Make It Rain

Got my federal tax return deposited. Aww yea! Now I just need to wait for the state return.

And no, I don't expect I'll be getting a covid-stimulus payment.

How Not to Prune

I don't know what possesses people to "prune" a tree by just hacking the top off half way through the trunk. And yet, everywhere I look, I see trees butchered this way.

This is not how you grow a healthy tree, at all, ever.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that this tree is in the way of where I want to rebuild the back yard shed, so it doesn't really need to live much longer. All the same, I wanted to make it look a bit better in the mean time, so I got rid of the mangled half-trunks.

Looks a bit nicer now at least.

Holding Back the Flood

Fixed the leaky fuel lines on Orthrus this weekend and edited together a little video of the fun.

All in all the job went pretty smoothly. I wasn't able to get out and test ride it though, partly due to the weather and partly due to the world ending. Ah well, there will be time.

Sweating in my Undies

So with the unsuccessful bike commute behind me, I decided to bite the bullet and get a trainer.

The mechanical kind, that is. It's a smart trainer that pairs with a laptop or tablet and allows you to program in different levels of resistance that changes as you go along, which is really nice, and tracks how much power you're sweating out etc.

I've got it set up in front of the TV so I can keep myself entertained while I spin away going nowhere.

I might rearrange things a bit later, but for now this is pretty good.

Anyway, with a few months of riding this I should be able to build up my long ride endurance to the point where bike commuting will be much more realistic to do with my own legs. I was looking at this model on Amazon since it's a bit older and has dropped in price by quite a bit, but I managed to find a coworker selling one for half price so that was a no-brainer.

I still might get an e-bike but we'll see how I do.

A Measured Risk

The danger with cleaning something on the garage floor is that you risk cleaning the garage floor.

Could be worse.

A Base 10 Milestone

Also lots of pollen.

Rabbit Season now only has 989930 miles to go before it hits an interesting milestone.

Scooty-Puff is actually lagging behind a bit, and is about 200 miles short of the 10k mark. I expect that to roll over in the next month or two depending on the weather.

Self-propelling To Work

Biking to work went great. It took some time and a fair bit of energy but I made it ok.

Biking from work went not so great. Despite chowing down at lunch to try to refill my legs, they really gave out on me about 5 miles in, and the ride home was a struggle, to the point where I almost couldn't stand when I got off the bike to take a rest.

So regular bicycle commuting isn't going to be a thing on my own power any time soon. I'm still pondering the e-bike question, but I don't expect to make a decision quickly.

The Age of Enlightenment

The thing about having black bookcases is that they're, well, black. Stuff inside tends to disappear into an inky void and not show itself off well.

But the good news is that we have technology. In particular, cheap LED self-adhesive strips.

I'd say that's a nice improvement. There's one strip down each side, then a third strip up the middle behind the left-hand door. I still need to do the matching bookcase, though I might need a slightly longer power cord for it as the outlet is on the opposite side of the bookcase.

Rearranging Things

So back when I moved in I was mulling over whether I wanted to buy a microwave (I didn't) or put my toaster oven in the microwave shelf (I didn't get around to it). Given that today is a lazy day, I decided to finally get around to the latter.

The first step was to widen the cord hole so I could feed the slightly larger toaster oven plug up to reach the outlet in the cabinet above. This all went pretty smoothly. Then I put the toaster oven in place and...

Right, LCDs have viewing angles, don't they. If I were a few inches taller it would look more like this.

Though the photo washes it out a little. Ok, plan B: toaster oven goes in the corner and stuff that doesn't have a viewing angle goes in the microwave nook.

It's so nice to have a kitchen equipped with a kettle nook.

Dealing With Vermin

So after perforating a few squirrels I've finally worked up the confidence to try planting some plants behind the retaining wall again. We'll see how many survive being dug up and mangled.

And on the subject of vermin I also took the time today to finally deal with the rat hole in the corner of the roof where the addition meets the original house. It wasn't a huge issue but occasionally I'd hear some gnawing and scratching in the ceiling so I figured I should do something about it before it became a major problem. The tough part was where the hole was located. (This is technically the 'after' pic)

Basically it's under the soffits at the far end of some shitty sun-baked corrugated fiberglass. I couldn't exactly climb on top of the fiberglass because I'd get covered in fiberglass splinters and also fall through to my untimely death. Then I realized that there's a simple solution.

Yeah, just cut a hole. I still needed to extend the spray-foam applicator with some duct tape and a soda straw, but I managed to foam up the rat hole. I'm not sure if the foam will stop the rats, but at least it'll be obvious if they chew their way through it, and I have a nice convenient viewing port to keep an eye on things.

For the record I do have plans to replace this shitty awning at some point.

Since spray-foam cans are single use, I also went around the house and foamed up a few other spots that I'd been meaning to plug, mostly to keep bees and wasps from starting a nest. I'll go back around next week probably to trim off the ooze-out once it's nice and hard, and maybe splatter some paint over top of it to hide it.