It Seemed Approriate

Thanks to Scott Sanford for pointing me at Buster Keaton's One Week and the photo that I'm adopting as the user icon for discussions of That Darn Roof.

Actually, yesterday went very well. It was slightly cooler and a little overcast, which gave Lisa an extended time on the roof without sending her into heatstroke. Yesterday afternoon, after we took my van to the dealership where they will, I hope not have to charge me a whole lot of money to deal with the service-engine light, we came back to Mehama and Lisa climbed up to the roof and laid a coat of Gray Goo on the lower section of the now-covered "gap," and now there's at least one coat of goo and roofing material on the entire forward third of the roof. Now that needs to dry for a couple of days before she can go back up and put down White Goo over that.

Meanwhile, plans are progressing for laying down more roofing cloth and roof goop on sections of the roof moving toward the back. At some point, we'll have to move the ladders and ropes, which will no doubt be a difficult production, given the roof configuration. Oh, and I think we'll have to completely cut out one of the bushes at the side of the house to give us the necessary access. But that's not really a problem. It's Oregon: the thing will surely grow back in a year or two if we give it a chance.

Gimmie Oxygen

The diagnosis from the dealership is that the oxygen sensor on the van needs replacing. This is not too surprising, and fortunately shouldn't be excessively expensive, either; maybe less than $200. I think it probably explains a fairly significant drop in mileage as I drove north, too. They could have it ready today, but I told them that Friday would be fine, as we have a part on order (a new sounder for the "you left your lights on" buzzer) that isn't supposed to arrive until tomorrow anyway.

They can't get the AC fan to fail, which is also not surprising, give the intermittent nature of the problem.

Vote Sooner, Not Later

I have submitted my 2010 Hugo Award ballot. I didn't even leave it to the last day. Remember, you can't guarantee that the voting web server will be running on the last day/hour/minute when you finally get around to filling out your ballot. Vote sooner to give yourself some leeway in case of unforeseen technical difficulties. Also, if you find that you've mislaid your Hugo Voting PIN (despite multiple and much-appreciated reminders from Aussiecon 4), you need to give yourself time to recover it from A4.