Some of the members of SLAARC are former Detroit Edison employees (now DTE Energy) and one of them (Bruce, W8RA) currently works for Intercontinental Transmission Company (ITC). Bruce was curious what size transformer we had and said that there were likely numbers on it that I could read with a pair of binoculars. I went out this morning to check, but the only info on the transformer can is a metal plate that is too small and illegible to read from the ground even with our fairly good binoculars.
Darryll (DCM Heating & Cooling) had not shown up or called by 10:30 AM. His work doesn’t make a mess of our yard or house, at least it hasn’t yet, so it is less of a concern that he is not here working today than it was with the landscaping. When he left Thursday he had a short list of parts he needed to get and perhaps could not do that until this morning. Or he may have gotten emergency service requests, which take priority over new installations. Still, we would like to have the new HVAC work completed in the next week or so to make sure it is done ahead of the natural gas hookup.
As part of that work I have to complete some of the electrical pieces, finish dry-walling the utility closet, and continue cleaning, repairing, and organizing the garage while we have the storage pod. I then need to get to work on a long list of bus projects. I also have a lot of desk/computer work to do and I prefer to do that when I know I can settle in for a long stretch. I tend not to be in the right frame of mind for desk work when I do not know if/when contractors are going to show up. It’s turned out to be a busy, and in some ways complicated, summer that way. Darryll called late morning to say they would be back first thing Wednesday morning. That information allowed me to adjust my expectations and settle in for a long day and evening at my computer.
My main focus was working on the page content for the new SLAARC WordPress website, which occupied me until dinnertime with some e-mail mixed in. After dinner I started uploading blog posts beginning with the one for July 7th. I decided that I would not select and upload photos for most of the posts in July and early August and instead create more extensive gallery posts for the landscaping work and the garage/HVAC project.
One of the things I have noticed in the past week is that our Internet connection seems to be faster, or at least my e-mail processes much quicker than it used to. That could be the result of the AT&T repair on the 4th, which ended up moving us to entirely new wire pairs, or a change that AT&T made to our DSL service back on the 3rd (when it kept going off temporarily), or it could be that QTH upgraded their e-mail server system, or some combination of these. Whatever the case, it seems to be an improvement.
Phil from Precision Grading called at noon to see if he could stop by sometime after 3 PM today. It was raining gently at the time but when he called back a little after 3 PM the rain had finally opened up into a sustained downpour. He had an 8 AM appointment in Hell (Michigan) and we agreed that tomorrow morning after his appointment would probably be a much better time for him to stop by.
We ordered a “cat tent” the other day and it showed up this afternoon. We opened it and set up in the living room with the “door” tied open so the cats could explore the inside. They were wary, but did go in briefly. It’s kind of like a back-packing tent but all the fabric, including the floor, is mesh. We thought the floor would be a solid material, but it’s not. It will be OK for use on our deck at home, but seems less suitable for use on the ground when we are RVing. We intended to use it for both so we are not sure if we are going to keep it.
For dinner Linda made a tomato-onion-mushroom ragu and served it over a three rice blend with a dark mixed greens salad on the side. Later she served fresh strawberries with Lotus brand cookies and dark chocolate with bits of almond and sea salt. Seriously, what’s not to like about that?