Bathshroom

So I think the previous owner probably DIY'd the bathroom reno, or at least hired someone fantastically unqualified. There's a lot of cheap materials and poorly executed installation. For example, when installing tile, one should never apply grout in the corners, and especially not along the bottom edge where the tile meets the shower pan. Of course, both locations were grouted. I had caulked over top of it when I moved in because pieces of grout were falling out (which is one of the reasons you don't use grout in these locations) and I had some hopes that this might tide me over until I rip this bathroom out and redo it some years down the road.

Sadly, while the caulking looks fine, it was not quite sufficient.

People tend to think that tile is waterproof, but in fact the waterproof layer is behind the tiles. Water can and will get behind the tile, and from there it'll drip down onto the rim of the shower pan. It's important to manage this water properly to keep it contained, and I had at least made an attempt by omitting the caulking at the last inch next to the shower doors, as one should.

But this was clearly insufficient, given that a day or two ago I found a mushroom growing out of the destroyed MDF baseboard. Never use MDF baseboard in a bathroom.

I had hoped that the leaks had stopped and the decay of the baseboard had been halted, but clearly it was time for a bit more of an invasive intervention, and that starts with removing the caulk.

And then removing the misapplied grout.

I managed to get some pieces fully out, but the rest can just live behind the tile until I reno this bathroom properly and redo this whole mess.

So now that I've cleared out this section, we can get a better look at the gap along the bottom that should not be filled with grout.

And the portal to Narnia that leads behind the shower door and out the side of the shower pan.

We'll need to fully fill this spot with caulking to keep the water from getting out of the shower pan.

And we'll also need to do the same on the other end of the shower, though the gap between the pan and the tile was quite a bit smaller here, which necessitated breaking out the Girl's Best Friend.

Though with the grout saw blade in place of the usual conjugal attachment.

And after a little clean-up, we're ready for caulking.

The caulk I'll be using today is a sanded caulk which is colour matched to blend in perfectly with the grout. I know this is exactly the right colour to match the grout because I had to regrout half the tiles shortly after moving in, around the same time I did the first round of caulking. Did I mention these tiles were installed wrong?

Of course, we'll be leaving the very important drainage gap next to the caulk dam that's hopefully going to keep the water inside the shower pan.

And with any luck once the caulk is cured, it'll do its job.

At least it looks good.

Bubblin' Crude

It's time for an oil change in the PedoVan again. I got kind of sick of paying $1000 at the dealer (granted I'd usually be getting something else taken care of at the same time, but still) so instead I just bought $150 of oil and decided to do it myself.

I technically only needed 13 quarts, but they only sell boxes of 6. It's kind of like a hot dogs vs buns thing, I guess.

Anyway, the first challenge is to reach the oil drain plug. It's gonna be a challenge to get under there but I think I might just be able to reach.

And with the plug removed, we drain the van of its precious life blood.

The oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.

While that's doing its thing, I also need to replace the oil filter. Obviously vans are very difficult to work on and this one is no different, just look at how tricky it is to reach the oil filter here!

The lengths I had to go to in order to access the oil filter housing was just astounding.

On the bright side, there's no finely ground bits of engine in here. The oil is very black, but that's par for the course with diesels: they get a lot of soot in the oil.

Did I mention that I had to buy a larger oil catch pan for this job?

The new one is... adequate. Just barely.

On the subject of new things, the new oil filter goes into place nice and easy, as do the fresh new o-rings.

And also on the subject of fresh new things, I naturally forgot to buy a new crush washer. Luckily copper can be annealed pretty easily with the application of some heat.

So from there it's just a simple matter of plugging up the holes and refilling the engine with 13 bottles of oil.

And cleaning up this mess, which was made all the messier by one of my government-issued oil recycling milk jugs having disintegrated and cracked all the way up one side, which I didn't notice until it was half way filled.

Thankfully I had the foresight to do all of the transferring in this tub, so it didn't turn into an Exxon Valdez moment. The tub, drain pans and so on got cleaned up pretty easily with oil dry and a bit of simple green, and now I just have to hope that the recycling guy drops off some containers in better shape for next time.

Blot Out The Sun

So it's new sunglasses time.

I decided to go with Tifosi this time since I've had good luck with using their sunglasses for cycling. I wasn't entirely thrilled with the Suncloud pair I was using previously, particularly the part where they were about to snap in two and fall off my face.

So it's good to avoid that.

Anyway, I also decided to pick up this too.

Which is a set of MTB goggles.

With a lovely purple lens plus a clear lens I can swap in if I need to. MTB goggles are designed to better guard against rocks and crud bouncing up into your eyes, which can happen with regular sunglasses that just sit in front of your face.

I've occasionally had issues with mud flicking up under my sunglasses when riding in the winter, so we'll see how well this works out I guess.

A Little Off The Top

So there was some question after my last post as to what exactly I needed a hedge trimmer for, since my property is largely devoid of hedge-like plants. Well, one thing I'll be using it for is deadheading my yarrow.

You see this mess? Well now I can take care of it.

Ah, that was so much easier than pruning it by hand.

Of course there's also the stuff along the retaining wall.

Which would have been a more dramatic transformation had I not already deadheaded most of the summer growth a few weeks ago.

Out in the front yard, the trimmer does a great job of cleaning up the sprawling ornamental grasses.

This one in particular tends to intrude upon the sidewalk a little more than I'd like if I just let it grow unchecked.

But it only takes less than a minute to trim the beard back.

And a few more minutes to rake up the remains.

There's another one of these next to my driveway, which could use a little trim.

Though it's a fair bit smaller and less unruly.

I'll also be using this hedge trimmer to knock back the baby sage in the front yard. I cut it back to about an 8 inch stump every fall, and by the next fall it's back to a giant, leggy 5 foot wide mound of shrubbery again, crowding out the neighbouring plants. But it's not quite time to prune that one, so it'll have to wait for a future blog update.

Cordless Electric Automatic Defingerer

If ever you feel at some point in your life that you have too many fingers, and that they have become entirely too burdensome and weigh heavy on your soul, then I have good news for you: technology has the answer you've been waiting for.

This miracle of the modern age is the Greenworks 40v 24 inch hedge trimmer, which I can only assume is a clever euphemism for a finger removal device. This particular example was found on ebay and advertised as "ready to use".

That sure is a lot of rust for something that's supposedly "ready to use". I guess this will take a little bit of work before I can put it into service removing extraneous fingers.

On the plus side, it did come with free mud daubers.

Somewhat irritatingly, the case around the motor needs to be disassembled in order to properly separate the blades, so off comes the handle, the guard, and out come the screws.

It's a standard brushed DC motor inside, no fancy brushless setup here.

Speaking of all those screws I pulled out, they're going to go for a little swim in some evaporust.

Not the blades and runners, though. Mostly because I don't really have a container that's the right shape to soak them in, but also because I want to make sure the mating surfaces are polished nice and smooth.

And they definitely need some polishing. For that job, I'll be using the 3m purple scotch-brite stripping disc. The silicon carbide abrasive cuts through rust and mill scale and paint and whatever else really quickly, but only polishes the steel underneath without removing a noticeable amount of material.

The key is to use a very light touch, as the disc will just chew itself to bits if you bear down hard on it. It is mostly plastic after all.

Anyway, after a bit of work the blades and runners are nice and shiny with no signs of the rust that they were previously caked in.

And to keep it that way, a little Boeshield is just what the doctor ordered.

Anyway, the hardware is going to need to steep in the rustoleum for about 24 hours before it's cleaned up, so let's go bake some cookies.

I used some Ghiradelli chocolate chips this time, because I felt like changing things up a little from the Guittard chips that I usually get and not at all just because the Safeway I usually shop at was completely out of their entire stock of Guittard chocolate chips. The flatter, coin-shaped Ghiradelli chips made an interesting pattern of chocolate fault-line inclusions rather than the more defined chip shape that the conical Guittard chips yield. Neat.

Anyway, the hardware is looking good the next day.

And with a quick rinse it's ready for reassembly.

The blades and runners get bolted back together in the reverse order of disassembly.

Then the case gets reassembled.

And with the battery snapped into place, it's ready to slice some fingers off! Huzzah!

The Shrinks

So I've had my iPad for a fair few years now, and it's served me rather well.

Unfortunately I neglected to take it out of my pocket when I was doing laundry today, and after going through the washer and dryer it shrunk considerably.

In all seriousness though, my iPad hadn't been getting a lot of use since I started using my Macbook Air as a couch computer, given that the iPad and MBA are so similar in size and the MBA has a keyboard and stands up on its own without a stand.

As such, since it was getting long in the tooth, it made a lot more sense to move things down a size or two to better slot it in between my MBA and my iPhone. The iPad Mini, being about the size of a book (or an e-reader for you iPad kids that have never seen a paper book in your life), made a lot of sense.

From there the only remaining decision was whether to get the new model or a refurb of the old one. While there's something to be said for grabbing the latest and greatest (optimizing for the longest supported life, getting more storage, RAM, CPU speed etc), I decided that the compatibility with my Apple Pencil would be the deciding factor for going with the older refurb. It meant I wouldn't have to spend another $130 or so over top of the cost of the full priced iPad in order to maintain my stylusability.

As for the old iPad, it is not destined for the dusty e-waste drawer just yet. It will be finding a new loving home soon.

Functional Embellishment

It will perhaps be no surprise to hear that I'm not especially prone to flights of decorative fancy. You might wonder, then, what use I would have for something as whimsical as an embroidery machine.

Well, let me tell you.

I have a queen size bed. That means that my mattress is 60 inches wide and 80 inches long, which is dangerously close to square but still nowhere near rotationally symmetrical in practical terms.

That means that when it comes to fitted sheets, it can be quite a chore to figure out which is the long side and which is the short side.

But, no more.

I've actually been planning to do this for a while, but only got around to it today. I was inspired by one set of fitted sheets I got that had a little tag sewn into the hem in 4 places. Two of the tags said "Side" and two said "Top or Bottom" even though "End" would have been just as clear and much shorter, but whatever.

The "Top or Bottom" tags were kind of redundant but I frequently used the "Side" tags to orient myself when folding the sheets or fitting them to my mattress.

Now since a fitted sheet is, shall we say, quite large, I used a technique where you first baste the material to be sewn onto the embroidery stabilizer, rather than hooping them both together which can be a bit challenging to align.

Then it's into the machine to let it do its work.

This is a tear-away stabilizer, so once the stitching is done it just rips off where the needle perforated it.

And then the label is stitched on, in nice big letters that are exceptionally easy to find when you're half tangled in the sheet trying to orient it properly.

On both sides, of course.

The only downside is that it took me a few hours to do all four fitted sheets I own (most of that time was spent faffing about getting things aligned, basted in place, stabilizer torn away, etc. The stitching only took about 5 minutes at a time), and so now I've been staring at the word "Side" for so long that the letters have lost their meaning.