Sep 24 - destruction starts

Well, we raised some dust yesterday. 

George and I first headed to Holly Hill (just north of Daytona) to see Greg at BMW Werks.  He's going to tackle the rear bushings aka ball joints, has agreed to do so.  I'll drop the car off next Tuesday p.m. or Wednesday a.m.

From there we went to Harbor Freight, where I picked up new solar lights for the back and four, yes four, trolley jacks on special.  It's particularly useful to be able to jack up the entire side or the front or back of the car and the jack up north has frozen wheels; the jack here is twisted.  Two of these are destined for up north.

From there we hit Home Depot, then the bank and Publix. 

Back home, we started on the fireplace ...

Using the reciprocating saw, air chisel, hammer & chisel, pry bar, utility knife ... probably missing some things ... we removed and dismantled the brick & wood facade on the fireplace.  It's now flat to the wall.  There's more work to do there, clearly, but the floor is now exposed and won't be in the way of tiling.  That was the primary objective.  Now I need to talk to the gas people about doing their thing upgrading from wood to a modern fireplace.

This facade had one pile of bricks !  It was clear to me that the brickwork was there first and then Riley added the wood facade.  Perhaps he did both but it would have been separate projects, since much of the brickwork was covered.  Glue of several kinds, mortar, "filler" cardboard, paper towels ... what a mess !  It's all in the garage and/or out at the side of the house now.  I'm looking forward to the dumpster being here.

The prior day, George and I had removed some of the granite backsplashes, including the one at the kitchen sink.  On a whim, I decided to also remove the shoulder height wall at the kitchen entranceway and concluded that Riley put in that wall, since it was sitting on the granite that he'd installed.

It's like a time capsule !

It rained.  We had pork loin.  It only rains when I'm at the barbecue.  We're expecting heavy rain today as well ... perhaps I should grill something ?

Today George will help me move some stuff out of the loft den into the water-facing bedroom.  Before that, or after that, who knows, George and Geri and the pups will move from here to the coach.  We'll have dinner tonight and then say sayonara.   Tomorrow a.m. they leave for the Tampa area. 

Tomorrow is supposed to be partly cloudy.  I'm going for a bike ride !

A friend, Cindy Dybas, who used to work for me, passed away yesterday from lung cancer.  She was a smoker.  We got the news from Bob Lopes.   She and her husband Larry had retired to Las Vegas.  She was older than me but not much.  Add one more to the growing list.

Enjoy life while you can. 

Onward.