Hey, I can relate!
No, that's not me in the photo, it's a "found" shot online. It wasn't credited, so if it's yours, let me know and I'll credit it.
However, I rode the Shadow over to the new house yesterday, midday, and, yeah, it was like that!
You know how you test your iron skillet for being hot enough by seeing if a few drops of water will dance on the surface? About 3 p.m. yesterday it was me and my Shadow skittering across the surface of the highway. I don't know what the outside temp was, it probably would have made it feel even worse, but the thermometer in the shade on the house porch said 100 degrees F. when we got there.
It was less than a half hour drive, but it didn't take much more to make me feel baked out like a dried out snake skin!
We moved another load of lumber and we did a cleaning of the house. That was, I admit, mostly Cat sweeping and mopping with assistance from Michael and I.
We sign the lease tomorrow and start moving in the inside stuff.
We already have taken several loads of lumber, outside stuff, and a couple of loads of books.
My fabled office trailer renovation is on hiatus till after we move. It's together enough to make the trip now. The portable building that is our workshop will need a bit of beefing up before moving. It barely made it here. It's sound enough, but the skids and some of the under framing won't take another move as they are now. So, it's going last. We'll take a few more days to make those repairs after we move the rest, if we can manage the wasps long enough.
The ride home near sundown was downright pleasant, though! I'm trying to stay inside and hydrated today.
It's confusing. It was in the news a couple of days ago about the sun going into a "no sun spot cycle". So, today I find an article about how that means we may be entering a "mini ice age." Then, in the same site, I find another article about the same thing happening a couple of years ago and how that was responsible for more warming. Hmm.
Well for now, stay cool!
It's been a good while since I posted here. I've been busy. Avatar has been going well. I just took a new student through an intro, and half of a Resurfacing class, (she'll take the second half soon), as well as helping with other students. We're planning on taking some students to Colorado in a month or so, and definitely planning to take the Wizard's course in Orlando in January.
My '84 Honda Shadow was down for a few days, and I put some time in fixing that. I've got it going again. I'm enjoying riding around and exploring this part of the county. Some of that is taking pictures and research for my books. I enjoy seeing old cemeteries and small towns.
In addition, a few days ago the slave drive on my desktop computer crashed. It is a 120 gig drive, and I had been using it for overflow until it was nearly filled, then it died. It's not too horrible, and I may even be able to get some of it back. My more critical stuff was on my main drive, all my writing and reference stuff stays on a 4 gig flash drive, so I can use it either on my desktop or laptop. So, I still have that safe. It took me a few days to get the desktop back online, re-install a few things that I needed that had been on the second drive, and so on. But, I'm using it now. A friend in Austin thinks maybe he can revive that second drive for me, get my data back. I guess the worst part is all my music, and much of my drafting files were on that drive.
Still looking for a paying job. Unemployment insurance has ended, again, although I read that congress is trying to extend it some more. Here's hoping. With construction still at a low, there doesn't seem to be any demand for 60 year old steel detailers. In the year plus since I was laid off, Texas Work Force Commission has come up with exactly one job referral that fit any of my qualifications, and I didn't get it. Oh well.
Anyone need a draftsman with background in steel construction, a bit of structural engineering, permaculture, handymanology, farm/auto mechanics and writing skills?
Actually, I wondered about hiring myself out as a mentor of sorts. A lifetime of "jack of all trades" and so on. I'm not physically up to a lot of the heavier aspects of, say, re-building a farm tractor, or an old car. But I could mentor someone who wanted to. I grew up in a rural garage, I've done most of my own work on cars and tractors, etc. all my life. There's not so much I want to tackle in cars and trucks since they grew computers and such, but most of pre-1980's vintage I can help with.
The ideal situation would be a rural intentional community, where I could exchange knowledge and skills for living/working space for Cat Dancing and myself.
Actually, through Avatar, it is impossible to get down about any of it. It is more of a "glass half full" situation.
Boogie on.
