So it turns out the MARC doesn’t run on federal holidays (or, at least, Veteran’s Day) but WRI doesn’t get this holiday off. So after visiting a very empty train station with the girls, I drove into DC this morning. Which wasn’t really that bad, but the parking garage under my building was locked. It was supposed to be open and available but someone at the security company didn’t get their dates right, so I parked up the street at Union Station.
Our weekend was good, although Finn started out with a fever and some throwing up on Saturday Morning. I drove up to Hereford with some friends to look at a Scout in a field, which was a lot rougher than the ad made it out to be. The seller had an unused 6-point rollbar in pieces to offer, which was tempting, but the price was too high for me right now.
On my return Finn was feeling better, so we did some shopping and ran some errands. Finn fell asleep in the car for a couple of hours which was probably a very good thing.
Sunday the weather was warm and sunny, so I took Finn up to the tire park to play while Mama got some important work done at the house. She spent most of her time on the tire swing, making new friends and delighting in letting everyone know she’d thrown up the day before. After watching the Ravens game, I took her over to the Coopers’ for some cocoa and to donate money to UNICEF; hopefully it will make its way to the people in the Philippines, which sounds like it got absolutely flattened this weekend. The Coopers were filming the fundraiser for a PBS bumper, so hopefully Finn may make her debut on camera sometime this fall.
Busy week here. We took Finn to some friends’ for a Halloween straight from a greeting card: well-lit streets full of happy children, friendly houses, and great costumes. It made me proud to see my girl walk down the street holding hands with one of her best friends.
Leaves are in full swing here in the ‘Ville, and the streets are beautiful. It’ll take a week or so for all of them to drop and collect on our front lawn, clogging up the downspouts and rustling underfoot.
I got my final paycheck from idfive with an added quarterly bonus, so I splurged a little on some kegging equipment; a new gas block has replaced the two-way brass splitter I inherited, and now I’ve got a dedicated third line for carbonation installed with a one-way valve to prevent any backflow. The valve body is bolted to the edge of the surround and the gas lines are all cleaned up and out of the way.
I also picked up three sheets of 3/4 MDF board in preparation for building new speaker enclosures. I’ve run my woofer specs through some new online tools (I was using a poorly printed graph in a book in 1991) and it looks like my original calculations were pretty close. The tweeter I used in one of the two speakers seems to be on the fritz, so I’ve got to track down the issue and see if it needs to be replaced. The new speakers will also get different porting tubes and hookups, but the next big thing to source is a way to cut a clean circle for the woofers.
One of the items I inherited with the new job is a GoPro Hero 3, essentially a tiny HD videocam with a wide-angle lens and a waterproof housing, bolted to a giant suction cup. I tried it out on Sunday in some different situations, outside and inside the Scout as I drove out into Ellicott City and back. The built-in editing software is intuitive and powerful, but it’s going to take some more time to sort out how to get the best possible footage encoded in the right way.
Tuesday after Labor Day has been a 2-cup-of-coffee workday. It was relaxing and we had lots of fun, but I need a vacation day to recover from my vacation.
We were lucky for the opportunity to visit with lots of old friends; Saturday night Finn and I went to a barbecue with the Flynns while Mama stayed home to catch up on work. Finn was shy at first but within about 30 seconds was engrossed in playing dress-up with the girls, while Tim and Betty and I drank and caught up on the deck outside. She was on her best behavior, even after a bowl of chocolate ice cream, and when it was time to leave we drove home under the stars with the top down.
Sunday we drove to Lexington Park to meet Grand at the Naval Air Museum where he showed us around the planes and told Finn about the ones he’d flown and worked on. It wound up being sunnier and hotter out there than we bargained for, so we had to skip the last couple in order to escape to air conditioning and an early dinner. After rehydrating, we made it home in time to move the mattress out of our bedroom, lay new carpet down, assemble an IKEA bedframe, and replace the bed. We’re getting to the point at which all the improvements we made in the house 8-10 years ago are needing touchups. This past week, the entire room got patched, sanded, and a new coat of paint throughout, and it looks dramatically better.
Monday we drove up to Pennsylvania to visit with the Beatties and have another barbecue. Finn was again on her best behavior, and we adults let the kids play while we (mostly) relaxed. Chris and Alison have a beautiful house stocked with mouthwatering mid-century furniture and two excitable Boston Terriers, and it was great to catch up with them. It’s amazing to consider, looking back at who we were 20 years ago, how far we’ve come, and how much the same we are in a lot of ways. As we stood in his driveway chatting and watching the kids ride bikes, leaves fell gently into the yard. Fall is coming soon…
On our return, we “did a teamwork” in Finn’s words and started assembling a new dresser for our room. We’re both tired of waiting around to get things done (we’ve had new carpet and furniture sitting out on the porch in boxes for months) and we couldn’t help ourselves. With some careful maneuvering and strategic use of a hammer in the quiet corners of the house, we got everything put together by 10PM and fell exhausted into bed.
