Sunday 6/30/2013

We are getting a nice rain in San Antonio this morning.  The aquifer was dropping fast so it needed to be recharged and they got some good rain in north Bexar County where the big recharge zone is located.

A good day to stay inside.  I just wish there was some football to watch.

Friday June 28, 2013

It has been a few days since I have posted anything.  There hasn’t been any news to write about.  I spent the morning doing some mowing along the driveways and then picking up some dead trees and branches along the driveways that had washed up during the flood.  There are a lot of large logs all over the place that washed up during the flood.  I will need to get Jackie and the tractor to get rid of them.  It is easier to push them in the bucket on the tractor and then dump them.  I think we need to burn them this time since many of the logs were picked up and dumped once before and they washed up again.

Jackie and Logan have been cleaning up and mowing the back roads.  There were some large branches and trees that came down across the back roads during the flood and they have at least got the back roads open again.  That is important for the guest that stay at the cabin and at Margaret and Jack’s.

Sunday June 23, 2013

Today was another quiet day around here.  This morning I watched on the Fox News Channel a ceremony of the proper way to dispose of an American Flag.  They had Boy Scouts and a couple of veterans as part of the ceremony.  It was very moving and I admit it brought a couple of tears to my eyes.  I am so thankful to see people display the Flag but then I often wonder what they do with the Flag when it becomes worn or discolored.  I understand that most American Legions and VFW Post will accept flags and will dispose of them properly.

I put the wheels on the new stand I made for the aquarium and it is working good so far but I think I will add a couple of more 2x4s to brace it some more.  I sure don’t want to put the aquarium on the new stand and then have it break.  Oh No.

I am watching this nut that is going to cross the Grand Canyon on  a wire without any safety equipment.  I wish him the best of luck and hope he makes it but I would not even go out of the new thing they built at the Canyon where you can walk out on a clear floor and look down.  Not me.  I don’t even like going up on my roof.

June 22, 2013

Today will be a day of relaxation for me.  Yesterday I mowed Margaret and Jack’s front yard.  It was starting to get high on them and when it gets too high, you have mow over it up to three times to get it looking nice.  Margaret has done a great job getting her front yard looking good and I am sure she will do the same for the back yard once they are ready to put it in.

I also mowed my yard.  My yard is mostly weeds or natural and I really don’t care.  At least my water bill is only about $15.00 a month.

I found a cell phone booster on Ebay that is like the one I used to have that worked.  I ordered it and it will be here early next week.  The bad news is that the antenna for the cell phone booster at Margaret’s fell off the window and hit the concrete floor and now it doesn’t work.  It was the same thing that happened to mine except my hit wood and hers hit concrete, same thing, they no longer work.  This time I will do something to make sure they don’t drop when the suction cups don’t hold.

I was also able to get my remote keypad for the gate opener to work.  Now the vendors who know the code can open and close the gate.

Well, Basketball is over and the Spurs didn’t win the Championship but they had a great season so I am proud of them.  Now I am ready for some Football.

Afternoon of June 20,2013

I worked out in the garage all morning cleaning up tools that had been underwater during the flood.  It was mostly good news.  Out of all the air tools there were only two that I wasn’t able to get working, a small drill and a grinder.  All of the other impact wrenches and air chisels worked.  The brad gun, finishing nail gun and the stapler worked fine.  The battery operated tools all worked fine too.  I think I was pretty lucky.

The other good news was that I was able to get the chain saw working.  A few days ago, it would start and idle but would die when you applied gas.  Jack suggested it might be a clogged value in the carburetor.  I sprayed the carburetor down with carburetor cleaner and let it set for a couple of days.  This morning it started and after a few tries, it would run when the gas was applied.  Another good thing.

Now for the not so good.  I have to use a cell phone booster at my house to get a decent signal.  My old booster quit working on me right after the flood.  It didn’t have anything to do with the flood but was just one more thing to deal with when I didn’t need anything else.  I ordered a booster off of Amazon.com and it came this morning.  I tried it all over the house and couldn’t get it to work like advertised.  I wish they would add more details to the descriptions.  The instructions said not to install the antenna within two feet of metal.  All of my window have metal frames so that didn’t work for me.  Then it gives you 50 feet of cable and tell you to place the receiver at least 8 feet and 50 feet if possible from the antenna and not to place the receiver close to any electronic or electrical devices.  That is almost impossible for me at my house.  I have stuff all over the place and besides, who wants cable running all over the house.  Too much of a hassle so I called and sent it back this afternoon.  I will have to come up with a plan “B”

Well, time for my nap before the Spurs’ game.  I sure hope we win it tonight.

June 20, 2013

Well it is old news by now but the Spurs lost.  It was a good game except for the wrong team won.  We will have to get them tonight.  Go Spurs Go.

Yesterday I worked in the garage again.  I had to move a lot of work benches and tool boxes away from the walls and scrape up the dried mud.  I finally got all the mud out of the garage and the garage is cleaner than it has been in years.  It almost makes me proud to walk out there and do some work.  I will be out there again this morning.  I have all the power tools that I need to clean up.  I have tested most of them and they all worked which surprised me since they were all under water.

The gate opener is working great except for the keypad.  The keypad is mounted on the post by the gate and allows people who know the code to open and close the gate.  It wasn’t working so I took it off and there was some corrosion around the batteries.  I cleaned it up and it still didn’t work.  I downloaded the instructions last night and now I will read the instructions and make sure I am setting it up correctly.  Maybe it will work or else I will have to get a new one.

After doing all of that, I need to mow both my yard and Margaret and Jack’s yard.  It sure doesn’t take long for grass and weeds to grow when they get a little bit (or a lot) of rain.

June 18, 2013

I took Margaret and Jack to the airport this morning for their trip to CA.  I know they are glad to get away for a few days.

My gate opener came in last night so after I got home this morning, I got it installed.  It is nice to be able to hit a button and have the gate open and close.  The old one got caught in the flood and got smoked.  It was over three years old so I guess it was on the last part of its’ life cycle.

I also took another look at the walls in my garage.  After talking with Jack, I am going to wait a few days before stripping the sheet rock off.  I did something this morning that I should have done right after the flood.  I have a small window unit A/C and I put it in one of the windows in the garage.  The A/C will take moisture out of the air.  I also moved a big fan out there and also the dehumidifier.  I am going to run those units for a few days and then take another look at the sheet rock.

Well, time for a nap so I will be well rested for the Spurs game tonight.  We should be able to wrap up the championship tonight if we play Spurs basketball.  Go Spurs Go

June 17, 2013

I haven’t updated this blog for a long time and I apologize to those of you who follow it.  There hasn’t been too much to write about.  The clean up continues.  The inside of the houses is 99% clean and we are still using the dehumidifiers to suck the moisture out of the houses.  Jack showed me today what a good job the dehumidifiers were doing with the moisture tester he borrow.  Right after the flood, he checked the sheet rock with the meter and was getting a reading of about 50%.  Today the same place was getting a reading of 5.2% and that is about normal for sheet rock .

I also got a good feel for how well the dehumidifiers were working when I got started on cleaning out my garage this morning.  I had to move a lot of shelving around to clean up the mud on the floor of the garage and noticed that the walls had a lot of mold and mildew on the sheet rock.  I had not put the dehumidifier in the garage and it shows.  I will now have to take out the lower 4 feet of sheet rock off the walls and remove the insulation as well.  At least it is in the garage and will not be as messy as it would inside the house.  I will get started on it tomorrow after taking Margaret and Jack to the airport.

I think there is going to be more work like this for a long time to come.

Flood update June 7, 2013

It was a fairly good day today.  I got up this morning and mowed the weeds.  They had grown so tall that I had to use the highest setting on the mower and now I will have to go back and mow again soon with the normal setting.  At least they aren’t so high now.

Jackie and Jack came down with the tractor and filled in some of the low spots in my driveway.  I repaired the gate so I can at least close the gate.  I tried my automatic open/closer and it didn’t work.  I am sure that water got into the circuit board and I am hopeful that I will be able to take it apart and clean it and get it working again.  Another project for another day.

The good news for the day is that I checked some of my tools and the battery operated sawsaw, 90 degree drill and 5 inch saw are working.  Also the nail gun, finish nail gun and stapler were all full of water but after draining the water out, they were working fine too.  Tomorrow I will check out the other air tools such as the impact wrenches and drills.  I think they will be okay but will probably need some oil.

All in all, another good day.

Update June 5, 2013

Things continue to progress.  The inside of my house is clean and I am shopping for carpet to put down.  Margaret and Jack are also shopping for carpet.  Jack continues to work on his garage and putting together benches for the garage.

The good news for me is that I got out my air compressor and blew out the back of my big screen TV.  I turned on the power and the power light came on for a few seconds and then went off.  I waited a few minutes and tried it again.  The power light came on again and stayed on a little longer before going off.  I tried it again and this time the power light stayed on but no sound or picture.  I hooked up a DVD player to the TV and played the DVD but no sound or picture.  After about 10 minutes I started hearing sound coming from the TV but still no picture.  After a few more minutes I started seeing a blurry picture and then it got clearer and finally after a few hours of the TV being on, the picture was back to normal.  This was some really good news since I can certainly use the money for a new TV on other things right now.

Since I had good luck with my TV, I went down to Margaret and Jack’s and tried the process on their TV but I didn’t have any luck.

The dehumidifiers continue to suck water from the houses.  Margaret and Jack have  three of them going at their house and I still have the one going here.

Things are starting to get back to normal.

Update June 3,2013

I took a little break yesterday and didn’t do a lot.  To tell the truth I am tired of clean the house.  House cleaning is something you should do once in a while but not everyday all the time.  This is not my idea of retirement.

The house is still drying out and the dehumidifiers seems to be doing a good job.  I had it in my bedroom last night and the alarm went off telling me the bucket is full and so I got up and emptied about a gallon of water out of it and set it to working again.

I am still not decided on what to do about the floors in my house.   I have decided that I am not putting down expensive carpet.  Jack has suggested that I put down some epoxy paint like they use on garage floors.  Margaret, Jack and I are going to look at a floor done with it today.  I am also thinking about putting down indoor/outdoor carpet.  I have some time so there is no real rush for this decision.

Update on Margaret and Jack’s house 6/1/2013

Another good day of cleaning.  Thanks to Richard & Jonathan Truesdell, David Welch, Arlen and his son, Jackie and Logan for helping get the garage cleared of mud and cleaning tools, etc.  A BIG job.  They also got the hot tub moved back in place.  Even though it was full of "good" water, it was picked up and moved about 4 inches.  We drained it so it could be moved back where it belonged.  Now we have the shed and gathering stuff from trees and brush left to do.  The inspector determined that my car is totaled.  Damaged all the electrical and the computer and the engine.  So I will be looking for a new car.  Still drying out walls but I think that is going to be okay.  Thanks to everyone for your concern and your prayers.

I'm getting your phone calls but I just haven't had time to return them.  Please know that I appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

Margaret and Jack

Additional flood update June 1, 2013

I forgot to say that the dehumidifiers seems to be working great.  They are pulling a lot of water out of the house.  When I first plugged it in, the meter said that the relative humidity was 80 and it has dropped to at least 55 now.  I have emptied several gallons of water out of the unit so I know it is pulling the water out of the air.  I just hope it is pulling the moisture out of the walls like it is supposed to do as well.  I guess it gets the easy stuff first and then the harder stuff later.  Makes sense to me.

Flood update June 1, 2013

It was a productive day yesterday.  I went to the store and came home to find Jackie and Logan working on my house.  With their help we got up almost all of the tack strips from the carpet.  We still haven’t moved the aquariums so we aren’t able to get the carpet up under them nor the tack strips.  Aquariums are very heavy when full and I only want to move them once.  I will probably have to build new stands for them anyhow.  These stands will have wheels on them.

Most of what is left to do is clean the walls in some of the rooms and some of the baseboard and the furniture.  The trouble with this mud is that you clean it and then you have to go back and clean in again and do that for several times before it finally goes away.  The good news is that we have a fresh layer of top soil on our yards.

The other good news is that Darren brought his friend, that is a whiz at electronics and has experience restoring electronics that have been in floods, to look at the TV at Margaret and Jack’s last night.  He believes that he can fix it.  It would be easier if he had schematics to work with but of course, they don’t give those out anymore.  I looked on line and wasn’t able to find any.  He says that we will just take a lot of pictures and draw a lot of lines and he will still be able to do it.  He didn’t look at mine but it is the same situation.

The back roads are dry now so I drove past the hog trap and the good news is that we didn’t have a hog in the trap.  There are big trees down all over the property and we have a lot of clean up to do all over the place.  The other good news is that the Yucca plants (I guess they are Yuccas) are blooming up around Jackie’s house.  These have a taller stem than the one at my house.

 

The other good news is that when I got out to take this picture, I killed at least 10 mosquitoes.  The bad news is that there are still a million of them still alive.