Ask the Builder June 29, 2025 Newsletter

Dear Tim,

The Past Three Weeks

Three weeks ago Kathy and I received a frantic phone call from my youngest daughter. She was 3,000 miles away in southern California.

A week later, she and her 8-month-old baby were safe in our New Hampshire home. In that span of time, I had flown to CA, arranged for long-distance movers to get her stuff back to NH, and also arranged to have her car transported.

However, two days before flying back to NH, she discovered she didn't have all the required paperwork to get her cat onto the airplane. The logistics of shipping Yeti back were far too difficult to pull off in the tiny amount of time we had left.

I became Yeti's unpaid chauffeur driving both of us back to New Hampshire. Luckily, the transport company had not yet shown up, so I was able to cancel the contract.

I decided that I wanted to get back as fast as possible. I was charged with driving an average of 600 miles each day to get back to NH. I'd always wanted to drive coast-to-coast solo, but not in such a short span of time.

I was so tired from all that happened the previous six days, I only made it to Flagstaff, AZ the first day. I was hoping for Albuquerque, NM, but that would have been another five blistering hours of driving.

Only one sightseeing stop could be fit into my tight schedule. It's been on my bucket list for over 50 years. The treat only cost me 20 minutes. Yeti and I were headed east out of Flag at 7 AM sharp the second day. The corner I was headed to was just 50 minutes east of Flagstaff just off I-40.

A stranger, at 7:58 AM, was kind enough to capture this image of me at the iconic corner. Winslow, AZ is a very small hamlet in the middle of nowhere on historic Route 66. Believe it or not, a girl in a flatbed Ford slowed down to take a look at me!

I made it to Amarillo, TX late in the afternoon of the second day. I passed thousands of wretched windmills. I should have traveled 1,200 miles by then, but had only put 1,088 miles on the steel belts. I wasn't that far off my goal. It's pretty much a wasteland east of Amarillo, thus it made sense to stop there.

The third day I ended up in Springfield, MO. I was over halfway with 1,628 miles traveled in just over 60 hours.  The great Mississippi River and the amazing Gateway Arch was still three hours away!

Yeti and I hit the hay at 6 PM on that Thursday night. I woke up at 2:30 AM. Yeti and I had a committee meeting. I said, "Listen, we're getting the heck out of here. You and I will be in Erie, PA tonight ready to receive our Road Warrior merit badge at a dinner ceremony. Don't try to hold me back." Yeti didn't put up a fight.

It was pitch black and raining when we took off at 3 AM. Fourteen hours later with 878 miles added to the digital odometer, we were in Erie. I felt as if I had been put through an old washing machine roller press.

I've done the drive from Erie, PA to my New Hampshire house no less than thirty-five times in the past seventeen years. I knew I had one last grueling ten-hour drive facing me the next morning.

Yeti and I pulled down my driveway about 4:30 PM after five days on the road.

I then proceeded to work seven days a week for two weeks solid helping my daughter and lovely granddaughter settle in.

That's why I've been absent from your inbox.

Decluttering - My 2025 Mantra

I've been putting off decluttering my house. It's an easy thing to do.

Moving my daughter and granddaughter back jump started the decluttering process.

If you've not done it, you should. It's LIBERATING.

I believe I'll be getting a certificate from my town dump in July. It will say I'm the resident that used the dump and Free Room the most in the past thirty days. Heck, I might end up in the running for an annual award this year.

Some things are too valuable to give away. Those things I'm selling on Facebook (FB) Marketplace.

Six years ago, I had great success selling things in the FacistBook Marketplace. I went dark and signed off of FB the second or third week of January, 2021.

I logged on days ago to start listing things for sale. My computer screen looked like a spinning Las Vegas slot machine. Countless past notifications were showing up on my monitor.

One of them contained some very sad news. The oldest daughter of my first girlfriend had reached out six months ago letting me know her mom was sent back to Heaven.

I met my first girlfriend in summer school after our freshman year of high school. She needed a deeper understanding of Algebra and I longed for a richer Latin I experience. I was attracted to this quiet and shy brunette with long hair.

Each morning after classes ended, we started chit chatting at the bus stop as we waited for the orange and yellow route 31 bus. This is exactly what the bus looked like, although it was a diesel and not electric as you see in this photo.

This young lass got off this bus just a mile down the road at Peebles Corner. She transferred to the #4 bus that would take her to the top of her street. I'd ride the #31 another three miles and transfer to a bus that would take me north on Clifton Avenue.

After several weeks, we discovered we were born on the same day less than a mile from one another. I popped out at Deaconess hospital 90 minutes before she got slapped on the bum at Good Sam. Those two hospitals are less than a mile from one another on Clifton Avenue.

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say we stayed in touch all these years exchanging birthday and Christmas cards. Our common birthday was the super glue that maintained our wonderful friendship.

I sent her a Christmas card last December, but didn't get one back. I feared the worst. She passed away on November 5, 2024. RIP Mary Gene!

I thought of calling Mary Gene last summer to see how she was. I had a feeling based on the birthday card she sent that all wasn't well.

But I didn't call. I thought I'd wait for another day...

While it's not a perfect quote for the situation, it's pretty close. Look at this and see how it relates to your life and your loved ones:

"It was like coming this close to your dreams ... and then watch them brush past you like a stranger in the crowd. At the time, you don't think much of it. You know, we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening. Back then I thought, 'Well, there'll be other days.' I didn't realize that that was the only day."

Moonlight Graham from the Field of Dreams movie

A Hard Reset

Those two major events over the past three weeks have caused me to do a hard reset. Add to that, I lost another great friend my age this past March.

I'm talking a HARD RESET.

It's now time to put first things first as Kenny Chesney said in his hit song, Don't Blink.

How about you? Are you putting first things first?

If not, you might want to reconsider.

One last comment: If you need my personalized one-on-one services to get you out of a building or remodeling bind, I recommend you set up a consult VERY SOON.

 

There's NO GUARANTEE moving forward that you'll be able to add a phone consult or ??? to the shopping cart.

 

If you've put off ordering my digital library, now is the time to pull the trigger.

 

You NEED TO UNDERSTAND that once I decide to stop publishing this newsletter or suspend Ask the Builder activities, you'll NEVER BE ABLE TO PURCHASE MY DIGITAL LIBRARY in the future. It will VAPORIZE in the ether. Give it a SERIOUS LOOK now. It's priced so you save over $1,200.00. That's NOT A TYPO.

I intend to keep going. I'll continue to publish this Ask the Builder newsletter and write my column, but it's now a MUCH LOWER priority.

If I lose much more interest, it's hard to say what might happen.

Ask the Builder COMPLAINT Hotline

If you have any complaints about anything you see in this newsletter, feel free to call me. Jenny, my new assistant, will take down your information if I'm busy working inside my submarine. Call 603-867-5309.