Author: Glorius Curmudgeon

Over the last couple of weeks, the house has made great progress. See various pictures below.

The next step is to finish the roof sheeting and continue with the house wrap and installing doors and windows. When that is done the house will be basically weathertight.

I finally managed to capture the cat jumping from the ladder to the top of the trailer. I have watched him going both ways, but I have finally managed to capture him in the act.

I decided I wanted to see Top Gun: Maverick so I checked out the local theater, Studio City Stadium Cinemas. I did get the senior price and was surprised to find that it cost me $8.00 for admission. For a large popcorn and a large diet Coke, and 5% sales tax , the cost was $16.28. It seemed reasonable so I stayed around and watched the new release of Jurassic World: Dominion. I noticed that the two big blockbusters of the summer were retreads. Top Gun was mostly a retread, with cameos by F-35 fighters and a putative SR-72, but most of the action focused on a strike by F-18’s on a pesudo-Iranian Uranium enrichment site. Of course, Maverick and Rooster (Goose’s Son) escape in an old F-14 and land back on the carrier.

Jurassic World was a replay of the Jurassic Park franchise. Humans’ vs assorted dinosaurs with various despicable humans greedily assisting with their own demise.

My question is thus: Why are the two biggest hits of 2022 retreads of the 1980’s? Where are the new, attractive, engaging stories of today? My guess is that forcing the progressive storytelling into the traditional roles doesn’t work.

Another option is that this is an example of Idiocracy in action. My father’s generation, raised during the Great Depression, also known as the Greatest Generation, knew how to do stuff. I was a Baby Boomer and learned a lot from him about how to identify a woman, the differences between the (2 – XX &XY chromosomes) sexes. In the ’60’s and ’70’s the U.S. travelled to the moon with hardware that that was laughably simple by today’s standards, but was understood and operated by Boomers, supervised by their seniors. Top Gun was released in 1986 and Jurassic Park was released in 1993. The Star Wars trilogy were released in 1977, 1980, and 1983. In the last 10 years what has been released? Nothing but sensitive remakes, remakes with female leads, but what new original movies are there? My take on it is that the Millennial generation, that has supplanted the Boomers, have in general been captured by the leftist ideology that has infested colleges & universities. The focus on race and gender ideology, the lessening of structure in the social sciences has dumbed down the background knowledge of an entire generation.

I’m finally seeing the definitive results of my solar power usage on my electric bill from Rocky Mountain Electric Company. Note that the peak in Feb and Mar bills of over $300.00 were due to temps about freezing and relying on supplemental electric heat. April and May were relying on solar during the day. The June number reflects basically full-time solar use.

Jon was scheduled to fly in Friday evening but was diverted to Colorado Springs due to winds. He managed to get to Denver later that night but he missed the evening flight to Casper.

He arrived on Saturday, and we took off to the Shirey’s to camp for a day and showed Jon the sights of (forested) Wyoming. For what it’s worth, I think I picked up a bit of food-poisoning and felt out of it until we got back Sunday afternoon.

Over the weekend, I got a surprise email that my reefer had come in to Sonny’s RV and was ready for pickup.

Meanwhile about 10:00 am the walls started going up.

Notice the headers above the windows in the above picture. Two4-foot windows in the MBR, a 3-foot window kitchen, a Patio Door and finally another 4-foot bedroom window.

This is most of the outside walls in. Note the clouds filling in over the mountains to the south. Shortly after this picture the thunderstorm blew in with 40-50 kt winds and we scrambled to collect tools and quit early for the day.

Starting Tuesday, the day started with only the mildest breezes and without a cloud in the sky.

We first finished up the remaining walls.

We then started sheathing the wall with chipboard.

And finally, after working, we drove into town and stumbled across this near the intersection of 2nd Ave and Wyoming Blvd.

They are rebuilding an old restaurant into a Chili’s. Coming soon, I won’t need to drive to Cheyenne for my fix.

Things are going along well. The wall framing is just about done, the roof trusses are scheduled to be delivered next week on 6/16.

You can see the openings for the windows on the South Wall. The windows are a whole separate topic. A couple of weeks ago we started investigating windows and rapidly discovered that windows were seriously backed up. Delivery times were quoted ranging from 24 to 36 weeks. AT and I were discussing options of proceeding with erection of walls, trusses, and roof and leaving the window openings covered with house wrap until midsummer.

Meanwhile the representative of Bloedorn Lumber (who was providing much of the lumber) mentioned that he had some windows from a previous order that were available. We went over and looked at them and we got:

• 1 ea. 84″x60″ picture window for living room
• 6 ea. 48″x48″ sliding windows for bedrooms
• 3 ea. 36″x36″ sliding windows for kitchen & garage wall
• 1 ea. sliding door for Dining Room to Patio

We have had the windows delivered and stored in the workshop until we need to install them.

Delivered today were the 3ea 575-gallon rainwater collection tanks.

The intent is to put them underground to the SE of the house, with the overflow (if any) that will run down to the pond.

While at Menards I found something useful to accessorize the house. I remember at Nana’s house in Florida, we got them a set of plastic flamingos for their front yard.

Now, I just need to decide how many to get.

While running around town, I noticed my gas was running low, so I stopped by Sam’s Club for gas. I haven’t needed to get gas for a couple of weeks, and I realize that our prices are much lower than say California, but it was still a bit of a shock.

To add insult to injury I went back later to fill 2 5-gallon gas cans, so that was another $40.10 added to the total. I have ordered an auxiliary 43 gallon to put in the bed of the pickup. The plan is to be topped off in Nevada, and not have to refuel until the way back north. When I top off the 43-gallon tank that will cost about $150.00 by itself. (As a side note, I remember gas at $0.22 – $0.25 per gallon at the gas station at the corner of Van Buren and Wells. in 1966-1967)

We started the subfloor decking, starting in the SE corner.

We shutdown at about 5:00pm, but covered up the decking with the tarps as thunderstorms started building due to low winds and thermals rising off the heated land.

There’s a new time-lapse on Dropbox from 6/1 to 6/3. If you look closely you can see the re-erection of the water tank and the start of the subfloor decking. Towards the end of the day you can see the thunderheads building in the background and covering of the subfloor with tarps. Early on the 3rd you can see the truck that delivered this:

In the lower left is the Taupe Paint to cover the containers to match the metal siding above. Unwrapping the above reveals:

In other news, my plants have started to sprout. First up are the potatoes in the garden bed.

Next up the potatoes in the five-gallon buckets.

After they sprout a little more, I will put more dirt in and then top off the buckets with some straw to keep evaporation rates down.

Finally, since I am anticipating shipping issues as the year goes on, I have started proactive measures.

Unfortunately, I suspect that I will have pot the tree in order to move it back inside this fall.

All in all, things seem to be progressing well.

Just before Memorial Day, we have started construction.

Finally, the header boards are erected, and main beams are checked for being vertical and nailed in place.

Friday afternoon came and AT and his son Cooper and I traveled about an hour and a half south to the Shirley Mountains, at the Prior Flats campground.

We drove to the mountains and I took some pictures.

Lots of things coming up next week. I should be closing on Tuesday Morning, which should free up construction funding. We will be putting down first floor decking, which will let us lay out actual floorplan rather than the nominal one in the plans. Will rent the backhoe for a month to move the septic tank and do initial landscape work. Etc, etc, etc.

When we left Friday, the weather app on the iPhone showed clear weather for the next week. We had occasional rain showers up in the Shirley’s but it wasn’t noticeable except for Sunday morning. As we were driving back Monday morning it rained off and on all the way back, with the rain becoming a steady downpour as we got into town. By the looks of it Casper received 2-3 inches over the past couple of days.

When I got back, the cat had survived nicely (I had left him 3 cans of food, as well as the timed feeder). In fact, the below picture shows the leftover dry cat food.

Given the heavy overcast limiting Solar Power, I went out back to switch power back to Rocky Mountain Power I discovered a minor disaster./

Note the damage to the 2×12’s from the beefy lag screws. We had moved the support platform out from the C-Can to avoid damage to the outlet pictured above, and I think that removed some of the strength.

More of Septic Tank installation.

We got a jib truck to lift the septic tank and lower it into the hole.

First step is to hoist the tank up and clear of the trailer.

The next step is to back up to the already excavated hole.

The tank is now lowered into the hole.

This happened on Saturday May 21. Now, if you look carefully it seems to be slightly raised on the right-hand end. It turns out that the plumber stopped by on Sunday. They set up the transit level and it turns out that the offset is 5 inches which is too much.

Also, the tank needs to be moved to the right about 3-6 feet, to allow 22.5-degree angles to turn the corner from the entry from the house into the tank. The bottom line is that we will need to rent a backhoe to re-dig the hole to enlarge it to the right and move it to the right.

As the title says, Two steps forward, one step back.