Bogieblog

Cabinetry Are Us

Several months ago I found some used kitchen cabinets, bought them, and they have been languishing in the basement in storage ever since. With the free time that I had last week I decided to put a couple of them up in the dinette. They were all white, so first I painted the sides to give a little visual effect. Hanging cabinets by yourself can be challenging, but I managed to work out a system that worked well for that particular spot.

Luckily for me, there is a bookshelf just under where I wanted to place the cabinets. Double lucky - these are anchored to the walls so made a stable platform. Add a couple of boards (came with the house) and a sturdy cardboard box, and voila:

 

I wish I had painted the faces of the cabinets too and left the just the doors white. I think it would have worked out better visually. Well, the good news is that The other two cabinets (which will go in other rooms) can be apinted before putting them up. I will have to see if I can buy canned paint that will match the color and I can get the interesting pattern. What is so special about the paint you ask?

 

I used metalic spray paint, that was left over from painting the registers in the stairs, and which I expected to give a smooth color over the white. But two coats gave more of an pattern of lights and darks - which I love. It works with the wood grains of the bookshelf and kitchen cabinets well. I don't think I can get that from brushing on paint.

Ahh well, I'll figure out something and the rest of the cabinets will benefit from my experience with those two.

More Changes to Bogies Life

So the big news for Bogie is that since life hasn't thrown me enough curve balls in the last 10 months, I apparently needed one more - I have lost my job. The Company has decided to mothball the plant as the market conditions for our product make it impossible to make money. I thought since I worked for a huge company with deep pockets, it would be safer. But somehow smaller companies are still able to get investors to keep  them afloat, while the mother company is no longer willing to invest. Which is weird since the plant has not even been open for 2 years, and we lost less money last year than we were allowed.

So, once again, for the second time in 16 months, I am hitting the pavement. I really wish I could find a position with the same parent company as I would be able to keep a decent amount of vacation time. Speaking of vacations. A long time ago I mentioned how every time I have a vacation planned (other than to see family), something comes up to keep me from taking it. Yep, had a vacation planned for July with good riding in new territory with people I have known on-line for years. That got cancelled in a hurry. Only good news was I hadn't made airline reservations yet.

The closure announcement was sudden. The decision was made late Friday, and announced on Monday. It was so fast that there wasn't any time for rumors to fly, so everyone was taken completely by surprise.

Last day of work was Tuesday (that was actually exit orientation) and by yesterday afternoon I had 4 resumes out. But these days even if they really like you, it takes at least a month to get hired since they have to do background checks, drug tests and physicals.

Dang, if this had happened before I bought the house, I would have had options (like relocating to another state and working for the same company if a position becasme available). But now my hands are tied as there is no way I could get what I had to put out for the place - all stemming from the way I financed it. The good news is that I don't have to worry about a house payment, so can survive quite a while withouth that worry.

Wouldn't want my life to be stress-free now would we?

That Feeling

 

I never get a cop follow me all the way home - after all, I (used to) travel 2 states, 3 counties and about 13 towns between home and work. But still, a sheriff has followed me a good long ways and even though I'm not doing anything wrong (well, duh, not speeding with him behind me), I get all nervous.

Walking the Dog

Coming home the other day, I got behind someone out for a "stroll" with his dog. I know it is hard to see, but the dot to the left of the truck is a medium-large dog.

I remember when we used to exercise our huskies this way.

Slowest Ever Sheetrock Job

Last weekend I showed a picture of one piece of sheetrock I had finally gotten placed in the stairway.

Sunday I got the second piece cut and screwed into the studs. I taped and mudded at night thru the week and after the final sanding yesterday morning got one coat of paint on it.

Will do the second coat of paint today and then maybe work on painting the stairs themselves to get rid of the aweful green. By the way, a piece of cream paint flaked off the exterior of the house. Guess what color of paint was underneath? Yep GREEN. Geeze, these people had a terrible fetish for that color!

Oh, and the grow light stand in the room at the bottom of the stairs - those were brought over by STBXWS last weekend and yesterday I started pepper seeds. In a couple of weeks I will start tomatoes. Because I don't have enough to do - LOL.

Town Meeting 2014

I attended my first Hillsboro town meeting on Tuesday, after voting. I am used to attending Deering's meetings on Saturday, and that usually lasts anywhere from 4 to 6 hours. I knew I was in for a short night of sleep, being on a week night, but there was nothing to do bu buck up and deal with it.

First surprise: They didn't announce that they were following Robert's Rule of Order. Not neccessarily a bad thing, but it meant I didn't know the language the would use (I never heard the words "move the article", "move to vote", 'point of order" etc.

Second surprise, they commonly create articles that are "nonlapsing until xxx date" meaning that we would be obligated for a matching sum neach year until the date was reached (usually until December of 2015 for this year's articles).

Third Surprise: it was madatory that you walk up to the front and talk into a microphone, and address the board. That meant you didnt' get to face your fellow voters, and you were definitely in the spotlight when speaking. I have never had an issue being heard at town meeting, and I found the requirement that we strictly face the selectboard to be a bit disconcerting.

Fourth Surprise: Whenever the board was asked a question for information, rarely did they have a clue who would/could answer the question. Often there was a couple of minutes of silence before any type of response was given. The board did not seem as knowledgeable as I am used to, nor did they seem to recognize when it would be best or easier to call on a town employee to respond.

Fifth Surprise: the town is just now getting around to establishing capital reserve funds for such things as municipal building repairs.

Sixth Surprise: They hand out voter cards, but don't use them for hand votes. Any outcomes that couldn't be deterimined by voice vote, they asked the voters to stand at when "Yeah" or "Nay" was called. I am used to holding up the voter card and remaining sitting. However, it was niced to get off my butt for a minute.

Surprise 7: Even though the voters seemed to be determined to spend lots of money and pass every article, they did not approve purchasing a 5 acre tract of land for conservation purposes. If the selectboard had done a test on the land, to ensure there were no contaminant, this probably would have passed. But it seems that they figured since it was upstream from a former mill site, it couldn't possibly be contaminated. This site also happens to be downstream from the papermill in another town. I gather from the discussion that the town has purchased several parcels of contaminated land - which they found out after the fact so had to spend lots of money to clean up. You would think the selectboard would wake up after that happened a couple of time!

Biggest Surprise: The first 3 main articles worth over 7 MILLION dollars, comprising of the town budget as well as the water and sewer department budgets, all passed without a single comment from the voters. NOT ONE! To wit, they didn't even go thru the town budget line by line to give the voters an opportunity to discus and/or ammend that line item. A big change from Deering!

No Surprise: one of the articles worth the least amount of money took up the most time. $11,000 wasw argued over for 20 minutes or more. (the article was actually for 17k, but 6k was coming from a grant).

And the last point: if anyone ever says that they can't make a difference by attending town meeting, Hillsboro passed one article by 1 vote. Yes, 1 vote (58 to 57). This standing vote was actually taken twice since it was so close. One more person could have defeated the measure (or forced a secret ballot). And by the way, a whole bunch of people in attendance didn't vote as I estimate there were around 150 people in attendance.

 

 

Closing it Up

A couple weeks ago I ended up repping some of the sheetrock out of the stairwell right after I had given it a first coat of paint. I had fixed bubbled tap by retaping/mudding and thought that would be good. But then I got the bright idea of removing the trimwork along the treads so I could cut in with more of a professional finish (well, advanced layman anyway) and found that the drywall was crumbly and the corners were all mud. Naturally, I couldn't stand that, so out the drywall came.

Yesterday I finally got the replacement sheetrock cut. Okay, that isn't tru, I had cut a piece a couple of weeks ago and managed to get it perfect except the 1" gap at the top stair. Last weekend I was busy with other projects, and I needed WS to bring me another piece of sheetrock since it won't fit in the Jeep, which he did on Friday.

It took forever to cut as I was being extra cautions. Actually the initial cut down was fairly quick, it was just the final shaving down for final fitment that took about an hour. However, I am quite proud of the results.

The small gap at top is from when I removed the old piece of drywall, but should be no problem to fill. not bad if I say so myself considering I had to cut each stair (and of course none of those are the same), and I had only cut one piece of sheetrock before (a simple width and length). I just about dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back - LOL.

Now I just have to get the bottom piece done and screw them to the framing before I can start the tape/mud and finally resume painting.

Colorful Visitor

Had a cardinal visit the other evening. He was sitting on the crabapple surveying his kingdom.

Aliy Zirkle Team Running in First

Aliy Zirkle's team is still in first and have arrived at Shaktoolik. Wishing her a safe and speedy trip for the rest of the race!

Basement Improvements

Harry came over yesterday to install the new basement door that I had bought when we were getting supplies to insulate the garage. If you remember, the old door was bowed, warped, and ugly green and would have let someone in (even when locked) if they looked at it crosse-eyed.

 

Harry had to install some sheet rock on the garage side and install a new door sill, before getting the door set.

 

One of my favorite parts (besides the dang thing isn't green) is the fact that I got a lever handle instead of a door knob - and it is one that doesn't lock. I only have to unlock the dead bolt. Deadbolts are my friend as I am paranoid about locking myself out of the house and with deadbolts I know I had keys when I left the house anyway.

While harry was doing that, I was busy demolishing a small portion of wall in the living room. Of course that led to complications as the electrical box was junk, and we found that my living room, kitchen and at least part of the office (the wall with my computer plugged in), are all on the same circuit, so that will need to be fixed before I finish up my project. However, Harry had been here 5-6 hours, so needed to leave.

He will be back in a couple of weeks to help with the electrical. Dang, I didn't mean this to become a project for him, but he is being very good natured about it.