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2015 Renovations

The new 120gal is now in the basement, and the Chrysler is in the shed. Those were the 2 big things needing done to prepare for phase 3 – clearing. We now have the entire garage with the lift to store furniture. A couple sheets of 3/4″ plywood should allow enough room on the lift + the rest of the garage to get literally everything out of the main floor. All I have to do now on that issue is motivate Michelle and the girls to get serious about it.


We have 2 painters coming Tuesday afternoon to give estimates, and possibly a 3rd sometime later (One of Michelle’s Redneck customers). A Home Depot contractor will be here next weekend on Saturday to do the floor measurements and provide another estimate for that. Then only clearing out the house and getting things scheduled remains.

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Sucking More the Older I Get

The VA Ortho screen-er Dr. Daniels went over a right shoulder MRI with me last Tuesday. Turns out just about everything that can be wrong with an old guy’s worn out shoulder is wrong with mine – specifically 4 items of concern: 1) Gleno-humeral arthritis (not much cartilage left in the joint). This goes along with the acromioclavicular degeneration diagnosed as a part of my disability rating 13 years ago. 2) Labrum tears, 3) Front tendon tear, and 4) a decent-sized labrum cyst (result of the tears).

So I’ve been referred to the shoulder cutter who will do the surgically technical evaluation and decide what (if anything) he wants to do. I imagine 3 possible courses of action would be considered: 1) Go in arthroscopic and repair whatever can be done now. 2) Accomplish a total replacement now and be done with it, or 3) wait until it gets worse and do the replacement at some future point in time.

Personally, I’d prefer to just get it over with now, but shoulders are tricky – the most complex joint in the body. At this point I’d gladly trade a few months of recovery and rehab for the misery it’s been giving me the last couple of years.

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2015 Renovation Set to Accelerate

With the pond finished (for this year!) and preparations to move the aquarium almost finished, we will soon begin this year’s big summer project in earnest. 12 years of raising kids at 5712 Wetland Loop has taken it’s toll – mostly on the house. We had the garage doors replaced last week. I repaired them several times over the years, but cheap steel doors without any reinforcement that have been hit even once just don’t last no matter how much you repair them after that.

Next comes painting and floors. That will require emptying the place out – literally, thus the aquarium move project as phase 2 in a 5-phase campaign to renovate the house: 1) garage 2) aquarium 3) clearing 4) painting and 5) floors. I suppose putting everything back in will be a 6th step, but by then the ordeal will be almost over and we’ll all be happy campers again!

Hopefully the women will do most of the painting and I will find a decent contractor to do the floors. I’ve been pretty miserable with the way my body’s been acting up lately, and just can’t do much of that stuff any more the way I used to.

More on that later, soon as the local VA shoulder cutter gets around to evaluating the MRI Dr. Daniels referred to him Tuesday.

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Extreme Micromanagement

The Customer has a problem with security. It’s a different government customer this time. But the theme is very similar to that noted almost a year ago here.

How do I know there’s a problem? Pretty simple:

1) Worker bees are distributing slips of paper with proximity badges

2) The visitor Control Center parking lot is full of cars and trucks all day long with people trying to get in (many sitting waiting in their vehicles)

3) The top boss needs to process/approve another piece of paper after somebody forgets or mistypes their PIN.

What does it say about your operation when you cannot manage an automated proxim card system without pieces of paper? Extreme micromanagement is a very poor substitute for training and discipline.

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Commencement 2015

Scroll to the bottom of the grad pic page to see Phoebe’s pics from the 2015 Mead HS Commencement ceremony:
Grad Pic Page

Grad Laughs
We got REALLY lucky with the weather. It was near perfect all through the ceremony – no wind, overcast, mild (low 60s) with sun trying to peek through from time-to-time. Then the skies opened up with a torrential downpour by the time we were in the car leaving the parking lot. We headed south on I25 for Go Fish in Broomfield and had a nice sushi lunch to cap off graduation day for the old folks. Of course the girls continued the festivities at parties around the neighborhood later in the evening. We’ll have our turn hosting that activity here at 5712 next Saturday.

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Here We Go Again!

It has only let up a bit from time-to-time since I started complaining about the rain a couple weeks ago. Flood alerts have been issued for various locations around the area:

Big Rain
We had a mild winter and a wet spring, so far this year. I’m not complaining, just wondering how long it will take for climate change to turn this region into a rain forest.

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Staff Cuts Hitting Hard

Last week management held a big meeting to inform us that somewhere around 20% of the Boulder SBIRS staff will be gone by the end of the year. The briefing was peppered with typical buzzwords like “lean operations” and “new opportunities,” but to co-opt an old Zeppelin title, the song remains the same: People holding the 160-some targeted positions can probably expect to be canned.

Apparently the cuts are already in progress with some people in “panic mode” now. We expect the process to accelerate towards the end state quickly around the August time frame after Block 10 delivery is complete.

Yay.

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Best "NON-M" BMW's Ever

Ran across this little gem of an articles highlighting some critically acclaimed BMW’s over the years that were not quite as fast or flashy as their M-counterparts, but potentially even more desirable for “other” reasons:

F-30
BMW did not bring the monster 6-pot twin-turbo 3.0l diesel to the U.S in the 3-series after phasing out the e90 chassis, opting instead for a 4 cylinder single-turbo in the U.S. F30. That makes my 2011 335D one of the last of the greatest diesel cars to ever hit the streets in this country. Many pundits still argue to this day the merits of the F30 chassis over the previous design. I can attest to their concerns after driving both, and they are completely different cars, with the E90’s hydraulic steering, overall smaller size and tighter suspension easily trumping the new models in every performance handling category. Add in the phenomenal powerplant and it is truly a rare and exciting car, the likes of which will likely never be seen again on a showroom floor in this country.

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Rain, Rain go Away…

It’s been like this for over a week now, with heavy rain expected all day agin today:

2015 Spring Storm
Remember the big flood of just a year and a half ago? Starting to feel like deja-vu all over again!

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Awesome Numbers

Despite complying with horribly oppressive EPA-imposed emissions restrictions, the “D” still manages this:

335D Numbers

Admittedly, it was under ideal highway conditions after filling up in Cheyenne yesterday, heading south on I-25 and setting the cruise at 85mph. I snapped this pic about an hour later on the other side of Ft. Collins. Interestingly enough, the real hand calculated figure is always around 3mpg higher than the car’s computer thinks it is. Not too shabby for a 3-liter twin-turbo diesel making 500 ft-lbs. of torque.

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Backyard Spring Stuff

This year will the 2nd for the backyard pond. It needs some revamping and updates to be truly complete. The first stage of the project happened 2 weeks ago when I dug up and moved the giant ornamental grass that was blocking view from the deck. It’s in a better place around back now. That was certainly the most difficult thing I’ve done so far this year – actually broke a shovel.

Yesterday Phoebe and me spent the afternoon shoring up the shoreline, as t’were. It had some issues with steep, nearly vertical walls in some parts due mostly to it’s relatively small size compared to depth. I came up with a method of using thick plastic sheeting to back the walls under the liner preventing subsiding and enabling much better support for the flagstone around the edge (shore!). We were also able to get a higher edge closer to level all the way around. I estimate that assuming the next stage of the project comes off well, full capacity should be well over 200 gallons.

That next stage will involve re-engineering the waterfall outlet to raise the surface 3″-4″ and channel a single, smaller stream directly into the center of the lower basin. The long, sheet-like spillway design it started with last year was nice, but I just can’t leave well enough alone. It has to be modified to raise the water level anyway, so why not try something different?

The final step in this year’s pond project is a fountain replacing the grass from step 1. That is pretty much self-explanatory with the exception of pictures to properly elaborate, soon as it’s finished. Phoebe’s comment was “those goldfish in the basement sure are going to be happy when they get back into their summer home!”

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Patty Dropped a Bombshell

It gets better. Just when I was starting to think the confusion factor in managing our procedure documents couldn’t get any worse, the Verification Lead announces she’ll soon be out for a minimum 1-month leave of absence. Oh, I forgot to mention – we are on the cusp of one of the most critical stages in the delivery: Formal Verification. Timing is after all, as they say, everything. Hopefully we’ll see her back soon in good shape with no ill affects from whatever the problem is. But considering the timimg thing, I have to wonder if work itself was/is the problem. Hmmmm…

Looks like the chosen successor Jonna, gets a big opportunity to step up and Rock the Casbah, as the Clash lyrics go. It’s going be a really fun spring season on the program here – stay tuned!

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The "D's" in the Shop (Again!)

How I do love this car. I mean, anyone with the sense God gave a chimp would have gotten rid of it long ago. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed to see how far it gets me before the next problem crops up when the extended warranty expires, probably around early next year at the current miles-clocked rate. Fortunately that CPO warranty came through again and I’m only out-of-pocket for the cost of a new battery + registration and 4-wheel alignment.

It had a bad January. Around the middle of the month I failed to avoid the largest-ever pothole, no – pot canyon, on the I-36 eastbound Boulder entrance ramp. I pulled off at the next exit to inspect for damage because the steering wheel was cocked noticeably to the right after hitting so hard it almost threw me into a skid as I rounded the turn at 50mph. You have to be extra careful about tire damage under these circumstances as well, because run-flats are so good people have been known to unwittingly drive them until they come apart. You might not even know you have a flat without a TPMS warning. Another benefit of the run-flats is great wheel protection. Conventional tires suffering this hard a hit would have also incurred serious wheel damage.

So the next day I gave it a rough alignment adjustment by guesstimate to hold it over until I got an opportunity to have it done properly. Then in my infinite wisdom due to a stretch of bad weather, I drove the 2500 and left it sitting in the garage for over 2 weeks and the battery died. Ordinarily not that big of a deal. Sometimes I miss the days of purely mechanical vehicle maintenance. It gets a little dicey when the computer-controlled magic specter of intelligent charging systems and carefully synchronized electronic creature comfort rears it’s angry head. After a full re-charge the car seemed fine from a cranking, starting and running perspective, but the iDrive was unresponsive – lights on, but nobody home.

That iDrive controller (little round joystick control knob with buttons in the center console) is an $800-to-replace BMW-only item. So I left the “D” with Gebhardt the day before yesterday, and they expect to have it until Monday. The 428i loaner they gave me is a pretty sweet car, but it ain’t no E90 335D.

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Big Storm On The Way?

So by Sunday morning, there is still a big moisture-laden system hovering over the entire Denver region. We have only seen about 3″ at 9 A.M. Temps are in the mid teens and it looks like it will continue snowing lightly the rest of the day. Fortunately we don’t seem to be getting dumped on like the 10+ inches many others in the area are seeing.

They’ve been calling for this all week, and it looks like the meteorologists just might get it right.  Standby for flake-by-flake updates on our next snowmageddon.  🙂

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Freshman Letterman


They didn’t quite make it to State last year, but came close. I’m betting they do next year. Now she’s playing off-season for what she refers to as a “real” club. The club Director told us she already looks like a legitimate Division 1 prospect. We’ll be down in Lakewood for a tournament tomorrow. Looks like the sky’s the limit for daughter#2!

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Jax

..Is his name:


He was a 7-week old mutt when we got him from a lady selling puppies in the Walmart parking lot 2 days before Phoebe was discharged from the hospital.  Rumored to be a Springer Spaniel/Black Shepherd mix, I believe that is probably accurate.  We saw the Mom Spaniel at his birthplace when we went to pick him up, and the color is pretty obvious.

I expect he may get fairly large, considering the disproportionate size of his head.  Shelly and the cats did not take long to accept him into the fold.  Marshall is quite curious about him, shelly has started full-on dog play and only Kiki remains just annoyed with our little bundle of playful energy named Jax.