As you, my loyal readers, know from my previous posts Auburn High School finally passed it's levy and a new school is about to emerge from the fertile valley soil of Auburn. In Phase 1 of the build, the houses the school district has been collecting over the past 20+ years were razed last week to make way for the relocated student lot. The old student lot is where the main part of the new school will be built so construction can commence while we still occupy the old building. Only the Performing Arts Center and our auto shop will remain from our existing school. Both are supposed to be graced with a full renovation. Cross your fingers on that one.
Here the triplex behind our shop is being squished to the delight of the staff that is supposed to be in a State in-service day.
If you cannot view the video above either click on or paste this link into your browser: http://youtu.be/Wsskf1ImQyg
This is the view from the back door of the auto shop. The door used to open into an alley between two rows of houses, one of which was the ex-triplex in the video above. This should be Auburn High's new student parking lot by the end of the week. I am a worried about our asset's survival rate when the new parking lot is right outside our previously unused door.
As you may remember, last week Grampa Book brought Nitro a radio control mouse that Bob spent the afternoon playing with while Nitro looked on. This week Bear took his turn with the mouse. First he was afraid of it, then he started playing with it. I uploaded the video to YouTube if you are interested. at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PxgM-ukQes Yes, Nitro does play with the mouse, but who wants to watch a cat play with a cat toy?
Friday night all the kids came over for dinner. When Kyanne came in, she brought me some beautiful fresh daffodils from her yard. I put them in the vase with some other flowers I bought from Costco and they all look beautiful in the watery spring sun.
After I took the flower pictures, Roo and I were heading to the Outlet Collection Seattle, formerly The SuperMall of the Great Northwest so I decided to show her Auburn's new road. Auburn has so little excitement that I have to show her a new 1/2 mile long road for entertainment....anyway, I digress. As we were trying to get to this newest of roads, I got a bit lost and we ended up on the road next to it. Don't even ask. Anyway, Roo saw a sandwich sign in the road for Wet Head Brewery. She said "Did you see that? Was that really a brewery? A U-turn quickly proved that after many years of advanced education she can read. After a very quick discussion we decided to stop.
The "brewery" is located in a residential area and, as a result, doesn't look much like a brewery. We stopped anyway. In the converted garage we found a small neat, clean little brewery.
And I do mean little brewery. Here is the sum total of the brewing operations. We tried Wet Head's three offerings, had a great visit with the proprietor and left with a growler of amber ale.
The spring sun had changed to blustery wind while we were at the mall. This time of year
RAIN + SUN = RAINBOW
in our backyard. In this case, a double rainbow even though #2 doesn't really show.
Sunday was a lazy day with Bob, Bear and I doing some yardwork then Bob working in the garage on the Jag restoration. Here his primary concern now is getting the pilot light re-lit on his shop furnace.
As usual, lazy unfocused days around here involve animal abuse. Bear wears his St. Patty's Day scarf in (fill in blank) style while plotting who's throat he's going to rip out tonight while they sleep. I'm glad he's going home tonight!
Last week Bob bought an adapter to convert his sand blaster into a soda blaster. That and a couple of large bags of industrial baking soda can turn a pristine garage floor...and everything else...
...into a dusty mess. With the white powder everywhere, it looks like Paris Hilton had a celebrity party in our garage last night.
The soda blasting leaves such a big mess to clean such a tiny little patch. It may be a messy process, but it does an awesome job.
As the restoration of the Jaguar marches on, more "tools" are required. Bob has always wanted a stud welder and so a new stud welder was welcomed into our home. Although I tease about it, this tool has made the job of dent pulling much more appetizing for him and quieter for me.
First little wire studs are quickly welded to the bottom of the dent with the stud welder.
Look, Kitty has whiskers!
After the "whiskers" are welded to the low places in the metal, Bob used a slide hammer to pull the dent out. Then the whiskers are cut and ground smooth to the surface of the metal...
...and topped off with a coat of body filler (Bondo-type material). At this point, the bottom side of the Jag looks like the top side of a turtle. Bear toured the project and stared at the turtle while RestoCat wonders what the heck a dog is doing in his garage.
After each layer of filler dries, it gets sanded smooth and another layer is added if the surface is not yet as smooth as a gravy sandwich. This process turns a rough dented piece from this...
...to this. Add some more filler, primer, filler primer, marking paint, sanding, filling, priming, and it's ready for paint. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Until next week.
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