Snow Has Finally Stopped

The pressure is on to get stuff done before I fly out Saturday.
I actually left at six am this morning, dispite previous vow not to do that in the winter.  Plus two Celsius, and raining, you would think the well salted roads were great.  Intersections were horrific.  Stopping for a red light, and brakes have virtually no effect.  This is where my thousand dollar van shines, I just steered into the six foot snow bank beside the road and scrubbed my speed off.  I still haven't checked to see if I damaged anything, don't think so though, and best of all I didn't rear end anyone.  I had the pleasure of watching a Neon slide rite in under a big truck today in front of me at another red light after my near miss.  She could have steered into the center snow bank, but opted for the full lock up no control skid.

I took the plasma cutter out to the Andrew duplex, previously jail, today.  The plan was to cut out the old steel beam that held the bars and jail door, it has no place in a house.  But my compressor, the really "good" dewalt compressor, blew a line 4 times.  It is not meant for continuous duty i guess.  I have no more compressoin fittings in Andrew to repair it, so I had to abort the mission.  They will have to frame around it now, cause I am practically on a plane to Mexico.  I also said I would do it for way too cheap, I didn't realize a lot of it was one inch thick.

Snow is causing public commercial buildings to collapse in Edmonton.  I am sure lots of homes are collapsing too, but not making news.  Ice damning is causing many homes to leak, two of the older homes I work on are leaking bad.  People are making a fortune removing snow from roof tops.  I totally love the steel roof I put up in Andrew, the snow just slides off.  If anyone is looking for a good roof pitch, greater than 30 degrees slides the snow off pretty quick.

Generator Fail

The work under my vehicles is building up.  I feel too old to slide under them these days, specially in the snow.  The $1800 lifts I found are like $800 plus duty to ship, that makes them too much money for me.  So a pit it is.  I haven't looked at renting a mini hoe yet, cause I don't really have anything to tow it.  But I know Dave rented one, hired his goons to operate it, and it fell in the pit, causing some $2000 damage.  For $2000 I can buy all the parts to build the trailer hoe.  With that John Deer tractor "I can have" I would be able to build a hoe for about $600, but a lot of work.  Every avenue I look at is like $2000, but I am doing this somehow, and don't want to spend 10% of the shop purchase price doing it.  With that message out there, the neighbor to the south, that I have never met, drives his bobcat by, cleaning the side walk.  I stopped to chat with him for a wile, another super nice fellow.  Can a bobcat dig a pit?  Hell yeh, he wants to dig it for me for $100.  That is too good to be true.  I want it 4' wide, the full 18' long, and 5-6' deep.  His machine is 5' wide, so thats the narrowest it can dig, but thats perfect with 6" retaining walls.  I can't wait!  I'll be welding up the VW floor pans, making Voyager shift linkage, bleeding brakes, doing oil changes, inspecting things.

Speaking of inspecting things.  I thought today, the Astro van must need a new oxygen sensor, with its horrific 17mpg.  But doesn't the check engine light come on with that?  I had to really look for the check engine light.  You know what I found?  A piece of black electrical tape over the very bright and always illuminated check engine light.  Sneaky buggers.

We found the seat sale we were looking for to Mexico, $400 return, late friday night.  We should have booked one ticket, but we waited till Monday, to try the Avion air miles.  The air miles got us a one way ticket and a return ticket.  Finally my $100 a year credit card is good for something.  But the return ticket cost $500, of which I had enough avion points to pay $100 of.  So still out $400 for a ticket that was $200 2 days prior.  We're leaving Saturday, the 29th, I return on the 9th, and Michelle on the 24 I think.

I don't do much exciting these days, besides work.  This is todays video.  Don't get me wrong, I love this little generator.  I am still in disbelief, that it runs for 8+ hours on $4 of fuel.  It will only really run one tool at a time, and you have to limit the thickness that you cut or drill.  I want to get a smaller inverter generator, just cause this one takes up so much room in my van.  I can get an inverter genny half the size and twice the watts.

Full Timer

I am working full time 5 days a week.  The pace isn't too much, no body is really pushing.  I turned down a house rewire, the other day.  The owner didn't like the price, wanted it for less.  I need to start w a high price so I can afford to give deals, but I always blurt out something totally reasonable.  Then I was sick for 2 weeks, got back to work and just said I don't have time any more (for that one job).  I felt like I was 2 weeks behind wile I was sick, but really everybody is behind.  The poor Glenora house still doesn't have a roof.  They have had to shovel snow out of the 3000 square foot, 2 million dollar home, about a dozen times.

Anyway I have had one customer find me on the internet.  That was months ago, and I have been saying since then that I should really update the possumelectric.com blog.  Today I made a video for Permit Pro, so I put that on the possumelectric.com blog, and you can check it out at... possumelectric.com.  This did pass our electrical rough in.  

If you want to add Possumelectric.com to your favorites in your browser, I do believe that will help its search engine ratings, although it already dominates on the first 10 positions in Google if you search possum electric. No other small electrical company I have searched even shows up in the top 10 PAGES of Google under their name.   I just need to figure out what the big money is searching for when they need electrical work done.

$250 Fine For Using Your Remote Starter

This is such a needed message to get out there, but 30 seconds?  If your car is caught idling for more than 30 seconds in Edmonton you get a $250 fine.  This isn't like speeding where just some people speed, this is everybody in Edmonton, 750,000 plus people warm up their cars in the morning.  I don't know one person without a remote starter, and again, can't think of one person that hasn't gone past the 15 min warm up/shut down, in my presents, and had to hit the remote starter a second time.

I just see dollar signs.  If you don't want to move to the country, where you can do whatever you want, I will install an in car heater for less than the cost of a single ticket.  Keep in mind, almost everyone paid $400 to have a remote starter installed at the dealer.   For $200 I will put a small hole and grommet in your fire wall, with a $3 Noma cord passing through.  The male plug will pop out of your hood with the block heater cord, where we put a $0.99 three way plug, so you can plug both in at once.  Then in you cab the cord is neatly tie wrapped up behind the dash with just the female end exposed.  For the winter months you can plug the heater of your choice in to the Noma plug, just behind your dash.  Place the heater anywhere you want, my favorite spot is on the center console pointed at the steering wheel.  Now plug your car in to a timer programmed to come on 2-3 hours before you leave.  Blam, you get in a warm car, with a virtually warm engine, having both been warmed up electrically.

Even if I explain all this on Kijiji, very basic, less than an hours work, I guarantee there will be people that want me to do it.  Its like people don't want to do things for themselves.  I don't really have time, but I could probably do up one or 2 in the evening.  I spent like another $20k on my visa, since we last tried getting "free tickets" to mexico on my avion miles, so we are going to try that again to get away for a week.
I haven't done anything w my dune buggy, but I get excited every time I think about it.

More Snow

I should have some pictures of the weather.  IT'S STILL SNOWING.  I need a new snow mobile, my 250 Everest doesn't move in this 3-4' powder.  I am very disappointed in the machine.  I used to take it through the back yard in Andrew to make foot paths, but it keeps getting stuck.

Here is a stupid vid of the strange brown ooze all the habitated homes on my street seem to be plagued with.  But only on the East sides.  Very strange.  If anyone knows what is causing these icky brown icicles, please tell me.

Edmonton Motorcycle Show

We went to the motor bike show on Friday.  It seemed a bit ridiculous with the snow.  I had to add a quick vid o the back yard.  It was ladies night, they were giving away a green Ninja 250, would have matched my sport bike.  But Michelle didn't win, She did get to sit on this dragster in the photo, which was worth the admistion.   

The show inspired my chopper interests.  Chopper prices have really come down, you can pick up a fully decked out radical registrable chopper for $35k these days, rite from the show.  I am still sure I can make my Honda chop within a similar budget of my $1000 Yama chop of a decade ago.  I am inspired to work on it, just as soon as I can dig it out of the lean to.

Somebody really pissed off mother nature.  It hasn't stopped snowing for 10 days.  So if that was you, you just need to apologize rite now and get this may-ham to stop.  I have stopped leaving the house early.  Seems like most of the black ice is gone by 9 or 10.  I have seen some really messed up accidents every morning.  My favorite was this morning.  A slight up hill for a merge off the highway, with a traffic light.  A transport truck just got through the intersection, so he blocked all directions, and was stuck.  With cars rite on his tail, and backed up for a mile, withing 10 min.  He was just spinning out, with no room to move anywhere but forward.  Sux to be that guy.

Failures Of Winter

We've been waiting for the home stay woman to come visit our home and give us some exchange students.  It took a few months but the appointment came, and went, without a visit.  She couldn't get her car to our street in the snow, and gave up, postponing our appointment another 6 weeks.

Not only does my VW alarm go off randomly, on occasion, but if its -30 or less the drivers door won't unlock.  If you don't have the VW remote, you have to unlock the drivers door to turn the alarm off.  But thats not the best part, once it is successfully unlocked, with much force, the drivers door won't shut.  In the -30 I have to drive with the window open, hooking the door w my arm, to keep it shut.  After about 50km w the heat blasting it usually latches, and I can roll my window up.

Our Edmonton back yard is ridiculous.  I will have to get some video of it.  Just getting out there to feed the chickens can be quite the chore with waste high snow, and a chicken coop door poorly designed at ground level.  The reason the snow is so deep, is because the Ghetto Garage, takes up most of the back yard, and it can't tolerate snow on its roof.  That snow adds to the already knee high snow, and makes our back yard ridiculous.

Wile we were sick, the Edmonton house furnace failed.  We got up to a cold house in the morning.  Fortunately I am a bit smart with fixing things.  The pilot light wouldn't stay lit.  The thermal couple was a bit swollen.  Home Depot carried thermal couples, only $9, I almost bought 2.  That installed and fixed it like nothing.  Our 20ish year old furnace should be good for another 20 years now.  I just came from a clients house, her house is about 30 years newer, and her brand new high efficiency furnace costs a good $100 a month more to run.  I feel good about our monthly bill anyway.

Chicken Dinner

Wow feeling so much better today.  I can still cough if I really try, but my energy is back.  I shoveled the VW out, which didn't really help, cause I can't get down our street, its totally high centered and pushing a pile of snow in front of it.  A couple of nice pedestrians helped push it off my street, and on to the main street.  I had to get out once to shovel the built up pile out the front of the car.  The fire department shares main street, and it is well plowed, for them I expect.  We got grocerys, then got the VW back to the house, with a good run at our street, and parked.

Every day I go to feed the chickens, one rooster tries to kill me.  Sure I am 180lb, and he is just 12 lb, but when I am in their coop, I am hunched over, leaving my face wide open and out front.   I am also holding the 1 gal waterer, a bucket of food, or eggs from the chickens, also leaving me wide open.  I tried giving the rooster away on Kijiji with no takers.  It was the weekend today, so I could have some help, (cameraman), I went in the coop, and just grabbed him by the talons, as he came down on me today.  We aren't set up for chicken slaughtering, so it didn't happen super smooth.  Here is the quick vid  of how things roughly went down, city style.  Telephone pole being the only available chopping block.
The meat was a bit tough, maybe even a little gamy, but quite edible.  The camera man and I enjoyed it, the wife wouldn't have anything to do with it, because she had affectionately named the rooster George.

QWOP

We've been sick all year!  Just over the fever today, I am staying in for the last bit of the week doing taxes basically.  Was bed ridden for a few days.  I found some stupid stuff on the internet to keep me entertained wile I was sick.  I found the QWOP game, which was lots of laughs.  I have tried 3 embed codes for QWOP but they all fail, so you have to find it on someone else's blog.  I was going to do a review of the game but this guy really does it best.  I don't usually post other peeps vids, but this one still makes me laugh, especially after trying to play the game, its freekin impossible to stand up, let alone run.

So I am more than a week behind with work, after taking a sick week, but almost everybody is behind on construction, so no one is screaming at me yet.  I put together a cheezy old clip wile I was sick.
A quick vid of our g-pig set up.  We set them up on a door, on home made plywood saw horses, so the dogs can't eat them, they really want to.  In this video Michelle was pointing out that the g-pigs actually knocked their fence down and stole the carrots she had beside their pen.  And Gus is trying to jump up to eat the G-pigs.

Happy New Year

Its a new year.
We have a room mate moved in to help pay our modified 10 year mortgage.  It feels good to have the help.
We spent new years out in Andrew.  a few weeks back I got this 2001 Ford Explorer, for $100 basically.  I actually traded it for some stuff I don t need.

It is a decent driver, but reverse went in the transmission.  I am just going to take the sexy wheels off for my Ranger, then sell it for $200, if I can stop myself from shooting at it.

I was going to dig a pit, in my Andrew shop, to get under the cars.  Especially the low VW.  Doing trailer hitches, welding exhaust pipes, modifying suspension.   But then I found I can buy a lift for $1800, so I might buy a car lift, we will see.