Phutu...or is it?

7/19/2003 I have run out of time. I thought I would have easily enough money and enough time to finish the house this summer but alas it is not so. Dory and I are leaving to go on a ten day vacation and I have thus far only managed to get the framing of the deck done. Actually, with my brother's help over the last couple days things have gone much more speedily than I thought they would. I also have to Thank Dory's dad for his help. Construction is a funny thing. I spent at least a week clearing things out of the way so that I could start the deck construction. It was very frustrating to spend an entire day jackhammering away at the old cement stair base and the surrounding slabs. Then even worse was hauling all the cement away. Digging holes in rock wasn't so fun either, and mixing and pouring thirty bags of concrete was just plain exhausting. But after all that was done and I started the actual framing of the deck it all became so much more rewarding. Visual progress is so much more satisfying than actual progress.

I got the actual decking material from a tree recylcling yard in Oakland. At first I was a little confused about what tree recycling was but now I finally understand. When trees that are growing in the urban areas around Oakland fall and have to be removed or are removed for construction or street work these people collect them and mill them into useful lumber. It saves the trees from going into a landfill and it saves other trees from having to be cut down for lumber. The lumber was a little more expensive per board foot than at a lumber yard but the guy at the recylcling place ended up giving me about twice as much as I actually ordered so I think I ended up coming out way ahead. Of course I made a lot more work for myself because all the lumber is just rough sawn. I have to go get a planer and surface it so that everything is nice and clean. I thought about having a rough deck but I don't think I would like it in the end. I am using monterey cypress wood, which is naturally rot resistant, even more so than redwood. The wood is more of a yellow color than redwood, more like yellow cedar in appearance. The guy at the yard is like a hippy logger. Kinda' an oxymoron. He drives around dirty diesel powered loaders and trucks; he wears big leather boots; he mills up trees; he talks about how great the lumber is and what it can be used for but he also talks about having an all organic salad for lunch; how chemical fertilizer on golf courses harms the trees; and that they are destroying the rainforests to bring people "exotic hardwoods." In Boonville it was a little simpler: either you were a logger and you cut down the trees like a good capitalist or you were a hippy and you wanted the people who owned all those trees not to cut them down because you couldn't afford to own them yourself...afterall communists can't really ever get rich. Ooooh, that's a can of worms. This guy looks like he should be hanging out in my mom's restaurant all day drinking coffee and shooting the shit with all the other loggers, but I don't think they would get along very well...in fact ideologically speaking he belongs firmly in the organic grocery store across the street.

7/13/2003 I've been thinking that now that I have a proper living room that I ought to get a really big tv and a surround sound system...but I think it'll have to wait. Currently I listen to more radio than I watch tv...and the radio I have in the house was one I found in the basement when we moved in. Nothin' like a couple free things with all that trash.

Currently I am quite frustrated with the house. I managed to get the whole back porch off with the help of a couple 22 year old Irish guys for a day. But I can't seem to get my act together to build the deck...which means that every time I need to let Romi out or I want to see my bonsai I have to walk out the front door, down the sidewalk and into the back yard via the gate...it's really annoying.

Our friend Joe had a 3rd of July party that started at 2pm...right up my alley as far as not having to stay up late...it was a really nice day and he had a full bar set up. The drinks de jour were Mojito's; they're kinda' like a gin and tonic but a little better in my opinion. I think it's a couple shots of rum, one lime..juiced, club soda, one to four teaspoons sugar depending on your taste and most importantly some mint leaves. Mash up the mint leaves a little as you put them in and add one for garnish....you won't be dissapointed (unless you don't like mint.) Joe was a DJ for a while, before he got a real job, got married, and started playing some mean softball; he has a fantastic funk collection, so I had a couple drinks and started playing with his DJ setup for fun...It was actually a lot of fun. I can see why people like to DJ so much I got to listen to a lot of music that I hadn't heard from his collection and I really got it rolling; to the point that It was kinda' like slope day. (if you didn't go to Cornell then that doesn't make sense) By about four I was really wasted and by six I had passed out. I woke up (or rather was awakened) at seven so we could get in some softball practice....I was feeling a little hungover. Funny how much music is out there that you just don't get to hear because it isn't "the best."

Anyway, I gotta get some more coffee and load up my truck with some more rubbish from the back porch and get it to the dump. My basement looks more like a bombed out building than a basement at the moment. On Friday I was hauling some junk to the dump as I have been quite a bit lately. There is a lot of commotion at the dump with people off-loading refuse and large loaders moving it away from the staging areas. I was removing the tarp from over the bed of my truck and just as I was shoving it into the back of the cab I felt a splatter on my back. There was a moving truck next to me "basement to attic cleanout" it said on the side "we give you room to breath!" The lady who owned it got a full splatter on the back too. Before I even turned around "Fuck, what the hell is that!" she yelled. As I turned I saw her, the inside of my truck door, the entire side of here moving truck, and most of my truck all covered with splatters of gray paint.

ok cup #2 of Jo' in hand...

The loader that had been moving the rubbish away from us had run over a full gallon can of paint and the loader had completely crushed it, the contents escaping to cover everything in our direction. The first thing I thought was that it coulda' been a lot worse...afterall, paint isn't as bad as sewage and it's not particularly toxic...then I realized that my truck was totally covered and it was drying fast. They brought over some large hoses and what followed was a half hour of us trying to get all the paint washed off before it dried. Didn't happen. Finally I gave up and unloaded all the paint spatted boards and shingling from the back of my truck. I drove down, payed the weighmaster and then pulled aside to talk to the operations manager. He very nicely offered to pay to have the truck detailed...which he said would cost him about $120. I took the truck to South City Car Wash where he said that he sent people frequently. He was surprised to find that it actually cost $275 to remove all the paint and put a new coat of wax on the truck. I was surprised that he actually paid, but he did....so all I had to deal with was how to get all the paint out of my hair.

7/8/2003
7/1/2003
6/3/2003
5/29/2003
4/22/2003
3/18/2003
2/27/2003
2/18/2003
2/15/2003
1/31/2003
1/21/2003
12/18/2002

Hmm that list is getting quite long...I'll have to do something with it one of these days.

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