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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 31, 2007 at 02:47 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 29, 2007 at 10:06 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Damn it! I know there are a lot of other people worse off than I am, but that doesn't keep me from getting pissed sometimes. When someone says they're going to do something I figure that means they're supposed to do it. The VA said they'd take care of my health problems and so far I'm way less than impressed. The eye doctor in the VA clinic in Evansville says I need laser surgery on my right eye, and maybe on both. He tried to get me set up with a hospital someplace closer but the best he was able to do was John Cochran in downtown St. Louis, a good three and a half hour drive from here without allowing time to get tied up in traffic, which St. Louis has plenty of. I got a letter yesterday saying they expect me there on January 7th. I'll have to call them Monday and reschedule for sometime at least a few days later than that to give my sister time to make arrangements to ride out there with me and drive me home, and me that much longer to argue with myself about going at all. Right now my eye seems to be getting some better on it's own -- I could blog with my left eye closed if I had to -- but that's happened before and the problem's come back, not to mention it's getting better on it's own a whole lot slower this time than in the past. Part of me's very tempted to put off having anything done till I get my Social Security and Medicare so I can go outside the VA system. If I was sure I wasn't risking permanent damage by doing that I would, but I really don't know what to expect. I have blood floating around inside my eyeball. As far as I can tell the blood vessel that was leaking has sealed itself off, but for how long I don't know. I do know that aside from the vision problem itself I'm tired of making myself live like a cripple for fear of making things worse. Anything that causes a temporary blood pressure spike could bring the problem back in spades. The mistake I made last time was reaching over my head to try to tighten a clothes line I was tired of ducking under; now I know better. I already felt useless enough before I had to announce that from now on it's someone else's job to go to Vincennes after horse feed and put it in the garage, and I suspect the weight threshold that could cause problems is well under the 50 pounds a bag of feed weighs. It's not the distance so much -- I've made it to and from John Cochran in the past -- it's the fact that this time they want me to bring someone along to drive me home. Mom's health is getting bad enough that I really don't want my sister to be gone as long as she'd have to be to go with me. I've been sitting here thinking as I was typing and maybe I've come up with a solution. Monday when I call to reschedule I'll ask how long it will be after my appointment before I can see well enough to drive. If it's only going to be a matter of a couple of hours like when I went to Evansville, I'll plan on going by myself and hanging out at the hospital till I can see. The appointment I have now's at 2:00 in the afternoon which makes that impractical but maybe I can reschedule for earlier in the day on a different day and do things that way. I want to have the surgery done, I just don't want to risk Mom needing help and no one being here while I have it done, and that may be the only answer. If I do it that way I'll probably head west from the hospital, away from downtown (and home) when I first get in the car and find someplace peaceful to hang out till I'm sure I'm ready to fight my way through town to come home. I live in the St Louis area for a while years back and if I scratch my head a little between now and then I can probably think of someplace good to kill a couple or three hours; maybe the shopping center we used to go to out in St Charles County, for instance. If I do that I can take the bypass around town to get back to Illinois well north of downtown, then come home the way we used to come when we lived in St Peters (just west of St Charles.) I'll have more to say on the subject after I call St. Louis Monday. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 29, 2007 at 12:13 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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OK, so I only got half way to a Mechanical Engineering degree before I decided computers were fascinating and changed majors. Even so I think I came away with a pretty decent handle on Statics and Dynamics. What I don't have is any solid handle on how strong various types of lumber are in what directions. Anyway, I think I'm probably safe in saying that the designs I've posted so far aren't buildable. It's too far between the walls to not have some support for the roof trusses somewhere along the way. It's been nagging at me a little for quite a while and I think I came up with a solution this afternoon. In my revised design the twin vertical dotted lines represent doors, or rectangular archways if you prefer, one about 3 feet wide and one about 12. Rather than make them 80" high like standard doors I'll have to ask whether they can be 90" or so high, but either way they should provide sufficient support for north-south roof trusses. In addition, the longer of the two will provide a nice psychological boundary between the bedroom and study. I don't know why I'm so draggy recently. I don't think I'm depressed but boredom may have a lot to do with it. If I'm not more energetic in a few more days I may try to get an appointment in Evansville to have my blood pressure, potassium, etc, checked. I think it would help a lot if I just had the option of eating on my own schedule and not someone else's, and the ability to choose my own menu. There are lots of times, like now, when I'd much rather have a hot dog or turkey sandwich when I want it than a big meal two hours later. Just one more reason to be anxious to get my place out back built, I guess. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 28, 2007 at 06:55 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Still playin' with that apartment design (Updated)
I may not be done tweaking till the last nail's in place. I well remember the constant battles in my engineering days between Engineering wanting time to get things just right and Marketing wanting to hurry up and get something new on the market. Since I don't have the money to get anything built yet I might as well keep working on getting it right. It soaked in over coffee this morning -- I'm sure my mind was working the problem overnight -- that instead of having the contractor who builds the apartment provide a permanent shelf to use as a desk it would make more sense to just leave space for something like this. That way if someone with different priorities wants to in the future they can rearrange the furniture or just toss the desk and put something else in that corner. There's room there for a Queen Size bed, for instance, if someone wants to put a couch or something where I'm showing the bed in my drawings. It also soaked in earlier that the dishwasher pretty much has to go right beside the sink, not somewhere across the kitchen. I don't have my drawing corrected yet but I'll post a new link when I do. *** OK so here's the current version of what I hope I can have, but I could settle for this or even this if I start running out of money or realize I'm working too close to a tree I don't want to sacrifice. I could go even smaller and less expensive if I had to but I'd really have to think hard about how much I want to do some other things before that happened. A note on priorities: First of all, I've spent about as much of my life in Texas as in Illinois, and in Texas if you have a nice tree in your yard you don't cut it unless you really have to. When I was growing up we had a huge old tree in our back yard that I spent a lot of hours in. It eventually got sick and had to be cut but a couple of younger trees sprouted up next to the stump. When I get my Social Security money I need to have the rest of the stump removed -- it's rotten enough now that shouldn't be a big deal -- but the trees next to it stay, even if my apartment has to be smaller than what I'd like because of them. As far as I can tell from getting out with a tape measure without anyone to hold one end while I measured distances I think the trees in question will be just far enough south and west to not interfere with what I want to do but I'm not absolutely certain at this point. If they aren't I'll modify my design accordingly. *** Note to self: There's not much way to shrink the kitchen and bathroom without things getting crowded, but that doesn't mean the study couldn't shrink a little if it has to to miss those trees. How about something like this for instance? |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 27, 2007 at 09:36 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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No white Christmas this year ...
... but at least we got some sunshine, which compared to our typical weather most of this month is itself a treat. I think everyone got most of what they wanted; there's no such thing as buying kids as much as they'd like. I wasn't able to buy anyone anything but maybe I can make it up to everyone when I finally get that Social Security money. The nicest thing I got was that cool BCD clock my daughter sent me. I wish she and her family could be here or I could be down there; at least we'll be able to start spending more time together after my Social Security comes through. Sunshine got an apple and some extra corn and sweet feed, which I don't think he could ever get enough of to not want more. My nephew even decided it was warm enough he could go out and feed him; I've been doing most of the feeding and watering for the last month or so. I think I want to make another change to that floor plan I posted last night. I'll post a link to it when I have it ready. *** OK, so I think I've decide I like this layout better than this one; my reasons aren't all that strong, but I think they're enough to satisfy me. The new design provides a better psychological break between the kitchen and the "living room"/"office"; I don't like the idea of standing in front of a counter in the kitchen and looking over it at my computer area. Add to that the fact I'm not likely to get any less clumsy as time goes on (I'm off balance enough as it is) and I feel better about setting things on counters if they're backed by walls. Also, the new design provides better logical locations for a microwave and coffee maker than the old one; the microwave belongs at the west end of the kitchen counter and the coffee maker right next to it, as close as I can get them to my desk and still keep them in the kitchen. (Heather, you might want to notice that I'm leaving a low wall between the kitchen and "living room" to set a TV against.) Heather? Fight4TheRight? Whoever? What am I missing here? *** Fight4TheRight, I almost wish you hadn't brought up the subject of windows. Almost but not quite. Seriously, sir, thank you for waking me up before I moved into my new place and felt like I was living in a cave. Hey, y'all, how about this one? It gives up a couple of feet of counter and cabinet space compared to that last one, but Ihere's still plenty, I had to shorten the little wall between the kitchen and living room by six inches but there's still room to set a TV in the corner without it being visible from the kitchen, and check out the view I'll have while I drink my morning coffee! East over the pasture or south over the old barn lot. There's only room for two people at the dinette but if someone wants to have a party they can move it to the living room, or if some wants to they can buy a bigger table and just leave it in there. We all gather around a big table in the room I currently sleep in for Thanksgiving dinner, so why not? |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 25, 2007 at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack |
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Still thinkin' about that view from my desk.
The floor plan I posted last night had some problems I couldn't fix without major changes. Moving my "desk" into the corner with the best view shoves the kitchen way too far west to leave any room for an easy chair, TV, etc in any logical location. The closest I could come to salvaging the situation was to straighten the kitchen out along the south wall like this, which I still don't like. On the other hand, check this out. If I put my monitor on the west wing of the corner desk and reserve the south wing for the (notebook) computer itself, a printer/scanner, etc, the view in front of me will be the little woods just west of our place. Looking to my left out the south window I'll be looking past the storage sheds in the back yard, across our south field, and on to the fence row beside the field behind us. Looking to my right through the window in the front door I'll be able to see well up the lane toward the highway; all the way, actually, once I have the front hedge cut down to a reasonable height. If I turn 180 degrees I'll be looking out the east window over the pasture. I think I like it. There's room to put in an easy chair and TV if someone wants to down the road, and if someone's priorities are such that it makes sense my "desk' could become an entertainment center; there's plenty of room for a TV in the corner with room left for a VCR, or whatever people are using by then, a stereo, etc. Comments? *** I just realized another think I like better about putting my desk in the southwest corner of the room. If I put it in the southeast corner I'll end up keeping the blinds closed a lot of the time because the light coming through the windows will be bright enough to make it hard to see my computer monitor. It's not something you'd know without being familiar with our place but that southwest corner is in the shade most of the time so I can enjoy the view out the windows without having direct sunlight coming into the room. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 24, 2007 at 07:07 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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So Fight4TheRight got me to thinking ...
... and the more I think the more I think I agree with him that my "desk" in the new apartment should have a window or two looking out over the pasture and things beyond. I spend a huge percentage of my waking time now sitting in front of the computer and that's not likely to be any different after I get my new place built. Anyway, I took his idea and ran with it and here's what I have so far. It has some problems, including some I have some ideas about solving, but I'm too tired to fix them tonight. Some notes on the new design: I'm designing for one person or for two people who have no reason to be modest around each other; beyond putting blinds on the windows privacy is not a concern. The window I was going to add above my "desk" in the old design would have made me feel less hemmed in but the view would have been mainly some old dog kennels and some storage buildings. Short of moving the whole thing about 20 feet to the east there's no way I'll be able to see all -- "all" includes the part of the pasture that isn't fenced yet but will be by this time next year -- of the pasture from my room; my sister's room is in the way and even if it wasn't the one I'm in now would be. From the east window in my new office I'll be able to see the area where the kids' swing set is (non-trivial in itself) and about half of the east field and from the south window I'll be able to see the old barn lot and a major part of the field behind our place. A major improvement over having my desk where it was before and one I'm willing to give some things up for. Daughter of mine, do you still read my blog? I'd really like to know your thoughts on this. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 24, 2007 at 01:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack |
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Maybe our weather's not so bad after all
My friend Fight4TheRight, a.k.a. Holger Awakens mentioned in a comment on that last post that where he is it's blowing snow with a windchill of -25. I know from the coverage on the news sites that we've been very lucky so far, and I do appreciate it. Y'all just gotta understand that I'm basically a grouchy old man and I'd probably be griping no matter where I lived. Holger also spotted a flaw in my design for my dream apartment that I'd have been upset with myself if I'd gotten moved in before I noticed. Every blogger needs a window to gaze out while blogging and I'd forgotten to give myself one. I've corrected that error here. I'm still scratching my head about how to make my blogging window look out over the pasture like Holger suggested; maybe after I've had some sleep. I think when I go to bed at night my mind keeps right on working, examining conclusions I reached during the day and questioning my assumptions. It seems to be getting routine for me to come up with new ideas while I'm sitting in the kitchen trying to get enough coffee down to do anything useful. This morning what popped into my head was "Why cam't the kitchen extension extend past the end of the garage?" I need to provide a somewhat protected (from rowdy kids now watching where they're going) location for the gas meter that currently sits in the corner formed by the garage and kitchen, but why can't it be west of the garage and south of the kitchen, not north of the garage and west of the kitchen? Check out my latest design here. That freezer currently sits in the bathroom hallway and I'm tired of having to squeeze by it, not to mention it's way too many steps from there to the kitchen. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 23, 2007 at 10:05 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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More clouds and gloom at the Circle F ...
... but so far my good mood from yesterday's holding up all right. Sure wouldn't hurt if the sun came out now and then, though. I've been trying hard to do a better job of keeping up at Old War Dogs but I'm still spending major chunks of time fleshing out the designs for the kitchen expansion and the apartment I want to have built. I got started rechecking dimensions on some things late last night and realized I wasn't allowing enough room to open the freezer doors on the side-by-side units I intend to buy; same mistake in the kitchen and the new apartment. I was allowing room for the door itself to open but not for the door handle. A simple matter of moving the fridge/freezer three inches farther east in the kitchen expansion and three inches farther west in the new apartment. I also realized that instead of having a pantry built where the fridge sits in the kitchen now it makes more sense to move the cabinet Dad built when he and Mom got their first microwave oven to that spot. Having it where it is has made the kitchen seem crowded for as long as it's been there but there really wasn't anyplace else to put it. My new kitchen floor plan is here if you want to check it out. I also realized in the process of thinking about the kitchen expansion that I'd neglected to include a dishwasher in my dream apartment. No big deal to add one; I had to give up some under-counter space and six inches of my "desk." Look at the revised design here if you want. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 22, 2007 at 11:44 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 21, 2007 at 09:26 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 21, 2007 at 05:48 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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I'm beginning to seriously wonder. I just got home from getting the back right tire on my car replaced for the third time; all of the original factory tires are still fine. First my sister drove over something sharp on U.S. 50 between here and Vincennes and I bought a used replacement tire from a tire company that's been doing business here in town for at least thirty years. That tire self-destructed for no apparent reason -- I blame Governor Huckabee -- on I-40 just east of Little Rock and did over $1500 worth of damage to my car in the process. I bought another used tire there, which lasted till my nephew ran over a nail and didn't realize the tire was flat till it was beyond repair about six weeks ago. Yesterday my sister came home from taking her son to school with part of a knife blade imbedded in the tire and didn't realize it was flat till she headed back toward the school to see her granddaughter in a Christmas program. So, today I invested a big chunk of my day in driving to Bridgeport to find out the tire was beyond repair but they didn't have any used tires that would fit my car, calling two places in Lawrenceville that didn't either, driving to a salvage yard in Vincennes to buy one, then driving back to Bridgeport to have it put on my car. The tread on it looks good enough that if everyone works real hard at keeping it away from sharp objects it should last till I get my Social Security money and can afford to put new tires on all four wheels. Of course that's beginning to feel like a big if. I didn't even make it to bed last night before realizing I needed to make some changes to the kitchen addition I designed yesterday. I might be possible, for enough money, to connect water lines and a drain line to the dishwasher where I had it but it will be a lot simpler where I have it now. There are shelves under the west end of the cabinet under the kitchen sink but I don't think anyone has any idea what's stored there; at any rate whatever is can be moved to one of the pantries I'm creating. The plumbing for the new dishwasher can then be tied in to the lines under the sink fairly easily. Moving the dishwasher to that side of the addition will also simplify the electrical wiring, and having the pantry all along the south wall should simplify the gas meter situation I mentioned yesterday. The gas line comes out of the ground where it does now, turns west and travels through the bottom of the pantry and out through the west wall of the new sub-room to the regulator and meter, then back through the wall and the bottom of the pantry to the point where it currently enters the house, no digging involved. *** I think I've made a pretty firm decision to have the kitchen expansion done before I have my apartment built, even if it means the apartment has to be smaller to pay for it. Caleb and my sister have been friends for a long time and I want to give him a second chance, but not on a job as big as the apartment right off. I'll start off slow by having him build a barn for Sunshine, then if he handles that well I'll have him do the kitchen expansion, then if that goes well I'll have him build my apartment out back. I know that means I don't get my own place quite as soon but I'll feel more comfortable doing things that way. As soon as I get that settlement check I want to buy a more powerful air conditioner for the front room (we need one anyway) and if it still doesn't keep my room (the room I'm in now) cool enough to suit me I'll buy a window unit for my room -- It can be moved to my sister's room after I move to my apartment; the one they have now's on its last legs anyway. Come summer when we don't need space heaters scattered around the house I can move the computers and TV back to the circuit the space heaters are on now and after I do that I think the circuit the computers are on now should be able to support an conditioner big enough to keep my room comfortable. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 20, 2007 at 06:01 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Makin' more plans for money I don't have yet
I guess as long as I know I have money coming but not how much I might as well dream big. The Social Security Administration owes me 54 months and counting of SSDI benefits, at somewhere between $1500 and $1900/month. That's a window of over $20k between the least I may have coming and the max. Anyhow, I realized today that maybe there is something I can do about Mom's kitchen being too small and too cluttered after all, if I end up with enough money. If there's enough money to go around, I want to change this to this. Basically I'm talking putting a door where the existing window is at the west end of the kitchen and adding a 9 x 5 ft. extension. That's enough room for a nice side-by-side fridge/freezer there isn't room for in the existing kitchen, a built in dishwasher to replace the portable unit in the existing kitchen that almost never gets used because it's such a hassle to hook up, some pantry space, and some unallocated space for some of the brooms, mops, etc that currently end up in the corner of my room. The change will also free up the space where the fridge sits now for use as pantry space. Before I can finalize the design I need to check with some people to see what can be done about the gas meter that currently sits where I'm showing the pantry in that drawing. I have an idea that I think would work but there may be better alternatives; give me some time and I may even think of them myself. Something I'll have to give serious thought to and consult with my sister about if I don't end up with enough money for everything on my wish list: I've been working on two parallel designs for my apartment; one that would work just fine for me but isn't too fancy, and a nicer one that would be easier to rent out and nicer for my sister if she ends up living there sometime after I'm gone. I may end up having to decide whether to build the more basic apartment and the kitchen expansion or the nicer apartment without doing anything to the kitchen. At least there's plenty of time to think about it, and I may not end up having to choose. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 19, 2007 at 11:25 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 18, 2007 at 11:20 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack |
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Ready for spring at the Circle F
I'm gonna give up on checking weather forecasts and start just sticking my head out the window. When I went to to bed last night Weather.com was predicting a high of 39 for today; by the time I got up they'd revised it to 33, which turned out to be about right. It dropped down to about 19 around 8:30 or 9:00, then started warming back up; it's 22 now and supposedly will hit the mid 40s tomorrow. We'll see. I was glad to see another 1,000 lb. hay bale show up today. We weren't quite out but with the weather as strange as it's been I was afraid the ground might be too soft to get any before we really needed it bad. The guy we get it from took advantage of the ground freezing solid last night to get some out of my ex's field and into ours before it thawed and got mushy. *** I'm still playing around with that apartment design. I realized today as I was grabbing a wall for balance that if I'm designing a place to live in when I'm older it needs to have provisions for something to hold on to getting on and of the pot. In the latest design there's a vanity next to it on one side of the commode and a wall a bar to hold on to could be attached to on the other side. I also moved the small closet to a more logical location and made similar changes to my "the minimum I'll accept or it isn't worth doing" design. I've tentatively decided to do things in a different order next spring than I'd originally planned and maybe kill two birds with one stone.
Caleb also mentioned way back that he had a barn design sketched up; after the fiasco with the fence we didn't have him build it. What I'm thinking right now is that before I have my apartment built I might see if I can get a fixed-price bid from him on a barn design that I like the looks of, then see how having him build it works out before I commit to having him build my apartment. It'll probably cost a little more than the minimal design I was going to have Taylor and Eric build but the peace of mind might well be worth it in the long run and we'd probably end up with a better barn to boot. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 17, 2007 at 09:43 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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I'm about to decide that if the Weather.com people manage to predict the weather 24 hours out accurately that's about all I can hope for. Yesterday they were saying that after it cooled off last night the next time it would get above freezing would be Tuesday. Now they're predicting a high of 39 for tomorrow. I'll take it. We got about 4 inches of snow last night, on top of about an inch Friday night, but there's no more in the 10 day forecast. I went out a little bit ago and broke up the ice in Sunshine's water tub and I'll go out later to give him some corn and sweet feed. Other than that it's looking like a real good day to just stay inside and maybe get some extra rest. I may have spoken too soon about buying a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer for the kitchen in the main house. Aside from being wider than a conventional over/under unit, they also stick out farther from the wall. The fridge we have now already blocks a couple of inches of the doorway from the front room to the kitchen and three more inches could be a problem. I guess if my sister thinks she wants one after I point that out to her I'll buy her one, then if she doesn't like it after she sees how big it is we can set it in the garage till my place is ready and put something smaller in the main house. I'll probably go ahead and put a side-by-side model in my apartment either way, both for the increased capacity and so if my sister ends up living there after I'm gone she'll have the kind she likes there, anyway. I went looking for a solution to one problem a little bit ago and ended up solving two. My sister asked last night whether I intended to put in any sort of intercom system for communicating between the apartment I have built and the main house. I hit a few web sites and concluded that no one makes point-to-point intercoms like I remember from years back any more. On the other hand, if you search for "intercom" on Radio Shack's web site, or Comp USA's, or Outpost.com, they show you a bunch of cordless phones, and it finally soaked in that the cordless phones we have now work far enough from the house that I'm pretty sure they'd work in my apartment. I'd also been scratching my head trying to decide how to get my own phone number without having to run a cable of some sort to the apartment. Solution: Have the other phone port on our Vonage box enabled (which probably doubles the monthly cost), buy a second cordless phone with a remote charging station, connect it to the Vonage box and put the remote station in my apartment. ... I'll look around more before I buy anything but this looks good right now. (Aside: For all the bitching people do about Wal-Mart I've never had any trouble getting a refund or replacement on anything I ever bought from them; with the selection of phones they have on their web site and in their bigger stores I'm sure I'll be able to end up with something that meets my needs. Even after the new SuperCenter they're building next door opens I'll probably continue to buy my groceries at one of the smaller locally-owned supermarkets but for other things I'll go to the new store for selection and price and because of their refund policy.) ... It just occurred to me it may make sense to buy one of the nicer phone systems like I was looking at for the main house and take over the cordless phones we have now for my use. *** I did a little more tweaking on the floor plan for my apartment. Mainly I swapped the sink and range to provide more elbow room at the sink -- it was right next to the fridge before -- and make the counter/bar one continuous run. I also shortened the bar by 6 inches to make sure there's room to move a fridge, etc, between it and the bathroom. *** I also got curious and did some window shopping at CompUSA; I wish I could count on having that Social Security settlement in time for the close-out sale I know they'll be having sometime next year. Combination printer/scanner/copiers are getting inexpensive enough that I can't see devoting space to a separate printer and scanner any more. I still have one of each in Ft Worth that I left for my daughter and her husband to use but they never did for the same reason I won't. I'm tempted to just tell my daughter to toss them but I've been broke too long to start doing things like that even after I get that big check. When I get back from my road trip to Texas next spring I'll give them to my sister to sell on eBay or give to charity or whatever she wants to do with them. -- As cluttered as the main house is and as much time as she spends fighting with the printer she has now I might as well plan on buying two of the combo units while I'm at it. .... Heather, if you know anyone (Amia? Imbri?) who could be getting any good out of my printer and scanner feel free to give them away for me. What I hit CompUSA's web site to begin with was to find out if it's still possible to buy notebook computers with Windows XP on them; the general consensus seems to be that Vista just isn't ready for prime time yet. If I had the money to buy it now CompUSA has a Toshiba Satellite with XP Pro, 2 GB of RAM, 120 GB of hard drive space, 801.11g, 4 USB 2.0 ports etc for about $900.00. Surely someone will still have something comparable when I have the money. It looks to me like the state of the art in reasonably priced flat-panel displays is currently 22 inches, although that might change by spring. I'm optimistic the laser surgery will cure the problem I'm currently having with my right eye (which, btw, seems to be getting better; I can read 12pt text on a computer screen from about a foot away now) but I know in general my eyes aren't likely to improve with age. Hence my decision to settle for a notebook with a 15.4" screen and plan on connecting it to an external display except when I'm on the road. *** I went out to bust up the ice in Sunshine's water tub at was pleasantly surprised at how mean it didn't feel out. It's down to 22 or so but there's not much wind, if any. Weather.com's still saying this is as cold as it's going to get for a few days, which suits me fine. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 16, 2007 at 01:50 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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It's too messy to get out and do anything else even if I had any money. I got out long enough to give Sunshine some water and sweet feed and didn't get out otherwise. We had our first "tracking snow" last night and they're predicting about 4 inches tonight. Once it freezes tonight it's not supposed to get above freezing again till sometime Tuesday. I hope I'm not fooling myself but I think my eye's getting a little better. At least if I crank up the text size and stick my nose almost against the monitor I can decipher a computer screen now. I'm trying to change my sleeping habits; about three days ago when I crashed for a while during the day I stretched out on my right side with my arm under my head, the way I usually sleep (it put my back to the traffic by my bed), then when I rolled over on my back after a few minutes I realized I had a major dark streak in my vision that hadn't been there earlier. I repeated the experiment deliberately the next day with the same results. Since then I've been trying not to sleep on my right side and it seems to be helping a little. If my eye's back to normal before I get an appointment for that laser surgery I may at least put it off till spring, and possibly till I can get Medicare to pay for it instead of having to go to the VA hospital in St. Louis. *** I've been tweaking my floor plan a little, mainly out of pure boredom. See the latest version here if you're interested. I decided instead off walling of separate areas for the water heater, a broom closet and a pantry it would make more sense to just leave open space there that I can use however I want to and some future occupant can use differently if they want to. My thinking when I first made that decision was that I might put a chest type freezer in part of it but I've pretty much decided against that for reasons I'll get to in a minute. The most significant change is that I'm now allowing space for a side by side refrigerator/freezer like my sister's wanted ever since she saw my daughter's. The fridge we have now has seen much, much better days and I'm going to feel very fortunate if it lasts till I get me Social Security settlement. I've promised my sister that if it does I'll buy her a fridge like she wants. If I do that I might as well account for the fact that at some point down the road she may end up living in the apartment I add on and put something similar in it. If I do that I can't imagine needing a separate freezer in the place. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 15, 2007 at 11:01 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 14, 2007 at 05:24 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 13, 2007 at 11:58 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 12, 2007 at 11:48 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 11, 2007 at 10:48 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Another rainy day, same old lazy Dog
We somehow managed to miss the ice storm that descended on all those people west of here, and if Weather.com is to be believed it isn't even headed this way, so I guess I can't complain too much about all the rain. I went out just long enough to fill Sunshine's water tub -- my sister and nephew took him his sweet feed -- and except for that I spent the day in the house. I think (hope) that part of my chronic state of exhaustion recently is due to the problem I've been having with my eye. I think maybe my brain's tired from doing the extra work necessary to try to make sense out of the world when one eye's feeding it bad information. Anyway I now have an appointment in Evansville Friday to have a VA eye doc there look the situation over and refer me to someone who can fix it. I just hope getting it fixed doesn't require going to the VA hospital in downtown St Louis. According to the VA's web site the hospitals in Danville, Indianapolis, and Louisville are all closer to Lawrenceville than the one in St Louis but I don't know if the doc in Evansville can send me to one of them. Just based on impressions I've gotten passing through all three towns at one time or another I think I'd prefer to go to Louisville if I have the option. I guess I'll find out Friday. btw, I bought an eye patch Monday the decided after I tried it on not to wear it because it seemed to make my glasses fit funny. I tried it again a few minutes ago and decided I'm better of with it than without it, at least for just sitting in my blogging corner. *** Part of me's anxious to get my latest floor plan transferred to paper so I can discuss it with the contractor I'm thinking of using and part of me doesn't want to mess with it till I have my eye problem under control. For now the lazy part of me's winning. Anyway, look at it here if you want to. The floor plan itself hasn't changed since my last post but I've added several hyperlinks indicating what I have in mind at various spots. I may not actually buy the exact items I've linked to but they're representative of what I want in the way of style, etc. I may back off on the lighting after my eye gets better but I know in general my vision isn't getting any better as time goes on so I probably won't. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 10, 2007 at 09:11 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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I guess we had a nice loud thunderstorm about 3:00 this morning. I take my hearing aids out when I go to be so I didn't know anything about it till morning but I guess it woke everyone in the house with normal hearing. Probably not coincidentally my sister had to call the cable company when she got up to have them reset our modem. I'm a little irritated that Weather.com didn't give any indication last night that there was any chance of a storm. This area has overhead power line and storm-induced voltage spikes have been known to fry more than one PC. We lucked out this time anyway. I don't know how much total rain we've had recently but I've dumped at least 4 inches of water out of Sunshine's feed bucket in the last two days. I think a lot of my laziness recently is just boredom. I have a thousand things I'd like to be doing but I can't do any of them till that big Social Security check gets here. Even if I had money some of them would have to wait for decent weather anyway. It would probably do my energy level good if I could just get out and walk around the yard now and then. Weather.com is predicting another three days of rain; if it ever stops raining I may bundle up and wander around outside some cold or not. *** I guess maybe it's a good thing it's still going to be a while till I can have my apartment built. Every time I step away from my designs for a couple of hours I think of something that should be different. You can look at my latest effort here if you want to. If you don't have Excel on your system you'll need to go here first and download the read-only version. I finally realized that if I moved the water heater from the bathroom to the east hallway I could make better use of some space that was going to waste in my previous design. I'm going to have to break down and have my eye problem taken care of. I have blood floating around in my right eyeball -- enough of it that if I close my left eye I can't read a book or a computer screen. It's done this before and gotten better on its own after a couple of days but it's been way longer than that this time. The VA eye doc in Evansville wanted me to have laser surgery a couple of years ago but I put it off because I didn't want to hassle with a trip to St. Louis. It's been long enough that first I'll have to go back to Evansville to be referred to somewhere they can do the surgery. I really don't want to go back to the VA hospital in downtown St Louis (I've been there once to see an ENT specialist about my hearing) but maybe I'll find out the eye clinic's been moved to the Jefferson Barracks campus by now, or maybe I can get the surgery done in Danville or maybe Louisville. I can live with my right eye being like it is as long as my left eye doesn't develop any problems but if both eyes were like the right one is right now I'd be pretty helpless. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 9, 2007 at 11:31 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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A tired, lazy Saturday at the Circle F
I think having all those extra kids here Friday took a lot out of me. Not only did I not get a nap I could really have used, the oldest one stayed the night and the truth is I don't trust him enough to crash with him up and around. His younger brother (7? 8?) is here tonight but it's hard to believe they're even related. I got out of the house just long enough to see that Sunshine got some water and sweet feed -- Colton did all the work, I just directed -- and spent the rest of the day doing not much of anything. The only reason I'm still up is I pigged out at supper and my stomach's giving me fits for it. I'm still spending some time playing with floor plans for my apartment but I've about gone as far as I can without some feedback from the contractor I'm thinking of using. I'm too lazy tonight to convert my latest design spreadsheets to images. If you want you can click here to see the latest "if I can afford it" version or here for the "the minimum I'll settle for version. If you don't have Excel on your system you can go here and download a program that lets you view Excel files but not create or modify them. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 9, 2007 at 12:05 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 7, 2007 at 06:51 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack |
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Gratuitous family bragging -- Update/clarification/bump
Lt. Robert L. Faith Jr., USAF, my brother's son, soloed Tuesday in a T-6A Texan II. I'm proud of him, and more than a little jealous. His class ranking will determine what he ends up flying after training but he's hoping for his very own F-22. Did I mention I'm proud of him? *** The grapevine has it that I've stepped in it big time again, as I seem to have a talent for doing, by bragging on my nephew without mentioning I'm even prouder of my daughter Heather. In spite of the fact that bad decisions and bad luck on my part kept her from going straight off to college for 4 years right after high school, she's now a Program Manager for Sprint PCS and is making great progress, with a 4.0 GPA so far, toward a degree from a fully accredited (and Sprint-approved; they're paying her tuition) online university, and also finding time on top of it all to do a great job raising the world's smartest 5 year old. I love you, little girl of mine. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 7, 2007 at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |
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We weren't completely out but I was starting to get a bit nervous. Guess what? When you look at one of those big round bales from the end you can't tell how long it is! One day it's "Yep, there's still hay there" and the next it's "Uh-Oh!" I'd been looking at the thing end on every day when I watered Sunshine, walked the water out of the hose, etc. From now on I walk out where I can see how short the bale's getting every day. My sister says it was 16 degrees out when she got up to take my nephew to school today. As soon as it got up to 33 I went out and tried to water sunshine, only to find out I hadn't gotten all the water out of the hose yesterday and it was plugged up with ice. Fortunately there was enough water already in the tub to last till the hose thawed out and I didn't have to do the bucket routine; I know that's coming one of these days but at least today wasn't the day. It's only supposed to get down to 31 tonight, then not freeze again till next Wednesday night. Life's easier when it doesn't freeze at night so I don't have to worry about leaving water in the hose. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 6, 2007 at 04:46 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack |