Do You Ever Hate Your House?

Do you ever hate your house?

Come on...admit it...sometimes you do - I know you do!!

I can honestly tell you that there are times I hate this house - and this past week-end has been one of those times.

Sometimes I think this house is doing these things just to drive me nuts, or insane. At the rate it's going it won't be long before it accomplishes the task.

Remember ALL that work I did prepping the original plaster walls and then skim coating them?

Well - look at what the house has thrown at me now.

A big set of cracks on the inside kitchen wall - the one that makes a small entry hall off the back porch.

Do you see them?!?!

I know, the picture is a bit fuzzy, but it was the best I could get. If you look close you will see a series of cracks about the size of a fist.

I did EVERYTHING the books, and web pages, said to do in prepping cracks in plaster. And now I have an even larger set of cracks in a different place! These are about 4" above the hairline crack that ran most of the length of the wall that I fixed.

I'm stymied... There is no indication that the wall is sagging, or the floor is sagging, or that there is a leak coming from the bathroom above. In fact, there is a support beam right under the area where the cracks are forming.

Am I being too picky? I mean, it is an old house, it is destined to crack. I just can't get it out of my mind that there is something wrong.

Also, remember that half-wall that separates the sink from the other half of the kitchen? As some of you know, it has pulled away from the main wall that forms the west side of the house. It has been this way since we've owned house, but you can see where the paint was contiguous.

There is no indication that this little wall was ever attached to the main wall (you can run a blade between the two with no resistance), but what has caused it to pull away?










Again, there is no indication of the outside wall pulling away from the main house; the floor isn't sagging; and there is no weight on this little wall.

What is going on here?

In this picture you can see the crack a little better. It isn't wide, no more than 5mm, and will be easy to fill with caulking.

When we go to put in new cabinets I'm thinking about removing this wall and rebuilding it. I know I could do it now, but I'm more concerned with what is creating the crack. I figure that if I at least caulk it, and paint it, I will be able to see if it shifts any more.

Just so you know, there is another spot in our house that is like this but way worse. I will cover THAT problem when I start working on that room.

Well, till next time....

Cheers!
Larry

Thank you Jason!!

Jason - YOU'RE the MAN!!!!

Thanks for the help in getting my problems fixed!!

Now I can get back to the more important aspects of life.......

PC Update

Tap - tap - tap ....

Anyone there?

Testing...testing....

Okay - I took the advice of Jason & Heather, an extremely talented couple who have several GREAT blogs, and switched over to Firefox instead of IE 7.

In fact, when I first started having computer problems back in April several people suggested Firefox. So, I spent the day making the switch.

So far there have been no major hick-ups but something funny is going on with my blog!! I had to go in and reset some of my widgets, but for some reason my Project Tracker appears to be out of whack.

From where I sit, whether I'm logged on or not, my Project Tracker shows all my projects being 100% complete (oh how I wish)! Also, the color in the bars is a funky shade of sky blue.

I've had one reader tell me that that is not the case for her. Evidently it shows up the way it should on her PC.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!!!!

If anyone else out there uses Firefox, and has Project Tracker, PLEASE contact me via e-mail at correus at yahoo.com.

Jason & Heather, I know you two use this browser and widget - contact me - I have a few other questions for you as well.

Well...till next time...

Larry

BLAST!! DAMN YOU VILE MACHINE!!

Okay....here is another post that really has nothing to do with the house, but about the infernal machine I build this blog with.

Some time during the night of Monday the 3rd my machine was hacked and my e-mail hijacked. I was lucky that only my addresses/contacts were deleted.

So, for the past three days I have been in a somewhat 'Stewie-esque' mood. For those of you who know me, and might have picked up in other posts, I'm a big Stewie Griffin fan. I think the following pictures help illustrate the mood of the past few days.

Wednesday morning started out like normal until I checked my mail…

My PC was acting up and I was getting all kinds of e-mail from ticked of people and groups.

A huge portion of Wednesday was spent cleaning up the spam mess that MY name was attached to and working with Yahoo to deal with the perp and fix the problem.

Per the people at Yahoo I picked up a worm virus, from another e-mail and that it had infected my system.

The afternoon and early evening was spent trying to hunt down the bug that had invaded my system.














Nothing I did seemed to work....















BLAST!!

DAMN YOU VILE MACHINE!!


It was time to seek outside help.

I got on-line and talked to a few people and they hooked me with some helpful web site.



It was suggested that I check out the "Kim Komando" site and got to her ''Security Douwnload' page. I have been to her page before and paid it a visit.

However, the main piece of info led me to the CastleCopsWiki site and their 'Malware Removal and Prevention' page.

After following the instructions on the MR&P page I then surfed over to their 'Prevent Re-infection' instructions to figure out how to keep the nasties away.

It was also suggested that I cruise over to the McAfee SiteAdvisor site to get their Internet protection plug-in.

Here is what they claim to do:

McAfee SiteAdvisor™ is a security add-on for your Internet Explorer browser that helps you identify sites that are linked to spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser-based attacks, phishing, or online fraud.

The McAfee SiteAdvisor service is based on a huge database with detailed test results for more than 100,000 pieces of software and covers more than 95% of the world's Web traffic.

The program integrates with search engine results from popular search engines and also adds an icon to the browser toolbar that indicates whether a site is safe to use, or should be used with caution.

If McAfee SiteAdvisor has negative information for a site, you can review a very detailed report that shows any spam received from that site, harmful downloads, and association with other sites.

With all this new info in hand I was ready to wage war against the infections.











After a LOT of time and effort, and TONS of moaning and groaning....

Victory is mine!!

OH YES!!






Now That I have successfully cleaned, purged, and reworked my computer system things seem to be going much faster and working as well as it did the day I got the contraption.

However...I have learned one thing...



Things will be different with this system for now on....

I have a plan and...

Let it be over - just let it be over

How many of you have been saying "let it be over - just let it be over" in regard to the election?

I know I'm sick of it all. There was a line a block long at 6:30 AM here!!! Here - in our tiny town!! And the booths didn't open till 7:00 AM!!

I have refrained - on purpose - from talking politics on this blog. I mean, who really wants to go to a house blog and read about politics?!

However, I just couldn't take it any longer...... I think the picture below illustrates my thoughts and feelings better than I can put into words.

I have this classic Stewie shirt. I wore it to the polls. If I would have given enough forethought I would have gotten an election button for both of them and placed them in the spots the picture shows. I would probably been kicked out but hey...I've been kicked out of better places.

Anywho....why can't we go back to the way it use to be? A much simpler time in politics. A time when you didn't have a teams of president/vice-president running.

Why not go back to the time when the person who got the most votes became president and the runner-up became vice president?

Better yet...maybe we SHOULD put the leading contenders in a ring and let them beat each other (no holds barred) till one is left standing. Imagine the fun we could have with that.

I'll leave you with this....

I voted. Did you?

Till next time....

Cheers!
Larry

WOOWHOO 100!!!!

WOOWHOO!!!!

Pop a bottle of Bubbley!!!

Thanks to Gary I hit the 100th post mark!!!!

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

Mea Culpa

Okay boys & girls....

I owe a BIG apology to Gary over at This Old Crack House.

I accidentally keep calling him Greg...not sure why other than one of my best friends in grade school was named Greg.

What’s more embarrassing is that HE caught the mistake!!

Gary...my apologies!

Mea Culpa

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry