Surf's up, new front door's not.

I can't believe it's been a week already since I lasted posted. Busy week. We had a great lunch with Michael and Luis last week up in San Diego and I kind of got lazy about the Blog. I did some Facebook catching up though- which took time.

We are having some huge surf- but my board is still in the shop (thankfully). 8 foot waves are scary when you're looking down the face of one to stand up and ride it. No thanks- not for my first (planned) venture out surfing in a few years. 3-4 feet will be just fine next week. Emilio wants to advance from body boarding to surfboard- so I can still get out there and teach him the basics. That will be interesting. The wave in the photo is about 7 feet- the speck of a guy you can barely see to the left of the center wave is on a jet ski- towing the surfers out. You can see him bettter if clickonthe pic to enlarge it. Lot's of people rescued from the strong current- and most Mexicans swim clothed, which doesn't help.

Although pretty from five feet, the current front door on the house is pathetic and actually has a mushroom growing on it. It's always wet on the inside from the pool and and dogs- and baking hot in the sun all afternoon on the outside. It was a wood stained door- but when the salt wore it away (finish, stain and wood) you could see through parts of it. My buddy Art and I installed a piece of plywood on the inside to reinforce it- and then I painted it using the house paints to make it look better. I got another three years out of it. People actually pose for photos in front of it..

The new door is here (not done) and I have some prep and paint work to do. I just wood-filled all the cracks on holes. Alonzo's cousin makes rustic wood Mexican doors and had a catalog. He made the wrong door (one picture over in the catalog) and I really really hate it. When he started routing it he sent a pic and I went- "oh no, too late already". We tried to sell it on craigslist, but had no takers. If I paint it- I can live with it. He still needs to complete the "speakeasy" metal cage, the black nail head "clavos" and was going to stain and varnish it. That would lasted about six months here in the salt he air- even being 2.25" alder wood. He dropped off the door unfinished- so I kind of took over the exterior of it on my own. I patched the holes and gaps with wood filler and will sand, paint and Spar vanish it. That should seal the exterior and give it some Mexi-color for the people to enjoy... lipstick on a pig so to speak. When it's done it will look like my old door- but stronger and without mushrooms.

I'll be happy with it when it's done. We'll still let the cousin stain and spar varnish the inside of the door though. I think it needs to breathe with it getting wet, hot, dry every day. There's no way to stop salt air- you just try to design materials around it. I use RustBullet paint on most everything metal outside. House maintenance is never ending here.

I also decided to rotate all the bedroom furniture in the house. There are three stacked master suites- so there's more than you would think. We don't really don't shuffle furniture enough- mostly because we had our 125 pound blind lab "Oso"who liked things left where they were. We moved a small bed (built on site with huge headboard though) from the guest suite up to the third floor and the Bowflex down to the guest suite. We switched out all the sofas, chairs and end tables from all the bedroom and the veranda. The furniture was the easy part. Took four of us a half hour to get it through the guest room door. Cleaned the pool, worked with two of the falcons, Pool time with all the dogs. It was hot and fairly dry so I didn't have to towel them off.