NEXT STEPS: NOVEMBER ’22

It was Thanksgiving yesterday and I came to Mississippi*, where I’ll have nine days to do some more work on our project. To recap where things stand, here’s what’s been done to date (November 2022), all of which is on Container #1 (of the eventual 3):

•Piers in place
•Container #1 set upon them
•Container welded to steel plates implanted in the concrete piers
•Grinding-down of exterior rust, painting those spots with marine-grade primer
•Electric meter, power mast installed; power brought to exterior, exterior outlets installed (incl. a 50-amp one for my welding machine)
•Sub-floor (foam sheets and OSB) installed
•Bedroom window and front door installed
•Interior electric panel installed
•Interior framing
•Interior wiring done; fixtures & switches installed

The plan for the week ahead has been to make the concrete piers for the next container. All-around handyman Sammy drove to Baton Rouge (an hour-and-a-half away) a couple of weeks ago and picked up some cardboard tubes. Sammy and his trailer were required because 12-inch-by-12-foot tubes would have been a challenge in a 2007 Corolla.

But the best laid plans of mice and men…

Here is an image taken yesterday from the front seat of the car after Calvin picked me up from the Jackson (Miss.) airport:

Aside from yesterday’s deluge there’s enough rain in the forecast that the idea of digging holes four feet deep and then pouring concrete seemed too risky. So on to Plan B.

In Container #1, framing and electric has been done so it’s ready for insulation. I ordered a big helping of FROTH-PAK  Low GWP 650 Spray Gun Indoor/Outdoor Spray Foam Insulation from Lowe’s and it will be here next Wednesday, leaving me time to put it to work before we head to California on Saturday**.

The 650 indicates the board-foot area the product should cover. At one-inch thickness it equates to 650 square feet, which should be almost enough for the container. It wouldn’t be enough if the entire container would need coverage, but keep in mind that large cutouts will be made between Containers #1 and 2. Anyway, at $1100 at Lowe’s for the Froth-Pak 650 (around $1000 after discount for my long-ago military service) it’s all I’m doing this time.

I have to get one of those white haz-mat suit things with a mask to prevent my breathing in any Froth-Pak.

As with just about everything else in this project, I’ll watch some YouTube videos to learn how to apply the Froth-Pak. Also, I’ll read the instructions.

I think Froth-Pak is a festive name for a harmful chemical. It evokes cappuccino more than something that can, according to the warning in the instruction book, induce “asthma-like symptoms (that) may include coughing, difficulty breathing, and a feeling of tightness in the chest” and “breathing difficulties (that) may be life-threatening.”

I’ll update next week after donning the suit and spraying the foam, one benefit of which is that it should help a bit with the heat in the box once warm weather returns.

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*I highly advise traveling on holidays, rather than before or after them. Crowds are smaller, TSA lines are quicker, and traffic is nonexistent. A while back, Calvin and I flew from Los Angeles to Berlin on Christmas morning, and I think our Uber got us from Fourth & Main to LAX in 15 minutes. And what do you know? At the gate we ran into my friend Billie from the Governor’s Office, who was on her way to Norway to see the Northern Lights. She was very proud of her new full-length, quilted LL Bean parka, which, considering Billie’s five-foot-one stature, made her resemble a caterpillar standing upright on its last pair of legs.

**I flew into Jackson this trip but we’re leaving from New Orleans. The airport is the same distance from us as Jackson, but Jackson flights are usually cheaper; this time, New Orleans was the better deal. The good thing about the New Orleans airport is that 10 minutes away, just across the freeway, is Harbor Seafood. There’s a fresh-fish market on one side of the building, a restaurant on the other. Vegans would have a tough time here unless they were able to subsist on iceberg lettuce and french fries. I’d suggest hush puppies except there are eggs in hush puppies. Calvin usually gets a fried-seafood platter (fish, shrimp, oysters) or a po-boy (shrimp or catfish), but I go for crabs. Gulf crabs are a bit of work, considering all the cracking and picking you have to do to get at the meat, but for me the effort is worth it. If ever I were to find myself being offered a last meal, such as in a prison, I would choose crab.

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We were once having dinner at the bar, where the wine is five dollars a glass or something ridiculous like that. Calvin had finished his po-boy and was reading something on his phone as I cracked and picked away. I came to the very last crab, ate what was in the claws and legs, and was breaking the body in two to get at the lump meat—in my opinion the most delectable seafood from ocean, lake or stream—when, after initially resisting me, it cracked in half, spraying Calvin’s left arm (he was sitting to my right) with green-gray crab guts. He was not pleased.