BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Yeah, I’m a YES fan… Pretty hard to be my age and NOT at least be familiar with YES. And, yes, I’m “sorta” kyping the title of this blog entry from YES. Although the actual title of the song wasn’t quite right, so I had to dig a little deeper into the lyrics.

And now, I probably need to stop saying yes so much…

The truth is, my heart isn’t actually broken. To be perfectly honest, it isn’t even mortally wounded, nor is it shattered, cracked, dinged, chipped, or otherwise severely damaged. I will say, however, that my feelings are just a bit hurt. Not irreparably, but definitely a little dab. But, I have to admit, I saw it coming. In fact, I’ve seen it coming for better than a decade now. Screaming headlong in my direction, on its way to bowl me over without apology.

But, for any of it to make sense, as usual, I need to start at the beginning…

Christmas season last – that being 2009 – it was time to set about doing the limited shopping. I say limited because E K and I only trade small gifts – after all, I shower her with gems and such all year round. But all seriousness aside for a moment… Really and for true… We only buy small gifts for one another, and the rest of the budget goes to the O-spring and the nieces & nephews under the age of 18. It’s an overall family decision and it works well.

Now, in recent years, the O-spring has decided that perhaps she should purchase gifts for us as well. This is pretty neat in and of itself because it’s one of those hallmarks of growing up. Of course, we didn’t make her go out and get a job. She just saves up her allowance for a couple of weeks and then we supplement it a bit if necessary. Normal parenting stuff.

So… Christmas 2009 the O-spring kept joking around and telling me that she was going to buy me some BBQ’d ribs as a gift. Along came “national present opening day” and sure enough, there was a box under the tree with my name on it. When I dug into it I found that my daughter had definitely inherited my sense of humor, for while there were no actual BBQ’d ribs in the box, there were in fact two very important items which hinted at such:

A high-heat resistant silicone basting brush and a bottle of Carolina style BBQ sauce.

And, as I said, the munchkin’ inherited my sense of humor. She had executed this joke of her own accord, with only the absolute necessary help from E K – i.e. driving her to the store, etc…

So, we had a good laugh. Then, we decided that as soon as the weather was nice and I had some free time, we would do the Dad and Daughter BBQ thing. We would get ourselves a slab of ribs and have at it.

This past weekend just happened to be the one.

I was on schedule with my manuscript, the predicted weather was to be absolutely lovely, and the supermarket had ribs on sale. O-spring and I planned it and for the entire week I looked forward to it. After all, I’ve been trying to get the kid interested in cooking forever and she hasn’t really taken a shine to the idea. She finally seemed like this was something that just might hold promise where such was concerned. Plus, I would get to spend quality time with the kid, doing something fun…

The Q’ing day came round, and her friends starting calling. I didn’t think anything of it at first. After all, we had plans… Then, I found myself standing at the grill with a rack of ribs, a pair of tongs, a silicone brush, and a bottle of Carolina style sauce.

And, a beer. By the time all was said and done, several actually.

Because you see, there was no O-spring to join me in the Q’ing of the ribs. Her friends and social life took precedence over the plans of the day. Eventually, she came back. But, she was still hanging with her friends. E K convinced all of them to play Boccie Ball in the back yard where I was “manning the grill”, which at least put her in the general vicinity. However, as far as the ribs went, I was on my own – until time to eat them, of course.

I was just a little bit devastated, hence the multiple beers…

I’ll get over it. I’m a big boy, and I am well aware that this is just the beginning of a long string of dented feelings. Like I said, I’ve known it was coming since the day she was born. Hell, I was a kid once myself, so I know what it’s like, and I’m certain I hurt my parents feelings in similar ways as well.

But, she’s arrived at that age where her developing social life is all important, and E K and I, as her parents, are sort of like ATM’s that talk back but don’t say anything important – at least, as far as she’s concerned. That’s just how it goes and something I have to accept. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, of course, but there’s little I can do to change it.

Now, I just have to sit back and bide my time… After another decade passes by – or maybe just a little more –  she’ll come back around and realize Dad is an okay guy to hang out with. And, when she does, I’ll find a sale on ribs, Carolina style BBQ sauce, and a bag of charcoal.

With a little luck, maybe I’ll still have that silicone brush she gave me for Christmas in 2009.

More to come…

Murv

Since the Hell House saga has not yet come to an end, and I keep tossing status comments out there referencing such, I thought it might be a good idea to give y’all an update. Obviously, if you are a first time visitor here you probably have no clue what I am talking about, so to get caught up you will need to tweak the dials on the wayback machine and read the previous entries, Hell House Week 1 and Hell House Week 2…

And now, on with the update…

Holey Walls, Batman!

When last we left our intrepid laborers, Scuba and Swervin’, many things had been done, but many were still left for the doing. Among them was a gargantuan hole in the wall as seen at the end of Hell House Week 2.

After cutting back the drywall to square things up, and installing nailers, I hung a partial sheet of rock to patch the hole, then taped, mudded, and skim coated the wall. Once I finished sanding, the results were perfectly lovely.

The incoming tenants slapped a couple of coats of paint onto the wall and everything was just like new again. I’m sure a pro drywall guy would have accomplished what I did in less than half the time, but hey, it looks good and it’s done.

Then the rains came…

As with any other autumn in the midwest, the fall rainy season was upon us. Truth is, Scuba and I had been looking forward to this because we wanted to see our handiwork in operation – that being the basement stairs and drainage system, including the 20 gallon sump well and piping.

Much to our delight, it worked flawlessly. We couldn’t have planned it better even if we knew what we were doing (LOL). Unfortunately, I was unable to get a picture of it in operation, but suffice it to say, the pump move quite a bit of water and the basement is staying dry for a change. We’ve recently discovered a small leak along the West side of the house, but that is due to a separation between the walk and the foundation. We’ve already purchased the materials to repair it and are just waiting for it to be dry enough to affect said repair.

The picture above, while obviously NOT the pump in operation, is of Scuba making some repairs to the gutters. We discovered during the rain that one of the longer runs had separated from the fascia and was sagging, causing the water to pool and overspill. Once Scuba Steve had a talk with it, it straightened up and started draining properly. While on the roof, he also replaced the flashing around the vent pipes since it was shot.

I thought we were done with the concrete?

It seems that where concrete work is concerned, Hell House is the gift that keeps on giving.

Part of the evidence of the gutter problem was the fact that during heavy rains the water would overshoot the sagging gutter as it ran down the valley between the main section of the house and the addition. Over time it had eroded the corner from the back stairs leading from the kitchen to the patio. Other than that the stairs were in great shape, so instead of taking them out entirely, Scuba and I drilled, pinned, formed, and concreted the corner. It’s now pretty as a picture and solid as a rock.

Building the “Great Wall”…

One of the projects we wanted to accomplish was putting in some walls in the basement. Nothing fancy, just yet… Primarily, we wanted to create a lockable storage area where I could house some of the tools and materials we were using on the repairs. We also wanted to enclose the Furnace and Water Heater in a “Mechanical Room” so that they weren’t sticking out like a sore thumb if we eventually decide to re-finish the basement. As it happens, Scuba had a slew of metal studs in his personal warehouse – what we like to call “The Happy Shed” – so we were in business. All we needed was the track and something to attach to the studs once they were in place. A quick trip to the hardware store and we were ready to roll.

The Great Wall takes shape…

Since the this really qualifies as not quite finished where basements are concerned, we elected to go with a wall covering that would be sturdy and accomplish what we had set out to do, but not necessarily be “pretty” – kind of like drywall that hasn’t been painted or wallpapered just yet. So, we used ply. This allowed us to put up walls and provides us with a base should we eventually want to finish with paneling or tongue and groove stock of some sort.

From this angle you can see the doorway to the storage area along with the door already in place.

Here we have a different angle, taken from the far end of the basement. On the left is the doorway to the storage area.

On the right you can see the doorway to the mechanical room. We are going to put some storage shelves in there and hang a door as well. In order to keep costs down we have been using recycled materials from the house itself, as well as many gems donated by Scuba from the “Happy Shed”…

Gotta love the Happy Shed… I’m just sayin’…

In the foreground you can seem my pool table. There is a rich history behind this 3 piece slate table – in short, I purchased it for the paltry sum of $500 back when I was 19 years old. A former High School teacher had retired and was moving to Hawaii. He had purchased the table new and had played all of 10 games on it. Not wanting to pay the price to move it overseas, he decided to sell it and I stumbled upon the deal. My father and I moved it, set it up, and played many a game on it. Unfortunately, when I moved out I had no place to put it, so I left it there for the time being. That’s been way more than 20 years now, of course. Long story short, much damage was done to the table over the years, so Scuba and I, along with some help from the new tenants, moved it, repaired it, and recovered the deck and rails with new felt.

Not only is it pretty again, it plays great…

A closeup shot of the mechanical room. Out of sight, but with plenty of room to affect repairs and even store some things…

And finally, not wanting to waste space, Scuba and I took advantage of the area behind the Mechanical Room and installed a small closet on the left – door and shelves forthcoming – as well as a small platform on the right where we flush mounted a bar fridge my father had stored at the house. The perfect place to keep a few cold ones for “Beer Thirty”… Especially since my knees are having trouble with stairs these days…

Okay, that’s it for now. More updates on Hell House when we create more havoc over there… As I said, it’s the gift that keeps on giving, and there will be plenty more work, that’s a given…

More to come…

Murv