Wouter does feel pain

Pot(ter)ing around

We got this yucca tree from freecycle. In a large pot with a small base, so it wasn’t very stable. We found a better pot at Builders Warehouse, transferred the yucca to that, and then figured that the new pot was still not big enough.

So we found an even bigger pot at Harry Goemans, which meant that we had to buy another yucca to go in the smaller pot.

In the process of transferring yuccas and moving pots around, I pushed the larger pot just a little too hard. Sprained my arm. Ouch.

But I think it looks good.

2008-12-29 by wrm House 0

And you ask why my back is sore?

[SFx: Cannibals, Mark Knopfler]

I was on my way to Bellville when they phoned to say the shower door had arrived.

So we checked to see if it fits in a Golf 4 Estate.

It does… but the driving is… interesting (it’s 60km from Bellville to Fish Hoek).

2008-12-05 by wrm Farting around 0

Crazy season is upon us

I’m not 22 anymore. It used to be that I could go out drinking till 4 in the morning and be walking around like nothing happened by 9 am. But your 30s are different from your 20s, and not necessarilly in a good way.

And lemme tell ya, your forties are not better… we were invited to three parties, and the only one that didn’t end late was Sunday lunch. Sleep when you’re dead.

On the house side, I chipped out the grouting in Tamsyn’s bathroom, between the lower row of tiles and the bath, so that I can replace it with sealant. Then realised I was out of sealant, had to go buy some. Did so on the way to Bellville for braai #3.

I also (with Tanya’s help) put our bath into position and plumbed in the telephone shower and the inlet. I need to go buy a fitting to make the drain work.

And if your wife said “that’s OK, I only want to bath in that bath once the light is up” — take the hint and install the light!

And we officially started taking stuff out of the container. (This is the container where I stuffed my life into, eight years ago. It contains, among other things, three and a half pinball machines, half the bits to resurrect a Puma, a load of Land-Rover bits, a number of interesting old computers, a few amateur radios, and a shedload of books (SF and fantasy) and magazines (Byte, kilobaud, Elektor, ETI…)).

2008-11-10 by wrm House 1

Johan Lourens, 1955-12-12 to 2008-10-09

Mood: Sad.

I did my Master’s Thesis at Stellenbosch under Johan Lourens. I can honestly say that I enjoyed my post-grad study years tremendously. We had small (five to seven student) classes, continuous evaluation (no exams), and the company of the brightest people around (lecturers and fellow students).

Johan wasn’t one of the ultra-bright professor types who lived in his own world — in contrast, he had an understanding of how things worked in practice, and more importantly, he had a way of imparting that knowledge to young stupid assholes like me (I’m older now).

How he managed to coax me through researching and writing up my thesis without slapping me upside the head in frustration remains a mystery. But he persevered, and I think I learned more from him than from any other lecturer.

So it was a shock to see his face in the obits last week.

I went to the memorial service on Saturday, and it was (not unexpectedly) clear that Johan meant a lot to a lot of people. And I mean a lot. They had 200 chairs put out, realised that this would not be enough, put out more chairs, and in the end some people had to stand. I’d estimate that there were more than 350 people present. All of them deeply moved by the loss of a friend.

Turns out that the doctors told Johan he didn’t have that long to live, so he took his wife Erika to Europe, where they saw some of the places they’d always wanted to see while saying goodbye to one another — *respect*

A pleasant surprise was that Erika recognised me immediately — she last saw me 17 years ago. It was of course great to see her again, in spite of the horrible circumstances. She mentioned that Johan always thought I’d make a good engineer. I’m flattered, although on a scale of 1 to Johan I’d rate myself no more than a five.

The world has lost a good engineer and an even better person.

2008-10-19 by wrm Uncategorized 1

Old Mother Hubbard, went to the cupboard…

Delivered this morning, one wardrobe (R4500), two pedestals (R650 each) and Tamsyn’s desk (R795).

The desk barely fitted through the back door, which is a good thing, saved me from cutting the legs off and propping it up on bricks. Or removing the door. Whatever.

Last night we cleaned the living room in preparation for the carpets going in on Thursday / Friday. Moved all the remaining kitchen cabinetry to the lounge and all the offcuts to the garage.

I also wormed my way into the main bedroom roof to fit some insulation (what used to be the pink stuff is now the green stuff, and it doesn’t itch, which is a bonus). To get up there I had to lie on planks. To use the planks I had to remove some nails. In this process I bashed my knee when the hammer got away from me. Which in turn means I didn’t get much sleep, ouch. It’s hard being clumsy.

2008-10-15 by wrm House 0

Bookcase

Took me two and a half hours to assemble this bookcase. Each shelf has four dowels and four pins and cams keeping them together. Eish!

The overlap you can see on the left hand picture means I need to trim a little bit off the skirting board (above) to make things fit.

I was completely out of it this morning, and slept in. Definitely a Guronsan C day. I’m not 22 any more.

This is the hidden comparment behind the old kitchen door. It’s only about 130mm deep — any ideas on what we can hide there? Candles and tins of baked beans?

2008-10-09 by wrm House 6

I’m sane! I’m sane! happy dance

At least, compared to these people, I’m sane.

This post sums up what I’ve learnt as well. I don’t look at the credit card slips any more, I just sign ’em :-)

Moloch’s Whore

Restoring an old house is like worshipping a pagan god in that both require sacrifice. Moloch demanded your first born child, old houses require much more.

Old homes require cash. Huge, filthy, fist-loads of cash.

At first you don’t mind so much. You think that a little sacrifice is necessary. You are still excited by the project, you are lulled by dream-visions of what the end product will be. You can see the fresh paint, the shining, refinished floors, and all that beautiful wood work.

Once you start feeding it money, it becomes easier and easier. It becomes part of your routine. Nails, saw blades, paint, and lumber become part of your normal monthly expenses. But, as the months and years drag by you start to feel the pinch. You put off your dry-cleaning as long as you can; you find yourself eating more pinto beans and peanut butter sandwiches; and, if you find a book or CD that you want, you put it on your amazon.com wish list instead of buying it. Then a day comes when you notice that all your sport coats have shiny, thread-bare elbows, your shoes have cracked soles, and that you haven’t had a haircut in months because you thought it a waste of money.

Things that other people consider major problems become interesting challenges for you. Instead of taking your car to the shop when your car’s second-gear quits working, you master the art of driving without it. Five months later when first-gear also quits, you find yourself taking pride in the fact that you can start from a complete stop on an incline in third-gear.

Late at night as you lay in bed, you can hear this relentless sucking sound. It is a persistent whistling of the atmosphere around you vanishing into a void. You are anxious. You know that your savings are gone, your budget is maxed, and it is only a mater of time before everything around you falls to pieces. When you do sleep it is fitful and tense. You dream of a vast weight bearing down on you, pinning you to the ground. You awake tired and thinking, “Should I work on the bathroom ceiling or back hall this weekend?”

The Devil Queen, the old whore upon the hill, beckons. After so much, who are you to deign her?

Edit : so now I’m reading the Devil Queen blog from the beginning. Difficult thing, reading blogs backwards. But oh so worth it. John can write. And he likes Lovecraft, and Monty Python, and, and, and…

2008-08-21 by wrm House 0

Ouch eina moer

About four or five years ago I rewired the DB at Amperbo. It’s a 3 phase ‘box, and dated back to shortly after the second world war when my grandfather built the place — think ceramic holders for fuse wire, big switch boxes looking like something from Dr Frankenstein’s lab, and the like.

I replaced all most of this with modern trip switches, an earth leak unit, two geyser circuits, etc. We also ran new wires up to the loft for the geyser and lights, replaced some of the wiring to the plugs (especially the rusted pipe under the kitchen floor which shocked Pieter every time he cooked in bare feet), and so on.

Anywayz, at the time, we bought a 3 phase earth leak unit, cost a bit over R800, and we thought it was rather steep.

So I went to buy a 3 phase earth leak yesterday. R1715.

And thence the title of this post.

2008-08-14 by wrm House 0

Feed a cold, starve a fever?

… or is it the other way ’round? Nobody seems to be sure. I picked up a sore throat from a colleague, and working in the bloody cold (unfurnished) house in uncommonly cold (for Cape Town, it was 6 degrees in Tokai at 08:30 this morning) weather certainly doesn’t help.

I’ve always figured that it’s important to listen to your body, and right now mine is saying “feed me“, so that’s what I’m doing.

On the progress side of things, Frank’s been paving. Looking good.

I’ve been plumbing in the master bathroom, lots of work with little visible progress.

We got quotes for carpeting Jessica’s room (black-with-white-spots Superweave) as well as the living room and hall (matching colour-to-be-determined Tuscany) — just over R10K, which is about what I anticipated.

And the kitchen guys finally gave me a believable (in terms of what they think I need) quote, so I dumped R18K into their bank account, delivery (CKD, in other words, Some Assembly Required) in two weeks’ time. But that excludes the countertops and some other strategic bits I will still need.

2008-07-10 by wrm Uncategorized 0

Krankenhaus im Fischwinkel

So I stuffed my back up.

Again.

Tall people don’t always have all the fun. The world is not built around (or for) us.

OK, I’m planning to remedy that in my kitchen, but that’s the extent of my control over the world.

Anyway, I leaned over Tanya’s clothes rack exercise bicycle to pick up the camera and… yowch.

Spent the night flat on my back while managing not to snore, which is a feat in itself (Tanya gives me the hairy eyeball and an elbow in the ribs if I dare to snore). 50mg Voltaren and dicloflam are my friends.

But the plumbing will have to wait.

2008-06-04 by wrm House 1