Happy Mother’s Day! That’s tomorrow, sure, but I just wanted to get that in there. Special wishes to my daughter – a mom for the second time this year, and my lovely wife, who will be missing her boys tomorrow, along with my own awesome mom – who bears much of the responsibility for teaching me (by example) about what is really important in life.
It’s Saturday, and time to get to the home chores. I plan to get one wall put up in the guest bathroom and then put the ceramic tile floor in. Not that much work, really. I need to take the crappy van to Lowe’s this morning and pick up a sheet of drywall. Lowe’s on Saturday morning – ick…
Our new (to us) Tribute is legal now. We have a license plate, a title and everything. We drove it around yesterday to get some errands done – I’m pretty happy with it. Last week, I dropped it off at a shop to have the front end wobble tended to. Turns out it was just a case of mis-balanced tires. Since they were almost new, I had them re-balanced and now everything’s fine. The little SUV has the 24v V-6 that was used in millions of Fords, so I don’t anticipate having any problems with the engine. Yesterday, there was an article in MSN Money that touted the virtues of inexpensive used cars. Seems like we’re ahead of that curve. The only hurdle left is that we only have one key. We will need to visit the Mazda dealer (and pay about $150) to have another one – or maybe two made. The PATS-II system on this SUV requires a ten-minute wait while on the dealer’s diagnostic machine to assign a new key code to the car’s internal computer. This keeps an unscrupulous dealer mechanic from programming one in a hurry (never would have thought about that), although I suspect that the dealers also like the income from the procedure, too.
I’ve been looking into getting Monica’s last immigration paperwork finished. We have been married for almost two years (already!) and we need to file a form and some paperwork to remove the conditions from her permanent residency card. Her card was only good for two years. This is a precaution to keep from having sham immigration marriages. By filing this form (I-751) and showing documents, pictures and other evidence that we are really living together as man and wife, she can get her permanent residency card renewed without conditions. Oh, we also have to pay a $480 fee to the Department of Homeland Security along with a biometric fee of $80. If we include enough materials, there’s chance that we will not be called in for an interview, however we will also have to drive to Dover to have Monica’s fingerprints taken again. This inconvenient and expensive stop is because the DHS wants to make sure that Monica’s fingerprints haven’t changed in two years, I suppose.
End-of-the-day update.
Our baby doves are gone. They were born just a few weeks ago on our front porch, in a hanging planter. I took a picture of the two of them yesterday, and I saw them this morning on the power wires above our front yard. With the winds we have had today, they’re likely in Europe by now…
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We get our porch back! However, the plants inside of the basket didn’t survive. We’ll get some new ones.
I didn’t get the tile put on the bathroom floor today. I did get the plumbing work done and the drywall up. The plumbing was more work than I anticipated. I ended up installing cross-pieces and screwing shower-type drop transition elbows to them and coming through the wall with metal nipples. I didn’t like the idea of just leaving the plastic pipe flopping around inside the wall. This way, the through-wall nipples can be easily replaced if necessary. I also added extra shut-off valves in the basement (allowed me to turn on the house water earlier). Maybe I’ll get to the tile tomorrow.
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Hey, did anyone notice this? It seems that last month’s big government health care grab will lose much more money than anyone thought. Some other nasty things will happen as well. The administration had a report that said this a week before the big vote. They must have misplaced it ir something during that busy week before the vote. They did make it public a month after, hoping that nobody would notice the date…
Could you imagine if the previous administration had done this?? (they wouldn’t have).
Hope and change, indeed. Our government lies to us, and the news media, once able guardians of the public interest, are now the lapdogs of the administration. Shame.
Greg
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