#594 Bonfire

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

I had a list of important to-dos today, but I ended up doing other things instead. The Hunk called this morning about burning the brush pile (well over 5 feet high at this point), so I spent most of the late morning and afternoon picking up more of the winter's fallen branches from all over the yard and tending the bonfire.

Then he and another guy got up on the roof to take measurements, to give me an estimate for replacing the shingles. He says there was never a cap put on the peak. 20 years without a cap! Might help to explain the periodic leaks around the fireplace and in the kitchen (only in very bad storms or heavy snow). He also said that the cement cap on the chimney is badly pitted and needs to be replaced before the roof can be done, and the third flue, which is unused, has a covering over it which is pitted, holey, and probably is allowing water in. Sigh. So I spent some time looking up chimney repair companies.

Piper wants me to sell more stock (BP Amoco and Chevron Texaco), so I went to the website for the companies holding the book-entry shares, and found out that I need my "12 character investor id". They can't use the social security number any more, so "you'll find your new number on the stub from your most recent dividend check". Great. I had always kept the stubs, but I recently decided that since I never ever look at them, it was just contributing to the paper glut here to keep them, so I've been throwing them out. I couldn't spend much time on the phone trying to find a real person to talk to, to explain the problem, because Roman was going to call this afternoon, and I didn't want to miss his call because he was going to be working tonight. I was even leaving the phone off the hook when I was out tending the fire so that he'd be sure to call back.

So, tomorrow's to do list looks a lot like today's.

One thing I did do was gather up the past month's paper piles and throw them on the fire. A lot of it was newspapers and magazines I hadn't even read yet. Good riddance. I haven't been able to get to the recycle center in ages, so it was building up. The center is open only certain hours on Wednesdays and on Saturday mornings, and every Saturday morning for the next few weekends is booked. And we saw what happened to today....

I'm off to burn more stuff.