Chop, shop, mop, drop

It's amazing what can get done when you don't have to work on the weekends.

Christmas shopping
Gut junk room
Disassemble and store bed

No more obstacle course in my office. And I can see floor in the junk room now. Apparently there's an electrical outlet in there too.

Another pretty tame weekend. We did our Kris Kringle thing, which was an overwhelming success. Surprisingly, no bottles of booze were exchanged. I walked away with a handsome fireplace set.

Only 99 hours before Christmas break. Once I wrap my gifts, I'll be all set. Can't wait for my friends to get back, and with them their brand of irresponsible fun. I plan on getting plastered on Friday. Hopefully I'll remain that way until next year.

Of wood heating - pt. 3

Holy crap... there is an entry for every working day this week. Devoted to my job, I am.

So I managed to get a couple of pallets chopped up. It's hard work. Or rather, it's hard work to do it safely with so many other pallets in the room. But I think I got a system now. They throw off good heat, and I don't have to perform rituals to get this stuff to burn. The flame is fantastic too, all billowy and fluid -- one downside of wood heating is the amount of time wasted gawking at the fire.

I also tackled the junk room last night. It must have been breeding while I wasn't looking, because holy shit, there's a lot junk in there. Most of it's just boxes, though. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to suck down a couple of beers and go at them with a utility knife. My Christmas decorations are in there too, so I may as well have a rum & eggnog and decorate the place while I'm at it. And with enough space cleared out, I can stash the rest of the bed in there. This will allow me to render my den a little tidier, while having a belt of brandy. With any luck, the house will be in decent shape, and I'll be half-cut by the time the crew comes over. God, I love a good battle plan.

There... that's a nice verbose entry to cap off this week.

Tutoring over

Hello evenings, my old friends, my busy days are at their ends. After two marathon two-hour sessions last night, I'm all done. I hope the boys are acing their exams right now.

Holy shit, I'm tired. This week has just dragged out -- it's still only Thursday. And only the morning, no less. But it's gonna be damn good to get home before six. Start chopping pallets. Do some laundry. Vacuum a little. Hell, maybe buy some groceries. It's pretty bad that I look forward to doing chores.

Oh, and a clean bill of dental health. Thanks for your prayers ;)

Pallets-a-plenty

My quest for firewood has... well, I won't say ended, because then something will go wrong. But I managed to snag a bunch of pallets from the seafood place in Churchill Square. I'll cut 'em up when I get a chance -- not last night (too late to be circ-sawing), and not tonight (4 hours of tutoring), but maybe tomorrow night.

The only unfortunate thing is that at least one of them reeks of wharf. I'll have to try and burn that one sooner rather than later. Or I can cover the pile with sawdust, and mask the odour with a considerably more pleasant "sawmill" smell.

Mad thanks to Jon for getting the truck so I could pull off this little caper.

Dentist appointment now... pray for David.

Whoa! Tax break!

...but not really. The rate did get cut 1.2 mils to 11 mils, but my house's assessment soared by 21%. This is good in terms of resale value. However, the upshot is I pay $104 more a year for daring to own a house. I wonder if we'll see a commensurate raise in the level of service...

Tidy workshop

Well, all the crap is off the floor anyways. And my socks no longer get a fresh coating of sawdust whenever I enter, which means the rest of the floors won't either.

Of wood heating - pt. 2

I was pretty pleased to have 3 sacks of birch dropped off at my house on Saturday. Just wanted to test out a sampling before getting a truckload.

Now, when they said "seasoned", they must really have meant "soaking wet". Seasoned -- to me -- implies that when added to a fire, it doesn't hiss for an hour and remain largely unscathed after it's out. Oh well... I'll just pile it outside, and it'll be dry enough for next year. I hate naming names, but the company rhymes with Tennessee.

I'll add these guys to the list of habitual liars, along with all those landlords I came across a few years back who claimed their apartments were "above ground". That -- to me -- implies you don't have to go down a flight of stairs from ground level.

Assemble shelves and populate

It doesn't take long to fill out a set of shelves. My little workshop is looking a little neater. And my office is also coming along nicely. A weekend unmolested by tutoring should be enough time to finish those off.

Speaking of which, only 7 hours of tutoring remain. Two tonight, one tomorrow, and four (ugh) on Wednesday. Hello, free evenings...

As predicted

I pissed away most of the night watching the hockey game. They didn't even win, in spite of leading for 50 minutes. But, I managed to channel my rage towards getting a few things done afterwards

Mount pegboard & hang tools

Well, as many as I could with the pegs I had. Turns out I need many more. I also got parts of other tasks done, but not enough to cross them off officially. Next opportunity is Saturday.

Oh, and I think I've decided against taking a course over the winter. Fuck that shit. I'd rather have a little bit of free time -- might make the winter more bearable.

I musta played my cards right

...cuz I have tonight off. It's going to be a thrill to get home before 6:00. Maybe I'll continue on with Operation Room Redefinition.

Speaking of which, I had all intentions of building a nice set of shelves for the workshop. But when you find a set at Kent for less than half the cost of the materials, and 99% percent less work, it's hard to pass up. And it'll hopefully speed things along. With any luck I'll be able to cross a few items off "the list" -- which you'll notice has been mothballed for a few weeks.

Also of note, my flu has 94% fucked off. This should also help with getting tonight's chores done. Though realistically, I'll probably just piss the night away watching the hockey game...

Loves me free time

Wishes I had more of it. There's been heaps of tutoring lately. Average about 2 hours a weeknight, and 3 on Sundays. It is, for the most part, enjoyable work, but when you get home at 8:30 just exhausted, it doesn't leave much time or energy to get anything done. Can't wait till exams are over -- finished my last course 3 years ago and I'm still saying that.

Anyways, enough with the bellyaching. The free time I had this weekend was mostly rendered as a rip-roaring good time. Friday night was kinda tame, but those are good when getting over a flu. It involved a bit of bowling and TV watching, and I still managed to put away a few drinks.

Saturday night I put away many more drinks, as it was Craig's b-day celebration. Brandy was the order of the night for me, as it's a good cold-weather drink, and I like the subtle way the drunkenness gets a hold of ya. Played some quiz game called Goth which involved questions centred around horror movies, dark music, spooky literature, etc. As I recall, the folklorists did quite well at it (!).

Thence we headed to -- you guessed it -- the Georgetown! Sober Dave said he wasn't singing a thing at Karaoke, but Drunk Dave got up and croaked out a few tunes, including the "crowd pleaser" (?) Roxanne. The old GTP was evidently suited for dancing, as I recall a lot of that going on as well. There's just something about singing, dancing, and mortgaging your dignity doing both that's very therapeutic.