Day 61 October 1, 2001

Does that say October?! Shit on toast! Actually, today's weather was beautiful and warm in the upper 60's. Go figure.

Yesterday Laurie and I put in the first course of logs. The logs are kiln dried tongue and groove "D" shaped white pine (flat on the inside and rounded on the outside). They come pre cut to length and drilled for lag bolts which anchor them down. The first course is screwed to the box beam and subsequent courses are screwed to each other. A sealant called "butyl log" is laid down on top of the tongue and sandwiched between the logs to keep out water and air. Today I put up the door "bucks" which form the rough opening for the doors and laid the second course. The first three courses take a while because I have to drill about 15 holes through the logs for wiring. Each hole is measured and marked and drilled from the bottom. Theoretically the holes line up and I run wire from the basement into the walls. The receptacles go into the third course so after that I only need to drill for the switches which go in the seventh course.

Unfortunately today I had the reverse Midas touch. You know what that is? That is when everything you touch turns to crap. You bend over to pick something up and you break the pencil in your tool belt. You kneel down and put your hand in caulk. You fight for an hour with a 12 foot long log to get it lined up properly and when its finally straight you notice someone forgot to drill the lag bolt holes. You fall down. The end of your tape measure breaks off causing the whole tape to disappear inside it at the speed of light. You put your hand in caulk again. You can't even tear a whole !@#$% paper towel off the !%$#@ roll. Strangely, talking about it makes me feel better. Tomorrow is another day.

10 hours, sunny and nice around 68.