We Are True Oregonians Now

Not long after we got here we went to the local DMV office to pick up info on getting a driver’s licenses and registering a car in the Beaver State. We both studied the driver’s manual so we would be ready to take the knowledge test. Of course there would be a quick vision test, but what worried us was on the website one of the listed items said: Pass the drive test;. And on the back side of the application PDF was the Driver Test Score Sheet. But, when looking at the requirements for taking a drive test, near the bottom was this caveat: You may not have to take a drive test if you’re new to Oregon and give us your out-of-state license. It can be expired up to 1 year. The words may not were still slightly ominous…

To get a license we needed a permanent address, so we had to wait at least until we closed on the house. By then it was the holidays, so we waited until January. Then we had a big snowstorm. Then pretty soon it was the end of January. By this time we were pretty sure we wouldn’t have to do Drive Test and vowed to go get our licenses in February. Early this week we read through the driver knowledge test booklet again figuring on going Wednesday. We found another excuse not to go then, but today was the day.

Donna was worried about the knowledge test, she was confident she knew the stuff, but she is terrible test taker. Me, I was not worried at all, most of it is common sense and you could miss seven out of the 35 total questions. When Donna came out of the booth she wasn’t sure she passed. She lost track of how many she missed, but the machine didn’t throw any red X’s on the screen. Well, she did pass and got her driver’s license. Me, I had my confidence shaken from the git go, I missed the first two questions! Then I aced a few sign recognition ones, before missing another one. I had now used up almost half my allowed misses in the first 6 questions, yikes. I tiptoed through the rest of the test and I passed missing 5 questions. Comparing notes afterwards we both had the same sort of experience, acing the signs and lane marking stuff, missing questions we were sure we knew and getting lucky on ones we guessed at.

Sixty-five dollars each later, we are proud owners of a gray scale temporary paper Oregon driver’s license. The real one comes in the mail in about a week.

Garage Flooring Part 2B

I didn’t hear from RaceDeck for a full week, so I called the 1-800-NUMBER again this last Monday. When a person answered I told them I placed an order a week ago, but have yet to be contacted by a Sales Rep. She said, “Hmmm. I don’t know what happened, but I can transfer you to someone that can help you right now.” Next thing I know I’m placing my order.

This afternoon the UPS man dropped off 4 big boxes. I managed to get the second half of the floor down in a couple hours. All except for the last 4 tiles by the door into the laundry room. I will need to trim about and inch and a half off the left edge to get them down to lay down flat because of the threshold.

Because the garage entry is flat, unlike Aiken, I bought the small leading edge pieces to finish off the front of the floor. When I got through, I thought that maybe I should buy them for the other end facing the “shop area” as well, so I wouldn’t trip on 1/2″ elevation gain. What’s another thirty bucks? Not going to get finish edges for the sides as they are close enough to the walls that it isn’t really that noticeable.

Truck Day +1

The truck left Boston,MA yesterday and is headed for Fort Meyers, FL.
Inside is:
20,400 baseballs
1,100 bats
200 batting gloves
200 batting helmets
320 BP tops
160 jerseys
300 pairs of pants
400 t-shirts
400 pairs of socks
20 cases of bubble gum
60 cases of sunflower seeds

I hope none of that belongs to Mookie Betts or David Price, that stuff needs to go to Glendale, AZ.

Bye Bye Bob

First go read Requiem For Bob, I’ll wait…

Seeing as the bike was no longer rideable it was hung upside down in the garage at Boardman Road. Then we had this bright idea to hang it from the cathedral ceiling on the screened porch right in front of the life-size B & W screen print of a vintage bicycle.

I removed the modern brake levers/shifters off, along with cables in hopes of finding some old school just brake levers. I took the pedals off to put them on the Bianchi to replace the Celeste Green clipless pedals that I didn’t really like. But when I tried to rebuild one that was not turning smooth, I lost a vital part (which of course is not available separately) somewhere in the garage, so the Celeste Green ones went back on the Bianchi and Bob’s went in the trash. This was OK because the screen print had rat trap pedals and toe clips, so I needed to source some of those too.

But the project never got off the ground, literally, because we could never figure out how to hang it up there in a manner that would not permit it to move in any kind of wind, look good and be cheap all at the same time.

Bob was still hanging upside down in the garage when it came time to ship our household goods to Oregon. I thought maybe it was time to discard the bike, but Donna talked me into bringing it along figuring maybe we could still turn into an art piece, either indoor or garden. Unfortunately we can’t find or think of a place to utilize it here at Pacific Terrace, so it was doing nothing but being in the way in the garage. Even after I got all the storage locations for the working bicycles settled Bob was just in the way.

We found a perfect place for Broken Bob right here in Klamath Falls though. There is a place in downtown called RAD Used Bikes that accepts used bikes and parts as donations to help get people who can’t afford a bike out riding, be it for fun or needed transportation. Today being Saturday, we drove down and donated the almost 40-year old bike. We even dropped off a bunch of old bicycling specific tools I’ve had for years because maybe I should be getting out of the mechanicing business (see the pedal fixing fiasco above.)

New Roof, Day 3

Just 10 months ago we put a new roof on 778 Boardman Road. That process took literally one day. We knew going into buying 1025 Pacific Terrace that it needed a new roof and, well, we are now 3 days into the process with at least 2 more to go.

The difference is, that the house in Aiken had one layer of shingles to remove and nothing else before laying down shingles because we took care of that house. The previous owners of this Klamath Falls house were not so diligent, I think they never took action until there was a problem.

At inspection we were told that there were two layers of shingles on the back and one on the front, turns out it was three and two. The the top layer in back was a lot newer and not in bad shape aside from the shoddy boots surrounding all the plumbing vents pipes. The front needed replacing badly as there was hardly any mineral left on the asphalt of the shingles. The hidden base layer was the actual original shingles installed on the house in 1964 when it was built 56 years ago!

The reason it is taking so long is those half a century old shingles don’t tear off like they should, they disintegrate, requiring 3 or 4 times longer to get off than usual. Add that to the time it is taking them to cut out all of the bad plywood sheathing, it is slow going. The whole roof is stripped finally and the back, the front half and half the gable side is repaired, but there is the other gable side still left to repair. Every bottom section of the sheathing has had to be replaced because when the bottom edge drip lip was installed it was put on top of the wood, instead of underneath, which led to water accumulation…

The last gable side is the one with the chimney in it and the guys have told us that the wood all around it will need to be replaced too. So the job won’t be done until at the earliest next Thursday because the work crew has some special training they need to attend that is in Grants Pass next Tuesday and Wednesday.