I'm Baaaack!

And just to answer the big question:

Yes
I
did.

For the very very brave, there are about 275 pictures out here.

He was born in the summer...

Of his 37th year.

Ok, it was May. But I was 37 the first time I saw the Rockies as an adult. I'd gone out to Denver with Vicki to a conference.

Have you ever seen that Subaru commercial, "Call of the Wild" where all the animals are calling "Ricky!"? (I really like the porcupine, by the way).



Well that's what the mountains did to me in 2001, much to Vicki's chagrin. Actually, no, it precipitated our first real vacation (where you take a whole week off and go somewhere besides a relative's house) then following year. And she likes the mountains just fine. She just wants to go somewhere else now. So do I. But mountains are cheaper! Plus, I promised myself back in 2001 I'd go out there once every year.

Headed out to RMNP with Mark tomorrow morning. Vicki's not going this year. Her mom is having some procedure done to her heart to stop the fluttering.

So at any rate, don't expect any posts for at least a week. Although we will have a laptop and we might find a wireless hotspot. So you never know.

A Quarter Century

We went to my 25th High School Class Reunion, old St. Clair High School last Saturday. We'd gone to my 20th, but I hadn't made it to any of the previous ones for various reasons. Mostly I was looking forward to seeing Curt & Le'Ann again, and Kailey. All of which, I did. But there were a few surprises.

The first one came right after we passed through Warrenton. There was a sign that said that Hwy 47 was closed at the Missouri River. Which meant an hour detour through Hermann. The reunion was in Washington right on the other side of the river -- but we took 94 from Marthasville through Hermann and back to Washington. Pretty drive. But I wasn't in the most appreciative mood at that point (I tried, really! I mean... what are you going to do?) By the end of the detour I had convinced myself that Sandy had told me it might be closed and I had forgotten about it (that would have been just like me), but it turned out neither was the case. She said they'd been inspecting it in the wake of the Minnesota bridge collapse and had closed it for repairs that morning.

The other surprises were much more pleasant. I didn't expect Dean and Nancy to make the trip down from Urbana-Champaign, but they did. I bumped right in to Dave who I shared a locker with in 9th grade and didn't recognize him but he recognized me. And doesn't that make you feel like a cad?

Almost everybody, once you get the name, is recognizable as the person they were 25-29 years ago. But before you got their name on many of them it was more like "you look familiar but I just can't put my finger on it."

This is really strange when it turns out you used to have a bad crush on someone and you're looking straight at them and nothing's clicking. (well not memory-wise anyway). At the 20th I didn't recognize Le'Ann -- part of that is because she was actually in the class of '83 and my brain was scouring for people from my class. She was just "Curt's wife" until she about kicked me in the shin for not remembering her. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) This year it was Kerri -- another one of my old crushes (none of these were reciporical, by the way!) I saw her mingling about all evening but couldn't place her until she was leaving. I was able to get in a quick hi and bye. She still looks great. So does Le'Ann.

Got to meet Dean's wife Nancy -- he did well there, by my impressions. But I think my favorite surprise was Christina (I know everybody calls her Chrissy, but that's not what I learned when I met her back in 5th grade). One of the most genuinely sweet and decent people you could hope to meet, and time has been good to her as well, physically. She was always nice to me, which meant a lot (especially back then). I wish I could say the same thing about me to her -- but unfortunately I do remember a period in grade school where I was probably less than nice to her due to peer pressure -- and I of all people should have known better since I was subject to about the same kind of abuse she was. Thankfully that didn't last long. Not one of the more proud moments in Phil history.

Suffice it to say that if the world were full of Christinas --- well everybody would be women. Ok, that's not where I was going with that. The world would be a much nicer place, though. Anyway, there she is with my very own lovely wife Vicki ... who liked her very much as well.

Four hours was much too short, really. The last one we had started in the afternoon and we didn't end up leaving until midnight -- and we could have gone on.

There were so many people I just enjoyed so much seeing again -- if I didn't mention you that doesn't mean it wasn't good to see you. There was really not enough time (especially after our detour). Which meant the whole situation wasn't conducive to a lot of picture taking (I know, who is typing this and what have you done with Phil?). So I didn't get many. I'm hoping we can email around and pool what we have. Might have a pretty good collection then.

What do you do when you cut yourself brewing?

While cleaning up, I sliced my thumb open on a rough edge on the cut keg that we use to cook the wort in. Didn't notice it right away, but later looked down and saw a bloody thumb.

So I quick got a piece of blue shop paper towel and wrapped it around to stop the bleeding. But I needed more. So I tore a piece of and secured it to my thumb with some duct tape.


Later I looked at my improvised bandaid and had this thought:

"That's not Bandaid. That's a Mandaid!"

Maybe that'll be my million dollar idea.

Beer! Beer! Beer!

That was the subject line on an email Ryan sent me a couple of weeks ago. As in, "let's brew some".

So yesterday I gathered up all my equipment for a day of brewing and headed out to Fulton. It was... hot. But there was a nice breeze until about 2:00pm.

His buddy Scott wanted to participate (I think he was actually the catalyst) and so I'd ordered ingredients for an Amber Ale that Ryan wanted to brew. From grain, for the record.

Things went rather smoothly, but the burner we had was pretty slow. So while we waited for the wort to boil we headed down to the lake with the kyaks and the canoe. My first time in a kayak.

I have got to get me one of those. They're great! So responsive. So ... personal.

Anyway, we went up just before it started boiling, and when it did we put the bittering hops in and went back down to the lake for another 45 minutes.

Ryan wanted someone in the canoe with him to make it easier to paddle around, I guess. So Scott went in with him.... and they dumped trying to push off. Sadly, beer was lost.

But it was my turn when we got out. I didn't pull far enough up and I tipped the kyak getting out. Man, that lake-shore gunk STANKS! (that's the cajun way to put it). It's STANKY stuff.

We got back in time to put the finishing hops in. But couldn't find my double-female-ended hose to hook up the wort chiller. So we improvised with....

DUCT TAPE!!!!!

Which worked just long enough to chill down the double-batch. So now there's 10 gallons of Amber Ale fermenting at Ryan's down in "the bunker".

Incidentally, while cleaning up we found the double-female-ended hose. It was 10' behind us the whole time.

Vizio-Vision

Our 32" Philips brand standard TV started having problems a couple of weeks ago, and within a few days it was defunct. It's probably a power supply problem.

We could get it fixed, but the only place that repairs them around here is 3 months behind on repairs.

And so it was time to go looking for a new TV. And these days, it makes little sense to go out looking for one that won't do HDTV.

I'd seen a couple young ladies coming out of Wally World with an Emerson 32" LCD TV that they'd gotten for $538. I didn't realize they had dropped that far. So I went to the "world of wal" to check out options. One thing I saw was a 37" Vizio (never heard of them at that point) LCD TV that looked pretty darned good for in the mid $700's. We went back and looked and as we were learning to read and interpret specs, there was a Sanyo 37" with a significantly better contrast ratio listed. Based on the spec, and not the fact that the 37" Vizio right next to it looked better to me, we bought it.

I was almost immediately disappointed. Plus, it had two bright pixels on it. I took it back the next day after researching the Vizios (which are getting great reviews for their price range) and bought the 37" one there.

I'd read on the web complaints that it didn't have audio out, with others insisting that it did. I assumed the people who insisted that it did must've found it so I wasn't worried.

Well, it didn't.

Further the "Zoom" button on the remote didn't work. This is a feature you really ought to have for watching programs formatted for wide screen televisions that are presented in standard definition (the "square" 4:3 standard we grew up with). Most of these televisions, as this one, allow you to stretch the picture to fit the screen a couple of different ways, both of which I think are horrible. The distortion is .... bleah!

I then read in the manual that the "zoom" feature was not available on this model.

It turns out that Vizio, like a lot of manufacturers, manufacture some stuff specifically for WalMart. The model numbers usually have a "W" in them somewhere. This one did. Vizio also makes another one with an "X" in the model number that Circuit City and a lot of other places (including Sams Club!) sell. And the zoom feature is on that model. So are audio outs.

And get this.... it was $17 cheaper.

I took that one back and got the one from Sams Club.

So we had 3 new televisions in 3 days. But this one will do the trick. We got an upconverting DVD player, and the picture is amazing. We have no immediate plans to go to HD programming over the satellite (which is one reason we wanted the zoom feature... for letterbox movies presented on a 4:3 screen coming over the satellite). The picture looks fine. No, the blacks aren't black black, but they're not bad. The picture looks at least as good as our old 32" standard (which, by the way, is the main reason we got the 37" ... it's vertical dimension is about the same as the vertical dimension on the 32" ~19". We didn't want to lose picture size from "regular" TV.) Actually, I think it looks a little better.

So we went through all the Harry Potter movies testing it out. And went to see that last one at the theater one more time since I felt I'd missed a few key things the first time around.

So that's that in TV land.

Sinkage

Our master bathroom, such that it is (is there such a thing as a "galley" bathroom? If so, can one be considered a "master" bath? ... but I digress) -- anyway, it has a 2-double-cabinet, 6' counter.

And one sink. Well all the Jones' seem to have two sinks these days, and there is often sink contention in the mornings.

Well it did. After years of scheming, I finally got the plumbing supplies, cut the requisite holes in the wall and floor, and plumbed up a drain for a second sink. Went under the house, cut open the existing line, added elbows, couplers, and "T"'s along with some regular pipe. Bam! Then off to Lowes' for new sinks (the one that was there was also getting hopelessly rusty).

Got the new sinks and some water supply line and a couple of "T"'s for those, and we're in sink heaven.

But apparently not medicine cabinet heaven, as I soon found out. Vicki has long hated the gigantor 6' mirror we had there and our miniature model of a medicine cabinet (hey, I didn't buy it ;-) ) on the wall to the right. She wanted big ones.

And big ones we got. She even sprung for them her own bad self. And now we're in medicine cabinet heaven.

But not "white cabinet" heaven. So we spent an afternoon painting the dark cabinets white. And now it's a brighter place. We're in white cabinet heaven.


But not light fixture heaven. Or electrical outlet heaven.

So I went out and got two new light fixtures that had been given the official Vicki Seal of Approval™ on a previous trip and brought them home. We have them temporarily jerry-rigged with lamp cord where they'll end up permanently. But really, with all the rewiring that needs to be done, I think it will be easiest to cut out a 6'x4' piece of drywall and do all of it, then slap a new piece of drywall up and mud it and sand it and paint it. Really. I think it will be easier. Which is not to say that it's something that can be knocked out in an afternoon.

At that point we should be in bathroom heaven except for the tile job we want to do.

Ah, the joys of home ownership.

The Bart Saga - A Truce?

We may have found the solution to the Bart "stinking outside the box" problem. It appears to have been working pretty well for the last two or so months.

Back when we had Bart and Theo, there were problems with Theo peeing over the edges of the litterbox. This was because he always backed up to the edge of the litterbox before starting... and he was a big cat. I first solved this with the "Kitty Butt Shield" -- an invention I came up with involving basically extending the walls of the litterbox upward to prevent this from happening. It worked pretty well. But then we simply bought a big plastic bin for a litterbox. We dump a ton of that scoopable litter in it, and it seemed to work well.

For some reason we went to replace it one year and I couldn't find one the size I wanted with reasonably short sides that the cat could still hop in. So I cut one side down to the right height, leaving the rest nice and tall.

Bart eventually took to peeing in front of the litterbox at times, so I moved the box right up to the kitty bathroom door (a hole in the wall behind the toilet downstairs leading into the space under the stairs where the litterbox is). The tall walls would deter him from going elsewhere under the stairs to do it, and the proximity to the door meant that once through the door he would be IN the litterbox. No choice.

So he started peeing outside the door by the toilet instead.

He was also leaving us solid treasures near the bottom of the stairs.

At any rate I decided, after trying cat-scrams (with some success, but their effect wears off on him after a while) and various litterbox positions like this and even a bit of flashing to eliminate the "corner" outside the litterbox door that he favored -- each providing limited, but temporary improvements, I noted that when he did this there was usually a large, wet clump in the litterbox RIGHT INSIDE ... that he would have to step in to get anywhere else in the litterbox.

I also noticed that, in a most un-catlike fashion, he wasn't burrying stuff like cats do, and hadn't been for some time.

So I decided to do two things. Vicki thought I needed to move the litterbox back so it wasn't right next to the door anymore. Like he felt a bit crowded in there. So I did. But he soon peed right in front of the litterbox againSame problem... big clump right at the part of the litterbox where it was easiest to get in. So I cut the entire front side of the box down to that level. He seemed to like that better.

And I switched litter. Actually it's the cheapest scoopable stuff available at Walmart now. "Special Kitty". Works fine. In addition, I added a "foyer" - basically, a low clear plastic container that is about as wide as the front of the litterbox that fits neatly between the litterbox and the door that he has to walk through to get in the litterbox. This is in case he decides to occasionally pee in front of it to show his displeasure. At least we can just rinse it out and put it back.

Well, that seems to have done the trick with one caveat: We have to clean his litter every 48 hours, pretty much, or he'll pee in the foyer. But that's much easier to deal with now. He's burrying his stuff again (I think he didn't like the litters we'd been using. Could've been the scent, I don't know). And he fills the thing pretty well in 48 hours. That cat drinks a lot. And he's not diabetic. He just likes water. He's fascinated with it. He wants to lick it out of the tub after we get out. He wants to drink it from the bathroom sink. He loves to watch it swirl down the toilet. And if there's condensation on your glass, well he'll be there to lick it off.

So at least we've reached some sort of truce on what is acceptable to him for a litterbox. As long as we clean it every 48 hours, use that unscented litter, and provide him easy access to hop in the litterbox from an entire side of it, he appears happy with it.

Passport Woes are Over

Incidentally ....

Vicki's passport showed up yesterday. So the "new" birth certificate and letter did the trick.

Tight Fence

I've been planning to do this for quite some time. My electric fence around my tiny garden has long suffered from posts and insulators that were too flexible and stretching wire. It looks sloppy, and the bottom wire touches the ground -- not excactly what you want on an electric fence.

Earlier this summer I replaced the posts with more sturdy ones, and the plastic insulators with ceramic ones.

But the stretching still happened. So a few-years-old plan has now been implemented.



Each stretch of wire now has a spring in the middle of it. I got some pipe bending springs from Hoods for 88 cents apiece, and cut them in half because ... hey, the spring doesn't have to be THAT long, and half a spring is still a spring. Then I bent out the end coils on each one to form hooks, snipped the electric fence wires in the middle and made loops to hook the springs on.

Voila! Tight fence.

Walkabout Recap

Guess I never got around to telling you about the overnight walkabout a couple of weekends ago.

Ryan and I hiked in to Cedar Creek forest about 6:30 friday night, July 6.

All we had with us was a knife, a flint, and a water bottle.

.
.
.

Two tents, sleeping pads, candle lanterns, lighters. Pipes. A couple of folding camp stools. Whiskey. And a couple of pistols just in case. GPS. 4 cornish game hens. A couple of potatoes. Trail mix. Oatmeal and apples for the morning. Mini alchohol stove. Head lamp. A thing of camp spices. 4 beers. A hatchet. And a hiker's water filter.

Yeah we were each carrying about 50 lbs, including a gallon of water each. Not excactly "Man vs. Wild".

But it was fun.

These walkabouts were started by Ryan's grandfather, his Mother's father. When he was a boy, he and his grandfather would pack some hotdogs & buns and a pan into the woods, make a little campfire, cook the dogs, eat them. His grandfather would teach him a few outdoor skills. Then they'd go back. I don't think it was even very far into the woods.

Ryan, as a teenager, really wanted to go on Outward Bound, and saved his money to go. As it turned out, some juvenille delinquents were "sentenced" to it... they "had" to do it and didn't want to and didn't pay for it. Ryan was the opposite. He wanted to do it so bad he saved up his money and paid for it. And early on in the trip he slipped and fell in a stream, cutting his face up pretty bad. They were going to evacuate him, but no way was he going. He ended up doing the whole trip. I think it was out on the Appalachain Trail.

Me, I watched two of my older brothers go through cub scouts, webeloes, and boy scouts when we lived in southern California when I was very young. I couldn't wait to get into cub scouts.

But it never happened. We moved away from California about the time I would've been doing that, and life changed dramatically for the Leith family. The closest I ever got was a brief stint in 4-H... and my project was our 7-year-old poodle. Not excactly hiking and camping and pinewood derby.

I do remember family camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains a couple of summers when I was a kid, and those memories probably have a lot to do with my love for mountain air. Baking pine needles, lofty peaks, cascading streams -- and camping.

Anyway, as we were roasting our game hens on a spit, drinking a beer, smoking a pipe by the light of the Uco candle lanterns and campfire -- I think Ryan's grandfather was at light's edge watching in approval. We could almost feel him.

There are wild dogs and coyotes out there and we were probably a good hour and a half from medical help. But headlamp scans of the surrounding forest showed nary an eyeball. Cant' say the same for Alley Spring, where all evening raccoons were battling for position in the shadows to invade the campsites the moment our lanterns were snuffed.

There was a lot to do. We really didn't have anything to eat the game hens on, so we picked it apart with our fingers. It was good, but messy. It occured to us that perhaps cooking the food at the camp fire so close to our tents might not have been the best idea because of the wildlife it attracts, but we burned the bones, the wrapping, and anything food-like in the hope that the rest of the camp site would not attract any unwelcomed visitors. That seemed to work.

We didn't turn in until about 1:00 am. I woke up to birds about 5:00 am. A whipoorwill whipooorilled outside of my tent briefly, then flew on. Got up about 7. Cooked our oatmeal, then went down to the creek to clean the pans and get more water.

That's where I took the hummingbird moth picture.

We broke camp and hiked out about 2 or 3 miles to the Calloway County side where Kristie picked us up at about 1:00 pm.

Hummingbird Moth

From the weekend walkabout at Cedar Creek.

4th of July and a visit from Aunt Pat

Aunt Pat is up from Florida for the second year in a row. That's a lot of driving. She's up here visiting the various people in the Missouri wing of the Leith clan. We all went out to Mom & Dad's on the 4th and had ham sandwiches and such and shot the breeze.

Literally.

Jeff and I went out and shot off a few rounds from my .22 & .38 pistols... and he brought his Taurus 4410 (also known as a 45-410). It's a nifty little wheel gun that shoots 5 rounds. It'll fire 410 shotgun shells (2.5") and .45 long colt rounds as well. He brough some clay targets and we tossed 'em up and blasted them from 10-15 feet. I think I'll get one. It's a substantial piece of self-defense weaponry that has some versitility to it. You can use the shotgun shells for "safe" home defense or varmint killing, and .45 could offer adequate bear protection when hiking as a last resort. Or stop a determined assailant if the 410 shells didn't get the message across.

Plus it's just cool.

Met a couple of Dawn's kids (I guess that makes them "first cousin, once removed"). Nice girls, and pretty ones, too. Uncle Ed and his wife Pat were there (not to be confused with the "other" Aunt Pat. At one point we had two sets of Uncle Eds and Aunt Pats -- a source of much amusement when we were kids). Joel was there sans Dawn (that's his wife Dawn, not our cousin Dawn) because she had to work, and of course Tom & Betty Jeff & Cindy.

Aunt Pat followed us home Wednesday and stayed with us 6 days. We had a nice visit. I did go on walkabout with Ryan Friday night/Saturday, and she played some rounds of golf with Sam & Co. a couple of days.

Vicki's been coming down with a cold that I hope she gets over soon. Sore throat, feeling just generally icky and all. But she still smiles and presses through it. A trouper, that one.

Bought some Flat Iron Steak last night and used a little Kroger steak marinade on it and did it out on the grill. It was pretty darned good. I think we'll do that again. That and some pepper/onion kebobs. Vicki and Aunt Pat spent a lot of time playing cards. I got out the guitar and I was even ginned up enough to sing along even though there were people there.

I have not been riding the bike the last two weeks. I didn't ride today because we're going to the Elks for Sam's birthday after work. But I need to crank it back up this week.

And it looks like Mark will be going with me to RMNP this August, if all goes well. Vicki wants to visit her mom, so she won't be along. This sets up perfect conditions for a guy trip. So I need to get that planned out.

Well, as planned as I ever do it ;-)

A shotgun pattern of things

This last week's been pretty busy. It started out with a scare with Vicki's mom. Susie had been trying to get hold of her after an afternoon doctor appointment. Mom was supposed to call her when she "got back from the doctor". Well Susie'd been trying her since 6pm, and at 10pm, she called us. We got Susie B. (different Susie) from across the street to go check on her, and Mom's car wasn't there. Well within a half hour the phone rings and the caller id says Lutheran Hospital.

Fortunately, it's mom and not some doctor on the phone and she's ok. We told her that Susie was expecting a call from her when she got home from the doctor. She replied "well I'm not home from the doctor yet." Well good, her sense of humor is intact as well. Anyway, she went to the doctor for "heaviness" in her legs, some swelling and discoloration. Turns out her heart's not ticking quite right and the swelling and heaviness is blood that isn't getting back to her heart fast enough and it's kind of collecting there, causing the discoloration as well. And that can lead to blood clots. Which can then break free and go clog up a valve or chamber in your heart and do you in. So they sent her to the hospital to get her on blood thinners and a close watch pronto.

Vicki drove up Tuesday Night/Wednesday to be with her and make sure all the right questions got asked and help her get everything she needed. She was discharged Thursday and Vicki came home Sunday.

So I "bach"-ed it here in the mean time.

Fixed some things around the house and started working on the garage. We decided we're going to hang our sleeping bags. They shouldn't really be stored rolled up and compressed. So I put up some short closet rods perpendicular to the wall alongside the storage shelves to hang a bunch of camping/hiking stuff on. And I hung the ladders. Located a smelly dead mouse under the freezer compressor, vaccumed out behind the freezer and the beer refrigerator (both in the garage) and cleaned the coils (they needed it badly).

Well all this means the bikes have to go somewhere else. We only have a 1 car garage, and we have camping equipment, beer brewing equipment, lawn & garden stuff, car stuff, tools, various pieces of scrap lumber, bird seed, coolers, spare electronic equipment ..... it adds up. But I don't want our bikes just sitting out in the weather. I can put them under the deck, but that's almost worse because dirty water drips between the boards when it rains which would make them both wet and dirty and slow to dry to boot.

So I went to Hoods and bought the stuff to make a little bike shelter, and I bought a bike rack to lock them to. Just a shelter built with a 2x2 frame, a plywood roof, with some vinyl shake siding for "shingles". Haven't built it yet. But the garage is shaping up.

Did some vaccuuming. Cleared the basement of moldy smell (I think I talked about that last time).

Oh, and almost killed the cherry tomatoes.

I sprayed some roundup all around the edges of the garden -- very carefully trying to hit only the weeds growing out from under the edges of the tarpaper. Then it rained for about 3 days, and when the sun came out, the tomatoes wilted. The tops of the other two tomato plants wilted as well. But the next day those two appeared to have recovered. Not so the the cherries. So I tore the tarpaper up from around them and just doused the soil with water. Next morning, some of the wilty stuff was perking up and most of the rest of it looked less wilty.

Next afternoon, it looked pretty bad, but not quite as bad as the afternoon before. I repeated the waering. Next morning, more improvement. Next afternoon, less setback. And again the next day. So I think with some TLC they'll shake it off.

We switched from Mediacom cable modem to Centurytel DSL -- in a package deal that gives us internet, phone + unlimited long distance and Dish Network sattellite for less than we were paying for all that before (without the unlimited long distance) AND... it all comes on one bill. Which Vicki likes.

Going out to Mom & Dad's tomorrow. Aunt Pat is there. I imagine we'll see Uncle Eddie and Julie and Dawn, at least. The brothers, too. Aunt Pat's following us back here afterward for a visit and some computer work on my part. And friday evening Ryan and I are going on an overnight walkabout because Kristie's kicking him out for a bachelorette party she's hosting. So we're looking forward to that.

I got my passport last week, just so I'll have one. Vicki's was rejected due to her adoptive birth certificate -- they didn't like it. It's the one her parents got when they adopted her. It's worked all her life for everything else. She had also sent off for two more official copies from Indiana after we sent that one off (her only copy) and we remembered the Marines had lost Brian's. The new ones are different. We wonder if they'll suffice -- but get this, nobody at the passport information help center can tell us. They say "well, try this. It should work. Maybe." But with twelve week waiting periods this could easily stretch out to 6... 9 ... 12 months (it's already been three). And adoption records are closed in Indiana. They will not give Vicki the information she would need to go the other two routes they suggested ... and the state department help line could not tell us what we could do about it -- "I don't know", said THREE people, and all three of them refused to transfer us to somebody who could tell us.

Now damned sure if Vicki stopped paying her taxes they'd show up at OUR door and take HER straight off to jail without asking any of these questions that they want her to answer to prove she exists and is a U.S. Citizen.

We're hoping the new birth certificate and a letter of explanation will suffice. One guy "thinks" it "should".

Sheesh.

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? ;-)

Back in the Saddle Again

Bicycle saddle, that is.

Yes, after a hiatus of ... oh, 8 or 10 years, I guess, I'm bike riding again. It seems the ole drink beer and eat about anything you want lifestyle was catching up to me again. And if you want to continue to eat well and drink good ale, you need to do something to counter-balance that.

See, I have a desk job, and thus I spend lots and lots of time sitting on my arse with my heart rate not breaking 60. Ever. And I noticed that trips up short flights of stairs got my heart going waaaay more than it should've.

Gas prices are up, and I have excess fuel in my body in places I'd rather not have it. So, I turned back to the bike.

3 days a week is my goal. It's 2.8 miles to work, and there's a good hefty hill in each direction (although the one on the way home is longer). It takes me ~17 minutes.

"But dontcha get sweaty and stinky?"

Well -- not really. We don't have a shower at work, but it is cooler in the morning anyway. I wear biking clothes that breathe and wick, so I stay pretty cool & dry that way, too. I take my work clothes in a bag. What I do is bring a washcloth in a ziplock bag, soaked in some water and rubbing alcohol. When I change I just sort of wipe down a bit with that which is both cooling and cleansing.

When I ride home, of course, it is much hotter and I'm much sweatier -- but the good news is we have a shower at home. And it has cold water, too! ;-)

So I ride 5.6 miles a day which takes about 35 minutes total. Not a ton of exercise. But it's steady, and I make myself do it regularly... and here's the thing. If you get on a treadmill or exercise bike and you get tired of it, you can just stop. And you don't have to get back on it later. If you ride your bike to work, you can't stop until you get there. And then there's only one way to get home. So... see, it keeps you going. There's a purpose besides burining calories you can't see.

Guitarage

Took the 12-string in to Lee and he basically said I was on the right track with my adjustments, and advised me to cut the slots in the nuts slightly deeper to make the action on the first few frets better, and then I might have to carefully file down a few frets that are "noting out" farther up the neck.

After he looked at it I realized that my other two main guitars could use some neck adjustment as well, and I was surprised how much better the action got with just a little adjustment. Well, on the Martin D-15 it got a little too low on the high E string so I shimmed that end of the saddle and backed the tension on the truss rod about 1/4 turn. Niiiice. Just high enough not to buzz.

I need to find my razor files to do the 12 string properly.

And my backpacker needs it's saddle filed down a bit lower.

Artsy-Fartsy shot from the Float Trip

I dunno. Just liked the colors and the lines. And the suggestion that fun was about to be had. This was a bunch of our gear waiting for the Windy's van to come pick us up and take us to the put-in.

Spring Float '07

Well, it looked like we weren't going to be able to go floating with R&K this year due to a family function, but they got a hold of Harold and Lynn (and little Kate) and they were able to move the trip up a week.


We spent the night with the Williams' in Fulton on Thursday. Took Friday off and drove down there relatively early. We were getting a non-reservable camp site... I actually like them better because they're right up against the woods and are actually IN some very large but thinned (relative to the woods) trees. We didn't get our normal spot because they were doing some maintenance -- ok it looked more like a complete overhaul of the nearby bathrooms. The exterior walls and sinks and toilets were all gone. And it wasn't clear we were allowed to take that spot anyway.

So... we went to a different spot about 150 yards away. Tents went up. Harold & Lynn showed up about 8. We had a nice fire. I had gone into the woods and got a half-dried elm branch with the pocket chain-saw. It's effective and compact, but a bowsaw is better if you've got the room. I got it mostly for lightweight, low-bulk backpacking. I also got an old dead wild grape vine for kindling. And then I bought a couple of bundles of split oak. Harold brought some bigger dried hardwood when they showed up.

The only problem we had was these three... oh, they looked like teenagers but I guess they could've been in their early 20's who talked too loud late into the night on a speaker phone with women they didn't know, advertising their location, their next day's plan, and the fact that they had 105 beers. (And a machette, to anyone they heard walking by the tent.) You could hear both sides of the conversation, and they couldn't stop giggling. But they piped down about the time I got back from looking for the campground host. They DO have quiet hours there and they start at 10:00pm.

Ryan & Kristie and Vicki and I were the only ones floating. We couldn't have asked for better weather. We put in about 10:00 am, and spent the day on the upper Jack's Fork between Bay Creek and the Alley Spring Camp Ground. Stopped several times to play with the fun-noodles. We shot several "chutes" on them and found a few places to just lollygag in the water.

Kristie spotted some sun fish nests early on. Just like the ciclids in your fish tank, with an adult there chasing off anything that came near the bowl in the sand. We saw lots of sun fish and palid sturgeons. No turtles! Odd.

At one point Vicki and I had gone back upstream a little ways to check something out ... and for some reason ever attempt to get the canoe turned back around with the nose (Vicki) downstream ended up with us turning backward again. Not sure what was going on there, but we sure had a good laugh at it.

Later in the day we were in a chute and I got tired of trying to run it, I just wanted to be in the water without being carried down stream, so Ryan and I anchored my McGyvered "noodle ring" to a rock at the bottom of the river. Worked pretty well! (That's Ryan trying it out there).

Got out about 4:30 and had our "poor boy" packets that Vicki and Kristie put together. They were quite tasty. Roasted Marshmallows. And a S'more or two.

Broke down camp Sunday morning and went in to Eminence to Ruby's T&T Restaurant. They have an awesome breakfast buffett. Driving home, just north of Salem, we hit heavy rain pretty much through Jefferson City.

And for the rest of Sunday, I don't think either of us had any energy to speak of.

Playing Catch Up

In the last few weeks I've gotten the garden planted and the auto-watering system running. Also got the deck plants put out and on the watering system. Did the spring bird-bath cleaning/re-painting (I use pool paint on the inside).

I got some nice plants at Strawberry Hill Nursery. Pretty much all of them. I put various shades of alyssum in the strawberry pot, bought a new citronella hanging basket. Also got a hanging basket with this plant that has little flowers that look like small petunias. Can't remember the name of that one. Red, white and blue(-ish purple) petunias in the pot out front -- and this year, I did something I've been thinking about every summer for a long time.

There's this yellow flower they use as ground cover along the sides of roadways called birdsfoot treefoil. It seems to be pretty much indestructable, and it thrives and flowers all summer long even during the driest and hottest spells.

My kind of plant.

I always thought it'd make a nice hanging basket. Since I don't have an auto-watering system out front, I figured that would be the perfect place for one. So I went out to a nearby vacant lot which has been taken over by weeds (and many would consider this a weed as well) and dug up one plant that was aready hanging basket size.

Voila! Tastes great. Less filling. And stuff.

Went to the Williams' new place for a BBQ last weekend. It's such a nice house. I suppose it ought to be for the price.

But now, of course, we have to fix our place up. I think we're going to start by replacing the sliding door to the deck with a swinging door -- kinda french style but not. Vicki hates the sqeaky sliding door.

I think next up after that is our bathroom. I need to plumb in a new drain and water lines so we can add a second sink. Then we'll replace both sinks. And Vicki wants to paint the cabinets.

Then there's tiling both bathrooms and the front porch. And of course, the big bamboo floor project is still looming in the future.

So I went to the pawn shop the other day to look for a gasoline stove for camping. Didn't find one, but I did find a nice, heavy tri-pod for $20 (Sam's been bugging me to get a decent tripod, and they're expensive) and a little vaccuum cleaner for the office to clean up the dry leaves that fall from the fern, and other office messes. There was this little "shark" thing for $9. They gave me both for $15. Nice.

But as I was leaving the store, I saw a 12-string guitar on the wall. Asked them how much. He said "$100". Hmmmm. Then he added "I don't think it's really a Martin". I looked closer, and yes, it indeed had a Martin sticker in it and the Martin logo painted on the head. I picked it up. It didn't feel like a Martin, either. I went back to the office, but I started thinking.... If the neck and keys are ok and it's structurally sound, I can probably take it home and fix it up and have the cheap 12 string I've been looking for ... and who cares if it's not really a Martin? It's not like I was going to go out and spend $2,000 on a guitar, anyway. My real Martin D-15 is great. And I also have the Martin backpacker -- which I am on the "pro" side of. It does what it's supposed to do and it does it well. So I went back to the shop. It definitely has a plywood top. Not a Martin. Plus the head is panted. The finish is ... I don't know, just not "Martin-ique". There was a slight but noticible bow in the neck, but the neck was adjustable. And the action was way high.

McGyver can fix it.

So I bought it. Took it home. Knocked some height off the saddle piece and actually sanded the bridge down about 1/8" to compensate (so the saddle would still stick up over it after being shortened). Bought some new strings. Fixed the 12-th string key (the top threaded piece wasn't quite catching the bottom due to the fact that the head was just a little too thick at that point. You think Martin would've let a hand-made guitar out of the shop with that little problem? I think not!). And adjusted the neck. It plays pretty well! It doesn't sound like a Martin. But hey, it was $100, and I have playable a 12-string now. So I'll call it my fake Martin.


Rhapsody just got most of Paul McCartney's catalog up, so I've been listening to a lot of old Maca. I've always loved the first two solo albums, "McCartney" and "Ram". I have those on CD. And Ram on vinyl. And a lot of other McCartney on vinyl. So now I'm trying to learn "Junk" -- always one of my favorites, but a little tougher than your average I-IV-V song. Still, there are other ditties on there that are easy, like "Eat at Home", and "That Would Be Something" I've been having fun with. I think I want to try "Every Night" as well, but that sounds a little tougher. Ah, you never know until you try, eh?

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Update: I noticed upon closer inspection that the Martin logo "Painted" on the head is actually a sticker with a transparent background, and that it looks suspiciously like someone removed the original label from inside the guitar (you can see a lighter area around the label) so they could put the fake Martin label in there.

For $100 and a little work it's not a bad little 12-string. Definitley NOT a Martin, though.