Tripper Map

Why I hate CNN

Today BBC carried the following news story:

US B-52 in nuclear cargo blunder

The missiles were mounted on the wings of a B-52 bomber.
The US Air Force has launched an investigation after a B-52 bomber flew across the US last week mistakenly loaded with nuclear-armed missiles.

( at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6980204.stm )

Crazy, scary stuff.

Of course, this kind of news was not anywhere on the front page of CNN.com. Instead, we got these important stories as front page news:

Clue to vanishing honey bees found
Mower man riding Toro across U.S.
Babies vs. chimps: Who's smarter
Admitted pedophile moves to Oregon
Why Mary-Kate Olsen won't smile

When I clicked on the link for U.S. news, I got these gems:

J. Lo awarded $545K in suit against ex-hubby
WFSB: More human bones found behind mall
WCVB: Pot sale announced out dorm window
WCVB: Man's arm freed from meat grinder
WYFF: Teacher guilty of sex with 5 boys
WKMG: Water amoeba kills 3 swimmers
WSMV: Workers fired for tying nooses
WYFF: Fuel tanker slams into house
WLWT: Deputy rescues man from sinking car
WLWT: Escape route blocked by beer cans
KTVU: Smoke hampers fire fight effort
KPHO: Union blasts arrest in dog death

Nor was the B-52 story listed under CNN's "World News," although admittedly the World News section actually ran legitimate news stories.

After searching for "nuclear", I finally found the story under the CNN Videos section. Which, if you're like me and have dial-up (which is the subject of a whole 'nother rant), or if you have a job and want to read the news without alerting your whole office that you're on the internet, than you couldn't see this story at all. (CNN only rarely carries its video stories in print.)

So I guess for now I'm sticking to the New York Times and the BBC.

Mmmmmmm, Starbucks and sushi....

Juxtoposition

Two interesting things found today:

1. Poem by my brother, written when he was very young, probably not in high school yet.
2. Letter by my dad's dad written to my dad and his sister (my aunt Mary).

1. Like Father Like Son

You can torture him by fire, or simply let him be.
You can shoot him in the head and watch the blood run free,
You can twist him, you can turn him, you can beat him till ya drop.
But the way of this one person is the way of his old pop.

2. [dated] January 8, 1945

Dear little Children:

Emory: I appreciated to the fullest your kind and gentle letter for my birthday. I simply hope I can live long enough to see you and Mary safely embarked on life's journey. Also, while I am at it it seems to me that you should take that course in school. You should not think so much of your own desires as you so for the good of the service. If you keep this in mind you will never be far wrong. Upon your willing obedience to the wishes of your superior officers may depend your promotion. Mother and I have a feeling that you ought to take the time off for study. I am sure that it is not wise to say dogmatically that you never intend to study any more. Every case I have involves the study of more books, only in this way can any one master any subject. Do not thoughtlessly throw the opportunity away. Do not have any arguments with the captain if he is a reasonable man. This is all suggestive from our hearts. If you have a reason for your actions based upon priciple, then stick to your principles, but never be controlled by whims. obstinancy, or headlong contrariness. If you do, you will be an ensign the rest of your naval career. These periods of special study are a part of your duty - and never forget that. And whatever may be your hopes for the future, always do the day's duty as if you epected to do the same thing all of your life. Remember Squire Bill. -- And as to your future: I am more than interested in it. When the War is over, if you have done your full duty, and you can get back to civil life I think there will be untold opportunities. Not only will China be in the building, but America will have to be rebuilt. I have many things in mind for you. If I had your age and health I could make a fortune right now.---- As to my writing: I have to spend all my energies trying to keep the wolf from the door. I have to take every little case that comes along and at night I am all in. Maybe, fortune will smile and let me have a little time off and I will do my best. ---- The country now is topsy turvey. It just is waking up to the seriousness of this war. We have lived on optimism and promises from the highest to the lowest, and the dream of invincibility is about to reach the nightmare stage. It just had to happen in a country as rich as ours and our egotism is getting a rude awakening. But we will win. --- I suppose I am getting old and grouchy, but when I see a man with the small mentality of Ed Stitinius made secretary of state, it reminds me of the first time a train ever came into Damascus. I was just a boy and all of us went down "to see the train". Smith Sppers was the engineer. Grant Broady was a negro and the town wit. He looked the situation over and then took a look at Speers. "My God", he said, "it don't take much of a man to run her, do it?" If he (Stitinius) ever expresses an original thought you can bet your last pay check that some one else is the author. And he has had sense enough to get around him quite an able bunch of assistants. But some one else must have done that for him. But it is our country and not his and we will have [?] tick all the closer to the good old flag and be all the more loyal. If each one of us will do what we can, with whatever we have, wherever we are, there will be no doubt of the result. That is why I think it might not be unwise for you to take the extra schooling.

Everything is dead around town, as you guessed, so far as the young 'uns are concerned.

I wonder if you got your tobacco, pipe, etc. Is there anything we can send you. If you should get to Pearl Harbor we know some people there who ought to make life more pleasant. Keep us advised of your plans. Is there anything we can send you? Do you get the newspaper clippings?

Mary: The foregoing is to Emory. But you are so young, imaginative, unsophisticated, innocent, unworldly - not to say ignorant - that I know you like to sit at the feet of your elders, like Emory and me, even as Paul sat at the feet of Gamalial, and learn the great lessons of wisdom, which only Emory and I can impart to you. If you will so sit long enough, and pay strict attention, someday you too may be classed among the wise ones - but do not delude yourself into thinking that you can grow so wise overnight. You have to be patient and unemotional like Emory and me.

From what the driver told me you girls had a pretty hard trip, but I think after all it is the best way to go. The mothers have been loud in their praises that some one could think up such a wonderful trip - and we all tipped the driver one buck each.

Now here is your lecture: I want you to get down to studying. And here is my philosophy for you - having kept Squire Bill for Emory : You want to be a journalist and that means hard grinding work. You can act the fool when you get to be an old woman. Take me, for example. Motto: A cat loves fish, but it doesn't want to get its feet wet. Therefore a cat can never be a journalist. There is nothing personal in this!

And now, both of you do the very best you can, and let mother and me brag: " we never got very far ourselves, but just look at our two children. They are doing what we would have liked to do".

Whimsically and devotedly,

Fa'

The Char-Meck Building Office Strikes Again.

So I go down to the building permit office today. For the third time in two days. And I find out that my original contractor (JFK Constrction) has tried to have my most recent permit cancelled because I signed it myself. Huh?? Apparently, it's not OK for me to sign my own permit applications. Of course, JFK is the one who TOLD me to go pull my own permit in the first place! Apparently, the problem is that in order for me to be able to pull my own permit, I have to put my own name -- not the name of the bozo who's actually doing the work -- down under the general contractor section. You'd think that one of the two times I got the permit pulled, somebody at the building construction office would have bothered to tell me this, especially when I asked for help filling the first application out and I told them that I had no idea what I was doing. Instead of cancelling the most recent permit, though, the building office had the good sense to call Denis the Drywall Guy and get him to come down and sign the permit. (Apparently them asking him to do it was much more persuasive than the five times I asked him to do it.) And this time, the building office was able to call the plumber and get him to agree to send the application in himself through a computer.

This mess was all precipitated by the inspection this morning. I left the inspector a note to call me and let me know if it was OK for the drywall to proceed. The inspector called and said no, and said that I 1) first had to have an electrical rough inspection; 2) had to have a plumbing inspection because of the plumbing work in the bathroom (um, hello, why are you in my bathrooms anyway when the permit was limited to the kitchen?); 3) THEN could call in for a framing inspection; 4) and would then have to insulate and have an insullation inspection before I could put on drywall. Dude. For one thing, I explicitly asked my electrician if I needed another electrical inspection first, and he told me I didn't.

I will never, ever, ever use another contractor who insists on getting the city involved in my project. If it weren't for the permit/inspection process, the drywall could have been FINISHED two weeks ago.

For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, PLEASE, SOMETHING go right!!!!!

Tired of being a nomad.

I am tired of being a nomad. I should mention here that the last time I was called a nomad was in tenth grade, when my geography teacher saw me being dropped off in an RV by my stepfather, and decided to use me as an example in teaching the class about nomads. Anyway, for the last two months, I have moved from place to place, never enjoying a permanent home. Most of my time has been split between two (incredibly generous!) friends. The week and a half around Thanksgiving time was spent the way most of my holidays are spent: driving from my mother-in-law’s house to my mom’s house to my dad’s house. This Thanksgiving we also drove to D.C. for a day or two. Christmas was spent at my former apartment in California. During the last two months, I have lived mostly out of my car; yesterday I hauled three large trashbags full of stuff (clothes, Christmas presents, other random objects). I am tired of living out of my car. I am tired of going to Panera if I want to connect to the internet. I am tired of going to Kinko’s if I need to print something. I am tired of deferring to others as to which TV program to watch. I am tired of feeling horrible when my dog poops on someone else’s floor.

It’s my own fault I’m a nomad, of course. I’m the one hat decided to remodel both bathrooms at the same time. It doesn’t make being a nomad any more pleasant, though. Seven days and counting until we close on our house and my nomadic lifestyle comes to an end!

Status Update

So, getting back from taking a full two weeks off for Christmas, my "boss" (mother-in-law) asked excitedly, "So, how does the house look?" I had to let her know that because of any number of frustrations, the house looks almost exactly the same as it did when I left. "Shouldn't it almost be done?" one might wonder. Why yes, it should. Let me explain why it's not.

The original plan was for the plumber to finish his work on December 22, the shower pan girl would get her work done on December 23, and the drywall guy would do his work on December 26, 27, and 28, so that when I got home on the 29th, it would all be done.

Snag #1: there is no floor under part of the area where the tub came out. This baffled my plumber, as he's a plumber, not a flooring specialist. It also baffled my drywall person; apparently he can put concrete backboard up on walls but not floors. My shower pan girl (let's call her Misty, since that's her name. Which I just realized is a fitting name for someone who works in showers all day) came to the rescue, knowing exactly what had to be done and offering to do it.

Snag #2: My plumber (let's call him John, since that's his name. Which is also very fitting since he works in johns all day.) couldn't finish on Friday, so we worked out a new plan: he would come earlier in the week on the week of December 26th, Misty would come later in the week, and my drywall guy would come for three days starting on Saturyday, December 30. At this point, I called to change my flight to the next week, since I can't start putting the kitchen floors in (which is the next major project) until the drywall is done.

Snag #3: John decides to take the week after Christmas off, and doesn't get in there until Friday, at which point he doesn't finish because he has to clear something up with Misty about the drain. This throws off the whole schedule, because Misty has to work the whole next week, and won't be able to make it to my place until Saturday, January 7. So we schedule her for January 7. Of course, when John learns that she won't be coming until Saturday, he doesn't show up to finish the work until Friday afternoon.

Snag #4: But what about the drywall, you might ask. Wasn't the drywall guy supposed to come, and doesn't he have to come after Misty because the drywall has to go over the shower pan? Yes, you're right. Misty comes to the rescue again, saying that the drywall guy can go ahead and get in there as long as he leaves about 2 feet clearance from the shower pan area, which Misty will drywall herself. So snag #4 isn't really a snag after all, just a little bump.

Snag #5: The permit issue. When I originally hired the first contractor to do the framing and a little drywall in the kitchen (let's call them JFK), they told me that I had to pull the permit. Which I did. It sounds scary, but it was as easy as going downtown and asking the permit people to help me fill out a form. As of the time I left for Christmas, though, I had fired JFK and hired Denis the drywall guy. Denis had gone ahead and framed the kitchen closet we were putting in for the washer and dryer. My electrician told me that I needed to have the framing inspected before the drywall went in. Before I could have it inspected, I needed to change the contractor's name on the permit from JFK to Denis. So, the Friday before I left I went to go change the permit. Apparently, I can't just "change" the general contractor. I had to cancel the permit and have a new one issued. So I cancelled the old contract, but since it was almost 5 p.m. on Friday at this point, the changes wouldn't go into the system until after working hours, and I couldn't get a new permit until the old one was completely cancelled. So now I needed Denis to pull the permit for me. No big deal, I thought. My electrician had offered to pull the permit for himself, so I knew a contractor could pull it. And Denis had assured me before I fired JFK that he had a license and could be put on a permit. I found out after firing JFK that Denis' NC license had expired and that he would have to renew it before getting the permit. I told him that he needed to get his license renewed and pull a new permit for us. He seemed very hesitant at pulling the permit himself, even though I tried to explain the process to him -- this hesitation was a very bad sign. So I get back from California on Thursday, January 4. Denis has renewed his license but not pulled the permit. I go to pull the permit. I find out that Denis has renewed his business license, but does not have a general contractor's license. I also find out -- thankfully -- that one does not have to have a general contractor's license to act as the general contractor. However, one does have to have a surety bond, which the permit people assure me, after looking through their system, that Denis does not have. I ask the permit people (sounding like a complete idiot, I'm sure) how one goes about getting a surety bond. They direct me to the right office for the paperwork to complete that the city needs, and tell me that he will have to go to an insurance agent to get the bond. So I call Denis and explain this to him. He asks if I will help him get it done. I know that it will not get done unless I help him, and it really has to be done so that I can get a permit for framing work which is already complete. (You might ask at this point if I should just cut the city out of the equation and do the work below the radar. I would lean strongly toward this option, except that I know that my electrician would never go along with it.) So I spend the morning looking for an insurance agent that does bonds. I find one, call them, and set up with Denis to meet him there at 4:15. I can't do it any earlier because I have another appointment. After getting to the bond place at 4:15 and finding out that they close at 4:30 (who closes at 4:30?? Doesn't everyone at least stay open until 5:00? Even banks stay open until 5:00!) After convincing the bond people to stay there in time to get a bond so that we won't have to come back again on Monday, and convincing them to cut us a break because the co-owner of D & D Drywall (Denis's brother) can't sign the papers because he is in Honduras, his home country, we get the bond. Of course, at this point it's too late to get the bond to the building office (which is about 30 minutes away), so I'll have to go get it on Monday. With some effort and a loss of several days, hopefully snag #4 is fixed. (We'll know for sure when I try to turn in the paperwork for Denis (not sure why someone who owns his own business can't manage to do the paperwork himself) and try to get the permit.)

Snag #5: I'm writing this on Saturday, the day Misty is supposed to come do the shower pan. I get to the house at 9:30 and stay until 11:30. I get a call from Misty at about 10:30. One of her other projects had a conflict (with the drywall guy), and she needs to go work on it today and come to my house on Monday instead. Which is fine, because the drywall guy is out of town (again!) on Monday and Tuesday, and won't be able to start until Wednesday. No big deal.

Snag #6: I got a job!! This ordinarily is a good thing -- no, it is a good thing -- but right now, it's awfully inconvenient. The job (it's a contract document review position and will probably last through the end of the month, at which point they will probably roll me onto the next project) starts Monday at 9:30 -- the same time I am supposed to meet the inspector at the Sandridge house (the house we're buying). Also on Monday I was supposed to turn in Denis' bond info, get the permit, and schedule an inspection of the framing. And watch Misty put in the shower pan, so I will be able to do it myself in the future. As Monday is my first day on the job -- and because the job is in Rock Hill, SC, more than half an hour away (really, WTF is it with me and commuting? Can't I just find a normal, NEARBY job??) -- I don't think I'll be able to escape during the day. Maybe the building office opens at 8 and I can do it before work on Tuesday (not Monday, because it might make me late and I can't be late my first day). I should look into that today. You might ask how, if I'm working, I'm going to have time to work on the house, especially because once the drywall is up, it's pretty much all me from then on out. I'm asking myself the same thing. I'm considering the contract job my "day job", and will return to the house at night to work. Luckily, Glenn comes back next week!! I think he's going to help me some before he starts work. Also, the job is only 35 - 37 hours a week, so I could theoretically work longer hours some days and shorter hours the others to give myself more time to work on the house.

Though there were snags, there is good news: the framing is up. The framing was up before Christmas, I just didn't post about it. I'll put up some pics shortly. The painters agreed to come by and fix the gable at no extra charge. Although it doesn't look perfect at all (there are still some cracks and now there are some gouges that look like they used a mechanical sander after all), it is about 70 % better than it was before. On another note of bad news (I hate to end on bad news, but it has kinda been the theme of this post, so it's only right that it ends badly too), I think the color of the shingles (a gray beige) and the color of the trim (a yellow beige) completely clash. I think it looks like crap. Hopefully we can do something with the landscaping that will take the emphasis off the poor color choices.

Our new house!!

It needs quite a bit of work, most urgently some new paint, new flooring, and a fence for the Pig. Then a new kitchen, and after that some updating on the bathrooms. But it's ours!

Front of house

Closer pic of front of house

Back of house

Screened in porch

Den (gotta hate the wood paneling!)

Living Room

Dining area

Kitchen

Foyer with stairs going up to bedrooms

The joys of remodeling

So, I've been told that I should add more stories, instead of just giving a progress update.

So the first real casualty of the job was my pinkie finger. I was prying the layers of vinyl up from the kitchen floor with a crowbar, and had all my weight on the crowbar. Unfortunately, when the vinyl gave way and the crowbar snapped down, my pinkie was caught in the middle. It bled underneath the skin, creating a kinda blood blister (see picture below). I'm not sure if I'm supposed to pop it or not. If anyone knows, feel free to let me know.

In the meantime, I'm super frustrated. The painters are just about done, and the gables look like crap. They pressure washed the gables and then scraped some of the old paint off, but a lot of the old paint was left on. They didn't power sand it because they said it would do more damage than good. So now my gables have an alligator like texture (see picture below). I talked to them about the problem, and they said that they could put new wood on and repaint for $500. Hello!, I'm already paying you about $3000, and I'm already over budget on almost every single part of the job. If they had told me that it would either look like crap or cost an extra $500, I could have made my decision accordingly, and maybe even done shingles on the gables too. But they didn't. Instead, their proposal said that they would scrape and sand everything and fill all cracks. There are cracks everywhere! So I got a good pep talk from Glenn, and a great Starbucks latte, and I'm all revved up to go back and tell them that I'm not satisfied and they need to make me satisfied before I pay them.

And the drywall guy came today to look around the kitchen, because I decided to re-drywall, and decided that due to time constraints it was better to have it done while I'm gone rather than attempt to do it myself when I get back. He told me that the builder is completely overcharging me for building the kitchen closet and reframing the walls. He said that he would charge me $800 for the work they were asking $2200 for. He also said that he could help fix the gable problem. So now I need to go back to the builder (who called to say that he can't get here today and would get here at the earliest tomorrow afternoon) and see if we can come up with a cheaper solution. Like maybe he could do the framing and leave all the drywall to the drywall guy.

Adding to the frustration is the fact that we're completely broke -- too broke to get anyone decent Christmas presents this year -- yet somehow need to come up with money to move, take the NC bar, and with any luck take a vacation.

Sigh......

More pics