Alieniloquent

Two weekends in a row this has been the topic du jour. It’s like grilling and electrical work go together. Like chocolate and mint, or swearing and hockey.

This afternoon I had the house to myself for a blessed hour and a half. I took that golden opportunity to shut all the power off in the house and install my new circuit, and it worked! Well, after a little coaxing. Once the breaker was installed and I turned the power back on, I discovered I had miswired one of the receptacles. They are all GFCI receptacles, so they just wouldn’t reset the right way. A little work and I got it all taken care of. So I’ve got more power in my basement and the server migration is ready for phase two: getting the nice internet pipe in the basement.

Today also illustrated for me just how nice having a natural gas grill out on the deck is. I can go out there, fire it up and throw down some food any time I want. If it’s smoky, the main floor of the house won’t get filled, and all of the food has that delicious flame-licked taste. I made burgers, salmon, and garlic bread on the grill today. I’m of the opinion that most everything is better when cooked over actual fire.

So, last weekend, we bought a grill. Yesterday we got the gas line installed in our house so that we could use the grill. Naturally, I was planning on having steaks for dinner.

Long about 0930, I get a call from Erica while I’m at work. “Hey honey, I know you’re excited about grilling. I’m excited about hanging out with my friends. Can I have some of my physics-major friends over?” I figured, sure, why not? They’re my friends too. The more the merrier.

Well, there were more. I ended up cooking for twelve people. Pleasantly, my grill has plenty of room to cook on. I cooked steaks for most people, chicken breasts for a couple, burgers for a couple and lots of veggies (bell peppers, squash, tomatoes, zucchini, and onions). It was all really very good.

Party continued. Margaritas were had. We burned the chiminea again, and I ended up watching the fire burn down while everybody else played Outburst. I enjoyed that. Then we all played charades until midnight when I went to bed. I assume the party continued after that, but I’m not sure how long because despite their volume, I was out cold in five minutes.

So, that’s why there was no blogging yesterday. I spent from about 1700 - 0000 entertaining. It was fun, though. Expect more bloggy goodness from me today.

When we bought this house, we made sure to ask for the cast-iron chiminea that the previous owners had. They let us have it (along with a lot of other stuff). That was back in September. We were very excited because it was still the right season to burn the chiminea, but we never did.

Tonight we had company over and since the weather was nice enough (I look at the weather widget and see it’s only 4 degrees above freezing, I guess I have a weird definition of nice enough) we decided to eat out on the deck and start up a fire. The wood was wet, although imperceptibly so, as it had been in the chiminea since the aborted attempt at burning back in early November. But, after a bit of work, I got a nice fire going.

Three hours later, I’ve finally come in from the deck to go to bed. It was enjoyable watching the fire burn down. I forgot how much I enjoy watching the flames dance back and forth. Watch the glow of the wood as it sits there and smolders. The smell of the smoke from good wood. The (little bit of) radiant heat. It reminded me of my Boy Scout days just a little.

We’ll be burning a lot this spring.

I got a lot done this weekend. Getting up at five in the morning really has a lot to be said for it. I really got a lot done.

Tyler and I are planning to set up our servers in my basement, but there wasn’t any power for it. So, I’ve been planning to put in a circuit for a while. But, every weekend would come along and I would sleep in and I wouldn’t go get the hardware. So, I’d put it off again. Yesterday I finally went to Lowes, and I got all of the stuff I needed.

Naturally, I ended up going back to Lowes today as I was wiring together the receptacles (that’s the fancy electrician’s word for an outlet), so that I could get a couple of things I hadn’t bought on the first trip. This time I brought Erica with me.

When I take Erica to stores she can’t help but look around. She has to look at everything in the store. This time it was grills. Now, I can get behind that. I like grills. I want a grill. So, well, I bought one. It was an adventure getting it home, but now it’s back on my deck. We just have to get MUD to come out and install the gas hookup for it, and then I’ll be grilling all the time.

I’ve got the wiring project mostly done. All I have left to do is mount the board with the receptacles on the wall and then install the breaker in the load center (fancy word for a breaker box). Assuming I can follow instructions, I should have four shiny new outlets in my basement.