"A consultant is someone who saves his client almost enough to pay his fee." - Arnold H. Glasow

I should have stayed in bed. Most of what I tried either didn't go well or didn't go at all. It started at the coffee shop with struggle getting started with the second section of the book.

I came home thinking I'd have Fred's lights wired in by lunch but they're still not done. The track lighting unit is installed, but that took longer than it should have. Note: if you buy anything electrical from Lowe's that's their house brand, "Project Source," don't plan on decent instructions.
And I can't figure out how to wire the 3-way switches. I need switches in the lower level and in the loft for both sets of lights so you can be one place and turn off/on the lights in the other. Headed up to the loft? Come in the door and turn on the lower level track lights and the light in the loft so it's lit when you get there. Once up there you'll need to turn off the track lighting down below.

I went online and printed out an instruction sheet for those switches, but that diagram and the switches didn't look a lot alike. The switches had instructions printed in the inside of their boxes, but that diagram didn't match the switch, either. So I've found another site and a You Tube video that I'll take down there tomorrow in hopes that I can get it figured out.

I'm working on getting water from the hose bib on the pump house over to the veggie garden. Turns out that hose bib is trash and needs replacement. I bought a male quick-connect when I needed a female. So that project has to wait, too.

I did get a raised bed made for the tomato starts and got them planted. I also did some work finishing up the border for the new circular part of the gravel drive that wraps around MoHo and allows us to exit onto the private road on the south side of our property.

Pam has a 9:30 a.m. flight out of Portland tomorrow to go get her grammy fix on. We'll leave here about 5:00 for what is normally a two hour drive, but will be longer because of morning commute traffic as we drive through Portland. I made the decision to stay home when we bought her ticket two months ago. I was busy preparing for my trip to Tanzania and being gone almost three weeks. I thought I'd need to be here to get caught up on spring tasks. That was a mistake; I really wish I was going with her. Now I'm bummed to be staying home and missing my kids.

Because she's going to be gone until next Monday we did our normal weekly dinner out a couple of days early. And we went to a new joint.

Noti (NO-tie) is an unincorporated town with about 700 people. Two lumber companies keep the place going and are impressive to see up close. They take logs of different sizes - Swanson takes only logs under 20" in diameter - and turn them into dimensional lumber of various sizes. This pic shows one small section of the pile of logs at one of the mills. The sprinklers run 24/7 to keep the logs from drying out too quickly and cracking.

Why drive eight miles to Noti for dinner? Because I learned at the coffee shop that Tuesday night is Taco night at the Noti Bar.
Score!

It's all of a small town bar on the inside, complete with $1 bills pinned to the ceiling, two pool tables, a row of seats at the bar and four booths with old red vinyl upholstery. I'm not sure there was a square foot of any wall that wasn't covered with some kind of sign, most of them for a beer of one brand or another and many of them either mirrored or lit with neon.
We'll go back! We paid $1.50 each for the biggest tacos we've ever had. Pam had chicken and I had one chicken and one beef. We each paid 50 cents for a container of sour cream and another of salsa. I had a diet Pepsi. Total tab when I went up to the bar to pay...$6.50.
I felt so guilty I left a tip of almost 50%.

So I didn't have the most productive day here on Baker Rd., but dinner helped make up for it.
On the way out I noticed a sign on the door for their Cinco de Mayo special - beef burritos. I'm thinkin' we'll be there.