A little this and a little that

Guess I should do an update if for no other reason than to let everyone know that I haven’t abandoned the blog.

I’m in full super saving mode right now, so not a whole lot to talk about. With the upcoming total renovation of the kitchen coming up fast, I need to save every possible penny to keep this whole project out of pocket and not run up any debt. While the bank account looks wonderful right now, my social life is a great big zero.

I have been working on a few very small (and low cost) projects but nothing earth shattering.

One project was to finally get rid of that big butt ugly fluorescent light fixture that hung in the garage for years. It was a four tube ceiling fixture that was resurrected from some commercial demo many years ago. Picture one of those commercial drop-ceiling fluorescent fixtures just hanging from a couple of small chains from the ceiling in the garage. I’ll say it again, butt ass ugly. Well, it’s now gone.

It was replaced by six recessed LED flood fixtures equally spaced out. The difference in lighting and looks was really quite shocking and not to mention far, far more energy efficient. I calculated that all six LED lights in total are right around the same energy usage as ONE of the four fluorescent tubes! That plus the LEDs will last for like 20,000 hours! Granted, I won’t live here long enough to recoup my cost in energy savings, but I figure it definitely will add quite a bit to the ‘wow’ factor to help the sale price. Please excuse the train wreck, it's soon to be emptied out.

The other project I’m working on is the planter area by the front door. Over the years it’s had various versions of plants, flowers, rocks, etc. I debated heavily about just tearing out that little half-wall that runs around the front of it as I’ve seen one or two other similar houses do it and I like the look. I finally decided not to tear it out as once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. Not to mention a whole lot of work! So it will stay for now.

The most recent iteration of planter area was a medium size pigmy date palm, a bunch of plants that had nasty thorns, some really tired looking mulch, and a nice assortment of weeds. It was a perfect breeding ground for every bug imaginable and right by the front door.

So since I’ve got plenty of time (and little money) the planter area came into the crosshairs. It started with a total gut out except for the palm. For some reason I really like that palm. Anyway, after getting it all stripped out, I installed paver stones to create a sort of mini-patio. As you can see, it's not fully covered in pavers as I want to keep roughly a quarter of it as a planter, where the palm currently resides.

Turns out the builders did at least do one thing correct, they installed the wall exactly four 16” pavers away from the front wall of the house. Nice and clean looking.

Sorry I didn’t get a ‘before’ picture (I always forget to get that one), but here is the progress so far. I still have a little touchup work and should have it totally completed in the next week or two. My back doesn’t appreciate picking up those stones at all anymore. After about eight of those heavy suckers, my back lets me know that’s enough for the day.

The 'grout' is nothing more than sandbox sand. It's super fine and fills right in. I've still got a couple spots that aren't filled all the way in and I've got some excess to sweep up.

As I mentioned above, because I’m in what I call super-saver mode right now, I don’t get out very much except for going to the beach (year round pass at Jetty Park $10/year) to read, fly my kites, body surf if the water’s nice, and watch the cruise ships going out.

I still do a few meetups every now and then but I hold the spending to one or two beers and possibly an appetizer. Mainly I do them just to be able to have a nice conversation with someone roughly my age and not have to think about the whole dating ‘thing’. We’re all just friends and most everybody isn’t looking to date which suits me just fine.

On the RV front, the Jacksonville RV was this last weekend and I decided not to go. I saw almost all of the new units for 2016 at the Tampa show and nothing really stood out as a serious contender. So I really don’t see a need to continue going to shows and wasting my time. Besides, it's a tank of gas, food, and a $10 entrance fee. Need to save every penny!

The truck is still hanging in there but not by much. The transmission is going and the paint is gone. So many things don’t work anymore that I’ve stopped bothering trying to fix them. As long as it goes that’s enough. I'm going to drive it until it drops dead. The new (used) truck doesn't get purchased for several months yet, so this one has to hang in there.

The latest catastrophe is my laptop died. I guess four years is too much to ask of a super el-cheapo laptop. It's a very low line Dell that I bought just to get me by. Well, it did that, but the hard drive has bit the dust. Good thing I have a rule that no personal information gets stored on the internal drive. I didn't lose a thing, all my stuff is on external USB drives. I need to decide now if I want to try to fix it or pitch it.

I did go ahead and order a new, very small desktop computer. I found out that work has a deal with Dell computer that allows employees to get a rather tasty discount and an even bigger one if I bought the same model that work buys. So why not? It’s not very powerful and for what I use it for it’s fine. I would much rather save the $$ right now anyway.

So that’s where everything is at right at the moment.