Month: January 2008

Today I went to do some more sheathing on the house, but I noticed that the trusses had started to lean to the east. I decided to plumb them and brace them. I first got a 2X4 that was long enough to span five trusses, and I attached it to the top of the most westerly five trusses. Following this I attached a strap to the peak of the fifth truss and the base of the gable truss (and top plate). I then put a come-along between the two straps and pulled the trusses until they were plumb and square. I then put a 2X4 on either side diagonally in an X which braced the trusses from falling over and kept them perfectly in place. I continued down the line until I got over half of the trusses braced.

Lately I bought some higher priced coffee the brand that starts and ends with the letter s. I bought it because we had some at Aaron’s house new years eve and it was awesome.

Aaron showed me how to make it, it went something like:

1. add about this much water
2. put a hand full of beans in here, don’t measure, maybe a bit more, that looks good
3. push this button and away it goes

His coffee maker has a built in grinder so all was well, and it was excellent.

The coffee that I got had directions on the back, and luckily it was in metric and imperial measures and not in cups either (one measuring cup full of water somehow equals two cups in coffee maker world) anyway the directions say:

– Measure 2 Tbsp. (10 grams) of ground coffee to 6 fl oz (180 mL) water

-Use fresh filtered water

-Store coffee in an airtight container for no more than a week.

 

Sounds easy enough, so I got the measuring spoon, measured the coffee and put it into the filter that was sitting on the diet scale. (Ground coffee does weigh 5 grams per tablespoon.) then I measured 180 mL of water which is not even a cup so I tripled the recipe reweighed the grinds and put it into the maker. You would have to taste the coffee to believe me, it was horrible, and very strong. Wanda put one quarter of a cup of coffee into her cup then filled it with water and it was still too strong. I just don’t get it why does making coffee have to be so difficult, why do the directions never work out, and what’s with the measurements on coffee machine.  I like Aaron’s way much better, just dump some in and don’t measure.

Today was a rough but very eventful day. Wanda, Jen, Bryan (my dad), John, Mike, Tre and myself were out there today standing rafters. When we got there, there were 5 rafters up, when we left there were 27 rafters up. Everyone did an amazing job. Special thanks to John and Mike who were the guys working up top. We tried the new rafter lift brackets that I designed and they worked better than excellent. It used to be the crappiest job standing the rafters, but now it takes less than two minutes from ground to erected.

Today Wanda, Jen, Tre, and myself went out to the building site. I fabricated some lifting devices for the rafters and my helpers build an awesome snow fort. I also installed hurricane braces on the ends of the rafters.

Today John, Wanda, and myself went to stand some rafters. The first one we hauled up to the roof by hand it was heavy. After that we started lifting them with a block and tackle. It still took a bit to get then up there. I’m going to figure out a better way to do things for next time. Putting the rafters into place once they were up there wasn’t too bad but it was a bit too scary for me to walk on them; John did pretty much everything. I’m sure we’re all going to be sore tomorrow.

I went to a window manufacturing plant to do some forklift stuff this morning and I got the tour of the place. The highlight is the wood fired boiler, it’s good stuff. They burn all the scrap wood and sawdust in this boiler and it provides all the heat required to heat their 9.5 acre building. The wood is loaded by a conveyer, and the sawdust is augured into it, it was amazing.

Wanda and I started today at 12:00am at Christy (sorry about the spelling if it’s wrong) and  Aaron’s house, we went there for new years eve and hadn’t left yet. It was the first time we went to his house; it’s nice, I like it. The highlights of the visit were his cheese grater that he got from a store in Alberta for ultra cheap, and his nacho’s and cheese. Well the grater is pictures below and the nacho’s didn’t last long enough to photograph; they had tortilla chips, grated marble cheese, fresh mushrooms, and red bell peppers, toasted in the oven to perfection and served with a side of salsa and sour cream. We played scene it, and xbox 360, we all had a great time