Japan Adventure v.2012.5.18
Much has happened in the last couple of days. I fulfilled my long lost dream of watching a Sumo Championships IN PERSON! We took a stroll through the most famous fish market in the world. We visited the outskirts of Tokyo, eating some of the most amazing pastries/bread EVER! Not to mention taking the cutest little bus in the world and riding the subway trains with Obaa-Chan… the cutest little GRAMMA in the world (yeah, I know, them be fighting words, ain’t they!)
Japan Adventure v.2012.5.16
Here we are, at a quirky little Cafe called Mashman. It’s just a little ways from the theater where we are going to see the daughter of Saki’s mom’s best friend perform.
Amending notes: The show was a contemporary collection of 4 one act plays, all about two people, their conflict and their resolutions all having something to do with one another… somehow. Of course, I did not understand much of the show, but I got the gist of the story lines.
It’s been a fun excursion full of coffee stops (machine and sit down) as well as many edible goodies in form of trial/tasters at the supah depatamento stores. After the show we stopped by the Big Camera store (not in picture), many floors of electronic wonder toys. Unfortunately we were kicked out because the store was closing and we only saw 2 of the 7 levels.
The weeks go by
It has been a while since I’ve posed the ongoings, so here is a consolidated update:
Couple-a-Weeks in pix
Did I tell you someone broke into our house? Yeah. It was awful. Even though not much was taken, we were pretty shaken by the experience. We came home to find $12 worth of quarters gone. ”They” also took a bundle of receipts and all of our keys — for the brand new door knobs I had just replaced. FREAKY!!! So here is a picture of the peace officer that graciously came to our house and did a perimeter inspection. Gave us a few tips, fingerprinted the window (I could tell he was just trying to humor me, and that it was a futile action in regards to actually catching anyone). Nevertheless… it was good for the psyche having an ‘authority’ figure there. Thanks, Santa Cruz Police Dept.
There we were, in our living room talking about the new home and the interior design — something that had been, and continues to happen a lot, by the way — when we heard a flapping sound and a swoosh! It was amazing. This LARGE hawk took off from the front porch carrying something in its claws. A few moments later, loud blue jays squawked over a nearby tree. There it sat, snapping at the petulant feathery creatures, the majestic hawk. Not sure if it had a rodent or a young blue jay, but it took turns shooing off the blue jays and taking bites off the fresh catch. Cool… nature show right out my windows!
Saki took off to go to Hawaii, then Japan. If all goes according to plan, I will be joining her and her family there (oh, visa gods, hear my plea!). This is a picture of my first full night in the house. I think it’s appropriate that the thumbnail shows me, in the living room makeshift bed with ONE eye open. Still shook up about the break-in, I left a couple lights on outside and in… I HATE feeling like this. Fear of what “may” be there… I wanna curse the ones responsible for this eerie feeling… [deep breath]… I am grateful that it was a peaceful break-in, that it gave us an opportunity to improve the security of the house… damn it! I LOVED the fact that my previous 3 homes were SELDOM loked! Heck… i didn’t even HAVE a key to Iman’s place! [deep breath]
In the daytime, when the ghosts of my imagination rest, the magic and beauty of the new home are abundantly evident all around me. Mai Tai, the resident cat from across the road, continues to grace us with her presence in unexpected places. I was getting something from the front seat of the car when she climbed up onto the hood, then to the top of the warm sunroof of the car. Big smiles on my face… Thank you SO much, Mai Tai.
The search for internet service and/or a cell phone service that can best suit our needs continues. This time, I purchased a fancy-dancy android phone from Costco. It’s with T-Mobile, which we LOVED when we had service with them last time. Only, this time I’m afraid the customer service awesomeness will NOT outweigh the LACK of cell phone/data reception in the very places I need it most. Bummer. Nevertheless, the phone has an awesome camera and a few fun filters to go with it. This is me, lying on the bed (thank you David for helping with the oversize, overweight shlepping).
The Saga of the Bricks! Thanks to Tom and Iman, I am now the proud owner of a pile of bricks. The plan is to have a Brazilian BBQ built on the back yard… but that will probably have to wait until the fall to happen. Meanwhile, I have to shlep (love that word, by the way) them from the clownhouse to El Rio, find a place for them and make it look good enough for the anual inspection in May. Ummm… So, I spent a LONG time carrying them from their backyard to the car. Stacked them BEAUTIFULLY in the trunk of the car (newspaper to protect the carpet and everything). The mere purring of the engine was enough to generate a mild rumble in the back of the car. I released the parking break and gently glided down the driveway… then… a thunderous earthquake noise, a bump on the back of the driver seat, and dust flew all around me… DANG! I looked on the rear-view mirror… took a deep breath and decided that of my two options, re-arranging the stack and driving home to assess the situation, I chose the later. Next day, I spent 7.5 hours working on the back yard, weeding, shoveling, raking. It was AWESOME! My body was fatigued, but my mind and soul fueled and filled. Work was great (gym) before I transported in the dark (headlamp and wheel barrel) the bricks from the car to the pallet. DONE!
I was hoping to get this stuff done with David, but our schedules have not helped the cause. So, I called over Stan the Handy-man and he helped me stripped down the kitchen and patch up the window/gutter leak. Thanks Stan for the awesome help (physically and emotionally). It’s great having a second set of eyes as I took on a couple of tasks that I am fairly comfortable doing, but am VERY grateful not to be doing alone.
Day two: Rustolium is my new best friend. The exterior metal facing is VERY rusted out, so this will help extend the life of this 55-year old coach.
Next: electric circuit for the new kitchen, which should be arriving any day now.
We just helped out with a couple of performances in Watsonvillle. It was wonderful hanging out with our WEST family for the day.
The Tomás and the Library Lady performances took place at Hall Disdrict (two shows in the morning) and Radcliff (evening show). (The picture above is the cast with Hall District school Librarian… RAD!!! She worked hard to bring all the 4th graders, English and Spanish speakers, up to speed on the story — you rock!)
Not only were the performances amazing to watch, we were also blessed to have family members of the playwight, Jose Cruz Gonzalez.
There is ONE last show, tomorrow, downtown Watsonville, at La Manzana Community Resource Center, at 2PM.
Regional Championships
The road to Regionals has been a steady climb for the Santa Cruz Sports Central boys. All their hard work paid off when they performed beautifully at State Championships (at Berkeley) to earn their spot at the prestigious Region 1 Championships.
Regionals were held in Reno Nevada and was an exciting meet in many ways. The boys experienced for the first time a true Capitol Cup, where there are two complete sets of equipment (2 floors, 2 pommel horses, 2 ring towers, 2 haunting takes, 2 sets if parallel bars, and 2 high bars). The conference center was divided into two gyms, the warm-up gym and the competition gym.
The thing that impressed me the most about their meet was how much more mature their gymnastics looked. The boys really brought their “A” game to the gym floor, showing great improvements in all aspects of their gymnastics: focus, tenacity, form, control, amplitude. I couldn’t be more proud of them.
Congratulations to you, my young apprentices. Thank you for all your hard work, dedication and most of all, thank you for all the FUN!
Let there be light
My old friend Craig and my new friend Darrel came over today to make a fire, and for that the ol’ number 38 needed a new set of gas lines.
So, a long day of scooching, cutting, hammering, the occasional cussing (required by law, I’m pretty sure), and a couple trips to the hardware store… Presto Luminaris: the pilot light fired up in the water heater.
Now, of you’d excuse me… I have to test the shower in my new home.
Rainy Day
I wasn’t feeling all that well when I woke up this morning, but was able to chug along and make it into a pretty successful day.
Window treatment
Today was a slower day as far as remodeling is concerned, compared to yesterday’s four-person-hurricane, anyways.
I got to the trailer around 8:45 and began with the traditional open all the windows routine. Than, I got busy picking weeds from the walkway to the backyard (bricks). That was fun… If Terranova takes much longer, I’ll have it all done myself (kinda hoping for that actually).
Craig called me and we rescheduled the gas line work for Thursday.
David got there and I was emptying the little tool shed next to the house. Much chemical stuff to dispose. So I dumped it all in the neighbor’s yard… Just checking to see if you were paying attention. Got it all separated into keepers and dumpers — gonna check if/when Santa Cruz dump takes hazardous materials. (to be continued)
I borrowed the truck from Dan and David and I took the old, we, I mean VINTAGE fridge and stove to Grey Bears for them to scrap metal it. They took it. Suuuuper friendly and grateful people there. Good stuff. Too bad the stuff was not in better condition for them to able to sell, but they’ll make a little money with it… I hope.
When we got back to the house, all that we had time to do was to take out one sub-floor panel to clean out the black widows and run to Lumbermans/Pro Build to get a couple of pressure treated 2×6′s to put under the plywood. We wanna get that floor done tomorrow FO SHO!!!
Oh, yeah! The picture is of the window we (mostly David) spent almost too much time trying to slide open from both the bottom-up AND from the top-down. It works like a whistle now.
PS: came back in for a nightcap: finish the primer inside the kitchen cupboards. (thanks Terri 
)
A good remodeling day…
It’s a good day when…
… your best friends wake you up when you thought you needed to sleep in.
… You have brunch at a restaurant, listening to great live jazz and using cloth napkins… Wearing torn sweats, stained pants and old sneakers.
… You only have to take ONE flash trip to the hardware.
… The neighbors walk by and rubberneck to see “who’s finally moving in to Bill’s old place!”
… The boombox pumps out great classic rock tunes all day. (AC/DC yields the best full body white man wiggle)
… There’s fresh rolls of toilet paper and the toilet only clogs ONCE all day long.
… At the end of the day, we get an AWESOME picture of the princess of drama (no insects were permanently damaged by her spontaneous outbursts… But did have their egos crushed)
Handyman Chronicles
DOH! I just wrote a LONG post on this and didn’t save my work. LOST it all, so here is version 2.0.
This, of course is VERY much related to the topic at hand… Doing things multiple times to get it right. You’ll know what I mean in a sec.
Here’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Now that I am officially a home owner, I have an endless supply of “something to write home about” tales, fixing things in and around the house.
First off: the picture is of me imediately after I signed the final purchasing agreement, thus becoming officialy a home owner. Now it’s ours, it’s ALL ours.
The very first thing I did in the LONG “fixer-upper” list was to go through a bunch of paperwork I found lying around the house. I kept all the current documents (invoices, recepts, warranties, etc), but made a “burn pile” of all outdated materials (i.e.: warranty information for a previous fosset).
Than, I turned my attention to the door locks. Ok. Please note that I am VERY casual with “than,” meaning that I do NOT do much in terms of officiency and that some of these little projects DO have a few days between some of the steps. This is a TASK-oriented chronicle, not necessarily a clear timeline of events!
So: I decied to seek ‘professional help’ (don’t get your hopes up) and had a locksmith consult about the situation: three house doors and I want ONE key.
When he told me how much it would all cost, I decided to do a bit more research and seek second opinion(s). Friends had suggestions for a number of approaches and I decided to tackle the thing myself… But I kept the locksmith phone saved, ready to speed dial.
To Home Depot!!!
There I was, trusting my memory too much for comfort, trying to remember what the current lock looks like so that I could match it. I chose one regular lock that looked familiar and a lock with a keypad (digital) of the same brand. I’m told that in order to have a single key, all locks have to be the same brand, which makes sense, I guess.
I hesitated until the attendent assured me that I could return things easily if I kept the recept.
Back to the house (note: time travel here, for it was a couple of days until I actually returned to the trailer).
I started by replacing one of the less-good locks with a new one. It was indeed as easy as my buddy David told me it would be. Removed a couple of screews, a whiggle, a giggle and a snap… I attached a couple of the screews that were already on the door to begin with and… Presto, new door lock!
Coffee break: That was all the handy work I could handle for one day AND I need some coffee right now too (writing is tough, you know).
Next time I tackled the trickier part of the project: replacing the front door lock with the keypad. It was a bit more difficult, but still, with a bit of patience and fun chatting with a friend, I was done in a jiffy.
What’s next?!? Well, I do have to remove the locks from the door and actually get them to the locksmith to have them re-keyed. So, maybe I’ll invite a friend to the house and make sure Mai Tai doesn’t invade the house while the door locks are off. Have you met Mai Tai?
