1. Just so everyone knows we're still alive, thought I'd update the blog now & add pictures later:
   
   We were pretty busy preparing for our February 10th moving day. The move went smoothly and we had three good workers from Bekins Cross Town movers. The foreman was a Ukrainian emmigrant, a very nice fellow who made sure everything was done very carefully so that we had no damage & no one got hurt. Since moving day, we have been slowly unpacking boxes, placing furniture, arranging our ISP and TV supplier.
   
   
   Lynna had arranged ahead of time with Willamette Broadband (WAVE)cable for a one day transition to shut-off service to our rental & begin at the new house. She arranged & confirmed a site evaluation several weeks ahead of time, then called to check progress & was told the site review took place & the hook-up day could proceed with no problems. Unfortunately, when the tech showed up last Friday, he quickly discovered the cable to our house had not been threaded through the buried conduit, sprayed some white paint arrows on the ground & told us he would turn in paperwork to schedule further work. I got to tell Lynna it would be another few weeks before we had TV or Internet. She made a few calls to cancel everything with Wave and scheduled an internet hookup through the local phone co. for last Monday(basically 24 hour service), with a satellite dish installation for this coming Tuesday. The internet hookup went as scheduled, with two good techs who quickly tapped into our prewired outlets and our dish & receiver arrived Wednesday.
   
   
   I did manage to install the cedar closet lining in one walk in closet and put up a new mailbox out front. Our mail lady came by ahead of time & picked out the exact spot for her most convenient drop off.
   
   
   I hooked up Lynna's washing machine and was nearly done with her dryer when I remembered it was set up for Propane and we have Natural Gas now. That's what happens when you don't use something for over a year. Sears had the conversion kit for only $28 but it would take a few weeks for the parts to arrive. Lynna didn't want to do without laundry for that long and the old set was 12 years old, so we bought her a new Maytag washer/dryer and I added the old set to things I need to sell.
   
   
   I put an ad on Craigslist Wednesday. Sold the Cabinet saw and Maytag washer/dryer set the next day & met two local fellows in the process. A Sublimity City Commissioner bought my saw & a Xerox tech was really pleased with the washer/dryer as their washer had just died. I got $600 for my saw & $350 for the washer/dryer set. Since I only paid $750 for the saw 15 years ago. So, aside from blades, my cost was only $10 per year of use. I had some responses but there were no takers for the old air compressor and my Bosch Mitre saw so far.....
2. A few days after our move, while we were driving to Salem, the car suddenly began making a lot of noise. We were going uphill at the time & it sounded like a manifold or exhaust gasket failure. I dropped the car off at Stayton Tire & Auto for Corey to check it out. Nothing as inexpensive as a gasket though, they found part of the EGR valve had blown out. The new part was $84, but the dealer had it in stock. Apparently this is something that can fail after 50,000 miles & the manual calls for replacement at that service. We just turned over 49,000 miles last week, so it was just a bit ahead of schedule......
3. I ran out of Cedar decking and had covered the remaining open framing with scraps of lumber. This was bugging me so John & I drove out to his brother's place in Scotts Mills to pick up 8 more 12 foot 2X6 boards. Tom wasn't there, so one of his crew helped us & ran the boards through their Powermatic 30" planer. Its a very impressive piece of equipment and made short work of my few boards. The helper said Tom had to attend a meeting at the local mill where they were announcing everyone was laid off. Tom had worked there since he was 19 years old. He still has his farm and sawmill operation but surely needed that regular pay check.

We have been very busy during the run up to our moving day on February 10th. Lynna has moved some utensils & pans into her new kitchen and we are transporting boxes up every day. Saturday we made a trip into Salem for shelving supplies and I picked up my saws from Western Tool. While I was unstrapping everything, John, my framer & next door neighbor, walked up to see if I needed help. I was using my tractor to unload everything but John is a former Collegiate wrestler & his strength made everything go smoothly. Soon the 500 pound saw was sitting in the shop. I had to make up a power cord, then re-installed/aligned the fence & extension table to get it operational & cut the shelving.

There was some 4.5 % mortgage money available, so we decided to recover a portion of the $$ we poured into our new home and did a 50 day lock. This has meant spending phone time with the County and our bank as Oregon enacted a standardized occupancy permit effective 4/1/2008. The Washington bank wants us to provide an OP but our permit was issued 1/3/2008 and the new law requires the County to use the prior process where they only provide a copy of the inspection record showing sign off on the final inspection. I worked through the bureaucracy and obtained statements explaining the intricacies of Oregon law and a "Certificate of Final Approval" which should satisfy the financial gnomes.

The Daly's finish coat dried to a semi-matte finish that Lynna likes so we didn't need any burnishing. I moved on to installing shelving in the pantry & linen closet. The pantry shelves are joined with a rabetted joint and I had to make a template for the odd shape of our Master Bath linen closet. The angled cuts on both ends match pretty well. Some of the other bedroom closets also have angled side walls that will require the same approach.