Headin' Back Toward Knoxtown

Tired Success...


While I was busy doing stuff like this (see earlier photos)...






I didn't even have time to use this...




or this...




All of the above, located here...




At least the place looked nice when I was finished. Time now to do a little reading, packing, and load up the Turbo Pup's lockers and Sea Cheasts and hit the road north I guess.

Wish us a safe trip Y'all...if you will...

Minnie The Moocher

Hard To Believe It's Been THIRTY FIFTY EIGHT YEARS...

I was googling around during a break this afternoon and found this video of a young Cab Calloway and his orchestra doing "Minnie the Moocher" like he did in 1980 with "The Blues Brothers."



Youtube has disabled the embed code for the version from the Blues Brother movie but you can go here to watch Belushi's and Aykroyd's antics...

Time to get back outside and put the tools away and cook dinner...free at last...

Progress

I'm Tired...


I think that my title and subtitle say it all, and I guess that I'll leave things at that for now.

Time to spend a little time reading the news and blogs before hitting the yard again this morning.

Regards Y'all...

Before Photos

Not Bad After 23 Years Of Sub-Tropical Weather...


Here's a look at this week's rebuild/renovation project down here in Lower Alabama, the 3' wide x 75' long dock leading out across "Lake Lee" (named for my Mother's Mother) to a 20' six sided Gazebo.

And here's a close up of the Gazebo my Father built back around 1986/1987 while he was "retired" from his day job as an Electronic Engineer:

Based on my experience today prying up warped and rotten/unsafe lumber suffering from exposure from the elements, I say that no one building a project of this scope and difficulty (that would be my dear deceased Father) could ever have been considered to be "retired."

Today I had to "retire" during Phase One of my efforts after only about 4 hours, and if I get another 4 hours of time in Wednesday I'll be impressed, but probably not finished with the current scope of work...and I'm just doing a partial replacement of about a third--the current unsafe portion--of the pressure treated decking and all of the top handrail lumber members.

The idea is to make things safe over the next year or so as I come back down and continue the rennovation process every four to six months as an onging project.

Any way, somebody send up a flare and call 911 if you don't hear from me in the next 24 hours...

Sawing & Nailing

Measure Twice...Cut Once...


I'm too busy to blog?

I guess that's true every now and then.

I'll try to do better tonight.

Regards Y'all...

Farm Hand

Project List Progress


Well, it looks like I'm gonna be a busy bee this week. At least the weather is going to be agreeable for a change.

It usually rains three or four days out of every week I spend down here trying to get some work done. Not so this week according to the current forecast.

I've already replaced the battery in the old Mazda pickup and put new wiper blades on the car, and after lunch we're heading over to the local lumber yard for a pile of wood.

In addition to a couple of hundred square feet of deck lumber and 132' feet of handrail to repair/rebuild, the tasks have grown to include the following:

A. Rebuild the cutter head on a 6 HP electric start string trimmer mower
B. Service all of the other lawn equipment including a 20 hp lawn tractor and a push mower and God knows what else.
C. Use aforementioned mowers and tools to cut the highway right of way around the driveway.
D. Prune the shrubbery encroaching on about 50 yards of driveway.
E. Rebuild a couple of broken sections of board fence destroyed by fallen pine trees.

...and on and on and so on...you get the drift of the situation.

I wish I was thirty years old again rather than nearly fifty one, but since I have a five or six day window I should be able to get through most of the list...as long is it doesn't grow any longer in the process.

Historically something else breaks while I'm doing whatever I'm doing so I have to stop and go buy parts and spend a half day fixing whatever's getting in the way of progress.

Time to hit the lumber yard I guess...y'all have a LOVELY afternoon...and feel free to stop if you have some spare time and feel like doing some mowing or something.

VP Biden Gives Away MY Money To Spain?

The Insanity Continues...

Is it only me that understands that the US of "By-God" 'Merica is basically going BROKE these days?

No...wait...I seem to recall reading something to that effect on some blogs here on the Internet and hearing similar assertions on some of the programs on FOX News.

And for some reason I think I've heard that President Obamarama and the Obamamaniacs have commissioned something called a "Debt Commission" to address our government's prolific spending.

Then I read this article in "The Hill" saying that this week we had packed VP Biden's stupid bumbling ass off to Europe to do guess what???

Vice President Joseph Biden on Saturday addressed the press with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and pledged the U.S. would support efforts to stem the financial crisis that has befallen Greece and potentially other countries within the European Union.

“We agreed on the importance of a resolute European action to strengthen the European economy and to build confidence in the markets,” Biden said. “And I conveyed the support of the United States of America toward those efforts and was pleased to hear the efforts that were under way on the part of the president.”

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have pledged $145 billion to bail out the country of Greece, which has recently become overwhelmed with debt. The U.S. is the largest contributor to the IMF.

Just like our government spending with the United Nations (something I totally disagree with), this latest round of taxpayer funded bailout of people who generally thumb their noses at us and hate us is TOTAL UNMITIGATED BULLSHIT...

Go here and look at how much of our/your money goes to the IMF this year...or more accurately, the percentage of the IMF funding that the US of A is on the hook for giving the these socialist bastards so they can continue to lead us down the path to a similar destruction as Greece is enduring right now.

Try SEVENTEEN PERCENT (actually 17.09%)?

With Japan a distant second at 6.12 percent.

In a world full of hundreds of sovereign independent nations, who in the %$#@ came up with these funding rules???

...that you and I and your grandmother and great aunt Emma here in the US handle the bulk of the costs while everybody else has their heads stuck up into their neither regions flipping us the middle finger and telling us what we're doing wrong all day?

I'm not sorry, but I have to go get in the car now after drying my head off from sticking it into a bucket of ice water. If I think about this crap for two minutes longer my head will explode...

Live From The Edge Of The Oil Spill...

Everybody On The Gulf Coast Says "Hey"...


Well, we managed to make the epic trip from Eastern Tennessee all the way down to Ft. Walton Beach yesterday in less than ten hours, including a brief stop at the farm to pick up Mom in the process.

We're visiting our near 90 year old "Uncle John" and his family at lunch today for a while before turning around and heading back to lower Alabama for the balance of the week.

Then I have to put on my "yard shoes" and get busy.

If anyone thinks owning and/or being responsible for a HOUSE is a lot of work...try owning part of a seven acre lake and a giant piece of property surrounding said body of water...near 70 acres...

There is something dead or dieing or blooming or falling or giving birth or breaking or needing raking or mowing or chopping or clipping or WHATEVER...all the time every day 365 days each year.

Most of the time all I can do working from long distance is cheer my mother and cousins on in the process and help keep the big things from falling down or over in the three plus weeks of time I get to spend there on average each year.

I can basically work all day every day I visit and there's still a list of things which have to be put off until "next time."

This trip the task du jour is several hundred feet of wooden walkway/dock on the lake, some of which needs new pressure treated lumber after 23 years of service. I brought my big pneumatic framing nailer which will simplify installing the new boards, but I dread prying and beating the old lumber up off the framing and pulling all of the old rusty 16 D nails out of everything.

So now it's time to do a little Internet reading to catch up on what's going on in the world, grab some breakfast, and maybe wander over to the beach for a few minutes.

Y'all have a LOVELY Mother's Day Sunday...if you will...