I just found a place that will starch and press my

pickle suit.

Yup theere is a Chinese laundry nearby that actually does Old School starch jobs.

My pickle suit is, of course, my old set of army fatigues that I have and have just finished affixing the proper nametahs and patches to.

It wasn't actually issued to be back in the day, I had a friend snag it for me.

It should be carefully noted that it is the same size as the one originally issued to me and that it fits.

In a couple of days I will wear it to Camp Perry.

The younger guys that are in these days get a boot out of it when I break out my old uniform and wear if for them. When they find out that I can still wear it, they marvel.

Generally speaking, the cheap government cloth that they made uniforms tends to shrink when you leave it in the closet for many years. Ask almost any veteran.

They'll tell you that government cloth shrinks.

Mine did, but for some reason, after I stopped eating junk it stretched out again and fits me like a glove.

Go tell







my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am still beat up a bit

I got home and the hillside looks terrible.

Last trip home the roof got put on amd I did not weed the hillside and now it has come home to roost.

Today I will weed, anf I'll just bet you that if a certain cop comes by, he will ask me how I am doing on my search for land mines.

(You may remember from several posts back the idiot that asked me what I was doing and I sarcasticcally told him I was searching for land mines. He freaked and called the cops.)

This is not a bad thing, actually; good relations with the police are a good thing to have.

I'll just leave it at that.

my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

When I was in Atlanta airport, I decided to have a little fun.

I encountered a well dressed woman and looked at her.

"Thank you, " I said.

She looked confused.

"I just left Philadelphia 4 hours ago and did some last minute shopping in WalMart.
My eyes are still very sore from the experience. You are well dressed, have a decent figure and take care of yourself. I would like to thank you for helping me get over my sore eyes."

The woman out and out blushed. Then she looked up at me. "Thank you for making my day," she said.

I know the part of me being in Philly was bullshit, but so what.

I made someone's day.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I went to kinkos today to

have my 240 pages of notes of my recent Gulf tour printed and bound.

There will be 5 copies made.

One will go to my relief, as a loner.

One will go to a person I went to high school with that is someone is interested in what is going on down there.

One will go to another peson I work with.

The other will go to my sister.

The remaining one will go into my safe unless someone on a website I am a member of wants to read it. It will cost him round trip postage and he will have to put up a refundable deposit of the cost of printing, returnable upon return of the copy.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am home now

And I have well over 200 pages of notes from my tour of duty in the Gulf as a part of the cleanup effort.

I will not post very much of it here, as it is neother the right place nor a very good idea.

Let's just say I have some questions regarding things going on down there.

my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am alive, back in range

having done 2 weeks of oil recovery duty in the Gulf of Mexico.

I have over 200 pages written but can not share, as I do not post a whole lot of work related suff here.

I am scheduled to arrive home tomorrow sometime.

Stand by for me to play catch up, as I have a lot of colorful rants and raves saved up.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I amm using this to let my family know that I am

still alive and in the Gulf doing cleanup work

This post is a fluke of the cell service, which generally doesnot exist out here.

got to go

Pic, out



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

fluke post

I am in the Gulf of Mexico doing oil recovery work and am and will be out of celll/internet range until 27 or 28 July.


Stay tuned.

This post is a fluke, as we have service for no reason I can fathom


Piccolo, out


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

This is why I bought a MILSPEC laptop

I am at the airport waiting to fly out, and I am early.

I am going to try see what I can do about trying to post what it is like waiting at an airport.

I screwed up because I failed to charge the bttery properly;I grabbed the laptop at the last minute. Anyway, I have managed to find a 110 outlet and have set up shop in the gate.

We'll see what happens.


A flight from somewhere has come in and is deplaning as I write from my little improvised desk. The WiFi connection here is both free and FAST. I'm impressed.

Right now I really can't leave to do anything like grab a cup of coffee because I don't have a friend here to watch my trash and if I leave it, I'll get busted and Imay lose the 110 outlet if I fold up.

I feel the need to urinate coming on, so I guess I will fold up for a bit




I'm back and I was right. Someone snagged the 110 outlet and had 2 things plugged into it. I unplugged one and he started to bellyache. I looked at him thoughtfully and asked him if he liked to chew his food and he asked me what I meant by that.

Dumbass.

The look I gave him made him decide to shut his mouth, which was the general idea.

I have no problem sharing, of course. The thing I do not care for is when someone else hogs the whole enchalada. Then he really irked me when he hooked his blackberry onto his laptop and charged it that way. He could have just done it that way and left the outlet free in the first place.

Being summer, the women seem to be dressed a lot nicer that they are in the winter, and there are more than one of them that are dressed nicely, which is easy on the eye.

I swung by the .mil courtesy lounge to see if I could try and meet up with a returning or departing GI, but the lounge was empty.

My cell went off and I hit the ignore button because I do not want to speak to the caller, mainly because the call will get personal and if I wanted parts of my personal life on display, I would have taken it to the Jerry Springer Show.

Electronics are pretty big here in the airport, it seems that close to half the people in this gate are using something electronic, mostly cell phones.

Another thing I see is that there are a lot more people using the fat lady carts than there were a few years back. It's a damned disgrace.

There is this interesting woman here that seems to be squared away and the PA system is constantly babbling out useless information.

Now in comes a true handicapped person in a wheelchair, meaning a bona fide handicap.

Some guy that looks like an old Ted Danson has just stuffed an empty coffee cup under his seat even though the trsh can is 10 feet away, the lazy bastard.

Now there is another meaningless garbled measage for someone that won't understand it because it sounds indecipherable.

Now some guy has asked to use the 110 service, but is a man with a plan. He has a splitter, and he's welcome to use it because he does have the splitter.

Guys like this are good to meet, they are the ones with the solution instead of being part of the problem.

I have to pee again, so I'll see what happens when I get back.


This is my first time trying to report on something via the combat laptop, and commments are welcome.


Gotta fold up again, plane is in and I'm off to Atlanta.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

You will have to go back to my posts on 12 and 13 June

to understand what is going on.

I was having my coffee a couple of minutess ago and a cop drove by and stopped.

He politely asked me to remove the 'Mines' signs from my gardan, as the same idiot that I toyed with last month has complained several times.

Of course, I immediately complied.

I had forgotten I had even posted them.

A couple of days after the 12 June incident I saw a couple of 'Mines' signs kicking around the house, a leftover from an earlier piece of mischief and posted the in the garden when I finished weeding it.

Apparently it made the idiot nervous.

I told the cop that he ought to grab thee complainer and bring him down here to stand next to the EOD guys as they 'mine detected' my garden and toy with the jerk.

Picture the metal detector buzzing and the EOD tech calls the guy over to help him defuze some sort of a plastic training aid planted in the garden.

"Here. Hold this. Don't let go or you'll blow us all to Kingdon Come."

Then the EOD tech goes to the truck and pours himself a cup of coffee and makes the guy stay there with what he thinks is a live mine. There he is, shaking like a leaf, heart pounding, afraid to move or do anything as the EOD guy sits there swilling coffee.

The cop seemed amused.

He also thanked me for removing the signs, which is pretty normal for the policemen in this area. The copshere are pretty good with police/citizen relations. At least most of them are.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Off to spin the wheels of industry

Which is good, as the coffere need refilling after the roofing job.

Will be back on line asap.





my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

It is July 11th and this is my 20th post for the month

which may or may not be a healthy thing. I generally post only once a day.

On the other hsnd, I have chosen to vent here instead of grabbing a katana and running amok.

I really have no need to run amok.

After all, I can vent right here,and that is a good thing.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Neighbor Bob and I were sitting on my front lawn drinking and pholosophizing

which is what we do, sometimes a little too often.

The gossippy woman several doors down was walking by with her little pink poodle on a leash and saw us.

She looked at the pair of us and asked us if we had seen the disgusting fountain on the front lawn of the house at the end of the road.

"I believe I have," I said. "The fountain of the little boy urinating?"

"That's the one," she replied.

"Maybe you ought to be grateful," I said.

"Grateful for what?" she asked.

"Be grateful the little boy wasn't taking a dump." I answered.

Neighbor Bob nodded in silent assent.

She walked off in a huff and I looked at Bob, who looked at me.

"It must be nice having nothing to do but complain about something like that," he said.

I nodded in agreement.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

There is a word I am starting to use to end

conversations I no longer want to continue.

I simply say to the person: "You are dismissed."

If they even begin to persist it is followed with a curt "No further conversation is desired in this or any other matters." and I walk off.

The other one is the old standby of "That is all."

As I age, I find I have a lot less time for whiny bullshit and no time whatsoever for rude behavior.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

When I get home from this trip I am just going to

spend my time doing little things like washing the car or mowing the lawn.

I'm also going to Camp Perry around the time of the Garand Match to visit with my Marines.

I generally supply them with a case of beer and one year threw a small impromptu barbecue consisting of a few basics. These men are growing boys and sometimes skip meals, so they can use the extra calories, which I can not because I am an old man.

The guys get a boot out of a guy wearing his old uniform because it is probably pretty funny to look at. The pickle suit went out of issue around 1982, the khaki uniform went out in 1978 and my rank, Spec/5, disappeared in 1980.

On the other hand, the guys do have to admit that a guy who is rapidly approaching his 60th birthday looks pretty good in it. There are a lot of serving officers and NCOs that do not fit into the uniforms the were issued in basic training, and I do.

This uniform business started about three years ago whn I casually mentioned that back in '73 I got spit on at Logan Airport for wearing it and never wore it publicly again.

The guys of the Marine Corps marksmanship unit talked me into wearing it to the rifle match segment and I did. I figured that the guys had a bet going to see if the uniform was going to be blue or gray.

I didn't wear it when I got to Perry, I traveled to Perry in it and by doing so, it removed a very large chip I have carried on my shoulder for a very long time.

I stopped three times along the way and people approached me and asked me questions about the old uniform and an older woman actually apologized for treating guys like me badly back in the day. Apology accepted on the spot.

One of the most gracious things I ever had happen to me by any serviceman also happened to me. An Air Force officer asked me with a trace of a smirk why I didn't salute him. I did, and he returned it.

What a gracious thing to do!

Then I crossed paths with a 60 year old burnout of Haight-Ashbury days, who tried to avoid me like I had leprosy. I just knew the old bastard had given GIs a bad time during those dark Viet era days. I changed course and speed to cross paths, spit at his feet and told him that "It's now MY day now, asshole."

The man behind me audibly when "Hmm." and looked at the old hippie and said to him, "It sure is his day."

That felt pretty good.

Then, when I arrived at Perry, the guard at the gate looked at me and his face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"You're the first Sp/5 I've ever seen," he said, with a broad grin. And with that, I went into Perry and straight to the Marine barracks.

As I entered the base, the chip I had been carrying for more than thirty years fell off of my shoulder.

One of the nicest things I have ever seen the Marines do there was the time I was sitting inside the barracks with the guys drinking a beer and just enjoying a bull session. A young lieutenant came through and politely told me that I was a civvie and therefore not permitted in the barracks. He was really right and I saw his point.

Just then a pair of Marines picked up the two ice chests and the whole gang of them grabbed their beverages and en masse headed outside where the bull session continued outside at the picnic table.

What a gracious thing to do!



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

One ot the things I save are the cans that kipper

snacks come in because of their shape.

They work pretty good as fat catchers under the good old George Foreman grille and when they get full or just plain nasty, cleanup is simple.

You just throw them away.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I have been up for over an hour and I am on task.

As I was having my morning coffee out in the driveway, I coiled a garden hose, which to most is no big thing to most people.

As a person that gets half of his water from a garden hose, I look at life a little differently.

On board, the water tank of the vessel is generally kept full with a garden hose, which is carefully emptied out after each use to keep the water in it from getting stagnant.

A garden hose can get pretty nasty if you do not take care of it.

All you have to do is make sure it is empty after each use, which isn't very hard.

Most people do not understand the process, though. Both ends have to be unattached first because air has to he allowed to enter in order to replace the water that you are trying to get out of the damned thing.

I simply put one end down the street, unattach the other end from the hose bib and slowly coil it making sure it drains.

It isn't hard to do, but there are a lot of people out there that don't do a very good job of it.

my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Today at a store I do business with one of the women

there saw me and smiled.

She's funny, a real outgoing character and maybe people would call her a little brassy, but they're wrong. She's actually really classy in a special kind of way. She is one of those rare women that truly works well with men in a male enviornment. I'd just bet that she is one of those rare women that likes the 3 Stooges, which is rare in a woman.

"Hey, Pic," she asked. "when are we going for that ride in your Miata? I just got a great push-up bra, a really sexy scoop-necked top AND a Dolly Parton wig!"

I laughed. It was a reference to the time I asked her to go for a ride with me in a sexy outfit some time ago because I was tired of a certain matchmaker trying to fix me up. I figured that if the matchmaker saw me tooling around with some sex bomb half my age, she'd leave me alone and stop trying to hook me up with one of her cousins or co workers.

I have since explained to the matchmaker that even though I live seperately from my wife that I am still, in fact married and that's the way it is.

Matchmakers are a pain in the ass for the most part. This one was constantly trying to hook me up with the one that has had men problems, meaning she has been divorced eight times. Or the one whose life is starting to come around, meaning she is being released from rehab for the eleventh time.

Even if I was free and had no relationships, I would not touch anyone like that with a ten foot pole. The woman I saw today at the place I do business with knows this. She also knows that I would never embarrass Mrs Pic by being seen tooling around with a woman half my age. Still, we have fun teasing each other about it.

It would get the neighborhood tongues wagging, and we enjoy teasing each other. Then again, I would never embarrass Mrs Pic in such a way.

Still, it was fun talking trash with her.

Sometimes it's fun getting shot with a ball of your own $hit.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I am thinking of entering a service rifle match with an

old .22 caliber rifle that I have.

It's an old 513T Remington target rifle, a crude leftover from the 40s or so that I picked up in an antique shop several years ago and it shoots pretty straight with standard velocity ammunition.

Now the current service rifle is a .556mm, and is pretty good out to 600 yards, and a .22 rimfire has an effective range of about 50 to 100 yards, depending in a number of factors.

The service rifle match I am interested in is fired at a distance of 200 yards.

This is the story of my life.

I actually like entering competitions with less than competitive gear.

I swear, I'd take a family car and enter a NASCAR race if they would let me.

For me, it is not winning.

For me it is competing and doing the best I can with what I have.

Betcha I don't come in last with the old .22.

Something to be said for doing the best you can with what you have.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

The gutters are now up and I

even got the security light to work, which is a big plus.

The old one must have gotten hit with a bunch of shingles during tear out. It was old and brittle anyway.

The only reason I mention the light is that a miracle among the order of loaves and fishes occurred; they still make the very same model.

I went to the same store I bought the old one at fifteen years ago and there was a direct replacement that entailed two wires and two screws and I was back in business.

Installation was simple.

Unbelievable!

I had expected to be faced with all sorts of new and improved product with computer chips, special batteries and God knows what else, but no! It was a plain and simple direct replacement and only cost me $16.95, which is a pretty good deal.

Maybe the guy that makes the damned security lights is a fellow admirer of the P-38 can opener. I'll bet he is because he just made something simple for me.

The project is now complete, and there is also the final finishing touch added.

The weathervane on the cupola now has an ornament on it, a sailboat.

The weathervane has been up for years and it came with the ornament optional. You could get a rooster, an eagle, a horse and buggy and a sailboat. I wanted the damned sailboat and over the years I have probably burned a couple of tankfuls of gas looking for it. Then I found that they don't make that decoration anymore.

Last trip to sea, I got on line and found someplace on line that had one for sale. I guess they must have found it while cleaning out the back room or something becaue when I got it, the packaging looked pretty old. For $12.95 delivered, I was a happy camper.

Anyway, everything from the gutters on up is now in decent shape and now maybe if something doesn't happen I can cool my jets and rest a little this summer.





Later:

Time to start getting the home unit squared away. The getting ready to go to sea checklist is out and I have to start cleaning up.

Or maybe I'll have a beer and work my ass off tomorrow. We'll see.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Yesterday's drive by trash dumping is not over.

When I was examining the trash and pulled out a handful of envelopes and such, I put them to one side.

Later, last night, I went through the envelopes.

I now have the guys Social Security number, his bank account number, his Mastercard number and expiration date.

I ought to go and try sell himm a paper shredder, but maybe I'll just destroy this information and use it as a reminder to be careful when I shred MY information.

Today: A day of gutters.



Later. Gutters are in, rain started. Made it, cleaned up as the first few drops hit. A good deal.

I called neighbor Bob's daughter and asked her is she had any time left on her throw away cell phone. She had about 40 munutes left.A throwaway is pretty much untracable unless you use it a lot and she only used it a couple of times.

I made a call to the guy that threw the trash out.

"Hello, Brian Wilkens? Social Security number 255 43 9865?

"Who is this?"

"Ray of Ray's Paper Shredder Sales. We're having a sale. By the way, get out your Mastercard.... Is it 4008 3456 0984 2847 with an expiration date or 09/13? You bank at PNC and have $10,354.11 in checking account number 237654986."

"Who the hell are you?"

"When I was driving down the street yesterday day at ten to six AM, I was behind a Nissan, PA number Y-27569."

"My car."

"Yup. Anyway, the driver threw out a bag of trash which I scooped up. I took the interesting stuff out and dumped the rest of it back on your lawn."

"I wasn't out that early."

"Someone in your family was."

"Why are you calling?"

"Just to give you a heads up. Littering is a serious offense in my neighborhood, but I did feel that I ought to let you know that later tonight, I am going to post all of the information I found in the trash on Craigslist. Next time you'll think twice about littering.

'I didn't litter."

"Got any kids that drive?"

"One son."

"Sucks to be you. Settle it with him. Keep an eye on Craigslist over the next couple of days."


Just living by my philosophy.

Best friend, worst enemy.





my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

By 0700 I had already settled a score.

0630, breakfast. The first bitetasted like cat food, which is another good reason of breaking the habit of scooping a fork out of the kitchen sink instead of out of the drawer like a civilized persom.

During an outside breaakfast, I noticed a car go past and toss a bag of trash out of the window and onto the street.

I walked out, scooped it up and went through it and found a name and address, rebagged it and went to the address and split the bag open and spread it nicely oll over their front law.

The kid driving must have stopped for a pack of smokes or something because when I was leaving, I saw the car approach the house.

I drove off and found a decent vantage point and got to watch his outrage.

There is nothing nicer to watch than the indignation of a person that has just gotten what he deserves.

It's a little past 0700 and I have already pissed someone off.

Pretty good start.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

A day of clean up is in order

Yesterday I sort of goofed off.

I picked up a few things and returned the excess roofing materiels and later in the afternoon, I drove up north to pay the roofer.

When I got to the roofers house, he was with his family sitting outside enjoying the early evening, even though it was still pretty hot out.

I paid him, and looked at his wife, an immaculate woman that I knew had been busting her ass all day doing the household chores that went along with the lifestyle and she looked as starched and fresh as ishe had just stepped out of the shower.

I looked at her and said, "How you keep an entire family of roofers in such immaculate clothing is beyond me."

She is a shy woman, she sand nothing but her face lit right up. Her husband laughed appreciatively and I knew I had said the right thing.

I thing the only mistake I made on the whole job was when the youngest, a kid turning fifteen soon, went to cut a piece of ice guard and the knife slipped out of his hand and when past me. I immediately knew it to be a total accident, but I was startled.

"Hey, Kid, You want to eat that knife?" I blurted out. There was a playfulness in my voice and the startled, naive look he gave me told me I had said exactly the wrong thing.

I brushed it over quickly, and felt bad about it.

The Marines have an unofficial saying about how they fight for those that can't fight for themselves.

The thought that went through my mind with these people was, "Hey, Marines! Job opportunity!"

These people are pretty much incapable of violence of any sort. They are generally given conciencious objector (CO) status, which is fine by me because, frankly, I do not WANT people like this in the service. Their very nature and religious beliefs would make lousy soldiers.

Over the years I have heard that they take up so little time of the police department other than being occasional victims.

I can think of two or three things I've heard over the years. A few years back one husband went nuts and murdered his wife, a crime generally attributed to mental illness. Another Dutchman got popped for a DUI while driving his buggy. The general consensus on that one is that the cop was one of three things, an idiot, totally overzealous, or simply had a bone of some sort to pick wth the Amish.

A guy in a buggy isn't a real danger to the public, after all, the horse probably has more than enough sense to get him home without causing anyone any harm.

On the other hand, a guy tanked up behind the wheel of a car can do a lot of damage.

The other thing I have heard is that among the young people that drugs are working their way in, but I attribute that to the period of late in their teens when they are allowed to go forth and explore the ways of the English.

As I understand it, there is a period of time before they are baptized that they are permitted to explore the ways of the English prior to baptism.

This is probably a dangerous time because they are cutting a kid loose that isn't in the least streetwise and letting him out into a den of wolves. Just thinking about it scares the hell out of me.

What astonishes me is that most of them survive only to return to the fold intact. Still there are casualties, and the single casualty is the thing that gets noticed, and not the mass of people that pass through the teen years intact.

The rumors that the Dutchmen do not pay taxes is a crock. Truth is, they do not take a cent from Social Security and do not pay into it, which is fine, but they sure pay everything else. Whoever started that dirty rumor is an idiot.

You think Uncle Sam is going to let something like that slide?

HA! You should live so long.

I think that if the Amish left the state, Pennsylvania would be a lot worse off for their leaving. I sort of like having them around and many parts of their lifestyle impress me and serve as inspiration.

Let's leave it at that.






my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

The roof is on, and now it's aftermath

The Dutchmen are off somewhere else, the world is at peace, I have to get to the bank and meet the contractor this evening and pay him.

The scrap aluminum is off to the scrapyard, the money earmarked to buy beer.

I also have to hook up the wiring on the power vent and take the extra shingles back.

I now sleep under a new roof, a roof for the ages.

And, oh, yeah. I have to clean out the attic.

You have to rememner the sheathing on the roof is the old style 1x8s and they shrunk and were gapped. A lot of grit and nails ans small pieces of stuff wiggled down into the attic and it has to be swept up.

My work is cut out for me.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Another invasion breakfast.

Crew due in soon to finish up, I am brekfasted and coffeed up and ready to go.

Over the weekend, I put up the piece of copper flashing used to cover the step flashing on the chimney and replaced the framing for the cupola.

I timed it so the sun didn't bake me too badly, working either in the morning or the afternoon.

Right now I have a problem.

The banks are closed today and I have to scare up about $1700 cash to pay these guys. I guess they'll take a check, but I'd bet they'd rather see cash.

We'll see.

Worst case scenario is that I drive north to farm country tomorrow and pay cash then.

It'd be a nice drive.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

A John Wayne night.

The Cowboys.

Pretty good.

My favorite is the 'The Shootist'.

The clash of newspeak and Old School. Greatest movie the Duke ever made.

Today I pulled a pretty good deadpan funny in Homeless Depot.

Some blonde Dolly Parton look alike was in line behind me.

As you know, I can be deadpan.

I asked her what whe was doing with a slight smirk, and she asked me what I had in mind.

I told her I was an old man and a widower and lived alone and liked it that way, but the damned matchmakers were trying to set me up with contestents from "the Wicked Witch of the West look-alike contest". I told her I had my grandsons sporty convertable and asked her if she'd ride around my neighborhood with me for a while and be seen with me to get the matchmakers off my back.The neighbors would naturally assue I had a girlfriend hallf my age.

She was pretty brassy in a good sort of way. She laughed outright and offerred me to perform this service if I would drive with her through her neighborhood, but I would have to dress like the CEO of Ford Motor Company, after all, she had an ex to deal with.

We laughed.

It's always a joy to meet someone that gets it.

Seems she had the same problem.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

I have the day to myself and a lot to do.

Which is fine by me.

When we were roofing, we removed the cupola to make it easier to flash. When we got to it, we looked at the way it had been installed and decided that it would be easier to tear it out and rebuild it. Rebuilding the cupola mount is my job and I have to have it done by Monday morning, when the guys return to finish the job.

I also have to make the cap for the step flashing in the chimney and that's going to be a gold plated bastard, but will look really nice when I finish it.

Mrs Pic needa a couple of things done, si I guess that fills up my plate for the day.

Later, Pic




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Well, the roof got off to a great start

I was up early, and of course, everything went straight to hell fast. The crew's 'English' driven van was towing a trailer and the trailler got a flat. They showed up late, at 1030.

Still, it was an attack of epic proportions. Four Dutchmen and an 'Englisman'started in like a crack team and by noon the old roofing was off and headed into the dumpster.

It was astonishing to watch.

There were a few things I had figured on doing myself to save a couple of bucks, but right after I started I found out that I was just getting in the way, so I pretty much steered clear.

One thing I noticed that stood above everything else; everyone was basically happy, which is great.

More later, as I am fried.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Waiting

is what I am doing right now.

Like most people, I hate to wait.

I've been up since 0500, showered and full of a solid 'invasion day breakfast' consisting of a pound and a half of steak and three eggs.

The crew is supposed to be here today, and I hope there is no let down, as that would drive me out of my mind. One of the things that drive me stark staring bonkers is a no-show, and that is pretty frequent in the contracting business. COntractora are always getting jammed up on a job.

With Joe Contractor, it is generally a phone call to get the lowdown, but these guys are not Joe Contractor, they are Amish and therefore have little in the communications area.

We'll see what happens.

Will report as I can.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

my ass is ragged.

Crew showing up tomorrow.

Spent the day doing the prep work to make life easier AND get this job done MY WAY.

What a tail buster of a day and I will be on task at 0500.

One of the things I like about an old school invasion breakfast* (Steak and eggs) is that it lasts you all damned day.

I have been run hard and am being put away wet.


*traditional breakfast served to guys headed off to battle. A small step above biscuits and gravy, accompanied by 3 or 4 eggs.

At 0400 it's another steak and 3-4 eggs.

I now have to keep up with a teram of 8 Dutchmen.


I'll try post pictures of the progress, but I refuse to show disrespect to good men whose religion asks them to avoid having their pictures taken. Sorry, folks, Pics of the work ONLY.


my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

This is the first time I ever rented

a dumpster.

Usually I simply take trash to the dump, but Ifigured it out and this is going to be a whole lot cheaper if you add everything up.

When the roof comes off tomorrow, It would easily be, say half a dozen pickup loads and these days the dump is not free. At fifty scoots per truckload, that's $300, easy. That is assuming I can get the roof crammed into six loads, which I seriouly doubt.

Plus gas, driving, tire wear etc and just the hassle of loading and unloading the pickupand $300 is a pretty good deal.

I'm jazzed and today is going to be plenty busy, as I have to do lot of prep workto make this happen.

I was planning on starting this job 5 July, but when I gothome they guys had a hole in their schedule and I figured I'd strike while the iron is hot because one never knows how jammed up a contractor can get at the last minute.

One of the things I learned is to be flexible.

The dumpster arrived and I went out and watched the guys unload it and I was good to them, easygoing and cheerful. I guess I scored points therre because the young guy driving the truck and the assistant told me that they would put the fix in so they picked it up when it's over. That's a good sign.

Being good to the crew that shows up tomorrow is going to be important because a well treated crew tends to do better work and they also overlook some of the petty extras that come up.

I'm thinking of making up a pot of biscuits and gravy, but I'm pretty sure they will come pre fed.

For me, it will be a day started off with the typical fare I have before special events like this: Steak and eggs.

The steaks are going on the grill as I write this, so it will be a long day for me as I have to do the prep work and save myself money. I'm supposed to brake all the metal and that is going to be no easy chore, as Neighbor Bob is going to camp this weekend.

I suppose I'll have all weekend, though to frig around with things, though because they don't work Saturdays or Sundays, which is cool, but I want to get things ready for tomorrow, which is probably the day the lion's share ot the project gets done.

Time to turn the steak over.

Later.




my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/