Uncle Joe

     

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Cheryl and I went down to see Uncle Joe in the hospice facility on Valentine's Day because the family said they weren't sure how much longer he was going to last and if we wanted to see him beforehand, we had better come on down. So we did. It's only a five hour drive which for those of us raised in the back of Volkswagen on long cross-country drives is only a drive across town in comparison. And this was far more important.

And the drive gives one time to think.

Uncle Joe is a farmer, a man of the land. He is also a pilot, a man of the air. And he is a Christian, a man of God. He is so many things. Strong, determined, stubborn, hospitable, loving, kind (but firm), extremely hard-working. Generous. No-nonsense, unless he's telling a joke or a funny story or pulling your leg.

He takes so many things seriously, yet never seemed to take himself quite so seriously. He likes to laugh, but he also likes to make sure things get done because life (on the farm, in the air) is dependent on so many things getting done on time and correctly. He wants people to take responsibility and do their jobs well and right, but he also looks out for and takes care of those who are struggling and need a helping hand.

In my youth, I wasn't quite sure what to make of him. When I spent time with my cousin Dale on their farm, we always seemed to be running afoul of one rule or another, but that was because we were a couple of goofballs who had to be reminded that there was a time for fun and there was a time for work, and work always took precedence. We always seemed to get that backwards. But one word from Uncle Joe would get us both scrambling in the right direction!

I never got to see him in the air. That would have been a treat beyond measure since I dearly love flying.

He is as solid as the Rock he depended on, a servant devoted to his Savior and his church who lives his life in accordance with the Scriptures.

And he is now enjoying the reward of a life well-lived.

We miss you, Uncle Joe, but are full of happiness for the person you are and the rest you now enjoy.

Seven Miles

Walking is Good for You!

It's seven miles from the transmission shop to our house. That's not very long by car, maybe ten minutes (depending on who is driving!), but it is a lot longer while on foot. Nearly two hours.

How do I know this?

Mary has been experiencing some issues with her Hyundai Elantra lately. Sometimes the car seems to shudder as it transitions between gears; sometimes it 'kicks' at odd times, as though the ignition is not working quite right. It's very intermittent (naturally). It happens every now and then. She drives about 30 miles each way to work each day and notices it every once in a while, not often enough to track the source definitively, but enough to cause anxiety.

We took the car over to Firestone (our go-to auto place at the moment; I haven't found a really reliable mechanic shop in the area that is both efficient and available, which is another reason I'd rather work on the cars myself) and described the problem to them. They said they didn't do transmission work (which I knew) and they didn't want to try to diagnose anything until after the transmission shop had a chance to look at it.

So I took it over to the transmission shop (highly recommended by everyone around) and they performed a complete analysis of it and found nothing wrong. Since I've been a good customer of theirs, they didn't charge me for it (they're really nice guys).

But the seven miles.

It's seven miles from the transmission shop to our house, but I didn't actually know this until the morning I took the car to the transmission shop. It was Monday morning at 7 am, which is far too early to get anyone else out of bed to follow me to the shop and bring me home while they work on the car, so I figured I'd just bring my laptop with me and work remotely from the shop while waiting for them to finish the analysis. But when I got there, the mechanic said it would take him a few hours before he could get to it; apparently there was a 'queue' (although when I asked him if there was a 'queue', he looked at me quizzically until I asked if there was a 'line' and then he understood what I was asking). 

Well, I didn't mind sitting in the waiting room for an hour or two, but "a few hours" is a bit ambiguous for my taste, so I thought to myself that I'd just walk up the grocery store up the street and give Cheryl a call to come pick me up. I didn't want her to drive all the way down to the shop because (1) it's a small shop on the wrong side of a busy street and very difficult to find the first time, and (2) near impossible to cross over to the right side of the busy street with all the traffic.

And besides that, it was still only 7 in the morning and highly doubtful that Cheryl would be ready to jump in the car before the caffeine had taken effect (and she was probably still getting through her first cup).

So I needed to kill some time, and there was the sidewalk. I started walking.

Got to the grocery store and it was only 7:30. I was feeling good, quite energetic, and decided not to call quite yet. Instead, I wondered how long it would take me to get to the next major strip mall which was just down the street aways. So I kept going.

Got to the strip mall and it was only 8:15. Still didn't call. Wondered how long it would take me to walk down to Horrock's (a combination grocery store / plant store / lunch counter). Kept walking.

Got to Horrock's around 8:30. Still didn't call. Wondered how long it would take me to walk down to the Library.

Got to the Library around 8:45. Still didn't call. I was almost home! So kept walking.

Got to our neighborhood around 9 am. Kept walking.

Arrived home around 9:10, exhausted, hot, sweaty but very happy and feeling accomplished. Felt really fantastic after so long of doing very little strenuous walking at all.

Looked it up on-line afterward and figured I'd walked seven miles.

Still got it in me. Yeah!

It's All About the Parking

It's been getting warmer each day and all the snow is melting away. I don't feel bad about spending all that time scraping the driveway, although it isn't doing the concrete any favors and I'll eventually have to replace the whole thing. But that's in my long-term plan anyway since we really need to expand the section in front of the third bay in order to have the amount of parking that we need. 

The HOA (or "Fourth Reich" as we like to call it) dictates that we are not allowed to park on the grass, and there have been times when we had to do just that in order to accommodate all the family and friends who were visiting. In our development, and in many neighborhoods in this part of the country, it is not allowed to leave cars parked out on the street during the winter months because the snowplows must be unimpeded in their morning rounds. And on at least one day out of the week, the roads must be clear of impediments so that the trash and recycling trucks can get through.

Our driveway (and garage), as originally designed, allows up to 8 cars to be parked comfortably (see Figure 1). Since I'm using the 3rd garage bay for my shop, that would normally reduce the maximum to 7 (see Figure 2), but we've managed to be clever about it and park two cars at angles in the third lane thus keeping it at 8 (see Figure 3). 

Once the third lane of the driveway is completed (assuming it ever gets started!), we'll still be able to comfortably park 8 (see Figure 4), and maybe 9 (See Figure 5) if I'm able to find another place to put all my shop tools! The thought of that excites me because we love to have people over, especially if they can sing in harmony.

Obviously this will require some delicate car ballet to ensure everyone is able to leave when they need to go, but at least they won't have to deal with the fact that our streets are not wide enough to handle cars parking on both sides and allow traffic to get through without risk of damage. You wouldn't believe how many people in our neighborhood not only park on street -- on a curve! -- but also can't seem to find the curb and end up halfway out into the street. And then some other idiot decides to park on the other side of the street exactly opposite.

Some people are such idiots...

Saturday Fun Day in February

A Clean Driveway is the Sign of a Healthy Mind ... and An Aching Back

It has been far too cold to deal with the harsh realities of Life lately, especially the harsh realities of the Great Outdoors in Michigan.

Did you know there are actually people around here who sit on overturned buckets all day long in the middle of frozen lakes in order to fish? And most of the fish they catch have to be thrown back because they are too small?

(It's true. We saw it on the news last night. And I thought all the crazy people were in New York!!)

For the rest of us -- what I call the "Walking Not-Quite-Dead" -- we content ourselves with the occasional venture out across the frozen tundra of our driveways in order to push the snow off to one side so that our vehicles can traverse its length and get out onto the road which will carry us to the store so we don't starve to death or get cabin fever (you can only play so many games of Monopoly before your brain melts -- my current record is "1"). This also counts as the major form of exercise for those of us with otherwise restricted physical activity levels, generally limited to walking down the stairs to get something from the fridge, walking back upstairs to sit in front of a computer and pretend to work all day, tapping our fingers across a keyboard with great gusto but very little thought as we type inanities into the Ether, and laughing out loud from stupid things we see on YouTube.

The latest bout of ridiculously-frigid weather transformed what had been a lovely blanket of soft, white fluff across our driveway into an impermeable shield of crystalline pseudo-granite nearly two inches thick. To attack this formidable barrier with a measly plastic snow shovel (they're all plastic shovels up here because snow just slides right off the metal ones) would be the height of folly, therefore my Weapon of Choice is a stout steel Ice Chopper which I've used since our first winter here. The wonderful thing about this tool is that it provides the proper inertial mass to slice deeply between the layers of concrete and ice, and the leverage to separate them so that the ice comes out in large blocks; then the tool can be used to chop the large blocks into smaller, easily manageable pieces which can be swept toward the street with a simple push-broom.

No need for shovels here!

The downside of the operation is that it requires a constant, repetitive applied force -- kind of like a hammer -- in order to force the blade between the layers of concrete and ice. And that is very difficult to maintain over long stretches of time (and long stretches of time are required to clear an entire driveway!). Which means that is necessary to take a break every five or ten minutes in order to rest the muscles. But that does provide an opportunity to alternate between the bone-crushing chop action and the gentle sweeping motion of the broom. Now if only the broom wasn't being required to push mounds of heavy ice across the sandpaper-like concrete surface!  It's a very well-rounded bit of physical exertion.

The important goal here is to get the reflective white surface of the snow off the driveway so that when the sun comes out, it will melt any remaining ice. It is possible to leave a bit of ice here and there in non-critical areas, but we always spread a little dirt on those so that the non-reflective surface will absorb the heat of the sun and thereby promote melting of what remains.

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Winter Garden

 

January and February are traditionally the coldest months of the year in Michigan, but in comparison to what February has been throwing at us, January was an amateur. The lowest we saw last month was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 degrees F (-7 C), but that didn't feel very cold because the air wasn't as dry then.

But now that we've had sub-20 temperatures for over a week now and the humidity in the air all escaped to Mexico with the geese, it's feeling bone-chilling. And the wind isn't helping. Add the wind chill to a bit of the cold, dry air now and you're racing back indoors to warm up by the refrigerator!

Towards the end of this week, I gave up trying to scrape the ice off the driveway and just reminded everyone to be extra careful because the once-pretty snow which had delicately covered the ground with a thick blanket of unblemished powdery white was now a shiny downward-sloping ice rink just waiting for an opportunity to take the grip from your shoes and the wind from your sails. I had spent over an hour trying to pry the ice from the concrete but it refused to give way; and the constant pressure of the cars riding over its surface had compressed it all to near diamond hardness, refusing the pathetic attempts of even my large ice axe.

I'll give it one more try tomorrow when the sun comes out, hoping that it might melt a little bit of the top layer and give me something to start with, but I'm not hopeful. And while there's no point in sprinkling salt on top of it, since the salt loses its effectiveness somewhere around 28F, I might be able to throw some sand on top just to give the cars -- and feet -- a bit of extra friction.