[black friday]

There's a a reason that they call it black Friday. It's black when you get up and black when you get home... especially when you are working in retail that day. Today was a long day for me needless to say. I spent close to 15 hours in the store, and I need to go back in after sleeping 8 hours. I'm tired. Goodnight.

[management]

It is sort of complicated. I have officially been given a raise, and a store to manage. However, I'm not technically the manager on paper. Due to the critical timing of the departure of the former manager, my proven ability to deliver sales results and my convenient residence in relation to the store, plus the fact that I have a history working with the team in place, I have been granted temporary custody of the store. As long as my performance is not compromised and the store continues to progress in a positive direction it is the understanding that my status in the store as the manager will be permanent

Needless to say, my next week is going to be very busy. Not only do I need to prepare a store for one of the busiest shopping days of the year, I need to prepare my team for a great sales day. Talk about baptism by fire.

[a random note on technology]

It still amazes me how connected society is with their cell phones and technology. I don't have to be at my computer to check email. I don't need to watch the television to get my news. In fact my news is customized the way I want it. Technology, national headlines, and if I want to know more about something that someone at work is talking about I google it. If I want to know whether coffee can stain my clothes, the answer is in the palm of my hand... Literally. So since our computers are advancing at the speed of light, when will the rest of our tech catch up?

[back to the future]

Back to the future is probably one of my favorite movies of my youth. This year celebrates the 25th anniversary of the movie and marks the release of the special edition of the movie on Blu-Ray and digital copy. It is interesting listening to the commentary from the directors as well as seeing how they made some of the special effects. What is noteworthy for me is when they explain the what is significant of different parts, like the signs in hill valley, and how it transformed throughout the series of movies.

It would be cool to build a DeLorean time car. They actually had one in the bonus features that some guy had made to replicate the one in the movie. It was pretty impressive. Somehow though I don' t think that I'll be doing that any time soon. By the time that I have the financial means to do so, I'd probably prefer to build some other sort of prop from another movie. It's always nice to dream about those things though.

[tomato worm]

Found this critter in the garden while I was getting it ready for the winter. It is a tomato worm, one of the largest caterpillars in the US. Thanks to Karen and Nancy for helping me ID it. I also planted a few hundred garlic plants for next year. Most of those are the seed pods from the garlic that I had planted last year, the rest are from the remains of the best cloves that I had planned on using this year that khyla had attacked and tried to eat. In other news, the leaves all over are mostly covering the ground instead of our trees, and our goats are lonely now that their counterparts have left for the winter.

[tomato worm]

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[changes may be coming to the blog]

I haven't really decided what to do yet, but it seems that the blog needs some reformatting. It appears that my photos keep getting cut off, or adjusted, and the video that I posted from youtube seems to be cut off as well. I'd really like to start putting more photos and videos on the blog, but I think I'll avoid the frustration of having things cut off or upside down until I figure everything out. I don't really like the pre-established templates for that blogger provides, so I guess one of these days I'm going to have to break down and figure out what exactly this needs to look like and try and replicate that with whatever will work. Guess I need to do some background work and figure out what the best way to make my own template is.

Work is work at The Shack, and I'm pretty much done helping Larry out in camp. I may volunteer to do a thing here and there. For example, the pool is being winterized on monday, and tuesday I am scheduled to help Larry put the cover back on for the winter.

[off to Atlanta]

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[i'm batman!]

Batman probably has to be my favorite of all super heroes. I had forgotten this until yesterday though. The wife and I were in Meijer shopping for gluten free desserts, and I forget what else. But we happened to walk through the electronics section (because I couldn't help it of course) and there on and end cap were the Blu-Ray movies Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin. I got so excited that Casey didn't really have a choice but to let me get them. I remember being very young and going to a friends house whom we had nicknamed 'Skate' because we had met him rollerskating down our street. But I digest... I had the most fun playing with his batman toys. He had them all, and eventually I ended up getting some of my own, including the underwater batman, batman that shot a plastic missing off his arm, and a joker that had a flower in his lapel which would shoot real water. Oh, those were the days! Watching these older (90s) movies is interesting now that I'm just a little older. I actually get some of the side humor, and understand a little more of the back story humor as well. If I go to any Halloween parties this year "I'm Batman".

[baking on a grill]

These muffins were baked on my weber 220 grill. They were quite tasty. I'll be posting an instructable soon.

[upside down]

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[upside down]

I wasn't able to review the video below. Apparently it is upside down. We will see if I can just upload the same video to youtube and have it available as a shortcut or in a window so you can see it properly. Until then, just turn your monitor upside down, nobody will look at you strange. I promise.

[animal race]

Previously this video was uploaded upside down somehow. I've replaced it with the youtube version. I guess if this continues to be a problem, I'll just have to post videos on youtube instead of using cellspin.

[soon to be cornfield]

The following pictures depict the transformation of a fallow field back to a corn or soybean field. Its really too bad that the field couldn't be left to transform back into a woodland. It was definitely headed back to that direction. On the bright side though, if it is being farmed, at least it's not being developed.

[soon to be cornfield]

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[soon to be cornfield]

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[back lane culvert repair]

Today we did some manual repair on the culvert under the back lane that is the main entrance to my house. Since the director was unwilling to spend any money on the project we took it upon ourselves to do the work by hand. We dug out the old culvert the old fashioned way, with hand tools and leverage. We will need some more stone to complete the job properly. We'll also need to spend more time digging out upstream and downstream to make sure our pipes don't get clogged up with dirt. But at least for now, the drove down the back lane will be a little smoother.

[back lane culvert repair]

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[back lane culvert repair]

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[back lane culvert repair]

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[back lane culvert repair]

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[inaugural chicken]

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[inaugural chicken]

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[inaugural chicken]

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[inaugural chicken]

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[inaugural chicken]

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[inaugural chicken]

These photos are of the inaugural chicken that christened the grill that I received as my birthday gift this year. I've been wanting a good grill to cook on, and this weber certainly does a nice job.

[cleaning house]

I now have room in my garage to store two cars and a popup camper. Currently the popup is in the way of the built in work bench, so it will be moved back outside once it has been cleaned and ready for winter storage. I'm beginning to realize now how spoiled I am when it comes to how much covered storage I have. I've still got quite a bit of cleaning to do out there but at least I've made progress, and that makes my wife happy.

[Casey and Khyla]

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[a word on gardening]

The garden this year is turning out to be quite productive! For this I thank my lovely wife, because without her the garden would certainly not be nearly as fruitful. It has pretty much... I mean... It's mainly been her out in the garden this year. Due to the amount of work, and the schedule that I've been following I was probably only really in the garden this year in the very beginning tilling the ground and getting the beds ready. Everything else has really been her. Our Tomato plants are HUGE and the pepper plants are also very healthy looking. Just yesterday I pulled up all of my garlic and onions. They were bigger than previous years and very usable. My blueberries didn't really produce a whole lot of berries in their second year. Even though they had more than the first year, the I didn't get many more because I didn't cover them and the birds got to them. We have quite a few corn stalks this year that are producing small ears of corn. Hopefully we'll be able to harvest them before the raccoons get to them.

I think that next year we'll scale back on the size of the garden. In the last two years that we've had it only about half of it has really had anything planted in it successfully, and only half of that we've been successful in keeping weed free. Regardless, even though the weeds seem to be winning a little, the garden is remaining productive just as much as the weeds are flourishing.

[mowana PD]

Last Saturday was a great day. Casey and I spent the day at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. Upon returning home from a long and warm day at the amusement park we let the dogs out of the house to stretch their legs. Since we live on a 183 acre privately owned camp and retreat facility that is designed to be utilized by the youth and families of the Lutheran Church Synods in Ohio, traffic through the camp should be minimal. This means that we rarely have the dogs on a leash or line. Unfortunately there is quite a bit of traffic. Sometimes I can ignore it because it's either staff or a former staff. But Saturday was one of those days that I could not ignore a big white 4x4 with the confederate flag flying from its rear bumper speeding down our lane. Our house literally has a driveway that is a half a mile long. This year the Camp posted brand new reflective signs stating private drive, no through traffic, and no trespassing. Kind of hard to miss, especially when you have your brights on, but I digress... This truck came speeding down the back lane with its brights on, nearly hitting me and our dogs. My blessing is that out driveway is so long, and has a big S curve in it so I saw the truck coming.

As soon as the truck went by I handed off the dogs to Casey and jumped into the jeep to pursue the now intruders. I drove past the barn and saw a vehicle off to the road that spurs off to the right to a group of cabins called 'Inter-Hill' at camp. When I caught up with the vehicle I realized that it was not the same vehicle that went by the house, but a counselor that had just returned from cedar point as well. I asked him if he had seen the truck and he said no. So I proceeded to follow the route out of camp looking out for this mystery vehicle that had sped by our house. Getting up to the main entrance of the camp.... no confederate flag waving trucks in sight. So just on a whim I decided to go out to the state route which is less than a quarter mile from the camps entrance. Sitting across the road is a vehicle with it's lights on, so while stopping a the stop sign I check it out, seems like a car. Since I'm at the intersection I decided to turn left onto the state route so I could turn around in a parking lot down the street and drive through camp again in case the truck turned off somewhere and I could corner them. After turning around and head back into camp I realize that the vehicle parked across the street from where I stopped to enter the state route was a Sheriff Deputy on road patrol. I decided to stop and ask him if he has seen the vehicle that tore up the road past my house and through camp. He said that he's been there just a few minutes and hadn't seen any such vehicle. Kind of disappointed I start to get back into my car and get home.

Right about now a vehicle is driving down the road from the north towards us so I decide that since i'm turning left and since there is a sheriff sitting next to me I'd let this vehicle pass instead of cutting them off. ZOOM! Past us roars the truck that I was looking for, and that the sheriff was now on the alert for, with one headlight no less. As if on cue the sheriff pulls out after the truck, and with less than an inkling of hesitation I pulled off to follow so that I could identify positively that this is the vehicle that I was looking for.

The Sheriff lights up the vehicle and pulls them over, and farther back I pulled off to the side of the road in a driveway to watch. The story that the deputy relayed to me made little sense. Allegedly the truck was being chased and the occupants thought that they could ditch the chasing vehicle by driving through the camp that they didn't know existed, or was private property. Apparently reflective white signs are hard to read when you're driving fast on a severely washed out road at night. The vehicle also allegedly belonged not to the driver, but to the 15 year old passengers step father. Before relaying this all to me the deputy warned the occupants that any further complaints about them from the Camp would result in citations for criminal trespassing. I'm happy that these kids were caught, and that maybe they'll spread the word that we're serious about preventing trespassers at camp. For once everything worked out well.

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[tech Tuesday]

I've got my new iPhone and am testing out this new blogging app. I know I haven't really posted anything in a while. It's my hope that maybe I can at least post a couple pictures each week to visually chronicle what I'm up to.

Tech Tuesday : Otterbox has come out with their case for the iPhone 4. Me so happy! I had an otterbox for my old blackberry and it was wonderful. It was the only phone that I ever had that never got a scratch on it. It's on order and we'll find out how nice it is. Regardless, I'm still going to get my free bumper case from Apple.

[we are joined by the Dominican Republic]

It's a late night so I won't write too much more tonight. However, I see that people in more states are following me, as well as a new country. Dominican Republic/Haiti , Welcome to Foothill Frontier. As I have more free time and learn to use my new tools better, it is my hope that this endeavor will be cleaner and less sporadic.

[new app]

I've got my new iPhone and am testing out this new blogging app. I know I haven't really posted anything in a while. It's my hope that maybe I can at least post a couple pictures each week to visually chronicle what I'm up to.

[welcome UK]

Reader(s) of the United Kingdom, Welcome to my little slice of the Blogiverse. I like international readers, you make me feel important.

[iPhone 4]

In the last week I've decided that it is time for me to change cell phone carriers. It's been something that I've been considering, but not seriously because I still have about a year left on the contract for my phone and nine months left on Casey's. I don't fancy paying $200 a line to cancel my contract. This being said, I am currently using an internet connection (aircard) that will be terminated in 3 days. This is the most cost effective internet that I can get. My drive is a half mile long, pretty much straight to the street, so cable is out of the question. I don't watch enough TV anymore to even try and justify getting satellite, and use that internet connection. This house was built in the early 1900's and doesn't have a phone line run to it either. Besides, dial up is way too slow for it to be a real consideration.

Once I was told that the aircard was being canceled I tried find a solution so that I wouldn't lose my internet. Nothing worked out, and I feel that I have been lied to and betrayed by the company that I have been faithful to since I owned my first cell phone. I went over to AT&T immediately after leaving Alltel and found out that I was approved for 3 lines with no deposit. Had I found out this out, I would already (theoretically) have the new iPhone 4 tethered to my computer for internet access. Unfortunately the pre-order process was no longer active when I decided to finally switch...

On Tuesday the 29th I'll be waiting in line to get my new iPhone 4. I still haven't decided what time I'll jump in line. As most of the world knows, at AT&T stores they'll be starting to serve customers that did not pre-order this remarkable phone. Right now I'm mentally preparing myself to camp out in front of the store to make sure that I am able to get a phone. I've never done that sort of thing before. I've never arrived super early on black friday at a store to get a super price on a computer, or camped out for a movie premiere. There's a first time for everything though. I'm just hoping that the line at my local store isn't crazy long by the time that I get in line. It's not like I live in New York or Hollywood or anything.

So in Conclusion, and to paraphrase the last line of FanBoys... "I hope it doesn't suck!"\

[clustrmaps]

For my counter on this blog I've been using clustrmaps. It's really cool becuase I can see not only the number of people that are looking at this blog (averaging one or two of you a day), but I can also see where you are from. From the looks of it I have people from Ohio, Michigan, California, and a few states in the middle that I can't decide where you may be because I can't see the actual state outlines on my map. Just recently I've noticed that someone from the Russian Federation is also checking out my blog. I think that's pretty cool. I'm now popular enough to start eliciting international readers.

Thanks for reading friends, and keep at it. I'll try to be more on the ball with posting more frequently, and adding pics as I can. The biggest dilema that I'm facing right now is that I don't have a camera that takes an SD card, so I cant just remove the card and throw it in my netbook to upload the pics. Maybe sometime in the next few months I'll find one on clearance that will suit my purposes.

[you should never let people know how tired you are]

Tired. Working 12 hours a day takes some energy, that's for sure! I've been working for the last month doing two things that I really enjoy, pretty much simultaneously. The normal routine most recently has been waking up somewhere around 7 or 7:30 and letting the dogs out, then getting ready and getting to the maintenance garage somewhere between 8 and 8:30. Normally in the mornings there is a decent amount of pretty basic petty stuff that needs done around this old camp. Move picnic tables, replace burned out light bulbs, fill in holes, spray bees wasps and anything else that flies and stings or bites, move gravel, cut up trees, or supervise volunteers. If I'm lucky, by 10 or 11 I can get on the mower and start knocking down some tall grass. Recently this has been quite challenging with the amounts of rain that we've been having, combined with the fact that I normally have to leave the camp and head to RadioShack by 3 or 4 at the latest.

So of course once I'm done getting all dirty, and sweaty at camp, I have to clean up to head to TheShack for an afternoon and evening of being a salesperson. Just yesterday after walking into the air conditioned store it was only then that I realized how hot and muggy it was outside. Currently Cell Phones are outpacing themselves and becoming obsolete overnight it seems. I've gotten to play with the HTC Evo before it was released, and today watched confidential movies about the new iPhone 4. All I can say is that technology is outpacing itself.

Lately I've become more and more interested in the prospect of doing more "off the grid" For example, I've got a new phone charger that is solar powered. It's made by called a Solio Universal Hybrid by BETTERENERGYSYSTEMS. It has enough storage capacity once fully charged to charge your average phone about 2 times, can charge any number of devices from phones and ipods to GPS units or Bluetooth devices. It is of course also available at your local RadioShack store. I've got mine charged at all times and ready to give my phone a little boost when it's low at the end of the day, which also happens to be in my EMT bag in case of an emergency. This particular guy has a couple additional accessories I'd really like that can be purchased directly from BETTERENERGYSYSTEMS. The LED gooseneck light could be quite handy in just about every kind of emergency, and the suction cup to mount it to a window also seems like it could be very useful.

[life is so busy]

Things have gotten really busy in the last month. Since I've last posted I've traveled to the other world of Michiga for a the wedding of Caseys Cousin, and I've also visited our neighbors to the west in Indiana for our nephew Brevin's 6th birthday. That child is getting big! Working has been sort of crazy, being both at RadioShack, and doing maintenance at Mowana it seems that I have little time for anything but working and sleeping.

One of the nice things about working where I live though is that to a certain extent I can justify doing things around the house and getting paid for it. I'm not talking about tending our garden, or doing small things like changing out screen windows or checking the mail. But mowing and cleaning up the yard seem totally justifiable to me. Lately I've been able to get into a good routine where I work in the morning at camp, have an hour to take a shower and change clothes, and get to RadioShack before my shift begins.

Lately the Mowing at camp hasn't been getting done due to rain. However, with 300 kids being here in the last week, the grass isn't getting as long and hopefully I'll be able to get to it as soon as the rain dies down this week

[jeep repairs]

Got my jeep back from being repaired. It feels good to be driving my own vehicle again, especially now that the suspension is a lot tighter. I could definitely tell a difference going over bumps, my jeep didn't continue hopping up and down like it did before. It wasn't cheap, but it needed to be done.

My leg is healing well. I got my stitches out on thursday afternoon, and I've been able to do a lot more bending, and rotating of my leg without having to worry about it pulling apart or anything.

My first week of working two jobs has gone well, though tiring. I've also found a way to keep myself busy while mowing. Since I have my phone with me I've taken to listening to digital books while mowing. This serves me two, no three purposes. I can occupy my time with something intelligent, I can drown out the noise of the mower, I can tell when someone is trying to contact me becuase the tapes stop when I get a text message or a phone call. I think it's kind of funny that for once when I have earbuds in my ear, it's actually helping to keep me connected to the world around me.

[chainsaws can be fun and dangerous]

Yesterday was exciting... and a little painful. Last week I asked Eric if I could start working at the camp a little early doing Maintenance because there was a lot of work that needed to be done. RadioShack had already started my summer hours and I wasn't putting in as many as I was the rest of the year, this gave me some freetime to do other things like work at camp. The St. John's Builders are making another guest appearance at the camp next week and the challenge course is being inspected in the next month so I was given the task of spring cleaning around the challenge course; clearing trails cleaning moss and algae off the elements, clearing room for a new challenge course element, removing dead trees that could fall or drop dead branches on the challenge course elements or people... I was literally only had one tree to take care of near the Mohawk Walk / Multi-Vine element. I had successfully felled at least six trees precisely where I wanted including a tree with a diameter of almost two feet. This last tree was pretty dead and had been that way for a while. When I went to drop it along the length of the multi-vine. The tree was so dead that the saw cut through it like butter. I notched the tree I wanted it to fall with no problem, then I went to cut the back side of the tree to fell it. Normally when you get to a certain point on this cut the tree starts to lean ever so slightly and you know you can remove your saw and walk away while it falls the opposite direction it is falling. This didn't happen. Instead it suddenly started falling. with the new angle of the tree now falling and my blade running, it kicked back out of the tree. The kickback wasn't so sudden that the saw went directly into my leg, but instead caught on my pant leg which pulled the saw into my leg lacerating it. I think that this is why my leg wasn't cut as deep as it could have been. The running saw was also hot which cauterized the cut preventing me from bleeding heavily. I wasn't sure initially how bad I was cut, so I ran down the path with the chainsaw (which I had the mindset to shut off) and pulled up my pant leg up to inspect the wound. I decided that I needed to head home and give myself a more thorough once over and make sure I really wasn't bleeding badly. I jumped in the GMC and backed out of the woods, turned around and headed through the field directly to my house ignoring silly things such as roads and speed limits. I got home and inspected my leg more closely and noted that it was not bleeding badly, but put some gauze on it and called my lovely wife to try and decide whether to call an ambulance or Larry to take me to the hospital. I decided that it would be better to have Larry take me since my bleeding was under control and I could walk with very little pain. By the time that Larry got to the house to pick me up I had put an ace wrap on my wound along with a square of gauze bandage.
If you're squeamish about anything to do with blood, you can stop reading here. If you don't mind seeing what my leg looks like before they stitch me up you may continue.

Since the picture is a closeup let me just get you oriented. Since I took the pictures on my phone they are from my angle. My foot would be at the top of the photo, and my knee would be at the bottom of the photo. The one on the left I sent to Casey for input on whether I needed an ambulance or just have Larry take me to the ER. I decided that since I had mobility and there was no major arterial bleeding I would save an ambulance trip for a more serious event. Casey was in Mt. Gilead picking up Lisa (who holds the equivalent to Casey's position at our sister camp LMC) to go on a trip on their days off to the Columbus Zoo. Needless to say Lisa ended up coming up to Mansfield and having a late lunch after I was sutured up. I ended this trip by going to Kohls and replacing the jeans that I was wearing during the incident. Also, if anyone is interested in donating, I'll be taking donations for a pair of Chain Saw Chaps ($90) . I've considered buying a pair of these in the past but never thought that I'd be in a position that I would need them. Needless to say I'll have a pair before I use a Chain Saw again. I highly recommend getting a pair for anyone that does any chainsaw work at all. The injury wasn't all that painful, but it could have been a lot worse than it was. I'd say that I have God to thank for watching over me. Amen.

[earth day]

Today is earth day and so much is going on. I am celebrating the day by wearing my green shirt, Literally and figuratively. It is the color green, and made out of recycled pop bottles and organic cotton. Casey and I celebrated by planting some tomatoes and peppers in the garden, and making reusable tomato cages. If there isn't an instructable on making them then I'll have to post how I'm making them.

[thunderstorms]

Wouldn't it be better if the weather would let us execute what we plan to do in a day? Most of what I planned to do today was outdoor activities. and about an hour ago we got a severe thunderstorm advisory between 1-8pm. YAY!

[extended weekend]

Starting tomorrow I have four days off. By having that much time off I'd really like to be able to get some major projects done at the house. It's kind of early, but I think that if I get enough work done in the garden, I may end up planting a lot of little plants there. I'd really like to give some of our seedlings some time to mature, but the fact is that we've got a lot of little plants growing on our enclosed porch, and I think that if I don't get some of them in the ground we're going to go outside one day hand have a wild forest on our hands. I'll be planting the cold-hardy plants outside first. I've got the garlic growing nicely that I planted last fall. We also found some onions and potatoes at Sam's Club. Those will almost definitely get planted in the ground tomorrow. I've also got some lettuce seed that are packaged as a tape so that when planted in the garden they are guaranteed to be spaced correctly.

Before I plant my peas beans and cucumbers I'll have to put up my trellis along the driveway. Last year I put this trellis up and used gardening twine to allow the plants to grow up it. The problem with that was that the twine started to fray a little. That in itself was not a huge deal because it gave the plants a place to grab and climb. The problem that arose was that the sting ended up stretching and became loose. This year I am thinking about using some metal wire and lacing it up on the trellis like I had last year. The advantage I see in that is that it won't stretch, and will be rigid enough that it will stay spaced exactly as I have it. I'm a little worried thought that it will be harder for the climbing plants to grab the trellis and grow up it. I guess we'll see what happens.

[getting things done]

Last night I retrofitted our TV cabinet so that I could mount our LCD TV on an swivel arm. When Melissa, Bill, and Dina were visiting over Easter, Bill bought me a soundbar. Thank You Bill! The only bad thing about the soundbar is that the pedistal that came with our TV didn't make the TV high enough. With the soundbar in front of it, it is not possible to control the TV because the IR sensor was covered. So to do that I had to temporarily put a little platform under the TV to raise it. Unfortunately this put the TV back a good 6-8" and made viewing from either side a little difficult.

I was fortunate to find the omni-mount at TheShack this winter on clearance for $10. Normally this TV Mount sells for about $100, but this one was a heavier model, and we had some new lightweight models. To retrofit the TV cabinet I had to install some reinforcement 2x4s along the horizontal top and bottom of the back inside of the cabinet and then attach an imitation wall stud vertically on the back of the cabinet offset so that the pre-drilled cable hole was not blocked.

I think that the TV cabinet now looks a lot cleaner, and now the TV can be swiveled for an almost straight on view of the TV no matter where you are sitting in the room. The soundbar is also not blocking the IR sensor on the TV. Now I just need to figure out what to do to use up all that empty space in the cabinet behind the TV.

[i'm a winner]

Well, in the event that you didn't hear, I won the instructables.com april fools contest as a runner up. It's pretty cool that I won when I just entered on a whim. The prize package isn't spectacular, but I get another t-shirt and a pro membership into instructables.com. Stickers too!

Aside from celebrating my win, I also spent part of the day getting the garden ready to plant some seedlings that Casey has planted on our porch. The garlic that I planted in the fall is doing well, although a few of my plants were getting smothered by the leaf mulch that I put down last fall. Now that I have all of the leaves cleaned up in that part of the garden, that garlic should start to stand a little taller and green up. Leaves all around on bushes and trees alike have finally started to unfold. The two blueberry bushes that I planted last year seem to be doing very well, and I hope to have a couple pints of berries from them.

Last fall I tried a little experiment and put down as much leaf mulch onto the garden as I could. The idea was that it would prevent weeds and grass from invading my garden in the spring, as well as prevent nature from undoing all the hard work I put in last year improving the soil. It seemed to work pretty well, although in the back of the garden there were a couple areas that I didn't cover very well and the leaves ended up blowing off the ground. In that area, I have some grass growing that I'll need to take care of.

[biking]

This morning in the drizzly cool rain I took my first real conditioning ride to get ready for biking to work. I did 6.21 miles uphill both directions. I've ridden my bike a lot farther without getting nearly as tired, but that's been on bike paths and flat terrain with either very short inclines or very subtle inclines. I can already feel the aching starting, and can't wait to feel the ache that comes with using muscles after a very long period very little stress. I can only hope that once I start biking it will become easier because I an not only more fit, but because there is not as much weight being moved.

Right now I'm just glad that I don't have to ride my bike home after work. I believe that once I can do about 15 miles in a morning without much consequence then I will be able to ride my bike to and from work each day, although I will still opt to drive when I am coming home after dark.

In other news, I've become a finalist with my entry into the Instructables.com april fools day competition. You can view that here.

[spilled coffee instructable update]

The voting for my spilled coffee prop/prank has ended on the instructables website and I finished in 6th place out of 96 entries. I think that's pretty awesome. Now the top 10 vote getters and the next top 10 instructables moderators picks get voted on by the people sponsoring the contest. There are 9 prizes being given out, but I think that it's just cool that I was featured on the website and voted in at 6th place by the voting members of instructables.com. What will my next creation be that goes on instructables? Wait and find out.

[bike cart]

Casey wants me to make this and bike our trash to the dumpster instead of driving it.


Bicycle cargo trailer--200 lb capacity, $30 for parts - More DIY How To Projects

[april 1]

[spilled coffee prank/prop] - More DIY How To Projects

[tech]

Who thought even just 10 years ago that we'd be able to record movies on our phone, send it to a friend, or post it online for the world to see. At home, I can watch seasons of TV shows or whole movies, without a DVD, or running lines to the road! I'm typing this blog and publishing it without even having so much as a phone or cable TV line to my house. I don't have satellite TV but can watch shows from the Discovery Channel on my TV. How? Because I'm awesome, and cell phone technology is advancing every single day. I can only imagine how the technology will advance in the years ahead, but when I'm 79 I'm sure I will still be just as amazed at what is being done.

[spring is in the air]

The seeds that we've planted for our garden have officially started sprouting! We've got our porch setup as a pseudo greenhouse with a set of shelves designated for seedlings. I think that we may have jumped the gun just a tad, but anything that we don't have room for inside can get put out into the garden under a row cover. Casey has been wanting a rotating composter, but all
Sam's Club has that is within price range is a stationary composter made out of black recycled plastic. I think it looks good for us, but it's only really appropriate for kitchen scraps and the random brown products that we can throw in from the garden. Otherwise I have a whole corner of the garden dedicated to garden garbage. Hopefully this year we can get some better results from our gardening. Last years garden was kind of a flop, we had good lettuce for a few weeks in the spring, then they bolted. So far this year we have garlic (fall planted) in the garden. Planted in pots on the porch we have a whole variety of peppers, herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, and more.

I'm really excited about getting more blueberry bushes this year. Last year we got two locally propagated bushes from a farm close by and even got a hand full of berries from them the first year that we had them planted. This year I'd like to add about four more.

[spring cleaning]

Last Saturday I spent the better part of my day off cleaning out the garage. There is still some work to be done. However, it's way better than before I had started. You could say that I'm still moving into the garage, and moving out of it. There is a lot of random stuff that either needs to be given away, or thrown away, or even just simply used. I tend to collect stuff, my dad taught me well how to be a pack rat. You never know when something will come in handy. I was able to make a lot of progress just by moving stuff around and emptying all those boxes of "stuff". You know what "stuff" is, the things that just kind of accumulate and don't really belong together. Like computer stuff in the same box as gardening stuff and an anatomy and physiology coloring book. I also filled a rather large box with all of the dried drippings on the floor that come from living off a 1/4 mile drive in the winter. In some spots I couldn't sweep the floor with the broom, I had to shovel it!

Tomorrow the Project of the Day Off is going to be installing a new circuit in the garage for our new chest freezer. If time permits I may simply update all the wiring in the garage with grounded lines. More recently we've been shopping at Sam's Club, and we've got to face the fact that we can't always buy what we need because our refrigerator freezer won't hold it all. It will also give us the opportunity to possibly share a pig or cow or something with Casey's parents in the event that they decide to buy an animal on hoof. It will also be nice to know that we have a place to put any leftovers from the garden that we can't eat right away. Fresh homegrown veggies are great, frozen homegrown veggies are also pretty good too.

[exercise]

I think this February has been the best snow month that I can remember. Not counting loss from snow melting, I'd say that cumulatively we've had at least three feet of snow this month. I am still a little disappointed though. I haven't had the time or energy to get out into it enough to satisfy my love of the white fluffy stuff. Even though we've got some more snow on the way this winter, I'd say that it's time to start getting ready for the rest of the year.

Now that I'm working in Ashland this year, it seems a little more likely that I may be able to ride my bike to work. It's pretty much exactly 8 miles. The distance is doable, its just the hills that may kill me at first. So even though I am enjoying looking at the snow, and look forward to playing in it, I am also looking forward to this spring and being able to get outside and ride the bike, hike, and garden.

I'm also thinking about adding more pictures and videos to the blog. Right now there's probably a lot that I could be adding, but it doesn't seem like it to me. Hopefully once the weather clears out a bit I can start adding more elaborate elements to this site.

[vacation]

This vacation is wearing me out! Tuesday we spent the day in Orlando at Universal Studios. It was a pretty good day of seeing the sights and going on the rides. The only real disappointment for me was that the ride "Disaster" was out of commission. Wednesday we went down to Homasossa Springs and visited Caseys Manatees. That was a pretty good day. Then Today we pretty much laid low and visited the sights around where we were staying. We bought a lot of citrus like Grapefruits, specialized oranges. It's amazing how many orange trees are in Florida!

[winter flying]

Wouldn't you know it, it's snowing again. Ohio seems jealous that we are trying to leave and visit Florida. We haven't had any snow of any significance in the last week or so, but now that we are trying to leave we've got to contend with a snow storm. Since noon it has dropped about an inch or two of snow, effectively closing down the runways until they could brine, or salt them. I don't know how long they were closed, but they just announced that they are starting to land and takeoff more planes. It's the wet and clumpy sort of snow that binds together to make large clumpy flakes as the snow is falling, so it's not really that bad, it is just accumulating more than a really dry snow.

I've never flown during the winter before, at least not when the snow is falling and piling up rapidly. I have to say that it makes me nervous. I do have faith in the flight institution though. Weather simply makes things a little less predictable, and I would imagine a little more difficult to manage.

Well, that's all for now.

[jeep cherokee]

This winter I am especially thankful for having a 4x4 vehicle. This morning for example I had to power through a quarter mile of snow drifts before even getting to the street. It's definately worth having Even if it doesn't get more than 20mpg.

[summer work]

Looks like I'll be joining the ranks of the Camp Mowana Staff this summer! I'm pretty excited to "be back at camp" if you will. I mean, I live here and typically am around during the summer and intermittently throughout the year. However, the last couple of years have been pretty interesting because I am here, but not a real part of what is happening.

I've got some plans for things that I'd like to accomplish, but you never know what will come up at camp. For one, I'd like to do some serious work on the trails that are used routinely. Trails that over the last few years especially have been seeing some major erosion. I'd also like to continue working on the progress that has been made with some of the camps buildings to rejuvenate them. Of course theres all that lawnmowing, weedwacking, woodsplitting, and fixing stuff that breaks randomly. At the least I'll hopefully have some good posts to put up here.

[Mowana]

Today was a pretty full day at camp. I woke up bright and early in anticipation of having to dig out from the major storm that went through. I was right, and quite happy with the amount of snow that we got. Why in the world you ask? Well I'll tell you. I GOT TO PLAY IN IT! Yes, I'm a child at heart, with big boy toys. The 4x4 Cherokee that I have was useful, I got to use the Snowshoes I got last Christmas, and i got some excercise shoveling snow. I won't bore you with all the details of the day, but it took quite a bit of energy to dig out, deliver food to the Retreat Center, and do all the things that needed to be done to make sure that our guests had a good stay. There is an issue with the water at the Retreat Center, so I also got the opportunity to keep going into the utility room and push the series of reset buttons that kept the water running to do dishes and flush toilets. I also took a group on a hike out to the barn so that they could see the new building and animals.

It's only 10 pm right now but I'm exhausted. Theres also the potential for another foot of snow tonight from what our radio weather forecaster said. So I may get to do it all over again tomorrow! Doesn't that sound FUN? Did I mention that after a day of being cold outside for a good part of the day I also get to be cold INside at work tomorrow? RadioShack, please, Please, PLEASE be warm tomorrow!

[spectacular snow]

The snow is certainly falling...

Just before noon when I was on my way to work I drove past a ODOT salt truck sitting in a vacant parking lot waiting for the goahead to start salting the rural route 42. I haven't left work since the snow has started, but we've probably got about an inch or two once it started to stick. I'm definately planning on some major snow tomorrow. I definately like snow more than rain. I think it stems from the fact that rain makes mud, and when the dogs go outside they get all muddy. In the winter everything is frozen and the dogs just track in a little bit of ice and snow that melts and evaporates pretty quickly. It's also neat to see how many animals are in the neighborhood.

[summer garden]

Today it occurred to me that it's time to start thinking about next years garden. Last year we were able to eat a few things out of our garden, but I'll admit that I was a little disappointed with the results. We had salads for a few weeks during the spring, then they started to bolt. We were also able to get a few tomatoes, but that crop got hit by a blight. I had at least five or six varieties, but I only ended up getting a few tomatoes from each plant. My corn was pretty puny, and the raccoons ended up getting into it so I only got a couple ears. My prize pumpkin ended up getting shared with the deer. The only thing I ended up getting any quantity of was the spaghetti squash. Last year we also picked up two small blueberry bushes. They still excite me. This year I am hoping that they will provide us with a little more than a handfull of berries, but I think it takes a couple years for them to become established.

So what am I going to try this year? I'm thinking...
-tomatoes -peppers - winter squash - sunflowers for Casey - lettuce - another blueberry bush or two - cucumbers - beans - melons - carrots - potatoes - flowers - garlic -

I guess from my writing above it sounds like the garden was a failure, but I am looking at last year as conditioning the ground for the garden this year. it was kind of an experimental year to find out what I have to contend with. I am pretty sure that Virgil had a garden there, albeit quite a few years ago. Hopefully now that I have broken the ground and gotten rid of most of the weeds and grass that I had to contend with last year I'll be able to do a little better job at my weeding. I am also Hopeful that the ground this year will be a little less compacted too, so that the roots can get down a little further into the earth for that good ol' nutrition and water.

[low-cost multipurpose minibuilding made with earthbags]

Low-cost Multipurpose Minibuilding Made with Earthbags

The article above is a pretty cool and interesting way of using economic materials that would be otherwise thrown away. It also reminds me of Bilbo Baggins house. It would be the kind of building that I would consider for a garden shed. Even better yet would be a micro-retreat space.

[animal house]

It seems that all of the animals in the neighborhood want to live in our house. Of course being in the country and living in such an old house I would expect to have the occasional mouse infestation. But that isn't even the beginning

Let me start counting what I know has lived in our house... We had a Raccoon family living in the attic above our Kitchen. In 2008 when I started living in the house part time and before any of the remodeling was done I heard banging in the kitchen. there was what appeared to be a growing stain in the corner over the cabinets. I peeled away the paper to see how bad the damage was and guess what, there was already a small hole there behind the paper. only a few days after removing the paper I realized that the hole was quickly getting larger. One night I heard some general banging above the kitchen and walked in just to see a small black hand remove itself from the hole in my ceiling. I don't mind raccoons, but I don't want them living in my attic. That's just no good. I sealed the hole temporarily with the cover of a mildewed encyclopedia that was still left in the house. Later that spring some men from St. Johns Builders came up and did a lot of work on the house including installing a new ceiling in the kitchen since the plaster lathe was so bowed. That summer the gutters on the house were also replaced and those workers graciously blocked the vent that the raccoons had used to enter that attic over the kitchen.

Next, I noticed that we had groundhogs living under the crawl space under the dining room (formerly our living room) Nate dispatched of a couple groundhogs that summer as well. I still have the hole to fill in the foundation, but I haven't noticed any more activity recently.

Last winter we had mice running around our house and they got into our lazy susan pantry, so that needed to be cleaned and sanitized. I used GoodStuff and steel wool to block any cracks and crevices that they may have used, and we haven't had any more problems since that.

About 2-3 months ago when my Jeep was out of commission mice entered and chewed on the crumbs that were on the floor, ate a shirt I had left in there and left lots of black rice everywhere. I set a living trap for them and caught a chipmunk instead. Unfortunately the chipmunk was too strong for that trap and partially was able to remove himself but then got stuck. I thought that he was dead but after I removed him, he started breathing again, and I let him loose next to a pine tree. Later when I checked on him before the dogs got let out, he was gone. I haven't used that live trap in the garage again because I'm afraid of that happening again, so we still have mice in our garage.

Two nights ago I heard some scratching in our walls and investigated to find mice in our crawl space under our kitchen and porch. I used the live trap in the crawl space and successfully caught and released three cute little brown and white field mice. I let them go next to Larry's garage (jk, jk) I let them go in the back corner of the camps property, at least a half mile from any building.

Lastly, the whole reason for me writing all this.... we have a Cardinal that insists that he fly into all the windows on both floors of our house. He REALLY REALLY likes the kitchen window though. I've decided that it must be because Virgil had a feeder that actually attached to that window, and was a concave shape that actually allowed the birds to sit inside the house and eat their food while you watched. I have installed a hanging feeder in another location, but he doesn't seem interested in it at all. *chirp* BANG *chirp* BANG *chirp* BANG *chirp* BANG

[haiti]

I'm really considering going down to Haiti to volunteer. For some unknown reason I've felt pulled (called maybe) to learning about what has happened. There have been quite a few major natural disasters in the last decade that people have taken note of. Hurricanes, Wildfires, Tornados etc... But the Earthquake in Haiti keeps pulling me in.



I think that I have nailed down why. I am trained help. I also speak French . Unless some special provisions have been made to let people volunteer their services without needing a Passport I won't be leaving any time soon. My passport from my year abroad in France has been expired for at least 4 years, and I don't quite know where it's been put so I can't renew it as easily either.

There is quite a lot of work that needs to be done down there. I may or may not end up going down to help, But I'll keep you posted. Pray for Haiti, and keep praying for New Orleans, September 11th families, victims of the Tsunamis, and everyone that is helping with all of these and any other disaster that I did not mention.

[the monsoon shower]

We've been having some water pressure issues in our house since last summer. It started with our toilet not flushing; We have a highly efficient dual flush toilet to conserve our water usage, more on that later. Slowly our water pressure started dropping off while doing dishes, or taking a shower. It has gotten so bad that it was taking so long to fill the dogs water bucket that I knew something had to be bad.

Being one to try and save out landlord (Mowana) some money I decided to try and tinker with the plumbing (since I installed some of it) and see where our water pressure was dropping off. No matter which shutoffs I tried it didn't make any difference in how high or low our water pressure was. The only thing that I noticed is that given a long enough period of time the water pressure would build up and when we turned on the water at a faucet, we'd have good pressure for about ten seconds until the water went down to a trickle.

We called the water softener/well guys and they came out to have a look. Guess what... the pipes leading in from the pressure tank to the first filter in the water softner system were clogged with iron. I don't mean just a lot of buildup in the pipe, I mean enough iron in the pipe so that when you look at it (3/4 inch pipe mind you) there is literally a toothpick sized hole for water to be passing through.

It took a couple of hours for our well guy to cut up our pipes, clean out the ones that couldn't be removed and replace the ones that he cut.

Needless to say, that night when I was taking my shower after cleaning the barn and working with the goats we had great water pressure and plenty of hot water. Casey apparently heard me start the shower and thought that a water pipe had burst in the bathroom. Later she said that she thought that it sounded like a monsoon in our bathroom. I don't think the water pressure in the house has ever been so good.

[lets try this again]

I've got a computer that works with more consistent internet access. I have no specific plans of things to write about, just life.

I do find some interesting things on the internet that I'll probably share. There are a lot of things that I'd like to try, and things that i think are just simply cool. You don't need to check back every day, because it isn't likely that I'll have things on here that often.