Dog Days

The dog days of summer are already upon us as the heat index reached 99 yesterday. It wasn't quite as bad on Tuesday when we had practice, but it was close. A front is due through today to lower the temperature and provide relief for the weekend.

For Tuesday's practice we were short a rower to make up two Men's 8+s. We were also short a coxswain necessitating one of the rowers coxing one of the 8+s. Hence making us two rowers short. I got to row 2 seat on the 8+ with only 6 rowers. The advantage of rowing with 6 rowers is it makes the boat lighter. This made it possible to hang with the other 8+ at least for most of the time. The disadvantage is without the extra weight, the shell rides higher in the water and makes it that much more difficult to set or keep level. The shell flopped a lot from side to side so the run of the boat was compromised to some degree. We did three 12 minute pieces against the other 8+. Overall we did ok with having just 6 rowers. We tended to fall behind on the corners as the other 8+ usually managed to turn tighter while we went wide. This is ok for practice, but a killer during head races. With the heat and humidity we were all soaked through by the end of practice and our water bottles close to empty. Should be more of the same this evening unless the thunder storms roll in early and effects practice.

Our house is almost 30 years old although how that is possible is beyond me. We need to replace the windows. They're still the original ones from when the house was built. Almost all of them no longer open and you can really feel the draft through them during the colder months. We had the first contractor drop by last evening. I'm not sure all what he was expecting, but he definitely wasn't prepared to give us a quote. There was a lot of talk of the windows they use (Heartland) and what great work they do and he did a quick look at some of the windows, but he gave the impression he was sort of the second team guy. He originally thought we wanted just a few windows (like 4) replaced and not all of them (we have 24) plus two sliding doors. I'm sure the owners themselves would have shown up if the signals hadn't gotten crossed somewhere. Anyway, a return visit is schedule for Saturday afternoon to give us some hard numbers. We also asked for a quote on replacing the siding. We'll see how it goes. Plus we need to get a few more quotes from other contractors. I hate this part of it.

With the 4th of July falling on a Wednesday, I've decided to use some of my vacation time and take the Monday, Tuesday and Thursday off. With this Friday being my regular Friday off, that will give me a week off. Works for me. Now if I can just avoid Ann making me a To Do List.