Ruminations

I don’t know what it is, but frankly I’m in a bad mood. I think I’ve had it with this winter. We were spoiled last year, but spring seems so far off. It’s also not easy living at the Lodge, or living in the country, for that matter. Every little thing is amplified compared to city life. 

A coworker’s idea of “rough out there” is walking from their car to the front door of work, and then back at the end of the day. My idea of “rough out there” is every time I go from the bedroom to the kitchen through the unheated space between, that’s typically in the high 20’s or low 30’s depending on outside temps. We keep coats at both ends. If you leave your water bottle at the bottom of the steps, it will freeze. The kitchen is kept at 40F to prevent water lines from freezing, the upstairs unheated until we get home. Then there’s the matter of lack of a garage, and if there was a garage, how about an electric opener? And then the matter of getting to the road. You walk half a mile into straight-line wintry mix, or fight your way down the lane, over the tracks, and through the snow drifts in 4-wheel drive hoping you don’t get stuck because Lord have mercy this thing won’t have warmed up ‘til you’ve gotten to work and your boots are back at the Lodge and the drifts are several feet high and oh let’s just forget it and go back to bed.

I am not complaining about the situation. I could sell it all and move into an apartment in town with a heated garage, save 10’s of thousands of dollars, untold hours, and live like everyone else. No, I am complaining about winter. I know people that live in 1800’s farm houses out in the country, car outside, secondary roads that see little plowing. We deal with it.

On that happy note, It’s mid-March. Here’s a rundown for the archives-

Parents arrived home last week from their snow-bird Florida living. I decided to take them, Cara, and my grandma out to eat at Texas Roadhouse where a fine-time was had by all. Of note, the owners could open a second Texas Roadhouse directly next to this one and pack it just as easily on a Friday night.

The parents also picked up their new car, a 2013 GMC Acadia, which my dad bought and ordered through Deery last month while he was still in Florida. Very nice.

And in that vein, the 1993 Chevy Blazer is starting to get a little rough around the edges. The exhaust is a little louder. The engine runs a little rougher under load. The trans might be slipping a bit more after several incidents of freeing it from various snowy tombs this winter. And worst of all..the radio stops after several minutes of playing. Volume dependent, of course. The louder you have it, the less play time you get. It makes for an interesting ride to/from work…you turn it up just loud enough to figure out the song, then take it down a couple notches. Then you decide if you want to listen to the radio more than be warm, and adjust the fan speed accordingly so you can lower the volume.

The new Menards is slated to open next week and frankly, I’m thrilled. The only reason I end up at Crossroads these days is for materials. Not a fun drive, and not cheap to drive over there, either. Now, being directly on the way home, I won’t have to accumulate a week’s laundry list before sacrificing construction time and making the trek. It’ll also be easier on new shrubs and trees since the interstate can be avoided. 

The "Proposal 4" plan for the University corridor was released recently and I'm at a loss for words. Roundabouts or not, nobody should have to lose their home because The City thinks they know best how to improve traffic. The plans have roads, trails and right-of-ways grabbing land from wide swaths of the corridor and for all the wrong reasons. If the impetus for this project is to improve traffic flow, then that's one thing. Reducing the lanes to 4 and replacing stoplights with circles will keep the same throughput, IF people can figure out how to use them. If not, I think I'd rather wait my turn at a stoplight then have grandma pull out in front of me because she thinks I have to yield to her. If it's to integrate pedestrian/bicycling traffic to make the corridor more relevant, that's something else. If it's the former, this could be accomplished with better signaling and re-pavement with something other than blacktop. If it's the latter, they need a better plan than putting pedestrians in the line of fire around the perimeter of a round-about. Underpasses for cycles should be considered as a minimum. The entire corridor is becoming less and less relevant anyhow and a shot in the arm from foot traffic is not going to change that. In fact, it might hamper development.  /End of Rant.

Time for a CS3 Update…. We are coming along nicely on the interior. This winter saw a flurry of activity right before the cold really set in. Got the LP trenched in, the furnace and ducting installed, the ceiling drywall put up and all walls mudded and taped. Next was the carpet, and the painting. Floor tiles in the kitchen along with the appliances from the Big Move. I finished up the bamboo ceilings in both the entry and the living room, and this month, have tackled most of the interior window and door trim and staining, built the light fixture for the foyer, mudded and taped the downstairs entry walls, and have been doing the electrical in preparation for trenching in the service entrance. The goal is to get the interior stuff finished by 1April and if I continue to knock out tasks every night, I should be on target. Looming activities include finding an acceptable kitchen countertop pattern and making the countertops, deciding on a floor covering for the upstairs entry, putting in railings for the foyer, trimming out the walls, and deciding how far to take the upstairs bathroom for the interim. To frame or not to frame.

What else is new? I broke down and ordered the Philips Hue LED bulbs for the foyer pendants. I think they’ll be a lot more fun once we have that newfangled Internet out there. Also, I’ve been spending some bucks on eb*y buying what 16mm films I can afford, mostly shorts. I’ll need some editing/winding equipment, too. Eventually this will all be part of the Drive-In project but I fear funds might limit how far that gets this year (assuming I can get over the siding hurdle of CS3). There’s new garage doors for the Lodge, a serious look at grading and improving the lane, a carport/standalone garage project, plus other things of import like an antenna tower, a replacement for the Blazer, a trailer of some sort, good old property taxes, and the rest. Bah.