Be Bold. Live Truly. Try Not to Hide!
Howdy – i should have some time to write more soon, though life does tend to eat up my “free” time.
But McLaundry is complete and that feels nice. Overall it went well and the end result looks good, and the “client” is happy.
As always, i can see all the little things that i would love to obsess over and fix, and have a mental list of how to try and do pieces of this differently “next time”, but all in all a nice job.
I imagine that most of the readers here are hooked into me on the Facebooks – but you never know.
You know you wanna see that movie now. Maybe get Mark Wahlberg or Robert Mathew Van Winkle to star in it.
Maybe that Gina Gershon lady plays the conflicted romantic lead lady struggling to get her man on the straight.
Probably have Ray Liotta in the mix as either an old detective or small town sherif. You can’t tell if he is crooked or just weird.
Gershon, Liotta, and Vanilla Ice
star in
The Laundry Room Wall
a made for tv movie
this Sunday afternoon
on Lifetime!
Howdy Folks,
Maybe some other update stuff later, but for now – The Wall!
This is a picture of a laundry room in an attic.
You can see the clothes washer through the doorway, but you can’t see the dryer. You can probably imagine that it is difficult to move your wash from one machine to the other with this set-up.
I have more process photos for the full album later, but here is the After (pt 1-2) !
Demo went ultra-smooth. No bad surprises behind the wall. Easy to move the light switch without un/re-wiring it.
Got the drywall off the interior side primarily by hand (!).
The door casing came apart beautifully with no breakage (that’s a first for me).
What i thought was a bead board panel on the walls turned out to be bead board tongue and groove planks, which i also easily removed with minimal damage.
Knocked out all the superfluous studs and blocking.
Tomorrow – frame out the new wall and adapt existing casing and build some new casing. Skin the new wall with the bead board and…
Door fabrication! Instead of building a frame and skinning it, I am going to put the bead planks back-to-back, fit a small frame around the edges for a more finished look, and have the door look like the wall.
Sorry if any of that is confusing. It will fall together for you with the pics, and better narration from a less tired fella.
More soon…
When i began this blog, there was a cool “publicize” feature that automatically threw up a message on my Facebook whenever i published a new post. It even automatically used the blog post title in the Facebook post. It was a seamless and convenient way to publicize.
Both of my readers would flock to the new posts and the other 8 or so regulars usually turned up by day’s end.
A few months ago, this broke. I don’t know why, but i thought it was related to my dedication to an ancient (and super fantastic) browser called Firefox 3.
I have talked about browsers on here before and may hustle you up some links. But the short version re-cap is that i have tried most all of them and have been happiest with Firefox.
Until Firefox 4. This took away/changed many things about the UI (user interface) experience that had been my main reason for sticking with the fox instead of moving full time to the Chrome.
But i found an old version 3 disk image, removed version 4 and went back to the bliss of the browser i prefer.
The GOOD NEWS! This facebook/wordpress publicize failure thingy is not related to Firefox 3! I did some tests with Chrome and Safari and have the same problem. Most excellent as i do not want to lose what i love about the Firefox UI.
The BAD NEWS! I still have this stupid problem. WordPress knows about it, but does not seem to know what caused it or how to fix it. The steps they have listed for how to try to fix it are the cyber equivalent of rebooting, and that does not do it for me.
Not a huge problem, but just annoying.
If the feature had never existed, i do not think i would have ever missed it or wanted it. But having had it and now having it be gone – i do miss it.
In part, the Facebook “security” (this could actually be the browser – i am not sure – but i think it is the Facebook) usually requests that i go slightly blind trying to read fuzzy letters whenever i want to manually add a post with a link to the new blog entries. It generally takes me three tries to find one of these images that i can see letters in clearly enough to try to start typing. I have tried the audio version of this feature and it is even worse (for me). I can’t even tell what you are supposed to be listening for.
One more thing we can thank the spammers, malware folks, and other black hats out there for. You guys are like a gross cyber combination of ambulance chasers and panhandlers.
Anyway, rant over. (For now…and there are always more…)
Pardon again my email subscribed pals. Working out some kinks (hopefully).
Sorry folks. Just testing some browser/wordpress/facebook settings
I am doing some of my favorite things.
Laptop on the deck listening to the night sounds of bugs and Kind of Blue, enjoying the slight cool of after dark on a muggy day.
I am seriously behind on my writing projects but will do a little housekeeping in that department right now.
I feel good. The porch project is complete and lovely. I spent two weeks bonding with a cool cat named Jake.
While I was generally too tired to actually re-explore Old Town Alexandria, or meet with many local pals, I did enjoy blending into the dog culture of Old Town. And, I did have almost two full days of much needed down time that I spent almost entirely napping.
After a month long project, the last two weeks of which comprised 10-12 hour days on my knees, it was refreshing to be in any other position.
I have a few other tile/construction projects in the wings – one bathroom remodel in PA, 1-2 bathrooms in Centerville VA, and maybe a larger project putting a heated tile floor into a big basement and another bathroom remodel.
I have not yet decided if I want to knock the dust off of Renfroe Tile full time, but I am going to knock out as many of these projects as I can while the work is here to be done. Tile is physically hard, but mentally engaging. It is rewarding to see a project from start to finish, and working for yourself is always high in my book.
I have a few ideas of how to re-vamp the Renfroe Tile Operation and have had great input from my friend Maria and a pretty kick ass business name from my Mom. But there are still many kinks. The money is nice when you work alone, but you (or at least i) do go slower flying solo. And it is much harder on your body. Having an apprentice or partner is nice, but that can be limiting in its own way. Right now, my operation is highly mobile. Lots to consider.
Part of me still would like to know what having a salary and a schedule would be like. Part of me would like to have my own place to live again. But how much can you miss what you have never had? I have not really had my own place to live (CONUS) since I left Richmond in October of 2003. There are many many times that I have missed and wanted to have that again. But, being nomadic has advantages as well. Low overhead and the ability to travel are two huge pluses. But I do miss the stability at times – and I often miss having my own space.
I have several fantastic pockets of stability and places that my bud Karen would call “Safe Places”. I am in one of them (probably my favorite) right now. But there are downsides to nomadic life beyond not having your own home. As I discovered (very slowly) it makes dating rather difficult. That is not an immediate concern or a priority, but it is a piece of the pie. There is also a high degree of depending on the kindness of others. But I have come to find this more of a benefit than a disadvantage.
It does grate against my innate desire for self-reliance, but it also helps keep me connected to people. And there are ways to be a good guest. I like to think of it as a blending of kindness and sharing and mutual care taking, but that could just be a lofty way to gloss over the parasitic nature of nomadic life. Everybody needs help. And everybody with a house and a job has stuff they need help doing. I generally try to figure out what that stuff is and help do it. Usually this works out pretty well.
Tomorrow I have to try and get re-organized. I had a loose plan for the next few months, but it is morphing now as life has its own way despite my intentions. One of the bigger questions is also sort of job related. I believe I had a decent opportunity to do some good networking and perhaps even land a normal job. As things tend to go, while I was setting the ground work for that, these other opportunities fell in my lap. I do not think that I have lost this lead on entering the normal working world, but I don’t know right now if I actually want it or not. This is one of my unceasing difficulties with making large decisions – I don’t usually know what it is I do want. That also has pluses and minuses. Being open to trying new things has led me down an interesting path around the world and through many different kinds of work. But I do not really have any specialties.
I like not having a specialty. I am good at lots of things. If I do have a specialty I think it is TCB, Gettin’ things done. I do like facing new challenges. A lot of my life as a consultant was exactly that. Meet a client, listen to what they think they need, help them figure out what they actually need, then do it up.
That bit of meandering gives you a decent snapshot of what it is like in my head right now. Pluses and minuses, business names and ideas, and planning…
So, the tile!
I am really pleased with how this project turned out. It is beautiful, and it is one of only three tile projects I have done that I also get to enjoy utilizing!
As always, I see things that I would do differently but it came together nicely. I am so in love with Maria’s idea to use those pebble tiles to transition into the french drain and the yard. They looked great before, but with the grout, it looks so natural that it is hard to even remember what it looked like before.
There are of course more pics, but I think I will leave the full project photo album over on the Facebooks.
Thanks for reading. I am off to review the digital pile of half finished ramblings and see if any of them want to play…
There has been a little less tile movement and less writing than i expected, but here is the current status, with some more process shots.
You will notice levels and piles of tiles along the edges as i build. This job had some “float” to it.
In part i think it was the slope of the concrete slab, but starting in the middle rather than a corner also had an effect.
But starting in the middle was the best way i could figure out to get the pattern to look the best at all the critical areas.
As with any project, i now have more ideas about how to pimp out a job like this. Normally, you have one or two key areas that you need to consider when setting your pattern. Here, everything is open and visible. And the site is almost square.
That is often worse than an area that is way out of square. When it is totally off, you make a choice and go with it. When it is almost square, it can be more difficult deciding which way to hide the variance without throwing off other elements.
Three doorways, one long exposed transitional row, and a row of slightly irregularly spaced and sized columns is a lot to contend with.
In the past, faced with a similar situation, i would have simply thrown the pattern into a diamond shape instead of the grid as that can cover a lot of sins. But it is more expensive in time and materials and has many more cuts involved.
This being my first dance with slate, i hoped to find a solution that would involve a smaller number of cuts.
Now you can see one the super cool features. My friend had the fantastic idea to use these pebble tiles to transition from the beautiful french drain she built in the yard onto the field of slate.
This is the first time i can rememebr being excited to grout. But i can’t wait to see how that finishes tying all these elements together.
There will be a slight delay for the weekend and the weather. As soon as the heat broke, the rains came. That complicates an outdoor job a touch. But now i have only the three curbs at the doorways, and about 25 linear feet of pebble tile left to set.
Back next week…
Tile is going to take over the blog for a little bit.
I do still have some other writing going on and planned for release – some things about Stephen King, storytelling, and audiobooks, to name a few – but i am in the middle of a tile job right now and decided to share about it here.
In part, this will help me think and stay focused, in part it is good exercise to write anything at all, and i find it interesting and hope you will too.
The first few days were surface preparation, collecting and moving materials, and then doing a “dry lay”.
Not everybody does a dry lay. I don’t do them on every job. But for larger areas and when working with new and unfamiliar materials, it can help you find problem areas before they occur. Once you have your template established, the rest of the work goes down like butter beans.
I don’t know who did this or why, but there was a lot of mortar at the junction between the slab and the house.
I used my hammer, 7-in-1 and an ancient chisel to vanquish 74 linear feet of that mess.
After two days of power-washing the area and a good dry lay yesterday, today i mixed mud and started layin’ it down.
I don’t know how it is wherever you are, but it has been a bit hot here lately. Yesterday and today we have had a “real feel” temp of 107-108. You could say this is slowing me down a little bit.
I work a few hours in the morning and then again in the evening. This morning i had the most brilliant idea – one could say innovation. I am tiling with my knee-pads, old running shoes, latex gloves, and underpants. I am sure it is quite a sight, but it is definitely comfortable.
More pics and tales to come. This project has a few neat features that i will share with you in the next episodes
An old friend asked me a question that got me going a bit and I decided to answer it here. I do have a little bit of recap and some other things lined up and cooking for the blog, but this is fresh out of the oven so I am serving it up first.
“Indian Dream
Heya Nick— was thinking the other day about how the American Dream really isn’t for me–house, car, 3.2 kids, etc. I was wondering if other countries have ideals along these lines and thought you might know about India’s.
??
~Niki”
Disclaimers/Preamble –
The Macro.
The nature of this discussion, and with an eye towards keeping it relatively brief, generalities must be used that will not capture the nuance of individual differences. That may seem obvious and unnecessary to state at first but pause and allow it to sink in.
If we start from your premise it could not be more vital to realize. You begin by saying “I don’t fit the mold”. And you know you are not alone in this. I would imagine that many if not most of your friends (mine too) feel similarly out of touch with the common or mainstream view of “The American Dream”. With a little more digging, informal polling, and supposition, it does not take too long to discover that “The American Dream” is not really as widely aspired to as we may have been led to believe (or as it once was say in the 50s). I do think that some of the core elements that lay behind the common symbols of “The American Dream” still can and do pertain for many of us. I also don’t want the whole package. I would like a house and a better car but I don’t want any kids.
The point I think is behind the metaphor. In a word, security. The house, car, kids image conveys a degree of material success we understand even if not consciously. The people in that vision are not living paycheck to paycheck. They have enough to eat. They are not too cold in the winter. And if you are inclined this way – they have enough of their basic creature needs met that they may be able to spend some free time in intellectual pursuit (or whatever other kind of pursuit they prefer. This does end up being a bit of a Rorschach blot.). I don’t think you need to be spoon fed any more over analysis of what “The American Dream” is or isn’t but I believe that little exercise will help put any comments on the ingrained national dreams of other cultures in perspective.
The Micro.
India is huge and diverse. Yes, America is diverse, but we are also way more homogeneous than a place like India. I know we have poor people and poor areas and while I have not been everywhere in the US, I have never seen poverty like the poverty I witnessed in India (except maybe some of the “refugee areas” in Jordan outside Amman). Of course not all of India is people in poverty. And despite being there for about two years, I saw very little of India. I only left the state of Kerala twice (aside from international travel) and rarely strayed far from Thiruvananthapuram or Kovalam. Actually I did little more than go between my place in Palkulangara and my office in Pettah. Even in that small circle – there is a vast difference in how the people of different classes live.
There is also the caste system to consider. While officially the caste system is abolished (sort of), there is a huge difference between written law on the page and what lives in people’s hearts. If you want to pick a somewhat familiar example, race relations in the US can give some perspective. For the areas I frequented in India, I would say it is similar to how I remember the deep South in the late 70s and early 80s. A lot of white folks I knew did not behave terribly to black folks, but there was still something in their attitude and the way they talked that reflected that somehow, inside, the white folks did not view black folks as equals, as “on their level”. Like I said, the white folks may still behave fine – be polite, friendly, supportive, collegial, but you could feel the difference. I don’t believe that most of the white folks I am referring to even knew this about themselves, so deeply was this ingrained. That is probably more than enough belaboring of the point – it is a very different place from here and the people are more different from us and from each other than you tend to find in the US.
The last disclaimer (maybe) –
All that culture stuff and difference between folks well stated there is a final point. People are just people and all of us from everywhere pretty much want the same stuff. Even the people I have met that I disagree with the most on almost every single issue, we still basically want the same stuff – food, warmth, safety.
The non-answer –
All of that lofty preamble fizzes out to this. I don’t really know. My sense is that the innate diversity of India prevents enough of an unconscious consensus to form something like “The Indian Dream”. (A corollary example – in Kerala alone there are over 50 active political parties and THREE different active communist parties. Consensus is still a ways off.) My dear friend and partner Ram wants his kids to be free to do whatever they want, to follow their dreams. He does hope that they will pick a path that involves helping people and giving back. But he also recognizes that being the best you you can be no matter what path you choose is sometimes the best (or only) way to really contribute to society. But, Ram is an exceptional human.
I met many parents who had specific jobs or careers picked out for their children. I met parents who had mates picked out for their kids. Arranged marriage is still pretty common in the parts of India I know. Most of the younger folks I met (18-24 mostly guys who worked for me) wanted a wife and children. But it is hard to put your finger on the source of that desire. Is it tradition and family values wrapped up in memory from a country where large families are still the norm? Or is it more basic? Perhaps wrapped up with the two pronged fork of taboo to borderline impossibility of sexual experience outside of marriage for most folks and the lack of information about sex and birth and birth control. The age old motivator for marriage and the natural result. Most of my young buds wanted to work for an international IT company. To ensure that I am not unduly feeding a common stereotype let us keep in mind that I built an international IT company and they worked for me so I was definitely already fishing in that barrel.
I have the most knowledge of the aspirations of people of the middle to upper class mostly due to language. These are the folks who know English. I did learn some Hindi and Malayalam. (Gotta love a language whose name is a palindrome. And quick aside, why isn’t the name for a palindrome a palindrome? Somebody really dropped the ball there and that has always killed me.) But my ability to name all the lovely foods I wanted to eat in the mother tongue or pronounce the name of my neighborhood so well that the rickshaw drivers stared in amazement does not provide a solid enough base to get to the “tell me about your hopes and dreams” stage.
I think I will wrap this up for now. Good question though and you did get me thinking about some things I have left alone for some time. The last stage of this writing got me going about my day to day in India, outside of work, where I spent way more time with lower class folks. But those are tales for another time. You did get me going though. Hopefully, you will get something out of the exchange as well.
And because it feels like sort of a cheap trick to take you down that road making it seem as if i did have an answer when i did not, i will share a potentially related anecdote from Dr Cliff Edwards, Dean of the Religion department at VCU during my time there and teacher of most things Buddhist. When he was studying in Japan, one of his teachers told him this. (I shall paraphrase.)
You don’t need to become a Buddhist, and maybe it is not possible. You were born a Christian in a Christian country and you are going back home. Be a Christian. You can be a Christian and still follow the ideals of Buddhism. I don’t know that anyone can throw off the religion of their land and their parents. Be the kind of Christian you want to be.
In case this came from a dark night of the soul place instead of a curiosity place, i say, be the kind of American you want to be. That is what this place is supposed to be about after all. Having the freedom to be who you want to be and live how you want to live. We seem to forget that. (That is probably not fair. People are actually arguing over nuances of definitions related to “your freedom stops at my door/face”. But that too is a discussion for another day.)
And I’m out!