Roof On...Dumpster Gone

Life Returning To Abnormal


Well, our roofers left here on Wednesday a little after noon, and a truck finally showed up to remove the dumpster from it's spot blocking my garage door about 3:30 PM yesterday, thus ending our torture in a mercifully short period of time.

The way things started, I was actually expecting at least a week long saga, but I was obviously wrong.

What kills me is how they managed to convert what should have been a one day job into three days of upset for the people residing in the property they were working on.

I guess that if you were born in a barn or spend your adult life living in a barn (with all due respect to Jesus) like most of these guys apparently did or do, there is a certain degree of satisfaction to be gained by interrupting the lives of "all them rich people" that live "out on that there island."

You might have to live here in Glynn county to catch the meaning and humor in that statement...

but any way...

As usual, the "professional" media is freaking out about the usual stupid things.

Things like hurricanes, the stock market, the housing bubble, and trapped coal miners.

I have to admit that I'm having a good deal of trouble lifting a finger and pointing it toward a keyboard to even offer an intelligent rebuttal. What can I say anyway?

The media is populated largely by the bottom 25% of each class of high school graduates and college freshmen that ended up in Journalism by default after they flunked out of the Music department because they couldn't play an instrument or carry a tune in a bucket singing.

I, on the other hand, continue to increase my mental powers and now spend my time contemplating issues far beyond the interest of the average human. In fact, I've discovered something akin to "Viagra" for the mind that is not only safe, legal, and readily available, but unfortunately occasionally causes swelling of my head that lasts longer than four hours.

When that happens, the blood supply to my brain causes me to look something like this:






I've got to go now and work on solving the world's problems...

Still Angry

But Going Away From Us

Latest Satellite Photo's In

Dean's Getting Angrier

Enough Said...I Think...

New Home Office

Information Overload


Have I ever mentioned that I've conducted my business from my home for the past 17 years?

Of course some of that time "my business" was "no business."

Some people call that condition being "retired."

Involuntarily or otherwise.

Over the past few years my property was downsized by choice and circumstance, until finally my home office consisted of a place on the sofa and coffee table. Since Pat also did her 8 to 5 work from home for a "real company", we always emphasized her office needs and gave her a a nice spot in a room by herself.

Not so here in our new Island Casa Grande.

It's super sized, and I've commandeered the formal living room as my own personal empire. Herein I'm in the process of establishing a computer workstation area, a drafting drawing area, and a painting/artwork area in addition to using the walls as a gallery to display my current and past work.

Perhaps the coolest part of the setup is my ability to connect the stupid old Comcast cable signal to my HP notebook and watch TV in a window while I work and blog.

Right now, in addition to watching Fox News, I have AutoCAD open in one window, a couple of browser windows open on the Internet, and I have the local Talk Radio Show playing on the Radio in the background.

I have a problem sometimes remembering which key to hit on the keyboard, but that's not in itself a bad thing...I guess.

Living In A Construction Zone

All Most Contractors Suck...


OK, don't start commenting and E-mailing me because your daddy or your brother or your husband is a contractor, because I--your lovely and talented blogger--are is am a contractor and have been in the contracting business for nearly 25 years in one capacity or another and I know what I'm talking about here.

Like I said...MOST Contractors SUCK.

That's right, in any given trade, specialty or area of operation, there is generally more work than there are competent, conscientious companies and more importantly--PEOPLE--to do said work, and so most construction, remodeling, and repair jobs are a serious study in insanity and human ineptitude and owner/customer patience.

Take our present home re roofing project, for example.

We found out on Saturday that our landlord had taken my advice and gotten some quotes on doing a new roof here at our new island home. Instead of getting the work done BEFORE we moved in, the late departure of the previous tenant and various other factors like procrastination caused her to wait until NOW to execute the project.

They were supposed to start work Monday at 9 AM.

Hurray...a new roof...we ran around in circles celebrating and made the necessary preparations like moving all of the plants into the garage and sun porch, moving my Suburban around the corner to a retail parking lot, and battening down the hatches and scaring off all the animals and small children in anticipation.

Then Monday came and went...and at the end of the day we still had the same old roof and the plants were undisturbed.

NO CONTRACTOR.

Yesterday morning at 7:10 AM we were rousted out of bed by the doorbell and guess what?

Our Contractor had arrived, with five pickup trucks, a flatbed truck, a dumpster, and a fork lift.

"Sir...can you please move your VEhickle?"

I complied, and for the next four hours they banged and pounded and scraped and generally raised a dust storm.

Then about 11 AM they left, presumably to go to lunch.

We haven't seen any sign of them since, except that a guy came back a couple of times to steal a piece of aluminum flashing out of a box laying on the driveway.

You guessed it.

Our CONTRACTOR JUST CAME BY TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE.

Our contractor is doing two or more jobs at once with the same crew.

Our contractor is going to force us to endure what should be a one and one half day job for two or more days, and not clean up when he suddenly leaves the job site each day, and make us enjoy having a ten cubic yard dumpster sitting two feet in front of our garage door.

I spent a half hour cursing and sweeping the back patio, front sidewalk, and driveway off to ensure that our contractor didn't injure a human foot, dog toe, or car tire with his hastily created debris.

I have just one question.

Why didn't this rocket scientist just admit to the owner and/or the residents that he was running behind, and start the job when he could finish it in a single mobilization?

THAT would have been too easy.

THAT would have made sense.

THAT would have been considerate to the people that have to live on the construction site.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. can't do THAT.

Damn Contractors...

.

Mean Dean Cometh

While FEMA Makes Me Wait...


Sorry about the light posting (OK, no posting yesterday), but between the new house, my consulting work, and planning for the construction of a giant Pyramid and my much neglected duplex project I'm a little past busy.

For those of you paying attention, the annual Perseid Meteor Shower was pretty much a bust down here on our little island because of the weather.

Sunday night, the peak, was obscured by remnant cloudiness from evening thunderstorms, and excursions out to the beach on my bike Friday night and last night met with conditions obscured by the evening "salt haze" that sometimes blows in off the ocean in warm conditions.

Oh well, at least I tried.

Meanwhile, all you have to do is turn on the TV to see what could possibly be our next weather event down here...soon to be Hurricane Dean:




Of course there is a good deal of leeway as to it's final track, but if you live anywhere between Puerto Rico and NY City you better be paying close attention starting about Friday of this week.

We still have our fingers crossed here as we have 17 days left in our waiting period for our new flood insurance to take effect on the new house.

Time to go get some more CAD work done...

Does Anyone But Me Not Care What The People In Iowa Think?

Yawn...


Just in case you haven't heard, they had something called a "Straw Pole" out in Iowa yesterday. I don't know if they were actually handing out the straws or if you had to think ahead and bring your own to the proceedings.

At least someone was smart enough to hold something resembling an election on Saturday so that the productive people that hold regular jobs could participate.

Of course it might not make much difference in Iowa because the brutal winters generally keep the homeless population to somewhere down around three or four people most years.

Homeless people favor warm climates like Atlanta, or even San Francisco because all of the Yuppies and old hippies have grown up feeling guilty and will actually pay you to be homeless out there if you will stay off of their street and not pee on the front door of their office building.

Any way, a bunch of people out in Iowa drove their Massey Fergusons to town yesterday and told America what they thought about the current slate of Presidential wannabes that are willing to put a "R" beside their name in November of 2008.

What is it about the state of Massachusetts that makes people want to vote for men from up there in that region of the country?

Looking at what we've gotten out of Ted Kennedy and John sKerry over the past thirty or so years, it would seem that the American people would run far far away from anyone from the Beantown State, yet here is former MA Governor Mitt Romney taking the lead by 14 more straws than anyone else.

Perhaps he could open his own Soda Fountain using his winnings as inventory?

Or maybe it's the baseball reference in his name...I don't know.

Any way, I just sit here and shrug my shoulders at the whole proceedings because it always amazes me that Iowa is such a big deal every four years. Most of the political elite on both sides of the isle generally consider people from Iowa right up there with all of us hicks from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi when it comes to intellectual savvy.

In my experience, when you own your "Sunday-Go-To-Meeting-Pickup" and your "every-day-working pickup truck" (and possibly a third one called your huntin' & fishin' pickup truck,) people in Massachusetts generally don't listen to much of what you have to say about things like Calculus and Social Security reform.

So what's the big deal about Iowa then?


Pandering?


Charity?


Just outright butt kissing, maybe?

I don't know, but now I hear that South Carolina is jockeying with the other states like the know-it-all-Yankees up in New Hampshire to be the second state to have a primary next year.

God help us.

The political elites and the left, along with all of the late night talk show hosts, will have an absolute field day with this situation if the trend continues.

Why don't we all just shut up and wait at least until the Democratic and Republican conventions next summer to start getting all worked up and hyperventilating, or maybe until November 2008 and let the chips fall where they may?

Or maybe they could line everybody up based on SAT scores or the state's average college GPA and have primaries...or better yet--play a football or basketball game to determine the candidates?

In my opinion, most of the people on the list these days are completely unqualified to run a Waffle House or Pizza Hut Restaurant, let alone become the leader of the most powerful country in the world.

Who are we fooling here anyway?

I remember that down in south Alabama we used to have this colorful fellow named Shorty Price that ran for virtually every office at the state level in Alabama in the 1960's and early 1970's.

Shorty was George Wallace's roommate back in the 1940's at the University of Alabama, but somewhere along the way they had a falling out and Shorty dogged George for the rest of his political career.

I say that if we're going to have to be forced to decide from a list making a choice between a bunch of unqualified Clowns, I wish there were a few more serious clowns that actually know they're clowns like Shorty Price on the ballot so I could make a conscientious selection when I finally go to the poll to waste my vote when election day finally gets here.

John Edwards and John sKerry are shallow images of old Shorty Price, in my opinion.

Shorty...where are you when we all need you for some comic relief today?

.