Coffee 5-8-10

Wake up you bunch-a-lugs! The coffee is hot & there's lot's to get done before the day is done. However, now that you're awake, there's time to chat a bit & have a good breakfast before we get moving. I'm thinking egg-in-the-hole, sausage patties & toast on home made bread... I get the heal!
I did it. I shut down the AA. Got it all cleaned out & put a 75 watt light bulb in it to keep moisture away. We'll see how that works. Dang! I just heard the oil burner come on. Arghhhhhh!
Can't stay, gotta get tools together & head to camp. Going to build a 65ish foot long wheel chair ramp. I pre-fabbed a bunch of 8 foot pieces, not to assemble & fit them. Hope it works!
Stay as long as you want, but I gotta go! Last one out, unplug the coffee pot & turn off the light.

Morning, I'm shut down as well until my coal run to Harmony soon. Burning evil oil for DHW right now. I feel empty inside, it's just not the same...

Morning all. Folgers and French Vanilla creamer is on the table. Looks like its gonna rain, very dark outside. We stayed up til 2:00am cleaning the house for the Realtor walk-thru today. Three realtors scheduled back-to-back. Another couple on Sunday. We'll pick who we want to list with on Monday.
Threw my back out thursday, while up in the attic, cleaning up. Spent 5 hours up there, and around the 4hr 55min mark, I felt my disc doing a Cha-Cha. Must've been cuz I was walking around up there while hunched over, trying to keep from banging my head on the crossbeams.
I haven't burned the DVC-500 for a few weeks now, but I left the hopper full of coal, "Just-in-case". Looks like I'll get a chance to re-lite it this week. I see its gonna be downright chilly at night this week.

Good Morning, the Aleve hasn't kicked in yet, but the coffee is good, with 'french vanilla' creamer as usual. Once the Aleve starts to work, I'll get to work on the slate tile floor job. It's slowly moving along, more cutting and fitting of triangles, clipped corners and border pieces. I'm getting faster at the work, and making fewer mistakes. I'm home all this week, so I hope to get the floor done and grouted this week.. depends on the amount of help I can find and my stamina.

Weather here is miserable. Very windy here, 28 gusting to 35 right now and high 30's/low 40's.. we're on the back side of the front, some snow was forcast in the northern part of the state for last night and tonight.. our forcast for SE Michgan is low 30's tonight, frost possible..

I still have my AA chugging along, making DHW and heating the floor occasionally. Warming up the baseboards in the old section of house more often. The house is a warm cocoon against the 28* wind-chill outside. Glad I brought in most of the slate I need to cut yesterday! I'm gonna stay inside as much as possible today. I'm definitely in warm weather mode. Don't like having to put on a padded shirt or a jacket to go outside.

Freddy, be careful with those preassembled 8' sections of ramp decking, or you will end up like Chris: with lower back 'talking to you'.

Take care everyone.

Greg L

Lugs indeed,I don't believe I slept till 8,dogs must be gettin lazy Outstanding choice for breakfast Freddy Rainy & damp chill here this AM--downhill for the rest of the week--snow tonight???we'll see!Old Hitzer is still chuggin along for these cold nights.Oh well,better get out & do barn chores before I get fired--have a productive week-end all Happy Mothers Day to thems it applies

I simply pulled the main in the sub panel of the boiler room two weeks ago. It was all a one handed attendant could do! So my NG back boiler up came on in the other part of the house and I shut that off gracefully about mid week, because the weather moderated.

Last night I brought Him back on line.

I don't even want go go look _ two weeks of sitting cold; with fuel and ash still sitting as it was left.

Baby Boiler is going to be a mess.

Good morning. It is time I confess. I'm the ghost of a man who went stark raving mad from living in NJ, typing from a phantom keyboard in the haunted confines of an abandoned psych ward.
Greg, did you mean Chris with the back problem? Not me, but that may change if the weather cooperates. Supposed to go get a washer/dryer today way up in Hamburg, NJ. This is a deal put together from Craigslist, haven't actually talked to the seller, everybody on Earth has email on their cell phone except me. Hope it works out, if not, there's no shortage of used washer/dryers out there. I anthropomorphize appliances, still mourning the loss by drowning of my old units.
I shut down the Monticello last week and vacuumed it out with my Craftsman shop vac, the worst-designed shop vac in the history of the industrial revolution, with the exception of the filter. I took it outside and blasted it with compressed air, releasing a grey cloud into the suburban atmosphere reminiscent of Chernobyl.
My friend is willing to help me today since I rescued him last week by doing a fast hillbilly front brake job on his Ranger. His front rotors are paper thin and scored deeper than the Grand Canyon. New el cheapo pads will alleviate the metal on metal scraping sound he was complaining about, for the time being. He is a poor college student, about to get his Bachelor's Degree, so he is trying to better himself. I try to look out for his family since his father passed away suddenly.
Well, I better finish my Maxwell house, and consider the purchase of some delicious non-dairy creamer, I always try to put in just a drop of the fancy stuff in the curvy bottle, and end up with enough to lighten a hundred cups. Had to put soy milk in today which is just not right.

Thanks Freddie and good morning to all. Chris, the storms should pass by in little bit. Hopefully it will dry out quickly. Gotta keep moving too once all the kinks and the cracking works it's way out. It's seems maybe most of us should take it a bit easier today. I'm reading backs and hands to which I'll add neck, knees and feet. Take it easy? Fat chance - right! Got some club members stopping by tonight for BBQ ribs'n chicken I'm adding to their covered dishes. If you're in the neighborhood this afternoon, it's my smoke that'll be making you hungry. Stop by, there'll be plenty to share.

Good Morning all,

I was up at 5 as usual but I'm just taking it slow this morning. My back is bothering me, too, but as we all know somethings just have to be done. I am gathering my courage to face my quarterly inventory of our food storage. That means actually getting into the garage and looking at what we've used and determining if our plan is working for our tastes and nutritional needs. As you might imagine, storing a year's supply of food for the 5 of us safely is always a challenge. I think that mice have gotten into something because the cat has brought me a couple presents, only two but even one is too many in my book. Thankfully, there hasn't been any signs in the other parts of the house; why go to the store if the restaurant is open, right. I am interested in what they've found because we have everything stored in heavy duty buckets and number tin cans. There shouldn't be anything just lying around.

I remember a few weeks back someone was interested in food storage. If you are check out this link:

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

It will give you an idea of what to store for the year but remember store what you eat and eat what you store. It won't help if no one will eat it. Start by picking up double the ingredients of a couple of meals each week. Pretty soon, you'll have a month's worth and that's the beginning. Some where along the way you may decide to store more general food stuffs like wheat, floor and sugar for longer term and that's where safe storage practices are paramount. Fortunately, there are many websites on food storage on the internet. Check it out - storing a year's supply is possible and it doesn't have to break the bank.

Have a great week! Only 35 days left in our school year! But who is counting.

What a weather day!! Since I posted my first message this morning, the temperature has dropped from 45* to 39* and the wind gusts are now over 40mph.. not a nice day at all.

Dan, yes I meant Chris, I edited my message. I guess I should look closer at the messages to see if the author signed with his/her name.. .

I just wasted 30 minutes writting a reply to a 'friend' who took exception to a political email I sent her.. about the 'cap and trade' bill. Sort of like praying at the wailing wall, like talking to a rock. But who knows, maybe she will see some light through the wool-veil she allows to be pulled over her eyes.

My slate job is calling me again.. back to the wet-saw.

Greg.

Sting: how's the finger doing??

Morning All.....Had a real thrill ride with heavy weather last night. Now we've picked up LsFarm's high winds,low temps and our very own Lake Effect rainshowers. Whoopee! Coffee tastes better after an evening of fun and adventure with Mother Nature. Speaking of Mothers,Happy Mothers Day tomorrow to all of you Special Women of our Human Race ! I've always thought everyday was Mother's Day after all you've done and gone through for those you've loved.

Backs, fingers, knees, oh my....................

I had my coffee earlier now it is almost lunch time.

Let me add to the discussion. Tuesday in the early hours, I will get my right shouloder rebuilt. Seems like back in January, I decided to show the grandkids how to snowboard. Well it didn't go as well as planned. As I went down the small hill, I vaguely remember hearing the better half say that I think I am a kid but my 52 year old body is waaaaayyyyyy beyond that time. I of course fell. remembering how I broke a fall 3 years ago by sticking out my hand which shattered my wrist, I decided to just tuck my arm in and fall on my side.......somewhere along the way I either landed on my right elbow or my right shoulder. It really doesn't matter because the end result was tearing the rotator cuff completely, tearing the bicep tendon and some other tendon.

It hurt like hell at first but I continued on. As a self employed individual, I don't get sick time. I just trudge through the pain. Finally the pain got too bad so I had to go see the Dr. After getting all of the tests, I went to the orthopoedic surgeon. I remember hearing the assistant telling him that she thought my left shoulder was worse than my right. But the pain in my right one outweighs the left. So he will be doing the right one first, then after I'm healed, I'll get an MRI on the left and see what we will do.

The worst part is that I will have my arm in a sling for at least 3 weeks, maybe even more like 6. My typing will be cut in half. Luckily I'm left handed so it won't be that difficult on me. Then the therapy starts.

On top of that I just lost my father-in-law 2 weeks ago. He went from walking the park with the dog to weedwacking in the afternoon to having an ambulance ride that night to the E.R. Initial diagnosis was a brain tumor. Then we discovered he also had a lung tumor. Operating on the brain tumor would not have increased his quality of life due to his dementia (sp?) He entered the E.R. on a Friday night and passed a week later on Monday morning. He was 80. He had a good but hard life. Even in passing he looked out for his family by not putting them through a long drawn out ordeal. He was the one who introduced me to the AA 260 in the shared basement of our house. My proudest moment was when he gave me my own copy of the AA manual.

R.I.P. Poppop Joe

Sorry to be so much of a downer, but seeing this morning's weather I had to get it out.

But there is only 1 way to go now. I'm looking forward to putting all of that behind me.

2 more crazy days of work and then I'll be in recuperating mode. The nice thing about the AA is that it is so easy that even a caveman can operate one. I already made arrangements formthe wife to do the ash pan. The bin is full and we'll take the pipe down tomorrow to clean out the flyash and we'll be good until fall.

So off to get lunch then back to work. I sincerely hope everyone else has better luck than I have had.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there

Rick

Geez,Rick.......Relax,you're not a downer. In my neck of the woods a downer is a cow or horse that just aint 'gonna make it. You're just in a hot streak of having your rear-end handed to you. So your snowboarding career is over...Big Deal...After the surgery you can always take up motorcycle jumping or juggling hand-grenades with the pins pulled! You Da Man ! Good Luck !

Got up early, took the wife to work and went to moms to help clean out the upstairs apartment for renting, spent 4 hours and a trip to the dump (mom & dad lived upstairs for 30+ years, so a lot of junk).

Last week, scored an older American Standard 150K/120K BTU Gas boiler, for backup for my VF3000 that I will install this summer/fall, from an old victorian house they are knocking down for a parking lot, bummer. Nice old woodwork (already sold), and they already took the baseboards out for salvage, no big radiators or anything. This boiler had all the service records, a couple large B&G pumps, etc...I think it has 1.5-2" supply/returns. We broke my 2 wheel hand truck getting it out, it must weigh 400#'s. Bent some of the sheet metal cover up, but won't hurt it. .

Started replacing clapboard on our house that has been water damaged over the years, came out pretty good!

We have the HIGH winds today (40-60MPH!!) since the cold front is coming thru. Possible SNOW? What? might get down into the 20's-30's tonight!

Hey Rick, very sorry to hear of your loss. Sounds a lot like when my father passed away. One month doing fine, had energy, etc, then in the hospital, and a few weeks later gone.. Thankfully I was able to be with him a lot over the last weeks. We were good friends through most of my adult years. I still miss him a lot. I learned a great deal from him.

Hope your surgery and recouperation goes well. Modern surgery is pretty amazing.

Greg L