Monkey Musings Daily Open Discussion #10 1/23 - 6/12/2008

[Tamikosmom]

Klaas ... if I had to live amid the chaos that is currently taking place at your home ... I would just go back to bed for the next 2 1/2 months.

 

Janet

[klaasend]

Janet - yep, I have considered that option 

Construction update today.  They poured the concrete in the foundation grade beam trenches.  This ties all of the caissons and our existing foundation together to make sure the house doesn't move again in the future. This afternoon the TILE guy is coming over and we are going to talk about what we want done with our fireplace. Tomorrow they are going to be putting some of the water lines overhead and we will be completely without water for 3 days.  They are bringing us a port-a-potty.  Monday they will pour our new slab 

Short videos of the concrete being poured today and one picture.  It only took about an hour to pour this.

[Destiny]

O/T

Construction update in Musings 

http://scaredmonkeys.net/index.php?topic=2531.msg374678#msg374678

Oh Klaas...that reminded me of a very funny memorie...when I was in my early 20s, we put up a retaining wall in back of our home...it was cinder block with rebar inside...about 8 ft. high...when the cement pumping truck arrived...hubby told me to stand on top of the ladder and hold the tube..like the one in your photo...so the concrete could be pumped into the cinder block wall...

I don't know what hubby was thinking...I'm 5' tall 105 lbs....ya got it...once the concrete started pumping...the dang tube shot out of my hands...here I was, screaming to the guys and hubby down the hill, to stop pumping..of course they couldn't hear me....by the time it was done...had concrete *turds* all over the back deck...as the tube had a mind of it's own...and snaked around all over the place....it was a thick mix concrete too....LOL


EDIT by klaasend:  You and I are about the same size and I'm sure I'd have a similar outcome, LOL.   I'm going to move this entire post over to Musings.

[Shell]

Klaas, just curious but, if it will never have to be done again, why didn't they do it that way in the first place? I know absolutely nothing about construction but I will learn fast once they start our house. I want to know what to look for.

[Tamikosmom]

.... and all this so that you will never get another crack in your wall??  . 

 

There has to be an easier way.  What about paneling?  Out of sight ... out of mind. 

Janet

[klaasend]

Klaas, just curious but, if it will never have to be done again, why didn't they do it that way in the first place? I know absolutely nothing about construction but I will learn fast once they start our house. I want to know what to look for.

First off the home was built in 1964.  It's built on a pretty steep slope.  Most of the homes on this hill have problems.  When the homes were built the builder didn't even put rebar in the slabs.  The old slab in my house was only about 2 1/2" thick..my new slab will be closer to 7".  Barring a major earthquake we should not have to worry about our house moving again.

We could have gone the cheap way and fixed the walls, ground down the uneven slab and poured self leveling concrete but that wouldn't have really fixed anything permanently.  For instance, that is exactly what the new buyer (speculator) of the foreclosed home next door to us did...went the cheap route.  The home is listed for $1,350,000 and they can't find a buyer for a couple reasons.  #1  Even though the house has new paint and some new walls it's still obviously crooked.  Also, the outside walls that they restucco'ed with a sort of smooth Spanish looking finish keep cracking.  They have to have them patched before they hold an open house.  If they fix the crack today it shows up again tomorrow.  #2  The buyer (speculator) put in a bunch of river rock in front, too much IMO and it just doesn't look right.  It's not a large house at all so who's going to pay that much money for a crooked home with cracks in the wall??    In my opinion, they should have put their money into fixing the foundation properly so they could document it to the prospective buyer and forgot about the river rock in front.  You should see it, it's really ridiculous.

[klaasend]

.... and all this so that you will never get another crack in your wall??  . 

 

There has to be an easier way.  What about paneling?  Out of sight ... out of mind. 

Janet

Janet - not exactly just for a crack in the wall.  Our slab was cracked so bad there was no way to recarpet over it.  The front door would barely close the entry way had risen so much do to a water leak we weren't aware of.  There was a crack around the fireplace inside the house almost 1/2 wide.  The sliding windows were getting hard to close.  Actually, all the doors were getting hard to close.  They lifted our house up on the corner near the fireplace and in the corner of the master bedroom almost a full 2 inches.

In other words it was getting bad and really needed fixing 

[Jerry from Ohio]

Oh Klaas  you lucky woman you  you now to get the Joy of going out to the Porty Potty
  When I owned my excavating Co sometimes we had to turn utilities off water  electric  and the Ladies were always so appreciative when I could tell them that they had their own private  bathroom usable again . :+)  a few of them would go to a neighbors house or down to a Gas station but some did brave the night air and go to the PP  for the Ladies I always made sure that the ones that were given were new or basically very very clean .     
   Nothing like sitting out their in the night with the wind whistling through the air holes   awe  what a visual huh ?   
  seriously good luck and hoping all is going to go well .
                                                                             your Pal Jerry from Ohio

[klaasend]

Oh Klaas  you lucky woman you  you now to get the Joy of going out to the Porty Potty
  When I owned my excavating Co sometimes we had to turn utilities off water  electric  and the Ladies were always so appreciative when I could tell them that they had their own private  bathroom usable again . :+)  a few of them would go to a neighbors house or down to a Gas station but some did brave the night air and go to the PP  for the Ladies I always made sure that the ones that were given were new or basically very very clean .     
   Nothing like sitting out their in the night with the wind whistling through the air holes   awe  what a visual huh ?   
  seriously good luck and hoping all is going to go well .
                                                                             your Pal Jerry from Ohio

Hi Jerry - I'm not foreign to these things and have used them many times camping and at some events.  Some have been horribly dirty.  This will be a new one and I'm really not all that worried about it.  It's only for three days so it's not a permanent fixture, LOL 

I'm not a "prissy" gal by any means.  I know how to rough it 

[Observer]

Klaas is my kind of Woman!!! SHe's turning a rough situation into a camping trip!  Those pictures and Vids are amazing! I've never seen anything like that before! 
---------------------------

Can your dog do this? Unreal!!!!!!!!!! 

Jo-Joe The Sk8R DOG !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa7vUa5Mvdc

[klaasend]

Klaas is my kind of Woman!!! SHe's turning a rough situation into a camping trip!  Those pictures and Vids are amazing! I've never seen anything like that before! 
---------------------------

Can your dog do this? Unreal!!!!!!!!!! 

Jo-Joe The Sk8R DOG !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa7vUa5Mvdc

Wow!  Never thought to buy my dogs a skateboard so I don't know, LOL 

[Shell]

Thanks for explaining Klaas. They have learned a lot more over the years about building homes in earthquake prone areas. I just can't imagine anyone using 2 inches of concrete, anywhere. Now you will have some peace of mind.

[2NJSons_Mom]

http://tv.msn.com/tv/celebrityfeature/dr-phil/?GT1=BUZZ3

The Doctor Is Out (of Touch)
Symptom: Two high-profile fiascoes and a career of dubious decisions
Diagnosis: Dr. Phil doesn't have a license or a clue
By Barbara Card Atkinson
Special to MSN Entertainment

Maybe it's awful to kick a walrus-mustachioed man when he's down, but I am all for the recent public backlash against Dr. Phil. His producers bailed out one of the teens jailed for (allegedly) violently attacking a Florida teenager, in exchange for an exclusive interview with her, only to backpedal in the face of public disapproval. This boundary crossing is just the latest in a string of Dr. Phil's missteps; it's high time we all admitted that the good doctor is out -- out of touch, out of step and sometimes almost out of his homily-riddled mind.

Dr. Who?
Phillip Calvin McGraw, best known as Dr. Phil, hit the airwaves as Oprah's golden boy in 1998. She seemed to enjoy his straight talk and the way her audiences responded to his no-nonsense approach. It was refreshing, at first, to listen to a shrink who gave advice free of psychobabble buzzwords; he was even a little folksy, some homespun, gingham-aproned Freud. This is the guy who said, "Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right." Adorable, right? Of course, he wasn't really a shrink, and he hasn't seemed to take his own advice. McGraw has a history of not making the right decisions, nor has he done much to right them.

This is the guy who said, "Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right." Adorable, right? Of course, he wasn't really a shrink, and he hasn't seemed to take his own advice.
 
Doc in a Cheap Suit
It's a sad fact that, these days, many a high-profile "personality" is going to have at least one good lawsuit lobbed his or her way, but Dr. Phil seems to repeatedly provoke lawsuits. The Texas attorney general investigated him for a possible health club scam in 1973. McGraw sold expensive lifetime memberships to a health club in Topeka, Kan., and resold the contracts to a financial institution, so the members had to keep paying whether the club existed or not. According to the court papers, three different Topeka banks sued him for more than $40,000, but he never showed in court and monies were never recovered. He had moved on to Texas, where he obtained a doctorate from the University of North Texas and began to practice psychology.
 
In 1989, the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists imposed disciplinary sanctions against McGraw for what was deemed an inappropriate "dual relationship." McGraw admitted he hired one of his clients, a 19-year-old woman, to work in his office (can you say "breach of ethics"?), but denied her claim of a sexual relationship. The board ordered McGraw to pass a jurisprudence exam, undergo a psychological evaluation, take an ethics class and have his practice supervised for one year. Did he make amends and make it right? Well, as of 2008, no. Nineteen years in, and he still hasn't met the board's conditions. His license to practice psychology was revoked and, from that point on, he has not been licensed to practice psychology at all. As the man himself has noted, "Failure is no accident."

McGraw, who said, "We teach people how to treat us," exhibited poor judgment again when he decided to feature convicted murderer Laurie "Bambi" Bembenek. Bembenek was scheduled to appear on the "Dr. Phil" show in 2002 to clear her name. It didn't go well. She later filed a lawsuit against Dr. Phil and more than 50 of his staffers for, she said, being held against her will in an apartment with no way to contact the outside world, while awaiting potentially show-stopping, name-clearing DNA results. Bembenek claims the forced confinement led to a panic attack, which drove her to escape by climbing out a window. She fell and shattered her leg, which later had to be amputated below the knee. Despite whether Bembenek was detained against her will, one wonders at the "stinkin' thinking" involved in allowing an emotionally fragile, convicted murderer to become so agitated that she felt her only recourse was to shimmy down the outside of a building on a bed sheet ladder.


In 2006, Dr. Phil was named as a co-defendant (along with CBS) in a lawsuit filed by two brothers in relation to the Aruban disappearance of U.S. citizen Natalee Holloway. McGraw hired a private investigator to interview the Kalpoe brothers. They claimed they were recorded without their knowledge and the material was doctored, but later broadcast as being a true representation, portraying them "as engaging in criminal activity against Natalee Holloway ..."

Sure, maybe McGraw's involvement would break open the case as the one tactic that had so far eluded the combined forces of the U.S. and Aruban officials -- a trained television host.

Search for more...
View results for:
Dr. Phil's Britney fiascoDr. Phil bails out teenOprah and Dr. PhilDaddy Issues
McGraw has long been an outspoken critic of pornography. Eyebrows were raised, then, when he stood as the best man in his son, Jay's, 2006 wedding to Playboy playmate Erica Dahm; the elder McGraw even hosted the wedding at his Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion. Against porn? Fine. Supportive of his son, regardless? Terrific. Altering his "Dr. Phil" Web site to remove all of his comments about porn right after the fact? Umm, "What in the hell were you thinking?"

In January 2008, McGraw's behavior motivated a psychologist (an actual one, with a license and everything) to lodge a complaint with the California Board of Psychology, alleging that Dr. Phil was practicing illegally when he visited Britney Spears at Cedars-Sinai. McGraw was, reportedly, counseling Spears as well as inviting her to join her family on his stage for an upcoming televised intervention. After his unannounced hour-long visit, he made several long-winded statements on his show about Britney's mental state, which really chapped the family spokesperson. Whether he was honestly trying to help or just looking to snag an exclusive, one is tempted to repeat his own words back at him yet again: "The quickest way from A to B is not always at the most feverish pace."

Testing Patience
Who hasn't Dr. Phil ticked off? Thelma Box, a former business partner, alleges that McGraw sold his stake in Pathways, their self-help company (started in 1984), an entire year before he told her. Box also insists she co-created and co-authored the materials used in Pathways seminars, material that McGraw uses today in his show, but she has never been given any credit.

Even the fairly unflappable residents of Los Angeles' Wilshire neighborhood have raised arms against McGraw. His Dr. Phil House was an actual house back in 2006, but multiple film crews, trucks, cables and the numerous wandering, addled, addicted, and just plain nutty guests all culminated in too many complaints. They were forced to stop shooting on-site; the show is now actually shot on a soundstage, not on location (although the exterior of the house is still shown in episodes).

And now this: Last week, Dr. Phil had his producers bail out Mercades Nichols, one of the six teenage Florida cheerleaders accused of beating another girl, videotaping it and posting the footage on YouTube. Nichols signed an exclusivity contract with McGraw's people, allegedly in exchange for her $30,000 bail. In light of the public outcry, producers have since announced they made an error in judgment and they have no plans to go forward with the show. Dr. Phil has yet to make his usual half-apologetic public statement, although now might be just the time for McGraw to heed his own advice: "If you want more, you have to require more from yourself."

The inappropriate bail, on the heels of the Britney fiasco, may be why there are growing rumors that Oprah wants nothing to do with the not-always-so-good doctor; there is also talk that McGraw and his wife, Robin, are on the outs. There are plenty of folks with reason to be upset. After all, "Anger is nothing more than an outward expression of hurt, fear and frustration."

Physician, Heal Thyself
McGraw has been remarkably savvy at reinventing himself every time his plans ended at a career dead end and/or lawsuit. He's made a number of business mistakes and personal gaffes, but, hey, so have most folks at his level of success. Of course, not many "lifestyle and relationship experts" have proven to be so generally, well, inexpert. When was the last time you saw Dr. Ruth or Dr. Joyce Brothers so consistently in the tabloids? Even dingbat Dr. Laura hasn't left such a trail of lawsuits and professional enemies in her wake.

Maybe the problem isn't McGraw and his stern-talkin' daddy-tude; maybe the problem is that people are listening to him as if he's got a clue, or at least more of a clue than the rest of us. All facts point to the contrary. Just glance at McGraw's personal life (read his unauthorized biography, "The Making of Dr. Phil," for details about his never-mentioned first marriage and early company dealings); look at his business track record. Or take it from me. Just like Dr. Phil, I'm an unlicensed unpsychologist, and my advice to you, in classic Dr. Phil speak is this: "That dog really, really don't hunt."

Barbara Card Atkinson is a frequent contributor to MSN Entertainment.

Send us your thoughts on "The Doctor Is Out (of Touch)" at heymsn@microsoft.com.

[Bearlyhere]

I have an idea, put off the to do list.

Your house is going to be incredible, it must be really cool to be there in the midst of everything.  You have been amazing with your sense of humor and patience.  Good luck.  Have you thought about what you wanted done with the fireplace yet?

[klaasend]

 

[klaasend]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351714,00.html



Snickers the Puppy Rescued After Drifting at Sea, Scavenging on Pacific Atoll
Friday , April 18, 2008

 HONOLULU —

Snickers is only eight months old.

But the cocker spaniel already has spent three months adrift on a 48-foot boat and survived four months on a tiny Pacific atoll where his owners, Jerry and Darla Merrow of California, left him when they were rescued by a cargo vessel.

Now Snickers is in Honolulu, rescued by cruise ship workers, the Hawaiian Humane Society, an airline, and others who have united to find him a home.

"It's an amazing story of a lot of people working together to save this puppy," said Evans Hoyt, captain of NCL's Pride of Aloha. "He's a very, very lucky dog."

Efforts to find a telephone number to contact the Merrows were unsuccessful.

Gina Baurile, the society's community relations coordinator, said Thursday that the organization took the lead in coordinating the rescue of Snickers after being contacted in the first week of April by Jack Joslin of Las Vegas, a concerned pet lover who wanted to take ownership of the dog.

Joslin said he learned of Snickers' saga in 'Lectronic Latitude, an online Web site of the boating journal Latitude 38.

The report said the Merrows' catamaran developed mast problems after setting out from California. In the first week of December, the vessel finally drifted to Fanning Island, a populated but tiny atoll about 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. It hit a reef and the couple swam 200 yards to shore with Snickers and their macaw named Gulliver.

The pets were left in the care of some islanders, but Baurile said the animals apparently weren't cared for very well, "because they don't have the same concept of what pets are."

Joslin said the bird was being taken of, but the dog was actually "left to fend for itself."

Fanning is one of 33 scattered coral atolls that make up the remote nation of Kiribati. In March, the government of Kiribati, which technically owned the animals, decided to have them destroyed, Joslin said.

Upon learning the news while on Fanning, a sailing couple from Hawaii tipped Latitude 38 with the story, he said.

Joslin said he decided to become involved when he read the account just five days after he had to have his ailing 15-year-old border collie euthanized.

"That was really tough. That was a very hard time," he said.

"I was willing to spend whatever it took, but because so many people got involved willingly, it turned out not to cost me much at all," Joslin said.

NCL offered to pick up Snickers, and Hawaiian Airlines volunteered to fly him for free to Los Angeles, where he will be handed to Joslin.

Paperwork problems prevented Joslin from bringing back Gulliver, too. But an elaborate plan is hatching to move the macaw to Christmas Island and eventually to Los Angeles, one of two U.S. ports that will accept exotic birds.

"We have an amazing network of bird lovers that came in to get involved in this," bird enthusiast Peter Foreman said. "So, by golly, if they can do it for Snickers, they can do it for Gulliver."

If the effort is successful, Joslin expects Gulliver will be given to a bird sanctuary in Arizona.

Snickers got a trim and flea treatment before boarding the cruise ship. Getting the canine cleared for travel involved the Hawaiian Humane Society, state agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security.

The pup was living in luxury for the last week as the first pet on the Pride of Aloha. He was a little uneasy with all the attention but he is a much different dog now than when the cruise ship first came to his rescue, according to crew members.

"[He was] very unsure of himself and a little bit suspicious of people and it was amazing how just in the course of the first 24 hours and day by day he turned right around," Hoyt said.

The cruise may be over but the crew won't soon forget the pooch they pampered.

"There were some people who were very sad to see him go. He's a little heart stealer, that one," Hoyt said

[klaasend]

Construction update.  Today the foundation guys came in early and covered up the areas that were filled yesterday with concrete in preparation for pouring the slab next week.  Still more prep needed and sand brought in before the slab is poured.  The port-a-potty arrived today and the plumber was here starting to move our water overhead. The plumber will return tomorrow and Sunday if necessary but hopes to finish up by tomorrow night

[San]

Construction update.  Today the foundation guys came in early and covered up the areas that were filled yesterday with concrete in preparation for pouring the slab next week.  Still more prep needed and sand brought in before the slab is poured.  The port-a-potty arrived today and the plumber was here starting to move our water overhead. The plumber will return tomorrow and Sunday if necessary but hopes to finish up by tomorrow night

Well at least it matches your house 

[klaasend]

 

[Lala'sMom]

San
You have such a way with words. LMAO!!!!