For Brig.....

This song pretty much describes living in Southern Kalifornia....

Music To Leave Kalifornia By....

Getting ready!

Plane, Profile, and Track Are One!

Well, things are going along here pretty well.

Almost all of the radio gear here in my little Comm Center has been safely packed up, and all the books are packed. GAWD....I hate moving boxes of books! They're like moving solid blocks of wood the same size, or maybe even heavier.

We're going to have six "pods" dropped off in a few weeks, and the "Pod People" will pack them, ship them, and store them for us until we buy a house. Then they'll deliver them, unpack them, and set up the furniture and other things for us.

The biggest trailer I can rent from my local-down-the-street U-Haul is a 6'x12'x5.5' dual-axle rig rated for 2,500 lbs of cargo. I'll probably let the "Pod People" take my two rolling toolboxes, and stuff the rest of the garage stuff in the trailer and Jeep.

I'm planning on overnighting in St. George, UT, and Grand Junction, CO, as St. George is about 8 hours from here, Grand Junction is about 8 hours further down the road, and Fort Collins about 8 hours from there. I really don't want to push it too hard dragging a trailer behind the Jeep, and I think an 8 hour stint behind the wheel will be tiring enough.

Oh, and the back brakes on the Jeep wore through the pads yesterday, so that's something else I have to fix.

I've never owned a vehicle where the rear brake pads wore out before the fronts. I checked the front pads a couple of weeks ago, and they still have about half the lining on them, so geez....the rears should be just dandy, shouldn't they?

Nope....and since there aren't any "wear indicators" on the OEM pads to squeal and squeek before the lining evaporates, they wore out and started munching on the rotors.

Oh, well......I'll get two new rotors for the rear, along with a set of rear pads, and FRONT pads, too. Might as well make sure all four wheels have new pads before I start towing a trailer through the mountains.

The wife's stress level has decreased somewhat, at least until the next "crisis", and then she'll ramp it up again.

Might Be Staying In Kommiefornia A Bit Longer..... ***UPDATED***

WELL...the saga continues.

The alleged buyers, through their realtor, gave our realtor a verbal OK to our response of "NO!" to their request for a $5,000 price reduction, but have not yet responded with a signed, written agreement.

Unless they submit a signed, written agreement accepting the listed "contingencies", our realtor tells us they could decide to drop out of escrow at any point, up to the last day.

Since this is not acceptable to us, he sent them another written document stating they have 48 hours to respond, in writing, or the sellers (us) will consider the entire contract null and void.

The extra 48 hours we gave them is up today at the close of business, and they still haven't responded.

He talked with their agent a couple of times, and she replied that the buyers will not sign anything electronically, and that she has to meet them each time, explain things to them, wait for their decision, get them to sign the documents, and then submit them.

It's almost 1500 here, which means they have two hours to get the signed documents back to our agent, or the deal is dead.


***UPDATE***

Well, my wife just called our realtor, and he was like...uh..."OOPS! They sent the docs by courier this morning and I should have immediately notified you, but I didn't..."

So they accepted our NO reply to their cheap shot at trying to get $5k off the already agreed upon price and conditions, and things are rolling along.

He told her it will probably fund (means we have the money in our bank) several days before the official close of escrow on September 20th.

What really flipped me out was I heard her bawling away in the living room, wonder what the ^^&&%% happened, and almost twisted an ankle getting out there on a dead run.

She tells me was just relieving all the built up stress over "having to go through all this again in the spring".....

I'll never understand women....

2017 Eclipse in SoCal....

Everybody else is posting about it, so......no, I wouldn't jump off a building if Johhny did it!

Got noticeably dark here this morning, more than I expected.

Made a "pin hole" camera with a piece of cardboard and some aluminum foil, and used it to observe a small bite taken out of the Sun.

I've seen greater totality before, so this was pretty ho-hum for me.

Back to your regularly scheduled whatever.......

Meanwhile, in Cheyenne, WY where out daughter-in-laws younger sister lives, she got this picture:

Last Minute Buyer Shenannigans....

Our realtor called us this afternoon, day 14 of the 15 day escrow "perform or die" time limitation.

The buyers wanted a $5,000 price reduction due to asbestos in the 1942-era "popcorn" ceiling, and the "possibility of lead-based paint, both requiring remediation".

These items were fully covered in the home inspection report, and the disclosure, which they've had for quite some time now.

We damn near told them to take a hike, as we have no problem sitting here until spring. And if we do stay until spring, we'll probably get the ceilings scraped and refinished, and the house will go back on the market and sell for $550k, as long as the market doesn't tank.

Our realtor agreed it was definitely a cheap stunt to pull, especially considering they KNOW we aren't in any pressing need to move.

After he and my wife calmed me down a bit, we all agreed the best thing was to "Just Say NO!" to them, and if they pull out, no skin off our nose.

He called back a few minutes ago saying they accepted the "NO!", and things are still on.

Geez......some people's kids!

Termite "Inspection" Team Here This Morning

And it sounds more like they're the "Termite DEMOLITION Team".

Granted, I've never watched this being done, so I'm probably gonna get get called "STOOPID" by somebody, but these guys are checking for termite infestation by using a "probe" on a painter's pole, and banginging it against all the exposed wood they can see and reach.,

thump, thump, thump, thump,thump,thump for the last 35 minutes.

And once in a while you hear thump,thump,thump,thump, CRUNCH, thump, thump, thump.....

The "crunch" is not good because it means their "probe" just busted through what was left of a piece of wood that the termites have been feasting on.

So far they've found a couple of spots they're calling "dry rot", a couple of boards on the fascia for the garage, and the 4x4 holding the window A/C unit up.

Orkin was here two years ago and gave the place a clean bill of health, but then they didn't run around banging on stuff, either.

Hopefully this stuff won't be too expensive to repair.

Escrow Closes September 20th.....

Our realtor just called, and the official closing for the house is 20 September 2017.

This totally screws me for going to Supras In Vegas this year, as the event is the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of September. I'd planned on leaving on the 20th, but now I have the wife, her car, and the dog to worry about getting moved. Her BFF was going to split the driving of her car with her, and I was going to head to Fort Collins right after the event, drop the Supra off, fly home, rest for a day, and then head back to Fort Collins in the Jeep with the dog.

Turns out I'd counted the days wrong, and thought it closed a week later, which would have made Supras In Vegas a bit difficult, but "doable".

Home Inspection Details and Repairs

The "minor leak" under the bathtub drain turned out to be a bit  more than the inspector found. Our plumber friend from across the street went under the house today, and found that the drain wasn't just leaking from the threaded connections, but had a hole corroded through it! He'd brought all the bits and pieces to replace the entire assembly, so it wasn't any big deal, but he said if the inspector had noticed the dirt in the crawlspace was wet, or even damp, they would have called for a "professional" cleanup crew to remove the dirt, and "sanitize" the area in addition to the repair of the corroded away parts.

And in Kommiefornia, "Remediation" means HAZMAT teams coming in, and a HUGE bill when they're done. They've shut down entire freeways for hours to clean up a couple of gallons of spilled fuel after an accident.

That's insane! It's drain water from a bathtub, for cryin' out loud, and unless we were washing off radiation contamination, or giving baths to Ebola victims, it's just used, soapy water from taking a bath or shower.

He also replaced the entire vent assembly for the water heater, using double walled tubing made for the task, and added a discharge line to the safety blow-off valve at the top of the water heater, so now the water heater issues are not only repaired, but fully "up to code".

I replaced the outlet in the bathroom with a GFCI unit, and also the one near the kitchen sink. The one near the kitchen sink was just a regular duplex outlet and two switches, one for the disposal and one for some recessed lighting, BUT, in order to make it look nice, I not only had to replace the outlet, but also the switches, as NOBODY makes a wall plate that has the rectangular cutout for a GFCI and the two oval cutouts for the switches. So add the cost of a new switch ($20) and new wall plate ($8 for a new wood one) to the $18 for the GFCI outlet.

And I still have to recaulk the tub to the tile on the wall. I dug out all the old caulk last year and laid in some good stuff, but ran out before I had a really nice "above grade" bead. Well, the caulk shrank a bit, and left a couple of gaps that the inspector squawked about because water could get back there and "Promote MOLD and BACTERIAL CONTAMINATION!!!"

ZOMG! ARMEGEDDON!

Geez, after reading Old_NFO's post this morning, I really do wonder how so many of us managed to survive those unenlightened and barbaric days of old, before the nanny state insisted on so many "safety" regulations.....

As far as upgrading all the power to the garage, all I can say is "'Aint Gonna Happen"!

The inspector noted that none of the outlets were grounded, and well, DUH! There's only a hot and neutral running to the garage, so what do you expect? And considering when the house and garage were built, it wasn't required, and we're grandfathered in from requiring it to be brought up to code.

Again, I really have to wonder how many people were injured from two-wire, non-grounded (three pin) outlets over the years....

Weather In Fort Collins

As I've told my wife numerous times, she's going to get a whole different perspective on what REAL weather is once we're in Colorado.

This past Thursday, a violent but brief hailstorm pounded parts of the city. Out where the kids live, North West of the city, there was 2" hail, driven by high winds, causing quite a bit of damage.

The house the kids live in got clobbered. Three sides of the house look like this:

And the roof took a beating, too. I'm surprised they didn't have some broken windows.

The nice 1/8 acre garden they had looks like the not-so-jolly Green Giant came in and stomped on it.

AFAIK, my wife has never been through a real Midwestern-style thunderstorm, with high winds, driving rain, and large hail. Fort Collins is a bit protected, being in the Cache La Poudre valley, but it's still in open enough country to get really clobbered. The last time we were there in the summer, I notice really big anvil-heads to the East, and mentioned to my wife that somebody was really going to catch it. Sure enough, as we got in the car the EAS warnings came on the radio about severe storms in Weld County, with tornado warnings. Seeing the anvil-heads reminded me of growing up in Illinois, where we had weather like that several times per summer.

It's one thing to see the damage a storm like this can do, and another thing to be right in the middle of one, and not really being able to do much about it.

I hope whatever we buy has a basement!

House Inspection Complete

One minor issue. The bathtub drain has a slight leak, easily fixed, but not by me. I'm just too old anymore to crawl that far under the house and do anything other than string some cables!

We haven't received our copy of the report, which I had expected sometime today. The new "owners" came by with the inspector, and brought their realtor with them. They were all pumped up up getting their first house, and the guy's wife complimented us on how nice the house looked, and how happy they were that we accepted their offer. They'd been out bid three times on other houses they'd wanted to buy, so they appear to be completely serious about wanting to get this one.

After the report comes in, I'm sure they'll go back to our agent looking for some "compensation" for any issues that were found. Our agent has told us that he'll stand pretty firm on what's already been negotiated. They want the house ASAP, and we have no problem sitting here until spring, so it should be interesting to watch the rest of these proceedings finish....