Nundle

On the way out of Tamworth

The Pub in Nundle where we had lunch

Inside the wool mill

Sydney - Harbour Bridge

Antipodean Holiday - Part 2 End of the Odyssey

(Sunday, December 20 - I think; 38,000ft above the Pacific Ocean)
Kerry and Alex fell asleep before takeoff. I fell asleep just after dinner was served and woke up 5 hours later. Not too bad for someone who doesn't sleep well on planes.

(Monday, December 21; Sydney, Australia)
Finally arrived at our hotel for the night. Exactly 47 hours after we left Purcellville. This is the longest trip ever to Oz. 1 rental car, 4 flights and a short train ride. We left what turned out to be a record snow storm with 21 inches reported and arrived in sunny, 80F weather. Had a nice walk to Circular Quay and dinner at a random resaurant.

(Tuesday, December 22; Tamworth)
Kerry's parents picked us up after a short flight from Sydney to Tamworth and drove us out to their house. It feels great to have arrived, finally.

Antipodean Holidays 2009-2010 - Part I: The Odyssey Begins

(Somewhere over middle-America at 35,000ft)
Everything was ready. The bags were packed. The reservations were confirmed. And the three of us, Kerry, Alex and myself, were dreaming of Christmas down under. Well, Kerry and Alex were sleeping. I was wide awake watching TV… and the snow.

At around 10:30pm EST I got an automated call from SouthWest Airlines informing me that our flight from IAD to LAX via MDY was canceled. I sat on hold for a good 20 minutes and a helpful agent heard my story of needing to be in LA to catch a flight to Australia. She said ALL flights
out of Washington were canceled due to what was looking to be a record storm. She was willing to switch the reservation to the next day, Sunday. While she had me on hold I called American Airlines through whom we booked the flight from LAX to SYD. He listened to my story but said the only thing he could do was give us the earliest flight available… on Thursday. I told him I’d call him later if I wanted to do that.

Panicked (as usual) I woke Kerry up and gave her the news. We checked everything out of BWI, DCA and IAD and nothing was moving. Then, a crazy idea popped into my head. The storm was mostly East of I-81 and Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were not supposed to get more than an inch or two of snow. What if we found a flight with Southwest out of, I dunno, say Columbus, Ohio. We could rent a car and drive there over night, getting there with plenty of time if we left before 3am. After all, the worst part of the storm was supposed to hit early the next morning and afternoon.

Kerry saw the crazed look in my eye and said, sure… So we called Avis at IAD and secured the car while at the same time making the flight booking. We’ll deal with the original flight, now scheduled for Sunday, later.

We woke Alex up (poor kid, she is such a good sport and a great little traveler), bundled her up in the Subaru and sped off for IAD. Well, sped is not quite right. The roads were completely untreated and already had a nice layer of close to two inches of snow. The conditions were
just awful. Some of the worst I’ve ever driven in (up to this point). I drove as quickly and carefully as possible. Down Route 7; down the Greenway and finally the airport. Kerry got in the driver’s seat and went back home as I waited in the wind and snow for 20 minutes for the Avis bus.

At Avis I managed to get some sort of Dodgmobuickolet-crossover-minivan-SUV thing with all wheel drive, traction control and anti-lock brakes. I took off out of the parking lot for home
and was very pleasantly surprised with our transportation for the day. It took to snow like a husky! Ok an exaggeration but really, it drove very well in the worsening conditions. It was a full blown blizzard by the time I got back home.

Quick shower, change of clothes, pack the car, grab some water, snacks and coffee. Off we went.
My exact words to Kerry as we headed up the Berlin Turnpike: “This is either the smartest thing we’ve done… or the craziest.” Also notable was my description of the first road we took:
“This will be the worst part of the trip.” Ummm, WRONG!

To describe the conditions we drove through the best thing to say is Virginia does a poor job of clearing roads. Maryland does a slightly better job. West Virginia doesn’t even bother to plow.

For the first 5 hours we didn’t see a hint of pavement. What was amazing was the number of people out driving in it. We saw and maneuvered past several conga-lines of plows, several jack-knifed tractor trailers, several cars in the ditch and one car with its wheels pointing skyward.

I knew things HAD to get better the further West we ventured. I made a point of telling Kerry this at least every 5 minutes. The snow was so bad going through the mountains of Maryland and West Virginia that our speed barely crept above 40 mph. We had our new GPS “Gladys” giving us directions and she was also telling us our ETA… which kept getting later and later. Our flight was scheduled to depart Columbus at 12:35. When Gladys showed that we would arrive at 12:22, I felt sick.

Eventually we got to Pennsylvania where the roads were showing signs of improvement and the speedometer was registering higher speeds. We had another dash through West Virginia before hitting Ohio finally. 140 miles to go. Gladys showed 12:19pm, then 12:18, 12:17, 12:16…

My sister called (we were supposed to meet her in Chicago Midway for lunch). She jumped on her computer and checked our flight status. Delayed! 30 minutes! We have never been so
overjoyed by those words.

We got to the airport just on 12:00pm EST. 9 hours and 6 states (WV was twice) later. I practically brought the steering wheel in with me. I had to pry my fingers loose. White
knuckle driving had never been so real.

(LAX International Terminal)
The rest of the trip to LAX was uneventful- almost anti-climatic. No issues with the connection in Midway and arrived here at 4:40pm local time. Booked in to Qantas without a problem and now killing time at the food court in the international terminal. I haven’t slept since I woke up 5am on Friday and, except for a quick chilidog in Midway haven’t eaten all day. It was an epic journey on the level of John Candy and Steve Martin and I am totally, utterly, spent.

Bailey

My neighbor's puppy, Baily, the Boxer

Purcellville Christmas Parade 2009

Deck - Week 11

This weekend I finished all the railings including the stairs

All that's left is the cleanup of all the debris under the deck and the installation of the lattice-work privacy screen above one side of the railings and all around the base of the deck.

Here you can see the landing at the base of the stairs.

Deck - Week 10

Installed a few more railings this weekend. Including another stair railing. Only 4 more to go.

The stair railings are getting a little bit easier but are still really mickey-mouse in the way they go together. The screws they come with strip immediately and I've had to use a hacksaw and start over on several of them. I won't be using the provided screws anymore, instead opting for stronger coated exterior screws. At the bottom of the stairs you can see the landing I poured Saturday.

Deck - Weeks 8 and 9

No real work happened on week 8 except for adding a couple of railing sections. Dad came out on weekend 9 to help with the stair railing. Those turned out to be very frustrating to install and we only got one section completed.
We did manage to get all but one railing post installed and we set up the form and frame for the concrete landing.
If the weather holds for next weekend I might get the remaining level railings in place and maybe even some more stir railings. Plus I'll pour the landing and clean up some minor details.

HNY rolls 200k

My 2000 Civic hit the 200,000 mile mark last Friday. I had the camera in the car and couldn't resist marking this milestone.

Deck - Week 7

Starting to plank the other side

Saturday started out nice so I planked the other half of the deck and also finished the step from the kitchen door.

Saw setup on the deck

Having the saw on the deck made things go much faster. Less up and down the stairs saved a lot of time.

Completed step and second half of the deck

Sunday started out rainy (typical I can't seem to get two full days each weekend) but cleared after noon so I finished up some fastenings along the center line, step and outer frame.

One lonely railing

I installed one railing as a reference and also as a test to see how they go together. The railing system we chose has very vague instructions. Now that it's in place, the rest can be built using jigs developed from this first section.

Deck - Week 6

Picture frame completed

Once again Saturday brought rain. Fortunately it was only intermittent showers so I was able to get some work done. I laid out the locations for the railing posts and finished the outside edge of the picture frame boards. I also added another joist to provide a place to attach the board that runs up the center of the deck.

Starting to look like a real deck

Sunday's weather was beautiful (seems like a trend that's going to continue next week-end). I got half the deck planked. The CorectDeck CX is really easy to work with, but because of the picture frame, every board is custom fit and time consuming. Next week should go a bit faster as I'll have the saw on the completed part of the deck so there will be a lot less up and down the stairs.

Deck - Week 5

Miter saw setup

It rained all day Saturday so not much was accomplished. Actually, it pretty much rained all week putting a serious damper in any progress. I manged to get a tarp setup underneath the deck to protect the new saw while I cut stair planks. I got a few stairs installed before the rain became too miserable to continue.

A few stairs done

I'm using vinyl trim for the stair risers to match the railing. It didn't rain Sunday so I was able to get all the stairs done plus the framing for the step off the kitchen door. I broke 3 T15 bits while screwing down the CorectDeck CX decking. That stuff is crazy dense. So it was off to HomeDespot to get more T15 bits and a new set of drill bits and a quick release adapter. My new 12" sliding compound miter saw is working well. Kerry said Merry Xmas, Happy, Birthday, Merry Xmas, Happy, Birthday, Merry Xmas, Happy, Birthday, etc. for the next few years for that one. The weather is supposed to be good this week, so I should finish the blocking and kitchen sliding glass door step and be able to get started on the picture frame before the weekend. Forcast is showing rain for Saturday again... Blah.

Deck - Week 4

First 8 joists in place

On Thursday I took a vacation day to get a headstart on the deck before the weekend. I managed to put in 8 16 foot joists by myself. It was slow but satisfying.

First 8 joists as seen from above

All joists and ends done; stair stringers set up

On Saturday, the wife's friend, Tim came over to lend a hand for the day. Dad came for another weekend of hard labor. We managed to get all the joists up and also setup two of the stairway stringers. After Tim left in the afternoon we poured the concrete footers for the stair-posts.

Stair stringers

Stair posts set in place and center-line stringer added

On Sunday Dad and I added the center-line stair stringer and set the stair posts in concrete. We also bolted the face boards on and bolted the tops of the stringers to the joists.

Beam-ends trimmed

Also on Sunday we trimmed the ends of the beams. This week I'll finish fastening various bits that are only temporarily tacked in place. I'll try to finish the blocking for the picture frame deck boards and build the step from the sliding-glass door. The deck has been a great excuse to accumulate more toys. The latest is the 12" sliding compound miter saw that will be used extensively for cutting the decking which will be laid on a 45 degree angle.

Deck - Week 3

First beam clamped in place

On Saturday I was able to put up the last post and use a couple of straps to locate and level the first beam. I cut the post notches with a chainsaw which made a mess and turned out pretty uneven and very rough. I told the wife I needed a new toy and ran out Sunday morning to buy a reciprocating "Sawsall." I was also able to complete the flashing on the ledger boards and put in the last few bolts securing them to the house. Also Saturday I put up the rim joist so I could locate the outside edge of the beams which would go up Sunday.

Three beams in place

Sunday, thanks to JTB and his son I was able to get all three beams bolted to the posts. The new saw greatly helped the effort and made the cuts much cleaner and neater than the chainsaw. We also managed to get the center-line double joist square to the house and use that as a reference for squaring up the rim joist and a couple of other key joists. Next: joists and more joists, blocking for the picture-frame deck boards trimming the beam ends and possibly adding the stair posts and framing.

Deck - Weeks 1 and 2

Above: 3 first post holes dug and 11 more waiting.

The first three post holes were dug by hand to avoid hitting the gas line (yellow flags). Luckily the gas line was not seen so the post hole locations did not need to be modified. The remaining 11 holes were dug with the assistance of a post-hole auger. It made the job easier but I still had to pry out several hundred pounds of rocks by hand. All in all it was a weekend's work to get the holes dug followed by the inspection later that week.

Above: Ledger boards in place.

The second weekend saw the ledger boards installed after removal of the siding. Dad stopped by to help out and teach me the right way of doing these things. I've always been his manual labor and never really paid attention to how things are supposed to go together. I was just told what to do and when and how to do it while I was growing up. This project is all about me really learning about how to do things right.

7 of 8 posts in place.

Sunday of weekend number 2 and we were able to get 7 of 8 posts in place with lots of temporary bracing. I still need a ton more concrete to fill the holes to the top and I still need a few more bolts and flashing on the ledger boards.
Next weekend: Post number 8 and 2 of 3 beams. All I need is some muscle...

Purcellville, VA 4th of July Parade

Commuter Upgrade

Check out the new 27x1.125 Vittorias on the '83 Takara. It changes the look completely from the 27x1.25 Kendas with the gumwalls.

Scenic Western Loudoun County

Crappy cell phone shots during a typical 30 mile ride around the county. Top: 5 image panorama. Bottom: 3 image panorama.