Lance claims to have lost 12 pounds in the time trial stage a few days ago when he got dehydrated. I think I lost a couple myself today, as I spent the better part of the afternoon in the attic installing a new bathroom fan. Not something you would expect to take more than half an hour, but the old fan was about twice as big and was just sitting on top of the ceiling, not attached to anything. The new one would just fall through the hole, so I nailed in some extra framing to have something to attach it to. Looks good on paper, but was fairly time-consuming, plus having to take a break every so often because it was about 120 in the attic. But I got the damn thing hooked up (the electrical part took about 10 minutes) and now we should be good for another 10 years. That fan got pressed into service a lot more than normal because it made good background noise for the kids when they were little and trying to go to sleep. I got to where I'm used to having it on in the evening to help drown out the incessant phone conversations and noisy tv coming from downstairs. But the new fans don't make as much noise, so it may not serve that purpose anymore, and the kids don't need it now, so maybe this one will last longer. It's in there pretty good, so I'd just as soon not have to take it out again in the near future (i.e. ever).



My other project for the weekend was to finish fixing the gas grill, but that would seem to be hopeless, as the tubes for the new burner part don't reach to the knobs, short by about an inch. The alternatives now would seem to be, cut a larger whole in the bottom of the grill (with what, I don't know), figure out some way to extend the tubes (which would seem to require soldering), or just buy a new damn grill. Option c would seem to be the favorite, certainly least labor intensive option at this point.