I can’t believe it has been a week since I rode last.  That was in Seattle and I haven’t even put my bike together yet.  It’s sitting in Vincent’s garage in the bike bag still.

Man, does a week go super fast.  Actually, now that I think about more, it seems like it has been a super long week.

It’s pretty usual that snow sits a week on the ground,  the front range here in Colorado, especially in November.   That maybe isn’t the only reason I haven’t ridden.  Well, yes it is, now that I think about it.  I could always take a couple hours out of the day to ride.  Plus, I have much more energy when I ride some during the day.

I’ve been following the Jingle Cross results a little.  I can barely stand it.  It is probably my favorite cross weekend of the year.  If you’ve never been there, then you should sometime.   Brian Matter looks to be going great, after his Iceman Cometh win, finishing 3rd and 5th so far.

I got a little bummed when I got an email with a Strava alert and it said that Ned Overend road the 2nd fastest lap somewhere in New Mexico.  I clicked on it and, yep, Ned must be racing cross.  Makes me jealous.

Yesterday went pretty badly, construction-wise.  I was screwing up the backer board most of the morning, with the intention of tiling later.  I don’t know what happened exactly, but the tiling never got started.  We ate a super dinner that Lisa cooked, some pesto stuffed chicken, and then went downstairs to tile.  I had planned to work late into the night, but that didn’t materialize.

I mixed up a bunch of thinset, let it sit while I was measuring the floor for tile.  I marked a few tile to cut around the drain and when I went to use the tile saw, it wouldn’t start.  Nothing.  Man, that put a huge dent in the job process when the tile saw doesn’t cut tile.  Like it comes to a standstill.

Vincent proceeded to to disassemble the tile saw and found that it was missing a brush, so he couldn’t fix it because he didn’t have the appropriate brush sitting around.

So, I took the batch of thinset and put down some Ditra membrane, which supposedly keeps the tile from cracking, something like a slipsheet.  I’ve never used Ditra, only cement board, but we are tiling a cement floor, so putting concrete board down would be redundant I guess.

Vincent came back with a new tile saw this morning, so the coast is clear to actually make some progress.

I hope to watch some of the Superprestige Asper-Gavere, on video later today since I missed it live this morning.  Don’t tell me who won.

I have a love/hate relationship with cement/concrete.  It’s a super great invention, used by humans for 1000’s of years.   I think it is the most prevelantly used construction product, by tonnage.

But, the stuff is sort of dangerous, in the wrong hands.  And yesterday, my hands were just those.

I’ve had issues with concrete ever since I first used it.  Originally, I wouldn’t wear a proper mask with I was mixing the water in, so I would breathe some of the powder.  That powder would chemically react with the water in my lungs and burn them.  I would eventually end up with Strep throat.

Yesterday, I didn’t have that issue.  I exposed my hands to the wet grout so long that it literally burned the skin off the tips of my fingers.  And let me say, you don’t want to do this.  Especially if you plan to use your fingers to lay more tile, or even just type.

I am kind of surprised by the whole occurrence, I’m pretty sure I’ve exposed my bare skin to cement longer than this before.  I think it might have something to do with an additive I used with the grout that makes it water resistant from the get-go. It must have been pretty bad, because my finger skin is pretty thick.  I guess the chemical reaction can get worse and worse.  I’m thinking this is going to get worse before it gets better.

I finished up the shower and we decided to lay another floor in Vincent’s new downstairs office.  It was porcelain tile that is made to look like wood.  It went pretty quick, only took a couple hours after we got going.  It is sort of weird that with two of us working, it seems like it went more than twice as fast.  Probably just a time perception, but whatever the reason, it was quick and painless.

The upside to all this is I plan to do a lot more concrete stuff later in the future and I learned a lesson here.  Hopefully it wasn’t too hard of a lesson.

I think I might try to grout the floor when I’m done with this.  I’ve been wearing gloves with Vaseline type stuff covering my finger tips.  It is pretty painful.  Maybe I’ll wait for Vincent before I start this.  It might not work so well.