I consider it progress at this point in time.

Rob apparently is having issues with the laundry room. It looks big enough to me but he's not so sure. He also told me the ceiling drop down will be much larger than they thought. It sucks but I can live with it.

He is spending a lot of time on this project that he wouldn't normally. He told me that he usually hands it off at this stage and is done. But there are quite a few minor issues.

I think it will all turn out fine, though.

So, I've always been close to my sister but this recent bout of depression has had side effects. She's sort of been avoiding me but I've really tried to keep the lines of communication open. I emailed her asking if she is going to my parents for Christmas. She emailed me back the dates and nothing else. I replied telling her I'd really like to see her but to be honest if there was a problem. She replied that she doesn't feel comfortable being around me. This will be the first Xmas I haven't spent with my family. Ever.

Are you really that toxic right now? Or are they? Hmmmm. How down would you say you've been feeling?

Heeee? Go! Just go to this Christmas evening. Apologize to her and go!
Go, go, go gogogogogo. I mean. Come on. If you would have cancer and she would feel uncomfortable around you? Did she say, what exactly makes her feel uncomfy? From my experience people usually have no idea, how to behave, what to tell, what not to tell around depression. -have you had this talk with her?

Gogogogogogogogogogogo. Who is normally there? Your parents? her? Who else?

I don't think anyone is really toxic. Struggling right now but I think I can mask it much better than before. I'm really trying to at least keep up the illusion that things are OK. I mean, it's more than that. It's more like I'm trying to learn to cope with this better and I think I am.

It's really weird. I never really dealt with this until I got older. I've always poo-pooed depression as something you should just man up and get over. I still think this sometimes. Just admitting to myself that this is actually depression has been difficult.

Not gonna happen.

The whole thing is really complicated but bottom line I think she interprets the depression as something else. Me pulling away or something. I might go into the whole thing here sometime. It's a little more than I want to share right now.

I think I'll let this sort of play out however it plays out. Yeah, it's just her family and my parents. I'll just go see my parents next month.

OK. I get it. But let at least your shrink help you. It totally doesn't help to pretend or keep the facade up.

Well, hopefully not seeing your family doesn't make things too much harder for you.

It definitely sounds good that you have a therapist you are happy with to help you have a regular time to sort through these things.

Thanks guys.

The floor people called and asked that I pay the balance, which is fine. It seems like a year ago I was actually picking the floors out.

On a personal note..............

I've always sort of half entertained a career of writing. More dream than reality. I feel like I have some creative talent but I've never been very serious about pursuing it.

I've thought about how writers view themselves. They generally phrase it as "I am a writer". They identify themselves as being that thing. I struggle with that. If someone asked me to tell them what "I am" I don't think I could come up with an answer.

But back to the writing. I've started a lot of writing projects but can't seem to finish most of them. I did finish a script a few years back and was really happy with it. It wasn't groundbreaking or anything but I was happy that I actually completed it. It was much harder than I anticipated. I also wrote a series of children's books and tried unsuccessfully to get them published. Well, I self published the first story but sort of let it drop. The final product was not very polished. I spent SOOOO much time on it and I kind of cut corners towards the end. I realized a professional editor would have helped so I pursued that but it is virtually impossible to break into this category. Along the way I changed them up for the purpose of making them more marketable and I felt later like I sold out.

I haven't worked on anything since I moved to Florida.

So, I'm going to take this Xmas holiday to try to refocus. I have another script that is about 75% finished that I would like to re-visit. I want to go back and fix those stories back to where they were. I also plan to try to find a good illustrator and try to self publish. I have one more children's book (actually 2 volumes) that I've been working on for a while. I am illustrating this one myself with photographs. I might post some pages here so you can get an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. I would really like to finish this but it is extremely tedious and time consuming.

My biggest problem has been my job. There just aren't enough hours in the day to properly devote to these projects. That and the fact that I'm so mentally drained it is hard to focus. But it is something I need to do.

How would you say your actual writing compares to how you write on 2p2?

The reason I ask is that you have a particular style but it seems fairly dry, and I'm having a hard time imagining the creative writing talent version of it.

As an example, you have tremendous Dilbert-esque stories from work, but you only really just report them in one very informational sentence rather than as actual stories or setting them up more. Now, in some cases that might hurt but in many I just want more story, more lols, rather than less.

Although, come to think of it, more at the beginning of your work stories they did seem more written out and it did make a difference.

I'm just curious btw, not saying you must be a bad writer or anything like that.

No man, great questions.

First of all, my forte is definitely not prose for all of the reasons you stated. There is another element to what I write in H&E. It's the whole tl;dr thing. I try to make them as concise as possible.

Three things I dabble in.

Script writing. I feel like I have good ideas and can write good dialogue in spurts but I struggle with something that big. I'll have 5 scenes I feel good about and then get stuck on the 6th. Or tying up plot holes. Things like that. It's funny because people (me included) a lot of times think "I could write something better than that trash" But, damn it is hard.

Children's stories. I think I have some good ones. Great feedback from people that read them. But I simply cannot illustrate. I worked with an amateur and I liked her ideas but ultimately her drawings were sort of crude. And neither of us had the time to do it justice. I need to pursue this again.

I do a lot of photoshop birthday/Xmas cards for all the people I know. I've been told a zillion times that I should do this for a living (like jibjab maybe). My problem with this is my humor is so personalized. The person I give it to will rotfl but it would probably not be the least bit funny to a random person. I just don't know how to capitalize on this.

Writing about this is getting me motivated again. Thanks!

No problem. Maybe if you do start writing again you can share some samples in between boondoggling.

I'm trying to regroup with the writing "stuff" and find all of my work.

I'm really surprised that the last time I worked on a lot of this stuff was 4 years ago. Time flies.

So much of what I've done resides on a computer that bit the dust quite some time ago. I remember trying several things to recover the data and was unsuccessful. I kept the hard drive, though. It is in storage now but as soon as I move and can find it I will be taking it to a pro to see if they can recover anything.

I'm not really starting all over but there is a lot of work I'm missing that would be beneficial.

Before anyone says anything, after the computer bit the dust I started using dropbox for everything.

Merry Christmas bigger boat, GL with the remodel.

Thanks!

Hope everyone has/had a great holiday season.

Stopped by the condo to check on progress.

They have cleaned up most of the debris and started framing. I'm pretty happy with everything. Some of the things I was worried about (see below) I'm not so worried about now.

Looks like they set aside some thing for recycling.



Built them a nice little work bench..




When they told me about how they wanted to run the duct work in the main room I was concerned. It had been sticking out about 2 feet but they decided to re-frame the whole thing and make it the width of the hallway. Additionally this makes it the width of the niche made by the office extension. I thought this was a bit much but it really looks good and I think it is aesthetically better than the way it was.

Not sure what the heck this pole is, though. It is obviously for support but I don't know if it was already there or they just put it there. Note the duct framing.



More duct framing.



Laundry/powder room wall



Another concern for me was the office. I was worried that the jutting out part would block the view from the door. Not so. I was also concerned about the size. It's plenty big. And because they brought out the duct work, the closet is deeper than normal. An added plus because I need the storage space. Really happy with this part of it.



This is the guest bath area. I'm a little concerned about the shower size. I think those boards outline it. It isn't tiny but I was hoping it would be a little bigger. The rest of it is fine.



The master bedroom is fantastic. It really came together.

Big closet



View from the closet. Really big shower area. Sweet!



And finally - the reason for all of this.

The pole is rigid conduit. It's huge. I have no idea what would be in it. How big is your building?

Even if your building is big (tall) it seems weird that they'd route that through a unit's interior wall.

Gas pipe should be black and water would usually be copper inside. I guess it's electrical. I would guess they are unfused utility lines if they had to use rigid. Do you have electric meters above the first floor?

I don't have gas and I doubt it is water. The panel is on the other side of the hall from it so electric makes sense. Apparently there is another one somewhere else but I wasn't really looking for it. Or maybe this one is for both units. I have no idea.

The complex is only 2 stories I have no clue where the meters are.

But, you got my wondering. I'll take a better look when I go back.

Rob sent me an update. I asked about putting in tankless water heaters for the bathrooms so he will look into it. I'm afraid the water heater is so far away that it will take forever for the hot water to come on.

He added a little space to the guest shower. He said it will be 41" x 66" which seems fine.

Then he sent this:

Not sure what that is all about.

He's going to leave the side open until after you pass the final inspection and then install the closet on the DL?

You don't have any windows in the office. That's a fire code violation if that room is considered a bedroom, which it would be by default if it has a door and closet. That may seem a bit arbitrary, but there has to be some definition of what is and isn't a bedroom.

The thinking is that a fire is more likely to get out of control unnoticed when people are sleeping, and if there's only one exit, which likely leads right into the fire, you die. So don't fall asleep in your office.

So, I'm not sure how real writers write but I never just sit down and start writing. Well, I've tried this but it is usually not very productive. I usually roll an idea around in my brain a while before I ever start typing. Then when I get to a computer I just type furiously because everything is already "there". The rolling around part normally happens while I'm running or doing something where I can sort of clear my head. Only I haven't been able to clear my head lately. So much noise going on in there. I can't push out the bad stuff and let the creative stuff in.

However, today, it seemed to flow again. It happened when I was working out. I'm off this week and I work out in the morning and the gym is pretty empty so it's quiet.

Got a ton of work done on my script. Cemented in a few scenes I was struggling with and fixed a few plot holes. Great progress. I was sort of feeling like giving up on this but I'm encouraged to get this finished again.

On the online dating front, I discontinued Plenty Of Fish. I almost think I'm getting trolled there. I haven't logged into Match for a while so nothing going on there either. Not sure if I will get back to it.

I met Rob and the electrician today.

We talked about the tankless water heater and one of the issues is that it (or they) would need a dedicated circuit (more on this later). Rob suggested I look into a circulation pump, which I did. It just pumps the hot water through the lines so hot water stays close to the area I need it. They are about $200 and they just plug into a receptacle. Seems like a good solution to me. I can always remove it if there is a problem.

We walked through each room and firmed up everything I would need. I asked for some little cans above the office desk. After discussing several alternatives we settled for 6 cans in the main room. And a can in the hall. There was a bit of discussion about getting the office and entertainment center wired properly. Really not many other changes.

The bulk of the discussion had to do with adding a panel. I'm not exactly sure what the technical reason is for the existing panel not being sufficient, but apparently we can't add much more to it. Rob said the beer refrigerator would require a dedicated circuit but the electrician said it would not.

To add a panel we would have to hook up a second meter. The electrician said this might be an issue, even though there were originally 2 meters since originally it was two separate units. But he said it might be difficult to talk Duke Energy into putting one back since it is now one unit. He also said that in order to do this, the electricity would have to be shut off for the entire building. I'm sure this will go over well.

No matter what, this would be a significant expense.

But after listening to everything I "think" we can make the one panel work. Not sure but I just sent an email to Rob suggesting we should exhaust all alternatives before going this route.

Not much else has been done there. They framed the guest bath and it is plenty big - something I had been concerned about.

2013 and 2104 were the worst years of my life. It feels like I was in a bad car wreck and I'll never be what I was. On the other hand, with work I can keep getting better.

2015 started that process. A lot of things are getting better.

So, my 2016 resolution is to keep on keepin' on.