Starting to think about this year's Florida trip ; Quick visit to DC burbs

(posted from home)

(This post covers 21 - 31 December, 2011)




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Saturday, 31 December -

The falling temperatures of next week had me thinking I need to get my rides in now. I figured I wouldn't be able to make my regular Sunday ride down to the Tollgate Starbucks so I went today.
Afterwards I took the longer way home and stopped at Rocky Ridge for a quick break (but no walk) late in the day.
Back home I realized today was my last day to stream the movie 'Black Robe' from Netflix. I had been using this movie for testing at Labashi's brother's home but had only seen a few sections of it. Today I saw it all-- it's one of my favorites.
That evening Labashi and I watched Ingmar Bergman's 1961 film 'Through a Glass Darkly'.

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Friday, 30 December -

This morning I finally made some headway on the telephone problem. As I'd attempt to determine whether the problem was in our in-house wiring or the telephone network, the problem would largely disappear. Today I noticed some of this came from my using two different test phones-- one masked the problem more than the other.
But today the problem seemed to stay. We had both a strong hum and a crackly static sound. I took both test phones out to the network interface box and it was now clear the problem originated with the phone network. I used Verizon's web-based repair service to schedule service for Monday.
With today's extra-nice 50-degree temperatures I decided to take the GS to Rocky Ridge today. I did my regular walk in 1:47 today and it seemed easy.

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Thursday, 29 December -

Today we drove home from our pleasant visit with friends. We hung around through the morning before starting for home around noon. We made it to East Berlin and Restaurant Sidney by 1500 for a late lunch, sharing one of Sidney's excellent bar-be-que pork sandwiches.

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Wednesday, 28 December-

We had another day with our friends in suburban Washington today. We got up late and Labashi's brother and I worked on getting Netflix working on the new TV. We never did get an acceptable speed for watching movies and blamed it on the PC we were using for the streaming. We also rode along on a shopping trip to Costco and then stopped in at The Big Screen Store to look around. The biggest TVs are now 90-inch behemoths.
That evening we went to dinner at a restaurant in Warrenton called the Iron Bridge Wine Bar and Restaurant. We arrived ahead of time for our 1945 reservation but didn't get seated until 2030. Our meal, though, was great. We had tapas plates and split everything up. We had mushroom pizza, a cheese fondue, a gourmet hamburger, ravioli, scallops, a flight of wine, and a chocolate creme brulee dessert. And because we had had to wait so long for our table, the manager comped our drinks and dessert.

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Tuesday, 27 December -

Today Labashi and I loaded up her car and we drove down to her brother's home outside of Washington, DC. We took the GPS-recommended route and that one went around the Baltimore and Washington beltways. I had thought traffic would be light given the holidays but we ran into several slow-moving sections.
We spent the afternoon chatting and then went to dinner at a Bonefish restaurant. They had just gotten a 55-inch flat-screen TV so we watched 'Avatar' and stayed up very late.

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Monday, 26 December -

This morning I dug out our older-but-good Weslo treadmill and cleaned it up and tested it.
We're giving it to Labashi's brother on our visit to his home in Northern Virginia tomorrow. They have a very similar one and were looking for a second one so they can exercise at the same time. We're just happy to get it outta here! I'd much rather walk or jog outside, even in very hot or very cold weather. Walking or jogging in place just seems like the ultimate bore.
I took the Concours down to Starbucks to give it some exercise. When I went to pay for my mocha I was told a 'philanthropist' had bought a gift card and told them to give everyone free coffees for as long as it lasted. Nice!
I then rode up to Rocky Ridge Park and took my end-to-end walk. Along the way I ran into a mountain biker and we chatted about the trails here and mountain-biking trail centers in Delaware and Florida. My walk time of 1:57 reflected my long chat.
I do enjoy these walks this time of year. For the last 40 minutes or so I'm headed westerly and though it's only 1600 or so the sun is low in the sky and it's just very pleasant, particularly if the sun is on my face and the wind has died.

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Sunday, 25 December -

We spent the afternoon with Mom and Dad in their apartment for Christmas today. That gave me a chance to set up LogMeIn on Dad's computer and my iPad and give it a try. LogMeIn had just dropped the price (from $29.99 to free!) so that gave me the incentive to try it. It seems to work fine but I need to try it from somewhere other than the same LAN as Dad's PC.
I also helped Labashi's sister get Skype up and running for the first time. She had just gotten a webcam for Christmas and this was her first experience with Skype and she LOVED it. It was great fun to see the look on her face and hear the excitement in her voice as the family gathered round to chat-and-see long distance.
We also connected up with one of Labashi's brothers and his wife in northern Virginia and another sister in southern Michigan had skyped-in this morning. Skype rocks!

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Saturday, 24 December -

Today I waited a few hours for the day to warm up above 40 degrees and then rode the GS over to the BMW shop in Lititz to pick up my saddle bag. This is a warranty replacement for the one I dropped off a week or so ago. I enjoyed talking with Charlie the service manager who seems to be perfectly matched to his job. Afterwards I stopped at the Starbucks only a block away. How perfect is that?? A motorcycle shop with interesting bikes and a Starbucks nearby.
That evening we watched a few episodes of 'Rules of Engagement'. We're not sold on this one. I understand the concept of 'suspension of disbelief' but I'm not fond of what I think of as negative reinforcement of gender roles. Then again it's just a TV show.

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Friday, 23 December -

Today I spent most of my day researching Florida stuff in preparation for my winter trip. I collected it into an email and sent it off to my brothers, hoping to lure them down for a few days.
This exercise started when I ran onto a Field and Stream article about kayak fishing on Hobie Mirage pedal-fin kayaks in the Keys. That of course got me to thinking about things I've wanted to do in the Keys-- such as a JetLev ride or ultralight floatplane ride. I can't afford to do them all but I can work one or two in this year and save the others for next time!

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Thursday, 22 December -

Today was a Starbucks-and-walk day. Weather's still holding up pretty nicely so I took the F650GS for the ride in.
My walk at Rocky Ridge was a 1:50 today.


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Wednesday, 21 December -

This morning we drove down to the hospital area to have our TB tests read. We had the injections Tuesday and today was merely a matter of having the nurse check the injection site for signs of a bump under the skin. This was just a routine followup from our series of pills and injections for and after our Botswana trip. We still have two more appointments in February.
I spent the afternoon researching Wide Open Baja cars. These are sand-rail style cars powered by a flat-four Subaru engine of about 175 horsepower. And they have something like an 18-inch travel on the front suspension.
I'm looking at them because they're available for rent both here in Pennsylvania and near Ocala, Florida (one of my regular stops on my winter trip). I gotta do that!
That evening we watched 'Get Low' with Robert Duvall. I think we would give it something like an 85 on the Tomatometer.

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Sent from my iPad

Trip to Orat's home ; Getting into iMovie

(posted from home)

(this post covers 10 – 20 December, 2011)

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Tuesday, 20 December-

We're having some odd buzzing sounds on the phone line so I tried troubleshooting that and didn't make a lot of headway. The buzzing is intermittent and just when I think I'm making headway, it disappears. I'm 70 per cent sure the source is the phone company's problem but need to narrow that down before calling for service. I did open up all the connections and spray electrical contact spray and give them a quick brush but I think the problem is in the line coming into the house. We've had problems with it in the past.
Labashi went to her parent's apartment today to follow up on some medical issues and I caught up the blog. My experiment in using the iPad for the blog was for the most part a failure. I spent more time cleaning up the formatting because of copying it to Evernote and then copying that to email. I'd be better off to take my laptop than my iPad along on my Sunday ride-and-blog trips.
I also reviewed video clips from my little Sanyo camera today. I had taken the old Sanyo along as a backup and kept it handy while we drove. The Canon's HD footage far exceeds the quality of the Sanyo's 640x480 format but I did get a bit of you-are-there footage with the Sanyo.
That evening we finished the Wallander – Season One extras.

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Monday, 19 December -

Today we drove back to Mom and Dad's apartment in Mechanicsburg. I needed to look at Skype on Dad's PC and also go to the car dealer to see what it will take to replace a broken mirror on Mom's car. After I determined that Skype now seems stable and working fine (for no obvious reason), I drove Mom's car over to the dealer and got a quote to replace the mirror. I also took it to a local body shop for a quote. I think we'll delay getting that done until next month and get an inspection at the same time.
Labashi took Mom to the doctor's office today and didn't get back until late. Dad made supper and we then had a nice long chat before returning home.
We watched the third 'Wallander' episode and one of the DVD extras about Henning Mankel's Wallander novels. I really need to read some of his work. Movies are fine but the really interesting stuff is in the novels.

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Sunday, 18 December -

This morning I did my normal scan of the web while waiting for the day to warm up. We had a tiny bit of snow overnight and I wanted the roads to have a chance to warm before taking off on the motorcycle. I spent much of the time drooling over accessories for the Triumph Thruxton 900 I've been looking at both locally and at a dealer near Orat's home. I've not made up my mind to buy one but after seeing a nice bikini fairing for it and lots of performance gear, the temptation is growing. Now if I just had somewhere to keep it.
I took my regular Sunday ride to the Tollgate Starbucks and took the iPad along to catch up the blog. I had installed Evernote on the laptop and iPad and thought that would do it, particularly after reading an article by a full-time blogger who uses Evernote for this purpose. But Evernote let me down. After typing only a few sentences it began slowing down. I could type three or four words before they'd appear. And then it got worse-- I'd type a few words and the letters in each word would repeat. I powered down the iPad and started over with Evernote but it soon did the same thing. I switched over to email and that worked fine... no delays at all. I'll just have to remember to send myself the mail rather than depend on Evernote's sync function to share the text between platforms.
Later in the day we drove over to see Mom and Dad at their apartment in Mechanicsburg. We called in a to-go order for ribs to Texas Roadhouse and picked them up on our drive to the apartment.
After supper I worked on Dad's PC which had developed an odd problem with Skype. It would start up but then fail with a message saying it couldn't run anymore and suggested I install the latest version as a fix. But it was already on the latest version.
I tried a few things and deleted some redundant security software but that didn't help-- at least not consistently. It would work sometimes but not others. I'm going to need to look at this some more.
That evening we watched four episodes of 'Corner Gas' – Season Four. They've lost the magic.

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Saturday, 17 December -

Labashi mailed out her yearly newsletter to friends and family today and I had to get out of the house.  I rode the Concours to the East York Starbucks and found it so crowded I sat outside despite the 40-degree temperature and a bit of chilling wind.  I didn't last long at that and then went up to Rocky Ridge Park for my 5-miler.  I had the iPod along but found it dead.  I had forgotten to charge it after using it a long time for 'This American Life' episodes we listened to on our drive to and from Orat's.
The walk today seemed colder than today's 40 degree temperature but that was because of a persistent wind.  I've walked that loop enough to realize I'd be cold on the first part because of walking into the wind but after ten minutes or so I'd turn downwind and it would be much more comfortable--- and that indeed was the case--- at least until I turned back into the wind for the last 20 minutes of the loop.

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Friday, 16 December -

Today Labashi and I spent the entire day editing a video of my grand-niece's winter concert performance.  The end product was only two minutes long but we had a lot of learning to do in using iMovie, particularly when we started working with sound.  I had a pan of the crowd near the end of the concert and Labashi came up with the idea of putting that first as an establishing shot. But the accompanying sound was wrong for that.  Labashi found crowd sounds in the iMovie effects library and did a great job of editing that to fit the visuals.
We also played  quite a bit with titles, backgrounds, and transitions.
Late that afternoon I posted the video to Youtube and sent the link to my niece's email.  Within minutes she put it up on her Facebook page and sent us a heartfelt thank-you ---- a very satisfying end to the day. That evening we did our usual thing on the web and then watched our weekly fix of 'Gold Rush' and 'Flying Wild Alaska'.

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Thursday, 15 December -

Today we had another leisurely breakfast with Orat and then took off for home.  The GPS plotted out a new route down the east side of Canandaigua Lake and when I realized it took us past the local Starbucks, I said 'why not?'.
Today was a rainy day off and on so the trip home wasn't quite as pleasant as the trip up a few days ago but I loved seeing the unfamiliar countryside.
At Mansfield we tried a new restaurant (Lamb's Creek Grill) and found it a good alternative to our normal stop at Wendy's and had a long lunch.  I then dropped in at the nearby gun shop I always visit on our way through here for a look at the used guns.  There wasn't anything I couldn't live without but I did find an H&K .380 that looked interesting.
We didn't get home until 1600 or so and by the time we 'arrived' (emptied out the van), it was dark.

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Wednesday, 14 December -

This morning we sat around the table with Orat having a leisurely breakfast--- nice!  Labashi then drove over to JustJeff's house to help Giddyup settle in to the new house while Orat and I ran some errands.  Orat and JustJeff are rebuilding an older pickup and we needed to pick up parts.  That turned out to be easier said than done.  The parts house (AutoZone) had to send us to another location for some of the parts and once we arrived there we were directed to yet another location.
 After rounding up the parts we had lunch at a nearby Five Guys and then went shooting at the Rochester Rifle Club.  Orat is a member there and this was my first visit.  It's a nice little out-of-the-way low-key clubhouse but has a nice shooting lane setup, proper ventilation without the common problem of too much air movement at the shooting station, decent lighting, and good lead-elimination hand-cleaning soaps for afterwards.
I started out with a Glock .40 and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.  We had small target sheets but this was ridiculous.  In the meantime I watched Orat punch holes in an amazingly-small pattern near the center of his target.  Obviously I was using the wrong gun.  Oddly, when I tried the H&K 9mm Orat had been using, I was only hitting the paper half the time.  Another trade-out for another 9mm didn't fix things but upon trading back to the H&K I at least put 13 of 15 on the paper and had a center-high cluster going.  That's good, though.  I've not been shooting lately and this is just what I need to get me back out there.
That evening we all went to a winter concert for my third-grade grand-niece.  I had the little Canon point-and-shoot along and shot videos of her very animated performance. What a gas!  Later we returned to my niece's home and viewed the raw footage from the concert and that turned out to be a big hit.

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Tuesday, 13 December -

Today Labashi and I loaded up the van and headed for Orat's home (in the Rochester area). We left at 0830 and made it to our destination around 1400. We spent the rest of the afternoon helping the movers and then had a hearty spaghetti supper with family.
Afterwards I plugged the iPad into the family big-screen TV and went through the stills from our Botswana trip.  It was quite the circus. The little kids both loved the pictures but also had the attention span of, well, little kids!

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Monday, 12 December -

Today I helped Labashi replace a ceiling tile in the guest room. This tile had been damaged by a small water leak and Labashi had spent a good bit of time and energy trying to cover it up with paint. She had taken a similar tile in to Lowe's and had it color-matched but the resulting color wasn't even close.
The problem here was the tile is part of the CeilingMax suspend-ceiling system and takes a bit of finessing to remove and replace. The tile came out easily but getting the new one in place proved a challenge. We still like the CeilingMax system more than a traditional dropped ceiling because it provides more clearance in the room and doesn't have such an industrial look.
That evening I called Orat and learned JustJeff had settled on his new house today and would be moving in tomorrow. I quickly made arrangements to travel up there. We had been planning a trip up there before Christmas and this would make a lot of sense-- help with the move, see the new house, visit with family, etc, etc. Perfect!

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Sunday, 11 December -

This morning I researched and then downloaded 'Evernote' on the iPad and my laptop. This app gives me a way to take notes and have them automatically synced between platforms.
I then rode the Concours down to the Tollgate Starbucks for my regular Sunday ride. I took along the iPad and keyboard and caught up on a few blog entries.
I then rode over to Rocky Ridge Park and walked my five-miler in 1:50.
That evening we watched more 'Modern Family' episodes.

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Saturday, 10 December -

This morning I needed a motorcycle ride so headed into town, initially planning to go to Starbucks. Along the way I remembered I still need to submit a warranty claim for the F50GS's right saddle bag. It's called a 'Vario' and expands and contracts using a lever inside the bag. But mine will no longer contract-- it's stuck in the expanded position.
I rode over to Trans Am Cycles in Lititz (where I bought the bike and bags) and dropped off the bag for the service guy to handle the warranty claim. Today was only a 40-degree day so I wondered how my electrically-heated clothing would do. As I crossed the Susquehanna River bridge I realized my hands were getting cold even though the temperature controller for the gloves was turned all the way up. I turned on the GS's heated handgrips and that took care of it. It seems odd to heat the outside of the heavy gloves but the internal heat was being overwhelmed by the cold air flowing past the gloves. The additional heat from the grips balanced that out.
At the shop I spoke briefly with Dan, the sales guy, and Charlie, the service guy. Both are quite friendly and know their products.
After the shop visit I stopped at the nearby Starbucks for a warm-me-up before the long trip home and spent an hour or so catching up on the news via the iPad. I love the convenience of taking the little iPad along and having access to the web.
That evening we watched several episodes of 'Modern Family', season one.

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Late-Fall motorcycle rides ; Uh-oh at House 2

(posted from home)

(This post covers 1 – 9 December, 2011)




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Friday, 9 December -

This morning I revisited the slideshow of Africa stills I had created and added comments from Labashi and also made a few changes of my own. I think it's finally ready for distribution.
Mid-day I hopped on the Concours and zipped down to the East York Starbucks. I took along the iPad and wireless keyboard and my blog notes. I enjoyed my mocha and caught up the blog. I also had a long conversation with Chris, a guy who works at the nearby Lowes. Using the keyboard with the iPad made a big difference (compared to the on-screen keyboard) and I see it's very possible to start making blog entries this way. But I have to be careful to make backups on the laptop in case the web site were ever to lose my data.
The temperature today is again in the upper 40's and the motorcycle riding very comfortable-- in fact I saw two other bikes out today.
We watched a few episodes of 'Modern Family'- season one.

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Thursday, 8 December -

This morning I finally got my laptop back.  I needed to figure out how to take put our Africa stills online in a form we can send to friends and relatives.  After checking out several options I found that iPhoto has easy import and email functions.
I had edited the photos a bit on the iPad and needed to transfer the files to the laptop.  Fortunately I found an iPad app (called "Photo Transfer App") for this purpose.  It couldn't have been easier.
I had not been on iPhoto before so took a bit of time to research how to import and edit the photos.  That too turned out to be easy.  The import was a matter of pointing at the folder containing the transferred photos.  Editing (color correction and cropping) were intuitive and emailing was easy-- with a few little gotchas but they made sense once you found them.
I sent test emails to Labashi and we reviewed them and tried a few things to improve them.  The original file was over 9 meg and I figured that would be a problem for some recipients since many email servers won't take files over 5 meg.  But some judicious deletions of borderline-quality photos took it down under 5 meg.
I then added some comments to each photo.
That afternoon I took the Concours down to Rocky Ridge for my 5-miler (1:50 today).  I had gotten a late start for this time of year so couldn't take time to stop off at Starbucks.  But the woods were beautiful in the evening light (at 4 pm!!)
That evening we watched 'Somewhere', a Sofia Coppola film.  This one is a character study and is rated fairly low on Netflix but we like her work.  And that was indeed the case for this one-- we liked it.  It's not a traditional movie in structure; it's a character study.  But this is another movie that grows on you after it (unexpectedly) ends.

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Wednesday, 7 December -

More rain today.  Labashi has decided that the video clips I had done could use some work. She had been a video producer before retiring and had done a lot of professional editing so the bottom line is she's right.  I was content to have videos that looked like home movies if they captured something interesting.  But Labashi wants to edit out the shaky footage, even if it means a much shorter piece.
She had not used iMovie before so I got her started and sat nearby using my iPad. (See, honey, it WAS worth buying an iPad after all!)
Labashi edited and uploaded six or seven videos by supper time.  It had taken me three or four days to do that.
We then went out to supper at Deb's Pizza in Manchester.  We like their ham boat and roast-beef boat sandwiches.

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Tuesday, 6 December -

It's Tuesday so it must be raining.... as indeed it was.  Tuesday is our take-out-the-trash day and it seems I'm always doing it in the rain.
This morning I had a dental checkup.  Since the dentist's office is near Mom and Dad's apartment Labashi went along and we visited them for a couple of hours.  I diagnosed a problem with Mom's printer and we had a nice chat.
That evening we were introduced to the TV series 'Modern Family'.  When I first saw Ed O'Neill I thought we had made a mistake but the pilot was hilarious.  We went on to watch all the episodes on Disk 1.  Now we can't wait for more.

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Monday, 5 December -

Today I drove to Chambersburg to work on House 2 a bit.  I've had an odd problem with the back door.  It's a new door and keeps swelling.  I've had to plane it off and repaint at least four times now.  When we visited Maypo at Thanksgiving I found I couldn't even close the door (after forcing it open).
As soon as I entered the house I noticed the smell of fuel oil.  It was strong enough that I really dreaded entering the basement.  I found a pool of fuel oil about six-feet around at the furnace.   Fortunately we had left a roll of paper towels and a trash can with liner.  I sopped up the oil and washed the floor, then found the problem--- a fitting was loose.  Last summer we had bled the line after some work and apparently had failed to tighten it. The problem showed up when we had the tank filled for winter.
I then fixed and repainted the door and headed home, all in all about four hours of work.

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Sunday, 4 December -

Later in the morning I rode the Concours down to the Tollgate Starbucks for my weekly Sunday ride.  I took along the iPad instead of buying a paper.  I'm really loving this thing.  It gives me an excuse to look for new apps and I've read more books and magazines in the last month than the previous six.  I particularly like having so much capability right with me, from doing video calls to looking up stuff on maps and in Wikipedia and of course Google.  I have music as wekk as the photos and several of the videos from our Africa trip.  Very nice...
I rode the Concours home and changed my clothes and then rode the GS down to Rocky Ridge park for my 5-miler (1:42 today).  These days it's getting dark by the time I get back home and I'm quite ready to take a couple of ibuprofen and then take it easy.  So far the body is taking the walking well and I'm not sore in the morning from it.   While walking I listen to the iPod and am currently particularly fond of Sia's 'Breathe Me' and 'Lullaby' and Zero Seven's 'Home' (I'm a Tina Dico fan)

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Saturday, 3 December -

Today I spent all day going through the log of our Chambersburg work to figure up our hours and trips. We spent just under 500 hours (actually, just under 1000 man-hours when you realize that both Labashi and I were working) and we made 17 round-trips to Chambersburg for this purpose.
While perusing the log I also uploaded two Thanksgiving video clips for the rest of the family to see on YouTube.
Labashi worked all day in the yard, running her burn barrels. She's an amazing worker and just goes for hours on this. She went down there about 0900 this morning, took maybe a 20-minute lunch break and worked through till dark. She just loves it. And the yard looks great!
I spent the evening catching up and posting the blog.

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Friday, 2 December -

Today I took on a project I've been dreading. I had repaired our front pole light a few months ago and it only lasted a month. I had found – with great luck --- the break in the underground cable leading from our front porch to the pole light. This section had been under our old sidewalk and the construction guys had done a less-than-workmanlike job of splicing the cable after cutting it. I found it using Maypo's metal detector and had done what I thought was a very professional job of re-splicing it. But, as I said, a month later the problem was even worse. Where before we had no light, now we had a dead short which flipped the circuit breaker whenever we'd turn on the light switch.
I dug up the splice today and though everything looked fine, I cut it off and tested the wire in both directions. The tests were good! What the....????
It took me awhile to find the problem. Apparently I had pinched a wire in installing the light fixture and over time the pinch became a short. If I had done my test of the wire from end to end before cutting off the splice, it would have tested okay and would have saved me some work. But in any case, now the light works.


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Thursday, 1 December -

I spent the morning on the web and then rode the GS down to Starbucks on this beautiful mid-Fifties day. We don't have many of these left this year so I'd better take advantage while I can.
I then rode up to Rocky Ridge Park and walked my five-miler, this time in 1:50-- a relatively slow pace. I'm enjoying the new music I've found because of the Soundhound app on the iPad. I heard a song I liked playing on TV and used Soundhound to identify it. That led to more exploration and then my purchase of five or six new songs. This is SO much better than the old music world.
That evening we watched the Fellini film '8 ½'. Now we need to see it again with the commentary turned on.

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