Firewood Therapy

Chalk it up to being a real man in training, but my outdoor ways have actually proven to have tangible health benefits. As you may know by now, I suffer from an assortment of physical maladies stemming from old age and the fact that my body is falling apart. One of the big ones is my back, specifically my upper back and neck. It has been aching and sore since the new year, with not much in the way of respite from the constant nagging ache that I've resigned myself to (apologies to my Mentor). Even though I'm good at whining and feeling sorry for myself, that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of things that need to be done around the house, especially with the weather warming up. Many of these duties require some brute force and muscle, which worried me a bit with my injured spine and all.

This includes splitting wood. I confess to being a little worried about the consequences on my back, so I was avoiding it a bit. At some point, however, you just have to deal with life, so I went out and cautiously started to split wood, gearing up for next winter. Initially there was some pain in my shoulder and neck, but by the end of my splitting session, I actually found that I didn't feel that bad. In fact, I might be so bold as to say I felt better. Maybe the jerking motion of the maul aligned my spine, or something like that, but whatever be the case, it went pretty well. Not only did my sore neck and back feel okay, but I got some stuff done that needed to be done. I love when that happens.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Hand Galldin for the pic.

More Budding Engineer

I think N is getting really into modifying and building RC vehicles, and mom and I think it's awesome. He gets into it and it really piques his interest, and I can't say I blame him because it's pretty cool stuff. When I was a kid I used to love machines and gadgets and one area that I really loved was electronics. All that stuff with batteries, wiring, and electrical machines just fascinated me, and I'm not sure why I didn't pursue that line of interest more, though in retrospect, I do know why: my parents squashed my interest in anything that wasn't pre-med, but I won't get started on that path.

Like most boys, N has always been interested in machines and gadgets, initially turning his attention to big ones like tractors, trucks, motorcycles, and airplanes. He's always been interested in RC vehicles and gradually began to collect various cars and helicopters, but it wasn't until the got this higher-end Traxxas that things really took off. It's actually a pretty cool truck, mainly because it goes really fast, is very responsive, and best of all, you can modify and upgrade the components. The last part is the best part.

And modify is exactly what he loves to do. He's upgraded various parts of the truck to make it faster and more maneuverable, and now he's turned his attention to an RC boat that he got a year or two back. He hasn't used the boat much because it's not as optimally responsive as it could be. Let's just say it's not a Traxxas. He is now in the process of modifying the boat to make it faster and more responsive. He is going to take leftover parts that came off his truck when he modified it and use them in the boat. This will entail installing the parts and ordering new ones, all of which are way beyond my understanding, though I can appreciate it all. He's basically building the thing from scratch. How cool is that?

It helps that we got him a soldering iron, and a nice one, to boot. When I was a kid I loved soldering stuff to make various electronic gadgets, and the one we got him is pretty slick because it has LED lights on the base to illuminate his work. He's pretty stoked about it and he went to work immediately. In fact, he's set up shop in the basement and his work space has all sorts of projects going on. I love it.

On a side note, he also made a boat trailer out of legos and other toy parts. The trailer hitches to his Traxxas truck and the idea is that he can tow his soon-to-be RC boat with his RC truck. How cool is that? It sure beats watching TV all day. I was down in the basement this morning and saw a RC helicopter on the bench, so I'm guessing something is in the works.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.

Season Opener

Not in terms of sports, but weddings. The season of marital bliss has begun, and it looks like it's going to be busy as usual. Last year I started working in catering in the fall when things were busy but were definitely winding down. I get a sense that summer is the hot season (no pun intended) for getting hitched, and I wasn't really around for it, so this should be interesting, to say the least. This past weekend was the first one for this year, and not only was it a pretty big one, but we are employing new methods to serving them which basically entail more formal attire and more efficient service.

This wedding was actually a very nice one, with a big contingent of sophisticated Canadian city-folks, I believe from Montreal. There was a lot of French being spoken, and they went all out on the decor, renting furniture and linens just for the occasion. It was actually very nice, and I think the crowd was pretty civil despite the copious amounts of alcohol that are always consumed. One thing that struck me was that the young people, who were all painfully hip, had an appreciation for fine wine. I think they were all going into banking.

Either way, it was a crazy night, and I had to work the next morning at the breakfast buffet. The bride's family was amazingly friendly, and they lucked out on having beautiful weather on their wedding day because the next morning at breakfast it was rainy and bit dreary. Then again, the young couple were a pair of go-getters who wouldn't let a little bad weather ruin their day - they ran a 10K on their wedding day. How's that for grabbing life by the horns?

And so it begins. Things are picking up with my other catering job and I have another potential gig lined up in the big city, so I may have to start being selective about what jobs to take. Suddenly I'm so special and important... yeah, right. In a perfect world I'd like to be able to take all the gigs so I can make more money to support our fabulous lifestyles, but you can't have it all, can you?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to tripeace for the pic.

So Lonely Again

Every spring we seem to go through a little drama in our house on a few key fronts, and this year seems to be more of the same. One of the issues I have to confront is the old quest for firewood, which doesn't play well into my OCD neurosis because I have to obtain the wood well in advance of actually using it. It not only has to dry, but I need to cut and split it, and it takes awhile to get all that done. If, for instance, someone says they can get me wood and then at the last minute the deal falls through, then I'm out of luck. Actually, that's not completely accurate, because in a pinch I could purchase cut, split, and even dry wood, but that costs an arm and a leg; at least 2.5 times per cord compared to what I pay for log length, and the shock and pain of buying 5 cords at that rate would cause irreversible damage to my emotional well-being. Plus, it wouldn't allow me to continue my real man training of cutting it up.

For this reason I am very neurotic about getting all the wood in order, and there's nothing quite as comforting as seeing that pile of logs out in the yard. Better yet, having 10 cords split and drying in the sun, but that's in the realm of dreaming (a guy can dream, can't he?). Our usual wood guy, TB, has been reliable in years past, but he has a tendency to disappear and not return my calls. I usually have to call him three or four times, and in the last I have to tactfully allude to contacting my other suppliers if he can't come through. This of course is a complete bluff because I don't have other suppliers. In fact, log length wood can be hard to come by since it's more profitable to sell split wood, or better yet, sell it for pulp.

This year TB hasn't returned my calls, and it sure is a lonely feeling when your wood guy is blowing you off. I requested in my last message to at least let me know if he can get the wood since things change from year to year, which usually elicits at least a reply, but this year I heard nothing. Mom says to just be patient and keep trying, but at some point it seems like someone is trying to tell me something. Plus, there is the issue of courtesy. So, I started sending out feelers for other people who might have wood, and I probably contacted 7-8 potential suppliers and 3 of them got back to me. One is too far and too expensive, even for log length, but two are actually in town. How can you beat that? Not only that, but I am pretty good friends with one of them, which is even better.

One of them has a smaller truck so it works out well because I can buy smaller truck loads, which means less money. Granted, I have to buy more of them, but it still ends up being less money, I think. At this point, I'm not in a position to be too nit-picky. I'm just happy to have found some wood. I won't, however, start celebrating until I have the logs in our front yard.

On other fronts, I dusted off the lawnmower and tried to fire it up, but it showed no signs of life. That, however, is a story for another time.

Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to jacki-dee for the pic.

Solar Options

I've been noticing that solar arrays have been sprouting up all over the place and some of them are impressive in their scale. They just put a massive one up at the dump, and of all places they put one up at the farm near us. Our neighbors and good friends B&KJ informed us of this long before the fact in case we were interested in being a part of it, and I said we were. Right before they installed the panels they had an informational meeting to gauge interest and have people sign up for the "solar cooperative," which of course we couldn't make for assorted reasons.

Either way, I told them we were interested, but when the time came to sign up, it turned out that it was not completely worth it for us because our electricity bills are, of all things, too low. The share price for being in the co-op were around $75 while our bills average about $35-40, which is not to shabby when you get down to it. So on the one hand it's nice to think that we're good at moderating our usage of electricity, on the other hand we can't be a member of the solar cooperative.

Then again, maybe I should paraphrase Groucho Marx when he said he would never be a member of a club that would accept him as a member.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Solar Energy World for the pic.

Side On

I managed to finish the siding project on our house (it looks slightly better than this) and if you can believe this, it only took two days. That has to be a new world record, because as usual, I set out to replace 3-4 boards and ended up replacing at least a dozen. The back of the house gets southern exposure so when you throw in all the wind, snow, and rain, the wood really takes a beating and warps over time. When the wood warps, even slightly, the paint tends to wrinkle and crack, and then it starts to look bad. That's when yours truly has to step in, though it would be preferable to get to it before it gets to that point.

One of the problems I ran into was due to my laziness or cluelessness, or a combination of the two. Last time I painted, which was about 4 years ago, the paint was cracking and chipping off, and rather than properly clean the boards, I simply painted over them, much to the chagrin of my Mentor and the Amazing PR Man. Of course, I paid for my sins because when you paint over paint that's chipping, it all just chips off, anyway. I watched this process occur over the course of a few years and finally I got off my butt and did something about it.

This time around I'll hopefully do it right. Not only did I replace the warped boards, but I got a steel bristled brush and am scraping off the chipped paint. With all the new boards nailed in and the scraping done, I'm ready to paint. I even retrieved the paint and brushes from the basement and am ready to roll, so hopefully it won't take all summer to get this done. Then again, at least two other sides of the house need to be painted, so this could take a while, especially when you add in trim. Oh well, the work of a real-man in training never ends, does it?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Mark Strozier for the pic.

April Snow

I'm trying not to whine about this, but the weather really has been slapping us around this year. We had a disappointing winter, spring can't seem to make up it's mind whether it's coming or going, the landscape is an unsightly brown, and on top of all this, it actually snowed a day or two ago. This is crazy. When I heard on the forecast on the radio, I was floored, though I know this is not without precedent. The weather in New England is completely unpredictable, but this still seems a little crazy.

The day of the big snowfall, it was actually raining when we woke up, so I figured that we were out of the woods and would just get a good soaking. However, by late morning, it had changed to snow and we got about 2-3 inches, which ain't nothing. I was so bummed when I walked out to the car and had to actually clear the snow off the windows. The funny thing is, it wasn't even that cold.

For all it worth, the snow melted by early afternoon, but they canceled LAX and it was still a little surprising to a flatlander like myself.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Eneko Muino for the pic.