Toilet Paper Holder

***EDIT*** Apparently a stud finder can detect re-bar in the walls. Who knew? Hat tip to "A" for finding it out..

After 6 years we finally decided to get the TP roll off the floor. This bathroom is so small that we were unsure of how to do it. We knew that a normal TP holder would not work because it would stick out too far and probably be ran into all the time. Which would correlate to bruised legs and the need to constantly reattach it to the wall.

We thought about having a floor stand like the master bath but it would need to be moved around depending if you needed to take a shower. In the end we decided to get a recessed one. We wanted a white ceramic holder but damn they are expensive ($60+). We found a nice white metal one at Home Depot for about $15.

Normally installing one would take about 15 minutes. Use a stud finder and then cut a hole in the drywall between the studs, no problem. However, as you are aware, our house is not normal. Can't find our studs with a stud finder, all you can do is guess. So I thought to place the holder in the middle below the window with the thought that the re-bar would be just outside the window frame. Of course I guessed wrong. I drilled my exploratory hole and sure enough, I hit re-bar. So unfortunately it is slightly off center. But hey, it's off the ground.

What are the odds of a re-bar stud being there

About 100%

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Foot Surgery Followup

On February 17th I had the stitches removed and was hoping that was going to get me back on the road to normal. Unfortunately not completely yet. I am getting better and this week I am finally able to wear other footwear besides tennis shoes. I can walk without a limp and at lunch I have gone for a few walks but afterward I kind of regret it. My main concern is that I cannot curl my toe as much as I used to without pain and I hope that it's not permanent.

While the swelling and redness is mostly gone, it does comeback after being on my feet for extended periods. Hopefully things will improve.

Below are some photos of the "healing" process. Once again discretion is advised.

 **********WARNING!! GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW. DISCRETION IS ADVISED**********

 **********警告！下の図の写真。裁量は通告されてい**********

Foot Surgery

For the last year I had a lump/bump on the top of my left great toe. It didn't hurt if you pushed on it but it would rub on the top of my dress shoes. This was causing a callous and it was uncomfortable. It took a long time to work my way through the VA health care system to even get an appointment with podiatry. I got the referral appointment from my primary on October 3rd and after visiting with the Dr., he said yes it was something they could fix and it was not a super big deal. Well, he also said he was new and didn't know how to set the follow up appointments in the system but he would have another Dr. help him.  I guess that should have been my first red flag.  I was going to give it 2 weeks and then call to follow up. Well, on October 15th my Mom passed away and this immediately went to the bottom of my concerns.

I tried to call podiatry the beginning of November but the number the VA has goes right to the appointment line. I was in a yoga study and it was down the hall from podiatry, so I decided to pay them a visit. The very unhelpful lady said that yes I did see one of their Dr.s but he was not in on Wednesday, however he would be in the next day and she would leave a message for him. The following Monday I had not heard back so I called the bad number again and got the main appointment line. They said they could only make an appointment for my primary. Since I had already seen my primary (he gave me the referral) I asked to speak to him ASAP. I got a call back from one of his staff who said that I should call podiatry and proceeded to give me the bad number again.

The following Wednesday, I had yoga, and decided to visit the very unhelpful lady again. She again said the Dr. wasn't in on Wednesday (no shit) and said she would leave a message. I asked for a better number and she gave me her "personal" desk number. I waited till Monday and when I did not hear anything back (are you seeing a pattern) I called Mrs. Unhelpful's number where I received a voice mail asking me to leave a message and then I am promptly disconnected.  I went into orbit!!

My Gunny's wife works at the VA for the chief of staff and she got me the Patient Advocates number. I called, left a message, and the ball finally begin rolling. I had to go back to my primary so he could clear me for surgery (even though he gave me the referral). REALLY!!! I called the patient advocate again for some assistance. I received a call from the Chief Surgeon for podiatry who apologized and said he would do my surgery. However I still had to go back to my primary.

He had to shave down the top part of the toe where the bone had grown up and there was some type of gout paste that they cleaned out.

I will say that once I got the surgery date, did the pre-op and went into surgery, the staff was nothing but professional and very competent.  I had the surgery on January 28th and today I had the follow up and everything looked good. I am set to have the stitches removed on February 17th.

I guess I was overly optimistic (as usual) and thought that I could be back to work yesterday, when I told this to the Dr. the day of surgery he just kind of looked at me funny and said to wait until I had the follow up. So today I went back to work for a half a day and kind of regretted it. I will say that I did not expect the level of pain, it really hurt!!!!!

 Below are some photo's, several of them not foe the week of heart (like "A").

**********WARNING!! GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW. DISCRETION IS ADVISED**********

 **********警告！下の図の写真。裁量は通告されてい**********

Target Shooting

Last weekend some friends from the neighborhood went out to Ocotillo Wells to do some target shooting. Honestly, I didn't know there was anyplace in Southern California that you could go out and shoot that was not an "official" shooting range. I also had no idea that there were quite as many people in the neighborhood who owned guns and liked to shoot.

Getting there was an adventure, actually a scary adventure. The normal way is to take I-8 East through the mountains, and we did, but that weekend the Santa Ana winds were howling. We all rode in one of the guys RV and with the winds blowing around 40mph with gust hitting around 60-70mph it was all he could to to keep the RV on the road. In fact we almost turned around.  What normally takes 1 1/2 hours took over 2 hours thankfully, when we got in the desert, the wind wasn't blowing there.  But around 1PM the Highway Patrol closed the highway for a few hours. Going back we took the S-2 highway, no wind but it took us over 3 hours to get back. So the drive there and back sucked.

We had a whole mixture of weapons from the .22 rifle up to a 300 Magnum hunting rifle. One guy made his own AR-15 receivers and the little black gun I am shooting is one of them. Another guy had some WW2 rifles (M1 Carbine and M1 Garand) which were really cool to shoot.

(L-R) Mini 14; M1 Carbine; M1 Garand; don't know what the far right one is

Tonight's Sunset

Really nice sunset tonight. It has been a rough few months and I will work on putting up more posts in the future.

Rental Property number 2

We finally finished the renovations on the property we bought in September. I didn't document this one like the first because of many things going on over the last 2 months.

We bought this one in the same "complex"as the first. I use quotes because there are actually three different HOAs in this condo complex. Our first place is actually across the street at an angle but different HOA. Unfortunately we paid more for this one, however I did have a maximum amount that we could pay and still make money. Happily we stayed under that line and will make some money, just not a lot. But more than we could with it sitting in a bank account.

We were happy that this place did not need nearly as much work as the first condo, or so we thought. In the end we spent 3/4 in renovations on this one as the other. We didn't have to replace most of the floor, kitchen appliances, kitchen cabinets/counter top. However we did have to replace carpeting in the bedrooms, washer and dryer, closet doors, remove the popcorn ceiling, bathroom counter tops, and spend a fortune in trades (plumbing/electrical/painting).

We installed the closet doors (yep they didn't have any), paint and reface the bathroom cabinets, install the bathroom lights.  We had to get creative with the master closet doors because the opening was GIGANTIC. We installed two 96x96 mirrored doors and then use a 4x6 on either side as "trim" to fill in the gap. It looks really nice.

None of the electrical boxes were centered, so I had to MacGyver the bathroom lights. Speaking of MacGyver'ing something, when the plumber pulled off the guest bathroom shower handle the previous owner used a 14mm socket to fit into the cartridge stem. Pretty ingenuous, except I had to have it fixed.

"A" was the designer and most of what we did were her ideas. At times I thought we were over spending and doing unnecessary work but in the end it did pay off and she was correct, as usual. We put it on the marked and in less than a day we had it rented out. There are two other places that have been listed for over a month. One is $80 more and the other is $155 more but they both have garages while ours does not have a garage. In the end it was "A"s design and willingness to put in good quality work that made the difference.

Kitchen

Guest Bath

Master Bath

Refacing all the doors in shaker style.

MacGyver the lights

4x6 "trim"

4x6 "trim"

4x6 "trim"

4x6 "trim"

This was how the shower handle was "fixed" by the previous owner.

HOT HOT HOT!!!

When we got our air conditioner I was wondering if we would have a cooler summer, we didn't. And we are entering our warmer months in September and October. Today was one of the warmer days and it was super muggy with monsoon moisture in the air. We didn't get any rain here but the mountains did.

While it was a muggy 95 outside it was a cool 76 inside.