And Life Goes On At The Wuff Cub's Den
It's been forever since I've posted something. I've been meaning to, but I've had other things to do and by the time I get them done, I'm not feelin' it. I'm basically retired at this point, but even then, there is always some sort of Shit To Do. Case in point: I got "the letter" from the HOA about my cracked and buckling driveway back in March.
For the past ten years or so, I've had this very large cottonwood tree in my front yard. In recent years, it became a very nice shade tree and a prominent landmark on our street. Unfortunately, I should have never let it grow where it did. Cottonwoods have very shallow, water-seeking roots and this one was no exception. And I let it group two feet from the sidewalk and driveway. In recent years, the roots have been pushing up the slabs of my driveway to the point one was broken in half with the cracked part lifting up four inches so you could see under the slab. And our HOA's property management company finally noticed. I'm surprised, frankly, that they hadn't noticed sooner. Anyhow, I wasn't pleased, since I'd been wanting to put that project off a bit longer. But, since I'm the VP on the HOA board, I need to set a good example, the way I see it. So began the project of having the tree removed, getting the sewer scoped to make sure there's no root damage, and then finally having a concrete contractor come in, demolish the damaged slabs, and re-pour them. The first step was getting a tree removal service to cut down the tree and grind down the stump below grade. As part of that work, any responsible operation will call "811" to have buried utilities marked for safety. As it turns out, the spot where I let the damn thing grow is the nexus of the gas main, electrical main, water main, comcast, and telco. LOL Jackpot! It turns out that only the water and sewer lines actually run down the middle of the street. In newer developments, the other companies bury their utilities on easments just off the street. Probably to avoid paying $$$$$$$$ to the city. Anyhow, I also knew that my sewer connection most likely also went right directly under the tree, given where the cleanouts are located and the manhole in the street. Probably the water as well. Given that my water hasn't been brown or tasted like shit, and my toilets, hadn't backed up yet, I figured I'd dodged a bullet. But just to be safe I had my sewer video scoped. May as well fix any of that damage BEFORE repairing the concrete. Amazingly, the pipes were in perfectly good shape. I guess modern PVC pipes are, unlike old clay sewer pipes, impervious to water. So the tree roots think "rock" and grow around instead of through. In any case, it was a big relief. So I had the tree removed and killed off the stump with a bottle of muriatic acid. Next was finding a concrete contractor. I called several in town, but only two called me back. Alliant and Chavez. Both had fairly reasonable bids, and I ended up going with Chavez Concrete. They came in week before last, and I'll say, those guys don't mess around. In about 5 hours they had the old slabs busted out and removed and the new slabs poured. Along with a few lengths of PVC water pipe and conduit I laid down, "just in case". A week of hosing down the slabs and keeping them moist while they cure, and the new driveway is looking great. There's a bit of a mismatch right now due to the mix of old and new slabs, but I figure that will even out over the next year or too with enough tire marks and dirt. My front yard looks a bit "naked" now, though. I'm going to miss the 5 months of leafy shade out front in the summer. What I'm NOT going to miss, though, is the other 7 months of near constant cleaning/raking of all of the leaves and other debris that tree liked to shit all over my yard. And I'm not going to miss the damage it was doing to the concrete, nor the threat and worry of very expensive damage to my utility connections. At this point, I'm glad the project is finally done, as it gives me some peace of mind. Of several projects around The Den, this was the only truly "mandatory" one. As far as shade goes, no one actually hangs out on their front porch around here anyhow. And my back yard is right next to a beautful park full of lovely trees that SOMEONE ELSE gets to maintain and water for me. :)
On to other subjects. I've been on a cleaning kick around there. I finally got to a point of being fed up with all of the useless crap I've built up around here. Stuff I've had for years, and never used. Jeebus! I had probably 30 pairs of old worn out shoes in my closet, and a bunch of shit ragged clothes cramming my closet. So over several weeks last spring I made about 7 Goodwill runs and a couple dump runs and got rid of a good deal of the crap. I also went through my kitchen and thoroughly de-crapified it as well. It's just a lot more pleasant to not have to be digging through useless junk when I'm trying to whip up a good healthy meal. My back yard needs some attention, though. My lawn is currently half covered by 1.5 foot high clover weeds, but frankly, the flowering clovers look better than the grass, so I've left them alone. I'll probably trim the trumpet vines a bit, but I really do enjoy all of the greenery and the birds and lizards it attracts. I haven't seen any bunnies back there, but they're probably content with all of the grass in the park.
There are a LOT of coyotes around here lately, and I've come within 20 feet of them a couple of times in the last couple weeks as we crossed path on my walks. I guess they've gotten more used to people since they've been coming down into the neighborhoods, though they are still naturally skittish and don't come any closer. I don't encourage them to, either. We just end up randomly crossing paths sometimes, given where I like to do my walks through the arroy bike path and back roads. There have also been reports of bobcats in the neighborhood. My brother has been finding wild animal shit in his back yard that most likely did not come from a coyote, since he has high walls and the gate stays closed. We think it's probably a bobcat. It would be cool if he could get a picture. It surprises me a bit that we have bobcats on the west side, but then again, a few years back, they had a bear that had wandered down from the Jemez mountains. With the drought the way it's been, it shouldn't be surprising that the wild critters are getting desperate and coming down from the mesa.
One other thing I've been doing since January has been to focus on my health and losing weight. I'm determined to lose all of the excess weight and get completely off of blood pressure meds. So far I've lost over 75 pounds. I feel a lot more energy lately, and my feet are definitely liking me more on my walks. I've been on the "endless diet" since January, and while the food I've been cooking up tastes great, I'd love a little more variety. However, what I'm doing is working, and I really don't want to stop the weight loss until I'm under 200. I'm almost off the meds already, and I'll probably drop the half pill I'm taking now and monitory my blood pressure.
Being on a diet has me watching a lot of "food porn" and getting ideas for cooking things. Funny how that works. When I'm not on a diet, I don't get nearly as motivated. One thing I got in my head is that I'd really like a flat top griddle. Blackstone, Camp Chef, Blue Rhino, and other companies make some nice ones, but they're all around $300. Being on a diet, I can't justify spending that kind of $$$ for something I wouldn't use for months. Then I reminded myself that I already have a flat top. It's just an older Camp Chef three burner camping stove with a heavy steel over-the-burner plancha, but it actually works well. And it's already paid for. So I set it up and bought an additional 1 burner plancha that fits perfectly next to the two burner one. I actualy like this arrangement better than the single big surface on the newer models. It gives me the flexibility to only heat up the small griddle for small meals, or to have two fully separate heat zones without fear of warping. The other thing I like is that the stove has actual tube style legs on which I could slip some PVC pipe ends full of the right number of washers to properly level the damn thing. One thing I noticed with the fancy griddles is that they don't have any good way of leveling them other than propping them up on wood blocks, or digging the ground if you're camping. FAIL. So I'm pretty happy, and as it turns out I can even cook things for my diet. About the best fish filets I've had so far have been seared on the griddle. You get perfectly cooked fish and a nice char on the outside you just don't get any other way. As a bonus, it doesn't stink up the house. I also marinated a bunch of Costco boneless chicken thighs and cooked up the whole bunch on the griddle. Yummy! And I then had a bunch of pre cooked chicken for lunches or other meals. I'm liking that situation. I'd really like to make some cheese steaks or carnitas tacos, but that will have to wait until I'm done with my weight loss.
This year, I'm not really planning on doing any major travel. My next big trip will likely be to FC in January. Having to spend $4000 on fixing my driveway doesn't help that situation, either. So it's time for a financial diet right now. The last couple of weeks I've been working towards increasing my Judaism. I finally realized that I don't need to pay big bucks for Comcast Business Class internet service to host my domains and mail servers. Two Amazon EC2 "nano" instances work just fine, for probably under $20/month including a static IP for each one, DNS hosting, and everything. To get the same with Comcrap, you have to upgrade to their more expensive "Business Class" service to get static IPs, then you have to rent their stupid "Business Class" router for $20/month. On top of that they charge a minimum of $20/month for a single static IP, and more like $40/month if you want a /28 block. So that's $60/month IN ADDITION to expensive "Business" service, which isn't even really truly commercial grade service to begin with.
To fix this, I've been working on rearranging my home network to no longer rely on static IP addresses. I'm also going native, single-stack IPv6 while I'm at it. When I'm done, I'll be able to fire my ISP at the drop of a hat and easily switch services. Just for shits and grins, I'll probably try running my home network off of my phone's tethering. Not a long term solution there if I want to stream, given that my service is limited to 5GB/mo high speed data, but then again, I only pay $29/month for that service. Oy vey, it's tempting. *hooks nose* Once I'm done getting my home network in order (my external services are already moved to AWS), I'm going to entirely drop Comcast TV ($130/month) and downgrade my Internet to the cheapest broadband I can get. I think I can get it under $50/month. I'm unemployed, I don't need a commercial grade internet connection. Just enough to get away with some 1080p or less streaming for one person. I'm not a gamer, either. I really can't justify spending on more than a basic connection.
Eventually I'd like to do some more traveling. Maybe next year. I want to go to Germany/Austry/Switzerland at some point. Four years of German in High School, and I've never actually been to a German speaking country. I actually find myself watching more than a few German language youtube videos, and I think I'm getting better and better at understanding it, but my conversation skills are unfortunately crap. I'd love to be able to practice more.
Well, enough for now. I'm definitely looking forward to Albufurque later this month. Being on my weight loss regime, I've had to limit my social life to limit "cheating", but at this point I've done a good enough job that I can justify a little break here and there.
Who knows? Maybe I'll get a job some time soon. I love that fact that, for me, it's entirely optional. I'm pretty happy with the way things are.
For the past ten years or so, I've had this very large cottonwood tree in my front yard. In recent years, it became a very nice shade tree and a prominent landmark on our street. Unfortunately, I should have never let it grow where it did. Cottonwoods have very shallow, water-seeking roots and this one was no exception. And I let it group two feet from the sidewalk and driveway. In recent years, the roots have been pushing up the slabs of my driveway to the point one was broken in half with the cracked part lifting up four inches so you could see under the slab. And our HOA's property management company finally noticed. I'm surprised, frankly, that they hadn't noticed sooner. Anyhow, I wasn't pleased, since I'd been wanting to put that project off a bit longer. But, since I'm the VP on the HOA board, I need to set a good example, the way I see it. So began the project of having the tree removed, getting the sewer scoped to make sure there's no root damage, and then finally having a concrete contractor come in, demolish the damaged slabs, and re-pour them. The first step was getting a tree removal service to cut down the tree and grind down the stump below grade. As part of that work, any responsible operation will call "811" to have buried utilities marked for safety. As it turns out, the spot where I let the damn thing grow is the nexus of the gas main, electrical main, water main, comcast, and telco. LOL Jackpot! It turns out that only the water and sewer lines actually run down the middle of the street. In newer developments, the other companies bury their utilities on easments just off the street. Probably to avoid paying $$$$$$$$ to the city. Anyhow, I also knew that my sewer connection most likely also went right directly under the tree, given where the cleanouts are located and the manhole in the street. Probably the water as well. Given that my water hasn't been brown or tasted like shit, and my toilets, hadn't backed up yet, I figured I'd dodged a bullet. But just to be safe I had my sewer video scoped. May as well fix any of that damage BEFORE repairing the concrete. Amazingly, the pipes were in perfectly good shape. I guess modern PVC pipes are, unlike old clay sewer pipes, impervious to water. So the tree roots think "rock" and grow around instead of through. In any case, it was a big relief. So I had the tree removed and killed off the stump with a bottle of muriatic acid. Next was finding a concrete contractor. I called several in town, but only two called me back. Alliant and Chavez. Both had fairly reasonable bids, and I ended up going with Chavez Concrete. They came in week before last, and I'll say, those guys don't mess around. In about 5 hours they had the old slabs busted out and removed and the new slabs poured. Along with a few lengths of PVC water pipe and conduit I laid down, "just in case". A week of hosing down the slabs and keeping them moist while they cure, and the new driveway is looking great. There's a bit of a mismatch right now due to the mix of old and new slabs, but I figure that will even out over the next year or too with enough tire marks and dirt. My front yard looks a bit "naked" now, though. I'm going to miss the 5 months of leafy shade out front in the summer. What I'm NOT going to miss, though, is the other 7 months of near constant cleaning/raking of all of the leaves and other debris that tree liked to shit all over my yard. And I'm not going to miss the damage it was doing to the concrete, nor the threat and worry of very expensive damage to my utility connections. At this point, I'm glad the project is finally done, as it gives me some peace of mind. Of several projects around The Den, this was the only truly "mandatory" one. As far as shade goes, no one actually hangs out on their front porch around here anyhow. And my back yard is right next to a beautful park full of lovely trees that SOMEONE ELSE gets to maintain and water for me. :)
On to other subjects. I've been on a cleaning kick around there. I finally got to a point of being fed up with all of the useless crap I've built up around here. Stuff I've had for years, and never used. Jeebus! I had probably 30 pairs of old worn out shoes in my closet, and a bunch of shit ragged clothes cramming my closet. So over several weeks last spring I made about 7 Goodwill runs and a couple dump runs and got rid of a good deal of the crap. I also went through my kitchen and thoroughly de-crapified it as well. It's just a lot more pleasant to not have to be digging through useless junk when I'm trying to whip up a good healthy meal. My back yard needs some attention, though. My lawn is currently half covered by 1.5 foot high clover weeds, but frankly, the flowering clovers look better than the grass, so I've left them alone. I'll probably trim the trumpet vines a bit, but I really do enjoy all of the greenery and the birds and lizards it attracts. I haven't seen any bunnies back there, but they're probably content with all of the grass in the park.
There are a LOT of coyotes around here lately, and I've come within 20 feet of them a couple of times in the last couple weeks as we crossed path on my walks. I guess they've gotten more used to people since they've been coming down into the neighborhoods, though they are still naturally skittish and don't come any closer. I don't encourage them to, either. We just end up randomly crossing paths sometimes, given where I like to do my walks through the arroy bike path and back roads. There have also been reports of bobcats in the neighborhood. My brother has been finding wild animal shit in his back yard that most likely did not come from a coyote, since he has high walls and the gate stays closed. We think it's probably a bobcat. It would be cool if he could get a picture. It surprises me a bit that we have bobcats on the west side, but then again, a few years back, they had a bear that had wandered down from the Jemez mountains. With the drought the way it's been, it shouldn't be surprising that the wild critters are getting desperate and coming down from the mesa.
One other thing I've been doing since January has been to focus on my health and losing weight. I'm determined to lose all of the excess weight and get completely off of blood pressure meds. So far I've lost over 75 pounds. I feel a lot more energy lately, and my feet are definitely liking me more on my walks. I've been on the "endless diet" since January, and while the food I've been cooking up tastes great, I'd love a little more variety. However, what I'm doing is working, and I really don't want to stop the weight loss until I'm under 200. I'm almost off the meds already, and I'll probably drop the half pill I'm taking now and monitory my blood pressure.
Being on a diet has me watching a lot of "food porn" and getting ideas for cooking things. Funny how that works. When I'm not on a diet, I don't get nearly as motivated. One thing I got in my head is that I'd really like a flat top griddle. Blackstone, Camp Chef, Blue Rhino, and other companies make some nice ones, but they're all around $300. Being on a diet, I can't justify spending that kind of $$$ for something I wouldn't use for months. Then I reminded myself that I already have a flat top. It's just an older Camp Chef three burner camping stove with a heavy steel over-the-burner plancha, but it actually works well. And it's already paid for. So I set it up and bought an additional 1 burner plancha that fits perfectly next to the two burner one. I actualy like this arrangement better than the single big surface on the newer models. It gives me the flexibility to only heat up the small griddle for small meals, or to have two fully separate heat zones without fear of warping. The other thing I like is that the stove has actual tube style legs on which I could slip some PVC pipe ends full of the right number of washers to properly level the damn thing. One thing I noticed with the fancy griddles is that they don't have any good way of leveling them other than propping them up on wood blocks, or digging the ground if you're camping. FAIL. So I'm pretty happy, and as it turns out I can even cook things for my diet. About the best fish filets I've had so far have been seared on the griddle. You get perfectly cooked fish and a nice char on the outside you just don't get any other way. As a bonus, it doesn't stink up the house. I also marinated a bunch of Costco boneless chicken thighs and cooked up the whole bunch on the griddle. Yummy! And I then had a bunch of pre cooked chicken for lunches or other meals. I'm liking that situation. I'd really like to make some cheese steaks or carnitas tacos, but that will have to wait until I'm done with my weight loss.
This year, I'm not really planning on doing any major travel. My next big trip will likely be to FC in January. Having to spend $4000 on fixing my driveway doesn't help that situation, either. So it's time for a financial diet right now. The last couple of weeks I've been working towards increasing my Judaism. I finally realized that I don't need to pay big bucks for Comcast Business Class internet service to host my domains and mail servers. Two Amazon EC2 "nano" instances work just fine, for probably under $20/month including a static IP for each one, DNS hosting, and everything. To get the same with Comcrap, you have to upgrade to their more expensive "Business Class" service to get static IPs, then you have to rent their stupid "Business Class" router for $20/month. On top of that they charge a minimum of $20/month for a single static IP, and more like $40/month if you want a /28 block. So that's $60/month IN ADDITION to expensive "Business" service, which isn't even really truly commercial grade service to begin with.
To fix this, I've been working on rearranging my home network to no longer rely on static IP addresses. I'm also going native, single-stack IPv6 while I'm at it. When I'm done, I'll be able to fire my ISP at the drop of a hat and easily switch services. Just for shits and grins, I'll probably try running my home network off of my phone's tethering. Not a long term solution there if I want to stream, given that my service is limited to 5GB/mo high speed data, but then again, I only pay $29/month for that service. Oy vey, it's tempting. *hooks nose* Once I'm done getting my home network in order (my external services are already moved to AWS), I'm going to entirely drop Comcast TV ($130/month) and downgrade my Internet to the cheapest broadband I can get. I think I can get it under $50/month. I'm unemployed, I don't need a commercial grade internet connection. Just enough to get away with some 1080p or less streaming for one person. I'm not a gamer, either. I really can't justify spending on more than a basic connection.
Eventually I'd like to do some more traveling. Maybe next year. I want to go to Germany/Austry/Switzerland at some point. Four years of German in High School, and I've never actually been to a German speaking country. I actually find myself watching more than a few German language youtube videos, and I think I'm getting better and better at understanding it, but my conversation skills are unfortunately crap. I'd love to be able to practice more.
Well, enough for now. I'm definitely looking forward to Albufurque later this month. Being on my weight loss regime, I've had to limit my social life to limit "cheating", but at this point I've done a good enough job that I can justify a little break here and there.
Who knows? Maybe I'll get a job some time soon. I love that fact that, for me, it's entirely optional. I'm pretty happy with the way things are.