing company that just came out, told them I actually had a cleanout and asked what we could do. Since they had already called back to AHS to say they wouldn't do the work I would have to call AHS to get a new work order. On hold with AHS for a few minutes, then talk to a lovely gravelly-voiced woman who promised to get a re-order into the system within five minutes. I wouldn't even need to cut another $45 check! Call the plumbing dude back, and he says they won't come out until I've actually dug up the cleanout!
Just as I'm about to make a mad dash to Home Despot to get a rake and a shovel, who rolls up but the HVAC guy to set up the swamp cooler! Luckily it only took him about 20 minutes to do what he needed to do. Here's another $45 check for you! Anyone else want a $45 check? How about the cats? The dog? The nest of ground wasps in the backyard? Anyone?
Home Despot for shovel and rake, check. Back and start digging. Digging is hard. The soil here is hard-packed, rocky and nothing like digging into a kiddie pool filled with chocolate pudding. Uh, not that I'd know or anything. Dig, dig, dig. Nothing. Some more digging and sweating and nothing. Worried that I wasn't going to find One-Eyed Willy I re-measured from the corner of the house. Nope, I was right on. Dig dig dig. Clunk. Hey... what's that? There's a round thing down there which doesn't feel like a root at all. Brush some dirt away, and success! Found the cleanout!
Now the plumber guy is on his way back over, and we're back to finding out if it's a main line stoppage, or something more evil. Here's hoping this doesn't cost me any more money today.
*Update:* The verdict is mixed. He ran the snake a few times, and got the water flowing out, but also pulled up some roots. That probably means a partially collapsed pipe, so tomorrow I'll work on getting an estimate to have that section of pipe replaced.
Bad luck comes in threes, right? While I was away climbing this weekend, the air conditioning stopped working. In the middle of the Arizona 105 degree days. Suffice to say that sleeping on Sunday night was a tad uncomfortable. Yesterday the guy came out, and found it was just a pulley that had slipped off of the furnace. $45 for that, no biggie. While he was here we discussed getting the evap (swamp) cooler running, so I can not get my ass handed to me every month on the electric bill. That's happening today, and another $45 for that. This morning I was doing a load of laundry. It was on spin cycle, and I went to go pee. While peeing, the toilet started bubbling. That's never a good sign. I look over at the tub, and it's filling up with lovely black water. Joy! Another call to American Home Shield to set up an appointment, and I'm waiting to hear back from the service tech. Hopefully this will just be some sort of weird clog, and not a collapsed pipe. If it's the former, $45 and we're back in business. If it's the latter... well, I don't really want to think about that right now.
Is homeownership this fun for _everybody_?
This weekend I went with "Paul and April":http://apadventures.net/ and their friend Miles to check out Jack's Canyon, up in the north part of the state. I had heard that it was a completely manufactured place; just a cliff line that had been grid-bolted, each line 5 feet to the left of the last one. I was pleasantly suprised to find a good variety of climbs there. Yes, there were lots of drilled pockets. But that didn't change that the quality of the rock and the climbs themselves were pretty darn good. Several of the climbs actually reminded me of some routes at Summersville Lake/New River Gorge. Best climb was an 11c that I was way too out of shape to do, but could see myself struggling up in pretty short order if I keep going to the gym like I plan on. There are "some pictures here":http://www.flickr.com/photos/apadventures/sets/506775/, including a "fantastic shot of the sunset":http://www.flickr.com/photos/apadventures/21831256/in/set-506775/ made all the more impressive by all the wildfires in the area.
I went back to Home Despot yesterday to get some work gloves (fiberglass shards under the skin = ouch!), and while I was there I talked to Norman, the resident roof guy, to find out just how much of the damaged area I needed to cut away. Norman gave me a simplified plan for fixing the roof, so I just ripped out the old flashing, put down some caulk, laid the new flashing (along with the very fancy 90 degree corner), nailed it in, then more caulk to hold everything together. It's ugly as sin, and I need to put more caulk up there (I'm just putting my caulk _everywhere_), but it seems to be held together pretty well, and it's waterproof. I'm not going to take pictures, because it looks like crap. The whole roof is going to have to get replaced before the place gets sold anyway, so this was just a stop-gap.
Well, I finally got in touch with the insurance company w/r/t the roof situation. "Act of God", indeed, so I figured we were just going to have to pay a contractor to come and fix it. That is, until "Paul, April":http://apadventures.net/ and "April's dad":http://www.flickr.com/photos/apadventures/19001278/ came by to visit and check the place out on Friday. You have to understand that "April's dad":http://www.flickr.com/photos/apadventures/20169253/ built a huge house in upstate NY. By himself. I mean milling his own boards; everything! He took a look at the roof damage and said "Matt... you can fix that yourself, no problem!" So we took a run to Home Despot. He gave me a whole shopping list of things I would need to do the job; roll roofing, metal flashing, asphalt emulsion and a bunch of other things. Yesterday I "picked up most everything":http://www.flickr.com/photos/feralboy/20242708/ (at a total cost of $113.14) except a 7-foot stepladder and that flashing (no room in the car). Total is probably going to be about $200, which is way WAY less than the probably $2k-ish figure that the contractor hinted at when he was here doing an inspection for the insurance company.
I even have a little "hand-drawn recipe":http://www.flickr.com/photos/feralboy/20243846/ of how to layer all the various components in the right order. It's like an exploded drawing of a layer cake or something. I should be able to pick up the rest of the junk I need today, and maybe even get started on it tonight. Monsoon season is coming, so time to get cracking.
While there I also checked out prices for laminate flooring. The floor stuff itself isn't that expensive; maybe $1.75/sq ft, but the guy there told me that once you include all the molding pieces, foam underlay, etc. it probably winds up being $4/sq ft. April's dad thinks that's obscene, since he can do actual wood flooring in upstate NY for about that much. He suggested tile instead, which should cost maybe 25% less. I'll have to discuss with Kim, but instead of laminate everywhere it might work out better to do tile in some places, laminate in others, and some special concrete process that winds up looking like saltillo tile in the "game room" i.e. the garage i.e. my room.
In any case, time to get cracking on all this house stuff! I want to get this place fixed up and sold, asap!
My bill payment service seems to have "let their domain registration lapse":http://www.statusfactory.com/. I just called to confirm that they're not going bankrupt or anything like that, and apparently they're not. They better hurry up and get their domain info renewed and propagated... I got bills to pay, yo! *Update:* Everything seems to be back in order. Domain registration screen has been replaced by the regular home page, and bills have been paid.
It was a less than fun weekend in the world of the cats. I found Manson hiding under the bed Friday afternoon, and when I picked him up to see what he was doing I had blood on my hands. I took him to the one pet clinic I took Poe "when he had his puncture wound a while back":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001465/, and they took him in and gave him an x-ray. He had a good sized puncture wound along his right side, and another one on his back. His one rib was bent, and he was having trouble breathing due to shock, so likely something picked him up and shook him (by "something" I mean a canine, either a dog or a coyote), but he still managed to get away. The clinic wanted him to be observed overnight, but they don't staff overnight, so I had to drive him to an animal hospital on the other side of town.
They admitted him, kept him overnight and gave him an IV with antibiotics and painkillers, as well as fluids. I called twice to check up on him overnight, and he rested comfortably throughout the night, and ate and drank on his own the next morning. That morning I went back and picked him up, armed with more oral antibiotics and painkillers (some sort of morphine-based thing, so let's hope he doesn't start selling his body in South Tucson to support his habit), and brought him home. (BTW, that little trip to the clinic with the x-ray plus the overnight stay with drugs/IV/nursing care cost about $600 total. You should really look into pet insurance. I mean it.)
He's been back for 2 days now, and seems to be doing much better. He's graduated from hiding under the bed to resting all day and night on a chair, he's had a little bit of food as well as used the litter box, and so far his puncture doesn't seem to be infected at all. He looks pretty awful tho, shaved where he was bitten and on his front paw where they put the IV. I'm going to pick him up some wet cat food this afternoon, because I can pretty much guarantee he'll eat it if I do that.
It was a bit of a scare, but he's home and safe and getting better, so that's A Good Thing(tm).
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
Today my best friend Ryan gets one year older. Perhaps you should send him some birthday wishes?
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
My dad just got back from a trip to France, and as usual took some amazing shots.
Got my first dose of house-related non-awesomeness this weekend. There was a pretty big rainstorm Friday night, and usually around these parts rainstorms are preceded by a whole bunch of wind. This time was no exception, and it rained a good bit. I wasn't here for most of the rain, but I came back over Saturday morning, and noticed that the roof looked a bit, um... _off_. As in, there was a big part of it all crinkled up, right at the edge where the flashing is. Well, that can't be good. In the converted garage under where the roof crinkle was, one of my boxes has a good bit of water in it. Uh oh. Saturday afternoon I was at the house when it started to rain again. This time I was here to witness the love, and it was negative awesome. It was literally _pouring_ in the garage room; water just streaming down the windows, making a small lake on the floor. I found all the buckets I could, and started placing or holding them up strategically, and collected enough water for a small African village while I waited for the torrential rain to subside. When it did, I ran back to the other house, borrowed "the kids'":http://apadventures.net/ ladder, and came back to see if I could maybe bend the thing back, or put up a tarp, or something.
I got up on the roof and realized that it wasn't a small section bent up; it was the whole corner of the roof peeled up and folded back on itself. There was a good 20 sq feet of wet looking plywood sitting up there, not holding back much water at all. I grunted and groaned and lifted and flipped the latex membrane part somewhat back into place (that sucker was _heavy_), and that took care of the leak for the short term.
Now the garage room (soon to be my office) smells like a musty old factory, but the good news is that the roof should be covered under the American Home Shield thingy we got. I should be getting a call from the insurance contractor today, and for my $50 deductible, we'll see what kind of fixin' they can do.
Last night was my inglorious return to the world of route climbing. Some serious life shit going on, so it was nice to go and sweat and grunt and try to not think about other things. Today my hands hurt, my shoulders are sore, and I'm eager to do more of the same.
It was a theme lunch-errand day today... all doing with things to collect crap. First stop was the pool supply store, to get a new skimmer net (the old one was ripped to shreds). Next up was the pet store, where I purchased a shiny new metal litter scoop (I somehow left a similar one back in Pittsburgh when I moved). Finally, a trip to Best Buy, to get an external 160GB USB drive. Now that I have faster internet, I can download all the "Long Tail":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail shows that I've been missing. Plus, lately I've decided to start using my iPod for somewhat educational purposes and have been downloading audiobooks from "a.b.m.a":http://www.mp3-faq.org/tips/bookssubfaq.html#=WHAT%20TO%20POST%20IN%20ABSM.BOOKS. I'm in the middle of "Freakonomics":http://freakonomics.com/ right now, and it's pretty interesting.
Stuff is getting moved in. Boxes are being brought over. The cats "came last night":http://flickr.com/photos/feralboy/tags/moving/. I think I have enough things at the house to go for a bike ride after work, hop in "the pool":http://flickr.com/photos/feralboy/tags/pool to cool off, take a shower, and then sit out in the backyard and have chips, salsa and "beer":http://www.mylifeisbeer.com/beer/bottles/bottledetail/131/. I didn't have a chance to test this theory today, but tomorrow I will.
The internet connection over at the other place was being grumpy this morning, so I figured it was as good a time as any to try out Kim's cable modem and see if it works in the new place. "Turns out it does":http://flickr.com/photos/feralboy/13701193/, and speed is a wonderful thing. I've never seen green download icons on Azureus before! I can actually upload things quickly! It makes me want to weep with joy.
So, I'll work here for a little while, and then go back and try and break down and move my desk at lunch.
