Classic Post: TRIP PLANNING 101 - Part 4

NOTE: Tim is in charge of planning our next big trip.  It's a baseball stadium tour working towards his goal of visiting every major league park.  This trip will add three to his already big list.  

Today I bought the plane tickets for our trip. My dad has confirmed that his vacation time was approved so now we start to nail everything down. I went online and did a search at Expedia, Southwest, and Frontier. The closest Southwest came to Cincinnati was Columbus. Frontier went to Dayton. But I found a flight right to Cincinnati for less on Expedia, on Continental connecting through Houston.

(Note: Continental Airlines has since been merged with United Airlines since the report was originally written-Ed)

The flight home was just a little bit cheaper on Southwest from Kansas City, but since Southwest doesn’t charge baggage fees, we’ll save around $100 for the entire flight cost plus, since we board first, we should be able to get bulkhead seats coming home. We will be leaving from Ontario, California…which is a much easier airport than LAX.

Entire flight cost is $861, including taxes, for three people. We already booked seats together for the Continental flights.  Both sites, Southwest and Expedia, let you arrange for your aisle chair and transfer online.

Now it’s time to book the hotels. The best room for the best price I could find in Cincinatti was the Comfort Suites at $131 per night a little less than a mile from the ballpark. It's a wheelchair accessible studio with a king bed and sofabed.  I booked it. It has no cancellation fees if cancelled at least 1 day prior to arrival.

I found a 2-room suite at the Drury Inn in St. Louis next to the arch for $157 per night. Finally, in Kansas City I booked the Residence Inn by Marriott near downtown. Both of these hotels let you cancel with no penalty up until the day of arrival and both are also accessible suites.

Now that we’re guaranteed rooms, I can keep a lookout for lower rates and if I find them, cancel the original reservations to save money.

We’re now good with air tickets and hotel reservations. Next up, need to find a rental car to drive from Cincinnati to St. Louis…and maybe to Kansas City. Also, I need to get tickets to the games.

(Note: We'll be updating these prices for 2022 in the last post of this series, stay tuned - Ed)

-Tim

THE COCKTAIL HOUR: Red Solo Cup

Finally...a drink for the rest of us.

Watch the Video!

In honor of Toby Keith and his song, here's a concoction guaranteed to impress, easy and cheap to make...the Red Solo Cup!  Here's the recipe, don't go overboard on high quality ingredients...the supermarket generic stuff will do:


INGREDIENTS


3 oz. white rum
1 oz. amaretto
3-4 oz. cranberry cocktail
Juice of 1 lime
splash of grenadine


Take rum, amaretto, lime juice, and cranberry cocktail and put in a shaker half full of ice. Shake well, pour into two red solo cups...not blue, not yellow...filled with ice. Float the grenadine on top.


Cheers!

Darryl

Classic Post: TRIP PLANNING 101 - Part 3

Tim is planning the next big trip, another addition to his quest to visit every Major League Baseball stadium…

In my last two segments, we decided which cities we were visiting, what games we would see, and the approximate dates of travel. Next, I need to figure out how much hotels will cost, how we will travel between cities, and how much that will cost. Right now, the costs I’m calculating are more for making a budget…as we get closer to the travel date, my dad says we will probably find some better deals.

(Note: We'll be updating these prices for 2022 in the last post of this series, stay tuned - Ed)

A quick check on hotel rates found us rooms in Cincinnati for around $150 a night; St. Louis at $120 per night; and Kansas City at $90 per night. This I did using Expedia and the Marriott website. We like to use Marriott because of our points and the fact that they guarantee accessible rooms on the site. When it comes time to book, I’ll try to pare down those prices a bit.

Now, to get from Cincinnati to St. Louis, there are basically three options: fly, train, or rent a car. Airfare fron Cincinatti to St. Louis would be around $175, but Southwest has cheaper fares from nearby Louisville, Kentucky from around $75 to $120. Amtrak would cost $64 per person but the train leaves in the afternoon and would arrive around 8pm. A one-way rental car would be around $250 and take around 6 hours to drive. I’m tentatively going with Southwest on this leg but may make a cancelable car reservation if I can get that rate down.

Going from St. Louis to Kansas City, airfare is about $85. Train fare is $26 and it leaves at 8:30 in the morning and arrives at 2:30 in the afternoon. Train it is.

So here’s our initial budget for three people:

Airfare – LA-Louisville; Louisville-St. Louis; Kansas City-LA
$975

Hotels
$1,130

Train
$78

Game Tickets
$180

Total (so far) - $2,363

Next, we start to build an itinerary.

-Tim

Classic Post: TRIP PLANNING 101 - Part 2

I'm planning our next big vacation.  Last time, we decided where we'll go, today I need to figure when we'll fly, what order we'll do the trip in, and start figuring the cost. 

The next step is to figure out what days we would fly and how much that would cost. I decided that we would do it starting in Cincinnati and ending up in Kansas City. The trip would tentatively start on May 7, flying from Ontario, CA to Louisvillle, KY, via Southwest. The return would be from Kansas City to Ontario. The game dates would be May 8 for the Reds, May 11 for the Cardinals, and May 14 for the Royals. We would fly home on May 16.

A quick check with Southwest airlines gives us an approximate airfare of $225 per person.

Next, I’ll need to check hotel availability in those cities for those times, and figure out how we will travel from city to city.

Stay tuned.
-Tim

Classic Post: Tim's Trip Planning 101

Angel Stadium

One of my biggest passions in life in sports, particularly baseball. As an avid fan, I have set out on a journey that many other baseball fans have done as well...to visit every stadium in Major League Baseball. So far, I've been to 16 and it's time to continue adding some more. That means time for another vacation!


For the first time ever, I'm in charge of planning the trip. You will see what it's like to make something like this happen when your a travel planning rookie. So let's get started shall we?


The first step is to look at the schedules of the teams which I still need to see. That step has already been done. The remaining teams on the list are the A's, Rockies, Rangers, Astros, Twins, Brewers, Braves, Marlins, Rays, Cardinals, Royals, Reds, Nationals, and Orioles. After looking at the schedules and the remaining teams on the list, we're going to the Midwest for our next installment of stadium fun. It will include the Cardinals, Royals, and Reds,


So now that I've figured that out, the next step is to pick a good time to go. There are a few things to consider for this step. First, being that these cities are in the Midwest, it should be at a time when the weather is not blisteringly hot. With that in mind, I've focused on the month of May, when it is still Spring and temperatures should be relatively comfortable. Second, I have to figure out when the respective teams will be at home throughout the month and see what would be the best way to go. This is the step I am currently on. After that, I will have to buy the tickets for airfare and the games, book hotel reservations, and see what else there is to do in these cities because it can't all be baseball. St. Louis has the Gateway Arch, Kansas City is famous for its barbecue food, fountains, and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. So that's where I am at this point and there is still a lot of work to be done to make this trip a reality next Spring.


Keep watching for the next installment of Trip Planning 101.


-Tim 2010

The Cocktail Hour - Bomb Pop

Remember the ice cream man coming down the street on those hot summer days when we were kids? Running outside, flagging him down and...for me...spending a quarter for a big, cold, red, white, and blue Bomb Pop.

Watch the Video!

Well we're all grown up now but we don't have to give all of our childish ways up.

Here is my adult version of a bomb pop...

INGREDIENTS

half ounce grenadine
juice of half a lime
2 ounces cranberry cocktail
2 ounces blue curacao
2 ounces white spiced rum

Use a pint glass. Put the grenadine and lime juice in the bottom. Fill the glass with crushed ice. Carefully pour in the cranberry juice, followed by carefully pouring in the curacao to make a blue layer over the red. Float the rum on top.

You can drink as is, or after admiring for a couple of minutes, stir it up and it becomes a grapecicle.

Cheers!

Darryl

THE CHEAPSKATE RURAL GARDENER: Project Greenhouse - The Finale

The garden center/nursery/conservatory...whatever you want to call it...is complete. The last step was to build a potting bench. If we're going to go whole hog and build a greenhouse, a potting bench is a logical next step. It'll make working on our plants much easier than just sitting on a patch of ground with some potting mix and a pot.

So, now my job is to take these four boards and make a potting bench out of them.

Before I started, I took the plywood boards and painted them with polyurethane to weatherproof them. I also painted an orchid on the board that would be the backsplash. It's an orchid that is named after my wife's grandfather (Catteleya Melecio Huerta 'señor perfecto').

Next, I had my wife stand at a few counters in our house and tell me which is the perfect height for her. 35 inches is what we determined so I laid out a couple of 4x4's...which would be the back legs of the bench...and measured 35 inches from the where the surface of the bench would be.

I cut my lumber using my miter saw, then positioned the back legs and backsplash to the proper position. I secured the backsplash to the 4x4s using 2 inch wood screws, then attached an "L" bracket to the 4x4s, which will be used to hold the larger plywood board that will make the surface of the bench.

I attach the bigger board to the brackets with 5/8 inch wood screws, put on the front legs (which I sink two 2 inch wood screws into each corner to the 4x4s), then put two more "L" brackets on the front legs and the plywood.

The last step is to put a bead of caulk where the two pieces of plywood meet, to keep it waterproof, and screw a big hook into the side where I can hang a watering can.

Put it up against the back fence, next to the greenhouse, and it's all done. Now, the only thing left to do is start using it. 

Darryl Musick
Copyrigh 2022 - All Rights Reserved

THE CHEAPSKATE RURAL GARDENER: Project Greenhouse - Accessorizing

The greenhouse is built but the work isn't done. I've still got a lot to do...

To start with, I'll need something to set my plants on. Just setting them on the ground would not be efficient, I need some benches.

I could go and just buy some. A six foot plastic bench would be $150-200. I'd need 2 plus a five foot bench. I'm a cheapskate, that's getting pretty spendy.

Instead, I'll build my own. I have a nice pile of 4x4 scrap redwood and pressure treated wood, which is resistant to rot, so I won't have to spend any money on that.

1x6 redwood milled lumber board can be $25-40 each but six foot long 1x6 redwood fence planks are only $5 each. That's the perfect size and the benches don't have to be perfect or pretty so I'll get a dozen of these instead.

Time to dig out my trusty miter saw.

I cut my 4x4's into 11" lengths. I'll need 15 of those, the benches will have 2 legs at each end, 1 leg in the middle for added support, a couple of fence posts will be cut into 17.5 inch lengths to provide a platform between the fence planks and 4x4's to be able to attach easily.

I lay out my 4x4's, and put my planks on top. I sink in some 2" wood screws at the end of each plank and through the middle. 

The first bench I make is five feet long so I can turn it sideways into the back of the greenhouse.

The next two benches come together quickly and are six feet long to go on the side of the greenhouse. Each bench is 13 inches high, I can add another level above it easily when I run out of room. Now I have a bench around 3/4 of the greenhouse. It takes me about two hours and a total cost of about $75 to make the three benches.

I like gardening, as you can tell, but I'm not one of those who like to manually water each one of my plants. Over the years, I've gotten quite good at installing automatic drip and microsprinkler systems so I can spend my time doing something else. This greenhouse will be no different so now I have to put in an irrigation system.

You might have noticed in the pictures of the greenhouse and construction that there is a sprinkler at the right corner, just outside of the greenhouse. This is no accident. In fact, that's a big reason I built the greenhouse where I did.

In addition to being a patch of grass that wasn't needed, the location had sprinklers. That means there's a source of water already there that's connected to an automatic timer. I could make this work to my benefit.

Before I built the greenhouse, I capped the second sprinkler by the back fence taking it out of service. Next, I dug the sprinkler in the picture out. I unscrewed the sprinkler, put in a stainless steel extender pipe, and screwed the sprinkler back on as a place holder/cap until I was finished building.

Now, I take the sprinkler back off and replace it with a $2.99 valve that I bought at our local Ace Hardware.

I got a brass hose end repair with a fluted nozzle.

I drill a hole in the plastic glass, thread a 1/2" drip hose, through it, and fit the end of my hose (I've had some sitting around left over from an earlier project) over the nozzle and clamp it on with the clamp that came inside the hose repair kit.

I run the hose around the frame of the greenhouse and attach with some plastic clips that I got from Amazon for around $10.

Next, I'll strap some microsprinklers to the side of the greenhouse. I figure I'll need 2 on each side for a total of four. This will be pretty much all I'll need for water although I anticipate that some plants in the future may need their own drip line...but that's a job for another day. It's also cheap and easy to do.

Now, I just have to go to my current sprinkler system timer and put in the schedule I want for the water to go off. I think I'll go for 4 minutes of water every other day, plus a minute or two during the hottest time of the day in the summer to help keep it cool, to start with and make any adjustment as necessary as time goes on.

I have a successful test and the wet gravel, after the sprinkle, helps keep the humidity up too.

Finally, as you can see the picture at the beginning of this post, I put a high/low thermometer. This will not only tell me the current temperature but also the hottest it's been and the coldest it's been in the last 24 hours.

This is crucial because the plants that will go in here will be too tender to survive outside when the weather gets below freezing. In the winter, I'll monitor this and be ready to either move my plants or put in a heater if it gets too cold. My hope is that it'll retain enough heat to make that not necessary but this is cheap insurance to make sure that doesn't happen.

Alright! The greenhouse is officially open for business, now I just need some plants. I've already ordered a couple of orchids to get started (you can see one on the bench in the photo above). We'll see how this goes.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2022 - All Rights Reserved

THE COCKTAIL HOUR: Moscow Mule

I have a theory...that my wife likes Moscow mules so much not because they taste good (they do!) and have a good kick but that it gives her a reason to go shopping for the copper mugs used for the drink.

Watch the Video!

After being very picky about it, I just went ahead and ordered a set on Amazon. They came in last week so, already having the ginger beer and vodka in stock, Tim and I set out to try our hand at it.

The results can be seen in the video, above.

INGREDIENTS - (1 drink)

2-oz vodka
6-oz ginger beer
juice of one lime
sprig of mint

Pour the vodka into the mug. Cut off a few leaves of mint from the sprig and put into the mug. Muddle the mint in the vodka.  Put in the lime juice, fill cup with ice, fill with ginger beer and stir.

Garnish with the rest of the mint sprig and a slice of lime.

Option 2 is to add a splash of Cointreau or Grand Marnier to the drink

Option 3 is to add a splash of sweet and sour

If you want it sweeter, you can also add a splash of grenadine.

Postcript: my wife returned the mugs and will buy a set she likes better.

Cheers!

Darryl

THE CHEAPSKATE RURAL GARDENER: Project Greenhouse

The Cheapskate's back! And he's brought his tools.

I have a patch of grass in my backyard that, frankly, has no purpose in life. I also have a goal of growing more plants...especially edible ones but tender tropical flowers too...and the light bulb went off in my head: why not build a greenhouse there?

Slowly, I've been trying to achieve a goal of growing enough fruits and vegetables to supply the three of us for three months. I've got nectarine, orange, lemon, tangelo, apple, pomegranate, and plum trees. I've also got a couple of table grape vines, one red and one white, plus I grow tomatoes, corn, and zucchini.

A greenhouse would allow me to also grow some more vegetables over the cold fall and winter.

I've got the time and, browsing around online, I can find one in a kit that I can assemble for a few hundred dollars under a thousand dollars. In this case, I bought a Palram 6' x 8' greenhouse from Amazon that has a 7' peaked roof.

It's going to be about a week before it's delivered so let's prepare the site where it will go, starting with removing the lawn.

This is probably the hardest part because the grass it very well established with deep roots. It's also in a drier part of the yard so the soil is very hard and the previous owner had installed a plastic mesh under the grass that is another headache to remove.

I measure off a 9' x 6' square (to give me an extra foot of wiggle room) and start digging with a shovel and hoe. I was lucky that it rained the day before, making the soil just a tad looser, but it was still quite a job. It took me two days to dig it out 3 inches deep.

With the hoe, I got the edges to be straight and vertical. This hole will be filled with pea gravel, which will be the floor of the greenhouse. The gravel will help with drainage and have more surface area than concrete which allows the water on it to evaporate more and create more humidity.

A short walk took me to a local quarry where I arranged for this dump truck to deposit a cubic yard of gravel next to my hole.

Next, before I move the gravel into my hole, I have to build a foundation to attach the greenhouse to so I go up to our local mega hardware store and purchase four 8 foot long, pressure treated 2x4s. Two of these I cut down to 66 inches so when they're attached into the long boards, I'll have an 8x6 frame.

Laying out the boards on top of 4x4 scraps...

...I attach each corner with a brace. This will hold the pieces in the correct alignment for the next step.

Now, I sink in two 6" lumber bolts into each corner to hold this altogether with a very strong connection.

When each corner is done, it looks like this.

Next, I lay the foundation frame into my hole and use pea gravel underneath to provide a base and make it level all around.

Once I'm satisfied that the frame is level and where I want it, I put 8 inch anchor spikes through the boards and into the ground.

There are 3 spikes in each 8 foot section and 2 in each 6 foot section for a total of 10 anchor spikes.

The last thing to do is to shovel in pea gravel into the frame, level it, and compact it as tight as I can get it by mashing it down with a hoe blade that I'm standing on.

That was done just in time, two days later the box with the greenhouse arrived via UPS. Now, to manhandle that 90 pound box up onto our patio table to open it up and check the contents.

Everything's there.

Now, assemble the base frame...

...and attach to the wooden foundation with 2" wood screws.

The instructions are not written, they're pictorial, but they're not too hard to follow. Just do it step-by-step for the 60 (!) pages and you'll get there. 

It's time to just put it together, which takes me two days to complete (see finished greenhouse at the top of this post). 

That is the hard part. Next time, we'll talk about the finishing touches...plumbing, benches, etc...but for now, I'm just gonna rest up these sore muscles for a few days.

Darryl Musick

Copyright 2022 - All Rights Reserved