More Cold

Used to be my favorite excuse, its too cold to pull wire, lets take the day off.  Now working for myself, i need to finish the job.  I pay extra for the "Freeze Flex" wire, and it seems to pull in ok.  But hit it with the hammer wile stapling, or try to strip it w a knife, and it shatters, causing me more work w the tape, which also doesn't stick in -30.

I can only work till I lose feeling in a couple fingers, then I have to warm up.  I brought my 80,000 btu propane construction heater.  Since the diesel Herman Nelson gave me carbon monoxide poisoning at the last job, now I can't stand the smell of burning diesel.  Anyway I was having mad difficulty with the propane heater, its been great in the past, cause it doesn't need electricity.  Today in -30c it won't stay lit.  I read it more closely, "minimum ambient temp of 0 F".  Are you joking me?  What good is that.  So I packed it in early today.  Here's a pic of the heater label, I am still in disbelief.

I did get my sign powered up with batteries and LEDs.  It is glorious.  I put one on the Glenora site today, the idea is that I will turn it on when I leave at night, and off in the morning when I return.  Not sure how long the batteries will last yet.  The signs are 32" x48".  The plastic pieces were about $5, the vinyl cut out prepped to stick on was about $33, the LEDs were about $5 from china, and the batteries to run it another $5, an ongoing expense until there is power on site.  You can see the LEDs in this vid.

New Signs

My vinyl guy made me up some sweet sign vinyl.  I got some coragated plastic, from some plastic warehouse for cheap.  Some labor and I have my self some real catchy $45 signs.  The pic didn't come out very good, poor lighting, but they are big too, 24" x 32",  The plastic is navy blue, and they look sharp.  You may notice I have a 1800 number, good for anywhere in Canada.  It costs me $0.6 a min, but I have got to phase my cell phone out, it gets ridiculous on the phone all day.  The 1800# can be forwarded to a call center, secretary, whoever I want. 

I am working on "electrifying" the signs, with LEDs but I don't have the necessary wire, solder ect here in the city.  And now today, at some gas stations, gas is over $1 a liter.  So I can no longer even drive my van out to Andrew for less than $50 in gas, its well over that.  In this cold I am going out there no more than once a week, in the van.  I tried to get the car dolly out of the snow today, to haul the VW to the city, but its iced in, the poor possum van couldn't pull it out with a good run at it.  I have video, but don't have my iphone cord, I had to email myself this picture even.

New Appliances

We've gone through 2 washing machines in Edmonton. So this weekend I hooked up the flat deck and searched out 2 washing machines, a fridge and one drier. We picked it all up Sunday morning for a total cost of $105, about $26 each. Now we can furnish both houses with washer drier and fridge. My highly modified stackable drier is still working great.  On closer examination I think the washing machines were freezing.  Our house has the washing machine/drier closet built in the outside corner.  So wile the washing machine was out I insulated that corner with some hard foam.  Then I thought I would do the floor, and found a furnace vent under the sub floor.  Some idiot never cut a hole in the sub floor.  Hopefully there is no more freezing washing machine issues.
But wile looking for a fridge we came across this add. I must say our ghetto really isn't that bad.  We find this add now searching "aids scabs", instead of fridges.

If you can't read it, the add says:

"I live in BAYWOOD PARK and we have had trouble with sick neighbours who come into suites to contaminate the food with their aids scabs -I need help to get out of here, but am first of all looking for a lockable fridge/freezer to keep my food supply safe."

Sayulita's Flooded River

Work on Glenora has started. The house is pretty sweet, I love the half barrel roof on the front.  You can see the picture at possumelectric.com

Wile we were in Mexico, we visited Sayulita.  Last year their river had a nasty flood, and washed all the bridges out and some roads beside the river.  Here is a look at some of the damage, and a new bridge they are constructing.  Its very strange that they didn't dredge the sand out from the river bed before they built the bridge. There is only about 4' under the bridge, and the river bottom is artificially high with essentially the river sides all eroded into the bottom.

Ants Eating Vomit

A bit off topic for the blog...
I found these Mexican ants eating vomit, in Mexico obviously.  I thought they were evil looking, and interesting to watch for a few minutes.  So I took a short video of them until I couldn't take the smell of vomit any more.  Good times.

Extended Vacation

I only had 10 days in Mexico, but then another 5 in Andrew, with no work, and great weather.  It was about 5 degrees for those 5 days.  Then my vacation is abruptly over.  The phone rings 3 times, Glenora is ready to wire, and 2 new houses.  It starts snowing, and the temperature drops to -20, pretty much all at the same time.  Vacations over.

Here is a vid of a shop I am wiring in Vegreville, Alberta.  Its a big job for me, 20' ceilings and 3 20' garage doors, I will have to rent a man lift to put the fixtures up, good thing I have a trailer.
The shop is getting tin walls.  We opted to put basic wiring in the walls for lighting and basic plugs, then if it gets rented wiring can be easily added in conduit, at their expense.

Alternator Welder

It was brought to my attention in Mexico, that a generator 

will not run a transformer style welder.  Because the 

generator doesn't idle up quick enough when you strike an arc. 

 This I believe to be true, but I will test this spring.  Its 

worth pointing out, NEVER plug your electronic welders into a 

generator.  They may well work, but they require "clean power" 

and cheap generators don't provide that, causing electronic 

failures.  I have seen two expensive welders damaged this way.

As usual, the solutions in the Smith family, far out weigh the 

problems.  The obvios solution, besides hooking up the over 

priced Alberta utility, is to build a welder generator.  I 

even have the old chysler gasser alternator from the voyager 

diesel conversion, to put to use there.  Now I just need to 

decide on a prime mover.  My fav would be the chrysler VW 

deisel van, but I will need the welder to finish that project. 

 So its either a nice portable gas generator style, or an 

electric motor driven style, reliant on my big generator, but 

one less carberator to clean, pull cord to snap, oil to 

change, blah, blah, blah.

I won't tell you how to do it until I have done it, besides This guy does a great job of explaining the basics of using a car alternator as a welder.  If that link doesn't work its http://home.comcast.net/~t.molnar/Obwelder1.htm

 

The Gas powered alternator welder, vs..... the electric generator compatible  welder   

Tell me what you think I should do.             

                                                                                          

Flood Update and New Decor

More drama next door.
Hydrovac was by, blew an 8'deep hole down to the water main
into the house, but the sewer has collapsed beside the water
valve and spews sewer into his hole faster than he can suck it
out, so he can't turn the main off.
The house has now been condemed by Alberta Health, 8 pages of
stupidity and violations in the house.  There is another $50+
grand for the home owner, just to change 3 second story
windows out.  Just 7 I recall of the 40+...
No railings
estimated 7 years of black mold growth
backed up sewer
3 bedroom windows don't open
bad door seals
no smoke detectors
exposed wiring, shock hazard.
Living in the ghetto really is entertaining.  This is the neighbors house w 7 pages taped to the door by Alberta Health, the very specific list of reasons the house is now condemned, not fit for human habitation.  no more parking problems on the street, neighbors both sides are vacant again.

So wile Michelle is in Mexico I decided to redecorate in Andrew.  I don't really care to be in Edmonton, everything is out here in Andrew.  I emailed her pictures, so she could warm up to it, before arriving, but she embraced my decor w open arms.  Those are just BB guns.  I don't even want a real gun any more.  I have the compound and cross bows to entertain me.  We'll see how well we do hunting gophers in the spring with arrows.

Flooded basement

This is why I don't like having 2 houses let alone 3.
It appears to me like the neighbors basement pipe has been leaking since I left for Mexico.  The renter of course doesn't care, she bought an inflatable boat to padle around in the fridged waters.  The property manager is having great difficulty getting anything done there, I think because the owner won't approve the costs to repair it.  I tried to help, I waded through the basement to the valve, shoulder deep in sub zero water I tried to turn it off, but there is no handle on the valve, and all my tools are 4 hours away in Andrew.  So I gave the manager a price to go buy the needed tools, shut off the water, and pump the basement out, really not that hard, I just want to do it.  But instead I have been letting people in all day to come look, and even Epcore attempted to shut the main valve off on the street, but its frozen.  They came in the house to try that valve, but couldn't stand the fridged watter either.  So its still pumping in, going on for the 10th day I'd say.  I had to leave, it is painful to see such incompitence.  So I am out in Andrew w my tools.  I have already done two charity service calls to my neighbors house, I just got back from Mexico, broke, I can't spend a day pumping your basement out for free.
I just watched the video.  I think I was out for an hour between trying to turn the water off w Epcor, and then checking that it was all good when I returned.  The water looks 3" higher in the second half the video.

I a day later and the basement is pumped out.  My estimate was good at $800 for me to do it.  They paid a plumber $980, who did it, and another plumber showed up before, left a bill for $300 and didn't do anything.
I have never seen a rental go so horribly wrong.  Between the owner, property manager, and tenant, everybody is suing everybody.  It will be very interesting to see how this works out.

Everybody is having hard times w realestate rite now.  Nobody can pay their bill.  I could have stayed in Mexico another week.  The big glenora job doesn't start for another week, and all the other jobs need to settle the bill before they continue. Time to sell some stuff to pay bills.  First up is the hot tub, and the vibrating beds.

Still In Love w Sprinter Vans

Just checked our trailer paper work, I was suprised its a 1972 Skipper.  Our 

Mexico permit is good until December of 2019, they gave us 10 years to bring 

it home.  Vehicles they only give 6 months I believe, yet another advantage 

of the trailer.  We are really loving the camper anyway.  Next time we come 

down we will build a little stone patio off it, and fix the water, so we 

aren't using the big blue Reliance jug for gravity water pressure.  The 

typical alberta trailer, has multiple cracks in the water system from freezing.

Again looking at loop holes in the vehicle import laws.  Down here in Mexico there are Sprinter vans, but also VW, and ford Sprinter style vans.  I gaurentee the VW and ford vans don't cost as much as the Mercedes sprinter, and in pecos I bet even the sprinter is less money.  If I drive a piece o truck down here and "write it off" I can buy a mexican vehicle and import it into Canada without a problem, even if its brand new.   I got a picture of the VW diesel beside the Mercedes sprinter, at the air port, as I was getting on my flight.

Home tomorrow

We went and looked at little motor scooters for Mexico here, last week.  There is a town we want to visit that we can't get to by bus.  During our search we found these hysterical full face helmets.  We have seen a few people wearing them.  If they had my size i would have bought one.  He said he is flying to Indonesia to buy some more, and would get me one.  We went on ebay that night and found them for half the price,

Mexico Life

Wow parts of Mexico are having an ice age.  Parts of Mexico
are -18 deg c.  Can you imagine?  Most of these people live in
cement brick houses, w no insulation value.  They are not
equipt w heaters, or warm blankets.  Although it is still in
the 20's here in puerto Vallata, we are well equipt with our
insulated trailer, and furnace, not that we have used it.

For many reasons we decided against the house in
bugambilias.  We thought we would spend a day pretending that
we did purchase it, making sure we made the rite decision.
Without even starting to rebuild the house, there is a lot of
maintanece to do on the property every year.  Being  only able
to spend 2 weeks or so a year we would have to hire a gardener

Mexico Home

Because 2 homes isn't enough, we purchased a third. Owner financing makes it easy. Our 5 year dream of having a mexico home, with the open floor plan, dune buggy parking in the kitchen, is materializing. We have a lot of work to do now, starting w the wall, and gate. Then the camper can go on the property, and we can start on the house renos. It is kinda in the gehtto of Mexico, but strangly one block from the ritch neighborhood. It is like new black top paved roads, w expensive buildings, one more block, dirt roads and our house. Our neighbor accross the street paid $280k for his place, briefly shown in the video.

We decided not to go ahead w this third home purchase, after a few days thinking about it.  We don't think we will be able to afford to come to Mexico for more than 2 weeks a year, with the second mortgage.  As it is we could easily come for longer, and enjoy our camper and time off.  We can also buy a repossessed home in Alberta for the same price rite now, and spend weekends fixing that up, instead of getting expensive flights to our mexico home, w no tools once we get there.

Mexico

Not really impressed w the airlines getting down here.  No lugage is included w our tickets.  Another $50 for our two bags.  Then airmiles got us the two worst back row seats on the plane, $40 to change seats.  So looks like we aren't gonna bring anything back, its not worth the $50.

Our camper is still standing.  It appears the roof didn't leak at all, but windows leaked enough to leave water stains on the curtains in the rainy season.  It rains so hard here in the winter, we couldn't drive, we had to pull over when we got caught in the rain.  No windshield wiper went fast enough to clear the view.  With the minor leaks, and the hot sun, our camper got all moldy inside.   Was kinda gross, but Michelle cleaned it up nice.