Cooking up some zombie pills

Taking a break from mudding the living room

Its time to cook up a batch of . . . Zombie Pills

First ingredient, 500 count of once fired 9mm Luger

Cleaned de-primed, sized and re-primed

250 count of Berrys 115 grain plated round nose.

Verified on the digital scale

One case in to the expander die

3.9 grains of Alliant Red Dot

bullet seated and crimped

 

 Check for over all length, 1.151 inch

Repeat 100 times

This is what the process looks like

A bit of gratuitous rubbernecking

Yesterday evening about 7 pm I just got done cleaning up my mudding tools after taping the drywall joints in the living room, when we heard the fire trucks roaring up Rt-1 one block away. And they kept coming and coming for about 15 minutes. Pretty soon we had a bit of a traffic jam on our corner as it was apparent Rt-1, the main artery for local traffic had been blocked off and they were routing all traffic through our little neighborhood. A fire pumper was set up on our street about 150 ft from our house to tap in to a hydrant and pump water 1/4 mile up to the scene thus creating an even bigger traffic jam. So after a quick bite to eat, a walk to see the action was in order.

Apparently a business building at 153 Rt-1 was on fire.

Someone said an electric extractor fan started it on the red side of the building

The boys were doing their best to knock it back, but kept losing water pressure

It was necessary to call in six other towns for help

There were four ladder trucks on the front side, and I am told there were four more out back on the other side of the building.

They had it knocked back pretty well and then it would flare up again at a different spot

A neighbor said there were printing chemicals stored in part of the building

A surveying business lost a lot of historical drawings . . . the big danger was the gas station next door

So we all hung around and had a bit of a block get-together till about 11 pm. I heard the last of the trucks leaving the scene this morning about 6 am.

In the morning sunshine it is obvious the building is a total loss

Hopefully some of the contents can be salvaged

The lower long west side of the building seem to only have sustained smoke and water damage.

Around the back side it all becomes more obvious.

Its one of those typical New England buildings where they have just kept adding on over the years.

Seems the origin of  the fire was in the back upstairs room with the double window.

 

 Apparently a large AC cooling tower came crashing through the ceiling when the rafters gave way. The cause of the fire is yet to be determined.

More adventures in wallpaper removal

After doing like a frenchman all week playing with plaster, I got most of the stairwell mudded.

Ready for a light sanding and paint

Skylight well drywalled and mudded, including a most useful ceiling outlet as a means to terminate one of the stray hot wires I was unable to remove without tearing out the ceiling in the adjoining bedroom, and opening a whole new can of worms. That will be a job for a later chapter. The ceiling outlet has already been put to good use for vacuum cleaning and plugging in a fan placed in the skylight to draw heat out of the house in summer.

Then there is the small matter of the hideous wall paper in the living room. It simply will not come off without tearing up the wall board. After some head scratching we decide out with the drywall as it is easier to start with a clean slate rather than go through all the trouble to skim coat the old drywall.

aaaaaand we find a second layer . . . .

Of this lovely stuff . . .  what were they thinking? like I said at every turn things were monkey rigged, even if it was more difficult to do so. . . . someone was certainly smoking dope when they chose to put this crap up back in the sixties.

So after some liberal use of adult vocabulary and not some minor frustrations, I managed to clean things up, rewire the TV outlet and hang new drywall. Yes, I managed to miss removing two old screws that poked though my new drywall, hence the white patches. Enough sweating and swearing for one day.

Saturday morning, we tear into the other wall and get one layer off to find again a second layer of hippy-dippy-hairy-leg-patchouli-perfume-oil-of-petunia vintage wallpaper on a second layer of 3/8 thick drywall.

Nothing to it but to make a mess and tear it all off as well.

I finish tearing out the baseboard heat covers and the old wood baseboard behind them with some more considerable cursing, skinned knuckles and frustrations. And run new wires and switches for the front door light and outlet.

And after a dump run and a second load of sheet-rock from Lowe's, get it all dry-walled and things cleaned up outside just before the storm hit at 4 pm. I guess I am in for another week of doing like a french-man with mud.

Saturday aviating

Saturday dawned clear and blue, so we went out for a fly.

 For of bit of instrument practice

 As we depart Portland RWY 29 air was a bit bumpy but we had fun anyhow

Went up to Brunswick Naval Air Station where we shot a partial panel GPS approach

And stopped by at the old hangar for a chat with Scott at Kestrel Aircraft

The cavernous space never ceases to amaze me.  When it was an active Naval Air Station, they used to park P-3 Orion sub chasers in there. 

Right now it makes the Kestrel prototype look tiny

The Piper Malibu Meridian undergoing some experimental modifications

An expensive looking autoclave to cook composite aircraft parts.

Then a quick ride up to Augusta for some lunch at the airport takes us past the State Capitol building undergoing some renovation to the dome.

At Augusta we land up-hill on runway 17 

After lunch we make our way over the railroad trestle to Wisscassett.

 Where make a stop and we take on 85 gallons of 100LL

 

Then we fly down past Bath Iron Works where we can see two new Zumwalt class destroyers under construction and being made ready to deliver a case of whoop-ass to the despots of the world should we actually one day again have a president with the testicles to do something about it.

And back down to Brunswick

Where we take advantage of the facilities and pull the Bonanza in to the hangar ahead of the Citabria

And wash the Bonanza with the special P-3 Orion washing hose.

The scale of the place is overwhelming, and all we see inside is half the space as beyond the divider is an equally cavernous second half.

Clean and sparkly in the sunshine

We head back down to Portland and get a view of the Cousins Island power plant.

Getting vectors for an ILS approach to RWY 29 in the glimmering afternoon sunshine

We fly past Peaks Island and the Casco Bay islands

Over one of the sailing party boats

Over South Portland looking at the Portland waterfront with the gynormous 3000 passenger cruise ship at the dock.

The view of the waterfront as we fly by

Over the bridge on final

Just over the Casco Bay Bridge

Over the harbor looking back over my right shoulder give us a sense of scale of the cruise ship against the Portland East End Skyline.

Short final on a practice ILS approach to 29 we reach minimums and do the missed approach to do a second one.

Back around the city looking at the other side of the Portland peninsula

And back around for another go at the approach we get the East End view with the cruise ship.

Final approach and touch down