Today was our first hard frost.. It took out many of hte remaining flowers in the yard.. but it was time.. 

Today was Halloween..  When the kids were around,  it was always one of the most important days in our  calendar… costumes to make, parties to organize. The parties at our house were epic..   for many years we had huge parties at the house.. 200-300 people, music, costumes.. They were so much fun.. and so much work to prep and clean up from.  
I  kinda miss the parties.. but don’t miss the hassle. 🙂 

 

 

I came hoe from work early to get ready for trick or treating.. no one ever comes to our house.. so we dress up and go check out Richmond. Its a nice tradition. We headed downtown with only one mission.. to get some of Gretchen and Marshalls home made doughnuts..a tradition for .. what ? 20 years ? 30 Years ? 

It was great seeing all the young family and kids out trick or treating.. It’s strange now not knowing most of them.

 

Our freinds may be blurry.. but they are still fun !

 

We got home to find we’d had a haunting.. I think this is the 8th mouse we’ve escorted out of the house in the last week.. 

SOem things never change !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Well.. I’m still testign positive for covid.. but I’m at  day 6 with no symptoms

According to the CDC it’s ok for me to be out in public as long as I’m masked. I’m glad I got to go in today becaus e Katie brught in her baby Yak.. It’s so cute and so well behaved..

Never a dull moment around here !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Im feeling soooo much better today. this time covid has been really quick. I’m still testing positive.. but feel nearly 100 %.. Still wearing a mask around Diane.. and sleeeping in the barn.. but at least we can hang out together.. I missed her this week .. that was the worst sympton of covid I had 🙂
Yesterday’s trip to Montreal  meant that DIane brought back a bunch of delicious stuff from our favorite greek/middle eastern store Adonis. Check out these goodies !

One priority of the day was to get our jack o’lanterns on !. Halloween is just 2 days away !..   We had 3 beutiful pumpkins.. but not the time or energy to do them the old fashioned way.. I had an idea.. Lets use power tools !.. 

I’m a changed man now that I kow how easy it is to make a classic jack o’lantern in about a minute using my milwaukee oscillating multi tool !

In just  15 minutes we were done and proud of our work !

 

That was a satisfying day !

One thing that covid did  interfere with is that we had tickets tonight for a movie premiere The Scream of my Blood  a new movie about Eugene Hutz of one of my favorite bands.. Gogol Bordello.   The movie was being shown at Main Street Landing in Burlington.. and Egene was gogin to perform afterwards.. I was bummed to miss it.. but we were able to get the tickets to my friend Sophia.. .. SHe said it was really fun !

I got to know Eugeen over the years from various bumping into to each other on airplanes and such.. He’s been out to  the house and we’ve hung out a few times. He’s an amazing giuy.. amazing energy.. and so fun. Here are some  pics of us hanging out after a show in Munich a few years back

 

Bummed to missed the show.. but super glad to be feeling better !

nite all, nite sam

-me !

Feeling much better today. Diane is up in Montreal with friends which gabve me access to the house without fear of infecting her.  . I used the day to do some general clean up around my shop.

 

One of the projects I’d had in my backlog was to take a look at my friend Abby (Abiyoyo)’s old IBM Selectric typewriter. She’d gotten it in a junk sale and had used for several years. The machine had quit working.. She asked me to take a look.. if it could be fixed she’d like it back.. if not I could toss it. 

It was so cool opening the chassie of that old but magical IBM machine. Inside was a mechanical marvel .. gears, clutches, motors, belts and levers. It is a marvel of engeering.. and a truly iconic piece of technology/ I remember using one of these at  Channel 39 the tv Station I worked at from 1973-74.

 

Youtube was my freind here.. THere were tons of tutorials online about diagnosing.. and sometime even fixing these beasts. I found this one by a woman named. Fran extremely helpful

Fran even warned about thesound  insulation that degraded over the years and made a mess of everythign it touched .. especially your hands

 

Alas.. this one has a broken clutch. I’m pricing  what it would cost to replace.. probably not worth it though..   

But what a trip through the technology time tunnel !

nite all, nite sam 

-me