Coffee 4-24-10

Good morning! It's been a little slow around here lately so this week we're taking the little bus to the Maine Moose Mess Hall for a good old fashioned Moose man's breakfast. Used to be called the Road Kill Cafe 'til they actually served road kill. Man....them tourists just can't take a joke. I made up a bunch of thermos coffee that we can drink on the way while we chat about the week. So, come on, all pile in the bus & off we go. Before you know it we'll be tasting some of the best moose milk pancakes and moose sausage ever.
Still frosty almost every night so I haven't let the AA 130 go out. The coal bin is low enough that I had to tickle the pile with a rake to land slide a weeks worth to the auger. My auger isn't exactly centered and once it gets low you get to play the "can I touch one piece and avalanche an entire weeks worth of coal" game. Looks like I've used just over 5 ton this year.
Mother in law is officially out of Hospice. If/when the day comes that they're needed I'm sure we'll call. She's still bed-bound as her legs don't work, but she's actually gaining weight. So, Hospice out, Elder care in. We have two girls, one comes & gives a bath 3x a week & the other comes on Sat so Marty & I can get out for a while. They are both young, maybe 21 or so. The 3x a week girl is OK, but she needs direction on every little thing. The Sat girl is sharp as a tack. She is so very attentive and knows her stuff.
Hope you all have a good weekend!

I'll drive Freddy! .....on second thought ...

I'm still plugging away at the RD. Engine is completely stripped to the cases - nothing left but the tachometer drive shaft & gears. Cleaning them is taking much longer than planned. Wanted to have them painted by now, at least. Sadly, my crankshaft was not back in time for earth day yesterday.

I just ordered my supply for the '10-'11 season. Was on sale, so I saved $40 over last year .... which basically comes out to a $30 delivery fee. Plus I still have just under a ton of coal leftover from this past season! Can't mind that!

Mowed the lawn already! Earliest ever! I usually don't mow until well into the first week of May. Everything is ahead of schedule around here .... except the RD.

Have a good one folks!

Freddy,Outstanding--my personal thanx--nice bus trip,pretty country up there,excellent cusine Another frosty one here(28*)Useing about 20 lbs. a day keepin the Hitzer going--Freddy,my Mom at 96 is in an all care facility outside Philly--thank God she still gets around on her walker,but the old memory has been on a downhill run the past couple yrs--we too are fortunate having found a girl to be with her 4 days--I visit pretty often only to call the next day & have her ask when I'm going to come see her--I got her a diary & make her write down all visits & phone calls--soooo,I tell her to check her book & then she'll remember Smitty,she's comeing along nice--nicce days for rideing(afternoons at least)I've mowed twice so far Have a good week-end all

I'll come along for the bus ride but I think I'll pass on breakfast this morning. Not much going on around here this weekend. We have a whole bunch of rain moving in out of the Shenandoah this morning so whatever I decide to do will have to be inside. I guess that means the house may be picked up a little. I have the garden spot ready to go but the plants we started inside haven't done so well so I'll head to the nursery in about an hour and pick up some tomatoes and squash. I can't figure out what went wrong but I'm sure the cats eating them haven't helped.

I also was able to recover a patio's worth of bricks from a friend that my son and I have been bringing over to our house. We are in the process of collecting materials for the patio we want to put in out back and this is a start. We can't put down anything permanent because the ground underneath the patio has to be accessible because the retaining wall "deadmen" run through there. If that retaining wall has to be replaced I don't want to have to deal with tearing up concrete or a taking down a deck in order to replace the wall's foundation. We are going to use the brick to accent a white paving block patio. If it ever comes together it will be a vast improvement over the dirt we have now.

I hope every one gets their projects done and continue to be safe during the upcoming week. Take care, Lisa

Good Morning !!! Thanks for the bus drive Freddy, I'll just lean against this window and catch a few winks.... I'm looking forward to some moose sausage, and eggs, scrambled with extra sharp cheese.. YUM!

Freetown Fred, that diary idea is genius.. I'll have to remember that.. what? remember what? Huh? My mom is 83, still going strong.. she'll be driving up here from SE Florida in the beginning of June, to spend the summer here with family.. she declined my offer to help drive her up here.. She takes 3 days usually, I take 1.5-2 days.. maybe she's wanting the slower pace instead of the help?

The house is toasy warm, the hot floor heat is just amazing. the slate tile floor is slowly increasing in area. And so is the pain in my knees and back.. but hey, that's what Aleve is for. Now.. how many can I take?? See the 'huge project' thread for photos.

Well, I guess I need to get to work..

Take care everyone.. Be safe, stay healthy..
Greg L

Good morning everyone. One cup for me. I am in a hurry to go clean my mom's house. Does anyone here like antiques? We have a bedroom set from the early 30's. Everything must go. Moose sausage sounds good.

Duengeon master wrote:Good morning everyone. One cup for me. I am in a hurry to go clean my mom's house. Does anyone here like antiques? We have a bedroom set from the early 30's. Everything must go. Moose sausage sounds good.

I LOVE ANTIQUES!

moose sausage yum...
USDA inspected butcher in Sanford, ME has some nice meats if you are ever up/down that way...
Good stuff and he has his own heard of elk for butchering...

Lisa
Check out this retaining wall product...
http://www.keystonewalls.com/pages/products/Standard.html
I have over 175 feet of this retaining wall between 3 and 5 feet high...
It lasts forever because it is concrete...

I knew I should have not hit the snooze button this morning. I was up for a road trip. It would have been nice to get away from the shop for the day. Since I missed the road trip, I passed on a cup of jo and had a tall glass of soda. Stoked both of the stoves in the house this morning. Another day of heavy frost. We have had frost all week long with temps down to 20-25 F. The stoves have not been ofline yet this year. Gave the wife a good pat on the @ss and went out to the shop to work. Stoked the 507b in the shop and went to work on a customers project. Seems like everyone desires their item yesterday. Just taking a small break right now and thought I would check in to see what I had missed this morning. Going to stop working early today. I'll work only till six and then the wife and I will go for a ten mile run today. I love these low mile days. Tomorrow will be a different story, long run tomorrow, hopefully early. Maybe I'll be able to get the wife going around 5 a.m. so I can get back and in the shop around 8 a.m. Well, I have rambled enough, time for me to get back to work but not before I grab another glass of soda.

the snowman.

Spent the morning at a fellow Corvair Club members house. Our monthly tech session/meeting event. Rather than just meeting at a Chevy dealers during a weekday night we changed the venue to meet at member's homes and work on our cars. Participation is up and far more interesting to me. Today we installed a new plexiglass rear window in the host members '65 Corvar race car. He's into track racing big time. Bored and blueprinted engine, roll bar, custom racing seats, lighted body where possible. Still street legal. It was a car his father bought new.

There was also a nice '62 Corvair rampside pickup there. It's the truck with a side ramp that give access to the bed. He has a problem with the fuel gauge not reading. Problem was determined to be in the tank sensor. It did work before an R&R on fuel tank. Removing a fuel tank on a Corvair van is a real bitch of a job. So it's body modification time to make a access port to the fuel sensor. More than a morning's worth of work so that will be left to another time.

I took my '65 Corvair Corsa, 4x1 carbs, 4-speed. I bought this car new. I had hope to better sync the carbs after a rebuild but didn't get to it. It started to rain. A good time was had by all and the outdoor grilled burgers and dogs were great.

Yanche wrote:Spent the morning at a fellow Corvair Club members house.

Was Ralph Naiter on the guest list ? I have seen a corvair w/ small block 350 and big micky tompsons in the back,fire engine red in my area, that is a neat ride.

CapeCoaler wrote:moose sausage yum...
USDA inspected butcher in Sanford, ME has some nice meats if you are ever up/down that way...
Good stuff and he has his own heard of elk for butchering...

Lisa
Check out this retaining wall product...
http://www.keystonewalls.com/pages/products/Standard.html
I have over 175 feet of this retaining wall between 3 and 5 feet high...
It lasts forever because it is concrete...

Those blocks look great! I didn't know about them when I was looking to do something on the hill or I'd have considered it. Hopefully, by the time the retaining wall needs to be replaced we will be gone from this house; still I don't want to leave a mess for the next owners so we'll go with the removable patio stones. I saw some today at the nursery that are just what I am looking for. They will go with the "battered" bricks I recovered perfectly.

Thanks for passing on the information, I may need it down the line. One thing is sure about VA, there's always going to be a need for a retaining wall. Lisa

AA130FIREMAN wrote:

Yanche wrote:Spent the morning at a fellow Corvair Club members house.

Was Ralph Naiter on the guest list ? I have seen a corvair w/ small block 350 and big micky tompsons in the back,fire engine red in my area, that is a neat ride.

The 1991 National Corvair Club convention was held in Washington, DC. Guess who was the keynote speaker? You got it Ralph Nader. The event got a lot of TV coverage, both for Nader and the Corvair Club. I was there and his talk was an interesting one. He talked about why he choose the Corvair to highlight. Because it was a US design, a completely new design and it was from a company who at the time had lots of resources, resources that in his opinion could have been used to design safer cars. Remember at the time, even seat belts were an option. I got to speak to him and found him to be quite knowledgeable about auto design, particularly with respect to safety. He certainly has been a controversial national figure but we all should give him the credit for bringing auto safety to the top of the must have design list.

His book "Unsafe at Any Speed" was published shortly after I bought the Corvair pictured above. I bought the book and was glad to learn my new car was not as unsafe as the press made it out to be. Only the first chapter of the book is about Corvairs. Other chapters pointed out design flaws covered up by manufactures and hidden from the public. GM did themselves in when they hired a private detective to investigate Nader and authorized his "dirty tricks".

I don't know much on Ralph Nader except he was a consumer advocate. Was he responsable for the demise of the corvair ? Was it also him that pushed for the disc breaks and the twin line break master cylinder in 1967 ? I found out that the twin line breaks does not stop the hemorage if one line fails, you still lose them in short time.

Afternoon all! Or is it evening now... Long day.... Spent the morning at our local church, doing Spring-Cleanup projects. Rewarding work. Then, around 1:00pm, started working on our house again, getting it ready for a Showing tomorrow. Finished the Great Room just in time! Working on cleaning up the other rooms now, which is VERY difficult to do with active kids.
Heres a couple of pics of the Great Room's hardwood floor (Honey Oak) that we found under the old carpeting. Not too shabby! 16 foot center beam with 4 foot drops on the fans, they are at the 12 foot level. Nice and quiet.