JamesSlusher.com

My lovely wife and I are now officially not the owners of a house.  Our house in North Augusta closed today.  I have mixed emotions about the event.  We made good money off the deal, but I loved that house.  I sweated and cursed and figured out 99% of everything I know about home repair inside those walls.  I’m proud of the work I did and I’m positive that visitors to the house will be impressed by my work for years to come.

Oh, and the dude that bought the house?  Complete jerk.  His checks cashed, though, and that’s what matters I suppose.

Not being ones to sit idly by, we have already made an offer on another house.  It’s a 1960’s ranch house that needs a bit of updating.  Sound familiar?  I thought so.  Let’s do it again!

I was pondering the bailout bill today and realized that I have an inherent conflict of interest in the matter and therefore won’t be commenting much.

I think handing Wall Street (or anybody for that matter) $700 billion is just plain stupid.  Taking the risk out of financial markets removes the only downside to making stupid loans at historically low rates.  And it doesn’t do a single thing to stop the foreclosures that are wreaking havoc on our country.

That having been said, I am now in the market for a house.  The more foreclosures, the better for me and my family, as it increases the supply and lowers the price of the available houses.  A giddy and cash-flush financial market will mean low rates on new mortgages.  Win-win for me and mine.

For perhaps the first time in my life, what is good for America and middle-class Americans, at least in the short term, isn’t in my best interest.

So, to all the Congress critters out there, if you are gonna do something stupid, do something stupid for me.

I made my first attempt at frying plantains today.  I would have to rate it a complete failure.  I got the grease too hot and it really crisped up the outside of the plantains really fast without cooking the inside enough.  In the future I think I will go with thinner slices of plantain and cooler grease.

I’m eating the failed experiment anyways, cause I hate to waste food.  It’s okay, but not the deliciousness I expected.

I will try again soon.

I don’t know which I’m doing right now.  This whole moving thing has me upside down and backwards. My blogging has been non-existent, I know.  Partly because all my passwords are stored on my laptop and I don’t actually know some of the passwords to different stuff.  My Wordpress password is one of them.

When I’m at my in-laws, which is most evenings, I can’t log-in. When I’m at the old house, I’m busy getting things ready for selling and don’t have time.  So for the time being, posts may be a bit sporadic.

The house does look great, though.  A little bit of irony is that I have spent 8 years working on this house to make it look it’s best and the absolute highest point will be just prior to selling it.

My home improvement multimedia extravaganza is now live! You can check it out here.

It’s called I Did That. It will mix in blog posts, audio podcasts and video podcasts. I’ve started rather simply with my Laundry Room Project. The show will be evolving as it goes, so make sure you check it out.

Update:  Oops, I had the first link messed up.  It’s fixed now.  The url is www.ididthatshow.com for those thousands of you that want to homepage it.

So the wife and kids are off to Savannah this weekend.  I stayed behind because I have loads of work to do that would have distracted me from any fun I could have there.

It sucks when they are gone. Maybe I’m just completely domesticated now, but man, I wish they were here.

After a little bit of begging and a short lecture, I bought myself a new toy today. It’s a Bostitch nail gun. Well, actually it is 3 guns and a compressor.

It is bad to the bone. If you have ever taken the moulding off the frame of a door, it is stapled on with the same type of staples that the staple gun shoots. The brad gun is for building small projects like picture frames and attaching light moulding on furniture. The finish nailer is for attaching base boards and crown moulding and building furniture. Plus the compressor, although fairly light duty, will be able to handle a few other tasks around the house like inflating tires and basketballs and such.

I’m looking forward to framing in that mirror I hung yesterday so that I can test out the brad nailer. And now that I’ve got the stain right for the moulding, that should go up in a snap.

Oh gosh, I love a good toy.  Especially one that makes life easier

I’ve been working on my in-laws bathroom. I tiled the floor last week, my Mother-In-Law wallpapered the walls and started stripping the cabinet and sent the drawers off to be stripped. This weekend, I’ve put in the new switches, outlets and plates, hung the hand towel ring, the towel bar and an extremely heavy mirror.

The part that is giving me fits is the stain for the moulding and cabinet. I wanted a deep golden brown. By deep golden brown, I mean I want it dark brown with yellow undertones. I tried this stain and that stain and all I got was a bunch of washed out black spots.

I finally discovered this pre-stain wood treatment for porous wood (the moulding is pine) and it has helped a great deal. I am now getting the deep color that I wanted, but now I’m having trouble getting the brown with the yellow undertones. I made an extremely deep, very beautiful bombay mahogany color which would look great in any number of applications. Except, unfortunately, that bathroom. It’s way too red. I’m doing a traditional mahogany now, but it just doesn’t seem to have that warm golden undertone that I want.

My In-Laws have been wanting me to give up and move on for 2 days now. I refuse. I’m gonna make the color I want. Period. I don’t care how many pieces of scrap moulding I have to stain to get it right. Or how long it takes. This is something that is going to be in place for another 20 or 30 years, I think a few more days to get it right isn’t gonna hurt anything. And the more I know about what I’m doing, the better this and future projects will turn out.

Besides, the cabinet hasn’t been stripped and the drawers aren’t back yet.  So really I’m waiting on them, not vice versa.

For 2007, “discipline” is going to be the overriding theme in my life. And no, I don’t mean that kind of discipline, you perv.

I’ve been very disciplined about select things in my life. During college I was extremely disciplined at working out. Going to class, studying, paying attention, not so much.

I’ve been disciplined about monitoring my blood sugar levels and taking the right amount of insulin, but I will let laundry pile up.

I’m not interested in New Year’s resolutions. Those just fall by the wayside eventually and then you get to wait until next year to address whatever problem you had this year. I’m interested in a lifestyle change.

I’m making a list of things that I want to do and I’m going to stick to them. Period. Whatever is going on, whether I want to or not, I’m going to do them. And this isn’t a “To Do” list either. This is a list of ways of living that I want to incorporate into my everyday routine.

Some examples of the things I will be telling myself:

• Put things away when you are done.
• Clean as you go.
• Exercise. Today.
• Do what you say you are going to do. Even if you only said it to yourself.
• Finish what you started.
• Don’t buy something you can do without.
• 2000 calories a day, dude, max. Now put the Twinkie down.
• Communicate with a loved one not living in your house. Phone call, blog post, something. If it’s verbal, tell them you love them.

That last one might be the most important.

I mean all of those in the broadest senses possible. I’m going to put things away when I’m at home, at work, at whatever.

Before I lay down for the night (or day), I better have exercised at some point. Even if it was a simple “drop and give me 20″. Anything is better than nothing.

Too many projects of mine get derailed (anyone seen an F100 lately?). When I say I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it. And I’m going to keep doing it until it is done or it kills me.

As far as purchasing things I don’t need, that’s a huge problem with me. I need to start asking myself if I really need this thing. If I do, maybe I already have something that I can use in it’s stead. If alterations need to be made, so be it.

The 2k calories speaks for itself. I’m a fatass.

Communication with friends and loved ones is key. Too many people out there haven’t heard “I love you” from me in some time. And that needs to change.

Those are my current overriding concerns about the way I handle my business. Now the key to the whole deal is having the discipline to make myself toe those lines. I know I can do it. Now I just have to actually do it.

By the way, I love you guys.

I remodeled my kitchen about 2 years ago (I think, time is slipping by me). Prior to the remodel I had my refrigerator’s ice maker hooked up and running. When I did the remodel I just never hooked it back up because I didn’t have the right part to connect it into the cold water line.

Well I got a bit of a bug up my hind quarters today and decided to get it done. The parts for it cost about 2 bucks. The whole deal, from bug to completion, took me about an hour. So 2 dollars and an hour of my time held me up for 2 years. Pitiful.

But I’ve got ice now baby.