The Wonder of a Cross-cut Shredder

Ever since I became a sole-proprietorship company, my junk mail has increased threefold. Not only do I get offers of credit cards for myself, and credit cards for the company (my employees), I get two or three offers a week for company-related materials: calendars with my logo on them, pens with my company name, business cards, t-shirts, subcontractors, etc. etc. etc. The good news is that I have a really cool time management calendar for next year (free), and a nifty pen (also free).

Anyway, I finally bought myself a shredder. I have been fearing that one of these nights, one of the out-of-system homeless people who systematically go through our recycling every week will get paid a tidy sum to pick some mail out of the trash and hand it to someone who has the resources to steal my identity or my company's identity. And the shredder is great. I got one that does credit cards and CDs too -- so the credit card offers can go to the abattoir without even opening the envelope, and if I ever decide to throw out my backup CDs and DVDs, I know there will be nothing to be stolen off of them.

I finally orchestrated and managed and reinvested my IRA monies today. It has required serious attention, and quelling of deep panic -- on the one hand, I have so little, if I make a grave mistake and invest in a mutual fund that resides metaphorically on the San Andreas Fault of Mutual Fund, California, I haven't really changed my retirement situation substantially. On the other hand, I have so little I don't want to lose another cent. Yes, I do have a little tidying up left for tomorrow, one more set of shares in another mutual fund to resolve, but *sigh* it is essentially done.

I celebrated by shredding 7 years of monthly statements of the funds I used to own (and which were not gaining much at all). On a statement dated February 2002, I found a stickie note to myself: "Consider re-distributing dollars in money market." That's a 5-year record I hope never to break.

This photo was taken by Molly last week, in the afternoon sun on the porch, before the rains started. Now that I've got the research and the big decisions behind me, and if the rains recede for a few days, we can return to getting projects done around the house. Thru these rainy days, Andrew has been working similarly on deep-cleaning his studio, and rearranging it so that he can return to the paint-making and mixing for the dining room mural. Soon, soon...

A tool we don't like!

We rented a professional water pressure spray-gun, in an attempt to spray the paint off the concrete walkway. The plan was to chip off/get rid of the paint, and then stain the bare concrete (to save us having to buy paint -- we already had bought stain). The spray-gun loaned to us by a friend (which I talked about earlier) chipped bits of paint off, but it was a slow process. Two separate neighbors, and the rental shop, assured us that the professional version would gouge out the concrete itself, if we weren't careful with our aim.

It runs on gas, starting with a pull-rope like a lawn mower, and much louder. It's a lot more powerful than the "amateur" version, and comes with four different nozzles (3350 units of pressure, whatever that means -- the amateur one is about half that). The nozzles vary the shape of the water (from a wide 75° angle ring, through 40° and 25° to a pinpoint) and the force of the water (with pinpoint being enough to gouge concrete). (The fourth nozzle was labeled "chemical" and I didn't figure out what shape that was, but from its position in the row, it was less forceful than the widest-angle nozzle).

Curiously, no paint chipped. Or very little did. And Andrew, the Operator, said it felt dangerous and rather unpleasant to use, so he stopped trying after only a few minutes. I think we ran the thing for less than half an hour, in fact.

On the other hand, we loooove the amateur spray-gun, which will also take off paint (more slowly than the other) but without the feeling that it might leap out of your hands at any moment and scour off your skin.

The professional (rentable) high pressure water spray-gun is the first tool we haven't liked.