MONDAY, JULY 18, 2005

Monday, summertime, must be time for the ol' Capn to do another one of those house repair jobs he is famous for if we can believe everything we see on the skypilotclub website. In this case it's the so-called canning room, hasn't seen a jar of homegrown canned goods in years; now it is the clutter room. A leaky roof clutter room. Been practising the old Manana, manana, manana is soon enough for me, it's not raining so it's not leaking and when it's raining it's too wet to fix the roof.

Well enough of that old saw. We will do like Jerry Rust in China says, working with his collaborator Fenny Yu, finding Chinese sayings to go with American sayings -- "Hit the nail on the head" Chinese: "One word hit middle of target"--

We'll have more of these as the days go on, but now to start taking the clutter out of the clutter room prior to removing the roof. Yes, it is radical surgery; the roof is flat, no wonder it leaks. The plan is to slant the roof. Make of that what you will.

"Never too old to learn"
Huo dao lao, xue dao lao
(Live to old age, learn to old age)

-- Capn Skyp (with help from Jerry Rust)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2005

Whew, talk about procrastination distraction, the Capn is King. What does he do with the big roofing job on tab, no, not three tab, it's going to be a metal roof. For those of you in the construction know you know what I mean. The owner picks up the tab. But as per usual, instead of getting on with the job he gets all tangled up in a puter web problem, attempting to upgrade from Mac OS 9.1 to 9.2, a seemingly impossible task but as the old skypilots say, "The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a litte while."

Turns out Apple in another ploy to get the customer to buy the newest, the latest, they quit supporting older Mac machines past the 9.1 operating system. Furious at this thumbing of the nose (similar to the way Apple quit including floppy drives on their machines) old Mac users came up with a hack.

Coughing their way through the codes, a ploy was fomented. For those of you who are in the same old leaky boat as the Capn, you can upgrade to OS 9.2.2, as high as OS 9 will ever go, by clicking on:

OS9Forever

NOW BACK TO WORK

As you recall, when last seen, all the clutter was in the canning room. Now it has been transported to the living room, much to the disgust of the dog.

More clutter out on the porch. Is it possible such a small room can hold so much stuff? Yes, when packed floor to ceiling in, under and on top of shelves. "What about the rest of this clutter?" the dog is asking, standing at the door of the canning room. "There is a plan," I tell him. He does not wag his tale in compliance.

The clutter has indeed a destination. The old vidie van, once a proud hauler of equipment and personnel on video taping jobs, now without engine or transmission, sits under yon oak tree, destined for a more permanent occupation, maybe an office away from the home, or a guest habitat. Fantasies, giving way to the exigencies. The vidie van will house the clutter. Let's start hauling!

SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2005

You can't be as tired of hearing about this so-called roofing job as I am about doing it, particularly since there hasn't been any so-called roof replacement going on, there's only been the clearing of the clutter and the hauling of the clutter in not the most primitive manner known to earthlings, but it's pretty durned funky as we say here in nutsville, home of the squirrels now that the blue jays have fled after the cannon blasts on the fourth of july. Well, back to it. Gotta take the throwawys to the dump. Then there's the not quite throwaways to go to Goodwill and good will to one and all.

-- Capn Skyp

(The hyperlink, roof replacement, takes you to a website of Skypilot Jen, member in good standing.)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2005

TA DA!

NOW RIP OUT THAT ROOF!

FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2005

What the well-dressed roof ripper wears as he sets out to open up some daylight in that dagburned canning room only to discover that thirty years of roofing paper layered on three times over with black roofing glue in between each layer, this roof isn't going to give up the ghost all that easily. Then to discover the metal flashing all around the edges, oh me, enough to make the most devout roof rippers bow in obeisance and rip off the mask and goggles and hat and work clothes and jump into the shower for a cooling of the off and a biting of the eats before attacking once again. War? You want war? This is war.

SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2005

Let there be light, maybe a skylight, ha ha, the motive of this destruction is to quell leaks not encourage them for it is an old saw in Oregon that skylights always leak. Not so not so cry the professionals pocketing the big bucks they charge while we mere home improvement gleefs whack away with out sledge hammers. Now bring on the chain saw!

SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2005

Progress is our most important feature, ripping it out, ripping it up, gotta work in the cool cool cool of the morning and drive drive drive across the mountains mountains mountains this afternoon to attend the bob bob bob dylan concert in Bend, Oregon, somewhere around the bend, not to return until tomorrow sometime when the sun will continue to shine in my back door and through the roof kissing July goodbye goodbye goodbye.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2005

Capn Skyp,
That is one amazing sunflower gazing down
through the hole in your roof. Unlike, luckily,
that Paul McCartney song, "I'm fixing a
hole where the rain gets in, stops my mind
from wanderin'... where it will go...." For
I see there's blue skies behind your sunflower.
Good luck,
-- Bill

Whew, been gone too long off this job, the jungle is coming in through the hole.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 7, 2005

There, at last, got the old roof all cleared out and the debris to the dump, then tootle on to the hardware store and get the lumber to rebuild the roof; now the rafters are in place, let's put on the plywood cover. Okay. Get to it. This hot dry spell isn't going to last.


MONDAY, 8-8-05

NEW ROOF PLAN

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2005

REALITY CHECK

Had to forego the grandiose roof and settle for your blah plywood cover with rocket motif. Stand by for drooled rolfing paper on top.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2005
FLASHING FLASHING

They (yes, the omniverent omnipresent all knowing they) said, "Don't be flashing on the roof, you could fall off and hurt your head," but what the dumkopfs don't know is that the flashing I'm doing is showing off my near naked bod to the ogling neighbors wondering what all that noise is all about and damned if I'm going to tell them it is Jerry Garcia letting us know about the Ship of Fools at the near distorted level of amplitude but enuff of this ageold bull I gotta cover this plywood, now that I'm done flashing.

Can it be? Yes, it appears so, so it must be, it must be-- a roof! Funky as per usual, as per the building plans. Now to close in the ends and clean up the mess and move inside to finish off the interior. Cause to celebrate? Not yet, not yet. We must wait till the rains, although there are some who say, "Try it out with the hose," and there are those who reply, "No, not the hose, anything but the hose." Sheesh, tell you whatever you want to know, long as you don't use the hose.

Comes now the side with a window purchased at Bring, the construction recycling place in Eugene, for the grand total of three bucks. One more side to complete and then let her rain!

MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005

Let there be lights. And there were lights. After a long hard grueling hands over head, leaning back on the ladder, cutting and joining wires, installing junction boxes, hooking up the lights, turn on the switch and . . . Agggghhhh! One light doesn't work. Drop the F bomb. Take the junction box apart. Yep, one wire came loose. Redo the whole thing. Ah, success, sweet success. Now get the damned interior finished and put all the stuff back in the room and let's get on to another project; this has been going on how long?

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