Last Word

Viewing 15 posts - 1,366 through 1,380 (of 1,599 total)
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  • #3743
    RYou
    Participant

    Sounds like, “If anything can go bad, it will.” Hopefully, it will turn out as you expect.

    Survived the weekend of the 4th with the hoard. By Sunday night, my wife and I were beat, so we did minimal clean up saving it for Monday. Tuesday, 4″ of rain. Another 1″ last night with more today. I just looked at the 10 forecast, 10 days of rain with + 50% probability. I don’t think I’ll be getting much done outside including mowing the lawn.

    I hope by now you’re feeling back to normal.

    • This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by RYou.
    #3745
    mspart
    Participant

    Yep, the dizziness has gone away. Feeling back to normal. The chipper has parts coming to replace the damage. I am not sure when that comes but will start working on it when it comes. I have a neighbor with a tree or big branch down that may be able to use the chipper. So I need to get that fixed up. That was quite the deal.

    My son lives in DC as I’ve told you and they have rain everyday the next week last I saw. So it makes sense you would be having that as well. I can’t remember if I thanked you for the restaurant help in DC. We went to two of them and they were fantastic.

    Next project is a tiny library that we are rebuilding. The framing is almost done, just need to get the siding and roof on word.

    mspart

    #3746
    RYou
    Participant

    The weather’s been a lot like Alabama, hot humid. You’re soaked when you walk outside. We get days like that but not a week at time. Thunderstorms at night, then low 90’s and sunshine steaming the rainwater out of the ground. About the only positives out of it all….the grass is still green and the vegetable garden is growing like crazy.

    #3747
    mspart
    Participant

    Speaking of gardens, we have one. My wife picked some lettuce for taco salad. We are just starting to eat when she yells, “There is a slug in my bowl!!”. Yep, a small slug was on the side of her bowl. First time that has ever happened in my life. To say the least, our appetite for taco salad disappeared word!!!

    mspart

    #3748
    mspart
    Participant

    I heard there is flooding in NJ. I hope you are safe.

    mspart

    #3749
    RYou
    Participant

    Central part of the state had 6-7″ over 2 hours. It’s a hilly area so the runoff formed rivers. A section of the NJ Turnpike where it is 8 lanes wide looked like the Mississippi. It’s the major roadway going north and south on the east coast so there was a high volume of traffic that got stuck in the flooding. Fortunately, it was not so deep that people drowned, they just got stuck in it and had their cars flooded out. 2 people did drown when the car floated from the street to a river and then sank. The state police had to wait for the water to recede then sent out state buses and an incredible number of tow trucks to retrieve everyone and clear the road. The cars got towed to the nearest exit and dropped in parking lots for the insurance companies to retrieve them. The people got dropped at nearby hotels and train stations. The storm sewers couldn’t handle the volume. 2 of my kids were 4-5 miles but only got 3.5″. We got barely over 1/2″ as it passed about 10 miles northwest of us.

    #3750
    mspart
    Participant

    I’m glad to hear you were not affected. Hopefully that action is over for the rest of the year. We are gettting our hottest day today. My wife has me building a tiny library. She built one before but it did not last and we tore it down a few months ago. So now we are trying to do it right. We cut plywood and T-111 for siding and the base last night. I will have to auger some holes so we can put a post or two in concrete. Waiting for my son to get back with a big machine to take out stumps and level an area in the back where she wants to put a 16×12 deck. It will just be out there all lonely and everything. That will be a project. We have her family coming beginning of Aug so we will have to get on that one. Yes, I know, you could do it in an afternoon. My father-in-law could do it in an afternoon. Sadly, he is gone now. And you are not near so we will take a week or so to get it done word.

    mspart

    #3751
    RYou
    Participant

    More rain today, just shy of an inch. The weather is turning out to be completely opposite of last year. We’ve had more rain days so far in July than we had June to October last year. They say more on the way too, Thurs and Fri.

    • This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by RYou.
    #3753
    mspart
    Participant

    Dry as a bone here. You guys are not getting your precip from us that’s for sure word.

    mspart

    #3754
    RYou
    Participant

    3.5″rain in an hour Sunday morning. The ground is now saturated as we a little bit seepage in the basement along the perimeter of one side. It’s the one side that I have a problem with drainage off the roof. It’s 4 a foot area enclosed with pavers. I’ll have to tunnel underneath and sink another drywell in order to get away from the foundation. The set the pavers over 8″ of stone and sand so I have to down 12″ in order to avoid the base stone. I use a 50 gal perforated tub that is 3 ft tall so I to dig a hole 4 ft in depth and 40″ wide. Below that is all sand which drains well. It takes a bit of time carving that tunnel underneath the pavers. Hopefully, they didn’t dump waste cement below the pavers. I’ll have to move that one up the project up the priority list. Right now I’m replacing some cedar siding which is crumbling for lack of paint over time. It’s has become dried out from direct sunlight 10-12 hours a day. It was coated with an oil stain 20+ years ago and never recoated.

    #3755
    mspart
    Participant

    It is supposed to rain today as they were predicting yesterday. Today, there is no precip in the forecast for the next 10 days. We finished the tiny library on Saturday, structurally speaking. My wife will paint it and we’ll put it up on the stand tonight. We also cleaned out a lot of stuff so my shed (big shed) is no longer completely filled up with junk. My little lumber yard is all cleaned up now so that’s a good deal. My wife is a wiz at that kind of stuff. She wants me to get rid of the table saw that my Dad built in college. He carted it around everywhere and used it to make some bedrooms in the basement. Very dangerous to use I think. It works but I don’t use it. I have a nice DeWalt table saw that works pretty good and has more capability. But I have a hard time letting go even though I don’t use it. I am too sentimental about stuff like that word.

    mspart

    #3756
    RYou
    Participant

    I understand how you want to hang onto that table saw. My dad died when I was 6 so there wasn’t too much. An Ivers Johnson 12 gauge from 1939, a wedding gift from my mom to him, a bamboo fly rod and Pflueger reel, a camp hatchet and his WW II discharge card from the US Navy. I had a gunsmith cleanup the shotgun, cleaning up the rust inside and out of the barrel. I’ve used a few times pheasant hunting. It has an awful kickback into your shoulder. I have a photo of him with it and a fox and 2 pheasant he brought down.

    #3757
    mspart
    Participant

    My dad had a 16 gauge shotgun. It is in disrepair now. I feel bad about that. This tablesaw is also in disrepair, but it is a mortal hazard to get it fixed up. The table part of it I am not sure where it is. And it seems to me it was cracked the last time I saw it. Probably not worth much to anyone really. But he made it. That’s the rub. If he bought it, I wouldn’t care as much, but he made it, at least the table and the housing. I also have a box with his Dads tools in it. Those are museum pieces probably.

    It’s overcast here this morning but getting warmer today and tomorrow and then another cool down. It will get just into the 80s tomorrow word.

    mspart

    #3758
    RYou
    Participant

    A little diversion here about family property… My uncle was an Army captain and served in the Pacific on MacArthur’s staff. Enlisted in 1942 and was offered officer training school since he had a law degree for which he was made a 2nd lieutenant. He shipped out in late 1942. General Courtney Whitney was looking to add to his staff in China and recruited my uncle since Whitney was also a lawyer. After MacArthur got chased out the Philippines, he set up shop in Australia. MacArthur then asked Whitney to become his intelligence officer and recruited him to Australia. Whitney needed a staff and asked my uncle to go along. He spent the war in intelligence and help set up the intelligence communications network of throughout the south pacific which included missionaries, tribesmen, and local residents to watch for and report on Japanese ship and air movements. Ultimately, promotions got him to captain. At the end of the war he’s in Japan with Macarthur doing his intelligence work. As part of the surrender, the Japanese, both military and residents were required to turn in their weapons to the US Army, and that included Japanese swords. The military swords weren’t worth much but most of the swords owned by residents were family heirlooms, sone being 300 to 400 years old, even older. All of the weapons including the old swords were being crated and loaded on Navy ships to be disposed of at sea. One day my uncle is down at the docks where they are crating the weapons, and he sees a captain offering a pick of weapons from the piles. My uncle jumped in and was offered his choice and he walked away with 2 really nice katanas. Now when he was discharged, he came to live with my mom and dad while he hunted for a job. He stored this big footlocker containing all of his military gear in our garage covered by a tarp. Now I wasn’t born until some 8-9 years later. When I was about 8 years old I went into the garage one day looked at the chest and decided to look inside. I had always wanted to but never dared to. By now my uncle had moved out long ago, but left the chest behind. Mom never touched it. Well, I’m carefully prying through the chest, looking at the uniforms which still had his ribbons and all that brass on them, neatly folded. There were a bunch of papers, shoes, even civilian clothing. So I’m leaning into it and my older brother comes in. I didn’t see him and he belts out “What are you doing in there.” So I told him, I wanted to see what was inside. He looks in and says, Oh you haven’t gotten to the bottom yet. Obviously, he had looked inside before me. He says, let me show what’s down the bottom. He removes some clothing, reaches in and pulls out one of the katana’s. He says there is another in there. Then he pulls the scabbard off. He let me hold for a bit then says we have to put it back before mom finds out. So there these 2 katanas lay for years.

    Fast forward about ten years and my mom is talking on the phone with my uncle who has been living in Wisconsin for years. I hear her asking him about what she can do with his navy chest in the garage. Then she asks are you sure you want me to get rid of everything and offering to ship it to him. He still doesn’t want anything. I called my brother and told him what I had heard. He tells my mom that he knows someone at swap meet that will buy everything. She tells him to go sell it. That weekend he came over and loaded up his car. Later he came home and hands my mom $300, all he could get selling everything. For me the story could have ended there.

    Fast forward 20 years and my uncle who has now retired and moved by to NJ comes over for dinner right after he gets back. The 2 were laughing about old times and then we talked bout his time in the Army. Then he pops the question, whatever happened to my Army footlocker? So she tells him, remember I told you we sold everything to a military trader at a swap meet. And then, the big question…What about my 2 swords? Mind you brother isn’t with us. She tells him well I guess that was included in the $300, Ceddie (my brother) knew this guy that swaps miliary memorabilia. So he says, those swords would be worth a pretty penny these days. This is around 1975. That’s all that was said about it.

    Jump ahead again to around 1990. My uncle passes away. He had been married and had a daughter, but got divorced when she was around 6 and never remarried. In his will he left most everything to his daughter but bequeathed $100,000 to my mom. His daughter was executor of his will and the bitch; she never forwarded the money. My mom could have sued her for it but refused because it was family “I didn’t expect it and I don’t need it.”.

    When I tell my brother the story and can’t believe it. There wasn’t much she could do, the daughter moved into one of my uncle’s homes in Hawaii. Over time, my uncle had accumulated a lot of residential property, New Jersey, Hawaii, Miami, San Diego, even St John in the Virgin Islands. He rented it all out, for years, and we never knew about it. Anyway, my brother hears about it and says I’ll take care of it. Huh ?

    A month later my brother and his wife come over for dinner. I’ve got a surprise for you Ma……he hands her a check for $225,000. Here ma, Uncle Charles wanted you to have this. She asks what is this for. Well, remember Uncle Charles said you can keep the $300 I got for his military stuff? I never sold the swords, I kept them. She asks What swords…she never knew what was inside that footlocker. Well, my brother sold the 2 swords for $225,000. Unc picked a couple of pretty good pieces out of that pile. Family heirlooms, you just never know.

    #3759
    mspart
    Participant

    That is quite the story. Wow! It seems funny that your Uncle would tell your Mom to sell everything. That’s pretty amazing. You would think he would have remembered the swords. That’s pretty sad that all those heirloom swords were forcibly taken from the Japanese. The ultimate show of power to a vanquished foe.

    I don’t think I have anything like that. I do have a bayonet from WWI (reportedly) that my son has been pining for for years and years. He just offered $100 for it and I said he could just have it. He’s 26 now and I guess he’s old enough to have it. I bought it off some guy when I was 17 or so for $20 back in 1979 or so. So I’ve had it for quite awhile but have always kept it hidden, never displayed. Too easy for someone unhinged to do something stupid with. My college dorm roommate held it up to our resident assistant in a faux threatening manner. I hid it from that point on word.

    mspart

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