Day 163

We got up at a normal time this morning. Amazing.

I decided to wire up the outdoor speakers. It wasn't hard, just time consuming. I even got lucky at one point. I drilled the hole in the inside wall w/o checking for a stud. Luckily I did hit one. The final result looks pretty nice.

After that it was sit out on the deck time. I was going to read, but ended up napping instead.

We went to the Nutty Brown Cafe for dinner. It was good food like before. There wasn't any music, I think we were too early. There was a whole pack of rugrats though and they were running wild everywhere.

Day 162

We went back to the antique store today to look at the sewing table. Unfortunately Ellen's sewing machine is one inch too tall to fit in the cabinet. Oh well.

I bolted the outdoor speakers I bought last week to the porch roof. We stopped at Home Depot and I bought the rest of the stuff that I need to wire them.

We stopped at the Verizon store. The MiFi contract is up. It looks like we'll be getting a tablet to replace it. The good news is that it will cost $10/mo less than we're paying now. It gets better. Ellen called to stop Showtime today. DirecTV is going to give it to us for $1/mo.

On the way home we stopped to run the dog. She was back to her old form. She did a lot of retrieves and finally quit when she got hot.

All in all a nice relaxing day.

Day 161

Another largely uneventful day. We've been getting up late so that Mom doesn't have to change time zones. Ellen and Mom played Wii bowling while I surfed. The took care of the morning and the early afternoon.

I had cabin fever so we went to a second hand store that I'd seen an ad for. It had some interesting stuff, including a sewing cabinet that would be OK if Ellen's machine fit. We also picked up the mail and did a little grocery shopping at Costco and HEB.

I had taken measurements for how much wire I need for the outdoor speakers. I didn't stop at Lowe's or Home Depot though. That way I don't feel obligated to start work on it.

We forgot to have lunch, so about 4:00 we went to Cheddar's for a lunch/early dinner. We all took doggy bags home. I guess that will be lunch tomorrow.

It was cold (about 60) and windy today so sitting outside wasn't a good option. So more surfing and a movie rounded out the day.

Day 160

I got three little jobs done - fix the step on the deck, kill the wasps in the porch light, and throw away some more old planters. Then I tackled the big one - poisoning the environment. I used 2,4D and did the entire parking area and the driveway. We'll see how it works in a few days. I'm very glad that I bought a powered sprayer to do it.

When I was showing Mom around the place I noticed that the thistles were coming back in the yard. I'll have to hit them with roundup sometime before we leave.

The truck's battery ran down again. I should have run it last weekend. I've got the battery hooked up to it right now.

I might get stuff to hook up the outdoor speakers tomorrow if I'm feeling ambitious.

Day 159

We didn't do much. We spent the morning thoroughly reading the Sunday newspaper. I was wondering whether or not it would be there since they missed yesterday.

Then we went on a little dog running and shopping expedition. Lucy did maybe 15 retrieves. I expected more since it wasn't hot. I had to entice her after every retrieve to keep her at it.

It was a good day for Lucy. After the run she got to go to 2 pet stores. There were dog cookies at both of them.

We also stopped at a sandwich place for lunch. We'd never been there before. It was pretty good. We'll probably stop there again sometime.

After we got home it was surfing, reading and watching TV for the rest of the evening.

Day 158

We went out this morning looking at garage sales and estate sales. We picked up a few small items, picture frames and nick-knacks for gifts. I also picked up a pair of outdoor speakers for the deck. I paid too much, but oh well. I'm not going to go through the pain and anguish of trying to wire them in the walls. I'll channel my inner dumbshit and just string the wire on the outside of the house.

Because Mom was along we went on a little sightseeing drive over on city park drive. We found this cool cafe right on the lake and ate lunch there. The food was really very good. Better yet, they liked dogs. People would pull up in their boats with their dogs and have lunch.

I stopped at Home Depot to get a battery, but they didn't have a cross reference listing. When I got home I looked up exactly what I need. I'll probably go back and get one tomorrow.

When we got home we pretty much just hung around inside where it was air conditioned.

Day 157

I went to a garage sale outside of Dripping Springs. I wasn't expecting much and I wasn't disappointed. I really only went for the drive anyway. On the way back I stopped by Home Depot for a little hardware.

When I got home I vacuumed the whole place. Then I went over to the shop and finished up the parts for the file cabinet. As I was leaving I dropped one and broke it. I had to glue it back together. That means fixing it will have to wait until tomorrow.

I messed around a little with the fountain. I almost got it working, but then I lost interest. I'll finish it up some other time.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the deck reading. Now I'm hanging around waiting to pick up Ellen at the airport. At least the plane seems to be on time.

Day 156

I spent several hours cleaning up the house before mother gets here. I put away some stuff that never got put away. I cleaned all of the counters and dusted everything. The only thing left to do is vacuum. I'll do that tomorrow.

One of the things that I came across was a fountain that we got cheap at some garage sale. I tried to make it work and found out why it was so cheap. It was missing tubing to connect the pump to the fountain. I went to Lowes and got some more.

I also went to Harbor Freight and got a sprayer. It was on sale and I decided that there was too much to spray to do it with a hand sprayer. I still need to get a battery for it. On the way home I stopped by HEB and bought some stuff that I had coupons for. I bought $12 worth of stuff for $7.

I also put a second coat of stain on the parts for the file cabinet. I'll put it together tomorrow.

I still had time to get in some reading on the deck in the sun.

Day 155

I finally got the pieces to repair the file cabinet done. I put the router up on a shelf in the garage. It'll take a long time before I've forgotten enough about this experience to take it down again. I did some research on the web. I have a relatively simple and cheap router table. To really do routing right you need a table and accessories that cost around $1K. No thanks.

I put the pieces I'd made together and painted them. I got lucky. One of the colors that Ellen had picked out for refinishing the chest is a close match. Not perfect, but good enough.

I should go get the mail today, but I don't think I will. Instead I'll sit out on the deck and enjoy having another thing on the todo list almost complete. There's only three things left on it and I think they are all likely to wait until the fall. It's time to think about spreading poison all around. Maybe that way I won't have to mow the parking area before I can park the trailer in the fall.

Day 154

I took out the garbage this morning. I filled the can with a bunch of old flower pots and a metal flower stand that the dumbshits had left. My goal is to get rid of a few more of those things over the next couple of weeks.

The fight with the router today ended in a draw. I cut a new piece of wood and managed to get the groove done. I did the tongue also, but it came out too wide. I'll have to shave some off. In the process I got a piece of sawdust in my eye. It's still there and hurts a lot. If it's still there tomorrow I'll probably have to find a doctor.

When I got the sawdust in my eye I decided to stop and go to the grocery store. I bought some eye drops, but couldn't flush the sawdust out. By then it was afternoon and hot, so I didn't bother to try to run the dog.

When I got home I surfed and read. It was a little windy, but sitting out on the porch was still nice.

Day 153

I fought the router, and the router won.

I started out using the table saw instead of the jigsaw to do the straight cuts. It worked fine, but I really need to buy a new blade. Then I carefully set up the router to cut a groove. I tried it out on a piece of scrap. I made a small adjustment and then tried the real wood. That's when I found out the the fence comes loose from the vibration of the router. The cut wasn't perfect, but it was good enough.

I reset the router to cut the tongue and reefed on the fence bolts with a pliers. The first cut was fine. The second cut screwed up because I'd forgotten to tighten one of the bolts. Scratch another $5 piece of wood. I've now messed up three.

I went to Lowe's and bought a 6' board this time. It will give me at least another 3 chances to mess it up. I was going to stop at the grocery store, but it was too hot to leave the dog. I took her to the park and she did three retrieves before quitting.

When I got home I was too disgusted to do anything. So I sat on the deck and read.

Day 152

I woke up this morning and decided to go to the gun show. I think a major factor was that it was cloudy today so I could take the dog. It wasn't a very large show, and I didn't see much that was interesting. I did pick up a set of dies for a gun that I bought 20+ years ago and have never fired. I'll need to find some brass though.

I stopped by a Baskins Robbins on the way back and got a strawberry malt. It cost over $7. That's what happens when all you have to pay for something with is Obama bucks. I also stopped at Lowes and got another piece of wood for the file cabinet.

I took Lucy to the park. She did about 15 retrieves and then quit. I really don't like it when she goes out for the bumper and then doesn't come back. This time she got dragged over to the bumper and I forced her to bring it back.

After I got home I decided to rip the 9 CD's that I have bought but not ripped. I now have 83 CD's that I've ripped but have never listened to. That's almost a collection by itself. I think that the problem is that there's no time. Really it's not that there's no time, it's just that there are other things competing for the same time. Things like movies, pinball, video games, books, etc. And let's not forget surfing.

Day 151

Off to estate and garage sales in the morning. The first one was a bust, but at the second I got a couple of small workmates for $30. That's less than half price. I'll used one of them as a base for the miter saw.

I also stopped by Lowes to get handles for the workmate and a router bit. The bit wasn't cheap - $14. I also got an extra piece of wood in case I fuck up with the router.

I took the dog to the park and she did 7 retrieves before she went out and refused to bring the bumper back. I was not happy.

I also stopped and bought myself a birthday cake. It's got a statue of a fly fisherman standing in a stream with three plastic fish. I bought it because it was on sale, it would be better for Dan. Or maybe Ellen - the fisherman has the line tangled up all around his shoulders.

When I got home I decided to continue with the file cabinet fix. I should have just sat on my ass.

I began by putting the handles on the workmate. The handles are cheap Chinese junk and their set screws stripped out. I ended up drilling holes through the shafts and bolting them on. The whole process was a serious pain in the ass.

Then I carefully measured the router bit positioning and routed the piece I worked on yesterday. It fucked up. The groove was off center. I'm not sure why, but it serves me right for not using a piece of scrap first.

So then I got the extra piece of wood and attempted to cut it. I was very careful, using a straight edge for a fence. Setting that up and getting the laser aligned (it's been off for quite a while) was a significant effort. When I started the cut, everything went to hell. The goddamned base of the saw slipped and I ended up with a nasty mitered cut. Scratch $5 worth of wood.

I was pissed, so I took the saw base apart and tightened the miter adjustment as much as I could. Then I had to quit until I get another piece of wood.

Surfing and reading for the rest of the day. There's nothing much that can go wrong with that.

Day 150

I did a little estate/garage sale shopping this morning. I stopped at three or four places. The only thing I bough was 7 CD's for $6. I'm not sure why I did that. I already have 20 or 30 CD's that I've ripped, but have never listened to.

When I got home I decided that it was time to try to fix the file cabinet. That involves teaching myself how to use a router. The job seemed ill starred. It started out with the jigsaw cuts that I made. The saw's table slipped and all of the cuts were slightly mitered. I fixed the worst of it with a file.

I the spent quite a while with scrap wood figuring out the router. I don't have an FM, so it was all trial and error. Eventually I managed to route all of the tongues that I need. I couldn't do the grooves because I don't have the right kind of bit. It takes a 5/16, and I only have 1/4 and 3/8.

In the process of clamping the wood, the handles on the Workmate both broke. Cheap Chinese shit. I spent quite a while trying to fix them, but they are history.

It got very hot in the garage, so at that point I decided to call it a day and read on the deck.

Day 149

I got the drain fixed. It was a good news, bad news sort of thing. The good news is that I didn't have to use any of the parts I bought. The bad news is that it was another battle with the half assed way that the dumbshits who lived in this house before built it.

When dealing with plumbing it's important to remember the first rule of plumbing, SHIT ROLLS DOWN HILL. The dumbshits didn't understand this.

The sink is a double sink. The left sink drainpipe goes straight down and into the p-trap. It works fine. The right sink wouldn't drain. Its drainpipe went down a few inches, turned horizontal, and connected to the left sink's pipe just above the p-trap. Halfway across the horizontal section was a connection to a small plastic tube that heads up behind the sink in the general direction of the dishwasher.

There were three separate problems. First, the horizontal pipe wasn't really horizontal. It was slanted AWAY from the left drain. Second, the tube connection blocked half of the horizontal pipe. Third, the connection of the horizontal pipe with the left hand drain also blocks half of both pipes.

Not surprisingly, there were clogs at both the connections. I had to take apart the whole thing to clear them. A nice messy (and stinky) job that involved getting dirty drain water all over. There's no way to fix the problems with the connections because that's the way the fittings are designed. The fittings are also designed in such a way as to pretty much eliminate the effectiveness of drain cleaners.

I made a partial fix to the first problem. I couldn't fix it completely because the dumbshits had cut off the down pipe from the left hand sink too short. It's difficult to replace and I didn't have the right parts to fix it. I did cut as much as possible off the down tube on the right hand side. This makes the pipe closer to horizontal. If this doesn't turn into a long term fix I'll have to redo the whole thing.

That's enough work for today. I'm going to spend the rest of the day messing around. Unfortunately it's cloudy so sitting out on the deck won't be as much fun as it could be.

Day 148

Today was cloudy and a little rainy. I took the opportunity to go with Lucy to do some shopping. I went to the grocery store for some cleaning supplies. I got some replacement plumbing at Lowe's. I tried to get a lock cylinder, but they don't sell them separately. I'll have to buy a whole door knob ($30) to get the cylinder. I also got some sheets for the trailer. They were on sale and mismarked, so I got them for $20 less than they should have been.

I went up to Barton Creek to get some more barbeque at Rudy's. I also stopped at the mall and got another watchband.

The dog certainly has her appetite back. She seems anxious to do something, but doesn't have a lot of energy.

I accidentally set off the alarm today by getting in front of the motion detector. I turned off the alarm, but the company called anyway. I couldn't remember the password, and neither could Ellen. So they called the police. I called them back and luckily guessed the password. They called off the cops.

After that bit of excitement I decided to just read and surf for the rest of the day.

Day 147

I had to get up at 6:00 to get the dog out of hock. There's one good thing about that. I got to see how the traffic was that early on 290 at the Y. It isn't bad, which surprised me a little.

The dog was heavily traumatized by her stay. She's been whimpering at random intervals all day. She doesn't want to be out of my sight even if she can still hear me. She's also on pain meds, so she isn't very active. I was supposed to watch her all day, so that made me house bound.

I cleaned the interior of the truck and put all of the car cleaning stuff in the garage. I also got the subwoofer amp back. I reinstalled it and put the other subwoofer in the bedroom. Unfortunately the Velodyne makes as much noise as before, maybe more.

Because it was warm, I also got some time in on the deck reading.

Day 146

Just when everything seems to be going nicely something fucks up. I did a little cleaning up. Then I discovered that the front door lock didn't work anymore. The key wouldn't turn the lock.

So off to Lowes for another. $45 later I had the new lock at home and was going to install it. Then I had a brainstorm. I thought I could swap the old key cylinder into the new handle. That way we wouldn't need two keys. For some reason that would work until I had the whole thing assembled. Then it would stop working. I worked on the thing for hours, putting it together and then taking it apart again, with no success. Finally I just put it back on the door (broken) while I took the dog to the vet.

The vet was fun. After a little more than an hour of messing around and tests, the vet didn't know what was wrong. Her X-ray machine is broken, so she couldn't be sure Lucy wasn't about to die. So for $150 I got sent to another vet.

The other vet did an ultrasound and an x-ray. That seemed to show that Lucy's uterus was alright, but it wasn't definitive. The x-ray showed up a possible bowel problem, so she's in the hospital overnight. Please pay $850 on the way out. And by the way, you have to pick the dog up before 7:00 AM tomorrow.

I got home about 8:00 and took the door knob apart one more time. This time the old key cylinder came apart in my hands. I put the new key cylinder into the lock and it works. Only now we need two house keys.

To top it off I discovered that one of the kitchen sink drains is almost plugged. I tried Drano on it, but it didn't help. I guess I'll have to take the drain apart. A nice, ugly, disgusting, messy, job. Shit.

Day 145

There wasn't much accomplished today. I blame it on losing an hour to daylight savings time.

I decided not to do a lot today. I cleaned up a little bit. I also modified the clothes hanger in the laundry room to raise it a little. Other than that it was just listen to music and surf.

Lucy is definitely sick. She's got diarrhea and some white stuff coming out of her pussy. She'll be going to the vet tomorrow.

Day 144

The estate sales this week all started on Saturday. One was just 3 miles down 1826. I made a good score there. A Sony powered subwoofer for $40. It's hooked up right now and sounds good. I also got a nice hardware storage bin case.

I went to a couple of other estate sales with some nice stuff. However, I restrained myself and didn't buy anything except a fertilizer spreader. Today seemed to be "garage sale Saturday". Everywhere I went I saw signs. I stopped in at a couple, but they were just typical garage sale junk.

I took the dog to the park, but she quit after only 4 retrieves. She sure doesn't want to run right now.

When I got home I didn't feel like doing anything strenuous or complicated. So I repacked all of my miscellaneous hardware to fit in two cases instead of three. I had to fabricate a lot of bin dividers, so this took a fair amount of time. I now have a quite respectable collection.

Then it was time to sit on the deck in the sunshine and read.

Day 143

Started out the day by going to a couple of garage sales. I didn't expect much and I wasn't disappointed. They were typical collections of junk.

On the way back I stopped at the park to run the dog. She only did 4 or 5 retrieves before she quit.

When I got home I washed and waxed the truck. It's a large vehicle and the process took much of the afternoon. After that was finished it was time to sit on the deck.

I've found a couple of estate sales, so that's what's on for tomorrow.

Day 142

I didn't do much today. I surfed away most of the morning. I got guilty and went to the apartment to set up the converter and TV antenna. It wasn't hard, but it involved a little rewiring both inside and outside.

The place still smells like cigarette smoke after it's been shut for a few days. We've repainted the whole place and the floor is concrete. That leaves the ceiling. I had bought some smoke odor remover in a spray bottle months ago. I used it on the ceiling of the small building and it seemed to help. So I decided to do the rest of the place.

Putting the stuff on is unpleasant. You are spraying above your head and end up covered with it. I was smelling it for the rest of the day. I only had enough to do the kitchen and hallway. I'll have to get some more, only I don't remember where I bought it.

After lunch I went to the Post Office. I also went to Home Depot and Wally World. They were sold out of the two things, odor spray and watchbands, that I was looking for. When I got home I spent the rest of the afternoon on the deck soaking up the sun.

Day 141

You can get a lot accomplished when you get out of bed before noon. Ellen had an early flight, so I was back from the airport before 8:00. After breakfast I decided to do a job that I'd been putting off for a long time. I bought a couple of drain pipes months ago. They've been sitting beside the house making me feel guilty ever since.

To install them I needed some rock. I now had that. I also needed to break out some of the concrete by a drain so I could fit the pipe into it. I thought that that would be hard, but it turned out to be fairly easy. The dumbshits who lived here had used cheap concrete that was easy to break up.

After that it was just a matter of time and work to dig a trench for the pipe. I put the pipe in and covered it with some of the driveway rock. It took a cart and a half. There was three or four loads left, so I put them on the driveway.

That finishes two old tasks, the driveway and the drain pipe.

I was feeling over ambitious so I cleaned the interior of the car. It turned 10,000 miles. I feel a car should have its interior cleaned everything 10,000 miles whether it needs it or not.

Day 140

I decided that I better move the rest of the rock pretty soon before I ended up putting it off forever. There was enough rock left to fill in a lot of the ruts that were left. Unfortunately I didn't have enough to fill them all in. I need about another yard or two. It would cost as much to have it delivered as the rock did. Ellen wants to wait until the fall to get it. I'll probably do that.

For some reason moving that rock left me more tired than any of the other three rock moving sessions. Maybe it was the heat (82 degrees) and humidity. So nothing else got accomplished except a short trip to the Post Office.

The dog didn't want to eat her breakfast, which made us a little worried. She was a little subdued today. However, tonight she ate dinner with gusto and begged for a cookie after-wards.

Day 139

Not much done today. We managed to accomplish two things. We got the mail and gave the dog a dogicure. That's it. I did manage to spend an hour killing a lot of Klingons.

I took the hardware that I bought last week to the garage and combined it with what I had there already. I now have a pretty good collection of screws, nuts, and bolts. No more running to Home Depot every time I need something.

It beats a day in a gray cube all to hell.

Day 138

We slept in late and then stayed in bed surfing until noon. Then we got up to have breakfast and read the Sunday paper. I was just trying to decide what to do today when some people from Craig's list called about a rug they had for sale. They were in Bee Cave so we decided to go up and see it.

The rug was in good condition so we bought it for the study. It fits pretty well and looks nice.

Because the place was reasonably close to Lakeway we decided to give the dog a swim. It took awhile to get through the twisty roads, but we ended up at Lakeway Park. The dog had a great time doing water retrieves and the land retrieves to dry off.

On the way home we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few items. There was a pet store next door so we took Lucy in and bought her a treat.

Day 137

Another day of estate sales. It was raining in the morning. That caused one of the sales that we drove to to be canceled. The people had noted it on the website, but in a way that only showed if you searched for the entry. It didn't show up if you just called up the entry. Crap.

There was a garage sale nearby, so we went to it. It had some OK stuff, but nothing that we were interested in.

Then we drove to Buda for another estate sale. It was a great success. I bought a file box full of western paperbacks for $5. That should keep Dan in books for quite a while.

Since we were in Buda we stopped at Cabela's. They were having a discount promotion on their bargain cave stuff. I got a set of gunsmithing screwdrivers for almost half of retail. Ellen got a cool hunting hat. I also got a new pair of shoes on sale. My old ones were literally falling apart.

When we got home I decided to do some reading. That activity rapidly turned into a nap.

Day 136

We were off to estate sales today. We went to four. The first three weren't worth anything. They were really just glorified garage sales. The last one was a jackpot.

We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes before we got in. The owner was a hoarder. The house was so full of stuff that only a few people could get in at a time. We scored a couple of things. Ellen got a new in box easel. I got a couple of miscellaneous tools and a drawer case full of hardware. I got it for about the cost of the empty case.

We stopped at Fry's, but there wasn't anything there that interested us.

When we got home I spent the afternoon going through the case that I bought. It was chock full of screws, nuts, and bolts. All of which needed sorting. There was also a lot of junk like rusted and broken screws that needed to be thrown away. There was even a couple of square nails and an "IKE" pin. The very cool thing was that one of the drawers was filled with drill bits. All in all I was happy with what was in it.

Day 135

More rock moving today. I got more than half of what's left spread out. It covered all of the remaining ruts. I still have to fill in some low spots. It's going to be close. I may not have as much as I would like to have.

I've been overloading the cart to haul the rock. Today the front end started to collapse. That's because the front end was stabilized by one thin piece of metal. I reinforced it with three new pieces of metal. It should hold now.

The mower was a disappointment. It wouldn't pul the loaded cart. Fortunately all of the hauling I had to do was downhill. It did slow things down a bit.

After that we went out to do the grocery shopping. While we were at the store, a guy called from Craig's list. He had a converter for $20. He lived relatively close (7-8 miles) from the store, so we went over there and bought it.

Lucy got screwed though. Because we went to buy the converter she didn't get to run in the park. As a consolation prize she got a new outside bone. She worked on it for an hour before dinner and then went out after-wards for more. Later on she went out again and tried to bring it in to eat it on our bed.

Day 134

I got up (after surfing) and shoveled rock. I spread out the rest of the pile at the bottom of the driveway. It was almost exactly what I needed to fill in the ruts at the bottom. I had one wagon load more than I needed. I may have to put a little more on once it's been packed down.

While I was doing that, Ellen washed and waxed the car. I got done first, so I got the patio table and umbrella out of the truck. I unpacked them and assembled them. They are perfect for the spot on the deck where I wanted them. Just like the chairs, the worst part was tearing the staples out of the boxes so that they could be recycled.

I went in and had lunch. By then Ellen was finished so we went to do errands. We hit the Post Office, Target (for cat litter), Costco (for frozen food), and Walgreen's (for drugs).

All in all it was a productive and tiring day.

Day 133

I decided to buy the rock today. I was surprised when they said that they would deliver it about two hours after I ordered it. When it got here I had them dump half of it at the bottom of the driveway and half in the area where rock was stored before. Then I went to work on the lower pile.

I ordered 7 yards and they brought 7.5 yards. That's OK. It ended up costing $85.

I moved about two yards of material in the hour and a half that I worked. It was 85 degrees and I was working in the sun. I managed to fill in the major ditch that was at the bottom of the driveway. Then I decided that I was too hot and tired to do more.

After dinner we went over to Lowe's to by a table for the patio. I was really more interested in how much the truck packed down the material that I spread out than getting the furniture. I planned to put the furniture together tonight, but it was 8:30 by the time we got home. All that cardboard packaging will have to wait until next week to go the the recyclers.

The trucked packed down the material about like I expected. After it's all packed down in a week or so I may have to fill in a couple of low spots.