Row, row, row your boat...

...gently down the street!

It's been a bit wet around here. A few big rains and a lot of melted snow pushed the water level up — way up — to the highest level anyone has seen around here, a good three inches higher then the flood of '81, and much more spectacular than what we had last January.

High enough, in fact, to go paddling around the neighborhood in a canoe.

Alas, I didn't know any gondolier's songs. That didn't stop me from singing, though...

A romantic ride through Venice...

I could commute to work like this. I really could.

I just like this shot.

My neighbor, Chris, taking a lap around the block.

Of course, it wasn't all fun and games and photo ops; there were several tense days of pumping water as fast as we could as it rose ever and ever higher. I even went out and got new, larger hoses for my pump (which I've nicknamed "the candle" — as in, "Better to light one small candle than curse the darkness") and watching the green on the radar map stretch from here to California, knowing it was all coming our way.

We didn't suffer any damage other than water getting into the floor of the shed. The carpet's no great loss, but it'll take work to pull it out.

The rest of the neighborhood didn't all fare as well as us. Several houses on our street have basements, believe it or not, and many of those got flooded.

You can normally drive a speedboat under this bridge. Here, I don't think you could even manage a canoe.

This sculpture by the canal took on some new interpretations that I'm sure the artist never intended.

At the height of the flood, the street and the lake became one. You could paddle from one to the other without bottoming out on the curb.

Despite the destructiveness, it was still beautiful and, — dare I say it? — kinda fun. I'm sure we'd feel a bit differently if we'd sustained more losses, but we still would have enjoyed the "wow" factor either way.

Oh, that's better... MUCH better!

Editor's Note: We're a few weeks behind these days. Current events and older events are getting posted at about the same time. So if you're trying to reconstruct an accurate chronology of my life... um... sorry...?

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know I've been trying to get an old air compressor running in my shed. (More on that here and here.) The latest wrinkle in what was supposed to be a straightforward project was that the shed wiring and breaker box really couldn't handle the pull of the new motor. To be perfectly honest, the shed wiring wasn't really good for much of anything...

The wire running from the house to the shed. Eek.

The seriously outdated and under-rated fuse box in the shed. Double eek.

A closeup of the wiring. Eek, eek, eek.

So, while they were visiting, my father-in law helped me fix all those things and more. (Some of them even needed fixing!) The whole thing took about a day and a half and a few hundred bucks (good wire isn't cheap...) but finally, we had...

Grounded 10-gauge wire, protected by weather-resistant piping...

...that looked a lot better than the previous wire, to boot...

...a proper breaker box with properly-rated breakers...

...and after all this time, a quiet, powerful, all-weather air compressor! Yeah!

So all in all, I lost a fire hazard and gained a good tool. Not a bad deal!

At Long Last

This was one of those glorious, shining afternoons when everything came together just right. See, for years now, I've been longing for a place where I can work on cars and bikes indoors, out of the elements, where I can use proper jacks on a level surface, and be close to the tools — and, ideally, also be in a place where I can walk away and lock the door, without fear of having my tools grow legs. I'm almost there. The cars are too big to come in, but for my two-wheeled vehicles (and the electric cart), it's a longing fulfilled.

A fair amount of work went into this one moment — we had to make a new door in the shed, had to make new storage space, and had to sell, sort, and store things that had been taking up the space I wanted. Obviously, from the haphazard stacks of stuff you see in the picture, I've got a ways to go before everything is perfect.

At the end of the day... I didn't manage to repair the gas gauge on the motorcycle. So what? Just being able to, in a comfortable, convenient environment, was a pleasure.

Cancel that Trip to Venice...

...we've already got enough water.

It's actually higher than it was back in August — this time, I see water leaking in between the floorboards in the shed. This time, too, the street isn't draining, for some reason.

I always wanted waterfront property. The depth here varies between 4 to 8 inches.

We called the town to come out and investigate, and I saw the worker stick the handle of his rake almost all the way into the drains, but the water still isn't going down, and no-one has any good explanations why. The thing that worries me is that the temperature is dropping again. Care to think of what this place will look like if all that freezes?

In the meantime, the carport got me again — the water soaked the packed dirt floor enough that the sidestand sunk right through it. Grrr. My war with the carport was delayed so Deborah could take some classes, but in 2008 I shall show no mercy.

To my surprise, it wasn't difficult to pick up — 500 pounds felt like 50. Deborah asked if I had been bitten by a radioactive spider. I don't have a better explanation yet.

Painting the shed, we sing "Alleluia!"

When choosing friends and relatives, you should make sure they all have useful talents which you can expoit for your own gain. That way you won't have to pay them!

I'm kidding, of course. We did buy them lunch...

Having Joel and Paul — both profesional painters — help out with this project made an enormous difference. The shed looks so much better now.

Wait, are they helping me, or am I helping them...?

The only downer during the whole process was Joel getting a call from his boss during the middle of the project. When Joel told him what we were doing, his boss said, "Oh, if I had known, I could have given you 10 gallons of Duration (about $450 worth of premium paint) for free." ....sigh. I'll be sure to ask next time!

Eek! A Spider!

I don't normally get too excited about spiders. I'll step on them if my family members insist, but for the most part, I like to let them control the other bugs. Last night, by contrast, while I was re-installing some insulation in the shed, I saw one crawl out of the batting towards my hand. It was just a few inches in front of my eyes, so I could see a violin-shaped marking on it's back quite plainly. I got my hand out of there in a hurry, and found the closest thing I thought would killing without destroying it — a can of artist's fixatif (well, at least he won't smudge now...?) — but despite the heavy spray, he got away. I could be wrong — I don't have the body for identification — but I think that's as close as I've gotten to a brown recluse ("fiddleback") spider. I'd have liked to have known for sure. Official sources claim that they don't live this far north, but there's quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that says they do. Oh, well. No bite, no spider, and only a little scary moment of adventure.

White Hole

Hey, that looks better!

For some time now, I've been looking at the weathered, peeling paint on my house and shed, and dreading the day I'd have to do something about it. Well, that day came, but I had help. Professional help, no less, in the form of Joel and Paul, who both work for Matthew's Painting Company. Joel rented a pressure washer for the weekend, and came over to do our house first. (Joel is trying to sell his own house, and, now that he's graduated from seminary, move somewhere and go be a pastor. If you want a new pastor...)

The first order of the day was to bleach the whole house. This is necessary to kill off any mold or mildew that's living on the house and would ruin the paint, I'm told. So I went ahead of Joel, using a "spray ranger" that mixes the bleach and water to get an even mix. Then Joel came behind me with the power washer, to rinse off the bleach and remove anything loose. (Loose items can include outdoor thermometers, peony bushes, fingers... gotta be careful with this thing!)

Paul takes a turn with the pressure washer on the shed. You couldn't see this with the naked eye — it just looked like a fog coming out the tip — but the camera caught the rotating nozzle here. Apparently, the idea with this tip is to have an extremely high pressure stream, but rotate it so fast that it won't do (much) damage.

Joel's wearing shorts. Can you tell? Apparently a lot of the stuff that comes off the wall comes straight back at the person holding the wand.

Joel let me try it out on the shed, where the paint was the worst. I laughed out loud as the old, peeling paint practically leaped off the wood. It was enormously satisfying, especially since I knew how long it would have taken by hand with a scraper.

(I've since gotten my water bill. It was 5,000 gallons higher than normal. Small price to pay...)

Later, once the flood waters had abated, and the wood was dry again, Paul came over and showed me how to finish preparing the wood. There was still some work to be done with a scraper and wire brush, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had imagined.

We finished up the trim on the house on Saturday, and we'll be tackling the shed soon.

A grand canvas

Since October, I've been working, an hour here, a half hour there, on a canvas out in the shed. By chance, I happened across a post on CycleForums from a couple out in Washington that wanted a charcoal-on-canvas drawing of motorcycle parts to hang over their mantel. A few emails later, I had the job. It's not a small piece, and neither charcoal nor canvas are forgiving of mistakes, but I'm having a good deal of fun with it.

The working environment — the shed was the only place I could fit a canvas this big. Back when it was real cold out, It took over an hour of running the heater full-blast to get things up above freezing. The brown bottle contains Skullsplitter, which I highly recommend, if you're the sort that takes such recommendations.

Progress to date. For those of you completely unfamiliar with motorcycle parts, that's a rear shock overlaid with a brake rotor. More parts will be appearing in the days to come.