Never buy a house at a fire sale.

With the previous tenants moving out at the end of May, graduating, job moves, etc, my old home near USF was empty for the first time since I moved there in almost 12 years. I decided to take the time to remodel it a but and update things before getting new tenants for the Fall semester. Since this was before I got my full-time job in June, I had a little time. After the job, I had to come over early in the morning or on weekends. The first order of business was to get rid of all the old carpet upstairs. Putting down new carpet would be cheaper, but then I'd have to do the same thing again in another few years of constant use, so I decided to just replace it all with tile. Once I got the carpet off the stairs to replace with wood laminate flooring, I saw how bad a condition they were. So at that point the project got even more complicated when I decided to completely replace the stairs and just stain them. This was a major PITA and I had to hire a carpenter friend for some of the finer points or measuring, cutting, and placement, but I think the end result came out well. I repainted all the bedrooms, fixed holes in the wall, replaced all the old windows with new energy efficient ones, cut up and removed the old hot tub (I needed the parts for the hot tub at my current home and honestly didn't want to deal with the liability and maintenance any more), landscaped the yard, replaced the toilet with an efficient dual-flush model, and numerous other little fixes. I was finally able to get everything finished and cleaned up the morning the first new tenant came it. Though it sucked to not have the income for the summer, I think the place looks a lot better and can be a good home environment (and rental producer) for many more years.

Before Pics

After Pics

Falling in love is easy; climbing out is a pain

After running 7 straight miles yesterday, a personal record for a single running distance in one stint, I decided to physically punish myself a bit more by joining the Tampa Adventure Group for the monthly meetup at the Vertical Ventures indoor climbing area. It had been a long, long time since I had been here, so I really had to dig to find my old harness. Most of the participants had never been climbing, so they took the class that "showed them the ropes" regarding safety and technique. It is amazing how just an hour or so of climbing can deaden one's arms; well at least my own. After the climbs, I had to visit a few tile and flooring places so I could find the materials I needed for the remodeling project and finally purchase everything and get it loaded. I finally got everything unloaded at the house (I don't even want to think how much 580 ft^3 of tile with the accompanying cement board, thin-set bags, and grout may weigh). Guess I know what I'll be doing over the next few weeks, but it'll be nice to have a decent house available for rent once again.

Every man reaps what he sows, except the amateur gardener.

I decided to try putting in a summer garden since it had been many years since I last had something set up. I spent part of the afternoon clearing out the sunny spots in front of the garage and pulling out old elephant ear plants and a few shriveled up pineapple plants that never really produced much. I put down some old window screen to hopefully make the weeding more manageable and hope that I can remember to keep them watered. I'll probably hit Home Depot on the way home and pick up an automatic water timer and hope it can do some good. If things work out, then by the middle of June I should have tomatoes (large and even cherry size), cucumbers, and bell peppers.

If things don't work out I'll put in a Japanese rock garden since I don't think I'll be able to kill that.

I don't know if we'll ever cure proverty, but the way prices and taxes are going we're sure to cure wealth.

I finally got my taxes finished last night at 3AM and am glad to have been able to catch up on one of my biggest, 'need to do' items on my list. I'd let a lot of things lapse over the years, so it was good to have this beast finished. I was even able to get in my maximum $5000 IRA contribution (money I won't see again for 35 years but helps save a good bit in current taxes) set up at my new favorite banking institution, Pentagon Federal Credit Union. Not only did they have about the best current rates on CDs, but I also just picked up a credit card through them that has the best cash rewards program right now. My old Citibank dividend credit card simply gave me a basic 1% cash back on my purchases, however I had to wait until $50 worth of rewards accrued before I could request a check. This new card not only provides 5% back in gas purchases (saving about 11 cents a gallon at current prices) but also 2% in grocery store and drugstore purchases and 1.25% on all other purchases. The nice part is that the cash back is applied to the credit card balance every month, so I don't have to wait any period of time to get the benefit.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been busting out the home cleaning and repair projects that have been put off for far, far too long and cost me more than I would have expected in terms of the delay. I've caught up on finishing the kitchen cabinet baseboards, repainting most of the baseboards in the house, scrubbing the floors and cleaning out old grout, repainting/touching up the walls, and various other things. I've also been spending my days at a new potential job location and even traveled to Sebastian for a day trip to get involved with a property management project on Monday as my first official task, pics below. On Tuesday I attended a pre-audit as an opportunity to learn a bit more and participate in the process. Sometimes the small things have to be fixed before the bigger things can sink in, but I do have a certain optimism for the future; which right now is pretty much all I have. I'm a bit excited and saddened at the same time; excited for the opportunities that might be coming up soon and saddened for the things lost, even old free time, but it is indeed progress.

Does pirate software come with a treasure map?

Several of the folks from Team Go-Go came over the house this weekend to use the garage space and tools to construct and put together a pirate ship for the 'Relay for Life' event next weekend. Other than helping to do some cutting and pulling out tools, I really wasn't much involved in the construction, however Kristen did do much of the concept design and outlining for the prop. After the team was finished Sunday they put the pieces up so the paint could dry, so I spent a little time today doing some touch-up and building the framing support so it would be free standing. It took a few hours, but it was kind of fun to be able to work on a project like this since all i had to do was put a few pieces together like a large-piece puzzle.

Every new project requires a tool that you don't have.

Today was a day of working on some home projects and catching up on overall tasks. Kristen decided to repaint the bird cage for Zoey and to pressure wash the bird stand while I worked on a few things. I finally got the backyard fence readjusted since a corner of it was over the property line and the neighbor behind the house recently decided to put up a privacy fence and thus needed to be moved, which was fine.

Finally finished that dam project!

One of the neat features of the place my father got in Riverview was a creek running through the tail end of the property edge by the river and flowing under the boathouse. It had a flowing spring with a small cavern (I checked and could only squeeze in about 6 feet) right on the property line and just downstream of a dam the neighbor put up early last year. The creek and river are tidally influenced and would fill up and drain a few times a day. The irrigation pump had the intake in the creek and dad already once forgot to turn the pump off and sucked in air so the impeller had to be replaced. He decided to put in his own dam so to better increase the aesthetic value by having not only a constant bit of standing water, but also a waterfall effect as well.

We spent a while getting supplies and designing the dam and worked on it over several weeks. It was a tough, tough project where we had to dig into the banks a few feet and through the creek mud into the hard bottom so to build the foundation. After pouring the foundation and having it set, we came back in to put in the block to build up the rest of it. We had to wait until the early part of the year when there are the longest periods of time between the tides and were still always working against the clock. Finally after the blocks were poured, empty cells filled in with concrete and everything had cured, I had to go in to put in the limestone and slate pieces to create a more natural look. I already designed the dam so there was a 4 inch drain pipe, but I also put in a small 1/2 inch pipe, further reduced to just a small hole drilled into a cap pointing up, so that there would be a fountain effect whenever the tide was low, and a boiling look whenever it was high. Overall I am very pleased with how the project turned out. Whenever the rains return, I suspect there will be a fairly decent water flow through the spillway at times. I got it measured so that our spillway was just 2-3 inches below the spill way of the neighbor's dam so that there would be two flowing waterfalls during periods of high flow.

Hot water heater? Why do you need to heat hot water?

After a good bit of research, I finally decided to install a solar water heater in the house. I had started to see signs of the water heater that was already about 20 years old (since they often have a life span of 15-20 years anyway). When I was in Australia last March, I noticed that most of the homes actually had a solar water heating system installed and being in a very sunny area of the country, it makes sense to use it. The local electric company is also looking to increase rates by 20-30% by the beginning of next year. I have 4 adults in my home and figure that heating the water is a fairly significant amount of my bill. A lot of the marketing estimates suggest that

I was fortunate in that even though most of my home is shaded by oak trees, the area directly above the water heater stays sunny most of the day and is already on the south side of the home. I researched many different units such as Fafco, SolaHart (made in Perth, which explains why I saw pretty much only this in Australia), and Guardian. The Fafco unit did not impress me at all since it seemed to be nothing more than the same tubes used for a pool heating system, yet very expensive at and estimate of $5,500. I had liked the SolaHart and the simple thermosiphon system, but being in hurricane prone Florida, I didn't want a unit that required the storage tank to be on the roof; also considering any additional structural support that might be required. It was also pretty expensive with only one local company installing it and at a quoted price of about $6,700. Ouch. One surprising thing was that few of the sales people with whom I spoke really seemed to understand their products and the associated nuances outside of the marketing materials. When I started asking about Btu/ft² and how their product compares to others, they often had no clue as to what I meant, even though all products were rated at the Florida Solar Energy Center.

I did quite a bit of calling around to get prices and found that the fluctuated quite a bit on even the same system, so it really does pay to research options. I settled on getting a Guardian (using a flat plate collector) system installed. Estimates were as high as $5,900 - 5,500, however I was able to find one at $4,500 before finally getting to Advanced Solar Construction at $4,250. There is a federal tax credit for 30% of the installation cost, so after this year taxes are paid, I'd get a credit of $1,275 (lowering the out-of-pocket cost to $2,975). Florida is supposed to have a $500 refund available as well, but apparently the money for the program has been depleted for this year as well as next year, so all I can do is get on the list and hope it is eventually renewed, which would bring my install cost to ~$2,500. Getting a new water heater and installing it would have probably cost me at least $400, so overall my extra cost is about $2100. If I save on average $50 a month in my electric bill (though most marketing materials claim $20 per person per month) at just the current electrical rates, then it would take about 3.5 - 4 years to pay for itself. I tend to try to estimate worst case (part of my general pessimism), so I'm expecting on the outside just about a 5 year return period, but would of course be happy if it was less. Some estimate a 6-9 year return depending on location for soalr heating systems in general, so I'm pretty pleased with my deal. It may seem like a bit of money to spend at first, but right now it is a much better interest/return rate than I could get in any savings account or CD, plus I can feel good about reducing environmental impact. I really wish more people would look at overall cost of operating something other than just the initial purchase price.

On Friday the company came out to do the install. They removed the old 50 gallon water heater, installed a new, special 80 gallon tank, the solar collector on the roof, and did all the plumbing. Getting the large tank in place was a tight squeeze as the closet had just enough space to slide it in with not even an inch on either side to spare. I still have to install my own electrical outlet box to operate the pump since that wasn't part of the contract, but that is simple enough to do anyway. It took three guys most of the day to complete and I was fairly impressed with the work. It'll take a few days before I really learn the system and figure out how beneficial it may be, but so far I am pleased with it. I'm hoping that during the relative hotter months that I may be able to operate the system with the backup electric element completely switched off without any notice.

In a hurricane, you can fly anything. Landing is the problem though.

I've been working a bit over at the Alafia River house on various projects for a few weeks. One of the bigger projects was the installation of a front driveway gate. We'd been searching Craig's List for a while and found a large gate in Sarasota that I picked up a month or so back and did the welding earlier in the month. It took a bit of calling, but found a metal supply place that had 6" square tubing to be used as a vertical support as well as online searches for the hinges that could take the weight. After a lot of digging, concrete mixing, and leveling, we finally got it installed. Then we had to do the digging to install the code panel, egress button, and control box. The last bit was to bring out the generator and drill through 1/4" steel to install the necessary brackets before putting in the opener. After all the work, the gate has been installed with the last of the work involving just burying 800 feet of 12v cable to the nearest electrical outlet to install a transformer for the control unit.

While working on the gate Saturday, for whatever reason a seemingly healthy tree decided to give up the ghost and fell right onto the workshop. Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fay had brought in some rains, but there was almost no wind when the tree fell and it wasn't raining at the time, so I'm not sure what caused it. A large hole was punched through the ridge line as well as by the soffit. I had to go up to the roof and as it was raining cut apart enough of the tree so that I could put in a temporary tarp. Now the beginning of my week is spent cutting out the broken roofing, putting in new pieces, and reinstalling new shingles.

Joan of Arc was the patron saint of welding.

For a few hours this ring dad and I worked in the garage of a few projects. A couple of weeks ago he had me pick up a large gate that we're going to install in the driveway at my father's place. It was a 16 foot gate, however we decided to cut off 13 feet in order to reduce weight and the necessity to cut out more of the wooded area since it was a bit overkill as is. We cut off one side followed by a short section and then had to weld beck on the side piece. Welding can be fun, but it is also a lot of work, scraping, welding, tapping, etc. We also picked up some 6"x6" metal post about 10 feet long to weld on the hinges.

Video arcade Christmas carol: "Chest guts roasting as I open fire..."

In the midst of getting ready for the trip up north for a week, I had been researching the building of a Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. This is basically a computer system that runs gaming emulators to simulate the operating system of arcade games, home gaming consoles, pinball machines, etc. With much of the gameroom complete, I started considering the idea of building one more and more and started scanning Craig's list for some cheap arcade cabinets so I could get some ideas.

On a whim, I searched for the term 'MAME' and found an ad listed. By pure chance I was able to find something that nearly matched my dream machine almost identically. Luck was quite with me as I it seems the owner was just about to have the birth of his third child within the next few days and was in need of a bit of money and the space. So, on Friday morning I started driving at 6AM the 45 minutes to his place to pick up the machine. Sure, I could spend just about the same amount of money plus a few months of work to make my own, but I really don't think that I could do any better of a job that this, so I am quite happy with it.

The owner was an electrical engineer who had built it (and another couple previously) himself and had it quite well designed. The computer itself was a WinXP machine with 2500+ processor, and had the graphical frontend, emulators, and a few thousand games aready set up. It has a blue-lit trackball, 4 player controls, and even side buttons in place for virtual pinball to simulate flipper positions and shot plunger. It is fairly complex and it will take me quite a while to figure it out through a lot of trial and error. Even the 4 coin slots work!

Dad came over to give me a hand in loading and as soon as that was done I had to get back to packing for the trip since I needed to head to the airport with Kristen by 3 o'clock. It was hard not to get a chance to play, but I'm sure there will be time later. I took a few pictures of the rest of the nearly completed room and took off to meet with Kristen at work. I think the place is finally starting to show some promise and come closer to what we've had in mind. there is still a lot of work to do from adding the chair molding to building the shelves behind the bar, but it is all getting closer.

The flights were fairly uneventful even though we almost got bumped in Denver on the way to Rapid City. We picked up the rental car and headed towards Deadwood/Lead and Terry Peak where Kristen's parents had rented a large place for a few days. The GPS worked perfectly in getting us exactly where we needed to be and it was quite nice to be able to drive in and finally get a chance to rest after having been up and constantly moving for the past 20 hours.