4/7-9/09 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

The drive over was absolutely gorgeous. The sky was clear blue and the mountains had a fresh coat of snow. I arrived at 1:00 and was promptly greeted by Bert and Ernie. The temperature outside was about 60 degrees but it was quite a bit cooler in the cabin. I started a fire in the stove to take the chill off.

After lunch I went to work to try to get the holes in the log to meet. The first thing I thought might have happened was that the hole from the top was not drilled deep enough. I drilled down another four or five inches, but still didn't hit any of the other holes. By that time I was sorry I had started a fire. It was a little too warm working in the loft.

Next, I checked the measurements of the y values of the pipe and I discovered an error in the signs. With the correct numbers, I proceeded to correct the drawings.

I had intended to bring some drawing instruments with me but I had forgotten them at home. I had an architect's scale, a cheap compass, a yardstick that was nice and straight, but nothing suitable for use as a triangle. I made do with them. I made many more errors as I tried to fix the drawing, and as I discovered them, I fixed them up and kept going. Finally I convinced myself that the number 1 hole was right in line to intersect the big hole.

I figured that maybe the number 1 hole just wasn't deep enough, so I got out the drill and made the hole deeper. Unfortunately I went so deep that the bit came out the other side of the RPSL. Now I'll have to patch that hole.

In a desperate move, I drilled a sixth hole up at a steeper angle than the others, but again, no intersection with the big long hole. I went in for the night feeling frustrated not having a clear plan for how to solve the problem.

On Wednesday it was a little cooler so I started another fire in the stove. I drilled some of the holes a little deeper hoping for a hit but no luck. Then I decided to completely redo the projection drawings but more carefully and at a bigger scale.

I got out a big sheet of butcher paper and redid the drawings at twice the scale that I did before. I used the 1 1/2" scale instead of the 3/4" scale. Again, I made many errors and had to find and fix them as I went. By lunch time, I discovered that I had to redo a large part of the drawing and I had not brought up the eraser I had down at the trailer.

I went in for lunch and to get the eraser. Right after I finished lunch, Earl called and said he would be over later for a visit. I went back up to work on the new drawing and had just about finished it when Earl showed up.

I explained what I was doing and I finished making the last mark on the paper. This time it showed that both holes 1 and 2 should have intersected the big hole. Earl reminded me that the long augur would not necessarily have followed a straight line down through the log, so it could have gone anywhere.

We had a nice visit. He is keeping his Parkinson's pretty well under control with his meds and with a lot of exercise. He looked pretty good; much better than last year. He said that he had returned on 3/15/09, the same day the scouts returned home from their visit to the cabin. Earl was probably a little later than we were going over the pass, in the other direction, and he said he had a difficult time getting through in the blizzard.

He told me that when the ice went out of the lake this year, it went out all in one piece and tore out a lot of docks. It dragged one dock, along with its pilings right over his water supply system and broke it open. He had to have a diver come up several times to finally get his water system fixed. It makes me glad my water system is so simple and accessible.

After Earl left, I made another wild guess at where to drill a hole. Since all of the other holes were to the right of hole number 1, I tried drilling to the left of it. When the bit got in about 7 inches, it hit the big hole. I was very happy. I made a feeler from a piece of #9 wire to try to prove I had hit the other hole. I also rigged the light back up and sighted in the new hole. Sure enough, I could see the light so I knew I was there. Then I ran a 3/4" augur into the hole to enlarge it.

I got three pieces of electrical cable, which is the number that has to go through the hole, and I was able to run them all the way up through the holes. What a relief. I went in for the night very happy that I could now proceed with the rest of the work.

On Thursday morning, Bert and Ernie came around and took the last of my dog biscuits. I put biscuits on my shopping list. Next, I went up and started drilling the hole that starts in the same switch box in the Grid C2 RPSL but goes up through the log to come out on the other side higher up for the loft stair light fixture.

I drilled the first hole at too low of an angle and it came out the other side much too low. That gave me yet another hole I will have to patch in the log. I started the next hole right up against the edge of the recess and made it as nearly vertical as I could. This one came out right.

Drilling uphill is a completely different operation than drilling downhill. The chips automatically fall out of the hole and you don't have to pull the bit out every quarter inch or so. I did stop the drill and pause the operation every 5 or 10 seconds anyway, though, both to rest and to let the bit cool off.

The next problem was to set up a work platform so I could work on the light fixture installation. Since the loft floor ends at the RPSL, it is some 18 feet down to the floor from the fixture location.

To make the platform, I moved the scaffold tower so that it goes completely around the RPSL. It spans the corner where the staircase will land. Then I hung two cantilever brackets on the outside of the tower and laid two 2x10 planks on them. Then I rigged a guard rope from the Grid D2 PSL to a clamp on a rafter near the Grid A wall. This gave me a nice place to work.

I used my 6" and 4" hole saws and a hammer and chisel to make the recesses for the light fixture base and pancake box. Then using the drill and hammer and chisel, I made a channel in the wood behind where the box would go for the wires.

I clamped a wire to the pancake box and got it to fit in the recess with the wire running nicely through the channel and down through the bored hole. Then I went to work to make the channels in the recess for box D, the switch box, for the three wires that need to go down through the log and the one that needs to go up through the log to the fixture. I made quite a bit of progress on these channels before I quit for the week.

I was very happy to have finally gotten that lower hole finished. I think the rest of the wiring in the loft will be more or less routine with no more snags. The challenges are fun, but so is progress. I'm glad I finally made some. I left for home at 1:15