26 March 2020 Thursday

Another day of COVID-19 hysteria. U.S. death rate still hovering around 1.6% of the known cases and the government is still destroying The Constitution at every turn. I don’t think that we are going to recover our freedoms after this fiasco. America will be a more highly regulated, government controlled country. The financial tsunami that will be caused by this Two Trillion dollar crap pile bill added to the Twenty-two Trillion in current debt is likely to result in massive inflation and a drastic devaluation of the U.S. dollar. We are about to become Venezuela without the drug income.

Ended up at the lumber yard again. Somehow I managed to be one 2×6 short of a complete wall. Stopped off at the local grocer to get a couple of items and now there are plastic bags again. This has caused a vast improvement in my attitude. I can only tolerate a certain amount of stupid before I become depressed and angry. I got the lumber, ordered a sliding glass door and high tailed it home before one of them thar coronie virus things found me.

Arrived back at the house and began the process of demo in the preparation to install the new wall. The builders of this house did some screwy things and ripping them out took longer than expected. The backside of the stairwell had some odd additions that broke the flow from the living room into the front hallway. Demo is a pain because you never quite know where to stop. Do you just keep tearing out sheetrock or do you stop at a corner? Decided to stop at the corner. No point in making unnecessary work.

Got all of the 2x6s cut to length and screwed on the header and the floor plate. I measured the opening, at least, twice before cutting everything. However, when Summer and I tried to install the new framing it wouldn’t fit. I tried to force it in with gentle tapping with an 8 pound sledge hammer. No luck. We then took the damned thing back into the kitchen and I cut a quarter inch off all of the 2×6 studs and reassembled the wall. This time gentle tapping with the sledge hammer popped it right into place.

The temperature got up over 42F today. It’s a heat wave. Water was pouring off the roof like it was raining. Every now and then there would be a crashing sound of the snow and ice falling off the dormers and hitting the roof below. The snow is melting pretty quickly. In downtown Homer the snow is pretty much gone. There are the big piles from the previous snowplowing still around but the streets and parking lots are snow and ice free. I couldn’t be happier about the absence of snow and the quickly melting snow in our yard. I know that this means mucho mud but mud means warm weather and not having to dress in 17 layers of clothing. Shorts and tee shirts will be the uniform of the day.

Well, I’ve got dishes to wash and a shower to take. See ya later.