well a few days later we got the official report on what still needs to be fixed, and after having discussed it somewhat with dad, theres a lot i can do myself it would seem, some clarification needed on some things, and still some that i am not able to do - mainly, the new service line. no thank you. so thats kind of where we are on that. in limbo for the moment. im sure ill get around to doing a lot of it sometime in the semi-near future, but i dont know for sure. work is kinda an issue when it comes to devoting myself completely to the electrical thing. and since we know what we do have is safe and its all working, its hard to convince myself that this is something of great importance, but meh, whatever. i think it all has to be done by the end of march, so im sure itll get done sooner rather than later. moving on...
well thursday, as i mentioned in the last post, we were having an inspector out to check out the new joists, columns, and footings in the basement so that we could finally and once and for all get the certificate of occupancy situation completely sewn up. so around lunch time i headed home on thursday and waited for the inspector to show up. well around 12:15 i hadnt seen or heard anything from him, and i had to be back at work in half an hour, so i made a phone call and he assured me he was on his way, just running late. okay... well about 10 minutes late, sure enough i hear noise outside and see this big old' cowboy striding up my front porch and knocking on my door. for those of you back home in texas, you know those cowboy santa clause images you see all over the place around christmas time, that is exactly what this guy looked like. long curly white hair, and full beard, round body, and then cowboy jeans, boots, hat, and to top it off - a biker style red white and blue patriotic leather jacket. haha, this guy was awesome. and he talked with that slow southern drawl to boot. anyway, just from the looks of the guy i knew we were going to be just fine, so we meandered down to the basement as i tried to charge his memory of the situation, and he tried to recall everything, and we walked around and i pointed out all the work wed had done and explained all the details of what he was looking at, and he just kept nodding and sayin yep. 10 minutes later he was on his way out, shook my hand and with that he assured me everything looked good to him, and we were fine to get our certificate of occupancy. so, i guess that means we're good on that! oh, just a small side note, he damn near fell off the porch when he leaned on one of our rickety old railings and it gave under his weight. luckily the house next door is only 3 ft off the porch and he was able to put his hand out and save himself the 2 foot tumble to the ground. and luckily for us, he chuckled and said hes seen that happen more than once in these old houses as i assured him we were going to be fixing the railing very soon. anyway, so he was satisfied with that response and went on his jolly way.
late last week, the roofers pulled down all their ladders and ladder jacks from the side of the house, so i called up my contractor to get the details. it turns out that the people next door needed access to that side of the house, and so they obliged. but at the same time, he said they were pretty much finished anyway. theres one window that still needs a little attention and they didnt finish all the painting, but he needs to discuss some rotted wood issues they discovered with me before we go any further with the painting anyhow. basically theve found some of the fascia boards are rotted out and he didnt want to waste our money painting them if we were just going to replace them, however he never intended to replace them in the original scope of work either so he didnt tear into them, because who knows what the wood looks like behind them. and if you start tearing in and find more rotted wood, its just a big can of worms at that point, you know? so we're going to have to look at where he thinks the damaged stuff is at some point in the near future, and then decide where, and if, we want to go from there.
so i mentioned the people next door. well, for those of you that may or may not remember from blogs past, the house to the east of our house, has been vacant since well before we moved in, but we'd heard from the neighbors across the street that an urban renewal development company thats been buying up property in our neighborhood owned it. well wed never seen anything being done to the place, so we werent sure what was going on with it as far as rehabbing or whatever, but last week, i think it was wednesday there suddenly appeared a dumpster in the front yard when we got home from work, and it was obvious someone had started demo. well, since then, theyve been out there working on that house every day and have pulled off all this terribly tacky asphalt shingle brick pattern crap that was on the sides of the house, tore down the porch, and have started thoroughly gutting the inside of this little house. karen and i are very excited that this is going on, and its a lot of fun to watch their progress everyday. even though theyre still in the demo phase, this eyesore of a dwelling is looking exponentially better everyday. =]
this weekend karen and i were both sick. she was getting over it, and i was only just catching it from her, so between the two of us being sickly we didnt get a whole lot done around the house. we dont know what it is we had/have [im still sick and feeling pretty out of it at work right now...] but its something thats definitely goin round her office. she said at least 4 or 5 people in her section alone were out last week sick, so it was bound to catch her and then i as well. so anyway, ive got it now, and shes feeling mostly better, and im seriously considering going home at lunch.
but anyway, we did get a little bit done this weekend. in the office, the light had stopped working as soon as my parents had left town and it had been a bit of a mystery as to why. id taken the thing apart at some point to check the wiring and it all looked good, the switch as well, and wed tested at least 3 different working bulbs in the thing, so we werent sure what was going on. it had worked fine before theyd left, and my dad had checked it right before they left, so it should be working. well anyway, last weekend when wed gone to lowes wed gotten some new track lighting to go in the office [we wanted spots for art work in there anyway] and this weekend i decided to put it up. so i took down the fan/light that was there, inspected all the wiring once again, and installed the new track lighting. it actually went up very easily now that i know what im doing, and i had no problems at all really - well, save dropping screws every 5 minutes, but thats neither here nor there, and im happy to report it is fully functional and wife is quite happy to now be able to use her office after work. shes spent half the weekend in there organizing her school papers and getting ready for the next trimester to begin.
other than that, kared did some sewing projects and i spent a lot of time fiddling with my computer, but we didnt really get a whole lot else accomplished. we went for a walk on sunday, the weather was once again gorgeous this weekend, and grilled hot-dogs - quite superbly this time around, yes, i am the grill master.... nah, thast not ture at all..] but the dogs were quite tasty. umm... yeah, thats it, i think.
so now im at work and feeling more light headed by the second and finding it quite impossible to concentrate on much of anything [including this...] right now, and im not sure how much longer im going to make it. hope you all have a good week.
happy belated pi day to everyone! [that was saturday] hope you had some, pi! ;]
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