Text 35803, 188 rader
Skriven 2006-08-03 21:58:06 av Carol Shenkenberger (6:757/1)
  Kommentar till text 35716 av Roy Witt (1:1/22)
Ärende: Re: IQ Test
===================
*** Quoting Roy Witt from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***


 CS> Don's a sideline handyman who does that for others.

RW> When I was looking to go into business for myself, Nancy suggested tha
RW> do that, since there's nothing I can't fix. In her eyes anyway. :o)

Thats sweet <g>.  Seriously, Don wont take just 'any job'.  He wants to look at
it and be sure it's something he knows how to do right first.  I've actually
taught him how to do some stuff because I learned as a kid with Mom and her
way of making money with fixing up houses.

When we get back home, I have to brush off my wallpaper skills and redo the one
wall in the livingroom that is papered (the rest is all lovely real wood, not
cheapo paneling like the hall which i also plan to replace with drywall).  The
drywall will take 2-3 days because there are lots of cut-ins to make but the
wallpaper wont take more than 1/2 a day including the time to take the old
stuff off (never skip that, the new stuff will get all funny after a mere 4
years if you do).

 CS>   Virginia hasnt been that restrictive.

RW> Neither is Texas, but some places in Texas are. i.e. the Guadalupe Riv
RW> runs through a lot of counties on it's way from west Texas to the gulf

<snip> Gotcha there.  Silly rule.

RW> One morning in San Diego I walked into the kitchen and noticed the til
RW> floor was exceptionally warm. It's on a concrete slab and should have

Wince...

RW> imbedded in the concrete and the common problems of slabs breaking up
RW> because of ground movement didn't pass up my house. I had someone come

Yeah, had to have the underfloor heating vents sealed and install ceiling ones
then rework the entire house AC/Heat to use them.  Expensive.  Even in
Virginia, you get that over time due to frost/thaw issues.

 CS> In Virgina, if it's legal to do yourself, it's legal to hire a
 CS> handyman for.

RW> The same here and he must have a contractors license.

Don's work mostly came from DL, a contractor who's also a bar buddy of his.  DL
gets 15% I think but it's all stuff too small for him to have sent one of his
regulars out for and stuff that wouldnt pay enough for them.  Don generally
got about 20$ an hour worth stuff that were frills to the side of a main job.

RW> Around here, you need a permit to do anything, including replacing the
RW> seal on a toilet base.

Really?  A permit?  How odd that sounds to me!  I needed one for the roof jobs
but never a toilet!

 CS> yourself' though I am sure some folks ignore that.  Having outlets
 CS> added is quite expensive but we've paid the going rate as needed.

RW> I do my own electrical work. I wired a wharehouse to put my machine sh
RW> in, 220v3p...I pulled permits, got permission from the Miramar base
RW> commander (?) and when it came time to have the city inspect it, they
RW> it wasn't necessary. Don't know why I botherd to pull a permit. Even t
RW> Fire Marshall wanted to know why I needed one. Does 'because the city
RW> I need one' ring a bell. He signed off his section of the permit witho
RW> hesitation.

Grin, well, Neither Don nor I are electrical savvy enough to attempt that sort
of thing safely.  Just not what we have learned to do in our lives.

 CS> I found there when browsing for fodder ;-).  Oddly, I'm not that much
 CS> experienced with 'mexican' although I use aspects of it gleaned from
 CS> 3 years in Texas and 6 in San Diego.

RW> If you perchance get to go through San Diego on your way home, stop in
RW> the Miramar Cafe' (it's across from Miramar Base' north or west gate o

I think I've heard of it but never been there.  I do recall fondly the
outstanding 'SOS' at Post 460 (American Legion).

RW> The restaurant I mention above was previously owned by friends and Jac
RW> offered to give me the recipe' for the ranchero sauce they used on tho
RW> huevos. I didn't take it, as I was content to eat hers. The other day

Ohh bad mistake <g>.

RW> found an old cell phone and found her home phone number in its phone b
RW> I'm going to call her and see if she'll still give it away. I've tried
RW> tried to dupe that sauce, but not much luck with it. I did make one th
RW> liked, but it's a green ranchero sauce, not red.

See?

RW> When the kids all lived around us, they'd always ask Nancy to make her
RW> spegetti for those occasions we got together. I got so used to eating
RW> it was no big deal to me (of course I like it very much), but when the
RW> kids came over, there were never any leftovers. I can come close to he
RW> but I can't dupe it. She, of course, won't/can't tell me what's in it,
RW> she just puts it together from memory.

I kinda upset Don slightly.  He's always made the spagetti here then one day,
not having his recipe, I made some.  Bad Mommie!  Bad!  They liked it better
and now they bug me every 2 months to make it again <g>.  Worst of it is I
like Don's better!

 CS> we have here once it arrives.  The unit here is about 4ft long and a
 CS> bit less tall.  The one in Norfolk is 7ft long and 3.5ft tall.  Both
 CS> are money saving devices (cost about 80$ a year to run, save close to
 CS> 100$ a month on food bills due to being able to really use the hell
 CS> out of a good sale).

(chest freezers)

Made a killer sale here just days ago.  Killer for *this* area and a product we
need since i'm often at sea and Don works 3pm to 8pm.  *Good* TV Dinners that
Charlotte can safely make.  She's not yet up to real cooking if we arent here
though that's not but a year off i can tell.  Don was able to get 30 of them
at 1.50$ off each from the normal prices here of the best brands.  (Oops, make
that 1.25$ off).  That will hold for 3 months with him leaving 'ready to eat'
stuff most days and this for the 'gee, I just got called in to work' or even
the 'I'm lazy, have a TV Dinner' days.

 CS> Yeah.  I never did get the hang though of making bread by hand.  I
 CS> had no one to teach me.  I'd probably manage ok if I had to do that
 CS> now, but it's so much easier to let the machine at least do the dough
 CS> bit right!

RW> Yeah, that seems to be a lot of work. Although, Alton explained how to
RW> treat the dough so it will kneed without a lot of work. He didn't use
RW> pan to bake it in either, just a cookie sheet. The best part of the sh
RW> was his explanation of how all of the ingredients work and what happen
RW> when you do certain things and when.

He's the one who I've heard of and it's almost a chemistry class with his
cooking right?  Sounds neat.  As you can guess, if i had 'Food TV' out here,
I'd be watching it.  I get a few shows on various channels, but nothing
consistant and much of it is all in Japanese which leaves you guessing what
the item is they are adding (salt, msg, sugar, humm...)

 CS>   You can always remove that and oven bake it to get the
 CS> right shape.  Sounds like he made either french or italian 'crusty
 CS> white' there.  The shape is more the determiner for that one.

RW> It looked like french bread, one big round on top lump. It looked so g
RW> I could almost smell it.

French then.  I like the long thin italian loaves when I bother to shift it out
that way.
 CS> True!  I had a 'garden' on a porch with containers til I had a real
 CS> yard in VB.  BTW the way to go it with hanging types for tomatoes is
 CS> only try cherry tomatoes and you have to use milk jugs for water with
 CS> aquarium tubing to feed them.  Looks ugly but works.

RW> Hmmm, I never thought of the milk jug trick. I watered them by hand ev
RW> day.

Hard to get that one right but a trick that doesnt show and works for hot dry
areas is to cut up old bluejeans and line the bottom of the pot with them
before filling with dirt.  It will still drain if overwatered but help retain
better than soil alone.  Also has the nice bit that dirt doenst fall through
when you overwater.

RW> The whole idea behind the hanging basket is to keep the ground bugs ou
RW> the plant. I got the idea from a lady in San Diego who grew all of her
RW> tomatos that way. She was successful at it.

Ok, I did it for pretty.  My porches have always been 2nd floor or above.  I
hate listening to others walking on my ceiling so get top floor when possible.

 RW>> I recall you saying that she moved ya'll around quite a bit.

 CS> Yes.  Mom divorced Dad when I was 6 but she packed up us kids when I
 CS> was a hair under age 2 and moved from Bronxville NY to Miami Florida
 CS> one day when Dad was at work.  He came home to a silent house.  Hard

<snip>


 CS> --Snip, this message too long.  Second part will pick up.
 CS>                                        xxcarol

RW> Gotcha...

Hehe more later eh?
                                       xxcarol

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