More indoor stuff

I got some more interior stuff done Tuesday night.  The first thing I did was put a little bit more foam around the door.  Unfortunately the foam I got was too thick but I still got a layer in the corner, which was the really bad part.


I also got the side of the cabinet attached last night.  The glue didn't work worth a damn though, so we shall see how well this worked.


I also got the support for the shelf above the fridge installed.  I need to clean off the top of the fridge before I attach the shelf though.  Too much booze in the way.


Also, just as a reminder to me, I need to get my truck undercoated.  If I remember correctly, Tucker's is the guy that did the welding on my camper frame.  The work was fine, but he took forever to get it done.



I also started car searching in earnest last night.  I started at the Honda dealer.  The Accord doesn't look like it will meet my comfort demands.  I also stopped at the Nissan dealer.  There was still a sales guy there at 8 so I got to take one aroudn the parking lot.  While they have fixed a lot of my gripes and it has a lot of the niceties (remote starter, its actually an AWD, etc), it is narrower on the inside than the Geo.  Next up I stopped at Ford, who doesn't even stock Ford cars anymore (Ford is getting out of the car business though).  Next up was Hyundai.  Disappointingly they also only had one Sonata on the lot.  It had the same appearance as the others (large center console, steering wheel in the dash) but the car was locked.  I made an interesting observation there though, the Elantra (their compact) honestly looked like it was more comfortable.  The seat appeared to be the same as the Sonata, but because the car was smaller the console was very small.  Last up I checked Mazda.  Unlike the others, they had a whopping 2 mid-size cars on the lot.  The Mazda 6 actually looked like a decent car.  It had a big console (just like everything else) but the steering wheel looked right and all that.  I didn't bother to look at a Chevy (they have already-broken-down-Yugo rated reliability).  I couldn't remember where the Kia dealer was either. 

So that was disappointing.  Something that popped into my head as I was chatting with Mike though was why not just sell the car and drive my truck full time?  I don't really need two vehicles.  The benefit of the car is comfort, the car will never pay for itself based on superior gas mileage.  I calculated out that at 33mpg (most of the cars I looked at don't quite get that), I am looking at ~1200 in gas every year (I drive around 15k miles).  If I do that same driving in my truck (average of 15mpg) it runs me around 2500.  The car will take over 17 years to pay for itself (assuming a 23k car, which is among the cheapest I found.  The added wear and tear on the truck isn't really a negative (considering how much I love the design of the truck) and if I were a betting man I would guess the truck rots away before it breaks down at this point anyways; it is already 9 years old, has never been undercoated, and has less than 100k on it.  That allows me to redirect the 8-9k I have saved for a down payment to something like the septic loan or my mortgage, plus whatever I get for selling the car.   

I went up to the Honda dealer today at lunch and sat in one of their show models, and it wasn't as bad as it looked.  They do have telescoping steering wheel (their website doesn't actually list it) and was wider than it looked, with one fatal exception: they added an additional cutout thing that goes directly into my kneecap for the start button.  Remembering the Hyundai experience from last night, I also sat in a Civic.  It was smaller, but more comfortable than the Accord.  The model on the floor though was a Sport Coupe though, so I would have to see if a regular Civic is the same way.  I want to do more research on it too.  I plan on visiting the Hyundai dealer this afternoon, and the Kia dealer (I want to look up their models first though)

Winter is here.

The LAN party was last weekend, which was a lot of fun.  I slept outside for it (I snore a lot), but it was kind of chilly.  The first night, it was around 12 degrees (according to my phone anyways), and when I woke up I was cold.  I was planning on sleeping outside this weekend down at Krass for the friendsgiving, so I might want to up the gear I bring a bit.  I was not so smiley when I woke up.


With the cargo netting on the bed holding quite well (I added hooks to it to allow to me to close it up better) I finished cleaning off the broken cart that was by the door, so my chair is now inside.  The space was tighter than I expected.  Eventually the table will be attached to the side of the pantry as well in this spot.


It was quite pretty out last night with the moon illuminating the snow.  I tried to take some pictures of the snow with my phone, but it turns out my phone has some weird lights it uses, I guess for focusing?  I didn't think those were normally visible though, I always assumed they were either ultrasonic or infrared. 


I grabbed another picture this morning.  There isn't quite as much as there was yesterday (yesterday the ground was solid white).  The snow has survived a couple of days now, but I don't think it will make the week. 


I also went to Bob's Garage for fixing the Nissan.  They are actually less than a mile from my old apartment; I never went there because frankly the place looks really sketchy, but Greg gave him a good recommendation.  I stopped in at lunch yesterday and set him up to tow the Nissan in and fix it.  I got it back today, and I have to say that I will definitely be going back.  The whole repair was only 407 dollars.  Of that, the towing was 100 (which is a fairly standard rate), and 220 for the part (which is pretty average for a mass air flow sensor).  The service was prompt; I went over at lunch on Tuesday, and he had the car on the lift and knew what was wrong by the end of the day and had ordered the part.  Most importantly though, he did what Dube's and Nissan of Keene had been failing at for a few years now: the check engine light is off and the car is actually fixed.  On the way back today the car is running better than it has in quite a long time, though the octane booster and ethanol fixer stuff I put in the tank trying to start it might have something to do with that.  I will be taking the car the next few days and probably this weekend to NYC, so I will evaluate whether a new car is still a necessity before Thanksgiving or not.  If the finances work out, I still intend to buy a new one before Christmas. 

Indoor projects.

I started working on a few indoor projects this week.  The first of which was making the panel in front of the sink open and shut so I can eventually hang a basket on it.  One of the hinges is a little crooked, but it is installed and opens and closes, and the spring to hold it closed it installed.




I also got some rails cut for more shelving.  I went to install it and realized that I never installed the side panels for the cabinets, and didn't have any construction adhesive to do so last night.  I stopped by Home Depot at lunch and grabbed some liquid nails which ought to do the trick. 


I also dry fitted the vent extension.  Every once in a while when the wind is blowing the right way, I can still smell sewage in the house, so this ought to take my wall vent and exhaust it above the roof like a normal vent would.  For some reason I bought two couplers and not two elbows, but I got the last elbow during today's Home Depot run.


I will also find out this evening if the cargo net worked.  So far so good.  It is stretching more than I would have liked, but nothing fell out yet except the open box of tissues.  When I put the bed up tonight I will know for sure.


My car is confirmed dead.  I tried putting some dry gas and stuff in it to see of it was maybe just water in the gas, but it still wouldn't start, so I need to get it on a dolly and get it to a repair shop.  It stinks having to spend several hundred dollars just to trade it in, but I don't feel like dropping the fuel tank and stuff in my driveway.  Since the car has so many electrical systems, I can't tell if the fuel pump starts when you turn the ignition on, but the fuel pump is my assumption at this point.

I am going to the LAN this weekend, so no work will be accomplished.

The cold finally won.

As noted, the weather has been chilly the last several days, and I found the house getting steadily colder and colder, and yesterday it never breached 55 inside, so I finally caved and turned on the heat.  It smelled terrible at first but but eventually cleaned itself out without lighting anything on fire.


I also got the cargo net installed.  We shall see how well this works.  It is another storage mechanism I decided to try.


I got my tax bill the other day as well and something astonishing happened: my property taxes went down.  They went down a lot.  My tax rate went from 33 per thousand down to 22. 

Chilly weekend

Yesterday was chilly.  I did get some work done on the house though.  I went and picked up Greg's ladder in the morning, and got the window in the front cut out.  I got the window itself caulked back in as well.  I got the 1x4 cut for the top and bottom.  Two problems arose though: the bottom board needs to be thinner, it isn't below the drain for the window sill in the window, and because of the cold the caulk took hours to cure.  So I didn't get them installed.  Tim has a planar and a jig for his table saw to make boards thinner, so I will be headed over there this afternoon.  Kind of a bummer, since I was hoping to complete it this weekend, but oh well.


I also stopped by the quarry to pick up the gravel to finish the drainage ditch, but apparently they are off their summer hours and weren't open.  Looking at the drainage ditch though, I am still thinking about running the pipe all the way down to the creek though.  We have gotten a lot of rain the past week, and the part I never filled in was full.  There was still active draining going on too.  I could see water draining out of the pipe and running in.


So instead I got some other winterization stuff done.  I got the hose taken off and drained.  I also got the spicket drained.


The hose itself is now drained (it is easy when you live on a hill) and wound up.