Noobies VÜ

random mutterings and musings by me, myself, and I.

5/23/2011

Project Entryway

Posted by vanashke001

Hello all!
I got busy again this weekend (I just love having projects to do) and I covered my icky entryway floor with some new wood flooring. Okay, VINYL wood flooring, but I was mainly going for a look and I had a VERY limited budget to work with.Here is the before... (click to embiggen pix of course)


and the after...


I think it looks so much better and I was fortunate; I got it all for only $15 and it was the perfect amount (almost, I had 1 whole strip-with tape gunk on it, not really usable and the scraps amounted to pretty much 1 strip).

So that was project 1 (Well, 2, actually, I am not posting them in order. lol)

The other project was the recurring nightmare I call The Awning.

As you can see from this image, I had some work to do...


Yeah, it's not supposed to be bowed like that. hee hee. So I had to put in rafters at each of the posts. It comes down to the fact that I should have just poured concrete for the posts. The piers I used move in the ground so when I would increase the tension on the cables (or the wind kicked up and moved the awning material a bit) the posts would move. I didn't realize it was so bad until I started noticing how tight I was making the cables yet they kept getting loose. I thought that the turnbuckles were loosening. I was wrong. sigh.

So I put in the rafters and the funny thing is, now the bow goes the opposite direction. lol
I made all the posts plum but since they didn't all line up completely ( I measured them all before I dug but I would guess I wasn't accurate or else the holes weren't so great. (I knew I should have used a string-line.) Well I can make shit work, now I just gotta learn how to plan it better. Lol or else learn to ask for help instead of trying to do it all by my onesie all the time. I need a bf. lol

Looks like I will have to change how the awning material is hung up though. They have little plates you can just hammer through the material but that would negate the possibility of having it retractable at all. But oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.

5/16/2011

Bathroom in Process

Posted by vanashke001

Woo Hoo, what a fun weekend!

The roomies helped me paint the downstairs bathroom to make it look much better. Thanks to both Connie and Corey (he was our self-described "supervisor"- a position he is aching to add to his resume) for all their assistance.

Corey also helped me tried to cut off my toe remove the lame damn shower stall doors (you know, I get it when you buy stuff from yard sales or what-have-you, but at least see if they fit properly first) and replace them with a nice curtain. It is so much easier now to access the shower, I forget how much of a pain those doors really were.

2011-05-16_08-36-53_23.jpg

Unfortunately I discovered that I have to rework my awning again. sigh Let this be a lesson to everyone, that trying to make it easier on yourself by using preformed concrete piers instead of pouring concrete for posts, is not the way to go. Now I have to add some 2x4 rafters because my frame is bowing from the tension on the cables. Should be an easy fix. But like everything else on this thing... we'll see.

Well thanks again roomies for the help!

And Saturday night I got to help a good friend see his way into his 40s. It's a dreadful time of life, but the party for it was a ball. There were some good people and some total train wrecks. Happily the two were not necessarily exclusive. lol And any party that has arrests, is usually a good party. *wink wink

5/13/2011

Long Time Gone

Posted by vanashke001

As always it has been ages since last I posted. sigh.

Lots o' things have gone down:
I have finally finished a couple of projects! (images soon to come)
My patio shade thingy (which Connie refers to as the "awning" which is probably the most accurate name for it.)
I finished painting my Sunroom (Finally!)
And I finished painting the Dining Room, which Connie helped me start so long ago. (thanks roomie)
There is a lesson here, I muchly like it when people help me with things, Corey, you lazy ass.

Much of this sudden industriousness came about because I lost my shady, crappy, verging on fraudulent job that I have held for a number of years.

I won't lie, I enjoyed the job quite a bit. I learned how to do things that I would never have otherwise. For that, I am grateful, but when it came to some of the stuff I had to do I had some issues. It's always difficult to justify your employment at a place based solely on a paycheck mostly because you feel so bad about the people that are sold a bill of goods that just won't happen.
I was able to get past a lot of the shady dealings simply because I knew it wasn't us that did the selling, we just fulfilled it. We tried to do so to the best of our abilities and help these people recoup some of their money. Without a doubt, or exception, no one ever did.
This was so hard for me and many of the wonderful and even some of the most unsettling people, gary, that I worked with, the former I miss dearly.
The funny thing, is that they didn't go out of business or get shut down by the state, instead they sold that shit heap to another company. A company that is just as shady and is even worse for shit pulling. We were told originally that it would take "at least 1 month, maybe 2" to transition. Well guess what? I was laid off that day. And now most of the people I know that were still there have been laid off and it hasn't even been two weeks. psh.
You know, I get it, you have a company and you have to watch your bottom line, but it's jacked up that a company gets pissy if you quit and don't give them two weeks notice, (I know, I was a manager and it sucked ass having to cover for people that bailed) but companies do not give you the same respect. If you're fired for cause then so be it. Your ass deserved it, but if you are laid off or downsized or what have you, then they should either give you some kind of severance or notice. Please, these things do not happen over-night. They know their shit has gone bad and that they cannot stay in business at least a couple months in advance. Here's the thing though, they know the minute they tell you that they are going under and will be letting people go, people cease giving a shit. They develop the mindset of, "what are they gonna do, fire me?"
But, that's just something that's gonna happen. For those people that are loyal and stand by you, and as a manager you should be able to tell who those people are, you should reward them for that loyalty. But this rarely happens.

So now I have a new job. The people are super nice, and they are really happy here. I would love to bring my friends from Omni/Resutlzzzesszzzzzs/Achieve/Vision to work here, though I wonder if they would curse me or bless me. The thing is, it's not a bad place from what I can tell, but it seems drugs be a big thing in this damn industry. I try not to judge and at least (from what I can tell so far) it's just ganga, but I'm still mildly uncomfortable. Also, I'm getting the impression that a record is a prerequisite. Not if that's true, but damn... it seems like it.

So that's where I am at right now, for those that care. lol

I'll get some pics up of my last projects and hopefully keep people informed on what's going on.