This weekend, I am finally getting a chance to insulate my attic. More on that next week. Today, I’d like to talk about the customer service that I received at Home Depot. The service that I received ran from great to awful, but not necessarily in that order.
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This morning I heard a crashing noise and went to the window to investigate. The pumpkin (which we never made the time to carve) had been knocked off of our deck. The culprit? The largest squirrel I have ever seen.

This squirrel was not just large in size, but also in girth. It tried running away as soon as it noticed us, but it only managed a waddle. It was very obviously trying to run as fast as it could, and very obviously failing. We got to get a good look at it.

Some squirrels can have large tails, which will sometimes make them appear larger than they really are. This squirrel was certainly one with a large tail. However, there was no denying that this squirrel was extremely overweight. I can not help but wonder how it has managed to stay alive this long. I suppose that it is ready to hibernate for the winter, but watching it run does not make me believe that it has any chance of escaping predators.

I really need to start keeping my camera closer to hand.

One thing I really do not understand is why people feel it is necessary to use my yard as their garbage dump. I can sort of understand (well, not really, but can at least fathom) why trash winds up in the road when folk throw their crap in the back of a pickup truck. This is Maine; ²/₃ of us do have one. Why they can’t secure their trash is beyond me, but at least it might sometimes be accidental.

I don’t think that is where the trash in my yard comes from, though. The trash in my yard is at least 60-70% fast food containers. Why should I have to dispose of it? If you don’t want to throw it in your own trash, then just bring it in with you to throw out the next time you eat fast food!

My idea of fun is not slodging around in my yard after dark in the rain with a head lamp looking for somebody’s latest paper cup and plastic bag.

A couple of years ago I ran the San Antonio Marathon; between getting up at 3:30am, running a marathon, going to a hockey game, partying all night, and finally getting to bed around 1am the next day I did not even need the fleas that infested where I was staying to get me sick. That was the 3^rd day of a 10 day vacation and a (basically) 3 month illness.

This year, I got sick after running the New York City Marathon. This time, though, I did not get sick until a day after I got home. I only missed one day of work, but I decided against climbing up into the ceiling to insulate the attic this year.

At least being home I can take things much easier than when I was in Texas. The cat has loved having me lay around immobile, at least.

I am not a big fan of travel, but I do like being other places. This past week I have been in New York City for the marathon, and I just got home last night.

Coming home is one of the things that I love most about vacations. Home is a comfortable place. It was made more comfortable from the fact that this past week was the first time that I have been apart from my wife for more than a day since a few months after we met.

Now that I am home, I am coming down with a cold. Hopefully I will be healthy enough to be able to do some insulating in the attic this weekend; I do not have any of the usual soreness from the marathon so it should not be too bad of a chore as long as I am not coughing up a lung.

I am glad that I told my wife not to bother buying more candy, because we only had two trick or treaters tonight.

One came while I was out running, and the other came while I was cooking dinner. The one that came while I was home was a soccer player with a screwdriver going through her head from the forehead through her chin.

I am a little disappointed. Maybe if we had had time to carve our pumpkin into a jack o’ lantern we would have had more trick or treaters. At least I got to see a bunch of kids out in the neighborhood while I was running; they didn’t know what to make of the bobbing head lamp rushing towards them.

I have not yet purchased the insulation for my attic. It was raining too hard this weekend, and I am supposed to be tapering for a marathon, so I decided to wait for a few weeks before I purchased it. One of my concerns about buying a lot of insulation at once was that there was no way I would get it home in one trip. I have a pickup truck, but insulation can take up a lot of space (hence the point of having it) and a small Ranger just will not cut it. There is a solution, though!
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Buying your first house means that your budget gets stretched a little thin, and comparison shopping becomes more important. The best deals can usually be had online, when compared to looking around in a brick and mortar store. You save the gas to get there, you can comparison shop more easily and effectively, and prices are often lower. You need to be careful not to lose all of your savings in shipping costs, but many home goods merchants online will waive shipping fees.
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Thankfully, I spent more time raking the leaves on Friday evening. Yesterday the rain did not hold off until lunchtime like I thought it would; torrential downpours and high winds greeted me when I woke up in the morning. Today is not much better on the wind front; while the sky is plenty sunny, the winds coming through are just as bad as I used to get when I lived in Rochester, New York.

There is a tree across the road that was snapped in half during a storm some months back. The top half of it is barely attached to the truck and swings down rather haphazardly. When it is windy, I thought that I could hear it creaking in the wind, and have considered climbing up and finishing the removal of the top half. My own laziness, no real need, and the fact that I do not own that land all combined to keep me behind my own property line. When I ran by this morning, though, I discovered that the creaking noise was coming from a different tree anyway. That tree is still intact; it just likes to creak in the wind.

There is a tree across the river from me that has been swaying mightily as well. This is really surprising to me, since the tree’s diameter is over 30 inches. I can understand the branches at the top blowing in the wind, but looking out the wind you can see the base of the trunk moving back and forth. The tree looks vibrant, so I doubt that it is rotting inside.

This evening when I got home from work, I raked the leaves. I have no idea how well of a job I did, but we had two days of sunshine so I had to get out there. I did promise that I would, after all. It was pitch black by the time I finished. I was wearing a small head lamp, but I’ll see how well I did tomorrow after the sun comes up.
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