penitentiaries.

today i spent the majority of it sitting in my car and looking at storage facilities.

is there some unspoken rule about them having to be completely in the ghetto? i mean good gracious some of those places are sketchy. nothing like barbed wire to evoke trust in people...yeesh. they look like maximum penitentiaries.

source

i literally went to 7 storage places today.

the first one i talked to someone on the phone and then went to see them. holy sketch vegas. not to mention their gate is only open from 8-6. how is that even useful?

the second one went well. very nice husband and wife run company. she was super sweet and loved me.

the third one was okay. kind of treacherous. not the facility, the riding around on the golf cart throughout the facility.

the fourth one i drove up to it and immediately turned around. didn't even get out of the car. ran.away. not too mention there was no way the truck would fit.

the fifth one was actually the winner. close to home, friendly, nice neighborhood, good price.

the sixth one didn't have any drive up units so i drove away from that one.

the seventh one was expensive and convenient. but expensive.

the fun game is that none of these offices open until 930. which makes it difficult to go view them. weeeeeeeeee. awesome. so that was my entire day.

aside from stopping at starbuck's and drinking caffeine. making phone calls. you know the basic day for this kid.

yay moving. shoot.me.in.the.face.

not yet anyway...

ciao.

deadbeat.

that's a lot of red.

remember that to do list i told you about?

well let's pile on some more things to it shall we? just as i thought it was almost completed.

son of a....

things got really interesting yesterday.

our landlord, who is a wonderful talented and amazing human being (NOT), has found himself in some financial trouble. which does not translate into awesomeness for us. not even in the least. not even a tiny, minuscule, minute, wee bit.

fantabulous.

side note: i do not like ray lamontange. realized that about 10 seconds too late. thanks for nothing pandora...i kid, i love you, please don't ever stop playing your delicious music to me.

now where were we? oh yes, deadbeat landlords.

financial trouble you might ask? well. the list is long and obnoxious so i won't bore you with the details. and poor darwin has to take the brunt of it...

mainly because i like to scheme our power bills. listen, i am all about paying my bills, especially when they are delivered in a timely manner, and are full of things that i have purchased/used. now i get cranky when i am asked to pay for things that i did not break/purchase/use. (ask darwin about the new land rover some time, he can tell you how perturbed i was about that one...)

so we have this long standing feud with our LL about our power bill (LL=landlord). so we moved into our shop in the middle of august, but were fully in september 1. so now. here's the fun part. he hands us a power bill dated...wait for it...july-august.

um no.

not relavent, but funny nonetheless.

so we pay it, because LL has no money, because he apparently spent it all on floozies and michelob ultra (that is not true, well it could be, but i have no proof of that...except the mich ultra...). i then deduct that bill from our rent check. seems logical, no? not to redneck LLs.

darwin calms him and explains it....which only requires about 10 minutes of breathe, but about 3 hours of actual time spent, because you know you have to listen to LL bitch and moan for approximated 2 hours and 50 minutes....

i proceed to do this on all our rent checks...poor darwin must endure this each month.

well let's stroll right along to april...that tactic didn't go over so well. and by so well i mean not at all. LL gets all uppity and in darwin's face about this deduction maneuver i use. he says i quote "if you don't want to pay the rent, then leave."

second favorite quote: "she's (me) your problem. i got rid of mine a long time ago. you can deal with her." why thank you for thinking so highly of me mr. LL.

well played sir...looks like we will be leaving. ASAFP. emphasis on the F.

"later boners"...always sunny in philadelphia. 

so new task...find somewhere to go.

happy spring to us. i think we may have found the solution, but it is going to make april even  busier than that awesome 2 page list.

ciao.

gif source penguin
gif source

duties.

have you ever made a to do list that is so daunting that you begin to panic when you look at it?

i did that today.

it is two pages long.

it spans an entire month (almost).

it is for one job.

ONE JOB.

and it's not even the every step of this job. nope. it's the end of the job. that last hurrah if you will.

it's exhausting to think about.

i mean two pages for one month isn't so terrible. but the task of updating it per every phone call, e-mail, fax, human interaction, and any and all information pertinent to this list of awesomeness.

so cheers to april. at least i'll have things to keep me busy. by things, i mean this list.

oh and you know managing the bank account, answering the phone, paying the bills relatively on time, and whatever else falls into my realm of duties...

ciao.

paperwork.

it's monday and we are back here again:

paperwork.

can there be some sort of paperwork fairy that flies around with her/his magic wand and dust making all the paperwork be done, sorted, and handled accordingly?

i don't like being that magic fairy anymore. well let me restate that. i am okay with doing the paperwork once. even twice if i've got too, but we are on round 7, i believe, of getting this paperwork correct.

preferably not this guy...

do you know how many notaries that has required and how much time has been spent fighting with the printer, driving to a notary, driving to the post office, scanning paperwork, etc? no? me neither, and i frankly do not want to know.

after being on the phone with their lovely office administrator for this project, i believe (again i've certainly said this before) we have finally turned in the proper paperwork.

aside from that. it is beautiful here. so pretty in fact that i had my first pool day of the season yesterday. i am so excited that it is almost acceptable to be at the pool all day every weekend. because that means i can be in a swimsuit at all times. we all know what my main goal in life is: be somewhere where wearing swimsuits is acceptable at all times of the day...

it's been a rather uneventful few days around here. darwin was out of town friday, which meant that paperwork that needed to be turned in before he left was ultimately wrong and i had to hunt him down before he actually skiddadled (absolutely a word, i don't care what the dictionary says) out of town. so that was a fun morning for me. because it didn't just mean finding him to resign things, it meant fighting the printer as well. which always turns out to be a graceful affair for this kid...not. sailor like language, multiple head bangings, a lot of unplugging/plugging back in, and of course the occasional kicking and screaming at it. woosah. woosah. not so much.

here is a picture of a piece i was working on for darwin as a surprise. it still needs one more coat of finish. i have drawn up a couple of bases, so hopefully this piece can come together.

see that stack behind this? that's what i sifted and sorted through to get the heart pine the other day...

we've got a new set of pieces on our website (urbanreclaimed.com). it is a "matching" set of end tables. i say matching because they are from the same tree, but they are not exact matches on dimension. they are BEAUTIFUL though.... go.look.at.them.NOW

that's about all i got for the time being folks. not a very entertaining post i realize, but i am serious about the paperwork fairy. i'll chip in some meager coin for that to come to fruition. 

ciao. 

p.s. look at me with two pictures in one post...woaaaaah

toothfairsource

3rd times a charm.

two things that are the absolute devil:

1. pay applications
2. retainage

i realize that there are probably (actually) a lot more things than that fall into the "absolute devil" category, but those are what i have been dealing with for the past 5 days.

it only comes to be an issue on the last possible day to get everything turned in. because of course it makes that much more sense for it to happen then.

old school notary.

they wouldn't be nearly as bad if they a. didn't have to be notarized and b. they weren't such a pain in the butt to refill out. and we could throw c. in there for shits and giggles of that no one tells you your shit is wrong until the last possible second....(yes two shits in one sentence, i apologize for my sailor like vocabulary - it comes with the territory)

by the way, this is only the 2nd pay-app that has gone horribly awry. we are batting 2 for 2 folks. 2 for 2. we only have 2 more that will need to be filled out...odds are not in our favor this round.

aside from that horror story everything has been pretty back to normal around here.

you know the usual - breaking trucks/fixing trucks, outfitting both trucks with new tires (ouch...), selling our souls to millwork to make sure things get done on time, laughing hysterical until crying (one of my favorites)...

and and and IT'S FINALLY WARM! if you only knew how excited this makes me. shorts, flip flops, sundresses, skirts, ludicrously loud colors, and of course: SWIM SUITS! (you should all be very proud of me, i have not bought one swimsuit this year. -i will also not point out the inordinate amount of them i already own)

if you were wondering: yes i managed to velvit oil 500SF heart pine and 650LF of walnut all by myself.

now with fingers and toes crossed i think we have passed the difficult part of this job (knock on some serious wood folks). aside from well ya know the pay-apps and the rest of the job we have to finish...

disclaimer: i wrote this on tuesday. i am just now finishing it today.

stupid pay-app.

i literally skidded to a halt in front of their office at 4:15. busted through the doors and almost threw the paperwork at them.

to preface: i had already driven all over town to meet darwin (very unsuccessfully in my book - i'm usually really good at time management, not so much tuesday). why did i have to meet darwin? because we had to redo the pay-app for the THIRD time. yes folks 3 times. what a mess.

so once we finally got everything re-notarized, i had to haul tail to their office to drop off paperwork. luckily where we got the pay-app notarized was only about a 10 minute drive there. a harrowing 10 minute drive, but 10 minutes nonetheless.

so fingers and toes crossed. but i think we made it just in the nick of time.

oh and guess what we did yesterday...bought another tire. yes, you read that right. another tire....this one at least was for the deckover.

ciao. 



picture

the proverbial fan.

remember that time i told you that darwin was going out of town and it was time to get all of our ducks in a row as to ensure things ran smoothly and there were no crises (yes that is plural of crisis and yes i realize that it looks stupid) that i would have to handle.

well. we all know how that usually turns out. shit hitting the proverbial fan. and yes, you guessed it. shit.hit.the.fan.

that sure is some nice manure you have there good sir.

as i told you before, we had a big job that we shipped out a week ago. we were so happy that we got everything done on time and delivered without too many surprises. well, SURPRISE. they under-ordered or someone missed a take-off section. neither here nor there, but they were short material.

guess who got to solve that dilemma? if you guessed me, then you are correct.

want to know what involved solving that dilemma?

-schlepping heart pine
-reschlepping heart pine
-selling my soul to millwork
-reselling my soul to millwork
-bombing around kennesaw while my soul was at millwork
-SOOOOO MUCH CAFFEINE
-getting home at 630 on a friday
-getting up at 6 on a saturday
-finding out the finishing guy has a chest cold and you are now in charge of finishing 500SF
-praia rolling in compost heap waste
-showering off compost heap waste
-trying not to vomit while showering off compost heap waste
-schlepping more heart pine
-breaking into a 5 gallon container of velvit oil (crow bar and screw drivers involved)
-lining up over 500SF of heart pine (over 10' long)
-crouching around wiping on velvit oil
-trying not to die of velvit oil inhalation

you know the usual.

and you know what made it all worth it? well aside from satisfaction and pride: getting to do it all again today.

i really should add heart pine schlepper to my resume (right under fork lift extractor. i should also really come up with more glamorous names for these things.)

now comes the fun part. selling my soul to millwork again tomorrow to get 650LF of walnut run so that i can finish it tomorrow so that all this material can ship out wednesday morning bright and early.

wish me luck.

ciao. 


**picture

the scream heard round the world.

well folks darwin is going out of town tomorrow. that means two things inevitably.

1. i will be running the company
2. something will go wrong

there is another list of things as well: we will be running around like chickens with our heads cut off to make sure everything gets done, i won't be able to leave like i previously thought, etc. etc.

i try when darwin is out of town to also be out of town. it makes logistics much easier. people respond well to the shop is closed and will reopen on this day. notsomuch to darwin is out of town and i can't exactly help you....

needless to say this all comes up at the end of a big job where paperwork is necessary to have turned in before friday of this week, which translates to get everything done before tomorrow morning because darwin has a flight to catch in the wee hours. no big deal...

because this is funnier than the original.

except that part of the paperwork has to be notarized and if we don't do it right the first time...well you will be able to hear darwin scream from arizona and me start to sob from atlanta. lots of dollars will be put on hold, and well frankly we can't afford that to happen.

this day could get interesting folks. very interesting. and it's only 7a.m. i've been up since 6. i am already not looking forward to the days events.

last week darwin and i put a combined 1,000 miles on the trucks. most of it was me, in keisha. i was in the truck one morning from 8 until 6 that night. i love driving the trucks, but somedays the commute back into atlanta is absolutely more than i can bear. you become like a little kid at the very end of a car ride to start your vacation, except less excited and more annoying, and when you finally arrive home you don't want to do anything but lay down.

not to mention last friday i took keisha to get an oil change and then thought hey i'll be nice and take her to get her tires rotated because darwin has been talking about it non-stop for the past 2 weeks. a few bills later, a couple of hours of time spent in a waiting room, and keisha has four new tires...not exactly the outcome i was expecting....

turns out dually trucks are expensive to run...who knew?

ciao.


photo source