THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004 Did someone say roof? Just don't say flat roof. Flat roofs don't really work well in a rainy climate. I've been fighting the flat roof over our canning room between the living room and my office for years. One leak after another. Sounds like me all night long. But taking advantage of the continuing sunny day syndrome unexpectedly hitting Oregon this week, I went up on that durn roof and did another temporary fix. Patched the roof with tar and roofing paper, vowing this summer to rip the roof off and redo it; this time with a slant and metal on top. I expect many queries by fall, making sure I get the job done.
-- Capn of the skymanana
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2004 The ground freezes, then it thaws. It heaves and cracks and opens strata been covered all year. The rains come and the ground turns into mud. So does the driveway. Once graveled and level, now potholed and slick. Bite the money bullet and get a load of gravel delivered. Put it in a pile and take from the pile and apply it to the major disasters. Weather is benign, smiling, sun warming the back, gloves protecting from blisters. The driveway is navigable, the back is sore. Consider the roof.
The best laid plans aft gang aglae and I'm not talking about Bobby Burns unable to play golf today. I'm talking about that whiff of Mexico, the lingering smell of the sewer, followed me all the way home. It was for real. The septic tank was backing up. No beep beep beep of warning, either. A slow insidious creep. Okay, call the damned shit sucker, get the tank cleaned out. Oh, yeah, I know where the lid is located, no problemo, esse. I drew it all out on a map 40 years ago when I put the septic system in.
Unfortunately, the map is now buried under 40 years of clutter and it is a by guess and by golly job to locate that lid. Wait a minute, didn't we have that tank pumped out back in the early 80's? You're asking me? That all got lost when the hard drive crashed during the shit storm of '93. Hey, all is not lost, after all. When I covered the lid way back then I stuck a pipe in the ground to mark the spot.
Unfortunately, some local doof (we won't mention him by name but the clue is on the mailbox out by the road) mowed the top of the pipe off during one of his forays into the yard with the riding mower.
Now comes the pumper. A huge truck. I've figured out approximately where the lid is and have gouged holes in the ground feeling for the clank of the shovel on the buried pipe. The shit disturber, Mr. Pumperman, needs only know one thing: is the lid in the middle of the tank? Yes, of that I am sure, I tell him, cringing; I might not really know.
He pokes with his thin rod, locates the four sides of the tank, uses his geometry skills to figger out where the center is, and we begin digging. He has tole me that if I help it will only cost an additional thrity bucks an hour instead of the traditional sixty.
We are rewarded with the long sought clank of shovel upon pipe. We have hit pay dirt. And the sun is shining so the mud is calm. From here on it is grunt work and grunt success. Off with the lid, in with the sucker hose. Out with the old, in with the new, having flushed the toilets to make sure everything is flowing.
And this time I don't fool with any stinkin pipes in the ground. I don't even put the dirt back in the hole. I build a walled cavern and cover it with a piece of metal and cover the whole damned thing with a piece of plywood and thar she sits; awaiting a future discovery, and here I sits, half asleep, missed all the football, didn't go food shopping, no firewood split, what the hey, can't always indulge in the fantasies but must always address the exigencies.
-- Capn Skyp
I guess would have been around the time of the last Veneta show in '82. Maybe not that day, or even year, but close. I was riding into town on 126 later at night, right alongside Fern Ridge Reservoir. Off to my right and just about 200 feet above the tree line (memory is a picture now) came a very fast, large kind of flaming mass burning through the sky. The trajectory was low, and the course was like from Florence moving up toward Oakridge. The sound I remember as an all-encompassing roar. When I got home, I called the Oakridge PD and indeed, the dispatcher told me that she had received several calls already on this issue. I reckon it would have passed over your digs. Did you see or hear of it?
Finally, a picture of the landing of the craft, sent in by skypilotclubber Joe who said, "It crash-landed at Willamette Pass snow park."
Skyclubber Fil, who knows about these things, said, "While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make
clockwise circles."Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right
hand."Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it!"
Skyclubber Darrin added her knowledge: "Did you hear about the guy who lost the whole left side of his body?
"He's alright now."
A rare occurence in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon: snowflake crystals. Takes the right combination of hard freeze and wet air but provides a delightful sight settling on the car windows as commuters curse their way to work not realizing they might as well have stayed home because for two days the icy roads and snowy lands have closed the schools and the kids are all home partying and trashing the kitchen and watching every dirty vidie they can find.
Other fascinating information on snowflake crystals can be found at:
Phil, one of our skypilots, was going into a local
lumberyard and held the door open for a couple guys in their
mid forties. One of the guys, seeing Phil's shirt, asked, "What's
a skypilot?"