Something Fishy

My immediate family will quickly testify that I am not a great fisherman. Certainly not because  I didn't grow up that way.  It seemed my dad could pull a fish out of a back yard swimming pool if you put a pole in his hand.

And if my dad could pull out fish from a pool, my brother could land a trout out of a bathtub. I've never been able to fish like them.  If it weren't for the fact I'm a clone of my dad, I'd claim I was adopted.

But lately I've seen it not as a matter of luck, or skill, but simply patience. If I don't start seeing results in the first 5 casts, I ready to move on to something else. Dad and the others would put in the hours. Just sitting there in the boat, on bank of a river or the lake. I couldn't do that.

I am getting better.  Maybe not at fishing, but learning to sit still and soak in life. And beauty. I blame Colorado for that.

For someone that needs to keeps moving like a shark to breath, sometimes I sit back, drop a line out in the lake and just stare.

This next picture is the lake I fished on Labor Day. I had it on good authority that they just stocked the fool thing.  A  rank amateur is supposed to be able to catch a fish under those conditions. Not me. Maybe they were biting,  I was just too mesmerized by the view of Pike's Peak from 10,000 feet to notice.

I may have finally learned some lesson. You put in the hours and eventually you'll go home with a catch. By the end of the day some I did come up with a few trout to clean. And I didn't mind the wait at all.

Is this Cool, or What!?

About a month ago I posted a blog showing my poor bike all stripped down to nekked.  Well, it is time to dress her back up.

Gene has done an outstanding job in re-painting my Concours. It is a high gloss jet black, with green metallic paint in the mix. In the sun this shows up, and let me tell you, it blows you away.

The original color was also black, it was called a Midnight Black on account of slight hint of metallic blue in it, but not nearly as dramatic as it is now with the green. Gene also put on a much better layer of clear coat that will soon buff out and make the bike look like liquid speed. Fantastic.

Another part of the paint job was a little air-brush work he put on. I told him I wanted something with a Star Trek theme and we agreed to using the Borg symbol on the tank and the front fender.. if you know your Trek, you see it right away. To the heathen un-believer, just a cool symbol.

If you need some custom work on your bike, I've got an artist in mind. I'd get in line early, because when Colorado finds this talent, he is going to be busy.

Green before Green was Cool

When Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity in 1976 he was hardly aware of climate change, global warming, and carbon footprints. He simply saw a need for simple, decent, affordable housing for the world's poverty stricken.

But lets face it, poverty is pretty hard on the planet. A cheap beater car for getting to work is probably an old, heavy gas-guzzling monster.  The valves are shot, the piston rings are worn and more oil is being burned off and poured into the air than Arnold's Hummer.

The houses are an environmentalist nightmare.  The estimate on a leaky faucet is over 200 gallons wasted a month. That's just one, chances are the bathtub faucet has some serious dripping issues as well.  About that carbon footprint, bigfoot couldn't deal a bigger mark than those thin un-insulated walls. On a cold stormy winter night, you can not keep a candle lit on account of the breeze slipping past the old window frames, rotted and falling apart. Sure, sound financial logic says that over a period of time it is more cost effective to fix this house than pay out the high energy costs wasted. But that requires making your children miss several meals this month, if they even have that flexibility.

Habitat is not in the business of fixing those old cars, but those classic simple, decent, affordable homes are making a huge impact on lives and the environment.

I was in Hungary earlier this month and helped build some of these homes. These are well built, very eco-friendly houses. I saw exterior walls wrapped in 3 inches of foam core panels, with wood framed walls insulated on top of that.  Plenty of fiberglass insulation on the ceiling as well. I know this for a fact, my arms were itching for days.

 With the double-paned vinyl framed windows, I bet you could heat this place with a match.

It is unfortunate that the current economic downturn has caused the Hungarian government to drop a mortgage program that was helping HFH partner with low income families  to build more of these types of homes.  They are now looking at adapting and changing the focus to re-hab work on multi-dwelling housing that looks to be just as helpful, and just as green.

An example given our team over our farewell dinner shows this potential. A lady called the office and asked if some Habitat members could help her with some re-painting of her window sill.  Years of differed maintenance, and probably poor soviet era workmanship had taken it toll on that poor window.  They couldn't re-paint it, there was not enough solid wood to hold even a layer more paint.  Instead they helped her get an new energy efficient window installed to replace it.  Immediately this lady was seeing a 20 to 25 percent savings in her energy bill each month. They helped her, they helped reduce the demand for more energy by this simple fix.

So if you've been one that wanted to help end poverty housing and help save the planet, now you can do both.

Update on Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 3:43PM by Pam Daley

After posting this I have since run across a couple of other main stream media articles.

Habitat for Humanity goes green

Home Depot and Habitat for Humanity back Green building.

Ballerina 1, Bigfoot 0

Oh to be young lithe and limber. Meet Lisa one of our valued members on the Global Village build team in Hungary. There was not a construction challenge she was afraid to tackle. Not even insulation.

On the second day of our stay there was enough cloud cover and cooler temperatures to keep the attic work bearable, so there was a call for volunteers to tackle this job. Lisa stepped forward without a moments hesitation. Can’t say that much for myself. I knew what a messy, itchy job this was going to be. But hey, if a 16 year old girl can do it, this 53 year old birthday boy was not going to left to sanding on the lower levels.

Lisa wanted to travel and join a Habitat build, however, being under 18 she could not travel by herself. Her mom, a family physician from the Toronto region of Canada worked out her schedule so that there was a week she could take off to make this possible. That was how the team ended up with this mother/daughter team. (And to think that some mom’s complain about taking their kids to a cross town soccer game)

Laying roll insulation is not an easy task. We had one person measuring and laying the bats of fiberglass, and a second cutting them to that size and handing them off. Lisa had the former task. She could duck and weave under the roof rafters, while I was constantly watching my head. She would turn a perfect pirouette on a narrow two inch board to take the cut insulation, then spin on the same axis and lay it down with the precision of a gymnast.

I started with another young gal partner and had the cutting job down pat, but lost her mid-way in the morning job as she had to see a local doctor for an allergy condition. For some odd reason I thought I HAD to keep up the same pace as Lisa and Eric.

And I was, for awhile, then as the temperature in the attic was getting higher I had to get down for awhile for some rest and drink up some water. But not too long, oh no, couldn’t let my team down. I was back up in the attic of a second house to drive on.

It was while trying to navigate the ceiling joists on this second house that I missed a step and planted my foot on the ceiling drywall. Just a little slip, but it busted up the piece enough so that it would have to be replaced.

I worked for maybe another 20 minutes up there before I slipped and fell again. Yep, another section of ceiling would have to be replaced. This time I admitted the heat was probably getting to me and my legs were just too shot to stay up there and work any more.

The next day they were looking for volunteers to go up on the roof and lay shingles. Sigh… best I admit my limitation and stay on the ground.

Locked In The Loo

Strange how one of the defining marks of a culture is the design of their bathroom, or water closet, or loo, or privy, or outhouse,…. See what I mean. do you squat, stand, sit or straddle? I am pretty sure that as adventurous as my wife is , I will never get her to a country that has you squatting over a hole in the floor, no matter how nicely tiled the room is, or how clean it is..

On a construction site in the states you’d find the portable chemical john. Self contained, and hopefully, pumped and cleaned on a regular basis. Here in Hungary, at least at this work site, we had the good old school pit toilet. AKA outhouse. Smelly, yes, fly ridden, yes. Breathe through your mouth and you won’t smell it. Sure…. I find tasting the air just as disgusting. At least there was two sides, Noi and Ferfi, girl and boy.

The indoor public restrooms are much better, or course. In our hotel in Budapest I found two buttons to flush, by room mate with some European travel experience pointed out that it is a mini-flush and a maxi-flush feature. (There is a great water saving feature that could be used stateside.)

Here they also separate the the toilet from the wash basin with a solid door. Even in the houses we are building that is so. In the public restrooms there will be a couple of closets with the toilet set in these. Quite different from the US model made of flimsy partitions and the foot high gap on the sides and door.

Now here is a strange feature I found on the water closet at the bath in hajduboszormeny, it had no door knob. In retrospect I should have inspected that anomaly. I just assumed that the latch that locks the door is the same latch that will unlock the door. Yes, it was odd that it took as good hard slam to get the door to close, but maybe it was not built so well. Trust me now, it was built well.

When I stood to leave, I turned the latch to open the door. I pushed. I pushed harder. It was definitely more than stuck, it was still latched.

Did you get that description of this. It is a closet with a toilet in it. There is no gap tol crawl under, no partition to climb over. There is a small window, but I am not that desperate, yet. I am at a public pool, with only my swimming trunks on, and I have not idea how to yell, “Help, I am stuck in the water closet”, in Hungarian. (I doubt that if I had my handly little phrase book it would have helped me).

Perhaps if I start babbling in English they will go get the other Americans to come to my aid. There has to be some alternatives here. The A-Ha moment comes to me. I have my room key. If I can somehow jam it into the turning mechanism I can turn the latch enough to open the door.

Key in, too loose, All the way in, not enough leverage to twist. Next idea. Not a good one.

Get a running start and bust the door open with my shoulder. I’ve seen enough cop shows to know a door can give when rammed with enough speed and bulk. Key word here, speed. There simply is not enough room in there to gain any kind of ramming speed. The little I did hit it with made me think that it would not work anyway. It I hit it with enough force to break it, my shoulder would bust and certainly that scream of agony would bring some attention. Time to use the small room to some advantage.

Sitting now on the closed lid of the toilet I brace my back against the wall, and my feet on the door. I will power push that puppy open.. I think for a minute about my escape, I’ll just walk past the splintered door and calmly head back into the water. No one knows me here, and they will forever wonder what happened to that door. Ok, push…….flush……I succeed in pushing the flush botton on the wall behind me with my back.

Sit, think, try that key again. This time I have better luck and make my break.