Spy Eye
Kevin dropped a bug on the street as he walked past the target’s flat. The little micro recorder actually looked and acted like a biological bug. As soon as it’s titanium feet hit the ground, it began to scuttle into the building.
With Ted’s skillful remote navigation, the bug reached the target’s personal space, and settled in to record and broadcast. Almost imediatley it was detected.
“Eeeeew! A cockroach!”
Crunch.
Ted turned toward Kevin with a laconic air. “I told you the latest model was defective. We should have gone with the lady bug.”
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Photo credit: Sandra Crook
13 Bloggie Habits
I’ve been posting regularly to this blog since 2006. In that time I’ve picked up a few habits. I’ll leave it to you to determine if they are good or bad habits.
1. I always, always, always go to the blog of someone who leaves a decent link with their comment and find something to comment on. When I can, I do it in less than 24 hours.
Suzie’s House 415 : The Mask Maker At Home
No one was home when Bruce slipped into this house though it was already well after curfew. Every room was dark, so probably no one had been home all day.
He raided the fridge and took a beer, and a pudding pack then grabbed some chips from the cupboard. It wasn’t much of a meal, but he’d had worse. He settled in front of ht big screen high def brand new wired up the wazoo stereo system and popped the top of the can
The first swallow burned and fizzed so much he had to close his eyes for a sec.
Straps and Dragons
Well, I was going to talk about straps today. I mean the kind you use to attach a load to a pickup, not the kind on a shirt. I even have it mostly written up. But I didn’t get around to taking any pictures. Nor do I have any pictures of the finished window. So instead I thought I’d talk about vacations and dragons. Specifically Komodo type dragons. Only in Java instead of Komodo.
In a few weeks I will be jetting off to Bali and Java. I’m pretty excited about this upcoming trip. Or maybe I should say worried.
Though I’ve been working my butt off – literally – I’m still a long ways from my youthful health and vigor. When I went to Mongolia I was shocked to find that I really was at the back of the pack when we went hiking. I’m tired of getting left in the dust by a bunch of 70 year olds!
So I was looking over the trip itinerary. That’s when I discovered a new fear. Apparently we will be walking around in the near vicinity if the Java equivalent of Komodo dragons. Supposedly you are perfectly safe so long as nobody is bleeding.
Did I mention the time in the Galapagos when we went to look at a shark then realized I’d cut myself on the coral and was bleeding? I hope there aren’t any thorny bushes near the dragons because I’m sure to get snagged.
Well, I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meanwhile, I’ll get cracking on the photos of packing straps.
What To Do When You Are Diagnosed With Bone-On-Bone Arthritis
A year and a half ago I could barely walk. Getting up became so painful I did everything I could to avoid it. I tried to go for a bike ride, and didn’t even make it around the block. Yesterday I rode my bike all the way to the end of the trail and still had not had my fill. The trail includes an underpass just for us none-motorized folk that goes under one of the busiest streets in town. If I hadn’t started my diet and exercise program, I would never have even known it was there. Now I see a dark tunnel and rejoice.
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Photo credit: Stephen Baum
Window Replacement Checklist part 2
I left out a few things from last week. Remember, this is for putting a window in place of a door.
1. Crowbar! They aren’t joking when they say you can break your screwdriver if you keep using it to pry up wood. And yes, just assume you are going to have to remove every flipping piece of trim. Better to do it from the start rather than arguing over it and ended up removing things as you go.
2. Hammer, because nails don’t work well without one.
3. Wood screws for when the nails don’t work.
4. Screwdriver attachment for the drill.
5. Two extension cords. One for inside and one for outside because it’s such a pain dragging it through the house even if it is long enough to reach both places.
6. Insulation – enough to fill all the door outside of the window.
7. Drywall in a size to match up with the surrounding wall. Did I mention it doesn’t come in 1/4 inch? Save yourself the embarrassment and ask for 3/8″ and sweet talk them into cutting one board loose from a pair to get it for half the price.
8. Straps to hold down things like the plywood to the roof of a car or scaffolding to the back of a miniature truck. Besides, straps are totally cool. More about that on Monday.
9. Flashing. If they sell it in shot sections, I didn’t see it, but I ended up using it in three places instead of just the bottom of the window frame anyway so it was totally worth it. The aluminum stuff works great even if it will blind you with reflected sunlight.
10. Trim boards. Don’t expect to be able to reuse what you pull off the door frame. Even if it doesn’t get turned to splinters, there’s no guarantee it will fit right.
11. Level, because apparently it’s vital that windows are level. Use the kind with three little bubbles instead of the one with just one because there is more than one way to be level and the three bubbles will remind you of that fact a lot faster than if you forget to move the one bubble in multiple directions.
12. Paint brush because I forgot to mention it last week. Don’t assume a roller will handle everything no matter how good you think you are with one.
13. Primer. Lots of it, because raw wood tends to soak it up.
For more lists of thirteen, visit Thursday Thirteen
Suzie’s House 414 : Bouquet
Justin caught the bouquet.
As soon as his sister stepped up to the top of the church steps with her miles of fluffy skirts and barracuda smile, he’d tried to sneak around to the back of the building where he’d be safe. No such luck.
Lost and Found
Clear back in May I loaned my cell phone to The Girl. She promptly lost it. I mean, really prompt. As in I gave it to her the night before an overnight field trip, and the next morning she couldn’t find it.
We found it last week.
In all that time all the people who wanted to reach me through that number couldn’t. I ended up getting a new phone. Then I had to piece together all my old contacts. Where I would normally simply transfer them from one phone to the other I had to figure out who used to be on the old one, find out their numbers because I no longer memorize anyone’s number, and put them on the new one. Yeah, you already knew that, but it was a surprise to me how difficult that could be.
Once we found the old one – it had slipped between her headboard and the wall – I removed all my data and gave it to her as a graduation gift. The picture above was one I found on it that I’d taken a couple of years ago. I hadn’t remembered it at all.
Now that no one is trying to call me on it, she even gets my old number. At least that’s a number I already had memorized.
Gold Rings
Jack: I guess a woman of my own was just a figment of my imagination. No gold rings for me….. Eeeeek!
Theodor: If you want the right future, help me make it!
Previously in Jack and Jill: Making a Horse’s Blanket of Yourself Over Love
The theme for this week’s Jack and Jill is “gold rings” as suggested by Heather
Want to see what I can do with a word or phrase? Make a suggestion.
Eye of the Beholder
“Hey. What-cha call that?” Mural pointed at the art display with one thumb. The other hooked through a belt loop on his generous wasteland.
“I call it an art installation.” Ted knocked back his floppy hat for a better look. He examined the upended cars and found them good.
“Yeah, I know that much. What’s the art institutional thing called? What’s the name?”
“Accidental Tye-Dye.” Ted popped out the first thing that came to mind, since he hadn’t named it yet.
“Heh! You got that right.” Grinning Mural went off to tell his friends about the technicolor accident.
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Photo credit: Jean L. Hays
Window Replacement Checklist
If I ever have to do this again, I want this list so I don’t have to go to the lumber yard so many times in a row.
1. Window. One that will fit in the hole you need to fill.
2. Studs. Measure them out! For filling a doorway you need two times the height of the doorway, plus two times the height from the top of the window to the where you’re going to end up ripping out the threshold, plus three times the width of the window.
3. Shims. Don’t leave them in the wrong car. Make sure to actually get to the work site. Have enough so that it’s ok to split a few.
4. Particle board big enough to fill doorway.
5. Drill to drill the holes in the corners of where you have to cut the window shape out of the particle board with a bit big enough for the blade of a jig saw to go through.
6. Jig saw for cutting out the window. Yeah, don’t try to do it without drilling the holes. Trust me on this.
7. House wrap. (I used tar paper. Hope I’m not messing up that way)
8. Staple gun for attaching the house wrap. Preferably the electronic kind because that stuff is hard to staple.
9. Exterior boards to match the rest of the house.
10. Paint to match the house.
11. Calk
12. A calking gun because it’s a royal pain getting the calk out of the tube without one.
13. Nails. Lots and lots of nails. Not just finishing nails. And don’t assume K-mart will have the right ones. Their selection is awful, even if they are still open after the hardware store has closed.
And this is only half the list! Sheesh.
For more lists of thirteen, visit Thursday Thirteen
Suzie’s House 413 : Reading the Riot Act
“Hey, it’s the detective guy. And Walter. Where you been, Walter? You’re lunch is in the fridge.” Donny smiled, and his words were chipper, but his voice was raspy as he stubbed out a cigarette.
Drew couldn’t decide if Walter’s care taker had actually been crying, or if the red eyes and voice had something to do with the smell of pot in the air. Then, thinking about how negligent Donny was in his job, Drew decided he didn’t care.
High Places
Last Monday I talked about putting in a new window. I thought I’d talk a little more about the project. The window is replacing a door in an old house. This in and of itself isn’t so hard. We simply built in the studs the way we would with a new construction and sized it for the size of the window, filling in the area where the door once was.
The problem is the height. The door in question lead to a rickety staircase. The stairs weren’t really necessary, and had some issues involving power lines and the placement of cellar doors. Rather than replacing them, as originally planned, we simply removed them.
We were originally going to use a ladder for the exterior work, but notice those cellar doors? yeah. Not working. So I ran off and rented some scaffolding.
Although I have been on scaffolds before, I had never rented them or set them up before. This proved an experience in and of itself. The latches used to assemble are quick and easy to use. Luckily they were self explanatory, because the directions included with them were nothing but “though shalt not”s and “examine all parts for wear and damage!” instead of actually saying what to do. The best part was where the assembly instructions said not to try to set them up without someone who had done it before present. Yeah, real helpful.
As you see, we got it all set up. With three people on it, it took about half an hour. If the pieces weren’t so heavy, I think I could have done it by myself in that time because a fair amount of the time was spent arguing.
As much of a pain and expense as they are, once we got the scaffolding up everything went a lot smoother. It’s so much easier to hammer something from a scaffold than from a ladder.
Now I have to run out and buy some more lumber because I didn’t have the right kind, but that’s another story.
