A road less traveled

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

This poem came to mind yesterday when I was reading the news. It seems that an old Friend ran into a bit of trouble.
Many years ago I met a 16 year old kid who would hang out at my place and party with us. He was a good kid at the time, he was just dealing with your typical teenage rebellious issues. As the years past he grew up and made some bad decisions, but we all did, that is part of the human condition if you don't make bad decisions now and then, we don't learn and grow.
He needed a place to stay so he crashed on my couch for a while, saved some money and we got a two bedroom apartment. We would party hard and he always had GOOD drugs. This went on for I don't remember how long, but a long time.
One day I woke up in jail and decided that this was enough I didn't want to live like this any more. I was 22 years old, weighed 90 pounds and looked like a zombie. I nearly O D more than once and couldn't keep a job.
So when I found out that Tim was going away for a while I found a new place to live in a different city, put $50 on his commissary and left, I never told any of my so called friends goodbye, I just disappeared.
After reading this news story I am overwhelmed with emotions, but mostly I am just thankful. I had to stop and think what my life may have been like if I had taken a different path. After seeing Tim's mug shot I came to the conclusion that I would probably be dead.
I have a wonderful life, a wife and family that loves me, a good job, and almost nothing to want. I could not ask for anything more, all because of a choice I made 15 years ago. I am proud to say that I abandoned all of my friends and left them to fend for themselves.



I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference


Robert Frost

Exploring new things.

So here is a little test. I am playing with video now and here is what I put together real fast. Please bear with me.
Harley and Tink have become great friends, they do everything together, eat, sleep, play and we just discovered bathe. Its kind of cute in a sick sorta way. Well here it is.



Thanks for watching.

Good Ideas

When we bought our home 7 years ago, the water softener in the closet under the stairs was broken. For 7 years I have been saying "I'm going to pull that thing out of there." "think about how much room we would gain for storage if that stupid thing wasn't in the way." But in the end I have never been comfortable with my plumbing abilities, first and foremost my sweat soldering abilities. I didn't have the confidence to do the plumbing or the money to pay a plumber to do it.
Then my Dad tells me of this new product called "Shark Bite" fittings. AWESOME! Cut the pipe and push the fitting onto the cut end, DONE! No leaks, and I was able to replace the copper water line I cut out with PVC pipe, I saved a lot of money there. Have you seen the price of copper lately?


It was so easy, I also added a water shut off valve so I wont have to crawl under the house or go to the street to shut the water off. NICE! I also replaced the water shut off valve under the house, because it never completely shut off all the water, and it was so easy to do. I will never think twice about a plumbing project again, as long as I can use these little miracles.

After I got the water softener out of the closet I slapped some paneling on the wall, put up new shelving, and jumped out of the way as Aarin started filling them up. Literally, she was filling the shelves while I was putting in the last shelf. She loves having the extra space, says it's the best thing we have done to the house yet. But she says that about every project that we do.
The under side of the stairs was exposed so I ripped down some 5/8" cleats and nailed them to the stair stringers, and made all these cubby holes.


Notice how well the canning jars fit. I think that in my next house I will do something similar. If we have stairs in the next house, and there is a closet under the stairs. Toilets are really good things to put in the space under stairs, Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll see if I can't squeeze one into this closet. Aarin has always wanted another bathroom.

Icebreakers hockey

this last weekend I had the honor of being invited to McCall for the icebreakers hockey tournament, by my nephew Jake. This is him in the locker room before the game, it is 6:45 am on Sunday morning and we are all still a little sleepy. We stayed up too late playing in the pool.
The team that we were playing was the Sun Valley team, they are good! Sun Valley has two teams and we played the other team on Saturday, Both teams have at least one kid that should have been on the Olympic speed skating team, Them boys was fast.


Here is a picture of the 'mites waiting for our game to finish, they are up next, and were taking turns punching each other in the face. Number 4 put number 21 on his rump and then pounced on top of him and proceeded to wail away until mom pulled him off. He is 3 and spent more time face down on the ice than he did chasing the puck.
We lost 6 to 0 but it was early, we were all tired, we hadn't had breakfast yet, no more excuses, they were just better than us. Everyone had a great time any way.
Here is our goalie running from the barrage of snowballs that is about to assail her. This was her third time playing goalie and she did an great job. Her name is Erica.
Here is Jake again that is my brother behind him, see the fuzzy hand on the right? That was Brogan's hand just before he hit me in the face with a snowball. He spent the rest of the day going face first into snowbanks, I think I may have missed one or two snowbanks, but I made sure that the imprint of his face was in everyone he got close enough to.
Winter in McCall, can't say that I miss it, but it sure is pretty. I had a wonderful weekend, and am glad I made the drive. Thank you for inviting me Jake.

OH POO!

The bathroom remodel is almost done, not our bathroom someone Else's. How do people live like this? The toilet had been leaking for quite some time and the stick on tiles were falling apart. The sub floor was the consistency of corn meal mush and came up rather easily with a 4" putty knife. When I pulled the toilet out the lady of the house asked me "How did all that mud get under the toilet?" my response was "That's not MUD". After a few seconds of bewilderment she said "Oh? poo!", "right" I said and went about cleaning it up.

Well 3 weeks later the finished product is amazing, new vanity and sink, toilet, and tub with surround. Totally rebuilt floor with new vinyl and base molding.

2 things that I learned from this job are 1. If you think you are cross threading a bolt or pipe you probably are, don't force it, and 2. flush the waterlines before you connect the faucets. Large tap and die sets are expensive and faucets clog easy.




This was a good practice job for me so now it is time to do my own bathroom, we really need a new tub. Aarin wants to do a tile surround, so that ought to be a new challenge, by new challenge I mean fun.

WAHOO FOR 3 DAY WEEKENDS

So, 3 day weekends rock. We started the kitchen update on friday, sort of. Friday was more drinking beer and looking at what was ahead of us and getting siked up. this is what we started with 7 years ago. It is so easy to get used to something and not realise what a benefit it would be to take the time to make the change. So on Saturday morning we broke out the tools!
I got serious about tearing up the old nasty pealing,scared,chipped Formica. Not such a bad chore as I had expected, the clean up was pretty easy too, except for a few nasty cuts (broken Formica is sharp). We put new 3/8" particle board over the old counter and replaced the trim boards. Aarin was telling me at 10:30 that it was time to call it a night, the neighbors probably were agreeing seeing as the saw was set up outside.

Sunday morning I was out of bed bright and early at 8:30 am READY TO GO!
2 cups of coffee later it actually happened. Tools were dug out, laminate was unrolled, glue cans were opened, and the PANIC SET IN! What do I know about laminate? VERY LITTLE, but who am I to turn down an opportunity to screw something up? Aarin got the idea to try to cut the Formica with the cordless trim saw, that didn't work so we ended up cutting it all by hand, which was OK because we broke it less (good thing). After we had the pieces cut to fit we cleaned up again, more organised than cleaned, but in the middle of a project there isn't much difference. Time for glue, No Stink, Water Clean up, contact cement, AWESOME stuff. Did I mention NO STINK! Just don't put it on too thick when you have people coming for a barbecue in 1 1/2 hours. We had to Rush it along a little bit with some fans to get it to dry in time to get it set before guest started to show up. Perfect timing by the way we placed the last piece about 5 minutes before they showed up.
We had a wonderful Barbecue, Tanna and James were here along with Anndra and Shane. Really nice visit, good times were had by all.
After everyone went home we cleaned up and went back to work.

I broke out the router and finished the edges of the counter and made a new mess that needed cleaned. We rolled the Formica again to make sure it was stuck down real good, and then I put away the tools again, as Aarin got ready to go to work (this is were she shines).

I went to the Garage to put together the new sink as she went to work on the tile back splash. Of course when we got things laid out we were one tile short, so we made another short trip to Lowes. Aarin put up the tile and we decided it was a long enough day, time to sit down and drink a few beers, and then bed.

Monday morning! Gorsh I love 3 day weekends, it is like having a free day to DO MORE WORK! Aarin grouted the tile while I cleaned the garage, she did an Awesome job by the way, The colors blend so well. When she was finished I set the sink, with not a single leak the first time. First time ever, there is always at least one leak.

Then it was time to really clean, for real, in between the gawking and the "Oh it looks so good, you do such nice work, we work so good together, I am so proud to know you, why didn't we do this sooner". Then we died.

Here is the finished product. I never realised what a difference it would make, I seriously would have done it sooner.
Please stay tuned for more........................

Hot August Nights

So we made a quick trip up to Lewiston last weekend for Hot August Nights, The big car show they have in August. My dad had entered the old truck and we showed up Friday night for the cruise. Too bad there was a carboration problem and it ran like crap. We did make a couple of trips around the loop before we decided to just park it. I did get to see Starship in the parks amphitheater, They were pretty good only one original band member and he is ancient. When the concert was over we wandered around downtown for a while before calling it a night, after all Saturday was going to be a busy day.

Saturday morning we all got up early and had breakfast and my dad and me drove the truck downtown to find a good spot in the show. 7 am and the place is already hopping, we got a sweet spot in the shade (which was awesome in the afternoon when it got hot) and started polishing ever thing up.
















It wasn't the best polish job but I think that it turned out OK. There was lots of wandering and chatting with other car owners and fans. All in all it was a great day. When the show was over it was time to head up to Moscow for the night to visit our son Rob and his new girlfriend. Nice girl, not sure what she she sees in him but they both look happy and that makes me happy. We visited until about 1 am and get some rest for the trip home.
Sunday morning we meet at the Breakfast Club (for breakfast) Visit for a while and then head home.

Awesome weekend, didn't win anything at the show but that is OK, got to meet a lot of great people and eat some good food.