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... aaannnd a week later... I finally got the fireplace insert operational! Managed to do it in under 1 month...
... we went in and bought the ex-demo on May the 4th. The next day was Possum day so nothing happened. On May the 8th the woodstove was delivered to the house. On May 11th my wife and I wrestled out the old firebox on the 11th, then celebrated by relaxing on the 12th. On the 18th we wrestled the 100kg Quadra-Fire WIN18 in to the fireplace from the front porch. That's when the delays started.

The flue kit we got with the stove was four 1 meter sections of straight stove-pipe, a chimney flashing, and a pipe cap. The insert sitting in place didn't have clear passage for a straight pipe to go up the brick chimney, so some DIY engineering was needed. After analysis, extras needed were 2x 45° bend pipes to clear the back of the brick arch of the fireplace and be able to have the up-stack connect in. But the 45° bend had too much pipe length atop the insert before it made the bend to clear the back of the brick arch, so I had to cut it down. Enter the tin snips... customised the bend-pipe on the 19th.

The next obstacle was the upstack wouldn't move far enough forward to connect into two 45° pipes put together because the chimney narrows about half way up and the pipe was hitting it. I needed about 11" of straight pipe between the two 45° bend sections to get the upstack to mate up. It seems you can only get stove-pipe in 1 meter lengths in this country, and they won't cut it. Probably some workplace health and safety thing.... anyway, I had fun with a hack saw after failing to find a compatable cutting wheel for my Bosch bench grinder. I managed to cut a 25cm-ish/11"ish length fairly straight with the saw. That happened today. Final hook-up of the flue happened about 4PM, and viola... fire! Good thing too because the gas main heater decided to quit igniting yesterday afternoon.

I still have to cut the top pipe and screw on the cap, and cement down the chimney cap flashing, but that is future-ranger's problem this coming weekend.

I did some research since apparently people want to know 'where exactly the characters are' in my book and silly stuff like that 😝

And drew out a map of the town they are in, with the locations they go to marked.

Still need to make another for another city and a road trip they take.

Stop my brain from melting in this heat, and attempt to get posts out. Also watch three kids, possibly clean my house. Make said kids food.

Get more written in my story, get my car serviced, pick up my new phone (good riddance, you little Iphone 5c), visit my friend in the hospital, and get some much needed sleep

Just arrived at work at 7:15AM Friday morning. Been a full week and I’m looking forward to the weekend!

Hoping to sit down and get to writing my RP owes this weekend. I’m so behind.

Chilling on the computer before my doc appointment tomorrow.

Gah. I'm stuck again. I wrote a big, long response and was so immersed that now I'm in that "I don't want to get off the phone" state. It's like trying to break out of a trace that's warm, and calm, and comfortable, and you need to get back to the real world and you want to keep typing and typing and typing. Calm, peaceful, predictable, easy, simple, repetitive, hypnotic, typing.

But at the moment, I'm trying to get moving and get driving home. Tomorrow, birthday shopping. My mom's birthday is tomorrow!

Happy birthday to your mom!!!!

Today, June 1, a seemingly endless list of weekend projects around the house.

Bikini shopping barbecuing enjoying 90 degree heat.

Sounds like you're smokin' hot (pun intended). :p