slow progress

 I cleared one of the two sheds out today. I am going to have the tree removal company move it to the neighbors. The other yard barn will be moved behind the big barn. I am trying to appreciate the little moves forward. I don't know why something as simple as building a garage has to turn into such a project. Seems like it's always one step forward, three steps back. I have tried for four years to accomplish this simple task. I will try and remain positive. My tree guy says he will have the tree and stump out before the end of the month. I am hopeful. If the current builders don't succeed in building my garage, I will hire someone in the spring. I am bound and determined to have my building done by spring at the latest. 

Well, times still suck a bit

 Well, on the plus side, my tree guy assured me the tree in the backyard will be down before the end of the month. The bad news, one of the crew of builders had a horrible fall and broke his neck, God look out for him. I hope he makes a full recovery. He is one of the neighbor's brother. Must just be a suck ass year altogether. My neighbor  fell off a ladder working on his house and broke his wrist. Been just one suck ass year, or two. Still have three plus years of suck with the dumbass that occupies the oval office. At the current rate of destruction, I am sadly doubtful.

I am looking forward to the tree removal and getting one step closer to my goal. But, I am hoping my neighbor and his family heal from their recent downfalls. I hope 2022 improves. 2020 election set the bar pretty low, so I am trying to remain optimistic. 

Finally

 I finally have a honest to god builder for the garage. The neighbors brother and associates, licensed contractors, are finishing his roof. They came over and looked over my property and I told them what I wanted and the few different sites and styles, and which ones were my top choice. Great part is, the one quoting the job says my original first choice spot should work out fine. I should be able to go with my original choice of a 24 foot deep by 40 wide with two two car garage doors. He says I should be able to make it taller as well since it is in the back yard. Their main area for building is Evansville, so they know the codes and the proper channels to go through. That means, I can go with a full size four post lift like I wanted to do in the first place. Even better, he guesstimated that it should come in around what the other builders who quoted job came in at. Best part is, he figured it would take about five or six days to complete, and, he will have it done by the fall, at the latest. He can help with the electrical as well. Says I can run a 100 amp panel out to the garage. I can't wait to actually be working on my 1967 Mustang again. This time, I will actually have the room to work, not to mention the lift. I am thrilled. I can put a curb in the front after the new garage goes in the backyard, and take out the gravel parking I have now, and actually plant grass and finish the landscape. I can't believe after four years, I will finally have my garage, the main reason I moved in the first place. 

Market prices suck

 Thanks Biden. You have single handedly caused hyper inflation due to your sheer ineptitude. Can't believe enough idiots were offended by Trump's tweets to put this ignorant POS in office. He can't even complete a coherent sentence. He has reversed everything Trump did, which has put us back into the Obama shithole we were trapped in before. Race relations is once again being exploited by the left for political purposes. God I hate modern society and their lemming mentality. 

Lumber is so ridiculously inflated, I am trying to get a quote for the foundation of the garage so I don't have to park or work on gravel. I will build the actual building when lumber comes back down to normal. Economists are predicting two years give or take a year. Want to get the foundation and drive way put in so I can get the grass planted and curb put in so the front has a more "finished" look. Want to put up a couple flowering trees and shrubs as well. 

I found a builder. My neighbor is having his roof replaced. Contractors do a wide variety of things. May go ahead and put up my sunroom on the back patio, as the kit hasn't gone up and I have the money. I can do that and finish garage later. 

Work has been ramping up at a terrific pace. Looks like the return of six and seven day work weeks. We are scheduled out into the spring of 2022 already. Can't make and repair molds for food containers fast enough for the demand. I hope and pray the tarriffs stay in place. Before Trump put tariffs into effect, most of our work was outsourced to China. As is, we, as a company are having trouble finding enough plastic resin to make food containers. Good ole Joe. Plastic resin is a byproduct of petroleum. You reduce domestic petroleum supply, you also reduce the byproducts we depend on as well. Tree huggers should really step back and look at the mess they create. If they actually lived by what they demand, they wouldn't drink bottled water out of single use plastic. They wouldn't have the latest I-phone. They would actually try and live by what they preach. Sending the jobs back overseas is ignorant. We here in america must abide by OSHA standards, thus actually reducing global pollution. Overseas doesn't have that restriction. You can tell by looking at the cloud of pollution in China. Hate to tell tree huggers this, but, we as a people live in a bubble. If China is polluting, it is stuck in the same atmosphere we live in. Just because it is in another country doesn't mean it doesn't effect us. Keep the jobs here and control the pollution. That is real progress. I hate progressive idiots who don't think things through.

Too much government control

 I had vacation Easter week. One thing I wanted to get done, get a date on building garage. Monday of that week, I called the builder to get the quote updated (it was a couple years old). They updated the quote, and we discussed location. They told me I might need variances and made an appointment to come out Thursday to look at locations and see what would be needed. I said sounds good. Thursday comes, no call, no show. I emailed another builder. They sent me a quote that was a few grand cheaper than the no show. And, it had a window, an extra inch of concrete, and, they use 6x6 posts and 6x2 framing as opposed to 4x4 and 2x4's. When they called, they informed me of the variances likely needed because of the location.  I own over .6 acre corner lot. Can enter a garage on two different streets. Seems, since the city widened the main road, they made it a "thoroughfare" . By doing so, the city deems it necessary to limit buildings to sixty feet from the centerline of the road. Now, I don't really expect special treatment, but, being a thinking person, and not a government drone, I have to ask, why can't I build a garage that would be clear of the sidewalk by twenty four feet, but the neighbors house and garage two and three doors down are about twelve feet from the sidewalk. If they decide to widen the road more, they would literally have to demolish the garage and house two and three houses down from me. The realtor lied about location of septic field in back yard, so, I would have to redo the septic field in back to put the garage back there. I am really aggravated as the main reason I moved, and bought this house was so I could put a big garage on it. I am now looking to put an attached garage on the front, as I believe I can fit it in far enough back not to have to bother with the variances. I realize you need codes so the neighborhood doesn't look like a shanty town, but some of the rules make no sense. The two neighbors I refer to are two of many, if you follow the street. There are many properties that lost distance between property and street when they widened the road. But, if the government used common sense, which it doesn't, they would write the rule so you couldn't build a building closer to the road than the building on the street presently nearest the road. Sad part is, I believe I am going to have to reduce the size of the garage from what I wanted, by quite a bit. If I can't build that, I may have one more move to make. I hate government overreach. I measured, and believe I can get a 32 wide by 24 deep attached garage. Wanted 40 foot, but, 32 would be better than what I have now. 

Sleepy Joe is now asleep at the wheel

 Two and a half days into the four year shit show. Today, Biden nixed an order Trump signed to lower insulin prices. His first day, he killed the pipeline along with the thousands of jobs that went with it. He opened the gates for more illegals to enter as well as green cards for all invaders. We now have new caravans coming, and the illegals that are on the way are "demanding" Biden honor his promise to stand down and let the invaders in. 

Democrats are worried about the spread of a virus that kills .03 of one percent of the population. They have shut down restaurants, bars, sporting events, and basically everything people wish to do. They are super spreaders, unless it is a left wing demonstration, they are allowed to burn and pillage at will. The left has NO problem allowing the hoards to penetrate the border, bringing COVID, measles, chicken pox and whatever else they may have. If they cross at an entry point, we will treat them for free, then release them on their word to report to court when their date arrives. We are back to the hell we endured four years ago. 

While I don't like seeing anyone lose their jobs, I feel less sad when it is a union worker. Most of them blindly vote democrat. Most workers on the pipeline that got axed probably voted for Biden. Same goes with other union workers. The alcoa plant down here was in the process of shutting down. Many of my neighbors lost their jobs. Good paying jobs. I work in a machine shop that manufactures and rebuilds molds for making plastic food containers. A lot of our machines were idle because our management was sending the orders for new molds to China. We mopped and cleaned most of the time. Kept waiting for our pink slips. About the only work we had was redoing the fits on components of the chinese molds. They would come in, our assembly department would break it down and Quality control would inspect it. We got the privilege of repairing the new mold. Our management team would fly to china on a regular basis to help educate them on what was wrong, so they could do better so we wouldn't even have the repair work. When President Trump brought the tariffs in, Alcoa not only reopened, it expanded. My neighbors went back to work. My place of business brought mold building back to the states. We bought new machinery and have been working at break neck speed. We have hired a lot of new people. The steel industry in america also saw new life. All this is on the verge of going away again. Corporations are for profit. If tariffs go away, I am sure my company will farm the work back to China again. I find it mind bogling that people actually voted for Biden. A senile old bastard who is extremely corrupt and cares about nobody. The tax cuts, which my accountant told me gives me roughly three grand more take home pay a year, will be gone as Biden promised. I am not wealthy. I personally can't stand listening to Trump, as he usually acted like he was still a reality TV show actor. BUT, I loved what he actually accomplished. It saddens me that there are so many people that voted against Trump because of his tweets and rough persona. I like and enjoyed how he made our lives better. 

Big step forward

 Another big move forward. The rotten maple in the front lawn is gone, finally. I can now move forward on the garage in the spring, finally. AND, I can now make it deeper with the tree gone. I will check with the builder and see if I can go thirty deep instead of twenty four foot. I am off Easter week, so I am hoping on getting a build date by then. I have waited a long time for this. 

The downstairs turned out great. New ceiling with drop in light panels is awesome. I put a light up in the staircase going to basement, so, I am really happy with the way it turned out. I also modified an unused area above the stairwell so it is now closet space for the office upstairs. 

Every weekend, I try to get another project done. This weekend, I am hoping to push back a section of wall in the office to allow shelving for DVDs and displays that are even with the wall. I am also hoping on getting the extra outlets for office wired up as well as running the wiring for the ceiling fan for the guest bedroom. It is the last room in the house that doesn't have ceiling lights. Can't believe nobody has upgraded the lighting in this house yet. I hate torch lights. I have installed ceiling fans throughout the home now. Hopefully by spring, I will have everything completely done inside and the garage going up. Still have some landscaping to do in the spring. Every year, I get a little more done. I like my gazebo, but I am hoping to upgrade it in a couple years into a year around sunroom. I already know what kit I will use, but, I can only do so much at a time, and the garage is the next BIG project. I want to get back to working on my 1967 mustang. 

End of vacation

 Back to work tomorrow. I did finish the wiring on the basement lighting and have all the ceiling done. Found a clear path for the sconce lighting for the stairway down to the basement, but the back has a board where I need to install an electrical box. Have to make yet another trip to the store. They make a shallow surface mount electric box that I can run the electric through the board and safely connect the light fixture. Next vacation, I am hoping on redoing the downstairs bathroom ceiling as well as a small space kitchen area ceiling. Tiny compared with the area I did. 

I can't figure out where the little SOB's are coming in at, but while demoing the old ceiling, I inspected the finished ripout. While tearing old ceiling out, I got seventy years worth of mouse droppings raining down. I stood to the side and tried to catch most debris in box under the area. Well, I haven't seen one in a year, but, I will be damned if I didn't see one freaking mouse scurrying the perimeter of the ceiling heading to a neighboring room. Too cramped an area to do much. I tried to get the vacuum cleaner that was next to me and suck him up in it, but he was quicker than me. I know you can't mouse proof anything, but, I did my best. I sealed up the entire perimeter. Bigger openings I boarded up, and foamed all cracks. Probably still get some sneaking through, but it isn't wide open. When I redo the other ceilings, I will do the same. 

Had some issues when I first moved in, upstairs, but I installed electrical devices that are suppose to drive them out. It worked. I don't see one very often upstairs, and when I do, it is dead under the sink where I leave baited traps. I would call an exterminator, but my neighbor did for his. They charge about the equivalent of $25 a month to maintain a service, and he still catches one once in a while. I am going to try and install some electrical devices down there, may even put one in each ceiling grid. It emits a noise they don't like, but it doesn't bother dogs. 

Now that I have free access to the wiring, I can finally access the light switch to the last bedroom needing a ceiling light. Now I can send the electric up to the attic and finish that up. The new ceiling was a big step forward. 

Not looking forward to going back to work, and wearing a freaking mask for eight to ten hours a day. It has been nice not having to deal with the Covid nonsense. I treasure my off time. I now look forward to spring. Hopefully the idiots in charge will stop the mask nonsense and let things return to normal again.

Vacation is almost over

 With the Covid nonsense, I wasn't able to go up north for Christmas. Last Christmas, the lady that boarded my dog lost her struggle with cancer. She was an awesome older lady. In her eighties. Up to a few years ago, when you dropped the dog off, she would get down and play with the dogs like a teenager. She was a wonderful lady and loved taking care of dogs. My back up kennel isn't taking dogs at present. Don't blame them. They too are an older couple, but they are also very wonderful with dogs. I was going to check out new places, but the Covid nonsense has everything messes up. I am very particular when it comes to my dog. I like to check the place out and see how the people are. Most of them have a policy in place where you don't come in, they come and get dog out of vehicle. I get it, some people are paranoid of the disease that kills .03 percent of the people that contract it, since the government and media have driven people crazy with fear. I missed seeing family and friends. 

I did enjoy spending time with my dog and getting things done around the house though. Two weeks off is awesome. I finally ripped the ceiling out of the bar downstairs. It was old stained staple up one foot tiles. I hated the poor lighting down there, and the ceiling tiles being stained and warped just took away from the room. The house was built in the forties. Whoever did the bar area finished it in knotty pine. They built a nice bar and the previous owner left his bar stools for me. May look at putting a pool table down there in the near future as well as an electric dart board. I installed a drop ceiling with recessed lighting. Turned out awesome. Armstrong makes what they call an EZ hang ceiling. Does away with the twist wires and eye hooks. You nail a bracket up every four foot on the rafters. You pinch two metal tabs and insert a rod with a hooked end. To level ceiling, you just pinch metal tabs and move rod up or down, release and it locks in place. WAY better and easier than the old twisted wire method. Went up very quick and leveled easy as well. I also liked how you can drop the ceiling only 2.5 inch from rafters if you want, which is what I did. Basement ceiling height is important if you are tall. Only thing left to do is go to Lowes and pick up a couple covers for the electical boxes. Didn't have any on hand. I also want to tie a light into the circuit so when I turn on the downstairs lights, a light will come on on the staircase. So, I will pick up a light for the stairs tomorrow as well. Hopefully wrap that little bit up in the morning. Then, clean the mess up and actually enjoy the downstairs. Other benefit of the drop ceiling is I can now access the wiring for upstairs. I want to run some more recepticals as well as relocate some. Also want to redo some lighting upstairs, and I can now actually access the wiring without tearing into the walls. 

Time off has been nice, but even after two weeks, I am not ready to go back to work. I have limited my outings so I don't have to be muzzled with a mask. Unfortunately, That ends Monday as I head back to work where I get daily temp checks, wear a mask all day, and get to listen to all the things that can help keep us safe. So tired of everywhere I go, you need a mask and some dumbass on the PA is telling we ar all in this together, wear a mask, social distance, and don't forget to wash your hands. I hate going out at all anymore. So tired of the hyped up panic in society.