January 2018

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.