Second day of vacation

Sunday:  second day of vacation.
Second day of vacation (Sunday, March 12th):


Sometimes we go to church; sometimes we don't.  This time The Lady and The Girl went, and the boys and I stayed home.

Watched various YouTube and Netflix -- possibly some web searches as well (don't remember; I'm writing this on Monday...).


After lunch I wiped down all the food items we took OUT of the pantry (one by one), circled the expiration dates, and restored each to the shelves (in an higgledy-piggledy manner).  Items that were just a month or two out of date, or about to expire, I put on a special shelf; items that were truly out of date I put in a box, piled the boxes/packages/cans on the front lawn, and later (with the help of the kids) emptied into a big bucket and then (just before dark) tossed into the bushes waaaay into our back yard (we have a big yard):  the animals may feed on them; it's sufficiently far from the house that I'm not worried about attracting pests; hope that some critter besides me enjoys that expired brick of Spam.

I recruited the kids to help me on the pantry-related tasks, on 30 minute rotations (I used the oven timer to measure the elapsed time):  I think each kid did three sessions (yow!  four and a half hours...!!!).


Watched a little Netflix, then around 3pm or 4pm chopped down (with permission from my neighbors!) a palm tree that straddles the property line:  a few months ago I tried to "shoot" our property line by hanging a cord from surveying peg to surveying peg, but the palm tree was in the way.  Used my late [paternal] grandfather's felling axe to chop it down, after having (a few weekends ago) re-ground it to a narrower pitch and then re-sharpening it.  Then chopped it into four logs about as long as my leg, plus the top bundle of "fronds", to make it move-able.  Plan on splitting the logs with wedges, then letting them dry for a half year or a year, to see if they end up being usable as lumber:  probably not, but it won't cost me anything except time (and I need to dispose of the logs somehow, regardless).

The tree fell the wrong way, BTW:  I chopped through about 40%, but apparently it didn't naturally "sag" in that direction like it was supposed to.  No matter:  I got out safely, and it didn't fall on anything important (in fact, it fell exactly on one of the "escape paths" that I'd cleared).

Also, I was afraid of the "hinge" (where I chopped) being too strong, and having to then free the felled trunk from the stump.  Quite the opposite:  completely fell off.  Probably due to the palm tree only having maybe 20% of the fibres of a "regular" tree:  the rest is filled with squishy stuff -- so, less tensile strength.

It's late summer, so it stayed light until maybe 6pm (I didn't keep track).  Brought my tools inside, then dumped the above-mentioned bucket in the lower back yard.


Since the kitchen isn't really usable (The Lady is still sorting the pantry, with things piled on the stove), she sent me out to pick up some pizzas for dinner.  I also put on some store-bought garlic bread, when I got home.


Re-strung the formerly 4-string, now 3-string acoustic guitar, while watching the rest of Get Out (suspense/thriller) on Netflix:  when playing that guitar yesterday had decided to change the tuning:  it had the correct middle four strings (A D G B) mounted, but was tuned to the lowest (thickest) four strings' tuning (E A D G).  But then when I re-turned it to the higher tension, I discovered that I didn't like this new (but correct!) tuning, because the higher string tension made me have to press down too hard to fret the notes, and it made it too hard to "bend" notes.

So, I removed all the strings, put the lowest two strings (E and A) back into the packet, and collected the highest-pitched four strings (D G B E) in the "wrong" positions (the centre of the neck, rather than the bottom four locations) -- with the intent of tuning them a little slack, so that the middle four strings would still be tuned correctly for their position (A D G B) -- but slightly slack.

However, when removing the strings, I somehow broke one of the strings near the tuning peg -- rendering it too short to mount.  So the current guitar is now just a three-string:  A [no D] G B.  This forces me into unusual fingerings, and I came up with some riffs that I wouldn't otherwise have stumbled upon. 

Anyhow, noodled around in that new configuration while watching the middle third of Get Out.


Finished Get Out around 9pm(?), but didn't feel like going to bed -- so finally watched Sin City on DVD:  bought it maybe half a year ago, on DVD, for a buck.  Engaging enough that I stayed up until about 11pm watching it, then went to bed.


End of Day 2.  Still enjoying myself thoroughly.  :)


--GG