We puppysat my sister's tiny, very sweet Shih Tzu last week for 1 night and 1 1/2 days, and it made me even more glad for my pet-free life now. It's not that I don't like animals, I'm just happy not to have such a responsibility day-in and day-out.

I would look at weather. I wouldn't want to be either in northern Italy or southern France with the climate change weather they're getting. I'm not happy in very hot weather. I know you love Marseilles, but there are many smaller town that will give you docs, shops, restaurants without the endless horrors of violence, rubbish collecting on the streets, crime.... that come with a big city.

Also, if you enjoy what Italy has to offer, then buy something SE France fr easy access or visa versa. My parents used to have a house in a lovely village just above Grasse. That's a lovely town. You can ski in the winter and you have the coast and the mountains in the summer. You need to be able to escape the hoards of tourists and the traffic they bring. Yack.

Thanks Islay.

Basically I am struggling to figure if I'm a big city person, a small city person, or a small town person. I'm also trying to figure out my plans stateside - if I'm going to stay in Portland (medium city) longer term, or move my US abode to a small town in the Pac NW. SWMBO prefers Italy, while I'm selfishly focused on France because I can communicate there. As far as S France cities go, she would prefer Aix and maybe Nice to Marseille. I think we will need to spend more time exploring the area to really decide on plans.

Weatherwise, summers in the Pacific Northwest and winters in South France/North Italy would work well, I think. I don't like heat either (thus not summers in S France/N Italy) but also don't love continuous rain/gloom (winters in PacNW).

On crime etc I'm sadly coming from a US perspective. Portland with its 560,000 residents is reaching 100 murders a year (almost all shootings), homeless camps are common, open hard drug use is growing, etc. Even the seedy outer arrondissements of Marseille feel rather benign to me.

All the young women I know are getting nostalgic about Barbie. In DD’s case, she has pulled her old Barbie stuff from storage and appears to be repurposing the dishware as tiny rat omlette serving pieces.

OMG! Those must be the most sophisticated rodents since Anatole!

The pink rat dish make me laugh. Lucky rats LOL One should surely be called ratatouille!

This whole thread is just brilliant!

John, I think your DD has just set the standard for all of us. I don't believe any of our homemade or restaurant dinners past or future is going to top those plattered omelets!

I agree, what a wonderful thread and quite a well written story --- I was waiting to find out what would happen next! Those rats certainly won the golden ticket by being saved by DD, and now are leaving a life of rat luxury with those beautiful omelets on the Barbie platters. It could very well be a pre-quel to Ratatouille the movie. I was also happy you were able to get the pooch to eat. Our elderly dog is now on a similar diet -- baked chicken breast, rice, low fat kibble and roasted sweet potato. He eats healthier than I.

I think you don't necessarily have to choose between remote village and a big city. There are plenty of towns and villages with well-populated centers and good public transport links. In my experience, if you are not spending full time you really don't want to deal with a car and yard remotely, unless you want to hire a caretaker. It's simply easier to get a village home or something just outside, or a quiet neighborhood in a larger town. But if you have a train with a direct line to the airport, all the better, to cut down on the transit journey. You can trey Menton, for example, at the border to Italy.

Gooster, I definitely need to spend some time looking around more places in France. Maybe next year.

This year has been consumed by my effort to strip two walls of my house to bare wood and sand/prep in time for the painters in September. I started in May and thought I’d be done in June, but now I’m scrambling as July draws to an end and our August trip to Tahoe looms. Talk about time flying.

Time flies while you're sanding siding?

I sort of enjoy switching off my brain and sanding siding. The downside is that because it’s taking me so long, I’m not doing other things that I also enjoy and my summer is flying away. The upside is that I’m saving myself a boatload of money over having a painter do it.

It sounds like a race against time, though, given the weather. Good luck with the sanding and don't work too hard!.

I used to care for a pet rat at a nature center. They are so smart and I found often touchingly sweet. Having to feed a rat-snake mice as well, it was a horrible job. Later caring for snakes and hawks, we were able to feed them dead mice and rats that we got from a lab. Still rather macabre. Especially getting a call that it was "kill day" and then going to pick them up and bagging them into individual serving sizes for storage in the freezer. Yes, I've had some weird jobs . . .

Al is totally comfortable now. When you open the cage door, he runs over to nose-bop your finger, then either grabs what you’re feeding him or jumps onto your hand to take the Arm Bridge to Shoulder Mountain. You can poke his tummy, pat his head, tickle his toes, he’s all for it. As far as Al is concerned, everyone and everything is his best friend. Even the cat, who he tries to nose-bop through the cage bars. We have not permitted any face to face nose-bopping attempts.

Simo is still very skeptical. What deep plot is this, she asks. Simo will venture out, even tentatively approach The Hand Of Food Or Death, but one false move and she scurries for cover. As a result she isn’t getting as many treats as Al. And treats are what The Hand brings. DD is off with SWMBO at a concert/trip to Yakima WA, so I have been trying out tasty things. Grapes (no seeds!) are extremely popular. Lettuce is appreciated. Peas are like manna from The Hand, especially when frozen peas are dropped into the water dish so they can go ”Pea Fishing”. I have not attempted any rat cooking; that is DD’s thing. She is musing about how to construct a teeny chicken sandwich.

We are thinking of building a ”bioactive” cage. This means a 18” deep tub/tray, preferably of clear acrylic, set in the cage and filled with a special sort of soil - “coco husk” - and primed with a particular type of tiny bug that lives in the soil and - yaay - eats rat waste and turns it into more soil. The rats get to tunnel and burrow, you get to spy on the burrows because the walls of the tub are transparent, the soil stays contained because the tub is deep, and you don’t have to clean the cage or change out the straw or whatever bedding. Apparently you do want to turn the soil occasionally. You can even plant stuff that is good for rats - wheatgrass etc - in pots set in the coco husk soil (not in the soil itself).

Gooster, here is an example of what I’m doing.

You use a power tool called a ”PaintShaver” with a revolving cutter head to literally cut the old paint off the house, along with slicing off nail heads and sometimes even instantly pulling those nails, leaving bare cedar siding and a big mess everywhere, which is all lead paint debris so you wear a respirator and goggles, have a HEPA vacuum connected to your tools, and put plastic sheet down. Then you use a heat gun and scraper to strip the corners and edges that the PaintShaver can’t reach. Reset the siding nails, renail loose pieces, repair cracked siding, fill nail holes and other defects - and the deep gouges that the PaintShaver will instantly create when you’re careless - with PlasticWood filler. With a few different power sanders, you sand all the bare wood and filler to smooth (at least 120 grit; 220 ideal). Cut out the old caulk, and curse whoever thought it was a good idea to caulk between courses of siding (it isn’t: wood siding needs to breathe). Pick up all the mess and plastic sheet, and vacuum up all the paint chips and wood dust that got away. Take a shower and be grateful that you don’t actually do this for a living.

It’s easy and sort of fun when you’re on the ground. Less easy on a stepladder. Less again on a 20’ extension ladder - because the PaintShaver requires two hands to control it. I’m scared of ladders, so I have the house equipped with eyes and cords that I use to tie off the extension ladders for a slightly more secure feeling.

I am making progress, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I think it is a form of exercise, the ladders are like a StairMaster that you have to climb slowly and then cling to for dear life until it’s time to slowly descend with power cords and vacuum hoses wrapped around your legs, and the power tools are like dumbbells that you have to lift, lower, and hold out with extended arms while they vibrate, jump, make deep gouges, and throw paint chips and the occasional nail head into your goggles and hair, which is why you wear a cap.

Hm,,, Is the new rat home going to be a terRATrium? a RAnT farm? a terRATce?

Re the paint scraping, is there at least some kind of zen equation amongst the terror? A path to enlightenment for more than the wood? A Nervana of the plane?

I have loved your posts since the first one. Just yesterday, right?

But I really thought of you this weekend when Daddy came to lunch and he was so sad that my bro's dog died on his watch when bro was out of town. Dangit. I had just the right things to say since you'd voiced your concerns.

Keep on being you and creating what you do. Love it all. From the cappuccino machine overhaul to dishes to messes with animals.

rob, pets mean so much to their owners, being entrusted with their care is a big responsibility. I’m always happy when our friends come back and Bastien is bathed, eating well, and as healthy as he can be at his age. Happy, and relieved. As for Ardy the naughty snake, I was happy to put him in the pillowcase and hand him off to the vivarium professionals.

plllog, there is some Zen element to stripping siding. I guess there’s Zen in almost every pursuit. I remember a book I read as a kid, ”Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. Perhaps someone should write “Zen and the Art of Stripping Siding”. Unfortunately DS is nowhere to be found in this endeavor.

Incidentally, I found an inexpensive model of 20” slim monitor (Spectre, $79/ea) and that got me to buy a used Halliburton “Zeroller” rolling carry-on case (21” x 12” x 9”) as a possible start of Tetrapod v4. If my 21” monitors won’t fit in it (unlikely they will) then the 20”s will. (A metal fabricator said that cutting and welding my existing aluminum case for v3’s 21” monitors wouldn’t be very satisfactory. Something about welding thin aluminum, distortion, heat weakening, blah blah.)

Good news about the 20” monitor. Even better about the wheels, which the seriously old Halibutons did not have. Much easier to protect gear if there are fewer chances to drop ’em. You can probably get enough padding from one yoga mat, if you're so inclined.

Good news, too, about the Zen of the siding. I was concerned that the terror of the ladder might interfere. ;)

man that was irritating

the Halliburton case came locked and the seller gave me the wrong combination

you can open these cases by tapping out the long hinge rod and unscrewing the lock from the inside - fortunately

Makes me wonder if the seller was selling because it was locked? My mother once forgot a suitcase combination, but it was only three wheels. I sat in front of a good TV show and just patterned through brute. Removing the hinge rod is probably easier. ;) But bruting the combo is just tedious, not hard, if you have an organized mind.

The seller was an eBay merchant, who had photos of the case open and said the combination was ”666”. When the case arrived, that combo did not work. Trying likely numbers and brute forcing didn’t work. After I removed the lock, I could see the tumblers and rotate the dials to the correct combination which turned out to be “001”. No idea what that was about. Maybe he reset it to “000” but was off a digit and then forgot he’d done it.

And . . . I’m pleasantly surprised. The 21” monitors fit, with just enough room for foam padding. The four monitors will fit in one half of the case and the laptop, dock, cables, stands, etc will fit in the other.

I’m should reset the combination to “007” because that’s what having everything slickly packed in this case is going to make me feel like :-)

This Halliburton photo/equipment case came with the original paperwork and (uncut) foam, showing it was originally sold in Florida in 1995, almost 30 years ago. I love old stuff like this.

Wow! What a find! Foam intact! Fantastic on the fit!! v. 4 can wait. :)

Your deduction about the combination sounds likely. So glad removing the hinge pin worked ... but having such a way to defeat the lock seems odd... I guess it's meant to be a spy trick, for examining the contents without disturbing the lock. Or for fool photographers who can't remember three digits to be able to get their gear without potentially harming it trying to break the lock...

When I was looking for travel cases for my gear, decades ago, I read a letter, in one of the magazines devoted to the subject, from a photojournalist, who used one of those big Mexican bags meant for carrying produce or firewood, that schoolboys in California used for their books. He never worried about setting it down, complete with computer and Hasselblad. I assume he also looked scruffy. ;) From that point of view, maybe keep whatever patina the Haliburton has, rather than polishing up to a Bond shine.

John, when you posted about the Zen of siding, all I could think of was the Karate Kid, "sand the floor", LOL.

I laughed out loud when I saw the first omelette, and then really laughed when I saw the tiny pink tray, LOL, now those rats have the life. Hopefully Simone will succumb to the good food and become less fearful.

I can't imagine a life without pets, although Elery would like to travel, so it may happen. Right now we still have 14 year old Molly, both cats, 9 cattle, 45 chickens and a bear which keeps breaking into the pole barn to get the fish food that we buy for the fish in the pond. I wouldn't mind but he eats 40 pounds at a time, which is expensive, and startles me when I walk in and he's there with his butt hanging out of the metal can I bought for the fish food. If I could convince all the grandkids to put the lid tightly on the can and shut and lock the door, Mr bear would be out of luck, but so far that hasn't happened.

I kind of like snakes, although mine are limited to the local puff adders and garter snakes. My grandson does have a guinea pig and an African bullfrog and his sister had an axolotl. Madi and Maci have gerbils as well as the dog and the cat, so we can make a pet out of nearly anything!

Where you decide to stay/live is personal preference, of course, but I'd take the country away from "amenities". I enjoy the hustle and bustle of cities for two, maybe three days, then I have to get away.

Good luck with your technology, I have no doubt you'll make it all work!

Annie

Travel desires is why we don’t have a dog . . . I have wanted another dog for years but they just don’t travel well (international travel I mean) or do well when left behind. If I did get a dog I’d get another Chow Chow. It’s one of the five oldest dog breeds, a ”basal breed”., one of two such from China, the other being the Shar-Pei. There is a 1,500 year old Chinese painting that shows a recognizable Chow, although they weren’t called that at the time. Shar-Peis were fighting dogs, Chows were military, guard, work, and food dogs. Yes, Chows were sometimes eaten, which may explain some of the less tractable breed traits. But there are also breeders who produce very friendly Chows. I had a Chow when SWMBO and I met, she adopted SWMBO and vice-versa. She was affectionate, loyal, obedient for the breed, and dominated every other dog (well, except my friend’s 130 lb Akita/Dane mix who one day got tired of my dog’s challenges and simply walked over and sat on her - which is all that dog ever needed to do to any dog). I woke up crying for a year after my chow died. So if there is ever another dog here, it will be another chow. Or, possibly, a Eurasier, which is a breed developed in Germany in the 1960s, from chow, keeshound, and Samoyed. They are quite chow-like, but a little more streamlined. Realistically, though, a dog is just not in the cards for now. I get to sit my friends’ dogs, and that has to suffice. When Covid started, one of my friends changed her will to leave her Chow to me if she and her husband were to die - which didn’t seem so impossible at the time - so I made a habit of snarkily inquiring after her health rather more often than was, perhaps, called for. Anyway, our cat strongly prefers zero dogs and more rats.

v3.1 of Tetrapod

This is a carry-on rolling case. Deceptively heavy, but manageable. During boring layovers, I can always use it as a kettlebell or for bench presses.

The components sit in Kaizen foam compartments. Q provided 007 with leather attache cases with velvet lined compartments concealing fifty gold sovereigns, but budget cuts have hit the Secret Service since Bond’s day.

https://www.007james.com/gadgets/attache_case.php#bot

Here we have keyboard, mouse, dock, monitor stands, power strip, and a mess of AC adapters. I sorely wish companies would integrate the AC/DC components into their hardware and do away with these unlovely little bricks.

The cables and cords fit under the kit. Sort of fit. It turns out that cables and cords are very bulky, even if you buy extra short (1-2’) and extra thin cables.

The reason this is “v3.1”, denoting version 3, prototype 1, is that I have enough Kaizen foam for five cases (the stuff comes in large sheets) so rather than spend too much time planning, I just threw together a first try. I’ve thought of a way to improve the layout and eliminate a third of the cord clutter, and that will be “v3.2.”

We head to Tahoe this coming Sunday, and a few days after our return the painters start work. I am not quite done with the stripping and sanding, and since we are having a heat wave in Portland, little more will get done before we leave. I tried working when it was 102F but am not acclimated to heat, and getting dizzy on a ladder seemed a bad idea. Then it was 107F . . .

I am feeling equable about it. Maybe I will get the last bit of stripping and sanding done after we return, and if not then I’ll try to work alongside the painters or, better yet, have them do it.

For those anxious about the rats, I can report that they now have a very large cage, not much smaller than a refrigerator, with 12” of special bio-active coco husk soil in a transparent acrylic tub, where they are happily building tunnels and chambers. Since they burrow to the acrylic walls, we get to spy on them in there. When not tunneling, they have a forest of branches and netting to run around, and an upper level with a wading pool where they can fish for peas. They have added watermelon, tomago, crab bits, blueberries, and pistachios to their gourmandise. Al is completely domesticated and promptly jumps on to Hand and scurries up Arm to ride on Shoulder and chatter in Ear, while Simo is getting more confident with Hand and may try Arm before long. We think she’s a bit younger, in addition to having a more cautious personality.

Bravo! v3.1 looks great! And I love the ”jungle” method of just start carving to see what works. I bet it took a heck of a lot less time and trouble than drawing it all out in CAD first, and a lot more fun, too. I still maintain that yoga mats work very well, but the Kaizen foam in the Halliburton is as it should be, and a lot more dashing. :)

Thanks for the rat update. I especially love the fishing for peas image...

Update from Ratville.

DD is off working in California, so I had to do the turning of the soil in the Imperial Rat Abode. Periodically, one is advised to remove the rats and return the soil to original factory state, so that the rats can rebuild their tunnels. I don’t know why; this is standard lore in the bioactive rat cage community. Al allowed himself to be picked up and moved to the playpen, but Simo smelled a rat, so to speak, and refused to be snatched. So I had to very carefully move the coconut husk “dirt” around while not collapsing the tunnel she was in. Simo was not happy, and bravely defended her home, even nipping at the Menacing Excavator Hand. Later that hand brought her a mini omelette as a peace offering, and I think we are friends again.

The painters will start work later this coming week, so I have officially called time on my career as a house restorer. My last act was to repair a little bit of dry rot on the south porch railing. Little bit meant, upon inspection, that half of the lower rail and two-thirds of the pickets and trim were dust held together by paint, so I had to rebuild the whole thing, saving only the upper rail. Here is a work-in-progress photo.

I keep seeing places that should be re-sanded or scraped, but I’m tired out as well as out of time. I think the painters will have to do a quarter of the prep they normally would for a house this size, so I'm not going to feel bad about the spots I missed.

We have almost finished picking colors, and my its going to be, um, an undignified house. Body an orangey sienna, trim (windows, railings, soffits, rafter tails, etc) white, foundation wall green, doors and shutters plum/purple, porch floor lighter purple, porch ceiling the traditional sky blue, and after the painters are done I’ll add some more green accents, think pinstriping on a car. Test patches here:

Typical exterior wall here

There is a madness to the method. The sienna is supposed to make all the foliage ”pop” and remind us of Venice, the green ties in to the houses on either side, the white trim is simple/bright and hides the trim's many imperfections, and the plum/purple is mostly because I love Jimi Hendrix (and will be used in just a few places where I can easily repaint it, if needed).

My friend M____ is a Photoshop wiz, and has been rendering our house in innumerable color combos, example below. We’ve also painted many surplus political lawn signs in various colors and held them up to the house. DD has applied her BFA degree, our architect friend has helped with palettes, SWMBO has restrained her instincts to cover the house with a rainbow, and I have been repeating, under my breath, “Que Sera, Sera” in my best Doris Day voice.

You're brave with those rats! I love colourful houses.

Did your consultants mention that you have a traditional secondary color palette adulted up with a soupçon of muting? That is, it works in theory. Not necessary, but potentially reassuring. :) I like the white on your test board. If it turns out too stark, you can always stir in a bit of the green.

I feel sad for Simo, not being able to stop the wrecking ball, which she did not order! Maybe set up a rat resort, with a swimming pool and Mai Tails to sip, for them to enjoy while future earthquakes are happening at home?

Hmm, I am trying to figure out what that means - I think you are saying MORE PURPLE AND ADD PAISLEY right?

I did have a rat resort set up! DD has a sort of collapsible enclosure that can be easily set up and filled with interesting new toys, yummy treats, and fun places for rats to explore.

The problem is that Simo does not want to be grasped and is very quick - unlike Al who is like "The Hand Elevator, let go!". So she did not get her Mai Tai time, instead she had to shelter as the Demolishing Hand plowed through her home. Now, let's not let her be a total drama queen about it - I only turned over part of the soil a little bit, its not like I did Passchendaele level destruction - but I'm sure when Al returned with his Hawaiian shirt and Maui Jims, Simo was giving him a piece of her mind.

Poor Al! I'm sure he was taunting her for not going to Sandals with him, while Simo was fussing at him, when she is too scared to fly. Maybe he'll convince her over time. Or maybe she needs the mai tails before she gets on the helicopter?

Yes, paisleys, red x's and neon pink and chartreuse hardware.

But what I was saying was that for all the different colors, they make sense, with the outlier being the traditional sky porch ceiling (which, if you can't stand it with the sienna (could work, could be pukey, you and yours seeing it in person are the best judges), you can always do a pale purple glaze over it), the white in the photoshop as displayed on my device, looks stark (eyebleed stark). You can easily tone down a white with just a little paint that's less than half white. A few dribbles of the green in it, while keeping it recognizably nothing but white, would tone down the stark. Most likely, however, your friend just used computer white, not paint white, and it's not even an issue.

I see. The colors in his renderings are not all that close to the real life paint colors, even though he pulled them off the paint manufacturer’s site. He warned us of this.

We are going to have quite a lot of white trim, and next year I think it will be fun to paint details - rafter ends, railing pickets, etc. SWMBO likes color. I suspect we will end up with a rainbow after all.

One thing I noticed is that at night, the orangey sienna turns totally black, like Mouth of Hades black. It’s like Severin’s fuligin cloak from Gene Wolfe’s “Shadow of The Torturer” - blacker than black. So do other neighborhood houses that are painted darker colors. With the current light tan color, the house still shows at night. I think I’ll find it a little creepy to walk up the stairs into nothingness. Well, I’m planning to install low voltage landscape lighting, so it won’t be hard to add some subtle house lighting so I know I’m coming home, not entering the Underworld. That’s another reason for having lots of white trim . . .

This stuff matters, in February after months and months of constant Pac NW rain and gloom.

You can also use reflective paint...

That's why barns are red and farmhouses white, to find them along the road at night or in bad winter weather. That and the paint being cheap in those colors. Red of course originally started out as a protective varnish that faded to a red hue.

Oh no, SWMBO is testing out more variations on sienna, alternative greens, different purples - I just want to make a decision and move on. Painters are coming this week!

Going by the colours in the swatch, I don’t think the green (or even purple) shutters will stand out well against the sienna walls. Either a much lighter green or white would look better IMO :-)

So, has the painting commenced?

There is little progress to report. The painters are finishing their penultimate house now, and mine will be their final house of the season. They have two guys doing preliminary prep here, going up on ladders and scraping and assessing.

One guy started scraping the garage Friday. The old lead paint is very hard and it was going slowly. So after the Saturday morning work party at my pistol club (we replaced a bunch of fluorescent lights with LED tubes) I went home and stripped and sanded that wall in the afternoon. Took about eight hours, much faster than normal because I could do it from the ground, it wasn’t hot, and its my last hurrah so I was furiously powering through.

I don’t know if the guys resent me doing this (maybe they’ll work fewer hours/make less) or are happy (they’ll do less tedious scraping) but it’ll result in a better paint job, so whatever.

But I am definitely DONE now. My hands are tingly and numb (too much power tool time), my shoulders hurt when I lift my arms (shoulders now bigger, but less functional), and I need to step away and do Other Things.

Like invent new rat delicacies?

The rats love cooked fingerling potatoes, so a ”baked potato” treat is coming. Roast fingerling potato, split open, a little butter, parsley, and cheese.

After that, I’m thinking mini burritos!

OMG! I hope the goodies are helping Simo warm up to you. :)

I'm kind of a "neutral" person, our house is light sage green with a brown roof and white trim, LOL. Inside the walls are either gray or sand dune depending on the area. I really like the green shutters!

I'm getting a huge giggle out of your tempting the Rat Queen with cooked delicacies. She's the Queen, you know, so good luck with that! (grin)

Annie

We have a lot of color here. Kitchen is blue and copper, dining room red, living mustard, foyer yellow, bedrooms various colors, etc.

Portland weather is such that you’re indoors a lot, starting in a month, so I like lots of color stimulation inside.

I’ve never understood the current trend for painting the whole house inside one colour, generally beige or grey 🤮

Some houses cry out for colour. I understand it rains a lot chez John. It's the same here so often the skies are grey. Colour in the house lifts the heart. Our old house was very big had colour everywhere. Our present house is very small and sunny and there's enough colour from the furnishings and pictures. I love colour. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished pics!