Day 3598 - Halloween

The only thing spooky about today was listening to the roofer this morning remind me of all the things that were wrong with my roof. I was impressed with this roofer's knowledge and experience, but I didn't hear much that I didn't already know. My roof is almost impossible to keep repairing at this point and it is going to be very expensive to replace. Due to the odd shape of the house, adding a slight pitch to the roof so it will drain properly will be complex. Putting on a new roof without eliminating the low spots won't eliminate the standing water problem.

I got the impression that if I wanted the roof to look and function the way it did in 1955, I might as well just build a new house. The large open atrium in the center of the house, a gas line on the roof, and multiple areas where settling has caused rain water to accumulate all add up to a complicated and expensive problem. This roofer, like many of the others who have given me bids, concluded that it would be prohibitively expensive to remove all the plywood decking and add a taper to the beams. He didn't think an engineered roof with foam panels creating a slope would work well either. He did say he could put on a roof that he would warranty for fifteen years whether it was under water or not. That should be enough. Fifteen years from now they'll be carting me off to assisted living anyway. One of the most interesting solutions would be to cover the entire roof with spray on truck bed liner. This would be too expensive, but it would make a tough, durable roof.

I didn't get any good news about the sliding glass door either. Nobody makes doors this large anymore. Nobody has parts for old style doors either. I could have a custom door manufactured, but it probably wouldn't look the same. It's too bad that the only guy in town who could fix my door died.

It was below freezing when I woke up this morning and it was still very cold when I took my morning walk. It was a clear sunny day which made it difficult to dress properly. When the wind wasn't blowing, I was too hot. Down by the shoreline where it was still quite windy, I was too cold. For some reason, my feet hurt more than usual today. By the time I returned home, I was ready to go back to bed.

I did go vote today. The only thing on the ballot were propositions and constitutional amendments. The lack of candidates running for office made this a very low turnout election. It was a good thing there wasn't a line, because there were brand new voting machines and voting was more complex than usual. You were given a blank paper ballot which was inserted into the voting machine. You made your selections electronically on the screen and then the machine spit out a printed ballot with your voting choices. You took this printed ballot to another machine which scanned the results and then saved the paper ballot as a backup. I guess all this complexity is to prevent someone from hacking the system, but you'd think they would have come up with an easier way to accomplish this.

I just realized that I have a dental appointment on Monday when we visit the Dalmatians. I was going to reschedule tomorrow and then I learned that dentists have a four day work week. Most of them are closed on Friday. Why did I not know this before? Janet told me it has always been this way. Restaurants are always open on Friday, but I can't decide whether I want to go our for breakfast tomorrow. I'm losing interest in my breakfast outings.

Roxy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day