Hot hot heat

Good God, it's hot, the kind of hot where your sweat glands simply surrender, open wide and let the sweat pour out like the breaking of Hoover dam. Yeah, that hot, but us folks in Eastern PA aren't the only one that seem to be feeling the heat. Lucky for me, I've got a project that involves shooting highly-pressurized water at things. Cool, luscious H2O. Actually it's not that glamorous. You see, we have a smokehouse -- alternately known as a summer kitchen -- that is in dire need of paint.

Smokehouse:

Paint issues:

So this weekend I pulled out the pressure washer and blasted the loose stuff from the siding:

It's not the best pressure washer on the face of the planet -- only 2200 PSI -- but it does a great job of removing the loosest paint and tackling at least half the job. Oh, and, uhh, yeah, I would advise against balance on a ladder while attempting this task. I did, but it could pretty quickly knock you straight off the ladder onto your ass or perhaps your head, especially if you happen to have a really powerful pressure-washer.

Don't be fooled: it still took a lot of elbow grease to scrape the remaining paint off the siding, and I'm still not done. This, however, is the roughest part -- we suckered, err, invited a bunch of people to come over on August 4 to help us with the overall painting task. It's amazing what you can do with the promise of drinks and pizza.

Oh, and the hat? That's my favorite protect-me-from-the-sun article of clothing, bought in 2005 at the surf shop in the North part of Long Beach Island. The best five bucks I ever spent. Oh, quit laughing. It's not that bad.