Sep 24 - out with the old, in with the new

I called the HVAC guy that Vic recommended and he was able to come over right away. Hurry, hurry, hurry -- clean up the recyclables, put out the garbage -- make room for this guy to get at the furnace ! As I suspected, the verdict is remove and replace. The furnace is as old as the house. The A/C unit was installed in 2000 -- at or beyond an expected lifetime of 7 or 8 years for houses "beachside". The exchange unit inside the furnace would be from the original A/C unit, doubly old. So ... my new friend is going to give me a quote and we'll likely do the job next week. By the way, I didn't ask him for a verdict, I suggested the course of action. I could wait until it completely fails ... and go several days without cooling ... don't want to do that when I'm here and certainly don't want it to fail when we're not.

So, that was the morning. I also called the plumbing company and sorted out the order that Sandy is putting together. There were some confusing parts that I dealt with. We ate lunch, separately of course, and left at 12:15 heading for Bluewater Boats. We always eat lunch at different times, breakfast too. We eat dinner together, snacks & wine together. Two out of four, what can I say ?

The boat ride was relatively short. We launched into the ICW close to the boat store and he gave me some pointers on launching, loading, starting, handling etc. Abby was disapointed that the ride was so short and that we never got to the island where she could run. Perhaps that will happen Saturday. In a while, it was anti-climactic. I made one additional purchase as a result of the ride -- the boat/motor don't have an "hours meter" so I'm having that added. The plan, if all holds firm, is to pick up the boat late tomorrow or early Saturday. We'll go out boating on our own on Saturday.

It's a heavy boat. It runs well through wakes of boats, much better than the Bayliner. Something about a deep V hull and 3 times the weight helps in this regard. I've also got to re-learn how to bring in a heavy boat to dock. If it's moving at all, you cannot hold the weight with the ropes. You have to stop beside the dock. I need practice. I used to dock heavy barges at the Whippoorwill Lodge something like 40 years ago. Hmmm ... it's all coming back to me now.

On the way home we stopped at ACE Hardware and picked up my replacement piece of door casing as well as the replacement baseboard for the bedroom and the bathroom. We then stopped at the plumbing place and paid for that order. Yikes. Money is flowing outward too quickly. Once home, Sandy headed out again to pick up the day's dinner and I dealt with the door trim. That's now done. We're still waiting for a door handle but have reduced the number of peek holes.

We're now watching SG1 while I type on the laptop. I'll finish this later.

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We had something for dinner, some fish that is. Sandy forgot what it was, thought it might be flounder. Whatever it was, it was good. Add in some small new potatoes and stir fried zucchini and cherry tomatoes and we ate well again !

I've got manuals to read. The boat, the trailer, the motor ... and of course the porta potty. I started reading the manual for the motor last night and will finish reading all the manuals tonight before our first launch which will hopefully happen tomorrow. Monica is going to call me later today with an update.

I'll be heading out shortly for a bike ride. There are some spotty storms out there so I may bring my jacket again as insurance. The wind is from the north again although by the looks of things it will be mostly from the east by the time I return. I'll take my chances and ride north though, it's much more pleasant at this time of year. The ride south into Merritt Island is hot and dry whereas I get a lot of shade on the ride north.

The other day, after going to the boat store, we drove north around my bike ride. I wanted to show Sandy the nice areas that I'd been riding through along the Intracoastal Waterway. As we went through the park we got to the spot where water had been encroaching on the road and found that we had to drive through a few inches of water. High tide can be really up there it seems ! I did my best to not leave a wake.

The next several days should be busy and interesting:

-- first trips with the new boat
-- getting boat back in for the motor's 10 hour service
-- hopefully, getting squared away with North Causeway Marine
-- Sheryl & Jimmy visitation
-- tear out the inside of the guest bath so that Jeff can do his thing
-- drive back to cottage

All this within two weeks. One day will be completely taken up with a 200km Permanent, probably October 1st. Our aim is to be back up north before Canadian Thanksgiving.

As I look at the days, they might work out with boating and biking every other day. I have to plan to get the boat in when I'm riding that Permanent, taking it in the day before and getting it back the day of or day after. It won't take them long to do the motor service / checkup as long as it's scheduled. It should be pretty easy to get in 10 hours of driving before then, in fact I'll probably be over 10.

Sandy is heading into Orlando today to pick out granite for the master bath vanity. She'll be back late in the day so I'll probably pick out the fish for dinner. Once I'm home from biking I'll go over to North Causeway Marine (NCW) to pickup the anchor and fire extinguisher and get into Tara's face ... ha ... regarding the slip. Hopefully -- cross fingers, toes, legs and eyes -- that can be arranged.

Onward.
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