White Lightning Axiom: Redux

We slacked off this weekend. Well, as much as I am able to I suppose. The Mrs and I decide that we are going to skip swimming this morning and just loll about in bed with the kids. Most rewarding. Like playing hookey and sleeping in all at once. Of course, we intend on going to the Wednesday session to make up. I like it because it is in the evening and we go out to eat afterwards. The Mrs likes it due to the time. She has a sterling excuse of not being there to get the kids ready. Ever try to put a neck-tie on a greased pig? How about two at once? Yeah, getting them ready to go swimming is sort of like that. In any event, we did have to prep the kids in their picture clothing so that they could go get their picture taken with the 'Real Santa' at the Neshaminy mall. The management there has really ramped up this into a top-notch production now. We get beepers now so we don't have to stand in line for 3-4 hours. We can amble about the mall and use the rest-rooms multiple times without worrying about loosing our place in the serpentine maze of bawling malcontents. The kids are loud too.

The pictures went as expected. Actually better this year than last. Jake ran up to Santa, gave him a hug and a kiss right off. Alexis looked upon the strangely garbed man as if he were holding raw sewage and writhing lizards in his meaty hands. At least she sat on his lap this year without me having to be just outside the frame, holding her in place. No smile, but at least no sour tears of disdain. The whole experience took about 3 hours. Not too shabby since we were able to get the kids some hotdogs and fruit smoothys for lunch. Additionally, I was able to return a few things to Lowes and Home Depot now that the area seem to be a major rural commercial hub. I wonder when they will start laying the understructure for the spaceport and duty-free shop. Mmmm, BobaFet Clones.

Back at the Manor, I managed to get a few things done. I installed a cooling fan in the furnace room to start with. I pointed it at the exhaust vent tubing for the gas furnace and tied in the thermostat to the furnace fan power conduit. This way, when the furnace fan kicks on, the cooling fan will only turn on if the heat on the pipe exceeds 60 degrees. A few extra BTU's recovered instead of flying up into the atmosphere. I also got to replace the old sodium light that has been crapping out over the automotive fleet docking zone. It was a bit of a pain, but the new fusion halogen lamp really does the trick. Not sure where the previous owners got that old light from ... probably an old Soviet Army Surplus disposal sale. I hope it's really a sodium light and nothing with any particularly dangerous radiation properties. Hmmm, I wonder. Anyways, as soon as that was behind me, I went to work on changing the oil, topping off the fluids and doing a general once over on the SuperSaturn. Nothing like having a neighbor with his auto up on blocks. At least I take it down after draining the 55 gallons of scorched petro-chemical and refilling it with fresh dino-juice. Good times, all to save 30-40 bucks. That, and 90 minutes of time cornered in a garage waiting room between an odoriferous cigar chomping huckster and a border-line porcine psych patient with only a 1998 Field and Stream to occupy myself.

Afterwards, I packed up the horde into the FamilyTank so we could run off to BJ's to fill up the gas cans and top off the reservoir. On the way, were delayed slightly by a really nasty accident between 2 smaller cars. Jacob was thrilled at the number of police cruisers and emergency vehicles. As far as I could tell, the cars absorbed most of the kinetic energy and it was head-on so no likely 'thrown from the car' issues. Just someone racing to make a turn and someone racing to make a light. Not that it ever happens around here. Lucky it was a fair fight and not a ford escort taking on a Chevy suburban. When we go to BJ's, we sold a slice of my liver so we could get 30 gallons at 2.05/gal. Fair trade I suppose, hope it grows back. While we were there, I picked up about 300$ in candy, nuts and assorted chocolates for gifts to send off to Minnesota and other slightly more remote locations. Mostly nuts though. Like I said, no fruitcake this year.

I wrapped up the laundry and finally did the unthinkable. I turned on the furnace. ARRRGHHH. The pain, the horror ... what a Scrooge-like miser I am. I set it to 50 after-hours and when we are not at home, 58 between 0545 to 0715, 1600 to 2200 and all day on weekends. Since the electronic thermostat is on the first floor, the upper floors are considerably warmer. Throw in the rising heat from the wood stove and it is probably a toasty 68 degrees! Stupid heating costs. It seems though that the Mrs is the only one who is not appreciative of a good bout of sub-freezing weather.

Sunday Morning, my head is pounding something fierce. It's coming ... a migraine. It usually hits Friday night or Saturday morning (schedule issues) but for some reason I've either ignored it or believed that it was not going to happen this weekend. Crap. I spend the day roasting chestnuts over the wood stove (YUMMY!) and bringing in firewood. We are really going through the wood pile this year. I might have to order some pre-chopped/seasoned wood. Most likely, I'll make it till February but March is touchy. Hopefully, it'll be warm by then.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 1:27 AM