First Blog
Mood:
bright
Topic: General Life
So this is the first blog for my new website. I am slowly transferring files over, mostly pictures, to the website. I will bring over all of my myspace blogs in archived, text-only formatting. I'm a little sad today, thinking about Greg and about the Civic. After all, both were big parts of my life, but I know I will get Greg back into my life in the near future. I wrote him a letter last night, I need to get to the post office this morning and mail it to him along with some stamps.
Work is getting dull. The truck was incomplete last night, a first since I have worked there. We (meaning I) got the hard parts done, and quite a bit of the chemicals, but some people were busy with commercial and other people were busy talking to their friends. We were also a man down, as Jeff was in an all-day meeting. Add to that the driver being late, and being a complete moron, and you have yourself the basic reasons as to why our large delivery sat overnight last night incomplete. We got a new DM apparently, I hope he's as cool as the last guy was. I changed my availability, I want thursdays off, and I want to close. I put 10 - close for 4 days, "any" for 2, and off for 1. I don't feel it to be unreasonable; after all, for a while I worked for 7 days straight without a day off, and as a part timer it was great for pay but bad because I would close and then open the next day. I was getting burned out and not sleeping enough on my old crappy mattress. On this new one I sleep great, and wake up early feeling refreshed.
Another thing that came to mind was how windy it is today. I was planning on doing some work in the storage room tool shed, but with this wind it would knock out the pilot lights in the furnace and water heater so that's pretty much out, unless I work quickly to get some standing room. I need to notch out part of the base for my tabe saw in order to fit it with the stand between the furnace and water heater, and my $17 Harbor Freight grinder works so amazing well it should work perfect for this task. I'm *just* hitting the water heater, so 1/2 inch from both sides on that angled leg should be enough to clear it. I then just have to build a box for under it as to add a little more storage. The top will clear the gas line just fine.
I'm going to cut the top off of my old tool box to make room for a shelf to store my chemicals. I want to have a basic stock of basic things in there, mostly oil and filters for my
oil changes - $20. I figure get about 45 quarts as a start, 15 5w20, 15 5w30, 25 10w30, along with about 20 common filters. I also stock fuel injector cleaner, $6 a bottle, its THE BEST you can get. I want to stock some Lucas oil stabilizer and some Restore oil additive as well. I have basic grease and stuff like that, but already you can see the need for adequate storage space. In that small room, the free space is the space I can make. I finally built a real workbench, and I need to buy sliders today for making some basic plywood drawers. I figure make two 3" deep drawers, one 6" deep drawer, and some bullshit drawers for nails and whatnot based on the plastic bins I already use. I need to make an angled support brace for the one side and possibly for the water heater side. My regular rolling box sits under the drawers I plan on making, and then on one side there's room for more drawers about 16-18" wide, so there's more plyrood needed.
I ran new lighting in there with 2 $10 florescent fixtures. It was $10 for the fixture and 2 4' light tubes, and they have 3 prong plugs on them already. I need to add 2 outlets, one for lighting and one for general-use electric, although I might just run a "raceway strip" instead along the wall above the bench. Above it, there's a light, partially obstructed by the wall-mounted shelving, and above the light there's a shelf for my saw-horses and other stuff, like the gas can (washed out to prevent fumes) and minor things like extra jumper cables. I need to somehow leave room for the gardening tools, and leave room around the water heater and furnace for room to access the innards for repair work and pilot relighting. So far there's plenty of room for both.
It makes me wonder how other people fixed their rooms up. The only houses in here with them are the 44 affordable units, and the room is about 8x6 with the furnace, water heater, and service panel housed in them. They are probably only intended for those items, but as a mechanic and as a homeowner, I need to use it for other things. If it was solely intended for that, it would be just big enough to house those items. The units by Trish's house have a garage on the affordables and would be a better choice for a mechanic, and I am looking into the price on one of those units. Meanwhile, I am working on the Omni and I need to leave room in the tool shed to allow for an engine stand AND have space to move around it, or atleast be able to unload it with ramps or something.
I think the best approach is to go to the post office now, then draw some pictures when I get back to figure out that shed room.
