Reno 97805-1280

OK, no "Power Blogger" status for me anytime soon. I originally targeted a weekly post, but now monthly compilations may be the course until property values go up again, we cash out on the rentals and pay down/off the Marsh house, and I won't have to work as much. Or fewer house, etc. projects. Tough call. I finally sold "Ursula", the Volvo, after 9 long years of putting about 90K miles on her (got her at 42K) and mixed levels of bliss. Bliss, such as the day I bought it, the first time the seat warmers came in handy, and those 2-year intervals between major check-up work. Not-so-bliss was the $2K or so it needed at critical mileage points. The other side of someone's endearing "I had a Volvo and it went 250K+ miles..." story. I'll have fond recollections once the MasterCard is paid down below the level I was at when Ursula was at 105K miles. Oh, well. Sale translates to seed money for the pickup and Jul-e-us l'Arancia, beloved Orange Westy...

[Note: you may want to go ahead and defrost that Thanksgiving turkey, as it's been a wile since my last post.] OK, it was my good intention to live up to the list I shared "way back when". Specifically, the kitchen back splash job , aka the inspiration for starting this site. OK, so some things got in the way, starting with the landscape light project, which BTW was initially slated for summer '06 until the in-laws had delivered the jungle gym, unassembled, in eight boxes in my driveway. (There was also the whole thing about needing an electrical feed to the outside of the house, as featured in the 7.30.2007 post.) And the fine-tuning therein, adding lights (see 7.31.2007 ). For those of you visiting this site frequently, you saw the progression of the light arrangement in the sidebar, as I posted shots after each addition. It's pretty much stable now, so you can register the current shot to memory. What you can't see are the adjoining wires that still need ...

OK; I am officially tuned into the '00s. About time, I figure. Now people can see where I am on mostly home improvement projects, and all the related F-bombs. Marketers, steer clear. I'm not buying -- unless you have cool, rare parts for my '74 Westy . Namely the hard-to-find orange plaid fabric (not the oft-confused chrome yellow), preferably from the upper bunk. Also wish for a dashboard clock, stamped'73, '74 or '75. Can/will trade for mine, stamped '76. (It's black face is darker than the charcoal face on the speedo and fuel,etc gauge, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.) And you now know this, because your Web crawling app picked up on the Westy keyword. We'll talk. Back to home improvement. Here's my latest headache, a backsplash in my kitchen. Here's a part of it. That's 3,168 1-inch tiles for those of you counting. (OK; they're on 12-inch sheets, but still.) And the photo only shows half the job. The vertical/horizontal cu...