Book Worm-ing

     For Christmas this past December I received gift cards from Amazon.com - a favorite shopping spot of mine. I like shopping there because I can often find used books in good shape and this year is no different. I decided to again increase my library and this time I chose the following:

• Mysterious Universe - A Handbook of Astronomical Anomalies

• The Ultimate Proof of Creation

• The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods

• Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Genome

• Why People Don't Believe: Confronting Seven Challenges to Christian Faith

• Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design

• Dragons or Dinosaurs

• Creation: Facts of Life (Revised & Updated)

• The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask: (With Answers)

     I'll be reading for awhile - If I can find time.

Shoveling

     This past weekend we got some snow and as a result we needed to have our driveway and turnaround cleared out.  No problem I have a snow blower that doesn't want to start so with the help of my oldest boy, we shoveled, and shoveled and shoveled some more. Now if it warms up above zero I might go out and finish it.

     In the mean time, the temperatures here have gone from 50.5 on my new thermometer on Thursday to -22.4 Sunday morning.  It doesn't sound like well get much above zero this week and next week it sounds like the cold is suppose to come.  -22.4 is not really that cold for this time of year..

New Computer

     I've been wanting to upgrade the computer in our living room for a while for my wife and early last week it started making funny noises and shutting down and not starting up and......  I think it was the hard drive going.  So, I found an excellent deal, ordered up everything I needed, and on Tuesday, built a new computer.  I have most of the software that is needed loaded back on and was able to retrieve all the needed files, pictures, etc from the old hard drive.  This time I actually built the new one and it wasn't for me......

Wiper Blade

     Right around Christmas I noticed that the wiper blade on the drivers side of my car was busted so I bought a new one while shopping in Bemidji New Years Week End.  When we got home, I put it on and thought nothing more about it.

     A couple days ago my wife told me I should have changed the wiper on the drivers side while I was doing the passenger side because it absolutely did not work.   It WAS the drivers side I changed.  Apparently, the wiper doesn't like working when you forget to take the protective plastic off of the blade itself.  That said, It works great - now.

A little Wet

     I've been working on the floors and the bathroom floor was completed without to much of a problem and I learned a lot along the way.  One of the things I learned was related to the reason the floors were bad in the first place. What I thought was a problem related to water from plumbing turned out to be a problem from moisture from our dryer.  As I was tearing out a section of the bad floor, I started getting blasted with hot moist air.  Apparently the dryer which was vented down through the floor was venting into the space between the floor joist and above the insulation.

     I did get the bathroom floor finished but by the time I got done I was too sore to do anymore that weekend.  The floor itself, while it's not perfect, is done. I had the kids helping me nail down the underlayment and I failed to check to make sure it was all nailed down so we have a bit of a bubble in the floor.

     As for the laundry area floor - slow going is the best way to sum it up. After an area of the floor was cleaned out, I managed to tear up a 4'x4' section with relative ease learning from my experience tearing out the bathroom floor. Once that section was opened up I started to work on stuff that needed to be done with the floor up like the dryer problem. Because of the dryer problem I decided to pick up supplies and put a dryer vent in out through the wall to the back yard.  It's not easy putting a 4" hole through log siding and a floor joist but after many days at picking away at it I managed to get it done.

     Along with the dryer vent I wanted to install a outdoor faucet so I put a hole through the wall and put a frost free faucet in.  That was easy - hooking it up to the water line, well, I got a little wet.........   Turns out the two different size "T"'s i picked up to splice into the water line with are both the wrong size.  We have flexible hose type water lines and the bigger of the t's wouldn't go in to the water line at all and the smaller one was too loose but I had the line cut and for the time being I mad the smaller one sort of work.  I've got it clamped on as tight as I can get it so leakage at the moment is nill or very little but I don't trust it so I'll be looking for another option before I start in on tearing up more floor.

     In the mean time, I did finish tearing out a closet in that area and started to tear out the walls around our hot water heater - I have to drain it, disconnect it and move it to replace the floor under it to - I was going to do all the walls around the water heater but after opening things up I learned that the wall is holding the water heater up as the floor under it is that bad. So that waits as well.

     Hopefully, by Thanksgiving I can have the water problem fixed, and the first 4 feet of  floor in place.