Post 1476

I woke up this morning sore and exhausted. It really feels like I didn't even get a weekend.

Today was another very hot day. It even felt very warm in the office today. Debbie came in this morning and she mentioned that it felt warm. I had to go out during lunch and I was burning up in the hellishly warm air. It was like driving outside of a blast furnace!

I had to go out to take the gas spring brackets to the fab shop to have a deeper flange welded on. I took them to Rafab off of Old Winter Garden Road. The man said I could pick them up tomorrow. I will be glad to have some brackets that I can have more confidence in. I will screw those onto the bedframe tomorrow evening and then we will be getting ready to put the bedframe back up on the wall again.

Fay is taking Friday off. So she gets and extra long holiday weekend.

When I came home this evening I unloaded the dishwasher and then I made a big bowl of tuna fish salad.

Around 5:45 PM the sky started to get very dark so I got Buddy harnessed up and took him for his evening walk before the seabreeze collision got started. It started to storm shortly after 6:00 PM as Bob was walking in the door. The storm was like big monsoon with lots of lightning and it raged for over an hour!

Weekend Update

On Saturday morning we started to work on putting the Ikea Lack end table tops on to the bottom of the bed frame. We started by putting the table tops on the floor and using coloring pencils to hold the tables a uniform distance apart.

These faux birch tables are mostly empty space. They have a border of solid material around the edges, but the middle is just enclosed by a birch-faced laminate. Sure enough the holes that were pre-drilled for the #8, 1-1/2" screws were too far back and were only drilling into the laminate and empty space. By experimentally drilling we found that moving the screws over 3/4" and inward 3/4" let the screws bite into the solid wood. After putting the screws all in securely we filled the pre-drilled holes.

In addition to screwing the tabletops to the bed bottom we also spread Elmers Carpenters Glue all over the bottoms. This would give the bedframe additional stiffness and stability. Even as we worked you could feel the bottom of the bed becoming firmer and stronger.

After putting in 30 of the #8 screws, we put a 3/8" Forstner bit into the drill and put in 18 holes for toggle bolts around the border of the bedframe. These bolts will hold the table tops especially securely on the sides and end where somebody could accidentally step on them.

Next I brought the 1" x 6" furring strips in and laid them in the bottom of the bedframe. We spaced them evenly apart across the bottom and secured them to the bottom with one screw on each end. These will carry the weight of the mattress (and sleeping people) to the sides of the frame.

We left this assembly to dry and rest on the floor while we went to JoAnn Fabric to get a few more things for the bed. We bought 2.5 yards of one-inch-thick foam, some cotton batting, some cork tiles, and 3 yards of a beautiful tapesty material that we are going to use to cover the mattress caddy and make a sort of headboard for the bed. The fabric was 40% off!! The special ordered fabric will not arrive for two to four weeks, but it will not take us long to finish the board when it gets here.

In the afternoon I cut the cork into two-inch squares and glued the squares to the tops of the table legs that are left over from the table tops. I put some weight on these and let them dry.

With those drying I took another extra (we had 48 legs left over), and put measurements on it, cut it to 8-1/2" with a jigsaw, and then began drilling into it. I drilled a 3/8" hole down through the middle of the top, and a 1/4" hole into one side of the leg at 5" down from the top, and another 1/4" hole exactly opposite the first into the hollow legs.

Now I cut 1/4" birch dowel into 2-1/2-inch-long pegs and ground the ends flat. This caused them to burn and blacken. I spread a sheet down on the floor while I did this with the Dremel. Now I threaded the elastic cord of a bungee-ball down into the 3/8" hole, pushed the 1/4" dowel in and through the loop of elastic and pulled the ball back up. This is a prototype leg that will be hung from the bedframe (through the gaps between table tops) and will hold the weight of the bed when it is in the lowered position. When the bed is closed up, the legs will be stored in a small duffle bag.

Today we went to Harbor Freight Tools (the cheap Chinese tool store) to get some assorted cheap tools and parts. Then we went to Lowe's to get a new electric battery for the riding lawnmower at Bob's parent's house in Daytona.

I was sore all day today from all of the bending over and working on the bed yesterday. I am getting old so fast now it isn't funny.

This evening we baked a pizza from the supermarket and made a quick salad for dinner and then did our weekly house work. We are ready for another week, but it hardly feels like had a weekend!

The bedframe is becomming very heavy now - probably 80 pounds now, and we will be adding a 30-pound mattress to it on Tuesday. I just hope it all stays on the wall when we are done!

Tomorrow I am going to seek out a stainless fab shop to see if they will weld an extension onto the gas spring brackets that screw onto the bedframe. I want the bracket to be deeper down on the frame and with holes for four screws because I do not want any chance for it to pull out of the wood.

Orlando, FL

This chart from the New York Times explains why we are entering double-digit unemployment figures in Central Florida now. Much of the growth in the last few years was over-dependent on housing and construction. Now that real estate has dropped into freefall, all of those jobs evaporated.

That's probably why we lost 9,000 people in the last year too -- they are moving out of Florida to some place where there are still some jobs.

Today was another hectic and busy day. We started the day with only $125k in orders, but we had $602k by the end of the day. I am glad we are having such good weeks - maybe it will be a green Christmas after all?

Bob had the day off today. He did two loads of laundry, read and did some of his homework, and he made a meatloaf with steamed asparagus for dinner.

After dinner we walked Buddy around Lake Eola. When we got home we sat Buddy down and brushed his teeth.

On the bed project - tomorrow I will begin screwing and gluing the end tables to the bottom of the bedframe. We will let those sit and dry for 24 hours, then I will put the furring strips into the bottom of the frame and screw those down. With that done we will put the bedframe back into the wall-mounted mattress caddy and be ready for the mattress to arrive on Tuesday.

While the tables are drying we will go to JoAnn Fabric to order the upholstery for the headboard/cushion, get the foam and cotton batting, and get the elastic straps to hold the mattress in the bed when the bed is folded up against the wall.

We will post more pictures as we make progress. Stay tuned!

Orlando, FL

Work today was continuously busy. We are staying busy quoting, but the orders aren't pouring in this week.

This weekend we are going to JoAnn Fabric to get elastic strap to hold our mattress in the murphy bed when it is folded up. We are going to order some nice heavy tapestry fabric to make a headboard with and we are going to get foam and cotton batting for the padded, upholstered headboard.

We have to hurry and get the bedframe ready for the mattress - the mattress has shipped and will be here in a few days!

We are also going to begin screwing and gluing the birch Lack tabletops to the bottom of the bedframe this weekend, and shortening the copper couplings so that the bolt and nut can actually be tightened up and hold the frame with little side-to-side movement.

While browsing the 2010 Ikea catalog this morning I was dismayed to see that the Lack tables that I paid $12 a piece for are now selling for $7.99 each!! Oh well, if anyone else builds the Moddi Murphybed, it will be less expensive for them.

The fountain across the street in Lake Eola hasn't run all week. We just found out today that lightning struck it and fried all of the controls. The city has a $1 Million insurance policy on the fountain, but it has a $500k deductible and the city can't even afford that! They said the pump is so big they will need to bring a helicopter to pull the pump up out of the lake!

Orlando, FL

Because it looked like it was going to storm this morning, and I was still carrying scrap wood around in the bed of my truck, I went to my storage unit to put the wood away before it rained. While I was in there I got my copper tubing cutter, and the bottle of Elmer's Yellow Carpenters Glue.

Then I hurried to work. I was about 5 minutes late, but as I rounded the corner of the building I saw that Fay wasn't in yet either. Even when I am late I still beat her.

It did not rain after all.

Fay left a voice message saying that she had a doctors appointment at 9:30 AM and that she might be in afterward. I am thinking to myself, "Stay home old woman! Keep those germs away from me!!"

I was fairly busy all day. Order entry is up to $138k, and I am still writing quotes like crazy. Betsy is spending year-end money now.

This evening it looked like it was going to rain again. I took Buddy for his evening walk as soon as I got home. About 30 minutes after we returned it began to rain.

When Bob got home at 6:55 we had a roast with carrots, onions, and sliced apples that slowly cooked in the crock pot all day.

Helen Keller Speaks!

Rare 1930 newsreel footage of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller explaining how Helen learned to speak.

Orlando, FL

Fay came in yesterday coughing and complaining about her ear infection and how she was in bed all weekend. I told her to go home. She said she probably would, but she had to listen in on the Kolpak-Darden Issues telephone conference first. As it turns out, she ended up staying all day.

She was coughing loudly like a man though. She left about 30 minutes early saying, "I made it this far, I am just going to go home, take my antibiotic, and go to bed!" I went around and sprayed Lysol on everything she touched after she left!

Today was more of the same. She was loudly coughing all day long. She left earlier today - around 3:30 PM.

She is supposed to go to Kolpak this fall and Bob Chuhak and Steve Otto are supposed to go with her. She can't wait to go, but she's going to have to. Bob can't go before the end of September because the New Headquarters ribbon cutting is September 30. She will have to wait until mid-October at the earliest for this trip to Tennessee.

It was very cloudy and getting dark when I drove him. I took Buddy out for his walk first thing. I am glad because now it is getting as dark as night with flashes of lighting and rolling thunder. It's gonna storm.

We are making quiche tonight so that Bob can take one to his Toastmasters meeting tomorrow. Those old ladies love his quiche! Ha!

More Bed Progress

Pictured here is an example of the drill tipped screws we used to mount our Moddi Murphy Bed to the office/guest room wall. We went to Ace Hardware Sunday afternoon to get a few more of these to keep the mattress caddy from "tipping" away from the wall. Now there are 14 of these wonderful screws holding the bed to the wall.


We put the mattress box onto the mattress caddy temporarily to line up the gate latches that hold it in the closed position. The 3/8" carriage bolt it latches on had to be relocated further up the bed frame and lower down on the frame than the directions indicated so that the closed bed would stand vertical. I filled the first hole with a wooden button. The carriage bolts were also a little long, so I trimmed about 1/2" off of each of them.

Today at Lowe's I bought some 1x6 furring strips that will work just fine as a mattress frame and I had them cut to 55 inches long. These will help spread the weight of the mattress to the sides of the bed frame.

While the man was cutting the lumber for me a black girl named "L'Oreal" came up and started chatting with him. It seems that the most creative names belong to blacks.

Now I need to take the bedframe back down, trim the copper couplings down so that the bolts can actually be tightened up, and then begin attaching the pretty birch Lack tables to the bottom of the bed frame. We are going to use coloring pencils as spacers so that the tables are all the same distance from each other vertically and horizontally.

Because it's going to be a little tight on Bobby's side of the computer table, when we finish the bed project, we are going to take the computers off of our 96-inch-long table and turn it over. I am going to mount his computer hanger on the left side of the table and move his keyboard drawer to the middle. This will let him sit more to the right and avoid bumping into the bed when he's working at his computer.

Orlando, FL

I made pancakes with big blueberries in them, Canadian bacon slices, and hashbrowns with onions while Bob walked Buddy this morning. Buddy got a special treat of canned lamb meal and rice dog food mixed with his cereal.

After breakfast we went to the computers for a little while. Bobby ordered a Memory Foam mattress for the bed from Overstock.com. It will probably be delivered next week.

Buddy got his bath this morning and he smells much better now. I also got the drill out and began making small holes in the office/guest bedroom wall to determine where the wall studs begin, end, and where the stud middles were .

Next we went to Ace Hardware to get pieces and parts for our bed project.

We asked the helpful salesman to recommend fasteners that would screw into steel wall studs and hold about 60 pounds (spread over five studs) up on the wall. We stumped the first two guys and they called the store manager. The manager knew exactly what we needed and took us to get steel self-tapping screws that would be long enough and strong enough for our unusual application! These screws were 50 cents each and we got 10.

A couple of small parts bags were filled with doo-dads needed for the project and we checked out. We went to the Jason's Deli in Sodo for lunch. After this we went right home.

I immediately began working on mounting the cleat up onto the wall. I marked the center of the board, and then marked off spots for holes 16 inches away in each direction (to match the 16-inch on-center wall studs), and then did it again in each direction. I drilled pilot holes at each mark.

Next I layed the cleat into the mattress caddy, and used the pilot holes to pre-drill shallow holes in the back of the mattress caddy to located the screw locations higher up on the caddy. Then I put the cleat onto a small nail, set the spirit level on top of the cleat, and leveled it. I put another small nail under the opposite end of the cleat to hold it level while we put the screws through the cleat and into the wall.

These self-tapping screws really work! You could feel the drill biting into the wood, then the drywall, and finally the steel in the wall!

Next we lifted the mattress caddy up onto the cleat. The markings for the screws were automatically aligned with the wall studs because the caddy cannot slide left and right on the cleat at all. We put five more of the screws in and the cleat and mattress caddy were mounted on the wall. That was all I wanted to get done today! I decided that atleast two more screws will be needed lower down on two of the studs to keep the mattress caddy from pivoting on the screws we have put in, tilting out, and sliding down off of the cleat.

Later I mounted the Jigga handles to the mattress box and put the 3/8-inch carriage bolts that will be used to lock the bed in the upright and stowed position with the gate latches. We put rubber caps over the ends of the carriage bolts to keep a guest from scraping their leg on it as they climb in or out of the bed.

We took Buddy for his evening walk around 5:00 PM. We walked all the way around Lake Eola

(about one mile). There was an anti-universal health insurance rally going on in the park. We just avoided those wingnuts and kept going. We stopped at Publix on the way back to the house and I got a skinny loaf of French bread, a jar of bruschetta, pie crusts, shredded cheese, mushrooms, eggs, and heavy cream -- part of it was for our dinner, part of it is for the quiche that Bob has to make and take to Toastmasters.

I sliced the bread up into one-inch-thick slices and fried them in butter in a skillet. I fried Canadian bacon too. We spooned bruschetta onto the buttered, fried bread and enjoyed it for dinner with a small glass of beer.

Tomorrow we have to go to Daytona Beach to mow Tom and Louise's lawn. We have to go to Wal*Mart to exchange the bras we got for Louise, but turned out to be too small, and then we will go to Oaktree to visit them. After that another weekend will be over again!

Orlando, FL

Today was a very long and hectic day. When Craig goes on vacation, I wish he would just stop answering his phone. He only stirs the pot and it would be good for the complainers to phone into the office and ask us to help them.


FER-Orlando finished the week with $535k in new equipment orders. Hollywood claimed $330k, but they also had $150k in Letters Of Intent on their report. I never list LOI because we aren't paid commissions based on LOI.

During lunch I went to Ikea to get the Sultan Lade mattress frame and some Jigga handles to use on our bed project. I was disappointed to discover that the mattress frame boards are now cut in half and do not reach across the bed. That makes them almost useless to us. I will just get some 1 x 6's cut-to-length and lay them in the bottom of the mattress box.

The polyurethane coating the mattress box and mattress caddy is shiny, hard, and dry now. I have moved the mattress box out into the hallway to get our office back and we are measuring where the wall studs are in the side wall in preparation for mounting the wall cleat and then the mattress caddy to the wall tomorrow. We will be able to hang the bed from five wall studs, but before we drill the first hole, we are going to our local Ace Hardware to ask them their opinion of the best fastener to use in steel wall studs.

It stormed very hard this afternoon and into this evening. We got the seabreeze collision that we were supposed to have yesterday. Even though it was pouring, I took Buddy out for his walk. He only peed, he did't go poo, and he hasn't for the last three trips now! When we came back inside we were both soaked.

Bobby made Asparagus Chicken Stir Fry for dinner. It was a very

tasty and different meal for us. I snapped a picture of it before we scarfed it all down. I need to start my diet again and avoid carbohydrates like plague. Bob avoids cholesterol and I avoid carbs.

Orlando, FL

We are getting very close to having the finishing done on our murphy bed project - the last coat of polyurethane goes on this evening. When it's dry in the morning I will gather up the newspapers from the floor and throw them out, then I will stand the mattress box up against the wall in the hallway.

The next step will be to make multiple drill holes into the wall to find the edges and centers of the wall studs. Then I will mount the cleat to the wall and mount the mattress caddy to the wall on top of the leveled cleat. I want to have this stage completed this weekend - on Saturday actually, because we go to Daytona on Sunday.

I think we can have this bed completed in two more weeks.

The picture posted here is the slip of paper from the fortune cookie I had at lunch yesterday. It says something about me having an adventure soon. I wonder what that's about?

Yesterday evening I did not even make dinner when I got home. I walked Buddy, then I spread coat No. 4 on the project, and then I took two decongestant tablets and two Advil, and I went to bed! My face was hurting from sinus pressure.

To my great surprise, I received an email message from Lumpy Lundquist today! I think the last time I wrote to him was three years ago, and he is just now getting around to writing back to me. Lumpy always was "eccentric".

I hope Hurricane Bill continues to turn to the north and away from Florida!

Another Must-See

This looks like it will be hysterical.

Rotating his perspective away from the white collar cubicle warriors of "Office Space" and towards a blue collar boss -- a small business owner -- who employs an odd cast of losers, loners and misfits in his flavor extract factory.

Opens Labor Day Weekend.

Post 1464

I meant to give a weekend recap yesterday, but too many things conspired against me!

Right now the office/guest bedroom is a mess with newspaper all over the floor and the bed box up on milk crates while we apply five coats of polyurethane to it. I cannot pull my chair out while this is going on!

Yesterday morning I went to the office early in hopes of getting a blog written, but there were many orders and email messages waiting first thing, and after I was there about 10 minutes, Nick Baranet came walking up the sidewalk.

Nick was going to take a truck to Tampa to help Neil disassemble an old walk-in in the Finn Marketing Group office and bring it back to Orlando. I do not mind Nick coming early, but he comes to the front and only wants to chit chat the whole time. He also wants to discuss his politics and I don't think we quite agree there.

Craig came in shorts because he was running around trying to get ready for his vacation, but he still went to rent the truck for the walk-in and he had to rent additional storage space to hold it.

The next thing we had to worry about was Rita Nurdin. Rita works for Beltram Foodservice Group, a Tampa dealer. She specializes in school foodservice and she had a demo in Maitland in the morning. Since she passes our office as she drives I-4 back to Tampa, Fay invited her to stop in for lunch.

We ordered wrap sandwiches from the Millenia Cafe, a small cafe and caterer here in our office complex. She also gave me petty cash to run down to Publix and get a bagged salad, tomato, cucumber, and pepper.

Rita showed up around 12:10 PM. The food was delivered around 12:30 PM. We had a very nice visit with Rita. It's always nice to meet people that you have talked to on the phone and done business with for years.

The afternoon was a flurry as we scrambled to catch our work back up from the long lunch break.

In the evening I want home and made spaghetti for dinner and then applied the second coat of polyurethane to the bed project. After dinner we took Buddy for his walk.

I finished reading Chapter One of Potato: A History of the Propitous Esculent, the new book I picked out at Barnes & Noble on Sunday. This is a history of the potato.

Anyway, back to the weekend...

Friday evening while walking Buddy we noticed State Highway Patrol cars parked on Pine Street behind the Colonial Bank building. That is probably related to the fact that Colonial Bank was shut down by the FDIC and BB&T is taking it over. The SHP was there all weekend, sometimes two cars, sometimes three cars.

On Saturday we carried our mattress box and mattress wall caddy down to the garage and using the router we cut a 45° chamfer all the way around the top surfaces, then we sanded everything down nice and smooth. Bob was concerned about a couple of spots where the 1/4-inch plywood was sticking out from the bottom, so we went to the hardware store to get a bearing-guided edge trimming bit for the router and we cut the bottom board back flush. I know I can discuss this all in a moment, but doing this took HOURS!

While we were out to the hardware store, we stopped and had lunch at Jason's Deli. We had sandwiches at the location in the SoDo shopping center on South Orange Avenue.

At the end of the day we carried our work back upstairs to the guest bedroom and started to make preparations to coat the outside of the pieces in polyurethane. We took some of the tools back to the storage unit and brought an additional milk crate back with us.

On Sunday we put the first coat of urethane on the pieces. The whole house stinks of the varnish, but it's only for a few days.

Sunday evening, after cleaning the floors and tables, we went to the downtown Plaza Cinema Cafe and saw Julie and Julia at the 7:30 PM showing. This theatre is still new and has a lot of bugs that need to be worked out. The foodservice has long lines that cause you to miss half of the movie if you want to get anything to eat!

Mastering the Art of French Cooking is in its 49th printing, and I am sure sales of this book are taking off because of this movie.

The office/guest bedroom will be used for finishing until Thursday, but on Friday I will move the bed into the hall while I mount the mattress caddy to the wall. I will be able to blog regularly again after that, and will post more pictures of our bed progress then too.

Orlando, FL

Bob was supposed to have the day off, but he had to go to the office for a one-hour meeting. After that he was supposed to get his hair cut, color his hair, come home, make dinner, wash a load of whites, and pack all of the voids in the plywood in our project with wood putty.

Because of an H1N1 Swine Flu scare at work, he didn't come home until 3:30 PM. But, he still had dinner ready, and he got the wood voids filled in!

It was a busy day at the office for me. At the end of the day FER-Orlando brought in $333k in new orders. Hollywood finished with $99k. I had to stay a little late because the Area Vice-President, Joan Salah, requested a Darden sales forecast broken out by concept. So I was there until 6:00 PM putting a table together for her.

After we had our dinner of Sloppy Jose and salad, we took Buddy for his evening walk. When we got back to the house we sat him down and brushed his teeth.

Today is Dad's 63rd birthday. I phoned him and found him at the campground in Deerfield pitching horseshoes.

Tomorrow we are taking the mattress box, mattress caddy, and wall cleat down to the garage to cut chamfers on the top surfaces, and then sand them down smooth in preparation for finishing with polyurethane.

Orlando, FL

Scraping the screw threads in soap makes all the difference in how easily they go into wood!

We are making good progress on the Moddi Murphybed project. We have the mattress box and the wall-mounted mattress caddy screwed all together now. In this picture you can see Bob screwing one of the side panels onto the mattress caddy (upside-down).

This evening we drilled pilot holes and screwed in sixty-two (62) No. 8 screws which are 1-1/2 inches long. All of these screws hold the 1/4-inch plywood to the bottom of the mattress box.

Tomorrow Bob has the day off, so he is going to pack all of the voids in the plywood with wood filler. That will dry for 24 hours, then on Saturday we will take the pieces down to the garage where I will cut chamfers in the top surfaces using the router. Then, using the palm sander, we will lightly sand all surfaces.

After the sanding is done it will be ready for polyurethane. During the week we will put 3 or 4 coats of clear gloss polyurethane onto the project, lightly sanding with fine grit between coats. This will make the rough plywood look shiny and smooth, and it will feel smooth to hands and fingers.

Today during lunch I went to Lowe's to get the wood putty and a stepped drill bit. Also, I went to Petco and got a 20-pound bag of lamb meal and rice flavor Science Diet for Buddy.

It's amazing how quickly the time goes by. Tomorrow is already another Friday - another week gone and the month is half over!

Mega Hoax Video

Orlando, FL

I know the poor Indian immigrant manager at 7-Eleven is only trying to be helpful and point me toward a special bargain, but when I run into one of their stores to get Coke Zero, a sandwich, and some chips, I just want to get in and out as quickly as possible.

When I went this morning I went to the back, pulled my Buy-Two-Get-One-Free Coke Zero out of the reach-in, then I got a sandwich off of the merchandiser and looked down for the 7-Eleven brand jalapeno chips, but they had Lays products down in front. I finally found what I was looking for off to the side, grabbed a bag and got into the line.

When I finally got to the checkout counter the Indian man goes, "Oh no Sir! You got the wrong chips!!" I interrupted him, "Just ring them up." He goes, "No, you don't understand, if you buy the other chip you get..." I stopped him right there by loudly saying, "I swear to God, I am going to stop coming in here! Just ring the damned chips up!" The chips he wanted me to buy were 20 cents more and I had no interest in their silly promotion.

Another not-too-stressful day at FER. My biggest aggrevation was Nancy Baranet who sends in half-baked orders with no prices written on them. Then she phones in to complain that we did not forward the order to the factory.

We explained to her that there was not enough information on the order for the factory to fill it and I wrote a quotation for the equipment needed. I never heard back from her customer and she failed to follow up with her customer, but somehow it's all the Orlando office's fault. She said that she is going to forward all of her orders directly to the factory from now on. I think FER Partners might have something to say to her about that.

Fay called her up to explain what was needed and Nancy only wanted to argue with her. I dunno. Craig feels sorry for her because she is old (75) and has a handicapped daughter, but I am starting to feel that Greg Olsen may be right -- it might be time for Nancy to retire. Especially if she can't cooperate with the rest of us.

We started making real plans to host Darden Resupply Department in our Test Kitchen for a Lunch-N-Learn session on September 1 and 2. Craig asked me to request four pieces of Delfield equipment be added to the FER consignment and shipped to our kitchen. We will not unpack them, but we will use them to demonstrate with, and then as we get new orders for these items, we will re-consign them to the restaurant and send the PO to the factory as "invoice only".

This evening I broiled lamb chops for dinner and we had peas with them as a side dish.

Bob said his day was great. The vice-president who is in charge of air and ground ambulance transport made Bob manager of the department! She doesn't want anything to change right now. Also, the administrative assistant, Chandra, got to keep her job because this VP never had a personal assistant, so they are going to give Chandra a shot at this job! So, almost everyone is happy!

After walking Buddy we started to assemble parts of our bed project. We drilled pilot holes through and assembled the box that holds the mattress. We had a hard time getting the long connecting screws put in and it was only after we were cleaning up that I remembered we should have put wax or soap on the screw threads. When I rubbed soap into the threads this morning, the screws went in so easy - with just two fingers!

Tomorrow night we will put the wall-mounted mattress caddy together and pack the voids and holes in the plywood with wood putty. This weekend we are going to take the two big pieces to the garage to use the router to cut a 45° chamfer all the way around the top edges of each and use the palm sander to sand down the surfaces to prepare for polyurethane.

Fay warned me that she is going to be in late tomorrow morning - she has some kind of family emergency, and she won't be in until 9:30 AM. Now, that's really running late!

Orlando, FL

The alarm went off right on time at 5:00 AM. I think we continued to snooze for about ten minutes, then we got up. Bob went to get cleaned up for work, and I went to pack his lunch box and make breakfast for us.

We had hot oatmeal for breakfast with yogurt. Around 6:00 AM we went out all together, Buddy, Bobby, and me. Bob got off on the fourth floor to get his car to drive to work, and Buddy and me went to the first floor to take a morning walk.

I wore new khaki slacks with a matching short-sleeved shirt to work today. I packed a box of sweet pepper soup, two cheese sticks, an apple, a can of Coke Zero, and some crackers into my messenger bag for lunch and snack.

Overall my day at work today was "good". It was not too busy and not too stressful. It had its moments, but overall, this was a good day. We saw Debbie today and her "Emergency Du Jour" is that her son is moving back in with her and bringing her granddaughter too. She isn't too thrilled about that one.

When I got home this evening I made pork chops with apples. I put the chops under the broiler for 7 minutes each side while I made a sauce on the stovetop in a saucepan with apple jelly, cinnamon, allspice, and ground cloves. Then I brushed the sauce on each side and put the chops under the broiler for 3 minutes each side, then I put sliced apples on top of the chops, drizzled the rest of the sauce over it all and put it back under the broiler for 3 more minutes. They turned out good.

After taking Buddy for his evening walk we came up to the office where I disassembled two printer/scanner all-in-one machines I found in the garbage yesterday evening while walking the dog. I just wanted the motors, plastic gears, and ground shafts out of them. The remains were dropped down the garbage chute.

Bob found out this evening that his supervisor was fired today. Tomorrow will be an interesting day for him at work. Lots of changes.

Sweet and Sour Chicken Stir Fry

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Smuckers Apricot Low Sugar Preserves
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
2 teaspoons soy sauce, or to taste
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 cup Crisco Pure Canola Oil, divided
2 medium zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 cup small mushrooms
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in 1-inch pieces
1 (6 oz) package frozen pea pods, thawed
Hot cooked rice (optional)

Directions:

STIR preserves, vinegar, garlic salt, ginger, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper in small bowl until well blended. Set aside.

HEAT 2 tablespoons oil in wok or large skillet until hot. Stir-fry zucchini and mushrooms over medium-high heat until zucchini is tender-crisp. Transfer mixture to platter.

ADD remaining oil to wok; cook chicken until tender, stirring often. Add pea pods and cooked zucchini and mushrooms; stir gently until heated, 3 to 5 minutes.

POUR apricot sauce over chicken and vegetables; toss gentl to mix well and heat through. Serve with rice, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings

We threw in a can of watercress and slivered bamboo shoots.

Weekend

We slept in until 7:00 AM on Saturday morning. Then we got a jug of milk and some eggs and came home to a breakfast of cereal.

Because we needed tools to get started on the wall bed project, we went to the storage unit and removed a dish pack box packed full of hand power tools. We also got my plastic tool box of wood tools, two milk crates, a spirit level, and a scrap of wood. After this we headed over to Lowe's to get a few more things.

At Lowe's we got a gallon can of polyurethane, some brushes, a 45° chamfer bit for the router, some fine grit sanding pads, and a paint tray.

We brought all of this stuff back to the house and began to work on drilling all of the needed holes in the pieces for this project. Bob is pictured here drilling some of the holes. We used scrap wood behind the work to protect the carpet and prevent "tearout" on the back of the board.

My knees hurt from doing so much of this work down on the floor! Getting old is hell.

For lunch we had tuna fish sandwiches.

In the evening we took Buddy for his walk and then while he was enjoying his special treat of canned food mixed with his dry cereal, we snook back out and went to the neighborhood Metro Espresso Pizza. Bob had baked ziti and I had lasagna.

We messed around on the computers for awhile and then later we watched a copy of To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar that we downloaded and burned to DVD. It was after midnight when we got to bed.

Today we got up after 7:00 AM, and it was already to late. I took Buddy for his walk then we ate a hurried breakfast. We had to go to Daytona today to mow the yard.

It was after 9:00 when we got there and the sun was already heating everything up hot. Bob mowed the front with the riding mower while I pushed the push mower in the backyard. Man! The sweat was running off of me. I wear a dust mask while doing this work, but the mask became soaked with sweat and was suffocating me!

Once we had this work done, we showered and then drove to Wal*Mart to get candy bars, cigarettes, and bras for Louise. We had lunch at Crispers. I had a sandwich with butternut squash soup and Bob had half a sandwich with steamed vegetables.

Our visit with Tom and Louise was a nice visit. Tom looks like he's put some weight back on. Louise smoked her cigarettes, but it turns out the bras we bought are too small. We got size 36B, but it turns out she needs a 40C. Hell, I don't buy bras!

We drove back to Orlando after our visit. It was after 3:00 PM when we got home. We layed on the living room sofa and took a nap. After 5:00 PM we took Buddy for his walk and then we went to Publix to get chicken tenders, snow peas, and zucchini to make the sweet and sour stir-fry that I make with Smuckers apricot jelly.

Once we got dinner out of the way it was time to clean tables and clean floors. The house smells nice and clean right now. I am kinda sore from everything we did this weekend and don't really want to start another week of work yet!

Orlando, FL

Because Bob did not have to go to work this morning we were able to sleep in a little. Around 6:00 AM I took Buddy down to the street for his walk and Bob got up and made oatmeal for our breakfast.

I packed leftover prociutto-wrapped chicken breast for lunch and I took a small can of lima beans and a small can of fruit cocktail. It's too hot to go out for lunch these days.

Work today was steady and not overwhelming. FER-Orlando finished the week with $307k in new orders. Hollywood only brought in $59k. A good week for Orlando, but not a good week overall.

When I got home this evening Bobby had a dinner of Cajun shrimp and scallops on rice with steamed green beans ready.

After walking the dog I got started on my Moddi Murphybed project by measuring where all of the holes in the lumber have to be drilled. We are going to the storage unit tomorrow to get the router, router bits, bench plane, palm sander, sand paper, drill index, and a piece of scrap wood to use as a backing board to prevent tearout when we drill.

I hope to have all of the holes drilled by the end of tomorrow. We can't really work on it Sunday because this is the week we have to go to Daytona. We will probably have the main assembly done next weekend, then we will begin putting several coats of polyurethane on it to give it a smooth texture and shiny yellow finish.

We are going to use one of the 1/4-inch plywood scraps as the base for a "headboard" cushion that will hang inside of the unit. We have to make some regular progress on this project so that it gets done before Becky and Bill visit!

To document the project, I am going to take pictures of each stage. I will post some of them here.

Hiroshima Day

Fay and I stayed fairly constantly busy all day. Nick and Craig rented a truck and made equipment deliveries today, and then, amazingly, we saw Craig for most of the afternoon.

Before I left the office this evening, we had logged $285k in new orders - it looks like it will be another good week for us!

When I left the sky was very very dark and threatening. There was a lot of lightening in the west. I was lucky though, I made it all the way home with my windows down, and did not get rained on.

For dinner I stuffed chicken breasts with squares of Swiss cheese and then rolled the chicken breast in thin sliced prociutto ham and fried it in the skillet. This turned out very good and we ate them with green beans.

On the radio I heard that director John Hughes (59) died today. I liked some of his comedies.

Gompertz Law

What do you think are the odds that you will die during the next year? Try to put a number to it -- 1 in 100? 1 in 10,000? Whatever it is, it will be twice as large 8 years from now. This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the "Gompertz Law of human mortality." Your probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years. For me, a 25-year-old American, the probability of dying during the next year is a fairly miniscule 0.03% -- about 1 in 3,000. When I'm 33 it will be about 1 in 1,500, when I'm 42 it will be about 1 in 750, and so on. By the time I reach age 100 (and I do plan on it) the probability of living to 101 will only be about 50%. This is seriously fast growth -- my mortality rate is increasing exponentially with age.

The author basically asserts that your body was not built to last and is designed to wear out. Read the entire essay online. The comments are interesting too!

Post 1453

This was a very busy and hectic Monday. We only brought in around $28k in new orders, but we had a lot of questions, and trouble calls.

During lunch I had to go to my storage unit to put scrap lumber inside. I needed to get my palm sander and router out, but they are in a big dishpack box, wrapped up in newspaper, and probably down at the bottom of the box. I was sweating like crazy and felt weak from not eating lunch, so I decided to come back on the weekend with Bob to dig those tools out.

I stopped at Subway and got a foot-long BMT on Italian Herbs and Cheese Bread. I noticed that the Hurricane's Wings in that same shopping center closed up. I don't see how they stayed in business so long -- they were too high.

It rained in the afternoon and even thunderstormed later in the evening. I forgot to thaw something out for dinner so we had leftover salad for dinner. I also made some tuna salad to make a sandwich for Bobby's lunch tomorrow.

Weekend

We had cereal for breakfast on Saturday morning and then we went to BJ's Warehouse to get our grocery shopping done. Because my paycheck was not super huge this time, we were more careful about the items we put into the cart. Still, we spent over $200 at BJ's.

After BJ's we went to Super Target to get more groceries. Here we spent another $100.

With all of the groceries in the bed of the truck we went to Hiawassee Veterinary Clinic to get a refill of Buddy's prescription. He's been using a steroid spray to keep his summertime foot and leg inflamation down. Compared to last summer it's a complete change. The stuff works, so, I guess it's worth $40 for 10 ounces.

Now we zipped back home with our car load of loot. We put all of our goods away and I broke down the family sized packs of hamburger and pork chops into smaller packs to freeze. After we had out groceries put up we had a lunch of tomato soup and grilled Swiss cheese sandwiches.

We marinated little chuck steaks in a zip lock bag with lemon juice, Good Seasons® Italian dressing mix, minced garlic, Splenda® brand non-nutritive sweetener, and some vinegar. Those marinated for four hours and then we cooked them on our little 14-inch charcoal grill. We had a salad with the steaks and for dessert we had Carb Smart® vanilla ice cream.

Buddy got his evening walk after we had dinner.

This morning I fried ground Italian sausage up in a pan and then poured eggs stirred in milk over it and fried it all together. This was a good breafast. We took Buddy for an extra long walk. Unfortunately it was later in the morning and it started to become very hot while we were all still on the street.

I put frozen chicken breast in to the sink to thaw out.

Later we drove to the Lowe's store on Sand Lake Road and we purchased the lumber we need to build our Moddi Murphy Bed. We also picked up new rechargeable batteries for Bob's electric screwdriver, some metal corner braces for the bed, and some 1/8" countersink drill bits.

After Lowe's we drove next door to Wal*Mart to get new tennis shoes for Tom (again) -- the nursing home said it isn't their responsibility to replace his stolen shoes! We got some canine toothpaste for Buddy there, and we got snow peas to use in our dinner.

Next we went to Staples office supplies to get a file storage box and two boxes of Pendaflex folders. Bob needs to reorganize all of the papers he's keeping for his Dad and put them into a large storage box.

We started to come home after this. We had to fold the back seats in the Xterra down to get the lumber inside and it was between the front seats. I have splinters in my shoulder from it! We accidently tore a hole in the headliner while we were loading the wood up, but that sagging headliner needs to be replaced anyway.

There was one quick stop at Mobil to get a tank of gas, then we came back home to the Waverly. We carried our stuff upstairs and stacked the wood in the guest bedroom/office on the floor on a sheet to keep the floor clean. As soon as I get my palm sander, router, and a few other things out of my storage unit, we will begin putting this project together. We will buy a mattress and sheets for the bed next month.

Dinner was a sweet and sour chicken stir fry. I found the recipe on the Smuckers® jelly website. It was in there because the stir fry sauce uses a half cup of apricot preserves. The stir fry turned good.

We took Buddy for his walk even though it was raining/sprinkling. Now his walk is over and we are getting ready to clean the house and get ready for another week of work.