Hard Work and darn little fun

This turning a beat up house into a nice home for David has turned into a lot of work. I have my brother-in-law here and we both have worked darned hard and long. Today we needed to get a couple of things done and worked way longer than we should have. I know he is wanting to go to the Pow-Wow at the lake and I'll bet he is too tired to go there tonight. Oh well, I'll give him a couple of days off and I'll bet he bounces back in good fashion.
I can tell we are on the down ward slide on getting it ready but there are a few things that have me puzzled. I'm just not sure how to finish the siding job where the bottom of the siding is just shot. Water has turned it to mush beneath the trim on the bottom of the wall. I have replaced it on the front and spliced it on the back. The ends need some help but I am pretty sure that I don't want to tear it all off and am not sure if just trimming it up will be the long term answer I am looking for. I think I'll take tomorrow off and sit on the mower for a while. I have some pretty good ideas when I can just sit and go in big circles. Oh well, I'll get some pictures up here soon and get on with my life. MUD

Back to the Bike Trail

It has finally cooled off a few degrees and today after breakfast I plan to go over to the lake and hit the trails. More pictures to follow. Forgot the camera but the ride was magnificent. Seems like a lifetime since I had a chance to feel the wind in my face. I swear that bike riding takes me as near to my youth as anything I can do. We rode down the west side of the lake about three miles and came back. Nice ride and great weather. Most of the people you might find on the trail on Saturday were in church or sleeping it off in bed.
We are a little worried about my little buddy. She fell off the seat in the car and hurt her foot. That foot has been a little hurt in the past and she really favors it today. I think she likes to be carried which adds to the symptoms. Might fire up the mower and do a little mowing today. I have a 1 PM appointment to show the house. Our potential renters didn't show up last weekend like they promised. Oh well.
On the good side of the ledger, Dave and his wife Barb will be driving a newer car on Monday. They got a 2001 Malibu for a really good price. It's only money after all.
MUD

Pictures of "My Little Buddy"

Photo one is the Old Retired Fart and his buddy. Picture two is my buddy looking for the cat and trouble. It is great to have the sound of little paws thumping through the house. I thin it is funny when the birds start flapping their wings and Grissy barks to tell them to "knock it off". No matter how hot and tired I am at the end of a day it is nice to stop and pet her as she wags her tail.
MUD

Took the Afternoon Off

It was so hot that after a morning of hard work we took the afternoon off. I tried to keep hydrated but it took three bottles of water at lunch and a 20 OZ Pepsi to replace the sweat. I did notice that my right hand man Putt-Putt didn't complain. He worked as hard as I did and stayed with me step by step.
The work at our new property is going well and things are looking better by the day. We do have a major job in the kitchen left and a lot of finish work but I'm sure that in the end it will all work out. I hope you are all well and surviving the heat. It will be fall soon and things will be better.
MUD

Too Hot to Tango

The daytime temps are near 100 and the "Heat Index" has been in the range of 110 here in the heartland. We are able to get in about 6 hours of serious work in the AM but in the afternoon it s reduced to puttering inside the house in the shade. There is no air conditioning (yet) so it is open the windows and deal with the flies.
Morning remembrance - On about our third day in Basic Training the Senior Drill Instructor stood before us and said," Two things I hate in this world, Cruits (Recruits, new soldiers) and flies. The more I see of you Cruits the better I like those little green flies." Nothing like a rousing speech to get our blood flowing.
We have most of the junk mucked out in the trailer and are starting on painting prep. I still need to have the heating and cooling replaced. Half of the ductwork is not connected and there is no really good return air system. Can we say money boys and girls.
MUD

Borne Ultimatum

Went to a great movie last night and was not left wanting. The Borne series has been one of my favorites and the third leg of this trilogy is right on. It even left the door open for Jason Borne to come back to Nexa, Missouri and resume his life. There is only one minor thing in the whole series that bothers me and that is the unsteadiness of the camera during the car chase scenes. I tend to almost get motion sickness but thank god in most of the movies I have eaten a bucket of pop corn and it is so dry there isn't any way I could puke.
Barb spent a couple hours on her feet with Barbara (Dave's Wife) and while they shopped and she stayed home. Darn!
Putt-Putt and I are taking a day off and not going out in the noon day sun. Both of us needed a day off. I felt like every thing hurt in my body and after a day off I feel 100% better.
MUD

My Birthday Cigar

Once a year on or near my birthday I purchase a fine cigar and enjoy a leisurely smoke. Over the years since I stopped smoking for real, I have watched the price of a good cigar rise from a couple of dollars to "say what". A couple of years ago the cigar was $8.00 and I almost skipped the treat. This year with tax it was $12.00. I guess that is one pleasure that will probably be falling off my radar.
Things are going well at the new investment property. At least we have been investing a lot in it. The biggest difference is as we remove more and more things from the inside the smoke and stale smell is dissipating. With a little more cleaning, a good coat of paint and replacement of the curtains I expect things to be in fine shape soon. Still have a minor pesky water leak to find yet.
The temperature here in the Heartland has finally started acting like it is summer. To add to the misery, the humidity is high. It feels like Panama about 4 in the afternoon. We have had about the right amount of rain and man is the corn growing out of sight. In fact Barb was saying that we ha had about 24 inches of our normal 29 inches of rain so far this year.
One roofer I talked to about an estimate said that he has not had a good week most of the summer. Now he has to remain on site to keep the guys from spending the afternoon hanging around the water cooler. I can't imagine being on the roof after about 11 AM in this heat.
Today is the Saturday that you can turn in Chemicals to the County at no cost. I have about 2/3rds of the pickup bed full of half empty cans of things unknown. The guy we purchased the house from was a Terrazzo worker and he had a house full of strange chemicals. There is one shed that I haven't even really gone into and it has probably another pickup bed full of strange things that hardens or does things to other chemicals .
It has been nice to have my brother-in-law, Putt-Putt, here to talk to. I can bounce ideas off him and discuss what options to take on the house. It was funny yesterday he and Dave were talking about a light fixture he wife had said "needs to go". Putt-Putt has been working the electricity issues and replacing switches and outlets. When they looked at the ugly ceiling fixture they couldn't see any switch that would make it work. Our test bulb did not work so they really began to look for the problem. When the four screws that held it up were loosened, it came down completely. There never was any wire connecting the light to anything. Problem solved.
Oh well, I could go on for days about the things we have found and the minor problems we are encountering. Should be a fun summer and fall.
MUD

If I had known I was going to live this long, I'd taken better care of myself!

Today opens a new door for me. I am officially on the Retired List from a 30 year Military Career and will finally start drawing my Retired Military retirement. This starts on my 60th birthday and will pay out until Barb is no longer alive. That will be a long time unless stupidity steps in and something bad happens.
The work at the new house is going well and it is so nice to have Barb's brother Kenny here to help and discuss things with. I get to spend a few minutes each day petting his dog Grissy and that's a bonus. There is just something about petting a dog that puts a smile on your face and in your heart.
Talk about your great birthday presents, I got a call from the Reimers in Morocco. They sang Happy Birthday in English and Arabic. When I asked Kendra if she was going to a French School this fall she said We We (it might be Wi Wi but spell checker doesn't know French any better than I do) Their giggles were a light in my life and it was great to hear from them. They gave me some info on a program that will allow us to call them cheap and we could hook up and see them on our computer.
Better get off here so I can go eat cake and watermelon. Bonus dude!
MUD

Trouble with Things

When it rains, it pours. The electric meter box at the new house had been tampered with and the electric company would not re-install the meter until I had it replaced. No big amount of work but it was a $175.00 expense. The rental house air conditioner went south and that was another $100.00 service call today. Oh well, I should be glad that I could afford to have both of them fixed. I did meet a couple of nice guys and we did have a nice chat. Note - Went back over to clean the carpets and found the air conditioner dead as a door nail. Another visit and more parts. Another $128.00 visit. Oh well...
After looking at the roof on the new house, I am pretty sure that it will take a complete re-roof and I am looking at just what to do. One of the plans I saw called for a metal roof over a wooden grid and some sheet insulation.
Better run and get some things done.
MUD

Dum, Dah Dum Dum, DUMB!

Yesterday Barb worked and then took a cake decorating class. I went over to the new house and worked inside and outside until after 3 PM. Yes, it was in the 90's and the heat factor was near 100. I didn't throw up but I did make myself sick by getting too hot. Thank god for air conditioning here at Rabbit Run. I cooled off with a shower and then sat in front of a fan for about an hour. OK, anytime I sit anywhere for an hour a nap happens. I like the way that sounds. A Nap Happens!
One part of retirement that has happened to the Mrs is that she watches way too many programs about making things and changing things. Add to that the weight watcher diet suggestions and you wind up eating low fat crescent rolls. Aren't they supposed to be rich and tasty with pats of butter on them? Barb has the blue bottle of some butter substitute and they each get a squirt to make them taste like they have real butter in them. "Bravo Sierra" or just bs. There was a painting left at the rental house and Barb had to bring it home to see, "How it looks" in the living room. It wasn't enough that she put that one up, she had to look at all the pictures and next thing you know, I'll be moving them all. Oh well, at least she has good taste and is not artistically challenged like I am.
I think I am going to rent one of those big green trash containers this week to yard off all the trash left in the rental house and the new investment house. You just can't imagine the amount of junk that you can accumulate and then not haul off. I can but the only thing I can do is fill trash bags and wait for the trash container.
Oh well, better go and get something done before it gets too hot. 4832
MUD

I will be a little slow Posting for a while

I am right in the middle of preparing my rental house so I can rent it and working on the new investment house getting it ready to start the rehab. I worked outside today in the heat until 3 PM and I'm glad I quit when I did. It was all I could do to load the mower back in to the pick up truck. Help is on the way but I have a lot to do so I'll be kind of sporadic here.
You all have fun out there but be careful.
MUD

Problems With Plans

One person that commented said that he did not do much planning because in his life things quickly changed and his plans went in the toilet quickly. I was reminded of several things about planning I failed to mentioned. Here are some:

• The rule in Combat is that a plan is often good until the first round is fired. The Murphy's law is if the plan is easy, it is wrong. You are either lost or about to be ambushed.
• Plans last longer if they have input from more people and are formulated over a longer time so more input can be incorporated. If you are in a combat unit and enemy is in the wire of your position, you don't call a staff meeting and discuss what to do. Grab your rifles and go shoot the som bitches. On the other hand looking at the factors of Enemy, Terrain, Weather ,time distance and personnel on hand just might be the start of a good plan if you have three hours to plan, give two of those hours to the subordinate to plan how he is going to make your idiot ideas a reality.
• A really good plan poorly executed is often better than a bad plan executed with skill. (Unless the guy is lucky as heck)
• In a lot of cases, trying to figure out what to do as a training exercise will help develop way of doing things that save time, money and lives.
  

The final point is that if you think through what you are going to do you will often find ways that just don't look obvious on the surface. I don't know how many times I worked on something one day and the next day over a cup of coffee the answer would just occur to me. Those are the Ahhhhh! moments as opposed to the Ah Shits when things happen that you didn't think about or expect. MUD

A Plan for Life

Today I went to the barbershop for my monthly trim. My barber is totally bald. I wonder if what they say about cooks applies to barbers. You know, never trust a skinny cook or a bald barber. On the counter was a book he was reading. It was a book about having a Plan for God to run his life. I asked him if he had a plan to help in the issue or if he was going to leave it up to God? It kind of took him a minute to reply. Now I know I had him, this guy has an opinion about everything including a good joke now and then.
He mumbled some things about being a good father and husband. I said those things everyone should do their best to be, but what is he going to do to make his life better.
The basic way to build a plan is to first assess where you are. If you can't find where you are, there is just no way you can figure out where you want to be. n case you haven't figured out step two, where is it you want to be? The last step is to figure out how to get from where you are to where you want to be.
I think this works out if you break it down into areas. Education, finance, personal relationships, housing and transportation. Your goals in these areas should be near term, mid term and long range.
The one area we did agree on was that real estate was a good place to start building. I think if we had spent a little more time we could have also agreed that education is a great base. I had to go meet Barb for lunch so we didn't continue any deeper. Your Thoughts? MUD

One More Thing

Right now seems to be a good time to refinance or do a second mortgage to improve your property. The local credit union was more than happy to loan us $60,000 with no closing cost or fees at 6.6%.
It doesn't help the bottom line on our balance sheet but in the long run it should make for a better life. 4748
MUD

Ground Truth in Financing

OK, if you think you understand what it truly costs to borrow money, you can skip this lesson. If you want to see what I think it truly costs to borrow money, read on.

Just today I saw a refinance your home at $300,000 for around $900 a month. Lets see

$300,000 at 7% per year is an interest payment of $1750 per month. Somewhere it doesn't compute. If you pay it off in 5 years the principle payment would be $5,000 or 6750 per month plus taxes and insurance. If it was paid off in 30 years the principle payment would be between 800 and 900 per month for a payment of $2650 or $2750 per month. (plus taxes and Insurance)

What scares me is that when I see houses on the West Coast they are so grossly inflated that how could anyone buy one. I see the homes that would sell here for less than $100,000 selling for $800,000 to $900,000.

So, if you think you are in the market to finance or refinance be sure you are armed with the complete information. Hey, don't forget the inspections, title search and closing costs. If you have less than 80% of the price of the home outstanding when you close the deal you can generally close for little. More than that expect the costs to be $2,000 or $3,000 and in some cases points on the loan. (points are percentages so three points is 3% of the total of the loan)

Confused? Just do your homework.
Dennis

Friday the 13th?

OK all you triscadecaphobics out there, I missed Friday the 13th entirely. I guess my overly busy schedule just got in the way of reading what was really going on in the world.
Did I tell you about the latest watermelon? We were on the west side of town and they had a fruit stand near the mall and sitting on the counter were some of the best looking watermelons. I selected one and gave it the thump test. It was right on the top of its game and about as ripe as you would want it. When they sound a little slosshy, beware that they are overripe. This 50 lb melon was only $6.00 and we ate on it all week. I finished the last piece last night and I'm pretty sure that I won't want another one for at least, well, until tomorrow. Barb noticed how much room there was in the refrigerator after the beast was gone. I swear that uncut it just fitted on the entire lower rack. Lovely large round light green melon with dark green stripes. Sweet and cold.
Our new couch is so big that Dave and I had to work hard to get it in the house. Thanks to his hard work it came in. I had him so late that I didn't have time to carry off the old recliner.
The house deal is still working and we are about to finish the financing on our end. We'll see how it all works out in the end. More to follow tomorrow.
MUD

Ghosts?

Either we have ghosts or someone just came into the house upstairs while I was downstairs. I kind of expected Barb but was not sure of the time she is due home. She worked this morning at Michael's and is attending a cake decorating class for a couple of hours after that. I heard one of the doors close upstairs and hollered Hello like I always do. No dog barks, no one in the driveway. Do you believe in Ghosts? I would like to but I really don't.
MUD

Well, Double Crap!

We went over to NFM to pick up a brown sofa and after a half hour wait to get the paperwork done, went over to the pick up point to get the sofa. The brought it our and put it on the truck. I went to get Barb and when she came out to the truck, she looked at it and it was the same black sofa they had tried to deliver yesterday. I don't know why they thought it was any more brown today than yesterday. Another line, another wait and finally they brought out a brown leather flex steel couch. YES!
When I got it home, I found that the great big heavy som'bitch is a monster and I'm not sure if Dave and I will be able to get it off the pick up and inside. I will know in a little while when he gets here. If we can't, I'll put it in the garage and figure out a way to sucker some big guys over to help. I think about 4 will be the right number.
You know what, I think I should have bought it from the local company and had them put it where I wanted it. Double Crap!
MUD

Well Crap!

After 27 years of faithful service our couch needed replaced. We went to Nebraska Furniture Mart in Kansas City and they had a beautiful "FlexSteel" leather couch on sale. It was almost $500 dollars cheaper than here in Topeka so we wrote them a check. I yarded out the old couch today in preparation of a delivery.
When the truck got here, I saw the couch and it was the black floor model we saw at the store but didn't like the color. We ordered the Brown one and was told it was in stock. They took the new one back and will deliver the correct color next Thursday. I busted up the old one so now I am without a couch to nap on until then. Well Crap!
Oh well, what the hell, what the heck do I care! MUD

Morning in the Heartland

I started the first post with some heavy political rant and decided that even I didn't give a damn about the 2008 election. Why have you suffer through my narrow pointed view for a few nuggets of my BS.
Barb and I are in the middle of a Real Estate deal to acquire some property near us. It is about a mile and a half north of our house and sits on three acres. Typical of Barb's searches, it appears to be a darned good deal and looks like we are on track to close by the end of July. It is kind of rough but has a lot of potential.
When we watch TV, we see programs from LA where they buy a house and "Flip it". They start with 1400 sq ft homes and pay $700,00 for the old place. They strip out the guts, replace everything and sell it for $900,000. Are they crazy? For that kind of money here you could buy the biggest and best house in Topeka.
Have you noticed that car problems seem to run in spurts? We had to drag Dave's car out of the garage because the Olds transmission shot craps. He put in a new heater core and still has a leak somewhere. I'm not sure what's wrong but it will have to be replaced by winter. The olds will probably go to the salvage soon. I love how that car looks but it just isn't right. Seems like one of the check instrument lights is on constantly. Get one fixed and another pops up. I guess when you drive a car in excess of 150,000 miles you should expect problems.
It is rainy here today. Just what we need, more rain. South of here there are flood watches again. Just what they need. Oh well, gotta run.
MUD