We've had problems with humidity in the house. The walls (including the ones that I fixed and painted after we put in the new floor) have paint flaking off them. Not just the paint either, the plaster under the paint as well.. just leaving the bare concrete. Additionally, it's all throughout the house.

With advice from my Dad, and help from my handyman/gardener, I dug a French drain to prevent water from flowing underneath the house and getting wicked up by the concrete walls. We just completed one section today, and are in the process of another on the side of the house. Pictures follow.

Pictures of the Day

French Drain trench - right side Right side of the trench for the French drain.	French Drain trench - left side We used 4 inch tubing, and drilled 1/2 inch holes into it along multiple sides of the pipe. In the trench we laid a base of rock, laid the fabric, then filled the fabric with a layer of rock, laid the tube, then filled in with more rock.
French drain, finished! (right) And the finished French drain.	French drain, finished! (left) and on the right side. The gravel bed extends up to about an inch or two underneath the soil on top.
French drain outlet The outlet of the drain. I kept it exposed so if it got clogged, I could easily unclog it.Pity the poor mouse that thinks it would make a good place to live.	French drain in action And proof of success, water draining away! Into our driveway.... Stage 2 - drainage for the driveway.

I recently moved from part-time to full time at the faculty, soon to become Planta (Tenured). And my birthday wasn't that long ago.... So I decided to buy myself a little present.

Meet my new car. It's a Mazda 3, 2.0L engine. 150 HP, 17" rims, sun roof. Color is Rojo Burdeo (Wine Red).

Pictures of the Day

Mazda 3 -- Side	Zoom zoom
And from the front There's a sunroof there, if you look closely.

So. A quick story to keep you amused...

One day the cats kept forcing themselves into the guest bedroom. Eventually I stuck Duke in there and closed the door. I figured he'd start whining to get out in 5 or so minutes... 20 minutes later he's still in there, not making a peep. "Strange" thought I, so I go in to check it out. He's sitting near the window, staring at something near the closet. Big black thing... with 8 legs.. and hairy.

I didn't charge him for the stay, but I sent him on his way.

Pictures of the Day

Guest Room Spider Booooo!

The site went away for a little while. It's back for now. Hopefully I'll add some nice pictures and talk a bit about life in Chile and whatnot in a little while.

In otherwords, back to our regular scheduled programming.

When I lived in Richmond, I would walk down the street each day. In a certain location there was written in spray-paint, "This too shall pass". This always struck me as profoundly deep. Whether the graffiti was talking of the moment, the sidewalk, the feeling, the city, or even humanity, it was still true. One of the teachings of Buddhism is that nothing is permanant. Monks will devote days of work creating intricate mandalas out of sand, only to sweep it up soon after it is done.

Why bring this up now? Lap Lizard (better know as Liz) passed on to a better place last Monday, after thirteen years of enriching my life. We had taken her to the vet for an infection on her chin three weeks ago. The vet gave her some simple medication to take for 14 days. After about a week, I found Liz sitting on the floor and breathing really heavily, so I took her down to the vet. After a week of tests, the vet diagnosed her with chronic kidney failure - during this period (or perhaps slightly before), Liz had lost her eye sight as well. This appeared to be from the buildup of toxins in her system due to the non-functioning kidneys. Anyway, last weekend we brought her home to relax and de-stress, hoping to get her to eat food especially for cats with kidney failure. Unfortunately, her condition kept deteriorating. She would only eat a mouthful of food at a time, and by the time we took her down to the vet the last time, she was no longer even meowing.

I miss her terribly, though I know it was for the best.

The other eulogies are for our living room/dining room floor and the termites. For the former, all that is left is a large pile of concrete and a small pile of ashes in our driveway. For the later, some are ashes, some have been chemically murdered, and the rest are most likely living in the fill underneath the new concrete floor, and will soon die from starvation.

Now that we've torn up the floor, I'm sure the former owners knew about the termite problem. The termites had completely destroyed wood beams that were set in the concrete subfloor - there's no way they could have done that in only a year. Vero wants to go yell at the estate agent. I've been dropping hints with our neighbor about the situation, since our he is the son of the former owners. There's nothing we can do about it now, but... it still would have been nice to know.

Pictures of the Day

Camino Los Vilches Pictures from a day trip that Vero and I took to the mountains.	Mountains, Camino los Vilches One of the more lovelier views to present itself to us along the trip to Los Vilches.
Descabazdo Grande This is one of our local volcanoes, a little closer than we normally see it. This picture was taken along the road to Argentina, Pase Pehuenche.	Pase Pehuenche Some mountains along the side of the Pase Pehuenche
Jeepin' A friend from my time in England, Brian, and one of his friends Ting came to visit us last weekend. I took them for a trip to the coast to eat some nice seafood and hang out on the beach. One of the cooler things is that you can drive on the beach.	The gang From left to right, Brian, Ting, Myself... (I'll leave you to figure out which is the Jeep).
Strike a pose Ting and Brian posing...	Deteriorated Wood beams This is an example of where the wood beams sat. The termites completely destroyed these beams and had started on the floor and mouldings.
Living room, after removing the flooring This is the living room after removing the infested flooring and beams and burning them.	Dining Room with no flooring The dining room after the destruction.
No concrete The maestro took a look at what was left of the concrete and decided it all had to go, so... this is what's underneath the concrete. Somewhere in there is probably a huge termite nest.	Dining room, no concrete and the dining room..
Compacted The next stage is to compact the fill material in preparation for leveling.	Dining room, compacted The maestro, in the dining room, with the compactor.
Leveling, compacting The next stage of the process is to level things out with gravel and get ready to pour the concrete.	Dining room, ready for concrete The dining room ready for the concrete now.
A floor! And now, finally, a concrete floor! The maestro removed the wood beams and back filled so there is nothing for the damn termites to eat. Starve babies, starve!	Dining room with concrete Another 3 - 4 days of curing, and then ready for the tiling.