The Basement and The Bell.

.....I always try to make sure that the weekend after June Faire has nothing scheduled. This year was no exception and I was highly grateful that this has become my mantra for the last handful of years. It was an especially grueling week at work, which made sleeping in, and spending some time with TBT at Starbucks, that much more enjoyable.

.....But things were done! Much to my amazement, and I am highly pleased. The Memorial that was scheduled for today was moved to next Thursday, so that was taken off of my schedule as well. So when we returned home from Starbucks, I put together my 'To-Do' list for the day. I told myself that if I completed just one or two items on it, I would count it as a win.

.....So I got busy in the Basement. I pulled out all the carpets and camping 'stuff'. The huge wood aquarium was cleaned out and moved to a sideways position and became a respository for carpets. It was stuffed! With several remaining carpets stacked against it on the outside.

.....All the camping 'stuff' was organized neatly in one corner of the garage. The poles were bundled neatly. The ropes and stakes were organized and put away. Even the bottled water was all gathered together in one placed, as in stored in the freezer that we obtained from Cedric and Brighid. By the time I arrived at this point, the driveway was cleared of all the 'stuff' deposited there from June Faire.

.....Of course, I still have not escaped from being the Baronial collection point for June Faire. I found a tub of Gold Key, a sign, the box of radios, a cloak, and a few other odds-and-ends accidently mixed in with my stuff. I pulled those items out and put them into the van to drop off.

.....Then TBT and I started pulling out bins and boxes and going through them. That's when we discovered that the leaking faucet from the bathroom upstairs has developed an even worse leak. We cleared out that area and opened up stuff to dry out. Thankfully, if you can say that, it is a water leak and not a sewage leak.

.....I filled up the van with anouther load to drop off at the dump. TBT stayed home to continue going through boxes and I threw the oxygen cylincer into the van and ran off to the Silverdale refuse faciliy to dump off the garbage.

.....The Silverdale facility charges by volume and wanted me to pay them $65 for the loaded van! Ack! I said 'No, way' and decided to make the run to the airport landfill on Sunday, where they charge by weight.

.....Ran off to Bernie's house to cut the cylinder. The cylinder was too big for Bernie's bandsaw, so Bernie pulled out his torch, and after a lot of work, managed to gouge out a hole in the bottle. Then Bernie and I took turns cutting off the bottem of the cylinder. It took several hours, but the bottom six inches of cylinder were 'liberated'. Bernie located a Come-Along, and with a little finagling, managed to hang the cylinder from the rafters in his garage. Ralph was visiting at the time and handed me a hammer, which I promptly struck against the side with a hammer. The sound was glorious!

.....Just need to devise some way to hang it at events. Tripod seems the most obvious. But the cylinder is over five feet tall. The tripod would have to have seven feet per leg to be workable. Not sure I am ready for that in the car just yet. Will have to keep thinking of alternative.

.....Time for bed. I AM getting old. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.