The east side of the house is beginning to take shape. There was a significant amount of repair that was required plus some overall style decisions that sort of forced some additional work. For instance, I still wanted the arch way up on one of the windows of the third floor despite it requiring substantial reconstruction. In my mind, it is those details that give the house the Victorian character.

As can be seen in the picture, about 3/5ths of the east side has been repaired and primed. I’m not sure how close the balance is to completion, but up close it looks pretty good. I also finally drug an electrician in to complete the installation of my 200 amp service. The wiring is in place and is only awaiting inspection (I think).

On the docket it for tomorrow is the hauling of more construction debris, ramping up for a thruster test and another visit to Ball Bearing Beach to attempt again to get to scuba down to 100+ feet without narc’ing out.

Well, Makela Sky Climbing commence work on the house today. Currently the yard is pretty much covered with scaffolding, nails, paint chips and asphalt shingles. Ahhh, the look of progress. I spent most of today playing foreman/contractor to ensure that everything keeps rolling smoothly. Oddly enough, the first call of the day (oh there were about 1000 others) was from the Charter Communications. I always dread it when they call, but this time it was something good. Apparently, the coax wiring on this house was so bad, it was messing up other peoples signals so they were calling to beg me to allow them to rewire all of the coax for free. That was an easy choice. So now, the internet is faster and the TV signal looks great. However, running around with that guy was some additional overhead today but I’m glad it is done. Finally, I managed to line up an electrician to take care of installing a new 200 amp line from the power lines, down into the panel. They’re doing that on Friday.

What a day though, managing an army of workers takes a lot out of you (especially when it requires running all over the place). In any case, it should be a nice relaxing evening. Mack, Brad and I are planning to do a night scuba dive this evening up in Eagle Harbor which is going to be totally awesome.

Yeah, I’m doing just fine. Sure the post before last was written in the heat of the moment, as are most of my meaningful entries, but this guy is doing just ducky. In fact, I’ve had 4 very successful dives since that time in which the subsequent cumulative experience is serving to enforce my abilities as a diver. In fact, I’m quite satisfied with my experiences thus far having basically experienced some of the most dangerous facets of the sport.

Scuba aside, lately I’ve been abstaining from the depths of being wasted on a regular basis. I’m just tired of feeling like crap in the morning. I stayed at home Saturday and instead spent the balance of my bar tab (about $10) on a bike computer. That thing will destroy me; but in a good way. The first ride I chose after the 3 mile ride to get the damn thing, was to do was the 24.008 mile round trip to McClain Stain Park. I’ve done it once before, but the constant update on current speed verses average speed is a killer. It actually has a plus or a minus sign to indicate whether you are sucking it up, or improving your average time which for me is like pouring gas on a struggling fire. Always keep it to the plus buddy.

This (on the left) is sort of the pain scheme I’ve found for the house. It is Peter Norton’s summer home (remember Norton Anti-virus?). The painters begin work on Wednesday. Any thoughts?

Gah, so in an effort to attain the deeper water experience necessary to scuba dive the deeper, more interesting shipwrecks, Brad guided Mack and I down a gentle underwater slope deep into the depths of Lake Superior. 10 . . . 30 . . . 50 . . . 60 . . . 70 . . . feet no problem; I was leading the way in fact. Even at 80 feet of depth (where the water pressure is about 50 psi), I was ok for a while. However, nitrogen narcosis quickly caught up with me. Matt Blank, I blame this one on you for buying drinks last night. Though I had no hangover to speak of, I was still dragging some baggage with me between the drinks, misfitting gear, failed high pressure line and life in general. As Brad put it, it is similar to being drunk in that all the bad things lurking in the background have a tendency to come out when wasted. Similar situation here. Looking at my depth gauge, I saw only doom. So I turned tail and bailed back up the rocky slope I had so willingly descended on. Strange as it is, once I got to about 40 feet, I just got pissed since I regained a hold on my brain wondered where the hell that bastard who was all creeped out went. Luckily though I have a friend like Brad with enough humility to share his own experiences with deep paranoia. All I can say though, is that is the scariest 10 minutes of my life; luckily it was all in my head. Anyway, next time I’m going deep (aka Wednesday) I’m diving clean, since that is something I never want to happen again.