Post 3869 - The Great Flood of 2019

My friends are thorough.

I really wish I had got some before and after pics of the recroom and the laundry room. The after pics are... well, here they are:

Yeah, me again. They completely ripped up the flooring. The berber. The underlay. The subfloor. Everything. Then they removed more than a few pieces of the wall in an effort to isolate the mould that must have been created as a result of the water issues. And we are now down to one toilet.

To put everything back, I don't know what they will do. The wall that helped me decide to buy this place in 2000 is now partially gone. I have no idea how to recreate that effect, or if they will even do that for me. I am told that they will put the flooring back, but Patricia and I will have to select some tiling or more berber or jute or some darned thing or other. After we do that, and the flooring company delivers the stuff, they will restore the flooring.

The laundry room, same thing, I guess.

And the pieces of the wall that were ripped out... like I said, they will restore that, but likely not the same effect that was there before. The stucco-type wall that the previous owner likely spent frig knows how long perfecting.

I am kind of speechless, actually.

I haven't heard if they will want to tear up this home office. I am thinking they will, which would be a massive job unto itself. If they do, I will have to resort to using a laptop for nearly all my computer work. The two desktops in this home office will have to go dormant for a time, including my plex media server. My beloved model m keyboard, which I am using now, would have to go into storage for a time. My heart is breaking at the very thought of it.

When we got home tonight, we discovered this mess. Newbie could not be found. I told the company several times to be careful that our cat didn't get out. It appeared as if he might have. But, no. He was in the middle bedroom hiding behind a mattress we had propped up recently. He appeared quite frightened. I don't blame him. All that stuff going on all day. One of his litter boxes being moved.

What happens tomorrow? I am not sure. I will let you know....

See you then.

Bevboy

Post 3868 - Uh....

A week later!

My goodness.

I have been busy, even though I have been on vacation. I spent quite a bit of time in the early part of the week bundling up things for the packers, who arrived on Thursday. They spent hours packing up the contents of the recroom and some things in the laundry room. That was in anticipation of the movers showing up on Friday morning to remove said contents and move them off to storage.

This coming week more folks will come here and rip up the subfloor and see how far the water got into the room. "Chase the water" as they put it. If it hasn't got too far, they will stop, remediate the mould that they think is there and do something similar in the laundry room.

The hope is that they do not need to rip up the home office. I do not want to contemplate the job associated with that.

After the work is done, the project manager will give us an allowance to order some new flooring for the recroom. I am leaning toward some kind of tile, and not have the jute-type carpeting that is here now. Or is it berber? I am not sure which. Here in the home office it is just cheap peel-and-stick tile, which I have never cared for.

Other than that work and worry and stuff, I had a decent week. I produced another true crime piece for the issue of Frank that comes out this week. I slept. A lot. And Saturday morning I overnighted in the Valley. Glad I went because I noticed a piece of downspout had blown off, so I tried to put it back in place this morning, with not total success. I have asked my handyman down there to take a look. The downspout is old, and perhaps needs to be replaced with a new one. No biggie.

We both return to work in the morning. These vacations go by far too quickly.

It is pushing 11pm. I think I will turn in. Need my beauty coma.

See you... tomorrow?

Bevboy

Post 3867 - Sunday Night Rumblings

Well, I suppose it is technically Monday morning.

We got a few groceries on Saturday. You close stores for one day. The next, it is as if the gates of hell have opened, letting out thousands of souls all at once and all of them need to stock up at Sobeys. We were inundated by folks at Superstore on Saturday afternoon. This was after a coffee at the Bike and Bean in Upper Tantallon and a visit to Otis & Clementines, to boot.

We have stayed in ever since we got home.

Today I packed up some stuff to donate to the Mission Mart in Bayer's Lake, either on Monday or Tuesday. Found some stuff to throw out, too. This is all in anticipation of the impending remediation of the area of the recroom that suffered the flood.

I was watching the news tonight. People in New Brunswick are worried sick that their homes will flood, because they have flooded before. The water that got into the house in March is, from what I can tell, nothing like that. I am keeping what happened to us in perspective. Those folks have had it much worse than we did.

We are both off work for this week. I am hoping that we can get a lot of work done around the house, but the reality is that we will both sleep in a lot.

I think I will start doing that right about zzzz....

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3866 - Late Friday Night...

Three days later...

Gee, what happened to me? Well, Wednesday after work, we had to go over to Dartmouth to deal with a matter. I was tired before we left. After it was over, we started to go back home, even though once or twice Patricia offered to treat me to dinner. I was just too tired to eat. She ended up getting some Easter eggs to give away at work on Thursday, so I remained in the car while she picked them up.

We finally got home around 6:30. Rather than back into the driveway, I just drove in. Got inside the house, and I went downstairs to rest in the recliner, and I don't remember much after that. I didn't get up for any period of time until Thursday morning.

I felt much better on Thursday and work was not a problem. We went to dinner after work before deciding to Dartmouth again, Gateway Meat Market to be more precise. Got some stuff, some of which we will consume this weekend. Returned home and went to bed relatively early.

Today, Good Friday, we slept in yet again. In the early afternoon we went one last time to Fredie's Fantastic Fish House in Bayer's Lake. We were not craving fish and chips, but it was owner Tammy's last day. The new owner was working there along side Tammy. They both recognized us by name. Nadia will do a fine, fine job. It is just that this is the type of food that one should not eat very often.

We drove around a bit afterward, out Kearney Lake Road way. There are some quite modest homes out there, but they are next door to much more opulent ones, likely driving up property values to the point where regular folks could never afford to live there.

After an hour or so, we returned home and watched a couple of shows on the PVR. This evening we watched the first five episodes of "Dirty John" on Netflix. We will likely watch the rest over the weekend.

On Saturday we plan to go to the Farmer's Market downtown. Not the big one at Seaport. The smaller one downtown, filled with vendors who didn't want to move over to Seaport several years ago. We may also go to a belated celebration of life for Steverino, the coffee guy who died a couple of years ago. Depends if we get up early enough. I hope to, but you never know these days. May sleep in to 2pm for all I know.

I think I will turn for the evening.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3865 - Mea Culpa! Mea Maxima Culpa!

Pretty much says it all, huh?

I am very sorry I haven't written lately. I have had Frank deadlines. I had to work all weekend. So much else.

Where to start?

How about with the most painful one?

I collected DVD's for years. "Collected" might be the wrong word. More like an avaricious hoarding. I'd buy them. If lucky, I'd watch them once. Most of the time, though, I never watched them at all.

A waste, I know. A waste of time, buying them. A waste of space. And, above all, a waste of money. I don't want to think about how much I spent on them. In days of downloading, and especially now, of streaming, having a physical DVD or CD or whatever, hardly seems worth it.

After the flood of 2019, we were confronted with the reality that the whole bottom floor here at Casa Bevboy would have to be cleaned out so the restoration company could do its work. I decided last week that rather than bundle up the DVD's, I would instead donate them to Mission Mart, in Bayer's Lake.

Sunday afternoon, after I got home from work, and after  my nap, I started piling the DVD's into one large plastic bag after another. After a good 90 minutes or so, maybe closer to two hours, I was done. I learned that the Mission Mart closed at 5pm. It was something like 4:20. Dragged the heavy bags (and a box) of DVD's into the Soul and took off for MM. Got there around 4:40, twenty minutes before they'd close. Joked with the young lady receiving the items that she should ask her grandparents about these things. She laughed and received them, and I left.

Two days later, I am having a hard time remembering just what I donated. Lots of TV shows on DVD. Some films, especially the ones in the box.

Now, I just have to put into more bags, the many papers in the rec room so they can be tossed out. After that, I start packing my books, which will be tremendous fun of such a fun nature that I am not sure if I can contain myself. In fact, i don't think I will be able to do so.

Sigh.

I had to work Saturday and Sunday. Here it is, Tuesday, and I have worked nine days in a row. I am grateful that I will be off all next week. In fact, in two more days, I will be off work for something like 10 days. Looking forward to that. Of course, much of that time I will be doing stuff around the house here. Yippee.

I will pledge to you to work harder to write more often. I have always tried to take Joan Rivers' advice about blogs. She always believed that blogs should be "fed" on a daily basis, to keep them fresh and full of content. That is why I feel I am disappointing myself, and by extension, you all, by not writing more frequently. That is on me, and I regret it. Let me renew my resolve to write more often.

Starting tomorrow.

See you then. I promise!!

Bevboy

Post 3864 - Hello

Hi. Just letting you know that I am still alive.

Have a tight Frank deadline. Will write you more later.

Sorry!!

Bevboy

Post 3863 - An Update

Sorry I haven't written in the last four days. I spent a day in the Valley, returning on Saturday. Then I have been resting and getting ready for today's visit from the fellow from Wise Cracks.

He got here about 10 minutes early, which is a bonus. Barely 90 minutes later, he was done. He inserted some hollow "pegs" in the area where the crack was and squirted some stuff in those pegs. They are supposed to fill up the crack with that substance, preventing further issues with water seeping in. That is the theory. We are supposed to get a pile of rain in a few days so that will be a big test.

In the coming days I have to bundle up piles and piles of books into probably-not-enough boxes in anticipation of the restoration company dropping by and doing there thing in the basement, a process which will apparently take a few months. I look forward to this the way the average person looks forward to a root canal. So much work. Who knows how much pay off?

After four days off work, it is a return to reality in the morning.

I think I will turn in, but not until I clarify something. People have been complimenting me on my joining the Crime Writers of Canada last week. Thank you. But I had to pay to join. I was able to join because of the 50-some cold case articles I have produced for Frank Magazine. I could join as a professional writer because I get paid for those articles. One domino knocked over the next one, and the next one; and the by-product of all that is my ability to join the CWC. Lots of people can join in a non-professional capacity, but I am exalted enough, if you want to put it that way, to be able to be a professional member.

Most professional members write crime fiction, whether they be detective stories, cozies, psychological suspense, or whatever. I am in the true crime section, along with precious few others across the country.

So, clear as mud?

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3862 - The News I Have Been Sitting On

Do you remember that episode of The Beverly Hillbillies where Mr. Drysdale, the Clampett's oily banker, sits down with the family and says he wants to tell them something important? He tells them that thing. A moment later, family patriarch Jed notices his nephew Jethro fidgeting and admonishes him for him, saying, "Mr. Drysdale's fixin' to tell us something."

I kinda feel like that now.

This news is important to me, and I cannot help but think that most of my 4.7 readers will just not care. So... here goes.

Does this look familiar to you? Ring a bell?



The above badge signifies that I am a member in good standing of the Crime Writers of Canada! It is a professional organization for those of us who, well, write about crime for a partial living.

The CWC was founded in 1982, largely by Derrick Murdoch, whose true crime book "Disappearances" remains the single best tome I have ever read about people who have gone missing. The CWC gives out a Derrick Murdoch award every two years to a deserving recipient who makes a "special contribution to the crime genre".

I contacted their executive director, Alison Bruce, over the weekend and broached the subject with her. Turns out my having published over 50 cold case articles for Frank Magazine more than qualified me for membership, especially since I get paid for this work.

If it were the case that I was not a professional writer, I would still be able to join, but in a lesser capacity. But I am a PAM, a professional member in good standing.

This is cool. I never thought, not in a million years, that I could call myself a professional writer. But this membership validates my work and what my editor and I are trying to do with this series.

There are some Halifax CWC events. I suppose I will be able to attend them, maybe even participate in them. I am not sure. I have to figure this stuff out.

I look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with the CWC.

And I promise not to forget the little people who put me here. i love you all.

Been a long day. Think I will turn in.

See you tomorrow-ish.

Bevboy

Post 3861 - Sitting On Something

I am sitting on some interesting news. Nothing earth shattering. Just interesting, to me. I hope to be able to share it with youse as soon as Wednesday evening.

In other news, we had dinner at Swiss Chalet this evening. Patricia insisted on paying, which was nice. There have been lots of bills at Casa Bevboy recently, with plenty more to come.

Our work week is half over. This Friday's day off cannot get here soon enough.

I'm cutting this post short.

Keep watching this space. Cool news, maybe even tomorrow night!

See you then.

Bevboy