Update: Water in the Basement

In my last post, I talked about how we added enough dirt to the west side of the house, that with heavy downpours, water backed its way into our basement. I’m just glad that this happened before we left for Hong Kong, so I could try and fix it.

Instead of plastic basement window wells, the west side of the house has concrete “walls” around the window to hold both dirt and water back from the windows. Unfortunately, we added enough dirt and mulch that rain ran back down into the well, around the old wooden window frame, and onto the basement floor. (A later project will be to change those old, rotting, peeling windows!) Since we lined the house with Castle Rock landscape stones, dirt had to be added behind them, but that proved to make the elevation of the ground higher than those concrete walls.

Of course, with my luck, we noticed this on Thursday afternoon, the day we got our new driveway gravel. We were to leave for NYC on Saturday morning and I still had 1,000 things to do. So, early Friday, I got up and started out at my favorite store, The Home Depot. I picked up some pavers and mortar, and got to work. I added 4 inches of height to the concrete wells by setting the pavers in on their sides and this, by now being higher than the surrounding dirt, will hopefully keep the water out. On the plus side, I think it makes the wells look better too and am happy how they turned out.

The next rain will make me a liar or a hero . . . we’ll see.

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New Driveway

Two days before leaving town, we were able to get a delivery of gravel as a new driveway covering and it sure looks a lot better than it did! We’ll have to keep up with it once we get back with Round Up, but there is nothing that looks better than a fresh layer of driveway gravel, especially the first day it’s down.

In time, the weeds will have their way with it, but I love the way it looks now. Thinking back to how it looked before, this is quite an improvement. The guys who dropped off the gravel did a great job of tailgating it, where they could lift the bed of the dump truck and drop it pretty close to where it needed to be. My trusty shovel and I finished the job in just a few minutes.

Having this finished feels really great, however, as we seem to finish one project, more of them pop up just as quickly. It poured down rain last night, and when it did, the water made its way onto our basement floor! Not from around the windows we filled in by projects past, but around the windows on the west side of the house. We accidentally filled back-fill dirt too high around the wells around the basement windows, causing water to flow back into the basement window well, and thus, past the window to the floor. Yuck! My last day before being gone for four months, and I have to deal with this. 



The tidal wave of projects never ceases. Some, I just plain can’t figure out. For example: The light above our front porch. We have it on a timer so that it comes on at dusk and off in the morning. Because we are going to be in Hong Kong, I want the light on for security reasons. Because it will be on for long periods of time, I wanted to use the new, efficient, florescent, curly-cue bulbs. Not because I’m a tree-hugger, but because I want to save money. The bulb I bought was the wrong color temperature, made for the “daylight” spectrum, instead of the soft white color. After spending more money on a soft white bulb, I plugged it in, but it won’t stay off when the timer switch is off! It flickers on and off, a few times a second. I had a florescent bulb do this to me before, and it burned out a few days later . . . I plugged the daylight bulb back in, and of course, it works fine. Unfortunately, the daylight bulb at night has an ominous green, 1920’s insane asylum hallway light, type of color. The soft white looks great, but they flicker . . . Exasperating.

I’m beginning to think that the best part of leaving for Hong Kong will be the vacation from all these projects!

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Staying Updated

Did you know that you can stay up-to-date with our blog without needing me to e-mail you, check our blog all the time, or even think about it? RSS, or “really simple syndication” is a common way to check on any website that has updates on it all the time. It’s like an auto-notifier for you that something has been updated. Any blog with Google or Wordpress, or a news site that has a blog or updates, has RSS. You can watch for multiple blog updates all the time. When you see there is an update, head to the blog and see what's new!

It’s really easy to set up and I’ll walk you through it, if you don’t already know how to watch RSS feeds.

When you are looking at our main blog page, with the picture of Laura and I parasailing, there is a button called RSS Subscribe. Clicking that will take you to the “feed” that gets updated whenever a blog entry is made. Once you click on the subscribe button, if you have a Mac and use Safari, on the left side of the screen, you can click on the link: Add to my mail. Automatically, you will then receive an e-mail every time a new blog entry is posted. Cool! You can also have Safari notify you every time there is a new update within the Safari browser.

If you use Windows, sell your computer and get a Mac. Just kidding. Just like in Safari, Internet Explorer, at the top right of the address bar for our blog page, will have a symbol like at the top of this blog entry. It may also be next to your Home button. Click on it while you are at our blog page. Select the feed you want (in this case, it will be our blog) and then, it will update when a new post is made. I don’t have IE 7, but updates should show up under a button called FEED, in your favorites bar. Let me know if you find out otherwise.

If you have Outlook 2007 and want the updates to show up in that e-mail program like a new e-mail, then follow these steps:

On the Tools menu, click Account Settings.

On the RSS Feeds tab, click New.

In the New RSS Feed dialogue box, type in the URL of the RSS Feed. In our case, it would be:
feed://www.tobylaura.com/tobylaura/Blog/rss.xml

Click Add.

Click Yes.

If for some reason, you have any troubles subscribing to our TobyLaura blog, did you know that I mirror our TobyLaura blog with a Google blog? It’s called New Mercies and it’s address is: googleblog.tobylaura.com. It is a Google hosted blog, and when you visit it there, it has the same entries as this blog does. Once there, you can go all the way to the bottom of the blog and click Subscribe, or again, click on the symbol in your browser that appears like the one at the top of this blog entry. To set up the Google blog RSS in Outlook, just follow the same directions above, but instead, use the feed address:
feed://googleblog.tobylaura.com/feeds/posts/default

This may seem a little daunting or confusing. It really isn’t, and the best way to set up a feed (auto-notifier) is to use the help function of whatever computer system you are using. I watch several blogs, and when they are updated, they show up in my e-mail inbox as new updates. If your Outlook won’t do that, but you have Google e-mail, check out: Google Reader.  It will also notify you of new postings and is really easy to set up.

Good luck!

To post comments and more, visit TobyLaura.com

2nd Anniversary

Two years ago today, Laura and I tied the knot. It has been a great two years and we commented how in some ways, it feels like we just got married a few months ago, and other times, because of the memories made and how well we know each other, that we’ve been together for a long time.

Last year, our first anniversary, we weren’t able to do too much, like leave town, because I had to study so hard for my Cathay interviews. We did go to Hocking Hills on a hike with photos here. This year, I again am the stumbling block, as we leave in a few days for Hong Kong, to start my new job with Cathay (See, the studies paid off!).

So, we dined on great steak at J. Gilbert’s and plan on celebrating in Hong Kong for the week we are there prior to starting my training.

Dinner was late tonight, because I was with Laura’s uncle Mike, who was helping us by changing the brakes on the VW Passat. That project was slow and tedious, thanks to the engineering of the placement of some necessary bolts behind the wheels. Oh well, thanks Mike for all the help! Now our car runs and brakes smoothly.

Dinner was nice, out with my Sweet Pea, and we look forward to many more memories and years together.

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Shutters: New lease on life

With our departure for Hong Kong just a few days away, we are racing to get all our (not so) little projects around the house accomplished. We’ve already landscaped with mulch and stone, closed off basement windows, backfilled dirt up against the foundation, cut down trees, ripped out junk, dug up hundreds of rocks and landscape stones from a previous owner, and more, and more, and on and on!

This weekend, like most weekends, we thought we’d tackle a three or four hour project, that if we started by noon, we’d be finished by 5:30, in time to make our family going-away party at Laura’s parent’s house. The project? Remove, paint, and reattach our window shutters. No biggie, right? Well, like I said, our estimation of time needed for a project would be a lot closer to being correct if we doubled the time we felt would be needed. It seems like every time I start something, the process goes much slower in reality than it takes in my mind. Oh well.

We spent this weekend taking down all our white, plastic shutters and painting them with spray paint. These shutters are thin and cheap. Because of this, they have some cracks in them where they have been impacted by a ladder (me) or dropped (by my wall insulation guys). Also, and the main reason we are painting them, is because they are cheap enough that they don’t have an ultraviolet inhibitor in them, so the UV rays from the sun have turned them all yellow. On a side note, the UV inhibitor in Vinyl and other products is made from a white pigment, so most often, plastic products that don’t turn yellow with age because they have the inhibitor in them will most often be white in color. Unfortunately for us, the previous owners bought these on the cheap, and the shutters have all turned a nasty, dingy yellowish-brown color.

Because of some of the shutters being cracked, and their poor quality, I was just going to replace them, until I found out it would be about $500 dollars to do so. Hmmm. We spent fifty dollars on spray paint instead. When this project has finally gone bad years from now, we’ll replace them at that point.

We bought six cans of spray paint and had to go back and get eight more! Isn’t that how it always is? Taking the shutters down wasn’t too hard. I did that on the ladder while Sweet Pea painted. We got her a nifty little tool that connects to a can of paint and acts like a trigger for your fingers. Instead of wearing out your finger pressing down on the nozzle of the spray can, you can “pull the trigger” and spray, and it is much easier on your hand, especially for a job with lots of spraying.

Once washed, painted, and dried, I hung them back up. It worked out well because she stayed just a little ahead of me, so there was always a new set of shutters to go up when I needed them. Putting them up was a bit more challenging because it is always easier to remove a screw than it is to put one in. However, the job is finished and we are proud of the work. Unfortunately, no one will really notice our handy work. Why? Because people expect things to look nice and only notice when something needs to be done! We wanted to leave one shutter up in the only dingy yellow color, so people could see what we did, but thought better of it.

Anyway, this two day deal is done and we are glad this project is now in the past!

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End of a chapter

My last flight as a captain at Chautauqua Airlines came last night, June 18th, 2008. It was a bittersweet day for me, as I am very sentimental. With first officer Zach Izzie and flight attendant P.J. DeSantis, we flew from Columbus, Ohio (CMH) to New York (JFK) and back again.

I truly love my job, have enjoyed all 7 years and 8 months I’ve spent flying for Chautauqua, and will miss the flying, the people, and the short drive to work. Leaving a quality airline, with good seniority (I’m in the top 10% of the pilot seniority list) and the privileges that come from working for a U.S. airline make my move to Cathay Pacific somewhat of a risk. But, with any job change, especially with the airlines, there is always risk, it’s just a matter of how calculated is the risk and are the benefits of the risk worth it.

In my case, I feel the risks of leaving are worth it. Many of my friends who have left Chautauqua for major U.S. airlines are probably going to get into trouble, especially with high oil prices and potential mergers and liquidations. Taking that risk is too high for me to leave what good status I have at Chautauqua. I could only leave my current job for something that would be considered the best or a cream-of-the-crop airline. I feel Cathay is a member of that short list.

I hand in my Chautauqua I.D. badge today. Without that I.D., I can’t travel for free anymore, and I feel somewhat alone and nervous without it. Today, June 19th, I have no job and we have no insurance! Transitions are always uneasy, but I wait for my chance to join another group of pilots and start a new chapter in my book of flying days. So, the adventure begins.

We’ll see what happens . . . stay tuned.


To post comments and more, visit TobyLaura.com

More Landscaping

Will this landscaping project ever end? I told Laura that I think it’s great that we have the “Hong Kong” deadline, so we are forced to get this stuff finished. Today, we mulched, and mulched some more.

Yesterday, I spent the whole day putting together a new gutter down-spout and laying a bunch of landscape stone around the back side of the house. It’s tough to get those dudes level and straight, but the hard work with paver sand and a rubber mallet paid off.

Today, we scrambled to get a load of dirt put behind the landscape stones but were running out of dirt. Kurtz Brothers landscaping closed at 3 p.m. and it was 2:15! We hurried up and shoveled all the dirt out of the truck and then raced over to get more dirt. I raced home, we put it down, and then raced back to get the mulch we needed, just prior to 3! We could finally work at a less frenzied, slower pace. We put mulch over all the dirt we spread in between the house and the stones, and then around several trees.

As I type this, I realize that it doesn’t sound like a lot of work, but it took us about 7 hours, to get finished spreading dirt and mulch -- and our backs are sore!

At Kurtz Brothers, I had to wait a little while for the front-end loader to come over to the truck and load up the mulch. For my wait, the guy gave me extra mulch. How much? TWICE as much! I got $120 bucks worth of mulch for $60 -- you can’t beat it. That was a nice pick-me-up for the day, but boy are we glad we are finished. At least with this project . . .

Click on the picture of Laura for more photos of the project where we added more photos to the Landscape Project Album.

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Congress, not Big Oil, is to blame

Notice in the graph above, (click on it to see it better) the U.S. oil companies are among the smallest in the world!

From the Powerline Blog:

The Senate Judiciary Committee summoned top executives from the petroleum industry for what Chairman Pat Leahy thought would be a politically profitable inquisition. Leahy and his comrades showed up ready to blame American oil companies for the high price of gasoline, but the event wasn't as satisfactory as the Democrats had hoped.

The industry lineup was formidable: Robert Malone, Chairman and President of BP America, Inc.; John Hofmeister, President, Shell Oil Company; Peter Robertson, Vice Chairman of the Board, Chevron Corporation; John Lowe, Executive Vice President, Conoco Philips Company; and Stephen Simon, Senior Vice President, Exxon Mobil Corporation. Not surprisingly, the petroleum executives stole the show, as they were far smarter, infinitely better informed, and much more public-spirited than the Senate Democrats.

One theme that emerged from the hearing was the surprisingly small role played by American oil companies in the global petroleum market. John Lowe pointed out:

“I cannot overemphasize the access issue. Access to resources is severely restricted in the United States and abroad, and the American oil industry must compete with national oil companies who are often much larger and have the support of their governments. We can only compete directly for 7 percent of the world's available reserves while about 75 percent is completely controlled by national oil companies and is not accessible.”

Stephen Simon amplified:

“Exxon Mobil is the largest U.S. oil and gas company, but we account for only 2 percent of global energy production, only 3 percent of global oil production, only 6 percent of global refining capacity, and only 1 percent of global petroleum reserves. With respect to petroleum reserves, we rank 14th. Government-owned national oil companies dominate the top spots. For an American company to succeed in this competitive landscape and go head to head with huge government-backed national oil companies, it needs financial strength and scale to execute massive complex energy projects requiring enormous long-term investments.

To simply maintain our current operations and make needed capital investments, Exxon Mobil spends nearly $1 billion each day.”

Because foreign companies and governments control the overwhelming majority of the world's oil, most of the price you pay at the pump is the cost paid by the American oil company to acquire crude oil from someone else:

“Last year, the average price in the United States of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was around $2.80. On average in 2007, approximately 58 percent of the price reflected the amount paid for crude oil. Consumers pay for that crude oil, and so do we.

“Of the 2 million barrels per day Exxon Mobil refined in 2007 here in the United States, 90 percent were purchased from others.”

Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes.
The last theme that was sounded repeatedly was Congress's responsibility for the fact that American companies have access to so little petroleum. Shell's John Hofmeister explained, eloquently:

“While all oil-importing nations buy oil at global prices, some, notably India and China, subsidize the cost of oil products to their nation's consumers, feeding the demand for more oil despite record prices. They do this to speed economic growth and to ensure a competitive advantage relative to other nations.
Meanwhile, in the United States, access to our own oil and gas resources has been limited for the last 30 years, prohibiting companies such as Shell from exploring and developing resources for the benefit of the American people.
Senator Sessions, I agree, it is not a free market.
According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico.
The Argonne National Laboratory did a report in 2004 that identified 40 specific federal policy areas that halt, limit, delay or restrict natural gas projects. I urge you to review it. It is a long list. If I may, I offer it today if you would like to include it in the record.
When many of these policies were implemented, oil was selling in the single digits, not the triple digits we see now. The cumulative effect of these policies has been to discourage U.S. investment and send U.S. companies outside the United States to produce new supplies.
As a result, U.S. production has declined so much that nearly 60 percent of daily consumption comes from foreign sources.
The problem of access can be solved in this country by the same government that has prohibited it. Congress could have chosen to lift some or all of the current restrictions on exportation and production of oil and gas. Congress could provide national policy to reverse the persistent decline of domestically secure natural resource development.”

Later in the hearing, Senator Orrin Hatch walked Hofmeister through the Democrats' latest efforts to block energy independence:

HATCH: I want to get into that. In other words, we're talking about Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. It's fair to say that they're not considered part of America's $22 billion of proven reserves.
HOFMEISTER: Not at all.
HATCH: No, but experts agree that there's between 800 billion to almost 2 trillion barrels of oil that could be recoverable there, and that's good oil, isn't it?
HOFMEISTER: That's correct.
HATCH: It could be recovered at somewhere between $30 and $40 a barrel?
HOFMEISTER: I think those costs are probably a bit dated now, based upon what we've seen in the inflation...
HATCH: Well, somewhere in that area.
HOFMEISTER: I don't know what the exact cost would be, but, you know, if there is more supply, I think inflation in the oil industry would be cracked. And we are facing severe inflation because of the limited amount of supply against the demand.
HATCH: I guess what I'm saying, though, is that if we started to develop the oil shale in those three states we could do it within this framework of over $100 a barrel and make a profit.
HOFMEISTER: I believe we could.
HATCH: And we could help our country alleviate its oil pressures.
HOFMEISTER: Yes.
HATCH: But they're stopping us from doing that right here, as we sit here. We just had a hearing last week where Democrats had stopped the ability to do that, in at least Colorado.
HOFMEISTER: Well, as I said in my opening statement, I think the public policy constraints on the supply side in this country are a disservice to the American consumer.

The committee's Democrats attempted no response. They know that they are largely responsible for the current high price of gasoline, and they want the price to rise even further. Consequently, they have no intention of permitting the development of domestic oil and gas reserves that would both increase this country's energy independence and give consumers a break from constantly increasing energy costs.

Every once in a while, Congressional hearings turn out to be informative.



If you don’t read the Powerline blog, you’re missing the story!


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Main landscape project

For the most part, the Major Landscape project is finished! We still have some more work to do, but the part of the house and landscape that shows itself to the world, street-side, is now complete.

We wanted to stop, or at least slow down, some of the water entering the basement from around some windows in the basement. We had to backfill dirt up to the house to help keep water away from the foundation. By the way, this is a good idea for anyone to do, if you haven't done so already. Dirt is cheap, about $30 bucks a cubic yard (a full-sized pickup truck full).

The hardest part about any dirt-moving landscape job is obviously the sweat-equity involved. This whole project cost less than $200 dollars, but took several weekends of back-breaking work. It always bugged me at how quickly a front-end loader could fill the back of the pickup bed with dirt, but how long it took me to unload the dirt once we had it home!

What do you think? Does the dirt and mulch look better than the gutter pipes and weeds? I haven't decided yet. We still need to bring the landscape blocks, dirt and mulch, around the southwest side of the house, by the back porch and kitchen, and then we'll have the house completely surrounded in mulch and dirt, to give the house a cleaner look. We had a bunch of 30 year old evergreen bushes around the perimeter of the house, but they have gotten too big and make the house look dated: yes, the 70's have come and GONE!

Click the picture at the top of the blog entry to see more photos from the project and click HERE to see the blog entry about what it took to get to the dirt and mulch end of this project.


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