Category: Goolsbee News

Crappy Morning…

As I drifted off to sleep last night, I heard the hum of the well pump in the basement of our house. It usually runs when anyone uses water… the diswasher, a shower, toilet, etc. I didn’t think much of it as we had a full house – Christopher came home from college last night. Around 5:00 am I sort of half-awoke, and the pump sound was still there. My brain sort of skipped a beat and then I jolted fully awake. I knew that a pipe somewhere was broken. Things had just thawed completely from the recent big freeze. We’d had snow all Saturday night, into and through Sunday. This after two+ weeks of sub-freezing weather. So I throw some clothes on and grab a flashlight to go check that indeed the pump is running (it is) and then start searching for the break.

I really love this house, but it is obvious that it has an Achilles Heel in the form of its water system and plumbing. I actually PREPARED for this freeze. I shut off the water to the barn, and drained its pipes. I even shut off the valve I installed to protect the last pipe that burst in a big freeze. I found the leak, and thankfully was able to fix it easily.

Since Chris is home, and would like to have a car to drive, and I have some bulky items in my office to bring home, along with a waste-oil run to Snohomish, I left the Jetta for Chris and drove the truck. We rarely drive this truck. Sue bought it a decade ago to haul horses, but now the horse trailer is gone, and most of the horses are gone, and the sole remaining one lives elsewhere. The truck has been kept for runs to the dump, the hardware store, etc. and of course situations like today. So I’m driving down I-5 to work and I note an (obvious) unmarked police car following me for a long ways. I’m in the right lane, and have the cruise set at 55, even though the limit is 60. I don’t like to drive this truck, and never feel safe going fast in it as it always feels top-heavy and dangerous. After several miles the cop flips on his lights and I pull over onto the shoulder. He tells me my tabs have expired… in March(!)
WTF?
How did I let THAT happen? Usually the DOL sends out renewal notices and I renew them online within days. I never forget to do this… how did I not notice? The truck gets driven maybe 10 times a year, and usually only a few miles. But still… I’m usually not that unaware of things.

The cop takes my lic, reg, insurance, etc and goes back to his car. When he comes back he says “I’m not trying to be a jerk but… ” Sure enough he hands me a citation. Grrr. He explains how I can deal with it in court, but all I’m thinking is “What a jerk.” Now I know I can have Sue take care of all this, as she is an “officer of the court”… but I also know she’s going to be all ticked off at me for:
1. Forgetting to renew the tabs.
And
2. Getting a ticket.

Revenue collection device.

I take the citation from the Sheriff, and drive off to work in a bad mood. I renewed my tabs online as soon as I arrived at the office, but my mood hasn’t improved any.

A post chock full of Goolsbee news.

Just an update for far-flung Goolsbee family or those friends who want to know how the Goolsbee’s in the Pacific Northwest are doing…

The Neverending Deck Project… reaches a temporary conclusion!

Christopher paints himself into a corner (with exit)

The back deck of our house is now completely rebuilt. I actually put the finishing touches on it yesterday (making up for my inept carpentry with a sander, and then painting the railings.) Prior to this however Christopher fulfilled his obligation to finish the majority of it by finishing the final layers of “Deckote” on the new planks and then rebuilding the railings with me.

Chris installing the slats on the railings, first from above.

Then from below, using the level to square them up.

The work pictured above was actually completed earlier in September, as Chris had to return to school at Evergreen State last weekend. We packed his belongings into Sue’s car and Chris & I drove down together on Saturday, September 19th. This year he chose to live in an on-campus apartment rather than the dorms. He’s sharing a unit with three other guys. We were the first to arrive so I didn’t get to meet any of his roommates, though we’re planning on visiting him in a few weekends … mostly so his mom can see him and check out the living conditions! Until then these photos will have to do.

Chris gets a big hug from his mom as he departs home for his sophomore year at college.

Chris's room.

Chris's room.

Chris's room.

The large common area and kitchen in the on-campus apartment.

The bedroom is quite small, but the common area is pretty generous. Chris took informal cooking lessons from both Sue & I all summer to prepare for feeding himself. We’ll see how that works for him.

Nicholas has been running Cross-Country again this year, and has improved quite a bit. Last year he was consistently at the middle of the pack but this year, thanks to a summer of mild training, he’s finishing close to the front. I was able to attend his first meet this year where he finished 19th in a race of 60+ boys.

About 1 mile into a 3.2 mile event

Halfway there.

Almost to the finish line.

Nick and his mom not long after the finish.

Nick also continues his musical education, and is learning a new song. His X-C team’s “theme” for 2009, which I suspect his coach picked given the vintage of the tune. He only acquired the sheet music for it about a week ago but he’s already driving us nuts with it. I set up the digicam in the living room while I cooked dinner one night last week so you too can listen to him practice. Just play this for 20-30 minutes each night around 6 pm and you too can experience the Goolsbee house lifestyle!

Can you name the tune?

Goolsbee News: An end in sight?

The “Neverending Goolsbee Deck Rebuild Project” may actually be nearing the end… who would have thought? Certainly not me, the man who gave it the name.

The weather finally turned back to sunny. Chris & I were able to finish up the last of the carpentry and whatnot. We prepped for painting with tape over the areas we want saved from the deck coating. Chris is outside as we speak, laying down what very well could be the final coat of “Deckote” over the entire surface.

Chris wields the roller.

Of course we didn’t get here without some mishap! I grabbed a paintbrush and hit the areas around the edges where we’d taped and laid down the Deckote where Chris’ roller can’t go. As I reached the very far end of the deck I felt tiny drops of water hitting me. Huh? There is literally not a cloud in the sky, how could it be raining? I looked up and saw a drip coming from the gutter downspout just beyond the deck. It was dripping water onto the railing which was splashing into droplets and hitting me. That won’t do. The Deckote stuff requires dry conditions for application. I reached up and touched the downspout to check to see where the water was coming from. As I grabbed it near where the drip was (nearer the house) the far end of it where it comes out of the gutter let loose and what followed was a deluge of Niagran proportions. The ENTIRE gutter, which stretches easily 35 feet in a right-angle around the roof’s edge was obviously COMPLETELY full of water from the rains earlier in the week. The downspout was obviously in delicate balance and my touching it dislodged it from that balance and dumped the water, along with the wad of crud (I suspect left over from the re-roof we had done earlier this summer) that held the water back. The gutter of course held plenty of dirt along with the water, a good portion of which was now all over myself, and the deck which I’d just painted the edges of. Sigh. I put the downspout down on the railing, and held my hands in such a way to direct the majority of the water away from the deck. Eventually, after what seemed like five minutes of standing there the deluge drained off to a trickle, and I put the downspout back together again.

The scene of the disaster.

I wrung myself out, then swept the deck off. I’ll let the sun do the work of drying it. Chris will roller the coating over and afterwards I’ll fill in the missing bits. Some railing work remains, but that is Chris’ job, and in the grand scheme of things is pretty simple. We could be BBQ’in on it by next weekend… Just in time for Autumn!

Why I haven’t been blogging.

Life’s been keeping me very busy.

At home Chris & I have been rebuilding the deck. I know… it seems like this is a never ending project! When we bought the house a decade ago the inspector told me “You’ll be replacing the roof, and rebuilding the deck at some point.” The deck has been a piecemeal project that I’ve been doing for years now. The roof we wisely hired out. With the exception of the break when we took the road trip in July Chris & I have been replacing the rotten wood on the deck every spare moment we’ve had this summer. Before July we finished up the southwest side of the house, and after the return from the road trip we started on the southeast side. At first it was just a “replace the railing and a few rotten boards” scope, but once we started on the southeast side I changed it to include replacing ALL the old original wood, both the remaining old joists, and the deck surface. We took the time to pre-paint all the wood (except for the deck surface, which was only primer.) This added at least 3 weeks to the task, and we should have been finished about a week ago except the weather turned right as we hit the home stretch. It is still raining and we can’t add any coats of the “Deck-Kote” stuff until we have a 3-day stretch of sun.

Removing the old wood, laying down the new

Almost done with carpentry.

Laying down the Deck-Kote

Once this is done we’ll rebuild the railing. It will all be done just in time for winter rains! (sigh)

I’ve missed two JCNA slalom events because of this project. 🙁

At work I’ve been REAL busy on something of a skunk-works project. We’re developing software for managing our power resources. I built a prototype over the past year and this summer I’ve grabbed one of our coding geeks to take my prototype and make it real. To free up his time I’ve been covering his shift as best as I can, which means working nights in our Network Operations Center. My sleep schedule is all messed up. Then to top it off Seattle City Light made our week interesting.

I’m trying to write up the Monte Shelton rally story as fast as I can, so stay tuned.

Car Photo of the Day: Boy & Toy

This is my son Nicholas, on his birthday or Christmas, probably about nine years ago. I know the car was a gift from his grandmother Bishop. It is post 1999, as I can tell it was taken in the kitchen of the home we moved into the Spring of that year, but pre 2003 which I can surmise from vague age and his teeth. I bet his mother can tell you exactly when it was shot as that is how mothers work: mentally cataloguing the mundane minutiae of their childs’ lives… but being a dad, I can only narrow it down to within a rough two- or three-year time-frame. I do know that this was taken prior to our father/son road trip in the summer of 2003, as his appearance over those four days are deeply imprinted on my mind. I can honestly say that those four days were among the happiest days of my life. I’d never felt as close to him as then, and have not since. We were alone, and together. We talked, and we didn’t. We genuinely enjoyed each others’ company and let our whims decide what we were going to do.

In about a week I’ll be doing the same, but this time with both boys. We’re taking a road trip. Actually two road trips. One with Chris, the other with Nick. I have so much work to get done before we can start “playing” with our big-boy toy, so excuse me if I’ve been remiss in posting as often as I usually do. The CPotD will likely cease once we’re under way, unless we see something cool that we’ll share. Instead I hope to post updates from the road. I’ll certainly track progress via twitter, as that is simple to do from my cell phone. My username on twitter is chuckgoolsbee (the name I use everywhere, even in real life!)

Can’t wait to be on the road again.

Driving Lessons, and Being Driven.

Nick adjusts mirrors prior to takeoff

Nicholas hit a major life milestone on Monday. Taking advantage of the holiday he started lessons on how to drive a manual transmission car.
Yep, he’s learning to use the Man Pedal!

He’s been driving for several months, and has completed driver’s education (what little there is of that in the USA!) He’s fairly competent on the road, in his mother’s slushbox-equipped machine, so the time is right for upping the difficulty level. I’ve been emphasizing “smoothness” to him while he’s driving Sue’s car, in the hope that he would appreciate its importance when he arrives here.

Lessons began in our driveway, with some discussion of the physics involved in how a clutch operates. I demonstrated the “smoothness” concept by closing the Jetta’s trunk on 6 standing beer bottles in front of our barn. Then driving the car up our steep driveway between the barn and the house, around the house and down the hill and around the corner into our garage… and opening the trunk to find the bottles all still standing. They clinked together a bit on the hill, but none actually fell over. 🙂 A few laps around the driveway with me at the wheel, explaining foot & hand actions while driving was followed by handing the car over to him and having him try. Launch from a stop is of course the hardest thing to do, and that was the entire focus of Lesson One on Monday afternoon. Having a Diesel to learn, with hundreds of foot-pounds of torque from idle on up certainly helps. Doing the start of the first lesson on the gravel driveway helped too. Nick got the hang of starting from a standstill OK… only killing the engine a few times. After he seemed to get the process down we went to the second half of the lesson: pavement.

Nick working on smoothness.

We switched drivers and I piloted the car down into town and an industrial park near the airport with empty streets and parking lots with circuits around each building big enough for trucks with trailers. Putting Nick back behind the wheel, he started over with launch control, now with more traction under tires. It was a tad rough for a while, but started to get the hang of it. Two hours in he was very pleased with himself, even getting into 2nd gear now and then. To keep him humble I pulled one of the bottles out and stood it up on the passenger side floorboard and challenged him to start from a stop and not knock over the bottle. He was unable to do it, despite lots of effort. Mentally worn out he asked to end the lesson and head home.

I drove home, and Nick stood the bottle up. I was able to drive most of the way home, through 10+ miles of turns, lights, hills, and stop signs without knocking it over, though I wasn’t perfect. It did fall over 5 times, much to Nick’s joy. He was surprised how I could keep it standing most of the time however. As we approached some corners he’d say “Oh yeah, it’s gonna fall now!” only to be followed by a “How did you do that!?” 😉

The answer is simple: Thirty years of practice!

I can recall my Life Drawing professor in college having us do three one-hour drawings on the first day of class. He put them away for the entire semester and on the last days of class had us repeat the effort, then produced our earlier work for comparison. The differences were amazing. I’ll put the bottle away for a few months and spring it on Nick sometime before he takes his driver’s test at the end of his learning-permit year. Should be interesting for him to see his own improvement.

Chris prepares to drive to Oly from Dick's Drive-In near the UW.

On Monday night I saw Christopher as well. He had spent the long weekend with his high school friend Rob Pieffle, who is attending the University of Washington. He made his way from Evergreen State in Olympia up to Seattle on public transportation, but was unable to accomplish the reverse trip the same way due to the commute-focused Tacoma-Seattle leg of the trip. I volunteered to provide the ride for him, though he had to drive to allow me some rest. I met him at the Wallingford location of Dick’s Drive-In. He took the wheel and drove us to his dorm at TESC in Olympia. As always it’s nice to see him. We chatted while he drove (very smoothly I might add!) down I-5. I’ll be heading down to collect him for the summer break sometime in the next 2 weeks.