We’re hoping for a smooth app and permit downtown—it’s only a mile or two from here. The weather for this operation is sketchy, but that’s the season: typically it rains often, but no gully-washers (Southern US term for a large downpour) or toad-stranglers (similar.) It’ll rain gently for a while (thunder is quite rare) and stop, rain a bit and stop.
I think I scored in this Watt brand 20000 gallon filter: from Home Depot, it’s about the same level of filtration as a Brita filter, it’s easy to replace, once you have the fittings in place, and it’s dense enough to do some good: most of these filter, including Brita, use a little zeolite and a lot of coconut shell charcoal for carbon filtration. This thing weighs about a pound or so, and it could go 20000 gallons, possibly. We’ll see. They call it a 5 year filter. That depends on how bad your water is. And the nasty trick of any filter using carbon—when it ‘saturates’ with whatever you’re trying to remove, it starts giving it back to you. In Jane’s case, stomach upset that is pretty definite as to kind and cause. So we know it’s filter-changing time.
We have our diagram for the permit people. We go down, say, ‘Existing fence replacement,’ pay the tax, and hopefully bring back our permit.
The big job is going to be unscrewing all those fence panels and trying to prop them up as a quasi-fence inside the perimeter, leaving the posts standing. Since what we’re getting is 6 foot rather than 8 foot panels, there will be new postholes. And hopefully this will be the end of fence woes. It’s a chunk of change to do it, but the fence is guaranteed for many years, and will look much better. Now we have to get to finishing the brick re-painting near the back door—when the builders put the brick veneer on the new addition (before our time) to the house, they used a brick that didn’t match—Part of our kitchen and our mudroom used to be an attached garage: they filled in the old garage door opening with dark brick, and the rest involves orange and red and dark and ochre tones. We had an inspiration and began painting the brick in the proper colors in the same staggered pattern as the rest of the brickwork, and it worked really well—but we didn’t get the bit around the back door. This is a summer’s project.
I do have a new article in the How to Write section, on how Jane and I work. YOu might find it interesting. And Jane has a new photo story on our trip to Priest Lake on her page.
Enjoy!
You have bad water problems? That’s curious. You’re obviously in a rain shadow of the Cascades, and don’t get overflowing recharge. Volcanic ash contamination?
We have it flowing through delivery pipe from the city that at one point was passing through an undocumented graveyard downtown, under a hamburger restaurant—they fixed that with sleeving; but then it comes through old pipe getting to us. Plus, early industry in this area was aluminum—a plant now shut, but they were as careless as regulations let them be, and that was plenty. Jane reacts to aluminum as a contaminant; and the bad news is—water processing often puts it IN the water (as alum flock) to kill algae. Aluminum is not a good thing for humans to consume in excess: it can lead to real serious problems. So it’s a good idea, we think, to eliminate it, and a number of other things that are allowed to be in certified drinking water (Bethany OK clears the federal standard for, say, arsenic in the water, but I won’t drink it). Regular city water can kill fish, over time, and not just because of the chloramine they also use to prevent algae.
The PNW was a prime aluminum refiner/smelter after the Bonneville Dam gave us cheap hydropower, but I didn’t realize that extended up to Spokane. I remember a flutter about aluminum in cookware, what, 45 years ago?
Aluminum is now being fingered as a possible factor in Alzheimers. Parttimers is bad enough for me…
The water isn’t bad, it’s just misunderstood. It may be the same situation as with Sierra Nevada snowmelt, delicious but high mineral content. The minerals keep suds from sudsing, clog filters, and should you line dry your clothes, they’ll be stiff as boards from the deposited minerals.
That’s great that they tax you and charge permit fees for routine home maintenance. Wouldn’t want homes in good repair, would we?
A house in my childhood neighborhood was painted a cheery yellow. The vertical battens on the exterior walls, every foot (16″?) or so and alternate bricks were purple. Purple is yellow’s complementary color, after all. Last I checked, it was still painted in that scheme. My unit is painted by my association, who had the bright idea of painting some units black; they backed off when confronted with pitchforks and torches. I drew an off-white color, which probably lowers my cooling costs, not that they’re high to begin with.
Water that requires a cold chisel to get it out of the faucet, as my mother would say. Why almost everyone has a water softener, too. It’s hell on hot water dispensers and tea kettles, as well.
Well, yes, I can see that in areas dominated by limestone, but AFAIK Spokane is mostly low-solubility basalt. They don’t get much rain which might leach minerals out of rock, but likewise would tend to make them less reliant on deep groundwater sources.
Igneous rocks also release minerals. Think of the soft pumice and rocks ground to dust by glaciers. Where did the other half of Half Dome go? Into the Merced River.
We can’t use igneous rock in the salt water hobby: salt water dissolves the metals in it, some of which are lethal. Have to stick to limestone.
I am glad I don’t live in a neighborhood that has a homeowners’ “association”. Just the words in juxtaposition leave a bad taste. Do they do good? Probably, but just as easily, do bad. Such as the homeowners’ association that told the USMC veteran that he couldn’t fly his flag in front of his home. Now, this isn’t some gaudy rainbow and polka dot decorative flag, this is the U.S. flag. As a veteran, I was highly offended by that, as were a lot of other veterans.
I understand that so-called “associations” do a lot to keep the neighborhood looking up to certain standards, and that if you violate those standards, they can take you to court (although what they can do after that is questionable). One of the first questions I asked my cousin the realtor when we were looking for my house, was, is there a homeowners’ association? Why? Because I’m an amateur radio operator, and homeowners’ associations are notorious for not allowing radio antennas on peoples’ roofs. Never mind that I’m licensed by the federal government, that I am chartered by the federal government to assist in communications during disasters, etc. My antennas would lower the property value of some guy 3 blocks over, I guess. Pfaugh!
CJ, how much was your cost for the permit? Just curious…
I think the worst scenario for an area with no HOA is that your neighbor is a slob — never cleans his yard, cars up on cement blocks, broken down miscellaneous junk littering his property, etc. If we lived in an area with a HOA, there were a couple of times when we probably would have been cited for not mowing our front lawn, and the in-progress xeriscaping can look tatty. I’ve lived in a condo with one, and where we live now doesn’t have one, and I much prefer ours; we got scoldings for something as trivial as trying to store our bicycles on the back balcony!
I agree that an HOA can help with slobbish neighbors, but it also seems to me that a lot of people in the HOA get their backs up about the way certain people decorate their yards with plant life……maybe someone doesn’t like roses, and says that you can’t have them because the kids might get hurt, or your shrubs are too high, or you don’t water them enough or too much, or whatever. It just seems like an excuse to be a busybody for some people. Had a friend who had a 50 foot radio tower in his yard, people complained, but nothing they could do, since he lived in a section that wasn’t governed by the HOA or the CCR’s. One guy went so far as to put up posters all over the neighborhood to “Take down the illegal antenna tower.”….except it wasn’t illegal at all, and someone got very embarrassed…..
No, I’m not very well-disposed towards HOA’s and CCR’s. There is a growing movement in several states modeled on a law called PRB-1, which forbids cities and other municipalities from regulating amateur radio antenna towers, since we’re a federally licensed group. That doesn’t extend to the CCR’s though, since it comes under a different type of law structure.
Here in TX, some homeowner’s associations or civic clubs have attempted, or had done, foreclosures against other homeowners. I don’t know if that has since been stopped.
i have a story regarding how petty they can be, but won’t bother with it here. (They ended up embarrassing themselves.) Not, thankfully, my subdivision.
I would be upset if a club objected to flying the US or state flags. I think I recall that one, Joe. Any citizen, but particularly a vet, has a right to display those proudly.
A former neighbor of my grandmother had a ham radio antenna. It was big and not pretty, but it was not a problem. The son was about my mom’s age, a decade younger. He had been permanently injured by a football accident, and so ham radio was his way of being an equal in the world, before the internet. He probably would have liked the web, if he’d lived to see it.
We had some people in the county trying to prohibit ham antennas–something to do with their views. Some Oregon Office of Emergency Preparedness people came to testify at the second hearing before the county commissioners, and I’ve heard no more about it since. 😉
I’m trying to remember where I was when I heard about some city councilman saying he was going to introduce an ordinance prohibiting antennas on homes, regardless of their purpose. He apparently said that he didn’t care if residents filed a suit against the city, it was in the city’s authority to make those ordinances. I believe the city attorney took him off to the side and quietly informed him about PRB-1, and that he didn’t stand a chance.
Now, there ARE valid municipal ordinances and codes that DO regulate antenna towers, but those are structural and safety related. Such as, what happens if your tower falls on your neighbor’s roof? So, yes, municipalities do have regulatory powers, but they can’t outright ban the tower just because they don’t like the sight.
One only has to demonstrate what happened in New Orleans after Katrina, or Haiti after their earthquake, or the current operations in Iquique, Chile to understand the value and importance of amateur radio. Too many people think we’re a bunch of unruly CBers that shouldn’t be allowed on the airwaves. Never mind that we provide free message services to anywhere we can reach, that we work very closely with law enforcement, emergency management, and other agencies to ensure that their communications capabilities are not overloaded with administrative traffic that we can handle for them.
So, these folks in Oregon only have to wait for a tsunami, an earthquake, or maybe Mt. Hood to erupt, and they’ll find they’re without their cell phones, internet, and then they’ll “see the light”? 73, de KC6NLX
Yeah; FEMA likes hams quite a lot.
My homeowner’s association has only two flaws. As near as I can tell, none of the board has ever read the Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs)–which, for example, require a popular vote to change the appearance of the property, ie, the building colors. Second, they have no concept that they are actually officers of a corporation and have fiduciary duties to perform.
I lived in a neighborhood with an HOA. Never again. Our HOA meeting were nasty, fraught with feuds, politics, campaigning, and the politics involved variances granted for votes, broken glass scattered in one officer’s driveway, threats, shouting, and a suicide. It was more drama than I ever want again. We have a nice relationship with our neighbors: we try to accommodate each other so far as convenient and reasonable and we don’t get into each other’s business. No, sometimes I don’t manage to get out to the curb to get the cans in for two days, and I don’t get or give a phone call to state that. If non-retrieval of cans went on for two weeks with a neighbor I might walk over to see if all was well over there. But if they said, no, no problem, I’d wish them well and not worry about it. In the old neighborhood we’d have a meeting and a great deal of snipery and screaming.
That pettiness is a problem with people who want or are granted power, unfortunately. I was reared not to make rules I wouldn’t force myself to follow. I know that for many persons Rank Has Its Privileges means that those with even the least bit of power need not bother with following the rules. That may be one of the things I like best about the atevi.
There is nothing worse, IMHO, than a person who has never wielded power suddenly getting a lot of it.
Heh, like my time in the Army… A Spec4 would get promoted to Sergeant. Suddenly, all his former ‘buddies’ had to follow his orders. You could literally see the head swell up. Happened every time. Eventually, after he’d alienated everyone in the platoon, you’d start to see passive-aggression in the form of people following his orders to the letter, no matter how stupid and embarrassing they made him look in front of everyone else, especially the Platoon Sergeants, First Sergeant & CO. Gradually, that lesson would sink in, and the head would resume nearly-normal size and we’d all start helping him along with a little common sense and forgiveness, assuming he’d learned to reciprocate those efforts.
Saw that lots of times in the Navy….guys would make Chief Petty Officer, which also entails a complete change of uniform, and would let it go to their heads. Two days before, they wore the same uniform as the rest of us…..when I made Chief, I had several very good examples of just how a Chief Petty Officer should behave, thanks to some very good Chiefs on my first ship. I took those examples to heart, and tried to apply them whenever I could, to ensure that the people who worked for me were given the credit, respect, and training they deserved. I worked for one Chief who couldn’t stand the fact that I was in charge of “his” watch section, but that was the order from the Senior Chief, and we follow the last lawful order given. So, when it finally came to a head, the Chief embarrassed himself in front of everyone. Be very careful how you treat people on your way up, because they’re the same people you’ll meet on your way back down.
I worked my way up ‘through the ranks’ in my government job, and have had both good and bad examples set before me. Aside from my own responsibilities, my job is not to increase the difficulty level for those under me without good reason, and assist if possible. Luckily, coming up the way I did gave me a good handle on how to do my henchmen’s jobs, and I can cover for them if need be (or poke them with a stick if necessary).
I too worked my way up the enlisted ranks and then through the civil service ranks: E-1 through GS-13 in Department of the Army. The worst supervisors I ever had were officers, both active duty and retired into civil service. They never had any idea what the job entailed just gave an order to get it done, without once ensuring that we had the resources necessary to do the job in the first place. The best supervisors were Army Warrant Officers with more than 15 years in before pinning on their rank (not pilots, but technical experts in other words) and senior non-commissioned officers. I really don’t think one can be a supervisor of technical and scientific/mathematicians if one doesn’t have a technical basis and understand how a lab in your field functions. Most of the officers and ex-officers I knew were so focused on tracking the money that they never looked outside of their spreadsheets (which I had to create for them) to see what was actually going on with the workers in the test directorate, military or civilian. These officers couldn’t manage their way out of a paper sack with one end open. I’m so glad I retired!
The regs don’t help. No fraterinezation (I can’t spell that, so just guess!) rules that state that you are not supposed to be ‘overly familiar’ with your new subordinates suck sh… uh, big time when what you really want is just to get the work done and make a good job of it.
Re: painting bricks — what kind of paint do you use?
I’m putting-in some brick edging around the base of my husband’s ham/CAP radio tower, so I’ll have an edge that can have a weed-whacker run against it, only the curved corner pieces don’t quite match the straight pieces in color, and I’m having to fill in with a few half-bricks in a totally different color.
We just went to Ace and got some of the paint-sample pots in right colors. Deal is, we’re not painting grout, just doing a light gloss over the bricks individually. Because the pigment is pretty well the pigment, excluding indoor vs outdoor ‘binders’ to hold it, the chances are in something as ruggedly porous as brick, it’ll last and weather in a fairly permanent way. So even interior paint can be used outside in some jobs—and our mural is the same: indoor paint, but sealed against nuclear attack. It’s been 3 years now with no fading.
I remember my mom tried painting some exterior bricks to see how they’d do, and to give an example of what they were looking for, for the brick treatment for their last home. They used mixed brick colors, some blackish, some whitish, most natural reddish or gold-ish, and some a deep wine color. This was done in a random way that looked really handsome. They’d seen it on a model home and had it duplicated. … Hmm, I may go by the home and take a picture of the bricks, just to see. It’s been years since I went by and saw where we lived.
I *think* she used an oil-based exterior paint to try the examples. — Someone out there who’s a brick mason might know what would be best. The paint will really soak in, and needs to stain and not leach out or fade over the years.
If you simply want to cover the bricks uniformly in one or two colors, an exterior paint, maybe an acrylic, should do it. — This should work fine on concrete blocks / bricks, for instance, but on regular clay bricks, I’d expect the paint would soak in more.
Just a suggestion. Double-check on my advice, though, because I don’t recall for sure what my mother used.
(Oh, and the actual bricks used were batches of each color. Some had a gradient or splashed effect to the brick colors. The builder and the brick masons enjoyed the job because it was so different. But again, my mom and dad and I saw this used for a model home, and liked it, so it’s a known technique.)
Jane in particular would like seeing that.
I wonder if fabric dyes and food colors would work.
Re the note I’d posted in the previous thread:
BTW, the meeting and issue with the young lady official went well. I am much relieved. Communication is a really wonderful thing. Someone involving an official without first speaking to the person with whom they have a concern, wish to help, or a grievance, is not a good thing. It’s much better to try to talk to the person first, than to involve someone in an official capacity, who already has an overflowing caseload, surely. Things went well, I explained my side, she’s going to check and call back, but it’s likely resolved as far as she and her agency are concerned. But there’s the prospect of an advocate / ally if needed too, which is potentially a good thing.