Dead Tired.....

My Mom's Birthday was Wednesday so I decided to make a quick run up to
Modesto that morning. Left the house at 5 AM arrived at lunch time. The
new truck beat the hell out of my back and the gas bill for the trip has
doubled. But my mom was glad to see me, especially when I handed here a
slice of triple chocolate cheesecake from Marie Callendars. She lives in
a nursing home North of Modesto.

I had to remind her about my move to Ohio. She cried.

I left about 10:30 that same night and headed home. Had to catch some
sleep twice on the side of the road. I cannot drive at night. No amount
of Red Bull, Flying J coffee or sugary snacks will keep me awake. I made
it home in time to get 30 minutes or so of sleep and head back to work,
Thursday morning. How refreshing.... (sarcasm).

I kept falling asleep on the 91 Freeway parking lot. I hate that. So do
all the people behind me too.

When I got home Thursday I had to catch a little more shut-eye.

I crashed on the couch in front of my half eaten Del Taco bean burrito.
When I woke up at 8:30 pm it was too late to work on the roof so I ate
the rest of my burrito and drank the remaining bit of warm beer.
Then I went to prepping my now stripped Study.

Did you know that 50 year old paint just slides off the base boards when
you hit it with a scraper? So now my study, which looks like a snow
storm hit it because of the hole patching, has nekid base boards.

Should be able to start painting this weekend. And start stripping the
roof over the garage. And dump the trailer load of old carpet and tile
at the dump and do some yard work.

I am beat. Alcoholism is looking much better as a life goal.

7-13-2009 - The Heat is Staggering

The screams, like finger nails on a chalk board, were tearing my brain
into sinewy pieces. I stood up and threatened them with my tape measure,
yelling at my neighbors to quit having so much fun in their swimming
pool. They looked at me like I was a wet sasquatch and then continued to
ignore me while they played in the pool.

The new plywood deck is about 3/4's complete. The temperature in the
shade of my patio reached 115 degrees on Saturday and on Sunday it
exceeded 110. I have a new sunburn on half my chest and the top of my
Buddha Belly. Not even the hair will cover the glowing red patches up.
Maybe I should start applying Rogain to my chest.

James helped me load the plywood onto the roof - thank God. The
reflection off of the plywood made it hard to see the deck so I was
forced to wear my safety sunglasses which would fill up with sweat. What
a pain. I felt like a wet rag. If I left my hammer or my tape measure in
the sun they quickly became too hot to pickup so I chase the shade from
my Silver Maple to sit down, drink, rest and park my tools.

I fixed the gaping hole left by the roof rot and bug damage. I had to
replace/sister three of the rafters tails and replace about 12 square
feet of deck. The repairs take longer than doing the normal roof work
which really sets me behind. This is because I am constantly going from
the roof to the chop saw and back to the roof again. The rafter tails
are 1/2" thinner than a standard 2X6 so all the replacement wood had to
be ripped and then when it came time to matching the new tails to the
old tails I found that the wood from 1959 was a little over 1/8th inch
thicker. This meant that I had to not only rip the new wood but plane
the old wood to match. Never mind.... I can keep going on and on about
what a pain this is.

Having the new chop saw really saves time though. I finally had to break
down and purchase a new cordless drill. The batteries for my 12V Ryobi
refused to take a charge - even after spending $16.00 for a new charger
- the old one had no power. Sears came to the rescue with a 19.2V,
3/8ths drill driver, the $59.00 sale price was better than anything Home
Depot or Lowes was charging plus I get the Craftsman warranty.

Next Job--- complete the last 6 sheets of deck and do a complete nailing
(6 -12).... The boring part.

My New Way to Post....

This post is testing my ability to post my email to my blog so I can
update faster. I hate logging on to post.

Here is how I did it, for those of you who have never tried it:

http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41452