Grandpa Tom from Idaho arrived last Wednesday, bringing with him a large assortment of tools and various items from Gummy in Oregon.
The main task for Grandpa Tom was to try to see if he could get a satellite dish set up so that we could receive the Hope TV and Esperanza channels. These are the Adventist Television Network channels that broadcast a number of community outreach and evangelistic series programs throughout the year. There are a couple of programs coming up this September through November that I am planning to use at our church and home, and I had hoped to get a satellite receiver working.
Grandpa Tom tried to get a signal at our house, but so far he hasn't had much success. He looked at the one we have at the church and discovered that the LNBF on the dish had gone bad there. After replacing it with a good one, it looks like we have good reception at the church now. As long as the receiver at the church is working, we will be okay. Because our time zone is so far to the west, all four daily broadcasts of the upcoming programs will have taken place hours before we need to use them here. So I can simply record the programs onto tape and take them wherever they will be shown.
Elise got an early birthday present on Friday. It took Grandpa Tom the entire day to install it. "It" is a garbage disposal unit for our kitchen sink. Having to put kitchen scraps into the garbage can gets old rather quickly when we've been used to putting them into a disposal. To put it in required adding a switched outlet under the sink. His result was much more professional looking than what I would have ended up with -- assuming I would have been able to complete the task.
Grandpa Tom also replaced a couple of light switches. The one in the kitchen and our bedroom had been buzzing unless they were fiddled with until they were at just the right position. It turns out that the on/off switch was actually connected to dimmer switches... I didn't care to have them on dimmers (at least for now), so they were replaced with real on/off switches, and now they no longer buzz. I'm sure that I would have gotten fed up with the buzzing eventually to figure out what was going on, but well, now they're fixed.
Yesterday evening, we went with some friends to take a look at a house raising. The family building it had harvested local trees (residents can get permits to harvest a limited number of board-feet each year for free), taken them to one of the local mills, and had begun putting it together. When we got there all of the wall framing had been put up, and several people were working to install roof boards. The whole area was perfumed with freshly cut timber. The house overlooks a creek and a bit of the Narrows. It is located amongst the forest.
However, the visit reinforced my conviction that I am not a construction worker, nor do I ever want to be one. I climbed up the ladder to the second floor, and as I looked down to the ground some 20 feet below, and then watched the workers putting on the roof, I couldn't help but be amazed how comfortable they were dancing about on the beams and boards. And here I was, trying not to let the fear of falling get to me...
I'm seeing a bit of sunshine this morning. The rest of the day looks like it might be dry. The fall rains are trying to push out the summer sun, but maybe summer will fight on a little longer.
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