After a few days and a lot of beer, Katie and I finished the brick wall in the basement. Here is the link to the picture As you can clearly see, something is wrong there. However, it’s not the wall. Even after jacking the beam up, it is still about two inches below where it needs to be (the top of the wall is almost perfectly level). I’m going to cap the top of the wall off with two treated 2×6’s and then shim the beam into the correct place.

For tonight, some plumbing. I busted out a bunch of concrete in the floor in preparation for the new bathroom that is going in on the other side of the wall. Actually, I dropped a fair amount of cash today buying plumbing stuff and ceramic tile. So, its off to work.

The car fire. That really sucked. So here’s the whole story (hang on while I grab a beer) . . . ok, I’m back. As I’ve aluded to in previous postiings, I went home this weekend for a wedding and to get my other car. It was supposed to be an easy fix.
I rolled into K-Town at about midnight on Thursday, after Amy kicked me out of her car, I grabbed the fuel rail and 4 injectors I borrowed from my other car. Within about 10 minutes of being home, I was in the garage swapping injectors. Everything was going just as planned, and I was making good time. A little too good as I now realize. You see, the first time I took apart the fuel system, it took about 45 minutes to get it done. Now, I can do it in about 3 minutes. In my fury to complete this task (and take the car out for a cruise), I didn’t realize that all the gas that had dumped onto intake manifold had not yet evaporated (duh). I put it all back together and after fixing a loose connection, I cranked on the ignition. Next thing I know, I can see my engine burning with very pleasent blue flame.
What to do now? I quick hopped up out of the car - mind a blaze, not unlike my car. Something that resembled instinct took over, and said “put out the fire jackass before the car explodes”. Thinking somewhat quickly, I grabbed my nearly fully beer and dumped it on the fire (it was light beer so I figured not too much risk there you know?). That helped a little, but it was still cooking. Next up, some clear plastic bottle with some chemical in it. I decided to pass on that. Then I saw the windshield washer fluid. That was the second mistake of the night. I didn’t really think it through but they put “something” in the stuff to keep it from freezing - that something is alcohol. Apparently quite a bit more then my Mic Golden Light. Once I poured about half of bottle of that on there, the fire was going pretty good and spreading. I opted to cut my losses and so I just slammed the hood and pushed it out of the garage. Once it was outside, I ran around, grabbed the hose and drug it over to the car. When I opened it up again, it was still a blazing so I dumped about 40 gallons of water into my engine bay. That did the trick.
In retrospect, I should have just let it burn to the ground and then collected the insurance money. Maybe next time.

So I guess some spam bot harvested a couple of email addresses off the site (mine included). I took care of that by disabling the display of email addresses in the comments list. On a side note, if you were to ask your self “what does my job do to improve humanity” and you answer something like “to provide unblievable opportunities for new markets”, please, shoot yourself.

And one more side note, my car (the 91 Eclipse) caught on fire about 15 minutes ago. It’s out and I’m ready to try and start it again as soon as it dries. A little word of advise though: don’t try to put out a fire with windshield washer fluid - it contains methal alchohol. I’ll fill you in on the whole story once it finishes happening.

Man, what a busy day. I found that once you have more then about 2 tasks to switch between, it really becomes difficault to get anything done. I find myself confronted with 4 projects now and I’m really spread too thin. I’m not going to freak out an shoot up the place, but it os just really innefficient to keep running around basically trying to hide from other people.

Is there a solition to this problem? Yes, leave. Lucky me I’ve been planning a few day’s vacation back in home Minnesota so I’m off the hook . . . sort of. There’s a 91 Mitsubishi Eclipse that needs some TLC (read #4 injector). In my fury of work, I failed to arrange the procurement of a new one - come on, I only had two months. Instead, I’m going ot rip one out of my 92 Eagle Talon and hope that works. If not, it may be a while before I make it back up to Houghton. What will the world do?

Since I know that the deanmassey.net posse loves pictures of things, I figured I?d treat you guys to a view few have had. Several weeks ago, I went up onto the roof and poke around a bit. Since then, I been back up there a few times, but its so damn high and there is nothing to stop you from rolling off. Eventually, I?ll put a railing and junk up there, but for now it is just some place I disappear to now and again. Ladies and gentlemen: The Roof.

So, I knew that I had something that looked like asbestos lurking in the basement. Everyone always says, “its fine if you just don’t disturb it”. Well, I disturbed all of mine right out the basement window. It wasn?t too bad really, only taking about 6 hours. I think all told I probably poured about 500 gallons of water into the basement (which on I side note I?m pleased to report that my basement drains function perfectly . . . thankfully). In order to protect the innocent (me), I?ll post the pictures and stuff this time next week.

Finally, the last bit of nastiness has been removed from the house. It is nice to no longer have some noxious funk emanating from that room. It has undergone a pretty profound change though. From a stinky room with a nasty bathroom and kitchen to a vast open expanse that sort of makes you feel small (cool). Anyway check out the pictures.

What a day. My poor body hasn’t given out yet, so the house opted for an offensive approach to “speed things along”. I must say, it did quite well. In the last two days, I’ve probably gushed, dripped or leaked out about a pint of blood. In honor of this, I’ve created a new page:

Injuries

I must say, this isn’t for the faint of heart, especially the hammer hitting the head one (damn did that hurt). But all told, its kind of funny so I hope it is taken as such.

Today, the bathroom in the “parlor” area met its demise. And what a nasty event that was. I’ll post pictures within the next day or two.

I also got back the estimate for push the second chimney through the roof . . . $4,185 - I think I’ll go with that electric sauna.

My car also decided it was time to piss me off again - I blew the radiator return hose (again). This time though, it took a chunk of plastic with it that is going to make it quite hard to fix. I guess I’ll have to get creative.

Anyway, I’m super dirty from demolition so I better get cleaned up for bed.

Today marked the beginning of the the floor leveling process. Baker, you asked what the cinder blocks were for - now you have your answer. So far (about 4 hours later) it seems like a success (I’m not sitting in the basement anyway). On a side note, you can sort of seen in the pictures how nice and clean the basement is. Paul and Amy did a bang-up job clearing all that junk out.