Dirty Half - Dude Thousand Nine!

I jacked up my foot running up Leif Erickson a while back and recently learned that I broke my foot, so I've been gimping around in an Aircast boot. I rested my foot after the incident, but it didn't get any better making running and training for the Dirty Half painful. The doctor, after looking at the x-ray fit the boot on my foot and the boot was so nice, it isolated the heal area and my mood immediately improved. I've been wearing the boot for about 3 weeks, I wore it up to Bend to hang-out and stuff during the Dirty Half weekend with Nate and Amy.


Great time, but really boring just sitting around during the race, oh well - I got these really cool pair of socks for helping set up tables and tents before the run.

This photo is attached to show the ugly car that Nate was forced to rent for the week and whose outlandish color was the driving force behind him getting a speeding ticket as we were driving over to Bend.

Relating to the injury: had a follow up with my doctor last week and he felt my foot and prodded in a few places, he told me that I could start wearing a really nice sport's brace and taper off the boot and taper in the brace - then eventually slowly resume light activity. Which is great!

Morning Mini Proj

This is a an old steel box I found down in the basement, I don't know if was for coal or not, but I suspect it was. I brought it up and decided to cut up some of the cedar paneling I'd ripped out of the basement. Buzzed them up by just eyeballing them and they fit in nicely. (Bottom grate removed and I'll probably take that to a recycler.)


Now, I just need to put some soil/compost in the box and plant something. I probably need to figure out where I want it first, because it is HEAVY even without soil in it.

French Doors

I've spent the past few days, invested about 6 hours into a couple of French doors that had a nice stain on one side and white latex paint on the other. I've been using a combination of a heat gun and scraper to get paint off and also some orange gel paint remover. The gel works well after I've got the top layer of paint or stain off.

French door with white paint removed.


French door with white paint.



French door with a stain, accidentally blistered some of the stain as I was trying to remove paint from the door edge.


French door with stain partially removed, will still sand it to remove the stain and scratches.



A movie of the heat gun blistering the latex paint:



I also took a break to see what I could do with the heat gun and an old vinyl record I have.

My new Whip!

My new bike - classic puegot
Originally uploaded by red_5_rogue

I bought this bike yesterday at a yard sale a block from my place. Marked down from $100 to $35 with a note saying that it had just had a $100 tune up.

Sidebar: I broke a bone in my foot on April 24th, I thought it was just a sprain and I'd been living with it, running on it, biking on it all during that time. Finally went to my podiatrist and figured it out, got a bulky aircast to isolate the bone, which feels so good.

Anyways, I was able to ride it with my aircast and it rode very well and the gears even popped into place.

There is a registration sticker from the City of Davis from 1972! There's no rust on the bike, just needs a front basket, and I'll probably clean the chain/gears today.