Sunday, September 23, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
I can tell it's fall
After a bit of a dry spell, I am once again getting buttloads of hits to my snowblower review.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
What a Storm!
I was outside today trying to get one of the projects on my never-ending list of projects done. I had spent some time debating between putting water seal/stain on the play structure or starting the concrete and mortar on the rock borders of the mulch beds. The play structure doesn't appear to ever had had water sealer applied, and the wood has gone all white and has those little black mold spots on it. I was contemplating trying to sand the whole thing with my belt sander and palm sander, but as I looked at it more closely, I decided that was crazy.
So I called up the local rental place. $50 for a pressure washer for four hours. It seemed like a lot of money, but compared to the suffering that would happen if I tried to sand this thing, it's a steal. I decided, however, that I wanted to pressure wash and then seal the next day, so I put that off until next Saturday.
Thus, it was concrete day. Now let me 'splain to you folks what exactly this project entails. See, way back in April, we started sprucing up the planting beds with fresh mulch. The previous owner of my house (RIP) was a landscape designer of sorts (not clear to me if he was professional or not), and the planting beds are a delightful combination of mulched areas, 1"-2" river stone areas, and plants. The Mrs., with her keen artist's eye for detail, decided to create stone borders around the mulch areas using the larger (6"-10") river rocks we had kind strewn around in the other rocks.
Naturally, anything that looks nice turns out to be a major pain-in-the-ass. That's why we all eventually eschew trophy wives after the first few wives. With respect to the matter at hand, the problem is where the stone border also borders the lawn. In my quest not to have to use the Weedwacker, I run my precious lawn tractor right up next to these guys. Then, they invariably tumble our of place on onto the lawn. If I'm lucky, they miss the blades. If not, well, I've gone through $72 in blades already this season. And I only replace the blades when they can't be sharpened anymore due to the extent of the damage.
So I got it into my mind that this could be fixed by laying down a bed of concrete and then mortaring the rocks to the concrete. I got this into my mind maybe 5 months ago, and I bought a a few bags of concrete and mortar. Then, of course, the trampoline project popped up. The concrete and mortar bags have been stacked up in the garage for months.
Today, I got out the concrete, a trenching shovel, the digging bar, the wheelbarrow, the concrete trowel, the concrete float, a 5 gal bucket, some metal shears, and a roll of 1/2" hardware cloth. I dug a trench about 4" deep by 4" wide, then filled it up about 3" deep with concrete. I added in some of the hardware cloth to act as rebar. I managed to do 17' of this before running out of concrete. I only had 220 lbs. of concrete. I measured up how much was left to go in this section of the yard, and it was 22'.
Then, I said the The Mrs., "I'm out of concrete. I could quit now, or I could go buy more."
She said, "There is something that needs you attention in the yard."
"What's that?"
"Well, the metal edging that you hit with the lawnmower - you really made a mess of it and managed to turn it practically into a knife blade."
"Oh. I can fix that. It just needs to get hit with a hammer."
It needed more than that. I smacked it around with a 12 lbs. sledge, and not much happened. I got out a polishing wheel for my drill, and it did nothing. So I called in the big guns.
I got out the Super Sawzall. I simply cut out the sharp parts. I left a gap of about 2' in the edging, but I didn't care because that's the part I always hit with the mower, at great expense to the blades.
The Mrs., however, was not convinced. She thought the cut edges might still be sharp.
And they were.
"I gotta go get a grinding wheel for the drill."
"From the garage?"
"No. I don't own one. I gotta go buy one at Ace."
"Oh."
So HannahC and I schlepped off to Ace. She loves it there, as they have free popcorn. After much perusal, I realized they had not a grinding wheel for a drill other than a pretty small one that was really almost a glorified Dremel Tool wheel.
This got me to thinking. Hmmm... There are very few tools I wish that I owned but don't more often than an angle grinder.
My new angle grinder makes a lot of sparks when it's grinding down the sharp edges of metal landscape edging.
As I was grinding down the sharp edges on the edging, a storm rolled in. I had to hustle to pack up all the concrete project stuff before the rain. It poured! We had thunder and lightning, and one was so close we wondered if it actually hit our house. It managed to take out our DSL and one of our satellite receivers, though both recovered after power cycling.
It was the kind of weather I love. Violent, yet brief.
So I called up the local rental place. $50 for a pressure washer for four hours. It seemed like a lot of money, but compared to the suffering that would happen if I tried to sand this thing, it's a steal. I decided, however, that I wanted to pressure wash and then seal the next day, so I put that off until next Saturday.
Thus, it was concrete day. Now let me 'splain to you folks what exactly this project entails. See, way back in April, we started sprucing up the planting beds with fresh mulch. The previous owner of my house (RIP) was a landscape designer of sorts (not clear to me if he was professional or not), and the planting beds are a delightful combination of mulched areas, 1"-2" river stone areas, and plants. The Mrs., with her keen artist's eye for detail, decided to create stone borders around the mulch areas using the larger (6"-10") river rocks we had kind strewn around in the other rocks.
Naturally, anything that looks nice turns out to be a major pain-in-the-ass. That's why we all eventually eschew trophy wives after the first few wives. With respect to the matter at hand, the problem is where the stone border also borders the lawn. In my quest not to have to use the Weedwacker, I run my precious lawn tractor right up next to these guys. Then, they invariably tumble our of place on onto the lawn. If I'm lucky, they miss the blades. If not, well, I've gone through $72 in blades already this season. And I only replace the blades when they can't be sharpened anymore due to the extent of the damage.
So I got it into my mind that this could be fixed by laying down a bed of concrete and then mortaring the rocks to the concrete. I got this into my mind maybe 5 months ago, and I bought a a few bags of concrete and mortar. Then, of course, the trampoline project popped up. The concrete and mortar bags have been stacked up in the garage for months.
Today, I got out the concrete, a trenching shovel, the digging bar, the wheelbarrow, the concrete trowel, the concrete float, a 5 gal bucket, some metal shears, and a roll of 1/2" hardware cloth. I dug a trench about 4" deep by 4" wide, then filled it up about 3" deep with concrete. I added in some of the hardware cloth to act as rebar. I managed to do 17' of this before running out of concrete. I only had 220 lbs. of concrete. I measured up how much was left to go in this section of the yard, and it was 22'.
Then, I said the The Mrs., "I'm out of concrete. I could quit now, or I could go buy more."
She said, "There is something that needs you attention in the yard."
"What's that?"
"Well, the metal edging that you hit with the lawnmower - you really made a mess of it and managed to turn it practically into a knife blade."
"Oh. I can fix that. It just needs to get hit with a hammer."
It needed more than that. I smacked it around with a 12 lbs. sledge, and not much happened. I got out a polishing wheel for my drill, and it did nothing. So I called in the big guns.
I got out the Super Sawzall. I simply cut out the sharp parts. I left a gap of about 2' in the edging, but I didn't care because that's the part I always hit with the mower, at great expense to the blades.
The Mrs., however, was not convinced. She thought the cut edges might still be sharp.
And they were.
"I gotta go get a grinding wheel for the drill."
"From the garage?"
"No. I don't own one. I gotta go buy one at Ace."
"Oh."
So HannahC and I schlepped off to Ace. She loves it there, as they have free popcorn. After much perusal, I realized they had not a grinding wheel for a drill other than a pretty small one that was really almost a glorified Dremel Tool wheel.
This got me to thinking. Hmmm... There are very few tools I wish that I owned but don't more often than an angle grinder.
My new angle grinder makes a lot of sparks when it's grinding down the sharp edges of metal landscape edging.
As I was grinding down the sharp edges on the edging, a storm rolled in. I had to hustle to pack up all the concrete project stuff before the rain. It poured! We had thunder and lightning, and one was so close we wondered if it actually hit our house. It managed to take out our DSL and one of our satellite receivers, though both recovered after power cycling.
It was the kind of weather I love. Violent, yet brief.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Oh what a beautiful morning
Oh what a beautiful day.
I accomplished many things today. In fact, I accomplished so much today, I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow.
First, I put the semi-gloss top coat on the primer on the side door frame. I had scraped and primed that a couple weeks back, but didn't get to the actual paint until today. Paint goes on so well over a good coat of primer.
Then I caulked the threshold, as water would come into the garage under it when it rained from the west.
Then I caulked some holes in the stucco at one of the back corners of the house. Just the corner was worn off, so it didn't require stucco repair. Just a little caulk on the corner. I had a color called "Aluminum Gray" that matched the house almost exactly.
The next thing I did was to shoot weed killer on every weed in the grassy area of the yard. This started out slowly, as MaxieC wanted to run the sprayer. So I walked around carrying the tank, pumping it up when necessary, and pointing our weeds for him to spray. This slowed progress by about a factor of 4. Then, of course, MaxieC blasted me in the face, including my right eye. I had to go inside to wash out my eye and contact lens.
This kind of weed killer doesn't really burn all that much, as it turns out. This was Ortho Weed-B-Gon, so in case you're ever thinking of spraying the weeds in your lawn, and you think there's a chance you might get some in your eye, this is your best bet. RoundUp burns a lot more.
As soon as I had my eye all taken care of, HannahC came out to take over the spraying job. She managed not to spray my face at all, though she caught my big toe once. She got bored when we were about half done.
I finished up over the course of the next hour or so. Used almost five gallons to hit all the weeds. And my lawn isn't all that weedy.
Then I got out the RoundUp to kill the weeds in the landscape rocks. It kills better and faster than the Ortho stuff, but it also kills grass, so you can't use it on the lawn.
After that, I mowed the lawns. It was actually a number of hours since I had put on the weed killer, so it was OK to mow. I cleaned the air filter of the mower, cuz I crossed 50 engine hours, and that needs to get done every 25.
Then I cleaned the hot tub filters. The hot tub is in tip-top shape, as I've been keeping up with the chemicals much better since I moved them out to the storage counter on the deck from the garage. I really wanted to get in it, but there was more work to do on such a sunny day with a nice cool breeze.
I then took down one of the back light fixtures that had been coming apart. I had tried to JB Weld it back together while it was hanging on the wall last year, but I couldn't get the clamps to stay, so it fell apart. JB Weld is great if you can clamp. If you can't, it might as well be toothpaste.
This time I decided to do it right. After removing the light, I took it all apart until I got to the one little piece that had broken. I ground off the old JB Weld using my Dremel tool. Then I drilled a hole in a piece of plywood scrap so that I could use it as a clamping jig. I used wax paper to keep the JB Weld from sticking to the plywood.
It needs to set overnight.
I accomplished many things today. In fact, I accomplished so much today, I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow.
First, I put the semi-gloss top coat on the primer on the side door frame. I had scraped and primed that a couple weeks back, but didn't get to the actual paint until today. Paint goes on so well over a good coat of primer.
Then I caulked the threshold, as water would come into the garage under it when it rained from the west.
Then I caulked some holes in the stucco at one of the back corners of the house. Just the corner was worn off, so it didn't require stucco repair. Just a little caulk on the corner. I had a color called "Aluminum Gray" that matched the house almost exactly.
The next thing I did was to shoot weed killer on every weed in the grassy area of the yard. This started out slowly, as MaxieC wanted to run the sprayer. So I walked around carrying the tank, pumping it up when necessary, and pointing our weeds for him to spray. This slowed progress by about a factor of 4. Then, of course, MaxieC blasted me in the face, including my right eye. I had to go inside to wash out my eye and contact lens.
This kind of weed killer doesn't really burn all that much, as it turns out. This was Ortho Weed-B-Gon, so in case you're ever thinking of spraying the weeds in your lawn, and you think there's a chance you might get some in your eye, this is your best bet. RoundUp burns a lot more.
As soon as I had my eye all taken care of, HannahC came out to take over the spraying job. She managed not to spray my face at all, though she caught my big toe once. She got bored when we were about half done.
I finished up over the course of the next hour or so. Used almost five gallons to hit all the weeds. And my lawn isn't all that weedy.
Then I got out the RoundUp to kill the weeds in the landscape rocks. It kills better and faster than the Ortho stuff, but it also kills grass, so you can't use it on the lawn.
After that, I mowed the lawns. It was actually a number of hours since I had put on the weed killer, so it was OK to mow. I cleaned the air filter of the mower, cuz I crossed 50 engine hours, and that needs to get done every 25.
Then I cleaned the hot tub filters. The hot tub is in tip-top shape, as I've been keeping up with the chemicals much better since I moved them out to the storage counter on the deck from the garage. I really wanted to get in it, but there was more work to do on such a sunny day with a nice cool breeze.
I then took down one of the back light fixtures that had been coming apart. I had tried to JB Weld it back together while it was hanging on the wall last year, but I couldn't get the clamps to stay, so it fell apart. JB Weld is great if you can clamp. If you can't, it might as well be toothpaste.
This time I decided to do it right. After removing the light, I took it all apart until I got to the one little piece that had broken. I ground off the old JB Weld using my Dremel tool. Then I drilled a hole in a piece of plywood scrap so that I could use it as a clamping jig. I used wax paper to keep the JB Weld from sticking to the plywood.
It needs to set overnight.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
You should be happy
I could make this a blog dedicated to discussing how much I like to do web design, but without any useful examples or tutorials. Just yapping about it.
On the weather side, I learned today that some people think if you throw a dead snake onto a branch in a tree, it'll bring rain.
People are so retarded.
On the weather side, I learned today that some people think if you throw a dead snake onto a branch in a tree, it'll bring rain.
People are so retarded.
I saw part of a rainbow today
As I topped the climb up into my posh neighborhood, there between the horizon and the cloud cover was about 1/8 of a rainbow. It was very wide. It wasn't even raining.
How about that?
How about that?
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