Adventures in the attic

Maybe all it took was writing about feeling non-productive to kick myself in the pants. Maybe all it took was a strong desire to be able to fit both cars in the garage again so we don’t need to scrape ice off them in the morning anymore. Then again, it could have been getting woken up several times in the past week by a scratching noise inside the bedroom wall. I guess all of these things led to my Saturday, which I’ve titled “Adventures in the attic,” because titling my weekend days just makes them that much more special.

After a le’go my Eggo breakfast, I tossed some beef, smoked sausage, potatos, onion, garlic, diced tomatos, thyme, and a couple other assorted goodies into the crock pot and set it for six hours. That would provide the aromatic backdrop for my tasks today. Needing to amend the aforementioned issues, I dragged out the step ladder to head up to the attic. Since I had the ladder out and it’s clock changing night, I took the opportunity to change the batteries in the smoke detectors. Then I gathered up all the bins, boxes, and crates of Amanda’s teaching junk which have been piled up in the garage since she left Buffalo Hearing and Speech earlier this year. I ascended into the attic and promptly realized what a mess it was. That’s unsurprising, since we rarely spend any quality time in the attic. It’s usually just pop open the hatch, shove a box up there, and close it again.

Today, I needed to do some investigation. The scratching noise in the wall was a bit disturbing, and I couldn’t find any evidence in the garage or outside of rodent access, which really only left the attic as a possible entry point. This of course meant clearing a path from one end of the attic to the other, which at first glance looked like an imposing effort. Nevertheless, I began to shuffle boxes around (including five new ones) and was able to make my way to the end of the attic. I did discover traces of mouse poop, so my suspicions were solidified. I noticed that one of the roof vent screens had a hole chewed through it, and after inspecting the rest of the attic, that seemed like the most likely location that our scratching source would be ingressing and egressing through.

As I shuffled off to the shed to get some new screening, I decided to finally finish a small project which I had purchased the supplies for over a year ago and never got around to implementing – install an outlet above the cove in the kitchen so we could add some decorative lighting. Now, with my screening and stapler, romex and razor, hammer and Dremel, wire strippers and one gang box, I was ready to return to the attic. I crawled back to the far end of the attic and stapled two new layers of screening in place. Scratch one. Then on to the bigger project. I picked a location for the outlet, dremeled out a hole, and nailed the box in place. After careful deliberation as to exactly where to tap the electric into, I decided that the attic light was probably my best. I ran the romex from my new box to the light, and then went down into the house to play everyone’s favorite game – guess which breaker turns off the power! I consulted my notebook of all the breakers I had already mapped, and of course “attic” was nowhere in the list. Based on what I did know, I made a guess, flipped the switch, and… nope. Half the house went off, but not the attic. Second guess… bingo! Except… oops. Both spare bedrooms were on that circuit and of course, both computers were on. I hate it when I do that. Anywho… now I was able to start splicing in my new line, which despite the fact that there were already five lines going into that box, fit surprisingly well. Back out of the attic, wired in the outlet, downstairs to flip on the breaker, back up to test the outlet and… SUCCESS! Cleaned up the newly created mess, dragged all my tools out of the attic, plugged in the new lights, and admired all the work accomplished. Just enough time to hop into the shower and with the help of my long awaited and newly installed ambient lighting, set the mood for a nice romantic dinner.

So the garage is almost able to fit both cars, the attic is clean and hopefully debugged, and my lights are glowing. The only thing that could make this day better is that the Sabres tie up this game in the next 2.5 minutes…

Update: GOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!! at 18:16 in the 3rd! WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO! And now we’re going to overtime! I’m confident that if we can make it through sudden death we’ll kill them in the shootout. LET’S GO BUFFALO!!!

Update: Well… now we get to see if I’m right! Shootouts are our specialty! We can do this!

Update: ARGH! No good. The Sabres finally met a goalie we couldn’t get one past in a shootout. Officially, I’m blaming the loss on my prediction being stuck in moderation over at the BfloBlog.com open thread. Hard to be disappointed with the game, though. The game was as intense as any playoff game last year, and even though it didn’t end in a win, we still get one point. Go Sabres!