Dad's weblog

We’re back in Florida after a three month roadtrip. In June, both Kathy and my laptops were stolen from our RV along with a briefcase containing our total identities; passports, checkbooks, on-line passwords, cash, personal items and three months of prescription drugs. The thieves punched out the lock on our vehicle while we it was parked three spaces from the front door of a Barnes & Noble store in Memphis, Tennessee. The Memphis police were kind, and we have been so far able to thwart attempts to use the credit cards and our bank accounts.

Our credit cards were used for spurious purchases within minutes of the robbery. Quick alerting of the credit reporting companies intercepted one attempt by the thieves to open new a credit card account using our stolen IDs. Our bank account was hit three times by electronic merchant transfers during the summer, even though the bank was notified within hours of the break-in. Fortunately, the bank and credit card companies have absorbed those losses for us. Insurance was sufficent to replace one of the laptops, so you are now reading this.

The impact of the robbery on us had two dimensions. First was the shock and awe factor. It caused me to focus for several weeks on nothing else but the robbery and preventing further loss. I didn’t feel as much vulnerable as I did angry. The anger abates as the story is told to friends and relatives. The second dimension is the practical impact of the perceived loss. We cooked for ourselves and ate more fast food. For the most part we skipped table cloth resturants. We spent more nights in the RV as opposed to hotels/motels. And we continued traveling.

I recently under took a project to upgrade our bathrooms. The villa is only seven years old, and although the baths are spacious the fixtures were contractor grade. For some reason unknown to me, the previous owner had chosen to install ADA compliant toilets. These are higher than the average commode seat, and even though I’m over six feet tall, my heels barely reached the floor. So, I ordered two new Toto brand units from an online retailer in Omaha. I was disappointed that I couldn’t “buy American”, but even Kohler has exported its manufacturing to Mexico. They arrived in five days. Two nice features exclusive to the Toto toilets are super smooth second glazed bowls which are almost self cleaning, and seats which don’t slam down; they slowly descend over about fifteen seconds.

My philosophy for home ownership is to never hire someone else to fix or install anything I can do myself. Rather, I purchase whatever tools I need to do the job, and wind up with both a completed project and a new tool for less cost than having someone else do the task.

One of the features I missed from our previous home was some place to hold shampoo bottles in the shower. There follows a picture story of how to make one in a tiled shower wall.

Start by locating two studs in the wall using an electronic stud finder that can read through a tile and plasterboard wall. Then choose the location for the recessed shelf and mark the tiles that are to be removed.

Use a Dremel tool with a thin diamond coated saw blade to slice around the tiles to be removed. Make additional cuts in the edges of these tiles and break off small pieces until a blade can be slipped under and these tiles pried off. The mortar and a layer of wallboard paper will probably come off with the tiles.

Next, work a push saw through the wallboard and cut out the shelf area, leaving an area for trim tiles.

With the interior of the wall now exposed, use 2x4 or other lumber to build a box inside the wall. Nailing in this small space can be difficult, so I used 2-1/2 inch screws in predrilled holes to fasten each piece of wood in place. Check with a level to make sure the bottom of the box is level or very slightly sloped to the front, so that when completed, water will not pool at the back of the shelf.

The shelf itself is cut from a piece of Corian or other solid surface material. Buy a piece of scrap from the local cabinet shop. It can be neatly cut with a carbide blade in a Skil saw.

Relieve a slot in the front underside of the shelf to serve as a drip edge. Sand away any sharp edges.

Glue the shelf in the bottom of the box using sanded mortar. The sand in the premixed mortar provides extra gap filling strength. Again, check the slope of the shelf front to back and side to side.

In the box shown, there will be forty cut-tile pieces. Here’s a chance to buy a tile saw ($88 at Home Depot) or, as I did, use a saw earned when I previously tiled my kitchen floor. Plan for the way in which tiles will be cut and mortared into the box.

A small Red Devil scraper is handy for smoothing surfaces so that tiles will lay well.

Two types of tile will be used, standard square tile for most of the box, and bullnose tile having one rounded edge for the exterior trim. The first tiles should be mortared to the back wall of the box, so that their edges will be hidden by the tiles on the walls of the box, whose edges will then be hidden by the bullnose trim tiles.

After all tiles have been set, use an unsanded grout to fill the gaps between the tiles.

The completed shampoo shelf. I bought a larger piece of scrap Corian and have enough left over for a corner seat and two corner soap holders.

I used to have an uncle Harry. He was the happiest and most optimistic of all of my relatives. When he retired, he moved to Florida with my aunt Ruth, and I visited with them several times over the years. He had such a magnetic personality that he convinced no less than twelve other friends and relatives to leave the north and retire onto the street where he lived. While they are all gone now, my uncle Harry was an inspiration to me.

We now live in a 55+ retirement community in Florida. It is our third winter here. Our independently incorporated “village” has 145 dwellings located around two “lakes". They are really large ponds. The larger of our two lakes has a gazebo at the end of a short pier jutting out into the lake. Every Thursday evening, weather permitting, residents meet at the gazebo for about an hour of enjoying each others company and a short village business meeting. Everyone brings hors’ dourves and these appetizers really become out evening meal.

Throughout the fall, winter and spring, this place is a little piece of Paradise. So, thank you Uncle Harry; and if you want to see what heaven will be like, come on down!

Dad

When I was little, I somehow learned to enjoy learning. I can’t stop, even though I’m officially retired. Since October, I’ve been digging into the PHP language. Notice the “.php” at the end of the URL in your browser’s location bar. In my study, I’ve digested the PHP code which runs the Timber Pines bulletin board, modifying the scripts as necessary.

I haven’t written a whole application myself yet, however my next project is to add a members only section to my local radio control modeler’s website. This will be done, using PHP and an SQL database.

This page doesn’t exist out in cyberspace. It’s put together by a program on a server in California which runs when you direct your browser the the xxxx.php URL.

I just read Taylor and then Karens latest weblog entries. I don’t know which is better, reading about the fun the family is having with the roomba, or the joy I feel that they are both using their weblog. You both made my day.

Dad

Wal-Mart is one of my favorite stores, and some of it’s policies are irrational. For example: This morning, while checking out with my order, I swiped my credit card through the reader and signed the signature pad. Then, the clerk asked to see the card, and I held it up so she could see my photograph which is embeded in the credit card. Next, she wanted to see the signature on the back, so I turned it over and showed it to her. When she next asked to hold the card, I told her it doesn’t leave my hand. As a result, she then asked to see my driver’s license, which I promptly showed to her. This completed the transaction and I left the store with my $17.40 purchase.

As and alternative to the above, I could have gone through the self-checkout lane WHERE NO ONE LOOKS AT EITHER SIDE OF A CREDIT CARD OR DRIVER’S LICENSE!

Does it make any sense to slow down the checkout throughput and waste customer and clerk time in this fashion? Do only honest people go through the self-checkout line? If I went through the self-checkout line and signed the signature pad with a big fat X, would the machine notice? WAL-MART, Get it together!

Dad

I remember when going to the movies on Saturday was a big thing. I was given a dollar by my mother, and that was enough to catch a bus downtown and back, buy one hot dog and a coke-a-cola and see a movie at one of the five downtown theaters. On more than one occasion, I walked the five?? miles home with an extra hot dog in me. All of this was obviously a long time ago when cokes were a nickle, etc.

Now, with umteen hundred TV channels and four TVs in our two person household, I can’t find anything of interest at 8PM on television. Even O’Rielly is beginning to repeat himself.

We have TIVO with season passes for a few shows, and that helps (particularly the 30 second commercial zapper), but some of the best content isn’t on television any more. There is more good stuff in one day’s shot of BoingBoing or Drudge than in ten hours of Access Hollywood.

That’s my rant for today.
Dad

Most of life is not “climbing to the top of the Castle". This morning at 6:12, I woke with the piercing memory that I hadn’t carried the garbage to the curb last night. And, having completed that task, I am brought to the subject of this weblog contribution.

To log or not to log, that is the question. Will the recounting of the smaller portions of our lives in a weblog serve a purpost to anyone but ourselves? Do we but bore? Or, can the revelation of these small things give a glimpse of ourselves that rounds out the picture and thus makes us human? 6AM is too early to answer these questions. Go back to bed.

Dad

Today there was a thin low fog hanging over the flying field at the Sand Hills Scout Reservation. Electric models may fly at 8AM while internal combustion planes must wait until 9 O’clock. The heavy 600 mah Nicad battery that came with the plane has been replaced with a 2000 mah lithium battery. Half hour flights are routine.

The photo was taken while holding the camera in one hand and the R/C transmitter in the other. The camera is one of the $18 Walmart cheepies that some pilots are mounting in their SoarStars to take aerial photos.

Dad

This year was very event filled: Kathy held a memorial in New Jersey for nephew Ed. We made two trips south in our new Roadtrek towing UHaul trailers filled with household goods. In total, we spent forty seven nights in the Roadtrek, sometimes using it to venture to a Barnes and Noble where we read, snacked, and spent the night in their parking lot.
We made a spring visit to KJ, Karen and the grandkids on the way up to New Jersey.
It was great to have grandaughter Erika visit us in August. We showed her the sights of New York.
While in New Jersey, I took every opportunity to fly radio control models indoors with friends at the Westfield Armory and in the Hindenburg hanger at Lakehurst.
At the end of August, we sold our last home in New Jersey, and started heading north stopping long enough to see the vintage aircraft flying at Rhinebeck, NY, and spent a week at Bill and Linda’s new home in Vermont where we rode the gondola to the top of Mount Mansfield
We finally settled in and became official Florida residents, and soon left for a November cruise - the highlite of which was a side trip to Chitzen Itsu Mexico
where I climbed to the top of the ‘Castle’.

Yesterday, I set up personalized weblogs for six of our family members. With one going off to college in the fall, I thought the logs would be a way we each could keep up to date on what the others are doing. As the grandkids grow older, they may disperse to the corners of the world and build their own families, and a group of family weblogs could help them stay together.

Here’s the strange one for today. Yahoo! News - Experts: Tsunami Kills Few Animals Do animals have a sixth sense. Could it be because they can’t speak, their brains leave them more sensitive to small changes in air pressure or ground movement that our conscious sentient brains ignore?

This morning I turned out at 8AM to help clear brush at our flying club field. Due to the wet weather last summer, the main runway has been partially under water. So, the club members have moved the whole flight-line back 35 feet towards the woods, and it has been necessary to clear brush so cars can be parked among the trees.