12/14/07

Well, Pat came through with an answer for what a “pie piece” is called. He sent me an e-mail which said, “In mechanical drawing the pie shaped piece is a spandrel.” So there you have it. Ok, now that we have that out of the way, I guess I can move on to other things. Did I mention my Sunny wheel center caps came in the other day? Wait, did they come in yesterday? No, they came the other day but mom wasn’t home to sign for them and they were re-delivered yesterday. Yeah, that was it. So there was no way I could have told y'all they had arrived. Ok, so my Sunny wheel center caps arrived yesterday. They are a tad smaller than I expected so I'm hoping they will fit the Appliance wheels. I think they are Appliance. Whatever they are, I hope the centers fit. We’ll finger out something I'm sure. I need to finger out why that one went flat so quickly. No, I need to finish George before doing anything else to Marty. Someone asked me the other day if I'd ever gotten that car part I was waiting for from Australia. I assumed I had mentioned the fiasco with the DCOE to turbo manifold I bought from the guy who didn’t accept PayPal and all the machinations I went through to get that done. I told the dude, that would be the one asking about it the other day, that I did finally get the part and have it installed on the car but it still isn't running. He gave me a blank look like, “How can you fiddle fart around and not have it running?” I told him I had a list of about twenty items which still need doing but I'm just not making myself do them. Well, I need to make myself do them. Of course the house work screwed up last weekend and I'm afeared it is going to do it again this weekend. We’ll see. Well, I'm supposed to meet the CEO’s wife in a meeting room in twenty minutes to help get music playing for something. I guess I should go. Better to be early for that one I'd think. I'll be back later. Ok, the meeting with Mrs. CEO went well enough. I got the music playing for her and left a business card so she can call if something goes wrong. Of course, it was someone else’s business card! Not really, I left mine. Now I'm waiting for noon so I can go to lunch. So, what can I talk about? I need to have another look at the Burkett shop layout, the new one that is, and see if there will still be enough parking spaces. Wait, of course there will. I'm sure Fifi and George will fit in the drive between the shop and the house. Mr. Wiggly and the trailer will still go on the back porch. The Seven will still have its spot in the main garage. Matilda can park behind the Seven until mom’s car vacates the other spot in the main garage. I don’t need to move the machine shop and tools and stuff into the main garage. Ok, so I think I might just have a plan in mind. Of course, as with all my plans, this is subject to change and should in no way be believed to be the way things will work out. First off, I'll have the sprinkler system on the south side of the house removed. Next I'll have a retaining wall built five feet of the property line to level the yard. Then I'll have concrete poured forming the driveway around to the back porch, an extension of said porch out to the pecan tree, and the foundation for the building. I'll probably have concrete filled poles set in to protect the A/C unit while I'm at it. I'll have a 36’x20’ garage erected. The north face of that garage will have two 10’ rollup doors and one man door. The rollups will be on opposite ends of the wall with the man door in the middle. This will make three 12’x20’ bays, the center one being the machine shop and tool area while the two on the ends will be the working/parking bays. If I install a lift, it will be in the front/east/left bay. Aw, who am I kidding? I'll probably install lifts in both bays just to double the parking space! If Marty is on the lift above George, then the Chickenhawk can go on a lift above Fifi and the only things outside will be Mr. Wiggly and the trailer. Of course, that would be after mom’s car is out of the main garage. No matter how the thing gets arranged, there is going to be some major shuffling going on to get cars out. Well, we’ll see. Hey, if I took out the tub in the upstairs bathroom and replaced it with a shower, I could put in a door to the deck for direct bathroom access! I'd want some access from the house that didn’t go through the master bedroom, or my current bedroom for that matter. I did have a look at my closet to see if it was wide enough to be made into a hall for deck access. I think it would be, but it also wouldn’t take much to expand it. I mean if I'm closing it off anyway, why not? “Why would you close off the closet and make it into a hallway?” I hear you asking. Well, if I convert that room into the theater it won’t need that closet, will it? Of course that would mean making the downstairs room back into a bedroom. Well, no it wouldn’t, actually. I could still make the downstairs room into the “Victorian Gentlemen’s Club” sort of thing I had in mind, which I now realize I never mentioned to y'all. Anyhoo, I could do that, make my current room into the theater, and say, “It’s the next owner's problem if there aren’t enough bedrooms. Let them convert something back.” I'd have the master bedroom and the guest bedroom at the end of the hall next to my current bedroom. That’s already one more bedroom than my cat and I need. So there. That really is way too big of a house for just me and a cat. Oh well, what are you going to do? So what do I mean by “Victorian Gentlemen’s Club?” Let me ‘splain. I want a room with dark paneled walls, lots of books, several leather wing-back chairs, and a few small round tables between them so we can sit around smoking pipes and cigars saying, “Bully!” and “Tut, tut” to ideas tossed about while sipping Port or Sherry and such. My original thought was the current dining room just off the kitchen but I like the downstairs room better now. It already has dark paneling and bookshelves. Not to mention outside access and sufficient distance to keep pipe and cigar smoke away from the kitchen. Of course if I installed a spiral staircase up to the master bedroom, which I can’t remember if I ever mentioned either, oops, I would probably ban the pipes and cigars after all. Again, we’ll see. Ok, I've been to lunch and am back. I've been thinking the whole time about the theater and hallway to the deck. I like it. Here’s why, I've always wanted secret passages and multiple escape routes in my home. Well, this plan wouldn’t get me any secret passages but it would give each bedroom access to the outside world without having to go downstairs in the house. The master bedroom would have a door to the deck and the guest bedroom would have the hall out to the deck. I guess I ought to mention that I plan to have a staircase going down from the deck, probably straddling the A/C unit. Hey, that would provide some protection for the A/C without having to resort to concrete filled poles. I like it. Well, I'm needed across the street so I think I'm going to call it a rant and say, “Smell ya later!”