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refused roofing
Thursday, July 26 2018
This morning I drove out to Home Depot mostly to get some eight foot one by twelve planks to go at the bottom of the screens at the north and south end of the screened-in porch. As you may recall, the floor of that porch is slightly rhombus-shaped in that the east end is an inch further north than the west end (I blame the laser square I'd used!) I'd managed to get the roof and walls square, but I still needed to conceal the out-of-squareness of the east and west ends of the floor, and those planks would hide the terrible truth to anyone who didn't crawl under the deck. While at the Home Depot, I also got some caulk, glossy white exterior paint, plastic electrical conduit, and other things to allow me to provide some basic electrification in the porch. While I was out, I also got some groceries in the ShopRite for the first time in over a month. (Our house had run low on the kind of staples that I buy but that Gretchen normally does not buy: canned beans, crackers, and Stand 'n' Stuff taco shells.
I should mention that the Subaru sounded great and operated normally with its new exhaust system, though it smelled like burning plastic after I'd climbed the escarpment from Hurley Mountain Road. That steep slope is always a test of a car's ability to radiate heat, and new exhaust systems are typically shipped as naked parcels without any packing materials; the plastic tape and address labels usually take awhile to burn off.
In other shipping-related news, today a FedEx driver attempted to deliver the raised-seam metal roofing for the screened-in porch. But when he saw the condition of the parcel (a sixteen-foot crate), he suggested I should look at it in case I wanted to refuse delivery. The end of the crate had been smashed, as if something had been dropped on top of it. This had dented the sides of a bunch of the roofing sections. It seemed best to refuse the shipment, something I had never done before. The refusal necessitated a few calls back to FedEx HQ and the filling out of a form. When I told Gretchen what I had just done, she was horrified that I hadn't involved her (since she was the one who had actually ordered the roofing). So she quickly grabbed her shoes and we ran back to the FedEx truck (which was still parked along the side of the road near our mailbox, about 200 feet northwest of our house). This time we took pictures of the damage so that Gretchen could show the roofing company why we'd had to refuse the order. By now we'd been joined by both of our dogs, Ramona and Neville, even though this meant they had broken rules to cross (and walk along) Dug Hill Road.This evening I used the table saw to cut narrow strips of wood of different thicknesses to use as standoffs for those planks I'd bought earlier. To fit those planks square to the porch yet attached to a skewed substructure, I would need such standoffs.
We had another diaspora happy hour this evening at the usual time. At first it didn't seem that Nicole would be joining us, since she is mourning the recent death of one of her dogs (the one she credits for saving her life). But eventually she joined the party, and we all had a fairly good time. But then there was some talk of fun that was had at a recent departmental retreat, and it was a bit too much for Allison, who needed (for sanity's sake) to temporarily sign out and not hear about it. I could totally understand; at this point, all I ever want to hear about Mercy For Animals is how it resembles an airplane flying into a mountain. News that it might be an effective organization or a fun place to work are most unwelcome.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?180726 feedback
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