Modern Vespa

I'm in St. Michael s Maryland recovering from a drive from Boston and an enormous dinner with lots of people.

What's on the agenda for all of you?

Great Thanksgiving dinner with my sister and her husband. He has gone hunting, we have been shopping and kook forward to the Auburn vs. Alabama football game tomorrow.

Nothing like hanging with young people to make you feel freaking old.

They roll up the sidewalks at sundown. Spent a birthday there. Try the massage at the five gables.

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Thanks Giving! You know it can easily get darn stressful during the holidays...take a deep breath, take a step back and relax. Please allow time for yourself!

Began Friday afternoon cleaning out parking stall (concrete) that our neighbor let's use to park our bikes. Prior to use, stall had a good deposit of oil that we never cleaned out and decided it was time.

It's rather effective using cat litter (clay) and layering it on letting it set overnight and then rubbing it in with your foot. Acts like sandpaper in removing the caked on grease and then you take a dust pan and sweep. Rather than discard litter save and will make available to others to use.

After completing the process...I believe sand may have been a better abrasive since it would not break down as easily as the cat litter.

Will spend Saturday completing drawing layout of pre-existing kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanity cabinets, laundry room cabinets then work in our project design and then secure proposal.

Lot's of moving pieces. Attempting to complete minor renovation to our rental condo in January and will live in while renovating our residential condo.

That's the focus this weekend...hopefully will get chance to complete annual scoot maintenance during December.

Everyone, please be safe out there while shopping!

Nothing on the sked today except some college football on tv and a beer or two. No leftovers, we cleaned up after Thursday for lunch yesterday.

Santiago is that beheaded turkey smoking?

TB you've had a pretty industrious weekend. I still use cat litter instead of sand.

ScooterGirlinAL so it was girl time for you and your sister? What fun! Did you find any bargains on your shopping spree?

The weather was nice here on Thursday but I was completely under it. Had plans to spend Thu supper with VRM's Mom and his family but had to cancel it. When I finally could drag myself out of the bed around 2PM I heard a knock on my door and there he was. If Max does not go to the turkey, the turkey comes to Max. Needless to say it made my day. Thanks Matthew. We had a lovely ride afterwards with brilliant clear skies and an amazing sunset.

Hope you're felling better! It was nice to have Matthew to bring a Thanks Giving meal to you! Wonderful to have special friends like that!

Wife was impressed on how the parking stall got cleaned up...that is good! Still considering going at it with some sand to get ride of some of the stubborn grease build up...the beach is just down the road.

By the way, if anyone uses cat litter for what's it intended for...you may want to try pine pellets, either Nature's Bedding (you'll find this at feed / cattle suppliers) or Feline Pine (Walmart, Petsmart, Petco, etc.). Wife prefers Feline Pine. Both will knock down the ammonia fumes from cat urine and since no clay dust...it seems to help one of our cats with skin irritation. Wife prefers having some pellets to pickup on the floor than sweeping up the clay.

Read instructions on how to transition cat and proper use...you don't need to over fill litter box. My recommendation is to use the litter shovel and scoop up where you find urine deposit and shake "saw dust" (it breaks down to sawdust) through slits of shovel into a paper bag (it's not soaking wet) and toss back the whole pellets into the box. You can then dispose of "saw dust". You'll be amazed that you won't smell any urine odor. I've gotten used to picking up the feces and flush down toilet.

Wait a minute I hear "TB" in the litter box...O.K. it was a number 2!

http://reviews.petsmart.com/4830/2754847/feline-pine-feline-pine-natural-cat-litter-reviews/reviews.htm

Will see how today goes to get those renderings done!

Next weekend is Midnight Madness where everything stays open late and there are prize drawings. I'll be long gone.

MAX the fish is smoking. Getting a few things done to the LX and then trying to rehab my cedar table downstairs. Hope i don't get rained on. Man the center part of the island (the way i usually travel to get into Honolulu) got flooded yesterday.

Currently at War with the Fungi in the Bathroom

A-ha! Apparently I missed the fish. What an unusually interesting photo that is. It's intriguing in its own way. I wonder if it was taken in Colorado or Washington.

TB I am now in the pink and feel 100% better thanks.

I'll be riding over to my co-worker's house tomorrow after work. We're gonna do a last little bit of scooter wrenching before the snow starts sticking. She's got a spiffy custom Buddy 170i.

That is, if it doesn't stick too much today. Nothing in the forecast, but my dog and I got snowed on earlier this morning.

Coffee breakfast coffee nap.

Not too different...coffee / bagel....projects / feed the cats [mid-day]...coffee / lunch...nap...finish projects / feed the cats [dinner]...go to sleep

Painting the hidden door. The project that just won't end.

Finally finished the roof of my workshop.

It went from this:



To this:

Nice! We did a skylight in the kitchen. A real space changing mod!

In my case, it was completely Not Worth It. I deliberately placed the skylight on the North face of the workshop roof in order to avoid solar gain from direct sunlight. This resulted in... well, not very much sunlight.

The only silver lining is that I spent the extra money to get an openable skylight, so I'll have some ventilation in the otherwise windowless workshop.

For skylight without the heat, look at Solatube. Easier to install, too. No ventilation, though.

Max, we found good deals on dog beds at Kohl's and walked out with six, four for her four dogs, one for my dog, and one for my brother's dog. Then we found a kitchen island/cart she wanted for Christmas and we spent most of today putting that thing together.

Sorry to read you weren't feeling well for Thanksgiving. Nice you have VRM to deliver the goods and have a taste of the holiday. Glad you are feeling better!

Thought I'd take a ride down to the beach and pick up some sand so I could clean up our stall that's adjacent to the stall I had just cleaned (our neighbor lets us use to park our bikes). Then I could compare results.

I thought the beach sand would hold up better and provide a more abrasive compound to dislodge the grease build up. Well...not so, seems that the cat litter (clumping type was used) has a little "absortive / tacky" pick up properties and did a better job.

By the way, after I picked up the beach sand I took the long way thru Waikiki and around Diamond Head. I'll sometimes pull into the Diamond Cemetary and pratice taking curves and circle patterns. For some reason I thought I'd go visit my friend's late wife's urn vault and coincidentally her birthday was yesterday. I will pick up some flowers tomorrow and go back and wish Beryl a Happy Birthday! I guess...things sometimes just happen...

I was going to be on the road in the tomorrow morning anyway...

Enduring a two week insurance stand-down period after our car was stolen on Thursday night.
We are now officially a one Vespa family. "How Italian" said a friend.
Oh well - at least it was a fine weekend - start of a long hot Summer we hope.

I believe the "stand-down" period is to allow enough time to allow for recovery of your car? Regardless, it's unfortunate that your car got stolen..I hope everything works out alright.

If I recall our winter...your summers!

Be Safe!

Was out with some friends Sat night. Whilst riding, a soft toy dropped off a fellow rider's Vespa and another Vespa rider rolled over the poor monkey. Nobody realized it was "the monkey" until we reached our destination. 2 hours later, a few of us went to look for the monkey to cheer up the distraught owner '-( and voila ... monkey retrieved. Here is the re-enactment picture subsequently posted.

Cheers, and correct on all counts Wayne.
My daughter and I just went to our combined tennis lesson on the GT. 8)
I guess that's a little up-side to this situ'.

lots of time in the hospital. My 84yr. dad fell and broke a hip n Thanksgiving, said he was glad he got his turkey first. He'll be ok, was a lateral break at the neck, not the "ball" joint, rods, screws and a plate later and he is doing well.

We'll move him to a rehab hospital for about a month, then back home to his retirement home we hope.

In the mean time lots of visits to the hospital and runs to the store for more books, that man loves to read.

Heh, for a second there, I thought it looked like somebody squished The Gecko.

No heat if you buy the energy star version, and they can be ventilated.

I'm surprised. My Solatube for the kitchen is in a poor location for capturing all available maximum light and still makes a significant difference. Not enough good light to work by but enough to navigate, an otherwise dark spot, without turning on lights.

Sorry to hear about your Dad's fall. Hang in there! My brother's and sister's cared for my late Father and Mother. If you need to, please reach out to Family members and have a Family Council to coordinate support.

Our Family is now caring for my 82 year old mother-in-law. Sadly it's mostly my wife but I'm attempting to convince her to get her brother and her son more engaged. I tried to help more but the Family dynamics sometimes gets in the way...better for me to stay on sidelines.

By the way, if needed there may be Elder Care services that are available in the community if you need assistance. Locally, the City and County and a Bank funds a Senior Information and Assistance Handbook that's updated every year. Wife and I were Certified Senior Advisors and found this publication and attending the annual local Senior Fair very helpful.

Wishing your Dad, You and your Family well...

Given the lack of attic in the workshop, I don't think a solatube would have worked very well. Nowhere for the tube to go.

Kind of late now, regardless.

Velux makes great skylights. Good choice.

Gracias! We have some of those big frosted bubble skylights in the main house, and they're kind of... well, not very nice. The Velux seems to be fairly well regarded, and much more attractive.

All energy star rated. I see they also make tubes I need one more.

Wishing your Dad, You and your Family well... [/quote]

Thanks, my sister is helping out, but she heads home Monday. Thanks for all the references, will keep that list.
Good luck with your mother inlaw and bless you for being there for her.