Pumpkin Carving Party

On Sunday, a bunch of us got together to have a wee pumpkin carving contest:

He didn't do so hot carving his pumpkin, but he made up for it by being cute.

I had the opportunity to do some modeling:

Doin' what comes natural.

A strikingly likeness, although the artiste was a tad generous in the hair department. My modeling expertise earned him the first place ribbon.

Here is the result all lit up in their Halloweeny glory:

Spooooky!

Not much else happening right now. Mostly enjoying our break from the heat. It's only been in the high 70's the last few days and, laudate dominum, dipping down into the low 60's at night. We both have been sleeping for 10-12 hours a night. Alas, it won't last. The weather liars say we will be setting record high's by the middle of the week. Unlike all their other predictions, they'll get it right this time. Sounds like we'll be all sealed up and running the A/C in November.

Well, I'm off to another night of deep and undisturbed slumber while I still can.

Life of a Patio Block

So we hustled over to the concrete place and purchased, hauled and stacked about 3,000 pounds of patio blocks...

...got the ground all prep'ed...

... started setting blocks the next morning...

...and finished up on day two:

I know I said we would be all done with patio blocks after this, but we haven't been happy with the front patio since we moved here. The whole thing is one giant tripping hazard with all the sinking and tipping patio blocks. The original plan was to reset the blocks that were already there, but when we looked closer at the blocks, they are in bad shape; missing corners, cracks, funky miss-matched colors. Soooooo...

While we were at it, we took up some existing patio and did some regrading with all the dirt we have left over from the work in the back. It will take another pallet of patio blocks to finish, then we need to find some place to dump the old blocks, but the result will be much better drainage on the lot plus not needing to tip-toe around on our patio to keep from face-planting.

Today, I took a break from all things yard to catch up on bills, bookkeeping and blogging. One bill that I had been ignoring for a while was from one of my doctors. Since the beginning of this year, every time I go see this guy, I also get a bill from some lab I've never heard of. The visits were routine, nothing had changed that I was aware of, and there was also a lab line item on the bill from the doctor's office. I have no problem paying bills I owe, but I have a big problem with paying a bill that has already been paid. Today I finally got someone on the phone who knew what was up and told me that I shouldn't be getting the separate lab bills, that the office already paid the lab, and to not pay them. Well, I already had, so she needed copies of the bills that had been paid mailed to her so she could start the process of getting me my money back from the lab. (Yea, right. A refund from the medical-industrial complex? Don't make me laugh.) She was very apologetic and explained that it was the result of a tragic computer error.

I have another term for it: Fraud.

A computer error could have kicked one bill to me. It may have even allowed payment of said bill. But to kick a second bill and allow that one to be paid, after being aware of the problem for four months? That's something far more serious than a computer error. Unfortunately, from looking over the constant stream of bills coming into my parent's mailbox, I have a feeling double billing is very common. The worst part is that trying to dig to the bottom of these messes is nearly impossible. The entire medical establishment's attitude is "Shut up and pay it or we'll trash your credit." The bills themselves are impossible to read (deliberately so, in my not-so-humble opinion), so don't even think you can cross-reference bills from different organizations to see if you are paying for the same thing twice. Even the people who work in the office are baffled by the crap they themselves send out.

Good thing Obamacare is going to fix all that.

Heh.

Obviously, I didn't bother to say any of that to the person I was talking to; the problem was at the lab, not the doctor's office. So I made copies of everything and sent if all off to her like she requested. I expect it was just a waste of paper, toner and a stamp, but I may get a surprise.

I think the Florida weather gods are trying to kill us. We have always shut the A/C off and opened up the windows on October 1st. Today is October 21st, the windows are all sealed shut, the A/C is cranking away, and there is no end in sight. Oh, the weather liars keep saying it will cool off by the end of the week. For three weeks now. We've had exactly one day that it didn't get into the 80's. But this weekend for sure!! I started the summer off using old washcloths as sweat rags; now I've graduated to old hand towels. If this keeps up much longer, it's gonna be old beach towels.

Well, I need to go make some food. It's hamburger and fries night!!

Brain Bender

You'll want to watch this full-screen:

Slow Week

It felt like we were busy, but this morning when we tried to figure out what we were so busy doing, we couldn't come up with much. We were able to get everything prep'ed for the last phase of the patio block project:

The ground is cleared, phone lines buried, and everything more or less ready to start dropping patio blocks.

And our squirrel was back this morning on his new favorite perch:

Yo. Wha' choo lookin at.

I'm not sure if he is expecting to be fed or if he is plotting our demise. Maybe he works for the NSA...?

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I'm heading over to the concrete place for another pallet of 12" patio blocks. I don't need that many, but it's cheaper to buy a full pallet instead of paying the individual price on what I do need. I'll have around 30 or so leftovers. I'm not sure what we will be using them for, but we'll think of something.

Well, it's late and I need to get up early. Someday I may have time for a real post....

Busy, Busy

We spend every day knocking things off the to-do list, but the list never seems to get any shorter. Some of the latest bits we've been working on:

After storing the thing in its original box in the back of the Durango for a week, we finally got our anniversary gift assembled.

We had our thermometer hanging on the side of the shed primarily because that's where our predecessor had his hanging. We couldn't see it from inside the house, and the sun shone directly on it in the afternoon, making it a less-than-ideal location. We moved it to the fence, which works much better for us and seems to please our local squirrel.

These were going to be dug up and tossed, so we dug them up and planted them next to the porch. This is another plant we see growing all over the park; we'll see if they can handle our southern exposure.

New pots with Cat Palms. These are supposed to bush out rather than grow up, which will make a nice screen for the patio.

We've also been busy just keeping up with all the leaves falling out of the trees both here and at the parents' place. Toss in car repairs and other such random "fun" and our time disappears.

Speaking of parents, we'll probably start opening up their place in another week or so, getting everything aired out and cleaned up. This year was a bad year for mold, so we may have a lot of work to do inside. We already know we have a lot to do on the outside.

So other than all that, not much going on. Heh. I'll probably start working on the last phase of the patio block project later this month after the credit card closes. After that, I will be taking a break from outdoor work while I focus on getting my CPE credits completed before the end of the year, and re-familiarizing myself with software I haven't looked at in 15 or so years. And I may have other news on the job front. I'll know more on Monday.

Well, I need to get back at it.

Porch Project

While taking a break from laying patio blocks, we decided to get some stain on the deck boards on the front porch. We were already seeing some grey-ing of the wood along the west edge that gets blasted by sun in the afternoon. So we ordered deck cleaner and stain and went at it:

The little black spots are a million or so Love Bugs that kamikaze'ed into the wet stain. Fortunately, I was able to get them mostly removed after the stain sat overnight. Now if the humidity would get below 100% so the stuff would dry completely, we could move the porch furniture back where it belongs.

We also made some changes to the planting bed in front of the porch. It's gradually becoming un-Simon-and-Garfunkel-ized, first by the Black Swallowtail butterfly larva eating the parsley to the ground and now with the addition of two versions of Croton (Codiaeum variegatum) called Petra and Red Mammey. We'll see how they do. There are quite a few of these around the park and they seem to tolerate a wide variety of lighting conditions. They do add a bit of color:

Oddly, the mostly-red plant in the center is called Petra, while the two on either side that have almost no red in them are called Red Mammey.

It's very hard to see, but while I was scratching around, we also planted new thyme and sage plants we were able to start from the other plants, and we started layering the rosemary so we can have a full hedge across the front of the porch.

We also removed some aloe plants that my parents had given us from the south side of the porch and put them off in a back corner in the shade. They are supposed to do well in any light condition, but the full sun had bleached the leaves completely out and the plants had done absolutely nothing in nearly a year. We really wanted something else there anyway, we had an empty hole, and so we made a command decision and moved them. We're browsing through native plant catalogs looking for a vine or bush that will give the porch some shade and privacy. There are several candidates that will attract hummingbirds and butterflies, assuming I can find a local source.

Yesterday was an indoor day so we could make some progress on the piles of paper that have built up while we were playing around outside all summer, and today I've been trapped indoors by rain of Noachian proportions. Normal rain in Florida is massive amounts of water falling from the sky for five minutes or less, then it's all over until the next day. Today, it started raining around 11am, and as of 6pm, still has not stopped. And it ain't a gentle shower, either. The retention pond across the street is getting alarmingly close to the top and according to the radar, there is plenty more to come. If you see two old people huddled in a row boat go floating by, it's probably us.

Well, time for dinner.

More of the Same

Friday the 13th was on a Friday this month, but I was too busy power-washing to post anything. At least the place looks a bit cleaner:

The gunk was really thick along the trailer. It took all day to work down to the side of the shed.

All the patio blocks that we have are now on the ground instead of in piles. I need another pallet to finish up, but that will have to wait for the credit card to close in a couple weeks:

Next phase will be to fill in between us and the trailer behind us. That will cut out about half of my mowing and trimming.

Debbie has been kicking out cards in preparation for the busy time of year. Something like half the birthday and anniversary cards she makes get sent out in the last three months of the year:

Don't look too close if you have a birthday or anniversary coming up in the next few months.

We actually had clear skies one night last week and got a shot of the moon and Venus while we were out wandering the park for some reason:

Not bad for hand-held with our glorified point-and-shoot.

In the meantime, the deck cleaner and stain arrived via Fed-Ex, so we cleared off the porch and got ready for some scrubbin':

Everything is out of the way and waiting for me to quit messing around on the internet and get to it.

Of course, after a week of no rain, we have thunderstorms lined up one after the other, so we'll have to give the deck several days to dry completely before we can start staining.

Speaking of thunderstorms, Mama Gaia gave us quite a light show last night. The lightening was more-or-less continuous for almost two hours. We were trying to finish up the mega-once-a-month-OMG-we-have-nothing-left-in-the-house-besides-Ramen-and-some-sour-milk shopping when the storm started rolling in. (Have I mentioned before how much we hate shopping and put it off until we have no choice?) Getting home was interesting to say the least; imagine driving at night with strobe lights flashing at you. We barely made it to the house and unloaded the car before the rain started. With all the lightening, we decided to shut down and unplug everything, even though we have multiple layers of protection for the important stuff. We haven't heard if there was any damage in the rest of the park; all the neighbors seem to still be hiding inside.

Anyway, I need to make some bread, help finish up the laundry and get the deck scrubbed down so it can start "drying" (a somewhat ambiguous term when the humidity never goes below 90%). More photos when everything is all purdied up.

Another Quick Update

We're still flingin' patio blocks everywhere:

All done under both clotheslines.

There are still 70 or so patio blocks to go in this batch. Then we only have a hundred or so to finish up. Once this is done, the only patio block work left will be to level some of the areas that were here when we moved in. Then on to the next project(s).

We were able to take a break from yard work to spend Thursday at Animal Kingdom so we could visit the kitties:

Grandma Boris tongue! And yes, the big cats are just as lazy as the little one living in your house. After at least a dozen visits to Animal Kingdom over the last three years, we only have a handful of pictures of them not sleeping.

And also visit the kiddies:

We didn't get a good pic of Jabali, but that's him in the back getting a hug from one of the younger females. I think that's mom's butt at the right of the frame. Jabali turned two years old August 24th.

New to the park: a pair of baby giraffes.

Well, I need to go finish up dinner. And I probably should batten down the hatches and turn on some lights; it just went from full sun to night in less than a minute and I can hear thunder.

What We've Doing This Week

Of course, I'm still plopping down dozens of patio blocks:

Making sure the two sides are going to line up.

Still a big pile of patio blocks left....

One section all squared off and blocks positioned for the next phase.

A bit of cheating: Rather than try to cut curves, I just used some concrete.

The blocks in the foreground will take me to the corner of the neighbors place. Eventually, the entire space between the trailers will be block, but that will have to wait for the next load.

We moved all the patio blocks from where I had tossed them out of the car so that a) they would be closer to where I will be using them and b) so we could do a bit of cleaning:

The black gunk is mold, a Florida specialty. It had gotten so thick, we were slipping on it.

Cleaned up the path to the front door.

Close-up of the contrast between clean and Yuk!!

The break room. Nice thing about living on a dead-end street is being able to use the street as part of the yard.

And that is pretty much all we did this week. Other than the usual lawn care, which was extra-fun this week because a lot of the grass hadn't gotten mowed last week because of the siding guys and all their stuff in the way. Two weeks of growth in Florida in August means waist-deep grass. It took three and four passes to get everything back into shape, plus a lot of trimming. But it got done, so I can forget about it for a couple days.

Oh; almost forgot: Debbie had a visitor on the window right over her desk while she was working.

Six-inch grasshopper enjoying the shade.

We don't see them often, but Florida has a couple types of giant grasshopper. This one looks like a regular grasshopper, only hugerer. There is another one that I've only seen twice; once when we lived in Sanford, and once here last summer. They're entire body is bright, shiny gold. The first time I saw one, I thought it was some kid's toy dropped on the sidewalk until I tried to kick it out of the way and it flew off. Talk about needing to change your Huggies. We also have giant cicadas that are doing their best to deafen us. And yesterday, I saw and even gianter hornet flying with a giant cicada that I assume it was going to stuff into a hole to feed it's young 'uns.

Fun fact about the giant cicadas around here: Apparently, my saw cutting through concrete sounds enough like their call that I usually have at least one either wack into me or fly into the saw blade when I'm cutting patio blocks.  Not sure if they're trying to run me off or mate with me.

The plans next week are more of the same. Today, we're off to a barbecue at the Moose Lodge and will likely hang out there most of the day. Tomorrow is supposed to be a work day at the Lodge, but I might beg off. I would love to get more patio block on the ground instead of in piles, and get the rest of the Yuk!! off all the old patio blocks.

So We've Been a Little Busy....

We didn't fall off the earth or anything; it's just been a little hectic around here with multiple projects going all at once, keeping me off the internet and outside mostly grubbing in the dirt.

Working on the neighbor's place. He's using a walker now and fell at least twice on the uneven patio blocks last winter. I decided to surprise him by leveling everything up and tying it all in to our blocks.

The ground goes every which way; trying to make everything match up.

Locking everything in around the neighbor's shed with concrete.

The patio blocks for the last four rows of blocks on our neighbor's side all stacked and waiting for me to get to it.

In addition to that, we finally got our siding put on and new, shiny white skirting. It really makes the trailer look like someplace someone would want to live.

Starting on the south side. The stuff goes up quick and as much as I dislike vinyl siding, I guess it looks pretty good.

Tricky part in the back; one big reason we hired this done.

The shed had to be rolled out then rolled back into place. It sounded hard, but actually went pretty smoothly.

We took a short break from projects over the weekend to pick up my niece and her husband at the Tampa airport, hang with them Friday evening, then drop them off Saturday at the port for their five-day cruise. It took all our collective willpower to not get on the ship with them.

Courtney and Joe

Getting to the port Saturday morning was a bit of an adventure. We'd been there before and we had found it simply by following signs; no AAA Triptik, no GPS, nothing. And no problem; we drove right up, parked, got on the ship. Easy. This time, however, was a problem. First, we were coming in from the hotel we spent Friday night at instead of I-4, so we picked up a AAA Triptik. Big mistake. The Triptik got us off the expressway one exit too early, but sometimes that turns out better. Not this time. The big issue was a little thing called Comic Con that was happening at the convention center. Our Triptik took us right past the front door. You would think people who do such things for a living would be aware of a major event in their city, but I guess that's expecting too much. But we got through that part without too much damage other than taking over half an hour to drive less than a mile. Then the Triptik just went off the rails. We never could find the turn it wanted us to make. After another wasted half hour circling around trying to find a non-existent road, we pulled out the GPS. And then another problem: We had no address, and the Port of Tampa wasn't pre-programmed in. Luckily, one of our passengers was able to dig up an address on their smart phone and off we went. The GPS took us down some fairly weird places, but we ended up right where we needed to be. Score one for the crazy lady in the box.

After we dropped off the lucky stiffs who were going on the cruise, we headed back out following our GPS. We made one turn and we knew exactly where we were from our last trip down. There was zero Comic Con traffic and we were on I-4 and headed home in a matter of minutes. We've been using AAA Triptiks for decades and have never had an issue with them before. I have no idea why we got so screwed up, but lesson learned. From now on, we don't leave the driveway without a physical address to plug into the GPS which will be the primary direction-giver with the Triptiks as a backup.

Oh, and because we didn't already have enough going on, I decided that while I was loading up scrap metal into the Durango, I would go ahead and ditch the old patio swing and the gazebo that were left here by our predecessors. The swing had no cushion and a new one would have cost over a hundred dollars. We found a swing for $150 at Lowes that we really liked, so we'll pick that up later this week after some of the other projects are done. The gazebo frame was in pretty bad shape and wasn't properly anchored, but the canvas was in good shape. We thought we could get a few years out of it, until a tree limb took out one side a couple weeks ago. So down that came today. I like the result; it really opens up a space that looked kinda junky. We'll plop the new swing out there along with a couple big planters full of plants and make it all purty.

OK, so still a little trashy. And all those patio blocks look like work.

Well, it looks like the siding guys are wrapping up for the day, so I should make sure they're all set.

And yes, the awnings now look even more hideous than before. We'll get to those after the rainy season.

Revisiting Old Themes

One of the things about having a blog that has been running more-or-less constantly for over nine years is that going back through the archives, I can see where I get stuck on a theme for a while, then drop it and get onto some other track for a while, lose interest, rinse and repeat. Some subjects get revisited from time to time, like education, which I never seem to get tired of bashing endlessly. If anyone pays attention to our reading list over there on the right, you would notice that I have been on that kick again, thanks to the Underground Grammarian. It's always fertile ground; the root of so many of our other problems. It's the "gift" that keeps on giving.

Anyway, that's not the theme I'm revisiting. Instead, evolution, a theme from way back in the dark ages, resurfaced in a completely unexpected place. In July, 2005, I finally came out publicly with something I had figured out several years earlier: the church denomination I had belonged to for nearly all my life was just flat out wrong. I went on for over a year about how evolutionary theory was right and young-earth creationism was not. Then I just stopped because, a) I got bored with it like I do with everything else; b) anything that could possibly be said on the subject has already been said (see here and here); and c) if logical arguments worked, no one would play Powerball, let alone drive the jackpot up to half a billion dollars twice in three months.

Then John Michael Greer had to go and write three brilliant posts as part of a larger discussion on the decline of the American empire:

The Quest for a Common Language
On the Far Side of Progress
Not Written in the Stars

If you read those and feel like you're jumping into the middle of a conversation, you are. JMG's current series started on February 15, 2012 with his post, The Nature of Empire. There's a mere 75 posts in the series running in the 2,000- to 2,500-word range, if you wish to get the full picture. (Seriously, if you have the time, it's worth doing.) Or you can wait for the book to come out. JMG's blog is his first rough draft of what becomes his published books. Or you can just read those three posts and live with the feeling that you're missing something. Or go play Candy Crush Saga.

The point is that those three posts have prodded me to look around at some old web sites and do some thinking about things I haven't thought about in a long time. I'm not sure that they will result in posts (other than this one) given that I doubt I could ever come close to JMG's level of writing, but don't be surprised if something crops up from time to time.

Other than that, nothing to really report. We're both down with some sort of summer crud that is stealing sleep and sapping energy. I was going to bang out some landscaping today, but instead ended up doing inside work and reading more books on how bad our schools suck. Maybe I'll get something accomplished tomorrow, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

Little Anniversary Trip

We decided to take a break from all things RV park and spend a few days over on the Gulf coast at Madeira Beach:

Not much to report other than three days of sitting by the pool, walking the beach, playing in the waves and catching up on a truck-load of reading.

Now it's back to reality: lawn needs mowing, gardens need weeding, grass needs trimming....

Ugh.

More Yard Work

The rain has slacked off a bit, so I was able to get the rest of our first load of 100 patio blocks laid:

The siding guys are supposed to be here next week sometime, so that will put an end to my patio block laying until they get done. Just as well; messing with this has meant neglecting everything else for the last few weeks. Them being in my way will give me a chance to do some cleaning on other areas that really need it.

Well, dinner ain't gonna make itself.