More Victories

I was going to title this weekend's post "Declaring Victory" but I see that I already did that on November 5.  Of course, shifting the goal posts is endless.

This might be a good time to recap progress made in November.  At the start of the month, I'd still been keeping the doors open all day and night for outgassing.  The floor was getting muddy in front and was strewn with junk, much of it intended to go elsewhere (the Oakhurst tough shed), such as the solar lights which had only been temporarily installed then removed for mowing.  Temporarily stashing them in Lyndhurst brough in bits of dirt that fell on the floor, and that had not been the only source of dirt.  So on November 5, I cleared up the junk on the floor, installed some lights but boxed the rest and put in Oakhurst, and did a quick mop of the front area.  That was unsatisfactory, but enough for my first declaration of victory.

On November 18, I moved all the remaining stuff on the floor to the back, and thoroughly mopped the floor, rinsed, and dried with a towel.  I touched up some of the Mortite on the outside of the A/C unit.

On November 24, I washed the inside east wall starting at the north edge of the french doors, wrapping around all the way to just past the southwest corner on the west side.  The intent was to make it possible to move stuff from the first house bedroom that needs to be cleared out.  Such moving could begin today because no further pre-use cleaning is required in that area.  I also cleaned the top shelf (which was nearly black from bug dirt again), the exposed portions of the bottom shelf, and scrubbed by hand the southwest corner of the tile floor, which had previously gone uncleaned on November 18.  There was a rust stain in that area which I mostly removed with my Dawn and Baking Soda solution and scrubbing.

I also installed the LED lights as the last incandescent used for the outgassing phase burned out and the building turned dark on November 23.  I decided that running the LED's on the lowest dimmer setting 24/7 would be acceptable because it only uses about 10 watts.  Unlike the incandescent bulb, the Ecosmart LED's make no noise on the Hunter dimmer.

The key part that remains uncleaned in the north side wall, and wrapping around to the west side and the corner of the east side.  The north side wall is not intended for junk storage, so the lack of having that fully prepared is not important now anyway.

Another key achievement was setting up the 15 year old DeLonghi radiator heater.  I removed from the exercise room and vacuumed it off first.  It is very clean and new looking.  I mainly used it for the 8 months I lived in San Francisco in 1997.  Keeping the control near 6 was great on Saturday evening with the doors open and a 60 degree wind blowing outside.  After that, I turned down the temperature control to 3 and the heat level to minimum, which uses about 350 watts.  At minimum, it could probably run all the time without hurting anything, even if the thermostat gets stuck.

On Sunday morning I went out to test the temperature.  The room was warm, dry, comfortable, and there was no smell.  I set the control down to 2 and set up a remote thermometer sensor I can read in the living room, from which I noted that the temperature remained fairly constant at 78 degrees with the 2 setting.  So on Monday I moved the setting even lower, to about 1.5.

The previous week I also obtained new door seals for the bottom of the doors.  I think keeping the doors not fully sealed has been of further help in getting the smell to go outside, and I'm pleased it seems quite easy to maintain temperature even with the door not fully sealed so far, and I think that the current heat-on-inside-cold-outside condition can usefully be outgassed for awhile.

*****

Overall, this was a little less than I had hoped for the four day Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  However, I did not really have four days available, just 3 because Sunday was my monthly party.  Traditionally I then also require Saturday for cleanup of the living room.  And then Thursday itself was Thanksgiving.  I often find Thanksgiving very boring, but had a short and sweet Thanksgiving dinner because a friend brought some very good Turkey (in the short list for best ever).  Mostly, on Thursday, I was relaxing from my work (or, more precisely, recovering from excess partying to 6am on Thursday morning).

So then I could still have had a day or two to work on Lyndhurst, but I'll count this weekend's work as only one day.  I have a good excuse for not doing more than that.  My kitchen computer, the one I do most of my web browsing on, died two weeks ago.  On Monday (November 19) my new Mac Mini arrived.  Since it has the Fusion drive,  I had to order online, but instead of arriving on Black Friday, as promised by Apple, it arrived 4 days earlier.  I gradually started unpacking, but it soon became clear I couldn't do anything until clearing away the old computer and related stuff, so I held off until the quickly arriving holiday weekend.

By late Thursday night, I had started to get into this, getting all the old stuff moved out and the new computer moved in and connected.  I also ran the process of copying all 200Mb of uncompressed audio files (in three separate folders) from the old USB drive to the new internal 1.2Tb Fusion drive.  On Friday morning, after not sleeping very well, I was back at it, getting my iTunes and Sonos systems working with my newly audio files.  That was the main work.  I also spent much time tinkering with the new system to get it back to behaving like my previous one.

So this holiday weekend had many high points, of which the Lyndhurst cleaning became only a small part.

1) Wonderful thanksgiving meal brought by friend.
2) Setting up new computer (equivalent to 1-2 days work).
3) Cleaning living room and kitchen for party (1 day work).
4) Cleaning Lyndhurst walls and setting up heater (1 day work).
5) Sunday discussion and movie party (full day activity).
6) Cleaning up after party (including moving keyboard back to center).
7) Paying utility bills (often lost during party cleanup)
8) Shopping for weekly and party food
9) sterilizing cleaning cloths (before and after cleaning Lyndhurst, takes 3 hours per load)
10) second short visit by friend on Friday
11) mailing party announcement (done by temporarily using bedroom computer)

On Wednesday night, during my dinner break from work, I also managed to visit Gabriel's Superstore to get rare liquors including Rogue Double Chocolate Stout and Isle of Jura Single Malt Scotch) and have dinner at Aldino's.  That almost seemed like part of the holiday weekend as well.

The Lyndhurst cleaning was a small thing, but I'm glad it didn't get forgotten, and that I still have a sense that progress is being made on plan, the plan to have one bedroom cleared out by Jan 1.  That plan looks more do-able than ever right now.  But I also know December quickly evaporates into Christmas Parties and other activities, leaving very little time on the side.  So I could, and probably can start moving bedroom stuff to Lyndhurst this coming first weekend in December.

I also need to finish sealing the A/C area, and start installing door seals.  As well as finishing the inside wall cleaning.

Declaring Victory

I had set a goal of having Lyndhurst done, ready for moving stuff in, on November 1.  As of November 5, I'm declaring victory.

I mean this somewhat in jest, but I did clean out the building this Sunday.  In my all-too-typical-sounding boast nowadays, it was transformed...transformed from a garden junk pile to splendid little room.  It actually seems that way to me.

It looks like I could lease it out now, although I'm not really done cleaning.  I cleared away all the junk on the floor--which was making the whole room nearly impassible--and swept the floor, then did a quick mop on Monday afternoon. The quick mop got the most visible dirt near the door, and made the mop water very dirty, but obviously more mopping needs to be done.  And though the walls look clean, I haven't done my cleaning of them at all.  The top of the shelves could also be cleaned again, they've gotten dirty from bug grime, even though I already cleaned them in June.

The solar lamps (which had considerable soil dirt on their spikes) got put in a sturdy cardboard box and put into the Oakhurst garden tool shed, along with other garden-related items like string trimmer spools.  I put two of the lights up, which added some cheer after the sun went down.  The box used was a box (in which I had received an L-1000T tuner from Europe) which had also sat uselessly on the floor for months.  Three plastic bins which I had moved out of garage in July got moved up to the big back shelf.  There was some loose bug grime and dirt on the back shelf which I brushed off with a towel.  This isn't intended to be permanent--I intend to clean the wall behind the back shelf--but it could be semi-permanent for the forseeable future.

I kept on working past dusk on Sunday afternoon, with dusk coming early because of the change back to daylight loosing time (I like daylight saving time so much I'd like to see it year round).  I brought out the Mosquito Cognito and unpacked one of 3 refills I bought last month but didn't install.  I think I avoided getting any bites, though I was annoyed by some pesky flies or stupified mosquitoes.  I eventually quit working around 10pm when I otherwise would have mopped the floor, but I was beginning to worry there really was a mosquito or two after me and my luck might run out.

After re-opening the doors on Monday at 11am, I noticed essentially zero smell, an excellent result for having had the doors closed for 13 hours.

OK, there still is stuff in the room, including the ladder, the halogen lights, and the boxes for the Obelisk (that needs to be assembled).  But nothing on the floor looks out-of-place.  The room no longer looks like an abandoned junkpile.  It's staring to look like the storage room it is intended to be.  Victory!

Finally mowed the front again

How many weeks has it been?  2 or 3 at most.  The crabgrass in the very front of my front yard had grown to 20 inches or so.  Definitely not a good backdrop for my political signs.  Most of the rest of the front lawn looked OK, with just an occasional crabgrass sprout.  Squeezing this work in before going to my office on Friday, I did the minimum for good appearances, the very front section around the Palm and Mimosa back to the beginning of the garage, and the south strip just beyond the garage.  Took less than an hour, including the time needed to wash out my full face respirator.  With a picnic scheduled for Saturday and rain forecast for Sunday, this was the last chance, and possibly the best chance before Election Day.