A Roof Over My Head

So there's this piece of trim on the side of my roof that really could use some repainting.

The trouble is that it's behind this minefield here.

These are fiberglass roof panels. Seriously degraded fiberglass roof panels.

Basically if you touch this side, you die the itchy fiberglass death.

They didn't originally look this ugly, though, as evidenced by the part that was shaded under the overhang.

But that doesn't really help me much, so off they go.

I'm not sure if the panels were originally white and yellowed over time or if they were a yellow-cream colour from the start. The house was yellow when this awning was installed so the latter is certainly possible.

It was also stuck on with some weird yellow caulking where it met with the wall, which is a little pointless given that it's under an overhang so it's not like any water was ever going to get up there. At least it matched the old paint.

Speaking of colours, green was the trim colour when the house was yellow, and apparently they never bothered to repaint the awning frame. And, furthermore, never bothered to properly prime the aluminum so the paint would stick.

But the good news is I now have unimpeded access to the trim that needed painting, so I can start with a little bit of wire brushing to knock the loose paint off of it, as well as off of the awning frame.

And then a little love from the belt sander to level things out.

And finally we can get to the paint.

I used a rustoleum aluminum primer on the frame so we'll see how that works I guess. I'm pretty confident that the exterior white latex paint will stick just fine to the trim though, which is looking pretty fine.

Finally, a new set of roof panels goes on to replace those scrungy old ones.

These are a polycarbonate roof panel in the "white opal" colour, which is basically just translucent white. The good news at least is that there's no fiberglass in them to eventually be eroded to the surface, and they promise to be UV-protected though we'll see how that holds up because there's an awful lot of UV around here.

Walking On Air

Except I'm supposed to be walking on concrete.

This here is a section of the concrete walkway beside my house, right in front of my brand new and expertly installed car hole door.

I'm really not sure why it's a separate piece, although it's possible that the landing for the car hole door was poured first, and the concrete walkway was added afterwards. The two different slabs of concrete do look slightly different.

Anyway, it's unfortunately sitting at this jaunty angle, which just happens to be the perfect slope for twisting unsuspecting ankles.

Now I had initially considered the idea that I might just skim over the top of this with some fresh concrete, but that would require doing some form work to keep the edges nice and neat, and then I'd have to finish the new concrete surface to make it look pretty, and so on. Instead, I decided to try just pulling this slab out so I could backfill underneath it to bring it back up to level.

So step one: dig out the pea gravel around it.

Well, not just the pea gravel, but also the fossilized layer of dryer lint and other debris and detritus.

There's even some full on dryer sheets in there, which really makes me wonder how this house didn't burn down decades ago from a dryer lint fire.

Oh, and there was also this peculiar D6.

Apparently it's from backgammon, which surged to a peak of recent popularity in the mid 1960s through the 1970s before fading back into relative obscurity over the course of the 1980s.

But enough about the recent history of backgammon, back to the task at hand. The slab in question is just barely small enough to be lifted out by hand, which is what I did next.

And this of course revealed the cause of the slumping: moles. It's no surprise that they've been digging under these sidewalk slabs, and for the most part to no ill effect. But this slab was small enough to be able to sink into the undercut over time, after which the moles no doubt would dig their tunnel a little bit deeper, and so on and so on.

So something tells me this might not be the last time I need to jack up this slab.

But before I worry about jacking up the slab sometime in the future, I need to get on with jacking up the slab in the present, so let's mix up some concrete.

I'm going with a sand-mix again since I only need an inch or two of depth here, and I have a bag of sand and a bag of cement left over from skimming the sidewalk on the other side of the house a while back.

Pro-tip: don't keep bags of cement laying around. Even in a dry climate they'll pick up moisture from the air and start to go off. Luckily I don't need any particular strength from this pour; I really only need it to be "fill that I don't need to worry about compacting" so this will still do the job just nicely.

I needed about 1/2 a cubic foot of concrete to bring the slab back up to roughly level, so I started with a gallon of water in my bucket and used my amazing paddle mixer in my rotary hammer to mix. This time I went with 3 scoops of sand for every 1 scoop of cement until I got a nice consistency, though it wasn't feeling as sticky as I wanted so I splashed in a bit more water at the end and added another scoop or two of cement.

Well it certainly looks the part. I sprayed down the dirt before dumping this mix in to keep it from sucking away all the moisture, then I spread it out and cut some peaks and valleys into it with my hoe.

This helps the concrete spread out evenly under the slab without trapping too many huge air pockets.

Then all I needed to do was tip the slab back into place.

And pack it with pea gravel to keep it from moving.

It's already pretty much fine to walk on right away, but I'll give it a good 24 hours to set up nice and stiff before putting too much weight on it. The good news is that I calculated the concrete volume pretty much spot on, so the slab is back up to basically level again.

Or at least as level as any of these slab sections are.

Pegboard Does Not Spark Joy

This is pegboard.

Pegboard is quite possibly the most frustrating and least efficient way to store tools and other shop gubbins. It's 2-dimensional so you can only fill a planar surface instead of a volume, and the hooks and knobs and whatever else you stick in those holes have the most delightful habit of ejecting themselves out of their holes any time you dare even think about grabbing something off of the wall.

This sheet of pegboard was I believe originally one of those old hinged shop displays, possibly even from the back wall of a Radio Shack that would have closed more than a quarter century ago. But wherever it came from, it ended up screwed into the wall of my car hole, and I inherited it when I purchased this house.

So step one is to disassemble, which means removing these screws from the corners.

Hmm, those aren't torx, are they?

Well, this is where being Canadian comes in handy.

If it works, it works.

Now we can break down the parts and put them where they belong.

In the trash.

Goodbye pegboard, you will be soon forgotten and never be missed.

I Fought The Law

And I won.

All the way back in February of this year, I was riding my bike through Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve on a fine Tuesday afternoon. The weather was sunny and brisk and there was only a small sprinkling of people around; mostly hikers but a few other cyclists.

About 2/3 of the way up the hill a hiker who was stood at the side of the trail greeted me and remarked about the view out over the valley. I was going quite slow on my bike so I didn't need to stop in order to have a brief chat, exchanging a few words about the grand valley laid out below us, and the perfect weather that we were enjoying.

Further up the hill, nearly at the summit, I came upon a ranger driving his pickup down the hill towards me. Since the trail, more of a fire road in reality, was only about wide enough for a single vehicle, I pulled off to the side to let him pass.

But instead of passing me, he came to a stop and rolled down his window. "Is that an e-bike," he asked? I confirmed that it was indeed.

And so he asked me for my ID and wrote me a citation.

Despite this, it was still a friendly and professional encounter, and when he was done writing the ticket we briefly discussed what route I should take to exit the open space. We were nearly smack dab in the middle, so I was somewhat keen on just continuing my ride as I had initially planned it, descending towards Lexington Reservoir, and the ranger agreed.

I carried on towards the summit and came upon the hiker who I had enjoyed a brief conversation with earlier. He had passed by the ranger and I when I was being cited, and asked what business he had with me. I told him I got a ticket for riding an e-bike, and he expressed his surprise and dismay that someone would be ticketed for something so mundane and inoffensive. After all, the preserve, and the trail we were on, is open to cyclists.

We chatted for a few minutes before going our separate ways, and I continued on towards Lexington to complete my planned ride, looping back through Los Gatos to get home.

A month or so later I got a notice in the mail, informing me that the fine for my citation would be just a little under $400. An absurd amount for riding a bicycle on a trail open to bicycles. I opted for a trial by written declaration, and wrote up an explanation saying that there was no reasonable justification for me to be cited for engaging in a prohibited activity (e-biking) that is virtually indistinguishable from an allowed activity (analog biking), and sent in the declaration and the bond amount.

Today, many months later again, I just received a refund for the bond. I don't actually know if there was a decision made on the merits or if the citing ranger failed to file his side of the paperwork, but either way the case is closed and I came out victorious.

This Outlet Sucks

So this is the hallway in my house.

It's central to the three bedrooms as well as one of the bathrooms, so it would make the perfect place to plug in a vacuum cleaner while I'm tidying up. Unfortunately, as you might be able to tell, there is no outlet here to plug into.

However, on just the other side of the wall, there is an outlet. It's not very convenient to use, though, as it's hiding behind where I park all my bikes. As such, the only thing that's ever plugged in here is the base station for my wireless doorbell.

So the goal here today is to tap into this outlet and extend it to the other side of the wall. Naturally, this starts with shutting off the power. And, as per usual, once I've figured out which breaker it's on, I add a label to save some time and headache later.

Then we can safely pull out the outlet and observe the truly masterful job that the original builders did when they cut the drywall opening for the box.

They sure don't make 'em like they used to.

For whatever reason, all the wiring in this house is cut super short in the boxes and the outlets are tagged on with pigtails. This is especially annoying with the grounds, which don't even reach all the way out of the box, and are usually tied together with a wire nut that only barely grips all of the conductors. I'll be replacing that wire nut with a push-in connector, as there's no way I'm going to be wrangling 4 wires into a wire nut when two of them are that short.

Anyway, this box needs an extra hole in it for the new romex to go through, so let's try using a spade bit. My hope is that the outer teeth will gently scrape away at the bakelite and carve out a nice round hole.

And yeah that went about as well as you were expecting. It chipped out immediately.

So instead, let's try twist drills. We'll start at 5/16.

And then go up the sizes to half inch.

Ok, that's much better. An actual round hole instead of just shattered bakelite.

Now we'll do some careful measuring so that the new box lands about a half inch to the left of the old box.

Pre-drilling the corners makes it much easier to get the drywall saw started.

And peek-a-boo, there's the backside of the old box.

You know, looking at it from this side, I'm pretty sure they just scored the paper on the front side and knocked the middle out with a hammer when they made the opening for this box.

Anyway, the new box fits perfectly, because I actually care about the quality of my work.

And fishing the romex through the wall is about as trivial as you'd expect.

Then we just install the new outlet in the usual manner.

And, hmm. I'm gonna need to clean up that drywall dust. Better go find an extension cord so I can plug in my vacuum...

And of course terminating the other side in the existing box was the usual straightforward job as well. Now I have an outlet here that's conveniently located for any time I want to plug something in near these rooms.

Another Batch

It's giardiniera time again.

It never ceases to amaze me how I can just "place vegetation in cart" at the supermarket and somehow always end up with exactly 8qt once it's all chopped up.

Each jar lasts me about 2 weeks, so these 14 should do me for another half a year, give or take.

Door Re Mi Fa

When we last left off, the door to my car hole was looking a bit like this.

Functional, yes. Weatheright, yes. But a tad ugly. It clearly needs paint.

But first, there's some outstanding issues with the existing stucco and paint that need to be addressed, namely some cracking that wasn't properly fixed. Now is obviously the time to fix it, so we'll start by veeing out the cracks a little with a utility knife.

Then we squirt in some caulking, just the regular paintable exterior stuff. The important thing here is the application technique: we want to squirt the caulking into the cracks, then use the putty knife to level it out and give it a similar texture to the surrounding stucco.

The caulk will shrink a little though, so be prepared to layer on a second coat after the first dries.

I'm also going to caulk up the edges where I scraped back the paint from the surface of the stucco. This will both help seal the edge of the old paint, as well as blend in the transition a bit better.

And we can't forget the bead of caulking around the door trim itself. This is primarily to help the paint bridge the gap without leaving an unsightly line of cracking; we already took care of making the door weathertight before we applied the stucco.

Again, leaving this more textured will help it blend in with the stucco better.

So that's the wall prepped and ready for paint.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We also want to fill the brad holes in the trim, and luckily you can get wood filler in white which makes it easier to cover up with white paint afterwards.

Remember to overfill it so you can sand it back without leaving a dimple.

So while this all dries, let's take a little plum break.

It's looking like a fairly small crop this year, but I also thought that last year and ended up with a ton of them so I guess we'll see.

And speaking of things to do outside while we're waiting for the caulking and filler to dry, let's take care of this light fixture.

It doesn't look that bad from below, and I thought I might be able to fix it with some epoxy putty but uhh...

I think I'll fix it with a new fixture instead.

That's much better. Hopefully this one lasts a bit longer.

Next up is the paint. After a quick blueberry break of course.

These are a "pink lemonade" variety and last year I lost the entire crop to some animal that came by one night and cleared out the entire bush. I've been keeping on top of munching them myself this year so as not to repeat that incident.

Anyway, I still have half a bucket of paint left over from when I redid the front of the house a few years ago, which should still be good.

Hmm, this might need a bit of stirring.

There we go, good as new. Now we slap it on the wall and while it's not a perfect match, it blends in well enough.

Then we just finish up by putting the last coat of white paint on the trim.

Which, granted, doesn't look that much different from here but trust me, when you get up close it looks a lot better.