Bert's Musings

Today's "excitement" was a trip to In and Out Burger for lunch. It is an interesting fast food chain restaurant. They prove that you don't need variety on your menu. When you go to In and Out Burger you get a hamburger, fries and a soft drink, they have nothing else on the menu. Every time we have stopped at one it has been very busy. Yesterday Drew and I finished phase I of his roof stiffening. We have the new beams and the jacks in place. The screw jacks are "snugged up" and over a period of time, as the roof members "relax", he will keep adjusting the jacks to keep a constant pressure on the beams. Eventually he will add a couple of permanent posts to replace the jacks. The appliance repair guy was supposed to come this afternoon, to fix Drew's oven. He has been promising to get it fixed for over a month. He is doing the repair work under Drew's home warranty policy. Now he says he will be out tomorrow, we will see. If we weren't her...

Yesterday we worked on stiffening the roof, in one area, of Drew's home. We hauled 5-2x6x10' and 2-2x4x8' plus saw horses and other tools up into the attic. At the peak the roof is high enough that you can easily stand upright. The roof pitch is about an 8:12. We spliced pairs of the 2x6's, because we needed them to be a little over 18' long, and have them in place. Today we will use the 2x6's as a base to do some jacking at a couple of locations. Once we get load transferred from an existing room member into the new 2x6's we will install permanent posts at two locations. After that is complete there are two 2x4 rafters that have sagged over the years and they also need to be stiffened. We/he will need to get 4-2x6x14' into the attic to do that job. I think he may wait to do that at a later date. It got COLD here last night, 38 degrees on our thermometer. The weather service reported the official low was 41. Today's high is only supposed to be 47 and...

I didn't do much today. Kathy went down and helped with the food give away at the little church down the block. This morning we went to the Farmer's Market in downtown Oakland, maybe 35 blocks from here. It is interesting if you do nothing more than just people watch. Today's bonus was that the musician in the center of the Market (they have always had a musical group of some type) was good. In my humble, tone deaf, classic country and western loving, opinion. He played mostly blues. In addition to liking the music I was amazed at his coordination. At times he was playing the guitar, a harmonica, and a tambourine on each of his feet, simultaneously. When he started tapping his feet, the tambourines, to different beats, while playing the other instruments I was just in awe. It even got better when a couple stopped with a child. The little boy stood still but was focused on watching the musician. When the musician would finish a song the little boy would bend one knee a few t...

It was a beautiful day here. The high was near 70. Not much exciting happening. I did some minor repairs to the RV and some yard work while Kathy continued washing woodwork and cleaning blinds, as well as doing our laundry. Good night and may God bless you and yours.

We arrived back in Oakland around 9:30 PM PDT. We left Indy around 3:30 PM EDT. We arrived at the Indy airport around 2:00 PM and left the Oakland airport around 10:00 PM, 11 hours. Our layover at Midway airport, in Chicago, was over 3 hours. Midway is a pretty nice airport. We each had a sandwich there, at a place called Pot Bellies, and split a salad. It was the best airport food I think I have ever had. On top of that it was reasonably priced, especially for an airport. I think someone with brain damage layed out the new Indy airport the way you have to ride up and down escalators to get from place to place. We had rented a car while in Indy. We (mostly Kathy) put nearly 1,600 miles on it while we were there. The difference in the cost of gas between it and my pickup almost paid the total rental fee. In case you think we don't pay enough taxes. The actual charge for renting the car was quite reasonable, less than $100/week. Then there was Indiana's 7% sales tax, a CFC(custom...

We looked at this 23 year old house this morning. We will probably make an offer on it. We are waiting to get some additional information from our realtor, but we would be surprised to find something that would keep us from making an offer. The basement is unfinished. It is on a hilly, 5 acre, wooded site. There is a small pond on the property but I'm not sure why anyone spent the money for the dam to end up with such a small pond. The highway is Rte 50. The property is about 10 miles west of Jefferson City. It takes 12-15 minutes to drive from Kelsey & Andy's, in Russellville, to this place. It is not the normal way they would go to get to Jefferson City but going this way would not take a lot longer. If you want to see photos of the inside you can look at them at: http://www.trulia.com/property/3075862467-503-Shady-Acres-Road-Centertown-MO-65023 We arrived back at Doug & Anthony's at 7 PM, went out to eat and are now back at their place. I think Kathy is already i...

Today we looked at at least 5 houses. We are looking another one in the morning before heading back to Indy. We didn't like any of them well enough to make an offer. After getting back to Andy & Kelsey's we decided that if we were going to make an offer on one of them it would be an older ranch, with a full basement. It would need a lot of cosmetic work, a kitchen remodel and more. It has been empty for 4 years. The lady who lived in it for the 7 years prior to it being empty is the one who still owns it. The price was $119k. We would not have offered more than $100k. One interesting feature was that the garage floor was a structural slab with a workshop area below the garage. All four walls of the workshop were poured walls, as were the remainder of the walkout basement walls. It would have made quite a substantial storm shelter. It was a passive solar home. Behind the windows on this wall is a 2' air space area and then an interior 8" thick brick wall. The wall h...

Doug, Kathy & I made a trip to my Mom's, near Coldwater, MI, today. David, my brother, came down to Mom's and we also got to spend some time with him. On the way back to Indy we stopped at Auntie V's, Kathy's niece's restaurant in Angola, IN. We had dinner with Kathy sister's Nancy & Cindy and Cindy's husband Ed. The roads were good, weatherwise, both ways. We had a good time but I'm tired and it is good to be back at Doug & Anthony's.

Yesterday's flights to Indy were rather routine. Some area were a little "bumpy" but nothing extraordinary. Getting up around 4 AM to make our 6:20 flight was a little extraordinary <grin>. We are spoiled by sleeping in late on a regular basis. Kathy had a Doctors appointment this morning, up in the Carmel area (45-60 minutes from Doug & Anthony's). She then went to Sam's and was going to come back here before her afternoon appointment. Since she hasn't showed she must have went directly to the afternoon appt. Doug & Anthony are at the salon (I think). I didn't get up until after they had left. I made emailed Drew a material list of things we will need to stiffen his roof when I get back to Oakland. Nothing major, just a "soft spot" where roof modifications have been made during an old alteration. I just warmed up a pork chop I had left over after last nights dinner at La Parada, the little Mexican restaurant near Doug & Anthony...

Today was more house washing and painting. Drew washed the gable area on the front of the house and then started painting trim, working from the back of the house towards the front. Kathy and I painted a couple of interior walls. Drew worked until twilight but didn't manage to get anything done on the front. Actually it was still to wet to paint even if he had time. It rained while we were eating supper. Hopefully it came straight down so that it didn't damage any of the fresh paint. The big roast cooked all night long. Kathy carved it up this morning. We had beef/gravy sandwiches, mashed potatoes, and corn (homemade corn cut off the cob) for lunch. It is impossible to get anything nearly as good at any restaurant. We leave for the airport at 4:45 AM. Our flight leaves at 6:20. I'm not sure what time we are supposed to land in Indy. Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.

This morning we went to a nursery and looked around. Drew didn't find anything he really wanted, but looking at all the plants/trees was interesting. After that we went to the "Cash and Carry" grocery store. I guess you would call it a restaurant supply store. It was quite interesting. Kathy had been there with Doug when he was out here. Below is a photo of the walk in meat cooler. I think there was also a walk in dairy cooler and a walk in fruit and vegetable cooler. I just had a taste of the roast in the photo below, but it is still cooking. It was good. 21# of beef marked down to $30. Tabasco sauce by the gallon. I was also quite impressed when I saw a stack of 5 gallon buckets of soy sauce. Once we got home we had macaroni soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Kathy made the macaroni soup and Drew made the grilled cheese sandwiches. He made an assortment. Plain grilled cheese, grilled cheese with tuna and grilled swiss cheese with tuna. I tried them all and th...

Kathy had not given me a copy of this photo when I posted earlier. She took it this evening before I took the other sunset photos. This was taken earlier than the ones I took. I think this is Bolinas Lagoon. She took this with her cell phone!

Today we drove up to Sebastopol, CA to check out Mt. Gilead Bible Camp. It is about 70 miles north of here, less than 10 miles from the ocean (but it make take over a half hour to get there). I've corresponded with them using email and talked to one of their people on the phone. They would like us to come up and volunteer there. Frank, the guy I talked to on the phone, suggested we come up and look the place over. The drive up was nothing special. We pulled off to get gas in Novato, CA. At the Shell station near the exit regular was $4.199/gallon. We drove a little over a block past it and found a Safeway station. By using Kathy's Safeway grocery card we were able to fill up for $3.599/gallon. The place was packed! As one person pulled out another drove up and "parallel parked" at the empty pump. Right after I took the photo someone parked in front of the U-Haul truck. The last 5 miles to the camp was a relatively narrow winding road. That part was OK but there were ...

Today we took a day trip along the coast down to Santa Cruz, around 200 miles total. We had a great day! It was foggy in Oakland this morning but as we started crossing the Bay Bridge the fog lifted.  It then got thicker. As we got closer to San Francisco the fog became more of a ground fog. I missed getting a photo of the SF high rises sticking up out of the fog.  We stopped in Pacifica, CA and spent a over an hour walking around, along the beach. The photo after the next one is taken from near the top of the bluff in the background. There were warnings about the heavy surf. Waves were 13-16 feet high. It was awesome.  More surf.  We were parked back at the other end of this beach. I walked along the beach and then climbed this hill, it is a long ways down to the level of the beach. The view was great.  We poked around looking for a place to have lunch in Half Moon Bay. We found Barbara's Fishtrap down next to the waterfront. This photo...

Weather was nice again today, we are enjoying it but some of you folks are probably tired of hearing about daily highs in the 60's and lows in the 40's. Rain is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Tonight's low is supposed to be 51. This morning we went to the IKEA that is a couple of miles from here. We had lunch at IKEA and then left and went to the Berkley Bowl, it is the grocery store that has a phenomenal amount of fresh fruit and vegetables. When we got home I took a nice nap. Kathy took a short one and then washed windows on the "conservatory." I finished washing the last section on the front of the house. I found out that we missed yesterdays (Sunday's) excitement. About five blocks from here there was a pitched gun battle around 3 PM. 7 people were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. None of the injuries were life threatening. The people shot were not cooperating with the police. These people must be terrible shots. I'm guessing that in the 3 weeks t...

Today we spent the day doing more house washing and painting, plus Drew mowed the lawn and I torched some weeds. I'm almost finished with the house washing, maybe another half hour tomorrow. We got a lot of trim painted today, but still have a lot to go. It is good to see the progress. The day was another nice day. The high was in the mid 60's again, and it was sunny again. Tomorrow nights low is supposed to be 51 degrees. Not really much to pass along tonight. Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.

Yesterday we went to the Farmers Market in Oakland in the AM and did more priming in the PM. Today we covered the RV with plastic again, repaired the plastic on the windows and doors of the house and Drew sprayed the back and side of the house. Kathy put the finish coats on the area around the front porch. The part of the front of the house under the gable end has not yet been washed or primed yet, nor has the side of the house that is on the lot line. Tomorrow we start painting the trim. I'm not sure about when/if we attack that area with the gable roof. For one thing we don't have a ladder that is long enough to reach the peak. The aluminum extension ladder, which we lovingly call "the skinny man's ladder" is maxed out for us big boys just reaching the eaves. It is 7 PM here I see Drew on his way over. We are all showered and ready to go out to eat. We are all pooped. Good night. May God bless you and yours.

Yesterday we went to the University of California Botanical Gardens in Berkeley. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/ Drew wanted us to see what type of native plants they had for sale that would draw honey bees and/or butterflies. When we paid to park I put in a couple of dollars, for 2 hours, thinking we would be out by that time. It was a great place to walk around, worthy of a trip back when we can spend more time there. We went to the section where they sell plants and Kathy bought a couple of them. We put them in the car and then started walking around. There are pathways across the hillsides and you walk, and walk, and walk and..... There are so many interesting plants that the walk is enjoyable. I'm sure we didn't even see half of it when I checked my watch and saw that we only had 15 minutes before the time on the meter ran out. The entrance from the parking lot.  The great gardener getting ready for work.  These daffodils were pretty even though they were pretty simp...

Not much exciting yesterday. The day was mostly sunny but seemed a little cooler, probably high 50's. Not that cool because when we went out to eat last night I wore a short sleeve shirt and we walked up and down several blocks of Emeryville. I was cool but not chilled. I had ordered 8 replacement, 18" fluorescent tubes for the RV, less than $2/each, online. We ahve 6 - 2 bulb fixtures that use them. I replaced the 2 bulbs that had quit working and 4 more that had significant discoloration at one, or both, ends. Still have a couple for spares. Now I have to find a hazardous waste disposal place to get rid of the old bulbs. I took final measurements on the RV slide out cover and placed an online inquiry for an estimate. I got the estimate back, $165, which seems reasonable. Camping World quoted me about the same price but I think the other place has a better material. I am waiting for a response to a clarification question I asked. I will place the order as soon I get the respo...

It is hard to believe that this is the last day of January. Today Kathy did some scraping and wall washing on the inside wall of the "conservatory." I looked at the slide topper on the RV in more detail and am now reasonably sure that I/we can change the deteriorated fabric. Now I need to see if I can find a better price for the fabric than the one I got from Camping World. There is a sagging place in Drew's roof. We previously took a quick look in the attic and could see where some modifications had been made. Today I did some measuring to locate walls and tomorrow I plan on going into the attic again to get some ideas on how we can jack the sag out of the roof and then reinforce it. This morning I talked to a couple of guys from Camp Alta, in Alta, CA; about the possibility of us volunteering there after we leave Drews. They currently don't have any full hook-ups for RV's, although they have water and electricity. They invited us to come up and spend the night t...