Brief Morning Post

Today was my first morning wearing a jacket as I left the house. The Stanometer 2000 said it was 33 degrees at about 7AM. It was up to 40 when I got on the freeway and saw my first Time/Temp sign.

In any event, Autumn is here, both in spirit and actuality.

Eclipse Sunday

We had a very busy day starting with church, then a visit to Mom, then church business, then a memorial service for Dad's girlfriend, and finally the day was ours about 3:00.

I got to work in the bathroom trying to finish my electrical work. I had to hook up power to the switch to the mirror lights and to the fan. 

Everything went pretty well but I did have one problem.

What is wrong with this picture?

Once I figured out what was wrong with the picture, I had to re-organize everything. The wires for the timer come off the right side which made everything very confining. That box is packed full and not the neatest packing job.

Once I got everything in and re-packed, I had a problem with the main switch. There was no power. 

So again, I unscrewed everything, checked all the connections and re-packed the box and tightened everything up. To my amazement, it all worked!

Phew!

There was a Lunar Eclipse tonight. It was supposed to be all very historic and exciting. Unfortunately, my crummy little camera was not able to capture all the histrionics or excitamentation.

Frankly, I'm surprised it did as well as it did.

Here's one final shot with a bit of the yard.

Fan Installation

It took me a great deal of all day to install the fan. The tough part was cutting through the outside of the house for the exhaust port.

I started from the inside wall above the ceiling line by drilling a hole to the outside. That gave me a start to place the template for the exhaust door. 

The problem was the space from the outside wall to the inside wall was about 8 inches. It was tough to cut through because I didn't have a saw blade that was long enough to cut through the span.

I had to chip away at it little by little.

Installing the fan itself was easy. Attaching the hose to the exhaust port was easy.

The hole was a bitch!

This action picture shows the exhaust port actually working, showing the door slightly open as the air blows out.

Morning

It is the morning time of year when the morning sun is at just the right morning angle in the morning that it is right in my morning eyes during my morning drive to work in the morning. This shall continue morningly for the next couple of morning weeks until the morning sun rise (the best time for a sun rise) moves to an earlier morning time.

The Autumnal Equinox took place on Wednesday and you can definitely feel it in the air in the morning. We have also noticed the sudden and dramatic change in many of the trees around the park. Additionally, it gets dark by 6:00.

We are now preparing for the weekend. We are going to the Greek Festival tonight and taking Mark along because it's his birthday tomorrow.

I have to get the bathroom dry walled and I have a couple of things to finish up before that happens. My goal for tomorrow is to get the fan installed and complete the wiring for the mirror lights.

I also want a beer!

Boiler Game 2015 Conclusion

If  you guessed that I would turn into a giant puddle of Wimpy Girlie-Man Ice Pussy on Monday, September 21st at 6.38 PM, then you win this year's Boiler Challenge Game.

I fired everything up because I needed to feel confident that the heat was working and there were no leaks prior to actually needing the heat.

The good news is that it works great.

So now I have shut the thermostat down and am awaiting a truly chilly day that deserves a furnace. 

But technically, I've fired up the boiler so the game is over. This is undoubtedly the earliest I've started the boiler since the beginning of the game back in the early 50's.

Saturday Successes and a Failure or Two

A fabulous weather weekend has allowed us to be fruitful and accomplished.

Saturday started out with Susan sleeping in while I went to church to help out with a Maintenance Day.

The task I was assigned was to remove a small tree. It was growing too fast and it would eventually cause power line problems as well as encroachment issues in the parking lot. As I was heading out to the tree, Neil Huggins drove in and offered to help me. 

We dug at the roots to try and break it free and eventually succeeded.

That took about half an hour altogether.

My next task was to fix a slow filling toilet.

Our church has toilets that I covet. If they ever decide to get rid of these, I want them. All toilets today have these piddly little tanks that fill to 1.6 gallons. It's supposed to save water, but not when you have to flush them three times.

The church toilets were made in the days when nobody cared about how much water went down the drain. I don't know the capacity but I know it only takes one flush.

So this one toilet takes forever to refill. We figured the hose may be plugged with calcium and needed to be cleared.

So I turned the valve to the off position and I flushed the toilet to drain the tank.

I started removing the hose and was surprised that it still held a lot of water. Well, it is a huge tank. Water was leaking out and creating a small puddle on the floor.

Just as I was coming to the conclusion that I might have a problem here, the hose blew off the connection and I was suddenly deluged with a torrent of water. It was hitting me in the face, covering the floor. I felt my knees becoming damp. 

I thought, "Shit! I turned the valve the wrong way!" So of course I struggled with getting the valve to even move for me and when I finally turned it to the other position, the tsunami continued.

I am alone in the basement and there is no drain in this bathroom. (That turned out to be untrue because there is a floor length urinal in the opposite corner)

Nonetheless, I cannot just abandon the space. So as I continue to get submerged, I struggle to get this hose screwed back onto the valve that is exploding water at full force.

This how I know that God is with me. I managed to get the hose back in place and screwed down tight.

My next task is to find a mop and bucket. That was easy compared to the ordeal so far.

I can tell you that the bathroom floor is now the cleanest place in the building.

With that task unaccomplished, we called it a day and I went home.

Susan managed to get out of bed at some point and was painting on the front porch when I drove up. Shortly after getting home, Shaun showed up to finish covering the heated floor wires in the bathroom. That went very smoothly and we finished in about an hour.

I did a couple of other little chores while Susan finished up the porch and then we enjoyed a cold frosty beverage on the front porch and watched the paint dry.

I enjoyed a glass of wine because I am not drinking beer at the moment. I'm trying to see if it is the source of my gout. More on that on my Personal Health Blog, www.porkymccorpulent.blogspot.com

Around 4:00, we went to the fair. It was our second trip to the fair this year. We went because a friend gave us a pair of unused tickets to get in.

It took us about 30 minutes to travel the last two miles to the fair. The weather was perfect for the fair and everyone decided to go with us.

I remembered my camera this time so I was able to get pictures of our wine. 

We went to a magic show that we really enjoyed and we went to a Hypnotist show that was kind of fun too.

Then we had some delicious fair food for dinner and hit the road.

Boiler Game - 2015

I'm getting a head start on the Boiler Game this year. I filled the radiator system tonight. I had been concerned because of a small leak on a return water line that goes to our main drain. 

I used some Plumbers Putty to plug the leak and then filled the system.

So far, so good. The leak appears to be sealed and the heat is ready to be turned on. I don't think we are going to make it out of September this year. After a very nice weekend with Summer-like temperatures, it has turned pretty chilly. 

And of course, Autumn is approaching and the days are getting shorter. I have to get out and adjust the timing on my lights in the front yard.

I haven't fired up the gas yet, but I can at a moments notice.

In the meantime, I'm going to hunker down in a sweater and wait for Susan to complain.

Blue Ribbon Sheet Shopping

With all of Susan's jobs and everything we have going this week, we only had a couple of opportunities to go to the fair. Tonight was one of them and we seized upon it.

So I met Susan after work at her office and we trundled over to the fairgrounds. It was a chilly night and Susan wasn't quite properly dressed. We tried to stay in buildings as much as we could.

We have a specific set of criteria on our fair agenda and it must be checked off just so.

The first thing was a quick trip through the varied industries portion of the fair. This is the section with all the vendors hocking their wares. We made it through without buying anything or even wanting to buy anything.

Next, I got my Elephant Ear and Susan got her much coveted, much desired, much cherished Corndog. She had been gravely disappointed by the Corndog she got at the Iowa Fair. Then we went back to the second portion of the varied industries and bought some sheets.

The next agenda item was to see how we did in the wine competition.

At this point we must accept the ruling of the judges and offer our congratulations to Ellen Miller who got a Reserved Grand Champion for her Red Moon Wine.

She also got a Blue Ribbon for her label which we feel was not deserved, even though we must accept the ruling of the judges.

Our Petite Verdot got a third Place Ribbon and our faded Cabernet which we called "Pink Cab" got a Blue Ribbon.

I also got a Reserve Grand Champ for the "Pink Cab" label which really surprised me. I thought Susan's label for the Verdot was much better, but only garnered a Blue Ribbon.

I forgot to bring my camera so I have no pictures.

A Harbinger

I woke up this morning to another less than stellar day. That is, if your measure of value is a bright sunny end of summer day.

The main thing on the agenda for today is to attend the Spokane Symphony Labor Day Concert at Comstock Park. However, if the weather is going to be sketchy, I'm leaning toward bagging it and staying home.

That is not a very likely scenario because we haven't missed a Labrador Concert in...like...forever.

In any event, I prefer to look at the weather of this Holiday Weekend as a foreboding harbinger of the wicked winter to come. It's not like I'm having a premonition or psychic flash. I just prefer to think this way.

The coming months will bare out the flashiness of my mystical psychicness.

Later that day: The weather came around to favor us and we went to the Labor Concert. It is a tradition for Susan and I, one that nobody else who regularly attends with us, decided to keep this year. 

Everyone we invited to join us canceled on us today. I went up to the park at 3 to stake out some real estate and it turned out to be much much more than we needed.

As always it was a great event to be a part of...even if it was only Susan and I...and 3,000 other people. They breezed through their program and even deleted a couple of songs because of the chill. It's not good for some of the instruments. 

They usually do the same concert in Liberty Lake on Saturday but the weather was so bad they moved it to Sunday, and then canceled at the last moment on Sunday because of the cold conditions.

Now we are back at home at a decent hour and can wind down our Holiday weekend in front of the TV.

Labrador Sunday

It is the Labrador Weekend which means that after a summer of looooooong stretches of stifling heat, it will rain. It is Day Two of the weekend and Day Two of the Rain.

No biggy to me because I'm working in of doors. I hooked up the thermostat for the heated floor and it in itself is quite cool. I have powered it up and it appears to be working. It has a full color touch pad display. It is programmable, which is something I wanted and it appears to be easy to use.

I have it set to heat up right now and I'm waiting to see if it is going to work. That is complicated by the fact that Phil is here working on the ceiling prior to placement of dry wall. The big panel is off the former doorway so the chilly air has free range.

That being said, I can confirm that the heated floor is working. In less than fifteen minutes, it brought the floor temperature up from 64 to 67 degrees.

So, since that is working, I need to move on and find something else to do. Perhaps I can offer my assistance to Susan who is painting the front porch.

I just removed the air conditioner in the kitchen. Now I need to stow it away. Then I will find another project.

The project I found next was helping Susan on the front porch. She painted the whole ceiling and has been working on a few little areas. She has wanted for some time to paint access stripes on the pillars. Today we did! We painted the rings at the top and bottom of the pillars. They are a nice burgundy, as you can see in the pictures.

We are heading up to visit Mom, who is still suffering chronic back pain. It's pretty frustrating to not be able to do anything to help her feel better.

After Mom, we are having dinner at Webster's. They have all their menu items priced at $6 on Sundays. Plus, they have $2.00 PBR's, so it's very classy.

Back from InterWeb Oblivion

I'm back! Did you miss me? Did you even know I was gone?

My modem crashed on me. I had a couple of connection problems on Thursday night and when I got home from work yesterday, it was dead. I tried resetting it several times to no avail.

So then I went on a search to solve the problem but I am locked in old guy technology that hinders my ability to make smart shopping decisions.

Century Link is my InterWeb Service Provider (ISP). I called them, waited on hold for ten minutes, only to be told that it looks like my modem is dead. They then confirm the modem was not a leased modem and I owned it. They told me to go to Best Buy and get a modem that is ADSL2+ compatible.

So I drove out to Best Buy last night because that's where the person at CenturyLink told me to go...and of course, they didn't have any.

The moddem issue would have to wait until today because we were heading down to "Pigout in the Park", Spokane's annual Festival of Gluttony. We went down last night because I wanted to see Junior Brown.

Susan and I each had our traditional Pigout meals and then we went to the Clocktower Stage to catch Junior at 9.

Junior was great as expected and played for almost an hour and a half. If you are not familiar with Junior Brown, do something about that. The man can strum a gitbox.

So now it is today and I managed to get out of bed by eight. I got dressed, got some coffee and breakfast and headed out to get a modem.

My mind that has a 1980's operating system. I decided to try Radio Shack and if not them, perhaps the Home Depot would have a selection of modems. 

I was wrong. Home Depot has a few modem but none with parameters that matched my needs. 

As far as Radio Shack goes, I can't seem to find any. They may be all gone. They have four locations listed in the most current phone book, (more old technology) but I can tell you at least two of those locations are empty storefronts.

Then I recalled that one of those big box office supply places like Staples or Office Office Office might have a modem.

Staples turned out to be the helpful place. Staples is six blocks from the house. So sixty dollars later and after a little work on the phone with Sonjay at NetGear, I'm back on the grid.

The really big event of the day was the installation of a heated floor grid.

Here are the pictures.

The house smells like someone is getting a perm. I hope that doesn't last! We are not finished. We still have to lay down another bag or two of self leveling compound to get a final depth and a level floor.

Phil is coming in tomorrow to start dry walling.

Heated Floor Day

I can't believe I have been talking about temperatures in the hundreds only a couple of weeks ago and now I am turning on my heat in the car in the morning.

Well, I shouldn't be surprised. It is September, afterall.

Today is the day that the heated floor gets installed. I'm taking the afternoon off because I want to be there and be a part of this installation. I would like to install a heated floor in my closet at some point and I want to know how it is done.

So I'm leaving work at noon and planning to meet Shaun at 1. Once the fun begins, I'll report on it here.

10:25AM: I just the call from Shaun to cancel for today. He is having some back issues (back pain) which has slowed him waaaay down and has to finish some other project that he is now behind on.

I'm still taking the afternoon off. I have plenty of things I can do.

7:35PM: Well, I think I had a successful afternoon off from work. I did a little cleaning in the Carriage House...not much, but enough to create some work space.

Then I mowed the lawn.

Then I did some work on the upstairs bathroom. The faucet on the bathroom sink has been a problem. I got underneath and discovered the hoses were pretty badly kinked. I had to clean out everything in the cabinet and pose in many uncomfortable positions but I got it done.

That felt like a major victory.

I then proceeded to play the piano for a while. 

Then I did some vacuuming upstairs.

I also began the process of filling the radiators with water. I had a fear that I had a small leak and it turned out to be true. 

The leak is very small and not in any of the radiators. The leak is in a connection to the main drain line from the water fill line. It appears to have some corrosion and a small rusty pin prick of a hole has developed.

I shall consult some of my construction experts to see how I should proceed.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

It took only a couple of hours to finish my work in the bathroom. I am now ready for Shaun to come in and put in the heated floor. I also fixed the problem with receptacle that wasn't working. I have a problem distinguishing between the meaning of "Line" and "Load".

We are experiencing the joy of rain. It was coming down good and had been since this morning. It finally stopped around noonish and we have clear skies.

In a totally unrelated bit of news, we seem to be experiencing a crime wave in the neighborhood. There was a drive by shooting early Saturday morning. Nobody was hurt but two houses had bullet holes. 

I just now learned that a neighbor down the street was assaulted in his garage this afternoon. He's okay but apparently made a trip to the hospital.

I don't want to say whether or not I have a gun, but I invite scumbags to stop by and find out.

Hardy Backer

We are back in remodeling mode. A guy I know from church is coming this week to install the heated floor in the bathroom. I still need to bring the floor level up so it matches the floor height in the hallway. To do this, I am installing quarter inch cement board (Hardy Backer) over the plywood sub-floor. This brings the level up and provides a great surface for tile adhesion...or in this case, heated floor adhesion topped by self leveling compound.

I have purchased special screws for the Hardy Backer. I'm screwing into the joists but also into the plywood.

As you can see from the picture, this floor isn't going anywhere. I've put down three pieces of Hardy Backer and used 200 screws.

It's been cloudy all day and the wind has been blowing off and on for while. It has been threatening to rain but nothing substantial has fallen.

We did have one three minute burst of rain and that little bit did seem to clean the sky. But then the wind came up and everything got hazy again. The picture above was taken right after the rain fell. It was the first and only time I saw blue sky in days.

Smokane

Since we returned from Iowa, the air in Spokane has been very hazy, a result of all the fires raging in the state.

We  really need some rain. The smoky conditions are pretty vast. We encountered smoke filled skies in Wyoming. It was smoky off and on through Montana as well.

Here is what it looked like on my way to work this morning.

And here is what it looks like in the neighborhood.

The Homecoming

We were shut out of Audio Books for the day because, as predicted, the i-pod was dead. So we had to spend our 10 hour drive actually talking to each other. When that didn't work, we started scanning the radio. We found some stuff to listen to but it was spotty, so we still had to talk to each other. I found out that Susan has blue eyes.

We stopped at the $50,000 Silver Bar but we didn't stay long. They have even more crap than they used to. But don't go there for a cowboy hat. They don't have them anymore.

We rolled into town about 4 and pulled up to a house that had been lived in by cats for the last week and a half. We unloaded the car and walked to the Hub. Priorities!

It seemed like the cats were happy to see us but it's hard to tell. They can be so needy.

In any event, it's great to be home and I like that we have an extra day to decompress.

Left Behind

We hit the road shortly before 8 AM and we were on our way. We started listening to a new audio book called "The Goldfinch". This book is almost as long as the one we just finished. We won't get to the end of it before we reach Spokane.

I have a tradition of leaving something behind whenever we stay with Phil and Margaret. We discussed it prior to leaving and I felt assured that I had everything. I even made a final sweep through the house. 

Towards the end of our driving day, I figured out what it was a I left behind. My charging cord for the i-Pod.

That meant we would probably not be able to hear the book the next day. Which turned out to be the case.

We drove about 700 miles and made our goal of Sheridan, Wyoming after about 12 hours of driving. We checked in to the Super 8 and unloaded our cargo. We had the joy and thrill of a KING SIZED BED. 

We then went in search of a nice little Sheridan bar and grill to have some dinner. We were looking for a bar the GPS suggested when we came upon the Wyoming Rib and Chop House. It looked just right and it was. 

It's amazing how much long drives take out of you. We were pretty tired.  I can't imagine crossing the prairie in a covered wagon and making maybe 12 miles a day.

I'm sure I would have been dead shortly after leaving St Louis.

Last Day

Today was our last full day in Iowa and the agenda was an easy one.

We slept in a little later. We went to Valley Junction for lunch and then I abandoned the ladies so they could shop and I could drop.

I had a nice relaxing afternoon involving some reading, some piano playing and some napping. Then I got talked into a game of miniature golf. Which I won!

We had a nice dinner back at the house and then went down to the Greenwood one last time to hear Neil play with the Soul Searchers. He had extra duty tonight because the bass player had to take his daughter to college. That means Neil played bass on the keyboard. 

We got out of there after their first set and returned home to one more night in the small bed.

The Tourists of Madison County.

Today's agenda: The Bridges of Madison County.

I must say that I loved the Bridges, and Madison County was my favorite county.

That's a line from a short-lived sitcom called "The Knights of Prosperity". Susan and I both laughed our asses off when we heard it but it appears it is funny only to us.

I made a comment about Madison County a couple of days ago and Margaret decided it would be an excellent addition to our itinerary.

We left the house about 11:00 and headed for a little winery called the...get ready for this...Madison County Winery. It took about 35 minutes to get there and it is in Madison County. And it is in the middle of nowhere. We met Phil and Neil there and enjoyed some wine tasting and some beer tasting. 

The beers were pretty good. Iowa wine is nothing to write home about. It's not that they are bad. They are just not that good. I would say that they are a little bit of okay!

From there, we drove another 20 minutes to Winterset, Iowa...the birthplace of Marion Morrison. Marion only lived there a few years before the whole family moved to California and he became John Wayne.

But the town is very proud that Marion's mom birthed him right there on John Wayne Drive, which happens to be the exact spot at which they built a John Wayne Museum. Talk about a coincidence!

After the museum, we set out on the real reason for our adventure; the discovery of covered bridges. We drove to a local city park where the Cutler-Donahoe Bridge, built in 1870, has been relocated.  Yes, they are all named. There are only about eight of them left and most of them have been moved from their original location.

Also in the park was a hedge maze. The height was just above my head so it was difficult to see over to find your way out. It wasn't really big so it wasn't really difficult. 

They also have what Susan and I refer to as a Thomas Kincaid Bridge.

The next interesting thing we found in the park was the Clark Tower. We had to drive a couple of miles through really dense Iowa forests to find this three story, stone castle.

These are the views from the top.

And just a few more pictures.

The bridge we had the most interest in was the Roseman Bridge. That is one that Margaret and Susan's Dad painted a lot. He didn't paint the actual bridge. He made paintings of the bridge.

There is a story that the bridge is haunted. Apparently, a criminal was tracked to the bridge and trapped there by posses on opposite sides of the bridge. Somehow he managed to escape but people have heard maniacal laughter that they attribute to his ghost.

We finished our visit by having a drink in a bar that was in the movie about the bridges starring Clint Howard and Merle Haggard. I'm going to double check those facts.

Then the half hour drive back to Des Moines and a fabulous home cooked Chicken Parmesan dinner.