New Year, New Bulbs, maybe a new Driveway...

Happy New Year, folks! What’s happenin’? It’s a new year…time for resolutions and self-promises. Here’s hoping that if you made any of those, that you’re successful and achieve your goals. My goal is to cut back on the desserts/snacks and hopefully drop a few pounds. Wish me luck.

The only out-of-the-norm thing going on right now is I’ve been doing some side work (of sorts) the past couple of nights. Got a call from a guy that does different jobs from time to time and he’d lined up a re-lamping project (replacing all the fluorescent bulbs in a multi-level library) at one of the colleges in town (BC). Worked Thursday night, again last night, and we’ll pick it up again on Monday and probably run through Friday. First night, we had about 17 guys, last night there were only about 9. We meet up at 6pm and work until close to midnight. Pretty mindless, but not without some level of danger apparently. The first night, one of the guys fell off a ladder and caught one of the light guards right in the face. Luckily, he missed his eye, but caught his nose and sliced a gash and a half through it. The rest of his night was spent at the hospital getting his nose stitched together. He was back with us last night and it looks like they did a good job sewing him up, so he should be ok in time.

The fixtures we’re dealing with are a mix of old and new. There are pros and cons to each; the new ones are safer (electrically), but are flimsier and don’t always go back together very easily. The older ones are solid and come apart and go back together quite well…but they’re not grounded at all! As soon as you’re touching one end of the bulb against the frame, you’re susceptible to shocks wherever any part of your hand/forearm is in contact with any other part of the fixture (didn’t take too long to figure out to keep your forearms clear of EVERYTHING!). Overall, it makes for some pretty long days, but it’s all good; make some quick cash and it's better than sitting on my ass watching TV.

Haven’t been able to get the bike out since my last post. We’ve had a bit of a cold snap; low (low!) single digit temps and some decent ice…which means more salt. Thankfully, we’re entering a bit of a warm up, and they’re saying we’ll hit 60 degrees on Tuesday. Nice! Too bad there’s no rain in the forecast, to get rid of all the salt. Looks like I’m going to have to sit this warm stretch out.

I did roll the bike out onto the driveway today and fired it up to warm things up - you know the drill by now; get the fluids heated and flowing, lubing, keeping the bike happy. I also made myself a bit happy by riding out to the end of my driveway (stopping before I reach all that dastardly salt on the roadway) and back. Then I did it again. And again for a third time. Nothing but a tease. It was nice to be rolling, even if only at about 10 miles an hour, but what I need is a driveway that’s longer...

…one that's about three hundred miles long, would be just fantastic.

Ride Hard, Take Chances