Homecoming Coming, Blower Blowing

Listening to: Mennonite Blues- James Super Chikan Johnson
Drinking: Coke, no ice

The Monday morning levee ride garnered all of four people this morning, which is about normal, and we did a nice steady 24 miles on this unseasonably warm morning. It looks like the temperatures will remain fairly warm for the next week or so, and that's just fine with me since I usually ride in the early morning and "unseasonably warm" right now means 65-70F. At any rate, I was glad to find my legs not particularly sore from Sunday's ride and I'm already hoping to be able to make next Sunday's northshore training ride.

It seemed that this weekend was kind of a homecoming for a lot of folks in the area. I think that the first week of November must have been a good target date for many folks, and I noticed lots of people apparently back home for good in the less damaged areas. In my own block, I think everyone is back except for my immediate neighbor who had a lot of roof and rain damage (although there's a new trailer in the driveway now), and a couple of the rental units in the 4-plex across the street. The story wasn't the same at my mom's rental house where I met the contractor around lunchtime. All of the houses there were flooded and most are now empty and gutted, waiting for the sheetrockers. The contractor and the brother-in-law went through the place room by room, working out what type of sheetrock, where appliances should go, what flooring to use, where the big problems were, etc., which took about two or three hours, so the stage is set for construction to start, perhaps as early as next weekend. It will be interesting to see how much they can get accomplished in a week.

So after I figured out that Mike's old blower fan unit wasn't going to fit into my system, and then learning that our house would soon become the temporary office of Tulane's Psychiatry & Neurology Department, I did two things. First, I called BellSouth and arranged for DSL (hoping to have everything by next Friday), then I resigned myself to having to buy a replacement blower motor for the heater. First, though, I had to remove the pulley from the motor shaft so I could bring the motor in and get a similar replacement. I had not been able to turn the motor by hand since I removed it, so I figured it was all rusted. The pulley was stubborn, though, so I gave it a few taps with the hammer. Voila! I was shocked to find that the motor then started to turn freely! I couldn't believe it. I checked the capacitor and it looked fine - the rust I had seen was from the inside of the housing that the capacitor sits in, and I think that was about as high as the water got. So I put the motor on the floor, connected up the 220 line, and voila! The thing ran like new. Go figure. That absolutely made my day. So let's see:

• Roof patched: Check
• Basement cleaned out: Check
• Electricity: Check
• Water: Check
• Gas: Check
• Telephone: Check
• Heat: Check
• Internet: Coming Soon

Later in the evening, the sister-in-law who was going to move in but didn't because she decided to stay with a friend in Faubourg Marigny stopped by while we were eating dinner at GB's Grill and gave us a brand new Ionic Breeze air cleaner! One of the other sisters-in-law had sent her four of them when she was living in B.R. in a house that had been closed up for over a year.

Talked to Gina V, currently doctoring in Sacremento, who said she'll be riding for the Diet Cheerwine team next year. She was on her way back from her first cyclocross race, which, predictibly, she won.

So I may be able to sneak out tomorrow morning for a ride before we have to leave for Jackson, but it is looking like our next trip to N.O. will probably be for keeps! Whoohooo! We are SO ready to be back home. My Government Affairs office has secured the use of a room in Gibson Hall on Tulane's uptown campus, so things are really starting to come back together.