DIY

Slowly but surely, we're restoring our 114-year-old house to its former glory, and beyond.

Maria got a killer deal from Wayfair.com on a bunch of oak flooring. We used four boxes of it in our office and office closet and had plenty left over. The next project was the closet in what was the master bedroom and over the weekend we did a second bedroom closet. Both closets got fresh wallpaper and quarter-round trim. (That's the second closet in the photo.)

There is no way we could have done it if we hadn't invested in a miter saw and a pneumatic nail gun. Those are tools I never expected to own, but then I never expected to own two chainsaws and a generator when we moved to Arkansas 10 years ago.

The next project is a linen closet. It already has the original quarter-sawn oak floor, so it just needs wallpaper and fixtures.

A crew is scheduled to come tomorrow to install 27 new windows. In some cases, the original windows have come apart and one of the guest bedroom windows has only the plastic sheeting the tenants put on it.

20 years gone

My dad, Charles M. Flora, died 20 years ago today. I miss him every day.

The Repps come to visit

Longtime friend Joe Repp and his wife Diane stopped by this afternoon. I got up to fetch something and found Dora had stolen my place on the couch.

Miserable weather, going to get worse

It sure didn't feel like 60 degrees a few minutes ago when I was being pelted by wind-driven rain while chasing one of our trash cans down the street.

The forecast is for more rain and steadily falling temperatures and we are resigned to the fact that the cold November rains are upon us.

The TV no one wants

This RCA television has stood at the curb in the first block of North Pearl Street in Thorntown for several weeks.

Winning big and getting bigger

I am astonished at how immature the Democrats and other leftists are in that they have had a whole year to come to grips with the reality of a Trump presidency and they're still throwing tantrums.

I, on the other hand, thank God every day for last election day's miracle.

Apparently, liberals don't care about a booming economy and a low unemployment rate, and the prospect of more economic good news with the passage of tax reform. No, they continue to pretend that Trump is a racist, sexist and any other despicable thing they can think of in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Happy birthday, Sean!

Today is my firstborn son Sean's 50th birthday.

It's hard to believe he's old enough to order from the senior citizen's menu. He'll always be a kid to me.

He makes me proud.

Testing

I'm evaluating the new Epson ProSense 57 GPS Running Watch for the Amazon Vine Program, even though, like Calvin Coolidge, I do not choose to run.

I took it for a 1.1-mile walk yesterday, which it mapped on the Epson View smartphone app.

I've reviewed several activity trackers and this is, by far, the most accurate in terms of steps and heart rate. It's also the first GPS unit I've tried and I'm very impressed.

People with eyes

When I was a young, timid photographer, I spent a lot of time shooting scenics and still lifes and just about anything that didn't involve interacting with people.

There's a young man on Facebook who has shot for at least one newspaper who set himself to the task of posting a new photo every day for a year. He posted number 330 today - a picture of a wall with a bunch of collectible plates hanging on it. An awful lot of his photos have been like that, with a heavy emphasis on weathered barns and crumbling structures.

I think this is very telling. I think it shows that he's insecure and afraid of engaging with possible subjects. And he's probably going to stay stuck in that box until he realizes that people are the most interesting subjects and make the most compelling photographs.

Maria had a young photographer working for her years ago at a small-town daily newspaper who seemed to have an aversion to photographing faces. Most of the people in his photos had their faces turned away from the camera. He was a photojournalism graduate from Ball State University and apparently thought he had learned all he ever needed to know about photojournalism in college. Maria tried to get through to him by requiring that all of his photos had to show the subject's eyes.

"Is this some new thing in photojournalism - this eye thing?" he asked her.

Robert Capa told photographers, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."

I would add to that, "If your photos aren't interesting, maybe you need people in them. People with eyes."

We love small town life

I don't recall having a single trick-or-treating kid come to our house in Arkansas in the entire decade we lived there.

Not so, here in Thorntown.

We were visited by scores of polite, well-mannered kids, most of whom were accompanied by their equally polite parents. It was a real pleasure and another reminder of how special life in a small town can be.

Puzzling

We sold our house in Brookland, Ark. last Aug. 23.

But our old neighbors tell us the buyers, who tore out the old carpeting, still haven't moved in.

Dora 's wall

We were sitting in the parlor a little after 2 p.m. today when a neighbor boy appeared on the porch to report that Dora had escaped from the fenced back yard.

I'm afraid I reacted strongly, asking if he or one of his siblings had let her out. In retrospect, I was a bit rough and I think it freaked him out. Will have to make amends soon.

It developed that Dora had tunneled out under the deck, emerging from a hole next to the driveway.

Maria went out the front door and I went out the back, calling for her. She came running around the back of the neighbors' house and Maria was able to grab her collar and escort her back into the house.

Austin, Megan and Hayden arrived minutes later and Austin helped me (he did all the heavy lifting) move several hundred pounds of landscaping stone from the side and front of the house to make what we hope will be an impregnable wall around the base of the deck.

Truth be told, I expected her to eventually notice and exploit the opening under the deck. I'm just glad we were alerted before she got lost.

Halloween haters here

Just for the record, we don't like Halloween and we refuse to decorate for it. We'll have candy for trick-or-treaters, but that's as far as it goes at our house.
I am uncomfortable with the idea of trivializing evil.

Home improvement

This was the nastiest closet in the house before Maria went to work on it. It had crumbling plaster, crappy poplar flooring and some openings that she was sure was where mice used to get in.
A little wallpaper and hardwood flooring left over from the office and, voila!

Exceeding my expectations

My desktop computer refused to boot when I set it up after the move.

I knew something was wrong when it rattled.

So I bought a new Dell computer and ordered a hard drive dock from Amazon.com. The dock came yesterday and pulled the hard drive this morning and mounted it in the dock. Then I went looking for software to rescue my data and programs.

I ended up buying a copy of PCMover for about $40, which included free online assistance.

The technician took control of my new desktop and set up the transfer, which took about five hours to complete.

To my amazement, virtually everything important made the jump to the new machine and all of the programs I've tested seem to have full functionality. I was especially worried about Photoshop, but it's working fine.

Auditioning a new all-in-one

Evaluating the Epson WorkForce ET-4750 EcoTank Wireless Color All-in-One Supertank Printer with Scanner, Copier, Fax and Ethernet for the Amazon Vine Program. Took a couple of hours from box to fully functioning, including a firmware update.

Crazy-fast!

For the first time since Aug. 11, I have computer access to the Internet.

And, wonder of wonders, I have crazy-fast fiber optic Internet. Who could have imagined such a thing in this little town of 1,520?

Our computer savvy neighbor told me about Metronet and their fabulous speed when I complained about the pathetic performance we were getting from Frontiernet.

The right tool for the job makes everything easy

After much frustration and swearing, we gave up trying to cut baseboard trim with a hand saw and a miter box and went to Menards where we bought a Hitachi compound miter saw with laser. Suddenly, the job became ridiculously easy.

New specs

I picked up my new glasses yesterday afternoon at the Lafayette (Ind.) Meijer store and notified my eye doc that I'm ready to proceed with cataract surgery.

Everyone tells me it's a breeze and my vision isn't what it used to be, so why not?

I need to be without contact lenses for at least two weeks prior to the evaluation and surgery and my old glasses have vanished in the move, so I spent $150 on a pair that I plan to wear less than a month.

The really good news is that Medicare covers 100 per cent of cataract surgery.

Got him!

We were eating dinner in the kitchen last evening when Maria noticed a mouse scurrying along the base of the sink and dishwasher.

Maria hates mice like I hate snakes, so I promptly drove down to Menard's in Lebanon and bought a four-pack of Chinese-made mousetraps.

We baited them with peanut butter and arrayed them around the base of the cabinets.

We heard a snap a few hours later, but the trap was empty when I checked it.

However, our luck improved at 9:50 a.m. today. I heard the trap snap as I walked into the kitchen and saw a motionless mouse caught by the foot. It was hardly a mortal injury and I guessed the mouse was either playing possum or in shock.

Either way, I picked him up by the trap and dropped him into a trash can with a secure lid to be picked up tomorrow morning with the rest of our trash.

I suspect there will be more mice. They start looking for new homes this time of year when the fields are harvested and the weather turns chilly. This 114-year-old house doubtless has lots of places where mice can get in, no matter how diligent we are about stuffing holes with steel wool.