low_delta

My dad entered an art fair in Virginia Beach in 1970. He loaded all his paintings and a display bin into his Ford Torino, and we drove to the east coast. That is, Dad, Mom and a three-year old, in a two-door car with a car-top carrier. Sounds like mom didn't enjoy the trip a whole lot. While she got to sit on the beach for a week, she had to sit on the beach for a week. With a three-year-old. Dad said he got sun poisoning. Even with an umbrella, the sun reflected off the boardwalk. His lips were all swelled up.

The art fair was one the boardwalk in the city of Virginia Beach. It was a mile long, with artists down both sides. I asked him how he learned of it, and he wasn't sure. Probably from a magazine, he said. He didn't really know what to expect, he just went. He had to carry his entire inventory five blocks every day for five days. He said a storm came in one day. He covered everything and tied it down, and watched other artists chase their paintings down the boardwalk.

He was chosen by the jury for, I don't know what it was called, special recognition. He didn't win a prize, but he was happy to be recognized. Sounds like that was a rather small group.

Being in that area, we were able to do some sightseeing. I remember seeing the Washington monument, and I know we saw some lighthouses. My dad likes to remind me that he carried me up to the top of the tallest one. That was the only time I've ever been in Virginia or Washington DC.

On a tangent... we talked about being able to pack all of that stuff into a car, and he mentioned how well his dad could pack a car. My dad said that at one time, his uncle was going on a trip, and couldn't get everything into his car. So Dad's uncle asked my grandpa to pack it for him. He got everything in, of course, but after the uncle got where he was going and unloaded, he couldn't get everything back in!

My first camera was a Vivitar 110. Cheap little box with a built-in flash. Used film cartridges with narrow film that didn't have very good resolution. I think it was a gift at my eighth grade graduation. I used it through high school.

My first real camera was a Ricoh KR-1 35mm with a 50mm lens. It is fully manual - very simple operation. Only three settings - aperture (f2 to 16), shutter speed (8 to 1000) and ISO. It had a lever you pushed for the self-timer. I usually shot Kodak 400 Gold. I still miss having a hyperfocal scale on the lens. I did a lot of night shooting, so I got a tripod. I only upgraded from that a couple of years ago.

I got it in June 1988. My next camera was a Rebel 2000, so I guess I used the Ricoh for over twelve years. I'm not sure when I got the new Canon, but it was in production from 1999 to 2002. It also used 35mm film. I stopped using it when the labs started messing with my photos too much. They applied a lot of color and lighting "enhancements," so I switched to digital to keep control of my images.

After that, I only bought Canons. The next was a digital Rebel XTi in February 2007 just before our trip to Hawaii. I used the cheap kit lens for a while, an 18-55mm, but upgraded to an 18-270 in 2009. Eventually, the XTi started to have trouble functioning well so I bought a T5i. I got it in 2013, just before my trip to Scotland. Now the lens is giving me hassles, so I need a new one of those.

We've also gone through several little Canon point & shoot digital cameras. Three, I think.

I don't count the phone, since I seldom use it for creative shots. It's mainly just for taking records, or when I don't have the big camera along.

My paternal grandmother's family originated in the hills of Kentucky. Harlan County. My great great grandfather had a sawmill and was involved in logging. When they set up a small railway to assist with the logging, they were so far from anyplace, that they had to bring the steam engine in through the hills on a wagon.

I did a lot of work on my previous home. It needed it.

It was built in 1910, and didn't have indoor plumbing back then. There had been a pump on the side of the house, and a big cistern in the basement. I discovered a big hole in the floorboards of a closet on the first floor, which I assume was a toilet. There had been a stairway from the first to the second floor. They took out the lower half of it, and installed a bathroom. There was a very short cast iron bathtub at one end. When I got rid of it, I really hoped to find a home for it, since it was so unique. I thought someone would need it. But I didn't really know how to find that person (it was before Craigslist), so it ended up in the trash.

Shortly after I moved in, the p-trap under the bathtub was leaking, in the basement. I got a replacement, and put my wrench on it and it disintegrated. It had been wrapped in masking tape, and the metal had completely eroded away in places, leaving only masking tape.

There were pipes running everywhere on the basement ceiling. It had been added to many times over the decades. There were many valves and dead-end lines. I finally cut it all down and redid it. A friend showed me how to sweat pipes and I did it in one day. There was one leak, which was a pain to fix, but it was great to have done it.

I had a couple of friends over to replace the garage roof. The shingles were red, and mostly in very bad condition, so it was probably from the 60's. It also had metal trim on the corners. One of the guys spent the entire day tearing out and replacing one section where the roof boards had rotted. A few years later I scraped and painted the garage. Probably should have done that more often. I replaced the windows then too.

I put a new vinyl floor in the upstairs bathroom in between tenants.

All the time I was there, I wanted to remodel the place. Especially that 70's decor kitchen. I started with the bedroom. I gutted it. I discovered that it was originally a dining room, or at least it had been connected to the kitchen by two doorways. It was all lath and plaster, but with stuccoed drywall over it. There was vermiculite insulation in some of the wall cavities, but not all. There was a US flag in one wall cavity. I believe it fell from the attic. It had 46 stars and was rapped in newspaper from WWI. I ran coaxial cable, but I forget what I did for electrical. I got insulation up. I bought replacement windows. I needed a friend to show me how to install them, but he didn't really want to. The room was closed up for a month with no activity before he finally came over and helped me. Then I got the drywall up and mudded. Spray texture, paint, doors and trim molding. Then carpet, and it was done! I'd been sleeping on the couch in the living room for a few months.

I had the roof redone not too long after I moved in. It was really high and steep, so there was no way I was going up there. But just the north face was bad enough to need it. I think I used the same guy who did our house a couple of years ago. I think he charged about $600. When I sold the place, the south face was in sore need of replacement. Many of the shingles had so little asphalt left they were mostly fiberglass.

There was a stairway that was added onto the side of the house next to the driveway. Up at the top its roof had little slope and was wearing out and starting to leak. I redid that part.

I had the chimney tuckpointed. It was in such bad shape, they shortened it by a course.

I replaced the basement windows. My friend helped me with those. Two of them got the usual kind of basement window that swings inward. One of them got glass block, I think. The side of my house with the garden, and side walk was a low spot. In heavy rains it filled up with water and the water ran into my basement. Fortunately, it went pretty much straight to the floor drain, leaving a trail of mud down the wall and under the washing machine. Anyway, I sealed it up.

I decided to remodel the bathroom over Christmas break, 2002. I had three weeks of vacation, and I'd hoped to get it usable by the time I had to go back to work. Ha! I started around the 19th. I was so busy I didn't have as much time to work on it as I'd hoped. Demolition, and learning what was underneath everything. The cast iron bathtub was cooled by air from the outside. There was very old uncovered and live wiring inside the walls. The upstairs landing was over part of the room, and not supported in any structural way. When I got to the framing part, I did a lot of sitting and staring, trying to determine the best way to fix the structure and also the best way to make the walls for the room. I got the plumbing done (but nothing hooked up to it) around January 2nd. The whole time, the base of the toilet was sitting there with no tank or water supply. We had to flush it with a bucket that we filled in the kitchen. I was showering at my mom's house.

I very carefully cut a sheet of 3/4-inch plywood for the floor, because I wanted something solid. Of course that meant there was a 3/4-inch step at the door. I put vinyl down on that. I got a plastic shower floor pan. I framed out a bench next to it, because I had to put something there. It was under a low overhang. On one side of the shower area, the aforementioned upstairs landing protruded into the space. So, bench. The shower head was on the opposite wall. Before remodeling, the tub filled the whole space, and the shower head was under the overhang. It was about four feet off the floor, so I usually showered on my knees. The entire space (except the ceilings) was tiled. Those four-inch square tiles, beige. A custom glass door and partition.

I was back at work on January 6th and still working on the framing for the next week. Drywall the week of the 20th. Tile also took a week. Grouting went badly, and I had to do it twice. I showered on Feb 18th. Mid March I got that friend to do/help with the electric. I must have gotten it completely finished around the 20th of that month.

I list all this out to compare to the original assumption that it would take me three weeks. !

So the bedroom and bathroom were done. And then we were making plans to some work on Cyn's house to eventually sell it, when my tenants told me they were moving out. This meant I had to remodel the upstairs. Uh oh.

I'll try to keep this one more concise. I gutted it. Nothing but studs except for one room. I filled up two dumpsters with waste that I hauled down the stairs. With help, of course.

I did some framing work, including an entire wall. I had all new electrical put in. I ran cable and phone myself. Insulation. All new windows. I think I did all the plumbing myself. I hired someone to do the drywall. I enjoy drywall work, but this guy got it all done (by himself!) in three days. It would have taken me weeks, and I'd have needed help. I assume I primed and painted it myself. I had someone do the carpet and vinyl. I hired someone to do the tile around the bathtub, and then I had the tub refinished. When it was mostly done, I gutted the other room - I had been using it to store stuff from the other rooms during the process. I filled up another dumpster!

I had my cabinet maker friend help me with kitchen cabinets. He set me up with some cheap Chinese cabinets and helped me install them. He helped me with the countertops too. I think I bought some remnants in HOBO or something, but he helped me by cutting and installing them. The kitchen looked really great.

We sold it very quickly. We had three people wanting to make offers, but the first guy got his offer in right away, and it was good. He was turning the place into business space, which is worth more than residential. And then the real estate marked crashed a year or so later. I think I made about $40K over what I paid for it. I think I got my money's worth, but I don't remember what I spent. And it sure was stressful. We finally sold it in June 2005, after moving out of it the previous September.

About twelve to fourteen years ago, I drove a forklift. It was a sit-down type. It's controls were: gas pedal, brake pedal, steering wheel, two levers for the forks, and a lever on the steering column for forward and reverse. I'd be crusing around pretty good, gas/brake, forward/reverse, pick up a palette, spin around drop it, pick up another, stack it, drive into a trailer. Always in a hurry.

After work, I'd back my car out of my parking spot, put the car in "D", step on the gas, and find myself still moving backwards. It took me a few days to realize that I wasn't putting it in drive, but flipping the lever on the steering column, like on the forklift, expecting to change direction, when I'd really only flipped the turn signal on.

Sometimes, I did this out on the street, too. I'd pull up to a stop sign and flip the lever. I'd take off through the intersection wondering why my turn signal was on, when I was going straight. The strange thing was, I usually only did this at one particular intersection. Even stranger, I still do this there sometimes. I did it last week. I'm wondering how I got into this habit. I didn't drive through that intersection much until after the forklift job ended. And when I did it last week, I was going east through that intersection, and I don't recall doing that before. It's always when I'm going west.

What a strange thing.

I cleaned out the Mustang tonight. I'm giving it away tomorrow.

I got it new, just before Thanksgiving of 1990. Nearing fourteen years and 130,000 miles. Seems like a million. All those trips to Indiana. So many camping trips, loaded to the roof with gear. It's a hatchback so it's got a lot of room. And Mustangs aren't as small as they look.

I got it when I was 23 and living with my mother and sister. With few bills I was able to afford it, but that meant I couldn't move out until it was paid off. I was on the three year plan - $358.63 a month.

I never seem to have any decent pictures of my cars. I'll have to see what I can come up with. It's twilight blue - a beautiful color. Deep, dark, metallic blue. For several years, one friend thought it was black. About three years ago, I hit a deer. Now it's got one white fender.

I always kept it clean, and it had little rust until recently (which you can't see well because of the dark color), so people always thought it was a hot car. I was a little embarrassed to tell them it's a four cylinder. Now, I often hear, "they made those with four cylinders?"

I spent about an hour and a half cleaning the inside. I vacuumed it and shampooed the seats. Then sprayed and wiped down all the vinyl surfaces. It reminds me that I need to do that more often with my next car, so I can enjoy the cleanliness myself. It was funny what I learned by paying close attention. I learned that there was a fuse puller built into the fusebox cover.

When I went out to shop for a car, my sister was along, and we took out a Mustang. While I was driving, she looked in the glove compartment and saw a big yellow button. We wondered what it was, and she pushed it. It was the trunk release. We thought that was pretty funny. Just tonight, I noticed that it actually says that on the button.