Garden Sprinkler Adventure

About three weeks ago I notice that one of the hoses in our little backyard garden was leaking.

Nothing crazy, it had just become dry rotted and needed to be changed out. But as I tried to remove the little hose I snapped the spout on the head of the thingie that feed all the other hoses.

So this meant a trip to Home Depot, but to no ones surprise they did not have the one I was looking for. I ended up buying a different one that I thought would work just as fine. I got new hoses, caps and a candy bar….because of course you cannot make it out of Home Depot without buying candy!

I get home change out the head, replace all the houses and turn on the water. Come to find out the head I bought was designed for the slow drip feed type and not the free flowing jet type.

So this now this meant I was going to have to go and search through Amazon to find what I needed, and guess what? They had it, shit….they had several types and styles of the unregulated water flow heads I was looking for! The only draw back was it was going to take three days. So, with order in place I left everything until the new head came in and I got the motivation to start again.

Week three: with new head in hand and a nice cool dry day to motivate me, I was off to the races again!

(This was the mess I left three weeks ago)

This time it was an absolute success, hoses attached water tested and mess cleaned up, we have yet another adventure in home ownership under our belts!

Black Stone Grill

We have had this grill for two years now and it has been one of the best outdoor investments we have ever made.

The unboxing 2023

First time cooking on it

Yes it does require some work to maintain but it really is not that hard. We seasoned it on day one and have re-seasoned it several times since. The first time was because of my fuck up, I tried to cook a very sauce heavy meat concoction with tomatoes and it fucked things all up! And now my son did something similar and had to season it again. If you look on the internet they give you all kinds of over the top ways to do it and all kinds of products you don’t need.

What you need: a hand held torch, tallow, paper towels, squirt bottle and steel wood scrubbing pads.

Step one: Scrub all the entire surface with the steel wool. Put some elbow grease into this and get all food stuffs off.

Step two: Turn heat on and once hot squirt water all over the service.

Step three: Once all the water has evaporated slap some tallow on the service. Use paper towels to coat the entire surface evenly. And then let it cook off. I repeat this process two or three times. For the last coating I will let it cook for about 30 minutes.

I use the hand torch to get the edges nice a hot.

And honestly that is it. No special seasoning things or over the top gadgets. I have taken my grill from rusty to awesome using this.

Before:

After:

I have watched numerous videos on how to season your BlackStone and this is how I do it.

Blogging is my Therapy

Once upon a time I blogged to help with my thoughts. Then it became a place to joke and smoke, I made friends and had fun. But time has flown by since my first poorly written post and my inconsistent attempts at being a blogger.

I even tried creating my own web page, that didn’t last long. I am unfocused and very directionless. I get distracted easily and frustrated even easier.

Why am I here and what do I want from doing this? The answer is, I don’t have an answer. I am just here because, just because.

I used to sit behind a desk with little to do now I accidentally found myself behind a desk having to adult. It isn’t a hard job but it is mentally draining, I still journal to help keep me sane but it has been more pen and paper than online. I love the old style of writing and the art of journaling. That is kind of how and why I stated this journey. What do I want to do with it? To be honest, nothing really it is just something I like doing.

I do wish that I have been more consistent through all these years, but I am not one to dwell on failure. We move on and party on. The party is still raging on, the day to day is mundane and things have slowed down but we still have life in us so we march on!

My grammar, is poor; my blogging, sporadic; my mind, chaotic; but my intent is fun and the reason…more fun. I am almost 50 and my circle of friends has gotten smaller and my level of fucks to give even smaller. If you don’t like what I have to offer, that is ok I am not everyone’s cup of beer but if you do get at least a little something out of this leave a comment and I will comment back.

New Chapter

One of the things that really defines an adult is home ownership. At least that is what we have always been taught. And for a while I was really fighting against that idea. Not just because I did not think we could ever afford it, the idea of dealing with a house just was not something I wanted. But as time has gone on I realized that we really did need a home. I was done with dealing with landlords, HOA's and the small apartment life. But the next big issue was the cost; here in the Bay area houses are insanely expensive. 

But we finally pulled the trigger and decided we had to, our family just did not fit into apartment life anymore. So we started looking, but we were not willing to paying a million plus for a shack....and I mean that literally! 

The true eye opener was when they finished updating the condos located right behind us and we went to the open house. They wanted 1.2 million! This is a 1,430 square foot apartment, one parking spot, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and nothing more than a paved patio backyard.

And let us not forget the neighborhood! This is not a million dollar area, let me just list the things I have seen in this lovely area:

• People drink beer on the corners just about every day
• Homeless people making camp in your front yard, and I mean this guy had a mattress, a pickle jar for a potty and a tent!
• People coming onto your property to dig through your recycling
• Gang activity, I am talking real gang shit: tags, drug deals and theft
• Loud parties every weekend, I am not talking about little parties I am talking about live music blasting to all hours of the night parties
• Questionable people at all times of the day and night walking up and down the street

And this is just a few of the things to look forward to! And not to mention this place has an HOA, I would rather pour gas down my pants and light it than ever deal with another HOA! I would also like to mention that while living in this wonderful million dollar area we had the Swat team come crashing into our place thanks to a wanted fugitive hiding out in our area, yep that sounds like a million dollar neighborhood to me!

So with this in mind we started looking....East ward. Starting in San Jose and finally ending in Modesto. I am not looking to give out my home address but in the end we found a home way way out in the land of farms and rodeos...Modesto Ca.

And not looking to brag but we got twice the amount of home for less than half the price of that million dollar neighborhood in San Jose. 5 bedrooms, three card garage, three full bathrooms and a god damn pool! Yeah, SJ you can eat a dick for your million dollar bullshit you are calling a home HA!

Yes it is one hell of a commute but it was worth it, for what we go in a home I will deal with the drive for work. And what is funny is the the distance for work got longer but not really the time. It would take me one to two hours to get home from work living in SJ (37 miles)and now living farther away (57 miles) the commute is about the same! Less stop and go traffic but still traffic, and honestly I do not mind the drive and it is a price I am willing to pay for what we got in return.

And the area we moved into is probably one of the best we could have hoped for: The high school is right down the street, we live a block away from a strip mall that has everything from Thai food, an axe throwing place to a food store! Our neighborhood is also a huge step up from our original, we have been here two years and we have had none of the issues we used to have!

This house needed work (which I am going to post about in the near future of all the work we have done so far). We had it inspected and found no deal breaking issues, it was build in the late 90's and was in need of some serious updating but other than that it was solid. So far we have updated two bathrooms, painted and fixed the exterior, changed one bedroom into an office, put in a new pool pump, cleaned out the dryer vent (this one was a huge socker) removed alllllll the upstairs carpeting that went all the way into the master bathroom.....yes there was carpeting in the bathroom! We have painted most of the interior but we have more painting to do, and we have many more plans in fixing our home. 

This is will be a never ending project and honestly I am cool with that, and these projects are part of why I have decided to start blogging again. I really wish I had bought a house in my younger stronger back days, but no day like the present to better oneself and the family. 

Our family story is a never ending, changing and moving entity. Welcome to my world 

(est; 2/2021)

Blogging From My Phone

Just another day at work because I did not win the lottery!

I downloaded the mobile app to use the blog from my phone to see if that would help me get back into the swing of things. Edit: It seems that if I want to blog from my phone I am going to have to pay money, maybe....we shall see....

I took down my website because I was spending money on something I was not putting any time into. Maybe someday I will go back and give that a whirl again, but for the time being I am just going to try and blog again.

The question of what do I want to do with my blog had been on my mind, everyone that has any form of social media presence has a purpose and a direction, where as with me…I am all over the place. And to be honest, that is how I like it. I do not want to be a product review blog, home improvement, a fitness guru or a travel blog. I am just going to try it all and see what happens. 

I am disappointed in myself for not keeping this up through the years and letting this place collect so much dust. 

I have tried the reboot and failed, tried the website and failed so this time I am just going to pick up where I am and move on.

So, where am I? I am 9 years at my current job, two years in a new home, 22 years married, one cat, one dog, bowling in a beer league (9 pins counts as a strike) and as of recent I am on meds for gout. 

I am over weight and in the process of trying to get healthier. I have reached a point where I am no longer comfortable and I need to hold myself accountable!

But do I want this to be my weight loss journal….no…it will just be a part of the whole chaotic experience.

I have so much I can put into this place, and because I am all over the place I am just going to start posting. I will have to add some time lines within the post but just a warning…it won’t be in order! 

I am not sure how far back I want to go but let’s just start and see where it goes, I will get the ball rolling later this week. This is just my dusting of my place looking for a good spot to place my laptop. 

More to come, welcome to the chaos. 

Old picture….2020