Sunday

Busy weekend.
Yesterday Denny (former keyboard of the famous Dial Tones) stopped in and visited. He is in town to do a gig with the Dogs on Skis. That was nice to see him. Got the rails all stained yesterday before he got there.
Today was just nonstop stuff. I spent all morning scrubbing the bottom part of the deck and the screen porch and then power washing it. I had to do inside too since I guess I am going to stain that too. The I took the blade off of the mower and used the angle head grinder that I got from my dad for the first time. Got that sharp and mowed up the yard.
The boat is half in the water on the banks. It had filled up with rain and when that happens the water leaks inside the hull through where the crank goes in for the pedals. I had a hell of a time dragging it out of the water so I could tip it up and drain it out. That took a while and sucked ass bad. I had the power washer out so I cleaned all the crap off of it and got it ready to put away for *gasp* winter.
I have been thinking about making some lanterns out of the solar landscaping lights that I have in the flower boxes outside. The dog kept eating them, so they got pushed back to the back and the flowers grew over them. I got those made up and while the stain was drying I went up and replaced the valve assembly in the terlet in our bathroom. Then I got the lanterns hung up. They look kind of cool. Once it got dark I saw that there are three more buried in the flowers that I will dig out tomorrow and use also.
**
I had a big scare a couple of nights ago. Steve pointed out a really good blog entry by leo that talked about how FRIGGIN STUPID Iowa City is with their give every damn body and house policy. Steve found a map that had six houses going in our neighborhood. That is how it all started over at the other place. A few city owned section 8 houses. Then they keep bring the value of the land down and so in comes Habitat for Humanity dumping 12 houses on our block. Then the value goes down even more....
I mailed my neighbor Dan about it and he came over the next day with the poop on it. It is not perfect, but it is much better then I had thought. It is flood related to some extent. They are building houses around the city and flood folks have first priority. The program pays 30K down and they have to GET A LOAN FOR THE REST FROM A BANK. Right there I felt much better. If you can get a loan these days, you must have a job and some credit ratings of sorts. If they keep the house for five years they don't have to pay back the 30K. If they sell it, they don't.
I am not against that kind of help at all. That makes a lot more sense then, "here you go, have a house" policy that IC usually uses. Morons.
Anyhow, I was SO relieved!