Little Things . . .

We have lived in the same place now for  17 years.  Our home is paid for and we have not outstanding debts.  But little things keep arising.  Such is life.

The other day, Judie was in the guest bathroom, and had bit of a tussle with a shower door.  All I know is that she came in to the den and said, "I have a problem."  The issue was one of the two shower doors shattered in to a jillion pieces.  She needed help cleaning up.  She had a broom and shovel scoop.

I went into the garage and got my industrial vacuum cleaner.  And I spent maybe 20 minutes sucking up the glass pieces.  Some of the glass even got into the toilet bowl.  I fished that out very easily.  I left the glass in the shower/tub for the repairman to clean up.

We called the folks that did our main bathroom remodeling for us and they sent out a tradesman.  He measured the door and said, "No problem."   We wait now for the new door.  He will also lubricate the old door that is remaining and get all of it back in good working order.

Then the exit door to the garage acted up.  The latch stuck.  The bolt stuck fully retracted so that one can not close the door and expect it to stay closed.  So I disassembled the door knob and I figured the spring internal to the mechanism had broken and thus did not push the bolt out to engage the door jamb.  I had fixed this once before so it was not a new job to me.

We went to Lowe's and found the part.  There are two companies that make this kind of product and they are slightly but uniquely different.  I was able to find an exact match, purchased it and went home.  I had to fix the door face to adapt to the face plate.  The old latch had rounded corners and this was squared off.  I had to do a little chisel work to remove a little of the wood material so that the face plate fit in place.  Not a big job.

We reassembled the door knob.  Its an easy job to do but one that requires three or four hands for a while.  I did the hard part and Judie started the screws and we got it all back together again.

This is like fixing toilet flapper valves, install toilet flush units, etc.  I am the handy man that does this.  I have acquired some rather special tools.  I have the "T" handle to turn off the main water valve.  I had to also get the tool to open the main shut off valve.  The city had replaced all the meters with electronic reporting meters and thus did not want the normal house owner tinkering around with their meters.  So they made it had to get into.  Well there is a tool for that too, I call it a key latch device that allows one to open the meter cover.  I have had to assist a neighbor in turning off their water at the meter. so have become the go to guy.

Any way the stuff in the house is wearing out and has had repair calls here and there.  The wine cooler broke down, the washing machine door seal gave up the ghost, the control panel for the upper electric oven has had to be replaced.  I do not do those jobs but we know who to call when we need help.

LSU Verses BAMA . . .

LSU caught up with University of Alabama football team on Alabama's turf.  Saragin, the statistical predictor, had Bama up about four points plus and 3 or points for home field advantage in his analysis.  They got beat by a score of 46 to 41.  Bama was favored by the Las Vegas crowd by a touch down, they basically lost the game by a touch down.

Bama played really sloppy football in the first half.  That is to say LSU played near perfect ball in the first half.  The score at the end of the first half was 33 to 13.

Bama came back very strong in the second half but LSU kept up with two touchdowns in the forth quarter.  LSU was never behind the Tide of the whole game.  You might say the Tide got rolled by the Tiger.  Bama will say their vaunted quarterback, Tua, was playing hurt.  Maybe so, but he should have been replaced by Coach Saban and he was not replaced.  So he must have been capable of playing his game at a high level.  This time he did not have a Jalen Hurts to come into the game and save the day.  He, Jalen, is playing for Oklahoma now

LSU has faced four football teams ranked in the top ten and beat them.  Bama faced only one top team this year and that was LSU.

My thoughts are they had better get prepared for Auburn in the Iron Bowl.  That is a big rivalry game in Alabama.  Auburn is a tough team albeit it has lost to LSU and Florida.  But there is no predicting the outcome of the Iron Bowl.  Auburn will be licking its wounds and wanting a victory very bad.  Should Auburn win, Bama will be totally out of the competition for a National Championship.

If Auburn takes down the Tide I believe heads will roll.  They will say Coach Saban is slipping.  I think SEC Western Division has become more balanced and the dominance of Alabama is on the decline.

I close with "Geaux Tigers."

Virtual Private Network . . .

I signed up for the Virtual Private Network (VPN) as a security software package to protect my accounts from Internet scams, etc.  VPN does two things, the first is it encrypts your correspondence so others can read your message traffic.   The second thing it moves your Internet address is relocated to some odd location.  In essence it is my private network and it constantly changes.

This means when you use the computer your signal bounces from your computer to the false address located somewhere else and then the message goes into the system.  It slows down your connection but that's okay for the level of protection you get.  And you get some interesting things show up in the side bar ads.

For instance, I used the United States of America as  a source location and next thing I notice is an advertisement for a casino in California.  The odd thing is that I used to live about a half mile from that indian reservation and used camp on the reservation with the Boy Scouts.  Today, that area is off limits and closely guarded because of the casino.  I am told by old friends that each and every member of the tribe gets $140,000 a year.  How times have changed.  That was forty years ago.  Then they were poor as dirt and friendly.  Now they are very standoffish.

Later I switched to Canada and sure enough the side bar ads were definitely Canadian.  The intro web page now had stories for Canada not the US.  Ye, the big US stories were headlines but the lesser stories were all Canadian in nature.

I switched to New Zealand and got similar things from that part of the world.

It means that when the service is turned on, and it is own most of the time, people think I am in those countries and not the USA.  And when I use the USA, it relocates my location to somewhere other than where I live in Texas.

So I know the system is working.  This keeps people from locating you and hacking into your computer.  This is ideal if you have a laptop computer and you want to use it at the book store or coffee shop somewhere that is very public.  Some one can see you and then try to hack your laptop and can not find you, so they are stymied.    VPN is a great security tool and does not cost very much for what it does for you.

Yes, your emails to me will reach me.  They will not be blocked.  But all the scaming activity will be screwed up.  There are nine or ten companies that can provide you the service.

Irrigation System . . .

Well it was not a valve.  The bane of all irrigation systems are roots.  I suspect a root was the cause of a joint separating.  It is either that or the heavy zero turn lawn mower being used on our yard.  No matter, the problem turned out to be a separated joint.

To begin with the joint was not really a good one but it lasted 10 years.  I had to dig a lot to find the joint.  A first it looked okay but all you had to do was push on the pipe and you could see a clear separation.  Well I had to dig some more to get around the joint.  And I had to remove a tree root that must have been an inch in diameter.  I saw another root under all my plumbing but I was afraid to cut it as there are irrigation wires running all over the place.  Those wires control the valves and run back to the main control box.

Any way the bad joint has been reglued and I used a piece of Cedar wood to make sure the joint would not pull apart.  It would have been major work to replace the valve and redo all the plumbing.  So a repair job is a swifter mending and allows the system to be back into use in this dry time of the years.

The yard is not suffering yet but soon will be.  And then the grass turns brown as it goes dormant.  I do not intend to allow that to happen.

So the repair is in place and I will test it shortly.

I am getting to old to do this kind of work.  Well maybe not, maybe I need more exercise.

Irrigation System . . .

The good old irrigation system has struck again.   We found large areas of the back yard flooded.  I shut the water off at the well.  There is a shut off valve there for that purpose.

Then we went hunting.  The back yard slopes away from the house, so it was an uphill search.  Pretty soon I found the leak.  It was a control valve leaking.  I have bailed it out, and must do it again as there is plenty of water around to seep back into the control valve housing.  No big deal, just got to get the water out and then disassemble the control valve.

And I must clean up the valve, wash the innards out and get rid of the sand.  The sand is not what you would imagine.  It is a very very fine particle, kind of makes the water gritty.  It is basically harmless but the control valves do not like it.  It causes them to do weird things, like leak.  In this case it leaked a lot so I think it really pushed the valve apart.  Water can be very powerful under the right circumstances.

I bailed out the control valve housing but there is so much water in the soil it will seep back into it again.  So I will wait, then bail it out once more, maybe by this afternoon around two or three PM, I can get the valve apart.

Then I have to put it back together again.  Open the shut off valve and see if everything is okay.  It may take two or three times to get the valve tightly closed and working correctly again.  Patience is necessary

I have said it before, irrigation systems are constant maintenance.  Fortunately I am adept at the job and can do the work myself.  That saves time and money and gets the system back running like it should.

Maybe I will invest in a "dirty water" valve which has an internal back flushing capability and washes itself clean.  In other words it is a self cleaning or self flushing valve.  Getting them is no big deal, getting them installed is a big deal requiring more excavation, gluing of joints, etc.  I am not sure I am up to that kind of thing.

All I can say is Geaux Tigers!

Investing . . .

Many years ago while living in Alexandria, LA I formulated a few simple rules to use when investing.  They were always invest in only New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stocks, in stocks that also paid dividends and if investing in mutual funds do not invest in funds that paid 12B-1 fees.

Why NYSE?  NYSE is the big board.  It is the world's largest stock exchange.  And it was closely monitored by the Securities and Exchange Commission which had reasonable but stringent rules.  Other exchanges did not have as generally as good stocks as the NYSE.  Some stocks do not want to be traded on the NYSE and preferred lessor stock exchanges in San Francisco, Chicago and even New York City (the American Stock Exchange).  The NYSE has specific rules in listing the stocks on their exchange.  Usually a certain size (that means big enough to trade all the time), certain capital requirements and adherence to stringent accounting processes.

I required dividends because that is cash money in return.  Usually only mature companies pay dividends though today paying dividends is much more common than not paying dividends.  For instance, I do not invest in Berkshire-Hathaway, Warren Buffet's company.  It does not pay dividends.  They certainly invest in companies that do pay dividends like Coca-Cola - but they keep the dividends to reinvest in other companies.   I have a few shares of KO, the symbol for Coca-Cola and collect the dividends for me to use.

12B-1 fees are used to reimburse brokers for selling the mutual fund.  In other words you the fund holder are paying the broker to sell the funds even though the fund maybe charging you a fee to buy into the fund.  The funds back then routinely charged you 5% up front for their services.  Then along came the "No Load fund" funds where the management did not charge the customer anything to buy into the fund.  That is not to say the fund does not pay fees to buy and sell shares, those fees are expensed to the net profit of the fund, you do not see them.  Brokers soon learned they had a hard time selling funds with a 5% front end fee.  They design funds that had no up front fees but had exit fees.  If you left the fund, that is sold out your shares, they charged 5% if you bailed out in the first year, 4% if you bailed out in two years, etc, until you had owned the fund for 5 years.  They still do that and call those funds no load funds when in fact they have an exit load on the fund.  Read the fine print.  There are several large fund companies like Vanguard, T. Rowe Price and Fidelity that have pure no load funds.  If you feel like that is the way to invest, by all means used funds from those no load fund companies.

Today I have modified my rules.  I still require an investment to pay a dividend or interest.  And I read daily "Seeking Alpha" a forum on the Internet.  It is comprise of articles written by financial advisers, some of the certified, some are foreign and all of them seem to be specialized in some form of investment.  There those that only cover big oil companies, some energy companies (oil, electrical generation, wind farms, pipe lines, etc.), some only Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs), some closed in funds, some in Master Limited Partnerships and so on.  It covers the gambit and is educational.  I also subscribe to Kiplingers Magazine, a magazine that covers investments as well as advise on a host of topics from credit cards to buy automobiles.  It gives good advice and is equally educational.

Today We hold Exchange Traded Funds, a new kind of mutual fund that is actively traded on the stock exchanges.  We both have life insurance, which is a kind of cash investment for your heirs.
Annuities another kind of insurance policy.  We also own some old style mutual funds, all no load funds, that I just let them do their thing and watch them grow.   We have some real estate, our home which is paid for, our autos which we either own or lease, a camp (Judie's family place on False River) and I have shares in the family corporation that owns the plantation.

I am fortunate in that I have a pension earned as retiree of the USAF.  Coupled with that I have compensation from the VA for my disabilities from my military service, and we collect Social Security.  We have Medicare paid out of out Social Security take care of our medical needs for the most part (we do have to pay for prescribed drugs albeit at a discount).  Our secondary medical insurance is TRICARE for Life, another earned military benefit.   So for the most part our day to day needs are met by the pensions and VA compensation.

That allows us to keep being well invested.  And the cash thrown off can be like Warren Buffett reinvested to grow out holdings.  We always lived within our means while in the military.  When I retired from the military I started drawing my pension immediately yet I went to work and had a second income.  I retired from Raytheon (and Texas Instruments at the same time) and took a cash settlement that I invested.  I rolled it all into an IRA and continue to mange those assets today.  Yes, we must take an annual minimum required distribution annually but generally make that back though the year in the investments.

It pays to plan ahead.

The Bathroom . . .

Well our bathroom is finished.  We retained the tile floor and the bath with jets but completely redid the shower (it needed it too) and Judie has always wanted granite tops for the two sinks.  We also replaced the toilet with a taller one (we had no idea that there were different heights for toilets until a discussion with a neighbor).

The old toilet had a loose bolt and it kind of wobbled on the floor.  It never leaked except when I had to replace the filler assembly.  Filler assemblies are plastic and tend to break down with time.  The new toilet has 1.2 gallon tank and swift flush function.  It really works and is very fast.  The old toilet had a 1.5 gallon tank the flush chain had a float in the middle of it.  So when you flushed, it you held the handle down you got a full shot of water.  If you had just urinated, a quick handle movement and the water was exchanged and not the whole tank was emptied.   The new toilet is so much faster to empty and refill.  We really did not care about that but we did want a taller unit.

That quick flush did not always work.  But great idea.  The new toilet does not have that but uses some much less water it is not necessary or a benefit.  All the holes for water discharge from the tank are twice the size as the old tank on the old toilet and that leads to fast rapid flow.  Uses less water to flush and less time to flush.

We had to buy the toilet and the contractor's plumber installed the new toilet.  He reinstalled the old fixtures on both sinks and the shower head.  We did not get new ones and we like of the old ones anyway.  That ended up with a couple of leaks but since it was a Delta fixture, Delta are warranted the fixtures for life.  So the contractor ordered up a new one and we got it pretty quick.  So it all is functional now in good working order.

We had the entire room repainted.  It had several places that needed touch up.  It takes a beating from the cleaning lady, not intentional but did a little damage here and there.  So we had it completely repainted including the ceiling.  The molding had some age cracks from drying out and the painters filled those cracks in with spackling and the new paint did a great job.

Judie picked out the granite.  And it is almost three quarters of an inch thick, so it is quite heavy.  Once installed it ain't gonna go no where.  They measure precisely.  The granite was also used in the shower.  It is a lighter color, not dark granite so it does not darken the place at all.

We had the old synthetic plastic surfaces removed.  We had a nice new tile installed, large squares were used.  We had the stool in the corner of the shower expanded to a bench.  And we had four niches added that were at least a foot high (shampoo and other bottles are getting taller now days).  The bottoms of the niches had the same granite and the bench across the back of the shower had the same granite in the seat.  And the door floor jam is also the same granite.  The niches had small oblong tiles in the back of each one.  The floor is small squares of matching tile and new drain that one can remove to clean down below floor level if one wants to do that.  They also reworked the floor so it had a definite slope and drained toward the new drain cover.

Lastly we had the shower light replace with a new low wattage high out put light.  We are no longer taking showers in an dark corner.  It is well lit now.

The tile, granite, and paint job look great.  The new paint makes the place look all new.  It all makes Judie happy and the old shower was an eye sore.