(first post of the second year)
Good morning and welcome. If this is your first time aboard, I have instigated a weekly chat for Kossaks who are working on their houses, whether as a project, or as a crisis, and who sometimes get useful advice from a self appointed cadre of professionals and gifted amateurs who happen to show up, ad hoc.
This is part of that "community" thing that happens around DailyKos, people getting to know people and manifesting as actual humans with houses and apartments that get leaky faucets or stopped up drains or drainage and run-off problems. Just your sort of basic American who has gotten his or her shit together sufficiently to have a house or something to live in and have to take care of or even love? Or maybe it's strictly economics, you gotta maintain your investment. Whatever.
We get into the nuts and bolts, the gears and the levers of home repair stuff.
So, first of all, I am pleased to be writing this on a new Gateway laptop. I paid half the money I did eight years ago when I bought my first laptop, and get 8 times the speed, 10 times the RAM and 40 times the hard drive, and a bigger screen.
The new house project is under way, but all there is to show right now is bare ground where there was a jungle of vegetation that had not been tended in decades.
I rented a small "skidsteer" loader (generically known as a "bobcat") The original manufacturer, really, the inventors of this type of small agile earth and material movers, Bobcat, has now been copied by every other heavy equipment manufacturer, each attempting to improve on the basic concept. I've operated at least five different types over the years. This time they delivered a Volvo, which was nice to try out, practically brand new with less than 100 hours on the clock. Some of you may know me as a Volvo nut, having driven their cars (almost exclusively) for nearly thirty years.
Part of my job right now is sorting out the mistakes made by the original architect in siting the house. The site is incredibly cramped and we are trying to nestle the house in amongst as many of the trees present as we can, removing as few as possible.
Next week we'll prepare the footings for the adobe walls, and I'll have something to show you.
Now for a little shameless shilling for my daughter's book: some of you may remember my mentioning her book, "The Hypocrisy of Disco" from this diary I posted 20 months ago. At that time she had self published through CafePress, but since then Chronicle Books has bought it and is coming out in September
and you can advance purchase it from Amazon.
An insider tip: the cover will be the photo you can see below (much better than that shown in the promos). The diary also has two chapters from the book, but, Clane insists that I point out that these are unedited early versions, which I really had no right to post. OTOH, she recognizes that if you google "Hypocrisy of Disco", that diary is still at the top of the list after 20 months. No such thing as bad publicity.
(photo by Stephen Cooper, used without his permission, because we can't find him.)
You must go buy this book. Pre-publication price from Amazon is about 60%, and lots of presale generate buzz. I told you this would be shameless (sinverguenza) shilling, so no bitching.
It is an amazing read, and you'll learn a few dark secrets about my checkered past as well as reading an enthralling account of a girl growing up (extreme) hippie back in the 70s. Clane is now 40 and has some real perspective on the whole experience. She is working on the next book, her 5 years in the Navy.
Of course, I am hardly an objective observer, but I think my daughter is an outrageously fine woman, and I love her dearly, even if I can take little credit for how well she has turned out.
This, BTW, is what is called kvelling in Yiddish; I thank you for tolerating this outpouring of excessive parental zeal.
(hey, at least I don't have a bumpersticker that says "Ask me about my grandbaby")
Meanwhile, what about you?