December 2018 – Page 3

11 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Still cleaning out Bumpkin and sleeping on mom’s farm.

Narrative: Slept in, Auntie had finished cleaning the Bumpkin floor and came in to wake us up. We went to breakfast at Grammy’s and had a waffle, we returned to the farm to finish the cleanup. Video tour started at 10:30 so we went to grandpa’s house to stay out of the way. After the video tour was over we ran to The Home Depot for a breaker for the big barn. When we got back we worked on getting rid of the red van which we ended up towing. We’re short $1,000.00 for closing, so Kathy and I need to pull 500.00 out of our checking account for two consecutive days to plus up Nancy’s checking account.

10 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Still in Florida, checking out of the hotel today and moving into mom’s house on the farm. Closing date is now Friday!`

Narrative: Today was a blur, moved into mom’s house and setup the UPS that I just bought batteries for on Monday. We setup our CPAPs on the new UPS with no problems. We cleaned the Bumpkin most of the afternoon after taking a small nap. We watched a good Christmas Chronicles movie on my laptop before turning in for the evening.

Repairs: 700W 12V APC UPS, extended run time by using a 36AH battery instead of a 7AH battery.

Farm To Do List

Empty the metal out of PU Truck
Take out the bundles of paper. (PU Truck.)
Take out the pens/gates to grandpa’s farm. (PU Truck)
Bag and take out the junk. (PU Truck)
Take out the wood shavings. (PU Truck or Box trailer.)
Sweep the floors.

Empty silver shed.
Take 5 Gl oil to recycling. (PU Truck)

9 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Completely changed so I am rewriting it. It’s raining all the way home so we are staying put in Ocala. It’s raining heavily and probably will all day. PU Truck is full of cage steel that needs to be offloaded. Gate is locked incorrectly. House looks really good and we’ll probably stay there from here on out since the buyers are not local. We have run out of clean clothes since our original stay was until Saturday. There is a washing machine/dryer at grandpa’s since we’re probably staying until Friday.

Plans: Keep moving forward on cleaning up the Bumpkin and to a lesser extent the surrounding land.

Narrative: Got up around 4AM and drove to the farm to recover the Bumpkin cameras that were offline. The problem turned out to be the wireless router would not allow any connections. I rebooted the router and the cameras came back online. Yea! Locked up the house, hopped back over the front gate (Didn’t have a key) and headed for the hotel.

We got up and headed to grandpa’s to get the PU truck to haul the wire cages to the recycling center. I was also tasked to find the serial number or VIN of the mobile home so they could get a duplicate title. The trailer ends are terribly rusted, I could not find any stamped numbers. I did find a serial number on the master bedroom closet wall that will probably work.

The trip to the recycling center was a bust, they don’t take any wire or anything made of wire. I moved the wire from the PU truck to the box trailer so that I could use the PU truck for hauling other things. We headed back to the hotel and Chili’s for Dinner.

Tomorrow: We have to check out of the hotel and move into the farm house for the remainder of our stay.

8 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: There is a pile of stuff in the living room and somewhat less on the porch in the house. There are so many nook and crannies in that house, it took a minute to bag everything yesterday.

Plans: Two teams, one cleaning one moving. The stuff in the living room we’ll just load all of it up and move to Grandpa’s in box trailer first thing. Second is a the stuff in front of the Bumpkin, again we’re down to four hours. Just move it to Grandpa’s. Inside the Bumkin had been compressed considerably with the collapsing of the dog crates. We should be able to get all of the dog stuff moved in one shot. R can mop the floors while I am moving the stuff, she should be on the farm by 8AM. I might be able to unload the tac shed, but that’s a stretch. M might be able to help, but we’d have to go get her with child in tow.

Tough Stuff: The square platforms that the puppies were on are too big to carry in the trailer. (They are also covered in dog feces.) We should be easily out of the house by Noon, we’re not likely to be finished with everything by noon.

Narrative: Ate breakfast at the hotel and made it to the farm shortly after 8AM. Moved all the loose stuff in the living room and the porch into the trailer. Loaded the bags of trash onto the PU truck. 09:00 left for the recycling center while Auntie mopped the floors. Dropped off the bagged trash and headed for grandpa’s to empty the trailer of house stuff into grandpa’s shed. Emptied the PU truck bed that was full of wood onto Grandpa’s burn pile and headed back to mom’s farm.

10:00, time is running by so quickly… Loaded all the big wood stuff into the trailer and the metal cages we crushed last night into the PU truck and parked it near the gate. We left for lunch for the showing at noon. We overslept just a little and Auntie called wondering where we were. I asked her to meet us at grandpa’s to save time. We drove to mom’s farm and I drove the PU truck back to grandpa’s farm and unloaded the large pieces of wood from the bumpkin lawn onto Aunties burn pile.

I had bought mom a new and familiar battery charger and a pile of rechargeable batteries for her landline cordless phone. The batteries are also for their 6 or more cute LED lanterns that I bought them in case of power failure.

We called it a day and went to Chili’s for Din Din and a Margarita to relax. In the hotel typing on the blog by 7PM. Wife is watching NCIS reruns with commercials. YUK

Tomorrow: It’s unlikely that a Blog entry will be made tomorrow morning.

7 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: The editor for this Blog has changed and I don’t have time to figure it out this morning so I am keeping this simple.

Planned:Wife didn’t sleep at all and of course I didn’t sleep much either with all the drama. All I can do now is run until I get to tired and will have to lay down for a nap. (There is still one bed at the farm.) I plan on getting breakfast here at the hotel at 6AM. Drive to the farm with the car and drive the PU truck to grandpa’s. Empty the box trailer and haul it back to mom’s farm and start loading up. I don’t know what R has planned.

Narrative:Very busy day, sheesh. Ate breakfast at 06:00, drove to Mom’s farm to get PU truck. Loaded PU truck and drove it to grandpa’s. Unloaded PU truck and unloaded box trailer. Attached box trailer and headed back to mom’s farm. Auntie showed up and she took a load of trash to the recycling center while I loaded the box trailer by rolling the heavy furniture into the trailer. She found out that the recycling center near her accepts furniture, so we both drove there and unloaded two recliners, two dressers, mom’s old mattress and a large headboard. Auntie was glad they all didn’t end up at her place. Our second load was about 10 bags of trash and the couch from the living room. We broke for lunch and started cleaning the house with a box of large trash bags. I grabbed Auntie and we brought another 16 bags of trash to the recycling center. We’re working on the stuff we brought into the living room and the stuff on the porch. (There’s nothing on the lawn)

M and D came to help later in the day and we broke down about 10 wire cages for transport to the recycling center tomorrow. We also packed up a heavy table saw in D’s truck for recycling. There is still quite a pile in front of the Bumpkin. 1st priority is to clear out the living room, then the porch. Then the lawn on the Bumpkin, then the Bumpkin itself. We have visitors at 12 Noon when work will cease for the day.

Status:The PU truck is full of wood components and the box trailer is empty tonight.

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT set clear goals for the day? No
Did I DMBT make progress to those goals? No
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT fix something today? Yes
Did I DMBT improve something today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
Did I DMBT be fully engaged? Yes
*Did My Best To
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

6 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Packed for a trip to Florida today.

Narrative: We had our morning coffee until 8AM when the house turned off the TV as it will for the duration of our trip. We spent the next two hours packing and cleaning up for the trip. We got on the road at a reasonable 10AM and made good time. We sent D a message informing him of our expected arrival time. D on his own, got off 2 hours early at 4PM and called me from the gate while we were eating dinner. I offered a compromise of letting him get dinner while I drove to Aunties house for the keys. We all ended up at the house around 6PM, dusk. M stayed in the truck as instructed while D and I walked the buildings and worked up a plan for tomorrow. Their Cousins arrived sometime later and spent a good amount of time on the farm D and M. Auntie did a bang up job cleaning the kitchen and left maybe 10 garbage bags in the living room floor. I couldn’t tell from the contents whether they were going to the dump or to Grandpa’s. The night was falling apart with everyone and the baby so I decided to call it a night. D was quite willing to work, I was just done for the day and the were too many distractions. Everyone went their separate ways and we are at the hotel unwinding and getting some badly needed rest.

Tomorrow: Clean up the inside of the buildings and take trash to the recycling center.

Project: We are planning on hitting the ground early tomorrow as best we can and bag the house trash until the recycling center opens. Then we’ll start hauling trash pickup load by pickup load. (They only take bagged trash so the furniture will take another path.) The metal should have a separate recycling bin, we should be good with all the wire cages in the bumpkin. I will ask them if the bundled bags are paper and can be recycled without being bagged.

We still have a significant amount of stuff that is more than a pickup truck full going to grandpa’s, Baseline land fill and the recycling center. We’re planning clearing a room, cleaning it without taking more than an hour and moving on to the next room. My best guess is that we’ll be 80% on the house by noon except for the porch and the office. If R is helping us we might be done with the office a little after lunch. Hopefully the shop-VAC in the shed works good enough to use on the office closet. (Feces and dust)

I plan on emptying the box trailer before D gets off work. When D gets there we’ll load all that’s headed for the baseline land fill into the box trailer. (Probably furniture only.) The second option is to drop it all off onto grandpa’s burn pile, it would be quicker and get the stuff off the farm by tomorrow night. Not sure we want to drive the box trailer at night, but we might get it to Grandpa’s in one load.

Hopefully this comes together by early morning, if it does we might be done tomorrow.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647

5 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Land contract still not signed, tubs still on living room floor.

Narrative: Didn’t sleep well, but that’s about normal these days. Had a nice couple cups of coffee while I talked to my sister about our plans for today. We got word about lunch that the contract was signed, closing is Wednesday. We are making plans to do a quick cleanup of the property. Sent a list of items to be picked up by the Auction people tomorrow to my Auntie. I am bringing a new type battery charger and I’ve bought batteries and a new charger that should arrive next week at Grandpa’s.

Purchases: Got a great deal on six Patriot Fuel USB charging Lithium batteries at Fry’s.

Tomorrow: Drive to Florida and stay in a hotel this time until Sunday.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647

4 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Land is still up for sale, living room still has tubs to be sorted.

Narrative: Not planning on doing much until After 11AM. Cleaned out another tub and put a lot of stuff away today. Tested the backup power source for the TV and the computers in the “Cave”, each have a pure sinewave inverter with a takeover relay. It also appears that the three isolation diodes are going to work out between the three banks of batteries. The network came to our rescue today at the 11th hour no less. I was able to print a document in Florida from Atlanta, have them sign it, then scan it back to Atlanta across the network. (I was pretty proud how well it worked.)

Tomorrow: Too Early to call.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647

3 December 2018, a day from Mark’s past

Status: We have baby German Roaches in the bathroom, so apparently we brought some egg sacks from Florida.

Narrative: I had planned on spending a little time keeping the roaches from gaining a foothold in our homestead. We’re currently counting on roach hotels with pheromones to attract them and borax powder under the fridge. Having only seen a few and we’ve killed the ones we’ve seen I’ll call that even. Seeing the baby today doesn’t make me happy, but it’s only one so far. If they start appearing in larger numbers we can get an exterminator service for a year for roughly $250.00 where they spray every three months.

I am still playing with the tunnel configurations to grandpa’s house. I was able to stop the ping to mom’s farm and the link stayed up. I am trying the same configuration for the Atlanta link. Both the Tampa links are down. The two links are still up this evening, so that appears to be the fix. (We’ll really need the tunnels tomorrow!)

I’ve been a secretary all day doing follow-ups and writing documents. The wife is getting bored now that her class is over with. (It didn’t help I was so busy.) She did go to the pool and got groceries. Updated mom’s monthly budget and sent them a copy. Transferred the monthly allotment into the Expense account so Ricky can pay her bills.

I did sort through two more baskets of stuff from Florida today, we’re almost to a point that I can put up the Christmas tree.

Engineering: I worked on the house power distribution today and repaired the backup battery power for the Television. (The TV has it’s own power source if the power is off more than about 7 hours.) The solar panels charge three banks of batteries, TV battery backup, Refrigerator Battery backup and CPAP battery backup. The CPAP battery backup is currently located in a closet where it’s not much use. I don’t want to move it to the garage (Too Hot) and there’s not enough room in the bedroom for it. The “Other” option is to locate the batteries in my cave and run the wires through the wall to the inverters. Undecided whether that’s the direction for all the batteries in the garage. The heat in the summertime is very detremental to the length of service for the 2,000.00 worth of batteries in there.

Tomorrow: Sign the offer letter!

https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647

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