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WEEK 42 2020
Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week
Saturday - Just relaxing. This week took it out of me for some reason.
I'm working my way through Toll's TOTG, it's 800 pages or so. Gonna take a while.
The full sized (20") steel rim for the spare on the Ram arrived. So now I need to get the tires sorted for it.
Late in the day I happened to check the local astronomy club: and it was their Dark Sky Observing Night at Red Rock Canyon! Tempted to jump in the truck and head out there...but I' m just beat.
Friday - Warmish.
I went a put a few hours on wire brushing and sanding the peeling paint on the west trim. In places it is peeling off, other places it is sticking. Tedious work. Took a good half day.
Since I wasn't painting I could wear my good boots, so no issues there (except for the splinter in the right sole).
Made some whack-em-on-the-counter biscuits. I carefully use a spoon to pop the tube these days, but it's still nerve wracking.
Thursday - Hot.
Too tired and sore to do anything, really.
Somehow I've picked up a sliver or cactus needle in the middle of the sole of my right foot, right in the longitudinal crease. Nothing is sticking out for tweezers to grab, it's just red and sore. Bah.
Wednesday - Hot again.
Today's chore was painting under the eaves on the north-west part of the house. This didn't get done last year because birds were nesting in the eaves when we came around with the spray gun. So it was about four hours with a 3" brush and a ladder. The old paint was mostly gone, so it really sucked up the new stuff. I had to put tarps up to keep the paint off the tan shiplap.
I was hot, tired, and sore by the time I got done in early afternoon, despite taking 4 ibuprofen beforehand. I took a shower and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.
I wanted to go out and star gaze, but my feet hurt a lot. I had expected back and shoulder and hand issues, but I had worn my old boots and four hours on a ladder was just too much I guess. Worn thin and not a lot of support. Ow.
That said, there are spots where the paint is falling off the front trim around the bay windows, so I'll probably scrape and sand and paint that on Friday.
I'm not really complaining, BTW, that's just the way it goes when you are my age. The trick is to manage things so that you can keep proceeding. That's why it was stupid of me to hurt my back a few weeks ago when starting the walkway project. I knew better, and could have stopped at any time, and didn't.
Tuesday - Hot again.
I didn't do much - very tired from yesterdays exertions in the morning and staying up late to sky gaze.
Paid the water bill at the office, went into town and picked up some paver base things and some weed block to put under them. I forgot to get chicken wire though, to ameliorate the gopher and ground squirrel problems.
The 2x Barlow arrived, pretty much the last piece of telescope kit I had ordered.
I'm working my way through Ian Toll's "Twilight of the Gods", the third in the series on naval war in the Pacific in WW2. So far not as interesting as the first two books, but it's 800 pages, so plenty of time for the plot to advance...
Budd caught and killed a lizard in the garage, left it in front of the door to the kitchen. Mostly intact, he didn't try to eat it this time.
Monday - Hot, but OK.
The plan was to work on the walkway around the south side of the house. But I got distracted by the sad state of the trim paint on the corner of the house, and decided to "touch it up" now instead of waiting until there were brand new pavers in place under it. At a touch of a wire brush vast areas fell off.
So I prepped that, then painted it, then prepped and painted the trim around the garage door which was also bad, then the fascia over the garage, which was a bit dingy... At which point it was 1pm and hot, 92F, so I knocked off.
This happened last year, and the year before: the last couple of weeks of October seem to be good painting weather. Warm enough that you can start early, not too hot so the paint doesn't dry on the brush as it does mid-summer, and not much wind early.
In the evening I took the 5se out and observed for a while. I tried the 3-star alignment, and then told it to look for Saturn...and it didn't work. Not sure what was going on, but rather than mess with computers (the whole point was a hobby that didn't involve them!) I just pointed it at various bright objects, Jupiter, Saturn, even Mars in the eastern sky. Very sharp and clear, up to just under 100X, then very soft.
Not very good seeing any nights yet. I need to get up early and try things out...but I don't think anything but Venus is visible then and you can't see any detail on that at any time, just clouds. Maybe an old moon?
Sunday - Hot.
No shopping in town, but I'm set, kind of, for the rest of the week..
S has delivered the TV to her mother, and spent hours upon hours dealing with the insanely stupid AT&T phone people for her as well. "We will send your activation code to the device that we just deactivated!" Horrible, horrible, horrible. They make Verizon look good they are so bad.
BTW, the trick to getting Gimp to be able to access the photo's is to blow it away, and reinstall. At the first access OSX will ask if it should be trusted, you say "yes", and you are good. Until the next version of OSX I suppose, because this is what I did last time.
The photo below is proof it works.
