The Plentiful Vintage

So, after not losing power during Sandy, the measly little nor'easter knocked power out for a couple of hours overnight. I happened to be partially awake and rolling over when it happened (around 1:30), so I saw the clock and night lights go out. Wouldn't have mattered if had been asleep because the UPS and smoke detectors started chirping to let me know what was up. I spent the next 15 minutes or so gathering a battery lantern, then turning off the UPS and disconnecting the first floor detectors to shut them all up*. Then I called the electric company to report the outage, and went back to sleep. I woke up again a couple hours later, and power was already back. So no harm done, and kudos to the electric company for fast work. I even got a nice call from the Grid checking to see if things were working again. The detectors are back where they belong.

* Actually, the detectors didn't shut up since there seems to be no way to stop the chirping until their capacitors run down or something. So I stashed them on the sofa underneath a blanket.

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We got maybe an inch of snow here, and it's already pretty much gone. However, the wind is still whistling past the side door pretty well.

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I've been watching Arrow and enjoying it. It's good to see both Harry Dresden and Colonel Mann getting regular screen time again.

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Still can't find the frelling drill.

As it started to get dark Wednesday night, I happened to glance out my front window at the truck and noticed that the right rear tire didn't look quite right. Closer inspection confirmed that it had lost quite a bit of pressure. Usually in these cases it takes time and a soapy sponge to locate the leak, but this time it was obvious. The head of a 2" drywall screw was sticking out of the sidewall at a 45° angle just inside of the tread. As it was getting dark, and since I didn't need to go anywhere, I left it for yesterday.

( Punctured... )
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( Speaking of Asbury Park... )
 

Two projects for the weekend: install the new dishwasher and replace the kitchen faucet. There's also one other mini-project, to glue the porcelain cap back onto one of the cabinet door pulls. I decided to start with the simpler of the two jobs, replacing the faucet. There was nothing wrong with the old faucet other than it being old, ugly, and not very easy to use with greasy fingers. Also, the sprayer rarely worked properly, usually only working when the water pressure was really low, which sort of defeats the concept. I wanted one of those shiny, new fangled jobs with the goose neck spout (like they have in chem labs). I bought a Peerless at Lowe's earlier in the week. Time to get to it.

( This should be simple... )

Man, was I ever stiff and sore when I woke up this morning.

Now for the dishwasher...

A pump has been obtained. Apparently the Depot was open all night selling freshly received pumps and other accoutrements. $242 later I have a sump pump, 2 x 25' of 1¼ tubing, and a shiny, new 9 gallon shop-vac.

The only hitch in setting up the pump was that they were out of the fittings needed to couple two 25' hoses together. (My side door turns out to be 26' from the bottom of the staircase.) They did have 2' long lengths of PVC pipe that I was able to clamp in between, so that's working, although is a little leaky. I've got the leak aimed out the door, so that's okay, too. Of course the side door is wide open, but it's not particularly cold out.

The big problem is that I have no sump, i.e., a hole in the basement floor into which the pump would fit to let the water cascade down atop it. The pump's intake is on the top, you see, so once the level gets down to an inch or so, it'll be useless. I suppose I could buy a million marbles and dump them on the floor to raise the water level, but that seems counter productive. And expensive.

So I bought a new shop-vac, which I've been looking for an excuse to do for a long time. There's nothing wrong with my old one. It was free and works fine, but it's louder than a frelling jet engine on afterburner. What I'll do after the present crisis is over is clean out the old one and save it for occasions like this, and use the new one in the shop. The other thing I'm going to have to do is somehow chop a sump out of the concrete floor. That should be good for a few laughs.

Hmmm, sounds like the pump is running out of water. Time to unpack the new vac.

Man, there's a lot of snow on the ground. Hard to tell because of driftage due to high winds, but in the flat areas it seems to be around 15" or so. Note that my little electric snowblower is rated to a depth of about 6" or so. Ahem.

Actually, it worked pretty well, all things considered. The snow was very light and fluffy, so I was able to take about a 4" wide slice out of the sides of the banks on each pass. It took awhile, but it got the job done. I did need to use a shovel to lower the bank left by the plow a couple of feet before switching back to the blower. It also reminded me to not park the truck all the way up at the top of the driveway next time so that I don't have to clean out the entire frelling driveway.

( Snowpocalypse 2009 Photos... )

Meanwhile, across the street, the father of the young lady who lives there showed up in a Bobcat to dig her out. Must be nice.

Bing Crosby and Danny F. Kaye can bite me...

Previously in the Plentiful Vintage: It rained for forty days and forty nights, and our hero had to shell out a lot of (fairly moldy) dough to get new tires and a battery for the Machinamobile. Also, it was air show week.

( Two weeks... )

So, I have new loppers, although not the ones I really wanted. The ones I had were pretty compact for loppers, only 18" long or so, similar to these. They were light, and in a pinch I could manage them one-handed. They also used Fiskars' "3X" gearing system for added leverage, which was a feature I liked. That's what I was looking for when I set out to get the new pair. Except no one had them. Not Wal-Mart; not the Depot; not Lowes. Oh, they all carried Fiskars, but only in the 27" size. (Wal-Mart did have these, but it was an anvil model, versus the bypass type (which are more like scissors), and they were made out of plastic rather than metal. No sale. BJ's had the Lop and Saw model, which were close to what I wanted, but I already have a saw, and they were way more expensive than plain old loppers. Amazon had the ones I wanted, but they would take awhile to get here. Then I noticed something on the Fiskars site. They have a lifetime warranty. It turns out I may be able to get mine replaced under warranty. That would be nice.

Meanwhile, however, I still needed a pair for right now. Knowing that I may be getting my smaller pair replaced, I went ahead and got a 27" pair at Lowes. They are heavier and more tiring to use than my old ones, but on the other hand, I can lop higher branches with them. They certainly work. Now I just need to contact Fiskars about the other pair.

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I have lots of crocuses already, even out by the cherry tree. Last year the cherry tree crocuses didn't start popping until the second week of April. That seems odd, because it hasn't exactly been warm this month.

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Today is my annual journey to Connecticut to eat ribs, drink beer, watch college basketball, and talk baseball, which makes it possibly the best day of the year ever.

February is so my least favorite month. It was brilliantly sunny this morning, giving me hope that I might be able to ride. Then the sun went behind the clouds, the wind kicked up, and the rain started falling. Now it's snowing. Feh. I did get out a couple times last weekend, so that's something.

I've been making all sorts of progress cleaning and organizing the workshop half of the basement. I'd really let things go down there, but it's looking a lot better now. Just one more corner to do. It's amazing how much sawdust can accumulate inside of a table saw. Not much in the way of projects going on, other than a couple of small repairs.

The organizing has led me to do quite a bit of rooting though old boxes, some very old. Going through my oldest toolbox was sort of like an archaeological dig, so I took some pictures. Here they are - Toolbox Archaeology.

So, we had our second snowstorm in four days, and thus I've been able to play with my midjit snowblower. It was quite a lot of fun Friday morning, when the snow was all fluffy, but less so this evening with about three inches of slushy mix on the ground. Still, it worked adequately even on that. It can't throw it very far to either side, but dead ahead works like a charm. It's all a matter of picking your angles.

I feel like I haven't accomplished much this weekend, but I've made four batches of truffle centers (raspberry, orange, mint, and coconut). Three more batches to go (dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and mocha), and maybe even some sugar-free for my mother if I can find sugar-free chocolate chips. Then I have to dip them all, but that's next weekend.

I also replaced the lamp cover in the range hood over the stove. There's never been one there as long as I've lived here, so the metal screen that's supposed to trap any grease in the smoke rising from the stove never did, since all the airflow just went through the opening where the cover should be. I assume it got broken one time, and the previous owner never bothered replacing it. It's the kind of thing that's easy to drop to the bottom of the priority list. It's out of sight and out of mind. I have occasionally looked for a replacement part at the Depot, but while they have replacement screens, they don't seem to carry the covers. It's just a piece of flat glass, so I picked up a piece of acrylic sheet, and cut it to fit the opening. Easy peasy. Seems to work fine. Should of thought of it years ago.

I still have some presents to put together, framed photos for various family members. I even had several candidate photos to convert into a Christmas card, but never got up the will to fiddle with that. I did put my wreath up, and brought down the electric candles for the windows, although they're still in their boxes. Still not feeling all that Christmassy.

Now I'm doing laundry, watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy on TV (very timely because I started rereading The Hobbit last weekend), working on some notes for a murder mystery, and thinking about making dinner.