We’ve never had a screen on the window in the master bathroom. At first it wasn’t a big issue since we never open that window, but when I have to seal the grout, it’s nice to be able to open the window. And with a big tree right outside, I always have visions of a squirrel or a bird making its way inside.
So I headed to Home Depot and bought the stuff to make a screen. Then I returned it and bought it again. Did you know that there are two different thicknesses for the screen frame? I didn’t, but now I do. As I was building the frame, it dawned on me that this is an easy home repair that some homeowners might not know how to do.
You can find plenty of YouTube videos to show you how it works, but here are the basic pieces. There is a metal frame that consists of four pieces cut squarely and held together with plastic corners. The plastic pieces slide tightly into the tubes and make a pretty strong joint. Some springs also slide onto the frame on one side. Then there is a groove that goes along the outside of the frame. Screen material is unrolled over the frame and then a thin piece of rubber gets jammed down into that groove and it stretches the screen material tight. Save yourself some grief and just buy the littler roller tool to help push the rubber into the groove. Finally you cut off the excess screen material and voila!
I redid every one of the screens in our house back in 2012 since the previous ones had all been torn up by cats. Now that I’ve built this one for the bathroom, I’m hopefully done for a while. It’s a handy skill to have in your bag of tricks though because it’s pretty easy for the screens to get damaged. Repairing them yourself is way cheaper than paying someone else to do it.
Poaching is a $19 billion industry in Africa. It’s a big problem with a huge ecological impact, but it’s a very difficult one to solve. There’s too much ground to cover to do it with actual humans, but there is now a team in Africa doing this with drones. Obviously it’s good because it’s helping to save animals, but the tech angle is awesome.
There are a lot of choices when you want to buy a steak. But what is the best? Should you pay $9/pound for a boneless rib eye or $20/pound? While my parents were here, we had some people over to help us test this out in a semi-scientific manner.
The Seahawks made a big trade to get Jimmy Graham as a TE. They gave up Max Unger to do it which is a pretty big price, but hopefully it’s worth it. I won’t get into the discussion about whether or not this was a good idea (I’m unqualified), but here’s one interesting point: last year Graham had 85 catches for 889 yards and 10 TDs. That would BY FAR make him the most prolific receiver on the Seahawks. The Seahawks only had 20 TD passes total the whole season!
Kitchen Table
You know you’re getting old when you get excited about something as mundane as a kitchen table, but that’s where I’m at. When I moved out on my own, I got Great Grandma’s small table and four chairs. It wasn’t really an heirloom as she bought it after Great Grandpa died and she downsized to a smaller living space. But it was fun to think of her when we ate at the table.
Anyway, the table was nice (and free) but it was small. We just got in the habit of dishing up straight from the kitchen and then eating at the table. When there were four people eating there, you had no chance of getting any extra dishes on the table. Plus, the ends folded down and weren’t very sturdy so it wasn’t great for having people over to play games, etc. And when we have Tyla’s family over, we’d have to set up the folding table just to fit everyone. I’m 34 years old but I still have a college kid’s table.
Finally Tyla and I decided that we were in a position to buy a new table. We were somewhat discouraged when we tried this last year and couldn’t find anything in our price range. We saved up some extra money and then went for it again this year, but to our happy surprise, we found a crazy good deal! This new table comes with six chairs and can fit all six chairs without the extra leaf. Or we can extend the table and fit two extra chairs. It’s big enough to seat a bunch of people but it fits perfectly in our smallish kitchen eating area. (Our formal dining room is Elijah’s playroom.) The leaf is pretty cool to. It folds down inside the table so you don’t have to store it in a closet.
The table and chairs came from Don Willis Furniture in on Lake City Boulevard. It’s an odd place but they have some really nice furniture (no particle board.) They have some furniture that is unfinished and you can either have it finished in the exact color you want or finish it yourself to save some money. We’ll be checking them out again when we need more furniture.
The first time we used it was while my parents were still here. Mom had asked if she could do anything to help while I was outside grilling and I said, “Yeah! You can set the table!” That’s something we never did before! I got a ridiculous amount of joy out of seeing the main course, side dishes and condiments all sitting there on the table while we ate dinner. I’m an old man.
PS. Thanks Don for lettings us borrow your truck! Dad and I got five of the six chairs in the back seats in the cab and the rest fit easily in the bed. You saved us a $99 delivery charge!