Happy Days Are Here Again


Well, OK, I didn't get out and vote on Friday. It was the 2nd day of absentee voting, and I figured the lines would be pretty long. So I'll either go today or Friday. I leave tomorrow morning for Jacksonville, FL. Florida, a.k.a. Crazyland, is one of my least favorite states to go to. I don't mind Orlando too much- it's the least pretty of the Crazyland cities, but there seem to be fewer Crazies there, so it's OK. Yes, yes, I was born in Crazyland (Tampa) and lived there until I was 7, but I like to think that most of the maniacal serial-killer tendencies were washed away by living in New Orleans during the formative years (7-16) and Texas during early adulthood (16-26). It's amazing how one's environment shapes their outcomes: instead of a maniacal serial killer who drives badly, I'm a woman of relaxed moral standards with tendencies toward vigilante justice.


Anyway, if I don't vote by the 25th, I'm screwed because I'll be out of town from the 26th-Nov 2.


That'll be a FUN trip. I'm teaching in Denver the 27-29 (W-F), and then in Dallas the 1-2 (M-T), so I'll stay in Colorado for the weekend and just fly straight to Dallas Sunday night. That means I can drive out to somewhere near Georgetown, CO and hike a 14'er on Saturday morning. :-))) I hope the snow isn't too high at 14K feet! Last night I bought a new pair of gore-tex hiking boots which I'll break in next weekend. I've got waterproof ski pants. Is that enough for hiking at 14K feet in the snow in late October?


On Friday our house went under contract- Yay! -so we spent the weekend doing more work on the decks. The realtor insisted that we have both decks inspected by the city (which is wierd- nobody does this, but she was all insistent about it) and so, of course, the city inspector had a long list of things to be done to bring it up to the Residential code. Well, thing is, it was designed and built by a structural engineer, and it is more than strong enough for all the load bearing requirements, but because the inspector has a list ("building code for dummies") of specifications, he doesn't like the shape of the footings, the type of beams, color of the wood stain, whatever, and it has to be changed. The biggest project was pouring new footings for the front deck. Totally unnecessary, since what we had already far exceeded the load requirements for NC building code (according to the Structural Engineer), but it will make the inspector happy, so we did it. There was one thing we had to do that we always suspected we'd have to do-- add pickets to the handrails on the back stairs, so we did that too (and added some unnecessary X-bracing, some unnecessary anchor bolts, and unnecessary screws). But hey, it's done! :-) :-) And the house is selling. I'm glad, because it is a nice house- and SO MUCH NICER than it was when we bought it.


I probably won't blog much this week, so look for more around Friday or so!