Re-hanging the wall cabinets, preparing to sell the Miata on Ebay

(posted from home)

(This post covers 18 – 30 June, 2012)

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Saturday, 30 June -

Today promised to be another very hot and humid one. I needed to walk so thought I'd get an early start. I first had to check my Ebay listing and reply to a question from a prospective buyer. This guy wrote that he would be in the area on vacation but would have to be back at work before the auction ends and wanted to know if the car is advertised locally. He have me a phone number to text to.
Hmmm. It took a few minutes to figure out what was going on. The phone number is a York number so I was suspicious right away. I think the game was merely to get me to text him so he could have my phone number in order to talk me into selling it outside of Ebay and eliminating his competition. Also, the user name is a fairly unique girl's name with a number tacked on the end. Gee, that same girl is registered on a walleye fishing site, a do-it-yourself home repair site, and an antique radio site about vacuum-tube radios. Interesting young lady there, eh? Sorry, pal.
Figuring out what that guy was about took me a bit so I didn't get on the road until about 0900. I rode the GS down to Starbucks and then on to Rocky Ridge for my walk. I finished up in 1:42 today.
I then decided I'd ride on over to Park City Mall in Lancaster and pick up some Doubleshot Lights. While there I stopped in the Apple Store and had a nice long chat with 'Ron' about the new iPad and MacBookPro.
I didn't get home until 1500 or so and with the exercise and the riding in the heat of the day I was ready to just chill awhile.
That evening we watched 'Waltz With Bashir' and interesting “animated documentary” about the experiences of a 19-year-old Israeli soldier in Lebanon in the early Eighties. Well done, Ari and Yoni!

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Friday, 29 June -

Early this morning (0400-ish) I was awakened by thunder and lightning and then couldn't get back to sleep. I finally dozed off around 0700 and woke at 0800.
Today's a very hot and sticky one with warnings up everywhere. When I walked out at 0900 this morning the humid air took my breath away.
After checking how things are going on Ebay and seeing what the Colorado fires look like today (Colorado Springs has had 300 homes burn down in the last two days and we have friends who live fairly close to the fire in Boulder), I rode the GS into town to the urologist's office. I needed to pick up contrast solution for my annual CT scan next week.
I then hit the nearby Tollgate Starbucks for a bit and hit the Wendy's near home on the way back.
I spent the afternoon cooling down and catching up the blog.
That evening we watched 'Intelligence' 2.3.2 and 2.3.3. One more disc to go....

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Thursday, 28 June -

I worked all day today on the Ebay ad and posted it by supper time. It took so long because I'm listing all the many performance and appearance mods, their manufacturers and the costs. It seems like I've been through the receipts a dozen times.
Good old Ebay gave me some problems too. I had uploaded the 14 photos and just finished put them into display order when the Chrome screen just went out. When I got back into Ebay I found the basics of my ad but the uploaded photos were missing. I had to do them again.
I posted the ad around 1730 or so and within minutes the view count was up to a dozen and I had my first bid. An hour later, that first bid was taken down with the reason “bid incorrect amount”. I had put the car up for $3250 and he had bid $3552. That's the last I've seen of that guy, though.
That evening we watched 'Intelligence' 2.2.3 and 2.3.1. GOOD show, folks.

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Wednesday, 27 June -

Aha! I finally remembered where I stored the Miata paperwork. It was in one of the drawer-storage stacks at our storage unit. That will make a big difference for the ad since it provides me receipts, installation manuals, etc to remind me of all the items and their costs as well as when they were installed. I drove over to the unit and brought them back to the house, then went to our barn and looked through the stack of 'takeoffs', i.e., stock gear replaced by the aftermarket gear a previous owner had installed. This includes things like the radio, headlight assemblies, camshafts, air induction, etc.
I also took more photos and edited them.
Labashi continues her work in the yard. She's absolutely amazing to me. She doesn't mind the hot weather and spends hours and hours out there. She even goes back out after supper and works a few more hours.
She has all the pruning and subsequent cleanup done and is re-doing the flower beds.
That afternoon I rode the GS down to York for my coffee-and-walk ride. The weather today was much less humid than last week and my walk felt great. 1:42 today.
That evening we watched 'Intelligence' 2.2.1 and 2.2.2.

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Tuesday, 26 June -

I began selecting and editing the Miata pictures I'll use for the ad. I've decided to go with Ebay rather than Craigslist, mostly because it has a long list of aftermarket performance mods. I'll need exposure to a wider audience for that specialized gear. I'm just using the Preview editing tools on the MacBookPro but they're doing a pretty good job of color correction and cropping.
That evening we drove over to Mom and Dad's apartment for supper, took care of moving a few items for Dad and then took Mom and Dad out into the complex's very large parking lot to watch the International Space Station flyover.

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Monday, 25 June -

Today I started the process to decide whether to put the Miata up on Craigslist or Ebay. I used SearchTempest to view Craigslist ads for Miatas within 400 miles of home. Prices and conditions varied so much that it wasn't really very helpful. I also logged on to Ebay and reviewed the selling process. I've not sold anything on Ebay for years but Labashi sold a few things on there last year.
I was also contacted via email today by the guy who bought my KLR 650 motorcycle two summers ago. He wanted to know whether I still had the tank bag and saddlebags. I don't but gave him a longish email identifying the bags, making some recommendations about them, and providing prices and sources. In the email I hoped the KLR is treating him well and he responded that its only needs have been regular maintenance items. This would have been an opportunity to regret having sold it but I've never looked back on that one. It was reliable enough but was too tall in the saddle and had a frustrating tendency to fade in color. The red color did not like the sun at all. I could get it looking very good using Mother's “Back to Black” but a month later it would need another treatment.

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Sunday, 24 June -

Today Labashi spent the day cleaning up the branches in the yard. I washed and photographed the Miata for its upcoming ad.
In the afternoon I oiled the F650GS's chain and then rode down to Starbucks the back way.
That evening I caught up the blog and then we watched an episode of 'Zen' on Masterpiece Theater. Meh.
We also took a few minutes out to go out to see the International Space Station flyby. Our neighbor across the street joined us and that was his first time seeing it so that made it extra fun. This pass was bright but an odd pattern across the sky. It came up out of the WNW and hooked left, never rising above 45 degrees elevation. Still, it flew over the moon (from our viewpoint). Cool.

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Saturday, 23 June -

Today I helped Labashi with her landscaping a bit this morning. I dug out our old 16” electric chainsaw, replaced the chain and used it to cut up the larger branches Labashi had downed yesterday. She had told me she was going out to clean up branches she had downed the day before. Yet when I looked out sometime later I saw even more branches littering the yard and she was busy on others. So today the cleanup started.
I also spent an hour or so upgrading my five-year-old Tracfone to a newer model. The old one still worked but the new one has double-minutes for life so financially it makes more sense to upgrade than to keep using the old phone.
That afternoon I rode down to York for my coffee-and-walk routine. The heat had broken so it was a pleasant walk today.
That evening we watched the movie 'Seraphine', a French movie about the painter Seraphine Louis. After the movie we went outside and saw the International Space Station. It has been on the news lately that the ISS is particularly bright now so we looked up the passage times and set the alarm. I took along the iPad with the GoSatWatch app. It perfectly predicted the passage time and location and even showed the ISS dim as it descended, just like the real one. Impressive!

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Friday, 22 June -

I'm supposed to be working on my ad to sell the Miata but keep putting it off. Today I wanted to get a lot of little things out of the way. I had some household-finance chores to take care of and I replaced two broken springs on my favorite chair. I ran the sweeper, changed the AC filter and scheduled my annual kidney scan. I also did some price research for selling the Miata.
That evening we watched 'Saving Grace', 2.1.4

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Thursday, 21 June -

This morning I replaced a burned-out headlight bulb in the F650GS. Even such a simple thing needs an inordinate amount of research. I soon learned there's a trade off on these bulbs. If you pay twice the cost, you get half the bulb life. And what's the benefit of paying twice the cost? Promises. Promises that the light will penetrate further or cast a wider beam of 'better' color, a more revealing light. In the end, I was able to resist the siren call of the promises by realizing that I don't ride much at night and when I do it's not for long.
The actual installation only took a minute and is done without tools. Twist off a cover, pull off a connector, swing open a wire bail and the bulb falls free. Reverse to install. Well done, BMW.
Since I had the bike in a shady spot I went ahead and took the time to fix a problem. The F650GS is known for having rusty fasteners on the front disk brake. I removed the fasteners one by one, cleaned them up, painted them with high-temperature paint and re-installed them (carefully!).
With our cabinets up in the mud-room it was time to set up the workbench. In this case we're using an old door on saw-horses. Since we don't do any heavy-duty work here, the door-on-saw-horses setup is a great solution for us. The entire 'workbench' can be moved out of the way or relocated by one person in less than a minute.
With the changes to the mud-room layout we had to downsize the workbench and that meant we needed shorter-length saw-horses. We had a set available but I needed to cut off the saw-horses and then stack on 2x4 sections and screw them together to get the table to the correct height.
That afternoon I helped Labashi with some tree-trimming. We have a small (8”) pole-mounted chainsaw and it's a pain. I had installed a new chain prior to putting it away last time so I checked adjustment and oiled it. But after only a few cuts it needed adjustment again. And again. And again. I must have re-adjusted it at least a dozen times for a remarkably small amount of work.
Late in the day I zipped over to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription so I can get started on restoring my taste buds to normal.
That evening we watched 'Saving Grace', 2.1.1-2.1.3.

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Wednesday, 20 June -

This morning I had a doctor's appointment to determine why my taste buds seem to have changed. This appears to have been a result of the courses of antibiotics I took this Spring. After a general checkover, the doctor swabbed my tongue and disappeared for a few minutes to the microscope. He returned to report I had indications of fungal cells and gave me a prescription.
That afternoon I rode the GS to York for a coffee-and-walk. The afternoon was very hot--- in the mid-nineties with a feels-like index of 105 --- but I was fine in the shade of the trail. I have one long treeless section and I could feel the heat building up to oppressive levels in my body. But that section ends at the power line where there's always a breeze (and a nice view!) so I was fine.
That evening we had the first disc of season Two of 'Intelligence', the excellent Canadian TV series.

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Tuesday, 19 June –


Today we installed the three remaining wall-hung cabinets in the mud room. These turned out to be much easier to install than the last two because the floor under them was clear and we could use one of the floor-standing cabinets and two pieces of plywood to put them into place ready for drilling and lag-bolting.
Mid-afternoon I rode the bike in to Starbucks/Lowe's on an errand-and-coffee run.
That evening we watched the first two episodes of 'Intelligence', Season Two.

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Monday, 18 June -

Today we re-installed two of the hanging cabinets we had taken down for construction of the new bathroom. We had removed five of these 30Wx24Hx15D white melamine cabinets and stacked them in the guest room.
The construction opened up a new place for cabinets and I needed to do a bit of prep work. I installed four 12” metal straps, one on each of the four joists which had been cut out for a 2” drain pipe.
We then ran into the problem of how to elevate the two cabinets into place given the narrow space below them. We finally moved one of the standing storage cabinets as close as we could, then used some 2x12 pieces about 30 inches long to bridge to 6-foot boards standing along the wall. This rickety arrangement threatened to fall at any moment but it did last long enough to get the lag-screw holes drilled and lag-bolts installed.
That afternoon I handled a Comcast billing issue for Dad. The bill had two unexpected charges and it took a few hours to work through the history and get them resolved.
That evening we watched 'Catfish', an odd but entertaining little 'documentary' (there's some question about whether it's truly a documentary) about an 8-year-old artist who turns out not to be an artist after all. Actually, it's not about the 8-year-old at all. But I can't explain it any more without ruining it for you. Recommended!


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