I think I found my new home!

[Onkel Neal]

How deep is the mud?

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

How deep is the mud?

That would depend on the saturation level of the honey pit.

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

How deep is the mud?

Not sure.
No one has ever come back from there to tell me.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

OOO RAH!

Good man your papa.

I spent a significant portion of my early childhood in the basement and/or garage and/or mechanic's pit with him. Did I mention he had a mechanic's pit? Yeah, he built a second detached garage at our old house and dug a mechanic's pit in the floor so he could work on the cars without having to crawl under them. Oh, did I mention he and Mom also built the old house themselves? They hired in contractors or rented machinery sometimes for the really big jobs, but anything they could do themselves, they did. That was before I was born though.

Dad was also a licensed electrician, although it wasn't his full-time job - he did side jobs for people but mostly it was just something he enjoyed knowing how to do. After WWII he used the GI Bill to pay for the training.

Of course he didn't buy any tool cabinets, he just made them all himself.

If he were alive now and younger he'd probably be taking computers apart and putting them back together again. The Tinkerer's Gene: I came by it honestly.

Originally Posted by privateer

Watch it frau! Neal's only looking for a place to park his Suzuki while in Ohio!

He'll have to get in line behind Wolferz's RV.

But enough jibber jabber: I have dire news, friends. Today the thing I had come to fear the most finally came to pass.

Yes, today was the day I finally locked myself out of the condo.

I was getting ready to leave and had locked everything up when I decided to break down and bundle up all the trash and boxes from all the stuff I've been putting together, and put it in the back of the car and toss it in the dumpster here at the apt building when I got back. Trash doesn't go until Wednesday at the condo and I wanted to get it out of there so I figured, why not.

Anyway I went out into the garage to open the trunk and you know those door locks that will open from the inside even if they are locked from the outside? Yeah, turns out the door from the condo into the garage is one of those. It's also a big heavy door that is designed to shut by itself when you go in and out.

You can guess the rest.

And I've been so careful, never ever going out of the place without making sure I had the keys in my pocket. But I must've laid them on the counter after deciding to gather up the boxes and other Ikea detritus. And I've been telling myself that I should get a copy of that door key made and hide it somewhere in the garage, just in case. But of course I haven't done that yet.

Anyway - there I am in the garage, locked out of the condo, in a t-shirt and jeans and ratty old slippers and no socks, with all my keys - including those to the car and apartment and office -and my purse and my phone in the condo where they are doing me no good whatsoever. AND IT'S RAINING.

So I went around to the neighbor's front door as I've said "hey" to them outside a few times so I know they'll recognize me. They're not home. Next condo, no doorbell and no lights on. Next condo, lights are on and I can see a TV playing through the front window. Yay!

Now here's the good part of this catastrophe - the neighbor there turned out to be the sweetest little lady, who heard my tale of woe and welcomed me in with open arms, gave me her phone and the Yellow Pages, and then insisted that I come in and get warm and dry. She got me a drink. She offered me Nutty Bars. And we had a lovely little chat while I waited for the emergency locksmith to show up. She also told me a little about the other neighbors in our row, all of whom she says are lovely people who have helped each other out on many occasions. She said she'd seen me carrying stuff in and wanted to come up and say "hi" but she could see I was always busy when I was there and she didn't want to intrude when I was trying to get settled.

Then when the locksmith called back to say he was waiting outside my condo she showed me out through her garage so I wouldn't have so far to walk in the rain, gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and told me that she used to serve on the board of the HOA and to let her know if I had any problems. What a thoroughly wonderful person!

Anyhoo in due time the locksmith got the door opened and got paid and left me his name and number in case I need any more locksmithing done and I got back in and dried off a bit and finished up what I was doing and came on home. But what could have been a nightmare (and was, for about ten minutes) turned into an unexpected and enjoyable encounter and I got to know one of my neighbors.

Oh, and I also put the two bookshelves together:





I laid them back down on their sides (and haven't put the shelves in, obviously) to keep them out of the way until I can decide exactly where they're going to go, since I'll probably anchor them to the wall once they're in place and I only want to do that once. Also need to clean up the wall and baseboards a bit before I put anything there. Plus the guy switching on my internet may need access to the phone jack along that wall and I don't want to stand them up and then have to move them to give him space to work.

The only thing left from Ikea right now that isn't put together is the bed base, but that is a LOT of pieces and I was just too tired to even look at the instructions today.

Once I get that thing I need for the hole saw I hope to get the desk finished and in place. Also took another 6-7 boxes of books over today. Now with some of the smaller shelves empty in the apartment I can either take them over to the condo and stow them somewhere or just throw out the cheapo ones I won't be keeping. That will free up some space around my desk here which will make it a lot easier to get all the computer stuff out and moved when the time comes.

And now I'm going to go take a hot shower because my feet are STILL cold.

[Sailor Steve]

Wow, great stories! My dad once took a car engine apart just to look at it and see how it worked. I've installed engines and a heavy-duty transmission and assembled a lot of stuff, but I never really had the bug that bad. I'll fix things if I can, but I don't really enjoy it (well, unless you count rebuilding and refinishing that one bass guitar).

Locked out so soon. I feel for you. I live in dread of the day I lock myself out of my apartment. If it's a weekday the office has keys, but at night or a weekend? I'm glad your neighbors are turning out to be cool.

Bookshelves. Bookshelves are good. I'm glad you said why they are on their sides, because I was just about to make a snarky comment about how they are supposed to work.

Cold feet? Now you know why your sister has a husband. Trucks and handymen are nice, but a girl needs someone to warm her feet on. Someone to say "Don't do that! Yer feet are cold!"

[Wolferz]

When is this new bed and breakfast due to open?

I'm not picky. A cot in the garage will be fine.

Foot warming is a specialty o mine.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Wow, great stories! My dad once took a car engine apart just to look at it and see how it worked.

My uncle took apart my grandparents car. It was in pieces in the driveway. Wanted to see how it worked. He did reassemble the car and worked fine. Eventually he became a mechanic.

[frau kaleun]

My first baby doll as a child was one wth some kind of mechanism inside that made it say "mama" when you turned it over. Apparently I was supposed to feed it and rock it and put it to bed, but I took its head off and pulled out the insides trying to figure out what made it work.

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that was also my last baby doll.

[AVGWarhawk]

[Wolferz]

Today I are one.

And a car pen terr

And a Lectrishun

Jack of all master of none

[Sailor Steve]

Nucular physitist.

[Jimbuna]

Jeebus!!....automatic feed morelike

[Wolferz]

THE KEY!



At least you were afforded a meet and greet with a good neighbor.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

THE KEY!

That's the problem. This is one of those doorknobs with a keyhole on the outside, but just a twisty button on the inside. But even if the button is turned to "lock" the door still opens from the inside, so it's easy not to realize that's locked from the other side. Which is why I've been so careful not to go out without all the keys on my person somewhere. And most of the time I've got a doorstop in place to keep it from closing all the way. But that time, I screwed up.

I'm gonna stop somewhere tonight and either get copies of the existing key made, or else just buy a different doorknob/lock for it entirely if I can find something I like that doesn't work that way. I want to replace all the doorknobs eventually because they're bright yellow gold things and I hate them, plus I probably should change the locks anyway just on general principles.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

That's the problem. This is one of those doorknobs with a keyhole on the outside, but just a twisty button on the inside. But even if the button is turned to "lock" the door still opens from the inside, so it's easy not to realize that's locked from the other side. Which is why I've been so careful not to go out without all the keys on my person somewhere. And most of the time I've got a doorstop in place to keep it from closing all the way. But that time, I screwed up.

I'm gonna stop somewhere tonight and either get copies of the existing key made, or else just buy a different doorknob/lock for it entirely if I can find something I like that doesn't work that way. I want to replace all the doorknobs eventually because they're bright yellow gold things and I hate them, plus I probably should change the locks anyway just on general principles.

A very wise choice. You may even wish to opt for a set of door locks that are all keyed the same. One key fits all so to speak. Something I recently did with our home after we had our new side porch built. The old one was eaten up by those insidious carpenter ants. At any rate, no more fumbling for the right key, no matter which door is accessed and it saves space on an already overcrowded key ring.