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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Scrolling thru ...

SIX, glad you found that file! Our grandma (babcia) was the matriarch who knew where everyone was and what their birthdays were. For some unknown reason nobody wrote down all that knowledge. I went to a family reunion on that side of the family a number of years ago, was shocked to find my grandpa had two brothers and that I had relatives all over the USA. But, in my usual fashion, I lost all that contact info.

Wanna come over and organize my cumputer files? I've let that go so long, right now it's kinda intimidating.

Ah, sleep problems! I've learned that if I don't fall back to sleep in a few minutes I should get up for an hour or so b4 going back to bed. I used to be terribly sleep deprived but that's bc I had chronic sinus infections and terrible sleep apnea. SIX, you definitely have some kind of issue. Have you ever thought there's some physical discomfort keeping you awake?
BRENDA, I used to sleep through too but now I wake up every few hours. I'm happy if I can clock in four continuous hours.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Nope, never seen "The Stand". Heard about it though and the Rob Lowe thing but that was all I know.

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It's hard for me to tell somebody who doesn't have nostalgia for it that it's worth a watch. At probably over 6 hours long without commercials, it's not a small commitment, whether you come back to it again and again or you binge watch the whole thing. It was really good in like 1994 or whenever it came out, and it did have a lot of pretty decent actors and actresses in it. I think it was the first time I saw Gary Senise. But in an age where there's a billion TV shows to stream, there's got to be something else to watch. I think it is my favorite Stephen King miniseries, but that's really subjective, and going back and watching any of those today and you really smell the cheese factor radiating from them.

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I've seen numerous Godzilla movies from the Japanese ones to the ones made in the US. Some are okay and then others are laughable.

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Never really got into Godzilla myself. I know I saw a few of them with my old man when I was a kid, but they never did it for me. I always wanted to like them because the idea was right up my alley, but the costume and models were just lame to me and all that terribly dubbed dialogue...

I was just saying that the group The Blue Oyster Cult did a song called "Godzilla", and it's the only other song I know from them other than "Don't Fear the Reaper", which I always liked since I first heard it on The Stand.

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I'm sure too. Oh, I've seen a couple of things over the years that have made me wonder. But a vengeful spirit no. Would think if there had been one like you said it would have gone after the actual people who did whatever, not actors.

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My one "ghost" story happened so long ago that it would be easy enough to just chalk it up as a bad dream I had when I was a kid... if it weren't for the next-door-neighbor of the summer cottage my mom had started freaking out a bit when my step-dad told him about what I saw. He told me to come right on over to his place and tell him what I saw the next time I was up there with them. He had a very similar story to tell me about the forest behind us. Dude and his wife were in their 70's and had lived there for almost 50 years. He could have been pulling my leg, but he seemed really serious about it.

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I will. Like I said I don't know a whole lot about the movie.

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Sweet. I hope you enjoy it and that I didn't pump it up too much.

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It seems like the whole concrete thing worked out good. I think I've seen metal files but nothing like I am imagining that belonged to your grandad.

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Yeah. Got the landscaping from the new slab to the main pit done today and it's awesome how high I was able to put everything at the foundation. I think it would have to be one hell of a flood we were having for me to have water in my basement again because of the foundation.

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Oh, 80s now where I am would be nice. All we'll get next week is the 70s.
Never knew concrete had to cure. I know it has to set. Uh. Learn something new all the time.

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Only one more day in the 80's. :(

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Sounds like you have everything all planned out. That's the hard bit. Getting into the physical stuff should be a breeze.

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Still a work in progress. Kind of mulling over a few ideas how I want to cap that end off tomorrow. I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish it tomorrow since I only did about 2/5ths of the digging I need to do for fences and the edger blocks will be pretty elaborate compared to most other places I've worked so far.

I think I can finish the foundation work and put a fence down on the end to keep the mole out while I'm working on the back corner area I was talking about. At least I won't be getting any mud up on the tar if I can get that done. Even if I don't though, I'm going to put a tarp or two down when I finish tomorrow night.


Putting tomorrow as my due date was just arbitrary. Sad that the 80's are gone and there's only 1 or 2 more days in the 70's too, but we've got at least another month, possibly two where it would still be comfortable to work outside without having to layer up so much it gets in the way of working.



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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Thanks ever so much for the diagram, SIX. Now I know what you've been doin and I can see how necessary it is.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Got back a while ago and tired, tired. As for her just the usual of getting me confused with what she wanted made. 3 different things on the go at once and each needing different things in them. Then baking as well. Husband's doing something on the back porch. She asked me if I saw and I said yes, what is it. Her response, I don't know. I think he is redoing something.

Acckk!!

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Got back a while ago and tired, tired. As for her just the usual of getting me confused with what she wanted made. 3 different things on the go at once and each needing different things in them. Then baking as well. Husband's doing something on the back porch. She asked me if I saw and I said yes, what is it. Her response, I don't know. I think he is redoing something.

Acckk!!

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I just realized that I've never asked what you do at your job, Brenda. And this might be the most I've ever heard you talk about your job, and I still don't know what you do.




I got rained out today a few hours early. Instead of thunderstorms tomorrow, the rain came early today and we'll have thunderstorms tonight. Tomorrow's only 65 degrees though, and if we get a ton of rain tonight I won't be resuming where I left off for a day or two until things dry out a bit.

I was able to finish all the trenching and mole fencing that I needed to do in that back corner I was talking about yesterday, but none of it is tamped down or graded yet, so I'm still not ready for pavers. I do think that if I get a good 6-8 hour day just focusing on that when I get back to it that I can finally say I'm done with the house landscaping.




I won't be able to finish the garage this year unless I want to actually buy more stuff for it. I ended up using quite a bit more of the fencing than I thought I would in that back corner, and I will also be using much more river rock too. The amount of extra pavers I'll be using is incidental, but I could also end up being a few short on those as well.

My guess... I'll have to buy an entire roll of fencing just do do one 25 foot section (leaving enough to do at least 2 more 25 feet sections), I'll need another roll of weed fabric, I'll need 6 or 7 more bags of river rock, and at least a couple of pavers. Not saying I'm not going to do it this year, but it will run me another $120 or so if I do, and I won't be getting half off on the river rock bags at this time of year either.

I'm thinking about holding off on it for now. That side of the garage is not a flood concern since there is a notable hill off the side of it. It's more an annoyance than anything since weeds took up root where I trenched it all out 2 years ago and instead of mowing grass right up to the vinyl siding, I'm now mowing weeds. It can wait for next year.

What I would really like to get done out there before it gets too cold is to paint the back of the garage. The vinyl siding was put up over the old siding long before I moved in. I cannibalized the siding on the back of the garage a few years ago to redo all the siding on the house when we rehabbed the porch and put the new windows in. Vinyl siding has been stupid expensive since Joe Biden* was in office and even on sale it's not a great deal. Besides that, I can't seem to find a color match for the siding I have up already either. It's probably a 90's color that was discontinued... Either that, or the sun has baked it over the years and none of the new siding matches the sunbleached color it is now.

I think what I'm going to do is take off the rest of the siding up top that I was just going to leave there for when I re-sided it, and then I'll clean it up and get the loose paint chips off of it before hitting it with a coat of primer so I can see what needs to be patched up. The siding looks fine, although I kept the bottom piece on too and I'm afraid of what the bottom piece of siding along the back looks like. If that is damaged, this idea is toast because I'm never going to find a match for that siding for sure.



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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Another thing today. I do not understand why she is so surprised when I can identify pieces of music. She had a CD on that at least the first three songs on it I could identify just from hearing a couple of bars. No lyrics just the openings. One was "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and then theme from "Bridge over the river Kwai." "Colonel Bogey's theme."

A few months ago she put on another CD which had "Scotland the Brave" on it and I easily identified it from the opening bars. I've heard that blessed piece of music most of my life. And I am sure she has heard it to but I got, "I didn't know what that was." I'm thinking you've lived in Canada most of your life and have never been able to identify that.

People, people. It's no wonder they aren't my favourite animals.

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I can see from your pic SIX why you call that the stupid corner. It does looks stupid.

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No worries.

I started when she was still a working doctor and back then it was making meals for the week a head and baking. Along with some light house cleaning. Now it is just some cooking for whenever or if they are having people over. The baking is just for them or sometimes to take to their church.

Of course she keeps a bunch of ingredients down in the basement where it is cooler. So a couple of times at least today, I was up and down the basement stairs. They are getting nasty as I get older and I do love that house. But I don't think they know what they are doing half the time.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Another thing today. I do not understand why she is so surprised when I can identify pieces of music. She had a CD on that at least the first three songs on it I could identify just from hearing a couple of bars. No lyrics just the openings. One was "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and then theme from "Bridge over the river Kwai." "Colonel Bogey's theme."

A few months ago she put on another CD which had "Scotland the Brave" on it and I easily identified it from the opening bars. I've heard that blessed piece of music most of my life. And I am sure she has heard it to but I got, "I didn't know what that was." I'm thinking you've lived in Canada most of your life and have never been able to identify that.

People, people. It's no wonder they aren't my favourite animals.

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That's a gift you've got... even if it's not a super beneficial one in the scheme of things. I've got it too. I'm pretty sure that Jaynez does as well.

It's easy to think that something you can do well is something that everybody else can do well too.

If she was a little bitchy when she said that to you, it's probably because she was jealous of your ability to ID songs just from the first couple of notes. I don't think it was a personal dig so much as it was a way for her to feel better about herself and what she feels is a shortcoming of hers when compared to your ability.



I was over at my buddy's mom's place about a month ago with his mom and her caregiver after her back surgery and we were all eating pizza my friend had bought when the radio started playing a song and my buddy says "$5 to anybody who can name who sings this song", to which I replied "Operator by Jim Croche" before he started singing. "I forgot Jack was here", he said as he threw $5 down on the table.



I told him keep it and thanks for the pizza.

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I can see from your pic SIX why you call that the stupid corner. It does looks stupid.

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Yes. It is very stupid. But it's just how it is when the house had to be built on an angle. It's one of the many stupid things about this house because of the way it was built. You should see the rock pit that I called the Bermuda Triangle when it was all sand... especially before I put the gutters up. 3 whole roofs dumping all of that water right in the center of the triangle, which is surrounded by high points before wicking away from the property, and no way to lift the foundations any higher. You'd just see the water pooling up in the middle of the sand and know why you were going to hear your sump well going off every 5 minutes for the next 2 days.

The gutters mitigated a lot of that problem with proper extensions, but it was still a cause for flooding with stuff not being graded properly.

Most of those problems should be taken care of now. Even without those rocks down on the Stupid Corner, everything is now properly graded because of the 10 bags of concrete I put on top of that old, horribly designed slab.


Three more things to do and I think I could actually go away for a few weeks at a time without any worry at all about flooding, any time of year. 1. Dig a 2nd sump well on its own electric circuit that ejects the water directly outside the foundation that can be directed with my corrugated drain pipe. 2. Install a battery backup Basement Watchdog sump pump that will still operate for 24-48 hours in a power outage. 3. Install my generator plug so I can power things in my house easily without having to drag extension cords through windows.


My buddy is going to come by soon and we're going to do the generator plug. I'm hoping I can get him to come by to help with the 2nd sump well in the spring too. He's just been super busy with taking care of his mom and dehoarding her house after his Dad died. I'm going to spend some time over there this winter with him helping him make those decisions because he's pretty bad about letting things go.

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No worries.

I started when she was still a working doctor and back then it was making meals for the week a head and baking. Along with some light house cleaning. Now it is just some cooking for whenever or if they are having people over. The baking is just for them or sometimes to take to their church.

Of course she keeps a bunch of ingredients down in the basement where it is cooler. So a couple of times at least today, I was up and down the basement stairs. They are getting nasty as I get older and I do love that house. But I don't think they know what they are doing half the time.

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Oh... I thought they owned a small business and you were helping them with that.

That seems like a nice gig... at least when they're not nagging. They must like you, Brenda.

One day you're going to have to let them know about the stairs though. Are they so old that they can't go up and down the stairs themselves? They have to know that you have some mobility issues, but maybe that's just a blind spot for them. I mean... you are being paid to do a job so they're going to expect certain things from you, but sending you up and down several times in a day given the situation is something they should go out of their way to avoid. Maybe they could come up with a short list of things they need from the basement when you're there and you can get them all at once instead of making repeat trips?

I'd feel that way when I was helping my friend's dad on one of his jobs. He could be pretty absent minded too, and he'd send me out to his truck to get something and then 5 minutes later send me back out for something else. No big deal when it was a small, regular suburban house and it was a 30 second trek, but there would be days where we were at one of these huge McMansion properties with the truck parked in the street and we'd have to walk all the way around the back of the house to the back door because the owners wouldn't let us walk in their rich people entry way in front. 95 degrees outside and I'm lugging heavy crap like air-compressors across 4 Football fields, and then sent right back outside for a pencil or a screwdriver when I got back with it.

As angry (no... not angry... frustrated) as that would get me when it happened, I'd always look back on it that night and laugh because I know if I owned my own company in the trades and I had helpers, I'm absent minded enough myself that I'd probably be pissing everybody else off by making them do the same thing. His time was much more valuable than mine, so if he needed a screwdriver and I didn't have one on hand, I'd better get my ass to the truck and get him a screwdriver.



I understand with your mobility issues it's a different story. I think in my case, at least in the heat of the moment, it's just a silly pride issue. I've never put myself into a position of authority anywhere, and on several occasions over the years, in very different fields, I'd been offered these types of jobs but I always turned them down. Too much responsibility. Too much balancing plates and not actually getting any work done myself. But going into your 30s and 40s as a man who is still running errands for other men like he did when he first started working at 16 years old is the price you have to pay for not wanting to take on a bunch of responsibility.




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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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