Attic insulated

The insulation guys just don't have time to come out here to Andrew, and if they came for just our small job there would be a $200 transportation charge, which is understandable, they are coming from Camrose. Very soon you won't be able to get a 2wd truck into the back yard, so I had no choice but to do it myself. I got 50 bags, and a blower on my truck, hired a local kid, it was going to be easy.
Well the local kid didn't show up, so I called him at 10am, and woke him up. He said he would be rite over. Then I had to call him again at noon, when he still wasn't here. He said, "well, your only paying me $15 an hour, and it will prolly only take 2 hours, its not even worth me coming over for that." I told him I had $50 for him and that still wasn't good enough, he said he would be rite over if I gave him $70, lil bastard. So I agreed. Then he comes over and he's all talkin about feeding the machine slow, and I am like, "I am paying you $35 an hour at this point, you are going in the attic" I was kinda pissed, that he had said he would come, and then just pulled that "I want more money, a lot more money" on me.
We got it all done in 2 hours and he went home.
I am lighting the first fire of the year today, I wonder if it will heat the house much faster?

I found a solution to my Lenovo sound card issue. Was actually from a windows media trouble shooting suggestion. My Lenovo won't even play DVDs silently, as it has a sound card warning, it just says there is a problem w the sound device, and won't play. But I found a USB sound card that might work. I ordered one on Ebay for about $6 I really hope it works, then I don't need to buy a new computer yet.

My truck had another suspension air bag rub through and leak, now it sits all crooked with one bag inflated. They don't contact when they are inflated all the way, but then when they are deflated they rub, and perhaps with a big load on the truck they squish out and rub even worse. Maybe I will have to make new mounts for em. I will have to get on that if I want to tow the camper anywhere.

Looking at houses in Victoria, we can't seem to agree on much. We will have to go to the bank and see what we can get for financing. I am not really excited to move to an apartment, so we are trying to avoid that, and looking for a house we can buy.

More talk about Mexico, and bringing the camper down there. That would be an immediate solution to having a place to stay. So we might do that, and leave the camper on the lot in Porta Vallarta. If that was the case, I would leave a week or two before Michelle, in the truck and trailer. Then probablly stay a week after her too.

Its hard coming up w entertaining photos daily

Nothing new and exciting to report. I took an impressive load to the dump today, but I am sure everyone is sick of seeing my poor truck all over loaded.
I find the dump entertaining, seeing all the stuff people throw away. Both our washing machine and drier have failed us now, and were headed for the dump today. Drier first, I did a quick autopsy, to find what caused flames to shoot out the front of the machine and burn up the controls. I found excessive lint on the heater element, had caught fire. Unfortunately the controls were too burnt to bother with.
Then the washing machine. I had already repaired the washing machine once, as the inlet filter was clogged w random scale and bits. Now the problem was the drain cycle, we just get the "locked rotor" buzz, and the water sits there in the machine. We have decided to reclaim the laundry room for spa type space now, with the hot tub, and massage table in there, instead of washer drier, laundry and such. So this washer is going somewhere, whether it is to someone else, or the dump, I had thought the water pump would make a great circulating pump for a hot water heating system too. I found great access to the pump from underneath, and a great big access port, w no tools required to open the pump rite up. Only to find the same culprit, a great big wad off lint, stuck in the pump impeller. So the washer didn't go to the dump. Wile at the dump I jumped off my truck tail gate onto the flat ground and my knee bent the wrong way, causing me the most pain I have ever been in. After sitting down for a wile I unloaded the last of the stuff and went home for a hot tub. My knee has never felt as good as it did in the hot tub, it was nice. It is a little swollen now, and won't go strait, I am walking w a cane, but a tenser bandage will make a huge difference. I do this about once every year or 2, but its never been from a jump, usually just stepping the wrong way. I think I need to start riding a bicycle again to bring the muscle back to my legs.

I had a hysterical time making up a face book profile for our puppy "Gus Gus Smith", because he is so quarrky. He like sorts his kibble into different colors and eats the red ones first. I had to lie and make him 18 cause apparently 2 month olds aren't allowed to have a face book account. Then I just couldn't stop laughing as I invited Michelle to "be my friend" as Gus Gus, I thought it was all hysterical. I have to find more ways to make myself laugh like that.

My jobs are coming along good, they will be boarding the Vegreville house early next week, and they will be painting the Edmonton house rite now prolly done on Friday. Friday I will most likely go to Edmonton and put plugs on and finish wiring the basement and garage there. Same thing in Vegreville but a weekish behind, and a much bigger house. Once they are both sold I am sure Larry has some fun new projects up hi sleeve, but he won't talk about them, cause it distracts from the current projects.

I had a brief worry about this hot tub, "what am I going to do with it when I sell the house?". That was solved so randomly. Because the "current" plan is to "rent to own" our house out to somebody w bad credit, in 9 months, when Michelle is done at te school. So I am on the job talking to the dry waller, telling him how great the hot tub is I just got. He says, "Yeh rite on, me and the wife plan on getting one in a year" Sold rite there, done deal. I don't want renters to have it cause they will turn it into a wave pool, having sex in it or something, rot the whole laundry room floor out and walk

I broke down and got a cell phone. just starting out w the most basic plan, but that will have to change quick, as I pretty much used all my min the first day, calling the gas company to mark their lines so we could dig, and the insulation guys to come do my attic. Plan is to master the cell phone internet, and get rid of this stupid expensive air card for my computer. I got a motorola version of the "Keybo" cell, so I have a full keyboard and all, really liking it. Michelle is having "hello kitty" cell phone drama. She needs to get a real phone. I don't know my # yet, only that it starts w 780-887-xxxx, so if you get a call from that # its prolly me.

I feel way behind on my electrical jobs, since I went to Victoria for 2 weeks. Back to 10 hour days for a wile.

1200km home and all I broke was a strap, then backing the truck into the back yard w the bikes on it I broke my fancy chopper mirrors, w the fancy LED signals, under the pine tree, cause the branches were too low. Oh well its all replaceable.

I pushed Michelle around on the lil red bike and she loves it. I haven't tried to start any of the bikes yet, I've been too busy playing catch up for my boss essentially. That is the contractor that I do all the electrical work for.

Kim's old fire place is much bigger than ours, which is what we wanted, but it looks too big for the hearth that the lil one sits on presently. So for the trouble of building a new hearth and new chimney pipe, I am just going to put the big fire place in the office, or get new glass for the second small one, and sell the big one, I don't know. The big one might even be over powering for my man cave / office.

I got the tig welding kit for my new inverter welder, which is very exciting. But now it looks like I have to buy C02 or Argon, not sure which, the instructions that came with it say "where safety gear". I opened all the unadulterated boxes to see if mine was missing something, but they were all the same. If I find the time I will cut some sheet metal and weld new fender lips on the ol dodge.

Hot Tub

Not a very good pic, but this is the hot tub crammed onto the stucco part of the laundry room/mud room, where the old Barrel stove used to be. We got it in place the same night I got in, and the idea was to fill it from the hot water tank and have a hot tub rite away, but it emptied the hot water tank and took a lot of cold water as well, so it wasn't really warm enough. Michelle got up extra early and had a rushed hot tub before she left for work in the morning though. I even got in the tub tonight w a cold beer, and it was glorious.

I am very happy about the bikes being here, even though I will probably haul them back to Victoria in the spring, at least I can have them all fixed and polished, ready to ride. I feel like I haven't done anything really creative since I moved to Alberta. I feel like my electric bike especially is a masterpiece of engineering genius. My chopper too,and I got a lot of positive comments on the chopper, at the ferries and gas stations, on the trip out. A gas jockey even wanted to buy it from me.
Making my truck run on fryer fat, and building wood strip kayaks from construction 2x4s all ripped down were all very creative and exciting projects. Only the Kayak was with a friend in Victoria, so I can't blame Albertans. I think it is the old house that I always need to work on, and the fact that we drive so much and I always need to do maintenance on the vehicles. I need to fix my bikes up and then come up with a new exciting project. I don't think I will even bother w the 650 chop if we go back to Victoria in the spring.

Back in Alberta

I made it back w no real incidents. Had to wait 3 hours for the ferry, as the three oclock filled almost 2 hours early. One tie down broke, but nothing fell out. I ran over 2 deer, but I am sure they were already dead. I weighed my truck in at the scales. I don't really understand what GAWR means but my GAWR front is 1452kg, and rear is 1633. I think thats the maximum weight. I got 1550 front and 2190 rear. So I wasn't too far over. Now I just need to unload it all.

Computer battery rant

Lil video of Gus, cause he is so cute.

I have bought 2 mini lap tops now, thinking that the batteries would last the advertised 6-9 hours, but they don't at all. They only last 1/3 that time at 2-3 hours, so I returned them both. The second one I specified that it was coming back if I couldn't get just 4 hours, 2/3 its 6 hour rating. I asked if there was anything special I needed to do. It only lasts 1/3 of its rating with no accessories plugged in nor turned on, just typing a document. Unless you dial the screen contrast down to the minimum, as I read in my internet searches for the truth. Laptop battery life is a farse.

I got 20mpg in the truck for the trip to Victoria, which is amazing, and that is on propane, so its a cost of 30mpg in gas.

New bike

This is a 1977 Yamaha Special I traded the ol 67 Kawasaki dirt bike, that I had to fix more than I rode, and the ol 70's sled that didn't work very good. This bike has low km's, really good compression, and is ready to ride, with some front brake work. But I am going to hack it all up, and weld it back together into something unrecognizable. It had better be unrecognizable, cause Dave loves these old bikes and made me promise not to cut it up. He actually gave me an older "dump treasure" frame to hack up, that takes the same motor. That way I can keep one original, ha ha.

It is crazy hot out here today, and yesterday, loving it. I only have a thermometer in the house, where I come to cool off. Well its 27 deg Celsius in the house.