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As you can see It's been a little warm at the hacienda. Slee-ping I think is some place in China near Tip-ping. It's not really cooling down in the house.

I went out and bought a UV rated window shade today for outside the 8' x 5' single pane picture window. It gets the afternoon sun. Way too hot out to install. I may get out early tommorrow and install it.

I spoke with a lady at Lowe's who bought one the day before and she said it really made a difference.

The fires in the area are still blowing up plumes of smoke. Today wasn't so bad because the inclusion layer lifted but some areas are being covered with ash.

Somehow CalTrans is out working in the heat on a project to be completed by 2012. We are getting some new bridges and wider highways. They lean on shovels a lot but the do it in the heat and the rain. Gotta give them credit for that.

Energy Saving Lightbulb - Say goodbye to incandescence

Another problem not addressed by this is that lamp shades do not fit over these bulbs. The video also mentions to double wrap a bulb in plastic bags so it doesn't leak mercury into the landfill. What happens when the plastic deteriorates in 10 million years. I thought we want to keep plastics out of the landfill if possible.

This is just one more example of the idiots running our country and thier ability to actually do so. Hey if you want everything green, I;ll sell you a bucket of green paint...don't get it in China because it's full of lead and I will be out of a good job and won't be able to afford $12.00/gal gas.

At least one congressmen spoke about this with a voice of reason!

Look What Followed Me Home!

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He's gotta stay outside though. Don't know how the other cat would take to it. Lexxy gave it a sniff and a strange look.

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I couldn't decide on rock or bark so I ended up doing both. The rock near the lattice is my "right-on" rock. It closely resembles a thumb if you look at it.  The vine next to it has been struggling in a pot for 2 years and finally started taking off this year. I think its a trumpet vine that's supposed to get flowers that I have yet to see.

In the bark area I have some plush psandra starts that grow to about 12x12x12. There are 5 of them in there. They are already twice as big as when I got them a few months ago online.

So except from throwing in a little color in front of the vine, and maybe a couple of solar lights, that project is basically done......finally!

Father's Day Project

Well first off I didn't know it was Father's Day. I was out running the table saw constructing a frame for my lattice and did get a call from my step daughter. That was a nice memory jog anyway. It was going to be 96 degrees so I knocked off early today. I still need to put a board between the two planters and put some weed cloth down in the corner. haven't decided yet if I'm going with rocks or bark.

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The little raised boxes are just tall enough to put some real dirt in to get the plants to grow. Underneath is clay. Before adding dirt though I need to water it down and use my weed weasel to loosen the soil...then I mix in some soil ammendment stuff and some decent dirt. That gives about 8" of decent soil for the plants to get started in.

Landscape Update

Huck Finn showed up with his compressor and spray gun and knocked out the back fence in a couple of hours. Then the landscaper showed up and started being creative with scrap wood. He's got plans to make 2 more of the boxes and put a small lattice thingy behind them so some vines have a place to grow.

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The daisy's tend to droop in the late afternoon but come back by morning. So far, everything seems to like thier new home. It's been really windy and getting into the mid 80's.

Where's Tom Sawyer?

Finished my mods on the fence today and started spraying sealer. I thought I was goint to get away with just spraying the stuff on but NOOOOOOOOOO I have to use a brush and roller also. Starting to look pretty nice! Won't be long before the 3 garbage cans have a new home. That short fence on the far left will hide them so you can bearly see the tops from the front. The sealing process wiill take quite awhile since the fence has two sides.

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And I haven't done the front fences yet either....I'm starting here though so I can get the area ready for some plants and some lawn seed to spiff it up a bit. The picture kind of sucks because the camera wanted night mode I think. I took the picture at almost dusk. More later

Yard Improvement - more is better

Put up 3 fence panels this weekend so far.

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The short panel next to the gazebo (BTW sold my first set of gazebo plans on EBAY today!)

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The custom panel behind the tree. Going to be a nice place for a round table with a couple of chairs I think...notice the shade.

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The full-size panel is going to be modified to match the other panels. Then a short wall goes off the end on the left of that. I'm making a small area for the garbage, recycling and green waste cans to get them away from the kitchen window. I want to put a garden in that area after I remove the funky concrete. I'm not far from having all the junk in the back hidden a bit and still have view of the car.

Where's Techzilla?

Nothing special going on...no money to do anything. Been working on reviving Betty Boop Cartoons. I'm on 18 of 122 clips.

Finally put some vinyl letters on my back window of the Jeep yesterday to advertise my computer services. I've got an ad running in Craigs List also. I've tried local newspaper ads before and they never turn out. It's usually word of mouth that works the best.

No takers on my Gazebo Pictorial yet...I've got someone watching it though. Which isn't discouraging nor encouraging actually. Could be someone just trying to see if something similiar would sell. Figuring out the best way to sell things on EBAY and having something that will sell on EBAY are two different matters. I'm learning though.

Almost listed a power supply I had yesterday and I plugged it into my tester. The voltages were right but with it plugged into the wall you could hear a slight hum. Not very good for a new unit. So in the circle file that Idea went.