What's next? Well, it's not on the list...

A beautiful late Spring sky. 

I almost named this blog Miscellaneous Part 4, but decided to be a bit more clever. I'm not sure I succeeded. In any event, this edition has no particular subject, mainly since I've not worked on any projects that would fill a blog. That's not to say that we haven't made progress.

Fixing up this house sometime feels like I'm trying to bail out the ocean. Long range projects compete with short term repairs and on going maintenance. Also, there's that pesky work thing in which they expect me to show up at least 5 days a week and perform tasks for them, if I expect to be paid. Considering all this, Cindy and I are discussing which major project we need to take on next. The two in the running are the kitchen and the bathroom. I'm pretty comfortable that I have finally fixed the chronic tub leak, so the kitchen ceiling below needs a repair and paint job, as do the walls. In the bathroom, a major renovation is somewhere in the future, but in the meantime a paint job and tile repair is in order. Cindy preferred to do the bathroom first and I didn't feel strongly either way so the choice was made. The decision having been made, naturally I went on and did something else.

Cindy kind of surprised me with her utter disdain for the stairwell going to the basement. On the list of things to do, this stairwell was not even on my radar but when she pointed out how dirty and dingy it was, I realized she made a good point. The cream colored walls were smeared with hand prints and general dirt. Whoever had painted it, had used a flat wall paint making it look even uglier and better at catching grime. I already had a gallon or so of pure white satin finish paint so this should be an easy and quick job, right? Oh you optimistic fool!  It turned out taking two full days of difficult work.

This stuff is the best.

First, I took the handrail down. Easy enough. I put it in the basement and assigned Cindy the task of cleaning nearly a hundred years of hand grime and grease off the railing. It turned her wash bucket water black. Yuck. I began to look at the walls and quickly realized two things: There were a lot dents and holes in the walls, and, I had several different surfaces to work with. For the holes, it was a fairly simple matter to get out the patch repair stuff and fill them in. The surfaces, and general poor condition of them, required more thought and work. The wall types were standard plaster on lathe, our famous exterior wall finished block, poured concrete, and finally a wooden wainscoting type surface on the lower interior section. All were stained in one way or another, but the concrete especially had water and rust stains that would never be covered by regular paint. So, I decided to go with BIN. The stuff smells bad, is a pain to work with, and it destroys any paint brush you use with it, but it really does a good job sealing and covering stains. It's not cheap either, but I decided to do the entire block wall and the poured concrete with BIN before painting. Luckily, it dries quickly and I was able to get the first finish coat on before the end of the day. The next day I did a second coat to even out the job. It looks great.

Of course, there's the stairs themselves. The paint on them is worn, plus now there's a bit of white wall paint on them as well. It looks like the last time they were painted they used standard semi gloss wall paint in a deep brown. I already have the light chocolate floor paint I used on the porch, but that may actually be a bit too light for the stairs. We still haven't chosen a color yet so that job remains open.

Elsewhere, I did manage to plant some flowers in two huge pots we had sitting around. I did a red, white, and blue theme in flowers and they actually look pretty good. They sit in the yard at the front corners of the porch. Around back, I did some more weeding in the "flower" beds and added some fresh while marble stone after spaying some weed killer on the edges. The weed barrier I laid down last year apparently lasts only one year. Rats. Next year I may have to remove the stone, double down on the weed barrier, and put the stone back.

I've been carefully avoiding the tree roots with the lawnmower so I've had no more problems. We've had a pretty wet year and the grass is really growing, so naturally I'm quite pleased with the new mower. Instead of pretty much using up a day, I can finish the entire thing in less than an hour, and not be tired. In fact, I can do it easily after work now.

I like being surprised, most of the time

Most of us enjoy movies and/or books of one kind or another. They generally fall into a certain category or genre, like a western, horror flick, or a comedy. They also, unfortunately, tend to fall into a standard form, and if you think about it, you can usually figure out exactly what will happen in the movie, almost from the opening credits. So, the trick for the director and writer is to entertain you along the way. Titanic is a good example of this. You know the damn boat is going to sink, so it's what happens before that unfortunate event is what is important. How did James Cameron attempt to do this? Well, I was not really a big fan of the film but for me, it was with fascinating CGI of the ship and it's engines, and just the general day to day operation of the ship. For many others, it was the love story. Forbidden love that is, between a First Class aristocrat, and a Third Class poker player. But this is where the movie lost me, because not only did I know the ship was going to sink, I knew the romance was doomed as well. Wouldn't it have been a better story if they surprised us and Jack survived? Think for a moment where the story could have gone then.

Random house photo. It was flag day and Cindy got a
bunch of little flags.

I don't mind a good romantic comedy. I sure have seen plenty of them with my Cindy. I just like to be surprised. Unfortunately, most rom-com's are just the worst offenders of this rickety standard plot fault. They meet cute, they fall for each other despite barriers put in their way, there's a big misunderstanding, they break up, but then something forces them back together at the end and TA DA! they live happily ever after. Still, it can work, and be worth your time, if the director and writer keep you entertained along the way. Examples of rickety plot but entertaining rom-coms include the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan films and the classic, When Harry Met Sally. There are two, however, that threw the standard plot out the window, and really came up with something special.. Both are kind of sleepers. The first, Definitely, Maybe, turns the romance into a mystery. In the film, Will (Ryan Reynolds) is going through a divorce, his distraught daughter insists on hearing the story of how her parents met, perhaps in hope that the telling of the story will rekindle the romance and head off the divorce. Will tells her the story in a series of flashbacks and you are there with the daughter trying to figure out which of his romantic partners is her mother. There are plenty of big laughs and twists, along with some really heart tugging moments.

The best, however, is a more obscure Hanks-Ryan picture called Joe vs. the Volcano. In the very beginning, Joe is told by a doctor that he is dying. But this isn't a death sentence for him, it is a release from his mundane life, and horrific job (he sells rectal probes). I'll say no more about the film and just let you discover what happens as Joe meets his inevitable(?) fate.

Random cat photo. Natasha keeping Cindy warm at night.

Horror films follow a formula as well. Slasher films are generally not scary to me. They can startle me, make me jump, but they rarely scare me. An exception is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That movie was so unsettling, I'll never watch it again. Same goes with The Exorcist. Got me once, good for you. Not again. Probably the most unsettling and scary film I've ever seen is Pan's Labyrinth.  It includes vicious murders, large intelligent insects, a brutal war, and a young girl that escapes into an underground fantasy world. Talk about not following a formula! I highly recommend it, and will never see it again. You should see it at least once.

My favorite film of all time is a horror film, that really doesn't follow the formula. In Silence of the Lambs a student FBI agent is sent to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the it takes one to know one theory to get insight on another serial killer, Buffalo Bill. As Clarice (Jody Foster), interviews Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to gain that insight, a strange relationship grows between them. They are both fascinated, and competitive with each other. Most importantly, they respect each other and as Clarice finally reveals the tragic story of how she ended up in an orphanage, watch closely as tears fill Lecter's eyes as he realizes he is finally having a real relationship with a person, not another psychopathic episode. "Thank you Clarice, thank you", he says at the end. You know at this moment, Lecter would cut off his own arm, rather than harm Clarice, which he does, ironically, in the sequel. Most everyone has seen the film so I'm not really giving away a spoiler to write that Clarice does indeed catch Buffalo Bill, with Lecter's help, so in some way it does have the expected ending, but getting there was so much fun. Despite some of the gruesome scenes and twisted practices revealed in the movie, I can watch it endlessly and enjoy looking for the subtle clues and nuances as the brilliant Lecter toys with the investigators while giving Clarice what she needs to solve the case.

Random vacation photo.  Spring break in Wildwood

I could go on forever on movies, but considering that this blog is not even about movies, and this edition might be my longest so far, I should probably wrap this up. My ideas for this blog entry began as I thought about the novel I'm writing. Yes, you read that correctly. I've been working on a book on and off for many years and I just can't tell if it is any good. I am attempting to surprise readers, without employing a gratuitous plot twist. Hopefully, I can be clever enough and keep readers entertained without them realizing where the story is going. Perhaps some day I'll drop the opening paragraph here in the blog somewhere, if I have the nerve.

Lawnmower wars

I really thought I had the lawnmower thing figured out. I had gotten my old push mower back to running pretty well, thanks to repairs, using ethanol free gas, and clearing out the gunk using Sea Foam. Most importantly, I purchased my Cub Cadet riding mower which shrank a 2+ hour job down to about a half hour. But then, fate in the form of a tree root, interfered with my lawn mowing bliss, and turned a half hour job into a two day ordeal. I knew the root was there. I had mowed over it before, carefully raising my mower deck as I rode over it, as I did last week. Something was different this day, however, because as I rode over the root with the deck raised, there was a horrific bang, followed by a struggling mower, and finally a stall. I had just triggered a series of unfortunate events.

The tools are out. Game on. 

I turned off the PTO and restarted the mower and drove back to the garage. As I hit the driveway I heard something dragging against the pavement. Uh oh. I shut off the mower. climbed off and looked under the deck. One of the mower blades no longer looked like an airplane wing, it looked like a question mark. Wonderful.Well, replacing a blade is nothing you want to do on a brand new mower, but it's not all that difficult of a task. Right? Heh heh. A lawnmower blade is attached to the "drive" shaft by a single large nut. My first issue is that I did not have a socket or wrench large enough for the 1 inch nut. No problem, I do have a large adjustable wrench that is big enough for the job. Ha ha. Problem is that the thing that makes an adjustable wrench work is the same thing that makes it so maddening, especially when the thing you are trying to loosen is difficult to access and is very tight. You see, the wrench tends to loosen each time you try to use it, causing it to slip on the bolt.

Fine. I never need an excuse to buy more tools. My current set of wrenches date back to my teenage years and were a Christmas gift from my parents. A few have been lost over the years so I'll head to Sears and get a new set of Craftsman wrenches, including some larger sizes. That should do it. LOL. Nope. The largest wrench in my new set was STILL too small. Dummy. Time for plan C. Off to Home Depot for a larger socket and a breaker bar. Ta DA! The socket fits and I can put some serious torque on the nut now! Tee Hee. Uhmm...when you torque on that stuck nut, the blade simply spins. To overcome this, you need to jam the blade by using blocks of wood against the mower deck. Problem with that is with so much torque supplied by the breaker bar, the blocks slip and move. Time to re-think this. The shaft passes through the mower deck into a pulley and is secured by yet another nut, which is not easily accessible either due to protective shielding designed to keep some idiot like me from getting their pant leg caught in the machinery. Talk about initiating a series of unfortunate events! Anyway, at this point, I considered removing the mower deck from the tractor but found that I was able to get the nut on the bolt and loosen it. The shaft dropped out of the bottom of the deck and I had my first good look at what I had done.

Yeah, it;'s bent. Note the attached shaft and
nut. My new breaker bar is lying forlornly
nearby. 

Well, I destroyed the blade, that's what I and that maple tree root had done. Now, with the blade and nut easily accessible, my new socket and breaker bar, it will be a simple matter to remove the nut and install the new blade. BWAAA....HAHAHA. Wrong again lawnmower breath. I stood on the blade and tugged with the breaker bar. No luck. The neighbor stood on the blade while I put my considerable weight and strength on the nut. No luck. This damn nut job had me questioning I ever thought I knew about mechanics, physics, basic engine maintenance, and the origin of the universe. Researching the matter only made it worse because it turns out some blade nuts are reverse threaded to keep them from loosening as the blade spins. Careful inspection of the nut, and thoughtful consideration of the direction of rotation had me convinced that this was still a lefty-loosey situation but the damn thing still wouldn't come off.  Fine. That evening was monthly meeting night at the firehouse so I brought the blade and shaft there and let the men have at it. Well, this turned out to be the best decision I made. I locked the blade in the heavy duty bench vise and we hit the nut with Blaster, a penetrating lubricant made to release stuck parts. One of my fellow firefighters torqued on the breaker bar and the damn thing finally came off. WHEW!

The next morning the reassembly went well and I carefully tightened all the important parts. I then started the mower and drove to the center of the north forty. Sitting motionless I tentatively engaged the PTO to get the blades spinning, half expecting a tremendous bang and further destruction. Nope, perfect. Hardly believing my skill and luck I went on to finish the job that had ended so abruptly days before, carefully avoiding the root near the sidewalk.

I need to decide what to do about that root. It's a big one, about 4 inches in diameter and (obviously) close to and above the surface. My short term plan is simply to avoid it and cut that area with the push mower. My long term plan may be to attack it with the ax and chainsaw, but we'll see.

In other news, home improvement has slowed. I have finished the other window and screen to be installed in the attic window, I just have to get up there and do so. We are on the verge of out first "heat wave" so I need to do this soon. I also purchased some flowers and placed them in planters in the front of the house. They look really nice. The look of the house and area was further enhanced by trimming I did after resurrecting by old line trimmer. It had been is storage ever since the move and after finally finding the batteries and charger I was surprised to see them hold a charge.