Oct 3 - what a bear

I've run a lot of 8/3 copper wire in the house and up to the garage and barn.  For the generator, I needed to do two runs of 6/3 copper.  It's a) expensive; b) heavy; c) awkward to work with.  From the electrical panel to the far wall of my workroom isn't a long distance but until I pulled the ceiling down, I wasn't sure which route I'd take.  I deliberately overestimated the length of the run, which is better by far than running short, but of course that does produce some waste. 

I took down the ceiling in the darkroom and figured out my run.  This was also going to be messy, since I had to drill two separate holes in the TGI floor joists, one for each wire.  The spade bit is the messiest but also the easiest on the wrist.  I tried to contain the mess by holding the vacuum up there too and worked my away along the ceiling.

Once finished both runs, I've got waste dangling in the workroom.  At $9 per meter, an extra 10 meters is expensive waste, but what are you going to do ?  I'd bought 33 meters but I think that she threw in a couple extra as she wrapped it up, so I probably only needed 25 meters.  Oh well. 

The Fall colours were beautiful until yesterday.  It was so windy that they are no more.  Pine needles on the deck and in the eves troughs and on the roof were a veritable carpet.  I got up there and did my best to pull some of it down and then cleaned the eves troughs / gutters.  Later, when it rained heavily, I was glad that I'd done so.  I'm going to have to do it again before we call it a season ... like in the next few days.  I also still have to do the back of the house but since the roof is still full of needles, well, I'm not sure how effective it will be anyway.  I wish that I didn't have gutters.  It would be so much easier.  My only issues would be deck wear from pounding water and drainage at the back of the house.  In the overall scheme of a downpour, I'm not sure that either makes any difference.

Art came over and we were reviewing a letter that he'd received regarding his pension from US Steel, who'd bought Stelco in Hamilton many years back.  It doesn't say much but did point out that in the midst of this bankruptcy the company is both Administrator and Sponsor and that perhaps plan members should seek legal and/or financial advice.  That's basically a CYA as thousands of people going to lawyers is bizarre.  It's much more effective for the Union to be doing something, and it probably is, but again, with those thousands of people calling the Union telephone number, good luck.  I told him that if he did some Googling, he'd probably find some info online as to what's happening.

What else ... not much.  It was warm, temp over 70F for a bit with a cloudless sky before the heavy stuff moved in.  Of course it rained while I was at the barbecue; that's typical.  Fish a la raindrop.

I guess we've got another couple of weeks here.  It's going to go quickly.

Onward !