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  • Ant Issues

    So awhile back I noticed that ants had been making a track into the attic. I put some bait traps out and then I saw them on the other north side window. I sprayed it and tons of dead ant bodies fell out and I thought that would be it. I had seen them inside too when I put in the new liter box, the little fuckers got in there and I think they bit Sammy, henceforth her aversion to it.

    As I was pulling baseboards from the room I decided to pull the baseboard under the sill. As I pulled it off, there were ants starting to stream out. I ran to the RV and got the home defense spray and started the chemical warfare. A quart later the bodies have piled up and I’m guessing that I have to drill into the wall and spray and now it’s time to figure that out.

    Finally decided to drill into the wall and deliver some void injection poison to them.

    Blank spray. 3d illustration isolated on white background

  • Making Progress

    Made a trek to Harbor Freight today and continued progress on the back room. Needed a scraper that was longer than 12 inches so got the 48 inch floor scraper. It made short work of scraping the floor and getting the remnants of carpet padding and glue off the floor. Still a bit of work to do there and then the closet needs to be cleaned out and the carpet in there pulled. I’m also pulling the baseboards and will redo/replace as needed but painting is going to be super easy, no baseboards, not worried about the floor since it’s concrete and the minimal other things are easy to tape.

    I’m enjoying the ‘Inside Track Club’ from Harbor Freight too much. Aside from the 4 foot scraper, I got a 100 set of bits for the house, another 33 piece set for the RV/spare. Knee pads for the upcoming flooring job as well as a set of hole saws and two 15 foot extension cords. All for $65. The fact that you can use the app to make a list and then it tells you the aisle. Mind you that just slightly narrows it down but at least it’s a start.

  • Home Improvement

    We started off the day on our Sunday bike ride of about 12 or so miles on the river side trail. It was nice

    Got home and I got the rest of the carpet pulled up in the back room and laundry in process. The Cowboy’s play this afternoon and we’ll see if they can’t stack up against the Raven’s who are limping into Jones World at 0-2.

  • Thoughts on Mortality

    As the years drift by and my body tells me it’s getting older by triggering pain receptors in various points and parts of my body, my thoughts are increasingly turning towards the inevitable end. We’re seeing peers die, a close friend of mine (Tony) has been dead a year and a half already. We lost two female members of our graduating class to cancer in the span of a day a couple of months back.

    And of course watching our parents age is an incredibly eye opening and horrifying realization of what’s to come. It’s playing on my mind and recently more heavily and pervasively. To the point I look at my cats and almost tear up thinking of a horrible day (hopefully years away) that I’ll have to say goodbye to them for the last time.

    So in this pensive state I’m considering the process of dying. I mean that starts as soon as we’re born but I’m now more concerned about the actual transition between living and dying and then what’s after that. And the thing I’m stuck by most is that I don’t think of believe that there’s anything after. Death is the end, the body dies and that’s it, there isn’t a heaven or hell, there isn’t anything at all. It’s horrifying that this life and all the lessons learned are gone.

    But it’s been like this forever, we created religions to ease the scary thoughts of what happens after passing. I’ve started planning for my eventual passing so that it’s going to be easier on those left behind. I think that may help in my anxiety on the subject, hopefully.

  • Bauer Vs Ryobi

    While I still feel that DeWalt is the de-facto standard when it comes to cordless tools, I’ve always had a soft spot for Ryobi. They’re less expensive and for what I do, they’ve always been perfect. But the one thing that’s always bothered me is the cost of the ‘real’ batteries. Like $90 apiece and you can’t really trust the aftermarket ones or I haven’t figured out where to source those from.

    Now I spend a good amount of time in Harbor Freight and they have the comparable 20v Bauer tools and they’re inexpensive when compared to Ryobi even if completely incompatible with the Ryobi 18v. Also, when I bought most of my Ryobi tools, the concept of a brush-less motor hadn’t set in the way it has today so not only does it have 10% more voltage but I’d be getting brush-less motor tools.

    They have a deal getting a 5 AH battery with charger and a free tool for $90. I’d get the circular saw since it’s the most expensive and then buy the ones I don’t have a Ryobi counterpart of…

  • Contract Opportunities

    So it seems that Oracle has changed the amount of time your data is available after contract end for Taleo. Prior to September it was 60 days, after the change in fiscal year it’s now 30 days. This (of course) has thrown a wrench into a lot of works and seems to be facilitating a surge in the need of TCC integration folks. Think of it as the last rays of sun before it sets behind the front range of Colorado, it’ll be dark soon.

    What this means for me is that I get to dust of Sarondy LLC and do a bit of contract work, maybe. I still have yet to see the SOW I’d be contracting under so we’ll see how that all shakes out. This would be a new one for me and I do understand the pitfalls of being responsible for taxes. I’m hoping to set it up so the company bills and receives payment and then pays me for the work. I get paid and the company makes money. I could technically end the year with a profitable company!

  • Oil Change Complete

    It’s been 9300 miles and even though the truck said I still have 23% on the oil I changed it. I think 8k is the sweet spot. The oil was extremely black but then again it was last time too. This time there were only a couple drops spilled. That was from the removal of the plug. The oil filter plug was a game changer on the filter change. Not a drop spilled with that. I still have to install the FASS fuel filter when the heat breaks.

    I interviewed today for a position as a contractor doing TCC stuff. I’m happy I have the LLC (Sarondy) because it’s a 1099 position but I’d have to get insurance which is something like $50 a month for 1 million. I’m still thinking about it.

  • Storage Racks

    I’m sort of in the process of spring cleaning as we’re coming into fall. My thought is that if I start now I stand a chance of maybe having spring cleaning done by spring. Also starting a workout regime to have a summer body but that’s another post. But the premise is that I took everything out of the closet in the office and have replaced it with a storage rack which fits 27 gallon storage totes mostly. The rack has 4 shelves with 3 bins per rack or 12 bins (324 gallons) of storage. I’ve put most of the stuff that was in the closet back in using 4 bins maybe 5 when it’s all said and done with. So it effectively doubles the storage capacity. It looks a little odd but I’m not complaining.

  • Gap Year At An End

    Today is one year and a day since I left ThinkTalent. It’s time to get back at it and find a company I can run with for the next 10 years. I’m going to do the Azure for data analytics & administration and devops.

    I’m working on putting the racks together for a storage solution and I thought that the Member’s Mark storage totes were the same as the two HDX totes I had, they weren’t and didn’t fit in the rack properly. So I went to Home Depot and got the HDX and they still didn’t fit properly. But it’s close enough and works for me.

  • Uneventful Sunday

    Did a pedestrian 10 mile bike ride this morning. We were going to go to Dallas and do the Katy trail but some research showed that eBikes were to be turned off for the ride and that didn’t seem like much fun so it was just around the mall and hood.

    Also got the knobs for the tub and the project is now done done. Well there’s probably the caulking that needs to be done but the plumbing is done.

    I did get the storage rack put together and in the closet of the office. It looks like I can fit 12 27 gallon storage totes in there, I’m off to Sam’s club tomorrow to get the totes. This is exciting because it should allow for indoor storage of pretty much everything I’ve got. That means things will be clean enough to get started and finish the things I wanted to get done.