Managed to remove decades old wall paper easily.

I think the wall paper is probably about 30 to 40 years old.

I tried a steam cleaner hoping to remove it without any chemicals. Did not work.

I tired Rust-Oleum 2422 DIF Wallpaper Stripper Concentrate, 22-Ounce which is supposed to make 2 gallons 128oz . I tried a sample using the recommended amount of water which is about 6 to 1. I applied it using a brush. Did not work. Tried a 3 to 1 and it also did nothing. Finally I used a spray bottle and tried the concentrate directly with a window open. After 15 minutes it almost dried up.

I decided that this was not penetrating. So, I tried a scorer to poke little holes in the wall paper which I got in Walmart for $6 (much cheaper than Amazon) and Zinsser 2466 DIF GEL Spray Ready To Use Wallpaper Stripper, 32-Ounce
also $5 in Walmart compared to $10 on Amazon.

I used the scorer on a 18" x 18" section and used the gel spray barely 3" from the wall to soak it. Waited for 20 minutes, used a chisel to pry at the end and bingo, the entire 18" x 18" section came out in one shot in 5 minutes. When I tried a larger section, the problem was that after 20 minutes, I start peeling but 10 minutes later some section dried up and needed another coat of Gel. So, I went back to 18" x 18" sections. It sure takes a while to do a bigger room but it does work. For example a 8 x 10 wall (80sq ft ) may take 15 hrs if only one person does it. So, make it a family party on a weekend folks!

Shopping at IKEA. Exhausting to say the least!

I have had love hate relationship with IKEA since 1987 when I first shopped at IKEA. It was all love back then when we just started married life and did not have kids....

So, why the hate?

Here is how my last 2 visits went.

We wanted to get vanity top mirror closets for 3 bathrooms.We were in the parking lot at 1:30pm on a Saturday. 95% of the parking is 10 minutes walk from the entrance (only 1 entrance). No isles in the store. Only isles and bins are in the self checkout area. We had to take the escalator up, go through a maze and finally spot a IKEA employee (not sure what they really do for customers) and come down a different way and walk for 10 minutes through another maze to find the mirror cabinets. By then it was 3pm and we took a coffee break and went back to the mirror/vanity place in 3 minutes which is much less that the 1hour 20 minutes from the entrance after 10 minutes to locate them in the first place.

I guess the idea was to keep us in the store looking at lot of stuff that we did not need and take several detours to avoid crowds which kept us in the store longer.

We went back to pick 2 of the mirror vanities. One of them was not a self checkout item. We were lucky enough to find an IKEA person who entered the order and gave us invoice to take to checkout. It would have been so easy to accept payment and notify the pickup place. But that would not keep us in the store long enough.

Even before we picked up one of the self-help items from the bin, we had to wait in a line for a flat bed cart.

Checkout took "only" 10 minutes even though just one person with a cart with 20 items was in front of us. We could have used grocery store or Walmart-like self checkout if they had it.

Then we go to the furniture pickup area and stand in yet another line to give the receipt and ask for the item. I walked 10 minutes to bring my minivan closer to the pick up place. Not a single space reserved for loading. I had to turn ON the hazards for barely 1 minute and a security patrol glares at me and shakes his head as if he is a cop at an airport "excusing" my "bad" behavior. Even a 7 eleven would have more parking at than the entrance of this monster store. We start driving at 5:15pm. That was 3 hrs 45 minutes from the we parked just to get 2 items.

That was the first trip. To have uniformity, we needed to decide between small and medium mirror cabinet for the third bedroom. So, we went back the following Saturday hoping to be in and out in 30 minutes. I found a parking space near the entrance. Good start! The we took 10 minutes because we forgot that it was on the first level but we went all over the second level, and asked some IKEA person (lucky find) and went down. Then we found that the item we want needs an IKEA person to print an invoice. There was no real line but there was only one IKEA person. A second person came 15 minutes later when my wife went and asked for help. All of a sudden a couple snuck in front of them claiming they were in line even though we did not see them when we first got there. So, almost 1 hr later we went to pay. There were 10 people in front of us and it took 20 minutes to pay and 10 minutes to get the item. I noticed that half of the checkouts were closed.

We started driving 1hr 30 minutes after we arrived when we knew exactly what we wanted to buy!

Enough of IKEA for us for a long time to come. We will perhaps order online at IKEA if we can help it but look on Amazon, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, Lowes, Walmart, Target, Macy's, Kohl's, Sears before we even think of entering IKEA store.

Had real success in restoring the bounce in Tennis balls.

I have been using Penn Championship Extra Duty for many years.

I came up with a marking system of 1 bar per 1hr of tennis rally. In Fremont, CA where the temperature on the court between 8:30am and 10:30am is about 50 to 60F in winter and 65 to 80F in summer, I noticed that the bounce is good enough to use for about 6 hrs in summer and about 4hrs in winter. As winter is approaching in mid October, last week I did 3 things.

1. Put 1 Silicagel packet in each 3 pack can and put the cans in the house instead of leaving it in the Garage.

2. At 8AM, I put 6 balls on a plate and put them in a 1000Watt microwave for 1 min checked them (not at all hot) and then 1 more minute.

When we stopped playing tennis at about 9:45AM the balls certainly had more bounce than they had when they were opened the first time!

I will update this as I gather more experience. Till then happy bouncing!