31 August 2015

After the morning bike ride with Marty, did errands to / from / in Burlington all day.  Delivered the radon tester to the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.  Lunch with Alverta at Splash, a restaurant on the Burlington waterfront whose ambiance was quite pleasant and whose sweet potato fries were addictive. Met with Dennis Senesac at his office in Vergennes to talk about various plumbing issues… and pay my bill.  Dennis also performed an on-the-spot analysis of our well water, confirming what Spafford’s told me: 12 grains of hardness (or 205 ppm, if you prefer) which definitely will need to be softened, no iron, and a pH of 7.3.  For some reason I’m not hungry for dinner tonight…

30 August 2015

Little longer, with a very steep uphill in the middle, bike ride with Marty, then finished cutting out most of the rest of the sauna duck board pieces.  Don’t tell Ian, but I really would have liked a table saw in the shop for this project.  Attended the annual Lake Dunmore / Fern Lake Association picnic at Camp Songadeewin in the late afternoon / early evening, where I had a nice chat with Nancy Conklin Malcolm Kelsey, with whom I went to Burlington High School, and whose son, Jed is the owner of Salamander Construction, one of the builders who Chree and I interviewed before selecting Goose Creek.  Welcome to the world of small-town Vermont!

29 August 2015

If there’s one thing I know how to do well, it’s make sawdust, which is what I did all day while turning rough-cut hemlock into what will be the pieces for the sauna duck boards.  (Technical note: duck boards are used to make a floor in wet locations.  They are made from narrow pieces of wood, blind fastened to cross members with gaps between each piece so that water can drain. Duck boards are put together in removable sections so that the area underneath them can be cleaned as needed.  The sections sit on top of the floor joists, forming a floor.)


28 August 2015

After the morning ride to Kampersville and back with Marty, spent the rest of the time before lunch installing the battens on the south end of the woodshed.  With that done, the woodshed now is officially complete… absent 3 more cords of cut, split, and stacked firewood.  How much did the woodshed cost to construct? $29,906.84, give or take a penny or two, and not including volunteer labor (Steve Osmer is still having rebar tying nightmares…) or my own efforts.  Just to keep the record straight, that cost was only 149.53% of the original budget.  Did errands in Middlebury after dining, including retrieving the planer blades from Ed Miner.  Took two hours to reinstall those blades and adjust them properly.  Took the planer for a test spin afterwards and the boards it produces may not be quite as smooth as a baby’s bum, but there’re pretty darn close.  After de-dusting in the lake (which now is 14″ below the top of the dock and 79° of heaven), took the first wine bottle bag fire starter down to Marty & Merry’s in return for some heavenly salmon, other delightful comestibles, and enjoyable company (as always!).

 

27 August 2015

Just as Marty and I were ready to depart on our (regular?) morning bike ride, the Goodro Lumber truck arrived to take away materials leftover from the shingling extravaganza. Marty and I did the 10 mile loop up to Kampersville and back, again without mishap, though I discovered some sore buns when first getting seated.  As soon as I got changed into work clothes after returning to Fern Lake, Jeffrey Many arrived to adjust one of the house garage doors that was not latching properly.  Right after Jeff left I went down to Marty’s to help him install a new radar detector in his car, the directions for which were somewhat less than clear.  Back up the hill after that job and Sean arrived, bringing me his not-small bill for the shingling work.  We did a final walk-through / project review until the geese return in late November. He says that Ashley (his wife), having seen the blog pictures of our house, now wants cedar shingles on her house.  Sonny and Ian are probably beside themselves… racing to Quebec to either seek insane asylum or burn down the Maibec shingle production plant.  In between all the comings and goings, I hyper-chlorinated Delores’ water system again, which, judging from the effluent that emerged afterwards, was sorely needed. Then it was lunch time!  After slurping down some calories, got to work moving all of the rough-cut hemlock boards from the woodshed down to the shop, ready for a trip through the planer.  Found a huge carpenter ant nest and thousands of dead ants in amongst the boards.  The good news is that the bi-monthly Orkin treatments seem to be working.  The bad news…

26 August 2015

Marty and I went for our second bike ride of the year together… an easy 10 miles down to the Neshobe Golf Course and back.  No adverse physical effects from that exercise and, more importantly, Marty did NOT crash!  Spent the rest of the day moving all the tools and other shi workshop materials out of the top level of the woodshed and down to the house basement, where I set up a temporary workbench and storage area under the stairs.  Cozy, but needs some lights and throw pillows…  At 6 o’clock the UPS driver brought me 1,000 brown paper bags of the size that they put your wine bottle in at the ABC Store.  Why, you ask, do I need 1,000 wine-bottle sized paper bags?  Because, filled with the shaving from the wood planer, they will make excellent fire starters… or, at least, that’s my theory.  Amazingly, I ordered those bags yesterday at 3 pm and they were shipped from Briengsville, PA… that’s what you call prompt customer service!

25 August 2015

Errands in Brandon and catching up on paperwork for most of the day.  Went on a cooking frenzy from mid-afternoon onwards to prepare dinner for Marty & Merry.  Another fun evening of good eats and great company.

24 August 2015

Arrived back in Brandon mid-morning (via a short stay with Chree at Alex’s & Katy’s new mansion in Lincoln, MA) to find that Delores was all set to go.  No gas tank leak found and all the other ordered repairs were complete – for a whopping $130.  At noon, Marty & Merry (on their way to an auction) dropped me off in Brandon to retrieve the Tacoma.  Spent the afternoon getting Delores squared away, discovering that my planer is in need of some serious sharpening, realigning my radial arm saw, and getting reacquainted with the cool of the pool, aka Fern Lake.

18 August 2015

Arose before dawn to get Delores ready for her week in the shop, where she’s to have some old age related aches and pains made all better.  Plus it’s time for her annual physical (Vermont State Inspection).  Just after Sonny and Ian arrived at 7, Delores and I trundled down to Green Mountain Garage in Brandon, where we found that Mike, ace mechanic and RV guru, has recently retired.  Rats!!!!  Marty picked me up there and took me back to Fern Lake, where I bid au revoir to the shingling geese and headed south in the fully-loaded Tacoma.  Sonny called mid-afternoon to say that the house shingling would be done by the end of work today… as presciently predicted by the Fern Lake Oracle (see the blog posting for 14 July).  Even though I had to take a somewhat circuitous route between Baltimore and Washington to avoid several accidents and rush hour congestion, made it back to Springfield in nine hours.  Chree greeted me with a glass of JW Double Black.  That would be one of the reasons we’ve been married for 43 years!

17 August 2015

For some reason I slept until almost 7 this morning…  Sonny and Ian arrived somewhat later and continued shingling.  They got the east side of the sun room done by noon, then continued work on the north side of the house.  I unloaded the Kubota, reinstalled the backhoe and loader bucket, then gave him a bath, preparatory to doing some overdue preventative maintenance.  While lubricating various appendages, found a frozen grease fitting which took no time at all to remove and f∙o∙r∙e∙v∙e∙r to replace.  But Mr. Perseverance here got it done… eventually.  Sorted shingles for awhile when the geese threatened to run out.  Started a fire mid-morning that burned all day consuming all the detritus that had accumulated from log-splitting on Saturday.  Packed up the Tacoma for tomorrow’s voyage south.  Emptied and shut down the RV refrigerator, taking the few remaining perishables over to Kate’s.  At sunset, had to go back in the lake a second time to cool down.  Lake temperature still 80° and the water level now is 12″ below the top of the dock.

 

15 August 2015

In completing my morning constitutional, realized that Delores was full, as in F∙O∙S… and could not last any longer unless I wanted to stop eating.  So bit the bullet and gave her a bath, which, with a 3″ x 4″ kitchen sponge took awhile… she is a BIG girl!  Wanted her to look her best (which I’m sure she appreciated) next to all those fancy RV’s at Kampersville.  Why, you ask, didn’t I dump Delores’ tanks into our new septic system?  Because there aren’t any P-traps between our septic tanks and the house (toilets have a built-in P-trap), so all that sewer gas would have ended up making the house not such a pleasant place to work.  Also took a truckload of recycling down to the Leicester transfer station.  What an exciting Saturday morning!  Working from the theory that, if you want to enjoy food cooked over a campfire, then you need a supply of campfire wood, I spent the afternoon (until a thunderstorm came rolling through at 3:30) cutting, splitting, and stacking the long dead spruce and fir that came from opening up the driveway and woodshed site.  A lot of that wood has been “drying” since 2010… and now is completely rotten.  Guess I should have spit it sooner…

14 August 2015

Sonny and Ian arrived promptly at 7, with Sean just a couple of minutes behind. It took Sean approximately 32.4 seconds to install the Anderson window screen tracks that had so befuddled the three stooges yesterday afternoon.  OF COURSE that’s how they go in!  Duhhhhh!!!!  By late morning we had the door and the exterior trim installed, so while Sonny and Ian enjoyed a bucolic luncheon, I quickly painted the trim (plus a portion of the east wall frieze board that I somehow missed doing the other day).  Then, during my own lunch, I ran the well water at full pressure, drawing samples at the 5, 15, 30, and 60 minute marks.  At the end of the day all four samples looked the same – clear and bright.  Go figure!  So I dumped all the yucky drinking water in my gallon jugs and refilled them and Delores’ water tanks with the good stuff.  Sonny and Ian put shingles on the east wall of the sun room all afternoon, getting about half that area done.  I installed the French door hardware (which is absolutely gorgeous!) and sorted shingles as needed.  In the evening, while Marty and Merry were out carousing, I dog sat for Shadow, who is visiting Chez Lapidus for a couple of weeks while Heather and family are on vacation.




13 August 2015

Sonny and Ian finally arrived at 7:20, obviously still recovering from their two-day vacation at Sean’s house.  They spent the morning putting more shingles on the house north wall.  I spent the morning (and early part of the afternoon) fabricating and installing the KOMA® blocks for the three exterior electrical outlets and the patio hose bib.  The Goodro’s truck came at 8 bearing the new Anderson 400 Series 54611 Frenchwood patio door… which took every bit of all four of us to get off the truck and into the sun room... that critter ain’t light.  By lunch, the stapling duo was out of shingles except for a case each of 4″ and 8″.  In the ideal world, we would have done the east wall of the sun room (where the patio door is to be installed) before doing the north wall, thereby allowing us to use perfect shingles around the door where they will be highly visible and to use all the leftover less-than-perfect shingles on the north wall where nobody but the propane delivery person will ever see them.  So, now that we had the patio door and the guys were running out of shingles, I decided to have them switch horses and install the door.  Even reading the directions, we couldn’t figure out how the framework for the sliding screens is to be attached to the rest of the door frame. Checking for a Utube video didn’t yield any results… but did distract us from the approaching downpour until I noticed the lake getting awfully damp… which sent Sonny and Ian scrambling to get power tools back into the garage while I sheltered in Kate’s woodshed and called Sean.  Everyone agreed that further time spent on the door this afternoon would be fruitless, so while the guys loaded staging onto Ian’s trailer, I beat feet into Brandon for some last minute grocery shopping.  All was on track for a 6 o’clock dinner when, at 5:15 while I was in the bathroom shaving and just about to get in the shower, Tim Williams from Spafford’s showed up unexpectedly.  Threw on my bathrobe to see what he was about.  Asked Tim when I would see their bill for installing the well pump and pressure tank and he said, “Not until we (Spafford) are sure that you are getting good water into the house.”  LOVE that attitude!  One conversational bit led to another until I heard Marty & Merry’s front door close and saw them heading up the hill, meaning it now was 6 o’clock (yikes!) and I was as unprepared as you can get to receive dinner guests.  In spite of the inauspicious and very hectic start, dinner was great (shrimp cocktail, spaghetti with my homemade sauce, garlic bread, walnut brownies, Ben & Jerry’s, and a decent Willamette Valley Pinot Noir) and the company (as always) was even better.

 

12 August 2015

A fairly decent day: mostly mixed clouds and sun with the occasional very brief, very light rain shower.  So what did I do?  Well, just because I could, I moved some of the circuit breakers in the utility room electrical panel.  One of these days some adult person is going to lock that panel and then I’ll just go completely bonkers. They’ll probably have to use a strait jacket...  Vacuumed the house, removing forty zillion (okay, so maybe it was only thirty-nine zillion) dead bugs from the window sills. I sorted shingles for awhile… good for killing brain cells, as the person at Ace Paints in Burlington told me on Monday that the Cabot stain on our shingles is highly toxic.  Should I tell Sonny and Ian?  Oh, oh, Trouble with a capital T: Sonny reads the blog.  Maybe the radon will do them in first?!?!  Moved some dirt around with the Kubota to smooth out the path between our camp fire site and Kate’s house. Part of that path was majorly discombobulated when the septic force main was put in.  Sorted out all the paperwork that has been accumulating, waiting for a rainy day.  As you may have surmised, there’s never a dull moment here at the old lake of ferns!

11 August 2015

Started raining just after 7 (as forecast), so the geese stayed away today (nice alliteration, huh?) to work on renovations at Sean’s house.  Worked most of the day in Delores’ warm and dry confines figuring out the materials needed for wiring the house.  Bottom line: a lot!  Fortunately, Chree and I used to be incompatible – she had income and I was pat-able.  Jimmy Ploof stopped by at 10 to collect his skid-steer and give me a bill for recent endeavors.  It’s a good thing that I’m still VERY pat-able.  A great day for cooking (and eating!) so, after lunch, I made a fabulous spaghetti sauce.  Rain stopped mid-afternoon.  Marty, Graham, and Gabby came up for a tour.  Sean called at 4:30 to say that he’s keeping my favorite geese at his place for tomorrow, too.

10 August 2015

Before Sonny and Ian arrived, I took paintbrush and roller in hand to quickly paint the trim around the four windows on the north wall.  Also discovered that the east-facing study window trim was only partially painted (the quality control inspector obviously was totally asleep when that trim was done last week) so corrected that little oopsie,  The Staples Brothers continued shingling the north house wall, getting 8 courses done today, which equates to just over 1½ squares, a new record.  Well done!  I spent the rest of the morning completely finishing painting the exterior trim of the sauna.  Also well done!  At noon I drew water samples from the utility room spigot (and also from Kate’s kitchen sink) for delivery to the Vermont Department of Health Laboratory in Burlington.  When the lady at the lab opened the sample from our well she looked aghast at the brown color.  I explained that it tastes okay and hasn’t killed me yet. She wasn’t impressed… The test strip I got via the Internet says we have 3 grains of hardness, not the 12 grains that Spafford’s reported.  Can’t wait to hear what the lab says…  Did other errands up t’ the big city, visited for an hour with Alverta, and attended a contentious meeting of the Association Executive Board for the condominium we own up thataway.  A Big Mac and McD’s fries for dinner; I think I’m in heaven!

9 August 2015

Went into Brandon to obtain enough clean clothes to last until the forthcoming trip to the Virginia house of suds.  Oh, yeah, and I was low on ice cream.  Once back at Fern Lake, I super-chlorinated Delores’ fresh water tanks and piping system.  Let that solution sit all afternoon and you do not want to know what emerged from the faucets afterwards.  Spent the afternoon sanding the remaining window trim on the house, then sanding and caulking the trim on the sauna building. That done, took some Kingsley corn down to Marty & Merry, who had me in for a beer… a root beer.  Went down real easy too!  Then I completed the after-work cool down / clean up in the usual fashion.

8 August 2015

Spent most of the morning tweaking the Electrical Plan and then installing / moving circuit breakers in the utility room panel to match.  One of these days (hopefully before we move in), I’ll finish making changes to where the electrons are going to go.  James arrived at 1 to move fill with the skid-steer from Mount Ploof to the house north side. Then he used the Yanmar to grade the slope and hide a large hole (formerly used as a slurry pit during the well drilling) now full of stumps.  The result is a semi-level area near the house for erecting staging, a slope that will be easily mowed, and a level area at the bottom of the slope perfect for the Kubota to traverse and for placing the emergency generator and propane tank.  He also widened and leveled the area below the car turnaround area retaining wall, which will make taking the Kubota through there much easier.  James had to leave for another job at 4:30 without quite moving all the fill required, so I expect to see his smiling face again soon.  After burning two wheelbarrow-loads of shingling debris, donated a wheelbarrow-load of rocks to Kate for use in edging her flower garden.

 


7 August 2015

Sonny and Ian made short work of the what remained to be done on the sun room south wall, then transitioned to the north wall, getting three complete courses of shingles onto that 46 foot span.  Ben Rochon, a Goose Creek carpenter who worked for 8 years as a metal fabricator for Dock Doctors in Ferrisburg, arrived about 8 with his “suitcase welder”.  Literally the size of a carry-on bag, that machine allows Ben to weld just about anything, anywhere he can reach with an extension cord.  Ben welded the two steel beam support posts’ top plates to the beam, ensuring that they will stay in place even if a wild party in the living room gets out of hand.  (Actually, though rare, Vermont does experience earthquakes and relying on four ¼″ bolts to keep each post in place when things are a shakin’ is just asking for trouble.)  After Ben left, I spent the day sorting by size the 12 boxes of “reject” shingles that had accumulated during the east side and sun room south wall shingling extravaganza.  On those, most visible, walls, I insisted that only perfect shingles be applied.  Sonny and Ian were ruthless in rejecting any with even a slight imperfection.  However, except for the propane delivery person, nobody is ever likely to see the house north wall, which is where all the “rejects” are going (except for a box or so of really bad shingles, which we used for the starter course, completely buried under the bottom course.)  Just before noon, Dennis Senesac stopped by to view the plumbing work that Steve Poplawski did week before last and to eyeball the potential main power cable / half bath toilet drain conflict.  I had questioned the position of a supply line valve Steve put in and Dennis verified that that valve would have to be removed.  On a positive note, Dennis said the power line was not in the way of where the toilet drain will go.  So the duel at dawn has been called off.  Just at beer-thirty, James pulled in with the Ploof’s Yanmar mini-excavator, getting ready for tomorrow’s earthmoving endeavors.

 


6 August 2015

Soon after their arrival, Sonny and Ian manufactured and installed the final frieze board for the porch.  They then moved on to shingling the south wall of the sun room, nearly completing that job by day’s end.  Glen Peck (Master Electrician) and Holden Yildirim (summer helper who is studying at Perdue University to become an Electrical Engineer) arrived just before 8. In a fast and furious two hours, we renewed power to the sauna and waterfront plus wired two 3-way switches (one in the sun room and one in the shop) to control the wood walkway lights.  Just after Glen and Holden rushed off to a meeting in Middlebury, I remembered that they also were supposed to hook the house ground (the 20′ piece of rebar that Larry Kaufmann placed in the foundation concrete) to the utility room panel during this visit.  After a quick voicemail to Glen, Holden returned and we accomplished that additional task.  While Sonny and Ian enjoyed a leisurely noon repast and siesta, I quickly finished sanding the south sun room window trim and applied a coat of paint. Then I spent the rest of the day cursing fluently painting the east wall frieze board and all the trim on the porch.  Painting trim after the shingles are on is just no fun at all.  I’ve asked Sonny to insist that I do the painting before he starts stapling… to which he replies that, if I didn’t spend so much time playing electrician, maybe the painting would get done on time.  But doing electrical wiring is so much more fun!

5 August 2015

Sonny and Ian arrived somewhat after 7…  Do I sense a waning enthusiasm for house shingling?  They continued with the porch, and would have had it completely done if, with the frieze board over the front entry door just about to go on, I decided that two courses of shingles over the door was way too busy.  Looked like bricks or, worse, dreaded subway tile!  So, I had Sonny and Ian take off all those shingles and start over with just one course.  When all was said and done (and a lot was said), we agreed that that area looked much better after the change. I came up the idea of using the leftover piece of KOMA® corner board to bridge horizontally across the porch ceiling in line with the two vertical corner boards, tying them together visually. Sonny had the idea of adding a small piece of KOMA® to the backside of that horizontal piece to make it look like a beam. Then Ian came up with the capital idea of transitioning the porch frieze boards around to the east wall of the house in the form of a fake capital on the top of each corner board. So, when you’re wondering who to praise for a fabulous looking entry into the house, the answer is: it was a team effort!  Sean stopped by for an hour in the morning to review progress and talk schedule.

 

4 August 2015

Ian and Sonny finished shingling the house east wall, then moved on to the porch, which has some special challenges because the ceiling over that area is not (damn designer!) at the same height as any other part of the house structure, e.g., the soffits or the window / door tops.  Jimmy, James, and I continued with the retaining wall on the south end of the house.  Early in that project, Jimmy had to leave for awhile.  James and I attempted to set the northern-most capstone for over an hour… with no success.  Jimmy returned and, in another hour, set ALL of the capstones.  The difference between many, many and just a few years experience building stone retaining walls.  That wall ended up being 10 feet tall at the high point, is almost vertical, and 34 feet long… which will make a fabulous climbing challenge for kids, grandkids, and old folks too stupid to know better.  After lunch, while James used the skid-steer to move his namesake mountain of fill dirt over to the north side of the house, Jimmy and I tackled the north-end retaining wall. By 5:30 that wall was built. Though again nicely vertical, that wall is only 6½ feet tall and 16 feet long.  Together, both walls bookend the west side of the house in a very esthetically pleasing manner.  Score one for the designer!

 


 

3 August 2015

Sonny and Ian arrived shortly after 7 and we three got right to work removing the two remaining staging towers on the west side of the house.  Then the two geese went back to shingling the east side of the house, which they nearly completed by day’s end.  Jimmy Ploof arrived just before 8, with James following an hour later. Jimmy, James, and I put in the remaining few feet of the perimeter drains on either end of the house, terminating both lines in the big stone wall.  My job was to drill forty zillion holes in the 4″ conduit caps, transforming them into mice- and other critter-proof drain caps.  Everyone admired (admittedly with some eye rolling) the precise pattern of the drain cap holes.  Luther Corcoran, one of the Goose Creek foremen and ace installer of EPDM (ethylene propylene diene terpolymer an extremely durable synthetic rubber roofing membrane), came mid-morning to install said membrane on the porch, rendering it totally waterproof, even if a tsunami were to strike.  Meanwhile, Team Ploof and I were busy building the stone wall on the south end of the sun room.  I wanted that wall to be nearly vertical (so that the kids and grandkids would have a good climbing challenge), which is not Jimmy’s usual style, so I stayed actively involved all day (translation: PITA?) in picking and placing the rocks.  Mid-afternoon a pin fell out of the wrist for the bucket on Jimmy’s big excavator, resulting a few minutes later in a hydraulic line shearing off.  What a mess!  Fortunately, Jimmy had a whole other digging attachment back at his shop, which is only 7 miles away.  Parts soon changed, but not before I was covered in grease and hydraulic oil up to my elbows.  Pulled out my cell phone to check the time at 5:30 and had just time for a quick plunge in the lake to clean up (and, yes, I had previously thoroughly washed the grease and oil off with soap up in the RV) before heading down to Marty & Merry’s for much-needed liquid refreshment, the first of Wayne Kingsley’s corn for this season, and other delightful victuals… not to mention the always wonderful company.




 

2 August 2015

Went up to Burlington for the morning to visit Alverta and test the limits on our credit cards at Lowe’s. Couldn’t find any plain old ground fault interrupter (GFI) circuit breakers, so ended up getting Square D QO Combination AFCI (arc-fault circuit interrupter – which every electrician I’ve talked to say they hate) 20 amp plug on neutral circuit breakers for the shop outlet circuits.  I think they charge $3 a word for those critters… and it looks like we’re going to need a total of 15 of them beasts!  Hold on to your wallets!  Back at Fern Lake by noon.  After lunch, got my daily workout by disassembling all the staging on the south side of the garage and moving it by hand over to the woodshed.  Then used the Kubota to bring all the spare staging up from the backyard.  Both evolutions so that Jimmy Ploof will have room to work tomorrow.  Finished wiring the shop planer circuit and one outlet on one of the shop circuits.  When I turned on the circuit breaker my tester showed two green lights – meaning that I correctly wired the new-fangled AFCI plug on neutral circuit breaker and the outlet.  Woo, hoo, who’s your daddy now?  While drilling holes in ceiling joists for the next electrical wiring run, am pretty sure I discovered that the main electrical feed from the meter to the panel (a bundle of wires 2″ in diameter, i.e., not easily moved) is under where the half bath toilet drain needs to go.  Suspect we’re going to have to solve that conflict the old fashioned way: dueling pistols at dawn wielded by Dennis and Glen. Sean and I will be the seconds…  The lake temperature is up to A-T, which is just about perfect.  The lake level has fallen to 10½″ below the top of the dock, undoubtedly due to all the milfoil the harvesting crew has been removing.

1 August 2015

Forgot just how much “fun” it is pulling electrical wire by yourself.  Spent much of the morning getting 55 feet of AWG 8-3 NMB wire from the wood planer outlet on the north wall of the shop over to the utility room electrical panel.  Had even more “fun” trying to cram three very stiff #8 plus a ground wire into the outlet box.  Good thing I’m strong like bull!  Most of the afternoon was spent revising the Electrical Plan (yet again) based on Thursday’s meeting with Glen Peck.  Once my brain and rear end were dead, decided to do some more wiring, having forgotten the morning’s pain already – the advantage of old age.  Ran AWG 10-2 NMB wire (marginally easier to work with than the 8-3) from the electric panel over to where one of the shop 110v outlets will be.  My radial arm saw will be a much happier camper once that outlet is operational.