"A psychiatrist asks a lot of questions your wife asks for nothing." - Joey Adams

Ugh.

The Dish guy showed up this morning. His second impression isn't very good, either.
He said the tech gal on the phone yesterday was wrong; the problem isn't a misaligned dish. At least not that he can confirm because there's too much vegetation in the way. Read: branches and leaves have grown enough to obstruct the LOS (Line of Sight) from the dish to the satellite. He also said the original installer should never have attached it to a tree, something that violates company policy and puts his job at risk. Oh, and it's not a good location under any circumstances.

After he left I spent a couple of hours with my chain saw and pole pruner clearing vegetation. It didn't fix things. The connection goes in and out randomly and is painfully slow all the time. This page took about 5 minutes to load and I keep getting the red bar that says Auto Save failed. Most sites just time out.

Tomorrow the state (?) guy will come and mark any underground utilities so that Friday another Dish tech can put in a pole in a different location that should improve things. Until then we're effectively off line 90% of the time. Unfortunately, we don't have any way of knowing when that other 10% is going on.
So I'm typing a post you may never see.

We finally got the estimate from the stove shop guy who came out last week to take a look at our situation. Uhm....sticker shock! Apparently stove pipe is made out of gold, or maybe titanium. We have to decide if this is something we'll do in 2017 or push it to 2027.

The correct fix for Sally's leak is to weld in a new cowl piece on each side where Ford got their design wrong and the metal has rusted through. The stamped replacements (also) aren't cheap, but pale in comparison to an installed wood stove. I'll get and install those in time for fall rains, but today I took advantage of a pretty good sale at Harbor Freight to buy just about the cheapest wire welder anybody makes and, From Coastal Farm (where old guys get a 10% discount on Tuesdays) a welding helmet. Now I have to learn how to use this thing. There are lots of how-to videos on You Tube...that I can't watch because even if our internet was reliable because we can't stream without using up our monthly data allowance in about 15 minutes.
A: Starbucks. Or McDonalds.

Alas, there is SO much work to be done here on Baker Rd. that I can't stand the thought of sitting in a coffee shop watching videos.

I need a cup of coffee and a cookie.