Lots of small updates.

I haven't posted in forever, so I figured I would give a rundown of the last couple of weeks.  A lot of was dealing with snow.  I wasn't prepared for that much snow on the way back from Thanksgiving.

The house slid off quite well, as was the norm.  The polycarb sheds snow better than metal. This was taken a day and a half after the drive home. 


All over the previously cleared stairs of course.


I didn't get the whole driveway cleared for a week.  Just a very narrow bit to get up.  Turned out my head lamp was broken, so I was just doing a little bit before work every morning.  I didn't finish it until the following weekend.  The next day was all rain.  We got about an inch according to the weather.  It didn't melt everything off though. 


Right after the rain we got more snow (that was supposed to be rain).  After clearing this, I have now gone through approximately 15 shear pins already this year.


I did get the car out too.  I still need to finish cleaning it out so I can sell it. 


A bunch of small things since then: I got my HSA card finally so I can go get new glasses.  I discovered that I am out of checks.  I need to run to the bank tonight and tomorrow to get enough cash out to pay the septic loan this month since the new checks won't arrive before that bill is due.  I have gotten all my Christmas stuff done.  I ended up with another shaker from the Yankee swap at work (that matches my existing shakers), and the Bascom box (which I will bring down at Christmas) at the friends one. 


I even got myself a gift of a new game.  Everything works despite UPS leaving it out in the rain and ice all day.


We have been continually getting rain, so everything is clear now.  I also apparently need to do more turkey hunting. 


I have also noticed a problem with the heat pump.  When it goes from 50 and raining to cold, stuff freezes on the fan and makes a real racket.  It clicks when it runs, and sounds like it didn't survive percussion maintenance when it starts.  Fortunately it works despite the noise, but it has happened twice already this season, and both times it prevented me from getting a good night's sleep.  This video was taken at 3AM, thus being groggy. 

Unfortunately time is getting short now before leaving for KY for Christmas and I have a bunch of stuff to do tonight before it snows (we are supposed to get 4-6 late night).  I will probably take Thursday off since I worked a Dad week last week, and maybe leave early on Wednesday (work remotely for the morning and that is it) so I have time to get everything done before I leave.

29 hour nightmare drive.

So I was working with outdated information when I left on Saturday.  Originally the storm wasn't supposed to move into the northeast until late Sunday.  The plan was to leave Saturday night, wake up early on Sunday morning and be home early afternoon before the storm arrived.  That didn't happen.

The trip started off according to plan.  I got to Maryland around 1:30 AM and snoozed for a few hours and got up around 4 to 430 AM.  That was the last thing that went right.  It was clear when I got on US 220 (the road that goes between I99 and I68) that there was unexpected precipitation.  I was fortunate that I got into PA on 99 before things got worse.  The whole winter storm was pretty much ice in PA, and there were cars off the road or accidents every quarter mile.  I ended up averaging I would guess around 15mph across all of PA (it took 10-11 hours) because of crappy roads and accidents.  This was a common sight.


As was this.  He came from a fire truck at another accident a few hundred feet down the road (you can see all the cars were still single file).  There weren't enough first response vehicles available for all the accidents.  Most common was nobody available though.


At one point I stopped for a break.  The ice was quite thick.  My truck doesn't have LED bulbs, so thankfully the lights didn't ice up (more important later in the trip).  It wasn't quite that thick in this picture (this was around a quarter inch), but when I stopped after getting off the highway in VT, the ice on the front of the truck was almost an inch thick.  The hood (better representative of the precipitation) was at around 3/8" to at most 1/2"


After that I hit NY, which historically has been well plowed so I figured I would make up time there.  Ha.  In retrospect, NY had the best roads for the rest of the trip, but at the time I was extremely disappointed.  I87 was only moving around 40mph.  I90 towards MA wasn't cleared at all.

The Mass Pike was a trainwreck.   There is a long hill on I90 that is a couple of miles long.  There were a couple dozen cars that were sitting on the hill (going the opposite direction) that didn't make it.  Thankfully I was going down.  The Mass Pike was the beginning of "I don't know where the road, but thankfully I can still feel rumble strips when I get to the edge".
I took a video, but apparently the blogger website is broken and won't upload it.

As I approached I91, I figured it couldn't get worse.  I was wrong.  Parts of I91 were plowed, causing long traffic jams since MA apparently plows with the rigs side by side, and they don't actually drop the plow to the pavement, they left an inch plus on the road (I was literally directly behind them).  Worst of all is that they plow at 12mph.  Slower than just idling in my truck.  The spots that I wasn't behind plowtrucks were completely untouched.  Another interesting tidbit about MA is that they apparently plow their Scenic View lots before they plow their interstates.  Several of those had been cleared.

Then came VT.  VT has always been known for poor plowing, and they lived up to their billing.  At this point, there was around 8-12 inches on the interstate.  I had to drive the rest of the way with 4WD engaged.  When I entered VT there was a long line of traffic from the 12mph trucks in MA.  By exit 1, most of the line was gone.  By exit 2, there were only a couple of us still trying.  In an amusing anecdote, someone in a Honda Fit tried to get on the interstate at exit 2, which dumps you out on a hill.  They only made it off the acceleration ramp far enough to slide off the other side.  They made it literally maybe 500 feet.  I was the only vehicle that made it up the hill, and I am guessing that is only because I hit the base at almost 50mph, which is insane when you consider the road conditions and the fact that I could only see about 20 feet.  Something else that occurred to me as I crested the hill (going around 20 mph) is that I don't have a working flashlight or flares or anything in the truck, so if I hadn't made it there is no way to make the truck visible to plows.  I only saw one plow truck in VT going the other direction.

NH was bad, but after VT it was a breath of fresh air.  Route 9 to Keene had been plowed at least once and only had ~4-6" on it.  Hubbard and South road hadn't been touched, but that was actually a blessing in disguise since there was no bank at the end.


We had around a foot, maybe a touch less when I got home, so the bank would have hit the underside of the truck.


All in all, the return trip took 29 hours.  I left around 7PM on Saturday, and got home around midnight.  I slept for 3 hours in MD, and another hour to maybe an hour and a half in PA, so I spent literally over 24 hours on the road.  All things considered, while I am sick of sitting in the truck, I think it will suffice from a comfort perspective if I get a couple of cushions.

When I got up this morning we had around 16", and it was still coming down.  We got 2" while I snowblowed enough to get out.  As expected the bank at the end of the driveway was taller than the snowblower.  Another frustrating thing is that even with all the gravel I put down this year, I am still breaking shear pins at a breakneck pace.  I went through 6 of them this morning.  It is much easier to clear though without the ruts.

We were supposed to get 2-4 during the day and another 4-6 tonight so I will probably not bother with the driveway tonight.

More indoor stuff

I got some more interior stuff done Tuesday night.  The first thing I did was put a little bit more foam around the door.  Unfortunately the foam I got was too thick but I still got a layer in the corner, which was the really bad part.


I also got the side of the cabinet attached last night.  The glue didn't work worth a damn though, so we shall see how well this worked.


I also got the support for the shelf above the fridge installed.  I need to clean off the top of the fridge before I attach the shelf though.  Too much booze in the way.


Also, just as a reminder to me, I need to get my truck undercoated.  If I remember correctly, Tucker's is the guy that did the welding on my camper frame.  The work was fine, but he took forever to get it done.



I also started car searching in earnest last night.  I started at the Honda dealer.  The Accord doesn't look like it will meet my comfort demands.  I also stopped at the Nissan dealer.  There was still a sales guy there at 8 so I got to take one aroudn the parking lot.  While they have fixed a lot of my gripes and it has a lot of the niceties (remote starter, its actually an AWD, etc), it is narrower on the inside than the Geo.  Next up I stopped at Ford, who doesn't even stock Ford cars anymore (Ford is getting out of the car business though).  Next up was Hyundai.  Disappointingly they also only had one Sonata on the lot.  It had the same appearance as the others (large center console, steering wheel in the dash) but the car was locked.  I made an interesting observation there though, the Elantra (their compact) honestly looked like it was more comfortable.  The seat appeared to be the same as the Sonata, but because the car was smaller the console was very small.  Last up I checked Mazda.  Unlike the others, they had a whopping 2 mid-size cars on the lot.  The Mazda 6 actually looked like a decent car.  It had a big console (just like everything else) but the steering wheel looked right and all that.  I didn't bother to look at a Chevy (they have already-broken-down-Yugo rated reliability).  I couldn't remember where the Kia dealer was either. 

So that was disappointing.  Something that popped into my head as I was chatting with Mike though was why not just sell the car and drive my truck full time?  I don't really need two vehicles.  The benefit of the car is comfort, the car will never pay for itself based on superior gas mileage.  I calculated out that at 33mpg (most of the cars I looked at don't quite get that), I am looking at ~1200 in gas every year (I drive around 15k miles).  If I do that same driving in my truck (average of 15mpg) it runs me around 2500.  The car will take over 17 years to pay for itself (assuming a 23k car, which is among the cheapest I found.  The added wear and tear on the truck isn't really a negative (considering how much I love the design of the truck) and if I were a betting man I would guess the truck rots away before it breaks down at this point anyways; it is already 9 years old, has never been undercoated, and has less than 100k on it.  That allows me to redirect the 8-9k I have saved for a down payment to something like the septic loan or my mortgage, plus whatever I get for selling the car.   

I went up to the Honda dealer today at lunch and sat in one of their show models, and it wasn't as bad as it looked.  They do have telescoping steering wheel (their website doesn't actually list it) and was wider than it looked, with one fatal exception: they added an additional cutout thing that goes directly into my kneecap for the start button.  Remembering the Hyundai experience from last night, I also sat in a Civic.  It was smaller, but more comfortable than the Accord.  The model on the floor though was a Sport Coupe though, so I would have to see if a regular Civic is the same way.  I want to do more research on it too.  I plan on visiting the Hyundai dealer this afternoon, and the Kia dealer (I want to look up their models first though)

Winter is here.

The LAN party was last weekend, which was a lot of fun.  I slept outside for it (I snore a lot), but it was kind of chilly.  The first night, it was around 12 degrees (according to my phone anyways), and when I woke up I was cold.  I was planning on sleeping outside this weekend down at Krass for the friendsgiving, so I might want to up the gear I bring a bit.  I was not so smiley when I woke up.


With the cargo netting on the bed holding quite well (I added hooks to it to allow to me to close it up better) I finished cleaning off the broken cart that was by the door, so my chair is now inside.  The space was tighter than I expected.  Eventually the table will be attached to the side of the pantry as well in this spot.


It was quite pretty out last night with the moon illuminating the snow.  I tried to take some pictures of the snow with my phone, but it turns out my phone has some weird lights it uses, I guess for focusing?  I didn't think those were normally visible though, I always assumed they were either ultrasonic or infrared. 


I grabbed another picture this morning.  There isn't quite as much as there was yesterday (yesterday the ground was solid white).  The snow has survived a couple of days now, but I don't think it will make the week. 


I also went to Bob's Garage for fixing the Nissan.  They are actually less than a mile from my old apartment; I never went there because frankly the place looks really sketchy, but Greg gave him a good recommendation.  I stopped in at lunch yesterday and set him up to tow the Nissan in and fix it.  I got it back today, and I have to say that I will definitely be going back.  The whole repair was only 407 dollars.  Of that, the towing was 100 (which is a fairly standard rate), and 220 for the part (which is pretty average for a mass air flow sensor).  The service was prompt; I went over at lunch on Tuesday, and he had the car on the lift and knew what was wrong by the end of the day and had ordered the part.  Most importantly though, he did what Dube's and Nissan of Keene had been failing at for a few years now: the check engine light is off and the car is actually fixed.  On the way back today the car is running better than it has in quite a long time, though the octane booster and ethanol fixer stuff I put in the tank trying to start it might have something to do with that.  I will be taking the car the next few days and probably this weekend to NYC, so I will evaluate whether a new car is still a necessity before Thanksgiving or not.  If the finances work out, I still intend to buy a new one before Christmas. 

Indoor projects.

I started working on a few indoor projects this week.  The first of which was making the panel in front of the sink open and shut so I can eventually hang a basket on it.  One of the hinges is a little crooked, but it is installed and opens and closes, and the spring to hold it closed it installed.




I also got some rails cut for more shelving.  I went to install it and realized that I never installed the side panels for the cabinets, and didn't have any construction adhesive to do so last night.  I stopped by Home Depot at lunch and grabbed some liquid nails which ought to do the trick. 


I also dry fitted the vent extension.  Every once in a while when the wind is blowing the right way, I can still smell sewage in the house, so this ought to take my wall vent and exhaust it above the roof like a normal vent would.  For some reason I bought two couplers and not two elbows, but I got the last elbow during today's Home Depot run.


I will also find out this evening if the cargo net worked.  So far so good.  It is stretching more than I would have liked, but nothing fell out yet except the open box of tissues.  When I put the bed up tonight I will know for sure.


My car is confirmed dead.  I tried putting some dry gas and stuff in it to see of it was maybe just water in the gas, but it still wouldn't start, so I need to get it on a dolly and get it to a repair shop.  It stinks having to spend several hundred dollars just to trade it in, but I don't feel like dropping the fuel tank and stuff in my driveway.  Since the car has so many electrical systems, I can't tell if the fuel pump starts when you turn the ignition on, but the fuel pump is my assumption at this point.

I am going to the LAN this weekend, so no work will be accomplished.

The cold finally won.

As noted, the weather has been chilly the last several days, and I found the house getting steadily colder and colder, and yesterday it never breached 55 inside, so I finally caved and turned on the heat.  It smelled terrible at first but but eventually cleaned itself out without lighting anything on fire.


I also got the cargo net installed.  We shall see how well this works.  It is another storage mechanism I decided to try.


I got my tax bill the other day as well and something astonishing happened: my property taxes went down.  They went down a lot.  My tax rate went from 33 per thousand down to 22. 

Chilly weekend

Yesterday was chilly.  I did get some work done on the house though.  I went and picked up Greg's ladder in the morning, and got the window in the front cut out.  I got the window itself caulked back in as well.  I got the 1x4 cut for the top and bottom.  Two problems arose though: the bottom board needs to be thinner, it isn't below the drain for the window sill in the window, and because of the cold the caulk took hours to cure.  So I didn't get them installed.  Tim has a planar and a jig for his table saw to make boards thinner, so I will be headed over there this afternoon.  Kind of a bummer, since I was hoping to complete it this weekend, but oh well.


I also stopped by the quarry to pick up the gravel to finish the drainage ditch, but apparently they are off their summer hours and weren't open.  Looking at the drainage ditch though, I am still thinking about running the pipe all the way down to the creek though.  We have gotten a lot of rain the past week, and the part I never filled in was full.  There was still active draining going on too.  I could see water draining out of the pipe and running in.


So instead I got some other winterization stuff done.  I got the hose taken off and drained.  I also got the spicket drained.


The hose itself is now drained (it is easy when you live on a hill) and wound up.

Tacos and photos

So I finally got around to posting the pictures from the wedding last weekend.  I didn't get many good ones, I didn't meander around enough and didn't have a lot of good angles.  The photos from the wedding can be found here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3Q16Pt5GEyBDC5XeA

So the camera wasn't a complete waste.  While I was a little disappointed with how the low light pictures came out (I didn't realize that the ISO settings on the camera were limited), most of the shots were very good.  I didn't get out leaf peeping this year (the third thing I wanted the camera for) so I ended up 1 for 2, since I forgot the camera before the other wedding. 

Tuesday some friends from work and I went and did a taco challenge.  Margarita's has a challenge where if you eat a 2lb taco in one sitting that they give you a free taco every week for a year.  It wasn't a problem.  You'll have to forgive my phone for not being able to figure out the white balance.


Mine was down in under 10 minutes.

Ouch, brakes are expensive.

My truck went in for brakes and a battery today.  Ouch.  The battery is replaced too.  It all came to 850 dollars, and they only rebuilt the front brakes.  The fronts are completely rebuilt though, new calipers, rotors, pads, hardware, etc.  Hopefully this will alleviate having to work on them every couple of months.

The battery is smaller than I like, only a 600CCA, but it was the only one of the right style that he had in stock that would fit my truck.


I don't think the Nissan will make spring without more work, there is an exhaust leak starting to develop, and the car is getting noisier.  The rate of incidents with the transmission is starting to increase too, so I think I will probably be buying a new car this fall instead of next spring. 

While there is no chance of me completing the checklist at this point, this was one of the items on the checklist.

1. Propane
2. Smooth the yard.
3. Install Drainage.
4. Finish driveway repairs.
5. Fix the weed whacker.
6. Fix the push mower.
7. Fix the generator.
8. Replace the battery in the truck.
9. Refurbish the utility trailer.
10. Extend/insulate the front wall to prevent pipes from freezing.
11. Fix the power pole.
12. Build a lean to for equipment.
13. Clean the crap out of the shed.
14. Install windows in the shed.
15. Install power and lights in the shed.
16. Put in actual pilings for the shed.
17. Extend the roof on the shed to prevent snow from pushing on the side.
18. Paint the house.
19. Paint the shed.
20. Paint the ceiling of the house.
21. Burn the pile.
22. Get rid of the scrap metal.
23. Bury the power cables.
24. Install outside outlets at the panel.
25. Setup entertainment center
26. Build a real closet so I can hang clothes.
27. Install curtains and shelves.
28. Install trim.
29. Install a table in the house.

That time of year again.

We have hit the point of the season where it is dark when I go and when I get back, so I won't be doing too much during the week anymore, and my weekends are largely booked up until after Thanksgiving, so blog posts will start to become more scarce.  I have also been having problems getting dry weather.  We haven't had two days of dry weather in weeks.  I would really like to get the siding up and all that before winter, but it is at least sealed if I can't. 

D'oh! Nice traveling weekend.

So for starters, the d'oh is because I went to the lengths of borrowing a camera for the wedding I went to last weekend, and ended up forgetting some critical pieces at home.  I also forgot my invitation for the wedding which was kind of obnoxious.

Because of that, I didn't take too many pictures; most of the places I went to I have seen or posted pictures of before.  The only exception being Watkins Glen (which I have been to before, but the gorge trail was closed due to flooding last time).

Friday I went to Syracuse.  I was a little surprised to see that most of the trees in Syracuse hadn't turned yet.  Vermont was in peak foliage; the drive across the Molly Stark was beautiful.  But I went for a hike around Green Lakes in the morning and most of it was still green.


There were only a couple of hints of color, and you had to look for it.


The water levels at Green Lakes didn't seem low.  The brook was as lively as ever.


Round lake was also very peaceful.


I also visited Chittenango falls, but didn't get any good pictures.  The parking lot was closed for repairs, so I just failed at taking pictures as I drove by.

Saturday was the wedding.  I went and visited a couple of wineries while I was out there.  Unfortunately Bellangelo no longer makes the wine I liked the best, which was a

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Gewürztraminer and Riesling mix, but I still picked up a couple of bottles while I was there.  

Fortunately I remembered how to tie a tie.  


The wedding itself was in a gorgeous spot overlooking Canandaigua Lake.

Sunday was gorgeous, and I went to visit Watkins Glen since most of it wasn't open the last time I went.  Here are a few pictures, but I will upload the full set as an album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/gSgp85PD4yxWKmLo9













I also went to stop at the Yancey's Fancy Cheese store on the way home, but apparently got the wrong place and went to the factory, not the store.  Since it was mid afternoon at that point, I bailed.  Maybe another time.  

Poof! Vanish without trace

So I spent the last couple of days trying to locate the sewer smell source, and came up empty.  The smell went away and hasn't come back. 

My theory was wrong, I crawled underneath and all the pilings were still on.




I checked every inch of pipe that I could find.  It also came up empty.


The only plausible explanation at this point is that it wasn't a broken pipe, it was a consequence of poor vent design.  My plumbing vent is less than a foot from the exhaust vent for the bathroom, so I bought the piping and everything required to make an actual stand pipe and have it exit the wall and go above the roof (which is what code actually requires). 

Other than that, I have gotten ready for the wedding, making sure I can find some of my dress clothes (I still haven't found my dress shoes).  I also made the applesauce.


It is all ready for Thanksgiving.  I might make another small batch.


I didn't realize when I went to make it that one of my pots (I have another) is pretty much toast.  This used to be teflon coated.