Yes, I’m behind - way behind. I really didn’t want to post anything till we got that stupid driveway finished. Then I got busy in other projects and never got around to dumping the camera. But here we are, a post to conclude the concrete project!

The weather had been pretty wet all week, with the weekend looking like it was going to be pretty bad too. But the concrete had been scheduled, and we weren’t going to get it done, and since the weather looked pretty bad everyone was canceling their appointments for concrete. Is that a bad sign or what?

But let’s recap a little, a few weeks ago I had gotten it framed in. There were a few issues, but we worked it out. Then we had the gravel delivered and I set about smoothing it out. It also happened to be like one of the hottest days of the year (not last Saturday, but the one before) and I just about fell over in a gooey pile of nastiness. But I recovered and got it all fixed up.

Posted in Do It Yourself, Family, House and Garden, Saturday Recap 2 Comments »

It’s Saturday again (well as I sit and write this it’s past Saturday), and what did we find ourselves doing? That’s right, if you’re any sort of regular here - you know it’s just another work day (I’ll fight liking it till I die I think).

This Satuday, I was tasked with framing in the cement pad - no biggie, I’ve done it before (and I would have linked to a post about it, if I hadn’t lost everything earlier this year).

My father in law dropped off some 2×4s and metal stakes to set it up. So I started getting everything in place by measuring 20ft from the sidewalk - marking it and then measured from the drive way 8ft.

Posted in Do It Yourself, Family, House and Garden, Saturday Recap 2 Comments »

It’s Saturday again, and we all know what that means around my house - well what it means when the weather is nice.

It’s project time!

We started out knowing we needed to goto Lowes (trip 1) for some supplies. We got some fertilizer for the lawn, some paint brushes, various other little things. We also decided that since our ~7 year old craftsman screw gun has failed (I suspect the batteries) we better get a new - enter Karma (round 1).

There just happened to be a sign by the power tools that read something to the effect “Power Tool and Pneumatic combos 20% off”. My wife and I figured this would be great to help get us into a new one. So we grabbed one of these off the shelf. A WH12DAF2 12V Cordless Impact Driver. Which I thought was the right tool for the job.

Posted in Family, General 4 Comments »

The other day we were out tearing down our old gate so we could rebuild it and get it to actually open and close without too much trouble.

Some how after I got the bolts out holding the gate up, I got tasked with watching the little girl (Sydney), but she wanted to ride on her little trike, so I went about rummaging through the garage to see what my parents had left when they moved. They dumped gave a lot of stuff to us so they could lighten their load during the move.

Well as I was going through, I found an old helmet that had always been a favorite of mine as a kid. It’s a middle eastern type (I only know this because it has some Arabic writing on it). It has a large spike on top and what looks like two feather holders one on each side. It also has some chain mail to protect the sides and back of the wearer’s neck.

Posted in Family 2 Comments »

I remember when I was a kid coming across art work that my mom had done and was really impressed with her work. As I got older I did my own thing, but as I moved out of high school and in to young adult hood I started giving up my artistic pastime. I’m made some strides to get back into it, but it’s more through photography and design then actual sit down and draw something art. I still from time to time draw (according to my wife and kids) fantastic sketches on Sydney’s Barbie magna doodle.

But more recently, we’ve been sending our boys to a local artist for classes. They both love to draw, and have been doing stuff for years and my wife thought it would be good for them to actually learn proper techniques and how to do things and whatnot.

Posted in Family 4 Comments »