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Thursday, October 27, 2011

the Home Despot had the offset toilet flange

may not get to it this weekend, but it's ready.  we also got more tile, white, for the ceiling of DeBasement shower.  even if I have to do OT on Saturday, we're tiling that motha.

also Cheryl got the base molding stained and varnished, so that's up for the weekend.  I have everything else except doors in the basement bedroom.  looks like we're going to have to cut down every freakin' new door on the existing openings, dangit.  we knew four would have to be cut 3 inches around openings under the hvac bulkhead.  cut those 3 inches.  everything else except the new opening I built under the stairs needs to be cut 1 inch.

man, there was a lot of slop done in the basement.  everything is spot-on in the original construction upstairs.  and then it looks like they let the journeymens' kids finish it up on the weekend.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

oh, for a toilet flange

to be precise, a 3-inch offset closet flange in ABS.  save a LOT of floor breaking and pipe work in DeBasement.  got a couple other places to look before giving up with a sigh, and planning to break out twice as much floor concrete.

light week, in fact, we didn't get down there.  we're bedraggled with colds, it would appear.  have some mudding for this weekend to do, I have some light wiring and removal of a media cabinet in the main section so we can replace a little more sheetrock.  carpet for the bedroom is going in Tuesday afternoon (hey, I feel a song coming on!...) and then son #3 can start cleaning his crud and moving it in.  anything stinky or dusty will have to be remedied before going in there.

then my next big plan is getting the 15-foot 2x6s trimmed up and under the stairs for reinforcement, and building a proper header for the staircase to the joists.  things that the original builder fudged on.  will have to sacrifice one tread to get the stringer bracing in, I'm afraid.

at that point, we can get back to kicking and taking in the main room, while sanding and painting the bath.  tile, in-floor heat, floor base, tile, and vanity construction next.  then we can install the new shutoffs and the fixtures.  voila!

there is also a little matter of getting the junk dirt piles up from the egress window jobs and in the Bagster, and get this crap out of here by the first freezing precip.  and the gardens covered and the crocuses planted.

never enough time.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

relaxing midweek

sunday we made nice headway in DeBasement, getting the paint, wiring, and fan done in the bedroom.  and we got the pan and shower durock up in the bathroom, along with prewire for the heated floor.

mowed lawn for the first time in a month (!) yesterday, before the rains started.  tonight is lazy time.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

too darn hard

helped one of son #3's friends pack up for a move to another city last night... took a totally full U-Haul truck to clean-up day... and it filled a mondo big dumpster over 1/3 full.

Cheryl and I went downstairs for the rest of daylight to work on De Basement.  got way tired and cranky, so debasement we got.  hung it up at 5:30, got Subway, and we're enjoying the rest of the night.  back to it tomorrow.

knee is much better... at this point, the only people pointing and laughing at me are now the ones who have done it all along.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Steve Jobs

dead at 56, cause not given.  it's a pretty safe bet it was cancer of the everything.

I didn't buy my Mac until around 2005, but I was an early user of the Mac128 at college, after going to a neighbor's to see how his Mac256 worked.  supported them, including cracking the case, from 87 on.  never had to do the "MECC repair" that was famous on the Apple][ on a Mac ;)

if you didn't pick up the reference... the Apple][ had tin-plated leaf sockets and chips.  heat/cooldown cycles made the chips shrug out of the sockets.  MECC came up with a repair system that took seconds... pick up the computer about 2 feet and slam it down flat-bottomed on the table.  reseated all the chips without spreading the sockets' leaves, as could happen if you took a static-loaded finger and pushed too hard.  don't try this at home with your laptop.  or at work with your Q system.

there is a reference on Slashdot that says he was found dead at home this morning, as Wail Street had adjusted to the fact that Tuesday's announcement of the latest iPhone, not all some of the leakers had said, was still going to sell.  the stock rose from the slight 2-3 buck loss yesterday.  can't find confirmation.  but it went all day unreported.

Godspeed, Steve Jobs.  I'd be using a greenscreen terminal program on CompuServe if you hadn't peeked around the corner at Xerox PARC and found a way to make WIMPy computers cost less that $50,000.