Monday, June 25, 2007

Mold, Fans, Gardens, & Music

I cleaned some spots in our carpet a week or so ago with our little carpet cleaner. I cleaned a few of them in the basement as well.

It stays cool in the basement, so we often close the vents down here in the summertime and force more of the air upstairs. I figured the cooler air from upstairs would just pour down the stairs and some circulation would take place. I faked a cold air return down here, actually in the duct-work next to the furnace, though, and that's really all we have for return air down here.

Anyway, several days ago, a sharp, moldy smell developed in the basement. We usually keep a small fan going down here, but I noticed the whole carpet down here felt... not damp, but not dry, either.

So.... I went to Lowe's and got a Harbor Breeze Ceiling Fan. For $30. I didn't think I could get a quiet one for that, but it said "always quiet" on the box, and I figured if it wasn't I'd take it back. But for $30 I was wiling to give it a try.

We put it in in about an hour. It's quiet. And we opened the vents down here. The smell subsided quite a bit, and the carpet doesn't feel damp-ish anymore.

I'll run the Ozonerator tonight and see if I can't get rid of the rest of the residual smell. I can't smell it much, but it affects Vicki pretty badly.

The garden is going pretty well. Needs a little more water now that the plants are bigger and it's hotter.

Vicki and I did an 18 mile bike ride Sunday from McBaine to Rocheport and back. I got here this new-fangled bicycle seat to protect her from the dreaded bike seat sores. She said it worked pretty well. We also found the spot on the trail under the Rocheport Winery A-Frame. There's a bike rack to park your bike and a trail to walk up. :-)

Let's see, I got a tool cabinet for the garden/yard tools and put it under the deck to make room to hang the sleeping bags in the garage -- the proper way to store them. I got a North Face down sleeping bag... not sure the rating but it's at least a 30 degree bag, maybe rated cooler. There were some with less loft there that were rated at 30.

I need to get my mountain trip planned. But there's two Oracle training sessions I'm going to on either side of the time I'd planned to go, and I have a class reunion (25th) in there, too.

I never was a huge Leinenkugels Beer fan ... although they did have a dark one that was pretty good. I mean, all of it is decent, don't get me wrong. But this Summer Shandy they have out -- they have something there. It's a Wiess bier with lemonade in it. Quite tasty! And this is why I have to ride the bike.

Have I ever mentioned the group "Radiator"? Back in college I frequented a used record store called Whizz Records here in town (I actually worked there a couple of years and managed the place over the summer later on). Anyway, Mike (the owner) had a "free" box with records that weren't worth anything to most people -- and if you spent more than I think $6 you could take an album from the Free Box. My roommate and I were there one day and he got a free record because of the group name and the title "Radiator" "Isn't It Strange". Sealed. And we laughed on the way home wondering how bad it was going to be.

It wasn't.

And it really grew on me over the years. And one day, I was looking for some lyrics I couldn't figure out to the title track and I stumbled upon a website for a British group called "Lindisfarne". Turns out that Radiator was a one album group which was basically a solo album by one of the main driving forces behind Lindisfarne (which was apparently very popular in the 1970's). That man's name was Alan Hull. And as a matter of fact most of the material on "Isn't It Strange" got released as a real solo ablum of his called "Phantom".

I listened to some Lindisfarne on Rhapsody, and liked it. But all they had was live stuff and I wanted to hear some studio work. I got some imports from Caiman records -- which I've dealt with before for hard-to-find stuff. Good folks. And I got another Alan Hull solo album called "Pipedream" today. Haven't given it a good listen, but the Lindisfarne stuff's pretty good.

Thus goes the life of a music junkie. Shoot me up, will ya? ;-)

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