Super Moon Tuesday

I have to say it, Neither Dianna nor I were impressed with the super moon last night. We both agreed we've seen bigger and more impressive plain old harvest moons down here. Maybe if you were somewhere else it would have been more impressive. Anyway, it gave us a title for today's posting on 15 November, 2016.

Parging the Waterfall Face

I'm not sure why they're parging (plastering) the face of the waterfall blocks. Myself, I would have just started buttering the tiles and gone for it. I'm sure there's a good reason for it. I'll see I can find what that is.

Found out about the plastering. It's because the corner angle isn't right and the tiles won't come out right without doing it. Not sure I understand, but hey, it'll all work out all right. Right?

Anyway, I think the waterfall is going to be impressive.

Facing Tiles on Spa Seating

This time, we're doing the tiles on the stairs and the spa seating a little differently than before. For those of you who had been in the pool before, remember the tile was 3" and there were two of them on top of the steps with none on the face, so, that if you were in the pool, it could be hard to see the steps. The spa seating was totally covered with 3" tile. This made for a slick seating surface.

Now, as you can see, there will be a 1" tile line around the top with a 2" line on the face. The Diamond Brite will be much smoother. It might make for a more relaxing surface. The tiles for the steps will be done the same way.

Carpentry Shop Starting Up

This is a short-term part of the project. The carpentry shop is now working on the framing for the screen windows for the pool. The shade cloth we had used for our awning is still in such good condition that the guys will be able to use most if not all of it for the windows, saving a bundle of cash.

My Contribution to the Project

My own contribution to the project this morning. One of Isaiel's custom hose hangers that we have all over the place. Now all I  have to do is get a kink-free hose and good nozzle. We'll be ready to go.

Waterfall Outfall

This is the pipe that leads outside to the waterfall itself. It's going to be tricky. I'm hoping I can get up on the scaffold tomorrow and take a photo or two to show how it's going to work.

Trial Fitting Screen Frame

First trial fitting of the first window screen. I think they're going to look good - even better with the shade cloth in them.

Working On the Second Screen Frame

You can see Endher working on the second screen frame. That is going to be really nice. Rene is moving right along with the tile in the pool. It's looking good too.

Moving Screen Frame

Last bit of the work day. The carpentry shop has been busy sanding and fitting screen frames, well at least the first two of them. Here the frame is being moved under the palapa for the evening. The other frame, still on the ground will be going for a trial fitting next.

Trial Fitting Screen Frame

And here that frame is being squeezed into place. I am so looking forward to the screens being in place.

Pool House Expansion Project, Day 81 - 85 - 15-19/01/16

Painting, Tiling, Repairs, and Hose Hangers

Days Eighty One To Eighty Five, 15 - 19 January, 2016

Finally getting some color into the inside of the house. This is a blue-colored cement wash. I think it's the second coat here.

Bedroom Is Becoming Blue

Brand new 24" tile cutter. Unfortunately, it doesn't work so well for porcelain tile. The tile is too hard and brittle to make a really clean cut with it. So, the guys are continuing to use their electric grinding wheel to cut the floor tile. It works well, just dangerous and very noisy. Dangerous, because here in Belize, the first thing you do upon getting a new grinder is to take the safety guard off of it.

Brand New 24" Tile Cutter

Here's a shot of the floor tile in the east walkway. It's getting close to being done.

East Side Walkway Is Getting There

George is sprinkling water over the concrete floor prior to applying Thinset. Even with careful sweeping, there's still a fine layer of dust that, unless you wet it, can interfere with the Thinset adhesive qualities.

George Sprinkling Water Prior To Spreading Thinset

Had a bit of a brain-fart this morning. I had talked with Dianna about the subway tile for the shower. Somehow, the measurement of 5" x 7" came up as being the dimensions of the tile. So, I headed off into town to get fourteen square meters of five-by-seven inch, white, subway tile.

I went to Villa's Imports, Lano's Hardware - downtown and in Ranchito, Cinty's - Junior's and the younger brother's, Chan's Hardware out on San Andres Road, and to Creative Tile. No one had five-by-seven inch tile. Several had 8" x 12", but that wasn't what I needed... Or, was it?

After I got back home, I was side-tracked doing something else, when it hit me, that maybe I should measure the subway tiles already up in the original pool house shower.

Hmmmph. Whaddya know? It's eight by twelve. Stupid stuff anyway, I thought to myself.

So, it was back to Creative Tile to get eight-by-twelve inch, white, subway tile. Enough to cover 14 square meters, about ten boxes.

So, the total comes up to be $180 BZD or so. I dig into my wallet. Ooops. Five bucks short. No problem. I'll just use plastic. Except there is a problem. Using plastic of any flavor, the cost goes up to $200. Seems there's a twenty percent discount to use cash.

I told the girl, "Twenty percent is twenty percent. I'll be back." I jumped back in the Sport Trac and headed home for some more cash.

Here's the result after completing the transaction at Creative. Ten boxes of eight-by-twelve, white, subway tile. The grout in the picture wasn't part of this deal. It's just there for effect.

Shower Tile and Bags of Grout

A fancy angle in the walkway tiling project. It kinda pissed off both Dianna and me that they were wasting time with fancy cuts, when we just want to get the job done, till we found out from Omar that, no, it's not a fancy cut just to be fancy, it's necessary because of the built-in slope of one-quarter inch toward the outside, all the way around the walkway.

Oh. OK. Well, in that case, you're doing a damned fine job. Keep up the good work.

They Got Fancy On Us

Here's a look at the floor tile in the area by where the sliding glass doors will be that we're calling the veranda.

Tile Up To Where Sliding Glass Doors Will Be

That is one fine looking tile, if I do say so myself.

West Side Walkway Getting There As Well

And now the interior wood-look tile (also porcelain) is being set.

Shot of the Main Tile Work

In the dining room, the baseboard area had to be refinished because when the baseboard tile was taken up, it pulled quite a bit of the backing block concrete and left gouges and some holes in its place.

Dining Room Baseboard Area Refinished

Errol did the baseboard repairs and here he's patching some nail and screw holes prior to applying some new paint in the dining room.

Errol Patching Dining Room Wall Holes

The walkway on the west side is nearing the stage where they can begin grouting. That should move along fast as we're allowing only an eighth-of-an-inch between tiles.

Looking Down the Walkway

The east-side walkway tiles are speedily nearing completion as well. Here, Dianna is sneaking a peek around to the south-side walkway.

Dianna Looking Down the South Walkway

Is that just fine looking. I can't wait till it's done.

Almost Ready For Grout

The living room tiling is moving right along. That is going to be just spectacular, I think.

Living Room Another Angle

Here's what Dianna was peeking around to see. The south-side walkway. Still needs some tile to be applied, but is close to completion as well.

South Walkway Needs more Tile

Errol has been busy painting the dining room. There's two different shades of blue there. Your eyes aren't playing tricks with you.

Dining Room New Paint

Tile in the office is better than half-way done.

Tiling the Office

While all that was going on, I re-hung the water hose hanger on the back of the pool house and strapped the PVC pipe to the hanger to prevent it becoming broken.

Rehung Water Hose Hanger

There's many more photos than appear in each posting. You can see all the photos of the construction project on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/gp/winjama/0wVc3s. There will be new photos added each day of the project.   

And Not A Moment Too Soon

It's time for another 'grab-bag Sunday.' And... Whatever I was going to write has just gone up in smoke.

I'm not sure how this is going to go... I just lost everything I had written - several paragraphs and all the photos. Gone in an instant. Technology allows you to destroy stuff quicker than the blink of an eye. In fact, damn near instantaneously. It's so quick, you just sit there staring at your blank screen for a few seconds, thinking "Now, that didn't really just happen, did it?" Then, your brain springs into action, trying to come up with some really pertinent medieval profanity, with the intent being to, one, equalize the pressure between your ears and, two, that somehow, uttering a string of favorite cuss words will instantly restore the now missing words to the screen. Of course, it never does.

The scene shifts slightly, going forward in time several hours, about 24 of them in fact. I wasn't relishing trying to resurrect what I had already written, and the satellite Intertubes decided that I couldn't load even one web page without waiting for hours to pass. So, I gave up till this morning. It always seems to magically ease up download and upload capability during the 'free time', from 2 to 7 AM, Eastern Standard Time. Thanks HughesNet. You're really great.

Nothing I like better than trying to recreate something that was almost done, and yes, I had hit the 'Save' button... several times. Arrrgh! I had gone into the inner workings of the blog to adjust the HTML and [blip] everything disappeared and there was no way to resurrect it.

Oh, well. Take a deep breath, have a cup of coffee and start over. Reload the photos and try to remember the witty narrative I had carefully constructed. Not a problem. So, after having trashed everything I had written yesterday morning, let's see how far I get on re-writing it.

A while back, like in June I think, the Citizens Coalition for a Better Corozal had donated several items to the Corozal Police Department. Handcuffs, batons and five brand new bicycles. All with the idea that this would help combat the growing crime rates in our town. I kept a watchful eye every day for the new bikes. I had heard of folks who actually saw them on patrol, but I never had. And I was in town usually at least once a day, either for walkies or a run to the grocery or hardware stores.

This one morning in September was to be different. As we were walking along the waterfront by Miami Beach, I saw two of the fabled bikes propped up against one of the beach palapas. I just had to take a photo. As we approached, the two officers, who were lounging under the palapa, immediately jumped up to pose with their bikes, as you can see below. "We're doing early morning beach patrol," one said to me.

New Bikes On Patrol

We talked for a couple of minutes about the weather, the new bikes and how slow an early morning beach patrol was, and then it was time for us to continue with walkies. I had finally seen a couple of the new police cruisers in action... sort of.

This next photo might look a little strange. It's up on our back porch. Dianna has a rack for starting seeds. In its former life, the rack was one of those racks that fit over the toilet tank in the bathroom. We had never really cared that much for it, but hated to just pitch it, so here it is serving as her seed nursery.

What you see here is some of the bits I'm using to put together a watering wand setup for Dianna, so she can take care of the little plants easily.

My Stuff Ready To Build Watering Station

Here's a shot of some of the seedlings. Apparently parsley starts very quickly, and, true to form, ours does too. She also has cilantro, basil, lemon basil, chives, thyme, and probably a couple others as well.

It's Alive, It's Alive

I mentioned the watering wand. Here it is. It has a reel to hold the wand tubing. The reel turns to make rolling up the tubing very easy. The wand also has a trigger device, so you can easily start and stop the water flow.

All Done

I tapped into the kitchen cold water supply from downstairs, ran it through a couple of joists and through the wall into the west breezeway where it then went up through the floor of the porch. Once mounted to the wall, I attached a plastic valve and the wand/reel assembly. It's right next to the seedling rack for convenience.

As you can see in the next photo, convenience doesn't get much more convenient than this. I scored a couple of brownie-points with this little project as Dianna is very happy with it. Incidentally, she's been hauling this wand thing around for about ten or eleven years and finally gets to use it.

Here's the Big Picture

This was a day for water projects. If you remember from an earlier post, I had stubbed out a water line to the far side of the compost bin, intending to put my last fancy hose hanger in place there. Well it's been done now and works like a charm.

Last Hanger Hung

Here's the result. Hanger, hose, and faucet, all hooked up and ready to go. I do have to paint the outside of the compost bin, but that's for another day.

Hose, Hanger, and Faucet

Now, this project, the broken pool pump house door, has been hanging around (no pun intended) for months. For starters, we had lived with one then two broken hinges on our pool pump house door for some time. Oh sure, I had intended to call Vasco Doors and Windows, who built and installed the door in the first place, but you know how is, some other project always has a claim on the work priorities.

Rusted and Busted

It's not like this was a new problem. A couple of years ago, a hinge had broken on the door. Vasco had come then and fixed it. Then, a year or so ago, the bottom hinge broke again (quality welding and materials). Back they came and welded that as well, and added a third hinge for safety's sake. Then a couple of months ago, the bottom hinge went again. Then before I could call them, the middle hinge went. I still had some other priorities (something about a 'squeaky wheel getting the grease' comes to mind).

What brought it to a head, was about a week and a half ago, I went out to the pump house to reset the mechanical timer after one of our power failures. As I opened the door with its one hinge... Crash! The door came at me in a hurry. Thanks to some fancy dance steps, I was able to avert disaster, get my body out-of-the-way and rather gently lay the door down without busting my head or anything else on the patio. That definitely gets the adrenalin flowing.

I managed to get the door back into an upright position and propped it in place in the jamb to protect the pump from any rain that might come our way. And believe me, it's been coming our way quite often lately.

All right. I realized that the door had raised its priority level by several notches. I then had to call Vasco, or rather stop by to talk to them as they respond less well to telephone conversations. They said they could come out two days from then.

Dianna and I had everything in readiness for them to come Thursday morning and fix the door. But, having had experience dealing with them, I knew that timeliness was not their strong suit. And, to be totally honest, depending on who did the actual welding, quality may not be quite up to snuff either.

With that in mind, we were not real surprised when they didn't show up at the appointed time or day. A couple of days later (things do tend to get laid back here) I stopped in to see if they were planning to come some time. All right. They were going to come tomorrow, Saturday. I stressed that I now wanted heavy-duty hinges, and I wanted four of them on the door and I wanted their main welder (I still don't know his name). Not a problem. They'd be there at 9:30 AM.

Of course, 9:30 came and went. About 11:00 AM, they finally showed up. They got the welding machine set up, connected to a series of extension cord bits and pieces and some Romex cable as it's about 250 feet from the work site to our power panel out by the street.

We never got any further that day, as they brought out the new hinges – the same size as before. Wrong. The head welder jumped into his pickup, and went back to the shop to get the large hinges. About 45-minutes later, he returned. They didn't have the hinges. They had to get them and would be here first thing Monday morning. After winding up the cable bits and putting all the tools back in the truck they left.

That afternoon I had a Men's Group meeting out at Craig's house. I remember telling them that Saturday morning was alright, but not the afternoon as I wouldn't be there. Dianna told be that evening that of course, they had come back with the right parts. Dianna told them they'd have to come as scheduled on Monday as I wasn't there. So they left.

I thought maybe that would be the kiss of death for the Monday appointment. But no, they showed up about an hour later and things began to get serious.

After a short discussion about hinge sizes,work did actually get going. My concept of a larger hinge was something larger than two inches in height. More on the order of four inches or so. The concept they were dealing with was a hinge that was the same height, but had a beefier central pin. Realizing I was bound to lose if I stuck to my guns about hinge sizes, I said they could go ahead with those hinges as long as they put four of them in place.

So, now here we are, and as you can see below, actual work is occurring. First off, removing and grinding off the rusty stumps of the broken hinges

Grinding Off Old Weld Scar

Then, it's back with the bits and pieces of wire to the power main. Totally bypassing breakers, so their welding machine is at the mercy of the gods of current. Standard operating procedure.

Quick and Dirty Hookup

Here's a glimpse of the welding machine. You can see the head welder twisting the heavy cables together connecting the electrode holder to the machine. You can see the Romex power cord behind it.

Hooking Up The Electrode Holder Cable

In case you were wondering, this used to be a Lincoln arc welder. And, I assume, once upon a time it looked something like this: You can see a couple vestiges of red paint on their machine.

Dreams of A Lincoln Arc Welder

This machine reminds me of my Godson Isaiel's old welding machine. It was so decrepit, that his assistant had to literally stand with one foot in the machine to keep the coil from bouncing around while Isaiel did the welding. Now that I think about it, maybe this machine isn't so bad. But, I digress.

Here, you can see them actually welding the hinges to the door and jamb.

Welding On New Hinges

Surprisingly, the assistant actually got to do a couple bits of minor welding on the back side of the door under the close watchful eye of the master, of course.

The Apprentice Gets To Do Some Welding

Eventually, the job got done. It now works smoother than it ever has. I have high hopes that it will last for years to come – at least one or two.

As a parting gift for having read this far, here's a shot of an unknown flower growing in our patio garden. It's gorgeous.

A Pretty Pink Flower On Our Patio

We have two examples of this plant. One came from the other, so they should both be the same. But they're not. One's flowers start off looking somewhat like a rose, then they open in the morning, pink like this one. But by afternoon, they have become white as snow (whatever that is). The plant from the one above doesn't close up at night and its pink flowers don't change to white. Yet they come from the same plant. Explain that one, Gregor Mendel.

Road and Garden Improvements

Normally, you expect to read 'house and garden' or something like that. Not here. No sir.

There's never a dull moment around this place. We had another cave-in on the road in front of our place about a week or so ago. I missed the opportunity to take a photo of it with a tree limb with green leaves that someone stuck in the hole as a warning. Denis across the road adorned it with a plastic soda bottle, thinking that would probably reflect headlights better.

I phoned it in to Department of Works. Long-time readers may remember the last time this happened, I called them and they responded in an hour and repaired the cave-in. Well, not this time. We waited and we waited. Finally, Mr. Quinto (the retired Belize Ambassador to Taiwan) sent one of his guys and a back hoe down to fill it. He also provided the rocks to fill the hole.

Fixing the Cave-In

 BTW, the hole ended up about 3 or 4 feet across and almost 5 feet deep. Even though the actual hole in the road was only about a foot across.

Long View of the Project

Fortunately, no one fell in the hole or drove into it. Although it might have been interesting if some of the nightlife drove into the hole. Probably would have made more dramatic photos.

So, now we come to the garden improvement bit.

Months ago, I had my Godson, Isaiel, make up several metal hose hangers for me. I promptly installed one, then a few months later installed another, and this morning, I installed a third.

A New Hose Hanger

There's still two to go. You can't rush these things, y'know. I guess the rule till now has been to wait till the plastic hose hanger decays in the sunlight and the hose falls down. Hoses for the most part, seem to be holding up well in the bright sunlight. Just the hangers seem to be susceptible.

Cody and I also went through my stack of lumber and PVC pipe parts. I gave him probably half the lumber as I'll probably never have a use for all of it.

Neat and Tidy Wood Rack

It's nice having that area organized finally. It's just been an area that collected stuff as the place was being built, so it kind of grew up messy. Not now. It's pristine, sort of. But, I digress. This blog stuff is interfering with pool-time. See ya.

Cheers

St. Nick Takes Time

Good old St. Nicholas, Father Christmas, Santa, or whatever, took time from a well-deserved vacation in paradise, to have a mini-Christmas for one little boy.

Joshua (1-yr) Opening his Present

Our Godson, Isaiel, his wife, Amarilly, and their son (our great-Godson?) Joshua, came to visit this morning from Guinea Grass. We had a present for Joshua to open, which he did with gusto.

Rip It Open

Joshua is 1-year and 2 months old. I guess in the State, you would commonly say, he's 14 months old. They don't do that here. Anyway, last time we saw him - two months ago, on his birthday, he was almost walking. He could stand up and hang onto things. That's all changed. Now, he totters around without hanging on to anything. Oh sure, he still falls now and then, but the change is amazing. Next time we see him, I have no doubt he'll be talking, and probably reading too.

It's a Little Talking/Singing Piggy

See? All Mine

So, do we sound like doting grand parents? How weird. We've gone our whole lives without kids and now we have this little urchin we can spoil (within reason) and do all that sort of 'grand parent stuff'. Just seems bizarre.

Dianna Doing A Little Doting

This wasn't the only reason they came up to Corozal. They had a gift for us - a nice bottle of white Caribbean rum, and Isaiel had five hose holders I had asked him to fabricate for us. These things are so cool. They turned out much better and fancier than I dreamed we'd see.

Isaiel Finishing the Hose Hangers

Amarilly and Joshua Supervising Dad

We have five plastic hose hangers around the place now. Of course, with the sunlight we have here, the hangers lifespan is nearing the endpoint, so we had to do something. I found a picture a while back on the Intertubes, printed it and asked Isaiel if he could come up with something similar. These turned out much better.

 Four of the Five Drying

I can't wait to get them bolted up in place. I'll take a couple of pictures after they're installed so you can see them 'in action'. Well, as much action as a hose hanger will get, anyway.

We had a nice visit with them. It takes a while, culturally, I think, to become really comfortable and at ease with folks. Both directions. You don't want to say anything that will offend, etc., sometimes, you're not sure what they mean when they say something. So it does take a while to get that relaxed and comfortable feeling. I think we're there now.

There was also more work going on with the bulkhead today. The way they work is, a couple guys run the 'machine', filling up about a hundred and ten bags with dry-mix concrete.

Having Too Much Fun

That'sa Lotta Bags!

Then they wheelbarrow a couple filled bags at a time, dump them in the water, and one or two guys manhandle them into position, adding rebar and drain pipes as needed.

Lowering Bags into the Water

At the place in the canal (boat slip area) where they're working, it takes a lot of bags. The water is anywhere from 10 to 12 feet deep, so at 6" high (roughly), that's a few layers of bags just to get up to the surface of the canal.

Here's One Just About to Splash In

They are making good progress, although Emir says it's taking about double the amount of concrete that they estimated.

Later this afternoon (in about an hour), we'll be heading over to Sherry's new house to help her break it in, on New Year's Eve, yet. Then, this evening, we are all heading over to Tony's Inn & Beach Resort, for a sit-down dinner and some drinks. Then it's home. We'll be back home easily by 9:00 PM. That's late for Corozal.

Have a great, safe and peaceful New Years everyone. Cheers.