jimmypribble.com/blog

Sleeping is giving in
No matter what the time is
Sleeping is giving in
So lift those heavy eyelids

- Arcade Fire “Rebellion (Lies)”

An unwelcome reprieve today gives me a moment to shed some light on what I have been doing lately. I tried to sleep this afternoon, but it was futile. I didn’t feel like doing anything else and any reasonable estimation of my sleep deficit should have predicted success, but no. It wasn’t dark enough. It wasn’t cold enough. Nothing was settled enough. So, I pretended as long as I could, hoping that at least some part of my body was getting rest. I don’t think I ever really believed it. Fine, on the back of missing an Astros-Cubbies game with my work mates, missing seeing The Police with Rob, a very bad week all around, and a couple of stiff Knob Creek whiskey sours, I give you an update of the last several months.

First of all, I have been posting, just not to my own site. As I mentioned in my last post, my friend Tony and I started a local homeless ministry at church. He created a blog for that ministry and my last post will be copied to that blog. I should have more recent updates posted soon.

(click on the photo to open the site)

Also, I created a blog for the arts ministry at ACF. This should reflect what we have been doing at work, but of course, it is way out-of-date.

(click on the photo to open the site)

And I have another blog site out there, but I’ll get to that later.

I bought another car. I have kept the Miata as my daily driver, but I bought a 1994 Audi S4 from a friend for a song. It fell into my lap and I just couldn’t resist having another go at my favorite car that I have ever owned. A friend told me, “It’s so good to see you in an S4 again. I always thought that Miata looked like some kind of mid-life crisis car. You just look right in an S4.” Really? Oh my God, I love that Miata! I look like some middle aged punter? Ouch. Well, that’s a bloody shame because I’m still going to use that Miata as my daily driver. It uses regular gas, it gets decent mileage, and it has never given me any trouble whatsoever. That car is fantastic!

The S4 (UrS4), which I have named Nessie, is destined to be a garage queen and special transport vehicle on those rare occasions that I need to carry multiple passengers or maybe just on special occasions - like when I want to drive insanely fast or when I want to go broke buying expensive premium gasoline. Though I own three cars that are capable of track duty, I never intended for the UrS4 to see the track. And yet, through circumstances with which I won’t bore you, I found myself in the UrS4 on Harris Hill Road (H2R), which you might remember I visited in a pre-tarmac state here.

Here I am with a student at H2R (click for huge photo).

Here are some posts that I made about my car on another forum:

Nessie
Punch List
Jimmy’s ‘94 S4

In the spirit of the title of this post, I have to tell you that my new car was featured in a film that Jim Shields and I made for church last week. I didn’t drive until the wheels fell off, but I did drive the car over a curbed median while we were filming. The car doesn’t sound so good anymore. I had a light shining in my face while we were filming, so my night vision was gone and the light was reflecting off all of my windows and I could only see out of my front window. When I went to make a U-turn, I turned too early and plowed right over a median. It was all captured on camera. Our crew t-shirts are going to say, “I think Jimmy just jacked-up his car.” What do you want from me? I worked 15 hours that day.

I haven’t had a chance to see what I did to the car, because I’m busy preparing for a track event this coming weekend. The S4 will just have to wait its turn. My track event post should feature footage from the new in-car camera that I have installed in the car. Look for that in a couple of weeks.

Also, once this next track event is over, we will begin preparing for the 24 Hours of LeMons - no, not LeMans, but LeMons. The idea is to run a 24-hour endurance race with a car that doesn’t cost over $500. Crazy? You betcha. The event is in October. I made a team blog here:

(click on the photo to open the site)

Important Note: I wrote most of this post a couple of weeks ago at the end of a horrible week. Things are better now, but I’ll go ahead and finish my story. For some reason, I just didn’t seem to fit into the world very easily that week. I was thwarted at every turn and every success came at a high cost. I had disagreements with my wife, my boss, a co-worker, and a volunteer. I was exhausted and feeling like I was underwater. I had to punt on writing some devotionals for church and I had been asked to somehow help start and lead a third ministry. Sure. I had crashed my new car. By Thursday, I was reeling.

And then Tony walked into the office and told me that Isaiah, the homeless man to whom I am closest, was arrested at DPS when Tony had taken him to get his ID that morning. We had been in the process of getting all of his paperwork in order, so that we could legally pay him for contract work that we wanted him to do at the church. While waiting in line, they arrested him for a very serious felony warrant issued six years ago in South Carolina. He was a fugitive. I felt the floor drop out from beneath me. What were we doing? What good had we done?

Since then, I have a slightly different perspective about Isaiah’s situation. Tony and I have visited him in jail, while he waits for agents from South Carolina to come get him. He is doing well and seems to have a good attitude about what is happening to him. It’s part of a journey that he has to take. Most of us have made mistakes in our past that we wish we could run from, but we just have to walk it out. His life won’t get any better until he does. I’ll post more about this later, probably on the other site.

Anyway, I was done. I just wanted to have a nice day off on Friday to rest and regroup. Unfortunately, I needed to swap around some ceiling fans in the house and install a new one in my office. I’m not much of a household handyman, so you can guess how well that went. I’ll just cut to it - before the day was done, I had shocked myself on some exposed wiring and for the first time in my life, I fell off of a ladder. At the very same time, Kimberly was driving back from San Antonio when the tread on one of her tires separated from the tire carcass. She was thrown into another lane, but recovered quickly and was able to pull over. Luckily, there was a tire store within sight, so she crossed the median to the access road and got a new tire. Like everything else that was happening that week, that could have gone much worse. Thank you, Jesus.

We hadn’t quite driven until the wheels fell off, but last weekend, I had a friend who did. I’ll tell you about that in my next entry.

jimmy

Aragorn: Gentlemen, we do not stop till nightfall.
Pippin: What about breakfast?
Aragorn: You’ve already had it.
Pippin: We’ve had one, yes. What about second breakfast?
Merry: I don’t think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.
Pippin: What about elevenses? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn’t he?
Merry: I wouldn’t count on it.

Kimberly weighed our cat Rowdy the other day and he tipped the scales at 24 lbs.. Enough is enough. We decided that he needs to go on a diet. Abra, our other indoor cat is so skinny that it looks like she is still hanging-on to the heroin chic fad of the 90’s. How could that be? They should be eating about the same amount of food. While we were discussing this, we noted that Rowdy walked back into the kitchen four separate times for food that morning. He’s like a Hobbit! He just likes food!

A little research on the Internets revealed that we shouldn’t have just been leaving food down all day for the cats. Also, since cats are pure carnivores, they don’t need anything except protein and fat. Carbs just make them fat. In general, canned food is better than dry food, because it has higher meat content and less carbs. So, the strategy was to switch to canned food and then only feed them twice a day. Well, it turns out that our cats don’t like wet food. We weren’t expecting that. We thought they might just take a little time to get used to it, but it just wasn’t happening, so we switched back to their dry food, but are maintaining the twice a day feeding schedule. We couldn’t think of a convenient way to just put Rowdy on a diet, so all of the cats are on a diet. So far, I think Rowdy has lost two pounds. The other cats haven’t lost any weight, they are just cranky.

Speaking of diets, I haven’t worked-out or run since starting at the church and that, tied with the holidays and my own lack of discipline, has caused me to start balooning in all the wrong places. I can’t think of anything more boring than a new years resolution to lose weight, but there it is. It looks like I will have no choice.

jimmy    

If I ever disappear, you will probably find me buried in the hole behind the wall with the plug-in air freshener. 

Balboa Lloyds Insurance (their worse than average complaint index can be seen here) has decided not to pay our claim of damages to floors throughout our house. Yes, this is the same insurance company that originally told us that they wouldn’t pay for our windows that were broken in a bad hail storm that hit our neighborhood a couple of years ago. In fact, they didn’t even call them windows. They called them multiple plate insulating units and no, they weren’t covered. (We were later reimbursed for the cost of replacing the windows.)

They sent an engineer to survey our flooring issue. We haven’t seen his final report, but we know from his off-the-cuff comments that the problem was caused by a combination of two problems: a higher than average level of water vapor coming through the foundation and a substandard installation of the ceramic tile. A calcium chloride test revealed that we have water vapor transmission levels of 7.25 lbs. per 1000 ft.² per 24 hours in the kitchen/breakfast area and 7.93 lbs. per 1000 ft.² per 24 hours in my office, which are higher than average and higher than recommended for most flooring systems (tile and hardwood). The root cause for this is still unknown. Our plumbing and irrigation systems were checked and certified as good. Our foundation plans show that there should be an impervious barrier beneath the slab, but it’s integrity (and existence for that matter) is unknown. The engineer suggested that a French drain might artificially lower the water table and alleviate the hydrostatic pressure that was forcing the water vapor through the foundation, but the LCRA has said that they won’t authorize that construction, because of potential issues with our septic drain field. So, the floor will have to be sealed from the top.

The second issue has to do with the tile installation. The engineer suggested that there wasn’t enough expansion space allowed around the floor perimeter and that the tiles expanded until they bound-up against the walls and then popped-up. Blake Ehlers and another flooring contractor which we have consulted over the phone, both suggested that almost certainly the wrong kind of thinset mortar was used.

Since the tiles have already broken away from the floor, Mrs. Pribble and I had decided to save a few bucks and do the demolition ourselves. We had got as far as the breakfast area when three different people stepped forward with very compelling reasons why we shouldn’t do that, not the least of which is to prevent a homicide. The stress level is rather high around our house and we have already had a few snappy…uh, events. There is a very deep hole in the backyard, which we dug as part of the initial investigation into this problem. I got suspicious the other day when Kimberly asked that I fill it back in. I began to imagine standing next to the hole and *Pang!* getting a shovel upside my head.

So, we stopped the demolition and have focused our energy on making a decision about the new floors (we will be installing hardwood throughout the house) and clearing the rooms in preparation for the installers. We will choose a contractor within a week or so and will have new floors hopefully within six to eight weeks after that.

jimmy 

Oh my poor, sweet, neurotic dog. It has only been a few days since I looked into those pale blue eyes for the last time as we sent you along ahead of us. I hope you are somewhere running as fast as you can, herding for the shepherd of us all. I hope there is a park and a lake, where you can play in the water. I hope there is plenty of bread for you to eat. Whoever heard of a dog whose favorite food was bread?

In Winter, when you had your full, perfect blue merle coat and skirt, I thought you were the most beautiful dog I have ever seen. When I would look out the window and see you on patrol, tirelessly walking the fenceline, sometimes with Cat-Cat in tow, I felt loved and protected by you. You made Kimberly feel safe, when I was away. You were a good girl.

Thunderstorms and fireworks were a challenge, I admit. So many times, at the first sound of thunder, we would race to the backyard only to find it was too late. Your instincts had already kicked-in and you were up and over the six-foot privacy fence like it wasn’t even there on your way to gather a herd that you didn’t have. And goodness dog, could you run as far and fast as the wind - fifteen miles once. But that’s how far you would go to protect your herd, isn’t it?

You didn’t particularly care for men or children, but I was pleased that you became friends with the Fluhr brothers. You seemed to enjoy their Wednesday night visits. That meant a lot to me. Most of all though, you were Cat-Cat’s best friend. The two of you played together so often that we even took to calling you Dog-Dog. I’ll never forget Cat-Cat sitting next to you and cleaning your face on that last morning, when you were so sick. I believe he must have known something was wrong. We have been giving him extra attention since last Thursday and we promise to take good care of him for you.

We all miss you very much. Oh, my heart is broken, you stupid, stupid dog.

Godspeed, blue eyes.        

jimmy

A couple of months ago, some of the ceramic tiles in our breakfast area began to pop up suddenly. Kimberly happened to be working from home at the time and she said that when she first heard the popping, it was so loud she thought somebody was throwing rocks at the house. She ran to the kitchen and then saw that it was the tiles popping up and cracking before her very eyes! We had a homebuilder friend of ours come take a look and he thought that perhaps the tile had been installed with a substandard mortar and the normal settling and shifting of the house had caused them to pop up. This sounded plausible and the damage was minimal. At that time, we probably had enough spare tile to have the floor redone correctly.

Last Wednesday, James Bufkin was over for our Wednesday Work Night. He is a structural engineer, so we asked his opinion. He seemed to think the problem might be a bit more serious. He discovered that the floor closest to the exterior wall was raised. He thought that we might have a problem draining water away from that wall. But, the house is built on solid rock and the walls were plumb, so he didn’t seem too alarmed. He told us to dig a hole next to the wall and see if there was water down near the foundation.

On Friday morning, Kim woke me up early. “It’s happening again,” she said. I missed recording the best of it, because I stood around for so long being dumbfounded and sleepy, before remembering that my camera has a video function on it:

Right-click, Save-As (13 MB)

Hearing the floor crackle and pop like a bowl of Rice Crispies was quite strange. I can now totally understand how the poltergeist phenomenon is believed. It really did seem like the floor was alive. It also didn’t take much imagination at that hour of the morning for me to theorize that perhaps our house had been built on top of an Indian burial ground and the dead were now digging their way through our floor for revenge against whitey. At least it seemed plausible at the time. It really was creepy.

All of the tile in the breakfast area and about 1/3 of that in the kitchen is now detached from the slab and/or cracked. There are also two or more cracks in the walls now. Whatever is causing this, it isn’t bad mortar, nor Indian zombies. I predict a lengthy and expensive process as we get to the bottom of this. All will be documented in the new House and Home category, here at jimmypribble.com.

jimmy