Good Morning All. Cloudy and 57°, just going up to 62° for the high today. These clouds yesterday and today really changed the forecast, earlier in the week they were forecasting highs in the mid-70's until Monday.
Well, the new roof is almost completed. What I was not told until dusk yesterday is that the roofing supplier was out of the ridge shingles in our color!
Not happy. The roofer said that he would pick them up today and finish it. It took six (actually five since the foreman spent most of his time in his truck talking/texting on the phone), 9.5 hours to do it all including cleanup. The owner who was over on a different job with another crew, had to bring out 3 additional sheets of decking so that they could replace 8 all together. All were along the edge and I knew about 5 before they started. Overall I am satisfied except for the lack of communication on the ridge shingles.
Had a wildlife adventure on the way home from the restaurant last night. It started with me having to slow the car to let 2 coyotes safely cross,, there may have been more ahead of them; then a half mile later I had to stop completely to allow at least two deer to cross. These were two juveniles, so mama was probably leading them. I'm still paranoid after hitting that large buck last year. Both incidents last night were in the last half mile before the house. Afterward, rather late, my daughter showed up with the two granddogs for their country vacation. I was expecting her earlier and had to stay up past my bedtime to help bring the paraphernalia in.
Today is the delayed weekly grocery trek, after I peruse the digital coupons available today. Damn, there's 804 of them! I am leaving my wife home to pack the car (for her vacation with the kids), and oversee the roofer if he shows up while I am gone. They'll (wife, kids and grandkids) be at South Padre Island and hope to see the SpaceX launch from Boca Chica TX. The launch site is less than 2 miles as the crow flies from the condo where they are staying. They'll only get to see it if the launch is delayed from Saturday til Sunday though. How often do these things happen on time?
Not much to report from out in the train shed yesterday. I only ran trains while I was on standby for the roofing crew. Turns out they didn't need me until they started the cleanup.
I have a few more of
Garry's pictures from my inspiration folder.
Money, kids, etc. - We always had an emergency fund but we are fortunate to have never needed it. Came close though.
All of our married life with kids at home, we openly discussed many aspects of our financial situations at the dinner table with them all present. It successfully taught them budgeting, financial planning and many other monetary things. My oldest daughter once remarked that she never realized that I knew how much money I spent on beer and budgeted it faithfully.
I always followed the practice of putting half (many times more) of all raises into my 401k plan. It was money that I wasn't spending anyway. I never borrowed against it. I heard many horror stories from folks at work who did and later regretted it immensely. Most of them were never able to repay it and the tax/penalty stunned them. It was all ranges of employees from hourly factory workers, supervisors and management/office workers. Whenever anyone asked my advice, I recommended taking out a bank loan and using the 401k as collateral if their bank would allow it.
Troy - Pre-made curve templates are great time savers. I made six of them from 24" to 34" (2" increments) out of pattern cardboard, but ended up using only the 30", 32" and 34" ones for HO.
Swal - Cabinets and shelves are looking good.
Today is Gordon Lightfoot's 85th birthday. I liked a lot of his music, but I wish that he never recorded the Edmund Fitzgerald. It was way overplayed in my area.
Everyone have a fantastic Friday.
