Furry little fellas with beady eyes

I've posted many times before on my love of scavenging used building materials, furniture and other random junk (LINK) from the streets of the city. There are many driving factors behind my motivations. There is the reuse/recycle/repurpose element. There is the money saving element. There is the desire to be the opposite of every dick who lines the pockets of Home Depot with their hard earned dollars every time they need a few planks to do some job around the house. I can tell you a dozen places where there is an infinite free supply of planks and getting them will not involve having to deal with the over enthusiastic store greeter two seconds after walking through the front door of the store. I gave up on feeling I have to be nice to those people years ago. I'm still convinced that the role of the store greeter is totally pointless in a similar vein to the old men in Dublin who are paid to sit on a chair in the middle of Grafton Street holding signs for local businesses between their legs. Couldn't a bucket filled with concrete with a hole for the sign do an equally proficient job? Maybe I'm being cruel because the sign holders differ from the greeters in that they don't give a shit about how you are doing today or whether you need to know all about the "patio furniture on sale in the garden section to the rear of the store."

I've finally realized that the main reason I do it is the surprise factor. I never know what I will come across in the course of my rummaging. A few blocks from our house a local church is being renovated. Outside is a big dumpster into which the contents of the building are being tossed. I took a look inside the dumpster not really looking for anything in particular. I found a great little safe with the door missing! What I will do with this I'll never know but the excitement of the score is what it's all about.

This evening my career was nearly cut short. I was out looking for some plywood in dumpsters around Minneapolis. I came across one that was packed full of wood. As I began to climb in a giant crow flew out. I suspect he was digging for food as there were a few rubbish bags among the wood. The evidence of food waste and avian scavengers should have been my hint to let this one go but my senses were jarred by the bounty before me. I swung my leg over the edge of the dumpster and was about to jump in when a rat the size of a dog came out from under some crap. I got the hell out of there as if a swarm of wasps were after me. The size of the hospital bill for fixing a dose of rabies scares me to death when I think back to the $800 I had to hand over for two stitches needed to address an apple peeling injury. I didn't learn from that incident either because I still peel the skin off apples.

Seems like some ground rules have established themselves. If there is food in a dumpster then the rats own the food but they also own everything else in that dumpster. I can respect that.

Crippling Balloon Payment

Recent financial analysis (with spreadsheet of course) for the Dunne family made me think of a classic Simpsons moment.

Canyonero Salesman - "Ok, here's how your lease breaks down... this is your down payment, then here's your monthly, annnnnnnnnd there's your weekly."
Homer - "And that's it, right?"
Canyonero Salesman - "Yup... oh, then after your final monthly payment there's the routine CBP, or (mutters almost inaudibly) Crippling Balloon Payment."
Homer - "But that's not for a while, right?"
Canyonero Salesman - "Right!"
Homer - "Sweet!"

Life moves fast around these parts. Financial goals for fiscal year 2007 are pretty basic: double our mortgage to pay for 750sq.ft addition to house, clear loan on our Honda Civic Hybrid, buy new Honda Fit (for Martha, Elise and Seamus). The ultimate but probably impossible goal is to buy the new car outright and have no loan on it... We'll see what happens.

Casual meeting with architect (LINK) went well this evening. Elise charmed them good.

Time for bed. Exhausted.

Winter blues

Would you believe that we are expecting more feckin' snow this week? This winter business is literally breaking my heart. It's been going on since November for Christ sake. I don't ask for much, that's not true, I ask for too much but some non coat and hat weather for the first time in six months isn't too greedy.

Anyway, enough griping out of me. I don't control the weather... yet.