The Holiday Weekend Is Over. Time To Go back To Work and Get Some Rest!

I had Friday off, so I ended up with a 4-day weekend. And, it was a busy one!

I started it off by picking this up from the Post Office, Thursday afternoon:

 It is a Gibson Les Paul Junior Lite Double Cutaway, which I purchased from a dealer in Asheville, North Carolina. I paid for it at 11:00 AM on Monday, and the mailman left me a notice that he had missed me for delivery at noon on Wednesday! Forty eight hours from North Carolina to Denver, Colorado ... Never let anyone tell you that the USPS can't get things delivered, quickly...

 I spent about 2-1/2 hours restringing the Junior, and setting it up to suit me. I love the tone, which is just a bit more aggressive than the Les Paul Special I have been playing. Each of the Pauls will be getting a lot of use in SFOB.

Friday, I went to a yard sale on the way home from the coffee shop. One of the things I bought was a skull and bones necklace, along with a bracelet, for a dollar. I got home with it, and realized that The necklace fit perfectly on my hat, as a hat band. I glued it down, and called it good.

The next day, Mark and I decided to go yard sale cruising, to see if we could score some bikes and whatnot. We stopped by the yard sale where I had gotten my hat band, and showed the two ladies who were running the sale a picture of the hat. They were amused, and promised to come see Skull Full Of Blues at Herman's Hideaway on June 29th.

  

As we drove through the Capitol Hill  neighborhood, I made Mark circle the block and stop so that we could get a picture of this early-70s CB-550F roadster which was parked on the street.

While we were out, I found a bike for Steve's oldest daughter. She wanted a bike to ride at college, down in Colorado Springs, and I had planned on building up an old mountain bike for her. This Specialized HardRock Sport lady's-framed bike from the mid-90s fitted her request for an "uncool" bike, which will be less likely to get stolen. Steve brought her over, after Mark and I got back to the house, and she loved it.

The next day, I spent 9 hours working on a couple of bikes for a fellow at work. I ended up doing two full overhauls, replaced four tires and tubes, shift cables, and brake pads on an old RD Coyote and a Panasonic touring bike. I was a bit worn out from that, since the temperature was in the upper 80s and the sun was beating down. I got sunburned despite the fact that I used SPF 50 sunscreen and had my pop-up sun shade up.

 

 Today, after I got home from the coffee shop, I cleaned up the Mukluk and listed it for sale on Craigslist. I need the cash to pay for the new Gibson...

Then, I cleaned up an old Centurion mixte (like the one I built up for my sister, a few years ago) that I picked up, Saturday, and made a bunch of upgrades to it. I converted it to upright bars, with mtb brake levers and thumb shifters. I also swapped out to 700c wheels, from the original 27", and overhauled all of the bearings, plus new cables, cable housing and a decent seat. I listed it on Craigslist, as well.

It turned out pretty nice, and there seems to be a demand for mixte-frame bikes in the Denver area, so I hope that it will sell pretty quickly.

Now, I am ready to go to bed and try to get a bit of rest before starting what I hope is a work week a bit more relaxed than my long weekend...

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