From two weeks ago…
A little while ago, KrisDi took a short trip to Chicago to attend E-Dubs and Pixel Chick’s wedding shower. I did not go (I do not have spare vacation time). So, I took the time alone to drink and play with power tools. I made a backing for my dartboard, which is finally up again after something like five years down. I cut pegboard down to the right size to be a backing for the beer puzzle Mr. & Mrs. Andi gave us. I built a ghetto truck bed cover for Paco. I retained all my fingers, extremities, and eyesight.
Mom came to visit for a weekend, which was fun, mostly because we didn’t really do anything. We ate food and drank a little beer and watched some soccer, and KrisDi and I decided suddenly to buy a shed on the internet, so once Mom left, we went to the hardware store and bought stuff to extend our fence. Then I dug three fence post holes, which was harder than I thought, and filled them with concrete, which is harder to mix than I thought (and a hell of a lot heavier). Over the next couple days, we put up the hanger beams and slats and built a gate, and then ripped out the superseded section of fence and started leveling the ground for the shed. At this point, the shed’s up and stocked, but I haven’t gone through those pictures yet.
By the way, when the shed arrived at Sears and we went to pick it up, we looked ridiculous driving around with it. It came in two giant boxes of the following dimensions:
Width: about 1.5 times the height of the cab above the bed floor
Length: Within an inch of the same length as the bed
Height: Within an inch of half the distance between the wheel wells in the bed
This, of course, meant they could be crammed into the bed sideways and stick up about 2-3 feet above the cab. We didn’t tie them down.
The big chore was leveling a spot for the shed. It was hot, and I feel terrible for anyone who makes a living digging holes in the ground.
We went camping again (day 1, day 2). The illustrious camponeer P-Dubs demonstrated his camponeering skills by somehow surviving a weekend with little or no preparation ahead of time. No water, very little food, etc. He did remember to make and bring several poppy seed cakes and an apple cake (he got up at three in the morning the day of in order to do so), so the mooching is forgiven. South Whidbey State Park had the nicest camp bathrooms I’ve ever seen, but it was kind of boring. Weather was slightly sunny the first day, cloudy on the Fourth, and raining lightly on the 6th, so we packed up and left.
Getting there was exciting. We had decided to pack all five of us (and the little dog) into Paco, and all of our stuff into the back of the truck under the ghetto cover I built. On the way from our place to pick them up, the front started to lift on the 520 bridge, around 60-65 mph. E-Dubs’ cooler is also too tall, so we used duct tape to hold the front and the back down. This was successful, but I did decide to go relatively slowly. On the way back, rain made the cover a less than optimal sticking surface for duct tape, leading to rope being used instead. So now I have to make some design changes to have a more reliable method of holding it down.
I shotgunned a beer for the first time. P-Dubs provided the beer and the impetus.