June 4-5 -- rain, rain go away

It started raining last evening and looking at the doppler and the predictions for today and tomorrow, it will continue throughout. On one hand the rain is welcome since it has been dry ... however, the rain keeps the bugs going longer and slows me down.

It may be difficult to get much completed on the floor today if the rain is heavy. I'm using the circular saw for this work so I can move it in and out for each cut and do my cutting under the deck.

I'll go into town with the truck and get some plywood but that may be difficult to get down to the house if it's raining hard. We'll see.

This is a difficult project for me since usually I would be working at it by now, being a "morning" person. Banging the DRIcore panels into place, however, is very noisy. There is no way that Sandy could sleep through it so I have to wait until 7:30 or so before starting up.

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Well, it's June 5 and I've gotten a fair amount completed yesterday and today -- basically the entire area at the bottom of the stairs, the basement pantry (closet) and the basement bathroom -- complete subfloor in place, both the DRIcore and the plywood. I put some tar paper on the deck to provide shelter underneath so that I could cut the DRIcore panels outside. I did not want to cut those in the house. The plywood cuts, though, I did inside on the basement floor.

I'm tired.

I did go into town yesterday and picked up 10 sheets of plywood and placed my order for another 20 plus some drywall and pegboard to finish up the darkroom. Of course I cannot do that until after I do the plumbing .... sigh. I'll need 15-20 more shets of plywood but I can pick those up as I need them. I don't need much drywall -- sheets -- but I cannot move it with our little truck because it won't stand flexing.

The area that I just completed is probably the most difficult -- lots of cutting in a small area so you don't get the feeling of accomplishment that you get when you are working a larger area and can put down entire sheets without cutting. That comes next as I move forward into the entranceway/general area. The other thing that I had to do, naturally, is relocate the shelving and contents in the basement pantry closet. After all, that's half the fun doing the basement -- moving stuff; re-moving stuff; moving it again ... you get the idea.

I'm almost at the point where I need more DRIcore. I may make a trip into Sudbury tomorrow or Thursday so that lack of materials does not hold me up.

I ordered the Ditra etc. that will be the underlay for the tile. Of course we have not picked out tile yet -- Sandy will be looking at tile on Thursday when she goes to Toronto. I ended up breaking the Ditra order into two parts so that I could get some delivered on Friday. The rest will come in a week or so later by regular delivery. Unfortunately I'm paying a premium for getting this stuff to Exton by Friday -- but the two alternatives -- another trip to the Philly area (move expensive than the delivery) or buying it locally (twice the price) are not palatable.

Our plans are pretty well set for the weekend -- Sandy will travel to Toronto on Thursday and go to the ballet with Joyce. I'll meet her on Friday morning at the BMW dealer in Oakville close to Joyce's and we'll head down to Philly. Abby will travel with me. I'll probably ride my bike on Saturday ... and ride some more. Sunday is not heavy duty riding (well, at least not for us) -- it is for the pros in the race.

The sun just came out but it's about 44 degrees out there. It was 41 this a.m. -- not much improvement. At one point we actually got sleet -- this is June !! why are we getting winter weather ??!!

It's suposed to warm up somewhat tomorrow so I hope to get out for a bike ride. It will be even warmer on Thursday, so you know where I'll be ..

Pictures -- I did a fair amount of work on pictures in the last couple of days as well. All the old pictures under "recent" have been moved to either 2006 or 2007 folders and there is a new crop of "stuff" in Recent. Pictures from Arlene's place in Mexico are followd by many pictures from the ride across America. Mike Munk, the tour leader, just sent an email to all of us to let us know that his pictures are on the way on a DVD -- 2500 of them !!! -- that will take some editing to decide what to put into my website and what not.

Oh -- for those of you accessing www.wdthompson.com there are a few groups of pictures from the bike ride -- mine, Geoff's, Jerry's and a few from Ken. I'm in the process of uploading those to the website which could take all night tonight -- 2-way satellite is not fast by any means, but it's faster than dial-up.

It's just after 6pm and I'm having a hard time staying awake. i was up even earlier than usual this morning -- 3:30 -- two reasons -- one, there was a mosquito buzzing around my head that was impossible to catch and impossible to ignore; two, there was so much noise outsice from the wind driving waves against the beach that I had to go outside and check on things. Of course once I got dressed in a raincoat and sweatshirt (it was cold and raining) and walked around the place ... and Jason's .. I was wide awake. 41 degrees with wind and rain will do that to you.