Lazy Sunday & the L.L.L.B.

We received another half inch of snow last night. It seemed kind of a waste to pull out the snow blower except that I have so much ground to cover. I again did the side walk all the way up the block as well as part of the alley.

It's a cold crisp Sunday and everything is beautiful and wintery out. We are enjoying a lazy day around the house. Susan still wants to leave the Christmas decorations up for another week. I'm okay with that because it lends to my lazy Sunday. After the first of the year however, the Christmas lights need to be extinguished, lest the magic be dragged on into the new year and thereby diminished.

On Friday night I was going to pull out my cross country skis and tour the park. At about 6:30, I went out to my car to get my gloves and startled a Low Life Loser Bastidge trying to steal Susan's car. I heard something going on when I opened the door to go out and by the time I got to the driveway, the Low Life Loser Bastidge was high tailing it out of the area. I only saw his back so the only description I have is that he had a shaved head, wore an olive green colored coat, (it might have been something like an Army Jacket) and he could run really fast. I tried chasing him but in my cross country boots, I made it to the end of the driveway before I fell on my ass and the L.L.L.B. was already across the street and heading around the corner. Did I mention that he could run fast?

He had somehow unlocked the driver side door and was trying to pry the club off the steering wheel. There was no damage to the door so he got in with a master key or a slim jim or some such similar device.

I am a believer in Karma and so I know that this is going to come back and haunt this Effer. But I can't figure out what I have done in my past to merit Karma coming down on us in this way. Then again, if I sat down and really thought about it, I could come up with reasons.

The Low Life Loser Bastidge did a little damage to the steering wheel, peeling some of the rubber from around the rim. Susan went out and bought another steering wheel at the local wrecking yard yesterday so I am going to go out and try to figure out how to replace it.

In the meantime, this is the first of three days off. I am enjoying the time off immensely. There is football to watch and hot cider to drink and steering wheels to replace. I guess I had better get to it.

We GotZ Da Wint'a!

I grew up with a mother who always made it clear that there are certain thing you do not do in order to be thoughtful of your neighbors. It involves the 9:00 rule.

Basically, you do not do ANYTHING outside your house before 9:00 A.M. You do not show up at your best friends door on Saturday morning before 9:00 A.M. You do not call ANYONE on the phone before 9:00 A.M. You do not mow your lawn before 9:00 A.M..

And so, I felt guilt at 6:00 A.M. this morning when I fired up the snow blower to remove the night's droppings.

Ah, there she is. The Craftsman 26 inch Snow Devil Model 2400. Built just before the turn of the century, this machine offers the latest in 1999 snow removal technology. It comes to life with the push of a button with its electric starter. It has six forward speeds and two in reverse. The articulating swivel shoot allows for precise target delivery and placement of removed snow. I've added high performance spark plugs and a super high reflective 10,000 candle Halogen headlight to augment the quiet chaos the 5.0 H.P. Tecumseh engine can exact on the driveway.

I went all the way down the side walk on both sides of my corner. My next project is to figure out how to remove the snow while wearing my cross-country skis. I love this weather!

Back to the Real World

I got up at 5:00 A.M. to find that it had snowed about 3 inches over the night. It was snowing when we went to bed. The question I needed answered was how much.

Since it was still the crack of Oh-Dawn:30, I used my Super Shovel rather than break out the Snow Blower. That means I only did a rudimentary job of shoveling and I'll save the major clean up for tonight. Plus, it's still snowing so my area will require a good re-shoveling.

Now I'm at work and I have lots to do.

First, make coffee. Next, turn on all my equipment. After that, get a cup of coffee and then shovel the front walk a bit. It's still snowing as I mentioned so it won't do much good by the time everyone else starts showing up.

Then, delete the 500 junk e-mail messages I got over the past four days. Geez!!, there is a lot of crap out there. Is anyone really making money doing that?!

Well, after four fabulous Holiday filled days off, it's time to return to the Real World now.

Merry Christmas

It is just after four in the afternoon on what has been a great Christmas Day. We stayed in by ourselves, kept to ourselves and burned up former pieces of the house. Above you can see part of a post that was part of our wheel chair ramp.

Even though we have lived here for over three years, this is our first Christmas here at the house. We have always gone to Iowa to be with Susan's family. This year, we stayed put. I know Susan misses seeing her family but it was probably good that we stayed home considering the weather that has been pounding on the mid-west. Lots of ice storms, although I haven't heard any horror stories from Susan's sister.

We still have a dinner to eat at my sisters tonight and then it is back to the real world tomorrow. Fortunately, it's only for three days and then the weekend hits us again and more time off for New Years.

I like the concept of putting off reality as long as you can.

Christmas Eve

I came into work today to get a bit of a head start on my week. It's great being here when nobody else is. I bet I can get twice as much stuff accomplished as when there are people here.

I just wanted to post another Currier & Ives picture of the house. We had a great snow storm on Saturday that stopped just in time for a wonderful Winter Solstice Party. I wasn't sure many people were going to show up because of the slick conditions out. But we had a really good turn out.
A Winter Solstice Party involves standing around the fire and drinking your favorite beverages. My home brew was popular as was the Hot Buttered Rum.


Tonight we are going the the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist and then over to a Prime Rib dinner with family.


The moon is just past full tonight and it looks quite lovely as it lights up the Christmas Eve sky.


Here's hoping a Merry Christmas to all.

Random Thoughts

I've been having random thoughts here and there and I guess this is as good a place as any to share them.

The Holiday Season

It's coming down to the wire for the Christmas shopping and I still have lots of consuming to do. I have a good way of making my disorganization into a well organized mess. However, I am not stressed about it.

Susan...she's pretty organized. And she's pretty stressed. I'm not sure why but I imagine that part of it has to do with the fact that we are not going to Iowa this year for Christmas. It's the first time in a long time for her. Her family is steeped in Christmas Traditions and when a routine changes on you, like not being there, and you come from a family that is steeped in Christmas Traditions, I guess I can see some sadness and stress coming into play.

It's best for me to stay out of her way and do what she tells me. NOW!

The Inconvenience of Convenience

When I first got my car with the remote door lock feature, I thought I had found Nirvana. I was never good at locking my doors. In fact, I'm still not good at it. But this made it much easier to do. Plus, you have the cool short "doop-ta-doop" horn honk to let you AND EVERYONE ELSE AROUND know that you are cool . . . . . and secure.

Along with character defects like not locking doors when I should, I also drop keys. A lot! Consequently, the remote takes a lot of abuse. Now that the car is se7en years old, the cumulative abuse is taking its toll. I have had to break out the soldering iron more than once in the last few months.

My point is, on those occasions when the remotes doesn't work, I find it very annoying to have to go through the extra effort to take the key, insert it in the lock and MANUALLY unlock the car. It's a giant inconvenience to this previously orgasmic operation and I find it very stressful.

Stay out of my way, Susan!

Winter Solstice

Since we are home for Christmas, we decided to have a Solstice gathering. Well, I decided and told Susan about it. (Perhaps that is part of her stress)

Anyway, I wanted this to be a low key affair. I haven't told a lot of people and there were no invitations...just word of mouth. Saturday is a busy night for people so if we get light attendance, we don't care. We'll have homebrew and wine and some fires burning in the yard. We're not going crazy with food and snacks and stuff. At least , I don't think we are. Susan may have other plans. Those plans are stress dependant.

Tonight involvo's (intentional mis-spelling, no reason, just thought it was funny) cleaning the house to prepare for standing around fires burning in the yard.

This concludes my thoughts. I will now return to not thinking.

Carriage Ride

Sunday was the annual Corbin Park Carriage ride. This is the fourth one since we moved in and it was definitely the best one. The conditions were perfect. There was snow on the ground. It was cold but not too cold. Lots of houses were decorated for Christmas. The only issue Susan and I had was that nobody we invited showed up except for Good Ol' Reliable Mark.

Whether we had anybody show up or not...this was one of those nights that makes me glad I live here. It's a great neighborhood.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Even More Christmas Decorating

We are finally finished with the Christmas Decorating. Just in time too cuz now we gots ta get going on our Christmas Cards. We always do custom cards because it allows us to show off our creative side. Unfortunately, our procrastinating side often gets in the way of completing our cards in a timely fashion.
You can see how fabulous the living room looks with our eight foot tree and the festive electric train protecting it from cats. So far, the cats have not seemed too interested. Stay tuned to this blog for the earliest breaking developments when the cats do become interested.

The best thing about the tree is the smell. I love that rich natural scent of pine throughout the house. It smells just like one of those little pine tree car air fresheners...with needles.

Christmas Decorating Continues

Unless Global Warming kicks in BIG TIME in the next few days (which seems unlikely) we will have a nice snowy backdrop for the Annual Corbin Park Sleigh Ride this Sunday. Snow fell last night and more is expected today and tonight. It's more of a Carriage Ride than a Sleigh Ride. But Sleigh Ride sets the Christmasy Holiday theme.

I got up early this morning and did my neighborhood duty of clearing the sidewalks. It was too early (Dark:30 A.M.) for me feel comfortable about firing up the snow blower so I did the job with my Super Scoop shovel. It was a light fluffy snow so removing it was easy. And I can always use the exercise.

Christmas Decorating

Now that we are finished painting Holiday Windows we can concentrate on our house for some festive finery.

We received just a skiff of snow today. Not much but enough to make things look wintery. So here is a picture of the house all dressed up. It's nothing very fancy, but we like it. It looks especially classy from across the park.

Wishbone Protocol

Susan and I bought and cooked a turkey the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We went to my sister's for Turkey and had no turkey to enjoy for ourselves. We wanted to be able to enjoy our own turkey dinner, gravy, turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, and finally, our own wishbone.

After a suitable drying out period, we did the wishbone tradition. The question is, who wins with a wishbone as pictured above? Both sides broke in the same place. The only difference is that one side broke into two pieces.

We are in a quandry over this and don't know who gets his or her wish.

I havn't gone so far as to search the internet for official Wishbone Wishing Rules. I wonder if there is such a place.

Good News! There is such a place. I just googled "wishbone" and came across a site called Luckymojo.com. Here is an excerpt from it.

Once the merrythought (wishbone) is dry, it is given to two people (usually children), who pull it apart until it cracks and breaks, each one making a wish while doing so. The person who gets the "long half" of the wishbone will have his or her wish "come true." If the wishbone breaks evenly, both parties get their wishes. In some families it is said that the wish will only come true if it is not revelaed to anyone. (The belief that a wish must be kept secret to ensure its fulfillment also occurs in "first star" and birthday candle wishing rituals).

So, I am declaring that both Susan and I get our wish. I'm glad I was able to clear that up.

Victory Over Skywalks

We have reached our goal. The goal was to finish all the skywalks without dying. We are done...and we are not dead.

I find however, that I am a bit sad. It seems to me that I am just starting to hit my stride as far as painting these scenes go. The early ones were stiff and distorted. Last nights images went up smoothly and I really enjoyed the process and the results.

Here are the results.

It takes Susan about five minutes per snowflake, depending on how much detail she puts in. She has various styles of flakes that are all classified in her head. Cobweb, Outside Oval, and my favorite, the Offset Axis.

I did several of these rustic cabin landscape scenes but this one is one of my best. I managed to combine the rustic cabin with my pastoral Snow Framed River scene. I added the water wheel and turned the cabin into a Mill. I especially like the tree.

This is the first of my Sleigh Ride scenes were I included a woman sitting next to the man. You can see her head and bonnet next to the guys head. I have never been very good with female characters and so I have been reluctant to paint them. But, because I'm now hitting my stride, I decided to go for it. I may even ask her out. Don't tell Susan!

I am also not very good with animals but again, I am getting better. I really need to be drawing more and working on the house less. Yeah, like that's gonna happen

Anyway, here is a stag mixed into a lovely tree landscape. I think his snout is a little out of proportion. Fortunately, you don't have to be exact in this process. Once you put the antlers on his head, it becomes clear what it's supposed

to be. At least to me.

Susan was a little miffed at me because I took up some of her space with my ski pole. I HAD to do it. The scene lost all flow without it.

Again, this is one of my better depictions of skiers. It's clean, simple and it's clear what is.

Finally, I went with some Politically Incorrect humor with a Snow Hunter and Bear. I don't think anybody will have a problem with it but one never knows. It might scare little kids.

So, another season of window painting is behind us. We did end up getting another job which I'm going to start on tonight. It's a Wine Shop downtown and it won't take very long for us to get it done.

After that, I have some friends houses I'm going to do and then we will be able to get back to the house, and the bathroom. Remeber the bathroom?

One Skywalk to Go

We have been painting Christmas Windows for 12 days now and we have one skywalk left. We will be finished after tonight . . . maybe. It's possible we have a couple more to do, due to walk by traffic.

Susan got an early start last night and had two different people ask about having their places painted. One was a home and one was a business.

I'm going to check in with the business this afternoon and see what they want done. I drove past their store this morning and they have some pretty big windows. I guess we have to wait for the people with the home to call us.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from the City Hall Skywalk.

Okay, that's my stuff that I liked. Here is some of Susan's Snowflake work.

She really puts some detail into those snowflakes. And like the real ones, there are no two exactly alike. At least there are no two alike on any particular skywalk. There are similiar ones throughout the skywalks we have done and it's possible you could win $10,000.00 if you can find them.

Then again, it's possible you could win the Lottery too.

With the passing of Thanksgiving comes the painting of Holiday Windows on the downtown skywalks. Susan and I have been busy for a week now, spending every possible moment in chilly skywalks, making them look festive.

In order to keep it simple, everything is in white this year. Lots of sillouettes. Pictured above is one of my favorites. The first couple images that I painted similar to this were not quite as good as this. The subsequent images are getting better.

Pictured below is one of my least favorite images. I was trying something that didn't work. Give yourself ten points if you can figure it out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We experienced too much Holiday Cheer last night and slept in until 10:30. Then we went out and painted for a while. It was about 35 degrees out.

It's a busy time of year for us. Now that Thanksgiving is here, we have to take down our Christmas Decorations and get Valentine's Day up.

Are You Too Drunk to Read?

Rcneelty, I cmae aorcss an alrtcie taht skope of the wendros of the hmaun biarn and how it is albe to diphecer wrods eevn wehn tehy are all mxeid up...as lnog as the frsit and lsat lteetrs are in tiher poperr pisiton. Fkrnlay, I dno't bilevee it.

Bathroom Progress (or lack thereof)

Work has been slow on the bathroom of late. We are entering the busy Holiday Season and Susan and I will again be painting windows downtown. That means we will be very busy with that project and so the things like the bathroom project suffer.

I had to move the main light switches last night. I did not place them high enough to avoid the wanescoating going in on the wall. I will get the hole patched up tonight.

I think we are pretty close to tiling the shower. That is the last big thing to do and our last big expense on this project.

I think things are going well and it looks pretty good. I'll just be glad when I have an upstairs toilet back.

Leaf Day 2007

My Tecumsah 2000 Leaf Sucker is out of order. Not sure what happened but I believe that it has something to do with the safety interlock connection to the bag assembly. If that is not in place, the damn thing won't start. I think I can do a MacGyver style repair on it, but maybe I'll just take it in to the repair guy.

So we had to resort to manual labor and we are beat. Thankfully the leaves were dry and light so they were easy to load. But there were so many of them. I took three loads to the dump and I'm going to take one more tomorrow morning.

Back on June 18th, I wrote about power washing the deck and this wayward spacey guy named Brian who came by the house looking for odd jobs to earn a little money.

Today he showed up with his Fiance. They had just been evicted from their apartment up in Mead. He went through a lengthy soliloquy about their hard luck times. It essentially all came down to the fact that they hadn't paid their rent.

He initially showed up while I was on a dump run and Susan was raking in the yard. She told him he would have to wait for me to return. I saw him as I drove up the street and started wondering what was up. Susan told me he was looking for work and we decided we could have them rake a little. We would throw him some money and perhaps a bowl of Chili. We had a whole bunch left over from Halloween.

Anyway, Susan and I where busy loading leaves and we put Brian and the fiance to work in the backyard with a leaf blower and a couple of beers. The fiance didn't seemed very inclined to work and let Brian do everything.

We got the truck loaded and I had to get to the dump as it was approaching Closing time. I didn't want to leave Susan with Brian and the fiance still there. So, I told him I had to get going and he had done enough. I gave him $15.00 and two beers for about 45 minutes worth of leaf blowing...and a little raking.

So what have we learned here today? That I am a soft touch!

Halloween Rules

I have spent some time reflecting on our recent Halloween experience and I have decided that next year, we must post some rules.

The following is my preliminary list:
1) No Costume, No Candy
2) A Sweatshirt and a bandana is NOT a costume.
3) If you don't have a costume & you come up for candy, you better have a damn good reason.
4) Move it along! Take your Candy and Begone!
5) It's Halloween and we are trying to be spooky. If your little darling is too scared to come up and get FREE CANDY, don't get pissy with us!
6) When the lights are out, the Party is over!

I'll be adding to that, I'm sure.

Another Major Holiday in the History Books

With Halloween out of the way for another year, we can concentrate on getting back to the Bathroom project. Remember the Bathroom Project? It has been 112 days since we started.
I've been trying to do some little things here and there but I have been unsuccessful at making it happen. It is time to buckle down and put Phil to work.

So, Halloween has passed. We had well over 650 Trick or Treaters come by the house last night. We spent well over $150.00 on candy. But that was spread out over the year. I'll probably be buying my first box for next year during our next visit to Costco. The first 312 were full size Candy Bars, which ran out at 7:00. After that, we went to Fun Size and had about 400 pieces of that variety.

Susan and I both dressed up. She was a witch and I was a skeleton. I would stand motionless out in the yard and scare the unsuspecting little urchins. It was great fun.

The best comment of the night I heard was one kid who probably got a full size candy bar. He and his friend were leaving the house and he said, "Wow! These guys must be RICH!"

No, kid! Not rich. Just stupid! And, I Loooooooove Halloween!

We finally quit about 8:30. For the first time we ran out of kids before we ran out of candy.

Ancient Egyptian Stone Moving

Now that we have removed the wheelchair ramp from around the deck, I have several footings in the yard that I want to dig up and remove. I started with the most obvious and dangerous one. It had a bent up post mounting that was easy to trip on.

So, one day some time back, I started digging away the dirt that surrounded this big block of cement. I ended up digging about two feet down around this thing before it even started to wiggle loose.
Once I had it uncovered and moving, I couldn't figure out how to get it out of the hole. It is one large Mofo piece of cement. I have no idea how much it weighs but I'll guess it's more than I'm able to lift by about 273 pounds. As such, it has sat out there in its hole for a couple of months.

I finally got tired of it sitting there and went to work on the project today. I decided to employ a complicated method of pulley and fulcrum use...but without the pulleys.

So I took this beat up old piece of 2x4 and used it as a leaver. I lifted one side of the cement block and tossed a block of wood under it. Then I lifted the other side and threw a block under there.
By going back and forth with the leaver and adding more and more blocks of wood under it, I was slowly lifting it up out of the hole until I was able to just roll it away from the hole.

I was pretty pleased with me for figuring out how to return to the ancient ways and move my Block O'SeeMent. I think I would have been a good Egyptian Slave. Perhaps I was in another life.

More Raking

I have very little to report concerning the progress on the bathroom. With Halloween approaching, work has been directed to and around the house.

I spent about an hour last night with my Leaf Shredder 2000 cleaning up the front yard. I figure that if I go out every couple of days and get all the leaves that have fallen, I will keep ahead of the game and not end up spending an entire dreary Sunday raking my arms off.

We have completed the tombstones. They look pretty good. Here is picture of them set up in the living room. There are a total of ten. They feature cleverly ghoulish names like Rigg R. Mortis, Manny Wurmfude and Frank N. Stein.

During my raking last night, I took a short break to look for some garbage bags. I went up into the upstairs portion of the Carriage House and turned on my CB Radio that I have up there. In Spokane, Channel One is where all the activity is. I have found that there is pretty much the same group of people on there every day. There is one guy in particular whose handle is "Pipe Layer". I get the impression that he is an Electrician. On the CB, he is nothing but a Bully. He is constantly telling people that he will kick their ass and is always trying to goad someone into a fight. Last night, Pipe Layer and another guy who goes by the handle of Laser Beam, were picking on a guy named Bob. They refuse to give anyone the respect of calling them by their handle. Once they find out your name, that's all they use.

I don't even know why they were pissed at Bob. But they just kept on calling him a dumbass and a Mama's boy and many other colorful names. I don't think it matters what the consternation is over. They just want to fight. That is a mentality that I have no understanding of. I don't think I have been in a fight since grade school. I think it is safe to say that if Mr. Pipe Layer and I ever met, he would kick my ass.

Anyway, I was sitting there listening to this for about ten minutes and I was starting to get pissed off. It was from the accumulation of listening to Mr. Pipe. I wanted to join in to the conversation and tell theses guys what losers they are.

Then I got to thinking if this was a field I wanted to play on. I mean, I have nothing in common with this collection of Spokane's Finest White Trash. Why should I engage them?! And so I turned it off and went back to leaf shredding. I think my time was better spent.

Weekend Get Away

Since we had our third wedding anniversary last week, Susan and I decided to get out of town for a night to celebrate. We didn't want to drive for a long time so we headed East and North into Bonners Ferry, Idaho. We stayed at a nice little motel called the Log Inn. As you might imagine, it was made of logs.

We didn't do anything special other than get out of town. It was a great weekend and now I'm ready to face another week.

Like a I had a choice.

Construction@Work

I can't seem to get away from remodeling construction.

We started a big re-model job on the Art Department (my Department) at work. We have been slowly moving away from creating film in our own darkroom, a technology that now seems so 1950's.

So, we are opening up the Dark Room and using the space for our Production Area. This means we will operate the many varieties of graphic equipment in that area. That will free up a bunch of space in the main office, which will better allow for the creative flow and ideas, designs and creative flow.
The problem with this construction is that is being done by MY contractor, Phil. So while he is working on this, he is not working on my bathroom. I need to be doing some stuff on my own on this bathroom project so it's probably for the best.

Bathroom Progress

Well, we are cruising along in the bathroom but slowly. The latest development is that I installed all the light fixtures. That will probably end up being a mistake since we still have painting and sanding and stuff to do in there. But what the Hell...it looks fabulous!

So those are the before and after pictures of the lights in the area of the vanity. A medicine cabinet of some type will adorn the wall between the two lights.
And here is the B&A pictures of the main light. You will also note the fan cleanly mounted in the wall, where it harmlessly vents into the open attic. In 100 years, the rot from the moisture up there will cause the roof to collapse.

Productive Sunday

Wow! What a day as far as the weather goes! It was very nice out today. It was probably in the 70's which is very unseasonable. I'm not complaining. I got some yard work done and Susan painted some tombstones.

That last comment probably needs some clarification. Susan has been making tombstones out of blocks of styrofoam for a couple of weeks now. Today she painted them. Pictures below. The purpose of the tombstones is of course to adorn the yard for Halloween.

I was out with my Leaf Vacuum. It's the Tecumsah 5 1/2 H.P. Leaf Shredder 2000. I bought it a couple of years ago at a yard sale. It works great but only under certain conditions. Wet leaves are a lost cause with this thing. It just won't suck um up. And it jams pretty easily if you take on too many leaves.

It worked perfectly today. You can see the swath of leaves I sucked up already. I think it is easier than raking...although I may have to get out and do it more.

The one weak link with this machine is when it comes to unloading the leaves. I finally figured out that the best way to empty the bag was to roll the thing up on a tarp and then scoop out all the debris onto the tarp. Then I take up the tarp and dump it into a garbage bag. It's a bit of a pain but it's still better than raking!

We also attending a Home Ideas Show which didn't really give us any ideas. Besides, we are still dealing with the ideas we already have.

Heat! finally

I'm not sure that I wrote about the following subject before. At the time that it all occurred, I wasn't very pleased with myself concerning this whole affair. That is most likely the reason I left it out.

I have a ceramic wall heater in the bathroom. That is the main source of heat since I removed the radiator. I wanted to connect the heater to a programmable digital thermostat. In that way, I could have the heat come on in the morning automatically and have the room nice and toasty when we go in for a shower.

So I went to "The Depot" and bought the heater and the thermostat. I followed the instructions and got it all wired up. I hit the breaker to turn on the power and went upstairs. I immediately noticed this burning smell before I even entered the bathroom. I knelt down to the heater and couldn't see any problems there. I stood up and caught a glimpse of smoke streaming from the thermostat.

I tore down to the basement as fast as I could to shut off the breaker but by then, the damage was done. The thermostat was FRIED!

What bothers me most about this incident is that I should have figured it out before I ruined a $50.00 thermostat. I knew in the back of my head that I was putting too much voltage through it. That information never managed to make it to the front of my head.

Anyway, yesterday I returned to "The Depot" and scrutinized the collection of thermostats they had on hand. I finally found one that would take the 120 volts. I found it, bought it, wired it, and with trepidation, powered it up.

Fortunately for my checkbook, it worked. So another hurdle has been crossed as we continue toward the far off finish line of completing the upstairs bathroom.

Just as a reminder, we started the bathroom remodel on July 10th. Today is October 10th. That's three months...or a month and a half longer than I was hoping. But of course, I am not surprised.

A Floor, Part One

Phil started tiling the bathroom floor while we were gone for the weekend. We returned to this stunning sight. We hope to get this done quickly so we can re-install the toilet and end the long long nightmare of midnight dalliances down the stairs to Evacuation Town.

California Dreamin'

Along with our friend Mark, Susan and I have spent the last three days in San Francisquin, Cauli-Fornia. We flew down to attend the 35th Annual San Francisco Blues Festival. I took over 150 pictures while there and so I have decided to limit myself to only one here for the blog.

And this is it! It's not a great picture but if I had to produce one to portray our weekend, this would be it.

We took it while Sailing on Friday. We stayed with my childhood buddy, Arnie. He conveniently lives in San Fran with his wife Hayley and his daughter, the Princess Rebecca.

Arnie is one of four or five partners in a 30 foot Newport. He was gracious enough to take us out on the Bay for about five hours. We took some lunch and sailed in a big circle around the bay. It was great!

We also ate at several fabulous dining establishments, drank at some seedy Watering Holes, and partied like it's September.

On Saturday and Sunday, we attended the Blues Fest at Fort Mason Park and heard band after band of great Bluemanship. We also drank, ate, and came home with an incredible contact high from all the Marijuana going up in smoke during the event.

I have a bunch a good pictures of just bizarre San Francisco people. We could have had more if we had time to attend the Folsom Street Leather Fair. Many of those pictures would have had a Triple X Rating attached to them.

We are home now and back to reality. that means that it is time to turn on the gas and fire up the boiler. So...for those of you who had October First in the betting...you win. Hey, I had October First. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Ha Suckas!

Well, to apease your hearts and soothe your troubled minds, I have provided this warming photograph of the boiler just after it was fired up today. Enjoy!

Day 74ish

Here are a couple of images to show the progress on the bathroom. Remember the bathroom. We started on it a while back (July 10th) and it is almost a month past it's finish date...and counting. No problem! I'm confident we will be in it soon. We are getting to the part where everything starts to take shape. Below is a set of before and now pictures of the shower. As the drywalling continues, you can start to get a sense of how it will look.Next is a shot looking into the bathroom from the hallway. Eventually, there will be a toilet there by the window. And that red wire hanging out of the wall is for the thermostat that will control the wall heater...providing I can figure out how to wire it. So far, it eludes me.

Sunday Special Project

Susan has been upset with the state of affairs in the basement for quite some time. So she scheduled today for the re-organizational disembowelment. It was quite a mess and well over due for a cleansing. The area where I keep all my wine and beer making stuff was particularly cluttered. One of the painful but necessary jobs I had to do today was dump a bunch of bottles of wine.Specifically, we had 13 bottles of Homemade Rhubarb wine from 2003. Homemade wine does not have any preservatives in it and therefore, it is not the type of thing that you put away for a long time. Two years is about the limit. We tried opening a bottle earlier this summer and it was clear that it was no good. At one time, it was a delightfully sweet little white wine. But that was about two years ago.

As we cleaned further, I found some bottles on the bottom of the wine rack that had no labels. I assumed they were Beet Wine, part of a failed experiment were I learned that you do not make wine from beets.

There were four of these unlabeled suspect bottles but when I opened the first one, I discovered it was not beet wine. I think it was Huckleberry from about three years ago. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't worth saving.

We managed to get the whole basement back to a state that Susan could live with. I was able to live with it as it was, but I must admit that this is much better. I don't have to climb over crap and I have a better idea where most of my tools are.

New Camera

I gave in and purchased a new camera. I decided to stay true to my roots and what I know and bought a Canon. I have always had luck with Canon and they accept the abuse I subject them too.

I just looked back and found that I bought my previous camera, the generally unimpressive Kodak EasyShare 340C last September 19th. It lasted me a year and cost about the same as this Canon, if you include the rechargeable batteries I kept buying for it.

I really don't know much about this new Camera yet. I was able to use the same SD Media card I used in my old Kodak but was unable to use the rechargeable battery pack. It looks like I'll have to buy a set of individual rechargeable batteries and go that route.

Anyway, I'm back in the camera world, and that makes me happy!

Countdown to the Furnace

I woke up this morning and it was 41 degrees outside and 61 degrees inside. I moved the heater into the bathroom so it would be warm in there when Susan got up. I have not yet turned on the furnace.

As long as the house maintains a temperature of around 60, I don't think I'll need to turn it on. Sixty is the temperature I plan to keep the furnace at. I'll probably up it 65 as it gets colder.

But for now, we are quite comfy with the space heaters going in the kitchen. That is where we seem to spend our evenings.

It makes sense to heat only the areas we occupy and these heaters we bought are much more efficient than the furnace. In fact, they are much more efficient than your garden variety space heater. They better be for what we paid for them.

The upstairs bathroom remodel is progressing. Dry wall is going up. We should have all the dry walling completed by this weekend. Then we need to purchase our wainscoating supplies and tile for the shower. I also need to buy a small window for the shower too.

Pressure Test

I spent last night working on our Central Heating System. I capped the pipes I cut and filled the system with water.

As you will recall, the pipes are part of the heating system in the house, which is a gas fired boiler attached to a network of radiators. I cut the pipes that used to feed the radiator in the upstairs bathroom because we removed that radiator. In its place, I installed an electric wall heater with a programmable thermostat. That way, we can set the thermostat to turn on the heat at 5:30 AM and the bathroom will be all warmed up when we go in to use it.

We are trying to get away from using the main furnace as much as possible. We will use it to keep the house at 60 degrees, thereby preventing the pipes from freezing. We will use our various space heaters to heat the rooms we actually occupy. The hope is that we can avoid the $400.00 a month heating bills we got last winter.

So, I capped the pipes in the basement where I cut them. I used these plastic fittings that snugged over the pipe end and then sinched down around a rubber sleeve as they are tightened. So far, they are working fine. I filled the system with water and there are no leaks coming from the caps.

The next test will be when I turn on the gas and actually heat the system up. Then I will find out how well these PVC fittings work.

I would like to add that we are now up to September 20th without the main heat turned on. I am hoping to make it to the end of the month.

Wiring and Respect

Last night was Wiring Night. I'm getting pretty good at it. I wired a light in the shower and I did it without turning off the juice.

Don't think I'm getting cocky. I still respect electricity.

But sometimes, it's worth the risk to get a little shock rather than crawl down from the attic, go all the way down to the basement, turn off the breaker, go all the way back up the stairs, crawl back into the attic only to discover that I turned off the wrong breaker.

The light in the shower turned out to be an essential item. It's pretty dark in there without the light. I have left a opening on the end by the windows to allow some natural light into the shower but it is nowhere near enough. I will of course, be closing it in with glass.

It does appear that my camera is toast. I thought that perhaps I was having a problem with my battery charging properly. But I re-charged it and that didn't make the camera come on. I tried brand new Energizer batteries and that didn't make the camera come on.

This is particularly distressing to me as I really need my camera. We are going on a trip soon and I need to be able to record the event in pictures. I would hate to have to resort to my 35mm camera. It's not that I mind the camera. I have a great old Canon SLR. I mind missing the instant gratification that comes with the digital age. Plus the savings from the film processor.

I would also like to add that the furnace is still off. It's getting chillier in the morning but we are making due with area heaters. So we are now five days past last years record...and counting!

Done Deck Deal

We officially closed the Deck Painting Debacle on Sunday. As you can see from the picture, we done good!
If you go back and look at my post from June 18th, you can see what we started with and how much we have done to get it to this point. That's the main reason I started blogging. Now I have a place to keep a record of stuff we do and when we do it.
These may very well be the last pictures that I post for a while because my camera seems to have gone tits up. I guess I have to start looking for a new and more durable one. I only spent about $100.00 on this little Kodak thing. The lens won't pop out when I turn it on. I'm quite certain it is not worth the money to take it somewhere and have it fixed. What a throw away society I am.

The Busy Weekend of Many Activities

We have made it one day beyond last years record for keeping the heat turned off. The weather does not appear to indicate that it will be cooling off dramatically soon. That is good news for us as the longer the furnace is powered down, the more money we have to spend on beer.

I did preform a winterizing chore today. I removed the air conditioner from the window in the Master Bedroom. I used it one night last week but didn't really have to. Before that, it had been weeks since we had used it.

We are closing in on being finished with painting the deck. Susan did some work today and I did a little work this evening after returning home from working at the bar. Tomorrow, I hope to wrap the whole project up. Plus, we'll be working on the bathroom.

Finally, I have one project remaining to preform before I can power up the furnace. I have to cap off those pipes that used to go to the upstairs bathroom radiator.

I decided I would feel much better if the pipes were capped off in the basement where there is access to them, rather than under the bathroom floor were there is none. The pipes are cut but I have some issues with removing the elbow joints so I can use existing threading to cap the pipes. The issues involve not being able to remove the elbow joints. They are screwed down very solidly. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by pipes that are still solidly connected after 98 years.

If I am unable to remove those joints, I have to use this semi-funky system of PVC connections that will cap off the pipe but look like they have tremendous potential to not seal properly.

I guess I'll have to see what I end up with and then I can provide pictures which will describe it better than I have here.

The Return of the Heating Game

Last year about this time, we began an informal contest to see how long we could go before we had to fire up the boiler and turn on the heat. We only lasted until September 14th. I have much greater faith in our ability to undure further into the approach of Autumn. Not because it is staying warmer this year. And not because we have developed thicker skins.

No, this year the difference is a network of regionalized space heaters that will allow us to heat just the areas we occupy rather than the whole 2,800 square feet of the house. We are hoping that this will substantially drop the gas portion of our heating bill, which can go as high as $300.00 in December or January.

I should add that it got down to 36.4 degrees at 3.41AM. Also, I had to turn on the heat in my car on the drive to work this morning.

Moving on now to Spokane Interstate Fair News, Susan and I can now claim that the wine
coming out of the Waverly Place Winery are "Award Winning Wines".

I was totally amazed to walk into the Beer & Wine Booths at the fair yesterday to discover that both our entries had won Third Place Ribbons.

It is the first time we have entered beer and/or wine in the fair so I was not expecting anything. Especially since I was not thrilled with my beer and the wine is just barely in the bottle.

However, I must assume that all the Judges are Professional Wine Drinkers and their decisions must be respected.
Here is a shot looking towards the Midway as the sun sets on a wonderful Sunday at the fair. We had a Fair Time and I got to eat all kinds of unhealthy fair food like Corn Dogs, Elephant Ears, and Greasy Blocks O'Fries.

Oh, by the way, we have not finished painting.

The Terrible Conflict

On Saturday's, I work at a local bar from 8:00 AM to 5:00PM. We serve breakfast and get a fair crowd in for that. Now that Football has returned, we are much busier for lunch and then throughout the afternoon. At least, that was the case today. We were slammed pretty much all day. I am quite tuckered out at this point and don't really feel like going out on the deck to paint. I only have about another half hour of good light with which to paint with remaining.

Susan was not able to finish today. She came close but there is still about two hours of painting to complete the job. Well, it's not getting done by me tonight.

And yet, I feel guilty and conflicted that I should be doing some painting out there.

I think instead, I will do some work on the bathroom. I don't need the sunlight to accomplish that and it will salve my guilt.

Painting goes On and On and On and On and...

We are still painting! We have been out every night after work this week getting in as much painting as light allows. We don't have far to go. Susan should be able to finish up on Saturday and then after I get off from Bartending, I'll go over everything for some touch up.

It really is a tedious job. Getting paint into all the nooks and cranny's of a railing is drudgery at its finest. Add to that all the arbors up above, and there is a lot to paint.

In the meantime, we haven't done ANYTHING to the bathroom this week. I am going to try and get the radiator pipes capped off tonight. If that goes smoothly and there are no leaks, then I can finish the sub-floor. Then we can get to work on the shower and then the tiling which will hopefully then be followed by the end of waking up in the middle of the night and going allllllll the waaaaay downstairs to use the toilet.

We will be going to the fair on Sunday so stand by for pictures and results of our entries into the Beer and Wine Judging.

Finally, I would like to add that my Weather Machine is now fully operational. I had to wait for a mounting shelf for the rain gauge. It came the other day and I finally got it installed on my Weather Machine Mast last night.

I have been poking around the Internet for like-minded Weather Junkies such as myself. I am gratified to discover that I only have a minor Weather Fetish as compared to others. There is a whole network of people who have Weather Machines like mine that are perpetually connected to their computer and delivering their local Weather Machine info to anyone who wants (or needs) it via the World Wide Web.

In fact, thanks to this kind of information, I can tell you that it is currently 76 degrees out and the wind is out of the South Southwest at 1mph. Furthermore, the Humidy is at 25%, the Dew Point is at 38 degreesand the Barometer is at 29.88 inches and steady.

That's the News and Weather together from RadioBlog KSJB. Film at Eleven!

On Schedule to be Late!

As I was working out in my head what I was going to write in today's blog, I fully expected to talk about how sore I was from the previous days' activity. I was writhing in Soreness ALL NIGHT LONG. I had no idea how I was going to get up and do all the stuff we had planned to accomplish.

But I got out of bed about 8:00 and started doing stuff to get ready for the day, and the soreness kind of went away. Besides, I'm not one to complain. (10.5 on the Sarcasometer)

We did okay today even though we are light years away from completing this project by tomorrow. I don't really care. It was a nice day to be outside, we were working on the house and we were progressing towards the completion of a worthy goal. Besides, the only real issue with getting the painting done is whether or not it is going to rain. By tomorrow, that won't be an issue for us because we will have painted all the critical areas that might be setback if it rained.

The Great Under-Estimater

It is Day One of the Labra Dor Weekend and we are about two-thirds of the way through the prep work on the deck. We got a late start, around 10:30 or 11:00 and sanded and scraped until 4:00. The prep work sucks! It seems to take forever. But we had a nice time doing it, drinking an occassional beer and listening to the Washington State Cougars as they lost their first game of the season. I am still holding out hope that we can finish this project by Monday.

Tonight, we are riding our bikes downtown to enjoy "Pigout in the Park". There are a bunch of restaurants with booths set up in the park as well as a multitude of Bands to listen to and many Perveyors of Assorted Crap.

End of Summer

Well, here it is. The start of another long weekend. I always find this particular Holiday Weekend a bit lugubrious as it signals the end of Summer. However, now that I have been out of school for 30-some years, it doesn't have quite the same impact. At any rate, have a Happy Labra Dor!

We will not be working on the bathroom. We will be painting the deck. It needs it BAD! We bought the paint the other day and now we are ready to rock. There will be some scraping and some sanding but for the most part, we will be ready to roll in the morning and I expect to have it complete by Sunday.

There are lots of events we want to take in this weekend as well as completing some work on the house. There is "Pigout in the Park" downtown and the annual Labra Dor Concert in Comstock Park on Monday. Aside from those events, there will be sleeping in for three days in a row. That will be great!

Finally, I would like to announce the arrival of my latest toy. It's the Oregon Scientific Mega Weather Station 3000. It keeps track of indoor and outdoor temperatures as well a Relative Humidity, Wind Speed and Direction, and Rainfall. I will be mounting the mast for all the components on the roof tonight. I still haven't figured out where to put the actual unit itself. Susan has definate opinions concerning where it will NOT go...which severly limits the choices.

Last night the Unit was saying it was going to rain. The forecasts on TV were talking about scattered storms with lightning but they did not really say much about rain. I told Susan about the impending rainfall and she wasn't very impressed with the accuracy of my new toy. She was singing a different tune this morning when she got up and saw it had indeed rained.

I'll be looking forward to all the information I'll be getting. I think maybe I should start a low wattage Corbin Park Radio Station where I can broadcast all the local news AND weather. Radio Station KCP, or KWAV, or KBRK, or KSJB. I always liked KRAP for call letters.

LATER THAT SAME DAY: The clouds were pretty ominous looking on my drive home and all the Weather Forecasters were going nuts with a Severe Storm Warning for the early evening. I managed to get my mast up for my Weather Machine Components before all hell broke loose. Frankly, not much occured here at the house. Other parts of town got wind and hail and lightning and rain. At left is a picture from up on the roof looking west with my new anometer in the foreground. There was a little lightning so I was glad to get off the roof under my own power. The wind gauge worked great and I recorded some excellent gusts of wind...some reaching speeds of more than 10 mph.