Puppy rescue

February 4, 2011

Rescued a terrier mix dog last night. I found him in the middle of rt 2 in Norridgewock, going up to vehicles and smelling them to find out which one was his – icicles under his mouth and shivering in the cold. I pulled over and I let him into my truck and brought him home. I had to leave him in the truck (running) since Belle doesn’t like new dogs.  Our normal Animal Control officer is in the hospital and backup was out of town.  Our town manager was able to get a hold of the North Anson Animal control and they picked him up after he hung out in my truck for 2 hours.  Glad he is safe and warm now.

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Cleaning up the bedroom

January 31, 2011

This weekend I spent a fair bit of time working on cleaning up my side of the master bedroom.  It’s amazing how much “stuff” you amass even by the age of 25.  I recycled about 12 pounds of paper and threw out probably 2-3 pounds of garbage.  My shelves are starting to look better and more usable, but I still have some to go.  When all is said and done I suppose I should post a picture.  It’s starting to become quite a nice hobby area as well as slumber location.

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Dream heat

January 28, 2011

The perfect heating system for our 1,250 sq ft Central Maine home:

Harmon Hydroflex60 Pellet Boiler w/200 gallons of thermal storage
Englander 17-VL wood stove on first floor

Sounds simple, right?  The problem is, the Harmon is $6,000 plus the thermal storage tank and connections for domestic hot water.  That brings you to $8,000.   I can handle the installation on this one, so no cost there.  Then you have the $600 Englander stove and $1,000 for installation including a chimney liner.  That brings the grand total to $9,600.  Almost 10 grand – far too rich for our blood.  So, odds are what will happen is our current boiler will get replaced with another oil dragon but it will be direct vent to free up the chimney for the Englander.  $1,500 for a direct vent boiler (with a domestic hot water coil), $1,000 for installation and $1,600 for the Englander with installation.  That brings us to a total of only $4,100.  Still a lot of cash, but much more manageable.  If I am feeling gutsy I may do the oil boiler install myself over the summer, bringing our total down to $3,100.

Maybe when pellet boilers come down in price I can consider replacing the direct vent oil boiler with one.

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Guitar and truck battery

January 27, 2011

I’ve been practicing guitar a minimum of half an hour a week for the last couple weeks.  I decided to learn some easy songs that would be fun to play.  First I learned Kumbaya.  I’ve always wanted to know how to play it and you constantly hear people that “can’t play guitar” but somehow they strum out Kumbaya.  It was easy and it’s fun to play and sing.

Next I learned Sheryl Crow’s song – “Soak up the sun.”  This is also a pretty basic song and is easy to play and sing at the same time.  I had learned that one when I was in highschool but I played it all with power chords – this time I learned it with “regular” chords.

My truck battery turned out to be fine.  At least it has been starting the last few mornings in temperatures hovering around 0F anyway.

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Battery for the Ranger

January 25, 2011

Yesterday my truck wouldn’t start.  Now, to it’s credit it has been fine all winter even down to -5F and it was all the way down to -18F yesterday morning when the battery failed to turn the engine over.  Also, it is the original 11 year old Motorcraft battery.  I was thinking of replacing it this year, but now I’m thinking about waiting till next fall.  The reason being that we probably won’t see -18F again this year and it started fine this morning at -1F.  When I do replace it I think I will go with another Motorcraft…can’t really argue 11 years on a battery here in Maine!

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