Phutu...or is it?

7/8/2003 Apparently I am not as fit now as I was last summer. I have been tearing down the rear porch and it is taking me a long time. I don't seem to have the endurance that I had last summer for doing physical work, I must be getting old.

Dory and I spent the 4th of July weekend painting and fixing up the main room of the house. Originally, as you can see, we painted the room a bright "cranberry" color; but after all the walls were painted we decided that it was too bright and didn't go well with the yellow in the kitchen. So we headed back down to Home Depot for some more paint. I am pleased with our second choice which is a warm coffee-with-cream color. I wasn't so pleased with so many trips to Home Depot. I am getting really sick of going down there. It takes forever and there is never anyone around to help you when you need it. Which reminds me that Ikea is the same way. We went furniture shopping last saturday, looking for a couple comfy chairs for the main room. Dory wanted some nice chairs so first we went to Ethan Allen which seems to be on the more expensive side...great service though, they must pay their consultants on commission. Then we went to Ikea for a comparison...not so great service and a huge crowd of people. In fact, Ikea was a nightmare on a Saturday afternoon. I usually miss that type of crap since I am always working on Saturdays, and I am glad to have missed it. I don't think I could live in the city if I had to deal with the weekend crowd all the time. We also went to Crate and Barrell, which has furniture that is even more expensive...I can't really figure out why. We ended up buying the chairs from Ethan Allen after spending an hour trying to walk through Ikea and spending the better part of a day in total looking.

Anyway, the main room is finished enough that we are living in it now. So I am working on the back of the building. It has taken me three days of solid work to remove about half the structure. I talked to my neighbor Shane...he tracked down a couple guys to help me who are supposedly coming tomorrow morning. Actually, much of the time has been spent hauling the refuse to the dump. I spent about two hours total today sitting in line at the dump waiting to get rid of truckloads of debris. I looked into getting a dumpster but even a small one is three times more expensive than hauling things to the dump myself. The guy on the phone told me that it was about five truckloads per dumpster and that they cost around $400...ouch. The dump is a strangely complicated place. I never imagined the complexity of it before I went there for the first time; the traffic alone boggles the mind. Swirling garbage devils seem to be quite common since it is located in one of the fog gaps, making it constantly windy. I guess the wind is actually desireable since it would probably stink a lot more if it wasn't windy. The funny thing is that the area I always go to doesn't stink that much. Most of the trash that comes into the transfer area is from people like me who are clearing out debris from construction or rubbish from basements. The really stinky area is where all the day-to-day garbage is deposited by the garbage collection trucks. I've been in it a couple times and it has a sour, vinegar, rotten-apple sort of smell...but a lot more complex. The smell is really hard to pin down actually, but sometimes I have the pleasure of following one of the bulk transfer trucks on the freeway which gives me a good reminder of it.

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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