The Edgewood Years
Likely my final chapter. Hopefully it's a long one.
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Mom Is Gone.
Saturday, April 8, 2023
Privacy of the Back Yard Continues
Thursday, March 23, 2023
The Rise and Fall of the Motorhome
We had high hopes for our nudist palace on wheels, but truth is, it's just like the old adage: The two best days in your life might be the day you buy your [motorhome/boat/extravagance] and the day you sell your [motorhome/boat/extravagance].
We hadn't even owned it 4 years, but Between COVID limiting people going anywhere and camping areas and nudist parks being closed, it got used very little. After it's initial summer of fun, it just sat and got older. Oddly, the only three places we ever camped in it were nudist parks! Our first outing was over near Spokane, at Kaniksu Ranch. We followed that up with a visit to Lake Bronson Nudist Park, near Sultan. Our final (though we didn't know it at the time) use of the motorhome was at our closest nudist park, Tiger Mountain Family Nudist Park, over near Issaquah. I just had to have the license plate frame made.
A year or so ago I had a guy stop by out of the blue, asking me if I'd be willing to sell the motorhome. Well, like most people, I have the "right price and we'll see" attitude. We went out and looked it all over, starting it and checking things over. We arrived on a price, and the guy left to get his "money man" or relative that had funds. When he showed up with him they started in on me-attacking from two directions about why this or that should lower the price, etc. Finally, I said, "You know, I don't like where this deal is going. The deal is off. Goodbye" and sent them away. They continued trying as they left, and even contacted me a day or two later. Nope.
Maybe six months later the same thing happens. Out of the blue a gal comes to the door saying her husband wants to ask about the motorhome, motioning over towards the driveway at him sitting in his Suburban. After a bunch of song and dance, we arrive at a pretty cheap price (about half of what I could have sold it to the first guys for a year or so earlier. At this point they left to go get money. That's when I noted the similarities between all these guys--including the previous hagglers six months earlier. They could have been family. All of them were Mediterranean ancestry, all the same accents, all with the same methods of haggling and doing business. When these folks came back, they started in on fresh round of re-haggling, as if the price hadn't already been determined. When they saw I wasn't going to budge, the deal was made. Imagine my surprise--no, OUR surprise--when the same couple showed up a few days later, "Uhh, I hate to bother you, but the motorhome ended up costing us more to get repaired than we thought and we can't afford to pay the bill. We were wondering if you could lend us maybe $500 or so." Are you fucking kidding me? It was all I could keep from saying that, but I firmly sent them packing. I was flabbergasted. They even had their kids acting all lovey towards us, trying to win us over. Even the first guy that sold us the motorhome was from that family. He did all the exact same moves with the re-haggling, along with looking like they were all brothers. I don't want to step on too many ethnic toes here, but I doubt I will never again do business with someone of that group.
The good news though: the motorhome was gone. No more worrying about leaking, freezing, protecting, or storing. That was a pretty expensive motorhome when you count the depreciation and the costs--especially when you only use it three times. Then there's theft.
Oh, I didn't tell you about that?
Yes, we fell victim to the catalytic converter theft craze that swept the nation during the pandemic times. One day I took the garbage out and walked around the motorhome on the way back in, checking on the tarp after we had just had a big windstorm the previous day. The snow was patchy and frozen, with bare spots here and there. My foot caught on the edge of something on the driver's side, about halfway down. I bent down and found a rubber trunk mat-looking thing sticking out of the snow. "Hmm, that wind must have blown this thing from someone else's yard." I was just about to keep walking when something made me stop. "Wait... could it be..." I kneeled down. Sure enough, there was a sizeable gap in the 3" exhaust pipe where our low-mileage, factory catalytic converter used to reside. Sonuvabitch, they got me. Apparently, something spooked them to not get their mat when they left. Brenda is sure it was during a time Wendy was over visiting with Louie. She let the dogs out and they both barked and ran that direction, though none of us thought anything at the time. She was probably right.
But it was fun. Yes, we kept the license plate frame.
Thursday, March 9, 2023
The Fence - Part Two: Finished Fence!
As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, I hired a team of professionals by the name of Olympic Fencing Solutions. To give you the quick overview, Jorge and his crew knew their business. Instead of "I can't make it today" excuses, I got, "Instead of Monday, can we start tomorrow?" It ended up being a two-and-a-half-day job, and they got right down to business.
Here are a few things that set them apart from the usual fencing folks:
- Instead of the fence posts being 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" in size they were full 4" x 4" in size
- Instead of the typical 8-foot fence posts, these fellows knew enough to use full 9-footers for good depth
- All concrete was premixed in the wheelbarrow--old school style--before pouring
- All of the posts were buried a full 3-feet deep
- The gate timbers were full 6" x 6" in size, again instead of the usual 5 1/2 x 5 1/2" size, and again--full 9-feet long
- The gates were custom-built to size on site by one man who knew his craft
- The lumber used on the gates was full-dimensional lumber (not nominal-sized like the box stores)
- The gates were both assembled with beautifully-done miters, assembled with screws, and well-braced
A lot of tree-trimming and chip pile-moving was needed beforehand |
The gate-building specialist gathering his goods together |
Side gate framing underway. Look at those miters! |
Maybe you can get an idea of the size of these gate posts |
Notice how it progressively gets farther from the chainlink fence? |
A couple of side gates ready to go! The gate guy was my hero. |
Time to start in on the driveway side |
Posts are all in. Boards tomorrow! |
Time for some gate hanging work |
Get a good helper and they come out nice and straight! |
Now that's what I call a beautiful privacy fence. Gap-free and stout. |
The old posts show how far the property line moved in our favor |
The front yard received a 'shadow' fence style - same on both sides |
The sound side of the house - Finished! |
Last day - time for the REAL gates to be built for the driveway |
Wow! All finished! Now we can wash the cars naked! |
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
The Fence - Part One: The Debacle
Or as was should call it: Chris Yurjevich: "NON-tractor." He was obviously not a contractor. Or, you could say since I was basically conned, the contractor moniker is somewhat accurate in a twisted sort of way.
Let's start at the beginning.
I found him on Craigslist, and honestly--I don't know what possessed me to hire him in the first place. Maybe it was my private nature--how I hate talking to people I don't know. Maybe it was my lack of leadership abilities--how I don't like directing people. It was such a perfect storm for a fuckup of fairly grand scale, and so it came to pass.
- He was setting posts by pouring a (yes, ONE) bag of concrete into the hole and then filling it with water.
- One of the posts was at least the width of the post out of alignment from the other posts. "There was big rock down there. Don't worry--you won't even notice it." Wrong.
- Not one time did he ever even address the other half of fence project on the driveway side of the house. Whether supplies, process, etc... he probably never planned on getting that far...
- He had no tools to speak of. No wheelbarrow, no hose... the things that he did have looked freshly-bought.
- The posts he showed up with were regular 8-foot 4x4 posts from a box store, measuring 3.5" x 3.5" wide like most do. An 8-foot post is not long enough for a 6-foot fence!
- When I looked at the heights of the row of posts he had installed, the numbers were all over the map. When I measured what was protruding from the ground I found he had only buried them 1-1.5 feet deep! That was not going to hold a 6-foot privacy fence up. The wind would have taken the whole thing down in no time.
- The final straw: I went out to the street to look down at the row alignment and saw he hadn't even been following his own string line! He was off by almost a full 12 inches at the street end. Unbelievable... and after I shelled out $3k on a survey before we started.
"Hold it!" The de-construction of an underway debacle |
Monday, March 6, 2023
My Old Camera Collection
I used to have a nice little collection of old cameras. That is--until that one day I had some sort of brain fart. I don't know if I decided I was tired of them or if I needed tuition money or what, but I ended up selling them at our (then) local Midway Swap Meet or something until they were gone.
There have been many times I've wished I had them back, but 'oh well'. You learn through your mistakes, right? Anyway, here's an old picture I found from my days living in crime-riddled south Auburn. This was the display I had in the living room, complete with a tapestry I bought in Turkey providing the backdrop.
I wish the picture was better, but you should have seen it before I fixed it. It was an old, washed-out slide that I had trouble scanning in to begin with. I was able to help it a little with Adobe Lightroom:
Our current 'collection' is a lot more diverse than the old camera-only one above. In addition to cameras, it has all sorts of collectibles, knick-knacks, and family heirloom stuff:
Saturday, March 4, 2023
My History With Photography
I'd like to think that camera film is trying to stage a comeback, but I'm not so sure. For a cheap, plastic camera, the fact that it used 120 film was its saving grace. 120 film was cheap, it was available everywhere (at that time), and being a 'medium format' film, was very easy to make enlargements from. The only way to make using film practical nowadays is to develop your own pictures... assuming you can find film. Nobody develops film for the broader markets any more. You've gotta search
Epix Pro |
Is that a blast from the past or what? Anyway, it was only a 512k-pixel resolution camera. I think I bought it on eBay back when eBay was in it's infancy. As a matter of fact, I believe I actually bought it for eBay--To take pictures of things that I put up for sale. Here's a copy of a website I found and saved a few years ago. I saved it in case it disappeared:
Back then anyone that had a digital camera was a computer geek. Why? Because they were not treated as real cameras per se, but rather, as electronic devices. To the photographic world they were dismissed as novelties, and for good reason--Their pictures were nowhere near good enough quality to be called photography. As digital cameras became more common, they also became more powerful and came down in price as we all know by now. As that was happening I sold that Epix camera and bought a Kodak DC120.
Kodak DC120 |
It was a pretty nice camera in it's day. It was 1-megapixel (woo!) and took much better shots than my first digital camera did. It also had a built-in flash, a 3x zoom, and used Compactflash cards which were reasonably new then. I was getting into digital cameras and loved the aspect of being able to take as many pictures as I wanted and deleting them instantly if something went wrong. As the digital cameras became better and more affordable, I finally got to the point where I knew I'd never give my old trusty Nikon FM film camera the respect and attention it once had and I sold it.
The next upgrade for me was an Olympus C4000z digital camera. I loved this camera for the quality improvement it had over the Kodak! While it had it's share of issues, it took great pictures. I grew to hate the fact that it was limited by a 128-meg Smartmedia card, and grew also dissatisfied with the unintuitive menu structure it had. I basically used this camera more as a tool--using it for things like covering family events, taking pictures of things for my website, and that sort of thing. I still hadn't been bitten by the photography bug.
Early 2009 brought a reawakening of photography to my life when my (then) wife got herself into a photography class at our local community college. I accompanied her to our local Office Depot store one evening to buy herself a new Canon XTi DSLR camera. That really didn't clinch it for me--That happened a few days later. We both went out in the waning daylight hours when her photography class had an assignment to take pictures that showed motion. Helping her set up the shots brought back some excitement. I wrestled with it for a few days after that before finally succumbing and buying myself a used Canon XT camera. The seed was planted. Although my camera was one notch below hers, they were virtually brother and sister. It was a Canon EOS 350D, also known as the Digital Rebel XT. I was back having a great time taking pictures once again! I was fortunate that it came with an extra battery when I bought it (a necessity). It came with the standard 18-55 'kit' lens, and a crappy (but worked ok) 75-300 zoom.
A few upgrades followed after that. I upgraded to the Canon XTi like Sue had and ran that for a couple years, then bought a used Canon 7D. While I still have the 7D, I rarely take it out. Photography has taken yet another break from my life. We'll see if it comes back some day...