Last Month’s Climbing Trip

Back near the beginning of September Craig and I headed up to the Gunks area to climb Peterskill with the Scott’s (Scott O. & Scott M.).

Peterskill has the same kind of rock as the rest of the Gunks, but all the routes are single pitch and in many cases somewhat easier. Considering I hadn’t lead ‘Trad’ since June, it was a good place to start the fall climbing trips.

Craig and I started on Sleepwalking on the Bunkbed wall as a warm up. Feeling confident, we moved onto Bunk Arete and I lead my first 5.6.

We climbed a bunch of other stuff as well, but the routes have since escaped me.

We’re heading back to the Gunks the middle of this month. We’ll probably head back to Peterskill for more single pitch fun.

– b

Cushion Fort

What do you do when it’s raining and you’ve had to pull all the cushions inside?

Cushion Fort!!!

– b

Dinner Out

For whatever reason the girls and I had to eat out last Tuesday night.

So what right?

But I updated the gallery with pictures from the night – that’s new and different.

You can see the rest of them here.

– b

Bat Buddy

For a couple of weeks this guy was roosting during the day in the alcove above our front door.

He was pretty big.

In general the bats around here appeared to have gotten bigger.

Haven’t seen him for a while. Maybe he found a new place to sleep or at least warmer considering the change in seasons.

– b

Pool Not Closed

Here it is October and the pool is still not closed.

Why?

This is why.

The freeze/thaw cycles over the last couple of winters have dislodged the coping.

The professional/permanent fix costs around $10k. I’m not willing to spend that right now, so I’m going the cheap route using masonry adhesive. Once the coping is all back in place, I’ll run new mastic between it and the concrete. Once that’s dry, I’ll close it.

I’m only a couple of hundred dollars in. If it proves to be inadequate next spring, it’s a learning experience, or incentive to save that $10k and get it done right.

– b

Another Flat

That’s two flats in a month.

Both up front.

One on each side.

At least they weren’t side wall tears.

– b

Whirlwind Tour

On Wednesday I left before anyone at home got up to catch a train to Boston. I was on the train from 7:30 am until 3:30 pm to make a 5:30 pm dinner.

The dinner was some technical award ceremony. It was as most dinners/award ceremonies go, but the cool part was completely unrelated.

As we sat in the bar at the Boston Seaport waiting for the festivities to begin, one of the guys I was with was recognized by an Army officer passing through. Turns out they were neighbors. The officer was hosting some Boston based celebration for the living recipients of the Medal of Honor. They had flown them all to Boston or around Boston on Blackhawk helicopters and he asked if we wanted to check on out.

Of course we did!

Then it was off to the dinner. Lots of drinking. Lots of clapping. Our CEO won, then my boss and I had to leave early to catch a train back to NYC.

That’s right. I took the train from home to Boston for dinner on Wednesday. Now I was back on the train and heading to NYC.

And more drinking.

Point being I drank way too much as I rocked and rolled down the tracks toward a 2:30 am arrival in NYC.

Got to bed by 3 am, then up at 7 for an 8 am all day meeting.

Ouch. Kids don’t do this at home. Kids don’t do this. Trust me it hurts.

The meeting was long, but perhaps interesting. We have some further discussions this week in regards to a partnership with this company. We shall see.

Meeting ended, then catch another train at 5 pm. Home by 7:30.

Won’t be doing that again for a while I hope.

– b

What’s All the Fuss

So many projects, so busy, so why?

For whatever reason on the last weekend of July we decided we were going to move. We were going to stay in the same school district, but move to a bigger/nicer house/neighborhood. Within a week we had a realtor out to asses our house to figure out what we needed to do and by when. Lots of updates, fix ups, clean ups and improvements by spring. We said okay and got to work with estimates and project supply procurements.

Three bathroom vanities

Projects included, but weren’t limited to:

• Update/finish the upstairs bathrooms
• Add a full bath to the downstairs
• New house siding
• New pool shed
• Finish pool deck
• Fix pool coping and tile
• Stain house deck
• Repair house deck steps
• Finish the drywall downstairs i.e. remove climbing wall
• Replace downstairs drop ceiling with drywall
• Clean up detached garage siding/doors. Replace door/window trim
• New carpet/flooring throughout the downstairs
• New hearth for the pellet stove
• New windows downstairs
• Trim all hedges/clean up landscaping

All things that we’ve neglected for a few years now and needed doing anyway.

So we got to work. We worked, and worked, and worked all through August.

During all that work two things sort of happened.

1. I got tired. Work in the office was insane. Coupled with work all weekends at home made everything worse.
2. We decided that maybe we really liked our house/location and wanted to stay.

The next question was what would it take to make our house (beyond all the clean up/fix up things we needed to do anyway) more of what we were looking for if we moved.

We started talking to a contractor and an architect.

And that’s where we are now.

I wouldn’t say we’ve officially decided to stay or leave or do an addition or not, but we are still working furiously because it all needs to get done anyway.

– b

Back Deck Progress

While I’ve been working on the pool deck/shed, Jen’s been busy improving the deck at the house.

As we’ve seen we got this nice outdoor sectional. It was so nice we decided we’d want to keep using it into the fall, and therefor need a deck heater.

Unfortunately we’ve been too busy to use it much so far.

But the biggest change, following the staining of the deck, is the staining/painting of the rails.

It looks awesome!

It looks so awesome I want to rip it all down and have it professionally rebuilt (treated lumber is inferior to today’s modern materials).

Yeah. Not happening.

– b

Labor Day Weekend?

Before we get to today, we have to go back in time a bit.

And no, we won’t even make it to today in this post. You’ll have to stay tuned for more.

So back on Labor Day Weekend we went to a party on that Saturday. There was a bunch of kids and a pool. That pretty much sums it up.

Abigail held her own with the big kids. Doing more swimming on her own than I’ve seen her do all summer.

But Lauren was the star being the only 3 year old not swimming with immediate adult super vision and freakn’ jumping off the side with a noodle.

The kids obviously had a blast.

We’ll need to start hosting our own pool parties beginning next year.

– b