A new life; same as the old life?

As regular readers will know, we bought our house, the one we have been living in for almost 3 years, in December of last year. Of course, besides the normal maintenance and cosmetic items that I have been doing for a while now, since we own it, there are bigger more fundamental issues to deal with like the windows we installed in December, the completely unbalanced heating/cooling installation and the tiny crappy kitchen. I started planning the new space, with some walls to be knocked through, bathroom shrinking to a powder room (toilet for my British readers), smaller laundry room, etc. Reasonably complex but nothing horrendous, no supporting walls, etc. However, as these things always do, (especially if there is a wife involved :-) the project potentially had become significantly more complex, possibly tearing out most of an original supporting brick exterior wall, the one that now forms the wall between the dining/kitchen area and the family room. Whilst I saw the logic of the cho...

Update - As we approach the upcoming holiday season, and I excitedly wait for the "Holiday Lite" to come on, I actually got a comment from his other daughter, who's name unfortunately I do not know. She corrected a couple of my errors in writing this post, which I have done below. She also told me sadly that her father had died of cancer, three months after recording this, and as a result was unable to see it's success or receive the award he so richly deserved. Here's what she said: "Thank you for posting this :) ! Actually, my dad, Father Ted Berndt, lost his battle with cancer three months after recording this reading. My sister, Ellen Stout, was a radio personality at WLTQ at the time of the recording. She produced this and accepted the ARI award in Dad's behalf. To be correct, Ellen and Dad recorded this for ALL service people and their families around the world. As always, "Merry Christmas to all, and may God bless you this night" :) ...

The brakes on my truck have been squealing for the past several weeks, and I have been meaning to get around to fixing them. However, I remember how tricky they were on my MGB; so I was kinda procrastinating. I enlisted the help of a friend and we were off; and it was actually very simple. I wanted to get the discs(rotors) reground as well, but they turned out to be too far gone for that, so I bought new ones, at a mere $40 a piece, a snip I thought. I got two sets of middle range pads, and two front discs for $160 all in. Plus, the pads are lifetime, so if they EVER wear down whilst I own the truck, they will replace them. 2.5 hours later, including the trip to the store to buy the parts, no more squeaking, yay!

into this, then this, this, and finally this, This is what the side of the hot tub looked like before,

Q. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why? A. 21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary. Q. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk and why? A. 21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1. Q. Why are his gloves wet? A. His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle. Q. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time; and if not, why not? A. He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb. After his march across the path, he executes an about face and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder. Q. How often are the guards changed? A. Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. Q. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to? A. For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5' 10" and 6' 2" tall and hi...

There is a fabulous commercial for Pepsi Max , which has the tag line, "real men can take anything except the taste of diet cola." Well this weekend, I found out just how true that can be, although I prefer Coke Zero to Pepsi products :-) Attached are several pictures of my finger, post table saw mash up. I was building my bar for the family room, and whilst ripping a piece of stud lumber to width, the wood kicked, fingers slipped, and the rest as they say is history. Click here for more pictures.