Double misc. [rowing; housekeepery-ish]
Sep. 12th, 2020 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterGot up early for this morning's row so there would be enough time to row a full half-marathon before the start time for the juniors practice. I need to reach a point where the half-marathon rows are a regular staple of my rowing training so my hands are properly toughened for the full marathon in mid-October. The river was cool and foggy, but the fog never got too thick. Rowing all the way up to the Highway 7 Bridge was fun, although I hadn't realized that reaching it would involve making a decision about how to deal with Adams Island.
On the downstream return trip, a large, black yacht went by, headed upstream. It seems like the same yacht we've seen before at that time of day. It was moving fast enough, without slowing, to send out a huge wake - maybe a 1.5-foot wake? It was also over on my half of the river, so I didn't have much time or space to react. I was JUST far enough away from shore to avoid catastrophe there, and I managed to stay upright, though it felt like barely. Not fun.
Shortly past the place where I stopped for the worst of the wake was a stretch of river where both sides of the river are bounded by concrete walls. So naturally I wound up sloshing around even more in further wake reverberations. I may have used some strong language to express my displeasure. The Wild Blue Yonder is not an open-water rowing craft.
But once I made it through that point, the rest of the row was perfectly nice. I was a bit on the slow side but at the moment what matters the most is just getting in the mileage. I'll work on speed during other practices. I'll also get started even earlier next time, because I got in 20 minutes later than I would have liked.
-
Meanwhile, S has been keen to follow through on his promised birthday gift to me (after our trip to the ballet got abruptly canceled). So next we drove Princess TinyHouse up to a Despot that had indicated that it had a chest freezer of appropriate dimensions so as to be able to fit it inside of TinyHouse to haul home. Oh, it also had good reviews.
Except that apparently, the chest freezer of interest was all promises and lies. The brand that was actually available in the store was some other brand of somewhat questionable dimensions.
But given how long it took for us to even haul ourselves out there to get a chest freezer, it made the most sense to just go for it.
Except that the chest freezer wound up being too wide to fit through TinyHouse's door. While we were standing around, thinking and talking about what to do, we were approached by a Helpful New Yorker who wanted to know if we needed any help. We couldn't quite articulate our status, so eventually he got out a tape measure and confirmed that it might be possible to physically fit the chest freezer in through TinyHouse's passenger-side door, if we took out the passenger seat.
Not a small project.
Eventually we managed to get the Helpful New Yorker to go away again so we could talk and think some more. S proposed that, before we tried out the passenger seat removal method, perhaps we should try taking out the rear window - a separate project he'd already mentioned wanting to tackle for other TinyHouse maintenance reasons.
I was skeptical, but I've also learned that in situations such as this one, I should just listen and let S be in charge. Sometimes his methods are unorthodox, but they often work perfectly well. He had me unscrew an aluminum bracket on the inside of the window, and lo and behold, he was right: after loosening the butane rubber seal around the edges, the whole rear window came free.
The rest was easy from there.
We probably could have gotten an even bigger chest freezer, but at least this one is a start. As S noted, it would be super handy to upgrade the rear window so it opens and closes, to make it easier to stick things like kayaks and windsurf boards into TinyHouse. A project for another time.
On our way back, he dropped me off on campus. And now it is time to work on writing and recording lectures, and writing/revising Exam 1.
Most of the rest of my life these days is mundane teaching stuff.
On the downstream return trip, a large, black yacht went by, headed upstream. It seems like the same yacht we've seen before at that time of day. It was moving fast enough, without slowing, to send out a huge wake - maybe a 1.5-foot wake? It was also over on my half of the river, so I didn't have much time or space to react. I was JUST far enough away from shore to avoid catastrophe there, and I managed to stay upright, though it felt like barely. Not fun.
Shortly past the place where I stopped for the worst of the wake was a stretch of river where both sides of the river are bounded by concrete walls. So naturally I wound up sloshing around even more in further wake reverberations. I may have used some strong language to express my displeasure. The Wild Blue Yonder is not an open-water rowing craft.
But once I made it through that point, the rest of the row was perfectly nice. I was a bit on the slow side but at the moment what matters the most is just getting in the mileage. I'll work on speed during other practices. I'll also get started even earlier next time, because I got in 20 minutes later than I would have liked.
-
Meanwhile, S has been keen to follow through on his promised birthday gift to me (after our trip to the ballet got abruptly canceled). So next we drove Princess TinyHouse up to a Despot that had indicated that it had a chest freezer of appropriate dimensions so as to be able to fit it inside of TinyHouse to haul home. Oh, it also had good reviews.
Except that apparently, the chest freezer of interest was all promises and lies. The brand that was actually available in the store was some other brand of somewhat questionable dimensions.
But given how long it took for us to even haul ourselves out there to get a chest freezer, it made the most sense to just go for it.
Except that the chest freezer wound up being too wide to fit through TinyHouse's door. While we were standing around, thinking and talking about what to do, we were approached by a Helpful New Yorker who wanted to know if we needed any help. We couldn't quite articulate our status, so eventually he got out a tape measure and confirmed that it might be possible to physically fit the chest freezer in through TinyHouse's passenger-side door, if we took out the passenger seat.
Not a small project.
Eventually we managed to get the Helpful New Yorker to go away again so we could talk and think some more. S proposed that, before we tried out the passenger seat removal method, perhaps we should try taking out the rear window - a separate project he'd already mentioned wanting to tackle for other TinyHouse maintenance reasons.
I was skeptical, but I've also learned that in situations such as this one, I should just listen and let S be in charge. Sometimes his methods are unorthodox, but they often work perfectly well. He had me unscrew an aluminum bracket on the inside of the window, and lo and behold, he was right: after loosening the butane rubber seal around the edges, the whole rear window came free.
The rest was easy from there.
We probably could have gotten an even bigger chest freezer, but at least this one is a start. As S noted, it would be super handy to upgrade the rear window so it opens and closes, to make it easier to stick things like kayaks and windsurf boards into TinyHouse. A project for another time.
On our way back, he dropped me off on campus. And now it is time to work on writing and recording lectures, and writing/revising Exam 1.
Most of the rest of my life these days is mundane teaching stuff.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-12 08:57 pm (UTC)That one looks to be approximately the size of the chest freezer we have, and I can confirm that it's a great starter size for two people. Keeping freezers full is actually better than one that's half-empty, so going a little smaller isn't a bad plan at all.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-13 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-13 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-13 12:48 am (UTC)And I need to know more about Princess TinyHouse. 😀
no subject
Date: 2020-09-13 05:57 pm (UTC)I'm low on bandwidth at the moment, but here's a picture of Princess TinyHouse from the front, from when she was stored in Lincoln, NE. S got her from someone in Colorado, then we left her in the Midwest while we were in California, and he retrieved her shortly after we moved out here, when he wasn't sure whether or not he would be able to stay in the Grandma House due to some level of pesticide reaction (he is extremely sensitive to certain classes of pesticide).
https://flic.kr/p/2geMAqC
She is fantastic for adventures. A bit leaky still, but S has been working on that, among other projects. Basically the whole vehicle is a project.