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"My water bill is $90 more than it was last time." -Gavin
"Tell Sierra (girlfriend) to stop taking showers." -Me
"What are you gonna do but pay? Not like I'm gonna start double-stacking our turds!" -Gavin

Thursday, 12-31-15: My final 2015 bootleg site update.
2015 is almost over, and what a year is was. I got married! I went to Mexico. I worked a lot, and I also had many fun-filled days. We faced many difficult challenges as well. No doubt I bit off more than I could chew in 2015 by deciding to add an entire 1000-square foot two-story addition onto our house and by thinking I could have it operational this year. My bad there.

^April 19, 2015.

2016 will start off very busy, much like 2015 was and likely even worse. The home addition isn’t even close to being done yet, but if all goes as planned I will have it all insulated with a far amount of the downstairs ready to use by this time next week. For now getting Kat’s studio going is the top priority followed closely by wanting to get the laundry room operational and then the upstairs bathroom and one of the two bedrooms. Plus on top of that I start my first real day of work at Jackson Hewitt next week. That will be a full-time job until mid-April, if not more.

I put 445 hours of my own time into this home renovation this year, and another 4 or 5 today seems likely as I plan to get my ass out there to start as soon as I finish writing this bootleg update that no one will read. I’ve had my plumber, electricians, and foundation guys working on the place as well, and early to midweek next week it will be my heating contractor’s turn to have a go at it. My B-vents arrived yesterday via a $200 homedepot.com order (about $300 total spent on the B-vent chimney-like system to vent the furnace and water heaters together) so I can install that this weekend as well. I hope. If I didn’t order the right size piping then it sucks to be me because it’s not sold locally so I will have to wait another week for whatever I need to arrive unless I pay for express shipping. What a bunch of crap!

^B-vent system similar to what we will have at the house. I was able to install the roof portion of the vent last Saturday when it was about 45 degrees outside. It was the last day before real winter set in, and I got most of my last-minute exterior work taken care of. I hope!

Castiel is scratching at the door. He has to go poop I bet. His usual routine is to drop a deuce not too long after he has his breakfast. I’ve been texting some lady who lives 2.5 hours away, and just a few minutes ago she said she and her husband will probably come up later today to meet him and likely take him. Last week I listed him on Craigslist for $200 two days before Christmas, but there were no takers. I re-listed him for $100 on Tuesday and have had several serious inquiries since. Nice! We have to find him a new home for reasons previously discussed on this bootleg site. It’s unfortunate because he has many positive qualities, but the fact he eats his own shit and any shit that we leave in the yard is what breaks the camel’s back for me. Going out there to constantly monitor his shit-eating ass is way old, and now that we have real winter is truly sucks. It’s a bunch of crap!

I had three days of Jackson Hewitt training this week. Monday was a drive to Augusta for classroom training with some managers, “mentors”, and about 30 statewide other preparers. I think there are more than 30 preparers statewide, but that is about how many made it to class. Thankfully (a blessing and a curse at the same time) we had our first real snowstorm of the winter on Tuesday so we all stayed home and did online training since the roads were bad. We got 8” of snow, and it was 14 degrees so none of it has melted. Thankfully it was easy to shovel.
Yesterday was the final classroom day, and the roads were still not so great. I drove down with three others from this area, and the 80-mile drive took a bit extra in the morning and even longer in the afternoon once some light freezing rain started falling. That was a bunch of crap! In hindsight I should have just stayed home because, much like last year, I didn’t get a whole lot from the classroom training. It was nice to be able to meet and mingle with many new and returning co-workers, but the training aspect was laughable. We spent half the day just milling about and wasting precious… precious time. What a bunch of crap! Oh well, it was paid training so at least I’ll make a few bucks.

The season officially starts in 4 days yet no one in our area knows where they are working or when they are working. What a bunch of crap! I don’t even know who my manager is, either. We have to staff the Brewer WalMart (one desk), the Bangor WalMart (two desks), and the storefront on Hammond St in Bangor (four desks) and only five people from our area were at the training. Do the math on that scenario. Not good. Supposedly there are a couple others already hired, but if it stays like this we will be thread-bare on staffing. That’s both good and bad for me. The good is I can make more money, but the bad is working too many hours would 100% suck.

Some of the people, both returning and new, that JH has hired make me shake my head in disbelief. One new guy from this area is a disabled 70-year old who has limited knowledge of a computer, no prior tax preparing experience, and who randomly falls asleep. Seriously! I had to wake his ass up a couple times in class on Monday. It was boring at times and I wanted to take a little power nap myself, but as a frigging new guy trying to learn there is no excuse. Apparently he legit has narcolepsy so that happens. OMG.

I was talking to another guy who works in southern Maine yesterday, and he is all messed up from some prior accident. Hey pal, no prob if you walk with a cane and are physically disabled. The job is not physically arduous at all so as long as you are a quick thinker no problem. Unfortunatly for the company he said he usually fails the test we all take before we can do taxes at least once because he has short-term memory loss. OMG ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! HOW CAN YOU EVEN DO TAXES GUY? WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! I know companies need to accommodate special needs people, but holy Jesus I hope no one I know never has this guy do his or her taxes. He was telling me how he fails the test at least once and laughing about it, too. Epic fail.

I should hop off this bootleg piece of shit and go work on the house now. First I gotta put Castiel out and shovel away his shit. What a bunch of crap! Happy new year ya fuckin’ dinks, all two of youz.

Sunday, 12-27-15: Back to a "real" job tomorrow.
I have to be at the Jackson Hewitt office in Augusta tomorrow morning for the start of a 3-day training. Kat and I did the same thing last year, but in 2014 the training took place a week or two before Christmas. I was also working at the USPS so I got very little sleep during that few day stretch. What a bunch of crap!

I wish I could just skip the classroom training so I can work on our house. This place needs me for about a week of hard work before even parts of it are fully functional. Kat’s studio is almost there, but the downstairs halls aren’t ready yet and the upstairs needs more insulation. I think I could get all the upstairs insulating done in a full day if I focused solely on just that, but usually I will do some sheetrock work and then throw in some insulation here and there. I’m planning to have the furnace installed around Jan 4th-5th so the thing needs to be fully insulated by then or else we are just throwing away our precious… precious money by sending lots of heat to the outside world.

^I need to run a kerosene heater where I mud or else the stuff will never dry because it gets cold in there. Thankfully the relatively warmer weather means I don't have to run that heater quite as much.

The upstairs bathroom is getting pretty close to ready for paint, and if all goes well then next weekend I can paint that room as well. Having that bathroom done before the rest of the upstairs isn't a huge plus because it won't be practical to even use that bathroom until the stairwell and hallway are both done, but it will give me the opportunity to install the vanity and shitter. Those two items are in large boxes in the upstairs, and I need to clear out as much space up there as possible because everything gets in my way gods damn it.

^All the insulation, building supplies, etc. take up a lot of precious.... precious space.

Saturday, 12-26-15: Another Christmas came and went.
Another Christmas came and went, and I actually took the entire day off and spent a total of zero hours working on the house. It was my first Christmas as a married man. Even though Kat and I were together last year for the holidays it was a lot different. Last holiday season we started off with the Christmas tree over at her house in Bangor before she brought it over here. Tommy was also still living with us, and we hadn’t 100% finished her move over to here by the time the 25th came. I also was working long hours at the USPS so on Christmas eve I didn’t get home until midnight. What a bunch of crap!

This year I got to hang out with everyone on Christmas eve as well as Christmas day. We played Monopoly Christmas eve; I haven’t played that game in many years. I usually don’t lose at Monopoly, and once again on Christmas eve our team ended with a win. I love to hotel half the board and then DOMINATE. Unfortunately, Monopoly is a game that takes too long to finish. We played for 3 hours just one game.

I got some great loot for Christmas. When I was a kid I dreaded getting clothes for the holiday (TOYS > CLOTHES), but now I love it because I hate shopping for clothes. I got a couple cool tee shirts, jeans, socks, and a nice fleece. Santa Kat also got me Super Mario Wii. Oh Jesus, hell ya! I love that game and have not played it in quite a while.

^All I want to do is sit around and play video games for about 3 consecutive months, but I have to work a shitload so I can fulfill a promise that I made to the family. The house renovation needs to get finished and of course it needs to get paid for as well. Right now I have thousands on the Home Depot and Lowe's cards that needs to get paid off over the winter before any interest kicks in.

For Christmas I got a Stephen King book, a DVD of 4 Stephen King movies, the Star Wars full 6-movie box set, and the best gift of all was this gem:


Woo woo woo nyuk nyuk nyuk. A Three Stooges box set! This looks epic; it is a complete story of the Stooges as told my Moe’s son, and it includes memorabilia and some never before seen footage. There are three DVDs for a total of 9 hours so it will take some time to watch the entire thing, but it will be well worth it.

We ate all kinds of great food yesterday thanks to Kat spending half a day in the kitchen. We have a ton of leftovers so there will be no need to cook for a while. Awesome!

I need to head over to Lowe’s to buy some supplies and then start working on the house. Today will be 43 degrees outside and the last decent day before winter hits. 3-5” of snow is coming tomorrow and then a bigger snowstorm is coming Tuesday. It will be cold as well. What a bunch of crap! Oh well, we scored a major bonus for most of this month by being way above average for temperatures. It was 52 Christmas eve day and 54 yesterday. Oh Jesus, hell ya!

Wednesday, 12-23-15: Time to "rehome" Castiel.
We got two adorable puppies in May of this year, but now a half a year later we are preparing to say goodbye to the last one of the two. They grew fast, and they quickly became too much for us to handle. Crowley found a new home (for the second time) last Friday, and Castiel is currently on Craigslist awaiting what will hopefully be a perfect new home.

^They used to be so cute and relatively easy to manage, but in their final days together at our house they were a combined 135 pounds of mayhem and unbridled energy.

We had hoped that once Crowley (black of the two dogs) found a new home Castiel would be easier to manage, but that has not been the case. Now that Castiel doesn't have his brother to rumble with he will make the rounds from Kat, Chessa (our 9-year old Golden Retriever), and the cats. The adult cats can fend off Castiel with relative ease, but the two kittens are easy targets. Last week Castiel bit Sully, one of the two kittens, only millimeters from his eye during breakfast. Sully walked over to Castiel and stood directly underneath him, and Castiel took that as a threat to his food and got agressive with a snarl and a quick nip. What a bunch of crap! The sad thing is his food bowl was already empty because it only takes him about 10 seconds to wolf down his 1.5 scoops of dog chow.

Thankfully Sully healed up just fine, but over the weekend Castiel tried to attack Daniel's kitten, Autorious (I have no clue how to spell that.) Castiel had a bone, Chessa had a bone, and Castiel kept trying to steal Chessa's bone so I was trying to pry Chessa's bone from Castiel's mouth when Autorious got too close. Castiel thought his bone was no longer safe so he made a dangerous lunge at Autorious and almost bit him. Thankfully I was right there to put that asshole dog into a standing headlock and to scold him as I put him in his crate.

The night before last Castiel and Sully were in the kitchen when Castiel bit Sully in the ear. We didn't see it happen, but we assume Castiel was being playful and treating the cat like he treats his squeaky toys. He doesn't seem to know the difference between the cats and and a chew toy, and that is all bad. Before when he had Crowley most of the time he would nip at his brother and they could play hard together, but now his brother is in a new home so he can't pick on someone his own size. Chessa doesn't play that much because she is older so Castiel finds the kittens to be easy targets.

Sully is relatively fearless. Even though he has been bitten by Castiel he will still go right over and play right by the dog. Thankfully his ear isn't severely wounded, but what happens the next time Castiel decides to bite? Even a playfully-intended nip could kill the kitten. Even worse, Castiel doesn't even seem to ever show remorse for anything bad that he does. We can scold him until we lose our voices, but Castiel will stand there and have the same vapid look on his face. Kat facetiously called Castiel a sociopath because he shows no remorse when he is scolded. Even Crowley knew when he was busted for failing at life. Every dog I've ever been around knew when he or she was in trouble, but not this guy. What a bunch of crap!

^Does not show any signs of remorse when he does something bad. Does not give any indication he even knows what is good and what is bad. Epic fail. He is smart enough to know, too.

Oh, he also still eats poop. All poop. Doesn't matter if it's Chessa's, random crap at the park, or his own turds. He does it fast, too. If I don't go scoop it within seconds after he finishes creating it then he will turn around and chow down. What a bunch of crap! We even maced his shit in the hopes that would deter him, but he still put it in his mouth, dropped it long enough to rain snot all over the place, and then he would keep picking at it until eventually it became edible. OMG WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

So I posted him on Craigslist last night, and so far I've only gotten two texts that read "Do you still have it for sale?" from out of state area codes and in the middle of the night. F them! Probably not even people really interested anyway. It's still early so I am hoping we get some promising emails and calls later today.

I gotta get off this bootleg thing so I can go take care of a couple rental property things, wrap Kat's Xmas gifts (I have a big pile here in my bootleg office), distribute Xmas cookies to some of the tenants, and then work on the house for a few hours before I play reacquetball later with Gavin. I have the upstairs bathroom all sheetrocked with two layers of joint compound (mud), and I started the upstairs hallway as well. Hopefully next time I can post some photos. It will be warm the next few days including a record high tomorrow so that helps my progress, too.

If you want a 70-pound dog who eats his own shit and who might be a canine sociopath then let me know ASAP. How could you refuse such a tempting offer?

Friday, 12-18-15: One week until Christmas.
I have a pile of loot here in my bootleg office for my awesome wife. I still need to wrap the gifts all up, but they are fine for the time being sitting here in boxes and bags. I'll probably wait until the 24th to wrap them because I am not good at Christmas at all. If it were up to me this would be our Christmas tree:

Hehehehe.

Thankfully Kat is awesome at Christmas. Today she was wrapping more gifts, baking cookies, etc. She even bought little tins of cookies for all of our tenants. I finished those Christmas cards last night at Tag's in Ellsworth during her karaoke show so I will pass those out midweek next week. The cookies aren't too expensive, but I like to think the gesture earns us some goodwill. Last year was actually the first year I did that and it seemed to generate a positive response.

I have a couple things to take care of before I head down to Jester's for what should be Kat's last karaoke show of 2015. Since Christmas falls on a Friday this year there will be no Thursday night (Christmas eve) show at Tag's next week and obviously no Christmas day show at Jester's next Friday. The Roost up in Orono won't need her again until the students return from their Christmas break the week of January 20th. By then I will be working full-time at Jackson Hewitt so I won't be going with her for a lot of her karaoke gigs. At least that's the plan now. JH training is only 1.5 weeks away and I still have no idea where I will be working. Will it be the Brewer Wal Mart? Bangor Wal Mart? The JH "storefront" in Bangor? Last year I mostly worked in Brewer, but I did cover Bangor many times as well at the Wal Marts. Hanging out in a little booth near the Wal Mart entryways and cash registers isn't exactly glorious, but the pay isn't half bad so I'm willing to do it again. This year we need the money to pay for the home renovations with hopefully enough left over for a vacation as well.

We had Crowley back in our home for just over 24 hours, and now he is in a new home again. Having him home again at all = what a bunch of crap! However, we had to do it because it didn't work in the first home that we found for him. I reposted him on Craigslist, and only a few hours later I had texts and four new voicemails within the span of a couple hours. OMG. I ended up having a college kid who lives in southern Maine come meet him this afternoon. The guy has grown up with dogs and has no kids or other pets. Perfect! As an added bonus he lives in Kennebunkport so it's not exactly easy for him to come give us Crowley back if he changes his mind. Crowley is a great dog so I doubt he will change his mind. I hope. It would have been nice if Katherine could have taken care of all of it since he was her dog, but she is only 17 so better off to have me handle it. I do wish she at least said thank you since it literally took me hours that I really don't have to spare, but that is ok I still love her. When I was 17 I was clueless about the world and it took a tour of duty in the US navy to smarten my ass up.

The home renovation continues to be behind schedule thanks to the Crowley fiasco and other obligations, but I am hoping next week to get some good work done. Check out the 10-day forecast:

^48 on Tues and 49 Thursday = Oh Jesus hell ya! Today was in the mid 40s all day, and today's average high is 33 with an average low of 15 so we are crushing it this month. Plus fuel prices are way low so I think I will save big on next month's heating bill as well. Eventually winter is bound to hit us hard, but not anytime soon. It's amazing to think that earlier this year we set the all-time frigid record in February and had literally tons of snow and now this month is on pace to shatter warmth records. The unusual warmth also helps with the home renovation since I don't have heat out there yet. I can run a kerosene space heater as needed, but at 45 degrees outside I don't need it. This weekend will be brisk but that's okay because next week we bounce right back. I plan to get some more insulating and sheetrock installs done this weekend so I can mud/tape/sand next week when it warms back up. I can mud at 45 degrees and it does dry without the heater, but it still does take a while to dry all the way.

I'm all done for the evening. Fin. It's time to go hang out at Jester's, drink a couple beers, and then hopefully sleep 12 hours. I won't really sleep 12 hours because I have work to do and because Mom and Aunt Susie are planning to visit tomorrow late AM/midday, but I do hope to get a solid 8 at least. I am sleep deprived. I don't even know anymore by how much, but probably a lot. Ah well, I still feel good for now and I can get more sleep next week or when I die. Thankfully Kat and I are Goonies and Goonies never say die!


Thursday, 12-17-15: The new Def Leppard album.
My favorite band of all-time, Def Leppard, released a new album several weeks ago. Nice! However, I don’t get that excited for new Def Leppard albums anymore because they have burned my ass hard in the 21st century by releasing some horrible songs. Their last decent album was Euphoria from way back in 1999, and that album was just good, not great. I know they will never be able to recapture their glory from the 80s and early 90s, and I’m okay with that, but I do still hold hopes that they can produce new music that isn’t total garbage.


^The last halfway decent Def Leppard album was released 16 years ago. What a bunch of crap!

I was disappointed with Def Leppard when they released Songs From the Sparkle Lounge back in 2008. That album SUCKS. It’s a bunch of crap! I think it’s all remakes, cover songs, and it can kiss my hairy ass. They did release a collection of live greatest hits on MirrorBall in 2011, but I didn’t ever buy that one. I should! Maybe if I ever see it in a clearance bin I will grab it, but it’s definitely not high on the priority list.
Before their latest album, simply entitled Def Leppard, was released I heard one of the songs called Let's Go get some airtime on 100.3 WKIT. It’s a good song! Then I went to defleppard.com and saw a sample of the second song from the album called Dangerous (NOT ROXETTE.) I gave it a listen and I liked it. So far 2 for 2 from a 14-song album. Oh Jesus, hell ya! ME DID WANT.

Only a few days after I heard Dangerous my wonderful wife bout the album for me as an early birthday gift. So my birthday gifts this year from her were Def Leppard and Rambo DVDs. I win, you lose. Owning the new Def Leppard album is great! They’ve been making music for a very long time, ever since the 70s. Wow!

^Lazy ass title of the album, but it's ok at least they still make some decent music and don't sit around in a nursning home and play board games all day.

The first two songs on the new Def Leppard album, Let's Go and Dangerous, kick ass. Unfortunately after that the album falls flat. Track 3 is a floating turd of a song, but track 4 is a nice ballad. After that every song is just mediocre. Nothing stands out. What a bunch of crap! I’ve listened to the album for a few weeks now in the hopes that it would grow on me more, but so far no luck. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it either. I’d rate it a 5 on a scale of 1-10 and that is mostly on the strength of the first two songs. A couple days ago I pulled it from my CD player so I can listen to a superior album, Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime.

Even though the new Def Leppard album is far from stellar that’s okay. I'm glad Kat bought it for me! I’m just glad they can still rip out the occasional good tune. The guys are all in their 50s now. Guitarist Steve Clark checked out in the 90s from a drug overdose, but the other original band members remain. I wonder how many more albums, if any, they will release? One day they will be too old and that will be sad. I still thank them for the best album of all-time, 1987's Hysteria. (Pour Some Sugar on Me was my favorite song for most of 1988. Seriously!)

Wednesday, 12-16-15: Dog refund. Shit!
Ah crap, the people who took Crowley last week called tonight. They want a refund. Gods damn it! It’s been about 1.5 weeks since they took him so I should say too bad no refunds. However, I can’t in good conscience do that. None of us can. We need to do what’s best for Crowley even if it does cause us an extra burden. We were the ones who decided that getting two dogs would be awesome so now we have to pay the price of our failure.

Apparently Crowley playfully bit the “owner” in the face earlier today. Her Mom actually called on her behalf because she’s 12 years old, give or take. She said no major physical damage was done, but there is deep emotional damage. OMG. The kid is a psychological mess because her class was held hostage at gunpoint a few years back so Crowley was supposed to be her therapy dog. Last we knew they had bonded wonderfully, but Crowley does like to play hard so nevermind. They can’t keep him anymore because now the kid is petrified. OH WAAAAAAAAAA GROW A SET AND MAN UP KID. I know Crowley isn’t a vicious dog and her Mom said the same thing. He just was playing hard, but her daughter is a Sissy-Mary who weakens this once great nation.

So tomorrow morning we can look forward to getting Crowley back. What a bunch of crap! I’ll stick him on Craigslist again and I bet he will be gone in no time. Bye bye more of my precious… precious time that I don’t have dealing with that shit. It’s goddamn frustrating how little time I seem to have lately. The renovation of our house is pwned for a while because I have too much else going on to finish it proper, and I can’t get heat out there anyway.
I called Bob, my Giblet-head heating contact, yesterday morning. I met Bob over 2 months ago and he was supposed to be helping me, but so far he has done about jack and shit for me. Only some planning and a few heat vents have been run in the past 2.5 months. Bob didn’t even run the heat vents either; he had Bruce do that. Epic fail. I talked to Bob 1.5 weeks ago and he promised he would make time for me over the weekend unless he had emergency no-heat calls. The weekend came and went with no Bob so I called him, left him a nice voicemail that politely said get to work or let me know if you can’t work, and I still heard nothing back from him. I planned to haul on him by that point, but yesterday morning I tried him one last time before I called my next option. To my amazement Bob actually answered and told me he is so busy he is going to stop taking calls for now. I told him I was gonna hire someone else, and he said ok good luck bye and hung up on me. What a bunch of crap! Disappear, scumbag. He was kinda rude about it, too. His wife is dying so I feel badly for him, but I want to get this done so my sympathy only extends so far. I'm overhwelmed in my life right now but I'm not a dink to people (I hope!) so he has no valid excuse in my books anymore. Bob = hauled on.

All I wanna know is why? Why did he not motivate his ass more? I told him I have cash waiting for him, but he was trying to juggle 50 other jobs and a sick wife so he never had time. Really sad considering he only lives a few minutes down the road. Epic fail by his loser ass for sure. I guess he doesn't need my money so he can get F himself.

Bruce gave me the name of a different heating guy, I called him, and earlier this evening he came to take a look. Unfortunately, he is booked until early January so no heat will be installed out there until 2016. Gods damn it. Oh well, I am not ready to have that thing quite functional anyway. It would be awesome to have heat and to have Kat’s studio operational, but right now I am using that space for some storage of tools and supplies so it makes my job out there a little easier having access to all of it. By the time we get heat going I should have the entire downstairs done and ready to go. I hope!

^Lots of dust in the air. I need to finish the floor, install baseboard, paint that window trim (just primed now), and install two heat duct diffusers in the ceiling and then it's 100% done. I could have that all done in a day, but without heat there is no immediate need to finish that space.

^The upstairs is even more cluttered. What a bunch of crap! I have 34 pieces of sheetrock up there, 17 stacked in each of the two bedrooms. Plus I have another dozen or so full pieces downstairs in the laundry area. There is a bunch of insulation, flooring, and lumber kicking around as well. Hopefully this coming week I can install a lot of that insulation and sheetrock to make some room.

Monday, 12-14-15: Another morning at the repair shop.
The Mountaineer is on the lift, and I have cash in my pocket for the expected $600 bill. We need front brakes, an ABS sensor, and a couple other smaller things done so we can get our inspection sticker and get the thing safe again for the winter and beyond. The SUV isn’t unsafe now, but the pads were about down to metal and that ABS sensor is probably important for braking on ice. Thankfully we have not had to drive on ice at all so far this season. Nice!
Al Roker was just on the news talking about this mild El Nino winter as compared to last year’s arctic polar vortex bullshit. Still lots of winter left to go, but so far it’s been fantastic. It was over 50 degrees both Friday and Saturday. Oh Jesus, hell ya! As an added bonus fuel prices are lower so far this winter, too. Gas is actually $1.98 a gallon; I got 5 cents off with cash so I paid $1.93 a couple days ago. Oh Jesus, hell ya! Too bad the money we’re saving on heat and gas is going towards vehicle maintenances and repairs. I dumped around $1150 into the F150 end of November and earlier this month for tires and brakes, and bye bye another $600 today for the Mountaineer. What a bunch of crap!

The Mountaineer will take a couple or three hours so I already walked over to nearby McDonald’s for some dollar value menu breakfast (two sausage burritos, parfait, milk) and then stopped off at TD Bank to deposit the check from that epic roof job from last month. That money will be useful in many ways, but primarily for putting the finishing touches on the mechanical systems in our home remodel. Now all I need to do is get my contractors in high gear so we can get the thing heated and start using Kat’s studio. Right now her studio is pretty much done, but it’s too cold out there for her to use. What a bunch of crap!

I stayed up until after midnight Saturday because Kat had a Christmas party to DJ down in Ellsworth. I decided to stay home so I could work until she got home, and work I did. I got the entire entry hall insulated, sheetrocked, and mudded/taped with a coat of joint compound. The home remodel is behind schedule so I need to use every available minute between now and when I start work at Jackson Hewitt to get it functional. I need to get the downstairs done (laundry room, studio, hallways) and hopefully the upstairs bathroom and Katherine’s bedroom finished ASAP. It’s already the 14th, and I will probably start at JH around Jan 4th. That’s only 21 days away. I also have three days of JH training down in Augusta from Dec 28-30 so my time is increasingly limited. Hopefully these guys here at the shop can put a wiggle on it and get the Mountaineer done ASAP so I can spend a few hours working on the house later.

^Hallway area before I started working on it a couple days ago. Still had a little framing and insulating to do (not pictured.) That little gas oven will end up going upstairs, but for now there it sits because I can work around it and the upstairs is cluttered right now with sheetrock, flooring, insulation, etc.

^Hallway area after I quit working on it late Saturday night. I worked on that entryway area until almost 2345 while Kat wrapped up her Ellsworth Christmas party gig. It still needs a couple more coats of mud, paint, a heat vent in the ceiling, the suspended ceiling, and trim. The entry door to the driveway is off to the right and not quite visible because of the wall in the foreground. Kat's studio door is off to the left, directly across from the entry. We will have no stairs to navigate at all when we load and unload her gear. Win! That entry area is about 5 feet wide so I should be able to install some shelving on the rear right wall (maybe left? I think the right makes more sense because the entry door swings in.) and still leave room for us to maneuver. Once it's done I hope it's totally awesome. If not then I suck.

Friday, 12-11-15: I'm cut. I have a lot to say tonight so thou shalt listen or GTFO.
I cut my fuckin' hand late yesterday afternoon. What a bunch of crap! I was cutting a piece of sheetrock, and I told myself to watch it or else I would cut my damn self. Then, about .02 seconds later, I cut myself anyway. Epic fail. There was a little piece of sheetrock left to cut, the utility knife got stuck, and then it flew up and across my left palm. Gods damn it! The cut looked pretty deep, but it didn't bleed much. I tried to find some electrical or duct tape, but I don't know where half my stuff is anymore so Kat just wrapped it with bandage stuff. Snoopy band-aid for the win!

^When your wife has Peanuts band aids then you can say you have scored a life victory. However, when you have to use the Peanuts band aids because you were a nincompoop and cut yourself then you have lost. Do the two cancel each other out? Hehehehe.

The cut is healing, but tonight when I was getting my sewll on in the gym a little pus came out so I just put on some workout gloves that have been down in the gym for years upon years. Those gloves alone wil probably give me an infection of some kind, but the bars will be clean-ish. I haven't used gloves when I life weights in a very long time. Many years ago before I renovated this bootleg building it would get COLD down here. So cold that the barbells were like ice to the touch so I would wear workout gloves. Now about the coldest it will get in the gym is 60. However, it does get colder here in this bootleg office in the winter. Nothing a little space heater can't cure pretty fast, and I'm not in this office very much anymore so no biggie.

This is the second consecutive week that I've done very well in terms of exercise. it was 50 today, very mild, so I also went for a jog. So far this December has been quite mild, and I'm loving it. More mild weather is coming, too. Saving money on heating bills is awesome. Unfortunately, all that money saved already went bye bye because the bootleg apartment business was a succubus this week. What a bunch of crap! I was hardly able to work on our own house at all. Gods damn it.

Queensryche Operation: Mindcrime is a fucking awesome album. Pandora Radio is playing The Mission right now, a decent song from that album. The entire album wins. HEY WTF THE SONG JUST CUT OFF?! Oh well, I listened to most of the album when I was using the gym just a few minutes ago so no biggie.

Dokken's The Hunter comes on to take its place. More wins! I love this song. I am not the hunter this year, that's for sure. I went hunting 6 times all fall, and that is totally unacceptable. Tomorrow is the last day in the expanded archery zone so maybe I can go once more. However, that seems unlikely unless I get my ass up at 0545 or unless I go in the afternoon. Kat has a party to DJ tomorrow so going in the afternoon is unlikely, and I am going to drink beer and bivouac at 0200 tonight so going at first light also seems unlikely. What a bunch of crap!

Maybe I will wake up early and slam an energy drink and see what happens. I really do want to go once more so I can see this big boy:

The home renovation is going slow thanks to a bunch of rental property crap this past week. I am way behind schedule on that thing. I'm hoping tomorrow to sheetrock most of the downstairs hallway/entryway. However, I can't install some of the sheetrock because the damn electrical isn't done yet. No heat either. Gods damn it! I'm at the mercy of my contractors for my mechanical systems because I can't wire all that myself, install my own furnace, and install the plumbing. I have some carpentry skills and am handy, but not that handy. I suppose I could learn how to do it all since I know the basics, but I want to get this thing done before I die. Thankfully I am a Goonie and Goonies never say die. That last sentence makes no sense, but it is an excuse to post a funny photo of Chunk.

^TRUFFLE SHUFFLE. I can't do the Truffle Shuffle because I only weigh 145 pounds. If I ever get fat and can do the Truffle Shuffle then shoot me please. Oh, I can do the machine gun. That would be my Rambo wrestling entrance if I ever decide to become a professional wrestler. However, I'm 40 years old and I have no aspirations to be a pro wrestler so nevermind. When I do the machine gun it does get Castiel all excited. That's fun times.

We found Crowley a new home last Sunday. The plan was for Katherine's friend and her family to take him, but at the last minute they bailed so I posted an ad on Craigslist. I posted the ad at 1230 Sunday afternoon, and we had him a home by 1900. Wow! I got 4 emails, 2 calls, and a text. I didn't write back to the text because fuck that. Call me old or whatever but when I post an ad your ass better either call or email or GTFO. We think his new home will be perfect because the family lives local and he will be a therapy dog for a 12-year old who was traumatized when she was in kindergarten and some assface took her class hostage. Seriously. OMG.

I need to Google that to get the full story. She is 12 now so it was years ago. Guy looks as Judas Priest comes on. I haven't even looked at the name of the song; I just recognize the voice and know because I am that damn good. Hmmm.... The Sentinal. I'm not familiar with this song, but I like it so it gets a thumbs-up. Then my Interweb stops working. What a bunch of crap!

Okay, I don't wanna write on this bootleg site all night so screw looking up that news story from years ago. Anyway, it will be sad not having Crowley around, but the pros have far outweighed the cons so far. The house has been MUCH quieter since we found him a new home, and Castiel has been behaving better as well. We went over to visit Crowley in his new home Monday, and they said he has been totally fantastic. No accidents in the house, nothing bad at all. I think it's a perfect fit and will be great. It is sad because he is a great dog, but together with his brother the end result was mayhem and madness at our house.

^I took that picture on Sunday, just hours before we found him a new home. Looking at it makes me sad because he is a great dog by himself. He just got a little lost in the shuffle in or house with two other dogs and he picked up some bad habits that can easily be cured in the right environment. Katherine didn't have time for him at all because of her school, babysitting, and now swim team schedule so our decision was best not only for Crowley but also for our family.

Part of me wants to remove that photo above because it tugs at my heart. He reminds me of Maggie in many ways. I really miss Maggie. She was a hot mess of a dog thanks to Doug's inability to train her properly, but she was still awesome. She had a ton of energy just like Crowley and she loved to run just like Crowley. She loved to play tug of war and sucked at atcually playing fetch, but that was okay because she was so energetic and approachable.

^Maggie at the park in August of 2005, the same park where we bring our dogs now. I was just there a few hours ago with Chessa and Castiel. RIP, Maggie.

I can't look at pictures of Maggie anymore they make my cry.

I am a shitty Uncle. I suck. Thankfully I put a sticker on my calendar so I know today is Nadia's birthday. I used to think it was December 9th, but these days I mostly remember it's actually the 11th. I thought my only niece, my only next-generation Markwith, was turing four years old today. However, she is now five. OMG WHY DO I SUCK?! When you don't even know how old your niece is then you suck. I am so overwhelmed that it is ridiculous. I used to worry that one day I would get bored to death when I ran out of shit to do, but these days all I want to do is play video games, watch movies, and do crossword puzzles. I don't want anything to do at all. Not really, but kinda. However, there is no vacation for my ass for a while to come so I need to stop whining and keep working for the things I want for our family.

I see Nadia a handful of times each year, and each time it is a quick visit. Fuck that she will grow up and not even know her Uncle. I need to go down there and play dolls and shit before she grows up and thinks I am a dink. I probably am a dink, but I don't want her to think that until she grows up more.

Iam gonna spread out and go to Jester's. I want to hear Mexican Radio by Walls of Voodoo. That is an awesome song to drunkenly sing karaoke to. I sang it last week and a couple weeks prior. It makes no sense, but it still wins. A lot. I will listen to it now before I hit the road.

I wish I was in Tijuana eathing barbecue Iguana. AWESOME. I don't have a better .jpg of it, but that is in the video and it is them barbecuing iguana. Hehehehe. (Probably not really an iguana, but hell if I know it was the 80s. Dd PETA exist then?)

Wednesday, 12-09-15: Good and bad news.
This friggin’ bootleg apartment business has been a real ass-kicker so far this week. Sometimes it’s easy and I can lounge around, and sometimes my ass has to get to work. This week has obviously been the latter. I know the business won’t run itself and will collapse if I slack off, but sometimes I still wish I wouldn’t get slammed with so many things at once. Even worse, I wish I didn’t have to wade around in shit when plumbing goes awry. It’s gross and, worst of all, it costs me precious… precious time and MONEY.

A clogged sewer line at one of my rentals on Holyoke St has really set me back this week, bigtime. I had to drill holes in the line in the wee hours of the morning Monday, and then yesterday afternoon Bruce came over to replace a section of the line for me. I did some digging, and I used my rotary hammer to chisel away some of the concrete in that corner so I could access more of the pipe. That concrete was hard to chisel, too. That stuff was really solid. Finally I got it down to this:


You can see an epic jam there. What a literal bunch of crap! The jam was not only in that coupling but also in the piece of pipe that I removed. Looked to me like the entire pipe had come loose at that junction, perhaps caused by some settling due to the frost going so deep into the ground last winter? That and old age. It took me many hours yesterday afternoon, but Bruce was finally able to build me a working line. Is it code compliant? Hell no. However, he did the best he could trying to tie a 4” cast iron pipe into some bootleg 3” mostly buried wye that ends up connecting to a buried clay pipe that goes out to the city main under the street some 50 feet or so away.

While Bruce rebuilt that bootleg section of pipe I hauled a pile of disgusting clay-mud-shit-dirt out to my utility trailer in old drywall buckets. There is no place on the property to dump that shit-filled dirt so I had to haul it off. What a bunch of crap! It froze overnight in my trailer, too. Was fun dealing with that today… gods damn it.



After Bruce finished installing those boots and the PVC we did a test flush. Worked great! Then I ran the sink and it was fine for a minute. However, our victory was short-lived because water started blowing out of an old cleanup that was literally only blocked off with ancient paper. What a bunch of crap! It was obvious there was still a clog further down the line. Epic fail. Maybe some of the debris that I was trying to clear from earlier got shoved too far in and washed down? Maybe there was more than one jam? Impossible to know so this morning I had to get on it again. I had Nichols Plumbing come over with their power auger and camera and we got it done. Bruce is awesome, but he doesn’t have the camera or power augers so he can’t help when I have major jams. However, Nichols has been on it when I’ve called them and I have nothing but praise for how they have treated me.

The power auger cleared the line. Good news there! No need to get the excavator and a jackhammer for now. Unfortunately, the camera showed bad news. The old clay pipe from the foundation out to the street is in rough shape in spots. Thankfully it hasn’t collapsed, but there are a couple holes and ugly spots so my chances of having another jam in the near future are 50/50. If it jams again will probably need to replace that entire line, and that will cost literally thousands of dollars. What a bunch of crap!

This week’s mess has cost me $375 plus a lot of my time, but all things considered I call that a win. If I wasn’t hands-on then I’m sure it would have been at least $1000. In fact, this would have been an epic expensive week for the properties if I didn’t do so much of my own work. These are the weeks I need to remember before I retire and decide to have a management company run my business for me.

I have no way of knowing how long that sewer line will last before it finally fails for good. No one does. All we can do is guess, and the consensus is we could get many more useful years of jam-free use or the thing could fail tonight. I’m hoping I can at least get through this winter before I have major issues. Fingers crossed we don’t have another horrible winter where the frost gets so deep into the ground that it disrupts plumbing. The guy from Nichols said last winter caused a lot of sewer lines to shift because it got so cold and the frost got so deep. What a bunch of crap!
So for the third day in a row I couldn’t do any work on our house because I had apartment stuff to do. I also have a range that needs replacing at another property because the old tenants who moved out last summer beat the thing up pretty hard. It was only about 3 years old, too. What a bunch of crap! Oh well, we will make lemonade out of lemons on that deal because I found a sweet open-box buy at Lowe’s today. A $700 glass-top range reduced to $450 because it supposedly has a scratch on the top. I didn’t see any friggin’ scratch; all I saw were dollar signs from all the money we will save on a nice new oven. Oh Jesus, hell ya! That range will go in our house and the one we have now can go to the rental property. The one we have now is actually not that bad, and it will be a major upgrade for the tenant at that rental now.

This bar up here in Orono is filled with drunk college kids right now. It’s 2330, primetime for the young-uns. I’m sitting over in the corner out of the way and watchful. So far these Giblet-Heads appear to be behaving, but Kat is swamped with requests for songs. They love the karaoke! Good for business, but hard for her gear. Tag’s and Jesters are like vacations compared to this place! Thankfully it’s finals week next week then winter break so there won’t be karaoke here again until January 20th.

Tuesday, 12-08-15: Crowley is in a new home, and I have major shit issues again.
I’m so screwed it’s beyond ridiculous. I will never get the things on my list done before the end of the year so at this point I need to see where I can cut my losses. The home renovation continues to fall more and more behind, and I just can’t seem to myself available to work on it for any regular schedule of time. I worked on the thing a grand total of 24 hours last week. OMG THAT IS PATHETIC. So far this week I put in about 4 hours on Sunday afternoon, none yesterday, and it will be none again today because I have other things going on. What a bunch of crap!
I fucked everything away this fall, and it is unacceptable. I don’t have enough time and that pisses me off and stresses me out. It’s not like I’m being lazy sitting around playing video games and watching daytime TV dramas either. I have allowed a little time for myself, but only a minimum of that. I only went deer hunting 6 fucking times all season, and if I’m lucky maybe I can go once more before the end of the season. However, the season ends this Saturday so I’m probably screwed. I’ve used the gym on occasion and gone for some jogs when the weather and my free time permits, but mostly it’s been work and other obligations taking up all my precious… precious time.

This week started off rough when I got a phone call at 0036 Sunday night/early yesterday morning just after midnight. Drains clogged, nothing working. Epic fail. It’s the same property where I had issues back in October with a clogged sewer line, and the line was clogged again. I could have made an emergency after-hours phone call and paid a few hundred to have the line purged, but screw that. I know now after two jams in 6 weeks that the section in the photo below needs replacing so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I drilled a 1” hole with my rotary hammer in a couple different spots so I could snake it myself and try to clear the jam near the source. There is a cleanout for the main line, but it’s 100 feet away and I don’t possess a power auger with that kind of reach. My longest snake is 50 feet, and it’s nothing too industrial grade either.

^The first hole to the right relieved the backed-up water, but I couldn't get to the clog so I drilled another hole.

When I first drilled into the cast iron pipe I knew there would be a lot of back-pressure so I was ready for it. However, I wasn’t fast enough so a stream of water started spewing out and right onto the nearby electrical panel. What a bunch of crap! When water gets on electrical components that is bad. Thankfully I was able to get a bucket over the stream before it could short anything out. I expanded the hole, let it drain out, and then went to work. I was at the lowest part of the cellar so the water in the line drained down into the ground, but there was still a fair amount that needed to be shop-vacuumed out and removed. It also took me a while to snake and try to clear things up. Plus it was fucking gross. The jam was all bad so I wasn’t able to get it 100% cleared, but after 2.5 hours I got it working well enough to get the tenants through the day. Thankfully there wasn’t shit all over their cellar floor again like last time. It was still pretty nasty, though. What a literal bunch of crap!

I didn’t get jack shit for sleep last night. When I got home it was 0330, but I was too amped up and gross-feeling to go back to sleep. I cleaned myself up, ate breakfast, and tried to bivouac but that was epic fail so I ended up watching some news and sports low-lights of the Patriots loss from the day before. The Pats were an undefeated 10-0, but now they’ve lost 2 in a row. What a bunch of crap! Oh well, they are still in first place by a lot.

I had other apartment work to do yesterday, but I made time to go back over to that house to dig around the line as much as possible. Of course there is concrete in there so today I need to chisel that out with my hammer drill. What a bunch of crap! Bruce looked at it with me yesterday afternoon to get an idea how to make a workable solution and this afternoon he and I are going to have at it. Hopefully we can get it going today, and hopefully we don’t need to do some major excavation to get at everything. This repair could end up being very costly if things don’t go my way. Like, thousands of dollars and lots of time costly. This fucking sucks. What a bunch of crap!

I’m sitting in the waiting area at Midas now, hoping they can give me some better news regarding Kat’s vehicle. We got a quote for $875 for brake, ABS, and other repairs from the dealership where we bought the vehicle in Waterville so we’re hoping to do better here. It’s a 2007 Mercury Mountaineer, and we got it used just over a year ago. We even got the extended warranty because it gave us a better interest rate and peace of mind, but of course brake work is not covered. What a bunch of crap! Those extended warranties are normally pure profit for the company, but we took the bait because it was a good deal once the rate dropped from 4.99 way down to 2.99% for a 48-month loan. Plus on a used vehicle we figured odds were good something would go wrong and now it has. Unfortunately it had to be the brakes that aren’t covered under warranty. What a bunch of crap!

I really hope I can get this sewer line situated today. In addition to that large issue I have had several other smaller things to deal with. Tub needed caulking, door not closing right, window pane cracked, faucet not working, shower leaking, etc etc. Seems like every time I see a tenant lately it’s something that takes up my precious… precious time. Oh well, it’s my job so it’s not unexpected, but gods damn it I wish it could all wait until I get the home renovation under control a bit more.

On Sunday we found a new home for Crowley. I’m severely time pwned so I won’t write about that this time, but I will say that I think it was a good decision and he will be well loved and cared for.

In conclusion I still don’t have enough free time and I might be totally screwed if this sewer line turns into a huge project requiring excavation to the street. Hopefully Bruce can work some magic for me later today. What a bunch of crap!

Friday, 12-04-15: At the shop with the truck.
I’m getting new front brake pads and rotors put on my badass F150 so I’m in the waiting area at the auto shop here in Bangor. Bye bye $327 for that, and I dropped $740 for new tires 1.5 weeks ago so this truck is setting me back more than a few greenbacks. Registration was $150 yesterday at the town office, and a new driver’s license was $30 at the DMV a couple weeks ago. Oh, insurance is also $61.25 a month (for both of our vehicles. Not bad for full coverage!) Having wheels is expensive gods damn it. I should just take the bus, walk, or taxi. However, I don’t think I can run my bootleg slumlord business without my truck so nevermind. Kat’s Mountaineer still needs $875 in work, too. What a bunch of crap!

^Generic stock Interweb photo of a black F150 like what I have. I probably have a photo of my truck somewhere, but I don't know where. My truck has a Track Rack on it, too.

Overall my truck has been good to me so I can’t cry too much. If I can get another 5 years out of the thing before it starts to rust away and fall apart then great. I love my truck and would definitely buy another one just like it when the time comes. I don’t baby the thing, that’s for sure. I use it often for loads of debris, tools, supplies, etc. I was hoping to also use it to haul a deer to the house after a stop at Van Raymond’s to tag my trophy, but I only have a week more left to hunt if I wanna make that dream a reality. Odds are against me bigtime at this point. I suck!

Today has been one of those days where I’ve been nickeled and dimed on my time management so I haven’t accomplished too much. I did have some bootleg apartment things to take care of earlier, but thankfully nothing too difficult. I got a call last night at 2330 from one of my tenants. She was worried that her plumbing drains were backed up and they “might be frozen or something” because the downstairs toilet was slow to flush. It’s the same property where this debacle happened about 5 weeks ago so I expected the worst:

^Shit covered in lime; it blew out of that white PVC pipe that now has a cap on it. What a bunch of crap!

I got there this morning expecting to be pwned, but much to my delighted surprise things seemed just fine. The toilet flushed like normal, and I filled the tub and listened to the main line drain down in the basement just to be sure. No problems. Sweet! If their main line clogs again I will have to replace a big section of the thing so I’m hopeful it will be okay for years to come or, at the very least, until the spring when I will have more money and time to deal with it. If the line does need to be replaced we will have to dig, and digging in the winter = epic fail and of course more greenbacks going bye bye.

These tenants can be totally ridiculous at times, but they are nice and they always pay so I don’t mind. One of them must have dropped a mega-deuce last night and that caused the thing to run slow so they assumed the worst and got on the phone ASAP. They also told me that the towel rod in the bathroom came loose again so I had to reattach that. It took 5 minutes and was a cinch so all I wanna know is why? Why can’t her man take care of that stuff? When I rented I never would have called my landlord scumlord to come over and tighten a screw on a towel rack. What a bunch of crap! For $1290 a month I can deal with it and then some. No prob, thanks for the rent, and now we can afford a timeshare on the Caribbean Sea. The power of positive thinking!

^I will wade through shit on occasion if I can make enough money to put food on the table, a roof over our heads, some cheap beer in the fridge, and maybe if things go well a little extra for an occasional vacation.

These guys need to put a wiggle on it here at the shop because hanging out here isn’t too fun. I wanna go home and bivouac since I didn’t get much sleep last night. A nap before tonight’s gig would be great since it will be another late night. We got home from Tag’s at 0130 and by the time we got unloaded and settled it must have been after 0200. Revielle was 0630 so I could take Katherine to school and go look at that apartment false alarm. Katherine was sick so no school for her, but I did still need to go over to that apartment. Thankfully that apartment was easy so I could go to my office to do some paperwork, to use the gym, and to lay out the rest of my December business budget. The rest of my gas bills came in the mail this morning, and I scored a bonus on that front. Last year at this time my bill for all the rentals was $1447, but this year it was literally half that. Oh Jesus, hell ya! A gas bill totaling $720 this time of year is a win for me, bigtime. November was milder than average, much more-so than last November, and the price gouge per therm from Bangor Gas was lower. No plow bill for November either; last December I had a $300 plowing bill to pay because November was brutal. What a bunch of crap!

The extended forecast is fantastic for this time of year. Let’s hope the prediction hold true for the next 10-14 days and it stays above average with no snow. That will especially help this year because I don’t have heat out in the renovation at the house yet so I will use less kerosene in the space heater as I do my insulating, sheetrocking, and mudding/taping/sanding. I don’t need heat out there to insulate and sheetrock when it’s in the 30s and 40s, but I need it when it gets very cold. Of course I can’t mud without heat or the end result would be epic fail. I’m hoping that by the time it does get really cold again I will have the furnace all hooked up and operational out there. Fingers crossed I can keep my contractors motivated.

Wednesday, 12-02-15: At The Roost in Orono.
Kat started a brand new karaoke gig tonight, and I am hanging out with her at a place called The Roost in Orono. It’s a college town for sure, and I can tell you that from personal experience. UMaine is only a mile away from this bar, but when I went to the university up here I never went to this bar. It might have had a different name way back then in the late 90s and early 2000s when I was a student, but I lived off campus and never hung around in Orono so I have no idea. I did drink up here with Gavin an few times back then, but mostly I was hanging out in Brewer at my bootleg apartment. That was way back before I even dreamed I would one day own that building. I moved in September 1, 1998 and signed a lease to rent the 3BR apt. for $545 a month with heat included. Now I rent out that same apartment for $970 a month. Wow!

This bar is okay I guess. I can get on the Interweb and hang out in the corner so at least I can get a few things done while I watch drunk people sing. I am seriously connected to someone’s server/router that is named VAGINA BOOBS ON YOUR FACE. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! College students who live in an apartment nearby? My guess is a definite yes.

It wasn’t busy at all to start here, but now at 2320 it’s picked up some. They have a beer on tap called Coney Island Root Beer that tastes really good. I’ve never had alcoholic root beer before, have I not lived life to its fullest or what? Oh wait I married Kat so of course I have. Soon the college will be on Christmas break so there will be a karaoke break during that time. Then when Kat starts back up later in January I will be doing taxes so I won’t be able to tag along with her This winter is gonna suck!

^Tastes like regular root beer, but will get you drunk. At $4.50 a pint from the tap I definitely won't drink these on a regular basis!

I have been adding some B-vents to my online shopping cart, and tomorrow I will take a few more measurements and finalize the order. No place locally sells the stuff, at least not that I know of, and it’s probably cheaper online anyway. Some of my order will come from Home Depot and some will come from Amazon. The prices vary quite a bit from seller to seller. For example, a 5” B-vent 90 sells for about $12 on hopedepot.com, but that same elbow is $25 and up on Amazon.com. All I wanna know is why? Why does that gotta happen? AMAZON IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST PRICE YOU MUDDA FUCKAS. [Joe Peschi voice from Casino.] What a bunch of crap!
I need heat in our soon-to-be functional home addition ASAP. Kat’s studio would have been 100% done today, but the flooring was pissing me off so I quit and installed most of the sheetrock in the soon-to-be laundry room instead. Sometimes that gods damned Pergo style flooring does not want to stay snapped together, especially at the start, so I swear a lot and act like a baby. Fortunately there wasn’t an urgent need for me to finish the floor in the studio today because there still is not heat out there. Now that I am getting paid for that roof job I will have money to pay for the furnace install at our house, and that is priority #1. Bruce ran some ducts already, but I still need a plenum and the B-vent for the exhaust fumes.

I only have about a month left before the Jackson Hewitt job starts, and after that I am time-pwned. That means whatever isn’t done on the home addition will have to wait until spring. I’m perfectly fine with some things like siding and maybe a hallway not being done, but everything else needs to get finished. In order of importance I need to finish at minimum: Kat’s 16.5x13-foot studio (mostly done!), the 8x8 laundry/utility room (mostly sheetrocked now, but not mudded and taped yet.), the entryway downstairs (not even fully insulated yet, and some wiring remains), Katherine’s 13x11 bedroom upstairs (sheetrocked with some mud and taping done), and the upstairs 8x5 bathroom (not even insulated yet!) There will be a second bedroom upstairs along with a pantry/closet and a hallway with room for a possible little kitchenette, but all that can wait until next year. If I can get some of that done this month then bonus for me. Right now it seems unlikely any of that will happen until 2016, though.

I worked a full 8-hour day on the home renovation today. Nice! Normally I can’t do that because I have apartment work to do, Katherine needs a ride, we have appointments, I want to use the gym or deer hunt, etc. (I’d go crazy if I didn’t make a little time for myself.) However, today was the perfect storm of sorts for me and I got shit done. I won’t get as much done tomorrow because I will be tired from staying up until 0200 tonight, but that’s okay all I want to do tomorrow is finish the last little bit of sheetrock install in the laundry room and get a coat of mud on all of those walls. In a perfect world I’d have that laundry room 100% done and painted within a week, but nevermind because I NEED FUCKING HEAT VENTS IN THAT ROOM SO HEATING GUY GET YOUR ASS MOTIVATED OR ELSE GET YOUR ASS HAULED ON.

I wish Gary didn’t retire and move to Florida. I need a good heating contractor. Bruce is a good plumber who knows some heating stuff, but even he admits he can’t install my furnace and run schematics as far as what size/how many vents I need in each room. I have this new heating guy, Bob, and he seems knowledgeable. Unfortunately, he has a sick wife and is trying to juggle all his customers so he can’t ever make time for me. What a bunch of crap! It’s time for him to shit or get off the pot because I need this furnace installed ASAP. I do feel badly that his wife isn’t doing well and I can relate, but at the same time I need my work done. I met him two frigging months ago and it’s still not done. What a bunch of crap!