Problems with Gas

I have the day off from work and I am attempting to end my Summer-long National Nightmare with my Gas Line.

I contacted the City Inspector who told me I had to do a pressure test. I have no idea exactly how to perform this task but what I do have is an extensive network of "Go To Guys" that help through the technical difficulties of old home remodeling. One cannot be successful in old home remodeling unless you are handy (I am not) or you have an extensive network of "G.T.G."!

For general carpentry I have Phil. For tile and grout I have Ron. To haul my ass out of giant emergency dumb shit situations, I have Jerry.

I told Jerry I needed to do a pressure test on my gas line. Within a couple of days, he calls and tells me he has attached a valve with gauge to said gas line. I proceed to pressurize gas line and cannot get it to hold any pressure.

Then I notice a vent on the meter that is allowing all the pressure to escape. I plug it and continue with my pressure test. I find that I am losing pressure. So much so that I can hear it seeping out of the pipe. I spray soapy water around the area of the leak and see that it is leaking from the meter.

The next day, I call Washington Water Power and tell them that their meter is losing air from the end cap around the regulator. (I find that if I use specific technical jargon, they take me more seriously.)

I get a message on my cell phone later in the day from the service guy at my house who tells me that I applied pressure into the meter and destroyed it. He was changing out the meter and scolded me for my screw up. Pictured below is my beautiful new meter. I don't know how much this is going to cost me.

I called Jerry who came out to survey the new meter and the associated new pipe we (Jerry) had to install.

He called me yesterday and said it was ready for the new pressure test. I got home last night and powered up the compressor and pressurized the line to about 15 pounds. It seemed to hold for a while but when I checked it this morning, it was down to about three pounds.

So now we (Jerry) have been searching for a leak. We (Jerry) found several small ones in the pipe that I (Me) had nothing to do with. By that I mean the already existing pipe in the house leading from my point of repair to the furnace valve.
We (Jerry) are now in the process of removing all that pipe and resealing the joints. Right now, as I type, we (Jerry) is fetching a new valve because it was leaking as well as the joints. We (Jerry) will then reinstall all the pipe and joints and pressurize the line again.

Later that Day: Okay, we (Jerry) are finished. I have applied 10 pounds of air pressure and it is holding steady. I have a call into the inspector and I am hoping to hear from him today.

In the meantime, I have harvested my Hops. I have quite a booty haul. Now I have some errands to run around and accomplish and among those, eating some lunch and drinking some beer.

Delinquency Interruptous

Okay, I've been away for a while. It's not that I have nothing to say. I have tooooooo much to say. Let's start with Wine!

The Wine we entered in the fair did very well. Beyond my expectations, really. Our Syrah won Second Place and the label I made won a Blue Ribbon with a Judge's Special Distinction Ribbon. I'm not sure what that means but what I DO know is that the Blue Ribbon Susan won for her label on Ellen's Third Place Syrah did NOT get a Judge's Special Distinction Ribbon. And so I'm pretty cocky about that! This is Susan's label.
Our Summer Solstice Piesporter received a Blue Ribbon with a Judge's Special Distinction Award. I was very surprised by that as our decision to enter that wine was an afterthought since we were entering the Syrah. The picture below is my Syrah Label. If it looks like I whipped it up in about ten minutes with a Sharpie, that's about right.
My experimentation into new brewing boundaries was not accepted by the "conventional wisdom" of the apparatchik. They clearly were not prepared for something as revolutionary in the brewing industry as PorterMeister, a dark rich porter with the lush licorice flavoring only a bottle of Jagermeister could provide. For my efforts, I received a Participation Ribbon. That's like getting a Gold Star for showing up to school on time.

We are awaiting the arrival of our mosaic tile pattern. It has been just over three weeks since ordering it and I expect it here in about a week or so. We are planning to start sanding the hardwood next weekend.

In the meantime, I am trying to get everything in order to get the gas turned back on. I am set up to run a pressure test on the line. I actually ran a preliminary pressurization today. It did not hold. There appears to be a leak at the meter. I have to call the people at Washington Water Power tomorrow and advise them of their problem. I say that because if it's on the meter, it's their problem.

That is all for now. I shall update as needed.....after the explosion.

What a Day

Today was the second running of SpokeFest. It's a giant gathering of people riding bikes. Susan and I did it last year so we felt compelled to do it again this year. However, our fitness for such an event was highly suspect. Plus, we planned on going to the Spokane Interstate Fair in the afternoon and we were not looking forward to walking around the fair after having ridden 21 miles on our bikes.

So I came up with a plan. Instead of riding the 21 miles, we would follow the Bloomsday course, thereby cutting 14 miles off our morning. Sure it' cheating, but we weren't doing this for time or ranking or anything other than to do it.

It turned out to be a very good plan and one that was not unique to us. There were several other bikers who joined us.

After taking our short cut, we found ourselves on the course at the bottom of a giant hill known as Doomsday Hill. We were ahead of all the elite bikers. That lasted about three minutes. The leader came hauling along just as we started up the hill. We were soon being passed by many svelte bikers, which was fine with us. Not because we had svelte biker asses to look at...which we did, and that was fine but because we were not there to get in their way.

We finished the course in just over an hour and rode about nine miles. Do we feel bad about cheating the system? Not in the least! I know for sure that had I ridden the whole 21 miles, I would not have ridden the whole 21 miles. Not that and make the fair. And we HAD to make the fair.

I think I have written about this previously so I will apologize in advance for repeating. We entered beer and wine in the fair this year. This is the second time we have entered the competition. We came away with third place ribbons last time for beer and wine. I was not expecting any kind of prize so that was very cool to me.

This year I had grander expectations. I had really worked at crafting a beer that was different. I made a porter that is supposed to have a licorice flavor to it. I chose to add Jagermeister for the licorice flavoring. I liked it but nobody else did. No ribbons for beer this year.

In the wine category, we entered a Piesporter and we entered a Syrah. The Piesporter was a wine we made for our Summer Solstice Party so it has been in the bottle for a while and has aged properly. In fact, it aged really well because we got a Blue Effing Ribbon with a Special Judges Distinction Ribbon AND A TROPHY!!!

Okay, calm down. Simmer Down now!

Our other wine entry, the Syrah was also a kit wine and identical to the wine entered by our friend Ellen. Ellen had the advantage of a couple of months of bottle time over us but we fermented our batch in bulk for a while which I think made the difference. Ellen got a Third Place Ribbon and we scored a SECOND.

We also got ribbons for our labels but I don't remember the ranking. The dealio with the labels was that Susan made the label for Ellen's wine and I made the label for our wine. I believe I beat Susan but again, I can't really remember and I'm not the kind of person who keeps those kinds of records. (The Sarcasm meter just went off the Charts)

The thing that really amazes me is that I forgot to take any pictures. I had my camera with me and it totally slipped my mind that perhaps I ought to be clicking away. It's the thrill of competition that makes think unclear.

Pictures to follow next week after we pick up our wineses.

Bitchin' New Project

There are not many things we do around this house in relation to remodeling projects that get me excited right off the bat. They are generally expansive projects that require demolition, clean up, preparation, re-construction, clean up, more clean up and finally finish work.

We have had an idea for some time that we wanted to do that came to fruition today.

We have always believed that there was a door in this wall in the entry way. In the days when this house was built, it was not uncommon to be led to a parlor off the main door when arriving at the home. There, one would wait for whomever one happened to be calling upon. And so, we decided we needed to see inside that wall because we just knew there was an old door frame hidden inside.We were wrong. No old door frame was to be found. However, that little detail did not deter us. We wanted a door in that wall and now, we have one.I am so pleased with how this turned out. It really changes the feel of the entryway. We used Phil on this project because, Number One, we wanted it done right and Number B, we wanted it done fast.Phil managed to do both things. Next up, Tile Floors!

Back to Reality

The problem with four days off is that you don't want to go back when it's over. I am not one for sleeping in, except when I can't. I realized this morning that I really enjoyed those days of sleeping in...even if it was only until 8AM.

I had a panic last night as I realized that I had not properly submitted my entry in the fair wine competition. To be included in the label contest, I had to include an empty bottle with the label. That meant I had to produce one quickly and get it to the fair with about one and a half hours to go until the 8:00PM deadline.

The production part went smoothly and I had 45 minutes to get there. As soon as I got on the freeway, the traffic was down to one lane for midnight construction. I took the next exit and started weaving my way towards the fairgrounds. I got to the turn I wanted and the bridge was closed for more construction. I drove on down the road hoping that the short cut I now needed to take would not be blocked by a train, as it often is, and (of course) was.

So now I had to race two miles east, one mile south and two miles back to the west to get to my destination. I made it with 5 minutes to spare. Whew!

The Karma version of this whole event says that I have no chance of a ribbon now.

I'll show off my labels soon but I have to keep it a secret from Susan for now.

Done!

The nice thing about low resolution jpeg pictures is they don't show the many imperfections in the craftsmanship of the floor shown below. That is what sanding is for. The main thing is that I am done and I did it within the time frame I had pre-assigned to the project.

It all went smoothly and I am mostly pleased with the outcome. It is not level, uniform, even or well crafted but it is in and it is done.

I started the day by going out to the fair grounds to get our Wine Entries checked in. That went very well and I was in and out of there in no time. Susan and I have entered two wines and one beer. One of our wines is a Syrah that is in direct competition with our friend Ellen. She made the exact same kit wine. The only difference is hers has been in the bottle a few months longer than ours. But we bottled back in February so I don't think the two or three months advantage she has will make that big of a difference.

The other interesting aspect to the competition is that they now have a friend competition for best label. I designed the Syrah label for our wine and Susan designed the label for Ellen's wine. The results will be forthcoming.

Now I have one last thing to do for today before we prepare for sanding the floor. I have one little bit of linoleum to remove from the hall closet. It is a small space so I suspect I can have it done by 5:00PM.

It is now 2:10PM.

If I make my goal, I will be soaking in the newly installed hot tub by 6:00PM.

Stand By:

I was in the hot tub by four. Good thing I tried it out before Susan cuz it was waaaaay to hot. It was hard to get in because of the heat and then as I sat there and boiled, drinking a high octane beer, it totally zapped me. I barely have the strength to hit these keys.

We'll try it again tonight after it has had a chance to cool.

I must say that I am happy with the progress we made this weekend and all the activities we managed to fit in. Very busy, very productive, good to be alive!

Labra Dor Weekend Day C

Today is the final day of the three day weekend...for most people. Those of us who planned ahead get tomorrow off too. Which we will need in order to complete the goals of the weekend. I don't think I'll get much accomplished on the floor today due to Labra Dor Activities. In the meantime, let's talk about what I have accomplished.

I received what I believed to be a very good omen at the start of the project. I pulled a piece of flooring from my flooring pile and took it to the flooring area for measurement to properly fit into the flooring place. It was perfect! It required no cutting at all.

Unfortunately, it was a false omen as I immediately ran into other difficulties. The main problem involved proper placement into order to line up correctly with the other bits of wood. I finally got it under control and manged to complete more than half the floor.

I already said this but I'm too lazy to re-write. I will not be able to finish the floor today because it is intense with Labra Dor Day activities. We are paddling the Little Spokane river this morning and attending the Labra Dor Concert in Colmstock Park this afternoon. There also exists the distinct possibility of a rain out of the paddling AND the concert. The day looks tentative. Which then means I could work on the floor and everything here that I didn't delete is now without purpose...or merit...or any sense of reason, or rhyme or STOP ME!We again attended the Pigout in the Park because we were so disappointed with our food choices on Friday. Last night, we did much better. I had the giant Italian Sausage and Susan had the Philly Cheese steak.

I was also able to add Chocolate Dipped Cheesecake on a Stick to my resume.

Trying to Buy American

I goofed around too much yesterday to get much accomplished on the floor. The picture below shows where I'm at, which is, ready to start placing the floor. This is where I get nervous and start goofing around to put off the craftsmanship part of the project.

I needed a new chisel. I had pretty much beaten the crap out of the cheap "Made in China" chisels I have. I was determined to buy one the says "Made in U.S.A." on the package. That is easier said than done.

I ended up being successful but I didn't get the exact type of chisel I wanted. It's a masonry chisel but it is solid and forged out of American Steel. I worked pretty well.

On a final note, the following video is for anyone contemplating visiting our house late at night without our permission.

Labra Dor Day One

Okay, it's the Labor Day Weekend and we started out by drinking heavily last night and sleeping in. I'm trying to get my day started but here it is almost 11:30 and that is just not happening. I should be recovered from my hangover in time to go to a party this afternoon.

We rode our bikes down to the park last night and enjoyed a little Pig Out. I had a deep fried hotdog and Susan had Teriyaki Chicken. both were marginal.

Okay, it's time to work.

Cruise Night

We took a night off from the house and went on a cruise on the Spokane River. Our friends, Chuck & Maggie live in an apartment that is on the river. They have a great yard and a dock where Chuck keeps his little 12 foot wooden runabout.

We have attended a couple of fun parties there and have always enjoyed the ambiance. So I basically invited us over for a float. It's a simple process. Chuck unties the boat and we float with the current. Then, when it's dark, he powers up the 20 horse Evinrude or the trolling motor and slides back up the river.

Right now there river is pretty low and so there is nary a current to be had. So we motored up to what Chuck called Donkey Island and then slowly cruised back to the dock with the silent trolling motor guiding our way. There was of course, wine and food to be consumed. We listened to the Jazz station and watched birds and bats and fish had a wonderful evening under the full moon.This is one of the many reasons why I love Spokane.

Mo' Flo' Progress

I did a couple more hours of work last night and continued to chip away at the floor. Literally! I had to use my chisel to remove the remaining boards against the wall. Then I went to work on the hardwood. I have to remove and shorten some of the pieces there so I don't have a hard straight line where I lay the new wood in.We have ordered the tile for the entryway. This was not an easy process. I can't order from their website. Everytime I try to log into their "Live Chat" feature, they are off line. So I called thier Toll Free number. Got a message machine. I called the other Toll Free number, got the same message machine. So I left a message and waited for them to call me on my cell phone.

A couple of hours later, I got a call from a heavily accented woman calling me Mr. Stan. We made the transaction the the tile is ordered.This is a sample of how it will look except that, for some reason, it's coming in as a negative. The colors are much prettier than what this shows. It's got lots of green and yellows and creams.

We should have it in about three weeks. It would have been judicious of us to order it three weeks ago, but that's not how we roll.

Mo' Flo

We still have more floor to work on. tonight, I began tearing into the flooring in the back hallway. I have no doubt that I wrote about this when we pulled up the linoleum but here we go again.

We need to replace the flooring leading to this room. You can see that it is different from the flooring at the bottom of the picture.The door to this room used to be where the flooring transitioned. But somewhere along the way, probably when the house was transformed into two apartments, they moved the door and built a closet and a linen closet.

Well, we like the closets and so we are keeping them. But we need to make the floor look consistent.So, just like the other day (but without John) I cut into the flooring where I want to remove it. Then I began the task of prying up the boards. I didn't have to be quite so gentle this time because I wasn't planning on saving these boards. It would have been nice to save them but not imperative.

That was lucky because saving them was not to be. For some unknown reason, someone went under the house and screwed a row of screws through the underlying floor and into these boards. That made it very difficult to remove them in tact.

I can only surmise that these floor boards came loose at some point and the fix was to fasten them down with screws from underneath.So after only a couple of hours, this is the progress we made. The main thing is that we did something rather than sit around and watch TV like we usually do.

One other note of importance; we ordered a door yesterday to place in the entryway that will be an alternate entry into this room. One may recall that we thought there would have been a door into this room originally, but apparently people from 100 years ago don't think like us!

Achievement Gawds

We had such a wonderful day of achievement that I can hardly contain myself. On Friday, we invited my Mom and her special friend John (I can't call him a boyfriend cuz we're talking 'bout my Mom here).

Anyway, John is everything I am not when it comes to home improvement. He got us started on our Entryway Project. Here's the deal. We are removing the hardwood floor in the entryway and replacing it with tile. We have found a tile pattern that we like and have ordered it...almost.

So John came over and helped me get the whole thing going. We cut the hardwood which will allow me to remove it and replace it with tile. Here are pictures. Here is John doing all my work. I love him for that

Below is the floor just after I began removing a couple of the boards. I have a long way to go at this point.

In this picture, I have removed a few more boards and the view shows the repair area I will have to deal with.

Here is a picture of the entryway cleared of the hardwood flooring. This is the area where the tile will be placed.Here is a shot of the repair area after I have chiseled away the damaged boards.

Okay, from here, I have to patch this section of floor. I tried a couple of plans but they didn't work so well for me. I finally ended up taking a long piece and just hammering it into place. Then I hammered another piece into place next to it in the shorter span. it worked well and they are a tight fit. I'm rather pleased with myself. However, the last time I was pleased with myself, I followed by cutting into a gas line...so, not really so smug.

Classy Classiness at it's Classiest

This evening I completed the very classy piece of resistance to finish off the front porch. I painted a delicate highlight on the mailbox to totally tie together all the elements of the house painting frontal exposure project. Now...it is perfect...except for the other little highlights we want to add.Nothing major, actually. We just want to experiment with some subtle striping highlights around the columns. It's the type of thing that probably only we would notice.

Something else I just noticed is the damn telephone cord hanging in the background of the mailbox. Whoever the Moron was who strung the telephone many years ago didn't give a crap about pieces of resistance.

It's not that I am just now discovering this. I knew it was there. I just don't know what to do about it right now. When we remodel that room where that phone line goes to, I will do it properly through the underbelly of the house. In the meantime, I am forced to live with that wire as is, mocking me and preventing me from completing our flawless front porch perfection.

It is tough to be a Prima Dona!

Annual Furnace Turn On Competition

My project for today was to drain the radiators in our heating system and remove the one in the hallway. We need to remove the linoleum under that unit and it is time to get moving on this entryway project again.

I ran into an unforeseen problem almost immediately after attaching the hose to the furnace and opening the drain. The floor drain in the Laundry Room backed up. We've had this problem before and the fix involves a plumber and a heavy duty snake.In the meantime, I had to get the system drained so I placed the hose in a five gallon bucket and began hauling buckets into the yard. I will bet you I dumped 100 gallons. I guess that shouldn't surprise me when you consider there are nine radiators tied into the systems along with all that pipe. It seems much larger when you have to haul it.

Removing the radiator went smoothly. Something had to. Even pulling out the remaining bit of flooring was relatively easy. It did take me back to all those staples we removed. Anyway, that's another step closer to completing the project. Only ten quadrillion steps to go.

And since we are talking about the furnace, it is time to start discussing the game I play every year where I see how long I can go before I have to turn on the furnace. last years record setting effort got us all the way to October 8th before we caved.

We have a small glitch in this years competition. The furnace cannot presently be turned on. You would have to refer back to April 19th where the gas was turned off...semi-permanently...because I am an idiot.

I have not gotten an Inspector over here yet and I need to make that happen. I have been telling myself that the Inspector is an August job and it seems that August is upon us...perhaps even overtaking us.

Susan has kept herself busy all day with cleaning. The house hasn't been cleaned since before we went to Iowa and it needed it. She goes into Crazy Cleaning Mode and it's best for me to stay out of her way as well as do what she says. Now!

In conclusion, I noticed that my Hit Counter is about to go over 1000. Unfortunately, most of those hits are me.

Saturday Night's Alright...etc!

I had a wonderful evening this Saturday night and I don't even know where to begin. So let's start at the beginning.

Today was my first day back at Scotty's Bar & Grill in a couple of months...probably since the surgery. No wait! I have worked one other day since the surgery but this is not important and I should delete the whole last line. If you're not reading this, you'll know I did.

It was a slow day but nice to be back in the Bartending Saddle.

I finally connected with my friend Mike via the Skype. He is currently residing in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico. He's teaching English, which he's really good at. I've heard him speak it. Skype is really cool. I have to turn more people on to it. I would like to get Susan and her sister Margaret going on it. Of course, then I would never have access to the computer.

On my way home, I picked up a huge piece of cow for the Bar B-Q, along with some asparagus for stinky pee and some mushrooms to top it all off. That was an excellent meal.

My task of the night was to clean the fish aquarium. There is only the one goldfish (Norman) in there but he is a major creator of scum. That task went easily and it would go more easily if I would learn the lesson of regular cleanings.

I decided to light the fire pit and burn some scrap wood we have built up. It was a lovely night for a fire, sitting in the glow with a drink and a cigar. Finally, I would like to say that I had no reason to be fearful of the squirrels NOT finding the new feeder. The had no trouble at all. I haven't seen them use it yet but it gets emptied every day so I'm pretty sure they found it. I'll probably see it in use tomorrow. Pictures to follow.

Squirrel Surprise

I have invested in a new Squirrel Feeder. This is quite different from the previous feeder and I think it will take the squirrels a while to figure out that it's there. I tried to help them out this morning by rustling the peanut bag like I did whenever I refilled the feeder. I've been out of town for so long they have grown weary of waiting for me to feed them...so they didn't come running this morning when I rustled.So now I will just wait and see how long it takes them to figure it out.

New Paint and Cones

One of the wonderful features of returning home from vacation was the discovery that our painting project on the front of the house is complete. We are very happy with the way this came out and can't wait for the next three years as we complete a side per year. Next year, we do the east side of the house. That's the side with the deck.

I love this look on the front porch. That shiny dark green floor looks fabulous. We will now have to put up Police Tape to keep any visitors off the front porch. It's too nice to walk on. I wonder how long it will be before it starts to get scuffed up and dull looking.

I put the furniture back out last night along with the Porch Swing. we ate our first meal back out on the porch. It was great!

While we were gone, we had Mark come over and do some occassional watering. We should leave town more often. It's very good for our plants. everything seems to be thriving and very green.

I'm especially exciting about the upcoming fall Hops Harvest. I have cones developing on both plants and my friend Ron who have planted Hops as well has a nice crop coming in.

There will be some beer brewing soon with home grown Hops.

Return from Iowa

We have made the trip back from Iowa and now have to face the reality of our non-vacation lives. Yup, it's back to work for Susan and I. On top of that, we have a mound of mail and some heavily neglected cats to attend to.

But lets talk about our trip home. We left Des Moines Saturday morning pulling a 4' x 8' U-Haul Trailer. We had some furniture and paintings and assorted do-dads from the Sue-Dad.

We made a stop at the Kipping Farm in Redfield to say so long to Susan's cousins. We sipped some smoothies and got on the road about 1:00PM.

Our goal for the day was to make Cheyenne, Wyoming. We fell short by a couple hours. We spent the night in Sidney, Nebraska and that was fine by us. We put in an eight hour day on the road. The weather sucked and we were ready for a rest.

A good deal of our drive over all three days looked like this.

Although, some of it looked like this.

We awoke on Sunday morning with the quest of Yellowstone Park. It took us all day thanks to road construction (this will be a great country if we ever finish it) and long and windy roads. We reached over 9,000 feet at one point, and that's not good for your gas mileage when you're pulling a trailer.

When we arrived at the Old Faithful Inn, it was after 7PM and we were pretty beat. We checked in, had some dinner, went to bed. We know how to party. Here ar some pictures of the incredible Od Faithful Inn.

We managed to crawl out of bed at an early hour and get our day started. We saw Old Faceful and you can too thanks to the magic of video.

We drove into the driveway about 7PM last night. We did some preliminary un-packing and loved on the kitties who missed us terribly...or maybe not at all. Hard to tell with them.

Anyway, we are home and pleased to be back. I'm off now to fold laundry.

Gear up for the Fair

Yesterday, Susan and I attended the opening day of the Iowa State Fair, the best State Fair. (Don't miss it, don't even be late) We were joined by our fair hostess, Margaret, who is Susan's sister. Also joining us was her cousins, Louise and Irene.

It was a hot muggy day, just perfect for walking around for hours upon hours upon still more hours. I ran out of gas about 5:00 but we stayed until 10. I'm not one to complain so nobody knew about the throbbing, burning ache in my knee. I just sucked it up and heavily medicated myself with beer. That might be the other reason I ran out of gas at five.

Anyway, the Iowa State Fair is quite a spectacle. Immediately upon arrival shortly after nine, I set out on my goal to eat every kind of food available at the fair the was followed by the words "on a Stick".

We started with a Corn Dog or "Hot Dog on a Stick".

Then I had "Cheese in a Stick". This tasted light a grilled cheese sandwich. It tasted like it was made with the Cheese of the Gods, also known as Velveeta.
While wondering through the Ag Building, I found "Egg on a Stick". This was a special bonus "On a Stick" food because it was free.
The best "On A Stick" food was "Pork Chop on a Stick". It was slowly bar-b-qued in a large rotisserie cooker. Absolutely Fabulous!!!For dessert, "Ice Cream on a Stick". I had to fight Susan off for this one. The beauty of this "On a Stick" food was it was a Winning Prise for coming closets to guessing when Louise would arrive.The next day, I discovered I had pretty much covered all the "On A Stick" food. All that was left was "Chicken on a Stick".This was the only "On A Stick" food I didn't eat.We found a place were they had "Salad on a Stick" but that seemed too nutritious.

I have since learned that I missed "Deep Fried Bacon on a Stick" and Deep Fried Twinky on a Stick". I guess we will have to go back.

We start our return trip home tomorrow and are planning on a three day journey. I hope we can get in eight hours tomorrow and maybe twelve on Sunday. That will give us an easy sixish hour drive home on Monday.

Humid in Iowa

Susan's father died last Tuesday, August 4th, 21 days short of his ninty-se7enth birthday. I guess that's a pretty good life.

So, we have driven to Iowa. The funeral was yesterday and all went well...at least as well as things can go when you talking about a funeral. We got to see lots and lots of her family and so, in that respect, this has been a good trip.

We still have the Iowa State Fair to look forward to and tonight we are going to see the local Triple A baseball team. I think they are a farm club of the Cubs. The San Diego Chicken will be there to entertain so we are pumped to go. He calls himself the Famous Chicken now but he's still the same guy and he is pretty funny to watch.

We made our drive here in two days rather than our marithon 24 drive that we have done in the past. It was nice to break it up into two days and it was a memorable drive featuring a very cool sunset. We made it to Gillette, WY the first day. We were trying to make it well into South Dakota but Freeway Construction and a major Lightning Storm prevented that. It was raining so hard that we had to pull off the highway and hide under an overpass for about 15 minutes.

We got an early start the next day and drove through Sturgess, SD during the big Motorcycle festival they have there. I've never seen so many motorcycles. It was truely amazing.

So now we are here and enjoying the remaining days we have before loading up a trailer and returning with some of Susan's parent furniture and assorted stuff. I am not publishing this entry or any of those to follow until we return home. I figure there is no reason to give a burglar a clear message that we are not home. But I wanted to get some stuff written before it gets lost in the fertile sediment of my sentiment.

Hot Tub Delivery Day

It was a busy weekend full of accomplishments and I have the aching sore neck to prove it.

Last weekend I borrowed a truck from my friend Rob. It's his extra utility truck...I call it the Farm Truck. I went to the dump and hauled stuff and did a series of manly truck related items. Rather than return it on Sunday, I just kept it for the whole week. I hauled two loads of pea gravel to the new hot tub pit. I hauled lumber. I hauled and hauled and hauled. I used about $80.00 worth of gas.

I don't think I have reported this before so I better say it now. Our neighbors have offered us their hot tub. It is a 15 year old Hotsprings hot tub. It is in good condition and all we have to do is move it.

So we have been preparing the site where the tub will go and getting ready for the move. Yesterday was move day. I got several friends to whom I am now indebted. I rented a hot tub dolly which was very slick. This was a big metal cart with steerable wheels on both ends. We lifted the tub up on end and onto the cart. Then it was just a matter of wheeling it next door and dropping (softly) into place.

The most amazing part of the whole operation was that the tub is level. I'm not sure it will remain that way once we fill it, but for now a level tub is a happy tub and I am happy.

Rob has his truck back and it is very clean and gassed up.

Painting is continuing on the front of the house. Our painter has been very meticulous about preparing everything. She has spent several days scraping, power washing and caulking. It looks like she is just about ready to paint. Once she starts that, she'll be finished rather quickly.

The heat has been unrelenting for a couple of weeks now. Keeping water on the lawn is a major effort. If I miss a couple of days, you see it right away.

Finally...an Update

I've been off the air for a while. No excuse, not even that busy. I just haven't made time to get on the computer and type.

After two weeks of suffering from the effects of my massive bug bites, I went to the Doctor.

They had started to fade been then came back. Susan has been concerned that we brought the bugs home from the lake with us and they were still visiting. I have the massive bites and she gets one or two and goes nuts.

Anyway, the picture above is from two days ago. The Doctor gave me a prescription strength ointment to apply as well as a series of steriods to take. I can see a huge improvement. The best part, I'm not as itchy as I was.

Susan's birthday was last Sunday and to celebrate, the city threw an elaborate concert with fireworks for her.

It was a lovely night after a hot day. We got down to the park around se7en o'clock after consuming the traditional Susan Birthday Meal of Cheeseburgers, Corn on the Cob, Potato Chips, and Cottage Cheese.

We saved the traditional Susan Birthday cake, which is Angel Food Cake slathered in Strawberries, for the park. Everyone joined in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday and she blew out her 39 candles in front of a sizable crowd.

The concert was the Royal Fireworks Concert where fireworks are set off to Handels Royal Fireworks Music for loud bangs and booms. It was well received and Susan had a fabulous birthday.

Unfortunately, we should have gone home after the concert rather than drop by a local watering hole located right by our cars. We all had a couple more drinks which made us feel small in the morning.

The Curse of the No-See-Ums

I had another bad night of the itches. I finally got out of bed around three and went downstairs to take a bath. I added two cups of Epsom Salts and stayed in there for about an hour. It was therapeutics enough to let me go back to bed and sleep until morning.

I went out to get the morning paper and let the cats out when I noticed this bird sitting in the front walkway. It was a kind of bird I have never seen. I was a young crow. I don't think I have ever seen a baby crow before. For that matter, a baby pigeon or baby sea gull are foreign to me as well.

It looked like it had fallen from its nest because it was dazed and kind of wobbly. It didn't make much of an attempt to get away from me. Its parents however had no problem squawking away as I approached it. They seemed to be quite upset with me. As much as I dislike crows, I couldn't see myself putting this little thing out of its misery so I returned the cats to the house.

Susan said it was no longer in the yard when she left for work. I thought it would have made a nice pet. I would have named it "Nevermore" or "Aticus".

Extended Weekend

We have just returned from three days up at Priest Lake. Let me start by saying that the Huckleberries are in season right now and they are everywhere. I have never come upon a patch of huckleberries as thick as the one we found on Monday. We finally had to stop picking because we ran out of room in our containers. We left lots of berries.

We were at Priest courtesy of my pal Arnie and his wife Hayley. They live in San Fran but come to town from time to time to relive Arnie's childhood of growing up here. They rented a great cabin near the Priest Lake Marina.

Susan and I drove up Sunday and stayed until Tuesday. The weather did not exactly cooperate the whole time we were there but we came home relaxed and refreshed...mostly. We also drank heavily. I especially drank heavily on Sunday night. I finally stumbled to bed around two-ish and woke up refreshed and ready for a rainy day around nine. Nobody would believe that I felt good. My advantage was to take aspirin prior to passing out...along with copious quantities of water. Sure, I had to get up a couple of times and pee but that wasn't until I had processed a great deal of alcohol.

The following night I had a run-in with some No-See-Ums. They are the kind of bug that eat at you ravenously but you never see them or know they were there until it is too late.

Seriously! I went to bed around midnight and felt no ill effects from the day, the night, the giant dinner we consumed or booze. I awoke around three and my legs were terribly itchy. It kept me up for most of the rest of the night. When I finally got out of bed around se7en, my arms and legs were covered with little bites that developed into little welts.

I went back to ask Susan if she felt itchy and she said that she didn't. If it was fleas or bedbugs, they left her alone. Of course, I had earlier basted myself with gin and grilled meat.

I am hoping this is not going to last too long. It is terribly uncomfortable. I'm going through a LOT of Epsom Salts.

House of the Rising Slime

We have spent the week doing little projects all around the house. We are repainting and slightly rebuilding our screen wall that hides the space between the garage and the carriage house where I keep loads of crap. It badly needed a paint job and some rebuilding.

Susan did some plastering in the back guest bedroom. We have a small access hole in the ceiling that lets me get into the attic. I pretty much tore it apart a couple years ago because it wasn't big enough to get stuff up there. I re-framed the hole and Susan put up some drywall and patched what was left. It looks pretty good now.

The rest of our time has been spent cleaning as we have some out of town guests arriving on Friday...and God forbid that someone might see the house in the usual sloppy style in which we live. Of course, I'm comfortable in our usual sloppy style and would allow it to get sloppier if not for someone who is not sloppy...or comfortable with it...who shall remain nameless.

Independence Weekend Day "C"

We have arrived into the New Millennium. We now have Satellite TV. We have been limping along on basic cable and the recent upgrades to digital transmission has caused us to loose a lot of channels. So, we decided to try Direct TV.I am slowly learning of the joys of Digital Recording. We have one DVR with out package and I have already recorded a few shows. Tonight we will be watching "Burn After Reading". It's a recent offering from the Farely Brothers., whose past films include 'Raising Arizona", "Brother Where Art Thou" and Fargo. I always have to watch their movies a couple of times before I get them. I hated "The Big Labowski" the first time I saw it but now it is one of my favorites.

I get a daily e-mail feature from Meriam-Webster Dictionary called Word of the Day. It is my feeble attempt to improve my vocabulary by looking at new words every day and then forgetting them.

Yesterdays offering was very good because it was a word I had not heard before and the pronunciation was nothing like I expected it to be.

If I were to use invigilate in a sentence, someone might misconstrue my meaning. Ya know?!

We went downtown on bicycles last night to watch the fireworks but this year we were joined by our friends Ron and Kelly and then later joined by buddy Mark.

Ron and Kelly came over about 6:00 and we put Ron to work on the grill with his pork ribs and bar b-q sauce. He pretty much ruined my grill and the inside of my Webber. It will take some major heat to remove all the baked on goodness. Man, those ribs were goooooood!We rode down to the park about 9:00 and had great seats to watch the fun. Then we hopped back on the bikes and avoided the mayhem downtown with nary an problem.

Susan and I spent today on some projects around the house and enjoyed a quiet afternoon puttering.

Tomorrow it is back to reality. What a drag! Oh well, you can't appreciate the good without the reality.