So here it is, the final product. I should tell you, I'm very critical of things looking like they should, but even here, I'm gonna have to say - not bad and leave it at that.
From where we left off, I sanded (not fun at all) some of the rough edges from my first coat of mud and then added another coat to fill some gaps and such. You can see the area is completely sealed off by plastic sheeting.
The truth is, assuming you have the equipment, spraying the new ceiling is about a 3 or 4 minute job. It is the several hours of prep work that take the time.
Here it is just sprayed about 20 minutes earlier and you can see how wet the area still is...
And here you can see it is slowly drying but the edges are still pretty wet.
And above here, you can still see a little edge - which is what makes me nervous.
But this morning when I walked into the room, it didn't jump out and yell - holy crap - and my wife hasn't complained, so I guess that makes it done!
These will be some short notes from the most recent meeting of the Board of Directors of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association. Turns out in all the excitement of the rain and my little ceiling repair, I drove right by the lodge and failed to connect the dots that yesterday was the third Thursday of the month.
So, I am sad to report that I did not attend and therefore have no notes to report.
But the strangest thing happened last night. My ears were burning I tell you. Something in the back of my mind kept telling me that there was someplace I should be - someplace where I could provide a positive influence on the ability of people to get along amongst themselves, without so much as saying a word.
Or maybe it was indigestion.
What would be nice though is that if any of the many residents I'm sure attended the meeting in my place would step forward with some notes, or if any of the members of the Board would like to fill me in on any antics worth reporting, I'd appreciate it. You know, the comments section is open to all of you, even members of the Board of Directors...
I hope to see you all at the next meeting.
The thought of doing Sheetrock just makes my knees hurt. But I am by nature, one cheap bastard. Therefore, yesterday afternoon, prior to the expected downpour, I ran over to Home Depot to grab a piece of Sheetrock. Good move.
Today, during what appeared to be a torrential downpour of Global Warming proportions - in other words, it could happen anytime really, but I want you to get the idea that it was really, really, really raining badly - I went back to Home Depot and bought several more essential items for the task.
Just a quick point about people at Home Depot in a rainy situation. I fully understand that it was raining and I'm sure that you parked under the covered "Loading Only" driveway because you intended to load yourself into your car once you made the big gallon of paint purchase, but seriously, do you have to park your car so that nobody can get in behind you or around you? Never mind; it just isn't worth explaining.
Okay, so I came home, and the following pictures show the progress to date.
You can see I added a few planks of wood in the hole just to have some additional places to screw the new Sheetrock into.
And there is the new piece in place.
Notice how I removed some of the existing acoustic ceiling "popcorn" from the edge? This is so I can float out my crappy edge.
And this is the first of several coats of mud I'll put on it, trying to make it smooth. I'll sand too. That ought to make a nice picture - me all dusty.
So if it isn't one thing, it's another. This weekend, we had to replace the dishwasher, and I get home from work last night, and my wife says that the tiny little wet spot on the ceiling in our kitchen is getting worse. Worse to the point of starting to fall down.
I waited until the sun went down so as to lesson the heat up in our attic. You see, I had surmised that somehow, some old plumbing work done by a seeming reputable company had perhaps become messed up, and I would be able to climb into the attic and shine a flashlight on the exposed pipes, thus revealing their slowly revealed incompetence.
So, careful to hand me my cell phone on the off chance that I might have a heart attack while wandering through the hot upper part of my garage, my wife bid me farewell and best of luck in finding the leak.
I swear, it's hotter than two fat people porking in a steaming tub of lentils on a sunny day in Albuquerque up in my attic, and it didn't take me long to decide that wherever the leak was coming from, it wasn't visible from my vantage point, hunched over trying to keep from banging my head on the sloping roof. So I retreated to the kitchen and tore down the ceiling.
I am always fascinated by looking at the inner parts of the house, the pipes and wiring you aren't supposed to see. For instance, if you live in a KB Home, there is a good chance you will find $30 to $40 worth of empty aluminum beer cans stuffed behind the sheet rock. In my case, I could see that our builder did a fairly respectable job, and further, that my little leak had not yet attracted any termites. Either way, I was perplexed that I could not find any obvious leak which would have resulted in the really moist ceiling.
Not one to give up so easily, I asked my wife to run up stairs and turn on the tub. Water running, no obvious leaks, I then turned my attention to the toilet and the sinks in the bathroom. Perhaps some weird flow would make the water find its way across the pipes and only leak once they had gotten to a point directly under the tub. Again, no luck.
Now I thought that maybe the issue was that someone had to be in the tub putting weight upon the drain. I had hoped to have my wife stand there, turn on the water and perhaps do jumping-jacks, thereby emulating the behavior of my son as he showers. Though she wasn't up for that, she did start to experiment with some of her own theories.
She took a bottle of water and started splashing it around outside of the tub in the same way water might escape the shower curtain. I could hear the water above me, but again, no flood of wetness around the pipes above me. At this point, I was starting to think I would have to pull out more of the ceiling to track down the problem. I was considering all sorts of possibilities, like drunken rats pissing in my ceiling or perhaps some elaborate Candid Camera moment where Allen Funt would magically appear, pointing to a hidden camera and a little micro-sized tube of water that had created the damage, though I quickly ruled that out when I realized he was dead.
Finally, my wife had recalled a conversation several months earlier with my son reporting that his shower head was "sort of messed-up". But she had also recalled telling him to fix it. So that couldn't be the problem. But, on a whim, as I stood like an idiot staring into the dry pipes above my kitchen, my wife went and turned on the shower upstairs.
Suddenly, it was like a rush of water raining on my face, not from any breaks in the pipes, but from water shooting back behind the shower head and streaming down the length of the pipe behind the tile upstairs, directly into my waiting eyes and face. I banged several times on the floor above and I think she got the clue to turn the water off.
So, important note: No matter how cheap it is, never purchase a used shower head from a garage sale. If they are selling the special deluxe water massage thing for 75 cents, there must be a good reason to pass it up.
Oh, another thing: When you tear down wet sheet rock, you may want to rinse off a bit before going into HEB at 9:45PM looking for a new shower head. It ain't a good luck.
You may recall that my wife and I endured a bizarre dining experience at the TGIF's over on 151 and 410 a while back but I wasn't going to simply write it off as a potential dining place based on a single experience.
So today, a freind and I went out to lunch and he suggested Friday's. I had no issue with it and figured, what are the chances that something crazy could happen twice in a row?
I'll keep this short.
I must say that I regret not having my camera or even my cell phone with crappy camera attachment, because what I am about to describe deserves pictures. Remember that movie Office Space where the Jennifer Aniston character is in trouble for not wearing enough, oh what did they call it, Flair or something? Anyway, our waitress, a nice young lady was wearing some sort of weird railroad engineer cap like those popular in the 70's. Oh, is it all coming back into style now? I guess that explains her hoop earrings too. My bad. And there was another waitress wearing some sort of British "Andy Capp" hat, but in red plaid. WTF?
Okay, to the meat of the story. I order up the Tuscan Portabello Melt. According to the menu, it is " Sliced portobello mushrooms between layers of Provolone and Monterey Jack cheeses, roasted onion and tomatoes on grilled, buttery bread. Served with a cup of Fire-Roasted Red Pepper Soup. "
My friend ordered the Sizzlin' Chicken and Shrimp which is described thusly, " Sautéed garlic-marinated chicken breast with onions and peppers paired with zesty shrimp in a Roma tomato-basil salsa. All served over sizzling American and Mexican cheeses with a side of our signature mashed potatoes."
So just so you are aware, when they say that the chicken is served over sizzling American and Mexican cheeses..., they aren't kidding. His entree came on one of those cast iron plates you get fajitas on at Chili's, and the two kinds of cheeses were sizzled to the bottom of it. I mean, fried and stuck and no chance of getting it off. But, it certainly stayed hidden under the plank of chicken until my friend noticed that there was no cheese - not one kind or two - on top of his chicken, and went digging around for it. But, it was as described in the menu.
And what I got was also on the menu; it just wasn't what I ordered. Instead of getting the Portobello Mushrooms I really was eager to try, I got the Tuscan Chicken Melt which is the same thing as the Tuscan Portobello Melt, but with chicken and no mushrooms.
Of course, I did not know of the error when the nice lady brought out my lunch and asked me if everything was okay, because I had not bitten into it yet.
Don't get me wrong, the Tuscan Chicken Melt was great and I highly recommend it as long as you are willing to take a chance on being served the Tuscan Portobello Melt instead.
No, if you are asking if I sent it back, the answer is always no. If you send something back in a restaurant, you are asking for boogers in your food. Plain and simple, end of discussion. But when the girl finally did come back, I did ask her to check my ticket because I didn't want to be charged for the more expensive chicken when what I ordered was the mushrooms.
Good news, she tells me, we charged you what you ordered, not what you got. Thanks, and with no snot or other residue on the ticket, I'll even leave you a tip for being sure to clear that up.
Look, I hate to sound whiney, but can we please be a little more like the Red Robin over by The Rim? Hat's off (no pun intended) to all you TGI Friday's wait staff and your 37 items of flair, I know it is a tough job but the reason they give you a little pad of paper is so you can write down what people order.
Am I being unreasonable? Tell me about your dining misadventures.
Following quite the delay caused by heavy and continuous rains, the city finally was able to make it into our neighborhood to commence collection of the brush. I am happy to report that trucks and men showed up today to remove the pile of tree limbs and other assorted crap that I had meticulously placed on one side of my driveway. 
Now I'll have to do something about the huge brown patch of yard left by several weeks of being hidden from the sun.
But, I shan't complain further - it saves me a trip and about $40.00 to go dump a truckload of junk out at the landfill.
Oh, and timing is everything. If they had come a day sooner, I wouldn't have been able to set my old dishwasher on the curb without being cited.
I wandered down the stairs this morning to let the dogs out and to get the coffee going when I heard the sound of the dishwasher motor running and immediately hitting a wall of the smell of burnt plastic, I might have asked myself if a burglar had entered the home and turned on our dishwasher at 6 in the morning, but it was pretty clear, to me anyway, that my wife was tired of our kitchen and was seeking to remodel via fire.
Or maybe not.
But, with positive intentions before heading off to bed last night, the dishwasher did get turned on and unfortunately, the switch got stuck at the very beginning of the cycle at the precise moment where the system is supposed to heat up, turn on the motor and in a second or two, start shooting water into the wash tub. It made it as far as heating up and turning on the motor. So, aside from the burnt dishes and awful smell, we avoided any further damage, though a new dishwasher would be required.
So, after quickly removing the old dishwasher and hauling it out to the sidewalk (where it would only last an hour or so), my wife and I headed off to grab a cheap new dishwasher. I figured an hour there and back, another hour to install the new one and off to another fun filled Sunday of doing something.
I buy all my appliances from Conn's, and more specifically, the junk/return outlet over on 410 at Loemans Village. Call me a cheapskate, but I hate to pay an extra $100 - $300 just to get something in a sealed cardboard box that I will have to cut into small pieces and hope that the nice garbageman hauls away.
Even though I shop there a lot, I have to tell you that I find salespeople at Conn's to be of the same caliber as Used Car Salesmen. Please don't be offended if you sell cars or appliances; I mean you no disrespect, but instead, I have to confess that I simply do not enjoy the game. And it is a game.
Yes, I know when I walk in the door and you start chasing me that you know, that I know, that you know, that I am purposely not looking at you and in fact, I am walking as far away from the item I want to purchase so that when you finally do corner me and start telling me what a great deal you have on TV's, I can look like a dumbass and say, "Oh, is this the TV section? I need a can opener."
I know, I'm an asshole but I just want to go into a store, have as little interaction with you as possible, pay the bill and leave. Please don't take it personal. I don't.
I have seen that movie Fargo, and I know that when you go back to talk to the manager about getting a better deal, you are really going back to the office, taking a quick look at the sports section in the paper, perhaps squeezing out a few beer-farts from a night of heaving drinking, and coming back to give me the great news. Oh, and the men are worse. They always want to be real friendly and such. I mean, it isn't like I'm buying a freakin ' house here, I just need an appliance. We don't have to go through introductions and such anymore than we would if I came in to buy a Whopper at Burger King.
I'm probably making too much of this, aren't I?
Okay, so we get the dishwasher and as I'm paying for it and turning down all the usual add-ons like warranties and installation and delivery and such, the nice salesman tells me that he has never installed a dishwasher before and asks how long it will take me. Having installed more than a handful in my time, I tell him we'll be back to burning plastic in an hour or so. And technically, had I installed it correctly the first two times, we would have.
There is a Home Depot right behind the Conn's, so I stopped in there to purchase a little brass fitting needed for the installation. Thankfully, on my third trip to Home Depot to get the parts I really needed, I was able to return the fittings from the first trip.
Technically, there is nothing hard about replacing a dishwasher. There is electricity, there is water coming into the machine and there is water going out. Basically, you got three things to unhook, then hook right back up. Given that we are only talking 110 here, you don't really even have to turn off the electricity, until you get shocked the second time. And, technically, you can use the same water pipes; you know, just disconnect the old and plug it into the new one. The problem is, these dishwasher makers don't have the common courtesy to place all the connections in the same exact place on each machine.
Copper tubing is actually pretty fragile. I mean, if it doesn't line up exactly and you start trying to bend it to make it fit, there is a good chance that you will make too much of a crease in it and water will simply spray out all over the place. Just ask me.
Yea, so practice makes perfect. I mean, again, in technical terms, you don't have to be a mechanical engineer to do this. But if you are going to try to slide the old one out and put the new one in without replacing the parts, prepare to get dirty. Hell, even my wife took a stab at fitting her little hands under the washer to try to line up the pipes.
In the end, I went to purchase a new hose which meant that I could connect it to the bottom of the dishwasher, then feed the other end through the cabinet to the water source. You can see that it is a lot easier to simply turn the machine on its side and hook things up. From there, pull out the old plumbing under the sink and hook it up.
Total time to hook it up on the third try? 6 minutes, 43 seconds. I rock!
Total time to have someone drive by my house to haul away the old one? Just over an hour. Sweet!
The truth is, assuming you have the equipment, spraying the new ceiling is about a 3 or 4 minute job. It is the several hours of prep work that take the time.
Here it is just sprayed about 20 minutes earlier and you can see how wet the area still is...
And here you can see it is slowly drying but the edges are still pretty wet.
And above here, you can still see a little edge - which is what makes me nervous.
But this morning when I walked into the room, it didn't jump out and yell - holy crap - and my wife hasn't complained, so I guess that makes it done!
