Out of sight and on my mind!

Some would say it's cursed, over the past year and a half, just when things get going well WRT Fillmore progress, disaster strikes. Maybe it's Fillmore trying to slow progress because he loves the attention, maybe it's a curse from a voodoo witch that had a bad ride in Fillmore back in the 60's, or mayyybeeee I'm just getting old and my body doesn't like all the crap I throw at it while at the same time I seem to refuse to dedicate time in my week for proper exercise to keep my body on the right track.
Last post found Randy drilling away the outside window panel associated with the fridge placement and me up in my attic trying to manage a leak from an ice damn.












Well the good news is that the window well was removed, surfaces cleaned and primed

Then using the old outer skin as a template I drilled,prepared and primed the new piece of skin for transplant.

Test fit required a tiny bit of tweaking...

And the final product riveted into place with plenty of seam sealer.

Last item of business was the roof air vents. I have no idea what is underneath, but as I quickly approach prep for paint, there is no better time than the present to find out, it's out of my sight but its definitely on my mind.

Lunacy

We see it all the time at work, we have a day that goes off the rails, things just don't seem "normal", procedures are harder, patient management is more challenging and upon investigation we see it's a full moon! The ever present scapegoat for a day gone wild, when the occurrences are pure "lunacy".
The term comes from the Roman Goddess of the moon "LUNA", and there are many cultures which attribute bizarre behaviour or happenings to the super natural and the full moon.

Last week Lunacy hit the Sinclair house, Michelle was away for a girls trip to Arizona,hiking the grand Canyon, and a little recoup time in Sedona. As I got home on Wednesday night and was starting to prepare dinner, my daughter Anna emerged from her bedroom to announce"Dad, it's raining in my room!"

Sure enough her roof was leaking, quick investigation revealed water from the attic space, the culprit?....An ice Dam. For my southern American friends, an ice dam is when you get a heavy snow load on your roof that blocks your ventilation in your attic. This results in a rise in attic temperature, thus melting the snow in contact with the roof. The water runs down the roof until it reaches the edge where is cools in the sub zero temp and forms ice. This process repeats and repeats until the water cannot easily drain and instead backs up the roof and seeps under the shingles, thus leaking into the attic space-onto the insulation and down into the house.

So I spent Wednesday night, Thursday night and a very good part of Fillmore Friday crawling around in the attic, hand bombing wet cellulose insulation out small bag by small bag.

Randy, steadfast but shiftless as ever, came out to pay Fillmore the attention he deserves. After making one of the final mock up pieces for the fridge we concluded the general floor plan. Which meant we decided on which window would be eliminated from the passenger side. Randy set out on drilling rivets!

Once I emerged from the attic I spent some time looking at an air shock for the passenger seat. Unfortunately it is too tall and I cannot use it, so back to the wrecker I go.

A place to set and gather your thoughts.

 A quote from a play I was once in. The quote was said by Marcellus Washburn, in Merideth Wilson's "The Music Man" I do believe played by my good friend Darren. The quote seems to sum it up. Randy came out for a day of Fillmore and we set to getting some exciting stuff done. Randy was tasked with creating some building blocks, very rough mock pieces that mimic the size of some of the components of the interior. Nothing like the mock ups done by Paradise coach for Ben Willmore's  Creative Cruiser , but this isn't going to be my full time home either.

As Randy puttered away with the wood, I continued to grind and weld. I continued to work on the couch mounts.

The old adage measure 16 times weld once is a good one!

 Once the mounting Brackets were fabricated it was time to place the couch into position.

The placement to allow for the couch to fold down into a bed required us to leave a bit of a space behind the couch. I have an idea of how we can use the space effectively for blankets and bedding.

At days end we have a few counter tops in place, and the pillars for the bathroom position. Next will be the mock up for the fridge and bench/bed in the back. Once they are in place we can "shuffle" the pieces around to best use the space where we need it the most.

Last fall my mom had a close call, a heart attack. We were lucky and her stubbornness was her greatest gift this time. She managed to pull through none worse for the wear, perhaps when it's all said and done she's better for it. Better lifestyle better choices which often happens when one faces a near miss. Anyway she was finally well enough to travel so she came for a visit. Saturday was a beautiful day of +5C and  I managed to get her up into Fillmore. Mom got the first ride on the properly mounted and stable couch that won't tip off it's temporary legs during the journey.....sorry Sharon/Leslie/Verna!!

The good, the bad and the ugly....

I know, I know the temptation here would be to question what is good, what is bad and who is ugly....but no. I WILL NOT stoop to that level of bathroom humor in this blog, well not today anyway.
Harold tirelessly worked away on finishing the paneling, making templates for the rear wheel wells and cutting the plywood to fit.

Good looking results!!

 Meanwhile I started to map out the mods I will start on the front passenger wheel well that will hold the front mounting plate of the fold down sofa bed.

Now for the bad and the ugly. I'm not sure which is which but, as I moved some plywood sheets away from their place of storage I noticed that the side wall of my shelter was looking.....hmmm.. shall we say odd? To paraphrase Mr Shakespeare 'Something is not right in the state of Denmark!'
We has a few days of pretty heavy snowfall in the last 48 hours, the snow load is taking it's toll on Fillmore's house. Designed as a temporary shelter, it has already lasted longer than I thought it would be up....but I need it for a while yet. And right now I need an immediate fix that is more than temporary.

A few minutes to think and problem solve and presto! We have a winner! I changed the set up to allow for slight movement of the tree in the wind but the jack is bolted to the shelter wall and putting pressure on the tree to keep the wall vertical. Just needs to last the winter!!!!

Good Friends, Good Times

Christmas is a great time to get everyone together for a visit. My Buddy Harold and his family made the monumental trek from Thompson Manitoba all the way to Bragg Creek to come see us and get away from the Manitoba deep freeze. We spent some time visiting, skiing.....and of course a bit of bus time.

Harold, never being one to shy away from a task was given the job of finishing the wall panels on the drivers side while I finished reinforcing the bottom lateral supports on the passenger side wall.

After Harold made some good head way on the wall panels, he started to play around with the destination sign.

Houston we have a problem, a large plug for a small hole, we'll see what sort of creative problem solving we can come up with!