The Plentiful Vintage

Talked to my dad tonight. He's doing a bit better. They have him doing some gentle exercises to rehab the shoulder, but he's still in some pain, and his right arm is useless, which is killing him. As he says, all he does at work anymore is talk on the phone and write, and now he can't write. OTOH, he's stopped wearing the sling, so there is progress. Or orneriness. Meanwhile, the lawn needs for mowing. Brother #2 lives closest, and would normally step in and help, but he's the one who crushed his foot in a motorcycle accident a month ago, and is looking at more surgery, and a six month rehab. When it rains, it pours. Fortunately, brother #1 is currently healthy (raps hand on wooden desk), and has offered to help. I'll probably go down for a visit in a couple weeks. More on that in a bit.

It was a pleasant weekend. ( The weekend and beyond... )

What a lovely day. This morning, looking out my kitchen window at the large patches of lawn visible amidst the remaining drifts while the sun shone on my face, it felt like spring. Yesterday was very much the same. The temperature helped, as it got up into the low fifties. Shirtsleeve weather! Well not really, but I was able to do things like go to the mailbox, replace an exterior light bulb, and haul stuff out to the truck without wearing a jacket. So nice.

The warm temps let me do a couple of repairs that I wouldn't have done if it was colder. The first thing was to replace the weather stripping on the side door so I don't have to keep stuffing athletic socks into the gap between the door and the jamb on cold days. I'd put the old foam stripping on it the first winter I was in the house, and another layer on top of that a couple years later (and that's all on top of the plastic stripping that is part of the door itself), so it all had to be peeled and scraped off. The old stuff was 1/8" thick, so 1/4" thick total. I replaced it with some 3/8" thick stuff. We'll see how wind proof that is. One good sign is that I now have to lean into the door a little to close it properly.

The next warmth related thing I looked at was my heating system. ( Fluid mechanics for beginners... )

Afterwards I did some straightening up, this time in the living room. I finally took all the Christmas stuff up to the attic, and since I was up there, I hauled a couple boxes of junk down from the attic and out to the truck so I can toss them. There's still a lot to be done up there, but at least I've gotten started.

I also did some online shopping. I've been working on a mix CD of songs about baseball, so I ordered a used copy of the soundtrack from the Ken Burns documentary. And I finally found a place that not only sells my favorite style of sneaker, the super-comfortable Etonic Trans-Am Trainer, but also had my size (12W) in stock. I found them at Bob's Store a few years ago, and loved them, but they eventually wore out. Bob's doesn't seem to carry them anymore, and I hadn't been able to find them elsewhere. I ordered them from shoeseeker.com, which I'd never heard of before, but it turns out the site is owned by the wife of the CEO of Etonic. Bookmarked!