I have to fill in the trench soon, but I will probably be smart, plan ahead, and bury a coaxial cable and a Cat 5 cable for phone and cable service in the future. That way, I could put a satellite dish on the roof of the garage, out of sight . . . we'll see how much 100' of direct burial cable costs.
Matt E. and I did some framing on Saturday night for kicks and because I wanted to have walls in place when the electrician showed up so I could talk him into wiring the coffee "shop" for me. Surprisingly we measured right and ended up with walls that were plumb and level . . . I leave out square because the floor is slightly out of level. From the brick wall to the end of the future cabinet area, there is a 1" drop.
I did some more demo work and now you can fully appreciate the floor beneath the floor in the back room. I can't even guess what the thought process was, but again this structure is pretty questionable all the way around. I was very excited to see what was waiting for me behind the fiberboard on the ceiling. The wire with the orange housing is for the espresso machine, give me 220 volts, I have coffee needs!
The answer . . . ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!! Well there were some spiderwebs and about 15 pounds of dust. the wiring was put in after I exposed the distinct lack of insulation. I was trying to figure out how they got the fiberboard between the roof "trusses" and the tops of the wall. That would seem to indicate they put the fiberboard on and then slapped the roof in place. I really don't want to know. I will insulate, drywall, install some new, pretty light fixtures and pretend none of it ever happened.
After a couple weeks of waiting with great anticipation, I have the Astoria all hooked up and running. I have some troubleshooting to do, some cleaning to do, some parts to replace, but I had a very tasty Americano this morning instead of the usual drip coffee.
The guts of the machine are pretty clean. There will be parts that will be removed and cleaned further as I make some of the necessary adjustments and repairs. Add a new hobby to the list . . .Part of getting things up and running was cutting into my plumbing to add a supply line. I had my reducing tee all ready to go, cut my pipe and then very quickly found out that my 1/2" tee was not the right size for my 5/8" pipe . . . stupid outer diameter dimension . . . since I was smart enough to turn the water off first and have a bucket handy, it wasn't a big deal leaving everything shut off while I went to Home Depot to pick up some parts. I ended up with brass compression fittings which actually make me more comfortable than the John Guest fittings anyways. Once that part was taken care of, I hooked up the softener cartridge and carbon filter and let them run until all of the residue and whatnot was purged. Thus ended my career as a junior plumber, task accomplished, no leaks to speak of . . . yet.
In between all of this working, I did manage to get out and enjoy a spring like ride. I headed out west with the hopes that all roads would be clear and clear they were. Golden Gate Canyon was in better condition than I could have imagined and even relatively gravel free. It was nice getting in some sustained climbs with some steep bits at the end. I managed to keep it in the big ring the whole way to the second summit on Saturday. Usually, I drop to the small ring for the last climb which has some kick to it, especially a solid 45+ minutes of climbing in (1:45 of ride time by then).
Unfortunately I had to work on MLK day . . . it would have been nice to have some recovery from the weekend, but no rest for the weary.
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