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.