Bezabor – Too busy to log! (posted from home)
Tuesday, 10 January-
I resolved two long-standing problems today… more easily than I imagined they could be solved. First was the problem of a broken spring in my chair. My favorite chair is a wonderful mission-style recliner I’ve had for years. I love the long, wide oak arms and the green leather. It doesn’t fit particularly well with the rest of our living room but Labashi puts up with it and I appreciate that very much. But one evening early last year, a spring broke. I couldn’t see where it came from but after hearing the odd sound of it breaking, there it lay under the chair. I thought it could be a big problem to get it fixed, imagining that I’d have to take the chair to a specialist, and since it didn’t seem to matter much to the function of the chair, I just put the spring in my box of incoming mail and reading materials. Today we were returning the chair to its place after cleaning the carpet yesterday and on impulse I turned it over and got the spring remnant out of my reading box. It took only a few minutes of close examination to see where the spring came from and compare the remnants to another spring just like it on the far side of the chair. I took the spring along to town this morning, intending to stop at an upholstery shop and beg for a spring. But we ran a little late in our trip to the farmer’s market and I had to get Labashi back to work on a project. So this afternoon it occurred to me to just try my local hardware store—it has some odd things and they might have springs of some kind which I might be able to substitute. I was very surprised to find the exact spring--- and it was only $1.80. And installation turned out to be easy--- on the fourth attempt.
The second long-standing problem I resolved today involved my motorcycle seat. Due to the extra poundage I carry to maintain my wonderfully-aerodynamic shape for motorcycling, the foam on the bike’s seat has compressed too much for comfort. It apparently isn’t memory foam. Either that or it’s a very forgetful brand of memory foam.
So it finally occurred to me that rather than start biking around to, or calling, local upholstery shops to see if they could help, I could ask my motorcycle repair shop who they use. They referred me to a shop in York. I dropped off the seat about 1100 this morning, they called at 1300 to say it was ready, and I was riding on it by 1500. Problem solved by some high-density foam.
I rode the bike over to the local state park for a walk in the woods and along the lake. This one got interesting when I ran into a guy wading around in the lake in chest-waders and using a metal detector to search the shallows of the swimming area. After we spoke for a bit, he introduced himself as “Brother Steve”, interjecting that that’s how he’s known at his church. Brother Steve was an interesting fellow. When I mentioned that a friend at (my former) work had lost her wedding ring in a lake last summer and was very upset by it, he offered to go to that lake and search for her ring. When I mentioned that in a former life I had done some SCUBA diving and always thought it would be interesting to search deeper water with a metal detector, he said he had one and I could borrow it. He gave me his phone number and told me to be sure to call if I wanted him to search for the ring or to borrow his underwater detector. Not sure what to think of Brother Steve but I think he was sincerely offering to help.
Monday, 9 January-
We spent the morning and few hours of the afternoon getting some experience with a carpet-cleaning machine we rented from our local Home Depot. That went pretty well, I thought. The machine was easy to use and appeared to do a good job. We have a dark-brown carpet we bought shortly after moving into our house in the early Eighties. Thank goodness for the dark brown color! Later in the day I went for a walk at Pinchot, near the campground. The walk started very windy but then settled down to a dead-quiet evening with that beautiful long-ray reddish light in the tops of the trees. Nice.
Sunday, 8 January- After playing on the internet for the morning I decided I needed a walk. I rode the Connie over to Boiling Springs and parked her in the old iron furnace parking lot at about 1315. I headed south on the Appalachian Trail, bound for the Alec Kennedy shelter. The day was overcast but about 43 degrees--- nice for a walk. I ran into a northbound walker who I later learned calls himself Texas Danny (Go, Longhorns!). He was accompanied by his black Labrador retriever, Maggie Ford. I know the names from his entry in the trail log at the top of Center Point Knob (that’s where the “Go, Longhorns” comes from). We only chatted very briefly. I wish I had known his trail name and the dog’s name at the time. I’d like to have known more.
I also met backpackers ‘Bruce’ and his son about halfway up Center Point Knob. They were coming from Pine Grove Furnace this weekend and had spent the night on Rocky Ridge. We had a ten-minute chat about the AT and about the Tuscarora Trail and Fowler’s Hollow, which I recommended to them. They didn’t sign the log at Center Point Knob but Bruce made an entry in the Kennedy shelter log, saying how much he was enjoying the weekend with his son.
My trip to Kennedy shelter took about an hour and a half, I spent about a half-hour exploring the shelter area, and that got me back to the bike with just enough light to prepare for the trip home without a flashlight. I had stayed overnight at the shelter in 2002 with hiking buddies rar and jackrabbit. Later, in Fall 2003 I think, I hiked in to the Kennedy shelter alone just as it was getting dark. Two backpackers were cooking supper when I arrived and invited me to share their meal. We sat around the campfire and checked out the stars. We saw a spectacular meteor trail and could just make out the Orion Nebula before I had to leave for the walk out. I hiked back by the light of my LED headlamp known as a “Moonlight”. That reminds me—I still need to find a headlamp with the nice glow and extended battery life of LEDs but one that also has a nice, bright halogen light I can turn on to scare away the boogey-men who were following me that night—they were making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck!
Saturday, 7 January-
We went back to Baltimore again today, this time to the theater. We saw a play called, of all things—“Love and Wood”. Love, as in love, and wood, as in, uhhh….sex. It’s the story of poor Morgan, a young woman trying to decide what to do, what to do, about her predicament--- she has two men in her life—one a friend and confidante but boring in bed, the other excitingly skilled (sexually, that is) but remarkably shallow and single-minded. Actually, the play was very good. The thing that sold me on going was the script--- I love the fact that a link to the script is up on the web site and I could read enough of it to decide whether it would be interesting.
Friday, 6 January-
I went swimming this morning at the local high school pool (at 0600!!). I was happy to be able to swim 250 yards but boy was I slow. Afterwards, I spent the rest of the time treading water and exercising in the water in the diving pool. I decided later that morning to try to find some good bacon at a farmer’s market. We had tried some bacon I found in the back of our freezer on Wednesday morning and it was terrible—thus the quest. I found what I think will be good bacon at York’s Eastern Market. I was surprised how busy the market was…I was lucky to find a parking place for my motorcycle. The other good thing I found was fresh-squeezed orange juice—really, really good juice. And I bought some fantastic Lebanon bologna— just perfectly spiced.
Thursday, 5 January-
Labashi and I went to Baltimore this day to the Baltimore Museum of Art. We wanted to see the Henry Ossawa Tanner exhibit. I ran onto the exhibit by checking the Baltimore Citypaper web site. I’ve found, to my great joy, that all I have to do is google for the word “citypaper” and the Citypapers for Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia all come up— I LOVE it! Henry Ossawa Tanner studied under Thomas Eakins, one of our favorite painters and it was interesting to see his work and the work of others thought to have influenced him.
Wednesday, 4 January-
I went swimming this morning for the first time in a long, LONG time—as in years. The first step to getting back into SCUBA would be to see if I could work up to passing the swim test for entry to a course. The guy at the dive shop told me their test—like the one I took in 1979 for my first SCUBA course—is simple—swim 200 yards any way you can. No time limit, no specific stroke requirements. He also noted that if I had a heart attack or drowned during the test, it wouldn’t be held against me-- I could come back and try again later!
I picked up the Concours today--- $250 for valve adjustment, balancer adjustment, and oil change. Actually, I expected it to be worse….
Tuesday, 3 January—
I spent this morning looking for a place to swim and I visited a local dive shop to see what courses they offer and what their facilities look like. I learned that my local high school has an adult-swim program (even though there’s nothing about it on their web site). I also learned that the dive shop will be conducting a SCUBA course at the same school in late March. Hmmmmm……
I also dropped off my sport-touring motorcycle (the Concours) at the shop today—time for its 22,000 mile service. The big item is a valve adjustment, a fairly expensive proposition.
Tuesday, 10 January-
I resolved two long-standing problems today… more easily than I imagined they could be solved. First was the problem of a broken spring in my chair. My favorite chair is a wonderful mission-style recliner I’ve had for years. I love the long, wide oak arms and the green leather. It doesn’t fit particularly well with the rest of our living room but Labashi puts up with it and I appreciate that very much. But one evening early last year, a spring broke. I couldn’t see where it came from but after hearing the odd sound of it breaking, there it lay under the chair. I thought it could be a big problem to get it fixed, imagining that I’d have to take the chair to a specialist, and since it didn’t seem to matter much to the function of the chair, I just put the spring in my box of incoming mail and reading materials. Today we were returning the chair to its place after cleaning the carpet yesterday and on impulse I turned it over and got the spring remnant out of my reading box. It took only a few minutes of close examination to see where the spring came from and compare the remnants to another spring just like it on the far side of the chair. I took the spring along to town this morning, intending to stop at an upholstery shop and beg for a spring. But we ran a little late in our trip to the farmer’s market and I had to get Labashi back to work on a project. So this afternoon it occurred to me to just try my local hardware store—it has some odd things and they might have springs of some kind which I might be able to substitute. I was very surprised to find the exact spring--- and it was only $1.80. And installation turned out to be easy--- on the fourth attempt.
The second long-standing problem I resolved today involved my motorcycle seat. Due to the extra poundage I carry to maintain my wonderfully-aerodynamic shape for motorcycling, the foam on the bike’s seat has compressed too much for comfort. It apparently isn’t memory foam. Either that or it’s a very forgetful brand of memory foam.
So it finally occurred to me that rather than start biking around to, or calling, local upholstery shops to see if they could help, I could ask my motorcycle repair shop who they use. They referred me to a shop in York. I dropped off the seat about 1100 this morning, they called at 1300 to say it was ready, and I was riding on it by 1500. Problem solved by some high-density foam.
I rode the bike over to the local state park for a walk in the woods and along the lake. This one got interesting when I ran into a guy wading around in the lake in chest-waders and using a metal detector to search the shallows of the swimming area. After we spoke for a bit, he introduced himself as “Brother Steve”, interjecting that that’s how he’s known at his church. Brother Steve was an interesting fellow. When I mentioned that a friend at (my former) work had lost her wedding ring in a lake last summer and was very upset by it, he offered to go to that lake and search for her ring. When I mentioned that in a former life I had done some SCUBA diving and always thought it would be interesting to search deeper water with a metal detector, he said he had one and I could borrow it. He gave me his phone number and told me to be sure to call if I wanted him to search for the ring or to borrow his underwater detector. Not sure what to think of Brother Steve but I think he was sincerely offering to help.
Monday, 9 January-
We spent the morning and few hours of the afternoon getting some experience with a carpet-cleaning machine we rented from our local Home Depot. That went pretty well, I thought. The machine was easy to use and appeared to do a good job. We have a dark-brown carpet we bought shortly after moving into our house in the early Eighties. Thank goodness for the dark brown color! Later in the day I went for a walk at Pinchot, near the campground. The walk started very windy but then settled down to a dead-quiet evening with that beautiful long-ray reddish light in the tops of the trees. Nice.
Sunday, 8 January- After playing on the internet for the morning I decided I needed a walk. I rode the Connie over to Boiling Springs and parked her in the old iron furnace parking lot at about 1315. I headed south on the Appalachian Trail, bound for the Alec Kennedy shelter. The day was overcast but about 43 degrees--- nice for a walk. I ran into a northbound walker who I later learned calls himself Texas Danny (Go, Longhorns!). He was accompanied by his black Labrador retriever, Maggie Ford. I know the names from his entry in the trail log at the top of Center Point Knob (that’s where the “Go, Longhorns” comes from). We only chatted very briefly. I wish I had known his trail name and the dog’s name at the time. I’d like to have known more.
I also met backpackers ‘Bruce’ and his son about halfway up Center Point Knob. They were coming from Pine Grove Furnace this weekend and had spent the night on Rocky Ridge. We had a ten-minute chat about the AT and about the Tuscarora Trail and Fowler’s Hollow, which I recommended to them. They didn’t sign the log at Center Point Knob but Bruce made an entry in the Kennedy shelter log, saying how much he was enjoying the weekend with his son.
My trip to Kennedy shelter took about an hour and a half, I spent about a half-hour exploring the shelter area, and that got me back to the bike with just enough light to prepare for the trip home without a flashlight. I had stayed overnight at the shelter in 2002 with hiking buddies rar and jackrabbit. Later, in Fall 2003 I think, I hiked in to the Kennedy shelter alone just as it was getting dark. Two backpackers were cooking supper when I arrived and invited me to share their meal. We sat around the campfire and checked out the stars. We saw a spectacular meteor trail and could just make out the Orion Nebula before I had to leave for the walk out. I hiked back by the light of my LED headlamp known as a “Moonlight”. That reminds me—I still need to find a headlamp with the nice glow and extended battery life of LEDs but one that also has a nice, bright halogen light I can turn on to scare away the boogey-men who were following me that night—they were making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck!
Saturday, 7 January-
We went back to Baltimore again today, this time to the theater. We saw a play called, of all things—“Love and Wood”. Love, as in love, and wood, as in, uhhh….sex. It’s the story of poor Morgan, a young woman trying to decide what to do, what to do, about her predicament--- she has two men in her life—one a friend and confidante but boring in bed, the other excitingly skilled (sexually, that is) but remarkably shallow and single-minded. Actually, the play was very good. The thing that sold me on going was the script--- I love the fact that a link to the script is up on the web site and I could read enough of it to decide whether it would be interesting.
Friday, 6 January-
I went swimming this morning at the local high school pool (at 0600!!). I was happy to be able to swim 250 yards but boy was I slow. Afterwards, I spent the rest of the time treading water and exercising in the water in the diving pool. I decided later that morning to try to find some good bacon at a farmer’s market. We had tried some bacon I found in the back of our freezer on Wednesday morning and it was terrible—thus the quest. I found what I think will be good bacon at York’s Eastern Market. I was surprised how busy the market was…I was lucky to find a parking place for my motorcycle. The other good thing I found was fresh-squeezed orange juice—really, really good juice. And I bought some fantastic Lebanon bologna— just perfectly spiced.
Thursday, 5 January-
Labashi and I went to Baltimore this day to the Baltimore Museum of Art. We wanted to see the Henry Ossawa Tanner exhibit. I ran onto the exhibit by checking the Baltimore Citypaper web site. I’ve found, to my great joy, that all I have to do is google for the word “citypaper” and the Citypapers for Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia all come up— I LOVE it! Henry Ossawa Tanner studied under Thomas Eakins, one of our favorite painters and it was interesting to see his work and the work of others thought to have influenced him.
Wednesday, 4 January-
I went swimming this morning for the first time in a long, LONG time—as in years. The first step to getting back into SCUBA would be to see if I could work up to passing the swim test for entry to a course. The guy at the dive shop told me their test—like the one I took in 1979 for my first SCUBA course—is simple—swim 200 yards any way you can. No time limit, no specific stroke requirements. He also noted that if I had a heart attack or drowned during the test, it wouldn’t be held against me-- I could come back and try again later!
I picked up the Concours today--- $250 for valve adjustment, balancer adjustment, and oil change. Actually, I expected it to be worse….
Tuesday, 3 January—
I spent this morning looking for a place to swim and I visited a local dive shop to see what courses they offer and what their facilities look like. I learned that my local high school has an adult-swim program (even though there’s nothing about it on their web site). I also learned that the dive shop will be conducting a SCUBA course at the same school in late March. Hmmmmm……
I also dropped off my sport-touring motorcycle (the Concours) at the shop today—time for its 22,000 mile service. The big item is a valve adjustment, a fairly expensive proposition.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 22:15
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