| Haven't updated here in an age |
[Aug. 2nd, 2009|09:17 pm] |
Facebook sucks up enough of my time.
Not that much to report. Enjoyed the AYC Luau yesterday, but did not feel well enough to help out with the pig-roasting the night before. Trying to use a menstrual cup for the first time and for now it is making my cramps worse--hope that works itself out as I get a little more experienced with it.
Haven't sailed Fearless in about three weeks, since the north cove ramp dried out. I'm hoping the beach ramp will be improved to the point where I can use the car to launch on it before too long. In the meantime, I'm sailing Fishy, but getting her out of the south cove is also becoming a challenge. Raced one of the club FJs with Rich last Thursday.
Busy at work with a project which is not quite done, but which will hopefully be sufficiently finished to go online as scheduled later this month.
Kits had their shots Friday. Johann needs to go on a diet, but I have yet to undertake that. |
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| Home from a church committee meeting |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|03:46 pm] |
It was a lunch meeting, and I'm stuffed AND have leftover food enough for at least a couple of lunches. Made it home for a couple hours in between first service and the meeting and slapped a coat of primer on some of the front porch roof that I washed yesterday. I don't think I'll be able to complete the job without resorting to scaffolding or something of the sort, though (when I was washing it yesterday I was thinking how bad the air must be for it to be so filthy, and then I remembered that I've actually never painted the underside of the front porch roof since I've lived in the house, and it wasn't freshly painted when I bought it, either).
Cats are sacked out on the coffee table. Johann did not even open an eye when I came in. |
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| Didn't do a lot of actual sailing today |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|09:59 pm] |
Went out for the continuation of the adult class, but this time the call was to put everybody on Picos and Sunfish, so I didn't take my boat out and just rode on a coach boat, although at the end I did hop on a Pico with someone for a little bit. Hot and not a lot of wind, but it did pick up at one point enough so they could all move, so that was good.
Driving home, they were playing the War Requiem on KMFA, which brought back memories of hearing it in Freiburg years ago. Weird to jump from one part of my life to a completely different one like that.
Being yowled at, I think by Johann. He does not approve of my going in the study and closing the door. Neither does Carl.
They've moved Fishy's dock a little, so I won't need to pull her out right away. Which leaves me with a disassembled dolly in the kitchen, where it is rather in the way. Oh, well. |
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| Five boats in four days |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|09:51 pm] |
Wednesday night I raced Fishy, in fairly breezy conditions (10-20 knot winds). The days are long and they gave us seven races, about two and a half hours of sailing. It was pretty brutal. Then Thursday night I went out for the centerboard series. It was a little breezier (15-25 gusting to 29). Fortunately, I had two crew so I could just drive and let other people worry about trimming the sails. Even just driving was hard, especially since Fearless's rudder got partially kicked up--fortunately, I was able to fix that between races. That was a pretty short night, only four races, all of which we lost. But there were only two boats out. Friday night I went out for the beer can race and managed to get a ride on a J29. We didn't put the spinnaker up and it wasn't much work at all--I was basically just rail meat. Nice and relaxing. Saturday afternoon I went out for the adult learn to sail class, expecting to take a couple of the students out on Fearless, but it was too windy for that so I went along for the ride on a J80 with four of the students. We got back in plenty of time for me to get over to the Ross for the race. Wind was kind of up and down but generally good. We actually managed to finish close enough behind one of our opponents to correct over them, so for once we were not last.
No sailing today or tomorrow, then the adult learn to sail class meets Tuesday. I hope I can get Fishy out for Wednesday's race--her dock is about to go aground because the lake is so low. |
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| Just had a really unhelpful conversation with someone at the credit union |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|08:36 am] |
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I'm considering refinancing my mortgage, and of course the first question they ask is how long I plan to stay in the house. How on earth do they expect anybody to know that? As long as I'm single, everything in my life has "provisional, subject to change without much notice" stamped all over it, and these days it's not much different with marriage, and certainly not with employment. |
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| Back from Turnback |
[May. 24th, 2009|10:05 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
It really is one of my favorite regattas, and this was probably a good year to do race committee as the wind was generally not very good except right around the thunderstorms. The party was good, too, although the weather hurt attendance. Good food, good band. A few scoring/personality issues, but I think everything got resolved satisfactorily, although it took two hours. Spent about two hours anchored in front of Carlos and Charlie's, which was pretty miserable although fortunately it wasn't all that hot. Then spent what seemed like a very long time handling the tow rope for a boat we were towing in while sitting on a gas can in the back of the chase boat. Then the scoring, although I did get to go to the bathroom first for the first time in eight and a half hours. And now I am going to bed. |
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| Oh, and I also raced Fearless |
[May. 21st, 2009|10:13 pm] |
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Centerboard series started tonight. My crew wasn't available, so I singlehanded, but still did OK (wind was light). Had fun sailing downwind with the tiller tamer on, steering with my weight. And at the end of the evening, I came in to the dock perfectly, though I don't think anyone was looking. Always very satisfying to leave the helm, scramble up to the bow, and just step off onto the dock. |
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| Rainwater system is done |
[May. 21st, 2009|10:06 pm] |
This concludes all the work I'm hiring other people to do. One more check to write. I still have a bunch of painting and a little work on the vent hood.
I'm really happy with the rainwater system so far--of course, it hasn't actually rained yet so I don't know if everything works. It's hardly visible at all from the kitchen window, which is where I usually look at the back yard from, and it's not too conspicuous from the bedroom window. The downspouts look fine, not industrial as I was afraid they would. I don't know how thrilled my neighbors are going to be, but the thing really isn't too hideous (although they get to look at all the pipes).
Feels good to have the house back to myself again. Although now I'm going away for the weekend. |
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| First Sunfish races of the year |
[May. 20th, 2009|10:19 pm] |
That is, my first (and Fishy's). Two weeks ago the roofers were still here, last week it was too windy. This week it was really too unwindy, but I did finally make it out (for the last two races--had to bake some cookies and drop them off at church, and Carl had an accident just when I was getting ready to go). Beautiful evening and good to be out there, although we came in second to last in both races.
The trencher was not here today, so not much progress was made, although the tank is now upright and in its planned location. I hope they will be able to finish up tomorrow. I'm just getting tired. |
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| Zero holes in kitchen ceiling |
[May. 17th, 2009|08:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
The hood itself is installed, as is the duct, though the two lower joints haven't been taped yet. The chimney has not yet been installed. There are a couple of issues there. One is the cord--the thing is really designed to plug into its own outlet concealed behind the chimney, which would look very neat, but which would require the services of an electrician. There is an outlet within reach, even though the cord is pretty short, but I'd have to cut a notch in the chimney, which is a fairly heavy gauge of stainless steel, to accommodate the cord, and this is an undertaking fraught with peril (albeit with less peril than attempting to wire an outlet myself). The other issue is the ceiling bracket that holds the thing--one side of it would normally fasten right where I happen to have just patched the hole that the old vent hood went to. If I had realized this before I did it, which I should have, I could have put in something to fasten the thing to, although it would have been a nontrivial operation. As is, I can either hope the thing will hold without gapping if I just mount it on one side, or I can put in some kind of framing under the ceiling (or just a piece of plywood) and attach it to that. There are always too many decisions.
It is fairly loud when on high, which it is at the moment and I can hear it in here with the door closed, but it is a lot less obnoxious than the old one (this has a centrifugal blower, the old one had a regular fan; also, this one has a plastic damper and the old one had metal). The light, for which CR dinged this model, is better than the old one (but it still uses two 40-watt incandescent bulbs). I have a pot of dashi on the stove right now, so I'll find out how well it does with odors, but at any rate I could see the steam going through the vent. I left the protective coating on until I get the chimney thing figured out (except for the bottom), so I can't appreciate its stainless steel looks yet (and of course it has plain 6" round metal duct instead of its nice square chimney). So for right now it's seeming like a reasonable choice. |
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| I have two holes in my kitchen ceiling |
[May. 16th, 2009|02:01 pm] |
I'm almost tempted to leave the extra one--it's kind of handy for passing tools and things up and down. It's a long crawl back to the attic entrance and I always manage to whack my head on a couple of rafters.
My father has been over helping me for about five hours, and we have managed to cut the new hole (bit tricky as it's near a joist so the sabre saw won't work on part of it), hang the mounting bracket, and test fit everything using the posterboard duct I made this morning with help from Johann (who loves measuring and getting on top of things), and go over to Lowe's and buy the actual duct. Now I've sent him home and I get to spend the afternoon trying to patch up the old hole and the places where the brackets were mounted, and with luck tomorrow we'll be able to get the thing installed. I did have it on earlier and it seems to work, and be quieter than the old one although that's without the damper and the metal duct installed so I'm sure there will be less of a difference. It's also not exactly precisely where I wanted it, but it'll have to do. Not off by much. |
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| I'm liking this roof |
[May. 13th, 2009|09:41 pm] |
At 4:45 this afternoon when the a.c. kicked on, the temperature in the house was 81. Outside temp 93 and the a.c. goes off at 7:30 in the morning (temperature of 78). And I haven't even gotten the solar screens back on the west windows yet, though the blind was closed on the living room window.
It looks nicer than I was expecting, too.
Now I just need to get that vent hood installed so I can quit living on ramen and TV dinners, and not have an enormous box in my kitchen. |
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| The saga continues |
[May. 3rd, 2009|09:12 pm] |
Took down the vent hood this evening, with help from my father. In addition to the problem I had thought about with installing the new one (it's designed to hang on the wall and won't really cover very much of the range, which stands out from the wall by the width of the gas line, minimum, and has the controls in the back), there are a couple that I hadn't thought about--the gas line isn't really long enough to put the range where I was thinking of putting it, and the sheet-metal collar around the existing hole in the ceiling is going to be in the way of the new hole and will have to be removed, and it looks to be nailed in place so that could get messy and difficult.
Oh, well, it will all be resolved shortly, one way or another. The roofers are supposed to start tomorrow. |
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| Well, I got the painting done |
[May. 2nd, 2009|09:14 pm] |
after a certain amount of lying awake fretting that the weather would change and I wouldn't be able to. That is, I got the fascia painted, primer and two coats of paint, and primer and one coat of paint on everything underneath the fascia that was bare wood. I still need to slap a coat of paint on the underside of the fascia and prime and paint the porch rail and the new posts for the front porch (well, I got one primed today) and the underside of the back porch roof. And, eventually, all the eaves and gables, but that isn't getting done until the roof is done, although I suppose it would be good to get to the eaves where the rainwater tank is going to go before it gets done. Now I'm down to worrying about the vent hood (will I be able to install it, given uncertainties about the strength of the wall and the position of a ceiling joist, not to mention the minor consideration that I have never done this before), whether I used the right kind of paint on the fascia, how much rot they're going to find in the decking (I can see just from what they tore up putting the fascia on that there's more than I thought), and how much vacation time I'm going to wind up using. Well, aside from the big-picture stuff. I will be so glad when this is over.
Now waiting for the house to cool down. Glad the weather has stayed relatively cool as long as it has. |
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| I forgot how much work painting is |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|08:59 pm] |
I've got three sides of the house primed, one side to go (the front--I kind of did them in order of how much I like to do them, and climbing up on the roof ranks a little lower than painting around the electric cables). So I need to do that tomorrow, and then the real painting starts, and I plan to do two coats. I think I'll go in to work at 7 for a couple hours and then take the rest of the day off to paint. The really depressing thing is that the rest of the trim needs doing, too (not the windows, I did those last summer, but the gables and under the eaves and the porches). I might just do the new stuff and hope the rest can hold out until summer, but at some point I'm going to have to spend a lot more time lugging the ladder around the house.
Ladder stabilizers are the best thing since sliced bread, by the way. Not saying that I did not spend most of my time up there visualizing gruesome accidents, but I did feel more secure and was able to get higher and still have some ladder left to hang onto--not quite sure how that works but I was able to paint the gable trim without hanging onto it and I don't think I could last time. |
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| On to painting |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|08:59 pm] |
Current somewhat revised schedule has me painting the fascia tomorrow and/or Friday, with roofing to begin next week. I put the new ladder stabilizer on the ladder this evening and got the vertical seams in the fascia caulked, along with a pair of rubber gloves, the ladder, my pants, the stair railing, and who knows what else. I am a menace with a caulk gun, and I'm pretty scary with a paintbrush, too. But I figure if I can save a couple hundred dollars somewhere on this project I should. Also, while I'm not particularly skilled, I at least intend to do a good job, not merely the quickest one I think I can get away with.
Starting to think I may be able to sail in the regatta this weekend after all, at least Saturday. I feel obligated to go to the congregational meeting on Sunday afternoon. After that, I need to give some serious thought to how I'm going to get the old vent hood down and the new one installed.
And now I need to get my mind off this construction project and wind down enough to go to sleep. |
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| Construction continues |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|11:49 am] |
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They're getting pretty close to done on the back porch, I think. The front porch they've replaced the outer posts and got the fascia on. They still need to replace the decking, and there's one rafter in the middle that has some rot damage. Weather is still looking threatening, but no rain so far. They're kind of making packing up moves, whether because it's lunchtime or because they think it's going to rain or because they figure they're done, I don't know. |
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