Thursday, November 14, 2013

Thursday, Just Like Yesterday...Only Different.

Up at 7, read scattered email of slight importance, seek cats for solace, find cats, get coffee, play a game of chess with some unknown player who beat me soundly.  I'm brilliant, then stupid at chess.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE "The Game".  Played it since I was a mere enfant (French for "child").  Highest I ever got was mid 1700's...then I fell off and back, apparently not soon to rise to that lofty place of True Heroes.  Now I struggle, especially at my end game play.  Stupidity reigns supreme.
I study chess problems and mostly figure them out...takes a bit longer these days.  Stupidity takes a much shorter time.

Off to Lowe's this am to get downspout parts, a couple of plugs for the now open ends of the new gutters and the guards to keep out leaves and such.  We have a plethora of trees about, oaks, ficus, beech etc. All drop copious amounts of leaves, especially now in the fall.  Back...I painted the fascia and placed a hanger, ripped off a section around the western side so I could get a downspout in that location before the rains come and slow my progress to a standstill.

Then on the gold coat I photographed yesterday for the eBay business I could not locate the bloody mfr. label.   Kelly saw that in the photos when she looked through them in prep to put the item on for sale and I went upstairs to photo the label and move it to our server.  A busy guy IU am...and now I'm about to debone a chicken, make stuffing and BBQ it.  How 'bout that!

Bye for now, I'm trying after all...

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

A Wednesday In Sunny November

51 degrees when I arrived at the laptop, the reading coming from Travis AFB about 5 miles from here, pretty close I'd say.  A bit warm for beer but with a sweatshirt on I'm comfortable INSIDE.  We have managed after many seasons of what goes for Winter in our climate here in California to turn the thermostat DOWN to a comfy 65 degrees F  or 18 degrees C.  Just warm enough that with a layer or three one can comfortably sit down and read the morning paper or type on a damned laptop.  No frost on the leaves yet, but it's coming, maybe by Thanksgiving.

In a while I'll stop doing this and tred upstairs to do a bit of clothing photography for our eBay sales.  Kelly is off this morning early (about an hour ago) to acquire some more stock for the site.  Every week she makes the trek and through much searching and mulling over finds and purchases all manner of ladies (mostly) clothing from boutiques, large chain stores and outlets.  She then cleans them, presses them and preps them for ME!  Yes...I do the photos and the transfer to our server for the minions at eBay around the world to drool over.  I like my job, it's challenging and interesting and I've learned MUCH about women's clothing over the years.   Here's the site url:

Kell's eBay Site

After the photo session it's back at the exterior house fix-up, chapter 101, "The Gutters".  The worse part is removing the old rotten ones as they were NAILED into place, not sexy at all!  Screwing is the Way!  So pulling nails or cutting the heads off is done and then the offending ancient gutter material has to be ripped from the fascia to fall to the ground like a collapsing bridge and spew it's not-so-lovely contents all over the garden.  Wonderful!  Then it's scrape the fascia, fill the nail holes, repaint with the white acrylic then place and SCREW into the fascia the hangers for the new gutter material and prep the ends of the new gutter and fasten it onto the hangers. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

So off to work I go, see you later with a report.

A November Hummingbird

 
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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

New Post, New Post, New Post...So What?!

Well sooner or later I HAD to get back to posting on my blog.  You know...that guilt of putting-things-off and then...it continues.  Between burying Furr-Rr-Eee, painting the house many greys, replacing the damned DSL modem, repairing the picket fence, feeding too many Kats, BEING dAD to too many kittens etc. etc.  All that and the angst of olde moldy age and you have a supreme wrap-up of the last period in yours truly's life.  Those and the answered emails, the new dinners researched and cooked,  and the most time wasting of all...FACEBOOK!

So today, boys and girls, the house gutters are being replaced by my little self.  It is NOT a pleasant job in that the existing ones have to be pried off the house and are filled with enough raccoon shit to fertilize a mid-sized farmer's field.  Yes, they live "upstairs", on the roof over the bedroom.  We heard them at night doing whatever raccoons do.  Well they doo-doo frequently at various locations on the roof.  Wind and rain shuttle the lovely turds here and there until they are swept into the gutters.
Leaves clog all gutters unless you have those that have a ventilated cover and thus the water flow is too slow to send the offending shit along to the down spout and out to rest in the garden.  Oh well.
So these gutters are being replaced after some 18 years of service, not bad...but they have been leaking on the north side for the last w-h-I-l-e if you get my drift.  The new ones are plastic, vinyl actually, tough as nails, light and fairly easy to install.  I have many feet to do.  Yesterday I cut my first piece about 7 feet, installed three hangers in the appropriate spots and spent the next 20 minutes pushing the damned gutter into place on the hangers...not an easy task.  More today.

It looks like rain.  Dark clouds in the north and nearly no wind to speak of. 

Suisun City, CA
A shower this morning
Today
A shower this morning
High 73°
Mainly clear
Tonight
Mainly clear
Low 47°
Sunny and beautiful
Wednesday
Sunny and beautiful
High 74°
Low 47°
Partly sunny
Thursday
Partly sunny
High 74°
Low 47°
Breezy in the morning; sunny
Friday
Breezy in the morning; sunny
High 70°
Low 45°
Mostly sunny
Saturday
Mostly sunny
High 67°
Low 40°

                                   

Not too bad of a guess.

Mosquito Meeting tonight.  I'm a Trustee remember?

Bye for now!