Happy Anniversary, Baby

With apologies to the Little River Band. And a few days late. My first post here was actually March 3rd, 2004, but tax season keeps getting in the way of... well... everything.

I have managed to get a few things done in spite of all the tax season chaos:

We did the same trick to the window in our new back door that we used at Arcosanti to block out the sun and nosy neighbors.

The back of the trailer was just weeds and dirt. The walk will eventually be widened all the way across to the trailer behind us, eliminating a major maintenance nightmare I had to deal with all last summer.

New bed along the side of the trailer. The maintenance guys last year did us a "favor" and sprayed Roundup all along the trailer so I wouldn't have to trim it. More bare dirt, dust and a few weeks after it was sprayed, weeds that I had to trim anyway. Thanks, guys!

We finally got a solar-powered clothes dryer (old people call it a "clothesline") so we can stop making the coin laundry people rich.

It was close to sunset, so the lighting is bad, but this is supposed to show that the walk in front of the shed has been straightened up and expanded slightly. We will eventually expand it out under the clothesli... er... solar-powered clothes dryer.

That's all I have time for this morning.

Sleepless in Zephyrhills

We both had yesterday off work, so we slept late, then fell asleep last night around 9pm. (We live such adventuresome lives....) So here it is 3:30 in the morning and I'm wide awake. This ought to make for an interesting day at work. At least I have the weekend off.

Anyway, not much going on for either of us other than work, work, work. Things seem to be slowing a bit at Debbie's job, but tax season is still going strong for me. We're not getting the walk-in's like we were the first few weeks; now it's the returning clients with rental properties, schedule C businesses, sub-S corporations, etc. The great thing about tax season is that for better or worse, it's mostly over on April 15th. Then you have nine months for forget how much tax season sucks so you'll be stupid enough to do it again the next year.

Because we've both been working like crazy, we haven't really done much. But as I mentioned, we both managed to finagle a day off together yesterday to go see a bunch of people from the church I grew up in. It was fun catching up with everyone. I managed to figure out who most of the people were in the four hours or so that we were there. All in all, a better way to pass a day than getting bitched at on the phone by people desperate for their tax refunds because they've managed to wreck their lives in some way.

That's pretty much all I have. Between work and trying to plow through Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (1,800 extremely dense pages), I've barely even been on the computer for over a week. I have no idea if the world ended or the stock market crashed or what new country we've decided to go to war against. And don't really care. I have a to-be-read pile that is out-growing the space I have set aside for my to-be-read pile, so I'll likely be updating this place even less frequently than I am now.

We have managed to make some progress on the outside of this place, so I may snap a few pictures to post here when I get a minute this weekend. Other than that, don't expect much.

Checking In

I'm still slogging away at tax season. The crazy rush seems to be mostly over; now it's dealing with the aftermath. Being typical Americans, our clients only have one demand: I want it NOW!!! Meaning their refunds, of course. Because of all the problems the IRS is dealing with, we've been telling everyone to not expect their refund for three weeks. Two days after they file, they start calling every half hour asking if they have their money yet because some friend-of-a-friend got their refund already. I only filed one tax return today; the rest of the day was on the phone answering the same damn question over and over and over again. The worst of that should be over by the end of the week. Then the rest of the tax season will be the longer, more complex returns for somewhat rational people.

I never got to use one as they were a little before my time, but someone dug up a photo of one of the first hard disk arrays. The platters were over three feet in diameter and held a whopping 8 megabytes each. Sweet.

Gotta love that Laura Petrie in geek glasses look-alike.

One of the big debates among renewable energy geeks is if solar panels are really all that "green". Usually, the talk is about net energy, or the number of years a panel has to sit in the sun generating electricity before it "pays back" the energy (mostly fossil fuel) used to mine and refine the raw materials and then use those to build the thing. I've seen paybacks ranging from 7 to 20 years with the larger numbers being more credible from what I can see. But something I've not heard discussed is the toxic waste generated in the manufacturing process. Combine that with the net energy issue and solar looks more and more like an expensive way to generate electricity that is as bad or worse than burning coal. There is certainly a case to be made for solar electric in certain circumstances, but they are not the solution to all our problems.

Well, before I fall asleep sitting in front of the computer, I should head off to bed.

Killer Kats

There is a new study out that attempts to put some numbers on the devastation that cats have on the environment. According to the study, these natural-born killers that people insist on having in their homes, then ditching when they become inconvenient, kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds and 20.7 billion small mammals every year. I've never thought about this much because we've never lived somewhere with large numbers of feral cats wandering around.

Until now.

We have probably 20-30 cats wandering loose in our park, many descended from cats that have been ditched here when people leave. Six of those cats "belong" to one year-round resident who allows them to wander free. Another six belong to a snow-bird who likewise allows her cats to roam. (We will leave aside the discussion of what sort of sick, crazy cat lady lives in an RV with a half dozen cats.) This being Florida, cats can have litters any time of the year. Several people are now live-trapping cats and taking them to the local humane society. Given these are feral cats and have been for many generations, they will most likely be destroyed. Others have been setting out poison bait or antifreeze. All in a desperate attempt to reduce the number of cats spraying around their trailers and shitting on their cars. (Not sure why cats so enjoy taking a dump on the hood of a car, but every morning you can find a couple old dudes scrubbin' and cussin'.)

The fun part of living in an RV park is that your business is everybody's business. (Don't worry; we'll get back to feral cats in a bit.) Usually it's relatively innocent, like the steady parade of old people on giant tricycles who come by to look at the new porch and other changes we've made since moving here. It seems the previous resident was well-liked and that we're expected to honor his memory in some way by only making changes that meet with the approval of everyone else in the park. So far, that seems to be the case other than the bat-shit crazy lady next door who expressed her disapproval of us by pretending we didn't exist when we tried to introduce ourselves the day we bought the place. But there is a darker side to all this "closeness". A couple that lives nearby that we hang with said that they heard I was trying to scare the cats off by shooting them with a pellet gun. They quickly explained that they were all for it and had no intention of trying to rat me out. I told them that I was raised that it was OK to kill animals when necessary, but you didn't torture them. If I were shooting cats, it would be with a 44 Magnum, not wounding them with a toy gun meant for kids. They wouldn't tell us who the source was, but promised to inform said person of the reality of the situation. We're pretty sure we know the source of the rumor and who was doing the talebearing. We haven't heard any more since, but I'm sure this won't be the last attempt by bat-shit crazy lady to get us out of the park.

Back in the days of old when dinosaurs roamed the earth and credit cards were rare, it was common for retailers to charge a fee for using one. The retailer has to pay a percentage of the purchase to the bank, so it made perfect sense to put the cost on the person using the credit card rather than spreading it out over everyone. Then the Fed opened the floodgates of easy credit and within a few years, anyone capable of holding a pen and making an "X" had a credit card. At the same time, the credit card issuers made not charging a fee for credit purchases a condition for a business to accept their credit card, meaning that everyone was paying the credit price even when paying with cash. Now, thanks to a recent settlement between merchants and the credit card companies, retailers will be allowed to add a surcharge for credit card usage. All the self-appointed consumer watchdogs are outraged, of course. I can't for the life of me figure out why given these very same groups are outraged by the interest and fees credit card companies charge. I would think anything that encourages people to live within their means would be a good thing. Are we not still trying to dig ourselves out of the rubble of the collapse brought on by too much debt? Did I miss a memo?

And just in case anyone thinks The Cloud (tm) is a safe place to store your data:


Any security expert will tell you that there is no such thing as 100% secure data. Any system can be hacked. That combined with the poor habits of users, the bad-joke level of security on most "secure" websites, and the ease of tapping into the constant stream of data being blasted in all directions from smart phones, and you have the above scenario.

Oh, yea. I'm doing taxes again this year. It may lead to something more. Or not. It wasn't my first or even second or third choice for a place to land, but it will fluff up the bank account some. Of course, given the extra money of driving back and forth to work, the extra laundry, the extra eating out, etc., etc., I'll probably lose money on the deal.

Speaking of work, I need to get off the computer and get ready.

Unburdening

For the last couple of years, I've been running a bit of software called Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI). What this thing claims to do is keep a list of all the current software on your PC and alert you any time there is a newer version available. At first it worked great. According to the initial scan, I had several programs that were out of date. I updated those, turned on their auto-update option and, "Ta da!!!" A score of 100%. Things went along OK until PSI started nagging me about Open Office being out of date. When I went into Open Office, auto update was on. I told it to go check for the latest version. It tells me I have the latest version. I went to the Open Office web site. Ahhhhhh. The front page had an announcement that anyone who wanted to mess with the latest beta version could download it. I'm not sure how PSI updates version numbers in its database, but if it scrapes them from the main page of of the software vendor, I could see how PSI got confused.

That problem eventually resolved itself and things went back to normal for several months. Sometimes PSI would flag a problem, but I found if I just let it be, an auto update would pop up and make PSI all warm and fuzzy again. Then one bright, sunny Florida day, I get a big pop-up from PSI doing the whole, "Warning, warning Will Robinson!" thing on my screen. Suddenly, I have three things out of date: Adobe Reader, Java, and Windows XML blah blah somethin' somethin'. OK, Adobe Reader is the easy one; download and install the latest version, then go into each browser and update the Adobe Reader add-on, shut everything down, reboot, rerun the scan. No joy. Hmmm. Then I remember that Chrome has its own sort-of built-in Reader. Maybe there is a lag between Adobe release and getting a new version of Chrome with the latest version built in.

OK, ignore Adobe. On to Microsoft. I click on PSI's link to Microsoft update. I end up on some page about ten layers down inside the Microsoft.com domain going on about some update to XP. Screw that. Lets try Java. The problem there is just what am I supposed to be updating? Java SE? Java JRE? Java BunnyFuFu? Then there is the Java versioning system where monstrosities like Java BunnyFuFu version 1.6/6.2/3.7.11.34 is considered a perfectly rational way to number software versions. After wasting close to an hour, I decided to hell with it. I'd just live with three out-of-date programs. At some point, an auto update would shut PSI up.

It wasn't to be. In the last five months, I've installed at least a dozen updates to Adobe Reader, three different species of Java,  Windows, Chrome. None have made PSI any happier. Then this morning, PSI went into nuclear meltdown mode. I decided that's it, I'm either cleaning this mess up, or I dump PSI off a cliff. After a half hour of digging around, installing, rebooting, rinse-and-repeat, I was able to get all the new programs and Adobe Reader off the list. I knew there were major updates to Java thanks to some hacker figuring out a way to use it to take over people's lives. Another round of digging, installing, rebooting, rinsing-and-repeating, and, "Voila!" I was down to just one thing left...

[Insert Dramatic Chipmunk here]

This Windows XML thing. PSI swore up and down that this was a serious threat to my PC. Fine. I clicked the link to Windows Update again and this time was taken to my PC's Windows Update application. Progress of a sort. I had no important updates waiting, but there were four optional updates. None said anything about XML, but a couple were just mass updates. Maybe what I needed was buried in one of those. Installed everything, rebooted, rescanned and...

Secunia PSI now listed six different versions of Windows XML with version numbers running from 3.n to 6.n. According to PSI, 4.n was the current version.

Enough. Secunia PSI is buh-bye.

While messing about with that, I noticed that IE was opening up to some search engine I'd never heard of. I didn't write it down like I should have mostly because I was in fire-and-sword mode by this time. My default search engine was supposed to be Google, but when I went into IE's search engine management, the only ones available were Bing and this Miss Clarol or whatever it was called. Tell IE to "install" Google, make that the default, delete the other two and reboot IE. Back to the search engine from hell, and the only search engines available are Bing and Crapsearch. I go into Uninstall Programs slashing and burning everything that starts with the letter C. There were at least five programs installed that were all linked together. Then off to the registry for more mahem. Reboot the computer, start up IE and another ta da.

Now I was really in a mood. When the dust settled (think crazed massage robot on WALL-E taking out the cruise ship's entire security force and you're getting close), the list of installed programs was about half as long as when I started. Nothing like a good purge. And the PC is humming along nicely again.

A few news items that caught my eye:

A man in Sandy Hook helped a group of six kids who had just watched their teacher get shot, and a school bus driver leading them away from the school. His reward? Being constantly harassed by tinfoil-hat douche bags. He has been overwhelmed by e-mail, mail and phone calls accusing him of working for the government in a staged shooting. I have no idea what these ass clowns think they're accomplishing. If anyone is working for Obama to eliminate gun rights, they are.

The basketball coach at some fancy prep school in California has been disciplining players by making them stand for hours with their feet and hands zip-tied together and clothespins on their nipples. Barney Fife from the local PD is quick to assure us that the nipple thing was probably not sexual, just sadistic. Me thinks Barney needs to type "sado-masochism" into Google and learn the two are not mutually exclusive. Anyway, what I want to know is, did it work? Do zip-ties and nipple pinching produce superior basketball players? That is the purpose of school, after all. That whole learning thing is so Paleo. What we want from our schools is a steady stream of gladiators... er.... athletes to fill up all 74 ESPN channels with never-ending sports for our entertainment. Right? Right?!?

Then we have more nipple play over at the Manhattan Soccer Club right on the club's logo. Unfortunately, the article doesn't address whether this makes better soccer players, and instead talks about the flue and why players are no longer allowed to high five or do the handshake thing with the other team at the end of the game. Two thoughts: If the flu is so bad that a high five could result in a players death, then maybe soccer season should just be canceled. And what good does banning high-fives do when you simultaneously encourage players to manipulate each others' mammaries?

And finally we have a college hoop star involved in a bar fight. He and a teammate walk into a bar, drunk douche bag takes a swing at hoop star, teammate knocks out DDB with a single punch to the head. Then hoop star displays his amazing lack of judgement, as well as deep confusion regarding which sport he plays, by attempting to kick a field goal with now-unconscious DDB's head. In keeping with the news media's inability to get to the bottom of the story, the important question is never asked: Did hoop star's high school coach force him to wear clothespins on his nipples? Is nipple-pinching like steroids? A little can give you a real edge, but too much makes you grow a Neanderthalish beetle-brow and go on rampages? Inquiring minds want to know....

On the home front, we continue to putter around doing repairs, cleaning and yard work, as long as it costs little or no money. The one thing we did purchase is a clothesline (no clothespins though). It's in the middle of the floor still in the box. Given the current pace of work, it should be up early spring 2017. I should probably take some pictures of the stuff we're doing, but now I'm too busy researching the history of nipple-pinching as an athletic training tool. So far, I've found references going back to the Greek marathon runners.

Hidden Mickey!!!

Breakfast of Champions

Merry New Year!

Well, it's 2013, which means every check we send out for the next several months will have the incorrect year on it. It's also time to clean out the Past Reading list. We missed our goal of collectively reading 100 books every year by a mere 3 books. Still not bad when you consider that this was not only another moving year, but a 2-month-renovation-to-the-new-digs year as well. Still, I feel like a slacker whenever we miss that goal.

Speaking of renovations, we're still plugging away at making this place more livable. We spent most of New Year's Day rearranging the shed, throwing stuff out, moving stuff from the trailer to the shed, etc. We made a bit more room for ourselves and much more room in the shed. The bikes are still outside under bike covers, but I'm not giving up on the idea of them living in the shed along with all the paraphernalia like lights, saddlebags, etc. That would clean out a full shelf in our bedroom. I'm sure it would be quickly filled up again with stuff lurking somewhere hidden, but progress is progress. And we finally unloaded the electric hot water heater that's been sitting unused in the back of the Florida room since early July, although we got less than a third what we paid for it. All I cared about was getting the thing out of my house and out of my life. We're currently short on cash thanks to our $5,000 dental bill, but I still have an entire to-do list that involves nothing but sweat to get done. Those to-do's should be kicked out over the next month or so, but a lot of that depends on....

I'm still hustling for some place to park my carcass for tax season. I'll be spending time today and tomorrow following up on the strongest lead so far. Their process is something like twenty steps long, and these are the last three steps, so I should know something by the end of the week. I have a couple other strong leads here in town, but I can almost guarantee I wouldn't be making near the money I will be if Plan A pans out.

I'm still waiting for the official word on the last-minute "fiscal cliff" deal. From what I've been able to piece together so far is that anyone making less than $50,000 will have slightly less money in their pocket, those making between $50,000 and $400,000 may or may not see a bit more of their gross earnings in 2013, and those making over $400,000 will be paying a great deal more. In theory, of course. I'm sure their tax attorneys are busy looking for tax strategies to nullify any tax increases on their clients. Meanwhile, the real questions, like how one-third of the country working for shrinking wages are supposed to support the other two-thirds in the manner to which they have become accustomed, got another kick down the road.

The New Year is supposed to be a time for predictions and resolutions. I'll start with the easiest: resolutions. We don't have any other than surviving another year without ending up living in a dumpster behind Denny's or murdering the Bitch Who Lives Next Door. (That last one is still up in the air depending on if we can figure out a way to not get caught.)

As far as predictions, I expect America's slow, downward spiral to continue. The Fed will continue to shovel $80 billion a month into the to-big-to-fail (TBTF) banks, barely offsetting the currency that is disappearing from debt deflation. Jon Corzine will continue wandering around free, as will all the rest of the TBTF banksters that in a country with any respect for the rule of law would be cellmates of Bernie Madoff. We will continue to lie about becoming energy independent even as the production of shale oil goes into decline due to rapid depletion and the bursting of the investment bubble around it. Natural gas prices will continue to tick up towards the $8-per-unit needed to pay for production as current shale gas wells continue to go into decline and the burned investors make raising more capital for new ones difficult. The increase in natural gas prices will also cause electricity to become more expensive. (56% of electricity in Florida is generated with natural gas, more than double what is generated with coal and five times what is generated with nuclear.) Our "leaders" in government and finance will continue to insist that what they've been doing for the last five years will solve all our problems if we keep on doing what hasn't worked while we screw our eyes shut, click our heels three times while saying "There's no place like home!"

Merry 2013.

Year-End Interregnum

I'm still pursuing job leads, with one that looks a bit promising. I don't want to go all blabby and jinx the thing, but it's probably the strongest lead I've had since we moved to Zephyrhills. The problem is that the multiple steps necessary mean I'm stuck hanging around the house waiting for phone calls and/or e-mails. Not that the weather has made me really want to run outside. Since Thursday, we've had nothing but heavy overcast, rain, and temps in the 60's (brrrrrr!).

So while I can't leave the house, I'm cleaning a month's worth of photos off the camera, catching up on our bookkeeping, scraping off the foot of dust on everything, blah, blah, blah.

Speaking of cleaning off the camera:

Inaugural Cruise on Celebrity's Reflection:

Debbie in the Big Chair

Ricky in the Big Chair

Reflection at Night

Celebrity's Big X

Sunset at Sea

Migraine Clock

We have several neighbors who get into Christmas lights:

Penguin!

Fence Decorations

Tree Decorations

Santa and Snoop Dawg.

And photos from Thursday's trip over to Animal Kingdom. Note to self: Never go anywhere near Disneyworld  the week between Christmas and New Years. We're used to the other parks being crowded, but Animal Kingdom is usually much less so. Not Thursday. We had to park further from the gate than we ever have before, and simply attempting to walk down the streets in the park was nearly impossible. But we did get a glimpse of Jabali:

Peek!

Mom

New Kids on the Block

Bald Eagle in the Flights of Wonder Show

Kitty!!

Grumpy Kitty

Hungry Kitty

Sleepy Kitty

No clue what this thing is or why it's standing on its knees.

Well, I should stop messing about here and get on my inside work. The weather is supposed to clear tomorrow, so with a bit of luck, I'll get some outdoor work done as well.

...and We're Back

We're home to stay for a very long while. Debbie is coming into her busy season. With some luck, I'll be busy as well. I have a number of lines out at this time, and Friday I will be out sniffing around some more. In any case, between now and at least mid-April, don't even bother to ask. We can't.

As I mentioned before, this is our first Christmas since 2005 that we've spent with anyone other than the two of us. Compared to the Grand Chaos of Christmases Past, it was a cakewalk, but it was still more than our normal just-us, monkey-bread-for-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner, NCIS-24-hour-marathon, not-even-get-dressed-let-alone-leave-the-house Christmas. My parents are forever telling us we're boring. I prefer "lazy". Pō-tā-tō, pō-tă-tō.

Tomorrow is Debbie's day off because she will be working Saturday, so we may sneak off someplace like Disneyworld. Which means more driving, but nothing like what we've been doing the last few weeks. Maybe the Christmas... er... Holiday decorations will still be up.

And that's pretty much it for the week. I have several hundred photos on my camera that I haven't even looked at. If I find anything even moderately interesting, I'll post it. Otherwise, I may get some Mickey pictures up over the weekend.

Done...

...at least for a few months. I decided that rather than spend the day circling Zephyrhills begging for a job, I would complete my last eight hours of CPE in one go. I managed it, although I think I broke something in my brain. At least I can now read something fun instead of reading tax code, hence Watership Down over in the Currently Reading list. It's been years if not decades since I last read it, and I figured it would be relaxing for my poor noggin. Not much else to report; tomorrow is more money we don't have out the door for doctor visits for me and a trip back to the dentist for Debbie to put one of her temporary caps back on. Then a day to do some chores in the morning and get ready to head out of town again. This will be the last time in a loooooong time we leave our wee little homestead; we're just about tripped out. We'd forgotten how hectic this time of year is after seven quiet Christmases with just the two of us. We had figured it would be just us again as my family normally all head up to Michigan for Christmas with my grandpa. But no one can afford the extra drive back and forth, and Grandpa is to the point that he doesn't recognize hardly anyone and wouldn't know if they were there or not. So they're all here, which is good, but, again, a bit more chaotic that we're used to.

Well, off to read about some wascally wabbits. (Elmer Fudd is in Watership Down, isn't he?)

Work, Work, Work

So we finally landed at home Monday afternoon. At least for a couple weeks, then it's back on the road for another trip. The plan for this week was for me to focus on finding a place to do taxes for the upcoming tax season, but that went out the window. We spent Monday afternoon unpacking, rebooting, laundry, etc. I spent all day Tuesday trying to get my required CPE complete before the end of the year. Should have gotten on this sooner, but with all the moving and stuff that needed to be done on the trailer, I'm now scrambling.

Then Wednesday, we both had our initial appointments with the new dentist. We expected a quick in-and-out; a few x-rays, a "plan of attack", then appointments at some future point to get things rolling.

Heh.

Instead we were there for five and a half hours and got socked with a $5,000+ bill. After that, we sort of just came home and stared off into space trying to figure out where in the %&#@* we were going to dig up five large.

Thursday, I finally had to do some work outside. The oak trees decided to drop all their leaves while we were out of town, then it rained on them. The oak leaves down here aren't like the ones in Michigan. These are very small and flat so they stick to everything and leave permanent stains on whatever they touch. I just couldn't leave them any longer, so I went at the outdoor work with a vengeance, sweeping, raking, trimming, mowing, edging (a weekly activity in Florida), more sweeping, weeding, mulching. Then I figured the day was pretty well shot anyway and while I was sweaty and dirty, I may as well attack the shed. Since moving here, we've been shoving things into the shed any ol' way, figuring we'd deal with it later. Well, "later" was yesterday: pulled out shelving to make more floor space, relocated/rewired outlets, cleaned and made a first pass at organizing all the clutter. There's still a long way to go, but at least the basic outline is starting to take shape.

And that brings us to today, which was another brain-buster trying to cram in CPE. I really should have started this sooner. Meanwhile, because of the dental fiasco, Debbie's work schedule has been completely jacked all week, just adding to the chaos.

And yes. I'm whinging. Deal with it.

Tomorrow and Sunday look to be more of the same other than a break Sunday night to go to the Christmas cantata at my parents' church. Maybe next week will be normaler.

Passing Through

In between coming from and getting ready to go again, there is this:


Sweet. And note this time around that a) Paramount hasn't ordered free advertising off the internet (yet) and b) the video can be embedded; all without the whole world screaming at them first. Good to know that at least one corporation has learned how to muzzle their clueless lawyers.

More when I have time. At least we'll be mostly done after this weekend. I really need to focus on a couple things for the rest of December.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel:



The herb garden is more-or-less planted. Right now, the challenge is keeping the plants watered given everything is dry as dust. Not the most typical problem in Florida, but when the rainy season ended back in September, it came to a screeching halt. As in not a drop of rain since. We need dust masks just to walk across the lot. Crazy stuff. Anyway, the garden:

And just because I have so much free time, I re-did the walk and landing pad in front of the shed, and added a place for our bikes to sit that is less in the way:

Well, gotta go make dinner.

More Home Improvement

Still messing around in the front of our place. I got 1/4 of our Simon-and-Garfunkel herb garden in a few days go:

The inside of our car and my work gloves have a wonderful rosemary scent to them now. I'll probably get some thyme started next. The sage may need to be grown from seed; I haven't found a local source for plants, which is usually an indication that something doesn't do well in the local climate. But I've found dozens of pages on the web from people who swear that sage does well in Florida's beach sand soil as long as you don't try to plant it in the middle of a bog. So as some point, I'll order some seeds and see what happens. I also got some aloe vera planted along the side of the porch. The stuff is like a weed down here, so that should fill in fairly quickly.

Today I finished up getting our house number and lot number painted on the posts and hanging all our Arcosanti bells:

Now our pizza delivery guy will have an easier time finding us, not to mention that we're now in compliance with the park rules.

That's pretty much all I've gotten done; we've been too busy socializing for me to get to all the things on my ever-growing to-do list. With Thanksgiving coming up, I don't expect to get much more done for the rest of this week, but if I do, I'll throw a couple pictures up here.

The Planting Bed

I finally got this thing finished yesterday. Right now, all I'm growing is dead leaves and grass clippings. At some point next week, I'll pick up a half-dozen or so rosemary plants and put those up against the porch. But for now, this is how it looks:

Eventually, the bed will extend for the full length of the trailer, but I need to do a little work on the skirting first. In the meantime, I have all the inside work - cleaning, dishes, bake some bread, etc. - that piled up on me while I was messing around in the yard. A woman's work is never done....

Carl Sagan's Birthday

I really need to get a calendar; I almost missed this again. Anyway, I've posted this before, but it's worth another watch:

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

One Bruce F. Webster has put together an illustrated version of Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings". Appropriate given certain events from earlier this week.

(For those, like me, who somehow avoided copybooks while learning penmanship, Wikipedia has a short article on them. The part that is relevant to Kipling's poem: "Other copybooks, however, focused chiefly on writing literacy and used maxims and sometimes Bible verses as their material. It was intended that students memorize not only correct penmanship, but correct morals as well, through exposure to traditional sayings.")

Anyway...

So yea. I made a wee little drive up to Michigan and back. While I was there, Michigan thought it was appropriate to remind me why I left by slamming me with high winds, freezing temperatures, snow, sleet and rain. I got the message, left as soon as logistically possible and have no desire to go back in any months other than June, July or August.

There were two goals for the trip: Take a small load of furniture up to Michigan to dump on others so we can quit living like one of those headcases on Hoarding: Buried Alive, and to help my parents pack up and drive down to Florida for the winter. Both goals were met in that I did manage to get a load of Stuff up to Michigan (nearly) intact and out of our lives while navigating a moving van for most of the length of I-75, and my parents and I are now back in Florida. We made it back late Saturday night. My parents normally take three or four days for the trip down, but I "missed" a couple of their non-expressway longcuts, my sister and brother-in-law that they normally visit were out of town, and I pushed pretty hard for them to not stop a few hours short of Zephyrhills just because it was dark. We met Debbie in Z-town at a local restaurant for a very late dinner about 9:30pm, then finally HOME.

After being gone two full weeks and a couple days, it took all day Sunday and Monday just to catch up on my daily reading and dig through my e-mail. Yesterday, I felt like I spent the entire day in the car, although I'm certain that can't be true. I started my day off with voting. I had considered skipping the whole sordid mess, but decided that while I was out for other things, I may as well drop in and color in a few ovals. I voted my usual pattern; whoever wasn't in office and was least likely to win. The result was typical as well, with not a single person I voted for attaining office. Works for me. In addition, Florida had 11 constitutional amendments on the ballet, all but one of which I voted against as they were measures that should have been handled in the do-nothing legislature rather than being amendments to the state constitution. The only one I voted for was a symbolic amendment making the key provision of Obamacare - the penalty for failing to have health insurance - unconstitutional. With the Supreme Court ruling that the penalty was constitutional, Florida can't make it unconstitutional, but the measure was left on the ballet as a non-binding referendum of sorts.

So the bottom line is that I am not in any way responsible for what happens in the county, state or national governments. I can piss and moan about it all I want because I did in fact drag myself to the polls.

So the underside of the bottom line is, nutin' new here.

The rest of the yesterday was spent driving around Florida's suburban hell trying (and largely failing) to cross items off my various shopping lists. I keep trying to "support local businesses", but they just don't have what I'm looking for. Even the big box stores have been a disappointment. I ventured out again today after we realized that we were out of paper for the printer. I found a few more things, but I finally gave up and moused another big order of random bits on Amazon.

Today, I did get a bunch of things that piled up while I was in Michigan checked off the to-do list, but for every item I checked off, I added two more, so now the list is longer than ever. I think I've discovered all the bits of neglected and forgotten flotsam of our lives, but there may still be something under the couch or in a corner covered in dust bunnies waiting to be discovered.

So I see on Yahoo this morning that Obama gets his four-more-years. Several people I've encountered today, including my parents, are in a state of mourning due to Obama's re-election. I'm sure today's Wednesday Prayer Meetin' at their church will be an hour of wailing and gnashing of teeth. This I do not understand. There is not one single thing that Romney would, or even could have done in office that would have been any different that what Obama will do, just as ol' hope-n-change followed right in Bush's footsteps in spite of all his rhetoric to the contrary. The banks will continue to run the country for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans and their enabling captives in Congress and the White House. Energy prices will continue their wild gyrations that are simultaneously pushing energy companies and consumers into financial ruin. We will come to accept that 8% unemployment is simply frictional unemployment, rather than a sign of serious economic problems. More and more of the middle class will be stomped down into the growing permanent underclass. The stock market will continue its long-term, random walk to nowhere. Various boogie men, including Obama, will be trotted out from time to time to take the blame for all of America's ills. Etc., etc., etc. In short, we will continue the long, bumpy decent we started back in the 1970's. And the rubes never catch wise.

Well, that's all I have energy for today. If I can drag my sorry carcass out of bed at a decent time tomorrow, I may have pictures of our new planting bed. I wouldn't bet on it, but it could happen, at least in theory.

The Housing Industry

I'll do a real post at some point.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

On the road again

Ric left this morning with a smaller Penske truck heading to Michigan.  We decided we really did not have room for a couple BIG things and could not get anyone down here to make an offer on them, so they are heading to a couple family homes that will appreciate them.

We timed this so after dropping the Penske truck off in Traverse City, he will be heading back with his parents as they make their way down to Florida for the winter.   This way he can help out with most of the driving instead of Don doing all the driving.   

They will do Halloween at Grandpa's, visit a "couple more days in Flint area" and then start working their way down to Zephryhills Florida.  I believe they will try to stop in Mobile AL area to see Teri/Gary before heading back over to Florida.   I should them after election day.

Rose Wiklanski, RIP

We received word yesterday afternoon that Debbie's Aunt Rose had passed.

This was today's Non Sequitur:

Goodbye Aunt Rose. Give a hug to Dad and Uncle Leo for us.

Tweak, Tweak, Tweak

So far, only one call-back to our roof dudes. The vent from our hot water heater was a bit too close to the rubber roof. Nothing damaged, but the heat had caused a bit of a ripple in the material, meaning that eventually, there would have been damage. A bit of flashing to divert the heat away from the roof and all is well. Naturally, since the work is all done, the rainy season has decided to vacate the state once again. We haven't had so much as a heavy dew since the roof work was completed, so we still don't know how much quieter things will be with the added insulation and a non-metal roof. It is definitely cooler in the Florida room with the max temp staying pretty even with the rest of the trailer. We still need some sun shades to hang from the new porch; there is about 45 minutes where the sun is low enough to sneak under the porch roof before it goes behind the trees. The heat film we put on the windows helps with that, but keeping the sun completely off the front of the trailer is better yet. The shades will also make the porch more usable in the summer, while still allowing us to let the sun in during our frigid Florida winters.

Anyway, we're done with big stuff for now. We'll be doing a great deal of tweaking that doesn't involve large amounts of money, but probably the only big-money project we will do in the short term is swapping out the windows in the Florida room for ones made of glass instead of shrink wrap. We're required to put siding on before next May, but I'm going to see if I can get that extended. The cushion is getting pretty thin; it would be nice to give our savings account a chance to build back up before we smack it again.

Yesterday, I started cleaning up around the trailer. It's always amazing to see the amount of debris even the simplest project can create. I hauled over 100 pounds of metal to the scrap yard, but only got about half the money I expected for it. I wrongly assumed the price/pound I got for soda cans would be what I got for all our aluminum scrap. I didn't realize that soda and beer cans are some sort of super-high-grade aluminum that gets almost twice the price of other kinds of aluminum. Shows what I know. I also had several pounds of something called "irony aluminum" on my scale ticket. I wasn't aware aluminum could be ironic. Whatever it is, it ain't worth much. In any case, I got enough to pay for our laundry for the next month or so, which is still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick found in a sewer and covered in blood from a mouse with the hantavirus. I also got the road swept clear so we don't have to worry about picking up any stray nails or screws with our car tires. After driving up and down the road numerous times, of course.

Today I tackle the oh-so-fun job of policing up all the bits of foam all over the ground. I have no idea what I'm going to do about the "snow" where the guys were ripping the foam sheets with a skill saw. I'll try to rake up what I can, but it may have to simply "disperse" as much as I hate to do that. Then the rest of the raking and trimming, and maybe, if I have time and umph, get a start on laying out walks, planting beds, etc. The joys of a yard.

I didn't bother to watch either the Presidential or Vice-Presidential debates. No one running for office this year will explain to me why Jon Corzine and the rest of his Wall Street golfing buddies are still walking around as free men, and until they do, I don't give a damn what else they have to say. It doesn't sound like I missed much in any case, given that the media is treating the whole thing like a cheerleading competition (with some damn-ugly cheerleaders). Does anyone remember when debates were about ideas instead of an exchange of insults? Or when the holders of high office could manage to conduct themselves with more decorum than a 12-year-old boy when the teachers uses words like "asinine" (Dude! She said, "Ass.") or bupkis (Dude! She said "Butt kiss.")?

Not that it matters much in my case anyway. I just realized that I probably won't be back to Florida in time to vote, and that I don't even care.

Well, off to fold laundry, work outside until lunch, then scan pictures until time to make dinner. Fun, fun!

Losing My Religion

For the first time in US history, Protestants are no longer the majority. The article gives a number of reasons why, but primarily it is due to 1/3 of those under 30 have no religious affiliation. Some of that is due to definitions; no religious affiliation just means you don't self-identify with the label "Protestant" or "Catholic" yet still attend church services and/or believe in God, pray frequently, etc. Baby Boomers give lip service to disestablishmentarianism, but it's Gen-X and Y who are more likely to be found in house churches or other non-traditional religious establishments. But a big chunk of that 33% is people who are simply atheists. And so a little R.E.M.:


About fifteen minutes ago, the last of the workers packed it in and left, and I gave a big chunk of change to the owner. I tried to take pictures of the roof, but without before pics, I'm not sure how much information they convey. While they were here, we also had them replace our back door with something that a) closes, b) stays closed when the wind blows, c) doesn't allow a cat to walk in under the door without crouching, d) locks. It's almost like living in a real house. Anyway:

Snow on an 80-degree day.

Snazy new back door. Only problem is the plumb door really shows how bad a job was done on the original Florida room. Inch-and-a-half difference from the top to the bottom.

Our new, gutterless roof line. Less work for me!!

Roofline on the south side.

And the fancy rubber roof already hard at work reflecting away the sun.

Last but not least, the completed porch:

Now we just have to wait for our savings account to stop making pitiful mewling noises, and we can move on to the next phase.

Details, Details...

Porch is coming along nicely. There isn't much left to do at this point other than railings on the steps and the last bit of the skirting around the bottom:

The next major step won't be anything that will show in photos. We are getting additional insulation up on the roof plus a membrane roof over everything that will hopefully take care of the leaks. It will be so nice to not have to walk around a bucket in the middle of our living space.

Sunday, we made a cross-state road trip for a ship inspection at Port Canaveral. We could see SpaceX's Falcon 9 sitting on the launch pad from one of the forward lounges. It was, unfortunately, the most interesting part of the trip. For me, the actual ship inspection isn't really all that interesting as I don't sell cruises. And frankly, if you've seen one stateroom, you've seen them all. I go for the free lunch on-board. Only this time, instead of the group having a private lunch in the formal dining room, we had to fight it out with the boarding passengers in the buffet. So, yea; fifty bucks in gas for sore feet and an underwhelming buffet on a rather tired-looking cruise ship. I've been on several ships from a couple of the "bottom tier" cruise lines, and either I'm mis-remembering my First Cruise Experience on Carnival, or these other guys just don't measure up. We have a Celebrity cruise-to-nowhere on their newest ship in December. "Overwhelmed" is probably setting the bar too high; I'm hoping for welmed.

Taking Shape

The porch and the roof are essentially complete. There is still railings, trim work, gutters, etc., but it is pretty much what it is:

The rainy season seems to have returned with 90 degree days and matching humidity, and thunderstorms in the evening. At least it isn't interfering with the work too much.

A Good Day

The weather finally cooperated and, combined with a much larger crew, resulted in significant progress today:

It looks like the work will bleed into next week, but not by much. At the latest, things should be wrapped up by next weekend.

A Bit of Progress

We were visited by a full-blown monsoon about two hours after our porch dudes showed up. They tried to shrug it off, but eventually it became dangerous for them to operate power tools. By that time, it had gone from rain to RAIN to holy-crap-I-can't-see. They packed it in so fast, one of them actually left his lunch sitting on our outdoor swing. The good news is that the worst is supposed to be over in a few hours, then back to the normal pattern of good weather most of the day with scattered rain in the afternoon. Here's where we stand at this point:

Work Begins

We got delayed by a day, but first thing this morning we received a pile of lumber and concrete blocks. Of course, just because we're trying to do something, rainy season decided to make a come-back. Once things cleared a bit, the guys got started by moving our current front steps around back. The iron steps that were back there when we bought the place had nearly rusted through, and they were actually too tall, interfering with opening the back door. So now the back of our place looks like this:

Wider and more stable are definitely both a big plus. The rail is on the wrong side, but it may just go away completely rather than going to all the work of moving it to the other side. It's not like the old steps had a railing, nor do most of the back porches in the park. If taking them off, cleaning them up and re-attaching them doesn't end up being a big deal, I may do it. Or not. I was born lazy. 

I also talked to the contractor about replacing the back door with something that is a bit more weather-tight so wind and rain will quit blowing into our living space. He said they have a basic door with no window that will screw right into the same hole. I said, "Do it." Because the guys are already coming out here, there won't be any installation charge, just the cost of the door. Can't beat that with an ugly stick cut from a tree you can't see for the forest.

The guys were able to get a rough outline of the deck going before the rain came back and ran them off for the day. Naturally, the instant they got everything packed up and got into the truck, it stopped raining. The weather liars say it will be like this for the next several days. Anyone like to bet that this will be the one time they're right? Anyway, here's how it looks so far:

Originally, they were going to do the roof first, then build the deck, which I thought was a little backwards, But I assumed something to do with hurricane codes meant they needed to anchor the porch roof before the deck was in the way. Then this morning, the contractor called and said they decided to do the deck first, then build the roof to the deck. I'm completely indifferent as long as something is getting done. With all the preliminaries out of the way, like moving the old steps and getting the leveling jack off the trailer tongue, I expect things will go faster.

With some luck, I should be able to post updates every day or two. Unless that lazy thing kicks in.