Boats, Budgets, and Blacktop

I'm actually starting this a day early, but by the time it makes it out to internet land it will be right on time.  Ok make that late, since I waited to put up some pictures.  Last week was a rough work week, the copper plater was having some teething issues, either not biting material at all or eating it up.  Add that to the fact that we went from having Friday off a week ago and this last Friday scheduled as off to cancelling the Friday vacation, then by Tuesday to adding overtime on the weekend.  This puts a lot more pressure on keeping the machine up and running.  Some random fiddling with settings and careful measurements involving drawing lines on spinning gears got things at least mostly back on track, but maintenance down time on the machine is still crippling right now, so next Monday a major overhaul is on tap, changing anodes, checking cathodes, checking moving parts, and all as quickly as we can to get back to running material.  I did get a field trip in for work last week, going to another shop over in Wisconsin to take a look at some process equipment that is similar to the new equipment we are buying here.
Some pretty interesting stuff this last weekend (if these posts seem to focus mostly on weekends, its because my weeks can be fairly boring and too frequently lately free of training as well).  Saturday morning I dragged myself out of bed early and headed up to Battle Creek to check out a Sisu workout.  We did some pole hiking and a fair amount of bounding.  It was a fun group, and Rob (one of Allie's friends who I met last weekend at the trail run) was close to my speed, so we got a good workout pushing each other a bit.  Then I went to Northwest Canoe in St. Paul (what a mess to get to between road construction and farmers markets) and picked up gunwales and patch equipment for my canoe.  It was a bit more spendy than I expected, so now I'm going to have to watch the budget very closely for a while so I have funds available for West Yellowstone and Christmas.  I did start tearing off the old gunwales when I got home on Saturday, that is a much bigger project than I expected as well, since they are glued on.  I put a couple small tears in the Kevlar tearing them off, but I can just put small patches over them, and the new gunwales should reinforce the area adequately think.  After buying boat parts I headed over to Jeff's to help strip off shingles from his garage.  That project was done by the time I got there, so I caught up with everyone there, ate lunch, and helped put up tar paper in anticipation of the arrival of his roofing (which showed up Sunday just a bit too late).  Then David, Jeff, and I headed out for some biking.  We were going to go do Ohio St. but hit a rough section where there was gravel and sand on the road where they were doing some construction work.  I'm happy we all made it through without incident, since it was a screaming downhill, but David picked up a bit of wire or something and ended up with a flat.  None of us thought to bring a spare or pump, so it was a hike back to Jeff's house to end the ride.  At least it was a short walk.  David is becoming a stronger rider for sure.  Next time Garrison is up I'm going to have to get those two down to Northfield and beat up on them a bit.  I know just the route...
Sunday morning I headed out to try the rollerskis on the new pavement on Hwy 246.  It was a nice warm day out, and since it is now October already I figured I better get on my horse with respect to ski training.  With bible study on Tuesdays I'll have to pick a new interval day soon and get going on those as well.  Since the downhill on 246 would now be manageable on the rollerskis I headed out towards Cannon City first.  There was a decent amount of traffic, but that is just part of rollersking.  The uphills were pretty good, and the downhills all manageable.  The 6 mile stretch from Cannon City to Nerstrand was as boring as usual.  The new pavement made it all the way to Nerstrand, so the run from there to the Valley grove section was rather good.  I took a few pictures along the way.

 





Climbing the hill on Ibson was great; I think in general going this direction gives access to the best climbs.  I'll maybe try it the other way around next time to see how the climbing on the new pavement is for comparison.
I went in for a couple fillings today.  Only three, but all in different places around my mouth, so my whole face is a bit numb right now.  I also found out that silver fillings are actually half mercury.  So I'm not sure what to make of that, but it's a bit creepy considering the stigma against playing with mercury, and for good reason from what medical data I've seen on the topic.  Even so, apparently the release rate is really low, and it's got to be better for me than uranium right?  On that happy note I'm off to study the bible, have a good week.