6ixString's Home Improvement and Mindless Ramblings Thread....
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Monday, May 9, 2016 00:48
VIEWED: 54723
PAGE 2 of 3
I got about 7/8ths of the dirt area where bushes belong on the left side of the front door done today. Shop vacced the helicopters, pulled the weeds and tilled it even. I've got just about as much work to do tomorrow before I can start planting the Hostas tomorrow evening (HOPEFULLY!!!!). Like everything else, this is taking MUCH longer than I thought it would.
I can't believe how many neighbors you meet when you're living in a friendly neighborhood and you spend all day outside working.
One of my neighbors is moving and she's taking a lot of her shrubery before she leaves. I guess her own Hosta situation has gotten out of control as they're just taking over her back yard where she planted them. Just today, she brought over a small green and white one like I got from Grams yesterday, but she asked me if I wanted to come over and see the first of six large plain green ones she dug up. It was HUGE!!!! I could split that thing up 15 times. That one plant alone is 5 times as much as I got yesterday and there are 5 more of them. She also has quite a few other varieties of plants she is willing to part with (one of them smells like Fruity Pebbles), so between all of that, I think I can easily transform the look of the front of my house absolutely free and with only 2 or 3 days worth of work!
She says I can also take three small trees that bloom purple flowers that would go well in my back yard along the fence.
I told her that I'd happily take anything she's getting rid of. 
Too bad she's taking off. Neighbors like that are keepers. I'll have to get her a gift card somewhere. I'll see if there is a nursery around where she's moving to since she's got such a green thumb.
Looking forward to showing pics of this unexpected development very soon!
Oh yeah... and for the first time since I planted the grass seed, I finally see grass popping up in the pool! The shoots I saw before were definately weeds though (likely crabgrass). The grass that just started coming up this afternoon grows in small patches and is only about 1/4" long. Yay! I didn't kill the baby grass!
I never thought yard work was fun before, and really, DOING the work still isn't, but since I'm on the verge of such amazing changes happening within the next week or so, it's really exciting.
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Don't mind the guy posting to himself
Got the entire front area cleared of weeds and helicopters and planted one single giant green Hosta plant yesterday. It looks a little abused after the move. I'm hoping that it gets healthier looking after the roots take hold and a little sunlight and water, but if it doesn't this year, it should look great next year when it comes back up. These tough SOBs don't die. If they didn't look so pretty, we'd call them weeds.
I saw my neighbor across the street yesterday for the first time since snow was falling too. I had to thank her for saying how nice it is to see somebody finally taking care of that house since the long time owners split about 6 years ago. I told her about all the work I'd done over the winter inside and that I can't wait until I get more of the inside presentable and she can come and see how different it looks. She says she knows a lot of people, particularly "little old ladies" that would love to have somebody they could call do to all sorts of small stuff for them. She said that most times they never get any call backs because the jobs are too small and contractors today are mostly looking for large jobs. I told her that when I get the bulk of my lawn stuff out of the way and I finish an outdoor painting project for somebody else that I'll make some business cards and they can call me for any work I'm capable of doing from gardening and mowing the lawn to refinishing floors and fixing and painting walls.
Maybe there really is a market for that sort of thing. I was thinking maybe I'd call myself "No Job2Small" or "Affordable Jack" (as in Jack of all trades, not the 6string variety).
I figure I can charge a whole lot less than most people could because I have a ton of tools already, I'd have basically ZERO overhead costs and since I don't have rent or a mortgage, I don't have basic needs to cover that many other folk do. At least until I build up my name, I'm confident I can underbid anybody else in the area for non-permit-requiring jobs within my ability. (I'd be worried that kids could underbid me on lawn mowing, gardening and snow shoveling services, but let's be honest, most suburbanite kids today are 10 times as lazy as I was back in the early 90s)
Nearly done with the Crabbage Patch too. Just a little over 1/8th left to go. It's hard to tell yet if I'll need to buy extra dirt, but here's hoping that I don't have to. I've removed at least 1 ton of rocks from the area so far, but there were definatiely some high spots that kept water pooling between my garage and my neighbors yard before (which is why there were mushrooms growing there too). It should all look pretty even when I'm done. Too bad I have to go back and remove about a billion hellicopters by hand over the tilled dirt before planting grass seed!!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
And BOY, when that baby grass starts coming up, it really starts making progress fast. After 10-12 days of no action, the first tiny patches started making headway 2 days ago. Now I have little patches like that in about 10 times the sq footage. If this keeps up, I should have little baby grass growing in every inch of that 29 foot radius crop circle within a week!
Pulling weeds, especially to this degree is not fun.... especially when my self diagnosed early onset arthritis is in overdrive. When I see the first of many future plants in the front of the house though, and grass that I grew from scratch coming up in what was a 6 inch deep crater in my backyard that required 15 tons of dirt to fill, it really starts to feel like it was all worth it.
I can't wait until my only lawn duties are mowing, fertilizing, grub-killing and raking leaves and hellicopters.
Feel free to share your own lawn and gardening stories or tips. I'm a flat out novice at this stuff, but if you put in the hours and the effort yourself, you really can make a huge improv
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Good luck with your side enterprizes of people's yard and repair work.
I had this hip pain issue for about 8 months, it would come and go and I could barely walk when it was really bad, it was really scary and I thought I might have some sort of early onset arthritis. I wasn't willing to admit how scary this whole thing was, but in eight months I had gone from normal to barely able to move. Believe it or not physical therapy has basically fixed me, even though the whole thing wasn't caused by an accident or anything, it happened by nature, but doing those excercises each day really helped once we found the right ones for me. Now I'm basically cured as long as I do them once or twice a week, I think pretty soon I won't even have to do them that often. Its bizarre. It still pisses me off that no one could tell me what exactly was the problem, I like it when things have names, so I still don't know why this happened and hope to goodness it won't happen again.
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.
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Hey Riona,
Funny you mentioned physical therapy. I was talking to my friend tonight about how my grandpa had several surgeries on his hands to keep them from balling up over the years and he could barely move his fingers before he died. I said that surgery has come a million miles since then and he said that more importantly the physical therapy aspect has evolved.
I'm too young to have pain like this, and you're definitely too young for it. I'm glad to hear that the exercises worked. I'll have to look into what I should do to fix this without taking pills for it.
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11 yirz ago wen I wuz creating the Nooalf Talking Picturez CD and the website, I'd be in my office chair 14 owrz a day almost nonstop. I started getting back pain, felt like my hip joints were grinding, neez, anklz and neck often hurt.
I got up to get a drink wun day thinking 'No suprize. I'm 41 now. This iz just wut getting old iz.'
I wuz thinking like that for a week or so.
Then I thout 'waitaminit! I felt fine before I started this project!!!'
I immediately dropped and did 40 pushups, 50 situps, 20 squats. Pretty much immediately, the old geezer wuz gon!
I developed a habit uv doing a quick round uv calisthenics wenever i get up since then.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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Hey JO,
Yeah... I need to start doing.... something. I'm sure that's all there is too it.
I guess I just finally reached that age where I NEED to excercise regularly to keep from having those dull aches all day long. It's just weird for me because I've never had to do that before. The only reason I ever worked out before was to put on muscle mass.
I've lost nearly 50lbs since 1 1/2 years ago doing nothing but home improvement stuff on my own house and my Mom's before I moved here, but without regular cardo I don't think I'm ever going to lose the last 10-15lbs I need to lose to have my six pack back without flexing it and sucking in the gut. (It was nice to see that it was still there waiting for me to shed all that beer fat though )
I'm as strong as an Ox still, but if I get into a fight I better win in about 2 minutes or I'm going to suffer a heart attack while I get pummeled....
I've only got 1/8th of the crabbage patch left to do. I'm hoping that on Sunday I can get all the plants from my neighbor and plant them as well. It's going to be raining tomorrow, so maybe I'll finally get to changing the oil on my car and doing some minor paint touchups where the edge sander scuffed the walls finally. Hopefully by late next week I'll have all the grass seed planted where the crabbage patch used to be and I can finally take it easy and just mow the lawn when it needs it and water my new grass seed 3 times a day.
Then I can FINALLY focus exclusively on trying to get a better job than that hospital security gig coming up in June!
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HAS ANYBODY HERE HAD ANY EXPERIENCE WITH PROPERTY TAX EVALUATIONS!!!!!!!
(Ahem!... Sorry for yelling )
I have done some research and I've found out that I can request a copy of my Property Tax Card, and I have a right to dispute it if there are things included that are not there, or if things are claimed that just aren't true. (Unfortunately, if I pursue this course of action down the road, the assessor will be noting all of the improvements I've made, and will also likely make note of the fact that I will be rehabbing the basement in the future and will want to do another walk through down the road.... not good if they have the upstairs marked as "carpeted" with the refinished hardwood floors, and especially not good to let them see how illegal the previous owners wired up the outlets in the basement)
My BIGGEST question is, how would one determine what constitutes taxable "living space"? My house (for both tax and insurance purposes) is listed as 2,090 sq. ft. This is OUTRAGEOUSLY wrong. The only way I can figure such a large living space is that they include every square inch of the finished attic (even though unless a short guy like me at 5'7" is standing right in the middle of it, I have to "duck" to not hit my head), and they include the 3-season room as taxable living space. I was under the impression, from other towns that I'd done research on homes in, that you could not include a room as a bedroom when you're selling the house, nor could you rent it out as a bedroom unless it a) had at least 7' clearance in ALL dimensions, and B) it had a closet. As a side note, this house WAS listed as a 4 bedroom house. The only way I can figure that is that they included the 2 legitimate bedrooms on the 2nd floor, and the two 5'x 4' rooms in the finished crawl, and didn't include the bedroom in the basement since it had been half gutted from the floods.
Not being able to call the tiny rooms in the finished attic bedrooms is a bummer if you're looking to make your house look better on paper and is even worse if you're legally unable to rent your house out to 3 people to help pay the bills, but at the same time, rooms under 7' in diameter (except for bathrooms) are not taxed as livable space.
I know that these requirements and codes change everywhere from place to place, but I really think my township is burning my candle at both ends. I know my land is the size of both of my neighbors' properties across the street, but my neighbor who has a true 2-story BRICK house pays $400 bucks less a year than I do and I have a tri-level house with 1/3rd of it in the basement and it's got abused vinyl siding.
I really think that if I were to let the assessor into my house today without having done any more improvements I could seriously reduce my tax bill, but only if I know what I'm doing going into the fight.
Any information that anybody could give me based off of their previous fights on property tax insurance would be a BIG help. I just don't know where to look.
Thanks,
~6
To keep it not so serious.....
It's no secret I've always loved Simon and Garfunkle...
But seriously, in this economy....
Isn't this an awesome song......??????
v
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Yay, the site is back up!
The good news is, I can actually get money back for up to 3 years if my property was over-assessed in my county. (Unheard of, in Crook County, IL). I know for a fact from a conversation I had months ago with somebody from my township that they still had 2 A/C units listed that they're currently taxing me for those, although they're no longer taxing me for the pool that doesn't exist. I'm going to get my tax card sometime next week and try to figure where they're coming from. If all it takes to remove the sq footage of the attic is to remove the carpeting, I'll gladly do it just to reduce the taxes. It's only a glorified storage area and my smoking room. I'll put down a 20 dollar rug from Aldi in the smoking area if it means I could potentially save hundereds per year with a smaller living space.
I got all the weeds out of the crabbage patch today!!!!!! I measured it, and it's 910 sq feet. Much less than I thought, but it still took me 9 days of work to remove it! (At least I only have to buy one more bag of grass seed since it covers 1,000 sq feet) If all goes well tomorrow, I'm going to remove all the helicopters, rocks and stray weeds that have popped up and get my seeds planted there by tomorrow night. After 2 or so weeks, the grass is really starting to sprout up in the pool. Maybe by the weekend I can have all of the plants and shrubs planted in the front area as well, and I'll only be on the hook for mowing the lawn and watering the new lawn and I can focus on employment oppurtunites then.
I think it's high time I had a party here too. No stink in the basement anymore, a lawn well on its way to being better homes and garden worthy and a nearly finished 2nd floor. Not bad for 8 months of work from one guy when the house was in the piss poor shape it was in when I bought it. 
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I can't resist...
(Cue: hammy-smarmy announcer voice)
NEXT UP, On lifestyles of the poor and shameless, how to disqualify rooms as living space!
hehehehehe.
Still, amazingly satisfying to reclaim something, be it a forlorn house, car, even a dollhouse, innit ?
-Frem
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Hehe Frem...
They got no business calling this livable space anyways. There were kids using these rooms as bedrooms in the past, I've heard from neighbors, but if there were ever a fire in the house they'd burn alive since there is no windows up here.
It really is cool reclaiming this place and making it my own. It's really nice being able to make such huge changes with the outdoor work with very little cost except for the ridiculous amount of time it takes to get 'er done.
That being said..... PICS!!!!
That's what the pool looked like last year before any dirt was put in (It's a REAL shame I didn't take pictures of it before I removed a lot of stones and about 300lbs of weeds!!!). in the back, you can see the neatly trimmed crabbage patch next to the crappy privacy fence my neighbor has.
Here's what it looks like after about 20 days of watering after the seeds were put down!
Yeah... I got some damn weeds in there, but I'm not going to deal with them until the grass is mature. I don't want to go pulling weeds and ruining baby grass, and I can't put down fertilizer for at least a few months or I could kill the grass off with it too......
As for the crabbage patch.....?
Here was the before pic I posted in mid-april....
And here's a few pics of what it looks like today, after I seeded and tilled it!
I talked with my neighbor for a few minutes today. He said he noticed the grass coming up in the pool and says it will look awesome if it all takes soon. He can't believe how I can plug away at this crap day in and day out either. I said it's easy when you're not working a paying gig. I need to get as much done as possible until I'm working a real job. I'm sure I won't be so enthusiastic about the work when I'm putting in 40 a week for somebody else.
I hope to hear from Wish now that I've finally got some more pics up. I miss having her around here :(
I hope to have pics of the front of the house and the new shrubbery planted there by the end of the weekend!
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I hope to hear from Wish now that I've finally got some more pics up. I miss having her around here :(
Weren't avoiding you, were avoiding the topic. I had a really bad few weeks where nothing got accomplished, and didn't wanna talk about it.
Finally got halfway up to speed today. Painting the front of the house to match the siding that's going up. Hope I can stay runnin for a while, but I never know.
Gettin somewhere, just slowly
PS. Check the taglog on the side of the home screen. He he he...
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Well I was just lampooning anyway Jack, which you knew - Tax Assessment has to be one of the most corrupt institutions ever, in both directions, that I have ever seen, and I am not at all adverse to bending the tax man over and servicing him good and proper if the opportunity arises, sure enough he gets his turn on you often enough!
-F
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Guess that's one of the good things about living out here in the middle of nowhere in a dinky county in an old fixer-upper, my property taxes are about the same as a couple of ol' Tanks' gas fill-ups, but that's probably in part because we have ta fill up ol' Tank about a thousand times more than other folk. One or the other- it's how it always goes!
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Glad to hear you're making progress Wish. I've been kicking some ass over here and I got all the damn grass seed planted early enough in the spring that it shouldn't rely on me watering it 3 or 4 times a day when I have to start working full time.
Damn... taxes by you are a few hundred bucks, huh? Nice :) I'm sure it's because you have to drive far for most of what you do though (that's a really simplistic view of it, but in the end, it's a good way of looking at it). I'm not really bitching about the $2,300 tax price here. I knew it was close to that before I moved in, and that's why I moved here. In Crook County, my taxes would be at least $5k, but more likely $6k a year if I owned the exact same house just over the border.
Something's wrong though when I've got the highest taxes on the block (I do have the largest land by far, but it's not brick and there are bigger houses than mine). I'm sure the assessors got in before the previous owners moved in and jacked the prices up and they never fought it. The assessors probably went back in after they got foreclosed on too, but of course they didn't reduce the price at all when they saw all that was missing and damaged since the last assessment. That will be on me to fight it now.
Oh... I haven't been in chat for days lol. I never turn my computer off. I forget to log out of things like this when I'm on my PC I know nobody else will use. BTW... I just figured out what the taglog was. What did it say????
I knew you were joking Frem
Funny thing is, I've paid WAY more in taxes this year than I've physically made in income. My income is still under $1,000 bucks for the year. After I make another withdrawal from the retirement accounts, my income tax burden for that will be nearly $1,500 bucks. I have a $1,300 property tax bill due in 30 days, and I paid 35 bucks for car registration for the year. Not to mention sales taxes and excise taxes on the booze and smokes. By the end of the month i bet I will have paid 4 times more in taxes than I've made so far this year!
Again... nothing unexpected here. Just gotta start making some cash and doing what I can to lessen the tax burden.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I just figured out what the taglog was. What did it say????
You can use the scroll up/down buttin on the side of it to read the whole thing...
I just tried to go to Avengers and was only 15 minutes early and it was sold out, then a rock flew offa truck and put a cm long crack in my windshield
Why can't anything EVER go easy???
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Sorry for your bummerz, Wish. Odd how bad luck seemz to happen in clusterz.
I hav to thank you, Jack. I changed the shoks on my car yesterday & wenzday & usually that kind uv chore work bugz me, but insted I had a different attitude and didnt mind all the little obstaclez.
Hard to describe the difference, but I wuz thinking about you doing your remodelling work and everything here iz linked to Firefly, so naturally I'm picturing you az Mal overcoming every challenge.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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Hey Wish, I think I saw it then... were you talking about how somebody should feed me?
Bummer about your windshield. Is it really bad? I've had a crack on my Camry since I bought it. Nasty little spiderweb. It hasn't really gotten big like I've been anticipating it to. I figure I'll ride around with it until I get pulled over. That one will be easy for me to talk my way out of a fine. Down where you're at, they probably would never bother you about it at all. If money is tight, you might consider foregoing that fix until things start getting better. (I have good feelings about next year for all of us )
Why can't anything ever go easy? Haha... preaching to the choir here... There's not a single project that I've done on this house yet that took anywhere near how long I thought it would take. Some of them, like the damn crabbage patch took 5 times as long to do than I thought going into it! At least, except for restoring the hardwood floor, the financial costs have actually been less in almost every project than I estimated going into it.
Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:I hav to thank you, Jack. I changed the shoks on my car yesterday & wenzday & usually that kind uv chore work bugz me, but insted I had a different attitude and didnt mind all the little obstaclez.
Hard to describe the difference, but I wuz thinking about you doing your remodelling work and everything here iz linked to Firefly, so naturally I'm picturing you az Mal overcoming every challenge.
Wow JO,
Thanks!
That really means more to me than you might think.
I bet it felt good after it was done and you could sit back and admire your handiwork and let it sink in just how much you saved on labor to boot.
Was that the first time you replaced shocks before? If it was, that's especially cool. I love learning how to do new things and using new tools. Once my house is in order, my dream is to be able to buy a classic car and restore it from the ground up like they do on those late-night auto-shows and really bling it out.
I'd sure love to be Mal, but I'm not nearly as "pretty" as Nathan. I always related to Mal and Book the most on the show, maybe a little bit of Jayne's crazy-ness and all around lone wolf bad-ass-ery in the mix too. I guess if the three of them had a love-child, that would be about on par with my outlook on life as well as the looks department
I'd love to say I had a bit of Wash in me, but I'm just not the happy-go-lucky fun type. My brother who co-founded the 76th Batallion is Wash through and through. If I ever had a ship in the future, he'd be my pilot/comic relief
Keep flying man.
NEW PIC!!!!!
Hastas planted, FINALLY!
I hope to get some other nice shrubbery from my neighbor, and hopefully some things that won't die off in the winter so it won't look totally bare 5 months out of the year. If not, I'll just have to figure that out down the road. I'm sure if I start trolling Craigslist I can find some mature bushes and evergreens without paying premium prices for them.
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WOW!
I love documenting things with pics......
Here I am, looking at the grass in the pool today thinking that things aren't progressing along as fast as they should be, and then I check out these pics from 4 days ago.
There's at least twice as much grass growing now! Half of that pool is filled. I just hope the rest starts coming in soon. Way too many bald spots for my liking still. Nothing growing on the former crabbage patch yet but weeds still. Hopefully something starts coming up soon.
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"Job Search 101" OR "What Nobody Ever Taught You"
Or at least nobody ever taught me, anyway....
I think I may have mentioned the overnight stocking position available at the local K-Mart I'd applied to a month ago. I know I've mentioned a lot of jobs that I've applied to but never heard anything back about, and how frustrating it is to have worked such a great job for 5 years straight and then you can't even get your foot in the door at a big chain for an hourly waged position that high school kids can get.
So... I checked online for that position again, and sure enough, it's still out there. I went to KMart today to buy a jug of weed preventer for the area with the hostas before I put the anti-weed fabric down, and I asked the girl at the register who I could call to follow up on an online application if I hadn't heard anything back. She dropped the name of the hiring manager and said she'd be in later in the day. Sure enough, they had my resume. She told me to hold on a minute while she "saw how I did". When I told her I'd give up my security job instead of looking at this as a second job, she told me they probably couldn't pay as much as a security job did. I said, that might not be the case since it was un-armed security and it was a temp firm and nothing but part-time placement so far. (I then went on to tell her that my REAL job was remodeling this house and that I just needed to actively seek out a source of REAL income to subsidize my living before I burn the nest egg up).
She told me she really wanted to give me an interview and to call her on Friday morning and maybe she could squeeze me in. I just got a call from her 20 minutes ago giving me a 10:30AM slot!
I don't know how well it pays yet (don't ever ask salary on the phone before the interview!). If it pays 9 bucks an hour and is at least 39 hours a week, I'll be doing just as well as I would driving out to a hospital in an undesirable neighborhood, and this job is so close I could just walk to work and back every night. I'm hopeful that because it's overnights that it should be paying at least a buck or more than minimum wage, so here's me keeping my fingers crossed.
Better yet.... ZERO customer service interaction, I'll be one of the only people in the store while I'm working, and I'll have a billion mindless things to keep my OCD mind occupied and happy so 8 to 12 hour shifts will just fly by for me like they do when I'm playing a dungeon crawler RPG game. (I don't REALLY enjoy playing those games.... it's more of a meditative/vegitative state I'm in while playing them. I just get pissed off the next day or week when I realized how much time I mindlessly sunk into my habits.... At least here, I'll be getting paid )
The best thing yet, the manager is a woman who sounds to be over 40 years old. I've never been denied a job when the interviewer was a woman over 40 years old. I'd say, given any unexpected curve balls, that this job is in the bag if I want it.
So...... to make a long story short.....
The lesson here for anyone having trouble even getting to the interview step is, if you've applied somewhere online, and you never got an email back saying that you weren't qualified, do some light "social engineering" and get somebody to drop a name of somebody who you could talk to to get the ball rolling.
Why didn't I ever get a call back or an email from the manager after applying online (here or anywhere else)? I couldn't tell you for sure, but I'm willing to guess that in this economy my resume was probably lost in a sea of 500 or 1,000 other resumes she was never actually going to sift through. It sounds like she's a really busy woman. Had I NOT called her and made a good enough impression over the phone to secure an interview on Friday, she probably never would have seen my application and she would have just "pic
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The place looks good!
Yes, I've dun shoks before. I've been driving this car since 89 and had 2 other 72 New Yorkers before that, plus a dozen other cars, mostly sister modelz or similarly big Chryslerz.
I worked az a stock boy at Jupiter! (which wuz an SS Kresge spin off or subsidiery like Kmart iz, but I think its just Kmart left now)
Iz it just my computer, or iz anybody else having this problem where the verticle line that showz where the typing iz going to happen duznt follow the arrow keyz or the mouse
, goramit!?
!! makes it a hassle to type!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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How's your current temp job going? Still going okay?
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.
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IN HOME IMPROVEMENT NEWS:
Wow! from that angle you can't even tell a pool was ever there now!
So.... that's the pool... sure a far cry from the previous pics from the 3rd.......
Sorry... had to put that all up here for my own benefit so I could see with my own eyes how much has been done now just by watering. It's hard to tell day-to-day.
Hey JO,
I haven't worked retail for over 12 years! At least I'll be behind the scenes if it's overnight, right?
Hey Riona,
Nothing new with that temp job. That's cool though because I hate it, and at this point I don't NEED it. If this overnight K-Mart stock position pays 8.50 an hour, i'll gladly pay it before driving 20 miles to an undesirable neighborhood to work security.
Things will get better.....
I already have my own dreams of creating a jack-of-all-trades temp service that will allow the laborers to accrue stock in the company the longer they work there.
No more Labor Ready, no more BS.....
If you prove to provide a positive momentum to the company, your rewards will only grow the longer you participate!
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BAH!!!!!
Crappy day today.....
K-Mart would have been more than happy to have me, but even the interviewer was saying it wasn't what I was looking for. 8 bucks an hour and only 24 hours a week. (Not what they advertized online!!!) She got me an interview on the 22nd right over the boarder where minimum wage is a buck higher with a security gig that would pay more than minimum wage though, so there's still hope there.
Got some more grass popping in the pool in the bald spots today, but it looks like Homer Simpson's "hair" on his head. I'm starting to think that I boffed the whole thing and I tilled the seeds too deep. If that's really the case, that means the 900sq/ft easement I tilled will probably have the same problem. I'm new to all of this though, so I may just be overreacting. I never even owned a Chia Pet as a kid lol.
Tomorrow will be better though...
TACO FEST at my parent's church. Every year, the day before Mother's day, a beautiful day when you can indulge in all you can eat tacos and beans and Spanish Rice and Nachos..... Every piece of it authentic... nothing processed!
My only problem on TACO FEST night is to do everything I can not to prematurely hibernate on my ride home after stuffing my belly to it's limits! It's the one night of the year that I eat so much it actually hurts....... Hurts so good!!!!
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Been a wile since I had tacoz. I make the filling either with Old Elpaso medium or Bennet's Chili Sauce. I I lay a bunch uv sharp cheddar strips over that in the taco.
I stopped eating them about 5 yirz ago wen I eliminated hydrogenated oil frum my diet. Nun uv the shellz didnt hav it. But last yir I noticed Old Elpaso finally got rid uv it, and had sum.
Your new avatar looks good. Wherez it frum?
I didnt hav much work last week, so I made a set uv antisway bar support struts. The stock werent long enuf since I added a heater to the lower radiator hoze and it wuz rubbing on the antisway bar.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Hey JO,
THE TACOS WERE AWESOME!!!!
It was cool too becacuse this year a ton of my family made it and it was more of a family party. I got there early at 4:30 and didn't leave till after 9PM. I ate so much by 5:30 though that I could hardly move, and I didn't ever go back for thirds.
I load mine up with hot peppers, lettuce tomato and sharp cheddar. Lots of refried beans and my Mom's EXCELLENT Spanish rice on the side (I seriously could eat a gallon of that stuff out of a bowl if it was in front of me).
What's hydrogenated oil?????
The avitar is just me. It was one in a series of pics of myself I had recently taken for something else and for whatever reason that crazy light show obfuscated enough of my face I didn't have a problem putting it up here. I have no clue what happened to make it look that way, none of the other pictures had any problems at all.
Good to hear you're getting more done man! I don't know crap about cars, so you're speaking Chinese to me, but I think I get the main jist of it anyway. I really need to learn about cars when I get a chance. I'd love to make an old retired POS into a beautiful ride someday. I'll ask you and Frem about that when I get to that point
I broke down today and spread new grass seed over the pool area by hand. I tried to get it as far into the center as I could, but I'm sure I'll have to re-seed that again as the perimeter (hopefully) fills in now. It's hard to throw uber-light-weight seeds like a fastball 14.5 feet in the wind when you've got a hole that spans 29 feet.
I don't know if the seeds will take, since I didn't rake them in at all, and the dirt has had a lot of time to settle now, but I'm hopeful. Before the grass started growing in at all and I was worried that I did something wrong, there were LOTS of visible seeds on the surface. There were NONE today before I spread the new seed. I figure by now, any seeds on the surface and shallow enough to grow would have sprouted by now. Maybe if I keep the soil moist enough with thourough watering I'll be able to get it in full before the really hot weather starts.
I REALLY HOPE I'M NOT STILL TRYING TO FILL 1,700 SQ FEET OF DIRT WITH GRASS COME SEPTEMBER!!!!!!!
Crabbage Patch = Roughly 910 sq/ft (Likely just a conservative estimate)
Pool = Roughly 660 sq/ft (3.14 * 14.5 * 14.5, plus a walkway and a boxed area where the filtration system was)
I just mowed the lawn today. Actually, the large filled in patches are nearly as tall now as the cut grass. Obviously, there nowhere near mature yet, but I did a REALLY careful job of cutting down the edges of the mature grass without disrupting the soil for the new grass and in the areas where the edges meet up with new grass patches that have fully taken hold it looks nearly indistinguishable now. I'M SO CLOSE!!!!!!
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I finally got my big kitchen window ripped out and replaced, as we bought and ordered it a year and a half ago...Sooooo nice to have a breeze, and I can open it one handed...I am very pleased with it.
Also, remember that mower I broke? After the third place I went to, which turned out to be a mostly industrial repair place, they said they'd take a look at it and he said the carburator was extremely dirty, and that he had never seen one like mine (something about a two way going into one with a float??) Anyway, I'm back ta ridin' again, yeehaw!
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You 2 woud be horrified if you saw my lawn. I havent mowed it this year! It turned to complete plants a few weeks ago, so its seeding itself!
I didnt mow most uv it frum about september last year wen a weel assembly fell off due to rust.
Hydrogenated oil iz the stuff that a group uv doctorz sued KFC about. Its basicly a cheap butter substitute. Cheap if you don't count all the bypass operationz and other health problemz cauzed by it clogging up our circulatory systemz. Its usually called transfat on packagez and in the nutrition info, but in the ingredients its called hydrogenated oil. It will almost alwayz be sum vegetable oil, soybean, canola, corn, etc., but there iz also hydrogenated lard, which you can still purchase if youre pro-level serious about clogging your arteryz.
All margerine, including the supozedly healthy butter substitutes are hydrogenated oil, at least partially.
A big scam that I'm surprized they can get away with iz stating 0 gramz tranz fats in bold letterz on the frunt uv sum chips such az Cheetoz, yet in the small print ingredients therez the hydrogenated oilz. Its probably a per serving rule that givez them an out.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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I don't much care about the lawn most days, but my neighbors are anal-retentive about such things and if it gets over three inches they knock on my door and want to know if my mower is broke, seriously... The constant hum of mowers here in the summer makes me uneasy, I feel like I'm being invaded. Next house I get is gonna be farther away from people.
Jo, from what I understand, aren't there two different kinds of transfats, one is "light" and one is "heavy" and your body needs a certain amount of one of them??
I don't know if you live in a city or not, but in towns here if your grass is over nine inches you get a citation, if three citations- the city mows it and bills you... If you don't wanna or can't get a new mower auctions are the way to go! For the price of a tank of gas you can usually get a cheap functioning one...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
I finally got my big kitchen window ripped out and replaced, as we bought and ordered it a year and a half ago...Sooooo nice to have a breeze, and I can open it one handed...I am very pleased with it.
Also, remember that mower I broke? After the third place I went to, which turned out to be a mostly industrial repair place, they said they'd take a look at it and he said the carburator was extremely dirty, and that he had never seen one like mine (something about a two way going into one with a float??) Anyway, I'm back ta ridin' again, yeehaw!
Double good on you Wish!
I after carbrator, you lost me too, but glad you found somebody who could make it work for ya!
Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
You 2 woud be horrified if you saw my lawn. I havent mowed it this year! It turned to complete plants a few weeks ago, so its seeding itself!
I didnt mow most uv it frum about september last year wen a weel assembly fell off due to rust.
Hydrogenated oil iz the stuff that a group uv doctorz sued KFC about. Its basicly a cheap butter substitute. Cheap if you don't count all the bypass operationz and other health problemz cauzed by it clogging up our circulatory systemz. Its usually called transfat on packagez and in the nutrition info, but in the ingredients its called hydrogenated oil. It will almost alwayz be sum vegetable oil, soybean, canola, corn, etc., but there iz also hydrogenated lard, which you can still purchase if youre pro-level serious about clogging your arteryz.
All margerine, including the supozedly healthy butter substitutes are hydrogenated oil, at least partially.
A big scam that I'm surprized they can get away with iz stating 0 gramz tranz fats in bold letterz on the frunt uv sum chips such az Cheetoz, yet in the small print ingredients therez the hydrogenated oilz. Its probably a per serving rule that givez them an out.
Haha JO,
You haven't mowed it yet this year!!!! I've already had to mow it like 6 or 7 times since we never had a winter!
Ah.... Trans Fat. Heard of that before, for sure. I RARELY if ever drink any soda today because it's all corn syrup and giving people diabeties, but I probably ingest more hydroginated oil than I should be. I do make a point to avoid any soy intake (because it is in essence nothing more than estrogen), but if it's created from other places as well I'm probably eating it. I DO LOVE ME SOME CHEETOS!!!!
I've never once purchased margerine though, so that's a good thing. I rarely use butter even, but if I'm going to use it, might as well be the real thing.
hmmmmmmmm... makes me wonder how many extra poisons I'm not even aware I'm drinking per 30 pack of Icehouse rather than springing for at least MGD or something?????
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
I don't much care about the lawn most days, but my neighbors are anal-retentive about such things and if it gets over three inches they knock on my door and want to know if my mower is broke, seriously... The constant hum of mowers here in the summer makes me uneasy, I feel like I'm being invaded. Next house I get is gonna be farther away from people.
Jo, from what I understand, aren't there two different kinds of transfats, one is "light" and one is "heavy" and your body needs a certain amount of one of them??
I don't know if you live in a city or not, but in towns here if your grass is over nine inches you get a citation, if three citations- the city mows it and bills you... If you don't wanna or can't get a new mower auctions are the way to go! For the price of a tank of gas you can usually get a cheap functioning one...
Haha... I'm pretty anal about my lawn, if you couldn't guess from how I do everything else. I'd never go to your house and bitch about it though. I'd just bitch to my friends and family behind your back about how shitty your
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The job "interview" wasn't actually an interview. It was an excuse to get my happy ass up early though and finally put in a physical application at the store that pays it's employees more than any of its kind because there are no unions and they don't pay for "frills" like cart boys or internet applications. (Also, because everyone who actually works there bitches constantly about how shitty it is... but I know that I've worked WAY shittier jobs for WAY less pay and no benefits, so I think it's right up my alley)
The woman there was super attractive and dressed in a very striking business suit. I hate being old enough now to refer to a woman I'm attracted to as a woman rather than a girl... grr... but I'd guess her to be no more than 27 years old. Being a regional manager though, she's probably making 25k more a year than the best year of my life. She's the real deal......
So I filled out my app, gave it with my resume, answered a few preliminary questions and if they like what they see from my app I'll get a call on Thursday. I told her that I'm willing to work any position at any store within 20 miles, even across the border and that I'm available 24/7.
If all of that, and actual face time with a DM, and just two attractive young people having an excuse to banter outside of a bar scenario aren't enough to at least give me an interview for a job which requires only a HS Diploma or GED equivelant, I'm going to start fitting a noose out of old shoe strings....
Seriously, J/K about that... but this is really my chance to live a truly care-free existence outside of the work place. Keeping my fingers crossed.
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Good luck!
Wish asked
Quote:
Jo, from what I understand, aren't there two different kinds of transfats, one is "light" and one is "heavy" and your body needs a certain amount of one of them??
No. Youre thinking uv saturated and unsaturated fat. Therez polyunsaturated, but I'm not sure if thats the same az unsaturated or a different type.
Tranzfats do not occur in nature. They were invented az a way to thicken natural oilz into a paste to immitate butter. If I'm remembering correctly, hydrogen iz percolated into a heated and pressurized vat full uv wutever oil. Unfortunately, this stuff haz a tendency to stick to the surfacez uv our circulatory system under certain circumstancez. Our system haz no way to chemically unstick it. For sum sum people it happenz alot and they find themselvez riding in an ambulance before they are 30. In most people it accumulates slowly so they arent taking that ride till they are 80.
If Uncle Skam wuz working for us insted uv being a tool for any industry that can afford a lobbying team, tranzfats woud hav been totally banned 40 yirz ago. It took a group uv doctorz filing lawsuits to get sum action on this. And even so, it's a motley patchwork uv local banz, limited national restrictionz, and haf assed package label rulez.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Best wishes on the potential new job Jack!
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.
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Thanks guys,
I didn't get a call today like they said I would if I got an interview. I'm hoping maybe they got backed up and I'll get a call tomorrow.
Gorram it!
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No call today either... I assume it's a dead issue now.
Why the hell can't I even get a job interview at a normal company that pays decent wages and doesn't just hire anyone off the street!!!!!! I even gave them a resume when they didn't ask for one to compliment my application.
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Perhaps you shoud consider free lance cargo hauling. Get a second hand vehicle. Take on sum passengerz to help pay for fuel. Do the occasional related side job.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Why the hell can't I even get a job interview at a normal company...
Jack, do you talk as fast as you type? 'Cause if I were doing an interview and you did, I'd have to stake you like a vampire, no offence... People don't wanna deal with other people's OCD or over-eagerness. If you aren't relaxed, neither are THEY.
Also, maybe they just got busy and forgot. Such things happen, and can be terribly frustrating in an employment process, I know. I would wait until Monday evening and make a polite call, what do you have to loose? We had to hound a place for a couple months before they would give hubbs a job, one time... I wouldn't get too discouraged yet. And try to have a good weekend, anyways....
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Perhaps you shoud consider free lance cargo hauling. Get a second hand vehicle. Take on sum passengerz to help pay for fuel. Do the occasional related side job.
Hey JO,
Is there a good market for that kind of thing? At this point I probably wouldn't need to put the vehicle on credit, and I'd finally have an excuse to splurge on a cargo van or truck I'd like to get for hauling tools around if I ever get a home improvement business off the ground... but without any income I'm a little concerned to be making a major purchase. If I didn't make a dime until mid November, I'd be out of money. (Actually, that's a lot longer than I projected I could go without working, so I've done good with what I had so far.... just figured I'd have a job now).
Anyway, that sounds totally awesome and very Mal-like in fashion.
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Jack, do you talk as fast as you type? 'Cause if I were doing an interview and you did, I'd have to stake you like a vampire, no offence... People don't wanna deal with other people's OCD or over-eagerness. If you aren't relaxed, neither are THEY.
Also, maybe they just got busy and forgot. Such things happen, and can be terribly frustrating in an employment process, I know. I would wait until Monday evening and make a polite call, what do you have to loose? We had to hound a place for a couple months before they would give hubbs a job, one time... I wouldn't get too discouraged yet. And try to have a good weekend, anyways....
Haha.... Nah, Wish...
I'm actually pretty quiet in real life. Depending on the circumstances surrounding the interview, and my mood of the day, I can be a little nervous, but I don't think it's any more nervous than they'd expect to see.
The posting about the "Hiring Event" said "no calls please". I assume this to mean after the fact as well, since they did specifically say that if I were chosen for an interview I'd hear from them by Thursday. At a lot of other places I'd say it was a crap shoot, but Aldi seems to be able to run a very tight ship.
My real frustration though is that I can't even get my foot in the door for an interview. (Aldi was NOT an interview. The conversation lasted 90 seconds tops). I don't even get the opportunity to blow an interview because I never get asked to come to one. The only places I ever get called by are places that hire anyone, and/or part time work making less than 9 bucks an hour. (This also includes no experience with training truck driving jobs and $11 and hour bus cleaning jobs).
I guess I would just appreciate it if somebody would at least let me talk face to face with them before they say no. And I'd REALLY like some constructive criticism of my methods so I can learn from any mistakes I'm apparently repeatedly making.
I'm just having a bad week is all.... I've been in a very foul mood and something really crazy happened to me the other night.
Have you ever sleepwalked before? As far as I know, I never had. On Wednesday night/Thursday morning I did. I went to bed watching an episode of Chuck. Where did I wake up????? In my crawlspace in the basement. NO
JOKE!!!! Had I jumped an inch higher I would have banged my head on a joist. That's not all though.... Not only did I wake up in the plastic lined crawlspace, but before choosing that as my prefered sleeping spot for the night, I methodically took the time to arrange the 15 or so unused strips of water pipe insulators to construct a makeshift bed for myself. WTF????
I can't wrap my head around it. I don't take any prescription stuff like Ambien that is known to cause that behavior. I haven't smoked weed in 14 months. I'm not drinking any more than I usually do, which is admittedly more than I should, but with 15 or so years of drinking under my belt, that couldn't ex
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My cargo hauling suggestion wuz a kinda sorta a joke. Firefly, hauling cargo? Get it? HAHA? ha. I gess you had to be there.
I used to sleep walk wen I wuz a kid. Last wun I remember wuz wen I wuz about 20. Woke up naked in the gangway next to the house! A lame end to a plezently x-rated dream.
Now I just take callz without waking up. I've reportedly had detailed coherent haf owr conversationz and I remember NOTHING wen wake up later.
Herez a pik uv my back yard:
Tryd to get the mower running, but it woud only go for about 2 minits and konk out. Gave it back to Tony.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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I don't think that qualifies as a lawn anymore, that's officially a fluffy weed farm... Your only options are: wait until next spring and get a jump on it, pay someone with a bush hog on a tractor to have a go at it, get out a garden hose and a dozen cans of that BBQ fire starter stuff and slowly burn off a section at a time... Or borrow a horse or a goat, or both 
Actually, the last one isn't too bad, your local aspca or shelter might loan out something like a foster pet deal...
Oh and Jack? Hormones have a great deal to do with things like nightmares and sleepwalking. When I was a kid I used to have sleepwalking episodes about "that time o the month"...Maybe your body is telling you it's time to get laid Or at the very least, to relax a bit. Not easy to do on a job search. Have you checked out the temp places? Not great jobs I know, but a distraction from your savings going down the drain??....
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I like that 'wait until next spring' idea! Its got serious slacker appeal!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
My cargo hauling suggestion wuz a kinda sorta a joke. Firefly, hauling cargo? Get it? HAHA? ha. I gess you had to be there.
I used to sleep walk wen I wuz a kid. Last wun I remember wuz wen I wuz about 20. Woke up naked in the gangway next to the house! A lame end to a plezently x-rated dream.
Now I just take callz without waking up. I've reportedly had detailed coherent haf owr conversationz and I remember NOTHING wen wake up later.
Herez a pik uv my back yard:
Tryd to get the mower running, but it woud only go for about 2 minits and konk out. Gave it back to Tony.
Heh... First thing I thought of was Mal, lol. I thought you were serious though
That sleepwalking shit is SCARY man. When you've gone 32 years and never done it before, it's like WTF????? My friend took Ambien to sleep and stopped immediately one night when he woke up and had a full fridge of grocieries he didn't remember buying and his sister called him the next day asking what the late night phone call and weird conversation was about.
There's a lawnmower in that pic man????? It's like "Where's Waldo" lolz...
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Oh and Jack? Hormones have a great deal to do with things like nightmares and sleepwalking. When I was a kid I used to have sleepwalking episodes about "that time o the month"...Maybe your body is telling you it's time to get laid
Come to think of it, I've been having quite a few nightmares and otherwise VERY vivid dreams too. Some of my dreams are so real that I find myself later questioning if things that have happened recently with my friends and family really even happened or if they were in a dream. A lot of that isn't even bad stuff... it's just not real.
At least I've been waking up where I was supposed to since the incident.
I need to find a temp job that specializes in office work around here. The 2nd best job I ever had started through a temp agency. After about 10 days the boss said, how would you like a full time job kid? I got really lucky there. Temp places really stick it to you and take at least 30% off the top, but you may land a job where they really like you and make it worth your while after you are no longer on the temp dole.
Got a part time security/surveillance job interview tomorrow. Pay should be pretty decent if the hours are over 30 a week. Wish me luck :)
Oh... and here's the pictures I said I'd post of the lawn mess....
UGGGGGGGHHHHHH The WEEDS!!!!!!
The area that's discolored on the top right isn't so bad now. I removed 95% of the weeds by hand while trying to baby the new grass, the discolored stuff is the lawn repair kit (seed/mulch/grass accelerator). Actually, about 70% of the pool was done today, so it looks way better than this pic already. Just hope the new grass takes hold.
And the easement...
Wow... two days ago it really wasn't looking that bad. Not today, no ma'am....
With everything else on my plate, I've all but written off the easement this season. There is no way I'm hand picking another 910 sq feet of weeds and buying another 70 bucks of weed repair. I just don't have the time or desire to work on the lawn anymore. It's too late in the year to do anything about it now anyway. The next 10 days call for 7 out of 10 days in the 80's and only a 30% chance of rain one day. I just hope that when I put down weed and feed next week that it kills off the weeds growing now and prevents most weeds from popping up until the fall and
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Haha!
This was the BEST interview yet!!!!
I got there about 20 minutes early, so I bought a sprinkler while killing down time. Show up to the customer service desk and tell them that I'm here for my interview. After about 10 minutes of waiting a guy comes out to apologize to me and tell me that they already hired somebody for the job last week.
Bah... whatever. Not going to get worked up about it. Got my sprinkler and it was close to where I buy groceries and make my weekly booze cruise anyways, so I used that as an excuse to stock up on that stuff early.
Tomorrow I'll get the rest of the weeds out of the pool and the rest of the lawn patch in, and I'll go pay my property taxes. I'll probably just take that 24hr/wk job overnight stocking for now until something better comes up. I can probably make it about 2 more years here without a better job on that meager pay.
Getting back to my calm center here. I've woken up in my bed every night since the incident, and tonight won't be any different
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Well... didn't get a lot of that stuff done today, but there REALLY is only one day of weed pulling left now, if I stick with it for 8 hours in the heat.
The sprinkler I bought is AWESOME. Only 7 bucks. Sure, it's made in China and it's all plastic, but you can "program" how hit spreads the water both ways with ease with two dials. Even though it hit 87 degrees here today, the mulch was still damp at 2PM after giving 3 areas a 30 minute watering. If I were spraying by hose in this weather, I'd need to give it a recoat 5 times a day.
It's been about 6 days now since I put the initial lawn patch down. Hope to see the new grass filling in the bald spots in the next coulple of days now. It will take a lot of water and a lot of dilligance over the next 3 or so weeks, but I think I can still salvage the pool and make it all green by summer time.
I'm just going to weed 'n feed the easement on Friday though. Hopefully it kills off the weeds growing now and keeps new ones from growing until the weather is cooler in fall and I'll finish her up then.
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Tony got the mower running & refuzed to accept payment!
I mowed the frunt lawn fairly eazily. It iznt very big and the house shadez it, so it wuz only about 18 inchez at the tallest.
The bak yard (in the pik) iz much worse. I went at it for about 45 minits and only did about 1/4 uv it. Its about 4 feet in sum areaz.
A guy on a 4 weeler stopped to laff at me.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Joe, that would be scary, waking up naked outside.
Jack a chara, It sounds like that sleep walking incident was unsettling for you. I'm glad it hasn't happened again, here's hoping it was a total fluke. I only sleep walked once or twice when I was a little girl, a long time ago. I talked in my sleep until my early womanhood, haven't done it in a while, when Mary stays over she always says she didn't hear me, whereas Jennifer always used to tell me what I would say.
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Tony got the mower running & refuzed to accept payment!
I mowed the frunt lawn fairly eazily. It iznt very big and the house shadez it, so it wuz only about 18 inchez at the tallest.
The bak yard (in the pik) iz much worse. I went at it for about 45 minits and only did about 1/4 uv it. Its about 4 feet in sum areaz.
A guy on a 4 weeler stopped to laff at me.
18" - 4'!!!!! Yikes!!!!!
I sure hope you're bagging and not mulching. I don't envy your shoes....
Glad you got your mower fixed for free.
Good luck man!!!!
Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Joe, that would be scary, waking up naked outside.
Jack a chara, It sounds like that sleep walking incident was unsettling for you. I'm glad it hasn't happened again, here's hoping it was a total fluke. I only sleep walked once or twice when I was a little girl, a long time ago. I talked in my sleep until my early womanhood, haven't done it in a while, when Mary stays over she always says she didn't hear me, whereas Jennifer always used to tell me what I would say.
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.
No joke Riona, it was VERY unsettling. I don't think I've ever talked in my sleep before, but that would be scary enough to me. The only time I can think that I may have done that is when I'm on my way out of a dream and I realize that I'm talking to myself. It's been ages since I shared a bedroom with my two bros, but they never said anything to me about sleep talking.
But to wake up in my dirty crawlspace where the sump pump is, not to mention, where all the water that infested the basement with mold was drained from when the power was turned back on?????? Let's just say the first thing I did was take a scalding hot shower and I ended up burning the boxers I was wearing. I have no idea how long I was down there before I woke up. The worst part of it all is, if I'm capable of doing that without being aware of it, what else have I done in my sleep? Hell... have I gone to my computer and posted in the RWED while sleeping or called up married Ex Girlfriends?
Your imagination is the limit for what you "might have done" after a night of waking up on "bedding" you meticulously put together in a dirty crawl space.
I get shivers just thinking about it........
In home improvement news... like everything else, the last relatively small area of weeds in the pool is going to take at least 2 days to do. I knew that was the worst part and that's why I saved it for last. It was probably only 100sq/ft, but the weedage there is so insane and you have to take every precaution to not rip out healthy new grass.
In an interesting turn of events.....
Now I know why the rabbits were digging a hole in the pool and why I had the fun of witnissing them eating and chasing each other for about 3 hours yesterday just feet away from where I was working.
I thought that they dug the hole to get at the roots of a certain kind of weed I've noticed they love to eat.
Nope....
I worked the weeds around that hole and when I finally got to it I pulled out a bunch of dead grass and rabbit fur came up with it. My first thought was Gorram it!!!! Thanks for killing some of the grass I actually had growing.... but when I saw what was underneath, I was mortified......
Hairless, wriggling and writhing living creatures using each others body heat for warmth. I didn't know what the hell to do, so I just covered it back up. Knowing what I know about the human scent on a baby bird's nest, I figured I just executed these baby rabbits.
Fortunately, rabbits aren't the same. As long as the mother doesn't get run over by a car or chewed up like the two other rabbits I've had around here, she will come back every night and morning to
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Mama rabbit came by today!
I was worried this morning when the X I made with twigs hadn't been moved....
While I was working on the weeds, about 2 feet from the nest, she was scoping out the area for about an hour. I'd look over at her occasionally and look away. I was trying to let her know that it was cool that she came by and I wouldn't hurt her.
Finally, I got to a point that was just beyond the hole from where she was waiting and I could work for 20 or so minutes with my back to her and the hole. Sure enough, she creeped in and started feeding. Without turning quickly and staring right at her, I could see in my perephrial vision that she was tending the nest. Only about 18" away from me!
I know that had to be hella-stressful for her, but mother's instinct trumps all that.
I felt bad that I had to scare her out of the easement area later though when I saw her feeding there. I had just put down fertilizer to try to kill off the weeds growing before they overtake the grass I had planted. I sure hope she just feeds in the pool area near the nest while I'm not around for the next 24 hours until I can water the easement again. The fertilizer probably won't kill her, but I can't imagine that it would be good when she's feeding the babies.
As a side, I thought it was cool that it looks as though she used my two "X" twigs to reinforce her nest. I was just going to remove them after she left now that I know she's coming back, but they're now wrapped in the dead grass and fur she's left as almost a support bridge over the hole.
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The weeds in the pool are gone.... FINALLY!!!!!!
Well, a bulk of them at least. I have noticed some popping up again in the areas I started with over a week ago. Finally got that lawn patch down everywhere now... just in time for the 97 degree weather tomorrow. Yay! I'll be watering all day long probably.
The good news is, now that I'm using a sprinkler, the original grass seems much more lush and it looks as if it's really starting to fill in the bald areas in the parts I de-weeded a week ago. The worst area of the pool is the stuff I just de-weeded in the last two days, and that's a good thing. That means that even though I don't really notice new growth from day to day, The overall picture is filling in like I want.
By god, I think I might be able to save this pool yet before summer is in full swing if I remain diligent about watering for the next 3 weeks!
The babies are still healthy and kicking. I hope I didn't make them too nervous camped out right next to their hole all day pulling the last of the weeds. No sign of Mama Rabbit today. Maybe she knows that I'm cool now. If anything, I'm a deterrent for any predators getting to them while I'm there. I just hope that some stray dog or cat doesn't get to them now that the hole is out in the open. She originally picked the spot that had weeds over a foot tall to hide it. Now all that's hiding them is the dead grass she put over them.
Sorry rabbits... I can't allow those weeds to seed and spread. At least I didn't put the Lawn Patch close to your hole. I have no idea if that would be deadly or make you sick, so I will just fill that area with patch in the fall after you've grown up. Looking forward to seeing you tailing Mama around the yard in a few months.
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Glad youre wun uv the good guyz, Jack! Too many people think nothing uv killing defensles animalz.
No, wuznt scary for me, Rionaire, just a little chilly. Then I wuz wondering if maybe I wuz on my way back frum sumwer and the cops woud be hammering on the door.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Yeah, thanks JO. I need to build my Karma back up for killing 4 mice in the house over the winter. If they were outside my house I wouldn't hurt them, but there's gotta be somewhere when you draw the line. I've also killed quite a few tiny ants in the last few days too. Little bastards.... why do they make me do things that make me sad?????
I gotta get some new pics up of the pool and the easement. The pool is starting to look pretty good now. I'm hoping that it really fills in before the weather gets consistently hot. Today was 98 degrees here at 2:45PM, and tomorrow is a high of 91 degrees, but thankfully there are a lot of high 60's low 70's coming in the 10 day forecast. No rain, unfortunately for the rest of my lawn. The area on the side of the garage that gets 100% of the sun all day long with no shade, and also a part I didn't fertilize yet, is damn near looking dead now since we've had nearly zero rain in a month. It's funny, because even during the very mild winter we had the lawn never got that brown.
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Hey....
Has anybody used one of these before?????
http://menards.com/main/building-materials/landscaping-materials/edger
s/garden-wizard-raised-bed/p-1727122-c-5783.htm
It's the "Garden Wizard Raised Bed Garden" It's a 4'x4', self irrigating decorative bed with resin composite that doesn't fade and looks like bricks.
I was at my bro and sis-in-law's house for a barbeque tonight and with all the gardening they're planning on doing, they got me a bit stoked to do this. I LOVE tomatoes, and she says they're VERY easy to grow. All you have to do is pay about 2-3 bucks for a vine of the cherry tomatoes and she was getting about a pint worth of tomatoes everyday once they started blooming until about mid-October last year off of just 3 plants. That was 9 bucks of plants, a little weed preventer and watering and assuming a harvest like that every day for the months of June to October, that's about 40 bucks worth of tomatoes a season... far more than I could ever eat. And they're a lot better than the insecticide ridden ones you'd buy at the store!
I've seen this particular unit go for as much as 250 bucks at different places, but Menards has it for only 99 bucks! I'd have to drive a bit to get it since there out of stock almost everywhere, but I kind of figure why when everybody else charges so much for them. I posted the Home Depot specs since Menards' website is kind of lacking compared to Home Depot and Lowes....
Self irrigating, and a maintinance free composite? What could go wrong?
I just can't believe there aren't any reviews ANYWHERE online for it.
I think I'm going to pull the trigger and buy it this week. For whatever reason, even after re-seeding the area I believe was a sandbox before I filled it with dirt from scratch 10 days ago, the grass is still barely taking hold there. My brother had mentioned that this would be a perfect place for a 4x4 garden. 
If I can really get 400 bucks worth of tomatoes a year, and maybe have room for a few other vegetable plants there, I think that would really ease my pain for paying more in taxes than anyone else on the block. I always wanted to set something like this up down the road, but why wait until then... For about 150 bucks upfront costs, I could be well on my way for having so many free vegetables for the season that I'll be giving away the surplus to my neighbors.
The grass is still filling in good in the pool hole, Mama Rabbit is still tending to the kids, and I saw them kicking up a storm in the nest today.
Everything's gravy.... at least, that is, until my water bill comes in next week.......
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History of erasing evidence of a 29ft crater in my back yard.....
Late September:
(I really wish I'd taken a picture of the weeds and stones before getting even to this point. This was before 15 yards of dirt was filled in.)
Late April: (After dirt filled in)
May 3rd:
May 9th: (Pre Re-weeding)
May 21st: (About 1/2 of re-weeding and lawn patch done)
May 31st: 
(As you can see in the background, the weeds have all but re-taken the "crabbage patch" after all of that work. There is some solid grass in there though. I think I'll just keep weed'n'feeding it and overseeding it during early spring and late fall and just keep mowing it down. Hopefully in a few years the grass will crowd the weeds out. At least, I've heard that works if you're diligent about it.)
I'm giving up thinking I'll have the pool filled in before it's too hot to do any more work, but all in all not too shabby. Once the rabbits move out of the hole I'm just going to weed'n'feed it and start mowing it regularly with the rest of the lawn. After the double work done on the weeding here, I'm hoping to have this part of the lawn completely looking nice by next summer.
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JO!!!!!!
Need your crazy math skillz buddy!
The fight against property taxes is back on!
I've come across some new information today that can really Break the case on their part. It seems that, even though almost EVERYTHING is wrong about the card and some of it is in my favor, they're claiming this land is not in a flood plane and I just checked with the village and it still is considered a flood plane. So not only should that devalue the worth of the land, but when they see that my basement is unfinished, they can't deny me not wanting to EVER finish it when it could flood again at any time, and they can't just chalk that up to lesser value on the home because it was a foreclosure sale.
So... since the game is on... let me send you a rough, and not at all measured out draft of the REAL acerage of my property as opposed to what they're claiming...
The dimensions and footage laid out, are what the taxes are based off of now. I haven't even checked to see if these are real yet. The problem is, the "black line" that goes through the pic is where underground pipes are placed, so there is a very large easement of this property they're still taxing me on. As I said, I haven't measured this yet, and this pic and my calculations are based off of eyeballing the yellow markers on mine and my neighbors property and guessing off the original figure. I will be doing the dirty work this weekend though.
I used a program called sketchandcalc.com. It's "pretty" cool, but it could do some upgrades that would allow you to put exact numbers instead of just scroll around and hope for the best. Since I was able to get really close numbers to what I assumed, I'll go with what the site values were.
Based off of the new black line (and the complete inability to give the EXACT dimensions I wanted to in the program), I had a left side of 78.35ft, top of 135.5, right of 91.68 and bottom of 135.02.
This gave me a total acreage of .264 acres.
The ORIGINAL on my taxes completely threw away the irregular form of the lawn and just said it was a perfect 118x134 foot rectangle, for .363 acres.
The ORIGINAL land value based off of their callous calculations is $41,800.
With the new, albeit guessed acreage, I come up with $30,400.
I do like to think that my eyeballing is correct.
At this point, that's really my only question to you. Is my eyeballing pretty on, or way off? I assume with the existing dimensions and the new black line, the new property lines would only be 72.72727272727272727272727273% of the claimed land.
(Actually... I have another question.... what would my true acreage be just based off of their original claims to the sq footage without my black line???? I bet it's still less than their bastardized 118x134 measurements!)
Before I commit myself to this, I'd like anyone's opinions here before I open the proverbial can of worms. I've constructed a Pros and Cons list, and a "maybe" list on the side.
Pros.....
1) They claim I have 2 A/C units. There are no A/C units.
2) They claim I have Heat in the 1st, 2nd and sub floor footage. There is only overhead heat on the 1st and 2nd floor. (There is a spot in the crawl for a furnace, but there have probably been 4 furnaces at least since the house was made that "died" because of flooding).
3) The claim I have aluminum siding. I have vinyl siding.
4) They claim I don't live in a flood plain, and I just verified with the village today that I do.
5) They claim that I have 3 bedrooms, and 7 finished rooms, but with a completely unfinished and constantly flooded basement over the years, I only have 2 bedrooms and 4 finished rooms.
6) They claim my back enclosed porch is 280 sq ft. The actual sq footage is just over 210 sq ft. (The unfinished storage shed is included in this figure to make 280 sq ft, but it's already billed separately as a non
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Geez... I hope my RWED Posts haven't killed any interaction in this forum. I feel like the sound a tree falling in the forest makes when nobody is there to listen...
This book is Amazing! All New Square Foot Gardening: http://www.amazon.com/All-Square-Foot-Gardening-ebook/dp/B0055IW8R0
My garden has cost me a small fortune to start up now, but until I decide to make more of them the upkeep costs should be next to nothing from here on out. If I grow just tomatoes in it this year, I should easily make that money back and more compared to prices I'd pay in the grocery store.
I'm going to build up the sides beneath the raised garden with the flat cinderblock stones I had pulled out of the pool area and elsewhere on the property. I will still have to bend down a bit to garden, but it will be raised enough where animals won't have an easy time getting to it, particularly the bunnies. (I hope to start constructing it all this week, so I'll have pics of what I'm doing along the way).
Materials/Costs so far:
GARDEN CONSTRUCTION:
1 Raised Garden Self Watering 4x4 bed: $99.99
1 3/4"x4'x4' medium grade, untreated plywood (on sale): $15.97
12 4" strips of wood lath (for the grid): $2.28
60 cinderblock-tops to build it off the ground: FREE
1 Tarp to wrap the plywood with: Reused from previous job, so essentially FREE
"MEL'S MIX" PERFECT RAISED GARDEN INGREDIENTS:
2 1.5 cubic foot bags of Varmiculite: $25.98
3 cubic feet compressed Peat Moss: %9.99
2 40 lb bags of cow manure compost: $3.94
2 .75 cubic foot bags of Mushroom based compost: $7.74
(There will be about .4 cubic feet of Varmiculite, 3 uncompressed cubic feet of peatmoss and .4 cubic feet of compost left over for another garden with these measurements. I'll probably give the rest to my brother and sis-in-law if they choose this route for their gardening project)
PLANTS:
Dunno yet... I haven't gotten that far. They're relatively cheap, and I'll HAVE to buy them this first year, but I plan on doing this all from seeds starting next year when I get ahead of the weather.
My guess, for the square footage, about $20 bucks for the plants.
So, in the end, for this first season, the upfront costs for this garden will be $185.89 plus tax. I know that that seems staggering, but at the same time, the book says that a single 4x4 raised garden bed properly done will garner a large salad for a single adult every single day during harvesting season.
I don't know about where you live, but by me it can cost $3 to $5 dollars for a salad mix bag full of washed vegetables raised with pesticides and man made fertilizers. I look at this as an investment of having a "Home Goods" store right in my back yard, and because I sprung for the self watering system it's a nearly maintenance free home goods at that. It should easily pay for itself and more in just one season.
Doing it Mel's way, it would be MUCH cheaper. Being handy and cheap like I am, I could have easily gone this route, but the idea of having a nearly maintenance free garden to start with that watered itself, I spent 100 bucks on the 4x4 kit that I could have built nearly for free if I scavenged around for wood planks to make the box out of.
There's THREE great things about "Mel's Mix":
1) You don't have to fertilize it EVER! The only thing you have to do between growing new plants is to add new compost (by far the cheapest ingredient of the mix). The Vermaculite and Peat Moss are nutrient free and don't biodegrade. You don't mix any infertile, weed infested, soil from your yard in the mix, and you start with a great base of 2 materials that retain water, allow drainage, and allow room for root growth, and the nutrients all come from the compost.
2) You barely have to till between growing... just enough to mix the new compost in. Since the garden is raised and nobody will ever be walking on it, combined with the &
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Here's hoping everything goes according to plan....
Oh yeah, cause that'll happen for sure.
If yer planning to grow tomatoes, you really oughta talk to Dreamtrove about, cause he knows way more about that kinda thing, and what I know wouldn't fill a thimble - seriously, gardening is WAY out of my competence zone, I only even recently figured our soil PH might friggin matter...
-F
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Quote:
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Here's hoping everything goes according to plan....
Oh yeah, cause that'll happen for sure.
If yer planning to grow tomatoes, you really oughta talk to Dreamtrove about, cause he knows way more about that kinda thing, and what I know wouldn't fill a thimble - seriously, gardening is WAY out of my competence zone, I only even recently figured our soil PH might friggin matter...
-F
Haha.... Why should I believe that this plan will be different than any of the others?
If I run into problems I'll take your advice there. I don't know if Dreamtrove does the Square Gardening Method or not, but if he doesn't, he's doing a completely different type of gardening and it would be like a Chemist trying to teach an Engineer student their job using Chemist ideas.
The only reason I know anything about Ph of the soil is because Mel mentions it in the book. He only goes further on about it to say that you'll NEVER have to have your soil tested for PH, and that he won't even bother explaining it in the book since we won't have to know what it means or ever have to pay to have it fixed.
Really Frem, if you don't know shit about gardening, as I didn't 2 months ago before pulling a billion weeds and trying to get grass to grow over 1,600 feet with moderate success, I probably wouldn't attempt it either. I think it's going to be REALLY easy with this system, and a 4'x4' garden that could supply an adult male with one essentially free salad a day for life after it pays for itself could be done for MUCH cheaper than I did it.
Maybe you should buy "Square Foot Gardening" for that kick ass girl you think so highly of????
If things go well here for me, I'll have 4 more of these next year at least. I'll be well on my way to moving on from vegetables to having my own chicken coop in a few years. Maybe some solar panels on the roof and a corn burning furnace for the winter. Maybe one day I'll be brewing my own beer and growing my own tobacco too?
Who says you can't support yourself, even in the suburbs?
If I'm going to be paying so damn much in property taxes to largely support schools and welfare for kids, when I don't have any of my own, Isn't it about high time I made my property work for me????
As for the garden.....
I get the actual garden walls tomorrow, and I've got my mix all ready to go. I took quite a few pictures, so I could document my step-by-step approach to prep-work I did on my own that isn't discussed in the book. This is the Extra type of stuff that he says a lot of gardening enthusiasts can and will do to make the project their own. Actually, this part took me less time than I thought it would, although I did have to do a bit of extra work fixing things. I know for next time though that I would have done something completely different and I'll mention that in the step-by-step that follows.....
BUILDING MY OWN SQUARE FOOT GARDEN (SFG) SYSTEM; PART 1:
STEP 1: HAVE ALL OF YOUR TOOLS AND MATERIALS READY.
4'x4' sheet of 3/4" plywood (non-treated... the treated stuff will poison your food).
Aluminum tape (The type you would buy to secure ductwork elbows above your water heater.
Staple gun (loaded with staples, duh!)
Cordless Drill with a 1/4" wood bit.
Pencil
Tape Measurer (If you have a 4-foot T square, the job will be MUCH easier, I didn't have one yet.)
A tarp that measures at least 5'x5'
Also, since the entire idea behind Square Foot Gardening is that it can be planted anywhere and that you NEVER mix it with the crappy soil in your lawn, you can put it up as high as you'd like. Since this is my first year doing this,
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Been bizzy lately, so sorry I didnt get to your questionz.
Me, mad math skillz? HA! But, sq ft calculationz are very basic. Just get out there with a tape measure and get the real numbrz. I dont know if itll help that much with the taxez, but like you sed, its worth a try. Just be nice wen talking with the burokrats. If you get on their bad side, they can make it a personal vendetta and rap you up in red tape for ever.
----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Very basic for you JO, lol.... Give me a square or a rectangle and I'm golden. Give me something with 4 different sized sides and I'm lost. I better get out there soon since I only have until Friday to file an appeal.
I'll be sure to bring plenty of tact to the table. Never bad advice there when it comes to the gumment.
BUILDING MY OWN SQUARE FOOT GARDEN (SFG) SYSTEM; PART 2:
This part won't have much to it, because putting the box together was easy and mixing the ingredents for Mel's Mix was pretty self explanatory.
STEP 1: PUT THE BOX TOGETHER
Just follow the instructions and when you're done it will look something like this.
An additional step I took was to add the Aluminum tape along the bottom for stability and to keep any water from seeping out of the sides. You could probably skip this step though, because especially when you've filled the sides with water, that beast isn't going anywhere.
The only other note I have is to follow the instructions and loop the hoses over each other, and NOT to do what my brother and I tried. The way the hoses were pictured on the picture on the front of the box seemed to be a smarter way to do it, but these water-permiable hoses kink something aweful, and once you've bent them out of position it's impossible to keep them from kinking up, even if you went the right way with them. The only negative effect I see now is that several of the sides won't fill each other up because of the kinks, I think that the water should still be able to make it out to the middle before the kinks though so the irrigation feature should still work fine.
Oh... I also skipped the step to put the anti-weed fabric on the bottom. The drainage holes are so small, I don't think that it matters.
STEP 2: MAKING THE MEL'S MIX
The book says to buy 5 different types of Compost. I wasn't able to locate more than two around me.
Also, to make things easier, I simply put in 3 cubic feet of each ingredient, rather than try to figure out how much 2.67 cubic feet of each ingredient would be.
1/3 Compost (2 40lb bags of horse manure and 2 .75 cubic foot bags of mushroom based compost)
1/3 Peat Moss (A little less than 1/2 of a full bale)
1/3 Vermiculite (2 1.5 cubic foot bags)
Spread out a tarp and mix the compost together.
Add the peat moss and with a metal rake do your best to till them together until the color is uniform. With a friend, you can pull up the sides of the tarp to further mix it and keep raking it in.
Add the Vermiculite and mix it together until everything looks even.
This step will take a little bit of time and energy.
STEP 3: FILLING YOUR GARDEN
Drag the tarp so it butts right against your garden so if you drop any off of your shovel (which you will), it will fall back into the pile. Just shovel away until you can pull up the opposite side of the tarp to condense the last of it, shovel again, and then with a friend when not much is left carefully pick up the tarp and pour the rest in. Spread the mix evenly in the box.
END PART TWO
Here's what it looks like now:
What do you think? Not too shabby huh?
I hope to pick up my plants tomorrow and get everything started. I'll be taking pics of it every week or so and keeping record of how much produce I get. I'll just be starting with tomatoes this year, but I hope to expand that a lot next season.
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Grrrrrr.......
Note to self, Anything that sounds as easy as a "self watering garden" comes with many problems of its own.....
It's got a pinhole leak on one of the corners, on the inside of the joint. There is no way I can get to it until late fall when I pack it up (or without about a days worth of work of removing all the soil, dumping the water, fixing the leak... waiting a day for it to dry, filling it all back up and then planting). I'll make it work this season, but I'll have to figure out a way to patch it before next year.
I worked on tightening the hoses and hollowing out the top layer of bricks so my corner drainage holes could actually drain (duh!). Glad I had a spare masonry blade lying around for my Skilsaw. At least fixing the hoses kept the leak from being bad. I lost about 15 gallons of water overnight since we only hand-tightened the hoses. I worked out all the kinks, set it up right and used a cresent wrench to clamp them in and now the water leak is barely noticible.
Tomatoes will be bought and planted tomorrow, so help me!!!!!
Oh... and I'll also be taking my drug test tomorrow too, and assuming no black marks on my background check (which there won't be), I've got my orientation on Sunday and I start work on the 18th. It's not much, but it's 3 nights a week at above minimum wage. Should be enough to cover about 90% of my regular bills, and give me 4 days a week to figure out how to make more money and to look for a better job. In the mean time, it's unloading trucks and staging merchandise... just the type of low level job with a million menial tasks to perform that will make the night fly by for me, in a store that only has about 5 people in it at those hours.
I know I'm capable of so much more than that, but if I've got to be scraping the bottom of the barrel right now for jobs, I can't think of a better position to be working with my personality.
The only thing that could make this suck now is if I'm working along side a couple of real dicks. Here's hoping that my new co-workers share my shiny, happy personality
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Congrats!
I hav sum luk myself lately. More machining work than usual, so I will be able to pay sum billz this month.
Odd polygonz are easy to calculate area. Just lopp off trianglez till you hav a rectangle. And the area uv trianglez iz 1/2 hite x width.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Congrats!
I hav sum luk myself lately. More machining work than usual, so I will be able to pay sum billz this month.
Odd polygonz are easy to calculate area. Just lopp off trianglez till you hav a rectangle. And the area uv trianglez iz 1/2 hite x width.
----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
Thanks for the tip and the congrats! Good to hear that you got more work coming in too. Nice....
Fortunately, I don't have to have the entire thing written up by friday like I thought. I only have to put the request for a petition in by then. I still have time to build my case.
Didn't get the tomatoes planted today, but I got 8 plants for $3.50, way cheaper than I thought they'd be!
I just didn't buy enough tomato cages for that many plants. I have to figure out the best route since I'm not actually using the SFG method this year. I will use it next year when I can start seeding at the proper time. (And hopefully I'll have 1 or 2 more 4x4 garden areas by that time as well).
Pictures tomorrow hopefully
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I wuz under the impression that you can grow tomatoz frum the seedz frum tomatoz you get frum the store. Am I mistaken?
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Yeah, but if you want to eat some this year, and have them be big enough to do something with then you kind of have to start the seedlings inside in early spring, it's late in the season now...
I'm glad SOMEONE has had some luck...We finally got around to putting in sewage lines in the new bathroom (water lines were in months ago) and had a miscalculation as to the layout... Had to take floor back up and drill new holes... dropped somethin' on mah pinky and it's all purple too... Dammit.
Siding is coming along, but had a couple setbacks on that too.
Why can't things ever go easy???!
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I hope you dont get persistent leak problemz, 6string. Leaks and clogz are like a demonic force against me!
It seemz like wherever I dont want fluidz flowing, they alwayz find a way and wherever I want them to clogz up! I coud hav a 10 ft diameter drain pipe and I'd be continually cleaning out junk. But the frame for the hatch on my roof deck rarely goez more than 6 months without leaking no matter how carefully or cleverly I try to seal it.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Good advice about not mulching, Wishy.
I mowed sum more today and it went much eazier with the side discharge open. I remowed the areaz I cleared a few weeks ago and expanded them. I found that I coud do a wheeely and gradulaly lower it to chop down the tallest stuff.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Yeah, but if you want to eat some this year, and have them be big enough to do something with then you kind of have to start the seedlings inside in early spring, it's late in the season now...
I'm glad SOMEONE has had some luck...We finally got around to putting in sewage lines in the new bathroom (water lines were in months ago) and had a miscalculation as to the layout... Had to take floor back up and drill new holes... dropped somethin' on mah pinky and it's all purple too... Dammit.
Siding is coming along, but had a couple setbacks on that too.
Why can't things ever go easy???!
Yeah, way late in the year to grow from seeds. Actually, I was surprised that in the book the guy says that tomatoes are one of the few plants he recommends buying small plants rather than growing from seeds yourself. Can't exactly remember why he said so, but at 1.75 for four plants, I think it's worth having the plants 8" tall aready at that price point.
Glad you're making progress too. As for things never going easy... know that I'm one of your deepest sympathizers
Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
I hope you dont get persistent leak problemz, 6string. Leaks and clogz are like a demonic force against me!
It seemz like wherever I dont want fluidz flowing, they alwayz find a way and wherever I want them to clogz up! I coud hav a 10 ft diameter drain pipe and I'd be continually cleaning out junk. But the frame for the hatch on my roof deck rarely goez more than 6 months without leaking no matter how carefully or cleverly I try to seal it.
That thing leaks like hell and there's probably nothing I can do about it. 20 gallons of water basically gone after only 3 days. The good news is, it is properly irrigating the soil in the mean time. Just 1/2" below the surface the soil was quite moist. So I guess I'll just water by hand most days, but if I have to go away for an extended weekend I should in theory just be able to fill the sides and it would take care of itself while I'm gone.
I should probably take the unit back, but the plants are in now and I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting another unit. I will be putting up the first review for the item on all the sites that carry it and it will be a very unfavorable review.
But that was yesterday..... today??????
Have you ever had one of those days where every damn single thing just goes exactly according to plan???? Marking it in my own journal here.... Friday, June 8th, 2012, was Jack's Day!
First, there was the property tax scenario. It's not done, but the preliminary interaction exceeded my wildest expectations. I thought I was just going to be dropping off the form and be on my way and expect a call back in 45 days. When the guy made a dated copy for my records he came back out and told me that if I have pictures of the mold remediation, we wouldn't even need a hearing and I could just come back and they'd give me signifigant relief on the property taxes for a year because of that!
I told him that sounded great, but I wanted to also bring up issues like being in a flood plane and that's why I never plan on actually re-finishing the basement and putting another furnace down there only to see it flood again. He told me to get a letter from my Village saying that it's in a flood plane and that can be taken care of as well (yay! That's one "finished" floor off my taxes for good!).
He also said with pictures of the brick patio that isn't a permanent fixture we can get that 280sq/ft removed from the taxes as well, and I'm feeling pretty good that we can get the finished attic removed without ripping up the carpet because there is no heat or A/C up there (it's 110 degrees in the summer and 35 degrees in the winter... not exactly livable. We'll also remove the 2 A/C units from the taxes, and fix a few sq footage
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Thats too much good luk. I'm afraid that bumps you up to a higher tax braket.
My luk iz averaging out with sum bad breaks and dum mistakes. The motor on my mill iz getting worse. I packed a special tap in with a job I delivered even tho I still needed it for the next job, so I lost sum time.
The new blue ray player froze up alredy. Had to pull the plug to reset it.
I gess this iznt such bad luck, since I'd rather hav it fail soon so I hav no problem returning it. I alredy ordered a Sony.
I Like Toshiba, but the reviewz werent good for any uv their playerz. Maybe Sony iz making good stuff again?
A sine uv good luk - I got to Prometheus and back without the usual car trouble!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Thats too much good luk. I'm afraid that bumps you up to a higher tax braket.
My luk iz averaging out with sum bad breaks and dum mistakes. The motor on my mill iz getting worse. I packed a special tap in with a job I delivered even tho I still needed it for the next job, so I lost sum time.
The new blue ray player froze up alredy. Had to pull the plug to reset it.
I gess this iznt such bad luck, since I'd rather hav it fail soon so I hav no problem returning it. I alredy ordered a Sony.
I Like Toshiba, but the reviewz werent good for any uv their playerz. Maybe Sony iz making good stuff again?
A sine uv good luk - I got to Prometheus and back without the usual car trouble!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
Hehe.... If I was just sitting around wishing on a wishing well for good things to happen, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly JO. Days like the other day are so hard to come by that if it just popped up in my lap one day in the middle of a month long Fallout 3 bender, I'd be wondering who is controlling the outcome and what angle they have.....
If you're averaging out on luck, that's at least the best you can expect today if you're one of the people at least putting a real effort into it, (and I commend you for that because I believe you are one of those people). If you could only find the time and energy to reach a little higher than that just a few hours a week, you might be surprised at what the positive outcome might be.
With a little research and speaking to my Twp. Assessors office directly, I now can navigate my "Tax Card" like a pro. Even after talking with him, it took me about 3 hours to really get familar with it, but what was Klingon a week ago is like English to me today.
You have to remember that this stuff is abbreviated and coded in such a beautifully intricate way that it can on one face completely obfuscate the truth from most people, but at the same time will open all doors to reason for the few people who dig deep enough, so there is no legal recourse, such as class-action lawsuits for hiding the truth.
(As a VERY meaningful aside to this point.... the fact that a house is a "foreclosure" immediately negates the selling price on a "distressed property" from affecting the tax implications on the property henceforth. Time will tell.... but I believe that this is just a way for Twp's to save their own ass in these bad times and that only those who are truly vigilant and do their research can prove why their house was bought so cheaply, and should get deductions accordingly)
In the end, MUCH less of my Tax Card was false as I originally believed it to be. Most of my gripes, although they were trivial ones in the end, were because I was ignorant to the "lingo". Sure, some things are blatantly false, and from my interaction, they have no problem fixing those based solely on my word and a few pics. The Flood Hazard issue is going to be a massive windfall for me when I show up with the letter from my town saying I'm on a Flood plane (NOTE: In order to have land that currently, or has previously claimed FEMA funds after a flood, the Village/Town/City has to agree to re-zone that property so that another structure can NEVER be built upon that property... so if a tornado hits my house today, I can't rebuild here).
So, the Flood Hazard claim not only explains why my 7-room, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house is actually a 4 room, 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house... but there is the implied tax deductions of owning a property I'd never be able to rebuild on if this structure was razed in a fire or tossed across town by a tornado.
If you simply take the unfinished basement and the legitimate decrease on the back porch size and the complete removal of the paver stone patio out of the equation, my
taxable finished area quickly diminishes from over 1600 sq ft
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Thanks! Thats a great song that I only ever heard in passing. Didnt know who made it. Not the genre uv myoozik I hav my radio on.
Sony made good consumer stuff up till about 85, 90. Then they seemed to forget ergonomics, then quality went to hell.
Toshiba haz alwayz been my fave, but several yirz ago I got a DVD recorder that didnt work properly rite outa the box. But the customer service wuz still outstanding. They were on the fone in minits and talked me thru an attempt to solve the problemz.
This netbook Im on here iz a Toshiba and haz never failed. I had a complaint about the touchpad and customer service walked me thru a setting change that fixed it.
The Sony BR player wuznt much more than wut I paid for the Philips, but it haz a 3-1/2 star rating in Amazon, so its probably going to be decent.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Ha... yeah, the music stations that would play that song these days wouldn't be on my presets either. Back in the early 90's though this was played in heavy rotation on the "party radio" station one summer. Memory is funny. I hear a song like this today and I have a lot of good memories about that time. Living through it as an awkward pre-teen sucked though. Kind of cool how good music from the past can bring up the good feelings without bringing up all the crap with it.
I've never had much experience with Toshiba. I can't remember ever buying anything from them before. Overall, I've been pretty lucky since almost every piece of electronic equipment I've ever owned served its purpose until long after it was antiquated. I'd have to say the only "stand-out" piece of electronics I ever owned was that 51" Hitatchi projection screen TV. Even though it's about 6 years old now, the picture is just as perfect as the day I bought it, and it's survived 3 multi-story moves before it found it's final home before the tech-graveyard. It's still a larger screen than many people's LEDs or Plasmas, and because the design is so attractive it looks as though the base with the speakers is like a perfectly built TV stand for a much thinner TV. Throw that bad boy in the corner and it doesn't look as weird or ugly today as a lot of the other aging projection screen TVs still in houses. The only thing I wish it had was 1080 capability.
All in all, I'd say that's one of the best big ticket purchases I've ever made, especially since it was about 40% off when I got it.
These days though, I really just wait for tech to age before I buy it and then get it from a 3rd party manufacturer. Always do research on reviews though before buying something. With any product, even from top names, you're going to have some horribly negative reviews... so I just throw out the top and bottom 2 or 3 reviews and look at what everyone else says. Many times, as a bonus, you get extra functionality out of these 3rd party devices that you'd never get with a major player like Sony. It's not because Sony couldn't make it happen, it's because Sony either wouldn't want to make it happen, or because they're so high-profile they're not willing to go into grey areas of the "law".
2 examples...
When my 300 dollar Sony DVD player crapped out about 5 years after I bought it, well before Blu-Ray or HD-DVD came out, I was nearly broke. I needed something though. I was able to buy 30 dollar unit that was barely twice the size of a DVD itself and cased mostly in plastic, but it played ripped DVD movies and also would play CDs loaded with mp3s. International laws prevented a company like Sony from allowing even a foreign DVD to be played on the unit I bought in America for 10 times the price 5 years earlier, but here this no-name Chinese piece of junk lasted just as long before the DVD tray broke and it allowed me to do far more than the Sony ever could.
I also bought a pretty expensive mp3-to-radio transmitter unit with a digital readout and cigarette lighter recharger for listening to my mp3 player in my '79 LTD since it had the vintage 2-knob radio and I didn't want to cheapen the look of the car by putting a flashy new CD player in it. It was about 50 bucks. Even though it got the best reviews I'd seen at the time, the reviews all came with warnings that if you lived in an area that there were a lot of radio stations (Chicago..... check), you'd have a lot of interferance no matter what band you listened to it through, and you'd find yourself changing bands every few minutes to keep listening. True to their word, whenever I came within 15 miles of Chicago, the unit was basically useless........ What a waste of money.
I don't remember the brand name of that unit, but I know it was a well known name. It wasn't their fault either as I'm sure they could have made an awe
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Returned the Filips BR to Target today. No hassle. Thumbz up for Target.
I like the Sony so far. Duznt put stupid big junk over the picture in pauze. The response to the remote iz immediate. It loadz BR disks quickly. And a bonus I may never uze - turnz out it playz 3D BR disks!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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If it does what makes you happy, that's all that matters. Sony does put out a really good product, I just think they're overpriced on most of their things they sell that other companies sell as well. 
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WHAT
A
DAY!
I KILLED on the Property tax thing! Got the paver patio removed, got the basement removed from finished area, got the pool and A/C units removed, got the back porch size corrected and also had the depreciation grade of my house downgraded.
I was hoping for at least $34,000 less on the assessment and I walked out with a whopping $54,000 less! I thought it shouldn't be a problem getting about $325-350 off my taxes and I was shooting for over $500, but if my calculations are right this will end up being just shy of $650 off per year after it's all set in stone!
Score one for the little guy!
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YOU DU MAN!!!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
YOU DU MAN!!!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com]
Hehe.... thanks JO!
To any haters from the RWED out there....
JO ain't the only one who's told me so today!
I could teach you, but I'd have to have a reason to want to, and it would be done via PM. If I reveal all of these secrets to everyone, I'll be paying just as much 2 years from now when everyone figures out the tax cards.....
Self preservation...
If you have gripes JO, let me know. Get your tax card and we'll talk about it.
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Update to the tax scenario....
It's even better than I thought.
I just assumed the 1% tax cap on property value plus the huge voter approved changes would dictate the price, so as of yesterday I thought I saved (Only ) about $650 a year.
I did a little research though......
I won't give exact numbers, since all of this stuff is available online and I wouldn't want anyone to figure out who I am, so let's just say my property assessment was lowered to an even 100k from an even 150k.
BEFORE:
Assessed value of $150,000, using the math that will be explained below on the new figure ended up with a tax burden of $2579, but was reduced a few hundred because of the 1% tax cap.
AFTER:
100,000
-
45,000 Homestead Deduction
-
19,250 Supplimental Homestead Deduction (35% of value after HD)
--------
35,750
*
.037795 (Local Tax Rate)
--------
1351.17 !!!!!!
In actuality, it's quite a bit less than that if I used the real value in the equation.
So instead of shaving about 25% off of my taxes, the real number is much closer to 50%.
Without getting into actual numbers, the amount of cash I need to shell out for this years second installment is just shy of 5% of what I thought I'd be paying come November after my first installment overpayment, and I'll be paying little more than 100 bucks a month to the government for the privilege of living in my own home.
I know people who pay that yearly amount in apartment rent every month.
Don't let people scare you out of doing things when you know in your heart you're right. I almost didn't do this for myself for fear it would backfire on me, but I'm so glad that I did. This doesn't just benefit me today, but every year I live in this house.... maybe even until I die.
Get your facts straight, make a plan of attack, word your thoughts on paper just right, dot all the I's and cross the T's and I think you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish.
I thought this would take months, maybe even years to get satisfaction. Not only did it take only about 2 actual hours of driving time and time spent in the assessor's office, but the end result was double my best case scenario and triple my worst case scenario going into it.
That's about 170 hours less I have to work at K-Mart to pay the bills per year
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Just thinking about REM and how bad ass they were.....
And of a little known show by Bill Murray's Nephew Chris Elliot called "Get a Life"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Life_%28TV_series%29
Sure, it's sad to be 12 and your hero is a 30 year old guy living with his parents delivering papers on a bike only to crash at the end, but I blame REM for that....
The song was just that awesome.....
What's cool to me is reading that Fox Exeuctives HATED the character of Chris and HATED the show. I don't think anybody at Fox HATED Firefly. Chris died 12 times over the short series run, but every episode reset.
I've only had the pleasure of being able to see 4 episodes on a re-released DVD about 10 years ago. As far as I know the series was never re-released in it's entirity.
The only memorable line from the show was Chris breaking the 4th wall and saying to the audience "No offence to our Italian American Viewers" after the words "guinie pig" were used.
Anyway...I had no idea how awesome the song was back then and that it was a lot longer.
REM kicked ass...
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I liked that show! I got wun on a tape here sumwer. The wun wer he goez hunting withb hiz dad & buddy and they get wakt out frum eating halucinojenic berryz.
Chris did hiz best stuff on Letterman - The regulator guy, the guy under the seats, hiz spoof uv Morton Downey Jr. - a bunch uv great stuff!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Good for you on working out the property tax thing, it sounds like it worked out optimally for you.
So how long will you let this thread go before you start another instead, 200 posts maybe?
I have Kathy Bates on speed dial, mwa ha ha ha (in exaggeratedly evil voice)
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
I liked that show! I got wun on a tape here sumwer. The wun wer he goez hunting withb hiz dad & buddy and they get wakt out frum eating halucinojenic berryz.
Chris did hiz best stuff on Letterman - The regulator guy, the guy under the seats, hiz spoof uv Morton Downey Jr. - a bunch uv great stuff!
Haha... I remember that episode! My favorite one was when he became a food inspector for the FDA and was taking bribes of nickels and 5 dollar bills to let rat turds in the processing plants slide. It was playing the song "Money, Money, Money, Money....... MooooNay!" while the nickels were stacking up. I just remember him showing off his pinky ring and asking how much Bill Murray's brother thought it cost him and when he guessed 5 bucks, he pulled out his other hand and said "No.... 2... for 5 bucks!" I'd sure love to see the entire run on DVD someday.
I've never seen any of his Letterman stuff. I should check it out. "Cabin Boy" was unbearable, but he was good on Groundhog day, and he and David Cross were the only 2 funny things about Scary Movie 2.
Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Good for you on working out the property tax thing, it sounds like it worked out optimally for you.
So how long will you let this thread go before you start another instead, 200 posts maybe?
I have Kathy Bates on speed dial, mwa ha ha ha (in exaggeratedly evil voice)
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.
Thanks Riona,
SUPER Optimal! I moved in here originally, perfectly okay with the idea that my "rent" to the government would be nearly 200 bucks a month. I figured that was the best I could do if I wanted to be within driving distance of my family and any decent jobs. The unique situation I'm in with the flood plain in an area that doesn't have many houses at all designated as such allowed me a TON of weight on the re-assessment. I just can't believe that NONE of the previous owners ever brought it up. Hell, because I didn't get a mortgage, I wasn't forced to pay $1,200 bucks a year for FEMA flood insurance by a bank, so I wasn't even aware it was on a flood plain until my neighbors let me know.
So... rent now is about 100 bucks a month! Yay!
I know people who pay 3 hundred bucks more than I do a year to rent a one bedroom apartment in Chicago.
I'm still blown away by how wonderful the assessor's office was about the whole thing. All it took was an offical packet from the town stating I'm on a flood plain, and about 30 pictures of the mold damage and the changes were made, no questions asked. The fact that I got about 350% more of a reduction than I was hoping for is just amazing.
I knew there was a better reason than to just stroke my ego that I've taken about 600 before and after pictures since I've started working on the house. I had no idea it would ever pay out these kind of dividends though. If there were zero inflation for the next 20 years I lived here, and my property taxes never went up (both not possible), I just saved about $21,000 in property taxes over the next 20 years
About posts... hmmmmm..... I didn't really think about it. It was an issue with the first post because there was no way to just show 50 or less posts like we can now and it was taking JO 3 minutes to finish loading the thread. Seems that Haken fixed that with the new build. This is just kind of my "Journal", and it's cool that it's interactive and other people can post here too. It really is cool to do it this way and be able to look back and see exactly which day I was doing what, and seeing how much has gotten done in a certain amount of time. Really, this is my only means of keeping track of how long projects are taking me since I'd never sit down and hand write an actual journal.
Had my first night of work at "The Mart"
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Anybody know anything about gutters and how much they should cost?
I got a quote for all the material I'd need for my house and garage last year and it was around $1,200 bucks. Kind of prohibitive, even though I'm working now. I was talking to a guy at work today and he thought I should be able to get everything I need for about $400 bucks at Menards..... but I wouldn't have seamless gutters then. I was considering maybe just paying the expensive place a delivery charge to come out and run my seamless gutters and then buy the rest of the parts I'd need from Menards.
I'd be happy if I could get them done for about $600 bucks and owe one of my friends or my brother a huge favor for helping install them.
Aside from buying a battery backed up sump pump, it's really the last large Critical thing I need to take care of. Everything else is just cosmetic.
My step-dad is coming out this weekend and we're going to run a shit tone of electric through my garage. Finally get some outlets out there, some serious lighting inside and finally get the motion sensor lights on the outside. I can't wait!
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I know I have better things to buy, but I was really getting tired of not having some outdoor patio equipment so people can sit and relax and eat outside. I've been working at The Mart for a week now and this set caught my eye:
http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/spin_prod_575698701?hei=600&w
id=600&op_sharpen=1&qlt=90,0&resMode=sharp&op_usm=0.9,0.5,0,0
http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/spin_prod_627888801?hei=600&w
id=600&op_sharpen=1&qlt=90,0&resMode=sharp&op_usm=0.9,0.5,0,0
Imagine the thrill when I saw that they were having a 50% off Outdoor Living sale, and for this week there was an extra 10-15% off! With very little internet research I found sites that gave online coupon codes for items there. Unfortunately the BIG $20 and $30 discounts didn't work on "extreme deal" merch, but I did find one for 5 bucks off a 50 dollar purchase that worked, and since you could split this up into two separate orders it was worth 10 bucks.
Normal price for the table and chairs: $700
Sale price for the combo pack: $299.00
Sale price after additional 10%: $269.10
Sale price after additional 10 bucks off: 259.10
After tax, it was about 280 bucks! Not bad for a 700 dollar set.
It doesn't come with the umbrella and stand though. Those were an additional 150 or so on sale.
I've still got a heavy duty vinyl MGD umbrella that I yanked from a bar in my idiot youth days that I've never used to this day. I'll be making good use of that and some left over paver stones to anchor it until the umbrella goes on clearance in the fall
Until then.... White Trash up in this Bitch!
I'm so excited to get it all put together!
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BIG WIN AT THE MART TODAY!!!!
Membership has it's benefits, that's for sure.
15,000 sq/ft Scott's Turf Builder - $31.50 (Normally $63.00)
2 bags 5000 sq/ft Scott's Turf Builder - $7.49 each (Normally 14.99 each)
2 bags 5000 sq/ft Mart Weed'n'Feed - $6.49 each (Normally 13.99 each)
10 lb bag of Kingsford Charcoal - $3.49 (Normally 6.99)
Lighter fluid for charchoal - $4.50 (Real price)
Are these prices for real, that's for sure. How are they possible? Being a Mart employee. I even got the full employee discount off the whole ordeal.
Aside from the lighter fluid, they were all "damaged goods" which means the bags had holes and customers wouldn't buy them, so employees get first crack at the half priced goods before the public gets them.
AWESOME!!!!!!
Everything on that list cost 5 bucks less than the single bag of 15,000/sq turf builder would have cost alone after tax!
Sure.... it's money I haven't even put in the bank yet, but after sales tax it's what I made working tonight before taxes. Can't pass up a deal like that.
Got the grill working for the rest of the year and got my fertilizer needs for the next 1 1/2 years taken care of in only one nights labor costs.
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Has anybody had any experience with Bamboo or Reed fencing? I didn't even know it existed until tonight at work. I had two ideas for where I could use this. The first would be to cover both of my neighbor's hideous privacy fences. The second would be to cover the walls in the basement that I had to expose to remove the mold.
The only problem is that it's not exactly "cheap".... It's sure cheaper than having my own privacy fences installed when I can just piggyback off of their fences, and it's a better alternative in the basement right now to leaving bare studs everywhere for the next few years since I don't want to do a full on rehab until I know that the water issue is quelled.
I'm just wondering if they hold up well at all. It sounds like a great idea, but for the price if it looks like crap after 3 years that was a lot of wasted money.
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Nope. I know bamboo iz very dense, so that givez me the impression that it'll last, but you shoud research it.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Nope. I know bamboo iz very dense, so that givez me the impression that it'll last, but you shoud research it.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com]
Yup.... "Mature" Bamboo is VERY dense and will probably last a lifetime for me..... Unfortnuately mature bamboo is much more expensive per sq/ft that drywall and paint is....
I need to make a decision here.
I could make it work and cut around outlets and if the tax man cometh I can tell him to go scratchif I have bamboo walls.....
BTW... just got a letter in the mail today. I was wrong about owing nearly 60 bucks come November on my taxes, it seems that my 2 installments were so low that if I get it notarized I have a 48 dollar overpayment coming back my way. My taxes, believe it or not, were slashed over 50%!!!!!!
I'm going to just call them up and ask if they can apply that to my next year's taxes rather than go to a notary and do all that BS. On principal, I usually don't like having any excess government funds out of my hands when they don't need to be, but I make that in like 6 hours now.....
More trouble than it's worth.
Just glad I don't owe another 1,150 in November and they actually owe me now :)
It's F-KING official now !
I owe only 47.9% of the taxes I owed in May.
I guarantee that I could NEVER repeat these results for 99% of the population that asked me because I lucked into a prime postion myself, but I can also guarantee that I could reduce anyone's taxes by at least 10% if they asked me to help.
I might be a dick, but I'm a "dick for the people" :)
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DAAAAAAAMMMMM! Did a long post here & the whole site crashez! HAKEN?!
I rote about my year & 1/2 uv not being able to drive very far kuz the enjin overheats. O! It wuz a rouzing tale, worthy uv a Firefly episode adaptation! Similar to Out uv Gas, but preferably with more hot naked chicks!
Anyway, long story short: Turnz out it wuz the fan clutch; "a nothin part till you dont hav wun". I spent over 6oo$ and untold owrz goofing around trying to fix it, including changing the fan clutch with a uzed wun. So my usual 20 mile round trip 2 or 3 timez a week woud often include an owr uv sitting in a parking lot or on the shoulder waiting for it to cool down.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Speaking of nothing parts man.....
My advice, always have a spare thermo-couple for your furnace on hand.
Stupid little 8 dollar part, but if yours ain't working one cold February night, you'll be glad you don't have to wait until the morning to buy one, especially if you have work the next day
Glad you figured out the car though man. I don't know crap about cars except for changing oil and tires.
Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
DAAAAAAAMMMMM! Did a long post here & the whole site crashez! HAKEN?!
I rote about my year & 1/2 uv not being able to drive very far kuz the enjin overheats. O! It wuz a rouzing tale, worthy uv a Firefly episode adaptation! Similar to Out uv Gas, but preferably with more hot naked chicks!
Anyway, long story short: Turnz out it wuz the fan clutch; "a nothin part till you dont hav wun". I spent over 6oo$ and untold owrz goofing around trying to fix it, including changing the fan clutch with a uzed wun. So my usual 20 mile round trip 2 or 3 timez a week woud often include an owr uv sitting in a parking lot or on the shoulder waiting for it to cool down.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Welcome back!
Spare thermocouple iz a good idea. I hav a very old furnace and shoud get sum spare parts for it. I had spare motor luckily a few yearz ago, but its even older than the furnace!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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I don't know much about motors, but a spare thermocouple is a must during the winter.
You'll be your wife and daughter's hero when you get the heat working again at 1:00AM when nobody who carries one is open and it's 20 below with the wind chill.
Not a bad price to pay.... 8 bucks...
I've got a potential job lined up that would be along the lines of what I used to do. I'm not used to driving 1 1/2 hours round trip for a job, but if it pays nearly double what I'm making now with benefits I'm down for some travel.
Wish me luck,
~6
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Wish me luck,
Good luck
Also, gave some thought to yer "What shall I put in the basement" thing....
I was thinking concrete backer board... Pretty mold resistant and it could either be painted or left blank and tiled over later... and they just screw in real easy.....
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Wife & daughter? HA!
I wuz in hi skool wen I realized therez alredy too many humanz on this rock & I'm not going to be gilty uv contributing to the problem.
Good luck with the new job. I've been overloaded with work lately. almost to the point uv considering hiring sumwun.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Good luck
Also, gave some thought to yer "What shall I put in the basement" thing....
I was thinking concrete backer board... Pretty mold resistant and it could either be painted or left blank and tiled over later... and they just screw in real easy.....
Thanks Wish,
I thought tiling the bottom half of the walls with a concrete backer board would be a great idea, until my grandma said "well, what if you have water seeping from outside the foundation????". Good point... I'd have a hot mess of water behind the scenes and a virtually indestructible wall blocking me from getting to it. (Nothing a sledgehammer couldn't take care of, but I'd be crying at all that wasted money on expensive drywall and tile to find out that I have an aquarium behind the scenes.... :)
Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Wife & daughter? HA!
I wuz in hi skool wen I realized therez alredy too many humanz on this rock & I'm not going to be gilty uv contributing to the problem.
Good luck with the new job. I've been overloaded with work lately. almost to the point uv considering hiring sumwun.
Haha! The lone wolf mentality. I know that all too well. MOB!
I haven't heard anything back from the job app. Probably just another dead end that won't even call me back. Bummer...
Good for you for being so busy. Wish I could say the same here. I might not be making enough money to pay more than the bills, but the cooler weather is at least making me think about new projects instead of sitting in front of a fan 24/7 when I'm not at work.
Right now, my focus is putting my bedroom closets back together, and down the road, how I will put in doors that make sense.
I made myself a mock-up of what my master bedroom closet looks like and the dimensions.
Any ideas from either of you how to maximize space here?
I really need to start thinking about this. In the summer I'm just mainly wearing t-shirts so I can just have folded clothes down here. In the winter though, the clothes are a lot more bulky and I'd rather be hanging them and stop having wrinkly clothes. I have them all hung on a rack in the finished attic, but that's a chore to make an extra hike upstairs for a shirt, and since I smoke up there my clothes all smell like I was in a bar 2 weeks straight even though they're otherwise clean. (Not to mention that it gets down to like 40 degrees up here in the winter, and I don't want to even open that damn door in the winter and let the cold air into the rest of the house!!!!)
The closet in my 2nd bedroom and hallway should be much more straightforward, although I plan on going VERY decorative with the hallway one since it's only 9" deep. It's not really deep enough to even house large towels, but it's great for backup toothpaste and mouthwash and toilet paper and hand towels and the like. I was considering making a very decorative arch on the top and having two separate doors opening to the inside (a larger one on the top and a smaller one on the bottom that might open to drawers.) Maybe even have "bread-basket" type opening doors to it.
I'll show you schematics of the other two closets when I get them made.
Any ideas you've got, I'd appreciate it!
Thanks!!!!!
Hope you're both doing well!
~6
EDITED TO ADD:
2nd Bedroom Closet.....
EDITED TO ADD 2:
Hallway "Closet"....
The dark purple lines on the sides are the painted "holders" for the shelves. I plan on staining the shelves to match the floor and to buy beveled glass tops for them. :)
EDITED TO ADD 3:
total cheap mock-up of an idea for this pseudo-closet...
They'red be a lot less grey and a lot more white. Doors on top as well.... like I suggeste
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WOW!!!!!
Me likey.....
http://pinterest.com/pin/224546731391866063/
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Hey JO; Wish,
Either of you know anything about vapor barriers?
I decided that i was just going to throw greenboard drywall up in the one room in the basement you can see from the 1st floor just to give the house a more finished look. I wasn't going to put up any insulation behind it because it didn't seem to get too cold in the basement during the winter and even on the 110 degree days in the summer it's easily in the low to mid 70's in the basement.
I was worried about water diffusing through the concrete though, and over time causing another mold problem.
Currently, there is a layer of plastic sheeting between the concrete walls and the studs. Also, the walls of the foundation are solid concrete as opposed to mortared brick or cinderblock. I still think this isn't enough protection from vapor.
I started looking into products like double-bubble and Prodex Total insulation, but they are VERY expensive and from what I hear they do just about zero for keeping heat in or out unless you build them "to spec" which ends up costing a lot more even. The only benefits to this I see are that they're both mold proof materials and they both offer a vapor barrier.
I was considering just buying large packages of aluminum foil (24" wide, to cover the space between my studs... weird, I know) and then staple the lips onto the studs. I would then cover the seams and staples with aluminum tape.
I was wondering if either of you knew, or knew anybody who would know if between this and the existing plastic barrier would be enough to keep moisture from poisoning the back of the drywall with new mold???
Thanks :)
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Been bizzy lately. Partly money work, partly projects.
Last few weeks wuz weelz & tirez for the New Yorker.
The thing about big 70z luxery carz wuz that they had tall tirez to help smooth the ride. That wuz a selling point back then. The problem iz that this makes them wallow like boats. I have alwayz swiched them to 60 seriez or lower tirez, usually 255/60/15 BF Goodrich TA radialz on 8 inch wide weelz. This makes them corner pretty good. I had a set uv 265/55 Dunlops on a 69 Imperial and it wuz like it wuz on railz!
A little drawback iz that the speedometer iz overstating the speed, tho. It wuz so far off in the Imperial that I changed the speedometer output gear in the tranzmission to get it closer.
So, wut I wanted to do this time wuz get bigger weelz to make up the difference. Also, 15 inch tirez are getting a little rare.
Found a set uv 17 in wire spoke weelz at a uzed tire shop. 200$ seemed like a good price, but then I found that the spokes were all loose in wun and another had 2 broken spokes. The nuts are totally frozen, so they are both probably junk. So, I really only got 2 weelz.
Then, shopping for tirez wuz a little bit uv a hassle. Nobody had the size I wanted in stock, so I finally ordered 2 at Samz Club.
Herez where it gets interesting.
I'm sitting there waiting for them to put the tirez on. Already been like an owr. 2 managerz walk past quickly and I know its trouble with my car. I say to the guy waiting for hiz battery install "Thats my car! Alwayz cauzing trouble! Didnt hear an explosion, so it cant be that bad!"
The managerz and 3 'mechanics' come out, all wide eyed, and the short indian manager sez "Sorry sir, the weel fell off your car! We are going to put your old wunz back on!"
It wuz pretty funny, really, but it wuz 4 owrz till I got home with the car on a flatbed. The brake diusk had hit the ground and there wuz a rumbling which made me think it wuz a broken bearing ( see the beginning uv this topic ).
So, condensing the next week uv hasslez: Turnz out it wuz mostly my fault. The nuts I gave them to mount the adapter hub were too long, so the bevel splinez werent meshed together. I actaully had to destroy the PS nut and adapter hub to get the weel off. The rumbling wuz the weelz riding on the nuts!
And, after all that, I'm swiching to aluminum weelz anyway. Wire weelz are heavy - 40 poundz each! And I'm going to put 20 inch weelz on the back and thoze woud probably be 60 poundz!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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[url]
]
Theze tirez got fantastic traction!
[url] http://www.bfgoodrichtires.com/tire-selector/category/sports-performan
ce-tires/g-force-super-sport-a-s/tire-details]
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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HEY! 6string! Wer you at man? Hav you giiven up on your own thred?
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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I wuz just starting to feel a little safe, then yesterday the weel slipped on the hub again wen i applied the brakes. Found that the goram nut wuz alredy loose by about a haf turn! I'm not going to bother trying to sell them wen I get new weelz; I'm just going to give them back to the 2nd hand shop I got them from.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Ran outa gas yesterday not far frum here. Got a ride to the gas station & back. Then I backed into Wisteria Lane to turn around and found that applying the brakes in reverse hard enuf will unscrew the nuts!
I wuz barely able to get the PS side screwed back tite enuf, kuz the crappy rench broke again. I'm going to hav to make wun out uv steel just to tide me over till I can afford to get rid uv theze stupid thingz.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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