Nobody lays a finger on my iPhone! Katy appears to be protecting the old iPhone 8, apparently aware that t is about to be shipped back to Apple as a trade-in for Roni's new iPhone 11 Pro Max. Don't worry, girl, you will no doubt be the subject of many more photos on the upgraded tech. Photo by Glenn.
October 20, 2019: What’s this? A newsletter posted nearly two weeks before the end of the month?! Before Halloween? Is it a trick or a treat, you might ask? Perhaps it is neither, or a little of both. Suffice it to say that we are trying to get ahead of the game for once, especially because we’ve got a busy few weeks ahead as we literally sail toward the holidays and a new year. Read on…
It's not too often that Glenn gets dressed up these days, but he's got a business meeting in Oakland this bright Thursday morning, Oct. 3, and is taking BART into town. Photo by Glenn.
Lake Merritt attracts walkers during the lunch hour. It would be a good day for a stroll if not for the fact there's a meeting to attend in about half an hour. Photo by Glenn.
We're headed to Kaiser Center, which is the tall building in the center of the frame. It might be the only time we have to show up in Oakland for a part-time job that is mostly done from the comfort of our own living room, but always good to put in an appearance. Photo by Glenn.
Friday night, Oct. 4, finds us at the Friday Night Bites event in downtown Oakley. It's the final such show of the season, and there's a pretty good crowd on hand to eat gourmet food and listen to the band. Photo by Glenn.
Tonight's entertainment is provided by the Floorshakers, playing a mix of rock, pop and funk. Can't sit down for these guys. Photo by Glenn.
Not even a sore knee can keep Roni away from her task of running the Ironhouse Sanitary District's information booth at the Bethel Island Health and Safety Fair. It's the morning of Oct. 5, and we're settled in to our spot outsite Scout Hall. Photo by Glenn.
Hey, this health and safety fair has some pretty cool door prizes. They shoved raffle tickets in our hand when we walked in the door of Scout Hall. Sure would be cool if we won something. Photo by Glenn.
Woo-hoo! We both won some door prizes in the raffle. Roni got a bagful of fishing lures and Glenn snagged $50 in cash from Les Schwab Tire Center in Oakley. And to think, he was grumbling that he had to get out of bed early on a Saturday for this. Photo by Roni.
We're in the home stretch (finally) on the kitchen project. We make one last pass with the vacuum cleaner before getting down to the business of laying the vinyl planks on the floor. Photo by Glenn.
Glenn is hard at work planning out the position of the first few rows of floor planks. Phyre, as usual, is inspecting the work in progress. Photo by Glenn.
We've got a floor again! Well, mostly. It's about 85 percent done in this picture, except for some parts you can't see behind the refrigerator. Photo by Glenn.
Roni was preparing soup for dinner and Glenn said to her, half joking,"Don't go spilling anything on my pretty new floor." Less than 15 seconds later, a burst of steam from the soup container caused her to drop it as she was removing it from the microwave. SPLAT! Right on the floor. Photo by Glenn.
Now it is time to move the refrigerator into the center of the kitchen so we can finish the floor. Moving it over the edge of the already installed floor was more difficult than it should have been, thanks to a cardboard flap that wedged itself under the floor planks. Once we figured out how to prevent this, we were able to continue the project. Photo by Roni.
We were short a couple of planks to finish the floor behind the refrigerator, but now the extra box has arrived and we've got that spot done along with the grout and baseboard on the side wall. Just need to push the fridge back into place. Photo by Glenn.
Missed it by a fraction of a fraction of an inch. Grrrrr. The top of the fridge bumps into the bottom of the overhead cabinet. We solved this by tipping the refrigerator on edge and sliding it under the cabinet, then straightening it out so it would force the cabinet up and out of the way. Photo by Glenn.
This might be the largest scorpion we've ever captured in our house. Fortunately Katy found it before we did, and we were able to trap it before anyone got stung. Usually we get one of these every year or two. We'll happily return this one to the wild... far from where it can find us. Photo by Glenn.
On Oct. 18, more than 11 months since we bought our Ford F-150, we put gas in it for the first time. Talk about pain at the pump! We're used to 14-gallon tanks on our Toyota sedans. We figured we're getting about 10 miles to the gallon. Yeah, that sucks. Photo by Glenn.
We're back at Bethel Island, only this time it's for the Heart of the Delta Festival on Oct. 19. Roni's knee is feeling better than it was a couple of weeks ago. She's ready to greet the public and answer questions about their sanitary service. Photo by Glenn.
The Heart of the Delta Festival, like its predecessor the Bethel Island '50s Bash, features a classic car show. along Bethel Island Road, the town's main drag. Photo by Glenn.
A 1957 Ford Thunderbird is all polish and chrome at the Bethel Island car show. Photo by Glenn.
It's here at last! Roni received her new iPhone 11 Pro Max during our dinner one evening, about three weeks after she ordered it direct from Apple. She could barely finish her meal, she was so eager to unbox it and try it out. Photo by Glenn.
Ben's kicking back in the new chair he bought for his bedroom. He originally bought a beanbag chair from Wayfair, but it didn't meet his expectation, so this one he picked up at Target. Photo by Glenn.
Phyre investigates Ben's new chair to see if it might make a suitable spot for a catnap. Photo by Glenn.
Yawn, time for this one to head to bed. Photo by Glenn.
Who needs a chair or the sofa for a nap when you can curl up on your owner's lap? So what if said owner is trying to nap himself? Photo by Roni.
It has only been a couple of weeks since our last update, but you will remember that work was in progress on the floor of our kitchen. We had been living with mostly bare concrete for several weeks, thanks to Glenn’s decision to scrape off the old linoleum before laying the LifeProof vinyl planks we’d bought from Home Depot. As of Sept. 29, all that preliminary scraping of old vinyl and adhesive was complete and we were ready for the relatively simple phase of placing the new planks.
Because we had made a late decision to extend the floor into the laundry room, that meant we sort of had to start things there even though that area represented the second course of planks rather than the first. We did this because it was the only way to accurately measure the total length of the kitchen and laundry room together so we could determine where to place cuts that wouldn’t look too awkward; the directions say you shouldn’t have segments shorter than 8 inches at either end of a row, and although we fudged that number a few times, we tried our best to follow that advice.
The second course had to tuck around the edge of the laundry room door jamb, so once we were able to determine the precise location of that cut and roughly lay down the entire row, we backed up and set the first course — the one that unfortunately had to tuck underneath the stove and near the dishwasher. We say unfortunately because the interlocking planks have to snap together in a certain way, and if you don’t set the rows in order then you make more work for yourself. It is especially hard when a plank has to fit underneath an object, such as the foot of the stove, and you can’t lift up on one side to help it snap properly into place.
Such was the way the rest of this project went, as it turned out, because despite a few blissfully unobstructed planks in the center of the room, there were several tight fits along the edges that required special cuts and plenty of coaxing to work into place. But so eager was Glenn to reach this stage after more than a year of slow progress on the rest of the kitchen, he placed nearly half the floor on the first day.
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HE FLOOR TOOK shape over the next week and likely would have been finished by then except for the fact Glenn miscalculated when placing the flooring order and bought just four boxes instead of the five we needed. Not factoring in the portion of the laundry room beneath the washer/dryer we didn’t plan to do right now, we were less than one full plank short to complete the rest of the room. So we ordered the extra box from Home Depot and progress stalled again for a few days while we waited for it to arrive at the Brentwood store.
Meanwhile, the rest of the kitchen floor was 85 percent done except for behind the refrigerator and a small strip near the adjacent counter. There was no sense working on that part until the next box arrived because we didn’t want to have to move the fridge more than once, fearing doing so would scrape the part of the floor that was already done.
With the extra planks in hand at last, we placed a large sheet of cardboard on the finished floor and wrestled the fridge out of its spot to gain access to the bare concrete and the unfinished wall that still needed some tile and grout work. The refrigerator is a beast, so no surprise that moving it would be a bear. It took both of us pushing or pulling, lifting and wriggling to get the machine out to the center of the kitchen — a task made more difficult when we discovered that a piece of protective material attached to the chassis was getting stuck on the edge of the unfinished floor.
Once we solved that problem, Glenn finished off the floor and then set about finishing the baseboards and last course of tile along the side wall. He had extra incentive to finish this task quickly, because the front of the refrigerator was sandwiched up against the sink counter and its doors couldn’t be opened. That meant limited options for meals until the work was done. We compensated by ordering Mexican takeout one night, then picking up Subway sandwiches for lunch the following day.
Normally you are supposed to wait a couple of days after setting tile for the mortar to cure before adding the grout. But because we were in Sonic the Hedgehog mode to get this job done, Glenn added the grout a couple of hours after the tile went on the wall Oct. 14. We figured that if we screwed it up because of this decision, no one will see it anyway once the fridge is in place.
Now it was time to slide the fridge back to its corner and marvel at our beautiful new floor. Except for one problem: the fridge couldn’t be slid all the way back. Despite having removed the old floor first before installing the planks, there now was too little clearance between the top of the fridge and the cabinet above. Something would need to give, and we figured it would probably mean sanding down the underside of the cabinet by about an eighth of an inch. Doable, but yet another piece of this project that hadn’t gone as planned.
Given that the fit was so close, Glenn thought that if we tipped the fridge on edge we might be able to slide it back to the wall and straighten it out just enough to force the bottom of the cabinet to comply. This worked great except that when we tipped the fridge forward a bottle of wine cooler rolled off the top shelf and tumbled to the floor of the fridge where it splintered into roughly a million shards of rose-colored glass. Maybe not a million, but you get the idea.
So we spent the next hour sweeping up the endless collection of glass shards and sopping up wine before we were able to return to the “simple” task of returning the fridge to its corner. The good news is that Glenn’s plan worked. The bad news is that all the pushing and pulling and pieces getting caught had managed to shift the floor planks so that they no longer locked into place in some spots. It is a problem that unfortunately appears to have no solution, so although we are excited about having a finished kitchen floor we are disappointed that we will have to live with a couple of noticeable flaws in the final product. Alas, you win some and lose some when you are a DIY contractor.
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HE FLOOR OF the kitchen is now finished, leaving just some odds and ends to complete before the middle of next month. Why then? Because we are all sick of looking at tools and construction materials clogging up our living and dining rooms, and Roni decided that we shouldn’t have to look at it once we return from our cruise to South America.
Yes, our sail date is rapidly approaching — a reality made more clear by our recent conference call with Glenn’s mom and brother Sean, our travel companions for this once-in-a-lifetime voyage. Although our passage has been booked since February, we had yet to plan our itinerary for the five ports of call we will make along the two-week cruise. For more than an hour on a Saturday evening we had a group video chat to talk over tour packages and on-shore adventures in Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia.
Now that we’ve mostly reached a consensus and further lined the pockets of Princess Cruises with our tour reservations, we are getting serious about rounding up suitcases, clothing and other provisions. It hardly seems real, but it surely will feel more that way the day we finally board the ship in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, we are pacing ourselves to get the house clean before we go, and that has meant starting to put away saws and scrap lumber, breaking down shipping cartons, and sweeping up debris from our front porch, which has been doubling as a workshop these past few days. Amid all this work, Glenn periodically has to pause and look at the kitchen and say, “Wow, that sure is a pretty floor. Who put that there?”
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MONG OUR TRAVEL necessities will be photo gear. This is especially true for Roni, who these days is the only one regularly taking pictures. Photography was one of the main things on her mind when she ordered her new iPhone 11 Pro Max near the end of last month. With its three cameras, the new iPhone comes with all the incentive Roni needed to want one. It arrived in the mail Oct. 15, and together we spent a few hours transferring her old data and backing up photos to our computers. She has already put the camera features through their paces during a work assignment, and she is happy to report that the phone is living up to her expectations.
Roni is off her crutches and now getting around more comfortably with the aid of a cane. We keep having to remind her to not overdo things even though her knee is feeling much better, because we would hate to have her reaggravate the injury again just before our trip. But that didn’t stop her from taking part in senior health and safety fair earlier this month in Bethel Island, where she had a booth for the sanitary district, nor did it prevent her from returning to the island Oct. 19 for the town’s Heart of the Delta Festival.
And if there’s any proof needed that Roni refuses to slow down, she recently decided to apply for a vacancy on the Oakley City Council that arose when longtime Councilman Doug Hardcastle announced his decision to retire. The city wanted to avoid the expense of a special election, so the remaining year term on the seat will be filled next month by appointment. Roni isn’t the only person interested in the position, so we’ll have to see how she does in the interview and selection process. One thing for certain: it is a much easier way to go than having to campaign for the office in a regular election, which would also involve needing a budget to print up signs and more time spent meeting and greeting the voters.
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ERHAPS IT IS too soon for another investing update, but this has turned out to be a rather busy few weeks for acquiring shares, thanks to Trade War fears, weak retail sales numbers, the start of corporate earnings season, impeachment proceedings and other political happenings.
We did end up buying 100 more shares of Macy’s (M) for our taxable account, as well as a 400-share position in the ALPS Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP), which roughly tracks the price of natural gas producers. That fund has seen a dramatic price decline since summer amid a slowing global economy and a glut in natural gas supplies, but its 8.5 percent dividend is hard to ignore.
Glenn already owned 500 shares of AMLP in his IRA before he optioned them two months ago. But the price decline was so significant that he bought back the option this month plus added 300 more shares, so now we have a total of 1,200 shares between our two accounts, each paying about 19 cents per quarter. Juicy dividends!
Recent escalation of discounting wars among brokerage firms led to Charles Schwab dropping its trade commissions to zero at the start of October, which caused the stocks of its competitors to swoon for a few days. We took advantage and started a 50-share position in TD Ameritrade (AMTD) after the stock price fell nearly 25 percent. Glenn also picked up 200 shares of regional shopping mall developer Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust or PREIT (PEI), as well as 100 shares of the company’s preferred stock (PEI_PRD). He added shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) to his Roth IRA when the price dropped below $9 a share on Oct. 14; this supplements a small position that was started in July.
Glenn has been getting more serious about swing trading, so on Oct. 17 he bought 200 shares of VXX with the sole intent to sell it for short gains. The stock is an ETN (exchange traded note) that roughly tracks the volatility index of the S&P 500. It isn’t safe to hold as a long-term investment and only has major value if market conditions get crazy (think the 2008 housing bubble or last fall’s 20 percent correction.) Stocks have been sailing in mostly calm waters this year and so VXX is at a 52-week low, but that could change on a dime if the right conditions are present. We’ll see. Meanwhile, Glenn is selling call options against his shares to make some additional cash.
We’ll call this a wrap for this edition, but hopefully we’ll have some Halloween happenings to share with you next time.
