Another Meltdown?

I was expecting to wake up to five or six inches of snow but we only had a whiff of whitey. That gave me the time to remove the headlight from the snow blower in order to get a replacement. I'm glad this light only burns out once every eight years or so. It is quite an ordeal to remove it from its housing. The bulb is held in place by to un-accessable bolts. My hand got worn out manipulating the plyers around these bolts. But I finally got the bulb out. I'll get a new one at lunch and then I'll be ready for the next storm...supposedly coming tomorrow...or next year, whichever comes first.

Twelve Days

It was just starting to snow when I got up this morning and by the time I hit the road for work, it was coming down thick and strong. The snow continued all day and when I arrived home this evening, there was twelve fresh inches of heavy grade snow all over my formerly clean driveway. It was astonishing how deep it was. Only yesterday, there was bare pavement showing and puddles developing.

The National Weather Service now says we have had 61 inches of snow and that has all fallen in 12 days. Sixty-one inches is more than we get all winter in some years. We are well past the previous record and we still have two days to go in the month...and the year.

It took me an hour and half to do my usual rounds and I am not satisfied. However, I have a long weekend coming up and snow maintenance and clean up will be high on my agenda. Of course, more snow is forecast between now and then so my agenda may simply be snow removal.

I neglected to mention that my anemometer appears to be functioning again. When I was up on the roof yesterday, I was surprised to see it spinning gaily in the afternoon breeze. I'll have to check it tonight because it's been quite windy. A good deal of the snow I blew tonight ended up in my face. I'm sure we will register some impressive wind gusts...even without me speaking.

631 Meltdown

With the temperatures up in the 40's, it felt like short sleeve and bermuda shorts weather. It gave us a good chance to get caught up on snow maintenance details.

My first detail of snow maintenance concerned the evil forces of ice. Normally benign and satisfying when in your drink, but vile and pernishous when hanging off your roof. The rule to follow then is, Ice in Glass: Good! Ice on Roof: Bad!

I would like to announce that I am victorious over the Voluminously Monumental and Herculean Icicle. It took some doing and I had to sacrifice a mediocre Made in China chisel, but I have come out the victor.
Another detail of snow maintenance involved the shoveling of the roof. I am also happy to announce satisfactory progress in that area. I did indeed climb up on the roof and did some snow removal. The main area I concentrated on was where the Jumbo Ice Cube hung. I cleared away the snow and ice at the edge of the roof which allowed a great lake of water to cascade to the ground below.

In interior snow maintenance details, I am pleased to announce that Susan is victorious in her struggle with the forces of uninvited dampness. She has successfully repaired one panel in the dining room ceiling and is working on the other. The second panel has a bit more damage. It pretty much fell away from the ceiling when we removed the trim holding it in place. However, now that it is down, it should be easier to work on and repair.
The official snow fall for December now stands at 51 inches. I think more snow is forecast for tonight but I am doubting whether they really know.

Now that this Global Warming thing has made its point, it will soon be time to turn back to Winter Freezing. In fact, it's happening right now.

Winter Damage

My post for December 21st shows a mammoth icicle hanging off the roof on the side of the house. I have been considering doing something to remove it or reduce it but I wasn't sure how, and I wasn't sure I should. Now I am sure I should.

While in the midst of our restful day yesterday, Susan started yelling that there was water in the dining room and the ceiling was leaking. It was in the very spot where that ginormous icicle was growing.

I quickly threw on my snow clothes and went outside to inspect it. It was of course, on the side of the house where nobody had gone so I had to slog through four feet of snow just to get to the area.If you look at the wall of the house behind the Goliath icicle, you can see ice freezing to the side of the house. I quickly surmised that the water was leaking into the wall at that point. I got up on the ladder and began smashing off the ice with my hammer. I managed to break off a good chunk of the monumental icicle without damaging the roof immediately below it.I next went to work on breaking off all the ice on the house. I have a new respect for people who swing a hammer for a living. Ten minutes of this and I was spent.

The water continued to drip all day and through the night. I came home from the bar today and the leaking appears to have stopped. There is a ladder and a blow dryer in there so I assume Susan has been working in there.

It warmed up tremendously today but it is supposed to snow again tonight. I had plans for getting up on the roof and shoveling snow but decided to wait until daylight. I still have to get the rest of that colossal icicle down without damaging the roof below it. I plan to take a chisel and remove small bits until I take a bunch of weight off it.

Finally, here is a picture of our damage in the dining room. There is some slight discoloration in the light yellow wall to the right of the plate. The anaglyptic paper in the ceiling has bubbled and there is some staining on the dark wood trim. It remains to be seen how we will fix this. But first, we have to make the leaking stop and that means the removal of the voluminously prodigious icicle of titanic proportions.

Christmas After-Glow

Wow! What a great day Christmas was. Everything was great. I didn't get to bed until two and that was after several bottles of wine.

Our dinner guests were my son Scott, his girlfriend Corissa, her daughter Lily, my stepson, Rob and his wife Jennifer. It was an odd gathering in that I had met Corissa once (and kept calling her Clarissa) and I had not met Jennifer ever. She and Rob were married last March. In fact, it was a bit of a re-connection with Rob.

Scott was feeling crappy as he had a 24 bug that had been passed on from Corissa and Lily. So they didn't stay very long.

We ended up having a great time talking with Rob and Jen and getting all caught up on wazzup.

Our friend Mark showed up around nine and helped us drink more and more and more wine.

One of the great benefits of the Solstice Party is that we end up with a shit load of fabulous wine. Everybody seems to bring a bottle and several of them don't get opened. Several of them were opened last night however.

We were considering going skiing today but decided that it was nice to have a day with absolutely nothing to do. With five more inches forecasted for tonight, I think I will go out and do some snowblowing clean up.

According to this mornings paper, this is officially the snowiest December since record keeping began in 1880. Forty-Se7en inches have fallen. And all of that was within a week and a half period. I am going to take a reading in the yard and record the official Corbin Park snowfall data here.

In the meantime, here are a couple of nice pictures I took yesterday when the sun broke through the clouds briefly.

Merry Christmas

Five more inches fell last night so whoever it was that wished for a White Christmas...you got it...and then some.

Susan and I had a very pleasant enjoyable morning, followed by three hours of snow blowing while she prepared dinner. We are expecting to have se7en of us for dinner. The festivities start at five. I guess I better start helping out.

Pillar of Sun

We had a brief break in the snowfall on Monday and it actually cleared enough to let the sun shine through for a while. I managed to catch a photograph of the most unusual sunset I have ever seen. See what you think.It really looked like a pillar of light beaming into the sky. It was most irregular and very striking. I took the picture while entering the freeway at Liberty Lake. I would love to know what sort of refractive properties are at work here. That beam of light from the setting sun seemed to reach straight up into the sky.

It's Christmas Eve and the snow is still coming down. I expect to clear off 5-8 inches of snow in the morning. that is on top of the few inches I removed today. That will give us about 36 inches of snow in just over a weeks time.

I don't know who it was that prayed for a White Christmas, but I would like to shake their hand.

Another Day in Winter Wonderland

5:49AM It has been snowing since yesterday afternoon. I am just about to head out and do my morning blow. I'll be back with details after I have finished the morning blow.

7:58AM I have just made it to work after delivering Susan to her office. It's Hell out there!

Actually, everything has gone pretty smoothly this morning. The plows came by some time during the night so I had a hefty berm to remove from the street in front of the driveway. I opened a space big enough to get my car through and then proceeded to blow off the driveway and the sidewalk.

I'll have to finish the rest tonight. And yes, it's still
S N O W I N G ! ! !

Noonish: I had to run out and get a 4'x6' piece of acrylic for a job I'm working on. While out, I went to a co-workers house to get her unstuck. With that mission accomplished I started to return to work. A couple of blocks down the road, I saw an old woman trying to clear her driveway. She was wearing a sweater and no gloves. I drove past but my good Samaritan streak got the best of me. I backed up and helped her finish clearing the driveway. She said she didn't have any gloves. How does someone live here and not have gloves?!

I certainly don't mind helping people during this on-going massive snow event. Especially people who are too infirmed to shovel the snow. I especially like helping people who are out there doing the work of shoveling, clearing, whatever. It's great to be plowing down the sidewalk, come upon someone trying to clear their driveway, and with two quick passes with my mighty blower, I clear the area for them. They say, "Oh Thank you so much! Here's my first born child."

But I am not too keen on the idea of helping those that are just too lazy to get out there and do it themselves. There are a couple of those houses around the block I have been tending to with my snow blower. If I wasn't clearing their sidewalk, it wouldn't get done. I'm not particularly predisposed to help. I don't even like clearing the sidewalk.

I make the first born children do that.

ICICLES: Natures' Icy Miracle or Pernicious Pillars of Freezing Death

Let's start out with this picture from the west side of the house. It is clear that we are keeping the house too warm because all the massive build up of snow on the roof is slowly melting and creating giant mutant icicles all around the house. The deck looks like a low cave with stalagmites hanging all about. I broke off those lower icicles but the ones up top are there to stay...or until August when they melt off.


After a healthy dose of sleeping in, we awoke this morning to a mostly cleanish house and the warm glow of a satisfying hangover. All of which indicates a successful Solstice Party has rung in the new season. I put my camera in my pocket just before the start of the party. This served as my reminder to take lots of pictures. I remembered around 9:00 and snapped a few. I will share only a couple here.
There's a nice blurry photograph of the house all decked out in Winter Solstice Finery. I only had one of two beers at this point.

A great shot of Mike and I. No more than 8 beers at this point.
This must be just before or after the naked dancing. Jaegermeister shots are flowing at this point and nothing is clear except for perhaps this one shot I took in focus.

There was about three inches of fresh snow which of course meant that I had to get out there and make the block safe from heavy accumulations of snow.

The plows came by this morning and were plowing all the east-west streets. I'm now waiting for them to return and do the north-south streets and remove the giant berm across all the intersections. The problem now is that it is starting to snow again. This has been forecasted as our second wave. I don't expect that we will break a record this time. But if it does turn out to be a significant snowfall, it means the plows will have to stop plowing the side streets and return to the main drags.

If that happens, it will be up to Captain Snowblower to get out there and somehow open up those berms.

Solstice Success

The only reesen I amm able too right this is cuz...well...I have no reeson. the party was suck-sess-ful and we had a grand tyme. me very drunk but not to woori. Ino drive someplace..

Let's pick this up in the m orning, shall we?!

Naked Fire Dancing Pictures to follow.

Welcoming the Arrival of Winter

Tonight is our Winter Solstice Party. There will lots of drumming and dancing naked around open fires in the snow.

Or perhaps we'll just drink a lot. It is hard to say how many guests we will get due to the cold tonight (about 10 degrees) and the recent massive snow fall. No matter to us. We will enjoy the Solstice with or without people. Without people, we'll be in bed earlier.

Pictures of the naked fire dancing to follow.

Record Snowfall

The City of Spokane broke a record for the most snow in a 24 hour period. They are claiming 23 inches fell which coincides with my claim that the snow was falling at a rate of about an inch an hour.

The snow finally stopped about 3PM. That's when I went to work to finish up my snow blowing. I feel like I logged about eight hours with that thing today. I made a major snow blowing faux pas that caused me great trouble and manual labor.

I set about the task of completing my circuit which includes the sidewalks all the way around the block and half way down the alley. I decided that I had to use my great power to make the whole alley clear of snow. I was just about finished and all I had to do was the sidewalks in front of the house. however, I noticed that a sizable berm had built up around the entrance to the driveway. I then also considered the possibility that the plows would not get to our streets in time for Saturdays Solstice Selebration.

And so I snow blowed the street. This would have added a good hour and a half to my efforts had it gone smoothly. Unfortunately, it did not. The snow I have been blowing while massive in quantity, was light and feathery. I guess we can thank the sub zero temperature last week for that.

When that same light and feathery snow is put threw a snow blower and blown several feet into the air, it compacts into a rather dense form. So after doing the streets and all I had left was my sidewalks, my great and powerful snow blower became useless against the cement snow I had blown.

I ended up having to take a shovel and clear a swath just like they make prisoners do. Fortunately, that swath was enough of a relief for the snow blower that I was able to drive through the remaining cement snow and clear a reasonably satisfying path for safe passage.

I am now very soar and very tired and ready to go to bed.

One other thing! The plows came by about nine o'clock.

S N O W D A Y ! ! !

I have been up since 5:30. I showered, got dressed and went out into my element. I cannot believe how much I enjoy the snow. And man oh man, have we got snow. I've been complaining about the lack of it. Now it seems that all the snow I've ever wanted is being delivered all at once.

Here are pictures:Here's how the house looked at 6AM this morning.As soon as I got out to the driveway, I new Susan wasn't going anywhere. Her little Honda is generally a great snow vehicle unless the car get high centered because there is too much snow. And that is exactly the case today.I was lucid enough to grab my tape measure as I went out the door. The snow depth measures 13 inches. And remember, I already removed about ten inches last night.There is my first swath out the driveway this morning. I ended up being out there for about two and a half hours.

I thought this was a great shot that depicts the whole overall feeling for the day.Same with this picture.

I'll be back with more pictures. But first, I have to go out and take them.

Let Loose the Snow Hounds

Sometimes I like to go over to the Idaho version of Corbin Park for lunch. Since I was heading that way, I decided to go a little further and get this picture of the fabulous Falls of Post Falls. This wonderful water fountain on Spokane Street in Post Falls is freezing up due to the cold temperatures. But they keep it running to keep the pumps from freezing and it makes this cool frosty fountain. You can't really see it in the picture there but the water is running.

I have gotten my wish and we finally have some snow on the ground. It started this morning, has continued all day and will probably continue through the night. I had a good solid ten inches in the driveway when I finally made my looooong commute home. It was slow going everywhere so you just had to be patient and find the best way home.

I immediately went to work on the snow blowing so I could have the driveway cleared before Susan got home. Then I did the alley, the sidewalk on Wall, the sidewalk halfway down Cleveland street and all the way down Waverly Place to the far corner.

I said it last Winter and I will bring it up again. With Great Power comes Great Responsibility! I should also say that I am just loving this weather. It has warmed up and is much more enjoyable outside than that single digit crap of the last few days. I love clearing snow. It is obviously a character defect of some type.

There's a good shot of the depth of the snow. I should have had a ruler there. Anyway, it was ten inches and probably closer to 12.

For the first time since we have lived here, I had to shovel off the front porch. The snow managed to accumulate a handsome amount up there. These two pictures are good representations of what was happening out there tonight. The picture on the left was taken with the flash and it picks up every flake of snow.

I turned the flash off for the picture on the right and it shows a wonderful picture of the house in all it's frosty winter covered glory.

It took me about an hour and a half to complete all my snow removal tasks. By the time I finished, I could have started again. I may go out one more time tonight but more than likely, I will get up early and at least hit the driveway and sidewalks.

We are in pretty good shape for the Solstice Party on Saturday. I know this because Susan isn't terribly stressed and yelling at me to do this, that, and the other thing. So I did my thing and did a little brewery work. I have about half of one keg of home brew ready to go and another full keg that I am trying to have ready for Saturday.

I'm pushing this beer a bit but I think it will be okay. It sure tasted okay tonight. The picture at right shows the beer being transferred (racked) from one five gallon carboy to another. This is one of the ways to filter out a lot of the sediment and floaty matter that are in the wort when you start. I would like to rack it one more time but I don't think I'll have the time. I will check it tomorrow and see how it looks.

This picture is a good example of the amount of sediment that can be filtered out. This beer is pretty clean now and just about ready for the keg. If I can get more out tomorrow, I'll rack it again and then keg it on Friday morning. That will give it enough time under pressure to carbonate in time for the party on Saturday.

Getting Ready for the Solstice

With the arrival of the Solstice this weekend, perhaps we will start to get higher temperatures because of the longer days.

I got home yesterday before sunset and was able to scramble up on the roof to inspect my weather gathering instruments. It looks like my Anemometer needs to be replaced. The Wind Direction Indicator is working but the Wind Speed Spinner is not spinning. I got on the Weather Station website and a replacement Anemometer will cost about $110.00. There are a couple of other components I've been wanting to add so by the time I'm done, it will be up to $200.00.

As I left the house this morning, it was just starting to snow. And this was little snow so you know what that means. It means I'm finally going to get the chance to fire up the snow blower.

And finally, a word about the resilience of cats. Poor Willy got left outside all night. It was 1 degree when I went to bed. It was up to nine this morning so it warmed up significantly. Well, Willy went outside sometime during the night. I am willing to accept the blame because I'm usually the one letting cats out. I'm the outty and Susan is the inny...and that is true with so much about us.

Anyway, neither of us noticed until this morning that Willy was not around. He came bounding in at the first call to him and he didn't seem all that miserable. However, I'm betting he's really pissed and being really pissed all over the house right about now.

Just Say NO to the Cold

I have decided that if I have nothing to write other than how cold it is, I won't write anything.









Um...how 'bout them Seahawks!? I'll bet they don't like the cold.

Oh to Hell with it. We are living in intensely cold times and I'm going to comment on it.

There was no temperature when I left the house this morning. Really! I looked at the Weather Station StanThousandTM and there was no outdoor temp. It said Zero!

I have also noticed that I'm not getting any reading from my wind speed indicator. I was looking it on Sunday and could not see the dealie-thingy spinning. It might very well be frozen. I'll have to climb up on the roof to thaw it. That should also give me an interesting story to relay here. It will start out with, "I was confused when I woke up in the hospital." At least it will be a story not directly related to the cold.

I'm not looking forward to next month's utility bill. I cranked up the furnace just to keep the basement a bit warmer. I do not want to have to thaw pipes. There have already been a couple of house fires from people taking torches to frozen pipes.

And I am still waiting for my first opportunity to fire up the Snow Blower. It seems that it is just too cold to snow.

I have added a couple of hit counters to the Blog but I don't think they are working properly. I haven't gotten all these high-fallutin techy tools figured out. I wanted to have one that gave me a hit when I got a new person visiting the site and a seperate one for every hit whether it's a new visit or not. But I think the Unique Counter counts me every day.

Oh well, like I said, I'm still trying to figure all this out. I'm just as happy to write and then be able to refer back to stuff. For instance, a year ago I was writing about all the snow on the ground.

I would like to add that it is nice to be able to come home at night and not have to run out and paint somewhere. I am far too lazy a person to be working that hard.

The Witches Settle In

I don't want to be trite by talking about the weather. But you can call me Ole Mr. Cliche because I'm going to talk about the weather.

When you have a high temperature of Se7en, and the forecasted high temperature for tomorrow is One, AND it is sooooo cold out that Carriage Rides get canceled, it is hard to avoid some sort of hackneyed comment about how cold it is. And by the way! For the record, it is officially Colder than a Witches Tit on the Shady Side of an Iceberg.

The bright spot in this is that there will be a bright spot in the sky today. It won't give off any heat, but it's supposed to be clear and sunny for the next couple of incredibly cold days.

So Al Gore, why don't you hop in your Gulfstream and come give Spokaloo a visit. We would love to have you and beat you with icicles.

In other trite news, gas is now at $1.50!

The Witches of Carriage Ride 2009

Finally! A day to sleep in. All the way until 10:00. You have to take advantage of these days when they present themselves.

There is much to accomplish today as we have a Carriage Ride at six and a few people coming by.

10:35AM: First order of business is to get my hat.

10:45AM: Next, I'm off to get a Christmas Tree. Susan is off on secret missions of her own.

11:50AM: I have returned fifty bucks lighter with a Se7en Footer.

I got the tree on the stand and left it outside for Susan to do her magical "frosting of the tree."

In the meantime I saw Lou across the street at the Bed & Breakfast. I assumed that he was setting out the fire pits for tonight. Instead, he brought out a sawhorse and leaned this sign against it.

What a Bummer! The Carriage Ride was canceled because of those Witches and their Tits. I am really disappointed but I'm also kind of relieved. I know Susan will be relieved after she gets over the disappointment too. And I can't say I blame them either. It is about ten degrees out right now and if you run out to the car to get something without a coat, the cold goes right through your mesh tank top muscle shirt.

I think there is some karma happening here because last year's Carriage Ride was such a perfect night. The reason I remember is because I looked back in the Ole Blog to see what I wrote last year. It was great to have that reference and suddenly remember what a really great night it was. Just another example of the advantages of living in the blogisphere.

I was surprised to see how little I wrote and how few pictures I had.

I wanted to take the time to commend and spotlight my neighbor, Andy. He really goes all out and puts on a great little party at his house. I should have gotten a picture of the inside of his tent. It's carpeted and warmed with a wood fired heater. They have lots of great treats and have a pretty large gathering. He still plans on a party for tonight. But it will be centered inside this year.1:24PM: Susan has returned and I have told her the bad news. She's reacting just as I did. Disappointment followed by realization and then re-organization. Well, now it is time to get going on decorating the tree.

6:35PM: We have re-directed our efforts for the day and are having a nice quiet day in with some decorating on the side. We have the tree up and in doing so, have completed our festive decorating. It seems like everyone got the message as I see very little activity around the park. We may take a quick visit to some neighbors if we can take the cold.

Later: No visits. We just stayed in and had a lovely smoked turkey and Cocoa with Peppermint Schnapps. Below is our finished tree with the train chugging around it. We are officially Festive!

Disparaging Thoughts

I do not like being put in the position where I disparage followers of the Wicken Religion or their breasts, but it is colder than a Witches Tit out there tonight. It reads 14 degrees on the Weather Station StanThousand but with the wind blowing as it is, well...it's frostier than a Wickens Boobs.

I would love to sit and write more, but I have a kitchen floor to mop.

Good Day!

Snow Blower at the Ready

7:30AM: The National Weather Service is calling for a Winter Storm Watch starting at 10:00 this morning and going until sometime Sunday. It was foggy on the way to work this morning and the misty rain that was freezing on my windshield at home is turning into snow here at Liberty Lake.

I love snow and especially the first snowfall of the season. I am pysched to get out there with my manly snow blower and give the neighborhood a blowjob.

Stay tuned and I'll update the snow details as they are worthy of updating.

1:41PM: Finally the snow has begun. It is coming down pretty strong right now but it will require a great deal of snow to fall before it starts to stick. The flakes are medium large which takes me back to the ol Indian Saying, said by so many ol Indians, "Big Snow, Little Snow. Little Snow, Big Snow!" The gist of this saying is meant to explain that if the flakes a large, you're not going to get a lot of snow. Conversely, if the flakes are small, look out for some large accumulations.

10:18PM: So far this winter Strom Watch has been a bust. The lawn is just barely white but it has stopped Snaining and it's pretty sloppy wet out there. I'll try checking back in the morning.

The End of Painting 2008

We is doing the Happy Dance cuz we iz DUN PAINTIN!

It seems like we have been painting skywalks forever. In truth, it has been exactly two weeks. Nonetheless, I am going to remember the feeling we had tonight when we stepped into the elevator after having finished that last skywalk. It was fabulous! We both looked at each other and were swept over with this great feeling of accomplishment and completion. I can't describe it better than that. Wait! Yes I can.

Back in the last century, when I was in college, I spent a night in jail with some buddies after a long and drunken night drinking "Derailers" at the Iron Horse Bar & Grill in Coeur d'Alene. We were stuck in jail all day. Add to that the worst hangover in the world and a crazy guy named Marvin reading scripture. We went to court at about one o'clock. We were arraigned and set free on our own recognisance.

That feeling of stepping out of jail, walking across the lawn of the courthouse, free to go and do whatever we wanted was exactly how I felt tonight on that elevator.

So now, the question is...what will we do with this new found freedom!? I think we shall go have a drink. I wonder if the Iron Horse is open right now.

In the Holiday Spirit - NOT!

The long nights of painting and short nights of sleeping are beginning to wear on us. If I have to look at one more skywalk, I'm going to paint it. Actually, that is exactly where we are. We are down to our last skywalk and it will be finished tonight.

We are feeling extremely un-festive right now. We'll snap out of it in a few days but before then, we'll just snap. I have a dream of a little elf, hung from thumb screws and being tortured with a feather on his bare little elf feet.

And then there's the one where a herd of Carolers approach the house just as I hit the Moat Switch.

Ya know what would help? Snow! And not just a little snowfall that doesn't stick. I'm talking about 12 inches of snow blowing frosty precipitation. Here it is, December tenth and we have yet to have any kind of significant snowfall. Hell, the local ski hill still has nothing more than a brush of whiteness hovering above the frost. Fortunately, the area forecasters are trying to accommodate me. They are all going on and on about a major storm coming for the weekend.

It will be great if it hits as they predict because this Sunday is the Annual Corbin Park Sleigh Ride. It's a great night out with the neighbors. We all gather at the Bed & Breakfast and eat snacks and stand around the fire and wait in line to ride around the park in a little 12 seater carriage pulled by Manly Stanley and the other horse. It's one of the great events around the park.

And of course, a substantial snowfall also affords me the opportunity to fire up the snow blower and do a massive blow job on the whole block.

Decorations on P.H.D.

I discovered this morning that I had miscalculated the number of skywalks we are decorating this season. I was hoping we would get two finished today and then finish up the last one tomorrow. But then I realized we had another skywalk that I had not figured into our schedule.

And of course, we did not complete two today, only one. A big one. It crosses Riverside Avenue, one of the main drags through downtown, so it's a long one with lots of windows. Fifteen panels for each of us to cover in paint.

That means that we still have three skywalks to finish which in turn means that there is no television watching for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. That requires some recording of shows cuz there's some good stuff on this week.

We finished after about five and a half hours and that was enough painting for one day. Besides, we still haven't gotten our Christmas Decorations up at the house and here it is, Pearl Harbor Day. (P.H.D.)

So, we got home and began work on our own different decorating projects. Susan put up her Christmas Village on the mantle and I got the lights up on the house. She had a great time designing her village and listening to Christmas music. I'm not quite finished with the lights but I made great progress.

We had a bit of a malfunction with the Christmas music. I loaded up the CD player with a bunch of Christmas CD's. I put it on Random Play and went off the string lights. After a couple of songs, the music stopped. Upon investigation, the CD player was jammed. It would not play and it would not open up. So now, I've got the majority of our Christmas CD's locked up in a broken CD player. We had to settle for John Tesh on the radio playing Holiday favorites. That kind of blows! I guess we may be asking Santa for a new CD player.

Another malfunction involved Christmas lights. I have two strings of the cool expensive computerized twinkling lights and neither string works. One string has partial ignition with every third light working. The other is dead. I checked the fuses in the plug and they appear to be incredibly small. My eyes aren't working as well as they used to so I can't see if they're any good or not.

I would like to say a word about how much I ROCK! I was very pleased with myself as I unraveled each carefully bundled string of lights. There was no fighting with tangled wires and it went so well, I was finished before I even knew it. I had labeled certain strings of light so as to delineate their proper place in the grand scheme of our Christmas plan. It was fabulous and I am very pleased with me...and therefore Iraq!

Working @ Work (What a Concept!)

I did some work at my place of employment today that I am particularly pleased with and want to spotlight here. It's not often that I perform work at my place of employment and even less frequent when I am pleased by it. So it's really worth calling attention to.

I applied vinyl graphics to a vehicle for one of our clients. This is one of the many things we do and I have done many vehicles in the past. So that in itself is not terribly noteworthy.

I have never considered myself very adept at applying vehicle graphics. There are some things I will do and have little, if no trouble with. But larger graphics that cover a big area of the vehicle or a full wrap of a vehicle always make me nervous and give me fits.

We normally hire an outside installer who is very good and has pulled my ass out of many an ugly installation.

But I want to get better at it and I am challenging myself to take on more and more of these elaborate installs.

The install today was not elaborate by any means but it did entail fitting the vinyl around a door handle, which is one of the things that has given me fits in the past. Below is a picture of the handle with the stripe placed neatly around it.

I am so proud!

Of course, any install of this nature is not a solo performance and I would like to acknowledge and thank Don for his help and his sage suggestions, most of which I followed.

A Night off from Skywalks

Susan had to work at the Arena last night and I decided to take a night off from painting to try and recover from this cold that has its grip on me. But I didn't just sit around the house swilling warmed brandy. It was whisky. We were out of brandy.

But I also made some impressive progress on staple removal. I bought some vice-grips yesterday and they proved to be the magic wand I needed to make this process easier. I still broke off a lot of staple heads and I still had to be down on the floor on my knees hunched over the work area. But with vice-grips, I didn't have to squeeze the living hell out of the handle as I rolled the pliers forward and pulled the staples out. In short, my hands are not going numb this morning.

I got a long row of staples out and it took about three hours.

Tonight it is back to the skywalks. I have to get caught up with Susan. She did one last Saturday while I was bartending. She has to work again tonight so I will be doing it solo. Tonight I am working in a skywalk that goes to the STA Bus Plaza. The trick with these skywalks is to put up as little paint as possible. The fabulous people who make up a portion of the bus riding public feel compelled to scratch their own improvisational artwork into what we put up. It usually involves swastikas and crude language.

Reading the Smudges

We went downtown to paint tonight. We had to finish up Skywalk Number Four. It was an unremarkable night that went well. Thankfully! I am not feeling all that great. A cold that has been tickling the back of my throat is catching up with me. Again, whiny!

Anyway, there was one item we came across that caught our attention. Notice the window below. It is a regular old window in a skywalk loaded with windows. This picture does not show it very well but there is a smudge on the window. We were trying to wipe it off and quickly realized that it was on the outside.

Here is a better picture of the smudge. I had to move in pretty close to make it visible.

When I figured it out I was having a pretty hearty laugh until I thought about the next step.

I'm pretty sure we are looking at the death of a pigeon.

We later noticed that there was a total of three such smudges on this skywalk. Clearly, these skywalks are a danger to Flying Rats and we should consider removing them.

But then, that effects our Christmas time livelihood...which in the long run, would be bad for the economy, and then the Terrorist would win. The Nyquil must be kicking in now because I'm really rambling.

Ramblin' round, I'm a ramblin' guy! Good night!

The Monday Return to Work Blues

As the alarm coaxed me out of my Tryptophan Coma, I struggled out of bed at about 5:20 after hitting the snooze twice. It's going to be a busy week and I had to get into work to get the week going.

So here I am at my desk writing a blog. It may not be quite as busy I thought.

I guess I should get my weekly Gasoline Report reported. Gas appears to be plentiful and cheap. Six years ago, I would not have thought that $1.69 a gallon is cheap for gas, but perspective is everything.I keep taking pictures of the price of gas at this gas station because it seems to be among the cheapest in town. I'm always checking out gas prices so I have learned which stations are the least expensive. At least on the routes I drive regularly. I used to go to this dumpy little station on East Mission Street called the Tobacco Station. They always have cheap gas which I think they make up for with cigarettes. Not necessarily by charging more for them but by sheer volume. They seem to sell a shit load of smokes.

Well, it's December First so on my calendar it is officially Winter. The weather certainly looks wintry. It has been very damp for several days and the fog shrouds the city like (prepare for an awesome metaphor) "a fog shrouded city".

I should be getting out all our Christmas decorations but we can't until we have finished all our skywalk painting. Many of our neighbors wasted no time in getting their decorations up and the Halloween House down the park from us is festively flashing away like "a fog shrouded city".

Hey, I paid for that metaphor...I'm going to use it like a...well...you know!

End of the Four Day Weekend

Wow! What a busy Thanksgiving Weekend we have had. We managed to pack a lot of activity and work into the four days.

We got up Thursday at a reasonable yet satisfying 9:30 and set out to paint a couple of windows. They were both office buildings and I have furnished pictures below.

It was very festive while we painted as it was snowing the first snowfall of the season. You can see that we are not creating any great works of art. We are somewhat limited by the present climate of society where we do not really admit that this is the Christmas Season. Instead, it is the Holiday Season and so we are not painting any overt Christmas Images. I guess I went a little overt there on the Holy Family Medical Building, but then again, it is the "HOLY FAMILY" Medical Building. You would think they would be okay with Christmas.

We made it home by two and Susan had one more pie to prepare before dinner at five.

We drove to Mom's for Thanksgiving. There was about 14 of us there. We got to meet the daughter and son-in-law of Mom's gentleman friend. His name is john and they have been keeping each others company for a while now. Susan and I only recently met him. Thanksgiving was great and I didn't eat too much. That was good and amazingly out of character for me.

We got out on Friday and did some more painting. We completed our first skywalk. It took about five hours. I am hoping we will be able to shave some minutes off the time as we go. We are both still getting our painting bearings back and figuring out our process.

We painted today in the skywalk that goes to City Hall. We painted for about five hours and we still have an hour to go. We'll finish up tomorrow and get started on skywalk.

We still haven't nailed down all the skywalks that we are doing. We are waiting to hear from a local real estate company that manages a lot of the buildings that our skywalks are attached to. They are the ones paying the bills and we haven't gotten them to agree to the painting yet.

During this time, the floor sits patiently idol while we complete the Holiday Window Painting Marathon. If we don't pick up any more skywalks, we'll be done this week. I'll find out tomorrow what the story is. Then, we shall continue on staple removal and wrist torture.

Now it is Sunday Evening and we are settled into the house and preparing to enjoy our own little Thanksgiving. We miss having a Turkey and all the trimmings so we have it all set to go for tonight. I haven't had anything to eat all day and I am prepared to stuff myself shortly. It's great to be back in character!

Day Three of the Floor Project

The progress I made last night on the floor represents about three hours, three beers and one stunningly fabulous glass of Cabernet. (There was a second glass after the work stopped) From the photograph, it doesn't look like much progress at all but I would estimate I cleared about the same square footage of linoleum as the night before.

I had to do myself last night as Susan had an equally important job of preparing a couple of Thanksgiving Day pies.

Unfortunately, we are starting to paint Christmas Windows tomorrow so that's about all the work that is going to get done on the floor for the next week or so. That is good news to my wrists and fingers which are quite unhappy with me today. All the prying of staples and nails has taken its toll.

Since this is a Wednesday that really is a Friday, we are joining some friends this evening at a local drinking establishment called Blues at the Bend. There shall be fun and frivolity and complaining about my wrists and fingers.

Mathematical Meanderings of a Destaplizing Personality

I got home last night about six and went to work on de-stapling the floor. It is even more tedious than I earlier indicated. All the little black dots that you see in the photograph are staples. There is just a little bit of the top of the staple exposed and it is very difficult to get a good hold on one to pull it up. There are also a number of nails and these weird little nails with an angled head that are really little bastards to get up.

Susan arrived home shortly after I did. Between the two of us, we worked a total of about three and half hours and cleared about nine square feet of linoleum. We have about 60 square feet to go to make it to the door. There is probably another 60 to 80 square feet going the other direction toward the kitchen, bathroom and TV room.

Based on those figures, I figure we have about 45 hours and 57 beers in front of us just to get up the linoleum.

And yet, the more we uncover, the more excited we get.

Talk about unstable people!

A Week of Thankfulocity

What a pleasure to walk down the stairs this morning and see a little clearing of hardwood floor. We are both mightily delighted at the prospect of how this floor is going to look. In the spirit of the coming holiday, we are thankful that it will be a realitively easy and inexpensive portion of the remodel. You can tell we are hopelessly involved with our home when this is the kind of thing that excites us.

It was 20 degrees when I left the house this morning. There is no snow yet but winter is just around the corner. I think they are predicting a skiff of snow for Thanksgiving evening.

With all my complaining about my back the other day, you would think I would be feeling stiff and sore today. We did lots of prying and lifting in awkward positions. And yet, no problems with the ol backeroo. There's another thing to be thankful for.

Finally, here is another picture from yesterday showing the misty haze of saw smoke floating around the living room.

Requiem for a New Project

Let it be known to all who care and the many more who don't, that on this day, in this house, we started remodeling the Entry Way.

This project will continue for an unknown amount of time and then about two months beyond that. As with all our other projects that we have completed, we don't know what we getting into here or how it is going to take shape. And like the other projects we have completed, we only know that it will be better than it was.

As an overview, I can tell you that the scope of the project entails remodeling our entry way and staircase. We have already done some work on the staircase. Work to be done there involves sanding the pads and risers down to bare wood, re staining and varnishing the pads and risers, and painting the wanes coating along the stairway as well as the balusters.

The entry way involves removing two sub floors and linoleum and then depending on the condition of the hardwood upon which the sub floors where stupidly placed, re staining it or replacing it.

Let's start with some pictures.

What you see above is a collage of the entryway from various angles. I think it appropriately displays the linoleum floor that we despise. The picture in the middle on the left shows the hardwood floor in the Living Room and the lip the becomes the linoleum. It does not show it well but that lip is a sub floor with a layer of linoleum. And then, someone came along and decided that the first layer of linoleum was not enough so they put down ANOTHER sub floor and linoleum which is what we have now throughout the main floor, except for the Living and Dining Rooms.

We believe that the hardwood extends under the linoleum from the front door all the way down to the kitchen.

And so, the plan for today was to take my circular saw and cut panels out of the floor that were deep enough to penetrate to the second sub floor but not the hardwood.

A quick aside now on me and my tools. I spend as much time looking for tools as I do actually using them. I'm trying to get better but I have too many places to put things.

Today, I went out to collect the tools I expected we would need and I found them all in the first place I looked for them. That is a very big deal to me. And a huge time saver!

And so, I went to work on the task of cutting the panels. The blade on the saw was quite dull. I was not so much cutting as I was melting. This created a great deal of smoke which quickly set off the smoke detectors. It's good to know they work. It also created this wonderful cloudy effect throughout the house that was best exemplified in the Dining Room.We quickly determined that the best way to proceed was to completely pull up the first sub floor and then see what we had underneath. The floor came up pretty easily and we had the whole thing up in about an hour and a half. We also had a tremendous dusty mess. As I type, Susan is downstairs with her birthday present, vacuuming away.The really really great news that we learned upon working on the second layer is that they did not glue the sub floor to the hardwood. They used plenty of glue on that top layer and it was a bitch to get up in a few places. Fortunately, the hardwood floor was protected by the other layer of floor so we could be pretty rough with our pry bars. And it is clear from the above picture that neither layer of linoleum is especially pleasing. I know that times and tastes change but why one would cover hardwood floors is hard to understand. But again, I am thankful they had the fore site to not cover the hardwood with glue.The photo above shows just a little of the original hardwood floor. You can see that it is in pretty good shape. The other really really good news we learned is that the original sub floor they put down was press board which crumbles very nicely under a bit of pressure from our pry bar. Susan used a small flat pry bar and I used a stiff putty knife.

The bad news is that what they saved in glue they made up for in nails and staples. We have quite a job ahead of us. Chipping away at the sub floor a little bit at time and then pulling staples and nails is tedious and time consuming. By the time I am done pulling staples, I expect to end up with enough metal to forge a gun and shoot myself.

It will be interesting to see how much we complete in the week to come. Starting Thursday morning, we will be out painting windows for the Holidays. That will consume all our time for the next couple of weeks. We never plan these projects very well.With all that being said, we are very pleased with the results of our first day. We are thrilled to learn that the hardwood looks salvageable. The alternative if the floor looked pretty torn up was going to be expensive. The tricky part is going to be refinishing it and doing it in a way that creates a smooth transition from the hallway to the living room.

And so in closing, I would like to give a trash talking shout out to Mike and Steve at the Muzzy Mansion. What have you guys done lately?!

Adventures of a Nancy-Boy

I feel compelled to make a disclosure right up front. I do not suffer pain well. I am a wimp! And when I am in pain, I have some facet of my personality that wants EVERYONE TO KNOW I AM IN PAIN!

I was taking the garbage out this morning. The can was only half full so I wheeled it around to the front of the house to load a couple of bags of leaves into it. I grabbed a great big full one and plopped it into the can. I still had room for another so I selected this small bag. I lifted it up to the can and...

Meanwhile in the Back Department: Whoop Whoop Whoop. Alarm Alarm! Danger!!! She's going to BLOOOOOOOOOOOW!

...suddenly a nerve in my mid back seized me and forced all the breath out of me. I managed to drop the bag into the can as I hit my knees and gasped for air.

This has happened to me before. The first time was years ago when I was pulling green chain at a lumber mill. All I did was turn and I was suddenly on my knees...gasping for air.

It is most unpleasant when it happens and it takes forever to get to a point where I can breathe properly.

I am going to attempt to be a Trooper at work today but my stiff demeanor is sure to give me away. In the meantime, I have vented, complained, moaned and whined here which should appease my urge to tell everyone else.

Hey! You! C'Mere a minute. I wanna tell you....

Brew Vinery In Full Swing

I started brewing a batch of my world famous and highly coveted Christmas beer on Monday. Now we have the whole Brewery AND Vinery operating in the kitchen at full capacity. The beer is in the red carboy with the blow off tube going into a bucket of water. The wine is in the green carboy. That blow off tube will come off soon and be replaced with a little vapor lock. Beer is very active for the first few days and blows off a lot of spooge (that's the technical term) and then calms down for the rest of the fermentation process. This batch of beer is really percolating right now. They all bubble pretty good after the yeast first kicks in but this batch is very active. I cannot recall another batch as active as this one is. I was watching TV last night and every few minutes, the bucket would erupt in a gi-normous belch of gaseous fervor.

We had a bit of a panic last night. We opened the door to let a cat in and/or out and caught a whiff of skunk. I checked the ground around the Carriage House and it was free of any signs of digging. I presume it was probably just someone passing through. I mean, surely we are not the only house around the park that has been inhabited by skunks.

Sunday Activities

Today's Post will be a progressive thing. We have lots to do. You might say we have a long way to go and a short time to get there. We're East bound. Oh watch Ole' Bandit run.

9:54AM: First off, I need to get some coffee and go get the truck. We have a least one load of leaves to haul and maybe a little more.

As I was leaving to get the truck, there was a squirrel scurrying around the yard and the little bastard got me in a good mood so I broke out the bag of peanuts and put a few in a tree. I left the bag by the back door and went off to get the truck.

When I returned, the peanuts in the tree hadn't been touched. The varmint went right after the candy store. I really shouldn't be surprised and I am aware that there will be no appreciation coming from the little fellow.


1:04PM: A little more! We just finished with the first load and we're getting ready to head out. We have a really full load as seen in the picture. Unfortunately, we have a couple of piles still on the ground and the whole yard could use a once over with the Suckula Five Thousand Yard Vac.

3:19PM: Well that took waaaaaaay too long. We went North to Diversified Products but they chose to be closed on Sundays. I wish I would have noticed that when I was there on Friday.

So we turned around and went all the way out to Busy Bee. I could have saved some time by going to the City Dump but then, as I have explained so often in the past, I'm paying to dump water. In these tight financial times, it does not make sense to a tight wad like Susan (and me) to pay for a bunch of wet leaves. It cost ten dollars at "the Bee" and we had a really big load.

The problem now is we are burning daylight and we still have some leaves to get up. We have decided to bag them and then throw one in the garbage every week. I'll take a couple of bags to the Valley Transfer Station on my way to work this week and winnow them down that way too.

4:35PM: The day is over as far as the yard is concerned. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. It seems I barely scratched the surface on Friday when I took the morning off. Have I mentioned how much I dislike trees this time of year?

The good news is that the leaves were dry enough to make the Suckula Five Thousand Yard Vac quite effective. The yard looks pretty nice and the leaves are up...or at least bagged. Susan made use of the Leaf Blower and I sucked up her little piles in between passes up and down the yard. We have completed Fall Yard Clean up.

Next, it is time to turn our attention inward and begin the next house project. We want to start pulling up the linoleum in our entry way. That will lead to completing the stairs.

But first, I get my reward...a cold home brew and a hot shower. In that order!!!

5:33PM: We are refreshed. Susan took a bath and I am fresh out of the shower with beer in hand. All is well, including the price of gas.
I really feel like I'm being manipulated but "the Man", whoever that may be. I know this cheap gas thing is a total illusion. It makes no sense that gas is as inexpensive as it is. Considering the state of things, gas should be approaching $5.00 a gallon.

But, I shall go along and pay the cheap price for as long as they will offer it. It could (and most likely will) all go to hell tomorrow.

One Load to the Dump

I took the morning off to dispose of the leaves. I didn't do very well. I only had time to make one load and I tweaked my back in the process. Don't worry, I'll be okay. I'll just be a walking and moving a bit more gingerly for the day.

So I got most of the leaves in the back and half in the front. That means my plans for Sunday are already set. I'll be going to the dump again. And perhaps again. And maybe once after that.

We got a shit load of leaves!

Another Weather Report

I don't have much to report here today other than the weather. You might want to stop reading now and get on with your life.

The wind is supposed to come up today but I'm hoping that yesterday's rainfall will help keep the piles mostly in place.

It was really quite warm when I went out the door this morning. My thermometer said it was 50 degrees.

I struggled with the reindeer again last night. I'm giving up and moving on to re-stringing new light.

We are moving into the Season of Window Painting. I am talking with the people I need to talk to in order to arrange painting the skywalks downtown. We have a meeting tonight. We won't start until the day after Thanksgiving. I am reluctant to even say the "word" before Thanksgiving. All these Holiday Decorations up in the stores before Halloween is over really chap my hide.

I still have lots of people to get in touch with. I better get on it.

Today's Tidbit: Another Haiku from Craigslist titled "How Stoned Am I"

Looking for my belt
searched high low and in between
found it... on my waist

Waverly Place Vinery & Wineyard

We started a new batch of wine last week. We are making a Syrah. We racked it last night. That's the process of transferring the wine (must) from the first bucket (Primary Fermenter) to the second bucket (Secondary Fermenter).

If all goes well, we will be entering this wine in various fairs and exhibitions next summer. We didn't get anything made in time to enter in the fair this year and we were very discouraged and experienced great ennui upon attending the fair and seeing all the wine that we didn't enter.

And hence, our proactive efforts as seen above. It now has to sit for about two weeks and finish fermenting. It tastes highly alcoholic right now. There is a grapey flavor followed by a phenolic bite. It's not award winning yet.
Speaking of proactive, I pulled out the Ole reindeer last night to see if I can get the lights to work. I haven't even hung it the last couple of years because the lights stopped working. I intended to buy new lights and restring the thing, but I came across this nifty little tool to help me find the burned out bulbs. I'm about half way through it and I only have one string working. My nifty tool is helpful but I'm starting to think I need to buy a couple new strings. I wanted to avoid that possibility but I figure if young Chinese children can string the thing, I have a chance of accomplishing it as well.

I haven't been able to get a hold of Rob to borrow his truck so the leaves are still piled up in the yard. The forecast is calling for more rain today and along with it.....wind. Oh boy, we will get to rake alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll over again.

Today's Tidbit: Taken from the Haiku Section of Craig's List.

Thank that Psycho Bitch

She did you both a Favor

Free now to find love