Making room, Olympics over
I accomplished two of the three goals I laid out on Friday. I didn’t take the time to work on the Moto Guzzi. I picked up the hardware for my garage shelving project on the way home Friday. I had to buy the heavy duty variety with strong brackets, double slotted rails and 20 inch wide wire shelves. It added up to a lot of money, over $300.
When I hung this type of shelving in the utility room years ago I simply pushed the rails up to the ceiling and screwed them in, assuming my ceiling line was straight. Well I did not make any assumptions about the ceiling being straight in the garage and it’s a good thing I didn’t. I bought a top rail assembly that the vertical slotted rails hang off of. This adds to the cost but it means you only have to level once. Once the top rail is straight you can hang the slotted rails anywhere along the length. Once I got the level out it became obvious that the ceiling was far from level, I was quite glad I spent the extra bucks for the top rail.
As I mentioned last week, the outer wall is concrete block which meant I had the pleasure of drilling with a masonry bit. Drilling into block walls sucks, especially when it is poured concrete block where they fill the cinder blocks with cement. It is ass busting work getting simple 2-3 inch deep holes. I was leaning on the drill with all of my weight while up a couple steps on the ladder. Drilling the holes was the hardest part of the job by far. Once they were in I inserted the anchors and screwed the hardware in. Doing the front set of shelving was a bit more challenging due to having to work around the frame for the garage door opener.
Once I got the shelves up I started transferring items to them. I immediately noticed a problem. I had 3 brackets per shelf. Each bracket was probably 3.5 feet apart. There was a lot of flex in the shelving if I put heavier items on them. One fix would have been to install additional vertical rails and brackets to offer support which would have added additional expense to an already more costly than expected project. So instead I went the cheap route and found some unused wooden boards/shelving in the shed. They were long enough to span the brackets and then I simply put the heavier items on top of the wood. It’s not a perfect solution but it works and the zero cost option works out well.
After I cleaned off the remaining rolling wire shelf I wheeled it to the new storage shed. The new shed has become overcrowded already. I need to do some rearranging as well as relocating/giving away one of the smaller plastic shelf units that came with it.
So now that far wall is totally empty I should be able to squeeze in my new Camaro whenever I get around to getting it. Here is an idea of what it might look like 🙂
Later in the day Saturday Ali and I worked on going through the piles of pictures and junk that was on the dining room table.
We spent a couple hours consolidating and got some stuff back up on the walls. We also came up with more or less of a game plan for the stuff we had left over which is cool. I just want to make sure that we follow through and get the stuff done instead of back burnering it for several more months.
On Sunday morning I decided dust off my road bike and go for a ride. I remember during those hot, sweaty summer rides thinking how awesome it will be to ride during the winter when the temps are far milder and the air less humid. Well for some reason I just have not gotten around to riding at all so far this winter.
The temps sure were cooler, low to mid 50’s. I wore my baggy bike shorts and a hooded sweatshirt. The air felt very cool until my body temp heated up. When I did the 17.5 mile Publix ride in the summer I typically had the wind to my back for the ride out and in my face on the way back which is not fun. Well on Sunday it felt like a head wind for the majority of the ride out to Publix. The combination of the wind, sore legs from my Friday workout and not biking for months really cut down on my average speed for the first half of the ride.
I was frustrated but I welcomed the idea that on the way back I should have that same wind to my back. Well the ride back was actually worse. There were brief periods that the wind was behind me but more often than not I was working against it. The worst part of the entire ride was the last 2 miles before our house. Once I made the gradual curving left the wind was crushing me in the face. My speed drooped from 16-17 mph down to 11 and change and I was busting my ass just to keep it above double digits.
I found myself getting very angry with the wind. I even swore at the wind, at one point yelling out loudly “Cut me a f’ing break!” Well the wind didn’t care about getting cursed out, it continued all the way until I made the right hand turn onto our street. I was very glad to roll into my driveway. I need to try to get more regular with my bike riding. The trip took 1:10 and change. I think I have done the same distance in as little as 1:03 so that is a big drop off.
Ali had created her own project for Sunday, cleaning out our closet. Our closet, specifically Ali’s portion of it (2/3) was JAMMED full of clothes and shoes. When hanging clothing on her side I typically had to lean my body weight on the clothes to create a small space to jam a hangar in. It was that tight.
Ali has a hard time getting rid of stuff so she asked that I could help her with deciding what goes and stays. I laid on the bed and offered my opinions as she held stuff up, until I started to doze off. Laying down after the tiring bike ride just zonked me out. Ali did remarkably well cleaning stuff out. We have four huge trash bags full of clothes and shoes to donate. I was proud of her for making the effort to consolidate. Our closet looks 100% better.
Last week I ordered a wireless web cam with pan/tilt/zoom after my co-worker showed me what his could do. I always thought it would be cool to be able to see what the dogs are doing when we aren’t home. In the past I considered using a conventional web cam attached to a pc but running a pc all day just to run a webcam would be a big waste of power.
The Trendnet cam I got is a stand alone wireless unit that allows me to place the camera anywhere around the house as long as there is an AC outlet near by. When I bought the camera Ali immediately gave me shit about it. She assumed that I got the camera to monitor HER and not the dogs. She based this on a discussion we had a few days prior about the advantages of her possibly not sleeping so late and getting out the door so she wouldn’t be so hard pressed to complete her daily schedule.
I told her that actually that discussion hadn’t entered into my mind at all when I made the purchase (it hadn’t) but she didn’t believe me. I assured her this was for pet surveillance only. Well anyway, the box arrived Friday and in short order I had the unit up and running. It’s pretty damn cool. I am able to both view and control the camera from a web browser. I also am able to get the feed on my Iphone using a great $1.99 app. The unit also can function as a surveillance device that can notify you of movement and send a snap shot of what it saw. I don’t think I will need that functionality but it’s nice to know it’s there.
We watched a good amount of Olympic coverage this weekend since it all wrapped up on Sunday. I tuned in for the much hyped USA / Canada gold medal hockey final. The game lived up to it’s hype and then some. Of the four major sports, hockey is my least favorite. When the Flyers were good I used to sometimes watch the playoff games but I just never got into it. Well one thing I did immediately notice was watching hockey in HD really enhances the experience. It’s much easier to follow the puck thanks to the clarity and definition HD offers.
The game early on seemed to be pretty much dominated by Canada. They were definitely the aggressor. Even when the USA was on a power play they couldn’t get any good shots on net. However as the game went on Team USA started to play better. After being down 2-0 they scored a goal to cut the lead to one. The third period was very back and forth with both teams applying pressure at different points in the period. You just got the feeling that Canada was destined to win it.
Well with only a couple minutes to go it was desperation time. USA pulled their goalie to give them a 6-5 skater edge. This is always a risky move as an untended net can easily result in a cheap goal for the opposing team if they manage to break free. I thought the game was over for sure. Then out of nowhere we scored with 25 seconds to go. Holy shit, I threw both arms up in celebration as I yelled to Ali, “THEY SCORED!” The game was forced to overtime.
There was a change in the way overtime is handled since I last knew. Now they make it 4 on 4 to increase the scoring possibility, that’s a great idea. No one wants to see a tie, or a game go on for four hours. In OT both teams had some good scoring opportunities that were turned away by good goalkeeping on both ends. Then just as suddenly as the US tied the game, Canada won it on a quick shot under the pads that was centered.
It was a pretty disappointing way for the US to go out after battling back but there was no denying the overall success the team accomplished in the games. As far as I know, the US was thought to have no shot at the gold medal coming into the Olympics. It was hard to not feel good for the Canadians as well, winning the hockey gold medal during games hosted in Canada is pretty much a storybook ending.
Ali and I also took in the closing ceremony. For the most part the word I would use to describe them was “dumb”. The ceremony was filled with sappy references and bad jokes. I really didn’t get it at all. You could even tell Bob Costas thought it was f’ing stupid as he described the big inflatable beavers and moose that were brought out towards the end.
Again there was tons of lip syncing going on by the musical performances. Michael Buble in particular was HORRIBLE at it. It was pathetically obvious he was faking it. I just don’t get it, why the f can’t you actually SING at the Olympics!!?? I think Neil Young might have actually been singing, hopefully….
So besides the sappy, corny closing ceremonies I think Canada did a nice job hosting the games. Now of course it’s a far cry from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics which set the bar incredibly high for me. I enjoyed watching the Vancouver games. I enjoyed watching the Olympics, I always do. The Olympics inspire dreams of what it must be like to represent your country competing against the best in the world. What an awesome experience that must be.