More on the war against Mountain Lions. According to KOB, two Mountain Lions were killed in Durango becuase they were suspicious.
The 50 pound cats were 2-years-old and because of their strange behavior, officials say they had not choice but to kill them.
Also they were seen carrying plans to the Death Star. Clearly these Mountain Lions are a threat to the American way of life and need to be eliminated.
I’m a few weeks late on posting this. I really haven’t had the time to sit down and right a proper entry until now. The day that I never thought would come finally came, the dry wall is up in the master bath. There were times when I was demolishing the bathroom that I thought it would it would be a impossible task to finish it. It was such a mess and was going to cost so much money to put back together. This is a big milestone for me.
This was my first time installing drywall and I made a few mistakes. Apparently the top peice of drywall should go up first. I put the bottom peice up first which left me with a gap at the top. I also managed to to incorrectly measure every single protrusion through the wall and had to make all the holes in the drywall larger to adjust.
Next items to start working on are the flooring and the shower waterproofing. The Warmly Yours floor heating was very expenisve and cost me my budget for the next few months. The schluter kerdi product I plan to use for the shower stall will be pretty expensive so that purchase will have to wait. I will work with what I have but won’t be able to buy much therefore I don’t expect a lot of progress over the next month.
I don’t do a good job of proofreading my writings before I post them, but I’m a one man operation and I’m lazy. I would expect just a tad more from the Rio Rancho Observer. This accurately titled article called “It’s the law” is a good example of what not to do. I will just tell the officer the paper told me not to do these things.
DO NOT:
-Buy from a reliable fireworks vendor.
-Ignite fireworks outdoors.
-Have water handy.
-Light one firework at a time.
-Store fireworks in a cool, dry place.
-Dispose of fireworks properly.
-Use fireworks in an area clear of dry vegetation
-Re-ignite malfunctioning fireworks.
-Give fireworks to small children.
-Experiment with or attempt to make your own fireworks.
Never throw fireworks at another person.
Never carry fireworks in your pockets.
And, never shoot fireworks in metal or glass containers.
Tesla issued a press release in February of 2007 stating that they will build their WhiteStar sedan in New Mexico.
Governor Richardson announced today that Tesla Motors will build a new automobile assembly facility in Albuquerque, bringing 400 high wage jobs and a total capital investment of $35 million. Construction on the 150,000 square foot plant will begin in April 2007, at the latest.
It’s the end of June 2008 and no electric car plants have been built. The state of California screwed New Mexico out of that opportunity.
Ze’ev Drori, CEO of Tesla Motors, and Governor Schwarzenegger announced today at a press conference at Tesla Motors headquarters that Tesla’s next product, a 4-door, 5-passenger sedan, will be manufactured at a facility in the state of California.
Previously it had been announced that the sedan manufacturing facility was planned for Albuquerque, New Mexico. After a thorough review of the program, Tesla decided that it would be highly advantageous to build manufacturing facilities in close proximity to the engineering and research and development functions in Tesla’s San Carlos headquarters. Tesla’s battery pack, a critical component of the Tesla Roadster, is currently manufactured in California. Final assembly of the Tesla Roadster is also currently in California.
That really sucks.
It’s been almost two months since my last post on the master bathroom remodel progress. I had to wait for a special order shower head to arrive which took over a month. I also had to pay for the previous months remodel.
The special order bathroom fixtures I bought were very expensive. I can’t believe I spent so much on them. Non stock fixtures are simply not cheap and i really didn’t like the stock fixtures. I think i will be really happy with them once they are installed but I didn’t expect to pay that much for them.
Today a plumber friend came over and help me install the new shower and vanity plumbing. OK, really he did all the work. I have never done any copper soldering before so I wasn’t able to do this myself. Now that I see how it’s done it’s really not that hard and i think i could do it myself next time.
The first thing which needed to be done was to replace the dual control shower controls with a single control and route the shower head from the west wall to the south wall. There wont be a regular shower head installed here, it will be a handheld shower with a slide bar. Therefore I thought it would be best to install it on a separate wall from the shower controls.
I decided to move the vanity from the north wall to the east wall. I think i can better utilize this small space and install an extra cabinet next to the sink by having the cabinet on the east wall. The connections points however were too far over to be hidden under the sink. The cold water outlet and the drain pipe both needed to be moved over several inches.
I can now start putting the walls back up. Before I do I will put some insulation in to act as sound dampening materials. I also ordered the electric radiant floor heating for both the master bath and bedroom. Warmly Yours is having a 15% off sale for order of $1500 or more which i took advantage of. It may take me a few more months to pay that off and start work on the bathroom again.
Mountain Lions are pretty common in New Mexico and most occur near the uh… mountains. Last week a Mountain Lions apparently killed an ate a man in Pinos Altos, NM. Pinos Altos is located way south of Albuquerque. They caught a cat that may have been the cat that did it, so they killed it anyways. The American way i guess.
Officers from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish investigators said they are now 90 percent sure that a Mountain Lion’ pounced on Jose Salazar Jr., 5, and was trying to drag him away as the boy’s father gave chase.
Mostly Mountain Lion’s try to avoid humans and are probably pretty desperate if they attack a human. If you live near their habitat, I would keep your small dogs and cats inside.
Updated 7/1/08: A second lion has been killed near Pions Altos. This one may have also been responsible. Lets just kill them all to be sure.
Cleaning up the swamp cooler duct work continues. At this rate I might have it done by summer.
This is my first experience mixing and using cement and I’m pretty happy with the result. Here’s the problem, a large swath of concrete is missing and the original metal duct just rested up against dirt, further degrading the metal. I cleaned up the mess and prepared it to be filled with cement.
First thing I did was to put some metal lath that is used for stuccoing walls. I folded it in on itself and shoved it into the gap using a few nails (nailed into dirt) to hold it back where it needed help. The metal lath not only will give the cement some strength but will give it something to stick to.
I used 30 lbs of Quikrete quick setting cement. The cement sets in 10-15 minutes and, according to the container, is recommend for vertical applications. Since I had never mixed cement before it seems like a good first step was to read and follow the instructions. The container says to mix 5.5 parts of Quikrete into 1 part water and only mix as much as you can work with in 10 -15 minutes. Mixing that much water resulted in a wet powered that was pretty much useless. After some experimentation and wasting about 10% of the Quikrete I found I needed about 3x water than was called for.
Another 10% waste of Quikrete occurred trying to figure out how to actually apply the material into the hole. I finally figured out that using a wide putty knife and pushing it up, working my way left to right and top to bottom was the easiest way to apply it. Sometimes it would fall after I put in on and I tried to scoop up as much as I could and put it back.
It was hot and sweat and blood literally went into the making of this. There is a satisfaction to doing it myself..
There’s a few next steps before I can permanently attach the duct work. The floor of the this concrete pit should also be solid concrete, but is degraded and it’s hard to tell where the concrete ends and the dirt starts. I will have to put about a .5 inch layer of cement down. I will probably use something like the Quikcrete Fast-Setting Self-Leveling product. Since it doesn’t require any trawling, it should be easy!
The other thing I have to do is to clean out the dirt that made it’s way down the main duct that runs from the cooler to the main air distribution point. I could hire a duct cleaning service, but why start hiring people now when I’ve done everything else myself?
It’s been hot here. Unusually hot. This last week has been in the mid to high 90’s which seems about 10 degrees more than usual. This poses a problem for me. Last fall I removed the swamp cooler due to the duct work rusting out and making a mess and I haven’t yet resolved it. I realize it’s June and I should be prepared for the heat already, but I wasn’t expecting this much heat at once.
I managed to get the old rusted duct work removed but I’m not yet done getting the cement casing cleaned up. I did get a MasterCool for free but needed to get it blowing cold air into the house. Getting this small amount of duct work made was going to be extremely expensive, one company quoted me $600 – $800.
The Lowes and Home Depot don’t carry duct work larger than 8”. Luckily I was able to find a local hardware store called Samons that carries pre-made duct work. Not being ready to permanently install the duct work… let me just say that if your a fan of duck tape, you will be a fan of my work.
I have a managed to duct tape the whole mess together and sit it on the cement hole. If there’s a strong wind it will probably blow the duct work away, If it rains It will probably fill the hole with water. For now I’m cool.
Lets say you lived in the Albuquerque metropolitan area and were considering purchasing a new phone come July 11th, you will be happy to know there is 3G coverage in the city. Through Rio Rancho and Bernallio even. Travel no further than Los Lunas or the east side of the Sanidas else you should have stuck with the first generation.
Back in October of 2007, Cool Tools recomended Melnor Quick Connects for garden hoses. The quick connects are similar to quick connects used on air tools. I am a big fan of these quick connectors and I use them on all my hoses. The only problem with the ones recommended by Cool Tools is that they are plastic.
There’s a number of problems with the plastic connectors for which I don’t recommend them. If you leave them outdoors all year round they get brittle and they don’t take a lot of abuse like when your dragging your hose across the cement. Instead I recommend the brass connectors such as the ones made by Camco
Another issue with these things is they tend to get dirt in them and expand and contract with the weather. Sometimes you have to bang on them to get them to move again, try doing that with a plastic part.
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