Turkey Tween

Too old for child, too young for teen.  Tween.  Some parents would say tweenagers are the worst of the worst years.  Middle school, puberty, drama. Too old for toys, too young to not have toys.

Children in the various states of wanting  responsibility yet lacking the ability to accept responsibility.

True to form and definition, you Stinky Feet, are in full tween mode.  There are days when your high level of independence and willingness to be responsible for yourself and your duties is mystifying.  Complaints are minimal and acceptance is peaceful.

Then there are those days when you rage, you scream, you tear for reasons unknown.  The days you hate the world. Those are the days you go to bed before the sun sets with us reminding you tomorrow will be better, that your body just needs sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.  So please, for the love of everything good and our sanity, go to sleep.

Because tomorrow does come and you are back to you.

You are the you you like and you like you. You are the you we like too.

  The you with no sense of fashion.

The you who protects himself from space invades and ponders the tin foil hat brigade. The you who is not bothered by the likes or dislikes of those around.

The you who was stoked because you won the third place in the fifth grade spelling bee.

The who is successfully builds a working trebuchet one day,

and plays contentedly at the beach the next with lost and found toys.

The you who collects and wears his treasures proudly.  (Make sure you wash your hair well as those did fall off a chickens' butt!)

The you, the fabulous sailor who is as fluid on a boat as water on a duck's back and is a wonderful teacher to his non-sailing mother.

The you who is not too old to have a Nerf dart fight at the laundry mat and then laughs at himself until he is blue in the face because he fell off the chair.

The you who cannot blow bubbles, even with the best of the best Bubblicious Bubble Gum.

The you who still finds humor is random things grandma sends you and then carry it around in your backpack for weeks and weeks.

The you who loves life.

The you who ate waffles for his birthday breakfast and then was seen sneaking leftovers during the day.

So yes, while you are in full tween, you are my tween.  That makes you the BEST tween.  Except those times like when you are asked to eat new meals.  Not everyone had turkey on Thanksgiving! Besides, it was your birthday and I wanted it to be something special.  Guess I should have just made box mac and cheese.  Jeez!

Happy Birthday Stink Feet, you've had an amazing year.  Can't wait to see what the next year holds for you!

Rain Water Collection System Update #2

Don't know about you, but here at Plan473 we hate time change.  Dark is for sleeping.  Nobody is allowed to sleep at 6:12pm, the time this picture was taken.  Not wanting to be cramped inside the too small Rainstream and wishing to ward off scenes of "redrum" playing in our heads, the Planner decided to be productive.  Having still not completed the RWCS and needing to move forward with the final stage, the Work Box desk had to be removed.

Why, does the Work Box desk need to be removed? Well... the Planner, he is human after all, he makes mistakes.  Lacking forward vision, I am little help to him when it comes to visual concepts.  During the time the desk was made, RWCS was not on our forethought subsequently meaning we did not leave room for the PVC piping to run from ceiling to floor.

As an added bonus, removing the desk allowed for a couple of touch ups on the green paint.  Having only one can of spray paint during the original build, the coverage was minimal.  So with another can bought, the desk can be roughed with sandpaper and a new layer applied.

Some areas are worse than others, like the section directly in front of my computer.  The paint has been gone so long the rust is working its magic.  And in the words of Sweet Brown, "ain't nobody got time for that".  Do you remember Sweet Brown and her fire? Too this day, the Kid from out of nowhere with perfect timing and accent will bust out with her famous line and have us giggling.  Its classic stuff.  Classic. Anyhoo..

Back to life.  So with the desk removed, the Planner measured the distance from the wall the drill the 2" hole the PVC tubing.  It is important to make sure the hole is far enough away from the corner pocket and the frame work to allow for room under the box.  More importantly, the PVC must run as close to the corner as possible to allow for more room on the desk.

With the hole drilled (sorry no pictures), the hard work began.  Removal of the PVC caps.  The south wall was hard and there was not any obstructions.  The North wall as you can see has a cabinet in the way.  Being welded to the wall for safe keeping during the next hurricane (hopefully not anytime soon), the cabinet could not be removed without a lot of work.  As besides, it not really in the way so much as it makes the removal of the cap more of a challenge.  Challenges are good for the brain, right.  Upon completion of this cap removal, the Planner should be super smart, for the time being anyways.

Immediately upon slitting the PVC with the disk grinder, water starting dripping out and onto the floor.  No wait, not the floor, straight into the hole in the floor.  Guess the 2" hole was centered lined correctly.

See, no water!  Being dark and all, the Planner was not able to tell if the frame work was cleared with enough spacing this time.  That will have to wait for morning.

Having measured the distance from the ceiling to the floor, the Kid wanted to handle the "big guns".  His words, not mine.  Just look at his concentration on his face.  One would think this was laborious work.

Leaving the angles and pitch the Planner to measure, the insert was ready for brain cell killing PVC glue.  Not once since all those years back when I first used the blue and purple glue to install electrical lines have I ever jumped for joy at the potential need for usage.  This stuff is bad.  As in bad, bad.  Left in a small room with one open jar, the occupants would become zombies.  I have deemed the PVC glue liquid lobotomy. It is so bad that just one drop removed this two part epoxy paint without any sticky residue remaining.  The glue completely ate the paint.  Nasty stuff.  What is worse, I can never use it without making a mess.  Not wanting further paint damage to the Work Box, the remaining PVC glue was done over cardboard.  Good thing too, as a major mess was made.  Ugh.

Working late in the night on Saturday, Sunday dawned bright and late. After leaving the comfort and warmth of my bed and making breakfast, it was just after 11am before work was started.  Hey, it is Sunday and Saturday and Sundays are stay in bed days.  See the correlation there, S for Saturday and Sunday, S for stay in bed.  Makes sense to me.

Needing time for the desk to dry, we started here first.  The corners were measured and marked, leaving just the bare amount of gap.  Never say the Planner over measures anything.  Why use 1.5" inches of 1.45 inches will work?  Waste not want not and all that.

Cutting the corners out turned out to be more challenging than thought.  Not halfway through the first cut on the first corner and the desk frame shifted binding the portable saw.  After much work and frustration, the saw was freed and the Planner was left to rethink how to cut second corner.

Thinking in progress, the Planner cut the second half of the first corner and tweak went the desk frame.  Well damn, this project just gets better and better.  Now the Planner had to decide how to keep the frame square and from binding the blade.  He tried using a piece of angle to apply pressure to keep the frame flat but as you can barely see the right side is still higher than the left.

Leaving the Planner to his thoughts, I manned the band saw and cut out four corner plates.

Once cut, they were corners were rounded for safety.  Don't they look fantastic?  I had wanted to take a picture of all four but the Planner was faster at his job than I expected and before I knew it they were fully welded into place.

Not bad for a repair job if I do say so myself.  It even looks like they were made to have the corners removed.  Now for a quick grind job to remove tag ends, burrs, and whatnot and then paint.

Leaving the desk to dry, the two PVC tubings were installed and glued into place.

Tucking nicely into the corners and fitting snugly into the perfectly centered hole in the floor, two more down spouts were installed.

And guess what, the desk fit perfectly into place.

In case you are wondering, the Planner did leave enough room for the PVC, but just barely.  Guess this game of Just Right/Too Tight is something he does to challenge himself, as he constantly does it.  Not me, I would have removed another 1/2" and been safe.

Before Sunday's work could end and play begin, the Planner had to make sure his idea for linking the four downspouts was going to work.  A couple of bends and a couple of unions and his idea will work as planned.  Of course it will.  Never doubted it.

Monday afternoon, the Kid and the Planner continued on the RWCS.  The Planner is dead set on completing this project.  The Planner installed and connected the PVC bends and piping together.

The Kid rolled the water tank over and then drug it into location.  See Kid, being short (and limber) does have its advantages.

By days end, the Planner had all but the last section installed as he did not have enough materials.  A temporary pipe was installed to allow for water to drain into the 55 gallon drum.  Bummer, all this hard work and the new water collection tank still could not be used.  Oh well, another step closer.

Drive this Way

Doesn't this just make you smile?  She always makes me smile.  Belonging to the neighbor across the street, Guera, is the happiest dog I have ever met.  E.V.E.R.  Enemies are unknown and all her friends.  As in your long lost friend.  You know the one whom you haven't seen in ages and the both of you are giddy with excitement at seeing each other.  Except with Guera she acts this way every time she sees you. What is not love about that?

And the reason for the company of the neighbor's dog, you ask.  Well that would be because she is a nosy neighborhood dog and we were out front.  Guess she decided that installation of a drainage culvert required her assistance.  In every step of the way.

Before the culverts could be installed, we had to ensure the flood hub was met.  Living in a flood zone does have it challenges, especially after the storm.  Since Hurricane Harvey, the county is making sure all the drainage ditches are kept clean, that new driveways are installed to the correct elevation, and that standing water is corrected.  All this done in efforts to maintain their FEMA standing.  IE their FEMA monies.  No skin off my back, standing water in drainage ditches leads to mosquitoes and nobody needs or wants more of them.

Trying to ensure the ditch was the correct height was a little challenging as the culvert hub was lower than the dirt in the ditch making line of sight difficult.  Drawing a string line was the best way to achieve this without the use of fancy equipment.

Having had Guera's stamp (her bottom) of approval, the first of four culverts was laid.  The sting line was then ran inside the culvert.  If the line touched the concrete, more dirt was removed until the line was clean and clear.

After the first culvert was laid, a smaller grove was dig using the backside of a shovel.  As it turns out this was the perfect width to match the bottom of the culvert.  Not that a culvert has a bottom as it is a circle but you get what I mean, right?

Subsequent culverts were laid and tested with the string line.

Once depth was confirmed, the culverts were pushed together until tight. Rinse and repeat two more times and ta-da.  One 24' culvert laid.  The string line remained pulled through the culvert until the county gives the OK and we receive the final, and most important, stamp of approval.

Sand fill was laid to cover just to the tops of the culvert.  The Planner says this is not the most correct way as the sand does not compact as tight and could lead to sag.  But if this is how the county does it, then why spend the extra money on more base. 

A light layer of base was installed to cover the sand.  Once the seal of certificate arrives, the Planner will continue with the driveway.  It was a full weekend's worth of work but man-o-man it sure is nice to have a driveway.  Even if it is just a partial drive way.