So... What are YOU doing? - Part 6

[NewCreation435]

Watching the news before my morning counseling session with a client

 

[tango]

Laundry fun! The dryer at the laundromat didn't even heat up (ice cold) and I only was credited for half the change I put in. The owner of the place got all snarky with a guy who said he may not be back in the 20-minute time it took for his laundry to complete the wash, so the owner said if he was late taking it out it would be placed in the dryer and the guy would be charged. The guy was incredulous (but not rude) and questioned the owner about it - the place is empty, mind you. Owner sticks to his guns and tells the guy he can't ever come back. This is the same owner who questioned me one time why I was asking for so many quarters for my wash/dry. I felt like telling him "because I'm an adult and I know what I need for my freakin' laundry!" It wasn't a lot.

Seriously? The owner complains at you taking quarters so you can put them into the machines he operates? Is he trying to drive himself out of business or something?

Seems like an invitation to get yourself a machine of your own so you don't have to deal with this idiot any more.

 

[tango]

I woke up with a thumping headache. The sort of headache I'd expect if I'd had a heavy night on the beer, except without actually having any beer at all. I had thought of having a beer last night but now I'm really glad I didn't. I think I just needed to drink more water yesterday. So the first thing I did today was head out to the bathroom to visit the medicine cabinet and take two tylenol.

Yesterday was a generous helping of Fun With Walls. I figured there were gaps in the wall behind the end of a walk-in closet, which is frustrating because it has become the kind of go-to place for stuff to be stored indefinitely and it's hard to get to the back of it. But I moved enough things out of the way that I could get to the end, cleared the stuff under the lowest shelf (of course, there are shelves against the wall I need to rip apart) and gently pulled down the lath-and-plaster wall under the lowest shelf. And there, looking back at me, were no less than 12 gaps in the brickwork. This is in a space about three feet by five feet. Getting at them at all was tricky, there were four of them that I just couldn't get at with my trowel - so I had to mix up the cement and press it into place with my fingers. Now 10 of them are filled, and two have fiberglass stuffed into them while I figure out how best to fix them. Looking at thermal images it looks like I've got a really cold spot further up, so for now I'm going to stuff fiberglass all around the open spaces to contain the cold as best I can.

I had planned to continue the work this morning but with a headache like this I can't see that happening.

 

[Cassia]

I woke up with a thumping headache. The sort of headache I'd expect if I'd had a heavy night on the beer, except without actually having any beer at all. I had thought of having a beer last night but now I'm really glad I didn't. I think I just needed to drink more water yesterday. So the first thing I did today was head out to the bathroom to visit the medicine cabinet and take two tylenol.

Yesterday was a generous helping of Fun With Walls. I figured there were gaps in the wall behind the end of a walk-in closet, which is frustrating because it has become the kind of go-to place for stuff to be stored indefinitely and it's hard to get to the back of it. But I moved enough things out of the way that I could get to the end, cleared the stuff under the lowest shelf (of course, there are shelves against the wall I need to rip apart) and gently pulled down the lath-and-plaster wall under the lowest shelf. And there, looking back at me, were no less than 12 gaps in the brickwork. This is in a space about three feet by five feet. Getting at them at all was tricky, there were four of them that I just couldn't get at with my trowel - so I had to mix up the cement and press it into place with my fingers. Now 10 of them are filled, and two have fiberglass stuffed into them while I figure out how best to fix them. Looking at thermal images it looks like I've got a really cold spot further up, so for now I'm going to stuff fiberglass all around the open spaces to contain the cold as best I can.

I had planned to continue the work this morning but with a headache like this I can't see that happening.

It doesn’t sound a good day for Pink Floyd.

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Waking up, thinking about breakfast.

Sent from my SM-J337V using Tapatalk

 

[tango]

It doesn’t sound a good day for Pink Floyd.

It certainly wasn't a good morning for Pink Floyd. Although there are plenty of bricks in the wall, a disturbing number of them aren't well mortared into place.

 

[tango]

At the moment I'm contemplating how to fix up another curious issue with my wall. The house has a curious angle in the outside wall and it looks like the inside of it has been kinda-sorta-hacked, with the outer face of the brick cemented into place and a gap on the inside. When I first saw the inside of it I really thought I had a space with no brickwork at all, but a cursory glance at the outside dispelled that concern. Now I just need to figure out how to fix it up on the inside, for insulation and soundproofing purposes. As at right now I physically can't get at it, I'm hoping that changes when I pull down walls in the adjacent room. But that room is our living room, so pulling down that wall isn't happening for a while.

I'm also thinking I might as well take the hit and fix the entirety of the wall behind the walk-in closet. It's a royal pain having to find new homes for everything in there, even if only temporarily, but the advantages of stopping drafts seems like it's worth it. Then, when it warms up a bit, I can see if I can get a ladder against the outside of the house and fix up the gaps in the mortar on the outside.

Earlier today my wife and I went to visit a bazaar at a nearby church. Before we even got there it was less than impressive - a very makeshift sign at the end of the road that wasn't holding its own against the rain very well. Then when we got inside there were 9 vendors, and 4 of them were direct sales reps. When a church bazaar has that many direct sales reps they might as well just give up on it.

 

[Lamb]

Aw, tango, those kind of bazaars are bizarre I stopped going to a lot of these craft shows because they're the same people over and over selling the same wares.

 

[tango]

Aw, tango, those kind of bazaars are bizarre I stopped going to a lot of these craft shows because they're the same people over and over selling the same wares.

Sometimes you literally see the same people selling the same stuff. That said I don't mind seeing the same vendors as long as their wares are hand crafted, if there is something of the vendor in the product. When all you have is the Scentsy rep, the Paparazzi rep, the Lularoe rep, the Usborne Books rep, the Pampered Chef rep etc, as you say it's just the same old stuff and the individual rep isn't adding any value to the process - it just seems to be the latest fad where you just hope none of your friends are left holding the metaphorical baby when the fad passes. My wife and I know a lady who became a Lularoe rep, and as some of the local reps have given up on it she's bought their stock. Last I heard she had "thousands" of pieces in her stock so I can only assume she's got somewhere north of $10-15k invested in this stuff. I hope for her sake she can shift it before that fad wanes but frankly I'm not all that optimistic - even now it seems there are fewer Lularoe reps at local shows and bazaars.

A few craft vendors I know simply don't go to shows if they are open to direct sales reps. As one guy put it, he's quite happy with competition as long as it's fair competition. If you're making things yourself, putting your own time and effort into it, it's hard to compete with someone who just opens another box from a Mexican sweatshop and dumps the contents out onto a table. At something more like a craft show a lot of the visitors want something that isn't mass produced but at something like a church bazaar often the visitors are sensitive to price first and foremost.

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Eating tacos and watching stuff with Jordan.

 

[Lamb]

Feeling tired because I just got up. I have a lot of knitting to do today.

 

[tango]

Thinking today might be more productive than yesterday. Yesterday was about as unproductive as it's possible to be - church in the morning, then a long nap in my recliner followed by doing very little. I got some code written in the evening but that was an exercise in annoyance. The routine I was trying to call looked simple enough but it kept returning an error value that wasn't on the list of possible error values. It turned out I'd mistyped one character in the password string. Funnily enough, when I sent it the correct password it worked first time.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

It'll be an interesting day at work - long story. We lost a co-worker to an overdose on Saturday and some rather unpleasant things were said by someone about having to come in for a staff debrief (not me). He didn't take kindly to my asking how he was doing, either. I let him have it later ("I'm doing fine, by the way, thanks for asking!") and left. Prayers for me to keep my cool would be appreciated. I've asked to meet with my coordinator first thing today to 'debrief' a bit with her instead. Saturday was just screwed up.

 

[tango]

More fun with walls for me today. I had thought about how to enclose the space behind the walk-in closet to contain the cold but decided I might as well just hit it head-on. That means finding new homes for everything on three shelves. I cleared two shelves, removed the shelves, and took the wall down behind them. Then I realised that more dust than was acceptable was getting around the gap in the wall to my desk where my laptop is. So I went out and bought a can of compressed air to blow the dust out from the keyboard before I need to turn it on, and used a couple of garbage bags to act as dust shields. Trying to tape them into place was impossible because I needed one hand to hold it in place and two hands to apply the tape. Thankfully Mr Nailgun came to the rescue and secured the garbage bags in place. Just to be safe I put a dust sheet over the laptop and remote keyboard.

When I was looking at getting the top shelf cleared off I had a sinking feeling. That was when I realised the rail that hangs a load of seldom-used coats is nailed to that shelf. So the entire hanging rail and everything on it has to come down. I'm struggling to find places to keep everything at the moment - it might be a temporary measure but it's proving troublesome.

Behind the section I've pulled down I've found a number of gaps, some of them quite big. I'm going to need to cut some more strips off a concrete block to fill the bigger ones. And of course one larger gap is behind a wall stud, just to keep things interesting. I'm not yet sure how I'm going to deal with that. It might be time for a can of building foam to be deployed.

Before I deal with the hanging rail and the large gaps (don't really want to run my angle grinder in the dark and cold, and certainly don't want to run it indoors given it's not absolutely necessary) I'll fix up the smaller gaps and stuff some fiberglass into the bigger ones. One of the large holes is in almost the exact space I expected to find something nasty, given the thermal images of the wall before I pulled it down.

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Watching Netflix with a friend while she crochets.

 

[tango]

12 more gaps in the wall filled with cement. Much cement over my fingers as I had to fill three with a combination of fingers and the point of the trowel. Still hate doing them that way but it's the only way that works for some. Three large holes plugged with fiberglass. More holes discovered behind the last remaining section but I can't get at that without moving a hanging rail and another shelf loaded with stuff.

Guess what I'll have to look forward to tomorrow?

It already feels warmer in that closet. Once I pulled parts of the wall down it felt much colder and every once in a while I could feel a sudden draft coming through one or other of the gaps. As I filled them, so the drafts became stronger through the remaining gaps. Hopefully tomorrow I can get the ladder in there and fill in the rest of the gaps. If nothing else it will help keep the study warmer. Once the gaps I can get at with cement are filled it will be time for building foam so I can fill the ones that are less reachable. Then hopefully I can let that section sit for a while, put the shelves back in even if there's no wall behind them, and put some of the stuff back in the closet so it's out of the way. That would certainly count as progress.

 

[tango]

Clothes moved to a new (temporary) location. Hanging rail removed. Top shelf cleared. Ladder more or less in place. Time for lunch and then a push to pull down some more of the wall. The unheated room was at 52 degrees this morning, after a night of temperatures at or slightly below freezing. It's cold in there but already a lot less drafty, which makes a huge difference. Hopefully by the time I've finished fixing the remaining issues with that section of wall it won't be so cold at all.

It has been a real drag getting this piece of work done but hopefully by the time it's done it will be worth it. Last year's work saved several hundred dollars in heating costs already and I'm hoping this work will add another several hundred to it. And of course the real beauty of it all is that the savings accumulate every year. When I started the project my goal was to cut our heating oil usage by a third. Now my goal is to have cut it in half and I suspect I may be able to achieve more than that by the time the whole project is done.

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Just got done with an appointment. Thinking about taking a nap.

 

[tango]

More fun with walls this afternoon. Now all the gaps I can get at are filled. I've used another entire 10lb bucket of cement mix, all for the sake of a section of wall about four feet by eight feet. Now just about all the drafts are gone. Tomorrow I get to play with a can of foam to fill a couple of other gaps that currently have fiberglass in them. Hopefully I can enjoy a warmer study this winter. Last winter it sometimes went as low as 45. Currently it's holding steady at 55. Still a bit chilly, but not as bad as last year.

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Waiting for my pizza to finish cooking.