Little did I know that when I parked yesterday morning, I’d be front row center for an interesting event:
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It’s cold and dreary in Baltimore (again) but that didn’t stop me from driving the Scout in to work yesterday. The soft top is back on for the duration of the winter so the cabin is relatively warm, and with the heat turned up the only cold chill I feel is on the back of my neck, which reminds me of Chewbacca in the old days. After work I drove up to MICA for the first evening of a figure drawing class, something I’ve done on and off for the past ten years. It was kind of strange to be back on the third floor of Main building for the first time in 20 years. The class went well, even though I was positioned poorly for the first half and the better model was doing the long pose (the other model was a disagreeable woman they’ve used since I was an undergrad).
Finn is in a state of serious separation anxiety, or perhaps suffering from the lingering effects of a cold. Everything has been “Iwantmymama” followed by uninterrupted crying jags for about the past week or so; any refusal to provide service immediately results in hysteria. We could be in the Terrible Twos or fighting off the flu, but it’s hard to tell when proper sentences can’t be formed.
In the meantime, we cranked up the heat at the house for the first time on Monday to battle an early cold snap, which has me considering replacement windows in certain key locations. The biggest offender at present is the west window in the attic, which currently holds a vintage air conditioner of dubious quality and indeterminate weight. Last year I wrapped the entire thing in plastic but that was only a temporary fix. Off the shelf replacement windows can be had for as cheap as $88 at Lowe’s but I would need to get a three-story ladder to place it properly from outside (Or I could just cheat and do it from inside, which is more likely).
We’re also waiting on replacement windows and doors for the side porch, which have been on order since before our vacation. I need to block out time over this coming weekend to clean off the side porch (top floor) and do as much demolition as possible before Mr. Scout is ready to start, which will most likely be in the middle of October. The trick will be getting it hauled out, which I may try to do in loads with the Scout.
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Owning a 34 year old truck means that I will soon be intimately familiar with crumbling 34 year old wiring. Thus: a link to this very well-written Multimeter Tutorial.
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Peer Pressure is home, and it’s like driving a completely new Scout. She fires up on the first turn of the key, idles smooth, smells good (for a 34-year-old carbureted engine), and doesn’t backfire when my foot comes off the accelerator. I ran errands early this morning, then drove her into work, and I don’t reek of exhaust and gasoline. I cannot describe how happy all of this makes me.
And, the problem was not with the float bowl itself; it was with two little O-rings which were actually supposed to be X-rings, and were not even in the carburetor when he took it apart. Stupid O-rings.
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Still Scoutless. The plastic (technically, phenolic resin) main bowl of the carburetor is so old that parts of it have worn away and are allowing fuel to pool after shutdown, making any sort of adjustment impossible. So my mechanic is trying to source a new (used) bowl to replace it.
Verizon Wireless needs to go bite a bag of dicks. They have been spamming me at least five times a day and for some reason their spam makes it through my filters. I DON”T WANT YOUR WIRELESS SERVICE, YOU DON”T HAVE THE PHONE I WANT. Leave me alone, please.
This week is getting out of control, so we’re interviewing a cleaning service tomorrow afternoon to have them work on the house while we’re getting everything ready for the party. I’ll have you know Jen was planning for the party in April (possibly March), and we still feel like we’re behind the 8-ball. Grrr. However, I put the mister together last night, and it works perfectly.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that federal and state-based handgun bans are unconstitutional, nullifying bans in cities across the country. I find myself torn between the two schools of thought here; on the one hand, I respect and appreciate my right to keep and bear arms, and I intend to exercise that right sometime in the future. (Last night, before I even knew about the ruling, I had a dream where I walked into a gun store and shopped for a pistol. I tried out revolvers and small automatics that didn’t fit my hand, finally settling on something that looked like a Glock.) On the other hand, I have several cousins who are uniformed policemen. I have nothing but respect for officers of the law, and I appreciate the impossible job they are faced with daily. Therefore, I do not agree with and cannot abide the NRA’s assertion that anyone should be able to purchase assault rifles, teflon bullets, or other military-grade hardware legally. Furthermore, I think the federal government should man up and write strict country-wide rules for the sale and purchase of guns, so that cities like Chicago and New York, who are struggling with controlling guns purchased out-of-state, can better police themselves.
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It looks like our Scout recovery mission will be postponed until tomorrow. I was really hoping to have it back tonight, but as of 4PM the carb gasket isn’t on yet, and I don’t want to rush the delicate job of tuning such a delicate instrument. As much as I am impatient to get it back, I’m also glad it’s getting worked on by a pro who knows what he’s doing, and who can tell me important details about what I’ve got (would I have known, without any other reference, that the gasket was too thick? That it was a heated choke and not an electric choke?) so that I can learn to do it myself.
I also violated the cardinal rule of buying stuff off of Craigslist the other day, which states Thou Shalt Hasten Thy Hiney To That Which You Might Purchase. (The second is, obviously, Thou Shalt Bring Cash But Leave It In The Car, and the third is Thou Shalt Always Check Out The Address On Street View To Avoid Highwaymen). I found a used trailer hitch for the CR-V for the unbelievably low price of $20 on Monday and made arrangements to see it on Wednesday, but apparently someone stopped by on Tuesday and stole it out from under me. I’ve had good luck in the past with people stacking buyers based on the order of their call, but this guy apparently just wanted his $20 and took it from the first person to stop by. So I’ll have to keep looking.
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1. We have plumbing in the new (old) half-bath on the side porch! Mr. Scout and his plumber hacked, sawed, and felled a 300-lb. cast iron vent pipe from the side of the house, replacing it with a temporary in-wall unit until after the 4th of July. This morning, after delivering Finn to daycare, I picked up a new toilet and sink from the Gucci Lowe’s. They will get installed tomorrow along with the door and some temporary drywall to make a functional bathroom for the parade.
2. The carburetor on the Scout is being assembled as I type, and hopefully I will get a call this evening with an update and the go-ahead to pick it up. Which is good, because we have new piles of debris to haul away from the house.
3. I made a few edits to the files here on the site in an attempt to speed up pageloads. Let me know if you see any difference (it’s that little link to the left that says “comment”).
4. Plans are afoot for a vacation stay in the Outer Banks in September right around Finn’s birthday. We have a house picked out with a stunning view of the beach and a lovely in ground pool for the girl to splash around in. We are excited to have something fun to look forward to.
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The garage has been empty since the weekend. The Scout is out at the mechanic getting a carb rebuild, which makes me happy, but the rain we’ve been getting today, which was coming down so hard that it slowed traffic on I-95, has surely soaked the seats to the springs. I didn’t get the chance to put the full soft top back on before we ferried it down, which I’m regretting now, but I’ll be happy to put a plastic bag on the seat to get it home. Plus, we’re supposed to get two days of sun starting tomorrow, so maybe it will dry out by the time it’s ready.
The garage is even emptier as of this morning, because a nice man backed a dump truck up to the doors and hauled off six contractors’ bags worth of debris, as well as the pile of concrete that’s been sitting on the side of the driveway since 2008. He threw in all the brush I cleared off the garage a few weeks ago and some junk from the side porch, and raked everything smooth. Jen says it looks beautiful out there now, which makes me very happy. It’s good to have that taken care of in time for the parade.
Finally, Mr. Scout is studding up a new wall around the bathroom on the side porch in preparation for the plumber to come in and rough in a new toilet and sink. It looks like we’re going to pull the floor and drop in a subfloor in order to level it and butt it up to the hardwood. I have to figure out where to put the huge pile of insulation that’s out there (most likely in the new empty space in the garage) so that little hands don’t play with it, and straighten up/vacuum/childproof the rest. As much as an unfinished space can be childproofed.
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As you may have noticed by the lack of activity around here, I was at my computer for about 5 minutes in total this weekend, which is kind of how I like it. The three of us spent two very hot days running around trying to get the house shaped up for the upcoming parade party, but for all of the effort expended I don’t feel like we’re any closer to being done.
Finn and I enjoyed our normal morning breakfast hike despite the heat, and Saturday morning we found a set of old-school ratcheting box-head wrenches, a vacuum gauge, a pair of metal shears, and a dwell tester for the sum of $6 at a yard sale. After a quick trip to the Lowe’s (one of many this weekend), she and I had all the components to build a new gutter over the back deck purchased, but then it was time for swim lessons.
After the pool and lunch I test-drove a local Scout to gauge its worthiness as a donor vehicle (verdict: it’s a go) and then got to work in the yard on the gutters and hedges before it started raining.
Sunday the heat rolled in, and we attempted to stay cool while continuing work on the house. Finn and I returned to the Lowe’s while Mama was at yoga, and after a short nap she was up again, thwarting our attempts to split up and get things accomplished while she was asleep. Note to Daddy: even if she’s tired, feed her before naptime.
Somewhere during this time period I pulled the leaky cartridges out of our kitchen sink to replace them, and found out the hard way that Price Pfister is using cheap plastic/brass assemblies instead of solid brass. The brittle replacements are made in China, and I destroyed one just trying to get it to seat correctly. I also broke the brass three-way connector on the hot water line attempting to follow a slow leak back to the source, which mandated another trip to the Home Depot for parts.
We rolled that in with a ferry ride to Crownsville in the Scout, which is getting a rebuilt carburetor this week—fortuitous timing, as it turns out, because the idle speed is now so slow that she was stalling out on me as I came to stop signs. Let’s just say that bringing a 4,100 lb. brick to a halt with no steering or brakes is an interesting challenge.
Returning to the house via the H-D, I replaced the three-way connector, blew the spout off the top of the faucet in a shower of cold water (I hadn’t screwed it back in place), and found that the second hot-water cartridge I’d bought was missing two tiny internal valve assemblies. So back to the store I went. Again. Poor Jen; I was so irritated I could hardly talk. Thankfully, the fourth time was the charm, and I got everything back together, but I’ll never buy Price Pfister again, and I’m going to specify solid brass assemblies in any faucet we purchase from now on.
Then, I ran back outside to finish the front hedges and get the sidewalks edged. After dinner and getting Finn to bed, we were cleaning up the debris of the weekend until 10, at which time beer and pound cake were necessary, along with some mindless TV. I fell asleep on the couch by 10:30, wondering how the weekend got past us so quickly.
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Wow, what a busy weekend. I feel, this morning, like somebody beat me up with a baseball bat. That’s not to say it wasn’t a great weekend—in fact, it was fantastic. Saturday was our sixth wedding anniversary, and in a rare display of forward thinking, I had a day of fun planned for my bride. Finn and I woke at our usual time, went out on a hike for food, and then returned home to Mama to share breakfast. We then spent some family time in the backyard working in the garden and assembling our new adirondack chairs before Aunt Christi arrived to take over babycare duties.
Jen and I then drove out to Lisbon to have some tasty lunch at the Towne Grill (fantastic smoked barbecue and sweet potato fries, YUM) before exploring Sun Nurseries for landscaping and gardening ideas. You may laugh at our romantic idea of alone time, but it was some of the best time I’ve spent alone with her in ages. It’s also nice to carry on a conversation without interruption for more than five minutes.
In the late afternoon, we had dinner reservations downtown at Cinghale, Cindy Wolf’s newest restaurant, which is billed as authentic country-style Italian and feels open and friendly inside. Taking the opportunity to dress up like adults, we ordered cocktails, selected from the Presto Fizzo menu and had a sommelier pair a light chianti for the meal. Everything was superb, from the service to the food, and if you go, we recommend the duck.
After dinner, we had tickets to an evening with Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert at the Hippodrome theater, where we sat in an audience filled with adoring foodies and listened to the two chefs talk about food, the restaurant business, fame, and famous people. I liked Bourdain before—I’ve caught his show a couple of times over the years—but having heard him talk I think we may seek his programs a bit more in the future. (I have a general dislike for cooking shows, mainly because I can’t taste the food myself, but I like the format of No Reservations, which is a mixture of essay, travelogue, and restaurant review).
After the show we walked through the lobby, where tables were arranged with all manner of different food for tasting; as it was only 10PM, we got a drink at the bar and sampled some chocolate before meeting up with some new acquaintances of Jen’s from her yoga class. It was about this time that a woman stopped over to check our wrists for armbands… apparently there was a more expensive ticket offered which included the tasting and a meet-and-greet with the chefs that we were not invited to, so she bounced us! I guess there’s nothing like a little lawbreaking to spice up an anniversary.
Sunday morning I cruised over the Bay Bridge to wrench on trucks with Mr. Scout, who is so tantalizingly close to being finished with his project he can taste it. During the course of the afternoon, we got the passenger’s door hardware completely installed (the driver’s side regulator was broken), chased down a bad wire in the temperature gauge, mounted the license plate holder and light, mounted the Tuffy console, and a myriad of other small things I can’t remember. We even fired it up and took it for a brief spin down the block, which was fantastic! He plied us with delicious tuna steaks and homebrew, but I somehow dragged myself away to boogie home in time for the LOST finale.
Overall, I was happy with the way they wrapped things up. I don’t share the hate some people have expressed for the final church theme, and I liked how they explained the flash-sideways construct in relation to the whole mythos of the show. Each of the sideways awakenings were handled pretty well (Juliet/Sawyer was really good, as well as Claire/Charlie), and I was happy to see characters from the first seasons come back one last time. The final sequence was good too; I liked how Vincent came back to be with Jack at the very end to close the circle. It’s not often I invest heavily in a TV program, and I’ve had my moments of doubt with LOST over the years, but I’m sad to see this one end.
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