…ya take one down and pass it around…98 bags of trash on the wall…

Okay, I freely admit it…I can’t sing. I once had someone tell me that at gunpoint…but that’s another story.

Anyway, this weekend. Trash. Lots of it.

Not much as far as cool pictures this weekend…we had priming to do…an exterior door and window…but it was too wet. The weather was chilly, so we figured we’d just clean.

Now…cleaning. That’s a thing you can do with low budget, and some time. It’s something we tackle when other things are at a standstill due to weather or budget.

And cleaning we’ve got…lots of it to do that is.

Not only do we have the construction mess and typical dust of the Old Vic project to deal with, we also have our “new” 1880’s era historic building on the square to work on.

Why talk about that? Well, part of our Old Vic project…the point of it in fact…is for us to eventually LIVE in our new chosen town. We always expected to open a business in town…perhaps later…during our retirement…but we also considered maybe earlier as my writing career accelerates (hint: buy my books!). I really want to make a living as an author!

Something we could take some time to establish. We’d be further along on the house. We’d keep our eyes open and perhaps in a couple years…

Well…later or maybe earlier? Heh…”now” came up as the building we loved came on the market and the price was right. We looked at our means and intent and decided that if we were serious about it, the opportunity just could not be passed up.

So, the building, like it or not, is part of our project. Of course, since it has a tower…and is actually older than our Queen Anne Victorian, we figure most of our readers shouldn’t mind.

Yep. Opportunity. Gotta take it. Sieze the day. He who hesitates. All that good stuff.

Bottom line is…if you currently have the means…and you have the dreams…NOW is the time to buy. Prices will never be better.

Just please, nobody show me any more old buildings with towers for sale anytime soon…

Yes, we have the means…but…that said, we moved more quickly then we would have under other circumstances, and so, have stretched the budget a little.

Some work that doesn’t involve $1000 worth of stuff from the hardware store is therefore most welcome.

Something that came with the building was a massive cleanup project. The second floor really hasn’t been used in a few decades or so…and has been the “go to” place for anything the previous two owners didn’t know what to do with.

The building is roughly 25′ x 100′…so upstairs alone is 2500 square feet of junk…most of it not worth the effort it took to haul it up the stairs in the first place. Old retail racks. Some 1970’s era furniture. Old rotten clothes. About 10 old artificial Christmas trees. Old bags. Plastic shelves. Old air-conditioners. Very little of any value at all.

Add several hundred pounds of pidgeon poop, mix well, and you’ve got more than a few bags of trash to haul.

A good view through the rooms upstairs:

Home Depot carries some really nice trash bags just for such an occasion…the 8 mill contractor’s cleanup bags. Tough. Very large. Tie flaps. Don’t break or tear. Even hard to punch through. These bags are so good…and we’re going to use so many, that when my Mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I asked for trash bags.

Yeah. I did. AND she got them for me. TWO boxes!

We spent a few hours Saturday cleaning up and hauled about a ten or so trash bags out of there this weekend.

Ten bags of trash is approximately 700 pounds.

That’s on top of 12 bags (a half-ton or so) we got rid of a couple weekends ago.

And we have not yet begun to clean.

At a guess? There are 98 bags of trash left on the wall.

And then we’ll get to the big stuff.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

No work for me this weekend. Resting. Processing. Recuperating. Recharging.

I putter. Watching some TV. Listening to music. Reading. Writing. Plotting my next project.

Sunday I manage a nap…and for the first time in days, my dreams don’t wake me in a cold sweat, yelling for people to get down…to run…to get away from the laughing drug dealer who, even as he steps over bystanders’ bodies, just won’t run out of bullets.

The wife sits across from me, reading, occasionally looking up at me. We share a look then…a promise…a reaffirmation…that only intimates can make or understand. Nineteen years and my heart still gives a lurch.

The caffeinated kitten, who now (and seemingly rather suddenly) inhabits a big orange cat’s body, bounds in through the gap we left in the patio door for some fresh air…his collar jangling. He prances up and proudly deposits his latest catch at my feet…a large leaf from the front bushes. It joins the growing pile of similiar prizes he’s left me in the last hour.

He gets some praise and a quick skritch behind the ears and he’s off to his next big adventure.

The Maine Coon is upside down, half in and half out of a bag on the kitchen floor…his natural habitat methinks. He snores.

Bills to pay. Back to work tomorrow. Normalcy.

And yet I wonder…is that okay?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

I started this week as a juror on what seemed a fairly mundane case.

The prosecution’s case was very carefully put together. He knew his business. The defense had nothing. There was no reasonable doubt. There was no doubt at all. The verdict was inevitable, and even with our diverse jury, quick and unanimous.

And then the other shoe dropped.

The case was far more than it seemed, as we suspected from the extreme care the prosecution had taken with the case, and we discovered for certain during the sentencing phase.

I ended the week with the images of an innocent bystander murdered…caught in a shootout…in full color/motion and from every angle…burned into my head.

It shook me up far more than I can explain.

Yeah. The jaded, world traveling, burly, biker dude.

And I can’t find the damned erase button.

To the defendant…whom we put away for 85 years…may God have mercy on your soul…if you even have one…because surely I have none for you.

And damn you for making me face that fact.

Ride. I think I need to ride.

But I need to vomit first.

And I really, really need that damned erase button.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Well, with forcast temperatures in the teens, we decided we wouldn’t be getting much work done this weekend.

Painting? Uh, no. Not only do I not want to be outside, but the paint would be somewhat solidified. We may have lost some paint anyway…since some of it was stored in parts of the house that no-doubtably froze. (durnit)

Plumbing? Nope. Too cold to crawl around under the house.

Wiring? Attics are cold too.

Insulating? Well, maybe. Lord knows it needs to get done. But no. Too durn cold.

Roofing? Oh hell no.

Aside from that, I put in some “hours” this week, and needed some extra sleep.

Heh…yeah, I didn’t stir out of my bed until 11am Saturday. The warm, willing wife lying there with me was some incentive I expect.

Guy’s gotta have a day off every now and again.

This week the UPS fairy brought me a full-body harness and some orange traffic cones. Along with the pads and chocks I made last weekend, those will go in the toolbins on the left-handed fargle-snorker to be used as needed. Or perhaps never to be seen again, but at least I have them.

Of course, as much as I like to play with tools…there is no way in HELL I’m breaking out the left-handed fargle-snorker in temperatures in the teens and twenties…I mean….elevating onesself 40 feet in the air…the twenty degree and 30mph air…seems somewhat masochistic…even for me.

In the mean time though, I thought it prudent to test out the traffic cones.

Yes, the traffic cones.

As most of you know, they are used for marking hazards.

Let me introduce you to…

The most dangerous couch. Ever.

We’re supposed to have milder temperatures next week…so maybe we’ll get some work done then.

Until that time, y’all take care!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

ROAD TRIP!!!

So, I jumped in the left-handed fargle-snorker and trucked on up to Clarksville on Saturday.

The trip itself is kind of a big deal. It’s an old rig, yet brand new to me, so I’d no experience as to its reliability etc. The gas gauge doesn’t work, and I didn’t even know what kind of mileage to expect. Then there’s the matter of the dealer’s tags and faxed insurance paperwork…all perfectly okay of course, but the kind of thing State Troopers like to hassle you about.

Of course, it’s only 120 mile trip, and I tend to believe I can build a shopping mall with a q-tip (that line is courtesy of Six Days, Seven Nights) so I was sure that anything short of a gear-shattering explosion I could deal with. I mean, no, I didn’t have any q-tips on me but I was carrying some duct-tape and a pair of nail-clippers and I really didn’t need a shopping mall anyway.

120 miles. No problem at all. There’s some quirks. Mentioned above, the gas guage doesn’t work. Neither does the speedometer. The rear end is two-speed, but doesn’t currently shift. That’s electrical in nature I’m sure and is probably an easy fix. For the speedo…I just snagged the wife’s GPS.

She burns no oil. Gets about 10mpg. Started up fine in the 20 degree morning weather. Brakes work fine. She’s a heavy beast. Fun to drive…in that manly testosterone-pumping, tooth-rattling, kidney bouncing sort of way.

(grunt/snort)

I’ll tinker. I like things to work…but none of the “quirks” are going to effect the job I need to do first, so they can wait.

What I DID need however, are some little accessories required when whipping equipment about in a working environment. The truck was pretty well cleaned out when I bought it…not even a stray block of wood or an oily rag remained.

So, off to the spare lumber pile. I made some chocks (two sets). The parking brake works fine, but on this rig, the hydraulics are powered by a PTO on the transmission, so when using the boom the engine needs to be running and the tranny in neutral. If I end up on any sort of incline, I’ll feel better chocking the wheels instead of just depending on the parking brake and outriggers to keep her from rolling away.

I also made a set of two pads for the outriggers to rest on. They are about 2 feet square, and since they are made with three layers of 2×6 lumber, they are something like 5″ thick. I figure they could support a small crane.

These increase the surface area of the outrigger feet and are needed to keep the outriggers from sinking when operating the machine on softer ground. Also, and more to my needs, the wood pads will protect the soft(ish) brick on the historic square from getting scarred up by the steel outrigger feet.

A pair of wheel chocks on the left, and a outrigger pad (2′ x 2′ x 5″ thick).
I made two of each of these.

A handful of traffic cones would be handy too…but that’s easily fixed. The magic UPS fairy is gonna deliver me some this week.

The holidays and all the family stuff that goes along with them have really cut into my projects…so, next weekend…I’m starting on the mudroom roof (can’t insulate until I fix the roof leak), and then for one day I’ll take the left-handed fargle-snorker up to the square and get a closer look at the damage on the tower. I need to know what materials to get before serious work begins.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Playing with the new toy…ur…tool…TOOL today.

TOOL.

Wanted to get used to the boom movement/bounce etc…since I haven’t been on a boom truck since my Llamco Electric days…gad…30ish years ago…and that was a squirt boom instead of a knuckle boom…

Anyway, wanted to test it out and practice a bit before trying to use it up against our building on the historic square in Clarksville or the Old Vic, so out to the family farm we went.

My favorite pic:

Flying low (came down to grab the camera). We kept side extension to a minimum today as even though the outriggers were on hard-packed gravel, it’s been REALLY wet. All “way out” extension was done in line with the truck today.

About 80% up…went up 100% but I had the camera by that time so no pic from the ground…

The wife and my nephew looking pretty small:

Decent side view:

Well, ready to work. Just have to get started.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Y’all make it a GREAT one!

Most of us that have aged beyond our second decade realize something about guys.

They’re guys.

Single minded. Determined. Sweaty. Messy. Passionate. We LIKE blowing stuff up.

Pretty simple creatures. Our lives revolve around just a few things.

1) What’s for breakfast?
2) When can I get laid?
3) (hands shaking) Is there something around here I can friggen FIX? (even if I have to break it first).

The first two are pretty self-explanatory and are closer akin to natural laws or universal constants than particular behaviors…

Yeah, society spent the first 12 years of my education trying to convince me otherwise but it’s like arguing against gravity. We are what we are.

The third one though…it’s actually a little more complicated than that. We are buiders. Doers. We’ve just gotta have some project to work on. Delving a little deeper though turns up something interesting.

Tools.

Yep. Tools.

We get tools so we can do stuff, right?

Heh…yeah. That’s it.

Actually, I think we do stuff so we can get tools.

We LUST after the left-handed fargle-snorker they just came out with. IF ONLY I needed one.

(peers around hopefully)

OOooo! Look! A project! Why, now, durn it, I NEED a left-handed fargle-snorker and am perfectly justified in going out and getting one.

Yep. (scratches self inappropiately).

Meet my new left-handed fargle-snorker:

Needed it to work on this project:

And this one:

Now. (burp). Breakfast was good.

When can I get laid?

More pics here.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Big day tomorrow.

I’m writing a “heap-big-check”…

Well, big at least, when compared to the monthly cable bill or something LOL!

We’re closing on this tomorrow…

More pics

This has vast implications on my writing/books/etc.

Among other things…(art studio, coffee shop, internet cafe)…it is the new world-wide headquarters for Stormrider Press!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Those of you following along probably realize by now that I need to purchase about 2.3 million dollars worth of stuff from Home Depot for the Old Vic project…

Heh…and THAT’S just for the stuff I need to finish this year!

You also may recall I’m an author.

Want to help me help support the booming home improvement business all while finishing up your last minute Christmas shopping?

Life Is a Road books make an excellent Christmas present for the adventurer in your life. Especially autographed sets!

Get that last minute shopping done now! And hey, they’re made, written, and printed in the USA!

You can order the books anywhere (Amazon.com/Lulu/etc) but the autographed ones you can only get from me.

If you want them by Christmas, with standard shipping you must order before noon on Monday, December 14. If you upgrade to Priority mail you can order as late as noon, Wednesday, December 16.

Later than that will not ship till Monday the 21st and those will not reach you by Christmas.

You can order directly from me at this link.

I hope y’all have a Happy and safe (or at least fun!) Christmas.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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