It’s 3 a.m., it MUST be raining….

It is actually 4 a.m., good morning Brian. (A close friend that have known more than 1/2 if my life who works ungodly hours). The title of this post inspired by the song by Matchbox Twenty, and yes, I know that the title of the song is “It’s 3AM I must be lonely” but I am NOT lonely, and yes, it is not raining… PONDER THAT!

In any event, my Monday SUCKED! Mower had a flat tire, mower had a dead battery, power at “Ocho estates” was turned off because my tenants did not pay the bill. Blade on the mower flew out from under the mower deck, and stuck into the ground (that could have turned out WAY worse! Cut down a bitter orange that was choking out a cool looking maple tree and when the orange went down, it took the maple with it (that I wanted to save… ON TOP OF THAT, the cooler that I had the cold water & ice in was totally water by 11am, iced by 7am. THAT COOLER SUCKS!!! Time for an upgrade. Had to “jury-rig” the mower so that it would continue to run while I got off of it and attached a strap to the limbs so I could haul them to the burn pile. OH YEAH, the Fire department showed up AGAIN because my neighbor called and reported a “brush fire”. Now, I admit that I had a fire on Friday mid-morning to get rid of a giant pile of brush & trash that had been accumulating over the last 3 or 4 weeks. Today is Monday, and the fire was “dead out” Saturday morning. Certainly out Sunday after the amount of rain that we got out there.

I guess it just “tweaks” me the wrong way when your neighbors are more concerned with what you are doing on your property than what is going happening on their property. Interestingly, that burn pile is out in the field with 30 yards of open space, AND I mowed the grass short around the pile so as to not set off a grass fire. 10 years of working for the FD, you could say, been there, done that.

I ordered a bunch of parts over the last week or two for the new mower, the old mower, and the boat. Parts have been arriving, but apparently I am not great at finding and ordering the RIGHT parts, since several of the parts today did not fit… So I just ordered the correct parts, so we shall see when they arrive later this week.

Oh yes, the boat has gotten her new name, “Holy SHIP, it floats!” and it too will get the traditional mustache sticker… Special thanks to Michelle Woodin, for coming up with the name, Holy Sh*t it floats (which we have not tested that theory quite yet) and Caden Marks for changing the Sh*t to Ship so it does not offend… Lettering should arrive any day now.

That is all the rambling that I have for now, go back to sleep, I am…

Have a GREAT day!

Steve

 

Sit back y’all, this one is deep and its going to take a moment…

I was looking at a house yesterday, and in it were some zip lock bags with a roll of toilet paper, and a toothbrush. It was apparent that some “homeless person” had stayed there a time or two (from the sheer amount of the beer cans, (s)he had been there a couple of times).

 

It got me thinking that if they had enough money to buy beer, and someone was supplying him/her with ass paper does that not seem to be “enabling” the person to remain in a bad situation? or to continue with bad habits?

 

I am NOT judging anyone here, there, or anywhere else, I was just thinking about how giving a “little help” allows that person to have enough money to buy beer and get a buzz… are they trying to escape reality of the situation they are in? Maybe they have an addiction, or maybe they choose to live that way..

 

I have been on my own, taking care of myself since I was almost 17. I have fallen down a number of times, but I have ALWAYS pulled myself up and come back (sometimes better and stronger) a smarter person from that unfortunate “education”. Some of those falls have been the hardest you can fall in life, some at the same time: eviction, foreclosure, judgment, repossession (x 2) divorce… All have been very expensive, painful lessons that have made me stronger, and more determined to take care of myself & my family to the point where we do not have to worry about “our government taking care of us” later in life… 

 

Now, I am not above needing some help, in my lifetime, I have needed and received “benefits” of SNAP or food assistance, but I have prided myself on only using this help for a VERY short period of time, then I stopped. Maybe it was my pride, maybe it was that I worked harder to make my situation better and not needed it, but it was something in ME that said, “you are better than that, go out and earn your own way in life!”

 

Same thing with welfare, food stamps, subsidized housing. I get that some people “need a little help” but for how long? Don’t get me wrong, I am all about helping people out when they need a helping hand, but at what point does a “helping hand” become a permanent subsidized living situation? How long should someone get “benefits”? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20  years?? I have done mediations where people are being evicted from section 8 housing for 9 months of past due rent at $18 per month… $18 per month is all they have to pay and they are 9 months behind!!!

 

They always have the newest phone, with all the tatoos and jewlery, certainly much more than I could afford.. I only imagine they have a “newish” car and a GIANT tv at home.

 

Isn’t there something wrong here? Am I missing something? Can someone explain?

 

(stepping down from my soap box now)

You now may resume your “normal” lives!

Have a GREAT week!

Steve

My “craziest project” yet??

This is not a 100% done deal yet, but all the blocks are starting to fall into place.

Close to downtown Bunnell is a house that has been abandoned for more than 5 years. I have been looking for the owner to make an offer, but have never been able to find her for almost 5 years. This owner has become my “pegasus”. Monday this week, a friend of mine sent me a text and told me that the owner had passed and her daughter was going to be handling the affairs. She gave the daughter my number and within 5 minutes she called me to discuss a proposal.

The house was built in the 1940’s her mother was in high school when her grand-dad and uncle built this house by hand. It is a classic cracker style house with tonge & groove wood walls, hardwood floors, and beadboard ceilings. This house is SPECTACULAR, I am going to post some pics once I get access to the property in a few days from now.

So here is the crazy part, she has given me the house to move (whole) or take apart, move and re-assemble on a property that I own out on CR 80 in Bunnell. I am SO excited that I am going too get the opportunity to take on this challenge. The daughter has said that her grandmother would have wanted someone to move the house or take it apart and rebuild it in another location so all the history of the house would not be lost to the land fill, by tearing it down and disposing of it, which was the original plan.

I have been in touch with an architect that will look at the house, take pics, and draw up a set of plans (with the necessary upgrades to the code) that I can use to gain all the appropriate permits and approvals from the county building dept. This will be my most awesome “rehab” project EVER and I am SO looking forward to it. I will be taking the pieces that we remove from the house out to the property and putting them into a shed that I am going to purchase to keep them dry and ready to go when I get ready to build the new house with the new foundation. Having not inspected it fully yet, I expect that it has rafters and will need fully engineered trusses with a new metal roof.

In preparation, all of the boards are going to have to be labeled, and kept together so when we start putting it back together, we will know what wall and what room the pieces came from. It will have a new foundation, new electrical, and new plumbing, but we are going to try to save as much of the old fixtures, cabinets, and doors as possible to be reinstalled and ready to serve for another 50-70 additional years.

My feeling is that if I am going to do all of this work, I would like to live in the house for a little while between RV trips with the wife and the dogs. The property that I have named “Ocho Estates” has A LOT going for it, and still needs plenty of clean up to do, but it has not been my first priority over the last several months. I anticipate that this project to take it apart, remove all nails, stack and inventory all pieces, move them to storage, then rebuild the house as close as we can to the original will take about 18 months. +/- depending upon weather, rain/cold/wind/mud…etc.

If anyone who knows me would like to volunteer to help make this historical “save”, please let me know. I will need a few people to remove nails from boards, and someone to document what comes from each room and when putting it back together what goes where.

Feel free to mock, and laugh, but after 5 years I have finally caught my elusive “pegasus” house that I could not find the owner. Fate has set me in this direction and I cannot say no!

This should also go to notify everyone that I know, I will be busy, and I will be fishing on Mondays, come hell or high water. Those days are going to set. Stress relief is going to be a required activity, and so will personal massages on Tuesday AM.

Wish me luck…

Be happy for me, with luck and happiness, we will get to the end of the project and will hopefully LOVE how it turns out.

8/12/16