DanLog the ramblings of Daniel Pettit

Once it got dark I headed over to Steve and James’ to spread a little candy cheer around the neighborhood. On the way over I returned a DVD rental and decided to pick up some “company” for the evening.

All the photos

Today I finished up the regular courses of shingles. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to work the “ridge” vent yet so I kept the underlayment long and curled up against the wall barring a hurricane it should keep me dry enough until I finish it up.

Finally a good stretch of weather. So I’m off to start finishing the roof. First off I had to cut out the holes for the roof windows. I started by jigsawing from underneath the width of the windows. Being upside down looking directly at the saw to follow my line I quickly discovered by saftey glasses were not up to the task as I almost immediately had dust in my eye. I quickly fashioned new protective head gear, a 2 gallon ziplock bag. Lauren really freaked out when she saw me in it. I didn’t understand why it bothered her so much. It wasn’t like the plastic was thin enough for me to inhale it. But I will say that it didn’t take long to get light headed.

Then from the top I used my router and cut the opening flush with the rafters.

Now I was ready to start shingling. Once I got to the bottom of the window openings I could install the windows. After the windows were in I continued with the shingles until it got dark and ghouls started to appear.

Finished the gutter today. More rain is coming this week, so I can’t get anymore work done until I have a good stretch of dry weather to dry out my roof. I’ll also need a few dry days to install the roof windows and shingle the roof as they need to be done at the same time.

Tonight was the night. We went to my 20 year Newport Harbor High School at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach. The facility was quite nice. It is like a clubhouse for a ritzy county club. There were several rooms with a main room over looking the “lake”. Waiters worked the crowd plying hors d’oeuvres and $6 draft beer.

We stayed about four hours. Most of the few people I spoke to were actually people I knew from my neighborhood in Elementary school. There was only one guy there that was part of our group that hung out at lunch and of course Steve Hansen who got me to go. We still don’t remember how we came to know each other.

It turns out that Steve married a girl from Tustin as well. It was a little freaky at first as he thought she went to Tustin High ’84, Lauren’s school. He later recalled that his wife went to Foothill High, which is on the right side of the tracks so to speak.

One person I did want to see was ” Bamboo Ben ” I knew him as Benji. Our story together took place in 5th grade. I knew from the emails going back and forth that Ben was planning on going but I never spotted him. Late in the evening I spotted his business cards on the bar, but he was still nowhere to be found. A while later Lauren came back from the restroom, with some unknown woman in tow. She was Mrs. Bamboo Ben and she dragged Ben over. Well, I don’t know if it was because he was seven sheets to the wind or his HS hobbies blocked his Elementary memories, but he had no idea what I was talking about or who I was. He tried with great effort to remember, I’m pretty sure I could smell wood burning at one point. But no dice. He really wasn’t making coherent conversation and Lauren and I were feeling trapped and sorry she found him. Luckily he got distracted by Michelle Nigro (a high school hottie that probably never gave him the time of day BTW she is still very hot) he ran over and planted himself on her lap. Here he is saying something to her afterwards (that’s the back of his head) .

Speaking of hot, it seemed that the same group of old guys that graced Lauren’s reunion showed up at mine as well. Only this time they all seemed somehow familiar. The hot chicks were still hot, but in a twist of fate I actually brought a hot chick. Lauren was probably in the top five, definately in the top ten. Many of the guys managed to stay good looking or at least “younger” looking. I have to say that my stock has gone up quite a bit in the looks department.

My mom would have enjoyed bellying up to the chocolate dessert fountain.

I’m glad we went, but would have liked to see more of the few friends I did have.

All the photos.

I tore off the remaining section of old gutter and started to install the rest of the new one. Had to go to Home Depot again – twice. I called it a day early and stopped by Steve and James’s after my second HD trip.

Went to the Cheesecake Factory at Fashion Island tonight. I had the chicken stuffed tortillas. Of course that was just a distraction before the cheesecakes arrived. Yes cheesecakes, we both have two hands don’t we, well what the hell do you think they are for? Here is my furred friend. .

View all of tonights photos.

Who do you support? Take both quizzes.

Take Bush Quiz

Take Kerry Quiz

I scored a 8/10 for Bush and a 1/10 for Kerry.

It rained pretty good last night .78 inches overnight. Looks like more rain until Thursday, so who knows how long my underlayment is going to have to be my first defense.

From the writer of “Get Shorty” we have a caper of deception set in Hawaii. Staring Owen Wilson and Morgan Freeman . I’m not sure what it was but it never really got a head of steam so to speak. It was entertaining but pales in comparison to Get Shorty. Of course the scenery is beautiful, and they focus on the Pipeline surf of the North Shore . Not to mention the curves of acting newcomer Sara Foster.

The DVD had some extras featuring the filming of the surf sequences plus the actual footage shot of the Pipeline action.

Nice “boat”.

2.9 stars

Nothing like a deadline to get one motivated. With a guarantee of heavy rain coming late tonight, I have to get the roof weather tight. First off I primed the exposed underside edges of the roof sheating. While the primer dried I installed some stainless steel flashing to my “gutter” and did a little touch up caulking and foaming. Went to Home Depot and bought the rain gutter parts, and roof flashings.

To make things easier I also dry fitted and cut to size the siding for the front exterior wall. With those HardiPanels cut to size I then fastened the roof sheathing. Since my room is out of square I had to mark and trim the eave edge to a uniform exposure. Then trimmed the final piece to size. The room now has a roof. Next I primed the edges of the roof sheathing. While that was drying I tested out the gutter. It was a bit tight getting it in but fits fine once in place. It looks like I don’t have enough vertical space to hang the gutter over my “gutter” so it will just have to lay on it. I couldn’t continue with the gutter install because of the caulking that was still wet on the flashing, not to mention I didn’t think I’d have to remove the other section of old gutter.

Next I installed the drip edge for the eave. Then I layed down two layers of underlayment and then installed the drip edge for the rakes. I’m almost out of stainless steel staples, that means there are over 1200 staples have been used in this project.

The final thing for the day as the sun set, was to position the one section of gutter so that it would drain into the patio. This left a small section on the other end with out a gutter so I slipped some flashing under the garage roof and the artroom drip edge to divert the rain to the gutter.

That’s it for today.

This moderator had some interesting questions. This was Bush’s best performance and I felt he came off very natural and real, unlike Kerry’s honed yet mechanical presentations. I was shocked when Bush actually mentioned that major cause of the flu vaccine shortage is due to our broken tort system.

[ Almost if not all of our vaccine supply comes from 2 companies. All the other vaccine companies have gotten out of the flu market due to the poor risk reward ratio. Due to runaway litigation it simply is not worth the risk for a low margin product. So now the worlds most advanced medical system has to ration service. This is standard operating procedure for socialized medicine. ]

Kerry for the third time brought up his fairy tale of Bush letting Osama go in Tora Bora. (Maybe he’s half right, maybe they leaked that info to the Kerry campaign, when in fact Osama has been locked up in the white house basement for a year, can you say October surprise?) Bush again had his paint brush out slapped another coat of liberal on Kerry. While the color does fit him well, he really hasn’t voted 37,000 times for tax increases. Each bill gets voted on many times along the way to getting to a floor vote. So in fairness he’s only voted like 9,000 times to raise taxes.

I was surprised that a question about immigration came up. On border security Kerry made some valid points of things that should be done. However his statement that the border is less secure is probably based on the increased numbers of Hispanics crossing in the last 12 months versus per 9/11. This is because they know full well, that despite what the President says his worker program isn’t, it really is another amnesty. Which is what Kerry wants as well. So they have been lining up in droves to get across so they’ll qualify. They don’t understand that just because our President mentions an idea doesn’t mean it will become reality. I wonder if Nader gets this issue right. The border does have more men and equipment, so it is sort of safer. Neither Bush or Kerry have the backbone to really secure the border, it really is just a matter of time before something bad comes over the Rio Grande. How about redeploying our soldiers in Germany to protecting our southern border. I figure 40,000 troops should do quite nicely. One every quarter mile with binoculars, a radio, some sunblock and an M16. That would cover you 24/7 with 8 hour shifts. Then no terrorists come across the border and INS can work on enforcing our laws on the interior, before California’s infrastructure is completely hemorrhaging. Well if things don’t get better, I’m prepared, if you can’t beat then join them!

This morning I primed the gutter, as I was cleaning off the debris in the gutter from the rain I managed to slice my finger. I didn’t even feel it, all of a sudden as Im sweeping the gutter with a brush I started to splatter blood all over. It looked 100% worse than it was. Then I finished nailing the rafters and managed to nail my finger pretty good in the process, this time it felt 900% worse than it looked. I also finished the vent screens and painted a top coat of paint on the gutter. Then I rough cut the roof panels and did a trial install. I had to do some final trimming up on the roof to compensate for my out of square side wall. I then removed the panels so I could get the second coat of paint on the gutter and to allow me to do some caulking next time and to install the gutter hangers before the final attachment of the roof panels. The forcast is for clear skies tonight so it had better be!

I received an email from a classmate [whom I haven't communicated with in 20 years] wondering if I was going to the reunion. I explained I wasn’t. After replying I checked out who might be going and the list was considerably longer than a couple months ago when I “firmly” decided not to go. Well despite my clear intention to not go. I’ve pulled a Kerry and have decided to go after I decided not to. Well at least Lauren will stop pestering me about going. Hey it’s only money and I can always take my toys and go home early.

A Kevin Smith film, but not a Jay and Silent Bob movie. While if you pay attention you can see that it’s a Smith film. It’s mostly middle of the road fare here. Not that there is anything wrong with it. An entertaining romance between a father and daughter.

4 stars