Last Blog of 2010

Happy New Year!

We have decided to take New Years on the road so we are leaving shortly for Wallace, Idaho. It's about an hour and half drive on a lovely four lane freeway so it's really a breeze. We are going to spend the night in Wallace and ring in the new year there.

We will arise on January First, bright eyed and not hungover at all, and enjoy a day of skiing at Lookout Pass.

We should be working on the house, but there's plenty of time for that in Twenty-Eleven.

Last Snowstorm of Twenty-Ten

I got home last after about an hour on the road that would normally have taken about 20 minutes. After getting cats fed and beer open, I set about the task of snow blowing. At first I thought we had gotten about four inches but that was under a tree. When I got out into the middle of the driveway, there was easily se7en inches.

I had to narrow the swath of blowing destruction and slow the blower down a couple of gears so it took a little longer than normal. I think I was out there for two hours. But in the end, I was victorious and had a lot of snow replaced. I did a good portion of the street too.

The city announced they laid off six or seven employees on Christmas day (Merry Christmas, see ya later) and that meant snow plowing was going to take longer. I do not try to depend on the city for this kind of thing and so I took care of it. My little corner of the neighborhood, plus the sidewalks around the block, plus the alley are in good shape.

Here are some pictures.

Another thing I had to deal with last night was the Arbor Vitae. As I said, this was heavy snow and heavy snow is bad for tall shrubbery. Here's a picture of the Arbor Vitae after I had banged off about half of them.

Next, here is a picture to give a good depiction of the amount of snow we got since this morning.

Okay, that's it for me. I'm going in to enjoy an evening of television.

Hey! How's come the TV don't work!?!

Snow Day

I awoke to two wet, heavy, sloppy inches of snow and more coming down. I shoveled the area out to the cars and brushed the snow off our vehicles. There was no sense to snow blow since more is coming. I hate to leave my area un-blown throughout the day but sometimes you just have to accept your limitations.

The drive to work was fun this morning. It's the Holiday Season so traffic is a touch lighter than normal. But this heavy snow creates these really slushy berms in between lanes on the freeway and they can be a bit dicey when changing lanes.

1:30PM - The snow is still falling. It's still pretty wet. By now, I would guess we are looking at five inches on the ground...and it's still coming. It's gonna be some fun snow blowing when I get home.

I guess I had better realize that the forecasters that I deride so often have it right this time. The more in depth forecast says that it is going to get very cold in the next few days. So all this wet white snow is going to harden up soon and really be a bitch to deal with. I'll be doing a complete blow job tonight when I get home. Pictures to follow!

Iowa 27 Missou 24

We have cats! Four of em. They are a wonderful addition to our lives, bringing joy and adventure to everything they do. -Or- They are over fed barfing balls of fur that totally complicate everything we do. Pick your favorite.

I got home tonight and my first job is to feed the cats. Their first job is to remind me of my first job. They are usually all there waiting for their dish to be presented. Tonight, Oscar was nowhere to be found. I called him from the front and back door. It was raining pretty hard so I figured he would be along anon.

Susan came in and asked if Oscar was at the door when I got home. I said I hadn't seen him yet and we began the search. A cat not showing up at dinner time is cause for concern.

My go to search spot for Oscar is under the front porch. I shined a flashlight under there and voila!...there he was. He didn't appear to be interested in coming in.

Well, eventually, I pulled the lattice of the side of the porch and crawled under there to flush him out. Remarkably, he let me grab him and carry him out. I thought maybe he was injured but that turned out to be untrue.

We think something freaked him out and scared him under there. I think it was the rain.

The forecasters are going crazy telling us that there is snow a-comin. Well, it is 10:45 PM and the temperature here at the house is 37 degrees. It is cooling and the rain is coming down pretty hard right now so I'm thinking they may be correct. Or, they may be covering their asses...which I think is more likely. I'm going to bed now and we'll see what the story is in the morning.

Iowa beat Missouri in the Insight Bowl tonight. Susan is pleased.

Holiday Hangover

I would like to say I'm hungover but I think I'm still drunk. Had a bit to drink last night. Thankfully, I got to bed early. Well, early-ish! Well, before midnight...I think!

Here are a few pictures from the evening.

It has occurred to me that this picture has nothing to do with what we did last night. But it is a good depiction of our open house party.

Open House Flop

If you were one of the few people that attended our After Christmas Open House Party, then none of this is directed at you. If you didn't attend our After Christmas Open House...what the Fuck!

Okay that's all I'll say.


The people that attended our Open House Event were Mark, Mike, Gary, Kim, Lee, Sue, Ted and Ted's Friend whose name I can't remember. That is out of about 25 people we invited. We do not feel slighted by this lack of attendance. We didn't do a very good job of getting the word out or of insuring that those we invited might attend. You know...the whole RSVP thing.

The unfortunate thing is that Susan worked her ass off to prepare for the party and she wasn't feeling all that great as she prepared. I tried my best to help but I have found it's best to keep out of her way and just do as she says.

I think the timing worked against us. It was the end of a long holiday weekend and I think people were tired of being festive.

For me, I'm glad it's behind us and I wish I didn't have this hangover that I'm going to have in the morning.

Merry Christmas 2010

We have made it to Christmas. I'm glad it's here and almost in the history books. It has become a very stressful time of year and that stress is all self inflicted. Both Susan and I do stupid things to add to the stress. I swear to the Lord on high, I'm going to start buying Christmas gifts NOW. When I see something that makes me think that would be good for (Fill in the name), I'm going to buy it...even if I buy it on December 26th.

The only problem with that is I will lose it before Christmas comes around again.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve day. Susan slept in and I woke up early and puttered around the various shopping emporiums until I had filled my bucket with the appropriate gifts.

At noon we went to church and followed that up by touring the Campbell House. It's a local turn of the century mansion that belongs to the museum. They decorate it up for Christmas and I thought it would be fun to go see it. We even coaxed our pastor and his wife to join us.

It's a very impressive house and it has been expertly restored.

We made it back home by three and lolled about until it was time to go to dinner. We attended the traditional family Christmas Eve Feast and had a great time and enjoyed a fabulous Prime Rib.

Just as we were preparing to head out the door, my friend Mike from Bellingham called and announced he was coming to town. We had spoke to him earlier in the week and he asked then if we could put him up. I said of course and he said he would let us know if he was coming.

We hadn't heard from him so we decided he probably wasn't coming. The late notice was no big deal other than making sure he got into the house okay with us gone.

Susan has been affected by her boss and caught his cold. She has been feeling crappy all day. We have pretty much taken it easy except that now she wants to prepare for our open house event we are having tomorrow. That means cleaning, cooking and ordering me about.

All in all, a good Christmas!

Welcome Solstice

I know I noted it in the last post, but yesterday, I totally forgot about the arrival of the Solstice. It wasn't until late in the evening that it even occurred to me.

This doesn't seem like the kind of earth shattering news that would elevate its status to blog worthiness. But I'm trying to beat my record for posts. I need six more posts to tie my record.

I didn't want to just make a post with irrelevant content (like this) just to beat my record. I don't think that is proper and it would be a hollow victory.

So I would also like to add that, true to form, I have bought practically nothing for anyone on my Christmas list. I know what I want to buy. I just haven't gotten around to the pain in the ass process of buying it.

There! Now this is a post worthy of...a hollow victory.

Mo Sno

Another couple of inches of snow over the night. I would estimate we have aboutthree to four inches on the ground right now. It's still snowing as I write this so we'll see what it brings when it's all over.

Here's a scene of the street this morning at about 6:30 as I was trying to clear a little snow before venturing out to work. I'll finish up tonight when I get home.

I should also like to point out that the Winter Solstice is upon us. Finally, the season matches the weather.

Why Would You Live Here

If you didn't like snow, why would you live here?!

The snow has returned. About two inches fell today and I broke out the snow blower tonight and made it go away, only to have it start snowing again. They are saying three to six inches. If more is to come, I'm two inches ahead of it.

It can take a good hour to cover my snow blowing terrain and I broke it down in segments tonight. You have lots of time with your thoughts when you're doing snow removal.

It takes me about 20 minutes to clear the driveway and the alley. I go about a third of the way down the alley. Then I do the southern portion of the sidewalk on the block. that takes about 10 minutes. Then I finish up with the northern portion which takes about 15 minutes.

This can take longer or shorter depending on the snow fall.

So, there is my breakdown of the snow blowing procedure. What could be more interesting?

Almost anything?

Mickey Mouse Electrical Engineering

I fixed the shower light last night but I'm not happy with the method I used. I simply attached some pigtails to the wires already in the can and connected the pigtails to the socket. It works but I don't think it's a permanent solution.

I am looking on-line at DIY.com to see what the specs are for a shower light. There is no danger of electrocution...in my humble unprofessional uninformed opinion...but I want to make my opinnion less humble, more professional, and more informed.

All our many inches of fabulous pre-season snow is gone. It rained a quarter of an inch on Monday and that pretty much washed away what little snow was left. I guess I'm ready for the next round.

Remodeled Shower Issue

About a month ago, the light in our two year old remodeled shower starting flashing off and on. It was intermittent and would be on, then go off for 30 seconds to a minute, then back on. Last week, it pretty much stayed off.

I haven't had a chance to look at it because of our painting schedule so I tore into it tonight. Now I clearly remember purchasing a light can that is made to go in a shower. When I opened it up, there was a lot of rust falling out of the can. The black wire attached from the light socket to a little relay mounted in the can had corroded loose. This is not a wire I had anything to do with while wiring the light so I am emphatically claiming this is not my fault. I believe I bought a cheap piece of Chinese shit. And THAT, is my fault!

I looked back through the blog to try and find out what I wrote about this light and it's installation and perhaps some pictures.

I learned a lot during my search. I was reminded that I walked out of the house to discover some ass wipe trying to steal Susan's car one late December night in 2007. I learned that the camera I replaced last month lasted me just over three years. I learned I have a lot more misspelled words in this thing that I like. And I learned I installed the shower light on December 19th, 2007. I did not say much about it that was helpful to my current problem and there were no pictures because my camera had broken and I complained about having to buy another.

So in this case, the Blog was not helpful. More my fault than the Blog's.

So we will not be using the shower for a couple of days while I fix this problem.You will note on the picture below that the black wire comes into the can on the left and attaches to the little metal block in the center. There is a little brown spot below the wire. That is where the wire attached to the socket corroded away from.

This is clear photographic evidence that I bought a piece of Chinese shit and it's NOT MY FAULT! Except for buying the piece of Chinese shit.

2010 Carriage Ride

On Friday evening, we finished our last sky walk. We are done for the season. Now we can concentrate on the season.

It is Sunday morning, 10:33AM as I write this and we slept through church. Didn't get up in time. We have much to accomplish this day because this evening is the annual Corbin Park Carriage Ride. Yea!

We have a few friends coming over and we will enjoy some neighborhood frivolities.

In the meantime, Susan is on a cleaning jag and I have many lights to finish attaching to the house.

I shall update this post throughout the day as time permits.

I should comment on the party I attended last night. I guy I grew up with named Brian had a holiday party at his place on the south hill...way up the south hill on Glenrose Prairie. This is the second year he and his girlfriend Dana have had the party. I made a batch of beer and it was well received and enjoyed. Happily, I still have some left. Here is a picture from the fire pit looking towards Brian's expansive garage where some party goers are enjoying shots of Jager.11:38AM - I have been successful on the roof with my heat cable. I wrote in an earlier post about this touchy section of the roof where great icicles form and then proceed to screw up the house. I laid this heat cable up there in the middle of the freeze but at that time, I could only lay it out but not secure it. I remedied that today and I think it will work well. I need to buy and 100 foot roll of this stuff to properly cover the whole area.

Now, it's time to get some lights up.

4:41PM - I am declaring victory over the Christmas Lights. Susan has completed the inside decorating...except for the tree, which we have yet to purchase...and probably won't for another week.

We are now ready for the Carriage Ride. The only problem now is that the friends we invited canceled on us. We were somewhat expecting this because these friends have changed plans on us before. It is too late now to try and invite anyone else over. So, we are going to be Susan and Stan tonight. We will hang with our neighbors and catch up on all the neighborhood gossip. There was an ambulance called to a house across the park about an hour ago so maybe we will find out "wazzupwidat!"

Here's how we look for now!

** Happy Krimble Everyone **

10:39PM - Well, I'm afraid I have no good picture to share from the Carriage Ride. We had a great time though. We got our ride around the park and talked to a bunch of neighbors and then Susan and I finished off the evening watching the most recent Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey, Jr. An okay flick with great effects with a story that followed the Holmesian style but never written by Sir Artie Conan Doyle.

We have decided that it has been a good day!

When it Rains...

I have finished my painting for the evening and I drove home in the driving rain...which is the best kind of rain for driving. It's really coming down. If this continues, it will wash away all our snow on the ground. I'm glad that it is melting in the streets but I would like it on the lawns and out in the park.

The forecast is calling for it to turn into snow tomorrow and Saturday. I guess it remains to be seen. In the meantime, I will continue to clean up the driveway and street as I can.

Only one more sky walk and we are fini! I'm looking forward to it being behind us. I painted in the large skywalk from the STA Plaza to Sterling Savings. I crosses Riverside so is one of the longer skywalks. I did it in just over two hours.

I had a heck of a time trying to find a parking space. I don't know what was going on downtown tonight but it appeared to be a pretty happening place. That's not something you see a lot down there.

Festive Festiveness

Susan had to work tonight and so I took a night off from Sky walk painting to get some Christmas lights up on the house. The Annual Carriage Ride is this Sunday and we wanted the house decorated for that event. I still have some stuff to get up but that will have to wait for Sunday...when I have access to some daylight.

In any event, here is how the house looks so far. The temperature has warmed considerably and we have a window in which to do some clean up of all the snow we have on the ground. I was able to get out on the deck and break up the ice rink. I got it broken up and pretty well cleaned off. I hope I will have the ability to clean stuff up some more this weekend.

We have one and a half sky walks to finish...and then we are done painting for the season. Good thing too cuz I am getting tired of snowmen and I know Susan is tired of snow flakes. I'll be out tomorrow finishing my half of one sky walk and then we will hit the last one on Friday. That will be fabulous!

Ice Rink Deck

We painted two sky walks today. That leaves us with three to complete.


But today, I'm writing about the house. Specifically, the deck. After a long day of painting, we decided it was a good time to make use of the hot tub. That's the hot tub right there beyond the railing. You'll note a line of frozen snow in the middle of the deck. That is from the over hang above dripping down on to the deck. It managed to solidify in the middle there and then all the exta water was able to spread out over the entire deck and form a lovely skating rink.

It also built up around the gate we go through to get to the hot tub. That made it very difficult and somewhat life threatening to get to the hot tub. But, we made it work.We managed to get in and enjoy the tub. It was really needed too.

Now we are enjoying the evening with whatever we want to do. Susan wants to start putting up Christmas decorations and she is doing that as I write.

Also, as I write, I am writing this. I just wrote that. I wrote that too and right now I am writing this. Aren't you glad you took time out of your busy schedule to read this...or that!

Faith Restored

My faith in my fellow human person has been restored. I used to think that most people where scumbags. But I think that is too harsh. I have now come to accept that there are only a few scumbags out there and they all hover around me.


I have two snow shovels. One I leave by the back door and one I leave of the front porch. The front porch shovel is gone. Someone of the genus Scumbagus, has adopted it and given it a better home than I could ever have hoped to give it. Bastard!


We have been painting relentlessly for over a week. As of right now, we have three sky walks to finish. We took Friday off from our regular jobs and painted all day. We may have gotten a couple of other jobs in the meantime. That's the big advantage to being out painting on a regular business day. People ask for a card all the time.

When we paint at night like we normally do, we only see kids and vagrants. they never ask for our card.

I should also mention that the whole snow situation is under control for now. It hasn't snowed since Tuesday, which was mostly rain, and the plows came by today and really cleaned up the streets.

More snow is forecast for later in the week so we will see how this develops. Remember, we are only a few days into December and we have significant snowfall on the ground. No Pineapple Express is expected soon.

Ice Dams & Painting

Last night we got through our fourth sky walk. This was a big one and we worked until eleven. We got home and I wasted no time getting to bed.

We got a late start because of the roof. It's the worst place on the house for ice dams. I bought some heat cable and put on my big snow suit and struggled to get up and over the roof. It must have looked hilarious.

I got up there and began laying out the heat cable. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring up the little clips that attach to the shingles and keep the cable taught. So I just had to lay it out and waited it down with a big chisel I brought up to break up the ice.

It is essentially in place and it seems to be working. At least, it seems to be on. I'm not sure yet whether this will work. One thing is for sure, it looks attractive!

Official Apology to the Weather Man

If four more inches of snow fall before midnight tomorrow, we will have made it through the snowiest November on record. Right now, it is the fifth snowiest November. For those who enjoy breaking a record, I have encouraging news. Four to six inches are forecast to fall by tomorrow.


I have been Poo Pooing the forecasters and all their early reports of the snowy winter they have been forecasting for over a month...probably longer than that. It appears I owe them all an apology. And so...there ya go!


We have been crazy mad busy with Holiday painting. We are only four days into it and we are behind already. The cold weather didn't help.


One thing I accomplished during the deep freeze was to get our Freezer thawed. I thought about it last year when we had a brief cold spell but another never came around, so it never got done.

Needless to say, the freezer really needed a defrosting. It took two and half days. I loaded everything in there into ice chests and then took them out to the garage.

It seems to have worked okay. When I returned things on Saturday night, they still seemed frozen.

Okay, enough! Time to paint...or sleep.

Painting Day One

It snowed most of the night last night as well as all through yesterday. So my focus when I got up this morning was to get my snow blowing done. Consequently, we didn't get downtown to start painting until almost noon.


We completed one and half sky walks. Only eleven an a half to go. We have a long haul in front of us and it is best not to dwell on it like I am right now.

So, no more dwelling.

Chronicle of Thanksgiving Day

6:25AM Susan gets up to give T.J. his morning shot of insulin. Returns to bed.

9:03AM I get up to make coffee and record the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. More on this later. Return to bed.

9:5somethingAM We get up and take the sheets off the bed for the annual Thanksgiving Day Cleaning of the Sheets.

Next Susan prepares her preparations for the Thanksgiving Dinner. It's just the two of us this year so we're not doing anything too fancy. I make some breakfast (Scrambled Cheese Eggs with Cougar Gold) and prepare my preparations for the painting of Holiday Windows.

11:29AM I get the car warmed up and loaded. With the turkey in the oven, we finally make it out the door and go paint. We painted the entrance at the Holy Family Medical Building, and the entrance to the Northtown office Building. We did very well considering it is 19 degrees out and snowing. It took about an hour at the firast stop and then another hour at Northtown. We had to stop and warm up once.

2:00PM We return to the house, victorious in our quest to get some painting done in these freezing conditions, to be greated by the smell of turkey. We have a couple of hours to putter and relax. We discover that "Miracle on 34th Street" is on NBC.

I need to clean some brushes and adjust the viscosity of some paint. I have a thin green, thin yeller, really thick white, and almost gone brown. However, once we finish the office buildings and start on the skywalks. We won't be using much color other than white.

Susan is messing with dinner and we both take turns in the shower.

It is up to 21 degrees and it is still snowing but it is starting to slow down. I am in the dilemma of efficiency against currency. I wold like to be out with the snow blower right now because there is a good three or four inches on the ground. However, it continues to snow and makes no sense to do it twice. Then again, if it gets too deep, even my Sears Craftsman Snow Hog-A-Rama Two Stage SnowMoBlower with 6 gears plus two in reverse and a 26" plowing width runs into trouble. With deep snow, it takes just as much time to do it twice with lighter snow.

In any event, I'm staying in. Did I mention that it's 21 degrees?!

4:26PM We decide to make ourselves social and go over to where my sister Sherry and her family is having Thanksgiving. They are at the home of Mom's Roommate, John. He has a great house overlooking the Spokane River just downstream from the Bowl and Pitcher. (look it up) Mom, of course is in Palm Springs. Since John' daughter is in Seattle, Sherry has adopted him and his home for a large gathering.

We visited for about an hour and then got ourselves out of thee beofre we got kidnapped and forced to stay and eat.

6:00PM We settles ourselves back into the house and prepare our feast. My digital thermometer is not cooperating so use the old standard reliable thermometer to check the bird. It is ready. We mah potatoes, make gravy, warm up some corn and susan fries up some sweet potatoes.

We set the table in the dining room and use all the good china and silverware. We crack open a bottle of champagne and have a Thaksgiving Dinner that couldn't be beat.

Then retire to the living room and listen to music off the ipod in front of a roaring fire. We throw ourselves into bed around 11:00 and Thanksgiving is over.

Now we go into intense window painting mode.

November Deep Freeze

Minus Eight Degrees!

It has been an interesting beginning to the season of Winter...which by the calendar, is still a month away.

We have a good solid six inches of snow on the ground BEFORE Thanksgiving and we are now in the midst of sub-zero temperatures that seem to be here to stay.

The good news is that both our cars started this morning. The bad news is that we are painting Holiday Windows starting tomorrow morning. With these temperatures, the paint freezes right on the window.

I'm not looking forward to this.

Snow 1 City 0

I have two successful snow blowings under my belt for the 2010-2011 Snow season. If it continues, I'll have many many many MANY more. I'll probably have to buy a new belt.

I rose at 5:30 this morning and got out there in the weather and cleared the neighborhood. Well, at least my block. I have a designated area that I have made myself responsible for. There was another four inches on the ground this morning. It is still snowing as I write this at 7:54AM. It was a white out ride to work this morning. Still slow going but I made it.

Pictured below is a shot of the Accu-Stan 5000 Weather Centre. You know it's classy and accurate because I spelled "Centre" the European way.

It clearly shows the temperature at ten degrees. That is supposed to be the high for today. We are going to take advantage of this frosty situation by unloading the contents of our freezer into ice chests this evening and defrosting the poor thing. It hasn't been done in six years and so is long overdue.

I just realized from the picture of the Accu-Stan 5000 Weather Centre that I haven't reset the clock to standard time. Wow! I just gained another hour in my life. Sweet!

Significant Snow

I always love the first real snowfall of the year. That's when you get to break out the snow shovel and throw heavy snow all around and break your back. Then you get to fire up the snow blower and get cold frozen ice crystals blown back in your face and down your collar. Best of all...on the first day of a big snowfall...when most of the people who live here forget how to drive...you get to travel to work amongst all of them. It's great!

It didn't have a chance to break out the snow shovel or fire up the snow blower. All that will have to wait for after work. We got about 3 or 4 inches over the night and it is still coming down.

Surprisingly, my drive to work was uneventful and went quite smoothly, even though I traveled the freeway at 50 mph all the out. That's okay. I gave myself lots of time to get to work in anticipation of just such an event.

Here are a couple of pictures I took this morning.

Speaking of pictures, we were taking some pictures last night of the cats to get everything we need for our Christmas card. It was a horrible struggle as my effing camera has just about purchased the family acreage when crops are grown. I don't think I can take it anymore. There may very well be a lunch time visit to the Buy More.

Later that Day: Well, I did it. I went to the Buy More and I got a new Canon SD1400IS. It is the camera that my camera would become if it evolved. This one has a lot of the same features but is about half the thickness of my old and aging Canon Power Shot A560. Isn't that a great picture I took of the camera? Very Artsy! Look at the detail of it. It's quite amazing!

Upon arriving home, I commenced to snow blowing. There was about 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground this morning and a couple more added to that during the day. I did my regular routine of the driveway, half way down the alley and three quarters of the sidewalk around the block. Specifically, I do the sidewalk on our side of Wall, I continue down Cleveland to the end of the block, then I clean off another swathe of the sidewalk as I return and go down the block on Waverly Place.

It seems to take about an hour and a half to cover all that.

As I write this, it is 10:47 PM and the snow is still falling. The TV says that we are under a Blizzard Warning right now until mid morning. I plan to wake up at 5 and do it all again. That all depends on how much of the forecast comes true.

I am guessing, but I don't think more than a couple of inches has fallen since I finished my Blow Job at about 6:45. That was four hours ago. If the snow continues at the same pace, I'll have a good solid four inches to deal with in my next Blow Job.

I'm suddenly feeling very Gay!

Here Come Da Snow

It is Sunday evening and the snow is falling. It is possible this will be a significant snowfall but I'm not counting on it. I don't think I'll be getting up early to break out the snow blower machine.

We woke up to a little bit of now this morning. Not a lot, just enough to make the grass white. It severely interfered with my plans to do a final leaf raking around the yard. I started up my leaf blower and managed to wrangle a good portion of leaves into several little piles and then transfer the little piles into one large pile. Now my one big pile is being covered by snow and by next Spring it will have composted down to a rich loamy soil like substance, thereby saving me a trip to the dump.

Susan stayed inside and finished up her cleaning frenzy. So, it was a productive day.

Starting this coming Friday, we will commence our annual skywalk festival of paint. As of now we have nine to do and possibly four more. We also have five office buildings to paint up in various styles of Holiday and Winter themes. All this hard work will roll into our bank account to allow another few months of home remodeling fuel to be added to the home remodeling fire.

Staining and Stuff

We are making slow progress toward staining all the trim that will go into the entryway. We have spent the last two evenings in the newly cleared out Carriage House staining wood. We managed to gt down one coat last night and another tonight. One more coat of a slightly redder stain will finish the job...hopefully tomorrow.

The next task will be to install the trim and then to varnish it in place, being very careful not to get any varnish on the new wall paper.

Winter has not arrived on the calendar but it is here nonetheless. The chill in the air is all the calendar I need. The forecasts are threatening all kinds of snow possibilities this weekend and lots of sub freezing temperatures.

I am ready for snow season. I have revved up the snow blower and we are ready to take on the neighborhood.

First Snow of the Year

We woke up to snow on the ground today. Not a lot. Not enough to even stick to the streets. The lawns where white. Everything else was just wet.

When I got to work, it was snowing for a bit but it was the big heavy wet snow that never hangs around for long.

Still, I am declaring the official first snowfall of the 2010-2011 snow season.

So there!

My Day with Doug

I have a task to perform today that I am not looking forward to.

I have a friend named Doug. Doug is someone I have known since ninth grade. He is fond of referring to me as his Freshman Class President.

Today, Doug is going in for cataract surgery. He is essentially blind. He is being a real PUSSY about the whole thing and I have told him as much. I have to go and pick him up this morning and take him to wherever his appointment is. He doesn't know. I'll find out when I pick him up.
The only thing I'm not looking forward to is...well...Doug. He's acting very needy but then doesn't want any help. It took me three days to get him to call me back and accept the ride. He was going to take a taxi.

Last night, I told him I would be by at about 10:30 and we would walk his dog Critter, and then go to the doctor. He complained he was blind and he can't seem to bathe himself or dress himself. I told him I was not going to bathe him and he should be ready to go at 10:30. He continues to be a PUSSY about the whole thing rather than man up and do what needs to be done.

I can understand being scared and the potential of losing your sight is very frightening. But at some point, you have to accept your circumstances and rise to the challenge. Doug doesn't seem to be interested in rising.

Okay, I've vented! Now we'll see how this goes!

How it Went: Nothing is as it seems in this case. When I got to Doug's and managed to find the info about the Doctor he was going to see, it turned out that he wasn't going in for surgery...just an evaluation. I called the number to verify the appointment. He thought that his appointment was at 10:30. It was really for 2:15.

So I went back to work and told Doug I would be back at 1:30. That would give us plenty of time to walk the dog again, have a smoke, and get to the Doctor.

When I arrived, I startled him out of bed and I think he was ready to beat me up until he realized it was me.

I then spent the next 45 minutes trying to get him to get ready and looking for his keys, which I finally found in a dresser drawer. We were late for the appointment but they took us in.

I could go on and on about the whole ordeal but that's probably not fair to Doug. What I have come to realize is that I am dealing with an alcoholic here and it's much worse than I originally thought.

I am in for a lot more fun in the weeks to come. I believe that there is an element of God testing me involved in this whole affair.

Finally Clarvoiant

When I get home from work in the evening and time permits, I have been trying to do little bits of projects around the house. Even if I just go and organize an area or put some stuff away for a future project. It's the little steps that lead to the great accomplishment. Tonight, I decided to take a little peak into our back stairwell.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we have a back stairway that we do not use. Our remodel of a back screen porch into a closet rendered the stairway all but useless. There was no headroom in the stairway due to the floor of the closet. There is no headroom.

We surmised that since the stairway was there and the sun porch was there, they must have been at some time...useful. We further surmised that the original staircase had been much steeper to allow for head room in the area of the sun porch.

I decided it was time to find out. Now remember, in past projects, where we have done some surmising, we have found ourselves out surmised by reality. There was nothing to our conjecture and we were in fact, just plain wrong! Secret passage ways, covered up doors, a new route to India, none of them panned out.

So, I was not sure what to expect upon pulling up a tread or two on the back stairway.

The whole process went very easily. I used a carpet knife to cut and rip out a section of carpet on the stairs. I got my Enforcer Pry Bar and the treads came up easily.

And then.....there in the dark of the clearing dust...victory! AND corrective surmisement!

The pictures pretty much tell the story.You can see the lime green shag carpet on the old stairs. They had built an entire superstructure over the old staircase. Originally, when you opened the door upstairs to go down this stairway, your first step was a step down. The new staircase has a short landing at the top and then a less steep angle of steps.

I was able to crawl all the up the old stairs to the very top. It's a whole secret passage way, which is what I had been looking for in the first place.

Squirrel, Birds, Staining & Cosby

I have an on going Love-Hate relationship with nature. I love nature until it inconveniences me. Take for example, the common squirrel. These adorable arboreal rodents are playful and fun to watch. The are smart and with some work, you can get them to take peanuts out of your hand.


They have fabulously sharp and useful teeth with which they are able to chew the shit out of only the most expensive pieces of trim on your house.

And so I often wonder why I go out and buy unsalted peanuts for the little varmints. Additionally, I buy bird seed. This puts a whole flock of sparrows in the vicinity of our cars so they can be the receivers of the processed bird seed.


Below is a picture of the feeding area. Notice the area below the bird feeder. It is clear of any leaves. If I could locate bird feeders at several strategic points around the yard, i wouldn't have any leaves to worry about. My only concern wold be keeping 35 bird feeders filled with seed.

Sunday was a great day for us. We got up and went to church. Afterwards, we returned home to change and then went downtown to the local Chili's for lunch. We took our time eating and reading the Sunday paper.

Then at just before two o'clock, we trundled down to the Opera House and enjoyed an hour and a half chat with Bill Cosby. I had heard parts of his routine before but it was still fun to see him. He won't be around forever and I wanted to see him one last time. Besides, I'll probably die before he will.

We came home and tried to be productive. With most of the day behind us, that was a tough order but we actually accomplished a couple of things.

I have the Carriage House cleaned out and I did a little organizing in there in preparation for some staining we need to do. We are ready to put the trim up in the entryway but the trim is not ready for us.

So, in the next few days, we will be staining. I have a lot of experience with staining. Have you seen my clothes?

Camera Talk

Okay, it's time to talk about the camera.

I have found that my life requires the possession of a digital camera. I use it all the time. I take all kinds of pictures of all kinds of seemingly inconsequential stuff. I am constantly going through my downloads and deleting shitty pictures. That is probably the greatest feature of digital. My trigger finger is hot and I have found that the secret to a good picture is to take lots of crap to capture the gem.

Consequently, I beat the crap out of my camera in the general every day use I subject it to. I have dropped it, slid it, sat on it, knocked it over, spilled on it and just generally treated it with a great deal of disrespect.

The crap has now hit the wall after going through the fan and it is time to acquire a new camera.

Years ago, I bought my first digital camera for about $500.00. It was 1.2 mega pixel and came with an 8 meg card. That was about 12 years ago.

Now I can buy a 12 mega pixel camera for about 250 bucks. That's ten times the camera for half the money. Amortised over 12 years, that comes less the .12 cents per pixel. The technology sure is changing. As soon as I buy it, it will be obsolete. However, I can't afford not to buy one. According to my convoluted cyphering, I'm losing money by not buying it.

I like Canon and I am doing my research. In the meantime, I have to limp along with what remains of my poor battered Canon SureShot A50.

I'm not going to jump on the first pretty face that comes along. I would like to have this camera for a while but that is not how they are designed anymore. Our throw away society is geared to using it up and tossing it out.

But I'll tell you this! In my day...

Wine Night

We did a little work on our Zinfandel on Tuesday night. I would like to have shown more pictures, but my camera is several infested with Camera Cancer and is on its last legs. I'll talk more about that in a future post. Therefore, if you're reading this backwards, you already know what I haven't even written yet. While you are there in the future, perhaps you could send back some lottery numbers or a promising horse race. How 'bout my obit?

Okay...kind of losing focus! Ha! A camera joke!

Our task on Tuesday was to pull the pulp out of the must (the official wine makers term for fetus wine) and squeeze as much juice as possible out of it. We started with 100 pounds of grapes and because there was so much grapage, we had to start the ferment in two buckets.

I stirred it every other day or so to break up the cap the pulp would form on top. There was juice in there but it was difficult to tell how much because of the huge amount of pulp.

So we scooped out enough to fill a large mesh bag and then squeezed. We probably filled the bag five or six times. I had purchased a big 18 gallon bucket at the Home Depot and that was the receptacle into which we squeezed our juices.

When we finished, I poured what looked like a lot of juice back into my freshly cleaned six gallon fermenter. We filled the bucket to just over the 6 gallon mark, so we were happy. One hundred pounds of grapes yielded six gallons of juice. Yea and Hallelujah!

From the bucket, we syphoned the juice into a six gallon carboy. It is now sitting in the kitchen and slightly bubbling away. It still has a way to go before the fermenting process is complete.

The must tastes very grapey but you can taste the alcohol as well. I'll take a gravity reading in a week and proceed from there. I'll have to taste it too. Fortunately, there's six gallons.

Fall Back

It was a light and stormy day. The pristine lawn that had only a day earlier been void of leaves was again covered with a thick blanket of autumn colors. The rain pelted down unmercifully, knocking the leaves from their tenuous grasp to the ground far below. Still, a lot of leaves still clung to the branches, refusing to release from the perch from which they have lived.

I was able to get out into the front yard for a while today and clean things up. But it will not last long. By tomorrow morning there will be no clue that I had done anything in the yard.

Prior to my front yard duties, I had toiled in the Carriage House, painting the rebuilt wall that I had Phil finish. I did a little bit of reorganizing in there and was able to clean things up just a bit. Not really all that much at all. It doesn't look any different. I don't know why I even brought it up.

Susan started wall papering yesterday and it is looking good. It is a very tense time during the hanging and one must prepare to by harangued by the paper hanger.

Here are some recent pictures of all the fun.

My friend Mike has been staying with us for a couple of days. He lives in Bellingham but comes over to visit his mom. Mike is one of those guys I grew with who I am still in contact with. I've known Mike for close to 50 years.

Last night we went to a local Comedy Club to see Mike's brother, Tom. He has been doing Stand Up Comedy since he was 19 and I think he's pretty close to 50 now. If you run a search on YouTube for Tom McTigue, you can see some of his act.

He was very funny and we had a great time. I think that is the first time I've gone to a Comedy Club in years.

Exercise

Susan runs a couple of miles several nights a week. I do not. Sometimes I will go on a walk but not with any regularity. I ride my bike sometimes but not all that regularly. I do however, come home and do stuff around the house...but not all that regularly.

So I worry that I'm not getting enough exercise to keep me somewhat fit. But I have been working around the house pretty regularly over the last few weeks. I've sucked up a lot of leaves. I've been up and down the stairs with Halloween decorations. I have performed miscellaneous chores around the property. I've enjoyed some frosty beers.

Tonight I got home and sucked up some semi dry leaves and did a little work in the garage to make it a more organized place. It occurred to me while doing putting around that this is what I should be doing every night. Not just coming home and plopping in front of NCIS re-runs with a frosty beer. I should be taking that frosty beer out into the yard, the garage, the Carriage House, wherever home owning adventure takes me.

So, that's the goal.

S'Mo Halloween Clean Up

Susan is going to hate this entry because it starts out with spiders. When I was removing the Halloween lights last night, I came across this very cool and fairly large spider. At least, it was a large spider for Spokane standards. It had built a web anchored to the lights, which meant I destroyed the web as I removed the lights.
While I dislike snakes and reptiles, I have long had a fascination with spiders. When I was a kid we had a boat on Coeur d'Alene lake and there were always very elaborate spider webs built in the eves of the marina roofs. I would tear them down and then watch the spider rebuild them. If you've never watched a spider spin a web, you are missing one of nature's great marvels.

I got these shots of the spider before I ruined the web. I got a jar and relocated the arachnid off the front porch. I had a similar sized spider take up residence last year and later realized that a spider in one spot creates a surprising amount of spider poo. I'll be having none of that this year and so far, she has not returned. I did a little on-line research and determined that this is probably an Araneus Diadematus, the common European Garden Spider. It is indiginous to this area as well as California and along the Canadian border. It's not poisonous or anything to get worked up over.

We have the remains of 11 Jack O'Lanterns to dispose of. I finally got them all in one place in the yard and then thought it made a nice picture. I didn't spend a lot of time arranging the stack but I think this looks pretty good.

Our remaining jobs to accomplish this evening were to get everything out to the Carriage House and properly stored. We have pulled that off beautifully. We got everything out there and stowed in an orderly fashion. In contrast to yesterday when it rained a third of an inch, it was a lovely sunny day today and perfect for hauling stuff to the Carriage House.

While we were hauling stuff, Franco stopped by. I basically told him we would be handling the rest of our clean up. He said he really needed the work and I said I really needed the money. These guys see us living in the big house on the park and assume we are rolling it cash. They don't know about my two jobs or the se7en jobs that Susan has.

I was going to throw out all the barren skeletons of candy bar boxes but then realized that they would make a lovely heat source. And for ten minutes, it was a lovely heat source. Then it was ashes. Now I have a fire place to clean.

If we want more heat, we're going to need to buy a lot more full size candy bars next year.

All Saints Day Clean Up

It was raining pretty hard by the time I got home from work and that kind limited what I was able to do with regard to cleaning up after Halloween. I was able to get all the lights cleaned up from the front porch and some periphery decorations removed and put away.

We didn't want to haul everything to the Carriage House for storage because of the rain and all the crap that we would track into the house. So we have everything pretty well packed and boxed up and ready to be stowed in the Carriage House when the weather allows.

I felt remarkably good this morning considering the way I collapsed into bed last night. I was really beat after all the fun. Susan was a little sore when she woke up but seems to have bounced back now.

Halloween Time Line

8:00AM - We rose early to prepare food. Not only are we having people here tonight to help with the Trick or Treaters, we have a potluck going on at church and Susan is preparing something for that.

So we race around all morning and get ready for church.

9:15 to 12:00 Noon - Church

Noonish - We have returned from church after a lovely Italian style potluck meal, so we are not hungry and can begin the set up. I've made a few calls to people who are coming tonight and now I am off to the store.

We spent the rest of the afternoon getting our props set up. Our friend Mark came over and assisted so it went pretty fast.

Our candy inventory is as follows:

468 Full Size Candy Bars

646 Fun size Candy Bars

520 Twizzlers

4:45PM - The first Trick or Treater arrives and we start lighting up the pumpkins. After the first, the throng begins to develop. The weather was perfect although a touch cool. We had over 1,500 pieces of candy starting with over 400 full size candy bars. Then about 500 fun size and ending with Twizzlers.

Here are some pictures.

Our neighbor to the west had a clicker at the door and counted over 1,400 kids. Our neighbor down the street to the east counted 1, 059. I'm saying it was somewhere in the middle.

Hee is a video of Susan as the Witch.

One final comment for Trick or Treaters. When you approach a house, and there aren't any lights on out front, DO NOT ring the door bell, knock on the door, ring the doorbell again, knock again. Get the EFFING hint! We are out of candy!

It is now almost 10:30PM and we are beat. Everything has been cleaned up and we will put everything away over the next few evenings.

Many thanks to our fabulous crew of helpers, Mark, Ron, Kelly, Don, Rob, Olga, Alec and Natalie. It would have been a nightmare without you.

So ends Halloween Twenty Ten!

Carving Savant

We are getting pretty good at carving pumpkins. When I say "We", I mean Susan. Pictured below is a pumpkin she carved last night. This picture was taken with the flash so you can see the pumpkin and the carving.

The next picture is the same pumpkin without the flash. It's amazing how no light sheds a whole new light on the carving. It's also amazing that I can turn such a wicked phrase...and all just before Halloween. It's positively Ghoulish!

Unfortunately, this is a really pumpkin and not one of our fake craft pumpkins, so this design will be rotting away in days. It's a good thing to have it captured here for all of InterWeb Eternity.

The day ended with our traditional Neighborhood Halloween gathering. We just stayed at one place this year and everyone had a good time and drank too much wine.

Now it is time to prepare for the main event!