Well...Poop

Somewhere in the Dallas area, right now, a home inspector is yelling "I told you so."

When the buyer's inspection took place last week, the inspector noted a laundry list of things to take care of most of which was minor stuff like adding a rubber bushing to the holes in the circuit breaker box in the garage. One of the items he noted was to trim the trees back from the electric service drop line from the  pole to the house.

Here's the page out of his report I'm talking about.

Right under the service line next to the driveway is a line of crepe myrtle trees that I have let go unpruned because I like crepe myrtles and feel that God didn't intend for them to be hacked within an inch of their lives once a year. Also, near the pole in the side yard is an ugly tree that is tall, gnarly and in the middle of trying to die. It had a limb growing over the service drop line as well.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

Dead tree limb + service drop line = this:

+ this:

Daddy Hawk is not happy. An electrician is coming by today to let us know how bad the repair cost is going to be. I get to spend my second Father's Day working my butt off cleaning, clearing tree branches, etc. The thing that really chaps my hide the most is that the option period ended Sunday, and the buyer's realtor had said to hold off doing anything until after the option period was over. Naturally, the tree limb falls while I am at work the day after the option period ends.

I blame The Queen. She was just commenting about how smoothly the sale was going.

If All Goes According to Plan,...

...Castle Erickson will have a new owner on July 11. Acceptable terms were reached late yesterday evening, and contracts were signed this morning.

The funny thing about that is my colleague in the next office has had his house on the market for months with a realtor and no nibbles. I posted my house on Zillow under their "Make Me Move" option not too long ago and have sold it ahead of him. Ain't technology great?

It wasn't all peaches and roses though. I had a few realtors email me wanting to list it for us. Thanks, but no thanks. Back in March, we had a family come look at it. They apparently lost interest. Then, a week and a half ago, a realtor emails me and tells me he was a buyer who wants to see the house "right now". Right now turned into a few days because of family commitments (Niece Juju's college graduation and departure to a foreign land) and my business travel. The buyer and his girlfriend/fiance saw it, loved it and gave us an offer over the holiday weekend. A little back and forth over sales price, and we finalized the deal.

The good news for us is that this is an "as is" deal. In other words, we are giving up a little on the sales price in exchange for not having to finish painting, flooring, etc. and spending the money associated with those tasks. On his end, he gets a smoking deal on a house in a good neighborhood that he plans on redoing anyway.

The Queen and I are excited and looking forward to our adventures as temporarily homeless people. The plan is to sell what we can, trash what we must and donate what we can't sell and don't want to keep. Those things we will be keeping will go into climate controlled storage while we decompress from paying for our own prison home ownership, pay off some debts, hoard some cash and generally enjoy life for a while.

In the near term, we will be camping out with family while we scope out locations for rental property in the general vicinity of my office. Chances are good that we will wind up somewhere in Collin county since we both agree that we have no desire to live in Dallas county or on the other side of downtown Dallas from my office. The current search area is roughly bounded by I-35E to the west, 190/George Bush Turnpike on the south, Texas 78 on the east and US 380 on the north. We may fudge a little on the northern and eastern boundaries a little, but I refuse to go further south or west.

Renting will be a temporary solution while we decide whether we want to buy land and build or just chuck it all and become nomads living out of a yurt or a fifth wheel.

Right now...that yurt is mighty tempting.

In the meantime, anyone who wants to go dumpster diving through a few households worth of stuff...feel free to drop me a line.

Anyone Still There?

Greetings from the disaster area known as my life. In fact, life as I have come accustomed to knowing it ends exactly one month from tomorrow which is when my law school classes start. Which my lovely bride reminded me of at 1:30 AM this morning. Thanks sweetheart. That was a wonderful thought to go to bed to. 

You would think someone embarking upon three and a half to four years of life altering education would take this opportunity to relax and enjoy the next 32 days. You would be thinking about normal people. I'm not normal. You see, in addition to my normal duties as sole breadwinner, head chef and bottle washer here at the castle, there are several other things that have been intentionally added to the schedule by us or serendipitously dumped on us by that evil genius Murphy (bucket list item: locate and pee on said personage's grave).

So, let's give the readership a rundown of the end of life as I know it.

1) The power steering in my 2000 Nissan Maxima finally chose last month to give up the ghost completely. Other than the inconvenience of this occurring in the midst of the hottest summer in recent memory (it's been a glorious 100+ degrees here since mid June), I really can't complain. That car has been chugging along for over 310,000 and shows no signs of throwing in the towel anytime soon. If you've never looked at Nissans, I highly recommend them. The down side is that I have to scrounge at least $45into the budget for a power steering pressure line (at best) up to $225 for a new power steering pump and pressure line (at worst) not to mention finding time in an already hectic schedule to change out said components while trying not to die of heat stroke. 

2) Our oldest remaining animal, Sasha (the big lab/shepherd mix who will turn 12 or 13 this fall...I can never remember unless I go back and look at her vet records) has been in declining health of late. We took her to the vet last week. He diagnosed her as having had a mild stroke, arthritis in the hind quarters and some neuropathy. He candidly told us she doesn't have a lot of time left. The only question is whether she can make some improvement from her current state (very weak, wobbly, etc.) to make further treatment beneficial and not just delaying the inevitable. It's really depressing so close on the heels of the demise of the Yakmaster, but such are the trials of those who open their hearts to animals.

3) We've made it official pretty much everywhere else to more or less encouraging response: The Queen and I have decided to start the process to adopt. I haven't spent much time in these pages on the lack of children in the Castle mainly because that's pretty darn personal, and I really had no clue as to how best to handle it. Suffice it to say, The Queen and I have been unable to have children of our own. The Queen's health has recovered to the point that we can actually consider taking care of children and not lose our ever lovin' minds which is a tremendous blessing. Part of the adoption process is required attendance in classes about fostering/adopting/parenting. We've been told to expect the process to take anywhere from six to eighteen months. We've decided to go the foster to adopt route for a number of reasons not the least of which is cost. Further updates as events warrant.

4) I still have to finish the projects around the Castle so that we can, in theory, put the house on the market to sell. 

5) The market sucks right now. I mean really bad. We had a realtor do a market evaluation for us a couple of years ago when we first started thinking about selling the house. It was not great then by any stretch of the imagination, but a sale was possible if you weren't greedy. From what I've been able to gather via internet research on houses for sale in my area, things have gone from bad to worse. Price per square foot has dropped by about $5 to $10 in two years. That sound you hear: it's the equity in our house going down the drain. We'll be lucky to sell the house at a breakeven if we can sell it ourselves without a realtor. Anyone want a good deal on a house in a Dallas suburb? Anyone? Bueller?

6) The castle's AC started out the summer heat wave at a disadvantage. The system is just a tad too small for the castle's square footage (it's a 4 ton system when it should be 4.5 at a minimum and 5 would probably be better). As you can imagine, Murphy struck when the temps hit "slow roast". The lines and compressor froze up. A visit from our AC guy later, we had our freon charged up and hoped that was the end of it. Not so much. Shutting off airflow to one bedroom/bathroom and fiddling with the thermostat setting for several days, we finally have an AC system that will shut off sometime after 11:00 PM. It runs non-stop when the sun is out. And it's forecast to be over a hundred....until who knows when. My luck it'll be the end of August before Satan drops the temps back to "simmer".

7) We are in the process of "decluttering" the house. Until recently, The Queen's parents were living with us. My inlaws are wonderful people; but, with two adult couples living under the same roof, there is just too much stuff. Since the inlaws have more or less relocated permanently to my brother in law's house while they work on refurbishing the house they will be moving into on his property, The Queen and I are taking the opportunity to reclaim our space. Easier said than done. It doesn't quite look like we need an intervention from the crew of "Hoarders" yet, but I'm not ruling the possibility out. 

Enough for now. Duty and work calls.

Good News and Bad News

First, the good news. I still have NOT received a response from Texas Wesleyan regarding my law school application. Yes, you read that right. Things have to be bad when the GOOD news is that I've received no news about whether or not they think I'm fit to be trained as an attorney.

So, which do you want first? The bad news or the really bad news?

Since it's my blog and you all won't have an opportunity to express your preferences before I hit the "publish post" button, I think I will make you cry then laugh in the hopes of lessening the pain. Stop reading now, skip to the end and start reading from the bottom if you don't want to cry. 

Seriously. You've been warned. 

As you know from previous posts, The Queen's favorite subject, Kiki (aka The Yakmaster 5000 Projectile Vomit Cannon) has been ill of late. So ill that he has been steadily losing weight for several months. The first trip to the vet found nothing dreadfully out of the ordinary aside from slight anemia and slightly elevated white blood cell count, and it was suggested that he be put on probiotics and antibiotics. The probiotics seemed to be helping. He regained his appetite after we figured out his favorite foods were Fancy Feast and honey maple turkey deli meat. Until the last few days. He decided that now was the time to go on a starvation diet. Literally. By Saturday morning, he was wobbly, weak and generally looking pathetic. 

The Queen insisted that I do something about this situation immediately. You see, as I may have mentioned, The Queen has been suffering through some pretty severe health issues for the last several years. When she came down with these problems, we were living in Houston as I had just gotten a really good job there. Without a family support network, it was not possible for me to work and take care of her by myself. She didn't qualify for home health care, etc. So, we made the hard decision to have her move back to our house in the Dallas area (her parents were care taking it for us until we figured out what to do with it). The plan was that I would find a way to get a job back in Dallas...a process that ultimately took two years. Kiki was one of The Queen's major sources of comfort and affection while I was away down in Houston earning a living and generally going insane. 

By now, you can see where this is heading. Remember, I warned you. 

Saturday, as you would expect, our regular vet was closed, and their answering service put me on terminal hold. After an unsuccessful attempt to get Kiki into another vet, I was left with the only option available: The 24 hour emergency vet in Arlington. This is not really a bad thing as I used to live right down the street from there, and they were our regular vet until we moved away. So, they had records on us even if none of the staff remembered us. 

We got Kiki there Saturday evening, and the poking and prodding began. They reran some of the tests the regular vet had done and added a few more. The end result was not good. He had lost about 50% of his body weight in 5 months. He was septic, and the vet felt that was due to gastrointestinal cancer. That left us with two choices: 1) IV antibiotics and nutrition followed by more tests and probably chemo, or 2) put him to sleep.

The vet told us that he had seen a similar case a week or so ago, and the cat had died a day after going on the antibiotics and IV nutrition as the poor thing was just not strong enough to battle back. The vet told us that his recommendation based on the test results and the history we had reported was to put Kiki to sleep. The Queen was understandably heart broken, but she bravely made the decision to have Kiki put to sleep so that he wouldn't have to suffer. The Queen couldn't face holding him while it was done. The vet promised that it would be quick and painless; and, based on prior experience with this clinic, I had no doubt that would be the case. The Queen said her goodbye's to Kiki and he was taken away. They brought him back to us sealed in a box within minutes, and we left to go home. I can't say enough about the level of professionalism and courtesy the vet's office showed to us. If you are in the Dallas area, don't hesitate to use the I-20 Animal Medical Center. They are good people.

The Queen cried her heart out until late into the night when she passed out from shear exhaustion. The next day, of course, was Mother's Day. The Queen's uncle was in town from California, and a lunch was planned at her brother's place. I woke up as early as I could and attempted to bury Kiki in one of his favorite spots next to the driveway in the Monkey Grass. 

Unfortunately, the bedrock at Castle Erickson varies in depth from about 1 foot to 18 inches. Great for your home's foundation. Horrible for when it becomes necessary to take care of some unpleasantness. Short of dynamite, which the neighbors would find objectionable, Kiki was just not going to be able to rest in his favorite spot. Since The Queen's brother has 16 acres of land, we decided to bury Kiki in a wooded area on his property. The Queen placed a cactus flower she had found over his grave.

We had Kiki for about 11 years. He was a rescue from the sister of a friend who was not able to give him and his litter mate the care they needed. His brother had disappeared years ago, and Kiki became The Queen's all time favorite by giving her comfort during some of her darkest days. I was forever frustrated by his finickyness, his fondness for hunting and killing everything within reach, and his penchant for vomiting on everything in sight, but I am grateful for all the love and affection he gave The Queen in exchange for nothing more than a warm bed and a full food bowl.

Then, to add insult to injury so to speak, I managed to create a minor plumbing disaster this afternoon that absolutely ruined my work day. Allow me to back up a few moments. Castle Erickson has been without a weedeater since the beginning of the lawn season. There are two weedeaters on the premises. Neither of which worked. 

One was a Black & Decker Grass Hog electric which chewed up weeds and tall grass better than a lot of gas trimmers until it suddenly stopped working for no apparent reason. The reason, after disassembly, turned out to be the plastic drive cog had melted allowing the belt to come off making the powerful electric motor absolutely useless. Question for Black & Decker: Whose bright idea was it to use a plastic part in an application that would generate tons of heat from friction? Fire that dumbass. Please. Oh, and the person who decreed that you would not sell said plastic piece of garbage separate from the motor assembly which costs 3/4 of what a whole new unit would cost. Yeah, he needs to be fired too.

The other is a Ryobi SS26 gas trimmer. The Ryobi would start all day long, and it would even turn the trimmer head. Right up until you took it off choke. I suspect that it's my fault for not properly winterizing it. I gave it a complete tune up with a new spark plug, cleaning the muffler, cleaning the carb and replacing the fuel lines and filter. Still no go. The internet is overflowing with similar complaints for this model. To those of you who might have come here via a Google search: Yes, I know I should have bought a Stihl or an Echo. If I could afford a Stihl or an Echo, I would have bought one. No, I don't want to hear it. The problem seems to be localized in the carb as it will start with or without the muffler in place ruling out too much back pressure. The fact that it starts rules out spark leaving fuel as the only possible culprit. New fuel and fuel filter point squarely at the carb. I'm going to order a new carb, turn right around and sell it to someone else. Let them screw with it.

Anyway, The Queen decreed that a functioning weedeater must come home or else. So, we stopped at Wal Mart on our way home from taking mom out to dinner for mother's day yesterday and purchased a new Weedeater Featherlite. Again, all you brand fanboys: I DON"T CARE. 

This afternoon, The Queen entered my office and suggested that she might have the energy to do a little weedeating to make the Castle a little more presentable. I put the new tool together and sent her off to get the required gas since, of course, the Weedeater uses a different fuel/oil mixture than the Ryobi does (fortunately, the chainsaw is a match for the Ryobi meaning my mix won't go to waste). She returned. I filled the little tank and promptly flooded the stupid thing. Once I figured out the procedure for starting it flooded, we were off and running....for all of two minutes. Max. The trimmer works fine, but imagine my surprise when a .095 inch trimmer line split open a 3/4 inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe on one of our outdoor faucets. 

Water immediately started gushing a several gallons a minute, and I made a mad dash for the water shut off valves on the opposite corner of the house...which did exactly nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Apparently, they only take care of the water INSIDE the house. After a fruitless 15 minute search for another water shut off valve that, you know, WOULD affect the OUTSIDE water faucets, I threw in the towel and called the city to come out and shut off the water at the meter. They were there in about 15 minutes, and then it was off to Home Depot to get some Schedule 40 PVC, coupling and a new faucet (might as well make it look pretty while I was at it, and the old one leaked). The repair too less than 15 minutes. I waited a few before calling the city, and they were back out in about 20 minutes to get us back on. No major leaks detected although the new faucet has a very minute leak from the threads despite a generous amount of teflon tape.

So, if you don't mind, I'm going to go swill some wine and pretend the last three days never happened.

Miscellaneous Bullet Point Update

Today's my birthday, and I'm just not in the mood to do a long post. So, instead, I'm just going to do a quick bullet point update.

• As of Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at 1:45 AM, I have officially applied to the law school at Texas Wesleyan University in Ft. Worth, Texas. 
• I was the walking dead yesterday because I didn't finally get to sleep until 3:00 AM.
• The Queen is "encouraging" me to also apply to SMU's Dedman School of Law.
• Whether I apply and get accepted to SMU or not, I will likely choose to go to Texas Wesleyan for two reasons: 1) TW costs $50K less than SMU over the life of the program and is unlikely to provide with $50K worth of value above what TW will provide me over the life of my career, and 2) SMU made me mad when I visited their campus...bunch of snobs.
• We heard back from the vet today about the Yakmaster's test results. No diabetes, no worms, no viruses, no obvious anything. He's slightly anemic and has a slightly elevated white blood cell count. The vet thinks he's got an intestinal flora imbalance. Bottomline, we have to find the food he WILL eat and get him fattened up while giving him some probiotics. 
• The Yakmaster hates probiotics.
• I hate spending $250 to find out the Yakmaster has an upset stomach. 
• Gunshow Sunday with number one follower Ken in Ft. Worth. One and all are welcome to join us (I'm lookin' at you Bob S.).
• I'm really, really, really wanting to come home with a new armory addition from the gunshow...
• ...but my bonus doesn't hit the bank until Tuesday.
• After Tuesday, it will be home improvement time to get Castle Erickson ready to sell 'cause I'm not taking care of a house and a wife while attending law school.
• Fortunately, the main necessary tasks involve tiling floors. 
• Unfortunately, The Queen wants to do more than just floors.
• I'll make you a really good deal on a nice 2300 sq. ft. house with 1600 sq. ft. workshop on 1 acre in a Dallas suburb in a great location.
• Today, for the first time ever after uncounted attempts, I finally won a round of advanced, four suit spider solitaire. Woohoo.
• I really need to get back into a better shape. The shape I am in is no good. I'm the heaviest I've ever been. I just had to buy a pair of 38" waist jeans (up from the 29" waist I had in high school). I joke that I have 12 pack abs.
• The sad thing is that it's no joke.
• I hate exercise. 
• I hate feeling overweight. 
• I love food.
• I am so screwed. 

Have fun. 

...And Now For The Dramatic Unveiling

Some of you who have been hanging around for a while or who have way too much time on your hands such that you can read through the archives might remember my little story back in November about my efforts to remodel the bathroom. To refresh your memory or give you a memory you didn't have, the master bathroom at Castle Erickson used to look like this:

The master bath is huge by most standards at about 7 feet wide by 17 feet long. Unfortunately, it only had the dinky corner shower and a lot of wasted space. The long wall on the right has nothing except for the small window left over from the house's prior life as a 1970s vintage ranch style prior to it's complete rebuilding in 2002 after a fire. Why the prior owner kept the little ugly window while in the midst of a complete gutting and redesign of the house I will never know. But he did, and we are stuck with it. I wasn't about to take on the task of removing one window, rebricking, cutting a hole for a new window, etc. I have no doubt that I could accomplish the task. I just don't know how long it would take, and I just don't feel like living with a very large hole in the side of my house for extended periods of time.

I have learned a few things over the course of this shower remodel that I'd like to take a moment to share with you. First, don't count on salvaging anything from the previous shower.

The mess of ugly, broken plastic you are looking at above is what remains of the original shower drain. During the course of demolition, the drain flange took a somewhat accidental whack resulting in a large chunk breaking off. No problem. Nothing super glue won't fix. Then I attempted to take off the bolts holding the flange onto the drain itself to remove the old shower liner. No go. Complete and total fail. One of the bolt heads broke clean off at the flange. Two others wouldn't budge for love or money. One came off after a tense battle. I then attempted to remove the drain from the pipe. Apparently, it can be done...if you have the right tools...and the patience of a saint. I had neither. I wound up destroying the drain and damaging the drain pipe. Oh joy.

This was more or less a blessing in disguise as the existing drain location would have been in an odd location for the shower The Queen and I had designed to replace the dinky corner shower. So, after a call to the psuedo-contractor brother in law and a trip to Home Depot to rent a hammer drill, it was time for...

...cutting holes in the foundation of my house. Here is another lesson learned: Never take advice from your brother in law at face value when it comes to construction matters. Do you see that little black hole in the pipe bend just left of center? Here...let me help you...

That's the hole the hammer drill went through after my BIL assured me...repeatedly I might add...that there was no chance that I would hit the drain pipe with the hammer drill. I have saved that chunk of pipe. I'm going to mount it, bronze it and give it to him as the BIL Memorial Plumbing Advice Award.

Back to Home Depot....for a new section of drain pipe and some elbow bends...

...and some concrete to fill in the big, freakin' hole in my foundation. But, the drain is now more or less centered width-wise in my shower. Oh, one last lesson learned from this chapter: Hammer drills do not go through rebar.

One quick aside here. I bought brand new, heavy duty, all purpose work gloves for this project. They were not heavy duty or all purpose. Period. They didn't last through the demolition part of the project.

One other thing...90 degree cooper pipe elbows aren't really 90 degrees either. Their more like 87 or 85 or 91. It makes plumbing layout a challenge.

So, now the moment you've all been waiting for...

...the new master shower at Castle Erickson. The Queen and I decided on a custom double shower after pricing new jacuzzi tubs and not being able to find one we liked for under $5000. The walls and floor are done in tumble stone tile with black river rock inset.

I am very proud to say that I did all the work myself. And I do mean ALL the work. It's not like I didn't ask for help, but only one person even offered to assist. If any thing breaks, it was those guys, Manuel Labor and Ricky Retardo, I hired that messed it up.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

It's no secret I will do just about anything for the Queen. Under the right circumstances, the Sixth Commandment might even be subject to a more liberal interpretation should some poor, unfortunate fool be dumb enough to attempt harming the Queen thereby underestimating the depth of my willingness to fulfill my marriage vows. Specifically, the one about protecting her. Is it really murder if someone simply ceases to exist on this planet?

So, if I'm willing to do serious bodily harm to a would be regicidal maniac, it should come as no surprise that I'd engage in a little property destruction without too much persuasion.

As regular readers, friends and family are aware, the Queen's health has been challenged for some time now. We had been noticing a musty smell in the master closet for some time which would not go away despite our best efforts to clean, vacuum, wash, and reorganize said closet's contents.

Not long after we started smelling the musty odor, we received allergy test results indicating the Queen has sensitivities to mold. Sensitivities in most people might be a case of the sniffles or a slight headache. Sensitivities with the Queen are slightly more debilitating. Like seizures, severe muscle weakness and other forms of excitement.

Naturally, we started looking more closely at the master bath for potential sources of mold. The sink and toilet were clear of any water leaks leading us to the master shower which looked exactly like the photo below.

A close examination of the shower revealed cracks in the second course of tiles up from the floor as well as a lack of grout in the corner from the floor almost to the top. The Queen and I had been discussing remodeling the shower for a long time. It just had not been a major priority given everything else we have been dealing with of late. Unfortunately, we no longer have the luxury of taking risks and letting a potential shower leak go unrepaired.

To quote the magician: "Now you see it, now you don't."

The good news is that the person who built this shower was very good at his job. There was no water penetration into the wall cavity. The bad news is that I need to build a new shower.

If anyone is interested in buying a slightly used but extremely well built shower, I'd be happy to make suitable arrangements with anyone willing cart it off. One warning though:

Some assembly required.