Getting Stuff Done

My energy level has been much better the last couple of weeks. Accordingly, it's been a busy but satisfying weekend. Saturday started early with a wheel building class at HCHQ. I had signed up for one of these earlier, but demands at work precluded me from making that appointment, so Jim was good enough to move me into the December class.

I had all the components, which I had purchased about two years ago, I think and never gotten around to successfully building. It was good I waited, though, because I swapped out the hubs I had for some disc-specific Deore's and now these will be used on the Rawland.

The wheels (at least the one I finished completely) turned out very well. I am very pleased with myself for completing this. It's been a goal for some time, and with the guidance of an experienced builder, I picked up some useful tips that I would not have gotten from pouring over Sheldon and Jobst's musings.

On Saturday afternoon, I picked a new snowblower. It's not a monster, but it's certainly bigger and more powerful than I the little one I had been using. This unit is a Toro 722 (e.g. 7 horse power and 22 inches wide at the mouth). It's a 4 cycle, so no more mixing oil and gasoline, too. I cleared out the neighbors back parking pad for her in anticipation of snow tomorrow and then tacked my bus stop, which has been absolutely impassable for over a week now.

If it were just us, I could have made do with the smaller snowblower, but I am clearing out neighbors quite a lot this winter, so I am rationalizing this as an altruistic thing, but really, it's a lot of fun to blast snow all over the place. Still, I think the riders of the 14 and 133 will appreciate not having to scramble over snow banks or wait in the street for a bus. I am still debating with myself whether or not I'll try and send a bill to the City for this service. That might cut down on the good karma, however.

Tomorrow will be another adventure - a day at the range. We'll be firing everything from pistols to rifles to shotguns and then a proficiency test at the end. I have no concern about passing the proficiency test. I have not shot in a long time, but it's like riding a bicycle. Sort of.