Hours of Daylight – 15:27

Yeah, i’m back to opening with Hours of Daylight. Don’t ask me why. Thing that’s significant to keep in mind is that Boise is in the very western portion of Mountain Time. So, a sunset of 9:32 means we have twilight well past 10 pm. This phenomena was first observed when Annette and i came out here for her first interview in January. Because we’re so far west in the timezone it would remain dark well past 8 am. Add to that heavy cloudcover and you end up with a pretty late morning, but a late evening even on the the shortest day of the year.
Ok, so I had planned to keep the bitching to a minimum, but it seems reality has once again invaded and pissed me off. So let’s get to it:

First: I crashed my motorcycle on Friday, June 24. I was picking my way down the 8th Street Extension after climbing higher up the trail then ever before. The road (trail?) gets very steep in some parts and especially after all the rain we’ve had out here much of the softer sand has been washed off revealing some nasty rocky sections. The trail climbs all the way up the foothills and meets with the Boise Ridge trail. I didn’t go that high because of a severely gnarly patch that just felt too tough for what is essentially a slightly beefed up road motorcycle. So, i was on my way down when, down pretty low on the trail, my mind must have wandered, because something happened as i was gingerly completing a steep right turn. Before i knew it i was on the ground sliding. After a very quick assessment i got to my feet to check on the bike. The engine had died, the bike was on its right side – pointed back up the hill. I checked up and down to see if any traffic was coming… nothing, not a sound. Good, i had time. I took off my jacket to see if it was torn. No, i didn’t care about the jacket but a torn jacket is a good indicator of torn skin… and my shoulder was burning a bit. Jacket was fine… pants were fine. I’d made a good fall… didn’t attempt to break my fall by breaking my wrists. My “First Gear” gloves that i’d been bitching about as being too hot for this climate worked very well. I went to the bike and, with surprising ease, got it back on its wheels. It had lost a bunch of plastic on the right side rear, right side front and rear turn signals were gone and the beak and windshield had their share of scratches. I got it turned around, got on, started right up, and quickly headed down a few hundred feet to a small trailhead parking area for a more thorough check over. The crash bars i’d installed just a couple of days ago performed their job admirably. The right side bar was bent, but did not contact the cylinder head. The rear shock had dripped a little oil from the very bottom, but it didn’t continue to leak after three or four drops. The bike, i decided, would make it home. Now for me: there was a stabbing pain in the right side of my chest, but it wasn’t so bad that i couldn’t function or breath normally. Hell, i’d righted the bike, so couldn’t be too badly hurt. I decided time to be of the essence. Though i doubted any internal bleeding i decided it would be best if i got down out of the foothills before a hidden problem could fully blossom into a condition that prevented me from riding. Bottom line, i made it home w/o incident. Of course sleeping that night and Saturday night, didn’t happen due to stabbing pains everytime i moved, but every day is better. New indicators are on order, i’ve cleaned the bike up a bit… no more oil leaks from the rear shock. I may have gotten off easy. Chest still hurts, but no bruising is evident.

Second: Construction of our brand new deck has ground to a complete halt. The project is already a full day behind schedule due to a rain out. But the issue now is the decking attachment “system.” I requested synthetic decking because i really don’t want to deal with maintenance, the idea of using redwood is basically a sin to me, in fact i don’t believe in using dead trees at all if possible, and synth decking is trendy now… so it will improve the resale value of the house. In addition to the synth decking i also asked the contractor to find a product that is attached without the use of surface screws. Seems silly to me to go to the expense of synth decking only to pepper it with screw heads. The problem is the attach system used by the brand my contractor found is good on paper, but is worthless in practice. See, the black plastic clip is supposed to sit on the joist, fill the grove in the synth material, and be accessable via a screw gun from above. This clip is none of those things. My contractor, Mark Fenton, is a total professional. He was sketchy from day one on the idea of clip attach decking, but he researched and settled on this one largely based on my insistance and my price point. He and his crew were making great progress, but that ground to a complete halt when they began fitting the decking. We discussed the problem, which involves not only the black plastic clip being too small, it also includes the gap left by the boards being too small to fit the special bit down between the boards to snug down the screw. Plus even under the best circumstances, the shiny stainless steel screwheads will be clearly visible between the boards. The whole idea of “blind attachment” is you don’t see how the boards are attached. This deck manufacturer’s system fails on every level.

Third: Waiting, waiting, waiting. That’s what my life is right now, one ongoing waiting game. The p/s rack on the Volvo began leaking some time ago. It’s a rebuilt unit that cost over $700 to replace in MN. The good news is there is a lifetime warrantee on the part and the MN shop, Alexander’s Import Auto – in a TOTALLY Professional manner – has agreed to broker the exchange for me. But this groups the p/s rack in with the hard bags i ordered for my motorcycle well over a month ago, the turn signals that i really don’t want to ride the bike without, and the deck… which will now not be finished before the 4th of July weekend. I won’t even go into the whole mess of waiting to hear on jobs. Woody Allen was so correct when it pointed out, “It’s worse than dog-eat-dog, it’s dog won’t return other dog’s phone calls.”