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U.S. Army Photo |
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Houffalize, Belgium, 1945 U.S. Army Photo |
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Wehrmacht Feldgendarmerie in Winter Uniforms (Source) |
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S/Sgt. Jack Wilson
Sgt. Melvin Katz
Cpl. John Myerson
Cpl. Charlie Gammell
Pfc. Chris McWhorter
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Bundesarchiv |
My apologies for being pretty much AWOL, vis a vis commenting, this past week. Life has a way of intervening at times doesn't it? That having been said, Mrs J and I, and our minions, have had a busy week.
Minions being a word for highly paid skilled persons hired to use those skills to fill holes in the skill set of Mrs J and I.
Did I mention "highly paid"?
Anyhow when last we spoke, Phase 2 of Operation "Everyone move one house clockwise" had just begun. Phase 2 being the renovation of our old abode, a double wide we'd lived in for 20 years. Renovation is planned to be mainly installation of new flooring. Last Monday, the demo guys showed up early to rip out old ceramic tiles and carpeting.
They hadn't been there more than an hour when I get a call. "juvat, can you come down to the project? We've got something to show you."
Nothing good is going to come from that statement. Well... "nothing inexpensive" that is.
Fortunately, I had a second contractor on site right then to fix some roofing tiles that had blown off in a recent storm. He took a look and said that he could repair that without too much trouble as it looked like the joists were fine underneath. There were only a couple of places like this at the time.
So, we got together with the flooring bubbas, had them continue to remove the existing flooring and prepping the site. We would reschedule the new floor installation for a future date after the holes were fixed.
Unfortunately, I got some more phone calls from them as they took out more carpet/tiles. That above picture is in the corner of the dining room closest to the kitchen. About 5 years ago we'd had a faucet installed (by a plumber, Beans, Plumbing being both expensive and not in my skillset). Seems the plumber didn't quite get the connector on correctly and there had been a very slow leak behind the kitchen sink. A few months later, Culligan came and installed a reverse osmosis system and as he does so, he informs us of the leak.
We contact the plumber who comes out and fixes the leak and replaces the affected flooring. Or so we thought.
The light square at the top is the floor he repaired. The rest, which extends another 4 feet or so to the hole. is MDF. My knowledge of plumbing does include the fact that MDF does not respond well to a long bath.
A phone call between Mrs J and the Plumber then ensued with nothing more accomplished than an exploration of her upper blood pressure limit.
So, we called up the contractor who was going to fix the underfloor problems and said he might want to come back and look at the problem again. He did and concurred with our assessment this HAS to be replaced. He is currently scheduled to fix the problems (there are 5 areas total) this Thursday. The floor installation guys are rescheduled for next Monday.
Yes, Beans, you're right, the price went up quite a bit. So the floor and roof repairs will be just about all we're going to do at this point on the house. My sister will be moving in shortly...and Phase 3, refreshing her old cabin will commence as DIL and "Tex" will be arriving soon to begin the 6 month quarantine in place, prior to their joining Little J on their next assignment in Hong Kong.
So....
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BTW ,said fox is now deceased and displayed on the neighbor's fence for all to see...Rednecks, gotta love 'em.
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Schmedly, patrolling her domain. |
How have we decided to attack the problem? Enter the "Petio".
It's a 12' x 12' enclosed area with the doggie door mounted on the wall on the far side just to the right of the closest corner. Various cat entertainment devices will be installed, so they will be able to view their kingdom from on high. Thought this one turned out quite well. This of course was just one more sub-phase of Phase One of the Operation. There are other sub-phases of that phase. (And undoubtedly will be many more to come.)
One of which came into view late last week. Mrs J had decreed that, since Epiphany was behind us, Christmas was over and decorations thereof should be returned to their upright and locked positions.
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Which, of course, included the Christmas Tree. Cathedral ceilings in the main room meant that the tree would have to be large. 9' in this case.
Yes, Beans, I know. First World problems.
But, taking it down necessitates some place to store it. Which given the layout of the hose means...the Attic.
The Attic is accessed by a drop down folding ladder. The tree, fully broken down and packed weighs 75+ lbs. It finally made it into the attic, but Mrs J had two additional edicts at that point.
First, the tree would be broken down before Little J and/or SIL had departed from their Christmas visit and therefore could assist. Second, some form of mechanical device would be installed so as to facilitate its storage and minimize the consumption of Naproxen required by the older generation after returning it to its storage area.
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The attic door and the ceiling above. I am standing upright as I take this picture. |
Unfortunately, Tilson's plans for our home had the option for a second floor, which means the roof is probably 15' above the door to the attic. So, this is going to require a little bit of pondering. Mrs J did have a pretty good idea, feasibility still to be determined, to build a saw horse like device which straddles the opening during the lift. Afterwards it is moved out of the way until needed again.
As I said, gonna do some pondering on that.
Which is going to be a helluva lot less stressful than pondering on other events going on this week.
Just sayin'.
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