What is a Loyalty Discount?

The new guy at TREK said he call Vince back and he did.  Told Vin that he was in luck because he qualified for TREK's 'loyalty discount' and for only 2200 dollars he could buy a replacement frame to replace his relatively new cracked TREK carbon fiber frame.  I wonder who wouldn't qualify for a loyalty discount since this is the first thing Vince has ever bought from TREK and will never buy anything again.  As flattered as he was, Vin turned down their generous offer and asked if it could be repaired.  In a "yeah right" tone of voice the new guy told him it was gone forever.

Below is proof that a carbon fiber frame can be successfully repaired if you're Vince and have a couple sheets of unidirectional and woven carbon fiber, epoxy putty and lots and lots of sandpaper.

ps.  please notice my edits and new pics in the eggplant bathtub post below too.

A Bathtub With Eggplant Legs

Today I reached a new high (or new low...I can think of it either way). I did almost nothing and actually felt OK about it.  Besides riding my bike and making organic whole wheat chapatis and curried chick peas....I really don't remember much except everything was comfortably fun.  I remember something about visitors, packing up some shelves to return and sorting the recycling.  Stretching my frozen shoulder a couple times, icing my knee and falling asleep during a movie.  I went to Ione (10 miles south of Metaline Falls) but I can't remember why.  Ione has a bank but that's not why I went.  I remember noticing a guy reading on the bench outside 'Mountain Chicks', the secondhand store, and thinking "Reading a book outside.  What  a nice way to spend the morning".  Leaving 'Mountain Chicks', (without a plug for the bathtub which is not the reason I went to Ione) the reader on the bench was still engrossed in his book which I noticed was a TV Guide. 

Vi

I remember taking a shower AND a bath outside in the bathroom that Vin just finished and could pass as a museum installation.  Vin wasn't that into the idea but made it for me anyway so I feel obligated to use it every chance I get.  He even plumbed it...cold AND hot.  Just like an inside bathroom only outside.  Other than when I helped move the tub a couple of times and gathering a few interesting stones from the side of the road, he did the whole thing himself in 95 degree weather.  A craigslist vintage tub with eggplant colored legs.  Leftover local walkway stone and plumbing hardware.  A salvaged steel post, not originally intended to hold a showerhead, from Ryan the welder.  My shower coincided with the magic hour and sun drenching our field in a intense golden light.  My bath coincided with an outside noise from inside the house which turned out to be the dryer*.    A sock plug kept the 110 degree water at an embarrassingly high level and once Vin turned off the dryer I enjoyed soaking surrounded by 50 degree air and shampoo bubbles.   The moon wasn't full, but it was big. 

My online obsession today was the movie "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" by a couple of local filmmakers just over the pass in Creston BC.  "Just like Vin and me"  I thought.  "Comrades".  Forty-five minutes into my search (I was really obsessed) I connected information that revealed the keynote speaker from a Final Cut (editing software for movie people) conference Vin and I recently attended in Boston (we're geeks) was the young female director's father.  Do you have to know somebody? : (

* dryer , noun

1. an appliance to be used only in case of emergencies

used in a sentence:

It's 1 am and the bedding I washed this afternoon is still wet.  I think I should use the dryer.

Photos top to bottom:

1. In the beginning.

2. Near the beginning. Tub with eggplant legs that you can't see.

3. Vin mounting shower on salvaged steel post.

4.Vin with an un-tanned torso.

5. Dad and Vince.  Dad grew up with an outside bathroom.

6. Outside bathroom in progress.

7. Kathy approaching tub with a sock wondering if it will work for a plug.

Little House in a Nutshell

Other than the outdoor/garden bathtub and shower, the house is pretty much done.   I say 'pretty much' because also on the 'to do' list without a line through it is the water filtration system but that's boring and not nearly as important as an outdoor bathtub.  

A year ago only hay, elk and eagles lived in our field.   When we decided to join them, we promised to be good neighbors.

...and yes I know...

1. we already had a house so building another one wasn't a very 'green' thing to do. 

2. that any structure we would build would be more intrusive than building nothing.

Anyway.  Playing with designs was overwhelming but easy because it was noncommittal.   Deciding on a final design caused more stupidly self-inflicted stress than I could have ever imagined.    Putting a house on a site is such a one-shot-deal.  

Now.  Did we leave a scar?  Since a scar is in the eyes of the beholder, (ask someone that thinks Mt Rushmore is beautiful) you decide.

We now have a perfect little house 

• that has a 2:12 pitched roof to match the slope of the hillside it shares

• where we can go outside from every room

• that is 966 square feet

• where we use every room every day

• made from mostly local materials (stone, concrete, lumber and subs)

• made from natural materials that blend in with the site...

and that's what we wanted.

We did Energy Star whenever we could:

• Summit Stainless Steel Counter Depth Bottom-Mount Refrigerator 

• White Rogers programmable thermostats

• Eagle window and doors double glazed, tempered Low-E 

• Insulation Master high density closed cell spray foam (5" in the walls for r35 and 7" in the ceiling for r49) 

• Emerson ceiling fans 

• Air King range hood - 30" Stainless Steel  

• Asko clothes washer 

• Asko clothes dryer 

pictures top to bottom:

Looking west at the master bedroom (left), entry (center),  and kitchen (right).  I LOVE THIS PHOTO.  Mt Linton is in the background and supposedly houses mountain goats that I've never seen.

Looking northeast at the office (left), bathroom (center), and master bedroom (right under the pergola) Crap, I fogot...the pergola's not done either.

Looking east (with the mountain goats behind me) at the living room and covered deck (left) and office (right). 

Looking north from the office into Britsh Columbia.

Looking at Vin thinking the ladder is right under him.

An International Event

The Selkirk International Film Festival is July 6 at the Cutter Theater in Metaline Falls.  The festival will be the Metaline Falls premier of 'You're Not Cindy'.   Vince and I will be there so at least we know the theater won't be completely empty.

Follow The Yellow Stone Walk

Two days after we rented a flatbed truck pulling a trailer and picked up a pallet of local stone in Canada (I know it's Canadian... but only 25 miles away....so I decided it was OK to call it local), we had a walkway.  

It connects our perfect little shed with the fir walkway to the front door and inches us closer to completing our western oasis. 

Vince said it was for my birthday. I said thank you but it didn't count.

Me Without Nelson

We moved out of the Nelson house last week.  It was sad for me but not for Vince.  He's good at not dwelling on stuff that is the way it is.  

Me? I'll miss being able to walk to the food co-op or to get a cup of coffee or organic french fries.   I'll miss being able to walk to rent any movie ever made, purple money and nearly free healthcare.  I'll miss crossing the border every week into a thriving economy where no one is not a hockey fan. 

We probably should have either built a house OR gone to film school, but we didn't know that until weekends when we were editing in sheet rock dust in front of a space heater.

Learning filmmaking was way harder than I'd ever imagined.  My life-experience edge wasn't the advantage I'd imagined. 

The distance I was out of my element was similar to when I took the bookkeeper job a the local grain elevator in 1974.  I don't know why they offered it to me, why I took it or why I thought I could do it.  I quit after one day which I'm sure which I'm sure was less time than it took to fix their books.  They insisted they pay me and I insisted they didn't.  

As of today, my new degree hasn't opened any doors in Hollywood.

Photos:
Coffee heaven.  Oso Negros railings crafted by a local metal artist

French fries on wheels.

Reo's made renting a movie even more fun than it normally would be.

More.

A record 10 'Avatar' enthusiasts* and lasagna lovers watched 'Blue Crush' last night at our weekly dinner and a movie night and pretty much maxed out our theater (living room).  Even our overflow area (hallway) was full but thanks to Kim who always brings her own chair and the new 150 pound tree stump-end table, everyone had a place to sit


If our house was a meal we would be about half way through dessert. 
1. The main level concrete floor has 2 coats of clear finish on it and is a masterpiece that no one in the lasagna group noticed so maybe is doesn't look as incredible as I think it does.
2. Vin hung chains from the gutters.  His intent was to divert rainwater while looking chic (we saw it in a magazine).  So far they only work part of the time which is when it is not raining and they are just looking chic.

3. I love our sliding barn door-y bathroom door mounted on inline skate bearings and am hoping that someday I won't even hear Vince mumbling that he'd rather have an in-swing door every time he slides it shut.  The bedroom doors are in-swing and chic because of the strip magnet (like a shower door) that sucks and holds them shut.   The closet doors are still pretend.

My Kitchen.
9 feet 2 inches is a perfect sized kitchen for someone who doesn't want a microwave or coffee maker.

Visitors:
Tim (of MikWright fame) and Boyd (of having a 40th birthday party that lasted a whole week fame) showed up one day after school.  Flying first class from Charlotte, they found martinis and acupuncture in Nelson.  Hiking trails and Gilbert Grape in Metaline Falls. 

Our friend Eric came to visit. He's in the truck...the one with the cap.  We started following each other in Massachusetts.  Now he's in Bozeman, except for last week when he was in Metaline Falls.


* at the last minute we decided  that Avatar was too long.