Category: House

Taxes, painting and stuff

lpaulriddle

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here, mainly because I have been swamped at work, getting ready for a presentation next week at Educause, my first foray into public speaking since, oh, 1995 or so. That was back in the days of transparencies, so it’s been a while. And I do have to say, there are much better tools around for preparing slides nowadays. But anyhow, it’s been pretty all-consuming writing up this presentation, and by the time I get home I haven’t been much in the mood to write anything else.

Interesting tax-related development here in the People’s Republic of Maryland. It seems that the legislature has raised the personal exemption amount for 2008 a whopping 33%, from $2400 to $3200. This is the first time Maryland’s personal exemption amount has changed since 2002, when it rose from $2100 to $2400. Apparently this is the legislature’s way of providing relief to the “working families” they are always harping about. This is in contrast to the governor’s original plan that would have widened the lower-income tax brackets, and being a flat tax advocate, I think it’s a better idea, although it benefits fewer people. For a typical family of four (like us.. imagine that) this results in $3200 less taxable income in 2008 than in 2007. Maryland has also completely overhauled how they figure payroll withholding. For me, that resulted in about $27 less state tax being withheld from my paycheck. This seems like a lot. According to my handy spreadsheet, an exemption amount of $3200 would have resulted in $254 less in taxes owed in 2007. Extrapolating the $27 withholding difference out to 26 paychecks results in $702 less tax withheld in 2008, leaving me $448 in the hole. There must be something I’m missing here, or I’m going to have to tweak my withholding exemptions again.

In other, less exciting news, we are finally getting ready to paint the master bedroom, several years after buying the paint. In preparation, I’m putting in a new phone jack. The original jack was one of those “woodwork warts” that was surface-mounted to the trim. I hate these, so I’m getting rid of them as we paint the rooms, in favor of flush-mounted wall jacks. This will be the first phone jack I’ve rewired, so I’m going to do it right and use twisted-pair cable with a Leviton “QuickPort” punch-down type jack. In the basement, I’ll install either a patch panel or a 66-type punch-down block (haven’t decided which yet) and splice it into the old quad-conductor cable that makes up the rest of the house’s phone wiring. Then as I replace jacks down the road, I’ll replace the quad with Cat-5. Doing this might improve our DSL speeds, too.

Today in review

lpaulriddle

Today marked the start of the 2-week Christmas break. I actually managed to get a few things done. First off, I came up with a temporary fix for the house’s grounding system, which faithful readers may recall was interrupted when we had our copper water main replaced with plastic. I realized that we had a copper line running underground from the well room to the old abandoned hand pump by the garage, so I bonded it to the copper water pipe just downstream of the pressure reducing valve. Not sure how good of a ground it is, but it’s definitely better than it was, and it buys me a little time to plan how to do it right.

Next up was the master bathroom sink, which had been out of commission for a couple months. My original attempt at snaking the drain was a rush job and did not work out too well. This time I took my time and pulled out a big plug of hair. Then I put the drain back together and poured several big buckets of hot water down to try to clean things out a bit. Not sure why this drain in particular has so much clogging trouble. I think for starters, I’ll get a strainer for it to keep hair out of it. Then I may see about rerouting the A/C condensate drain, which currently runs into the drain via the attic vent.

Also managed to bag up some leaves for yard waste pickup today. Leaf removal is running behind schedule due to inclement weather. At the rate I’m going, I may be putting leaves out all the way up to January 21, when the pickups end for the winter.

To do for the rest of the week: finish winterizing the tractor, clean the humidifier, caulk the sill plate in the back part of the basement, replace the toilet fill valve in the kids’ bathroom, and work on getting the master bedroom ready for painting.

Big Dig, brewing update, etc

lpaulriddle

Today was the Big Dig at our house, where we had our old, leaky water line replaced with a brand, shiny new one. The new line is polyethylene. It has the advantage of being lots cheaper than copper, and it’s a single, continuous run of approximately 250′ from the house to the meter. We got a new shutoff valve as part of the deal, replacing our old gate valve that I never completely trusted. And of course, as with everything in this house, there’s a catch that I didn’t realize until a few minutes ago. Our electrical service was grounded to the old copper water service, so we’ve effectively just cut off our house ground. Lovely, huh? Looks like I’m going to be driving a ground rod or two in the near future. Got to do it soon, before the ground freezes. Sigh..

Tomorrow I’m off to the homebrew supply place to pick up ingredients for the beer we’re brewing this weekend. I did a little web shopping there last night, and it looks like I’m going to need to make a couple of substitutions, in particular a different kind of yeast. I think the beer will still turn out fine, and of course I’ll document the final recipe we follow here.

Leaf removal began in earnest today, much later than most years because the leaves stayed on the trees so late into November. As with past years, I’ll be mulching a bunch with the chipper shredder, and frantically trying to get the rest out for yard waste pickup before the county stops the service for the winter.

I also ordered a new, kinda pricey hard top cover for our pool table today. The hope is that it’ll protect the table as it gets used for laundry sorting, gift wrapping, crafts, etc. And at some point in the future, when we have massive, wild parties in the basement, we can use it as a buffet table. Hope it works as advertised. I did get a pretty good price on it.

O.C.

lpaulriddle

Here we are in lovely Ocean City, MD for Thanksgiving.  You know you’re getting older when it becomes more appealing to go to O.C. this time of year than in the summer.  It’s nice and laid-back here, although not surprisingly, a lot of the seasonal places are closed.  Can’t wait to see what Avon, N.C. is like in March.

Finished winterizing the pool the other day, just before we left for the beach.  As I had hoped, I was able to nurse the air compressor through it and get the lines blown out.  The compressor seems to be fine as long as I manually shut it off at around 100-110psi of tank pressure.  For some reason it doesn’t properly shut off on its own any more.  It just keeps going until the safety valve pops.  I thought replacing the pressure switch would fix it, but no luck there.  So I’m not sure what the problem is.

When we get back from our beach getaway, I’ll need to get busy clearing leaves and winterizing the tractor.  I’ll be happy when all the fall outdoor chores are done with.

Saturday update

lpaulriddle

Got a start on winterizing the pool today, with occasional breaks to shoo Andrew off the pool cover.  I drained the water down below the tile line and added chlorine and algaecide.  The water was nice and clean even after a month of neglect.  Wonder if the algaecide I added last month helped.  Anyways, tomorrow I hope to get out earlier and get the bulk of the work done.  Not sure if I’ll get to blowing out the return lines.  We’ll see.

On the calendar front…  turns out Sunbird is not buggy after all as I had assumed yesterday.  Apple’s iCal exhibits similar behavior.  It appears that if I have events with RECURRENCE-ID properties, somewhere there needs to be an event that “defines” the recurrence with an RRULE or RDATE property.  Oracle Calendar’s output is missing this “defining” event.  I thought briefly about trying to “fix” the recurrences by adding RDATEs, etc. to the iCalendar output, but I think that’s more trouble than it’s worth.  I’m just going to try rewriting the recurring events as separate events, giving them unique IDs based on the start date of the event.  I’ll try it out Monday and see how it goes.

Time to brew!

lpaulriddle

It’s been a long time since we’ve brewed a beer. Going by my financial software (which is going to be indispensable when I write my memoirs), the last time I bought homebrew ingredients was June 21, 2000, and according to Oracle Calendar, we brewed an Amber Ale on the following Saturday, the 24th. That’s practically a lifetime ago. If I recall, we picked an Amber Ale in honor of Alaskan Amber, which we had consumed large quantities of during our recent trip to Alaska. By 2000, I had brewed several batches of beer and was just starting to perfect my routine. Now I’m going to have to see how much of that I can remember. I also need to dig through my brewing stuff to see if I need any new equipment, supplies etc. I know I need a new bucket or carboy for primary fermentation, plus some plastic siphon tubing and possibly bottle caps. We’ll see what else, I guess.

Here’s the recipe we’ve chosen. It’s very seasonably apropos. Cathy sent it to me in November 2000, and it’s sat in my inbox ever since.

Anne’s Choice Christmas Ale

Contributed By: Mare
Ingredients for 5 gallons:

  • 3 1/3 pounds Munton and Fison Stout Kit
  • 3 1/3 pounds Munton and Fison amber malt extract
  • 3 pounds Munton and Fison light/amber dry malt extract
  • 1/2 ounce Hallertauer hops (55 minutes)
  • 3/4 pound honey (simmer 45 minutes)
  • 5 three-inch cinnamon sticks (simmer 45 minutes)
  • 2 teaspoons allspice (simmer 45 minutes)
  • 1 teaspoon cloves
  • 6 ounces ginger root
  • 6 rinds from medium-sized oranges (simmer 45 minutes)
  • 1/2 ounce Hallertauer hops (five minutes)
  • Wyeast No. 1007 German ale liquid yeast
  • 7 ounces corn sugar to prime

Original specific gravity: 1.069
Final specific gravity: 1.030
Primary fermentation: 14 days at 61 degrees F (16 degrees C) in glass
Age when judged (since bottling): six months

Brewer’s specifics: Simmer spices and honey for 45 minutes. Boil malt and hops 50 minutes. Add finishing hops and boil five minutes. Cool, strain, and pitch yeast. (Note: Honey/spice mix is added to the wort just before cooling. They are not boiled together.)

I think I’ll throw a page up on my wiki to document my brewing procedure, as I recall it in bits and pieces.

On a totally unrelated note, I can’t believe that it’s mid November and most of the leaves are still up on the trees. By this time last year, the yard was knee-deep in them. So far this year, I haven’t even touched a rake yet. I’m sure the extremely warm October had something to do with it, or maybe it just hasn’t been windy enough yet, but whatever, it’s really strange.

Bedroom wiring finished

lpaulriddle

Finished up the master bedroom fan switch wiring this weekend. It turns out that after I removed the downstream wiring from the box, I was able to fit the switch in the box just fine. No need to muck around in the attic pulling new wire. Five years ago, when I had more time on my hands, I probably would have pulled that wire. But now, if there’s a shortcut to be taken, I’m taking it.

I also replaced the rest of the outlets in the room. On the last outlet I replaced (the outlet to the left of the closets, behind Cathy’s dresser) the outlet box was a little screwed up… kind of hard to describe, but it’s one of those boxes that can be expanded by removing the side and ganging it together with another box. And anyhow, the removable side, which was attached to the adjacent stud, was loose, and the rest of the box was a little loose and crooked. I fixed it up the best I could, but in a perfect world, the box should really be replaced. Again though, that’s one to put on the list for some mythical time in the future when I have lots of spare time.

I also winterized the pressure washer and finished hooking up the unloader line on the air compressor. As of today, I haven’t yet managed to psyche myself up enough to turn it on and see if it works.

So all in all, not a bad weekend around the house.

Wiring: Plan B

lpaulriddle

As is often the case with these things, I hit a snag trying to fish wire from the attic to the basement for my bedroom rewiring project. I encountered some horizontal blocking in the stud cavity which prevented me from running the wire all the way through. That basically left me with three choices:

  1. Press forward and try to run the wire through the cavity as planned, turning most of my hair gray and losing several years from my life expectancy in the process;
  2. Try to find an alternate stud cavity to run my wire; or
  3. Come up with another plan altogether.

I’ll admit, I briefly considered #1. I’ve fished wire through some tight spots in my day, and if I’m determined enough, I could get the wire through, horizontal blocking and all. But if there’s an easier way, I’d rather not deal with the frustration.

#2 might work. I fished wire through a different stud cavity for a similar project a couple years back, and had no problems. But it’s really kind of a crap shoot, and I’d rather not drill tons of holes all over the place just to find a clear shot from the attic to the basement.

All this brings us to #3. After consideration, I decided to tap into some existing wiring in the basement instead. It turns out there’s a nearby circuit that has only a single outlet on it (used to be for a window air conditioner). So I’m going to tie the wiring into this circuit. Simpler and easier than trying to fish through the wall.

Moral of the story: the first plan you come up with is not necessarily the best or easiest, so don’t get set on it.

Not a bad year for the pool

lpaulriddle

We had a pretty good 2007 swimming season.  We opened up on Memorial Day weekend and were swimming soon thereafter.  And we set a new record for latest day in the pool — October 9.  As a matter of fact, the pool got pretty regular use in late September and the first week of October because of unseasonably warm weather.  We finally shut things down on October 13, so we had a swimming season of a little over 4 months.  Contrast that with 2006, when we didn’t open until a week into June, and closed in mid September.

The never-ending pool repair project drags on, although significant progress was made in 2007.  The coping stones are now mortared down and grouted, and the entire deck has been caulked with Sika self-leveling sealant.  I also resurfaced an area of sunken concrete by the house.  Still left to do: re-grout between the coping stones and the tile, although I’m debating how I want to handle this.  It might make sense to grind the joint square, which would necessitate draining the pool (because of the mess).  If I decide to do that, I’ll probably put this off until a later year, so I can re-tile the deep end and give the pool a fresh coat of paint as well.  I know it’s not happening in 2008.

One thing that didn’t happen much in 2007 was mowing.  NWS claims this was the “worst drought year since 1999,” although it seems to me that 2002 was worse than either this year or 1999.   The past two days, we’ve finally gotten some relief, so I imagine I’ll be cutting the grass one last time after things dry out.  Last mowing of the season is typically around the first week of November.  Then it’s on to leaf removal.. fun fun.

End-of-season outdoor work drones on

lpaulriddle

I’m still having no end of fun working on the usual mid-November chores of leaf removal, and winterization of the pool and lawn equipment. Saturday, I finished up with the pool, following my own instructions, and it went smoothly. I did forget to backwash the filter before shutting it down, but it wasn’t too dirty to begin with, so I don’t think it’ll be a huge problem. The bad news is, my air compressor decided to go on the fritz — appears to be a problem with the pressure switch. So, add one more thing to the list of stuff to fix..

For leaf removal, I’m essentially doing the same thing as last year, although I hope to finish up before Christmas Eve this time around 🙂 I’ve got the basic drill down:

  1. Rake all the grassy areas into 5 or 6 giant piles.
  2. Get up on stepladder, remove leaves from roof valleys and gutters.
  3. Use gas blower to blow leaves in paved areas (deck, pool, driveway) into 2 or 3 giant piles.
  4. Use gas vac/mulcher to suck leaves out of corners and other hard-to-reach areas.
  5. Starting with the area outside the master bedroom and working towards the side street/mulch pile, mulch up all the leaves with the chipper shredder.
  6. Every Sunday or Monday, stuff as many non-mulched leaves into trash cans as possible and put out for yard waste pickup. This reduces the amount of leaves that need to be mulched. Mulching is cool and all, but it’s laborious and time-consuming.

The main problem with this method is that the chipper/shredder bag doesn’t hold a whole lot of leaves. To reduce trips to the mulch pile, I like to use trash cans and a wheelbarrow as temporary containment devices for the shredded leaves (one trash can will hold two bags full of mulched leaves, providing they are packed down). However, it’s still a big pain to be constantly removing the bag, emptying it, reattaching it, etc. over and over again. It’s kind of hard on my back, too. I’ll be really happy if I can eventually figure out a way to cut the bag out of the equation.