More carpet-prep, boat guide-ons, gable fan/house fan planning, ‘This American Life’, boat-seat quick-release, cable-box trouble, ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’

(posted from home)

(This post covers 24-30 April, 2008)

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Wednesday, 30 April-

Today was ‘Day of the Cable Box Fiasco’. While I was in Florida, Labashi told me our cable box started showing an odd message and it was happening quite a bit. She’d be watching a channel and it would suddenly blank out and a message would pop up saying ‘If you’d like to subscribe to this channel, call 800-(something)’. Then the picture would come back within 3 seconds. I told Labashi to boot the box and that took care of it for awhile. But lately it started again -- about once a week --- so I called the cable company.
Today the cable guy came and replaced the set-top box. He said the problem should be fixed with a 2 May software release but he’d take care of it now by swapping in an older-generation box. He said it would operate exactly the same and left it on a cartoon channel. He was a very talkative guy and we got caught up in talking about my occasional internet halts so I didn’t check it out thoroughly. But after he left and I began changing channels I could see a very definite change for the worse in display quality. It was like going backwards in time from digital to analog cable.
I contacted the cable company and asked if I could just bring the box in and swap it for the new-generation one and take my chances on the odd-message thing. If I had to choose between rebooting one with a good picture and never having to reboot one with a bad picture, I’ll take the reboot one. I went to the local office and swapped boxes. But when I hooked it up, I had the message “Your cable has been disconnected, please call us.” When I called about that problem I learned the clerk hadn’t established the box correctly in my account but that was then fixed within a few minutes. So now I have a new cable box but not a lot of confidence that my problems are over.
I mowed our growing-out-of-control lawn that afternoon and that evening we watched ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’ on a Netflix DVD. This movie certainly had the talent—Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, and director Sidney Lumet. I liked the film as it played but afterwards thought it a little contrived. Mr. Lumet makes a point of calling it a melodrama (in the Extras interview) and I think that helped me decide I’d have preferred it not be so over-the-top, so melodramatic. Of course the plotline demands it be melodramatic—two sons conspire to commit the perfect robbery (of their parents’ jewelry store) and naturally it all goes wrong. So the entertainment trick is to take unexpected twists and turns. This all just reminds me a little too much of ‘Twilight Zone’. But I did very much enjoy watching Mr. Lumet at work. What an interesting, talented guy.

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Tuesday, 29 April-

Today I took Labashi’s desktop PC to the shop for a memory upgrade I ordered last week. My laptop loves the additional memory I added to it last week and I found we could upgrade hers from 512KB to 1.5GB for $68. She edits photos and does some fancy Quark documents so the additional memory should be welcome.
My afternoon project was installing quick-release seat brackets on the boat-seat pedestals. In Florida I was frustrated by the fishing seats. Here I was carrying around four seats and only one fanny the whole time (mine!). The stern fishing seat was too close against my left side while steering and the front one blocked my view while running, even when folded down. By putting quick-disconnect brackets on the seat pedestals, I eliminated the plush fishing seats (whose padding soaks your fanny after a rain anyway) and will use the unpadded navigation seats when we fish. And for short moves we can drive without moving the nav-seats by simply sitting on the platform the seats mount on (the seat brackets slip off without tools). I found the unpadded plastic seat plenty comfortable (I was in it for 12 hours one day in the Everglades) and won’t miss the padded ones.
That evening we watched ‘The Alaska Experiment’, episode 2. Those folks are in for some trouble.

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Monday, 28 April-

I spent the morning in additional research on house fans and gable vents. I had more or less settled on a gable fan but as I went into further detail, I decided the existing gable vent is too small. And when I saw a warning not to exceed the capacity of the intake ventilation, that turned into having to determine how our house stacks up. That led to questions about the calculations and rules-of-thumb and to such esoterica as “net free area”. For example, if you are trying to figure out how many square inches or square feet of ventilation you have and your house has perforated soffit, you need to know the ‘net free area’, or number of effective square inches of ventilation (NOT including the metal of the perforation). I eventually stumbled onto this page on the web: http://superioratticfans.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&Itemid=46 and it was a great help. This also led to calculating whether we have sufficient ventilation for our roof-ridge venting (we had a new roof put on several years ago and opted for ridge-long venting but had never discussed the intake-vent requirements with the contractor). After all this, I determined that our soffit vents do indeed have enough venting to allow the roof-vent to work properly and would also be sufficient for a gable fan. But since I’m not anxious to cut into the gable-end of the house to install a larger vent (I’m not a fan of working from a ladder) so looked further into the whole-house fan idea.
I had thought I might install the fan in the attic entry-way but after taking measurements and looking in detail at the manufacturer’s web site, I found I couldn’t get the 24” fan up through the opening. Though my roof trusses are 24 inches apart, the front closet-wall was placed only 20” from the back wall and that’s insufficient room to get the fan up through the opening. I did find Home Depot has an expensive double-fan unit which I could fit into the space but one of the reviews says it’s very loud—like a very loud bathroom fan—and can be heard throughout the house. So between the fact that I would not be placing the fan in an optimal place (and don’t want to cut into my hallway ceiling), the fan’s expensive, it’s objectionably loud, and only marginally effective most of the year, I think I’d better look for other options. I suspect I’d get more bang-for-the-buck from blowing in additional insulation. I also want to look into increasing the soffit ventilation to help the passive roof-vent work better.
That evening we watched two more episodes of ‘This American Life’ and two of ‘Weeds- Season One’. GREAT viewing. ‘Weeds’ is certainly politically incorrect but is hilarious.

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Sunday, 27 April-

I spent the morning on the web and wrote an interim blog entry. Labashi and I then spent the afternoon plugging four holes left in the sub-floor by the removal of vents. These vents had been installed by the previous owner when he designed and built a wood stove with a built-in fan and then installed the ductwork and registers to distribute the heat to the upstairs rooms. We found the woodstove too smoky to use but kept it in place for years in case our electricity (and therefore our electric heat) went out for an extended time. But as we started re-modeling, we pulled out the under-floor duct work and insulated those areas and we sold the stove last winter. Now that we’re about to replace the carpet, we removed the registers and today filled the holes with ¾” plywood ‘plugs’. To do that we bought a 2’ x 2’ handy-panel and cut the 4”x 12” plugs as well as 3”x7” supports from it. We screwed two cross-supports below each opening and then screwed the plugs to them, making the area strong enough to support anything which might happen to be placed there.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘This American Life—Season One’ on Netflix Instant Movies. I had the DVD version in my Netflix queue but it has not yet been released so I was very surprised to find it available on the Instant Movies section of Netflix. Anyway, we LOVED it. It’s great to finally see Ira Glass after listening to him quite a lot on ‘This American Life’ podcasts. It’s great to see that the crew has done a fantastic job of transitioning from sound-only to the world of sound-and-video. The photography is incredible and very nicely complements the commentary. VERY HIGHLY recommended.

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Saturday, 26 April-

I spent most of the day stripping and re-painting the rusty fishing boat guide-ons. I had bought these low-profile bunk guide-ons at Cabela’s last summer and love them. They are wonderful for guiding the boat onto its trailer, particularly when I’m loading single-handed. But I was amazed to see how badly salt-water caused the mounts to rust. I launched (and retrieved) in salt-water five times in Florida. After the second or third time, I noticed rust on the guide-on mounts. I finally got around to refinishing them today.
After unbolting them, I spent an hour or so in front of the grinder, using the wire-wheel to strip the rust and remaining paint from the mounting arms, plates, and bolts. I had planned to coat them with Rustoleum primer and black paint but when I saw how badly the old paint flaked, I went to the web for a better solution. Some sites recommended cold-galvanizing (zinc-rich) paint and I remembered using that on one of my sailboat anchors. I checked the anchor and it looks good after many salt-water dunkings. And when I saw I don’t need both a primer and topcoat with it, that settled it. I rode the KLR in to Home Depot and picked up two cans.
I found painting with the cold-galvanizing paint to be a bit tricky. The paint is just a carrier for zinc powder and it’s tough to control. The carrier is thin so the paint drips very easily if you hold the can too close to the object. And if you hold it too far back, the powder can land already dried out. The finish is also relatively thin once complete and doesn’t do well if bumped or scratched. But the good news is it’s a flat-gray finish and I can just spray on some more. I think the key to this being a good finish for the guide-ons will be upkeep, i.e., taking care of any scratches or dings before they get a chance to rust heavily.
That evening we watched several of the Discovery Channel programs on Alaska Week. Hmmm.

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Friday, 25 April-

This morning I rode the Concours down to the shop for its upcoming service appointment. I had checked with the shop to see if they had a loaner or rental trailer so I wouldn’t chance overheating the bike but they didn’t have one. I wasn’t relishing the thought of removing the bed-platform from Mocha Joe, removing the windshield from the bike, and loading the 600-plus-pound behemoth into the van so yesterday I took it for a ride near home to see how bad the overheating is. The bike did indeed run quite a bit hotter than normal but seemed (marginally) ok so long as I could keep moving and maintain airflow through the radiator. The cooling fan doesn’t work so any stops result in the temp-needle zooming immediately for the red zone. Today I left in the cool of morning and took the back roads to the shop rather than deal with the red-lights and heavier traffic of the ‘town’ way. Labashi followed me. I had warned her we might have to stop somewhere and wait for the bike to cool down, perhaps more than once. But the plan worked out well—I made it without stopping. The needle would head for the red-zone as I’d go up a hill but would also retreat as I’d go down a hill. I made it without hitting the red-zone at all. This HAS to be a sticky-thermostat problem.
On the way home we stopped at Home Depot and Lowe’s (I’m SO glad they are just down the street from each other) to look at whole-house fans and gable-fans. We avoided using air conditioning (and installing our two room-style air conditioners) last summer but only because we spent the months of July and August on the road. But I’d still like to delay the inevitable use of the a/c units this summer by pushing hot air out of the attic. We have an attic entrance above a closet and could put a whole-house fan there but that has some problems. The fan would be blowing up against the roof (there’s just enough clearance for me to get up there) and I’d have to make a frame which I could move out of the way to use the attic entrance. All in all, I think I’ll just try a gable-fan this year and see how that goes. I’m still looking for the ‘right’ fan but want to install one before the weather gets hot.
That evening we finished up ‘The Wire- Season Two’.

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Thursday, 24 April-

I spent the morning updating the blog. Labashi and I then moved most of the furniture out of our bedroom and down to the basement (in preparation for carpet installation). We were both dreading the prospect of moving the larger dressers and cabinets, mostly because our hallway is narrow (and newly painted) and our stairs steep. But it went well. We learned it was smarter to exit the front door at the bottom of the steps and re-enter the house via the mud-room door around the corner rather than try to make the narrow turn at the bottom of the stairs. I did manage to whack the paint in the stairway turn with a corner of our bedroom tv so that will need to be fixed after we get things back in their places.
That evening we watched Survivor and an episode of ‘The Wire-2’.

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Spring grass planting, ‘The Riches’, ‘The Wire- Season 2’, ‘Nanook of the North’, Cabela’s trip, Hollywood Casino, ‘Into the Wild’, fishfinder, ‘MI-5’, ‘Weeds’

(posted from home)
(This post covers 15-23 April, 2008)

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Wednesday, 23 April-

This morning we worked on our computers. I researched the items in my startup list and removed several I didn’t need via run / msconfig / startup. Between the Glary Utilities cleanup of the registry, the disk de-frag, additional memory and startup-list cleanup, my laptop is now significantly faster on startup and in use. It’s still slower than I’d like when Norton kicks in for its daily QuickScan but overall I’m very happy with the changes.
We spent the afternoon shopping. The el-cheapo marine compass I bought at Wal-mart for the fishing boat has deteriorated in no time. I bought it in mid-February and by the time I returned from Florida in mid-March it was clouded up somewhat and I could see rust stains coming from the ‘marine-grade’ hinge pin washer. My trip into the Everglades gave it a good whack or two from overhanging branches but I don’t see why it would have clouded up so badly. I picked up another (it’s only $11) but expect I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a better one. In the meantime, I’ve set this one up as a quick-dismount item and will only have it exposed to the weather when it’s needed. We also did some grocery shopping and made a drop-off run to the Salvation Army store.
I started out on an evening walk but didn’t make it past our property. I noticed the grass is getting too high to ignore (I just cut it!!) on the ‘lower 40’. I mowed for an hour to take care of that and then spent a half-hour or so pulling the KLR motorcycle out of winter storage. I had charged up the battery twice during its storage, most recently about a month ago, and it started right up. The Concours is still awaiting its appointment to fix the overheating problem so I’ll use the KLR in the meantime.

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Tuesday, 22 April-

Today was another moving day in preparation for carpet. We finished moving everything but our desks and Labashi’s computer complex out of our offices. ‘Moving’ is a combination of discarding items we don’t need and stowing the rest in our rapidly-filling-up basement.
I also took the laptop over to the local computer store for the memory upgrade I ordered a few days ago. After the install the guy said he wouldn’t have to charge me the $75 he had quoted when I ordered it—memory prices had gone down. How often does something like that happen? He could have just charged me the quote-price and I wouldn’t have known the difference. The upgrade from 512MB to 2GB cost me $68.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘The Wire- Season 2’. This series ranks way up there for us—one of our favorites.

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Monday, 21 April-

I spent the morning on the computer, still working on improving performance. I then assembled the fishfinder that afternoon and read all its manuals before going for my walk along the creek road.
That evening Labashi and I watched the first episode of ‘MI-5’ and then two episodes of ‘Weeds’ on Netflix. For today, we set up the laptop on a tv table set up just in front of our normal television-viewing chairs. That worked okay but meant we both were looking a bit sideways at the picture. For the longer term I need to figure out how to connect the laptop to the television. I think that would be a snap if I had an s-video input on the television but don’t. The television does have RCA inputs, though, and I see Radio Shack has an S-video-to-RCA cable so maybe I’ll try that.
Our experience with the online movie was surprisingly good. We watched the entire MI-5 episode with no problems (like slowdowns or stops). The second Weeds episode did experience a network failure—the router halted. The only way I know out of that is to pull the power input to the router to cycle it. I thought that would mean I’d have to start the movie again but as soon as the router came back up the movie just started rolling again. Impressive! (Now if I could just solve the problem of my router locking up!)
MI-5 isn’t bad—certainly no worse than ‘Alias’ and ‘24’ for believeability—but ‘Weeds’ is absolutely hilarious. A bit over the top, perhaps, and probably not good for the education of our society’s children, but I LOVED the witty remarks and references. I don’t think Labashi’s quite as big a fan, though.

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Sunday, 20 April-

Labashi and I went on a ‘date’ today—to Cabela’s. When we were in Michigan a few weeks ago I had planned to go to the Cabela’s in Dundee to get a first-hand look at some goodies I had seen in the catalog but didn’t get around to it. I’ve been talking about going to our ‘local’ one by the end of the month to spend my about-to-expire discount card and my accumulated rewards points and Labashi wanted to look for some clothes. Good enough excuse for a Sunday drive!
I bought a fishfinder (sonar), a Humminbird PiranhaMax 230 Portable, for the fishing boat Maypo and I share. This model isn’t an upscale one by any means (have you priced fish-finders lately?) but should work well for us. We will be able to easily detach the display from its quick-release mount on the steering console and move it to the deck near either of the fishing chairs. The quick-release will also provide an easy way to remove the unit from the boat between fishing trips in order to keep it out of the sun, winter’s freezes and away from the eyes of potential thieves. The portability also allows us to use it on our shared canoe or our kayaks and we can take it along on travel where we intend to rent a boat. And if we eventually decide to permanently mount it for the season, the display is the same one as the permanent-mount version. We could simply unbolt it from the portability case and mount it on the console. The transducer can similarly be used either with its suction-cup portable mount or a permanent mount.
On the way home we stopped at the new Hollywood Casino at Penn National in Grantville. We don’t generally go to casinos since it seems very unlikely we dummies would come home with any extra money when the casino guys and all their buddies spend their lives figuring out how to take our money from us (and make us feel we’re being ‘entertained’!). But we did want to see how classy this one was. Not bad! Not bad at all. The place was very busy. I didn’t see many smiles, though. Just row and row after row of ordinary-joes and ordinary-joe-ettes scowling at the screen and pushing the button.
We checked out the restaurants and bars and they didn’t seem exorbitantly-priced ($5 for a hamburger at the sports-bar, for instance). The classy-restaurant menu looked decent but similarly out-of-reach (price-wise) to other classy-restaurant menus we’ve avoided.
With that assessment, you may think I didn’t like the place. That’s not really the case. We just don’t happen to be slots or horse-racing fans so it’s a bit of a mystery to us what the fuss is all about.
That evening we watched ‘Into the Wild’, the Sean Penn movie version of Jon Krakauer’s excellent book about Chrisopher McCandless. I see the top critics on RT give it a 74 and that seems low to me. I’d give it at least ten more points, well into the ‘This is a GOOD movie’ category. Highly recommended.

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Saturday, 19 April-

I spent the day on the laptop today. I researched a Word-Outlook address book problem, finally got my Adobe Reader upgraded to the latest and then tried to install the Netflix Player to try out their online movies. That turned into a bit of a problem. Netflix determined I needed to upgrade to Windows Media Player 11.0. In trying to do that I found I had to determine if Windows Media Center had been updated to Update Roll 2. But to do that I had to update Windows Updater. But to do that I had to install Genuine Advantage…etc, etc. I finally worked through the chain of updates and—ta-DAH, was able to use the Netflix Player. I used it to find additional TV series to add to our Netflix queue (I restarted my Netflix membership last week). I watched the first episode of the British series MI-5 and ordered the first season on DVD. I also watched a bit of ‘Monarch of the Glen’ and ordered Series 1. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the online movies. In my 50-minute viewing of MI-5 Episode 1 I saw two momentary pauses. But the bad news is the online
I called the local computer shop and ordered a memory upgrade. My laptop only has 512k and Netflix recommends 1 GB for movies. I had found the memory online but the local guy is selling it for about the same price, doesn’t charge shipping, (but does charge tax), and will install it for free.
That evening we watched ‘Nanook of the North’, the 1922 silent documentary by Robert Flaherty. What a treat! We also loved seeing that Nanook lived just across Hudson Bay (and a little further north) from Churchill (we were in Churchill last summer). Highly recommended.

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Friday, 18 April-

I spent the morning catching up on the blog and preparing and mailing my membership application for the local sportsmen’s association shooting range. That afternoon I drove into Wal-mart to pick up some additional storage boxes for our new-carpet move and to look for new tires for Mocha Joe. The storage boxes turned into a problem when I found Wal-mart no longer has the style I bought before and I don’t like either the price or style of the new ones. I went over to the other York Wal-Mart, hoping for the best and they indeed did have some different ones—but still not quite ‘right’. Eventually I found some good ones on half-price sale ($5) at Tar-zhay.
That evening we watched the 4th episode of ‘The Wire, Season Two’. Excellent stuff.

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Thursday, 17 April-

Today I mowed the lawn for the first time this season. My old-beat-up 1970-something mower appeared to be locked up but that turned out to be a simple thing. The last mowing last year was very wet and that led to a thick mat of clippings under the mower which SOMEbody neglected to clean. Over the winter they dried out into a thick mat and that mat was somehow jostled and fell into the path of the blade, blocking it. After clearing that, the mower started on the first pull.
Afterwards I had some business at the bank and needed a motorcycle ride on such a spectacular day (mid-Seventies and wonderfully dry) so I did a quality-control check at the Camp Hill Starbucks.
On the way home I got behind a very slow roadside-spraying truck and after a bit noticed my temp-gauge rising into the red. Something was wrong. The cooling fan never turned on and the gauge just kept climbing. I turned at the first opportunity and the additional airflow helped for a bit but I was in a losing battle. I managed to make it home and called the bike shop but can’t get in until the end of the month.
That evening I drove over to the West Shore Sportsmen’s range to check it out. I enjoy my trips down to Freedom Armory but between the $11 per-half-hour fee and rising gas costs, it’s getting expensive. It’s a longer drive for me and the half-hour shooting session makes you feel rushed to shoot more, think less. And my shooting needs some think-time!
That evening we watched ‘Survivor’ and another ‘The Wire-2’ episode.

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Wednesday, 16 April-

Today I finished turning over the soil on three more relatively small plots on the lawn in preparation for planting. Because these areas didn’t have nearly so much old grass roots and the soil was better, it only took about three hours. Afterwards I cleaned up and rode the Concours into Starbucks for a coffee-and-Times ‘job-well-done’ break.
I then buzzed over to Stonybrook Gun Shop and shot the breeze with owner John. He says guns are selling very well everywhere—so well, in fact, he’s having trouble getting stock. I’d like to take a look at a new Ruger pistol which just came out. He says he has only been allocated one so far (which went out the same day) and if he had fifteen of them he could sell them all immediately. He believes the uncertainty about the upcoming election and the Second Amendment case at the Supreme Court is fueling a general firearms buying spree.
On the way home I stopped at Dick’s Sporting Goods and talked with the gun-counter guy while checking ammo prices. I learned of another venue for clay sports which offers a time-slot open to the public. It’s an Isaac Walton League facility in the Dallastown area. And it just happens to be near a Starbucks. Hmmm, I’ll have to look into that. That could turn into some “shoot-and-sip” (okay, “shoot-then-sip”) outings.
That evening we watched the first two episodes of ‘The Wire, Season Two’. What a great series.

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Tuesday, 15 April-

We spent the day with shovels, rakes, and pitchforks today. We still have a long way to go in preparing for the new carpet in the house but we also need to get some yard-work done today before we get too late in the season for grass-planting. Last Fall we ran out of time in planting new grass. We could have gotten all the digging and planting done (I think!) but we would have been unable to keep it all watered so we left several areas for Spring. I spent today removing a dense over-coating of dead grass roots and intermingled weed growth on a 15 x 30 area, then used the pitchfork to turn the plot over. Labashi has decided to change two planting beds into regular grass areas so worked on that. We wrapped up both projects pretty much exhausted for the day by 1600. We then watched two episodes of ‘The Riches’, had supper, then watched two more to finish out the Season One disk set. We liked this one very much. The writing is pretty good and has little jokes to watch out for (example: a mark calls his bank to transfer funds during a sting. The name of his bank is ‘Rio Dinero’.) Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard are terrific. Highly recommended.

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Return from Detroit, clearing out the offices, ‘Sweeney Todd’, ‘The Riches’

(posted from home)
(This post covers 8-14 April, 2008)

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Monday, 14 April-

Today we continued clearing out our offices. In 1981 I built a custom-shelving unit in the end-wall of my office so the goal today was to get all that shelving cleared off and then disassemble and remove the shelving. Labashi’s office also had built-in shelving for books and office supplies to be removed from the closet of her office. We then carried the 12 drawers-full of filing cabinet drawers downstairs and then carried the cabinets down and re-stowed the drawers in them. Carrying all that stuff down the stairs wasn’t bad but I’m not looking forward to carrying it all back UP the stairs after the carpet’s in.
We had a pretty early start this morning so ran out of gas by late afternoon. We watched another episode of ‘The Riches’ around 1500, then worked another hour before calling it a day.
After supper and some blogging time, we watched two more epis of ‘The Riches’.

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Sunday, 13 April-

Today we started the process of clearing out our offices and bedroom in preparation for new carpet. We began in my office today and when we started running into each other Labashi moved on to her office. We carried box after box of books, magazines, computer stuff, sporting goods, and office equipment downstairs and then wrestled the five bookcases down and into our guest room and filled the shelves there. We don’t think we are going to have enough room to store everything we need to store while the carpet is being laid but we are going to store as much as we can in the guest room and mud-room workshop. Then we can better assess whether we need to rent a short-term storage space. I’m hoping to get away with storing a few items in the vans or under our 10x12 tent to avoid the rental cost (not to mention the work of transporting stuff to the storage facility).
By late afternoon we were exhausted so we watched the pilot of ‘The Riches- Season One’ for a break. Then we worked until 1730, broke for supper, then watched two more episodes. We like it!

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Saturday, 12 April-

I spent the morning on the web and tried to help Maypo resolve a problem on his PC via long-distance. We spent an hour or more trying to work our way through a Java or FlashPlayer problem preventing him from watching videos but never did get it. I suppose the next step will be posting a query on TechSupportGuy.com to see if we can get some hints on what else to try.
Later in the day I picked up some videos and that evening Labashi and I watched ‘Sweeney Todd’.
‘Sweeney Todd- the Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ (the movie) is a Tim-Burton-directed musical starring Johnny Depp and is quite remarkable. The movie is rated ‘R’ because of the graphic violence but it’s almost a cartoon-type of violence. Given that Todd is a mad barber, you can imagine how graphic things get as he wreaks revenge with his shaving razors. But the REALLY remarkable thing is that Johnny Depp was hired for the part before anyone (including the director and producer) had ever heard him sing… and he does a great job. Highly recommended if you can disassociate yourself from the graphic violence.

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Friday, 11 April-

I spent much of today on the web but did manage to get some work done. Good Ol’ Mocha Joe has headlights which have clear plastic covers. Over time, the covers darken and look old, I suppose because of tiny scratches and dirt. So today I spent a half-hour or so with the portable drill, a polishing pad, polishing compound, scratch remover and aircraft-plastic cleaner in a successful effort to revitalize the covers. I see Wal-mart now carries a kit for this but they want $20 for the kit and I already have the other stuff around for my motorcycles so I’ll just stick with that.
The other work I did was cleaning up the van from our Detroit trip. That afternoon Labashi joined me for my four-mile walk on the creek-side road.

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Thursday, 10 April-

We had a spectacular 70-degree, sunny day today. I was oblivious to the nice weather through the morning as I worked on the web and then noticed and had to get out. I pulled the cover off the Miata, dropped the top, and fired it up (thank goodness I charged the battery after returning from Florida). I drove down to Rocky Ridge Park and went for a jog on my end-to-end course. I’ve not done that in quite a while so the goal today was finishing. I ended up doing it in 92 minutes and was happy with that.
That evening we watched Survivor.

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Wednesday, 9 April-

Today we turned Mocha Joe toward home. Though we had a 15-20 mph wind blowing from the west and rocking the van as we came south to Toledo, I knew it would give us a nice tailwind once we turned east on the turnpike. Gas at the I-80/I-280 intersection had jumped from $3.22 on our way out to $3.33 this morning. But then again, it was $3.35-$3.39 in the city.
The tailwind and smooth turnpike gave us an easy ride home. We listened to ‘This American Life’, “Bill Moyers’ Journal”, and ‘This Week in Saskatchewan’ episodes on the iPod as we drove.
As we exited the turnpike we opted for supper at Hillside Café, then made it home just as darkness fell.

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Tuesday, 8 April-

I spent much of today at the library. I updated the blog and puttered about on the web, then read a few magazines while I had the opportunity, then left about 1500.
Back home I replaced a bad lamp socket and then worked on the garage door. The door is a two-car, single-panel, ‘up-and-over’ door rather than a sectional door and is at least 30 years old. As this very large metal door would swing down, it would stop with the bottom edge still sticking out into the driveway about eight inches (from the frame). I first adjusted the sagging chain drive and adjusted the down-force screw but that made no difference. Eventually I figured out I could replace the connector bar with a longer one to push the top of the door further around, thus pushing the bottom closer to full closure.
On the way to the library this morning I had bought a ¼” x 1” x 36” mild steel flat at Lowe’s so I cut and drilled it to make a near-duplicate of the original — just 2 and ¼” longer. That regained most of the eight inches and the door now looks like it’s closed from the outside even if it doesn’t quite close completely. The chain drive keeps the door from being forced open from the outside. The bottom of the door is rusted and bent too much to fully close so that’ll do until replacement time.
We had such nice weather I wanted to be outside so I patrolled the yard, picking up branches and then raked the dirt and grass that had been piled up by the snow plow back into place.
That evening we watched a very interesting PBS special on deciphering Mayan hieroglyphs. I had no idea how difficult it was to solve that puzzle.

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Lottery hit, ‘Atonement’, Detroit trip, 'Temptress Moon'

(posted from Southfield Public Library, Southfield, MI)

(This post covers 1-7 April, 2008)

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Monday, 7 April-

I spent the day on more fix-it chores. I replaced the flapper valve on a leaky toilet, re-mounted the mailbox which had gotten clobbered by the snowplow, made some adjustments to the swing-up garage door, and spent a few hours cleaning old cardboard boxes out of the attic and hauling them to the recycling center.
That evening one of Labashi’s brothers who lives nearby brought his family to visit and we had a pizza party. We all enjoyed talking with the 14-year-old daughter about school. Yeah, I used the old “When we went to school we had to walk five miles each way through knee-high snow and it was uphill both ways” line on her and explained what ‘duck and cover’ means. She just rolled her eyes.
After our company left the rest of the family watched TV while I check email and played on the web via Mom’s 44.5 kbps dialup connection. We all kind of faded around 2130.

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Sunday, 6 April-

Today I had some free time and drove to Target Sports in Royal Oak for some range time. They had a class going on and the store was very crowded so it looked like I might not be able to get a lane at first. I finally did get a lane for a half-hour session and it went well today. The kid in the lane next to me was shooting a 30-30 rifle and the shock waves from his shots intruded on my concentration a bit but I guess that’s part of the game—learn to keep that concentration.
Afterwards I stopped at the nearby Borders book store and ran onto an interesting book about “clay sports”, i.e., trap, skeet, and sporting clays. I’d like to try some shotgunning this summer. I’ve not used my shotgun in something like 35 years and it’s time to clean out the cobwebs!
That evening we watched ‘Temptress Moon’, a 1996 Chinese story about the modernization of China in 1910-1920. I see Ebert panned it and I have to agree. The photography is stunning but the scenes are a little too much like tableaus strung together. The story is muddled a bit and we are easily left behind.

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Saturday, 5 April-

Labashi and her Mom ran some errands this morning in preparation for Dad’s discharge around lunch time. He was very glad to be home but quite tired so disappeared for a nap. I did some miscellaneous little fix-it chores, replacing a door sweep and repairing electrical and mounting problems with several light fixtures, then replacing the bulbs with rough-service bulbs (I suspect vibration caused the problems). Later in the afternoon I walked to the local Starbucks for a re-charge.

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Friday, 4 April-

Today was a driving day. It’s about a ten-hour drive to Labashi’s parents’ home outside Detroit. We had light rain much of the way but it was an easy drive—mostly smooth roads and light traffic. I was happy to see ol’ Mocha Joe getting over 17 miles per gallon without the roof-top gear and fishing boat. I believe the best I had with those in place was about 13.5 mpg and the worst--- in a day-long headwind as I drove down I-95—was 10.5 mpg. As we passed the Rutter’s near our house this morning I saw they had jumped the price from $3.25 to $3.39 overnight and I was wishing I had gone ahead and filled up Joe’s 35-gallon tank last night. We skipped that station hoping we’d find someone who hadn’t jacked up the price yet and were lucky enough to find the Hess station an exit up was still at $3.24. As we drove out the turnpike we saw gas in the mid-to-high 3.30s but at our turn toward Toledo we found it at $3.22.
We arrived about 1800 and knew Labashi’s sister would be bringing her Mom home shortly so we prepared the table and got the pasta sauce simmering for their arrival. The five of us spent the evening around the table catching up.

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Thursday, 3 April-

This morning we received a call telling us that both Labashi’s parents were at the hospital for treatment and one or both might be admitted. After making a few calls and getting an updated status later in the day, we decided we would go out there tomorrow. Both parents had been admitted and though their conditions were not life-threatening, we felt we’d be able to help get things back to normal more quickly once they were discharged. We spent the rest of the day readying the van (I still had a lot of gear in it and the kayak and Thule box still on the roof rack), packing, and clearing our schedules for the next week.
We had another movie to watch but decided I’d just return it and get it another time; the timing for watching it and returning it late that night were just getting too close.

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Wednesday, 2 April-

Today I installed a new smoke alarm in the basement. Our old one’s batteries would fade quickly in the colder basement so this one is a 110-volt model. I connected in to a non-switched end-of-run receptacle box I could get to with a relatively easy cable run. It took me about an hour for the installation once I figured out how I wanted to do it and cleared it with the boss.
That afternoon I walked the four miles along the creek. The bluebirds are still around but we also have some new ducks, apparently just stopping for a few days on their migration.

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Tuesday, 1 April-

We hit the lottery today for 5.6 million. That ought to come in handy. We’re kind of in a daze about it so thought it best to just live life as we normally would and then ease our way into a life of leisure.
I spent the morning updating the blog and the afternoon installing a new recessed light in our lower foyer. I wasn’t looking forward to the installation; it appeared to be a tricky cable run. However, I was able to partially remove a panel in our downstairs pantry which gave me access to the switched receptacle I needed and from there it was pretty easy. A pro probably would do it in an hour but it took me three. The light looks great and makes a big difference.
That evening we watched ‘Atonement’. I agree with the critic who says of it: “Nothing ruins a pretty good movie more than calling it great. And with Atonement, even ‘pretty good’ feels like a stretch.” RottenTomatoes gives it an 82 and I suppose that’s all right if you are a fan of romantic movies but I’d flunk it on gratuitous use of foul language solely for its shock value.

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