Takin' the Blog for a Walk

I had a hammer

Posted by Brien Lee on May 18, 2010

helping

It's been a while, at least it seems that way. I'm still without a computer and write whenever I can borrow one, as long as it's not in the middle of the night. I bought a used one cheap to have as a spare and had to put it into service two weeks later when the mother board or whatever went on the one we've had nothing but trouble with. For a while I was very happy with the used machine. It was at the start of my job search and had all the office programs and a nice printer with it. But it lasted only two weeks and can't be fixed. It was homemade and had no Microsoft license but did have 6 hard drives! It was probably the mother board too, but it just wasn't worth the expense to find out without the license. North American Computer once again took very good care of me even though I'm still computerless.

I helped with the Postal Service Annual Food Drive a couple weeks ago. I sorted bottles, boxes and cans at future home of Waukesha Food Pantry on Sentry Drive and liked it so much I offered to help more. Last week I worked two days at the Food Pantry's current North Street location and loved it. If my fellow volunteers' years of service are any indication, it more than likely won't be my last time there. Lots of good people there doing good work.

Last week it was announced that WindDancer Balloon Promotions had won the WISN A-List for favorite hot air balloon ride in S.E. WI. Thank you everyone for voting! My good friends Ken and Kay with WindDancer also just added to their crew last week with a newborn baby boy. Two wins in one week. Congratulations Ken and Kay!

Lastly, I didn't know the first thing about roofing but had to do something before the entire garage roof collapsed. There were leaks and moldy wood. I'd been talking about doing something for at least two years. Finally have the time, need to do it, but without a job lined up do we spend the money now?

I priced out shingles, figured out how many we'd need, waited for a sale. Bought 17 bundles of shingles and 8 sheets of plywood on the last days of the sale. Would wait for a nice long stretch of dry weather then got antsy and did it over the weekend when at least those two days were supposed to be nice.

Last Saturday I woke at 4:15 to crew for Mark's balloon Cloud Nine. He had some new crew without experience and needed an old hand like me to show them the ropes. It was a beautiful morning. I spent 8 hours after that tearing off all the old shingles and replacing 7 sheets of plywood on the garage. Like I said, it was a beautiful day.

Very sore by Sunday but needing to now shingle before the rain, I went to mass and spent 9 hours shingling. Still not done, my son and I finished Monday. Don't know if we followed instructions to a T, but it looks nice and IT'S FINALLY DONE!

It's one job I do not want, roofing. It was a learning experience. I learned how much pain I can endure.