Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Day to day...

Boring is our friend. Trust me. I was a control room operator at the plant for 5 years, and I can guarantee that boring is indeed our friend. So that's why I don't complain when there's not much exciting stuff going on in life...

That having been said, last evening was kind of exciting. There's been a brush pile out beyond our storage shed for a couple of years, consisting mainly of parts and pieces of the locust trees at the edge of the yard that have succumbed to the lure of gravity and subsequently been dismembered by my trusty chainsaw. I was sure it would burn; I just wasn't aware of how hot it would burn. Wowsers!

I lit a ball of newspaper under the edge of the pile, and went to get the garden hose so I could kind of keep things damped down. When I turned around, I had flames shooting about 30 feet in the air! It was at that point that I suddenly realized that the electric service line from the transformer out on the pole beside the county road to our house was relatively close to the flames, which were shooting up at least as high as the wire! As much as it pained me to do it, because a good hot fire leaves very little ash, I damped the fire down with the hose to the point that we could keep the utilities flowing to the house...

All the while this was going on, rumbles and mumbles of thunder were echoing about. When the fire had finally burned down to a size that I felt comfortable with leaving to its own devices, I went in the house for a minute, and before I could get back outside, it was raining! We need the moisture. I thought it might kill my bonfire, but after the showers quit a couple of hours later, smoke was still rising...

On an entirely unrelated note, my book formatting software finally made its way to our local post office. I'm hoping to get started on formatting the book block for my totally rewritten first book so I can get it set up and release it under the Sisley Creek Press imprint. I'm so excited...

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Nice weather at last...

and I got outside on one of my bikes for the first time today. My original plan was to take my mountain bike down to the valley and try to get a bunch of highway miles, but stuff got in the way, so by the time I had time to do any biking, I decided to just ride it up the county road. Which is a workout in itself. I ended up with just over 6 1/2 miles...

I've decided that the trainer is doing me good. I've lost 11 pounds so far, and I didn't have to turn around where I normally do when I ride up the creek. I made it up to our gate and back. And I was actually feeling pretty good the whole trip...

The last couple of days have been absolutely gorgeous...