December
12/2 Researched what it was going to take to drop a 30A power line for an RV. In order to repair the house, I could not live in it, but probably wanted to avoid the nominally 2 hour (more like 3.5 for the first months) trip to ride herd on contractors. Jeff has an RV that he was willing to loan me, but I could not see running it on generator for all that time when I had real good access to string a line and wire an outlet. I used a ball of twine as a fish-line to measure how much 10guage ROMEX I was going to need.
12/03 Brian Gregory, a sales consultant for Home Depot showed up and I contracted for Hardy Board to replace the siding on 3 or the 4 walls, with the understanding that if I could get the roof and soffet fixed, I would add the 4th (front) wall. since the front is the side with the brick facing, it was not going to be that much to add. Additionally, after all the calls to roofers who never showed up or just plain said they weren't interested when I mentioned needing to repair the trusses, a representative from Extreme Exteriors dropped by and sold me on replacement and repair, as they actually had an engineer who could properly spec out the replacement trusses/soffet. Yay team.
12/04 A tree service crew from MO dropped by to offer there services. I had postponed reacting to my 14 trees down in the back yard because I needed the curb space for house trash and none were interfering with access. Apex Tree services explained they had seen about the shady dealings going on and since they did not need a license and it was winter up there and they wouldn't be doing anything until an ice storm hit, they decided to drive on down. Compared to the horror stories I had been hearing, their offer to do all for $2000 seemed pretty darn reasonable, and it was. I had to leave before they were quite done, but they wound up stacking a wall over 9' tall next to the road, at least 20 ' long. On the way back to Niceville, I stopped by the Office of Extreme Interiors only to find a "rent a desk" office services complex. Well, I knew that they were in town because of the Hurricane, but had gotten the impression they were a little more established locally already...
12/06 Posted before and after shots of my back yard. Of course each day that is sunny, I am taking books out to dry from the plastic totes that they have been absorbing Lysol in.
12/07 More garage cleaning means another trip to Goodwill on the way back to Niceveille
12/08-12/10 most projects were safeing up power outlets, etc and researching materials for the RV outlet still, as well as recycling a lot of cardboard. Bought at the local ACE Hardware a 100' roll of 10 gauge 2 lead (3 with ground) ROMEX at a significantly better price as a package than Lowes or Home Depot could provide.
12/12 - 12/13 Ran 80 feet of ROMEX 3 lead 10 gauge from the inside Circuit Breaker Box to the Garage. Mounted the RV Box, but decided to wire a junction box on the inside so I could run more wire to the back yard when the Callaway variance to allow RVs in the set-back was cancelled.
12/14 Put up Plastic construction sheeting over the windows that no longer have curtains. No sense letting people peep into the place, I am also re-wiring ceiling fan outlets and don't want to have to move tools out of sight between trips
12/17 The Mad-Max truck finally showed up and took down my improvised privacy fence. I also found out that my new Garage Door is in town. However, they won't be able to install it until the 21st... Of January.
12/18 Dropped by the temporary buildings that serve as city hall to make sure I could get an RV permit as discussed above. Took pictures of some jet doing a continuous turn in the contrails in Eglin over-water ranges. Wired RV outlet and inside Junction Box.
12/21 Contacted a stump grinder recommended on the Facebook group that was set up to share information among us Bay Countians by phone as I was driving in. Fortunately, he was going to be in the area later that day and arranged to drop by to give an estimate. Disabled the main circuit breaker box and wired the ROMEX to the inside box. re-energized the boxes and the new circuit tested good with my VoltOhm meter, Yay! Joey Pierce showed up to give the estimate. Of all the trees I lost, only one did the lean-over, root-ball thing. He told me that it would be $1400 to do the whole yard, but if I didn't do the root ball, he would do the rest for $700 because the root-ball would take a lot of effort and chew up a blade. I did not want to half-donkey the job, and he eventually gave me a military discount down to $1300. He told me his schedule was full enough that he could not be back until 12/26, which was fine with me as I was going to spend the holidays in Niceville with the Sobels.
12/23 Decided I should probably un-earth the buried support for an old Jungle Gym that had rusted out many year ago, but I just cut the legs off instead of digging out the concrete and remaining PVC and steel pipe, so the grinder wold know where they were.
12/26 It is grinding time! As feared, the root ball tore up a blade and he had to go to Tallahasee for the nearest replacement. During this time, I installed a directional HD antenna in the surviving roof, aimed it and set it up. 16 channels, not bad.
12/28 Took my old Metal detector down from the hook it was on in the garage. I had to re-wire the battery lead, but got it working and decided that I was going to make sweeps through the yard when I was taking a break to try to get a handle on how much debris was buried out there. Over the next days and weeks, I finished the yard and found screws and nails that had probably been there since before I moved there in 1992.
12/29 Re-installed a couple of garage shelves that had been badly bent when the base to my Temple of Benares illusion fell from the rafters. Clean-up continues, some stuff to Goodwill, but using the shelve to store stuff that doesn't need to be climate controlled, until I either fix the place or find a new place. Picked up my mail and there was a package from the family with a tin "Four Generals" (the family brewery) plaque waiting for me. It will be nice to have a wall to mount it on eventually.
12/30-12/31 Found my old microscope and biology kit that I had made in High school. Yep, too much stuff. I had previously thrown out the small Color TV that my roommate and I had watched in the dorm room/ rental house in college. Thrown out is not quite correct, I had a specific pile set up for stuff that someone might find useful, but I did not want to tote to Goodwill, like TVs, a water-logged electric piano keyboard, etc. Each day the pile would get a little smaller as the pickers would drive by and then bigger as I added to it.
12/03 Brian Gregory, a sales consultant for Home Depot showed up and I contracted for Hardy Board to replace the siding on 3 or the 4 walls, with the understanding that if I could get the roof and soffet fixed, I would add the 4th (front) wall. since the front is the side with the brick facing, it was not going to be that much to add. Additionally, after all the calls to roofers who never showed up or just plain said they weren't interested when I mentioned needing to repair the trusses, a representative from Extreme Exteriors dropped by and sold me on replacement and repair, as they actually had an engineer who could properly spec out the replacement trusses/soffet. Yay team.
12/04 A tree service crew from MO dropped by to offer there services. I had postponed reacting to my 14 trees down in the back yard because I needed the curb space for house trash and none were interfering with access. Apex Tree services explained they had seen about the shady dealings going on and since they did not need a license and it was winter up there and they wouldn't be doing anything until an ice storm hit, they decided to drive on down. Compared to the horror stories I had been hearing, their offer to do all for $2000 seemed pretty darn reasonable, and it was. I had to leave before they were quite done, but they wound up stacking a wall over 9' tall next to the road, at least 20 ' long. On the way back to Niceville, I stopped by the Office of Extreme Interiors only to find a "rent a desk" office services complex. Well, I knew that they were in town because of the Hurricane, but had gotten the impression they were a little more established locally already...
12/06 Posted before and after shots of my back yard. Of course each day that is sunny, I am taking books out to dry from the plastic totes that they have been absorbing Lysol in.
12/07 More garage cleaning means another trip to Goodwill on the way back to Niceveille
12/08-12/10 most projects were safeing up power outlets, etc and researching materials for the RV outlet still, as well as recycling a lot of cardboard. Bought at the local ACE Hardware a 100' roll of 10 gauge 2 lead (3 with ground) ROMEX at a significantly better price as a package than Lowes or Home Depot could provide.
12/12 - 12/13 Ran 80 feet of ROMEX 3 lead 10 gauge from the inside Circuit Breaker Box to the Garage. Mounted the RV Box, but decided to wire a junction box on the inside so I could run more wire to the back yard when the Callaway variance to allow RVs in the set-back was cancelled.
12/14 Put up Plastic construction sheeting over the windows that no longer have curtains. No sense letting people peep into the place, I am also re-wiring ceiling fan outlets and don't want to have to move tools out of sight between trips
12/17 The Mad-Max truck finally showed up and took down my improvised privacy fence. I also found out that my new Garage Door is in town. However, they won't be able to install it until the 21st... Of January.
12/18 Dropped by the temporary buildings that serve as city hall to make sure I could get an RV permit as discussed above. Took pictures of some jet doing a continuous turn in the contrails in Eglin over-water ranges. Wired RV outlet and inside Junction Box.
12/21 Contacted a stump grinder recommended on the Facebook group that was set up to share information among us Bay Countians by phone as I was driving in. Fortunately, he was going to be in the area later that day and arranged to drop by to give an estimate. Disabled the main circuit breaker box and wired the ROMEX to the inside box. re-energized the boxes and the new circuit tested good with my VoltOhm meter, Yay! Joey Pierce showed up to give the estimate. Of all the trees I lost, only one did the lean-over, root-ball thing. He told me that it would be $1400 to do the whole yard, but if I didn't do the root ball, he would do the rest for $700 because the root-ball would take a lot of effort and chew up a blade. I did not want to half-donkey the job, and he eventually gave me a military discount down to $1300. He told me his schedule was full enough that he could not be back until 12/26, which was fine with me as I was going to spend the holidays in Niceville with the Sobels.
12/23 Decided I should probably un-earth the buried support for an old Jungle Gym that had rusted out many year ago, but I just cut the legs off instead of digging out the concrete and remaining PVC and steel pipe, so the grinder wold know where they were.
12/26 It is grinding time! As feared, the root ball tore up a blade and he had to go to Tallahasee for the nearest replacement. During this time, I installed a directional HD antenna in the surviving roof, aimed it and set it up. 16 channels, not bad.
12/28 Took my old Metal detector down from the hook it was on in the garage. I had to re-wire the battery lead, but got it working and decided that I was going to make sweeps through the yard when I was taking a break to try to get a handle on how much debris was buried out there. Over the next days and weeks, I finished the yard and found screws and nails that had probably been there since before I moved there in 1992.
12/29 Re-installed a couple of garage shelves that had been badly bent when the base to my Temple of Benares illusion fell from the rafters. Clean-up continues, some stuff to Goodwill, but using the shelve to store stuff that doesn't need to be climate controlled, until I either fix the place or find a new place. Picked up my mail and there was a package from the family with a tin "Four Generals" (the family brewery) plaque waiting for me. It will be nice to have a wall to mount it on eventually.
12/30-12/31 Found my old microscope and biology kit that I had made in High school. Yep, too much stuff. I had previously thrown out the small Color TV that my roommate and I had watched in the dorm room/ rental house in college. Thrown out is not quite correct, I had a specific pile set up for stuff that someone might find useful, but I did not want to tote to Goodwill, like TVs, a water-logged electric piano keyboard, etc. Each day the pile would get a little smaller as the pickers would drive by and then bigger as I added to it.
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