Side By Side

I apologized to Gary for my recent bout of complaining, and bought him that nice cold drink. That was all it took to smooth things over, and to get back in his good graces. Lucky for me. Things seem just fine between us. We've been laughing and having a good time together, just like nothing was ever said. Gary decided to do some work on the house yesterday while it wasn't raining. That's understandable. I'm in the garage, so he can work on me at any time. Today was my turn to be worked on again, and some very good progress was made. The second side to my upper cabinet was cut out of nice new wood, using the scrap wood piece previously cut as a pattern. There were lots and lots of test fittings and lots and lots of cutting and sanding to get that pattern just right, but it was SO worth it. The new piece fits perfectly. After taking the picture of the cabinet ends in place, the next step was to remove and paint them. While the first coat of paint was drying, Gary shifted gears and went from being a woodworker to an electrician. All of my wiring is now back in place. It's been awhile, but all of my interior lights and plugs are working once again. WOO-HOO! My new cabinet pieces will require another coat or two of paint before they are installed in me for good. That will happen soon, I'm sure. My biggest question now is what the plan is for my backsplash. I really don't think that Gary knows for sure what he will do with that area. I've seen him looking at various things online, but nothing has been decided on. Time will tell. He seems to be encouraged by how well things went today. I think he's going to work on me again tomorrow. I'll let you know what happens next. I'm SO excited!!!

No More Bitchin' About The Kitchen

As you all know, I can be an impatient little guy. Gary is trying to get a lot of work done this summer, but things are moving at a snails pace when it comes to the repairs on me. I've tried to be understanding, and tried not to complain, but I'm getting really tired of being all torn up and looking awful. Maybe the summer heat is getting to me. All I know is that I'm getting more and more grumpy every day. I've whined often about my kitchen lately, or should I say the kitchen that looks like a bomb went off in it. I've always been proud of how my kitchen looked. Everyone that sees it seems to like the use of stainless steel against the black cabinets. But Gary had to remove my upper cabinet and part of my electrical wiring to repair the wall the cabinet was mounted on. The cabinet has been sitting in the garage collecting dust for quite awhile now. In the meantime, Gary tore out my stainless steel backsplash as well. That made me look even worse. I guess my constant complaining finally got Gary to put aside his house repair projects, and start working on me for a change. I've seen him more this week than I have the last couple of months combined. He hasn't stopped working on the house, but at least I'm getting some attention. Here's what's happened since my last posting. All of the glue residue that remained on my wall after the backsplash got removed, got scraped off. Following that, the wall received two coats of paint. Then my upper cabinet got cleaned up, touched up with paint in a few areas, and put back into place. As I've mentioned before, the short little ends on the cabinet were removed awhile ago, and new end pieces that will connect the upper cabinet to the lower cabinet are in the process of being made. The end closest to my door got cut and fitted for size today. Fits like a glove! I like the little swoosh on the piece that meets up with the lower cabinet. That's going to look cool when everything is painted and the trim is put on. Some of my electrical wiring got reattached to the same places it was originally. All in all, I'm looking better than I did a week ago, but there's still a long way to go. I do feel bad for whining so much and seeming like I'm ungrateful for everything that Gary has done for me. He has SO much to do around here, and I know I'm not a big priority right now. I really do think my general attitude is as bad as it is because of the intense heat this time of year. I'm going to apologize to Gary for being such a grump. Maybe if I buy him a nice cool alcoholic beverage, he will forgive me. It's worth a try!

Door Swapping

This was a day of doors being removed and attached and removed and attached. I'm not stuttering, that's just the way it happened. Honest! Let me explain. First, my entry door was removed. Gary cut a piece of brown paper the exact length of the door, and then taped it over the edge that has the mounting holes in it. That's actually the edge that the hinge attaches to. I had no idea what the heck he was doing, but like always, I knew he had a plan. The plan was to mark the exact location of the mounting holes onto the paper, and then transferring those locations onto the red temporary door that he built awhile back. Are you with me so far? Once the holes were marked, punched, and drilled into the red temporary door, he mounted the door onto my hinge. The holes aligned perfectly! He also attached my revamped screen door to see how the two doors would fit together. You can see how the bigger screen door slide allows access to the area where the lock and deadbolt will eventually be. Looks good. The next to the last step for the day was marking the locations on the door jamb where the holes need to be cut for the lock strikers. And then the screen door and the temporary doors were removed, and my original door was reattached. We've gotta have a solid door to hold in the air conditioning ya know. So, that was the gist of the happenings around here today. More soon (I hope).

My Blog: The Third Anniversary

You didn't hear from me for weeks, and now here I am, posting for the second day in a row. I probably wouldn't be posting so soon, but Gary reminded me that today is the third anniversary of my blog. Wow, time really does fly by. It seems like just yesterday that I was trying to learn some computer skills to get this thing going. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm a whiz compared with when I started. I couldn't let the day go by without thanking each and every one of you for checking in so often and making my blog a big success. I really didn't expect many people to see it, let alone reading it so often. As you know, the blog started off with stories of my initial renovation when Gary bought me. As Gary and I have gotten to know each other over the years, all of you have gotten to know us. You've been with us through all of our camping trips, fun times and bad times, and lately, another round of renovations. Some of you we have met in person, and some we never will due to the many miles that separate us. But, we (I'm speaking for Gary as well as myself), love you all, and greatly appreciate your interest in our adventures. Most of our readers are from here in the United States, but as odd as it seems to me, my little blog has been seen and often read regularly by people from around the world. The internet is a wonderful thing. Gary checks the stats for my blog nearly every night, and has compiled the information below. The following is a list (in order, by year, of their first viewing) of the countries outside the U.S.A. that have checked out the Adventures Of Toaster. And the list is growing longer all the time. If I've missed anyone, please let me know. In 2011: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, and Sweden. In 2012: Argentina, Bosnia & Herzgovina, Chile, China, Finland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Venezuela. In 2013: Bahrain, Barbados, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Macedonia (FYROM), Moldova, Morocco, Norway, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Uruguay, and Vietnam. In 2014: Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Equador, Jamaica, Lithuania, Portugal, and United Arab Emirates. Who knew that this silly little blog would reach so many people? I am truly amazed. Once again, I want to thank everyone, wherever you may be, for being one of the nearly 23,000 visitors to my blog thus far. I appreciate you all SO much. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Have You Missed Me?

It's been awhile since I last checked in with you guys. How are you doing? I've been okay, just sweating a lot in this hot Florida summer weather. The temperatures didn't use to bother me much, but the older I get, the more the heat seems to get to me. I can clearly see why my beloved owner Gary hates the summers so much. As you know, he's MUCH older than I am. I hope he won't read this. I'll get scolded for telling everyone that he's old, but let's face it, the truth is the truth. Anyway, the reason I haven't written isn't because I'm ignoring anybody or being lazy. There's actually been very little work being done on me lately. Gary has been focusing his attention on house repairs, and I've been spending my days watching TV and sleeping. I'm extremely good at doing both of those things. I think that Gary was feeling a bit guilty for not spending time with me. He spent almost all day with me today, and he made some good progress. As I mentioned (I think) in a previous post, the plan is to extend the sides of my lower kitchen cabinet all the way up to my ceiling. This is more difficult than it seems because of the curvature in my side wall, especially on the end near the door. As Gary always does, he used a piece of scrap plywood to cut and modify as needed. Once he gets the scrap piece to fit as well as he can, he will use it as a template to cut a new piece from. He was in and out of me dozens of times, attempting to get that plywood piece just right. He did pretty good. As you can see in the second picture of the plywood lying next to a straight edge, a lot had to be shaved off to fit the curvature of that darn wall. Moving on from that time consuming job, Gary removed my stainless steel backsplash that was glued FIRMLY to my wall. He has never been particularly fond of the backsplash, and was thinking of doing something different there. Unfortunately, he damaged it during the removal, so it will have to be replaced now for sure. I can't wait to see what he comes up with for a replacement. Later in the day, Gary began modifying my screen door. That required a good deal of cutting and filing, but the main part of the modifications are done. He moved the tracks for the sliding panel, and replaced the smaller aluminum panel with the larger black plastic one. The large slide will allow access to not only my door lock, but a deadbolt as well. After completing the modifications, he rescreened the door. And while he had the tools out for rescreening, he replaced the screen in my rear window that the squirrels had clawed through at one of our last campouts in the spring. Little by little, I'm getting repaired. I wish that everything was done, but I guess there's no big hurry. We're not going camping again until October, and that's three whole months away. I hope to have more for "show and tell" very soon. Until next time, stay cool!