Give 'em the Old One-Two!

Now this time I can't complain. Friday rolled around and the sun and temps had driven most in the office to use vacation. By the afternoon it seemed like I was 10% of the staff on hand. I cashed in a few built-up hours and got out around 1. Stopped by the apt for sundries, then the parents for a turntable and all the LPs I could lay my hands on, plus a card table, CD's and whatever else was on my list. By this time it was after 4 and I headed for Fareway; busy place. As much as I like shopping HyVee for their variety, Fareway seems even friendlier without making a show of it. Simple aislesand markers. Low ceilings. Everyone in uniform. And very reasonable prices. The checkouts are a bit odd, however, and it's always a little awkward when they wheel your cart out to your car….of course if they did that at Menards….hmmm..

Friday night was a blast, though. I rushed out to the lodge, now after 5:30, and set to getting the refrig running, groceries put away, blazer unloaded, kitchen/dining area tidied and upstairs, getting the turntable set up with the amp (and getting the cart aligned) and trying things out. Back downstairs, I threw together a yellow cake and quickly changed before Cara and Cam showed. Dinner at The Goat- the cuban was excellent and the potato a winner but it seems we always get stuck in the same booth- not that the sports-bar side is much better. However if you like heavy coughing, we were in the right spot.

Jason and Holly joined us for cards, drinks and quad with Ben making an appearance and we made a rather late (for us, anyway) night of it. For a long day I was still humming along but I didn't complain at the prospect of a good night's sleep.

Saturday I putzed away at my weekend list, getting in deeper and deeper sorting out what's where. In between outside jobs (painting the flag pole smoke gray), I got things organized under the main work bench, sorted and boxed up electrical misc- plates, devices, Despard items, EMT related items, and so forth. Then went for the plumbing. Came up short on a few things so got a list going to tackle the odd jobs and by this time I had a decent pile of unused things to return (stuff like roof flashing and PVC fittings). By the time Cara returned from shopping I was back at the copper washing machine supply lines. Got things pretty well done while catching some bad TV downstairs. Did some reading out on the deck as the sun set.

The next day I tried my hand at french toast stuffed with cheddar cheese with a side of maple sausage and OJ. Not too bad but I need to pick up a skillet proper. I finished up the copper hot water supply and with Cara's help we transported it into position along the back wall. From there, some torching and the critical parts were in. With a makeshift washer hose I got things pressurized and checked for leaks. Found one connection that would seep just a touch- drained the works, blew out the line and re-flowed; all okay. Caught "A Day in October" while I worked.

With sun shining we headed out for returns and to complete the short list. First to the parents for some materials downstairs, then to Jo-Ann where Cara picked up some "on sale" yarn while I continued leafing through a shoebox of recent receipts pulling out anything HomeDepot. We stopped at Menards with a cart full of miscellaneous dating back to '07. With the "you find it" terminal (not it's actual name) we came up with receipts for quite a bit and kept the friendly girl at the return register busy. Even with monopolizing her for half an hour it was still smiles and small talk. Got what we needed in the store, spotted Ben and his copper pipe, and got out for Home Depot.

You'd think coming in with defacto receipts for roof flashing would be all that's necessary for a refund. Roof flashing from this summer even. Not so. In fact, all you can get after 90 days is store credit. Receipt or no. Served up with attitude, of course. We looked at tool chests (good luck finding anyone to point us in the right direction) and were pretty much appalled at the variety (your choice of 2!) and the steep prices. Now after dark we headed back to the Lodge. I got the Westinghouse running with a load of bleach to clean things out and then got busy getting a dryer operational. Next was installing towel hooks in the bathroom through the holes I drilled earlier in the day through the tile. This meant grinding the concealed screw heads down to virtually nothing so they'd fit the ill-conceived IKEA "hook" design. Also, melting the plastic anchor flanges pressed into the tiles so the hooks would sit flush, which they now do.

Completion of Sunday night? Pizza, Twin-Fin, and some light electrical work yielding an interior island light. About time I put that electricity to good use!

Red Skelton's Comedy of Errors

To coin in oft-used phrase, "it started off innocently enough"…. I had just sat down with a brew when Cam walked in to the PL. The Dodgers (LA or Brooklyn, we're still working on it) were gearing up to play New York on the sets over the bar. That also meant no jukebox action. After an hour or so of chatting we ordered up a second round and worked our way over to the pool table to discover the pool light wasn’t just off, it was inop. My tinkering and Mel's glaring didn't seem to be working and the lack of music was definitely a problem. So, after enjoying an egg, we made our way to The Cypress to discover open tables and cold Schlitz. I had finally cornered Cam 3 to 2 and went up for more quarters only to be greeted by the friendly bartender opening two more bottles of the good stuff and coming my direction. Crap. In retrospect we can see why he thought we were thirsty as we later studied the change machine on the nearby wall, but that didn't change the fact we each still had full beers on the table. Hmm. By the end of a rather craptastic game we were Schlitzed out, but with a score to settle, we headed back for the PL even though the juke was playing some good stuff downtown.

Herein lies the rub. It started when a middle aged guy was having trouble loading the juke while we were gearing up for pool. I made the mistake of striking up conversation. This turned into a looong conversation with the three of us as he regaled us with unbelievable stories about 'nam? Libya? and his other shenanigans while on tour. Doing my best to pretend it was a Friday night I stuck it out through the game (both pool and the series) with Cam aka "gramps" besting me with his fancy bridge-skills. Our friend took off, leaving us 5 free picks on the juke which of course, we put to good use.

Today, November 5th, can go down in the books as the first morning of the year leaving a heavy frost on not only the cars but roof-tops everywhere (time to dig out the scraper). Let's hope this winter doesn't get too crazy.

Hey! No Statistical Voyeurism!

A bit of a forced weekend it was. Got some things done but mostly I feel like I'm drifting as of late. The realization about the lodge project being more than just the time it took to build, but the time it took to design, the scrimping and saving, the hunt for the land, the build of expectation…everything leading up to groundbreaking, well, there's a lot of personal commitment there extending back beyond the horizon of construction time that's sort of hitting me right now. It's not that I'm not excited for the next stage, it's just that I feel exhausted and I know I shouldn't. There's still things left to do and little energy to do them. And that gets back to a more fundamental problem, err, discussion, about paychecks and jobs and the other little things that take over your life even after you leave the office. Regardless, November is a helluva time to come to terms and simultaneously light the rockets. If I had it my way I'd be looking to curl up in a warm cave for a few months and wait it out.

I buttoned up my 15 month project at work on Friday, had an interview for the next round in the AM, gave a bang-up presentation mid-morning and got rid of A LOT of files I had been dragging around the last couple moves. By the PM the office was pretty quiet and I was in good spirits. I was also looking forward to some pool action at the PL before packing up and heading to the Lodge for the night but it wasn't in the cards. I had gone a little nuts at Target so we ended up with a cornicopia of dinner choices but the buffalo chicken wings turned out to be too hot for Cara. I finally got the Sansui quad unit connected and wire run to all four speakers. Config'd the LD player for CD operation and fired up a song of two from the H&O box set before calling it a night. Yeah, pretty much blown away by the sound.

Saturday and the weather was improving. We took the long way to Waverly, which involved randomly turning down winding gravel roads. At one point I found myself standing in a ditch trying to lure curious horses up to the barb-wire. Found some books at T&T, stopped at the CV humane society to see the pups, did a drive-by past the giant billboard poles from the backside, and explored an abandoned house. That evening, Hamms, pipe, books, music, gun oil.

We slept terribly. Could explain my Sunday malaise. While Cara ran errands I hung out at the ranch. Tore down the WP dryer that had been taking up floor space (gotta keep cleaning house), planted a pine in the side yard, and while I had the shovel out I cut down a high spot of fill near the septic tank. Inside I cut and glued up the bulk of what will be the drain system for the washer area but I still need to pressure test and drag out my copper supply systems from the parents. Upstairs, I reassembled the cage and back of the Emerson and called it quits. Still no HV to light the screen; I need a repair cart and tools out there to get some of this stuff up and running.