Who Sucks:  People or Facebook?

Maybe both suck. 

I'm on Facebook.  Quit two or three times but went back for who knows what reason.  Things I hate it about Facebook or is it things I hate about people?  You make the call:

1.  Making comments that no one responds to.

2.  Sending friend requests that are not accepted  (Hello, anybody home?!  HELLO!).  Makes one wonder ...was it something I said or was it something that I did or was it anything at all?

3.  Stupid comments from stupid people.

4.  People who list each and every day what they're doing, where they're doing it, what time they're doing and who they're doing it to.  That said, no one talks about having a fantastic bowel movement..the best they ever ever had. 

I'll probably quit Facebook for the fourth time.  It's really just not for me.

This Has To Be It

It's May 27th and close to 5 in the afternoon.  The weather?  Rain with a high of 53 degrees at the end of a Spring month that should bring nothing but sun and 80 plus degrees in heat.

I've burned through two and a half cords of oak this winter.  Three weeks ago it was cold, rainy and windy.  I made a fire and said, "This is the last one of the season."

Two week ago to the day it was cold, lots of rain and plenty of wind.  I made a fire and said, "This surely has to be the last fire until November."

Last week. . . well, you get the picture.

Then today.  Cold and rain.  No sun.  As I write this there's five sticks of oak left from the 2 1/2 cords. I'm burning those babies today 'cause this will definitely be and I want it to be the last fire of the season.

Bring on the sun.  Bring on the heat.  It's time for lots and lots and lots of 110 degree weather.

Let's Talk Seniors

We get all kinds of shit mail.  Advertisements.  Catalogues for every Tom, Dick and Harry mail order business in the world.  If there's junk mail out there to send, we get it in our mailbox.

As we've gotten older the type of mail began to change.  A couple of months ago we started to get stuff about hearing aids.  Granted I don't have the best hearing.  Mainly the issue around that is about not being able to hear well because I can.  It's about selective hearing.  I only hear what I want to hear.  It's a guy thing.  Take for example Wifey's requests to like take out the garbage.  I never hear her say that.  But Wifey claims that she tells me to take out the garbage most every day.  No hearing aid out there can help selective hearing.

Last month came the ads for walkers.  Like I'm on my last legs?  Far from it.  Geeze!  A walker.  I'd get one if there were beer can holders and an ice chest on it.   Now that would be handy and something I could use every day.

Then came the ads for motorized scooters.  You've seen them.  They're usually red, have a basket on the front and are for old farts who can't get around any more.  Bob's way far from needing one of those although I'd love to have one to rid in Walmart.  I'd be playing bumper car with the idiots who block the aisles with their baskets and their load of screaming kids.  Wham!  Bam!  Get out the way, Mam!

How do they figure out who needs stuff like this anyway?  Probably an age thing. That said,  I have to thank our investment brokerage for selling our name to these businesses (junk mail is usually address to our trust).  Everyone seems to be making the statement that 40 is the new 30, that 50 is the new 40 and so on.  This is supposed to make you feel better with every birthday.   If this is true then please stop sending shit mail to those of us who (a) don't need and will never need things like this and (b) adjust the age grouping its sent to.  Many of us are not getting older.  We're staying young in mind, body and spirit. 

The kicker to this post:  Yesterday this comes in the mail, a postcard titled:  Let's Talk Seniors.  It was from a nearby senior retirement home who's sponsoring three talks (but who really want to sell you on buying one of their residences) on Maintaining Brain Health (sorry, any hope of maintaining brain health was lost in the 60's & 70's), Depression (yes, I'm depressed about the state of the USA, how it is run and what our future holds - will this lecture help me?) and Communicating with Different Personalities (women are from Venus and men from Mars and never the twain shall meet - there will never be any intelligent communicating between the sexes).

I guess these are topics of interest to older people who think they can maintain brain health after burning up so many brain cells over the years all due to booze, dope, smoking and knocks on the head.  And I suppose there are those older people who become depressed and need to deal with that.  I feel for them.  Communicating with Different Personalities . . . that's laughable.  Seniors who need a lecture on that topic are indeed hopeless.  At that stage of their life if they have not figured out how to communicate with all types of people they'd better pack it it in.  It's a little late to change, don't ya think?

The kicker of the little postcard that came yesterday was this:  "Please come early and enjoy a complimentary meal.  Dinner is served at 12:30 p.m."

Dinner is served at 12:30 p.m.?!  So if their target audience enjoys dinner at 12:30 p.m. it can only mean that these people hit the sack and it is lights out at 4 or 5!   

Motorized scooters, walkers, hearing aids, dinner at 12:30 p.m.  LET'S NOT TALK SENIORS!  It doesn't sound like any fun to me.

But I might go for the free "dinner".   Ya think?

Just Ducky

Here you see panel of Pergo laminate flooring taken from in front of the rentals kitchen sink.  Our wonderful former tenants allowed water to seep/drip/run/gush/gurgle from underneath the sink cabinet onto the wooden floor.  To the left is where the seepage began.  Mold had began to form.

For reasons I won't go into the Pergo flooring had to be entirely removed from kitchen to the home's front door.  230 square feet.  Ouch.

They say that those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.  That said this will not happen again, Wifey and I replaced the flooring with tile.  Yes, durable, can't screw it up with most anything beautiful tile.  Believe it or not tile was less expensive than laminate flooring.  The cost for laminate was $2,600 installed.  Tile installed:  $1,800.

Our insurance is 1,000 deductible and of course to make a claim means the rates go up next year.  Our former tenants had insurance, too, which is what we require.  That will yield but $1,000 toward these and all of the other damage to the home caused by the tenants.

As someone once said, "Something is better than nothing."  We'll take the thousand, keep the tenants thousand security deposit and call it even steven.

New tenants arrive next week.  I am so ready.

Life will be just ducky come the end of next week.  QUACK!!!

Best Damn Besame Mucho Band Ever!

When Wifey and I visit Mexico we eat, we drink and we be merry all night long, every night. When there's a mariachi band I fork over 20 bucks if they can play and sing Besame Mucho.  No kidding.  Every visit to Mexico I probably spend a couple hundred bucks just to hear Besame Mucho every night.  When I get stuck doing one thing there's no changing up.

After each and every band finishes the song, I stand up, clap and shout, BEST DAMN BESAME MUCHO BAND EVER!   The band doesn't know I always say this so of course they're flattered like hell over such a fine compliment.  Then I kiss Wifey, just like in the song and again and again and again. Then I drink a couple more shots of Tequilla and then I start singing Besame Mucho.

I'd like to go back to Mexico but I'm afraid that I'd lose my head if you get my drift.

Anyway, here's one of the best damn Besame Mucho bands ever!  Give it a listen.

It's Only Money Honey

Repairs to the laminate flooring are impossible to make.  So, today it's being completely removed and replaced with tile .  Tile is $600 less than laminate wood flooring and will eliminate the potential for any future water damage to the floor.  We're looking at a replacement cost of $1,800 for 235 square feet of flooring.  The bleeding has got to stop.  OUCH!  This is on top of the 3k already spent to rehab this property.

As said last night to the wife, It's only money, honey....relax.  Smell the flowers.  We can't take it with us.

Off to the rental to let the tile contactor in.  Yippee Skipee!!!!

Mother Goose

We were busy talking to one of our contractors today who was bidding on the repairs of the rental we're working on.  I just happened to look outside of the kitchen window and this is what I saw.  Every proud mother goose in Cowtown is parading their young about.... here.   There.  Everywhere.  The pond next door was no exception.  The geese and their youngsters were out in full force.

Our new tenants are in for a pleasant surprise.  The beauty of nature is right out of their kitchen window.

Busy Beaver Bob

I've been busy.  Busy as a little beaver (like the four legged beaver with big teeth so get your mind out of the gutter). It's that damn rental.  If anything needed cleaning it did.  If anything needed fixing it did.  Etc.  The rental is where Wifey and I have spent most of our time and a lot of money since May 1st. 

Without going into a lot of boring details let's just say that indeed the old saying that beauty is skin deep rings true in this example.  During the occupancy of the last tenants on the surface the home looked beautiful.  Come time for an under the microscope exam, they lived like pigs. 

For example, the carpet cleaner said he had never cleaned a home with so much food embedded in it.  Filthy window blinds.  Grease and burned on food in the exhaust of the microwave.  Stains on the master bedroom carpet that would not come out.  Laminate flooring near the kitchen sink buckling due to water damage.  The dishwasher damaged beyond repair due to items stuck in its drainage system.

I'm not whining.  I'm just saying.  This goes with the territory of owning property. 

After two weeks of "that" we took a break yesterday.  I headed out to the lake to wash Sparkle Plenty knowing that migratory birds nesting close by had shit up a storm all over her.  I was right.  Three hours of scrubbing later SP was back to normal.  I didn't mind the chore as it was a bright, warm, sunny day on the lake.  Down right pleasant.  I got back into my chee, the Zen, the relaxtion of life.  Cleaning up after birds I don't mind.  Cleaning up after shit bird tenants I resent.

Then yesterday afternoon we took in the Cowtown Symphony.  It was the last of the season.  Wonderful.  Having already bought season tickets to the '10-11 symphony season, yesterday's performance underscored how right it was to continue to purchase them (this will be our fifth year as season ticket holders).

After the symphony we headed to the Elks for a pork roast dinner.  First drinks at the bar served up by our favorite barrista, Nicole.  As we sat down for dinner a portly, older man approached our table and asked if he could join us.  Naturally we consented.  A few minutes later Dawn and Keith arrived and sat with us, too.  Nice meal.  Great conversation.

Yesterday's activities reminded me of what life should be all about.  Relaxation.  Pleasure.  Enjoyment of the out of doors.  Fine music.  Good food.  Family.  And befriending a stranger.  

We're in the stretch in regards to readying our home for the next occupant.  He's a physician just graduating from medical school in Iowa.  He'll serve a three year residency at one of our hospitals.  Two little girls and a stay home wife (with teaching credential) will spend those three years in our home. 

Ahh, three years without having to rehab that place one more time.  I'm going to love every moment it.

Happy Monday, people.

By Any Other Name

It's Wednesday.  Hump Day to some.  Today, Cinco de Mayo for some others.  For me, it's another Saturday in a life where everyday is either Saturday or Sunday.  Whatever it is for you, stop and smell the flowers.  Speaking of which, these are Wifey's roses vibrantly blooming in the backyard.  She trims, fertilizes, pampers and fusses over them.  It pays off with blooms like these.

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo isn't ever in my plans.  For Mexicans this day is about independence.  For Gringos it's an opportunity to slam shots and Corona and feast on Mexican food.  Since I eat Mexican two to three times a week and drink Corona (hold the shots, please), this Gringo has no need to do what the other crackers in town are doing.  Besides, having a couple of drinks today, driving home you're likely to be stopped at a DUI checkpoint.  The cops always have more than a couple DUI checkpoints not only on the fifth of May but on New Year's Eve, St. Patrick's Day, July 4th, Labor Day and on Drop Your Mother-in-Law off at the Old Folks Home Day.  It's best to eat, drink and be merry at home on most if not all holidays.

Regardless of what you do today, it's still kind of a workday for Bob.  It's about the on-going saga of "fix/clean/repair/etc." at the rental.  Looks like about 20 yards of bark is needed for the planting areas, half yard of decorative gravel for walkways, a new over the vanity light bar for the guest bath, kitchen sink removed and replaced, dishwasher removed and replaced...just to name a few things I'll be doing. 

A busy Bob is a happy Bob.

Happy whatever it is you're celebrating today.

Out of Snot!

See the fight last night, Mayweather v. Mosley?   The fight played on pay-per-view for a pretty penny.  Like anything else in this world, there was a way to beat the $55 (no HD) - $65 (HD) price of admission:   Checked the Internet for discounts or coupons.  Bingo!

Tecate, one of the sponsors of the fight, offered this:  Buy a twelve pak of Tecate beer.  Save the UPC label off of the pak along with the cash register receipt.  Print out the online Tecate discount form and complete it.  Mail those three things along with the DirectTV billing showing that you ordered the fight.  In about three weeks I expect to receive a $30 check from Tecate.  Granted, $35 bucks for a PPV fight stings a bit.  But a $30 buck rebate is oh so sweet.

Wifey and I were rooting for Shane Mosley who won the two first rounds then proceeded to get the snot beat out of him for the next 10 rounds.  It was brutal but predictable.  Going into this fight Floyd Mayweather was undefeated with 40 something wins.  Shane had like 50 wins and 5 losses.  Odds at the start of the fight favored Mayweather 4-1.

What a way to make a living. 

Shit Birds!

The house is probably in the worst state it's been since it was new in 2002.  The last tenants put a lot of wear and tear into her over and above what should have been normal. 

Stains in the carpet.  We'll have to replace parts in the master bedroom and the bedroom to their oldest boy(sullen little shit he is).  Gum and black stains on the carpet in the boys bedroom.

Microwave/Over the Stove Fan (all in one) ....the stainless steel filters have never been cleaned.  The vents in the microwave are filled with crud.

Broken window shades.  Window not cleaned.

Garage windows filthy.  Each of the six florescent light defusers filled with cobwebs.  The walls have spiders and weds all over them.

Dent on the dishwasher metal panel (big one).

Water deposits on the master bedroom shower door.  Dirty tile grout.

I could go on.  You get the picture.  Real shit birds!

There's not going to be a lot left of their $1,000 security deposit.