July 1st weekend – Saturday was a busy day for
us. It began with breakfast at Great
Beginnings which was tasty. Susan spent
much of the morning touching up the paint in her spare room and cleaning up and
organizing the kitchen while I moved just about all of the boxes out of the
garage and into my spare room and Susan’s closet. After Susan was done painting and I moving
the boxes we brought furniture into Susan’s room including the last sectional
which had been sitting in the garage since the big move-day. A new lawn mower had been delivered the night
before so I performed the simple assembly and, after charging the battery, set
to testing it out by mowing the grass on the west side of the house and around
where we’ve been parking the cars. It
was advertised as having rear wheel drive and it did happily pull me along
while doing a decent job cutting the grass.
After mowing I spent some time cutting down thistles and spraying them
with weed killer and the rest of the drive with Ground Clear. I probably should have put on a hat as my
face was cherry-red by the time I finished up.
Then we went out to get proper BBQ sides before Jeff came by for
dinner. It was fun showing him around
the house and we all marveled at the marvel which is our large garage. I grilled hamburgers on the grill while we
sat in camping chairs talking about this and that. Jeff took the time to diagnose a couple of
issues with the RS and WRX which was appreciated and then we sat down at the
kitchen table to play an epic 13-round game of dominos. Susan absolutely dominated by winning almost
every round and we had a blast.
Sunday was less frenetic but still busy. After doing more work around the house we
visited American Furniture to buy bar stools and a dresser for me. We caught lunch in the Subway nestled in the
much larger furniture store before making off with our goodies. The dresser took some time to move into place
and get the hardware installed. While I
was loading it up with my clothes Susan took a short nap with Bella on the
bed. July 3rd is Karen’s
birthday so Susan had the idea that we would go up to her and John’s house and
make them dinner to celebrate. As Monday
evening wasn’t guaranteed to be free due to my work Susan planned the gathering
for Sunday. Thus on the way home from the
furniture store we picked up all the ingredients I needed to make tasty
enchilada casserole. After finishing up
with the dresser we set to preparing dinner.
Susan helped at almost every stage and made the process much easier for
me. As the afternoon was waning we
decided to leave early and make a stop at Costco on the way up. We arrived early which was nice as we were
able to start baking the casserole before Alvin and Kari made it (oh yeah, they
were coming too). Kari brought salad and
jello which was good and the casserole came out fantastic. We ended up almost polishing off the entire
dish of casserole and were collectively stuffed. As per tradition we spent the next few hours
chatting before dessert was to be served.
Susan and Kari adorned the cake we brought with candles and after we
sang Happy Birthday Karen gave a mighty heave to blow them out. Dessert was the aforementioned cake and ice
cream. It was a nice time and we didn’t
leave to make our way home until around 10:15.
This made for a late night for Susan and I but a great way to end the
weekend.
July 4 – I got up a bit before Susan to feed Bella and start
working on the RS. Susan came out
shortly after I popped the RS’s hood to see what I was doing though. The replacement of the oil sender was quick
and afterward we went to wash the car and engine (it was so dirty I couldn’t
see if it was still leaking). Success –
the fix worked. We jumped in the Suburban
and went to Lowes to return a mirror and pick up another before heading to the
Dawn house to load up more stuff. It’s
crazy that we’re still not completely moved out of the Dawn house. We’re hoping to be out all the way soon. After we got home and unloaded the Suburban
we began doing yard work. Susan
continued her efforts to eradicate the thistle and I mowed. Finding the battery not lasting as long as I
wanted I made a quick trip to pick up another.
Turns out a sale had the battery costing the same as a hedge trimmer
with the battery so I bought a battery and got a free hedge trimmer. While the batteries charged I sprayed more
Ground Clear on the driveway and then cooked us burgers on the grill. Eventually the batteries were charged and I
made another go of mowing the thick weeds and brush in the lower 40. I made some progress while the batteries held
out. Kari and Alvin came over later to
see the house and watch fireworks from behind our garage. Despite their illegality and the dry
conditions quite a few people in the surrounding area were shooting them
off. The day before there was a grass
fire from them just a few houses down from us and there were two fires on the
fourth further south but still in the neighborhood. *sigh* What can you do? Kari and Alvin stayed for late night ice
cream and took off around 10:30. We managed
to park two cars in the garage for the first time since our epic shot the night
we took possession which was nice. It
kinda felt like we crammed a whole weekend into the day!
July 6 – we came home to find the house was warming up
instead of cooling down in the evening.
This was a huge bummer as our AC setup was working so well until
now. The little window unit just wasn’t
able to keep up anymore so we made a quick trip to Lowes to buy another larger
window unit. I have to admit I feel a
bit guilty about the purchase as I plan on returning it right after the central
air conditioning is installed next week.
July 8 weekend – on Saturday we participated in a rallycross
at CORE. We got a pretty early start and
left the house around 6:00. After a
couple of stops for gas and ice we arrived on site at 7:30 and immediately got
the evo off the trailer and I started working on laying out the course. There was a lot of hemming and hawing about
certain areas but with some concessions and a little shoveling of dirt it was
set. We had a request to swap the run
order so the modified AWD drivers would go first so we did so. I got to try my hand at running a novice
meeting for the first time which was interesting and after a brief driver’s
meeting the racing began. I was so busy
doing this and that I didn’t get a parade lap but my first run went
alright. It was during my second run
when I noticed something was seriously wrong with the evo. The turbo was not making any boost and the
car could barely accelerate. We popped
the hood but could not see any obvious issues so continued to run. Somehow I ended the morning only a bit out of
the first place in our class. While
Susan worked the timing system I helped new starters learn the ropes of the
role and tried to help out wherever I could.
Lunch was 45 minutes long and just enough time for me to switch up the
course before we started up again. Thus
I only had a couple of minutes to look the evo to try and figure out what was
wrong. I did find a small vacuum hose
had popped off the back of the intake manifold and thought I had fixed the
problem but it turned out that the fix made no difference. We did our best with the car and still had
fun. A fellow competitor and evo owner
Janis let me drive his car for a run which was hilarious as it was sooooo fast
and powerful. Maybe a bit too powerful
for me as I took out a wall of four cones on that one run. I got to return the favor as his throwout
bearing broke on his following run so I let him drive our car for his final
run. I rode with him and we laughed at
the absurdity which was an evo with no boost.
As his car could not be driven I offered to trailer his evo to a shop
with him driving ours. While the second
heat drove their afternoon runs we swapped the wheels out so our evo would have
Janis’ street tires on it. Susan had
discovered a new wrinkle in that our evo would go into limp mode (very very
little power) at the slightest provocation.
We decided to chance the drive home anyways so after picking up cones,
reading results (everyone else hit so many cones I somehow came in first place
despite our car woes), and loading up the rally bus and Janis’ evo on our
trailer we made our way to the shop that would fix his car. The drive was mildly harrowing as Janis could
barely maintain highway speeds – especially on hills. Eventually we did arrive at the shop where we
dropped off his car, re-swapped the wheels back, and (with a running start)
loaded up our evo for the trek home.
Susan and I stopped at the Chili’s close to our house for dinner which
was nice. I was planning on continuing
to mow the lower 40 but decided I was way too tired to do it. Instead I showered and we hung out with Bella
on the couch while Susan womaned the remote control.
Sunday we slept in.
Susan set the alarm early but our tired bodies weren’t having any of
that. Eventually we rolled out of bed
and went out to do some yard work. While
Susan cut the seed pods off thistles I used the hedge trimmer and lawn mower to
attack the lower 40. Maybe an hour after
we started the batteries had given out so we headed back to the garage to put
the batteries on their chargers and decide what to do next. We ended up unloading the evo off the trailer
and parking the trailer to free up the Suburban for shopping. Off to Lowes we went to buy wood for
shelving, a tall ladder, a sprinkler, and a humming bird feeder. We then went to the Parker Costco just to
turn around and go home due to how incredibly busy it was (we didn’t need to buy anything there). On the way home we stopped for champagne,
Mike’s Hard Lemonade, orange juice, and sugar for later. When we got home Susan set up the sprinkler
and I set to mounting the stuffed Buffalo head on the wall of the garage using
our new ladder. It was sketchy but
eventually I succeeded with some help from Susan and a bit of luck. It was around this point that I saw that the
batteries were charged again so we headed down to the lower 40 to do some more
yard work. After the batteries were once
again drained we mixed up some humming bird juice (we were going to buy
pre-mixed stuff from the store when an older lady accosted us with advice on
making our own… we relented to the pressure).
We also mixed up some yummy Mimosas using the champagne and orange juice
we had just bought and I set about to grilling hamburgers for dinner. After eating our tasty burgers we went to our
respective rooms to unpack boxes. It was
at this point that my body decided it couldn’t handle any more. I napped on the couch for the next few
hours. When I finally woke I found that
Susan had been busy and her room looked fantastic. I actually contemplated another go at mowing
the lower 40 but decided I was done with that activity for the day. Instead we spent the remainder of the evening
with Bella on the couch. Such a busy
weekend!
July 10 – Susan stayed home so someone would be there when
the central air conditioning is installed, and the thistles are cut down and
removed. She brought with her filing
from work so she had plenty to keep herself occupied all day. We were also due to have a new dishwasher
installed when it was discovered the old dishwasher was locked in place by the
newer flooring. So back to the warehouse
the dishwasher went. The thistle took a
couple of hours to cut and extract (it was so thick a chain saw was used) and
was soooo worth the cost. The AC took
all day and I actually was home when they were finally finished. It was great taking down the window unit and
turning off the stand-alone AC in the bedroom.
The new system is functioning well.
July 15 weekend – Friday night and Saturday morning were
busy with us furiously organizing and cleaning up the house in preparation for
our housewarming party on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday morning we made a quick trip to the Dawn house to pick up a few
things and did some last minute shopping.
We parked all our vehicles sans the RS down in the lower 40 and set up
tables in the garage. Around 3:00 we
started cooking the food (hamburgers, bratwurst, BBQ chicken, meatballs, and
sides). We probably should have begun
earlier as people began showing up before we were prepared to receive
them. I’m not sure the food was truly
ready before 5:00. The party itself was
a blur as we gave house tours, gabbed with lots of people, and generally had a
good time. It was so nice to have enough
interior space that when it did rain everyone could stay dry and that even with
40 or so people in attendance there was enough parking. Guests were directed to sign one of our
propane tanks (Susan’s idea) and most did so.
We were worried Bella might escape but she didn’t and instead followed
people around in the house and whined watching those outside the windows. Ken had dropped off cornhole which a few
groups of folks played but mostly people just hung out and talked about this
and that. Our last friends took off
around midnight and Susan and I spent an hour cleaning up food stuffs before
finally heading to bed. It took a lot of
effort to put on but the party was worth it.
So much fun!
We slept in until 10:00 on Sunday morning and were still
exhausted. Not long after being up we
headed up to Arvada to pick up some used rally tires from fellow rallycrosser,
Ryan Haenny. He is also an avid Baretta
enthusiast (the car not the gun). After
looking over his cars a bit he gave us a tour of his and his girlfriend’s abode. Their house has been in the process of being
remodeled for the past several years and had some pretty cool things going on
inside. After the drive home we resumed
cleaning up from the party. I spent much
of the time in the garage moving things around and accumulating trash while
Susan applied three coats of varnish to the signatures on the propane tank to
preserve them. It was around this time
we discovered how much beer and other assorted adult beverages remained from
the previous day. It was enough that we
decided maybe we should buy another refrigerator for the garage. We searched Lowe’s and Home Depot via our
phones and Susan checked craigslist. In
the end we went to an appliance-specific store and bought a used refrigerator. It’s a full-sized model which will come in
handy for future parties and general food-overflow. Once we finagled the fridge off our trailer
Susan loaded it up with the adult beverages and soda from the day before. I then cooked up some fresh bratwurst on the
grill for dinner and we basically parked ourselves on the couch for the
remainder of the evening. It was a long
and busy weekend and we figured we deserved the little bit of rest to finish it
out.
July 18 – Susan and I went to a Goo Goo Dolls concert at
Fiddler’s Green. Since we paid for
assigned seats we waited to leave the house until the doors were opened. We still arrived before the opening act,
Phillip Phillips, started. They were ok
but the songs were completely unknown to us.
The signer was an American Idol winner from some years ago. We had really good seats (something like 4th
row on the extreme far left) which made the experience more bearable. It was almost dark by the time the Goo Goo
Dolls started playing. As per normal
they were excellent and played a mix of old and new songs. Susan had planned ahead and we brought black
balloons with us which we blew up and threw above the crowd at the appropriate
song. They played for around an hour and
a half and we were thoroughly entertained.
On the way out we ran into a coworker of mine, Sam, and her significant
other, Jeff. Our new home is very close
to the venue and we were home in around 20 minutes (of which a lot of that was
waiting to get out of the parking area).
We had a great time!
July 20 – Alvin got tickets to Earth Wind and Fire and he
and Kari invited us to go with them.
Susan enthusiastically said yes and eventually I got on board too. The deal was we would provide dinner that
night which was no biggie at all. After
work we headed over to their house around 6:30 and then we all piled in their
Legacy for the drive up to the Pepsi Center.
We got to our seats maybe a song into the opening act’s routine. We were on the lower level hard stage
right. The first act was a band whose
name I should remember but can’t right now (“Chic” Susan told me). The main guy (Nile Rodgers) helped write
several hit songs which they played in a long medley. The break between bands was long and we were
glad when EW&F began. They put on a
fantastic show and we were standing and dancing poorly for almost the whole
time. Great fun! They wrapped up around 11:00 and we were home
right at midnight. It’s tough going to
bed around 12:30 in the morning on a Thursday night as an adult but worth it to
see EW&F.
July 22 weekend – It was a busy one. Saturday morning I got up a bit before Susan
and fed Bella. I wasn’t sure what Susan
had in mind for the day so I let her wake up on her own while I played some
video games on the couch. She didn’t
sleep much longer and came into the living room where we decided perhaps we
should be productive. It’s kind of amazing
how much can be set in motion by these sorts of small conversations. In any case we decided to make a trip to pick
up stuff from the Dawn house. We drove
the Suburban with the trailer attached.
The Dawn house still had quite a bit left in it, though it was mostly
things we weren’t sure what we wanted to do with (keep, throw out,
donate). We also brought the studio
computer desk, my old white dresser, Susan’s old desk, and an office chair out
to the sidewalk in front of the house.
Susan attached “free” signs and posted pictures up on the Roxborough
Facebook site announcing their presence.
None of the items were picked up while we were present on Saturday but
by Sunday afternoon everything was pilfered.
Over the years we lived in the Dawn house the large tree in the backyard
has needed its dead branches cut down and we’d been piling them next to the
house. We didn’t think it would be too
appealing to leave them for the future renters to look at so loaded up all the
large branches onto the trailer to transport to the Dogwood Estate. I also found and added a full exhaust from
the 240Z I’d attempted to restore some years back that I’d stored with the
branches. We’d brought tarps and just
enough tie-downs for the trip. I even
loaded up the old WRX short-block engine on the trailer. With the Suburban and trailer packed up we made
our way back to the Dogwood Estate.
Luckily the tarps held down the branches and various detritus better
than expected and the journey was eventless.
We stacked the branches behind the car port and the various boxes into
the garage before we headed back out to get BBQ supplies (buns, tomatoes,
onions, etc). Ken, Randy, Bob & Mona
(Randy’s folks), their dog Maggie, and his seven year-old nephew Andrew came by
around 5:00 for a BBQ and to visit. We
had all the normal fixings and the food came out fantastic. We felt a bit bad for Andrew as we didn’t
have much for him to do but he mostly stayed out of trouble. Bob, Mona, and Andrew signed our propane tank
which was fun. Andrew drew a couple of
respectable pictures in the bargain which was A-Ok with us. They took off around 7:00 and we cleaned up
and settled in for the evening.
Sunday we woke up early enough for Susan to perform a bit of
weed control and to water the grass and for me to spend some time practicing
guitar. Susan has been keen to keep the
thistles at bay and the grass next to the house is starting to look green again
with her watering efforts. I’ve been
trying to play my guitar at least a few minutes most days to build up my
calluses and chops to some appreciable level.
Around 10:00 we left to go up to Aurora.
Susan found a guy selling a used set of evo struts which we’d been
keeping an eye out for. We met the guy
in a McDonald’s parking lot and made the purchase. They are in alright shape but look straight
which is all that really matters as we’re planning on having them revalved
anyways. The plan was to then
immediately head to the Dawn house for another load of stuff and we elected to
stop at a Village Inn for a late breakfast/early lunch on the way. I’d say brunch but I got breakfast food and
Susan lunch food and we both drank coffee.
At the Dawn house we busied ourselves filling the living room floor with
boxes and bins of stuff we wanted to move and filled a few trash bags full of
“trash” (mostly stuff not worth bringing or donating). I also spent much of my time in the garage
cleaning up in there. We accomplished
quite a bit at the Dawn house and the Suburban was fully-loaded for the trip
home. After unloading our stuff Susan
noticed wasps flying into and out of the “attic” of our tuff shed storage
building. I unscrewed the board blocking
off the front and, to no one’s surprise, found a small nest of wasps hanging
from the top. I promptly killed those
mofos with industrial-grade bug killer and we both agreed that the old board
was in poor enough condition that we should replace it. Thus we went to Home Depot to pick up a board
and do a bit of other shopping as well.
We bought everything we set out to buy and upon returning home Susan
painted the board while I mounted a hinge to the shed. I also weed-whacked some weeds/grass with the
new weed-whacker we’d just acquired.
While we waited for the paint to dry I BBQ’d us some hamburgers for
dinner. The door was still tacky but not
so much we couldn’t install it so we did so.
It took some finagling and I had to cut the frame on the storage unit
but eventually it went up alright. After
finishing our major accomplishment we rewarded ourselves with chilled
watermelon I had cut the day before which we enjoyed as we sat in the shade
next to the garage with Bella on a leash (she got a few pieces of watermelon
too). We finally plopped ourselves on
the couch around 8:00 to finish the weekend out in proper style by watching TV. We truly love these busy weekends we’ve been
having lately!
July 29 weekend – Friday evening ended up being busy for
us. We both were off pretty early and
were home in time for a network box to be installed on the garage. Hopefully in the next week or so we’ll have
internet at the house. After the install
we dropped off my phone to be fixed (the back glass was broken) and went to
dinner at Rockbottom Brewery. We tried
their bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers which were awesome. My phone was fixed by the time we finished so
we picked it up and made a quick visit to a Century Link store to ask some
questions and reschedule the installation of a wall jack (the final step in
obtaining prized internet).
Saturday – we slept in some on Saturday. I got up first to feed Bella breakfast and
veg on the couch for a bit. After Susan
was awake I went to Cost Cutters for a haircut (maybe my third in over three
years). My head feeling lighter (I had
around six inches cut off everywhere) I began assembling a new table saw when
our fellow-rallycross compatriot Joe Hannah came by with a couple hundred
replacement cones. After helping him
unload his rally-van we spent the next hour or so chatting about rallycross
drama before he took off. We didn’t
immediately feel up to sorting through all the old rallycross cones to pick out
the bad cones for disposal so I finished putting together the saw while Susan
sprayed some young thistles with liquid death.
We then spent a good hour going through all the rallycross cones on the
rally-bus. We separated the worst cones
from the good and ok cones and eventually loaded up the good and replacement
cones back in the rally-bus. We kept the
ok-cones (perk of the job) and started the process of throwing out the bad
cones (it’ll take a few weeks as there were a LOT of destroyed cones). As the saw was put together and I could
easily imagine myself putting it off for months I finished cutting shelves and
we installed them in the kitchen closet to make a functional pantry. We’d hardly eaten anything all day so I BBQ’d
burgers for dinner.
Sunday – I drank way too much wine on Saturday night and my
head was pounding mercilessly Sunday morning.
After ingesting Tylenol and a lot of water we went to Great Beginnings
for breakfast. We arrived later than we
usual would and it was busy enough we opted to sit outside. As the weather was cool and we were in the
shade it was pleasant. By the time we
finished eating I was feeling much better and we drove to the Dawn house to
pick up more miscellaneous stuff. A lot
of the remaining things were donation-worthy so we dropped them off at Goodwill
on the way to Costco. Our new beer
fridge in the garage was getting low on beer so we stopped at Tipsy’s for more
before making a quick jaunt to Wal-Mart on our way home. Susan decided to start a xeriscaping project
in front of the garage and I opted to play my guitar and generally be
lazy. Alvin and Kari eventually came by
for late BBQ’d brats. The ulterior
motive for the visit was for Alvin to diagnose the evo’s problems and for Kari
to hang out with Susan. While Alvin
wasn’t able to figure out the evo-issues Kari did a great job keeping Susan
company.
July was such a busy month for us. We’re loving the Dogwood Estate and looking
forward to getting the Dawn house rent-ready.
Bella has been such a sweet pug and we’re glad she’s been healthy and
generally a good dog in the new house.
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