In order to get an occupancy permit, one of the things we need to do is build guardrails for the balconies. The model shows solid panels, but I can’t figure out how to make those, except in a model.
The drywall is finished. The solar is commissioned. The water storage and propane tanks are in place. The boiler and pump panels will be here this week, as will the balcony rails. The goal is to call for an occupancy permit early next month. The building permit expires the 2nd of February. I don’t want to pay to extend it.
PowerPropane and water tanks.Storage batteries and inverter for off grid power
Went into Tucson today. After some scuffling about, I think I found the material for the baseboards, casing and window sills.
I broke my leg in a snow skiing accident when I was 15 years old. This was in 1969. While sitting around the house I found out about the Herter’s catalog. I have no idea how I was able to get my hands on one, but I would thumb through every page and imagine what I might order. At the back of the book, there was a table where I could pencil in the item description, item quantity, item price, and total price. Then I could tear the page out of the book, fold it to fit in an envelope, along with a check for payment, and send it into the ether. Some time later, a package would arrive.
At the time, I was fascinated by tying flies for fishing. I’m not even sure I had ever fished with a fly rod before then. Herter’s had everything: grizzly hackle, peacock herl, vices, chenille, glue, tying thread, deer hair, turkey wings.
55 years later, I still have these.
It was the mystery that fascinated me. The words and the materials seemed as exotic, to a Montana boy, as did Minnesota.
Obviously, I sent an order for everything I could possibly need in order to tie flies. With a little practice, I was able to convince a fly fishing shop in Montana to contract me to tie flies for sale in their store. I tied hundreds of “Joe’s Hoppers” for them. How they were able to sell them was not my problem.
Now, in 2024, when I want to buy something, I just open up my little TV monitor (which folds up to the size of a food chopping block, and which magically connects to the ether) look at every angle of every item I am interested in, tell the TV monitor to charge my bank account (don’t worry about it) for the item(s). From then on, I am able to track my order and know exactly where it is and when it will arrive. Fucking amazing. Almost always, the items show up as predicted. Fucking amazing.
Any business selling a commodity product needs a robust, easy to use, website with a shopping cart function. This brings me to the reason for this post. From 2004 to 2017 we owned specialty retail bicycle shops. More specifically, one from 2004 to 2010, and then another one from 2010 to 2017. The first shop failed spectacularly. I mean super-nova spectacular. Part of the reason was my ineptitude at working in retail. The other part is that W., the worst president in my lifetime, presided over the global economic meltdown of 2008. Because he was, and is, dumb as a barrel of Texas oil.
The bike, so called, “industry” hated the idea of selling on line. There was a strong backlash about selling anything related to bicycling on the interwebs. All of the wholesale distributors of bikes and bike accessories forbade selling on the internet. They would also not do business with you if you did not have a storefront.
Bike Touring News was born out of frustration and desperation. Frustration that the bike industry would not accept that people actually bought things online. Desperation came from desperation.
The business model was to offer products not available on the local, racer-centric scene. Another essential part of the model was to educate consumers about how they might use what we sold.
When shopping online for products not available in the local market we look for an easy to use website, with informative content, and with a simple and secure checkout.
I love analog lists. I am unable to use a “phone” to keep track of critical path activities. I am unable to keep them in my head, either. So I scribble notes on whatever is available. I can check activities off as they are completed, and then send the other activities to a new list.
Franz Liszt, was a Hungarian composer and pianist, He wrote impossibly intricate and technically challenging piano music. His music, to me, is just a head game though. He was a “romantic” in music history- music history being a bunch of non-musical people inventing labels for college courses.
every decision is agonizing. waking up in the middle of the night to mentally review details to be completed in the next days/weeks. then, second guessing every choice. want it to be exceptional and fear that it will be average. nothing fits together perfectly. every new step involves a learning curve. and this old dog… oops, wrong metaphor. much of the work is high off the ground and everything is heavy. the wind, rain and snow aggravate the situation and my attitude. money is as limiting as the wind and rain and snow.
One of our balconies is over the master bedroom. We needed a way to make the floor of the balcony completely waterproof. Talking to local roofers and roofing supply companies was unproductive. It was hard to get advice and the supply companies seemed reluctant to sell to owner/builders. There is a company in ST. Charles, MO. which had the supplies and the guidance we needed. They put together a package, we paid for it and then they shipped it to us.
Installing the sheet in one piece eliminates seams which mitigates, or eliminates, leaks.The sheet waterproofing turns up the wall forming a curb at the door opening.The finish balcony deck will “float” on the waterproofing and will be even with the bottom of the siding.
A local person, who is a former building contractor, agreed to let us rent his scaffolding, which we could use to finish the sheathing on the second floor walls, and to finish the soffit and fascia. This ain’t no bamboo, lashed together, boards for planks-laid loose over sketchy frames-meet your maker type of scaffolding. The frames are 5 feet wide, spaced 10 feet apart by diagonal braces. Planks consist of 2 aluminum beams about 18 inches apart with plywood attached to the top. The plank beams have c-shaped brackets on either end which hang onto the tubes in the frames to create a walking surface.
His place (the local person) is about 15 minutes away. We can either use a trailer he owns, or borrow our neighbor’s trailer to haul the scaffolding back and forth. You’ll have this “in the country”.
We scheduled a crane to lift the trusses. They cancelled the day they were scheduled to be here. You’ll have this “in the country”. A few tense moments, and a few phone calls later, we found a company in Tucson which had a crane between jobs. One of the good things about a big city is that you can get almost whatever you want.
Second floor walls get built on the first floor deck, which, in this case, is about nine feet above the ground. Three of us need to be able to lift the walls after they are framed. Nailing the exterior sheathing to the walls before standing them will make them super heavy. Nailing sheathing after they are standing will require working 12-18 feet off the ground. We need a way to sheath the walls laying flat on the deck and to be able to raise them with that extra weight. Wall jacks solve that problem.
I wish I had a patent on these. We had a bit of difficulty with the wall on the right of the photo. The wall is 18′ tall and very heavy. Called balloon framing, in the parlance. We used tow straps and come-alongs to raise it into place.Framing boards, used as braces, which will be used later, maybe two or three times, hold the walls temporarily.
After a few more gyrations, we will be ready to set trusses, which is a whole other thing.
I lived in a motel in Springfield, Ill. I had a little portable record player and listened to David Bromberg’s Wanted Dead or Alive album and drank cheap beer. I had a ’69 Ford truck, for which I paid 600 dollars. During the day I would drive around and install cable TV. I had some metal braces, with curved blades at the bottom, which were strapped to my lower legs. I would use these to climb telephone poles in order to make the connections for the coax cable going to the houses. I was paid according to how many installs I made every day. I did this in Leavenworth, Kansas and Anaconda, Montana too. But that is a different blog post.
There was, and still may be, a bicycle shop in Springfield which had on display a Motobecane Champion Team. A beautiful orange, full Campy bike for the same money my truck cost. I would have bought that bike but I still owed my parents for my truck.
I was often paid cash by the customers. One time I used that cash to buy groceries or beer. Probably beer. When the day of reckoning came- when I was supposed to turn over the proceeds from my work tickets- I didn’t have the money. I told them I had spent it. My boss just said, “Don’t do that shit no more”. And I didn’t. My boss lived in the same motel. We watched the movie Casablanca one night in his room with another fellow. He referred to me as the Montana boy, and he wondered what I did with my money.
I had a Peugeot PA-10 bicycle that I rode down to Champaign-Urbana on my days off. There is not really anything there, so I would just ride back to my motel and listen to David Bromberg and drink cheap beer.
This beam was heavy. Our neighbor’s Dad had a backhoe and didn’t charge us to raise it.Making sure we are plumb and square.The center bearing wall.All the I-Joists are in place and ready for sheathing.No, this is not a Kansas landscape. It is the floor sheathing completed.
