January 6 weekend – Saturday was scheduled to be a day of
preparation for the rallycross awards meeting thing to be held the following
day in our garage and as such we had a lot to do. After coffee we went to Costco and Walmart to
do our regular shopping and get food supplies for Sunday. We also grabbed rotisserie chicken which we
happily ate after unpacking the car at home.
Not finished with our errands we left again in Scrappy to Party City
before making a quick jaunt to Home Depot and going home again. This was the first time driving Scrappy with
the top down with Susan. The weather has
been generally mild and it was fun to feel the wind and sun in the way one can only
feel when in a convertible. Once home we
spent a few productive hours cleaning up the garage. We set up tables and chairs and organized in
an optimal way so guests could sit and eat comfortably. When the sun was on its way down we headed
inside and performed the final assembly of the trophies. Then to the couch we went to relax with a
Bella who had missed seeing Susan all day.
Sunday had an unfamiliar start as both of us were awake
unassisted before the sun came up. Susan
felt the garage was too dark and I acquiesced to buying new fixtures. As we were up before Lowes opened we left to
get breakfast at Great Beginnings. We
were the only and, I believe, the first patrons there and enjoyed the
food. The coffee wasn’t the best which
was odd as generally we like what they brew.
We did have a laugh at the silly music they played and left happy. At Lowes we found we had difficulty finding
what we wanted. Our desires seemed
simple (LED fixtures that included outlet plugs) but the options weren’t
there. The second employee to help was
indeed helpful and, after a few minutes, convinced us we could wire up fixtures
ourselves. He guided us around as we
accumulated the fixtures, plugs, mounting kits, and bulbs (which he actually
discounted the price too). Once home we
laid out the booty and figured out what was what. Susan did the wiring and I the assembly. Before too long the fixtures were installed
and we were happy with the results. We
both then hit the shower as we had called a CORX chief meeting to occur before
the trophy shin-dig and we were almost out of time. Our meeting went fine but was longer than I’d
intended. Thus the first guest was
showing up and we were still going over stuff.
Such is. I made myself useful by
sparking the grill and BBQing meats while Susan acted as hostess to the
arriving masses. Soon the food was ready
and those in attendance were eating and all was merry. One attendee brought his ten-week-old puppy
named Cody. Cody was a German Shepard
mix of some kind and was hilariously puppy.
He was well behaved in that he didn’t make one mistake and super-cute as
he tried to get Bella to play with him (she did give in to chasing him around a
few times). So adorable! I delayed the trophy-portion of the event to
allow late-comers to show up but eventually picked up the mic and got
started. I think I’m possibly too
comfortable using a microphone and I’m sure I bored most there. After the awards were given out I opened up
the garage (it was chilly enough we ran a space heater most of the morning) as
it was beginning to warm up outside. We
chatted about this and that and people slowly departed. Eventually it was just Susan and myself and
we busied ourselves cleaning up the remaining food and refuse. With the sun going down the temperature fell
and we spent the remainder of the evening on the couch with a tired Bella. It was a busy and satisfying weekend for
sure!
January 13 weekend – The weekend began on Friday evening for
us as we went to Lowes to buy four sets of LED lighting fixtures and the
accessories necessary to install them.
The plan was to replace the existing garage lighting with the new LED
lights. The issue being their accessibility
as they’re around 18 feet up. Thus we
rented a 19 foot scissor lift which was delivered Saturday morning. We had our alarm set for 7:30ish but I was
the only one between us to get up with it.
There really wasn’t a need for Susan to be up as I got a call the lift
would be delivered after 8:30. She got
up anyway and we drank coffee together while Bella licked her paws on Susan’s
lap. The lift arrived around 9:00 and
the offloading went fine. The guy gave
us a brief rundown on its operation and then asked us about our cars. He was quite loquacious about cars in general
and wanted my opinion on a potential purchase.
We talked longer than I would have expected about autos before he made
his exit. We then went inside to
assemble the fixtures. We had bought the
same unit as the past weekend so had to wire and screw together the
fixtures. We had an assembly line of
sorts going on and were done in short order (Bella was very concerned when I
had to punch out the holes for the wiring and mounting). Susan and I made space in the garage for the
lift to drive around by taking down the tables and chairs from the prior
weekend and I eventually climbed on the thing.
The lift was strange to operate but not difficult. The transition into the garage is marked with
a large steel plate which I bounced roughly over (suspension not something that
was included in this particular lift’s model).
I was maybe five feet into my first ascent when the lift stopped and
loudly beeped at me. Try with the
controls as I might the thing would not go higher. After a few minutes of frustration I called the
rental place and eventually was patched through to the guy who delivered the
lift. He conveyed that the lift was
sensing it was not level and to try putting material under the tires. We used cardboard which proved effective in
fixing our issue and soon enough I was up by the rafters installing the new
lighting. With the lift operational it
really didn’t take a lot of time to finish up so, since we paid to use the
thing for a whole day, we elected to take care of a few other high-flying
things. We made a trip to Home Depot to
pick up new garage door opener clickers which we linked up with the large and
small garage doors. We tried to program
the old keypad but found it wouldn’t talk to the motor as required; a new model
also failed to work and we gave up on that effort. I also pulled down a piece of decorative
drywall (no idea how else to describe it) that was placed on the rafters by the
previous owners and installed new LED bulbs in the ceiling fan. It was an interesting and productive day and
our garage never looked so bright. We
spent the evening on the couch with Bella as I started to feel the effects of a
cold coming on (ugh). Susan ordered
pizza and wings from Dominos for the first time in seemingly forever which we
both enjoyed.
The plan for Sunday was simple. We were going to join Jeff and some of his
friends at a board game club for games and adulting. As I woke feeling generally miserable and
contagious we canceled the trip. Susan
tried her hand at making our morning coffee (it came out delicious) and we sat
to discuss the day. She had wanted to
finally scrape out the Tuff Shed-style shed and I wanted to finally finish
organizing the garage. It was also
forecasted to snow the next day so we both wanted to park cars in the garage
again. Thus a sick day turned into a
productive day. I was feeling mostly
better by the time we left for Home Depot to return the new garage door keypad
and pick up a metal scraper and dust masks.
Half of the shed was used for a chicken coop which was not cleaned out
possibly ever. We emptied the shed of
the things we’d stowed in the clean side and, after unscrewing some makeshift
dividing walls, Susan started shoveling, scrapping, and generally cleaning up
the mess. It was pretty gross but
fortunately the smell was bearable. I
spent my time sweeping off the shelves on the clean side and opening stubborn
buckets for Susan. It took some time and
a lot of effort but eventually the shed was clean enough to be used. Susan also had purchased bleach and a spray
bottle which she liberally utilized throughout the shed. Besides the chicken poop it appeared to be a
haven for mice. With the space clear we
headed to the garage to see what we could fill it with again. It was Susan’s genius idea to transfer the
various car parts along with two engines from the garage to the shed. This freed up a LOT of shelf and floor space
and allowed us to unpack the majority of the last bins we’d used to when moving
garage stuff to the new house. After
many trips back and forth, moving things about, and sweeping we called our
efforts good enough so I pulled the WRX and RS in the garage. We have found that sometimes one doesn’t want
to jump off the productive-train so Susan suggested we take down the last of
the Christmas lights from the small tree and I decided to give it a go. What a pain.
Susan had done an excellent job winding nine strings of lights around
every single branch, both high and low, of the tree. The results looked great but my shoulders
were tired after the hour or so it took me to take down the lights. As we’d just cleaned up the smaller of the
two chicken coops we walked down to the large chicken coop to survey the mess
there. Susan had looked it over right
after we’d moved in but I hadn’t seen it yet.
Yuck! It’ll be another project
we’ll tackle in the near-future. While
there was still some light in the sky we elected to finally replace the light
fixture in the laundry hallway (we bought the new fixture soon after we’d
originally moved into the house) as well as the light above the front
door. With Susan’s help the hallway
light went up quickly but whoever installed the door light completely stripped
out the main attachment screw so I couldn’t get it off easily. With the light waning and the temperature dropping
fast we decided to call it a night. We
both showered off the day’s muck and grime and threw everything we wore in the
wash. That morning I’d started chicken
in the slow cooker which was quite done and proved to be quite yummy. Poor Bella had spent most of her day lying on
the mat by the garage door waiting for us to come inside and was ecstatic when we
finally down sat on the couch. Between
bouts of TV shows we discussed at length other projects we’d like to do with
the house. We did not realize how
enjoyable these sorts of projects would be and are looking forward to our next
one.
January 20 weekend – this was the laziest weekend in a long
time. To be fair both of us were sick
with a chest cold. I seemed to be on the
mend while Susan was just getting started.
Lots of coughing, congestion, and Kleenex. We also had the first decent-sized snowfall
of the season starting Saturday evening through Sunday evening. It was only five or six inches and the
landscape looked pretty through our living room window. We did venture out into the fluffy stuff once
to get Susan some medicine and found the roads to be generally
well-maintained. We spent the vast
majority of the weekend on the couch watching Netflix, surfing the web, and
playing video games. Besides being sick
it was rather nice.
January 27 weekend – This was another actionless-packed
weekend. While I was mostly better Susan
was still a bit sick. Saturday morning
we met Jeff at Great Beginnings for brunch which was nice. I ordered my steak rare which was a mistake
as I couldn’t handle the chewiness (it was alright after the cook threw it on
the grill for a few more minutes). After
eating we regrouped at our house before heading over to Lowes to buy salt and a
spreader. It was a quick trip and once
back home I was happily spreading salt on the snow which still covered much of the
driveway. Jeff soon exited stage left
and Susan and I managed to not accomplish much of anything else for the
remainder of the day.
Sunday we slept in a bit before I made us coffee. Lately it’s been a regular brew followed by a
French vanilla which has been super-dooper yummy. Our lone objective of the day was to drive
down to the race track in La Junta to survey some land for a possible future
rallycross event. La Junta is over two
and a half hours away with no traffic.
As traffic moved along at a brisk pace it took us roughly two and a half
hours to arrive at the track. Susan came
along which was great for me as I appreciated the company. We’d never been to La Junta which is a small
town seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
I would describe the track as folksy.
The paddock consisted of heavily degraded 1950s concrete and there was a
serious lack of signage indicating a track was present. We pulled up right behind the guy we were to
meet was unlocking the gate and talked with him a bit about what they were
thinking we could do there.
Unfortunately his Jeep we were to utilize to forage the crazy-tall weeds
on the site didn’t have a back seat so Susan had to stay behind while he took
me on a tour. The site itself was plenty
large and they were willing to mow and grade the area for us. The problem was the soil itself. I was able to easily dig into it with my
foot. The entire area was covered in
soft silty soil with no indication it hardened up at any depth. Thus any course we ran would necessitate many
changes throughout the event as ruts would likely appear after just a few cars
ran. This was really too bad as the two
guys that run the track were more than willing to help get us up and
running. Unfortunately the poor surface
conditions had me recommending to Todd Briley (the rallycross Series Chair) to
not use the site. We stayed roughly an
hour before beginning our trek back. We
were a bit hungry at this point and stopped at a highly-rated Irish pub in
Pueblo Susan had found. I got the corned
beef and Susan the fish and chips and we shared artichoke dip. We enjoyed the sustenance and then hit the
road. Fortunately for us traffic was
generally light and it only took us around an hour to get home all the way from
Pueblo. We spent the remainder of the
weekend with Bella on the couch. On a
scale from 1 to 10 I’d give the weekend a solid 6. Not good but not bad.
January was an ok month for us. Both of us fell sick with miserable colds
which persisted into February. I was
incredibly busy at work and many days had me putting in extra hours. I find the work like a brain-drain in that my
mind-space is largely occupied by schedules and accounting. Such is.
Bella continues to be a sweet pug we love very much and she brings us
such joy.
