Boiler Disappointment

It has been six days since I lit the pilot light on the boiler, officially ending the Boiler Game. Since then, I do not believe the boiler has come on once.

The weather has been warm and beautiful since Saturday and I am pissed. There is no telling how much longer I could have gone with the Boiler Game, allowing more people to get in and take a chance, thereby making a whole lot more money for me.

I'm just sick about it.

I'm still trying to decide whether to rent to log splitter this weekend or not. There is a lot going on Saturday and so it doesn't feel like I can fit it in then. Sunday is difficult because I can't get to it before noon.

Next weekend is already booked so there won't be any log splitting then. 

I guess we'll find out together on Sunday.

I Found It!

Refer to my post for September 9th to find out what I found.

I found while cleaning the kitchen tonight. It was hidden on the TV stand behind a camera.

The bad news is that it doesn't work anymore.

Hops, Paint, Air Conditioners and Beer

Boiler Game Results: If you picked Saturday, September 23rd at 5:45PM, you are the winner. Take a substantial amount of your own money and buy yourself something pretty as a reward.

I just called in to the local rental place a learned that it costs $55.00 to rent a log splitter for four hours. I'm going to reserve one for next weekend.

Susan is continuing her work on her car. She is applying a little Bondo to a wheel well and then will paint.

I am going to tackle air conditioners and hops. I will also be consuming some hops in the form of beers.

3:24PM: Susan has done a pretty good job on her car. It still needs some buffing but it looks better than it did.

I was successful with both my projects. The A.C.'s have been removed and packed away for the winter. The hops has been cut down but remains unharvested. I decided not to bother. I use only a small amount when I brew and I've never been able to find anyone who wants my hops.

Now we can just sit back, watch the Seahawks lose and enjoy some more hops.

First Day of Fall

For those of you who picked September 23rd for the end of the Boiler Game...don't start spending your winnings yet. I believe I'm going to light the fuse today but as of 2:23 PM, I have not.

It's the first full day of Autumn and it seemed appropriate to get out there and prepare for winter with the splitting of the wood. 

I have a lot of unsplit wood sitting in the yard and as you can see, it's quite a mess.

So I started out by cleaning the area where the wood will go, which was also, quite a mess.

Once everything was arranged, the chopping began.

With a chop chop here.

And a chop chop there.

And a LOT of recovery from chop chopping. My stamina is still pretty shitty.

Even with less than stellar stamina, I am pretty pleased with the results.

I have a nice stack of wood by the back door and a little bit more of the messy yard cleaned up.

The pile that I left is too hard for little ol' me to split. I'm going to rent a power splitter in the next week or so to handle the rest of it.

Whilst I toiled with ax, Susan worked on her car s'more. 

She was sanding some rusty spots which she will paint over later.

As for now, I am spent. It is time to sit down and watch some Cougar Football. And some Iowa Hawkeyes Football.

GO SPORTS TEAM!!!

Boiler Game Data

It's not Autumn yet but it feels like it. The hot temperatures we have enjoyed for the last several weeks appear to be behind us.

I'm not yet ready to give in and fire up the boiler but it seems like we won't be setting any records in the Boiler Game this year.

Susan spent yesterday cleaning her 1989 Honda Civic in preparation for selling it. She got out the shop vac and really scrubbed the car down. She removed all the little knickknacks that one accumulates in ones car. Today she plans to work on a couple of the rust spots and do some touch up painting.

I'm just puttering around doing this and that. And some of the other stuff too. I drove over to the car wash and hosed down the floor mats for my car and for Susan's. The floor mats that go on the drivers side of both vehicles were filthy. I'm still not sure I got all the dirt out of them.

We enjoyed a late afternoon visit to the Hub to watch the W.S.U. Cougars play against the Oregon State Beavers. The Cougs crushed the Beavs.

We finished off the evening with dinner at the Cathay Inn, one of our local favorite dinner spots.

I'm not sure what is on the schedule for the rest of the day. I guess I'll just go out and see what needs to be done out there.

I'll get back to you and let you know.

Later: Well, it was threatening to rain so Susan did not do any work on her car. I didn't do any work on anything. I did make a fire. It's the first one of the season. That's how you go another day in the boiler game.

The next few days look rainy so the boiler game is definitely in jeopardy of ending.

The plans for the rest of the day are to barbecue a couple of steaks. We haven't used the barbecue at all this summer. Mostly because my faithful old Weber finally fell completely apart. It's given me a good 20 years of service so I can't complain. 

We ended up with a small Weber that Ron and Kelly gave us. It will do in a crunch but I need to get back on the full size Weber wagon.

I filled up the hot tub the other night and have the temperature properly adjusted so we may take ourselves a soak later on. 

Even Later: Hi! I'm back. I have done a little research on the Boiler Game and here are my findings.

2016 - October 6th
2015 - September 21st
2014 - Oct 15th
2013 - October 5th
2012 - October 6th
2011- October 21st

So October 21st is the date to beat. If I can make it through this week, I will beat the failure of 2015, which seems to be my earliest date to start up the furnace.

Activity Laden Sunday

The busy weekend, bustling with activities continues.

Today we got the bikes out and went downtown to participate in the Tenth Annual SpokeFest. It's Bloomsday for Bikes. We are not bike riders so we chose the Nine Mile Route. The best part of it is a paved path on the ridge above the Spokane River. It ends at the base of  Doomsday Hill, which is a long steady climb. 

In the past, I've been able to make it all the way up. That was not to be the case today. I not only did not make it up the hill, I had to stop three times on the way up to catch my breath. The good news is that there was no chest pain or pressure.

I stopped at the First Aid station at the top of the hill to have my blood pressure checked and it was fine.

We finally got to the finish line and quickly got out of the party area and back to the car for the drive home.

After a short breather, we got back in the car and headed for the Fair. At this point, I'm feeling the effects of having pedaled a good solid ten miles. Now I'm going to walk around a large expense of fairgrounds for the next several hours.

However, it is a tradition that we must adhere to. We entered Wine in the Fair again and as is always the case, I was anxious to see how we did. This years offering was Sangiovese. I was not very optimistic because we only bottled the wine last month, after having it age for about seven months. 

We entered a second bottle of wine which was a blend of the Sangiovese with a few pounds of grapes from our backyard. Susan and I both liked the blend better than the Sangiovese.

Even the labels we entered in the Label Contest were thrown together in the last week before everything had to be delivered to the fairgrounds.

The Blend got a White Ribbon...third place. Susan's label for the Blend got nuthin'. My label for the Sangiovese got a Blue Ribbon. Our friend Ellen got a Grand Champion Ribbon for her label.

The big surprise was the Sangiovese. Grand Champion! How can that be?! I am incredulous. I am astonished. I am very pleased!

As with last year, I am anxious to see the comments we get from the judges.

I should explain the label because it really is not very good. Sangiovese has been referred to as "the blood of Jupiter". So I found a statue of the Greek God Jupiter. I covered his nether region with grapes. I removed the staff from his hand and added a crudely drawn glass of wine in one hand and the bottle in the other. And then I called it "Jupiter Juice".

It really is one of my worst efforts. 

And yet...a blue ribbon.

Unfortunately, our friend Ellen got the Grand Champion for Labels. And a second place for her wine. A kit wine, I might add. She didn't go out into the fields and toil in the dirt to acquire the grapes. (Neither did we) She bought a kit and followed the instructions. 

We at least made the effort to go the the vineyard and purchase the grapes.

We stayed at the fair until about 7:00. By then we had eaten a crap load of food...all high calorie and bad for us...and we were ready to call it a day.

Grand Champion! Go figure.

Stupid Stuff

A while back while shopping at Costco I came upon a multi-pack of razor blades that happened to fit my handle. Someone had left them in the wrong place so I didn't know how much they cost. I thought, "Oh well, how much could they be?!" 50 bucks! That's how much they could be.

I was already in line so I bit the bullet and bought them. That was September 9th, 2012. I am now down to my last blade. They have lasted me five years.

I'm amazed at the stupid stuff I keep track of.

Speaking of stupid, my stupidity is going to cost me $135.00. I cannot find my keys to my Escape. Because the keys all come with a chip in them, they cost extra special more.

I have a mobile key guy coming but I don't know exactly when. Hopefully it will be before three. We have events to attend today.

The key guy showed up about 1:00 and got me a double set of keys in no time. I paid an extra $35.00 for an extra key and he gave me a key fob for free.

He told me that I can buy the key fobs on line for about $25.00 and then he showed me how to program it.

Of course, now that I have paid for the replacement key, I'm just waiting to find out where my old key has been hiding. I know it will reveal itself to me.

As I said, we have a very full social calendar for the rest of the weekend and we must get to it.

First a Hill Billy Hog Roast at the way out farm place of my brother-in-law Dale. The food was fabulous.

Then a retirement party on the complete other side of the city for our friend Randy, who has retired and who we now hate. Well, we at least have disdain for him. The disdain helps to hide the jealousy.

Tomorrow, we have the tenth annual edition of SpokeFest. We are planning on doing the nine mile ride. 

Mouse Emergency

Having grown up with rats as pets, I'm not too freaked out by rodents. Susan did NOT grow up with rats as pets. So when she saw the mouse last night, it was most disquieting. Not disquieting enough to wake me up. That required her coming upstairs and screaming, "MOUSE!"

By the time I got downstairs it was nowhere to be found. 

So today, we purchased some mouse traps. I'm about to set them up.

I have returned with most of my fingers. Those little bastards are hard to set up. They do not set very securely, which I suppose is what you would want in a mousetrap.

The smoke from forest fires around the region is thick today. We thought they might cancel the Labor Day Concert at Comstock Park. So far, it appears things are on track.

This is how it looks here in the neighborhood.

It got worse as the day went on. We went up to Comstock Park at 5PM for the annual Labor Day concert put on by the Spokane Symphony. We were worried it might get canceled.

Instead, the concert went on in an abbreviated form. They cut out a few songs and it lasted about an hour.