Cautious

Just a quick one... The weather around Hood isn't looking as clear as we wanted it to, so we're staying put until probably next weekend.

Old Houses and Sleep

Friends Rod and Kate in Albany love old houses, really old houses, houses that are over a century old and in need of work. They have a project ahead of them that I look forward to monitoring on their new blog. You might want to follow their progress also. I put their link on the right side with my other links. Things still appear to be on track for the Hood climb early tomorrow morning. Barring weather mischief I'll be testing the legs straight up for three miles. I'm not as concerned about the climb as adjusting to the lack of sleep. Attempts to nap during the day at work usually can't happen when the public comes through the door or when little fires need to be put out. After work my adrenaline level usually goes up as the hour approaches, so there's no sleeping, and I've been up since 5 a.m. Check back for how it went...

In The Event

Work was coming to a close when someone called and asked for a three mile, three foot wide length of carpet to be installed from Timberline Lodge to the top of Mt. Hood. I responded that some red indoor/outdoor carpet might be appropriate. Of course it was Bob saying Friday night looked to be the night we we're targeting. He wants to be on the slopes and climbing by 1 a.m. During that early hour the snow is nice and icy and great for sticking into with crampons. I called Derek and he was excited to go but his wife, Deanna, had seen a local weatherman say the slopes were prone to avalanches this weekend. Bob had said exactly the opposite but who really knows. I respect anybody's decision. No reason to be sick with worry over something like this. There will be a next time for him. It does make you reflect on your life insurance situation. Joy and I have had these conversations before about what would happen in the event of my death. Pretty morbid but worth considering. She says she wouldn't be able to keep the house because she doesn't pull in enough income alone. She could always move someone into the basement to help defray the costs. I told her she'd have to do more at Gilford's and her pay would increase as a result, but she couldn't learn all the bookwork machinations of the business overnight. Her brain's not set up that way. I said Derek would be around to assist. They would probably do quite well. Knowing that this is a potentially dangerous activity, why go through with the risk? Honestly, I've never felt that my life was threatened. I've been up twice with Bob, who has been up countless times, knows when it's time to turn back. He's not a risk taker. We take the friendliest route for climbers (even though we watched on TV in 2002 as a rescue helicopter crashed and slid right down that section). I need to go back up to prove something to myself that I can't define right now. Maybe I'll be able to elaborate in a future post.

Sunday Hillside Brush and Pipe

BEFORE

AFTER

What, Me Worthy?

Nothing brings the fact that you've reached a certain age or left younger age behind like standing in line for a concert for a relatively obscure 80's musical icon (Thomas Dolby) and finding that everyone in that line is as old or older than you are. Gray streaks in the balding heads and beards. People with teenage kids trying to turn them on to what they were into then in their college or high school days. And as a younger set of "kids" drives by and looks at this line of old farts and wonders who Thomas Dolby is on the marquis, you begin to fall into the realization that you really are a world away from youth. I feel like I've been straddling that line for some time. Still interested in the things I was interested in 20 years ago doesn't make me younger at heart. It makes me part of a club that doesn't want to fully acknowledge its membership. We're older and more responsible and want our youth back or want to be recognized as still having a youthful perspective on things. It's just that the responsibilities that come with being older now have the floor and demand attention away from youthful pursuits. Oh boy, what a load of crap...

I should say that Mr. Dolby put on an excellent show. It's amazing what one performer can do these days with the right technical gear. He was surrounded by computers and synthesizers, rhythm machines and vintage electronic gizmos. As he twittered with knobs and keyboards the audience got to see things from his perspective on a screen behind him via a camera attached to his head. Very entertaining. And for all us folks who had been up so early to go to work that day it was nice to see it come to an end by a little after 10pm.

Does anyone read these things?

Just some thoughts popping into my brain to lay out here for anyone reading...
Joy got some curtains up in the master bathroom and laundry room so we have a little privacy. We've taken measurements of some of the larger windows to get some shades. We've settled on shades instead of drapes so the woodwork we love so much won't get covered. I dug a 25 foot long trench and covered one of two pipes leading down the hill which carries our rain drain water. We're scratching our heads over what to do with the immediate hillside closest to our house. We're hoping to eradicate blackberry vines before they get started this year. With our neighbors to the south planning to build within the year we know we won't be doing much landscaping on that side of the house. Work is busy as far as our work calendar. I haven't had as many estimates as I've been used to in past years, giving me time to reorganize our showroom to emphasize our tile selection. Our audio/video guy is returning this late afternoon to fine tune the satellite dish setting. Jeff wasn't 100% happy with the readings. Everything looked good to me but he's even more of a perfectionist than I am. He's also setting up a wireless remote system downstairs so the cabinet doors in front of the audio/video components can remain closed. Oh, he wants his last payment, too. Dolby tomorrow night.

Happenstance

Being a little hungry for some good Italian food, Joy and I went to Giuseppe's after work last night. We hadn't been there in weeks and the place was crowded but we got seated before all the tables were taken. While we waited to get our orders taken we were talking about how the cold weather was hanging on. Here it is mid-April and more snow is predicted for the mountains this weekend. I recalled that our friend Bob was probably getting itchy feet to scale Mt. Hood like he does year after year at this time. Derek and I summited with him in 1998 and 2001. He's a great guide. We first met him in 1998 (I think) when he and his wife Nancy hired us to do some carpet and vinyl in their house. We've maintained contact over the years. Excuses I'm not sure the nature of have kept me away from climbing these last few years. Nancy was killed in a head-on car crash in February 2005, just as we were barely breaking ground on our house. A young driver crossed lanes on the freeway just as she was about to take her exit home. That was obviously an awful time for Bob and his two girls. The funeral was packed, as Nancy had many friends from work and church and 4-H. She was big into animals. She and Bob and the girls had moved into a house with a bit of property so they could tend to all kinds of critters. So I told Joy that I was sure Bob wouldn't be climbing for a while with all the snow still falling. Maybe two minutes later, in walks Bob to join a large group at the table next to us. I heard myself say, "You've got to be kidding." We hadn't seen him for a year since just after the funeral when we had been planning a climb that never got off the ground. After a strong handshake and some small talk we decided this would be trip number three up Mt. Hood. I don't know about Derek, but I'm going to try to get up this year with Bob. There's never much planning with these things. It could happen next weekend.

Dolby

Twenty-five years ago I was a sophomore or junior in high school. I was a nerdy kid with nerdy friends. The music video station, MTV, was a year or so old and actually played videos when it started out. They played this weird song by a nerdy British guy named Thomas Dolby called "She Blinded Me With Science." It was catchy and had a lot of neat sound effects and bordered on irritating after multiple listens, but I went out and bought the album anyway and played the hell out of it on my record player. There was so much more interesting stuff on that album than the popular "Science" track. I bought another album of his a few years later and liked it as well called "The Flat Earth." I gradually lost interest and moved on to other musical tastes but revisited Thomas Dolby occasionally and rediscovered why he was a groundbreaking electronic artist in a lot of respects if you're into that kind of thing. So I see he's doing a tour and will be visiting Portland on April 20th. A small club called The Aladdin showcasing a guy playing his 80's electronic hits to fans mostly in their 40's: sounds like my style. I'm still very much that nerdy kid with no apologies.

Wired

Over the last couple days, Jeff, our audio-video geek, got us hooked up to satellite on three TVs. There's the big one in the basement media room which is also equiped with a TIVO digital video recorder, one in Joy's sewing/craft/spare bedroom, and one in our nook area between the kitchen and great room. I'd never used a TIVO before and have a little bit of learning to do. The TV in the nook and the one in the media room are high definition capable. DirecTV puts out a few HD channels now with more promised as the industry moves more and more to HDTV. I am usually happy just renting DVDs and watching a movie when I want, although this TIVO records HD so that opens up more possibilities. The funny thing is right now I'd probably get a couple hours on a Sunday to enjoy anything during the week. So having all these entertainment options is nice but not so great if you're never home to enjoy them. I have a seven speaker set-up including a subwoofer for what Joy calls "wrap-around" sound. That will come in handy for effects and sound-driven movies. Still waiting for the movie chairs, so the rooms not complete yet. One sad note was discovering my 20-year-old record player (that's right, a turntable that plays record albums) bit the dust. In this digital world it's still nice to throw on an old album from the late 70's or 80's, pops and hisses and all. Having the belt replaced and who knows what else repaired on this relic would cost as much as a new no-frills player.

Transitions

We've been operating Gilford's Floor Covering the same way for fifteen years, ever since the folks started giving us more and more of the responsibility as they eased out toward retirement and finally left in the '90s. I have been on the "inside" and brother Derek has been "outside." Derek has been in the field installing and communicating with our other crew about installing and communicating with our subs about installing. In more recent years he has had more communication with builders and relayed scheduling concerns to me since I run the calendar. I have done 99% of the estimating. Joy and I work with customers in the showroom. I order the majority of materials and manage their arrival time for jobs, pay bills, bill our customers, do payroll and taxes, make deposits, layout the showroom, keep track of all the samples, keep price books up to date, pick up materials from our distributors or arrange their delivery, and run a vacuum around. It consumes every ounce of extra energy I have. I can plan on putting in 51.5 hours Monday through Friday and four hours many Saturdays, and those are just our regular store hours. There are all those hours of doing estimates at home and taking care of behind the scenes stuff like repricing carpets when an increase comes our way from the mills. But I'm not complaining. I would like some time off now and then and I will steal moments away to go for a walk to the bank with a deposit and maybe hit the library on the way back. The last two years have been phenomenally profitable for us. Derek was finishing up his house and we we're in the midst of ours. The business affords us a great lifestyle and we work our asses off for it. But we've started realizing that for me to keep what's left of my mental health and for Derek to keep what's left of his knees, he needs to move "inside" to take on some of the duties. The repercussions will be felt immediately. I predict we won't be as profitable. We're both OK with not taking home as much as we've been used to to make this work. He wouldn't be getting into the financials of the business as much as the estimating, ordering, scheduling and relations with all our customers, employees and subs. I have feared sharing specific duties because we're both headstrong and little wars could erupt. Part of the success of the old way has been our division of responsibilities. Change can be very painful but necessary. I'm hoping to look back at this time and wonder why we didn't do it sooner.

A Nice Gentleman From India

Fed up with the hours it was taking me to get my wireless connection working, I decided to take advantage of the 90 days live support offered by the company that makes the router. The "Netgear" representative came on the line and asked me for the serial numbers, operating system and other technical stuff. I had a little problem understanding the accent at some points but the fellow was very patient and was able to talk me through the proper connections. I can now say that I have experienced wireless internet for the first time. I highly recommend Netgear for the customer service aspect alone at this point. The internet signal transmits via radio-like waves, so the closer you are to the router the better, but I had fairly good results with the router located in the basement and the laptop up on the third floor in the bedroom. I'll be tweaking some things to make it faster and look forward to finding those public hotspots I've heard about. I talked my Uncle Dave through some issues he was having with his own computer. I'm in need of a vacation away from this electronic stuff. Joy took advantage of a free day to get some curtain material and silk flowers for arrangements.

Fool

I'm on a little rollercoaster this morning. I hooked up to the internet yesterday morning, three days earlier than expected. That was one small victory. Transferring the old files off the computer I'm donating to Mom is another story. I spent a couple frustrating evenings and a morning before work playing with cables and learning about networking computers to no avail. It all may come down to having the right kind of cable, so I'll give it one more shot before I throw this and all computers I come across into the dumpster. The other related thing is the attempt to make this new laptop wireless. The wireless router I bought says on the packaging how easy it is to make operate. Three hours last night and I'm ready to throw that in the dumpster too. So you see, I'm not the computer whiz you might think I am. The only reason I will succeed eventually is because I'm insane enough to spend the countless hours trying to figure it out. The more rational person would give up or just not do this crap to begin with. Actually, what will end up happening is I'll probably hire somebody to help me. Jeff, our audio/video man, made an appearance Friday and hooked the stereo, TV and DVD player up so we can at least enjoy movies and music. Someday we'll have satellite TV hooked up and Joy will be able to watch her home fix-it shows. In the mean time, she's puttering around the house, spending our hard-earned dollars at Bed, Bath and Beyond, hanging pictures, getting us settled in. All the while we're dealing with an ever-increasing workload. We just put $24000 into the new roof at the shop. And the next few weekends see us sorting through outdated racks in the showroom to make room for more of a tile and natural stone statement. When customers walk through the door they've been inundated with a tremendous amount of carpet choices off lots of racks. We're hoping to scale back the number of carpet racks and share the focus with tile, an increasing part of our business.