More Projects Completed

Sea Lions in Newport, OR

8/7/04 - A Trip To The Oregon Coast
When we woke up this morning we thought we might go to the Carlton Fair, but we decided (or rather my wife decided) that we were going to drive to the coast instead. She's not really into crowds or noisy places of any kind, so I didn't put up much of a fight. We had a good drive down to where she will be taking a toll painting class in September and picked up some wood for her to paint on. We also had a good seafood dinner while sitting just above a pier with about a dozen sea lions on it. They were quite entertaining.

8/8/04 - The Computer Saga Begins
Today my computer started making a very loud noise that I thought might be the hard disk starting to fail, so I called Apple and after discussing the problem with a very helpful tech, decided to take the computer to an Apple store in Washington Mall, which is between Tigard and Beaverton, near Portland. They confirmed it was just a fan and ordered the part. Rather than leaving my computer though I decided to take it home and bring it back when the part came in. We took the opportunity to do some more shopping in the mall and at some other stores in the vicinity and had a good meal at Red Lobster, one of our favorite restaurants.

8/9/04 - New SpiritWorks Software
The fan for my computer came in this morning, so we went back up to Portland this afternoon. Turns out that they had ordered the wrong fan, so I brought the computer back home again. I'll try to get a new version of Vacation Rental Tracker Plus out today. If you know anyone who rents on a short term basis, have them go to productivity-software.com/vacation and download a free trial copy.

8/10/04 - More Projects Started Including Many Bookshelves
Steve didn't show up again today. He sure has been taking a long time to do a few (seemingly simple) tasks. Tom did show up (right on time) and installed a clothes drying thing in our backyard and started on another set of new steps onto our big backyard deck.

I spent most of the afternoon putting up some floor to ceiling shelves for our library that we had brought with us from Redwood Valley. I originally built them for our first home in Rhonert Park and added onto them in our last house. After getting them most of the way up today, we decided that we wanted to make some additional changes and so I'll take them down and start over again tomorrow.

Tom and Our New Back Steps

8/11/04 - New Back Steps And Other Projects Finished
Tom finished the new steps today. Actually he created one large triangular step and about a 3 foot square concrete pad. Steve finally showed up about 6PM and worked for a few hours but didn't get much done. I finished putting up the book shelves and my wife had them about half loaded before dinner.