Back to work on House 2, some final work on House 1 before finalizing the sale, then a break for medical appointments and Easter weekend
(posted from home)
(This post covers 14 – 24 April, 2010)
-------------------------------------------
Sunday, 24 April-
This morning we had wonderful sun but it was supposed to rain in the afternoon. Labashi spent the day outside working on her landscaping. After a bit of reading on the Web, I rode the GS down to the Tollgate Starbucks, this time toting along the laptop to read there rather than buy the Times.
Afterwards I rode back into East York to shop for a few small tools at the Harbor Freight. I just needed a few little things as try to round out our tool tote with essentials and also have sets of commonly-needed tools in the van and in our house.
Later in the afternoon I updated the online blog and began the long task of organizing things in my office, both for my sanity and to prepare for upcoming visitors.
Cross your fingers. If all goes well the sale of House 1 will settle tomorrow.
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 23 April -
This morning I worked on catching up on the blog. Shortly after lunch the clouds thinned and the sun came out, giving me an excuse (and a strong desire!) to go for a motorcycle ride. The old Concours needed the brake discs scrubbed off and internal engine, trans, and running gear parts liberally bathed in warm oil.
I've not been on the tangle of roads to the west of I-83 around Strinestown for a long time so started there today. These roads continue to deny my attempts to figure them out. They curve back around on themselves as they avoid Conewago Creek and I-83. The roads are narrow and still have a lot of junk scraped up and left behind by the snowplows this winter as well as dead branches from spring storms. Speed limits are generally 30-45 with turns as slow as 15 mph. In one place I had to crowd over as far as possible to allow a small car coming the other way to pass.
But I had a lot of fun. I spent an hour and a half or shuttling between Lewisberry and North York while trying to find a good back way across to Pinchot State Park. I finally ended up at a familiar intersection close to Dover and worked my way home.
That evening we watched two episodes of 'Shark Men' before turning in a bit early to read.
I'm nearly finished with Michener's autobiography and just have to say it's incredible reading and it makes me want to read all of his books.
-----------------------------------------
Friday, 22 April -
Labashi was a bit 'over-scheduled' today so I volunteered to do the grocery shopping this morning. I left right after breakfast to get a bit of a jump on the crowd and that seemed to work out. As I was checking out the store was getting very crowded because of the Easter holiday weekend.
The day was yet another rainy one so I spent much of it on the web, enjoying several articles on Longreads.com. I can spend hours just trolling and reading. Today I read about the swine flu ripoff perpetrated by drug companies, a very interesting history of President Obama's mother living abroad, an article detailing the surprise finding of a Chinese vase which sold at auction for $43 million pounds, and an introduction to the life of 'Kiki Kannibal', a Florida teen who built up an internet 'scene' personality and made many enemies in the process.
I also spent quite a while trolling the video sites for videos of motorcycle accidents, trying to understand what mistakes the riders made. I found a good series on YouTube covering crashes and near-crashes on a section of Mulholland Drive (near LA) called 'The Snake'. Apparently the poster (YouTube ID 'rnickeymouse') sets up cameras on a particularly accident-prone turn on the Drive and waits for the action. These are particularly instructive since they have both real-time and slow-motion footage of the crashes. 'The Snake' section where many of the crashes occur is a decreasing-radius and continuing turn which riders tend to enter too fast and, as the radius tightens, lose traction and control. We see 'high-sides', 'low-sides', spins and crashes into, under, and over the guard-rail. These are NOT, by the way, fatal crashes. The interest for me is to see the physics in action. I noticed, for instance, that just as the back end breaks loose, engine rpms climb. Sometimes the front tire lifts off entirely (talk about a 'light touch' in the steering!). And I also was very interested in how well the safety gear protected the rider. Most riders were sensible enough to be wearing full leathers and a full-coverage helmet (though one young fool crashed his motorscooter while wearing a tee shirt, shorts, and sandals!)
One conclusion I took from it, though, is I need to go back to wearing my full-coverage helmet. My old one got too ratty so I switched to my open-face helmet and I could see that's not a great idea. Most of the time the riders helmets would smack the pavement high enough on the helmet that it didn't matter but a few times the chin bar just sort of slid along on the pavement. That would be a bummer with an open-face helmet.
That evening we watched the German movie 'North Face'. It's the story of the 1936 attempts to climb the north face of the Eiger for glory for the Fatherland as the Olympics approached. The climbing footage is incredible and the story compelling.
------------------------------------------
Thursday, 21 April -
Today I had a bit of a fiasco with my blood-pressure machine. I've been getting higher readings than I like but this morning the machine blew my mind with a 172 / 106 reading. My BP had been okay at the doctor's last week and we had discussed that fact that my machine needed to be checked since my records of mostly-daily readings seemed to be a bit high. So today I rode up to the doctor's office for a BP check with my tester along for comparison. The nurse found my BP to be 138 / 92 while my tester said, moments later, that it was 160 / 100. But it also had a new symbol--- a low-battery indication. Later that day I took another high reading with it, then changed the batteries and it suddenly read a more reasonable 137 / 84. The high readings I've been getting for the last few weeks came from low batteries though there was no indication of that until today.
It was finally a nice day so just riding up to the doctor's was not enough. I took off from there and rode over to Pinchot State Park, dropping in at each of the boat ramps and the Quaker Race swimming area to look around for a bit. At the far end of the Quaker Race parking area I saw a trailer-load of racing sculls and a young guy nearby. I learned he's an assistant rowing coach and Franklin and Marshall University and he brought the boats over for an practice that evening. It was only mid-afternoon and he was taking a break from his own workout in a single scull.
After checking out the main boat launch (near the office), I came upon a walker just a big younger than me just emerging from the trails to cross the road. I stopped and asked if the trails were wet, knowing full well they would be quite wet. I've walked these trails in Pinchot many times and this is perhaps the worst time of year for walking them. Come to think of it there may be a worse time. In late May and well into June there are many, many ticks in the grasses here. I've found as many as five ticks at a time during my walks and jogs on the trails in this area.
I had a nice, long chat with the walker. He's winding down his career as a lobbyist in Harrisburg and is looking forward to traveling out west. When I began telling him of our experience traveling in Mocha Joe, his eyes lit up. He had looked into buying an RV but of course those are far too expensive. As I described how we have Mocha Joe outfitted and how (relatively) cheap it was to do, he pulled out a map and started jotting notes. As I left we both said 'great conversation!'
That evening we watched 'The King's Speech' with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. Excellent movie!
---------------------------------------
Wednesday, 20 April -
I still have my cold and was feeling miserable in the morning but started to feel better around lunch time. I had a bit of cabin fever so rode the GS into the East York Starbucks for a ride and to get a case of Doubleshot Lights.
That got me home around 1430 so I started mowing the lawn-- my assigned task for the last four days but the first day dry enough. I mowed for an hour and took a break, then finished up for another hour.
That evening we watched '127 Hours', the story of Aron Ralston, a hiker who became trapped in a slot canyon in Utah by a boulder he dislodged while down-climbing. James Franco played Ralston and did a very nice job.
--------------------------------------
Tuesday, 19 April -
Today I had a cold big-time. The weather today was crappy and I felt the same. Labashi was gone most of the day, taking her Dad to a medical appointment. I spent the day on the web, much of it on video-clip sites.
I also tried once again to figure out why my Netflix Instant movies are choppy. Something appears to be throttling my link. The theory from Netflix today is that the speed of my line is varying back and forth across the 5 MBPS line and supposedly that's confusing things as the movie player tries to adjust to a non-HD format and an HD format. That sounds a bit fishy to me given that I've run Netflix movies without problem using a link barely getting 1 MBPS without this kind of jerkiness.
I also had some things to take care of on the house we have for sale in Chambersburg. We're close to a sale but have to be sure all our i's are dotted and t's crossed.
-------------------------------------
Monday, 18 April -
This morning I rode the GS into York for my first appointment with a new dermotologist. I had gone to this doctor because her practice appeared to be better equipped to treat the skin problem I had been diganosed with than my old dermo. Imagine my surprise, then, when she said the diganosis by my previous dermotologist was wrong and I didn't need the treatment with the expensive equipment-- all I have to do is use a different lotion (though it's an expensive lotion!).
After the appointment I dropped in to Starbucks for a warm-me-up (the high today was only around 50), then I started chasing down the lotions at my local Rite-Aid.
Labashi has been painting our bathroom vanity for the last few days and continues with cycles of sand-it-all-off and paint-it-again.
That evening we watched 'One Week' on Netflix Instant. We really liked this little independent Canadian movie. In the first scene the young protagonist learns he's dying of a cancer and only has a short time to live. He elects to buy a motorcycle and tour Canada via the Trans-Canada Highway from his home in Toronto. We loved seeing the iconic shots of that trip. We've only missed one or two of the places he visited. We've been on the TCH from coast to coast with only two exceptions. We missed a small section in southwestern Saskatchewan and a small section from the BC-Alberta border to the Fraser River.
------------------------------------
Sunday, 17 April -
Today Maypo and I completed installation of the UV light and whole-house filter for the water system in House 1. The house had flunked the water test, we think because the water lay dormant in the pipes for long periods of time. We had tried a 'shock' treatment of the well but that didn't do it. Fortuntely, Maypo had a UV light left over from his home's switch-over to city water so we just had to buy a new bulb and quartz tube-- about $125 --- versus a new system for $500.
After the installation we sterilized the pipes and drained and refilled the water heater.
That afternoon we finished up at 1500. Labashi and I headed for home, arriving about 1630.
-------------------------------------
Saturday, 16 April -
Maypo and I spent the day installing and testing the ultraviolet light and water filter in the house we have up for sale. I ran a new electric line and mounted the main parts while Maypo did the plumbing work. We were glad to be inside given that the rain just poured down by the bucket-load today.
The project went well right up to the point where it didn't! We thought we were done around supper time but then found a small, tiny-weep leak in a place which meant we had to cut the pipe and rebuild. After supper we had to go out to Lowe's for parts for the repair tomorrow.
------------------------------------
Friday, 15 April -
In Cburg today. Labashi finished up painting the back door of House 2 and I took care of some small electrical problems. I contacted the water-treatment-systems guy and made arrangements to meet him to buy some parts we'd need for tomorrow's work. Labashi and I picked those up, then drove on to Sam's Flooring in St. Thomas to look for sheet-vinyl flooring remnants for the bath and kitchen. We think we've found the 'right' flooring for both places but brought home a few samples to be sure and for Maypo to see what we're thinking.
Maypo had the day off work today so he came down and we reviewed the work of the contractors we have on site doing work on the front of House 1. Looking good!
------------------------------------
Thursday, 14 April-
This morning we drove back to Chambersburg to get back to work on House 2. I'm now keeping a daily log of work on the house and keep the details of projects and hours there rather than try to summarize here and try to re-construct later. I tried that with the work we did on House 1 and saw only that we had put a thousand hours of work into it but can't really say what the heck took us so long. When I think of the individual projects, each doesn't seem that long.
That evening we had supper with Maypo and family.
************** END OF POST ************
(posted from home)
(This post covers 14 – 24 April, 2010)
-------------------------------------------
Sunday, 24 April-
This morning we had wonderful sun but it was supposed to rain in the afternoon. Labashi spent the day outside working on her landscaping. After a bit of reading on the Web, I rode the GS down to the Tollgate Starbucks, this time toting along the laptop to read there rather than buy the Times.
Afterwards I rode back into East York to shop for a few small tools at the Harbor Freight. I just needed a few little things as try to round out our tool tote with essentials and also have sets of commonly-needed tools in the van and in our house.
Later in the afternoon I updated the online blog and began the long task of organizing things in my office, both for my sanity and to prepare for upcoming visitors.
Cross your fingers. If all goes well the sale of House 1 will settle tomorrow.
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 23 April -
This morning I worked on catching up on the blog. Shortly after lunch the clouds thinned and the sun came out, giving me an excuse (and a strong desire!) to go for a motorcycle ride. The old Concours needed the brake discs scrubbed off and internal engine, trans, and running gear parts liberally bathed in warm oil.
I've not been on the tangle of roads to the west of I-83 around Strinestown for a long time so started there today. These roads continue to deny my attempts to figure them out. They curve back around on themselves as they avoid Conewago Creek and I-83. The roads are narrow and still have a lot of junk scraped up and left behind by the snowplows this winter as well as dead branches from spring storms. Speed limits are generally 30-45 with turns as slow as 15 mph. In one place I had to crowd over as far as possible to allow a small car coming the other way to pass.
But I had a lot of fun. I spent an hour and a half or shuttling between Lewisberry and North York while trying to find a good back way across to Pinchot State Park. I finally ended up at a familiar intersection close to Dover and worked my way home.
That evening we watched two episodes of 'Shark Men' before turning in a bit early to read.
I'm nearly finished with Michener's autobiography and just have to say it's incredible reading and it makes me want to read all of his books.
-----------------------------------------
Friday, 22 April -
Labashi was a bit 'over-scheduled' today so I volunteered to do the grocery shopping this morning. I left right after breakfast to get a bit of a jump on the crowd and that seemed to work out. As I was checking out the store was getting very crowded because of the Easter holiday weekend.
The day was yet another rainy one so I spent much of it on the web, enjoying several articles on Longreads.com. I can spend hours just trolling and reading. Today I read about the swine flu ripoff perpetrated by drug companies, a very interesting history of President Obama's mother living abroad, an article detailing the surprise finding of a Chinese vase which sold at auction for $43 million pounds, and an introduction to the life of 'Kiki Kannibal', a Florida teen who built up an internet 'scene' personality and made many enemies in the process.
I also spent quite a while trolling the video sites for videos of motorcycle accidents, trying to understand what mistakes the riders made. I found a good series on YouTube covering crashes and near-crashes on a section of Mulholland Drive (near LA) called 'The Snake'. Apparently the poster (YouTube ID 'rnickeymouse') sets up cameras on a particularly accident-prone turn on the Drive and waits for the action. These are particularly instructive since they have both real-time and slow-motion footage of the crashes. 'The Snake' section where many of the crashes occur is a decreasing-radius and continuing turn which riders tend to enter too fast and, as the radius tightens, lose traction and control. We see 'high-sides', 'low-sides', spins and crashes into, under, and over the guard-rail. These are NOT, by the way, fatal crashes. The interest for me is to see the physics in action. I noticed, for instance, that just as the back end breaks loose, engine rpms climb. Sometimes the front tire lifts off entirely (talk about a 'light touch' in the steering!). And I also was very interested in how well the safety gear protected the rider. Most riders were sensible enough to be wearing full leathers and a full-coverage helmet (though one young fool crashed his motorscooter while wearing a tee shirt, shorts, and sandals!)
One conclusion I took from it, though, is I need to go back to wearing my full-coverage helmet. My old one got too ratty so I switched to my open-face helmet and I could see that's not a great idea. Most of the time the riders helmets would smack the pavement high enough on the helmet that it didn't matter but a few times the chin bar just sort of slid along on the pavement. That would be a bummer with an open-face helmet.
That evening we watched the German movie 'North Face'. It's the story of the 1936 attempts to climb the north face of the Eiger for glory for the Fatherland as the Olympics approached. The climbing footage is incredible and the story compelling.
------------------------------------------
Thursday, 21 April -
Today I had a bit of a fiasco with my blood-pressure machine. I've been getting higher readings than I like but this morning the machine blew my mind with a 172 / 106 reading. My BP had been okay at the doctor's last week and we had discussed that fact that my machine needed to be checked since my records of mostly-daily readings seemed to be a bit high. So today I rode up to the doctor's office for a BP check with my tester along for comparison. The nurse found my BP to be 138 / 92 while my tester said, moments later, that it was 160 / 100. But it also had a new symbol--- a low-battery indication. Later that day I took another high reading with it, then changed the batteries and it suddenly read a more reasonable 137 / 84. The high readings I've been getting for the last few weeks came from low batteries though there was no indication of that until today.
It was finally a nice day so just riding up to the doctor's was not enough. I took off from there and rode over to Pinchot State Park, dropping in at each of the boat ramps and the Quaker Race swimming area to look around for a bit. At the far end of the Quaker Race parking area I saw a trailer-load of racing sculls and a young guy nearby. I learned he's an assistant rowing coach and Franklin and Marshall University and he brought the boats over for an practice that evening. It was only mid-afternoon and he was taking a break from his own workout in a single scull.
After checking out the main boat launch (near the office), I came upon a walker just a big younger than me just emerging from the trails to cross the road. I stopped and asked if the trails were wet, knowing full well they would be quite wet. I've walked these trails in Pinchot many times and this is perhaps the worst time of year for walking them. Come to think of it there may be a worse time. In late May and well into June there are many, many ticks in the grasses here. I've found as many as five ticks at a time during my walks and jogs on the trails in this area.
I had a nice, long chat with the walker. He's winding down his career as a lobbyist in Harrisburg and is looking forward to traveling out west. When I began telling him of our experience traveling in Mocha Joe, his eyes lit up. He had looked into buying an RV but of course those are far too expensive. As I described how we have Mocha Joe outfitted and how (relatively) cheap it was to do, he pulled out a map and started jotting notes. As I left we both said 'great conversation!'
That evening we watched 'The King's Speech' with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. Excellent movie!
---------------------------------------
Wednesday, 20 April -
I still have my cold and was feeling miserable in the morning but started to feel better around lunch time. I had a bit of cabin fever so rode the GS into the East York Starbucks for a ride and to get a case of Doubleshot Lights.
That got me home around 1430 so I started mowing the lawn-- my assigned task for the last four days but the first day dry enough. I mowed for an hour and took a break, then finished up for another hour.
That evening we watched '127 Hours', the story of Aron Ralston, a hiker who became trapped in a slot canyon in Utah by a boulder he dislodged while down-climbing. James Franco played Ralston and did a very nice job.
--------------------------------------
Tuesday, 19 April -
Today I had a cold big-time. The weather today was crappy and I felt the same. Labashi was gone most of the day, taking her Dad to a medical appointment. I spent the day on the web, much of it on video-clip sites.
I also tried once again to figure out why my Netflix Instant movies are choppy. Something appears to be throttling my link. The theory from Netflix today is that the speed of my line is varying back and forth across the 5 MBPS line and supposedly that's confusing things as the movie player tries to adjust to a non-HD format and an HD format. That sounds a bit fishy to me given that I've run Netflix movies without problem using a link barely getting 1 MBPS without this kind of jerkiness.
I also had some things to take care of on the house we have for sale in Chambersburg. We're close to a sale but have to be sure all our i's are dotted and t's crossed.
-------------------------------------
Monday, 18 April -
This morning I rode the GS into York for my first appointment with a new dermotologist. I had gone to this doctor because her practice appeared to be better equipped to treat the skin problem I had been diganosed with than my old dermo. Imagine my surprise, then, when she said the diganosis by my previous dermotologist was wrong and I didn't need the treatment with the expensive equipment-- all I have to do is use a different lotion (though it's an expensive lotion!).
After the appointment I dropped in to Starbucks for a warm-me-up (the high today was only around 50), then I started chasing down the lotions at my local Rite-Aid.
Labashi has been painting our bathroom vanity for the last few days and continues with cycles of sand-it-all-off and paint-it-again.
That evening we watched 'One Week' on Netflix Instant. We really liked this little independent Canadian movie. In the first scene the young protagonist learns he's dying of a cancer and only has a short time to live. He elects to buy a motorcycle and tour Canada via the Trans-Canada Highway from his home in Toronto. We loved seeing the iconic shots of that trip. We've only missed one or two of the places he visited. We've been on the TCH from coast to coast with only two exceptions. We missed a small section in southwestern Saskatchewan and a small section from the BC-Alberta border to the Fraser River.
------------------------------------
Sunday, 17 April -
Today Maypo and I completed installation of the UV light and whole-house filter for the water system in House 1. The house had flunked the water test, we think because the water lay dormant in the pipes for long periods of time. We had tried a 'shock' treatment of the well but that didn't do it. Fortuntely, Maypo had a UV light left over from his home's switch-over to city water so we just had to buy a new bulb and quartz tube-- about $125 --- versus a new system for $500.
After the installation we sterilized the pipes and drained and refilled the water heater.
That afternoon we finished up at 1500. Labashi and I headed for home, arriving about 1630.
-------------------------------------
Saturday, 16 April -
Maypo and I spent the day installing and testing the ultraviolet light and water filter in the house we have up for sale. I ran a new electric line and mounted the main parts while Maypo did the plumbing work. We were glad to be inside given that the rain just poured down by the bucket-load today.
The project went well right up to the point where it didn't! We thought we were done around supper time but then found a small, tiny-weep leak in a place which meant we had to cut the pipe and rebuild. After supper we had to go out to Lowe's for parts for the repair tomorrow.
------------------------------------
Friday, 15 April -
In Cburg today. Labashi finished up painting the back door of House 2 and I took care of some small electrical problems. I contacted the water-treatment-systems guy and made arrangements to meet him to buy some parts we'd need for tomorrow's work. Labashi and I picked those up, then drove on to Sam's Flooring in St. Thomas to look for sheet-vinyl flooring remnants for the bath and kitchen. We think we've found the 'right' flooring for both places but brought home a few samples to be sure and for Maypo to see what we're thinking.
Maypo had the day off work today so he came down and we reviewed the work of the contractors we have on site doing work on the front of House 1. Looking good!
------------------------------------
Thursday, 14 April-
This morning we drove back to Chambersburg to get back to work on House 2. I'm now keeping a daily log of work on the house and keep the details of projects and hours there rather than try to summarize here and try to re-construct later. I tried that with the work we did on House 1 and saw only that we had put a thousand hours of work into it but can't really say what the heck took us so long. When I think of the individual projects, each doesn't seem that long.
That evening we had supper with Maypo and family.
************** END OF POST ************
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 16:09
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