Tag: home owner

Lunch Time Post

Hello and welcome to today’s lunch break blog post.  Enjoy!

There is a lot of stuff going on today.

Last weekend I found two scary looking problems in our cellar.  We have a water leak somewhere and it’s ending up underneath the floor tiles.  It doesn’t seem like a lot of water, but it’s damaging the tiles a little.  I think I know where it’s coming from but I need to get a plumber in to look at it.  While I was investigating that I noticed that some of the HVAC duct that runs along the basement ceiling was actually coming apart.  There was one spot where the duct was detached from the ceiling and it looked really, really scary.  It looked like the ceiling wanted to collapse.  That’s not in any way what was going to happen, but that’s how it looked.

So step one is get the scary looking duct checked out and step two is bring the plumber back.  The HVAC folks came this morning just before I punched in to work.  All set.  It was just a couple of brackets that popped lose and there was nothing wrong with duct itself.  Sigh of relief.  The problem was fixed, some extra support was added, and life is good.

While the guy was here working I heard from my step son that he left his insulin pod at home.  Yikes!  I told him I’d bring it to him once the tech left.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find it.  I looked everywhere.  He said maybe it was in his car and he went out to look.  Nope, not in the car.  I ripped the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, and his bedroom apart.  Nothing.  Where the hell is it?  I retraced my steps and looked everywhere again and finally found it.  It seems like he kicked it way under his bed.  All set.  I had to take a little personal time off from work while I drove up to the high school but that was okay.

When I got to the high school it was a little weird.  A police car followed me into the parking lot.  I don’t mean that to sound ominous, we were just driving along and he just happened to be behind me.  No big deal.  I parked in the front parking lot and he parked in the driveway… next to another police car.  Okay, two cops.  I then noticed that across the lot from me there were two more police cars.  Okay, four cops.  Was something going on?

I don’t think so.  The two parked in the driveway walked into the building together and they were super casual.  Just two coworkers hanging out.  I didn’t see the two cops from the parking lot, but no one inside was acting like anything out of the ordinary was going on.  I wonder if there was a D.A.R.E presentation or something.  Still, given the atmosphere in our country these days, seeing a bunch of cops at the high school was a little bit unsettling.

152/365 - Why so many cops at the high school? I saw these two and two others.

Back to the house, I pulled into the driveway and parked as close to the house as I could.  With a snowbank still on the side of the road, we are parking three cars into a driveway that is more or less exactly the length of the three cars end to end.  We need to park as close together as we can.  No wasted space.

I think I could have gotten a little closer today.

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And that’s my day so far. Fascinating, eh? Still need to schedule something with the plumber. It will likely be for next Thursday because telecommuting makes stuff like this easy.

Oh yeah, and I setup a trello board for RPM2020.

Tonight’s plans include making dinner for Jen and Harry, WATCHING PICARD EPISODE TWO (SQUEEEE!!!!!), and practicing the effin’ guitar!

HoHoHo, everyone.  Hope your day is going well.  Happy lunch break!

Home Owner Moments

The date was August 9, 2010.  My beloved wife and I were house hunting.  Given that I am a total Masshole, we were looking at houses in towns that bordered New Hampshire, as the kids’ dad lived in Salem and we wanted the drive time between houses to be manageable.

We were looking at a house in Methuen that was out of the way and kind of in the woods, which is odd for a city like Methuen.  It had a nice little back yard that I was kind of taken with, and a little patio area that reminded me a little bit of the house I grew up in.  They had nice looking patio furniture, and a fire pit, and a gas grill.  I was really taken with the scene.

I took this picture with my phone during that first viewing.
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Long story short, we moved in a couple months later.  Every year when the weather starts getting nice I announce to the family, This is the Year We Buy Patio Furniture… and every year we don’t do it.

Or do we?  I am not going to give out any spoilers or anything, but this might be the year.  No promises, of course… but this might be the year.

Cross your fingers and hope it happens.  Hopefully we’ll be having cookouts on the patio. I’ll let you all know when I get more information.

The One Where I Become Gozer the Destroyer

I am the destructor, the destroyer of worlds.  I bend nature to my every whim and control the lives of the lesser with fury and vengeance.

I posted a picture of a bird nest the other day.  Two little sparrows were building a home in the light fixture above our back steps.  They could do this because last winter the cold air resulted in two of the four pains of glass shattering.  They were a happy little bird family, just starting their new lives together and building a home for themselves, and maybe down the line they would hear the pitter patter of little bird feet.

Then came the destructor.

Last night Jen was home.  She had the outside light on for a while, as we usually do when not everyone is home.  It’s hard to see to unlock the door from the outside if the light is off, so we often just leave it on.  Unfortunately yesterday she happened to catch sight of a little piece of the bird nest as it started to smolder.  Well, that’s not good!  She turned off the light and left it off.  Good move, lovey!

Our house has two front doors.  One is to the side of the house, near the garage, and right at the top of the driveway.  That’s the one we use.  That’s also the one with the nest.  I call it the back door, but it is in no way anywhere even closely related to the back.  The other is right smack in the middle of the front of the house and bisects the living room and the dining room.  We do not use that door.  In fact, the desk where I am sitting at this very moment is next to that door, and I have it blocked with a little tray table that I use as an extension of said desk.

Both doors have the same light fixture.  This morning, a footstool, flat head screwdriver, and I all went outside to force our evil will upon nature.  I knocked on the light a few times to wake up any unsuspecting sparrows.  No one was home.  I then removed the light fixture.

I gotta admit, I was nervous.  I know it’s only been a couple of days, but I was afraid there would be eggs in the nest.  Even a bringer of destruction and doom like me would feel bad about killing babies.  Fortunately, the nest was empty.  Truthfully, it’s probably been empty since it almost caught on fire.  Birds are smarter than people in some (all) ways, right?

Next, I swapped the side door light fixture with the front door light fixture.  We can now use the light over the door we actually use, and the birds can use the light over the door we never use, which implies that we never use the light either.  If the birds can find the thing, of course.  I know they can fly down South for the winter, but I don’t know if they can navigate the 15 yards from one door to the next.

So there you have it, folks.  I am like Gozer from Ghostbusters.  I am the destroyer.  I bent the natural world to suit my own selfish needs (and by selfish needs I mean, please don’t burn down our house, you stupid birds).

I hope they find the new location and rebuild the nest.  I was hoping for baby birds this year.

Was that a bird chirping right outside the door I just heard?

The Time Has Come

The time has officially come. The grass needs to be mowed.

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I had to literally dig the lawn mower out of the garage. All of the supplies for the bathroom remodeling job are in the garage now. We had planned to have it finished by the New Year. Whoops. That means all of the Spring time stuff is buried.

I was able to dig a path and get the mower out onto the drive way. Win #1. Then it started on the third pull. Win #2. Then I started mowing. 52 minutes later (approximately) the whole front and back yards were done. The whole thing. In less than an hour. I haven’t achieved a feat like that since I was a teenager. Where the hell did that come from?

Now my beloved wife and I are sitting in the living room. Every window and door on the first floor is currently open and the gorgeous spring breeze is blowing through the whole house. It’s perfect. I’m actually thinking of taking my guitar outside and working on some new song ideas. After the winter we just went though I want to spend as much time outside as I can!

Weeding the Gutters

We had a tree growing in our rain gutter.

No, really. It was about three feet tall and branching out like crazy. We had a debate in the house over what to do with it. I was all for letting it grow to its full potential and provide us with extra shade in the front yard on hot summer days.

How’d you think that flew?

So today I had to buy a ladder so that I could get up to the gutters to pull out the four foot tall oak tree thriving on top of our house. I went with an eight foot step ladder because it would fit in my father’s van which we are borrowing while our CRV is repaired after last week’s hit and run (more like hit just barely hard enough to do a little damage and slowly drive away). Anything larger (and safer) wouldn’t have fit. I got some bungie chords too, on the off chance it stuck out enough to keep the door from closing. It didn’t.

When I got home from Lowes I hid in the corner of the living room in the hopes that my beloved wife would think that just buying a ladder was enough and that the five foot tall tree sprouting out of our house would get scared and magically relocate itself.

How’d you think that flew?

So out I go. Up the ladder. Boy there sure are a lot of leaves in the gutter. Now I want to get one of those iRobot rain gutter cleaners. How much ass would that kick? Anyway. There were a few weeds growing out of the decaying leaves. I gave ’em a yank and dropped them onto the ground, ever hopeful that I would hit a squirrel. No luck. Eventually I got the six foot tall tree. I had an axe and a two person saw. Actually, I was wearing a checkered flannel lumberjack/grunge rocker shirt just for luck.

It wasn’t a seven foot tree. It was a weed. About 18 inches tall.

Now it’s a dead weed.

Success! Who’s the rooftop gardening king, babie??

I am the Angel of Death (in Some Circles)

I took a picture of a snake in the cellar last night. It was dead. I left it there with the intention of getting rid of it this morning.

There is a snow shovel in the cellar. Why? Because once I found a live garter snake and I used a snow shovel to kill it. Now, so long as the shovel is not needed in the driveway, it stays in the cellar. I grabbed our broom and took it downstairs with the plan to sweep the corpse onto the shovel, dump it into a trash barrel, and then take the barrel outside. I had to walk over to the other end of the cellar to get the shovel. As I was heading over to the laundry area, where last night’s dead sucker was decaying, I walked behind the couch.

There was another one.

Mutha Puss Bucket!

Was it dead? I don’t know. It wasn’t moving. What do I do? I reached out with the broom and poked it. It was alive all right. It took off for a hiding place, but I used the broom to sweep it back out into the open, where I bashed it with the shovel. SLAM! It wasn’t all the way dead, but it was broken enough that it didn’t matter. Sweep sweep, scoop scoop, it’s in the trash. Sweep sweep, scoop scoop, last night’s bastard was in the trash.

Now I’m paranoid. I went wandering around, looking for more of the little s.o.b’s. Turns out there was this thing that I thought was a twisty tie (the cat LOVES to play with twisty ties) in a corner that turned out to be another dead one. I first saw it a couple of days ago but didn’t think anything of it. Sweep sweep, scoop scoop, carry the barrel outside and deposit three little home invaders.

I should also add that last weekend while I was mowing the grass I happened to see one slithering along the edge of the patio. Garter snakes are easier to kill with a lawn mower than with a shovel, I’ll tell you that for nothing. I left the corpse behind, figuring some animal would make use of it. The next day I took a look and it was gone.

I’m going to assume that it was the screwy weather last night that brought two of them into the open. I’m also going to assume that the very, very cold cellar floor will put and end to all of those that do come out of hiding. If not that, then the cat. Those that do show themselves and somehow manage to survive will have to face me and my shovel. From the garter snake’s point of view, I am the angel of death. I am the back breaker. I am the head smasher. I am snakey heaven’s justice.

(if you are a garter snake) Don’t mess with me.

Lawn Mower

The first lawn mower we had at this house was given to us by Jen’s mother and step father. It was excellent for the first year, but when I brought it out for year two something broke off (I can’t remember exactly) and it would no longer start.

We went out and bought a new mower for year two. It was a self propelled push mower. It had balls so big that it didn’t cut the grass, it terrified the grass so badly that the grass cut itself. It was also heavy and the handle was just low enough to make my ridiculously tall self have to bend over a little. Only a little, but enough that my back hurt like hell after each mowing. It worked well for year two in the new house, but when I took it out for year three it wouldn’t start (are you seeing a pattern?). It was probably just the spark plug or something dumb like that, but I couldn’t get the damn thing out to try and change it. I don’t have a socket long enough, and every time I tried to get one it would be just wrong enough to not help.

So for year three I borrowed a mower from my father. He had a new one and I took his old one. It was a small push mower that was very light. The handle was as low as my super mower but the thing overall was so light it didn’t result in back pain. That one wouldn’t start either, but it wasn’t designed by assholes and I was able to change the spark plug all by my self (like a big boy). It worked swimmingly all through year three and for the first two mows of year four (this year).

Then two weeks ago I tried to start it. It chugged weakly for a few seconds and conked out. That was it. No more mowing for that puppy. Last Thursday I took it to a small engine shop in Methuen. Today I picked it up. All better. It runs, it had a tune up, and it had it’s blade sharpened (which is good because with all the leaves in the back yard I tend to abuse those blades).

When I came home today my first thought was, “WOOHOO the mower is fixed!”

Then I thought about it for a minute and considered the implications on my weekend.

Crap, the lawn mower is fixed.

Trash Barrel Success

I did it. I faked out the residents of back yard wild kingdom.

A couple of months ago I bought two new outside garbage barrels. Big suckers with lids and everything. While cleaning the garage I moved them from their winter home, the garage, to their summer home, outside next to the garage. We went a whole week with trash in the new barrels and not a single animal made it through the lids.

Success!

At least until the squirrels decide to gnaw their way though, of course. Until then… Success!