3/28/2011

Well, after talking with Nitro again on Friday evening, I think I'm going to just go with an office, shitter, and shower instead of the whole apartment. Here’s my thinking, the whole reason for going ahead with the building at this time is to move out of Beenbroke, right? I can't move out of the Burkett house for another five years, right? Why am I building a superfluous apartment in the corner of the shop, eating up a bunch of shop space while I'm at it, when I don't need it? It makes no sense. So, having come to that realization, I went to talk to Nitro again on Friday evening... oh, I already said that. OK, so we sat down and he fingered up “all” the costs to get this thing built. I don't have the breakdown in front of me but it came to right at $100,000.00, ready to move in. Now, what is worrying me is how he’s talking about permits... or I should say, NOT talking about permits. He mentioned a few times “knowing so and so with the city” and other worrisome things like that. I don't know what to think about it. Anyhoo, on Saturday mom was going to Boyd to my cousin’s kid’s birthday party and I asked her to talk to my cousin-in-law about the building. Apparently, he and his brother are in construction as well. Who knew? He confirmed that it IS within the city limits (gotta have permits and meet code), he knows who and what to make the permits happen, and there IS city sewer and water (but I've got to pay to connect from FM730 to my building). Then mom told him the price I was quoted. He says he can do it for less. Now, I'm not 100% sure mom made it clear that the $100k is ready to move in. He might be thinking that is just the building. If so, yeah, that’s about $20,000.00 high. I need to sit down with him and have a chat some time. OK, so that’s what mom did and the story of the building so far. Saturday morning I went to the shop and loaded up my engine hoist and an L-16 John needed at his house. Pat helped me shove Lil' Wiggly back into the shop when I was done and then I headed to John's. I dropped off the engine and picked up his hoist then headed to Gregg's. At Gregg's I dropped off my hoist and headed home. I thought about swinging by Boyd but was in a rush to get to Emily’s camp out and back to Fort Worth for Gallery Night. See, I'd gotten an e-mail from my friend Amy inviting me to do this annual Art Gallery Crawl thing right about the time I was looking for an excuse to not stay the night on the camp out. She also promised a different Amy might be joining them along the way, which was even more incentive for me. I hauled ass home from Gregg's and took a shower then headed to Cedar Hill where the group was camping. I got there and hung out for a while. Eventually I realized I wasn't going to make it back for Gallery Night after all. I texted Amy and gave her the bad news. I wound up hanging out at the campsite until at least 2230 h. Rob and I had a good time playing with the fire until everyone crashed out. Sunday I goofed off until mom got home then she and I went to the Black Eyed Pea for lunch. After that I took The U.N.C.L.E Gun out and shot about 200 rounds to sight in the new scope. I think I have it sighted pretty well... better than I am able to hold steady, that is for sure. I had one ten-round group inside a quarter at fifteen yards but most were a slightly bigger spread. I think I could bring down enough squirrels and such to keep my belly full if need be, so I've got that going for me. After that, I cleaned the gun and wasted the evening. I sat through an episode of “The Simpsons” for the first time in years. I actually laughed at one point too. Of course it wasn't during the show. It was a commercial for Conan O’Brien’s talk show where he said, “Welcome to what the critics are calling, ‘A show on television.’” I still giggle at that. Anyhoo, now we’re in a new week and about to finish out another month. I'm not sure what I'm going to have to talk about for the rest of the week, but if Spiderman doesn't get his computer up and running, it won't matter anyway. So there.