Text 35835, 282 rader
Skriven 2006-08-03 11:19:33 av Roy Witt (1:1/22)
  Kommentar till text 35803 av Carol Shenkenberger (6:757/1)
Ärende: IQ Test
===============
03 Aug 06 21:58, Carol Shenkenberger wrote to Roy Witt:

 CS> *** Quoting Roy Witt from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***


 CS>> Don's a sideline handyman who does that for others.

 RW>> When I was looking to go into business for myself, Nancy suggested
 RW>> tha do that, since there's nothing I can't fix. In her eyes anyway.
 RW>> :o)

 CS> Thats sweet <g>.

Heh, I suppose it made a great impression on her when on our second or
third date, I re-wired her stereo before we went out.

 CS> Seriously, Don wont take just 'any job'.  He wants to look at it and
 CS> be sure it's something he knows how to do right first.

Of course.

 CS>   I've actually taught him how to do some stuff because I learned as
 CS> a kid with Mom and her way of making money with fixing up houses.

Heh. And I have to open every can that Nancy wants opened...she's not very
good with can openers, but she's a great housekeeper and good cook. Oh,
and she gets more paint on herself than she does the walls. :o)

 CS> When we get back home, I have to brush off my wallpaper skills and
 CS> redo the one wall in the livingroom that is papered (the rest is all
 CS> lovely real wood, not cheapo paneling like the hall which i also plan
 CS> to replace with drywall).  The drywall will take 2-3 days because
 CS> there are lots of cut-ins to make but the wallpaper wont take more
 CS> than 1/2 a day including the time to take the old stuff off (never
 CS> skip that, the new stuff will get all funny after a mere 4 years if
 CS> you do).

Not many people do wallpaper these days. I've done some but it's a job I
wouldn't enjoy doing for very long.

 CS>>   Virginia hasnt been that restrictive.

 RW>> Neither is Texas, but some places in Texas are. i.e. the Guadalupe
 RW>> Riv runs through a lot of counties on it's way from west Texas to
 RW>> the gulf

 CS> <snip> Gotcha there.  Silly rule.

 RW>> One morning in San Diego I walked into the kitchen and noticed the
 RW>> til floor was exceptionally warm. It's on a concrete slab and should
 RW>> have

 CS> Wince...

 RW>> imbedded in the concrete and the common problems of slabs breaking
 RW>> up because of ground movement didn't pass up my house. I had someone
 RW>> come

 CS> Yeah, had to have the underfloor heating vents sealed and install
 CS> ceiling ones then rework the entire house AC/Heat to use them.
 CS> Expensive.  Even in Virginia, you get that over time due to
 CS> frost/thaw issues.

In the old days of coal fired furnaces, you didn't have to worry about
that, unless the house didn't have a basement. Those furnaces will keep
even a non-heated basement warm enough.

 CS>> In Virgina, if it's legal to do yourself, it's legal to hire a
 CS>> handyman for.

 RW>> The same here and he must have a contractors license.

 CS> Don's work mostly came from DL, a contractor who's also a bar buddy
 CS> of his. DL gets 15% I think but it's all stuff too small for him to
 CS> have sent one of his regulars out for and stuff that wouldnt pay
 CS> enough for them.  Don generally got about 20$ an hour worth stuff
 CS> that were frills to the side of a main job.

Money under the table. I've always liked cash customers when it comes to
paying for labor.

 RW>> Around here, you need a permit to do anything, including replacing
 RW>> the seal on a toilet base.

 CS> Really?  A permit?  How odd that sounds to me!  I needed one for the
 CS> roof jobs but never a toilet!

Well, I've got one rocking on the base seal now. I'm told that I need a
permit to fix it, but I'll do it without one.

 CS>> yourself' though I am sure some folks ignore that.  Having outlets
 CS>> added is quite expensive but we've paid the going rate as needed.

 RW>> I do my own electrical work. I wired a wharehouse to put my machine
 RW>> sh in, 220v3p...I pulled permits, got permission from the Miramar
 RW>> base commander (?) and when it came time to have the city inspect
 RW>> it, they it wasn't necessary. Don't know why I botherd to pull a
 RW>> permit. Even t Fire Marshall wanted to know why I needed one. Does
 RW>> 'because the city I need one' ring a bell. He signed off his section
 RW>> of the permit witho hesitation.

 CS> Grin, well, Neither Don nor I are electrical savvy enough to attempt
 CS> that sort of thing safely.  Just not what we have learned to do in
 CS> our lives.

In a house, it's easy. All of the white wires connect to each other, all
of the black wires connect to each other and the green wire, if you have
one, goes to a ground.

I've temporarily hooked up my air compressor to the washer/dryer 220v
circuit. All I have to remember is not to use both at the same time, just
in case the breaker can't handle both. Although I believ it will. Nancy
has instructions to see that the compressor switch is off before she
starts the dryer.

 CS>> I found there when browsing for fodder ;-).  Oddly, I'm not that
 CS>> much experienced with 'mexican' although I use aspects of it gleaned
 CS>> from 3 years in Texas and 6 in San Diego.
 RW>> If you perchance get to go through San Diego on your way home, stop
 RW>> in the Miramar Cafe' (it's across from Miramar Base' north or west
 RW>> gate o
 CS> I think I've heard of it but never been there.  I do recall fondly
 CS> the outstanding 'SOS' at Post 460 (American Legion).

I dont' think she serves SOS, but you'll find the food there to be great.
Where is that Post 460? I recall something like that on Balboa, just west
of I-15.

 RW>> The restaurant I mention above was previously owned by friends and
 RW>> Jac offered to give me the recipe' for the ranchero sauce they used
 RW>> on tho huevos. I didn't take it, as I was content to eat hers. The
 RW>> other day

 CS> Ohh bad mistake <g>.

Yeah, I'm kicking myself now.

 RW>> found an old cell phone and found her home phone number in its phone
 RW>> b I'm going to call her and see if she'll still give it away. I've
 RW>> tried tried to dupe that sauce, but not much luck with it. I did
 RW>> make one th liked, but it's a green ranchero sauce, not red.

 CS> See?

Here, they don't put any tortillas under the eggs...I've found out why
they do put them there in western Mexico, or wherever the dish came from.
The egg whites are usually not done when they put them on the plate
(tortilla) and the very hot (heat) rancheo sauce finishes cooking the
white before or while the dish is served. I made mine that way and the
eggs were just right. Sunny-side up, of course. (gotta watch it so that
you don't get sauce on the yolks)

 RW>> When the kids all lived around us, they'd always ask Nancy to make
 RW>> her spegetti for those occasions we got together. I got so used to
 RW>> eating it was no big deal to me (of course I like it very much), but
 RW>> when the kids came over, there were never any leftovers. I can come
 RW>> close to he but I can't dupe it. She, of course, won't/can't tell me
 RW>> what's in it, she just puts it together from memory.

 CS> I kinda upset Don slightly.  He's always made the spagetti here then
 CS> one day, not having his recipe, I made some.  Bad Mommie!  Bad!  They
 CS> liked it better and now they bug me every 2 months to make it again
 CS> <g>.  Worst of it is I like Don's better!

Do like we do...Nancy made a very tasty 'bean pot' but I didn't like it
with the pork fat in it. I suggested to her to use Vegetarian beans in it
and it's better than ever.

 CS>> we have here once it arrives.  The unit here is about 4ft long and a
 CS>> bit less tall.  The one in Norfolk is 7ft long and 3.5ft tall.  Both
 CS>> are money saving devices (cost about 80$ a year to run, save close
 CS>> to 100$ a month on food bills due to being able to really use the
 CS>> hell out of a good sale).

 CS> (chest freezers)

 CS> Made a killer sale here just days ago.  Killer for *this* area and a
 CS> product we need since i'm often at sea and Don works 3pm to 8pm.
 CS> *Good* TV Dinners that Charlotte can safely make.  She's not yet up
 CS> to real cooking if we arent here though that's not but a year off i
 CS> can tell.  Don was able to get 30 of them at 1.50$ off each from the
 CS> normal prices here of the best brands.  (Oops, make that 1.25$ off).
 CS> That will hold for 3 months with him leaving 'ready to eat' stuff
 CS> most days and this for the 'gee, I just got called in to work' or
 CS> even the 'I'm lazy, have a TV Dinner' days.

My mom used TV dinner trays to save leftovers from big meals. When they
wanted something different, both worked, they'd pull out a TV dinner tray
filled with last Thanksgiving's turkey, stuffing and gravy, or the reunion
picnic left overs. Nobody ever wants to take home the food the brought for
a reunion, so she collected every bit of it.

 CS>> Yeah.  I never did get the hang though of making bread by hand.  I
 CS>> had no one to teach me.  I'd probably manage ok if I had to do that
 CS>> now, but it's so much easier to let the machine at least do the
 CS>> dough bit right!

 RW>> Yeah, that seems to be a lot of work. Although, Alton explained how
 RW>> to treat the dough so it will kneed without a lot of work. He didn't
 RW>> use pan to bake it in either, just a cookie sheet. The best part of
 RW>> the sh was his explanation of how all of the ingredients work and
 RW>> what happen when you do certain things and when.

 CS> He's the one who I've heard of and it's almost a chemistry class with
 CS> his cooking right?  Sounds neat.

Yeup...he's the best I've seen.

 CS>   As you can guess, if i had 'Food TV' out here, I'd be watching it.
 CS> I get a few shows on various channels, but nothing consistant and
 CS> much of it is all in Japanese which leaves you guessing what the item
 CS> is they are adding (salt, msg, sugar, humm...)

Hmmm. Maybe I should be recording these shows. I have a DVD recorder that
I could put an entire season on.

 CS>>   You can always remove that and oven bake it to get the
 CS>> right shape.  Sounds like he made either french or italian 'crusty
 CS>> white' there.  The shape is more the determiner for that one.
 RW>> It looked like french bread, one big round on top lump. It looked so
 RW>> g I could almost smell it.
 CS> French then.  I like the long thin italian loaves when I bother to
 CS> shift it out that way.

My preference too, but that one looked very yummy.

 CS>> True!  I had a 'garden' on a porch with containers til I had a real
 CS>> yard in VB.  BTW the way to go it with hanging types for tomatoes is
 CS>> only try cherry tomatoes and you have to use milk jugs for water
 CS>> with aquarium tubing to feed them.  Looks ugly but works.

 RW>> Hmmm, I never thought of the milk jug trick. I watered them by hand
 RW>> ev day.

 CS> Hard to get that one right but a trick that doesnt show and works for
 CS> hot dry areas is to cut up old bluejeans and line the bottom of the
 CS> pot with them before filling with dirt.

This one hanging pot (not ceramic) I used has a water retention 'rag'
around it and that's all that holds the dirt in...leaks like a sieve if
you overwater.

 CS> It will still drain if overwatered but help retain better than soil
 CS> alone.  Also has the nice bit that dirt doenst fall through when you
 CS> overwater.

Nancy's mom always put large stones in the bottom, which helped to retain
the dirt and allow for good drainage. She had a green thumb, so everything
she ever planted thrived. I've tended to follow that method.

 RW>> The whole idea behind the hanging basket is to keep the ground bugs
 RW>> ou the plant. I got the idea from a lady in San Diego who grew all
 RW>> of her tomatos that way. She was successful at it.

 CS> Ok, I did it for pretty.  My porches have always been 2nd floor or
 CS> above. I hate listening to others walking on my ceiling so get top
 CS> floor when possible.

Ahhhh. I can't remember the last time I lived in an apartment.

 RW>>> I recall you saying that she moved ya'll around quite a bit.

 CS>> Yes.  Mom divorced Dad when I was 6 but she packed up us kids when I
 CS>> was a hair under age 2 and moved from Bronxville NY to Miami Florida
 CS>> one day when Dad was at work.  He came home to a silent house.  Hard

 CS> <snip>


 CS>> --Snip, this message too long.  Second part will pick up.
 CS>>                                        xxcarol

 RW>> Gotcha...

 CS> Hehe more later eh?

Yeup...

               R\%/itt

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