Let's Paint!

[Thorondor]

There's always something waiting in the wings, isn't there? So, better say "Well, this part's done!" and feel good about it right then an there.

And as I mention it, the sense of perspective on the photo you took makes the east wall look the part - it's a considerable expanse to tackle, particularly when multiple coatings of paint need to be applied. One way or another there are lots of man-hours in that there wall staring back at you.

So I'd say, beyond having to live with a certain, gradually shifting colour over the years, take your time mulling over what paint is better suited to endure the ravages of nature for longer - it's not just a matter of how soon you'll have to get back to doing it all again, it's that your time is increasingly more valuable in other store-related activities too.

Toning down on mandatory repeats of this same task is kind of a must, even if you still feel like a young whippersnapper, ready to cover a thousand more like it!

[Zombie]

Today was very nice out again. I had some other projects I'm currently working on though: greenhouse and cleaning up the small garage. There was a lull in the action in the afternoon so I was able to fill in some more rough spots in the pavement along the greenhouse. You should be able to see the new areas as they are shinier than the other patches:

I wouldn't say this area is complete yet as there are a couple areas under the plastic flap that could use filling too. Dunno if I want to tackle that this year anymore, I guess I could if it's really quiet, but come on, that never happens this time of the year. There are a couple other areas I have my eye on that I might do yet, we shall see. Anyhow, I was able to tamp down all my patches again today. Here's what the ones look like by the alley:

I think that was quite beneficial actually. Maybe not so much here, but along the greenhouse the patch wasn't super compacted and that extra tamping certainly helped. And the patches blend in color to the rest of the pavement better. Maybe next year I'll seal coat the blacktop in the driveway and along the greenhouse again. Last time I did that was ages ago, so it's time.

Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty nice again, I'll see what I can get done while the weather is cooperating.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Not a whole lot of painting happened today unfortunately. But since the bosses son was there I put him to work helping me get the greenhouse complete. Was quite a bit of sweeping, leaf blowing, shelf cleaning, putting plastic flats away and just general tidying up, but we got it done with time to spare:

We got some outdoor work finished too, and still had some time to staple some cut-up flower boxes as flats for carrying arrangements. It was a big help in keeping ahead of the game, that's for sure. There's still minor cleanup which needs to be done yet of course. But now I can focus on painting and whatever other maintenance projects crop up. There's always something!

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

DO YOU EVER REST?! Man, you're giving me a feeling of guilt, I feel completely useless and lazy!

Just read this as "Damn, phenomenal!". I didn't even know you can get asphalt patches... Could come useful.

[Thorondor]

Shinier patches: they're noticeable, no question. And for someone as immersed in gaming imagery as yours truly, it's almost like those territorial outlines in strategy game maps - see, new acquisitions stand out right here. Man, I can already envision a whole AR gamification of this!

Greenhouse: nicely done and there's this feeling of tidy roominess to it. Complete? Well, I can see some scattered few leaves on the floor still, so who could tell what else might I find under those central tables if I looked really closely?

Who am I kidding, Zombie just goes around like a maintenance storm showing how practice pretty much makes perfect time and again.

[Zombie]

4 hours ago, Thorondor said:

Greenhouse: nicely done and there's this feeling of tidy roominess to it. Complete? Well, I can see some scattered few leaves on the floor still, so who could tell what else might I find under those central tables if I looked really closely?

Absolutely nothing is under the tables. We blew those areas out a couple times with a leaf blower just to make sure... because we were putting boards under there. The few leaves that are inside was because they blew under the doors. The last couple days there have been a lot of leaves falling off the trees and with the strong wind they go everywhere. Almost doesn't pay to do anything until all the leaves are off, but by then it's December and too late. Pain in the rear.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Throughout the summer and fall, I've been cutting up flower boxes for use as carriers for arrangements and such. Got a crap ton cut up, right now I still have 288 potential boxes ready to go in floral foam boxes. 24/box, 8 boxes on the ground and 4 on the shelf:

Since last week I've started to staple some of them up and put them away n the big white styrofoam boxes. 20/box and there's 12 boxes filled (240 total):

It's a pretty good start so far. As you can see, I have a couple empty styro boxes at the ready to accept more when I get the time. And the styro boxes on the floor in the first pic are empty too so I can fill those too. There's also about 300 potential boxes uncut in the apartment across the alley from us. Hoping I can get those cut up too.

As an aside, it's been raining here for the last few days straight. Not heavy though. Through all of that, no major leaks in the small garage roof that I can see. So that makes me happy.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Who's been busy as a beaver?

Hah! Those are nothing but little slackers! - move over and pay tribute to Zombie's Floral Cardboard Wonderland.

That's an awful lot of prep work, so someone is anticipating some major shifting of inventory this coming holiday season. Good for you.

And since there's no raining down on your parade in the small garage either, this means you've worked fast _and_ well, paying close attention to what matters.

⚠️Work safety alert: Tiredness is known to be conducive to work accidents. Take care to periodically slow down and make small breaks when necessary - don't cut on those, so you don't cut yourself.

[Zombie]

On 11/6/2024 at 3:08 PM, Thorondor said:

⚠️Work safety alert: Tiredness is known to be conducive to work accidents. Take care to periodically slow down and make small breaks when necessary - don't cut on those, so you don't cut yourself.

Silly kid, Zombie doesn't sleep so no breaks are necessary. Well, to smell the roses occasionally, but other than that, nose to the grindstone and full steam ahead! Haven't cut myself yet, as I'm very proficient with knives (been using them since I was 16).

Anyhow, stapled up some more boxes, stacked them up, and stuffed them into styros. Put those premades on the table at the back of the garage. Since I was putting that away I figured that I should put some other stuff away and sweep the place too:

Much better! At least we can get a van in the back if we need to. Still need to address the stuff in the right - I just dumped it there to get it off the ground. The stack of multi-colored plastic buckets need to be bleached out (used them to catch drips from the leaking roof). The three white-ish boards on the ground on the left are going to be used for our wreath display - just set them there for the time being as the wreaths haven't arrived yet and I need to clean the windows where they go. The big dark blue barrel on the left is full of trash from the cleaning job, need to dump that out yet. And the styro table on the front left has some things I need to put away yet (leaf blower, blacktop patch, etc). I even managed to start up the snow blower to make sure that works, and cleaned it off.

No painting unfortunately, but I'll get to it. Ditto for the other area I need to patch above the store.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Eternal wakefulness acknowledged, oh Enduring One!

The results of your toil are plain to see, as order is very nearly fully restored in the garage.

Regarding the boxes on the right, do keep tabs on that tallest pile sitting atop the cart closest to you in the pic as they seem inclined to take a precipitous tumble - possibly even without any external interference...

[Zombie]

9 hours ago, Thorondor said:

Regarding the boxes on the right, do keep tabs on that tallest pile sitting atop the cart closest to you in the pic as they seem inclined to take a precipitous tumble - possibly even without any external interference...

Yup, they did fall on me the other day when I was looking for a decent sized vase box for some wedding flowers. Actually, I may as well show you since I normally take a pic of large flower loads just to refresh my memory in case a problem arises later:

This was actually part two of the flowers for the wedding. I took out some table arrangements earlier to a venue, these were going to a residence where the females were staging before the wedding later. (Except for the tall fall-colored arrangement in the back which was for a church). About a month ago I took out another larger load of arrangements for a different venue:

This one was 48 shorter vases (6 vases per box and 8 boxes total). Had a little trouble finding enough boxes which would work, but used crumpled up plastic flower sleeves to stuff at the bottom and between the arrangements so stuff wouldn't move around on me. (The box on the right was the perfect height and width, the one on the left was a bit too tall). Worked great actually, no issues with delivery.

May as well post another pic of a bucket of green trix dianthus so Thorondor can do the Rorschach Inkblot Test and pick out another shape in the blooms:

And here's a pic of some flowers I ordered at the end of July:

Peach/pink hydrangeas are in the bucket on the left. On the right is some "novelty" roses. Clockwise from the top left: High+Exotic Yellow, Mandarin X-Pression, Candy X-Pression and Candlelight. Nice mix of varieties! The X-Pression types are similar to garden roses and opened up huge.  They were really impressive. We also like the candlelight during fall as it works with a lot of color schemes.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Plain eyeing crossed with statistical likelyhood delivering anticipated results. We could be talking about something like stock markets couldn't we? Or premonition? Yet this is but a bog standard physical world happening.

And here we are just facing Murphy's law again.

Taking photos of the flowers loaded for delivery is good collateral, not just memory aid, should anyone claiming the paid-for flowers weren't in the delivery that went out to the customer.

But beware, that could be made to work both ways - they could serve as evidence you're working with the Syndicate (pic 2, right-hand side box). Don't think we don't remember Leon, aka The Cleaner...

Or maybe I'm seeing things, just nothing forming on the dianthus Rorschach test this time, thank you beary much!

As for the July flowers, it's a very lovely bunch no doubt and my vote would go to either the High+Exotic Yellow roses or the Candlelight - the former really pop, so rich is the color and immediately draw the eye whereas the latter exude a certain classic beauty you can scarecely go wrong with in most settings I imagine.

I know eating flowers can actually be quite dangerous but I can't help but qualify those as yummy!

[Zombie]

Didn't have a lot of time today and it was a little chilly out too (let's call it 8C max) but I had enough time to prime the new-ish mortar joints on the small garage:

This primer is good down to 35F (or about 2C) so I figured that it should dry fine with the wind. Looks like it in the pic so hopefully I can hit it with the top coat tomorrow. Yeah, the mortar was plenty cured. Probably could have primed it last week but I always like to give mortar plenty of time to cure properly - otherwise it could potentially suck the water out of the paint in order to complete the process which could cause the primer not to stick. Don't want that.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

So, not to be given the cold shoulder even primer needs good mortar support - got it!

And, you know, I'm trying to keep my focus strictly on the wall there, but I'm thinking the contrast with the rust found elsewhere *cough* is bound to mess with your zen at some point later down the line.

[Zombie]

On 11/12/2024 at 9:32 AM, Thorondor said:

.. but I'm thinking the contrast with the rust found elsewhere *cough* is bound to mess with your zen at some point later down the line.

That's the least of my worries. I'm purposely not showing a pic of the entire west side as just above is a real mess. Probably will be a "next year" project, jeez, may even need professional help.

Anyway, I finally was able to put a coat of paint over the primer today:

You can see I went a little overboard and painted between the two vertical "standards". Looks a little bright as it was still pretty wet yet. Today was fairly humid too, but there was a strong wind which I hope will help to dry it properly before the colder night temps set in. Not supposed to get to freezing yet, just foggy due to the humidity. I'll try to take another pic once it's fully dry.

Haven't got much else done outside lately due to rain and crummy weather. I've been hard at work inside helping to decorate the store for Christmas and more cleaning in the backroom areas where I work. And the leaves just keep blowing into our property every day, and I keep blowing them out. Job security. Blowing them sure beats sweeping or raking them up though.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

"Now what?", "More work?" - Human Alliance peasant, Warcraft II

Prioritizing must happen and falling a little behind somewhere is just par for the course.

As for the painting, you've been placing some solid bets and have managed to get things done despite some increasingly unpredictable weather but don't let this stretch of good fortune cloud your judgement - you don't want to be wasting your efforts and paint only to see it washing off, you know, as "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

As for the leaves, they're the gift that will keep on giving, in the chores department, blown forth... and back again.

Here's a bit of a cheat if you want to gain some breathing room, and it depends on where and if you may be able to do this or not: get some square plastic mesh grid (about a meter, a meter and a half in length), much like the one in the pic below (but its holes can be bigger).

In that very same disposition, or just sort of mildly folded in half and don't force the bend too much, only enough for it to retain its shape while staying relatively flat on the ground. You can simply leave it on the floor in a place where you know there will be leaves coming and you'll see they'll naturally get caught in it (within or atop).

That way you can sort of ensure they'll end up less scattered and more concentrated where you want them to, instead of on multiple corners somewhere.

It has worked for me at least, in an area where there are some trees continually shedding their coats.