Corn on the noggin’

Last Saturday, our design department had a potluck up in the local mountains. A little breezy but otherwise it was a beautiful day. The name of the place is Vedauwoo (pronounced vee-da-voo.) It’s a very beautiful spot. Not a lot of big trees, but a lot of awesome rock formations.

http://www.skipharper.com/vedauwoo.htm

I attempted to cook corn on the cob there, but it wasn’t going so well until someone suggested just to put the corn directly on the campfire coals. Worked pretty good. I made a very good mayo+chili+garlic spread you slather on and top with cheese. I guess it’s a Brazilian thing. I highly recommend it. I would have gorged myself on corn if there hadn’t been so much other great food. I also made a garlic+tyme+butter spread that others told me was good, but I never got around to trying it. Top it all with kosher salt and you can’t go wrong.

I don’t usually look this windswept. And no, my forehead isn’t getting any smaller.

That stuffed kitty that Bellie’s holding is almost 3 years old. It’s been to the doctor for stitches a couple of times, but other than that, it’s worn pretty well. She always sleeps with it and plays with it all the time. She has a newer one, but she only likes the old one. My mom sent me my old teddy bear. I don’t even remember having a teddy bear. It’s in pretty good shape, but not something I’d let the girls play with. It may still be all in one piece, but it’s not very tough anymore.

Male pattern baldness does not run in my family, on either side. Very thin hair and big foreheads do. Sometimes I wish I’d gotten my girls good looks.

Holy cow do I love that girl. *heartbreak* Wish she were right here so I could give her a big hug.

Fixit 'er upper

As promised in my previous post, this one will be about some of the small changes you could make to an older home to make it 'feel' newer. I'm not going to hit on any of the things you can do to make it 'look' newer, because I think most people already know about that.

If you have some electrical experience, or know someone who does, changing out your electrical outlets is a good start. Nothing says 'worn out' like an outlet that doesn't hold your vacuum's plug. It's actually quite easy, and if you know how to turn off your breakers (as everyone should) and turn a screw driver, it only takes about 2 minutes an outlet. There are a lot of different choices, most regular outlets are under $5. A GFCI outlet can be as cheap as $12. Those go in the bathrooms, kitchen, and for the clothes dryer (if it uses a regular plug.)

Along the same lines are light switches. A worn out light switch feels sloppy and loose. Flicking that new tight-feeling switch seems kind of satisfying to me. Figure $5 or less for each of those too.

Shower heads and faucets can be pretty cheap. Shower heads are the cheapest, between $15 and $30. Super easy to install and can make the difference between a satisfying shower experience or not. Faucets are more expensive and probably have less impact on 'feel', but if there were a place I would splurge, it would be the kitchen faucet.


A new one I've recently discovered are drawer slides. A broken drawer slide lets the drawer fall down when it's opened. Replacements for the plastic 'c-clip' style are only $1.50 for 2. You can replace those with a single metal roller style, which feel even nicer. Those run between $12 and $20. (If you have the 'c-clip' style, it's probably more work than it's worth to put in double metal rollers.)

Door knobs are a little pricier, but even a cheap new knob feels more solid in your hand than a cheap old one. The price range for new knobs is very wide. Less than $10 to more than $100 each. Even without replacing old knobs, you can still do some work to make the old ones feel better. Re-aligning the strike plates so the door isn't loose when it's closed can make a difference.


Probably the most expensive on my list are entire doors. An interior pre-hung door runs about $50, but I've encountered quite a few warped interior doors in the places I've lived. They don't close right and swing when you don't want them to. They're more work to install and require some patience, so get some help if you're not comfortable. An incorrectly installed new door can be worse than a broken old door.

So those are my handy-dandy tips. There are more things to do, like replacing filters, garbage disposal splash guards, and shower curtains, but those are mostly for sanitary purposes.

Do you have any suggestions of you own?

2 for the road

I know, I know. Pictures were promised and it's been too long.

There have been 2 pictures taken so far. So, so sad. For one reason or another, I just haven't been able to get it done. Either I forgot the camera, the cord, batteries, or more likely, there is a mess that I just don't want to record for posterity's sake.

So here they are! All 2 pictures! Both of the outside.

The front door is right there at the little patio. The 2 windows in the closest corner are in the kitchen.

This is the back. That's my bedroom window.

Looking at the second picture, you can see what I was talking about when I mentioned this was built way back when people wanted a mobile home to look mobile. The 2 big taillights and the marker lights up top are still there. Of course it's been modernized a little. You can see a bit of the cable box down at the bottom.

I've done a little bit of work to it to make it a little less 'cheap' feeling. Those repairs have prompted me to start writing my next blog post which will be all about some of the little things you can do to make an old house, trailer, or apartment feel new again, without major renovations or cost. Trust me, I have experience. Too much experience. Some day I hope to build my own new house. Some day.

This is something I absolutely do want to record for posterity's sake.

Moved on out!

It's done. Moved most of the stuff myself, but it's done.

The new place is small. No dishwasher. No garbage disposal. The shower head doesn't even reach above my head.

It's almost like camping.

Like camping with a 47" LCD TV and sound system that rattles all the windows. Ha!

I had every intention of getting some pictures of the place for this post, but just didn't get to it. It's pretty funny though. This trailer was made way back when mobile homes were purchase because it was a mobile home. Way back when the tail and marker lights were actually built into the house. Nowadays they just use removable lights cause people don't want a mobile home that looks like they can hook their truck up to it and take off.

The most annoying thing is that every one of the little brackets on the drawer slides are broken. They all fall down when they're opened. C'mon people! They're all of a $1.50 each to replace them and there might be 12 drawers in the whole place.

So yesterday I unwittingly had a Daniel Craig movie marathon. Started out with Casino Royale, which I new I liked because I've seen it more than a couple of times.



Went to Defiance. Which didn't have quite the emotional impact on me as I'd expected. It was a good movie, but I think Craig makes a better James Bond. It was a Netflix selection I'd had for a while.



And finished with Quantum of Solace.



A funny thought crossed my mind this weekend too. A couple of posts ago I clarified that I was not dating. Then 5 stunningly attractive young ladies commented on that particular post. *sigh* Almost made me rethink my 'no dating until divorced' policy. :D

Hope y'all had a great weekend! My interwebs get reconnected tomorrow so I should be a lot better at visiting and commenting at your place after that.

Uno mas noche

This is it.

One more night.

I'm probably going to move all the stuff by myself. Seems a little unfair to ask anyone for help when it's probably going to be a pretty uncomfortable situation. Stbx is probably planning on watching me through the whole thing. Make sure I don't take anything that isn't 'mine'. The only really difficult thing will be the mattresses. But I've moved them myself before. It's possible, just not much fun.

I'm quite glad that I'm the one to move first. The amount of junk we've accumulated is amazing. I am not a hoarder. If I haven't touched it in more than a year, it gets tossed. But stbx thinks everything she owns is worth its weight in gold.

In going through the numerous boxes in the basement, there was only one big box of pictures that I was interested in. Even after I brought it out and started looking, instead of trying to haggle about who gets what, I decided to find a decent picture scanner and make copies of everything.

I've been thinking a little bit about sentimentality. I'm not very sentimental myself, but I don't want that to negatively affect my girls. If they want to be that way, that's fine. I know I need to be careful about telling them they don't need to keep something just because I don't think they need to keep it. On the other hand, they should know there's a difference between hanging on to junk and keeping something because it's special.

On that note, has anyone ever encouraged their children to collect things? I'm not talking about collecting things off the ground on their way home from the bus stop, but things linked to special events or places. Like myself, I've started a small collection of coffee mugs from places I've been. I have one from Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone so far. And a Scooby Doo mug.

So tomorrow's the day. My apparent organization kind of failed. I forgot that I asked the interwebs company to wait until I confirmed the date and I never called back. Now they can't get to it until Tuesday. Oh well. Probably for the best so more important things can get done.

I am so ready for this week to be over. Work's been crazy and home life's been crappy.

Hope everyone else had a much better week.

Not a playa’

At the time of this post, there are 583,126 people online playing Halo: Reach. That’s the middle of the afternoon for most of us. I fully expect it to be well over a million this evening.

I am not one of them.

Instead, I’m sitting at my desk, being bored, wishing I could go home and play. But it is not to be. I need to put in the hours now so I can get off early to move on Friday.

A very cool Halo wallpaper by Sam Spratt.

I need to clarify something. I am not dating. As long as I am still technically married, I will not date. Besides the fact that I don’t want to date, I can be patient. I think I’m going to stop doing those ‘non-existent’ dating profile comments for the time being. I think I could get in trouble.

Hey hey. Yeah yeah.

4 more nights.

You’d think I would have learned by now. Stbx said we didn’t have to pay the daycare for their week off last week. I new that was wrong, but I didn’t argue and promptly spent the money on Bellie’s birthday. The daycare provider is willing to accept a postdated check, but since it’s been at least 2 months since stbx paid any childcare, I’m a little resentful for having been put in the situation. And I let her know.

Alright, enough of that. 4 more nights…

I paid for my copy of Halo:Reach! The local Gamestop is doing the midnight release thing, but they’re not doing anything for it. How disappointing. Most places have machines set up to play games or have a raffle or something, but not this redneck backwards town. The sales guy had some poor excuse about the store manager being gone and not having the chance to ‘approve’ anything. Pansies. Pull your head out and just set up a cheap raffle! So now I’m considering skipping the midnight release and just getting it tomorrow. I’m afraid if I do get it, I’ll be up playing for hours and I need to be at work at 6am tomorrow.

Oh the conundrums.

Here’s my new theme song…after I’ve moved.

I don’t condone porn. I didn’t even notice it until the 3rd or 4th time watching the video.

Another line in my dating profile:

I’m not a fanatic of anything, but I enjoy a lot of different things. For example; I’ll watch football, understand it, and enjoy it especially if someone else is watching it with me and enjoying it themselves, but I couldn’t care less who wins.

 

 

Hey, I’m the boss. I can be late if I want to… *sidewaysglance*

And you thought it couldn't get worse...

Oh boy do I wish I was outta here already. Stbx came home for lunch, made some snide comment about something and I just about lost it. Almost to the point of calling the new landlady and asking for the keys early. Stbx suggested I just take my clothes and go. Ha! Not likely.

I know, I know. It can get worse and probably will before next Friday. That comment was the first thing she's said to me since Thursday. Stay calm, stay calm.

She wanted me to draft a letter saying I'll pay her some child support, and I did that because I know she needs it as part of her financial aid application. And if I don't, it's more likely the state would come after me for money. The bases should be covered to let me out of it in the future, if any other agreement is made. What I haven't included is any provision for change in income. If her plan works out, she'll be making just as much as me soon. So if she makes more money, technically, I should be paying less in support. The only thing stopping me from adding anything is that according to the online calculator that the county provides, her income would have to double to drop my child support payment by a whole $100. And if I include it, I'm afraid she won't sign it.

Hopefully very soon my blog posts will not be so self-centered. I've read a couple of novels recently and have some ideas for topics on writing. I'd like to expand my reader base and I'm thinking that all this crap I've been writing about is only scaring people away.



As I'm writing this, Aniqua is messing with my golf clubs. The junk you see in the background is a pretty good portion of everything I'll leave with. Is the fact that the packing is almost done any indication of my current state of mind?

Here's to keeping my cool over the next few days. Cheers.

Movin' on out!

I finally did it. I finally made a decision that wasn't based on how it's going to affect my stbx. If she can't decide, I will.

Next Friday, the 17th, is moving day. It'll be into a little tiny trailer that sits in the beautiful lawn & gardens of the landlady's house.

Trailer park camouflage

It's not really in a trailer park, but there is a trailer park down the road and a lot of the homes surrounding that are mobile homes. No matter. From one trailer to the next. In case the pic is too blurry (it comes from Google streetview) there's a little trailer tucked behind all those plants.

It didn't cost me as much to get into it as I'd anticipated either. Rent is right around where I initially wanted it to be and now I'll be able to save something! Well, most of that 'savings' is already allocated to car repair. *sigh*

Appointments have been made with the utility and internet companies. Hope that goes smoothly. Halo: Reach comes out next week and I'd better not have any internet down time! Well, maybe a little would be ok. It has a gas stove too. I don't mind the flat top electric type, but I'll take a cheap gas stove over a good electric.

A new chapter is starting. Finally.

Move (or lack of) update

After hearing someone start the clothes washer at 9pm last night, I pretty much decided to take that little mobile home. I talked to the landlady earlier today and she was actually quite open to the idea of moving a wall to make that 2nd bedroom a little larger. Said "It should probably be done anyway."

I came home today and mentioned it to the wife. Seems her roommate prospects fell through. I knew that if she couldn't get a roommate, it would be too much for her to stay here. She's going to check on a potential lease tomorrow. I really hope she can come up with something.

(If you hadn't guessed, I'm soooo sick of her starting laundry right when I'm heading to bed.)

I could stay here if I had to. I wouldn't be able to save as much, but we wouldn't be crammed into a tiny trailer. So I offered a little money to help her move. The little I had available to move myself.

Let's hope something comes of it. I did tell her that if she doesn't get something figured out by Friday, I'll probably cut a rent/deposit check and move out this weekend. Maybe that will light a fire.

It's 10pm. I gotta get up at 5:30am. I'm going to bed instead of looking for a picture. I'll put 2 or more in the next one. Allrighty?

Labor Day randomness

Hello everyone! Hope you're enjoying your Labor(less?) Day.

- It's Bellie's 4th birthday today! Dang she's cute, but teenie eentzie. She's only 34" tall.

*sigh* She's already a heartbreaker.

- Winter's on its way. It's only supposed to get up to 64 today. Quite windy too. Forecast says it'll get back up to the 80's by the end of the week.

- I toured a potential rental yesterday. I hoped that it would work out, but maybe not. The price is right, the location is great (maybe a 10 minute bike ride to work), it has a fantastic yard, but it's tiny. It's advertised as a 2 bed/1 bath, but the 2nd bedroom is more like a large closet. It's conceivable that I could build a 3-tier bunk bed, but with twin-sized mattresses, it would almost fill the room. The only thing stopping me is the winters here. Spending 2-3 days at a time without the chance to go outside would make that place a little tight.

- Something needs to change around here. The original plan, from 4-5 months ago, was for her to find somewhere else to live. Then she suggested I move out, which was fine by me, but having to pay most of the childcare over the summer put a damper on that. Then a couple of weeks ago I saw her looking through the rental classifieds. I asked her about it and she agrees that something needs to happen, but she's not being very open about whether or not she could get it done on her own.

- On top of that, I suspect she's seeing someone again. *rollseyes* She's not as sneaky as she thinks she is. Either that or she's looking for a place to live about an hour away. I know I have to ask her about it, but I'm afraid I'll go away from the conversation thinking she's lying to me, no matter what the answer is.

- I could afford to pay for that little place right now. I'm very tempted to do that, just to get out of here, but dang that bedroom is small. I think I might call the landlady and ask her if she'd let me move a wall. I know it's highly unlikely, but it's pretty much the only thing stopping me from going forward with it. If I could move that wall just 2 feet, it would make a lot of difference. And in fact, on the other side of that wall, in the living room, there's a corner that has this fake brick veneer. If I could just move that wall out to the edge of that veneer, no one would notice that the wall had moved. Of course the living room would get smaller, but it wouldn't be bad.

- But even if I couldn't do that, the place might fit into my plans anyway. I'd planned on finding a cheap place, save some money and get some important things done over the next year. Even when paying child support, I could save more than I'd be paying in rent.

- Maybe if I made her a deal? I'll replace the old flooring if she lets me move the wall. I'd like laminate flooring, but maybe even just some carpet remnants.

- So that's all the stuff that's rolling around in my head at the moment. (Yes, it has a lot of room to roll.) I think I've already decided, I just need to convince myself that I'll survive.

So do you guys have any suggestions, comments, thoughts? Please share!

Know thine audience

I just finished re-re-re-reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is such an epic story, it's hard for me to put it down once I've started reading.


Another book I read just recently was "The Girl Who Played with Fire" by Stieg Larsson. Something sort of profound hit me when I was reading "The Girl". Places are such an important part of being able to connect with an audience. I knew none of the places mentioned in "The Girl." I think it took a very important dynamic away from the story for me. The author did a decent job of relating those places with each other by using travel time and direction though, so not all was lost.

Then there's "Lord of the Rings." I know none of those places either, but Tolkien gave us a map. If that map wasn't there, a lot would be lost I think. Tolkien didn't spend a lot of time describing distances, travel time or even much direction. The map makes it work though.

On yet another side of the coin is Clive Cussler's work. Kind of an Indiana Jones-like story teller. I know of most of the places referenced in his stories, or have at least heard of and can get a decent picture of where they are in relation to the rest of the places in the story.

It has everything to do with audience and delivery. Stieg Larsson wrote his story for a Swedish audience, as that's where he was from and where the story took place. Tolkien wrote his story for anyone. Because it's entirely a fantasy place, he needed a map to help the reader connect one place to another. Clive Cussler wrote his for a more western audience. A lot of the places he mentions are exotic locals (according to an American), but they're widely known places and anyone who watches the news can relate.

I know, not terribly profound, but I found it interesting enough to mention.

Hope you're all having a great weekend! Happy Labor Day.

No used to deny this simple truth….

Ever get one of those songs stuck in your head that you just don’t mind being there?

It’s just a fun video. No sex or violence, just singin’ & dancin’. I could do without the rap chants, but Chris Willis & Fergie both have a fantastic set of pipes!

For some odd reason, as much as I have no intention of ever dating again (at this point), I’ve been wondering how I would describe myself to a potential date. You know, like the stuff you write about yourself on a dating website. (I don’t think I will ever do that…) It occurs to me that because I have no intention of dating again, maybe this is the best and most honest time to write that description.

So here’s part of it: “I appreciate peace and quiet. I also appreciate fun music played as loudly as my stereo will play it. And it gets very loud.”

Here’s another from the same DJ, David Guetta. I think the video is funny. Look for the angry granny wailing away on the drums.