Well…that was okay…didn’t wake up til 5:30 and was able to roll over for 45 more minutes and still be on time to get to this and on the bike before I head out for the grocery run today…and it’s going to be another week of about 30 bucks for groceries and that is cool…might even be less than that since I got 17 pounds of protein last week and the ingredients for lasagna that I’m going to make tomorrow…can’t remember when I had a grocery list that has less than 15 items on it for two stores….might have to thaw my garage door lock again with the rain we had yesterday and how cold it is now…will probably drag the wd with me when I go out since that worked to thaw it last time…with the rain yesterday, I think the trails may be almost melted and I may suit up and take a look at them the next time it gets to be over 40…and that will be early next week…I did get some work done yesterday and need to get the rest of the trim prepped so I can get it sanded by the end of the week but that may take me two days and I won’t get to painting til next week and then I need to do some prep work on the walls and I may do that before I sand the trim so I only have one cleanup day before I start to paint…and I probably should do the second door frame that I was going to leave til later so the entire kitchen will be done in a week or so….I wonder if I will have earned another week off after that? I know that my right hand and elbow will need the rest after I’m done since it is already hurts like crazy after just one part of the trim and the door frame from yesterday….not much to do today…just the grocery run and the rest of the baseboards and then on to the door frame tomorrow….should be able to sand Friday…I hope….and then do the cleanup…crap…forgot about prepping the walls and ceiling and that will take a full day so I probably won’t get to sanding til Monday…but I should still be able to paint next week…but I need to buy another gallon of gray paint since I don’t think I have enough to two-coat the walls with what I have…but that will be okay since I’ll need some touch up paint to maintain everything in the kitchen as I chip them…more later….
Monthly Archives: February 2022
3 hours of work for one door frame?
Well….I really did have plans to get all of the rest of the trim for the kitchen sanded and filled today but the door frame for the door to the basement had another idea…after taking my good putty knife to chop off the extra plaster that was left on it and painted over, I started to scrape the rough edges that looked pretty beat up and I thought it was in the wood but it was only in the layers and layers of paint that was on the trim and that had been chipped and painted over with no prep for 40 years…so, after an hour and a half of scraping and chipping that paint off, I finally got to the sanding for all of it to get ready to try to smooth it enough to fill the bad spots…oh, after I used a screwdriver and a hammer to set most of the nails that were working loose…the I finally got to filling all of the flaws trying to not use as much filler as I had been using to keep the dust down when I start to sand it in a few days…but I am going to wait until all of the trim is filled and ready for sanding so I’ll only have one cleanup to do after I’m done…still…3 hours for one dang door frame? Way too much work and I’m glad that the rest of the house is going to be much less work…I hope….
Watched a movie in the afternoon…
Well…not sure how this happened but I just watched a movie in the middle of the afternoon…when I was reading the news yesterday, I came across an article about science fiction movies on netflix that were good and flying under the radar of the general public…so, I even wrote one of them down on a used envelope so I would remember it sometime in the future…so, I found the envelope this afternoon and thought what the heck, I’d check it out…oh, forgot to say that it was a 2021 Japanese version of “the door into summer” by Robert Heinlein and had no plan to watch it today…just went out to look to see if it was there and started it…then I got sucked into watching the first part to see if I remembered the story and that continued until I watched the whole movie….it was a little bit of work with subtitles but well worth the effort…pretty good movie and I only feel a little guilty for wasting my afternoon to watch it…I did get some work done this morning and the next one will talk about that…more later…
“If it keeps on raining, the levee’s going to break…”
Well…yeah, I always wanted to use that line in a title…but, there are no levees out here in Muskegon so I guess the rain that is going on today could be: “if it keeps on raining, the snow is going to melt” since most of the snow out here should be gone after today…I know, much less drama to say the snow is melting versus the levees failing in 1927 along the Mississippi that flooded 26,000 square miles of the Mississippi delta, killed hundreds of people, and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate. My whole reason for talking about this is that John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin put together one of those world inclusive songs that included people from around the world playing it in real time over the internet…and I saw it yesterday on one of the news services I read…and I learned that the song was written in 1929 by Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie and when Zeppelin changed it for Zep 4, they credited the original writers as they did whenever they recorded a song done by one of black blues artists….it’s very seldom that anything can keep my attention for 6+ minutes on the internet but this video did…very cool….
February 22nd
Well…that was okay…only got up once last night at 4am and slept in all the way til 6:17…but I don’t feel that hot with my allergies already getting bad and it’s not even spring yet…it’s probably from sanding yesterday even though I used the vacuum to collect the dust as I sanded….was miserable last night, too, and the allergy medicine that normally gives me relief didn’t work so I was plugged up all night and that continues this morning…but, I’m getting back into sanding and repair again this morning and I hope to have all of the door trim and baseboards done by tomorrow so I can paint Thursday…not sure about the door frame between the kitchen and dining room since it is in such bad shape but the sides need to be done so I can get the walls painted in the kitchen….still trying to decide how much repair work I’m going to do on the walls before I paint since I could work on them for weeks to get them smooth…and I’m not sure I want to do that much work….this place is 82 years old after all and it will have flaws but I will probably do some of the more obvious ones….not much to do today…just more work in the kitchen but it is a pain that my right hand is right back to where it was before I took a week off to rest it and it only took one short day of work to do that…so, I guess I just suck it up and get at it and can rest when I’m done with the kitchen….oh, I did have to use adhesive on the door seal to the basement since opening it pulled it loose last night…but damn, just about a 4 inch bead of glue is holding it fine this morning and it has gotten almost back to it’s normal shape….adhesive is a wonderful thing…and I need to get more tomorrow….more later….
Still shaking my head…
Well…you know I’ve been bitching a bit about how half assed lots of things were done on this house, and I just discovered another one that has me just shaking my head…as I was going downstairs to get another roll of paper towel, I noticed that the gasket seal to the door to the basement was distorted and I was a little curious why that would be….after looking at it, I saw that there were nails driven through the seals into the door frame and if it was to keep the seal in the groove, I just don’t know why they didn’t just take a little bit of adhesive and apply it to the tang that goes into the groove that is supposed to hold it in place….after I removed the nails and tried to get the seal to go back to it’s normal shape, it was stuck to the door frame and was not loose at all so again, I’m confused with the half assed way and reason why this was done at all….I really don’t think they knew that adhesive exists since they nailed the drawer head on the smallest drawer in the kitchen cabinets, too, and I had to remove those nails and glue the head on as it should have been…I wonder what else I’m going to find as I continue to work on this place? I wonder if that’s why my neck hurts…from shaking my head so much?
Giving aid and comfort to the enemy is treason….
Well…in my long lifetime, when there was a threat to the US or our allies there may have been a little disagreement between the parties, there has never been a whole side of our political discourse that sided with our enemies and blatantly announced that they wanted the other side to win…and all just to hurt the current president and help their political fortunes in the next election. but we have exactly that now with the modern repub party becoming the biggest cheerleader for Putin in the world, rivaling even Russian propaganda on fox news. This “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” is in the definition of treason in the statutes in the US and isn’t parroting Russian propaganda all day long giving aid? Remember that the various radio announcers in WWII like “Tokyo Rose” or “Axis Sally” who supported the Japanese and the Germans were caught and tried for treason after the war and you can argue that they didn’t do anywhere near as much damage to the US cause since everyone knew they spread pretty obvious lies and didn’t take them seriously like people do with fox news..why, I don’t know but they do. These traitors like tucker need to be held to account for their Putin loving bullshit…and no it’s not a violation of the first amendment if they are committing treason…there are some things you can’t say and supporting our enemies is one of them….lock them up…geez…
Back to work…
Well…had the discipline to get back to working on the kitchen today and got a 12 foot section of the baseboards sanded and repaired along with a big chunk of plaster that had fallen out when I was sanding off the extra paint that was on them….and I saw that the green was not the original color of the kitchen but a nice yellow that they shouldn’t have painted over with the dark green that they used….I did learn something with all of the other filling that I had to do for the cupboards…and that is to use the very smallest amount that I can and I even went over the parts that I filled with a wet paper towel to take off the excess and make it easier to sand by hand so I don’t have to spread dust all over with the sander…I am going to use the shop vac to plug into the sander to help control the dust like I did this morning with the original sanding…working down on the floor really hurt my legs to the point I could barely move when I finished with the filling and the sanding beat the heck out of my right hand so quitting after only 12 feet was the right idea…I can still finish the trim by the end of the week and be ready to paint them so maybe on to the ceiling and walls next week? That will finish up what I want to do in the kitchen and get me started on the dining room trim and windows…..and those are in much better shape than the kitchen so it should go faster…I hope, anyway….
February 21st
Well…running about on time this morning with getting up at 6 but I was up and down all night so I feel kinda worn out today…but that’s normal and I can deal with that…I did get out of here for a bit yesterday since I wanted to go out to the beach and take a look at the ice and get a photo of the MIata out there…didn’t plan on getting out on the ice with the wind blowing over 40 mph but I still may try to do that before it melts….and I saw a bald eagle come in for a landing in a tree over the road on the way back and that was cool…didn’t get anything else done since my Sundays are my one day of the week that I take the day off and really just veg out and that is the goal for finishing the house…to get to the point that I only have little things to do every day and taking a day off is the norm instead of a plan…I still haven’t really retired and I am looking forward to the days when every day is like a Sunday….and that looks like it is about a year off…I am quickly coming up on a year in this place in a week or so and I think I’ve made a lot of progress getting it cleaned up and getting the things done that make it livable….I’ll go into that on the 27th of this month since that is the anniversary of moving in here….not much to do today…back on the bike here in a few minutes and I hope the dentist calls back to set an appointment so I can get started fixing my teeth…the pain is almost gone but it still hurts to chew anything harder than steamed asparagus and I need that fixed….and I’m going back to work on the house after taking the week off to let my hands heal…they still hurt and will get worse but I want to get the kitchen finished in the next couple of weeks….more later…
Greed is why the ratings for the Olympics were down…
Well….jeez, everyone is shaking their heads and speculating why the ratings for the Olympics were down 42% from the last games…damn, these people are dense or they are trying to make themselves look deep or informed by parsing all of the data but it’s too damn simple for that..it’s all because of greed…greed by NBC for moving a lot of it over to their pay service Peacock where they give you a little bit without extra cash out of your pocket but, like with the series they offer, they give you one or two episodes and then hide the rest of it behind an extra cost paywall…just like they do with the English Premiere League or Dale Jr.s series about lost speedways across this country…all of this cynical bit of bullshit from NBC is the classic bait and switch that these people pull all the time…it isn’t enough for them to get paid because most people get their tv from cable or dish, but they have to get greedy and charge even more and that turns people off…and once you try to access something on Peacock and they always try to charge you more, you just get tired of the bullshit and never use that service again…just like me…and I’ll never use it again…so, it’s pretty damn simple…greed has priced the Olympics out of the reach of most people and once you lose them, they are gone forever and that includes crap on NBC since they are they ones playing the games…I don’t feel bad for them even if they lose a billion dollars…they deserve it…geez…