More Progress

I went out last night and got most of the changes made to the wall bridge cabinet, so I went out this morning and finished it up.

By Noon, we had it installed over the sink and the next cabinet up as well.  After a short break, I went out and cleaned up the shop so I am ready for the next modification.

James had a basketball game at Cascade after school today, so we planned on checking out counter tops after the game.
This is the score after the 1st quarter! James played good tonight, no points, but some rebounds, steals  and good passes.

The final score ended up being 60 to 46, a good win for Cascade.  We went to the Masthead for dinner with Mik, Michelle, James and Margret, we had a good visit.  Vera and I checked out counter tops, flooring and back splashes afterwards.  I wanted a Blizzard, but by the time we got to Dairy Queen, I decided I was too full, so I came home and had a glass of chocolate milk instead.  OK, while Vera was proof reading this, I found a treat, Dave's Killer Bread "Sin Dawg"  listed as a good source of fiber and Omega 3!  Boy, do they taste good!

More Progress!

I sure slept good after yesterday's cabinet work, it was 9 before I had breakfast this morning!  It was garbage day, so I decided to do our recycling, also.  The van was getting pretty full of the cardboard from the cabinets.  I checked over the van wipers that quit the other day, a couple of hits with the hammer and they took right off.  I had better order a new motor and carry a hammer until it comes.  When we got back home the bread Vera had made had raised nicely and was ready for the oven.

She made two pans of them, the other one was great for lunch.  After lunch I decided to put up the cabinets over the refrigerator,  with Vera's help, it went great and we were done in a couple of hours.

It did not take too long for us to get them filled back up.  It is nice getting things put away, now I know where to find my cereal and spoons in the morning.  The next cabinet needs a small modification to clear the window, after dinner I went out and got most of it done.  I will give the epoxy an hour of so to set, then go back out and finish it tonight.

Finally, some more visual progress!

While Vera was in church, I got the pantry ready to install.  It went pretty good, a few shims and it lined up.  I installed a set of drawers next and Vera spent the afternoon filling up the drawers and the pantry.  I did some clean up and then I watched the Pro Bowl recording this evening.

Flying at LCRC

We went flying at Toledo today, the sun only peaked out a couple of times.  The rest of the time it was overcast and the clouds formed in some weird patterns.  In the picture above, they seem like spokes radiating out from the center.  Once again, the propane heater was a popular gathering spot.  I got the Sukhoi test flown after the repairs and it flew just like it used to.  I ended up getting 7 flights on 3 different airplanes.  We left a little earlier than normal and wouldn't you know it, it was sunny and 47 at home!  No damage to repair today, except my chair, which broke as I sat down for one flight.  I flew the rest of the day standing up.

Thursday-Friday

Thursday

I had to sit here a few minutes before Thursday's activities came to me.  I made good headway on the cabinet I am modifying.  James had another basketball game today at Mt Solo, so we headed that way about 2:30 after I did a fast glue job on two parts of the cabinet.

The start of the game, Cascade was not having a good day, the basket seemed to have a lid on it for the Cav's.  I got some great video of James making nice passes that resulted in baskets, I will add a link later when I get a chance to edit them.  Afterwards we went to Papa Pete's for dinner with Mik, Michelle, James and Dalton.  James' friend Dalton was on the Mt Solo team.

Friday

Vera had a eye appointment early this morning, before we left, I checked on the pantry and it was in!  I hurried out and hooked up the trailer and loaded one damaged cabinet to exchange, not a lot of fun, it was 26 degrees!  After Vera's appointment, we headed to Home Depot and picked up the cabinets plus a piece of sheet rock I needed.  We unloaded the cabinets, had lunch and I started getting things ready for the pantry.  I had a productive afternoon, I moved the thermostat, moved the kitchen light switch, put up the sheet rock and got another piece glued on the cabinet I am modifying.  Vera talked me into quitting at 5.  We had dinner and I checked emails, I am planning on flying tomorrow, so I went out to charge batteries.  The motor home heater would not start the last time we were flying, so I tore into it while watching the batteries charge.  After two hours of messing with it, it still does not work!  It may be time for a new one, that one is probably 25 years old.

Wow! This day went by fast!

The first thing I noticed this morning, is the snow is almost gone.  There are lots of limbs down now, plus a couple of small trees.  After Vera's bible study, we headed to town for her checkup at Kaiser.  We did better today, we were out of there in an hour and twenty minutes.  We had just time enough to pick up something to drink before going to James' basketball game.

Mik took a picture of him this morning just before school, he looks pretty sharp!

He looked pretty sharp in his new basketball shoes also.  James got to start today!

They were playing his buddy Jarad's team today, Jarad, #22 is guarding James.

It was a fast paced, close game all the way until Cascade pulled away in the 4th quarter.  After a stop for dinner and gas, we headed home and settled in for the evening.

Tuesday Paint

About the only thing I got done on the cabinets today day was painting the parts on the last one I have to modify.

I made a trip over to the Robinson's in the afternoon.  Ava was clowning around as she ate her potatoes.  Harper woke up just after I got there, she had a serious case of bed head.  They are so much fun to watch!  I did a little work on the Stinson this afternoon before I painted the cabinets. I was trying to figure out how to paint inside without getting over spray all over the shop.  Vera said she had some plastic, it turned out to be a 9 X 12 drop cloth and it worked great suspended off a pole over the work bench.

Vera got another picture tonight from one of her classmates, this time 8th grade.

Hurry up and Wait!

Vera had an eye doctor's appointment at Kaiser this morning.

This is the view from where I was sitting, nothing happens very fast there.  I did find an interesting magazine on parachuting, not that I will ever plan on jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.  After her appointment, she had a blood test to get done and I had to get my annual X-ray of the replacement knee joint.   Two hours were shot by the time we got out of there.  We headed back to Castle Rock for the mail and planned on having lunch at home.

My printed 2011 Blog book was at the post office, so we sat in the car and looked at the first couple of pages.  After lunch, I checked email's and Vera's 1st through 6th grade class pictures were there.

Vera is in the front row, third from the left.  We had a great time looking at them this afternoon.  I did get my recliner fixed this afternoon, it broke a couple of nights ago and wouldn't tip up, it was quite a wrestling match getting out.  I finally found a broken bracket, so I hauled it out on the deck and welded it.  I will have to go test it pretty soon!

Yum Yum, Laury's cakes are great!

Vera went to church this morning and I puttered the morning away on the computer.  I did get up once and hit a sunny period to take the recycling out.  After Vera got home, we headed up to Will and Cale's birthday party at the Dolan's.

I caught them both with their eyes open and smiling and there is Laury's cake.

Everyone was in a great mood and we had a good time visiting.  After the party, we came home and I started watching the playoff games I was recording.  That pretty much took care of my day.  Between games I edited some pictures from Vera's last class reunion and sent them to a couple of her classmates.

One area finished

We have finished one section of cabinets.  Vera got them filled up as she reorganized and sorted things.  You can see our rogues gallery on the metal cabinet, a couple of years ago I got Vera some magnetic picture frames for Christmas and she loved them.  I had to get her more and every picture we get at Christmas or any other time goes up on the refrigerator or on this cabinet.  Keep sending those pictures, we love them!  I had a model club executive board meeting in Longview this afternoon, so I went early and did a few errands.  Today was the scheduled delivery date for the pantry, so I stopped to check on it, it has been rescheduled to the 27th.  It would have been nice if Home Depot would have let me know!  I got my other stops made and decided to have a healthy lunch, WHAT!, it looks like Cold Stone is closed or moved!  Oh well, I had to settle for a chicken strip basket at Dairy Queen.  After the meeting I stopped at Fred Meyer to pick up a few things we needed and then tried to beat the rain storm I could see coming from the West home.  I made it, but as I pulled in the driveway, I heard on the radio there was a wreck at mile 42 on I5.  I did a few things on the computer and then had a nice relaxed evening watching TV and reading.

Lots of Mail!

I woke up this morning with sore shoulders, probably from lifting the cabinet into place.  First thing today, I made a trip over to see what was going on at the Robinson's.  The twins were dancing and by the time I left, my cheeks hurt from grinning.  Since my shoulders were sore, I decided to finish up the Sukhoi today.  Once when I came in, Vera had found a couple of shelves from the old cabinets that just needed about a 1/4 inch trimmed off to fit in the corner cabinet.  She got lots of stuff put away today.  Around noon, we went down to get the mail and have lunch.  This was our first trip to town since Monday!  Yep, you get lots of mail when you have not been to the post office for almost a week!  After we had lunch, we drove down to look at the river.

There is no place for the fisherman to park now, but I think it was higher than this last fall.  On the way home, I decided to take a look at the barn on Jackson Highway North.

It looks like the snow finally knocked it down, below is a before picture taken March of 2011.

I got the Sukhoi all done this afternoon, I looked around and decided I was ready to settle in for the evening, plus I had two new magazines to read.  It was a great day!

Slowly but Surely!

Slowly but Surely the snow is melting, we finally got a path from the door to where Bob cleared the parking area.  It certainly makes going to the shop a lot easier and probably a little safer.

And Slowly but Surely I am getting the cabinets done.  We got this one put up tonight.  Today, I cleaned and vacuumed the shop, then I painted the inside of this last cabinet for the laundry room.  I sat it in front of the pellet stove to dry and added the last piece of trim.  We are letting the paint dry until tomorrow before Vera puts things into it.

Wow! Big Surprise!

It was huge surprise to look out this morning and see all this snow, way more than the 6 inches that was forecast!  No TV this morning, the dish was covered with snow, the internet was down for some reason, so it was breakfast and off to the shop.  Right away, I discovered my boots were not tall enough, by the time I got to the shop, I had snow in both shoes.  I worked on the cabinet for awhile and then noticed the roof over the motor home was sagging.  I put my barn boots on (they are taller) and headed out to brace it up.  Before I got there, I heard voices, they were just bringing the twins out to play in the snow, so I headed over there.

It was so deep Steve had to shovel an area for them to play in.  Laury, Auna and Sam showed up also.  Sam loves to chase snowballs, he was leaping through the snow shoving his nose into the hole where they went trying to find them.  After I braced up the roof, I got the extension pole with a brush on it and cleaned off the satellite dish and we had TV again!  Later after checking all the connections and cycling the power several times I got the internet back up.  Bob came up with his tractor and cleaned off the driveway and parking areas, Thanks!  I got the last cabinet for the laundry room all done except for one decorative piece.  With any luck, it will go up tomorrow.  When I came in from the shop for the evening, Laury had brought over a couple of pieces of apple pie, it was great, thanks Laury!

Another snow day

I slept great after the big day yesterday.  With the snow on the ground, the birds are really going through the sun flower seeds.

Vera put on her new Snow Trax's (chains for shoes) and went out to fill their feeder.

I used the Quad to go get the garbage can this morning, as I put it away, I heard voices over at the Robinson's.  They were just bringing the girls out to play, I went over and watched for a minute or two and decided I needed my camera.  It was worth the trip, I had a great time taking pictures of Ava, Harper and Rielee.

The twins were loving the sled rides down the little hill.  They would get to the bottom laughing and start hollering "Again", Steve and Dianne got plenty of exercise today.   I spent the afternoon working on the next cabinet.  I used 15 minute epoxy today, so I made much more headway.  I should be able to put this one up tomorrow, I am also making 2 sets of parts so the last one should go even faster.

Not the banana belt here!

I had a 9:50 doctor appointment this morning, so I left a little early just in case the roads were icy.  Once I got to Longview, it was like the banana belt, hardly any snow on the ground, the wind was pretty cold.  My appointment went good, I got in two minutes early, my blood pressure checked 110 over 70, that is the best it has been in a long time, we talked over several things, I got a shingles vaccination after it and was out of there about 10:15.  I made a couple of stops and then stopped by to visit Mik, Michelle and James for a while.

This is what it was like at 1PM when I got home.  I started right in on the cabinets above the washer/dryer and after a little fitting, the second one was up.

The glue was finally dry on the one I have been modifying, so I brought it in and we put it up, also.

It went up fairly fast, during the clean up, I strained my knee a little.  I settled into my chair to rest it and before I knew it, I had napped away 2 hours.  Let me tell you the garbage can does not roll well in the snow, but I got it down to the road. I went back to the shop and put a few tools away, worked on the Sukhoi SU-29 repairing a couple more weak points from the hard landing.  I took a couple of pictures of my work today and came in to do this.  Hope you got to enjoy the snow.  I really enjoy watching the snow fall and looking at everything with snow on it.

Snow and Cabinets

The first thing I did this morning was take pictures of the snow.  We had about 3 1/2 inches this morning, later a spot I had cleaned off had another inch or two on it.  I was all set to put the cabinet I have been modifying up this morning, but the glue was not dry.  I was determined to put one up, so I got one for over the washer/dryer out, tore the old one out and got one installed.  I am still waiting for the pantry!

It felt good to finally be taking a step toward finishing this project.  After I got done, I cleaned the shop stove and hauled pellets with the Quad.  I went for a little ride afterwards and came upon a herd of about 18 elk bedded down in the field below my sister's house.  It was fairly slick as I had to use 4 wheel drive to get back up the hill.

Earle

Today we were off to Chehalis for a "Remembrance of Earle", one of the founders of the Lewis County Radio Controllers passed away last year and left most of his modeling stuff to the club.

They gave most of it to the club members via a raffle, when your number was drawn, you could pick out what ever you wanted.  When everyone had a turn, the tickets went back into the bucket and another drawing started.

Since Vera was the only one there that was not participating, she took charge of drawing numbers and calling them out.  We all had a good time, I got several things, one of which I gave away since I knew Horty needed it.  I got several nice comments about the picture book of Earle I made up.


After we got home, I went out and did some more work on the cabinet I am modifying, it will go up tomorrow!  Then I came in and watched the two football games I had recorded.  During the second game Horty called and during the conversation, he mentioned they had snow.  Vera checked and we just had a light dusting on the deck benches.  At 10:00, I went out to lock up the shop and 

"Holy Cow!" we have snow.  It is 32 degrees, so I don't think it is going away too soon.

Cold Flying

The first order of business when we got to the flying field today was setup and start the heater.  It never did warm up to the 51 degrees predicted.  Since it was Friday the 13th. several of us got out expendable planes for the first flight.  It was good flying, there was no wind so you could take off and land in any direction.   I will bet Vera was surprised when we were not the last ones to leave, when the sun started getting low in the sky, it got real chilly!  I had an email from the company that prints my blog this morning, they offered to download it and save it to my account.  After 3 failed tries yesterday to do it myself, I took them up on it.  When I got the motor home unloaded and put away, I came in and finished up the cover text, pictures, dedication and purchased it.

WHAT IS THAT NOISE!

At 5:45 this morning I heard a strange sound!  When I woke up enough, it was a female voice saying "Low Battery", I finally figured out it was the fire alarm.  We have smart fire alarms that announce what they are sensing, little did I know that it did the same for a low battery.  I laid there and tried to go back to sleep, but it repeated once a minute.  I finally gave up, got up, I went out to the shop and got batteries for both smoke alarms and several other things, I should have brought an extra, as now the mouse on this computer needs one.  I was wide awake by then, so I checked emails, had breakfast and stayed up.  I made a trip over to see the twins and then got started on the cabinet I am modifying.  Things went great, by the end of the day I had fitted it together, took it apart and painted the pieces.  I had a treat in the afternoon, the twins brought cinnamon rolls over to me.  I asked if they help make them and they nodded yes.  I decided to print a book of last year's blog this evening, but it did not go well, it seems to hang up on the final stage of creating the book.  We watched our Dakar and Wipeout recordings before heading for bed, I left the blog printing program running during those, but still no luck, so I am leaving it to run overnight.

A Beautiful start to a Beautiful Day!

As Vera was leaving for her walk, I noticed the sunrise and got the camera for a couple of pictures, it was pretty darn cold out there in my PJ's and slippers.  The rest of the day was just as nice, but a little cold, in fact, there was still frost in the places the sun did not hit today when we got back from town.

After Vera's bible study, we headed down for my Protime check at Kaiser.  While we were there, we made dental, eye and doctor appointments.  Then we headed to Freddie's for lunch, Home Depot where part of our order was in and Fred Meyer's for gas and groceries before heading home.  I think the rest of the evening will be spent printing up a memorial book about one of our club members who passed away.  We are having a little event on Saturday for him.

Monday, Tuesday

Monday

I had big plans about putting up two cabinets today, then Vera reminded me about the club meeting in Centralia that evening.  I needed some materials for the 3 cabinets I am modifying, so we decided to leave early and go to the Chehalis Home Depot.  I did some measuring on the cabinets before we left so I would have a good idea what I needed.  After wandering around the lumber section for a while, I found what I wanted.  They cut it down to a size that would fit in the Blazer.  We still had plenty of time, so we had dinner at Applebee's.  The sirloin steak in their "Two for Twenty" is sure good.  We still had time after that, so we wandered around Walmart for 45 minutes or so.  The meeting had the biggest attendance since I have been in the club, 14 members were there.  When we got home, we settled into our recliners and watched Jeopardy and Dakar.

Tuesday

After a few false starts, I got started modifying the first cabinet.  I had a bunch of cardboard boxes from the cabinets stacked in the front room of my shop.  Every time I needed something, they were in the way!  After moving them 3 times, I finally cut them up and put then into the van to recycle.

I have always wanted an inspection scope for looking inside my planes and such!  I found an electronic one on sale the other day on Amazon and bought it. It came today and I had to charge it up so I could play with it looking inside the plane I am repairing. You know, that does not sound like much of a day, but it sure flew by. 

What a great weekend!

Saturday

We headed out bright and early Saturday morning for a Vancouver Home Depot to pick up the other cabinet for our laundry room, Longview did not have that sized one in stock, probably because I bought it last week for the kitchen.   Since it is right across the street from Costco, we planned on stopping there also, but first we ran to Harbor Freight so I could check out something we are looking at.  We got back to Costco just before noon, a great time as they had lots of food samples being given out.  We had a stuffed mushroom that was great, a sack of them came home with us.  We did not do much the rest of the day, I got my planes and the motor home ready for flying Sunday.  We watched some football and Dakar again in the evening.

Sunday

This was the best day of the weekend!  No clouds, no fog, no wind and lots of sunshine this morning.  I got to the field about 10 after having to go back for my cell phone.  I was the first one there, but others started arriving before long.

The mountains looked great all day!  We ended up with 8 members flying today and one guest flyer who is going to join.  I put a guy from Longview who is interested in radio control on the club trainer, he did great and it looks like he will be joining the club also.  I had the only mishap today, I took off with the transmitter on the wrong model and only one aileron was working.

I had the GPS telemetry unit in the plane recording on the laptop during the short flight.  The dotted line is my flight, it went toward the road, I managed to get it back and crashed where the red dot is at the bottom of the picture.  The heavy red line is me carrying it back to the benches.  It was a pretty soft landing, so I just have a few cracks to repair.

You can see that everyone is enjoying the sun, I did not pack up until about 4, so I got 6 good hours of flying in.

On the way home, I spotted a herd of elk in a pasture on Barnes Drive.  They were closer to the road, but by the time I turned the motor home around, got the camera out and stopped, the mist had thinned out and the elk had moved back further from the road.  Since I saw headlines about how the football games went today, I decided not to watch my recording and do this instead.

A change in plans

Taking out the cabinet this morning went so good I decided to attack the old pantry.  It went pretty well except for the top part of the wall,  I had to cut it up and take it out a piece at a time.  It was fastened from the top, down through the ceiling, I finally won the battle, but it took a while.  I was looking at the laundry room cabinets over the washer dryer and thought it would look nice if they matched, Vera was all for it.  I took some measurements and a standard size would fit, so I got online and ordered them.  We made a run down and picked them up this evening, so now I have something to work on until the new pantry shows up.  I even found time enough today to work on the Stinson, I got the servos installed and partly hooked up.  The cables to the rudder are fighting me like crazy, so I gave up and came in here.

More demolition!

I got another section of the cabinets pulled out today.  Tomorrow's project will be the cabinet on the other side of the stove and maybe the wall if I am ambitious.  I got the new batteries and RAM for my laptop (Vera's old one) today, the RAM really made it run a lot faster.  With two batteries in it, I can take it to the flying field and use it to record the telemetry information from my planes.  Winter Wipeout and the Dakar were a nice end to our evening.