Bike Seats and Summer Heat

Rich was given a bicycle. A working bike. This is after him bringing home two carcasses of old "nearly bikes," missing essential parts here and there, but worth the effort of mixing and matching, filling in a few parts, and making himself a "Franken-Bike." That project was nearly complete Monday, awaiting a couple things that everybody in the wide area was sold out of.

His frustration was rising, when a friend of his from back in homeless shelter days called. Come meet him right now at a certain Walmart, because his dream bike was ready for pickup, and he'd give Rich the bike he rode to the store on. Free. Luckily Rich's work schedule and my availability (I'm always available these days) matched, and over we went. The new-to-him bike is perfect, just needing head and tail lights. Of course that's something the franken-bike needed also, on the list of "nobody's got one" parts. Fortunately eBay will ship him a great set in about a week. Meanwhile he's good for daytime hours. I still shuttle him for evening hours.

There was a bit of a delay picking the bike up, during which I sat in the 110 degree sunny parking lot with the AC going, watching my gas gauge drop since we left in too much of a hurry to fill the tank. I finally left the car and walked over to see what the problem was. Perhaps just reconnecting after a few months? Nope, at least not then. They were swapping seats between the two bikes, so the brand new bike had the nice replacement seat he'd bought for the previous bike, leaving Rich with the "wedgie seat." But hey, free bike, right? And two more seats at home to pick from once we got it back.

Rich rode the new bike to work this morning. One obvious conclusion you can draw is that the MRSA is all healed, no residual swelling or anything.

I've been keeping Rich busy at home too, an exchange for rent until his income gets in more normal levels. The latest project is a result of my shock at the latest electric bill. I figured it'd be high, due to AC and washer-dryer use elevations due to fighting the bed bugs. Just not that blanking high! Fortunately, I could squeak it into the budget. I also went back on eBay - just after last month's slightly higher bill - and ordered a bunch of 3M's tape-on insulating window film.

Turned out to be a bigger project than I'm used to from back in Minnesota winters. The room most needing them is the lanai, an enclosed porch extension with wall-to-wall single pane windows. They don't open, just let heat transfer. Not only are the sizes weird, an easy fix with scissors to the plastic, but the walls are painted concrete block, difficult for tape to adhere to. He dug out some remaining painted trim strips from previous projects in the house, cut them to length, and glued them in place with silicone in a caulking gun. (Hey, I try to be prepared, even to getting the tools in the divorce in '81.) Since it was only the bottoms which had no trim, it was easy to weight them down overnight while they set. Then it took a rag with alcohol (also difficult to locate these days) to wipe the older trim to clean it for taping before getting to the point where I would have started the job back in Minnesota on "regular" windows. Add in the fact that he started in a corner with windows on both sides, both in sun, and the hottest corner of the house!

I can attest from being out there this morning that those first two windows have already made a big difference. I figure the film can stay up there till it rots, when we'll get new stuff.

Those aren't the only way to deal with summer down here. The solar panels make their bit of difference too, both in covering cost and shading the parts of the roof they cover. While I was watching TV this morning, the following happened:

Knock on the door. ?? Nobody needs signatures any more, can't be a delivery. I head that way.

Knock again. Opening it, I find a 30-ish man with no mask. I keep my distance inside.

Was I the homeowner? Yes I am.

Did I know about the new federal mandate on solar panels? Ahh, a salesman. My turn for a question.

Did you look at our roof? No he hadn't.

I wished him good luck with the neighbors.