Saturday night, we hit up Bistro One for dinner after installing a ceiling fan (this install went pretty quickly, but there were more to come). After many Hoegaardens, I finally got around to eating real food off of the menu, not just appetizers. Their food does not disappoint! I kept it simple with the Bistro Burger and I have to say, it was one of the best burger and fries plates I have had in a while. Of course after riding for 4+ hours, I'd probably eat anything and find it to be one of the best.
Once it warmed up enough to get outside, I headed west for a ride in the hills. The weather was perfect for this time of year and this is probably one of the last weekends where the roads will be clean higher up. I got it in my head that I wanted to ride up and over Shadow Mountain from the Evergreen side, since I hadn't done that ride in quite a while. The ride out to Morrison wasn't really anything special, for variety, I cut through Red Rocks to see what was going on. They had some sort of event happening, but I didn't slow down enough to find out what it was. As I got further up Bear Creek Canyon, I started running into just about everybody I know who rides bikes. I had a nice visit with Richard Rodriguez somewhere in the middle of the canyon. After catching up for a bit, I kept heading up and somehow managed to get past the Tin Star without stopping for an apple fritter. I made the turn on to Brook Forest or whatever the road is called at that point, it only changes names a couple times without any turns, and continued the upwards grind.
You can see from the profile that there are some areas that aren't messing around when it comes to steepness of grade. Fortunately pain is only temporary . . . until you crack and go into complete and utter limp home mode. I didn't get to that point until I was back at the bike path on the homestretch from Chatfield. I tooled along the path at a nice, mellow, broken man's pace and made it home in time to go do stuff at Deb's house. Hanging ceiling fans doesn't promote recovery.
On Sunday, I was able to work in my own backyard for a little bit, cleaning up some of the piles and getting everything ready for whatever the next step is. Then I got the call that they were ready for some more fan installation action at Deb's . . . great news! She decided she didn't like the fan we installed yesterday, so the two fan install job turned into a three fan install job. I don't mind installing ceiling fans, it is usually pretty easy, except when the prior work is half assed. It is relatively horrifying when a fan is installed sans bracing or a proper junction box. I did my best to ignore all of that (there is no real attic access) hoping that the lath behind the crumbling plaster was solid and throwing out my waiver of liability every three minutes. Fan #2 wobbled so badly with the downrod that I had to take it all back down and do a flush mount to give the fan more stability. After some cursing the fan was rewired and rehung, all was well.
The fan for the dining room should have been easier to install. At least there was modern wiring at this hole in the ceiling as opposed to some brittle knob and tube stuff. The only tricky part on this one was that the holes in the canopy didn't really line up with the holes in the ceiling bracket, requiring some wrestling with the fan overhead, trying to get everything to line up closely enough for a screw to catch. In the end, all fans were hung securely and they operate properly . . . Deb owes me a lot of sushi dinners.
I think Dempsey had the right idea. He played some more than usual this weekend and when the time came, he tucked his paws under his tail for warmth and sacked out on his bed. Good thing there's some holiday relaxation time coming up soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment