Saturday on the Park

It is a sunny Saturday morning in late August. I got up this morning to find the heater running in the bathroom. It really wasn't cool enough to need the heater but I guess the thermostat thought otherwise. We are approaching that time of year when we will need it. 

I guess it won't be long before we are playing the boiler game. It's been shut down all summer and as you know, the goal of the boiler game is to keep it shut down for as long as possible.

We have a few things we would like to accomplish today, but first, there is some action going on outside.

The darker car belongs to my neighbors Shelby and James. She parks that car on the street and James parks his truck behind her. This guy in the silver car came down the street crossed over into the parking lane and crashed  head on into the Charger, hitting it hard enough to knock it back six feet into James truck. The Charger hit the truck hard enough to roll it back a couple of feet.

I have since learned that the driver of the silver car said he had insurance but did not provide any proof. So...uninsured driver. He apparently had at least two other people in the car but they left pretty quickly. The guy pulled three backpacks out of the car, plus a box and after the police officer finished the investigation and issued him a ticket, let him go on his way. So he loaded up all the crap and walked off across the park. Never to be seen or heard from again, I suspect.

With that excitement out of the way, it's time to get to work. I need to find a stencil we used on windows last year. So far, I'm not having any luck.

Another project I'm working on is draining and cleaning the hot tub. I borrowed Lou's sump pump and drained the thing in about 10 minutes. If I attach a hose and let gravity do the draining, it takes about 4 hours. 

Later on, I'll try to get in there with a scrubber and clean the sides.

All seems to be going well with the hot tub so it's time to move on. I'm going to attempt to find my stencils some more.

VICTORY! I found them. Boy am I pleased?! Yes I am! I was worried because I did not find them on my initial attempt. I figured they would be at the top of the heap of saved stencils that are sloppily stored in the Carriage House. I had to dig down a little into the rolls to find what I was looking for but I was successful. That saves us about three hours of preliminary work which means we earn more money.

Next up on the list is some garage cleanup. I have to remove a bike and bike rack that are blocking where the door will go.

So that is my next project.

Okay, that went fairly well. The next item was to move more stuff out of the garage. There are six sandwich boards in the garage that belong to our home owners association. I'm the Prez so that is why I have them.

I wanted to get them out of the garage and into the Carriage House

We have a nice access door to the upstairs from the alley. My plan was to have Susan hand the signs up to me and I would get them packed away.

In the midst of bringing up the first one, I suddenly found myself in the middle of a swarm of bees. They seemed to be quite agitated. I had disturbed them and their nest which appeared to be in the wall of the Carriage House and the entrance right at the base of the door.

So that put an end to that plan. I got stung on my wrist but bee stings don't really effect me. I'm getting kind or drowsy now so I think I'll go take a...