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The RV adventures of Sparky and (the late) Jett |
It appears that I never posted links to the blog booklets from 2017 through 2019. I correct that omission here.
Tip: to find booklets for earlier years, use the Search box in the right panel. Enter “booklets” and you should get a list with all of the posts containing the PDF links.
The carpenter completed the installation of the interior walls and the ceiling today, so all that remains is the final plumbing and the trim. The final plumbing will be done next week – installation of the tankless hot water heater and the sink. But the trim will wait until fall. There is no compelling need to do the trim until the washer/dryer are ready to be installed and we have decided to wait until fall to do that. It seemed unwise to leave a brand-new washer/dryer pair in a shed which could be leveled by a hurricane.
The walls are actually flooring. We have one dark gray “accent” wall where the washer and dryer will reside and 3 cream-white walls. The white walls are Pergo. Can’t remember the manufacturer of the dark gray flooring. The ceiling is white vinyl soffit.
I was pretty pleased, once I got everything back into the shed, to see how empty it was. There will be plenty of room for the stuff we will bring south from our storage unit in MA.
More than a year after I started on the shed skirt, I finished it. I had to wait for the plumbing to be installed and that was done last week. So here they are, the two previously unskirted sides now proudly skirted:
This was more work than I expected, due mostly to the large number of cutouts that I had to make in the 2×4 frame. Both the hurricane anchors and the plumbing connections were positioned so close to the edge that I had to carve out big chunks of wood to fit the frame around them. And because the frame was weakened by the cutouts I felt compelled to add more braces. Anyway, it turned out to be a big, sweaty job that was done mostly on my knees. My knees objected to the abuse and I felt it last night. They seem to have forgiven me overnight, though.
In the middle of this very depressing COVID-19 pandemic, I find that my spirits are buoyed by the presence of colorful flowers on and around our site. Foremost among these flowering plants are our two new plantings – the red hibiscus (which, the gardener said when he put it in the ground, would be yellow) and the small tree (not sure of the type) that seemed on the verge of dying a week ago but has recovered rather spectacularly.
It is somehow comforting to know that no matter how many human beings are dying from this novel coronavirus, the plants will go on, reliably producing cheerful flowers.
The hibiscus is especially dramatic. The flowers are huge – about 6 inches across. And the production is nonstop. Any particular bloom may last just one day, but tomorrow there will be another to take its place. Not a day has gone by since the first bloom appeared that we have not had a vivid display from this bush.
The neighbors also have some very nice flowers. I like the orange/yellow mix just down the street.
This COVID-19 pandemic has upended life as we knew it. Bars, night clubs and theaters are closed. Where does one go for live entertainment?
To your laptop, of course.
Last night, for the first time ever, I tuned in to a live performance on Facebook. The performer was Tom Smith, a college friend who spent a lot of time in college honing his guitar-playing and folk-song-singing skills. Now, retired after a long career teaching yung’uns, he has taken up folk singing as a retirement career. And he is pretty darn good.
Anyway, I watched him in a live performance last night. Very entertaining. Kudos, Tom.
The shed now has a layer of insulation, which should make the air conditioner very happy.
I also got the plumbing inspection which means that the way is now open for installing the walls. That is the last major piece of work needed before we can install the washer and dryer. Which, after all, is what this is all about.
I have changed the theme to “Twenty Nineteen” which is last year’s default WordPress theme. I mostly like it – clean and crisp. It also has two of the widgets that I most wanted – an “Archives” widget so that you can go as far back as you want and a “Search” widget so you can search for a post with a particular topic. Try them – then are located at the bottom so you have to scroll down.
Things that are still missing or need to be fixed: (1) the “Recent Posts” list is actually a list of pages, not posts and (2) there is no way to filter by category. I will figure these out, I am sure. In the meantime I will leave this new theme active and look forward to any feedback.
UPDATE: Got the list of pages to be properly labeled as “Pages” and eliminated all but the Search and Archives widgets. Still can’t filter by Category, though.
UPDATE: I am considering the “Adventure Journal” theme. It restores the graphic banners that were lost years ago. I like having the banner. I also have the list of Pages in a right-side column and an Archives drop-down. All good. But I haven’t gotten Search, Categories or Tags filters to work yet.
UPDATE: I got Search back. No Categories or Tags, but I am happy for now. And I have started to upload some more recent banner photos. All of the existing ones were from 2012.
UPDATE[28 Apr 2020]: I found a widget for Categories. That filter now appears as a dropdown in the sidebar. It is single-selection which is not as good as a multi-select dropdown and it seems that the only way to undo a selection is to backtrack, but I am happy that it is now possible to filter by Category. Never had that functionality before.
I performed the dreaded WordPress upgrade today. It turned out to be a piece of cake. The blog backup took only a few minutes and the upgrade consisted of (1) deactivating plugins, (2) upgrading WordPress, (3) upgrading plugins, (4) upgrading themes and (5) re-activating the plugins. Each step took just a few minutes. Total time: about half an hour.
And nothing broke.
But…
I somehow expected some of the things that had disappeared over time – the graphic banner and the navigation to earlier posts being 2 key features – to magically reappear. They didn’t. So I think I have a theme change and graphic redesign task in my future.
The thing that did change, unexpectedly, is the post editor. This is my first post using this new editor. If you are reading this post then I successfully used it. It appears to have a bunch of new layout options which I haven’t investigated yet, but look forward to learning. Maybe I can make the layout a little more dynamic.
Anyway, it seems to have gone well.
So far.
Exterior faucet
Roughed-in plumbing
After 2 years of trying and failing, I finally got a plumber to appear to install the plumbing in the shed. It wasn’t much – a washer hookup, with hot water, a sink and an outside faucet. It was all done by one guy in less than 2 days. It isn’t fully operational yet because the sink can’t be hooked up until after the inspection and the hot water heater can’t be installed until the walls are finished. But the outside faucet works and I expect the carpenter to arrive next week to finish the interior work after which the plumber will return to install the hot water heater. Then, at long last, we will be able to install a washer and dryer. I am not sure that we will get that done before we head north for the summer, but it is possible.
And that is pretty damn exciting.
Apparently Mother Nature is in agreement as she gave us a nice colorful sunset last night.
Ready for a trip to the post office
With COVID-19 still raging, I now wear a mask and gloves whenever I go out to a store. This is how I dressed for a simple trip to the post office. Life is no longer simple. Every shopping trip is fraught with danger. Everyone hopes that this will go away soon.
Rusty, meanwhile, is taking his quarantine in stride. He gets his usual 18 hours of sleep each day.
Resting for his next meal