Back to Michigan to prepare for the Big Move.
(posted from the in-laws' home)
(This post covers 6 – 10 January, 2010)
----------------------------------------
Sunday, 10 January -
Today was a another dirty, dusty day in the garage. The overnight temperature was only ten degrees so the garage wasn't very inviting this morning. The propane heater didn't seem to do a lot at first so we had to take a few warm-up breaks. Today the goal was to clean out 'the loft', an area above the garage proper which was chock-a-block with art work and art supplies, old trunks and boxes, and the accumulation of thirty years of living (and did I mention dust and dirt?)
By noon we had the garage filled and we were very glad to see the brother with the van and trailer for us to once again fill to the brim.
The younger brother painted and caulked and helped load garage contents while Labashi did her regular amazing job of organization. I made it through the afternoon with a boost from a Starbucks chai but by supper time I was dragging. After supper I revived a bit and caught up the blog.
-----------------------------------------
Saturday, 9 January -
Today Labashi and I began cleaning out the garage. Labashi's brother brought a propane heater over and that helped get the garage to a fairy comfortable temperature for our dirty, dusty ruminations. I spent an inordinate amount of time packing up the household chemicals, paints, gardening supplies, and art supplies. After lunch, another brother came over and we loaded a trailer-load and a van-load of tools, and garage contents which hopefully he can sell this Spring in his garage-sale hobby. Thank goodness for that!
By 1630 I was exhausted from working in the cold and took a short nap, then spent the evening on the web.
----------------------------------------
Friday, 8 January
Today we spent all day driving to the Detroit suburbs once again. We were only home a week but it's time to start packing up out there to get ready to sell the house and to make the Big Move of Labashi's parents to the retirement community.
We had an easy drive for the most part though the temperature was only about 15 degrees, the wind was blowing a good 25 against us, and the roads we sloppy with salt-slush. The rest stops seemed nearly deserted, though and traffic was light until we reached the outskirts of Detroit in rush hour. Still, we had enjoyed listening to 'This American Life' and 'RadioLab' podcasts through Ohio so we were in a good mood by that time and it didn't seem too bad.
----------------------------------------
Thursday, 7 January-
This morning I made a run to the blood lab for them to draw a sample for my doctor to see how my cholesterol level is doing. I hit the post office and, back home, fixed (hopefully) my leaky radiator in Mocha Joe with some aluminum powder.
Also, today was Cherry Larry's last day with our family. I had him hauled to the crusher today.
I bought him in 1997 with 50K on the clock and drove him over 100K miles. But I made the mistake of tarring the underside in the hopes of staving off rust and corrosion. That apparently made things not only worse, but MUCH worse. The body cancer first developed four or five years ago and by two years ago I had to have a rocker panel on the driver's side repaired. The next year, the rocker panel on the passenger side was bad but I ignored it given how little we were using it by then. We were only using it for hauling mulch and the occasional furniture or appliance-hauling jobs. This past summer I noticed a pool of oil under the front end and found the power steering seal had given up the ghost. I checked with the local junk yard and learned they'd pay $3.00 a hundred-weight if I could drive it in, $2.00 if they had to come get it. That was around the time of the Cash For Clunkers program and I considered trading it in but didn't really see anything I'd like to have. Finally, I needed space in the driveway to temporarily store Labashi's Dad's car while we sell it, so I called the junk yard. For some reason the price went up to $4.00 a hundred-weight and that included hauling so I told them to come get it. I had paid $10,600 for it in 1997 and got $154 for it from the junk man. But that also took $135 off my insurance bill and saved me another $200 in inspection repairs. RIP, Cherry Larry!!!
Late in the day I took a load of Dad's art books up to the retirement community and reserved a U-Haul for our upcoming Big Move adventure for Labashi's parents.
That evening we watched the 'Big Love-3' extras on disk 1 and Episode 1 of “Black's Books”, a Brit sitcom. Not sure on that one yet. The word is you need to watch a few episodes before making a decision. After reading reviews which said the laugh track is too obtrusive I didn't expect much but it was surprisingly okay. We'll see.
--------------------------------------
Wednesday, 6 January -
I spent the morning on many small office items, i.e., paying bills, taxes, and my car insurance. In mid-afternoon I received a call from Wal-mart telling me the new tires for Mocha Joe are in. I was hoping this would happen. We're due to leave for Michigan Friday but when I bought the tires online delivery was estimated as sometime between tomorrow and next Tuesday. I rushed in to Wal-mart and was lucky; the garage was nearly empty. They had my tires on in 20 minutes.
These new tires are Michelin LX tires in an extra-load light-truck configuration. My old tires were Goodyear Wranglers and they did okay. The great news is they were only $65 a piece. I bought a set in August 2008, just before leaving for my 16,000-mile Alaska trip. I put another 6K on with last winter's Florida trip, then another 12K with this past summer's Oregon-Trail trip. That's only 34K and they were supposed to be 50K tires. They looked like I might get another 8-10K if I didn't mind pushing the limits. But our winter trips back and forth to Michigan have me a bit skeptical. If I get caught in snow I want some decent tread and this mud-and-snow tread gets good reviews. Also, I had the disconcerting experience of having a flat outside Chicago and finding a large divot in the tread around a plug. The 'divot' was a scooped-out area about two inches around and a half-inch deep with the plug at the center. It was very hot to the touch. I've not seen that before and hope to never see it again! I had been zooming along at 60 miles per hour and noticed the van began swaying as if in a strong wind. But after pulling off I saw the low tire and found it leaking air. We were probably only minutes from a blowout.
Late in the day I drove to my trash-hide on my walking route. When I go for my walk I take along a few plastic Wal-mart bags and pick up trash, mostly beer cans. I hide the full bags behind a large rock out of view of passing traffic. When I've accumulated enough bags, I drive there in one of my vehicles and load them into a large garbage bag for the next trash pickup at my home. Today, as I picked up the bags a youngish couple walked by with their dogs and we chatted a bit about the clean-up. Looks like they may help keep the area cleaned up.
That evening we watched two episodes of 'Big Love- Season Three'. Good writing!
No walk today because of my tires appointment.
************* END OF POST **************
(posted from the in-laws' home)
(This post covers 6 – 10 January, 2010)
----------------------------------------
Sunday, 10 January -
Today was a another dirty, dusty day in the garage. The overnight temperature was only ten degrees so the garage wasn't very inviting this morning. The propane heater didn't seem to do a lot at first so we had to take a few warm-up breaks. Today the goal was to clean out 'the loft', an area above the garage proper which was chock-a-block with art work and art supplies, old trunks and boxes, and the accumulation of thirty years of living (and did I mention dust and dirt?)
By noon we had the garage filled and we were very glad to see the brother with the van and trailer for us to once again fill to the brim.
The younger brother painted and caulked and helped load garage contents while Labashi did her regular amazing job of organization. I made it through the afternoon with a boost from a Starbucks chai but by supper time I was dragging. After supper I revived a bit and caught up the blog.
-----------------------------------------
Saturday, 9 January -
Today Labashi and I began cleaning out the garage. Labashi's brother brought a propane heater over and that helped get the garage to a fairy comfortable temperature for our dirty, dusty ruminations. I spent an inordinate amount of time packing up the household chemicals, paints, gardening supplies, and art supplies. After lunch, another brother came over and we loaded a trailer-load and a van-load of tools, and garage contents which hopefully he can sell this Spring in his garage-sale hobby. Thank goodness for that!
By 1630 I was exhausted from working in the cold and took a short nap, then spent the evening on the web.
----------------------------------------
Friday, 8 January
Today we spent all day driving to the Detroit suburbs once again. We were only home a week but it's time to start packing up out there to get ready to sell the house and to make the Big Move of Labashi's parents to the retirement community.
We had an easy drive for the most part though the temperature was only about 15 degrees, the wind was blowing a good 25 against us, and the roads we sloppy with salt-slush. The rest stops seemed nearly deserted, though and traffic was light until we reached the outskirts of Detroit in rush hour. Still, we had enjoyed listening to 'This American Life' and 'RadioLab' podcasts through Ohio so we were in a good mood by that time and it didn't seem too bad.
----------------------------------------
Thursday, 7 January-
This morning I made a run to the blood lab for them to draw a sample for my doctor to see how my cholesterol level is doing. I hit the post office and, back home, fixed (hopefully) my leaky radiator in Mocha Joe with some aluminum powder.
Also, today was Cherry Larry's last day with our family. I had him hauled to the crusher today.
I bought him in 1997 with 50K on the clock and drove him over 100K miles. But I made the mistake of tarring the underside in the hopes of staving off rust and corrosion. That apparently made things not only worse, but MUCH worse. The body cancer first developed four or five years ago and by two years ago I had to have a rocker panel on the driver's side repaired. The next year, the rocker panel on the passenger side was bad but I ignored it given how little we were using it by then. We were only using it for hauling mulch and the occasional furniture or appliance-hauling jobs. This past summer I noticed a pool of oil under the front end and found the power steering seal had given up the ghost. I checked with the local junk yard and learned they'd pay $3.00 a hundred-weight if I could drive it in, $2.00 if they had to come get it. That was around the time of the Cash For Clunkers program and I considered trading it in but didn't really see anything I'd like to have. Finally, I needed space in the driveway to temporarily store Labashi's Dad's car while we sell it, so I called the junk yard. For some reason the price went up to $4.00 a hundred-weight and that included hauling so I told them to come get it. I had paid $10,600 for it in 1997 and got $154 for it from the junk man. But that also took $135 off my insurance bill and saved me another $200 in inspection repairs. RIP, Cherry Larry!!!
Late in the day I took a load of Dad's art books up to the retirement community and reserved a U-Haul for our upcoming Big Move adventure for Labashi's parents.
That evening we watched the 'Big Love-3' extras on disk 1 and Episode 1 of “Black's Books”, a Brit sitcom. Not sure on that one yet. The word is you need to watch a few episodes before making a decision. After reading reviews which said the laugh track is too obtrusive I didn't expect much but it was surprisingly okay. We'll see.
--------------------------------------
Wednesday, 6 January -
I spent the morning on many small office items, i.e., paying bills, taxes, and my car insurance. In mid-afternoon I received a call from Wal-mart telling me the new tires for Mocha Joe are in. I was hoping this would happen. We're due to leave for Michigan Friday but when I bought the tires online delivery was estimated as sometime between tomorrow and next Tuesday. I rushed in to Wal-mart and was lucky; the garage was nearly empty. They had my tires on in 20 minutes.
These new tires are Michelin LX tires in an extra-load light-truck configuration. My old tires were Goodyear Wranglers and they did okay. The great news is they were only $65 a piece. I bought a set in August 2008, just before leaving for my 16,000-mile Alaska trip. I put another 6K on with last winter's Florida trip, then another 12K with this past summer's Oregon-Trail trip. That's only 34K and they were supposed to be 50K tires. They looked like I might get another 8-10K if I didn't mind pushing the limits. But our winter trips back and forth to Michigan have me a bit skeptical. If I get caught in snow I want some decent tread and this mud-and-snow tread gets good reviews. Also, I had the disconcerting experience of having a flat outside Chicago and finding a large divot in the tread around a plug. The 'divot' was a scooped-out area about two inches around and a half-inch deep with the plug at the center. It was very hot to the touch. I've not seen that before and hope to never see it again! I had been zooming along at 60 miles per hour and noticed the van began swaying as if in a strong wind. But after pulling off I saw the low tire and found it leaking air. We were probably only minutes from a blowout.
Late in the day I drove to my trash-hide on my walking route. When I go for my walk I take along a few plastic Wal-mart bags and pick up trash, mostly beer cans. I hide the full bags behind a large rock out of view of passing traffic. When I've accumulated enough bags, I drive there in one of my vehicles and load them into a large garbage bag for the next trash pickup at my home. Today, as I picked up the bags a youngish couple walked by with their dogs and we chatted a bit about the clean-up. Looks like they may help keep the area cleaned up.
That evening we watched two episodes of 'Big Love- Season Three'. Good writing!
No walk today because of my tires appointment.
************* END OF POST **************
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 22:37
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