Follow Our Progress
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April 15th 2004
We've been doing a bit of work here and there around Robbyn's house
to kind of repay her for letting us park our ugly bus in her yard.
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I noticed quite a few things when we first arrived
that looked a bit dangerous to me. One of them was this
outlet just below her fuse box.
Apparently something shorted out at some point and melted the
lower plug. The ground lug on the plug was no longer even
connected to the plug anywhere. You can imagine my
surprise when I plugged in my circuit tester and found the plug
was still carrying electricity... |
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I won't bore you with a full description of what I
found inside the fuse box while fixing the plug... It took
me over an hour to test and trace back some of the wiring that
was in there. It was a mess and obviously had been
"serviced" by someone that had very little
understanding of electricity in general.
I installed a new plug and weatherproof box to replace the
indoor outlet that was there. It looks much better and is
now safe to use. |
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While I was working on the fuse box and electrical
outlet, Becky's dad (AJ) worked on a couple of chainsaw
sculptures. He's been chainsaw sculpting for many years
now and can whip out a bear (or just about any animal you can
think of) in about 30 minutes or so.
You can see the bear he carved for Robbyn on the ground
behind his truck. He was working on a cat for Emily when I
took this picture. |
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Becky kept Emily company and enjoyed the sun while
AJ finished up carving the cat for Emily. |
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Emily spent some time in the afternoon
entertaining us all in the bus. We kept the evaporative
cooler running, so the bus was a great place to hang out and
cool off.
AJ and I spent some time cleaning up around the yard and
worked on fixing the garage door that was in dire need of some
reconstruction. We also moved some electrical wiring in
the garage that was being worn bare by the garage door's lift
cables. We were both amazed at the number of
"fixes" to things that we found that did nothing to
improve things.
We did get the garage door, wiring and some structural work
done to make the garage a bit safer to use. There are
still some questionable things about the way the lighting is
wired up, so I will need to look at that later too... |
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Toward the evening, AJ showed the girls how to
seal up the sculptures with varnish so they will last for many
years outside.
Becky recounted memories of traveling around with AJ when he
carved at fairs and events around the country as she was growing
up. I think AJ enjoyed having another generation of family
watching as he worked. |
If you're interested in checking out AJ's chainsaw sculptures, click
here to link to a sample of his work (link opens in a new window). |
