Friday night quickie

It's  Friday, the workweek is over. Go do something. Why are you on the computer reading this?
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blog every night...

or that's what they tell me. I forgot to mention that yesterday I finally got my really cool map hung up. I found this on the web at a place called raven maps http://www.ravenmaps.com/ It's extremely cool, colored to represent elevation, it looks almost 3D. It's huge, at 37 by 58 inches, the scale is 1" to 50 miles. I got it framed yeasterday and hung it in my office to the right on my desk. I can look at it without even turning around! I wish I could have it at home, but our house is an "open floorplan" and we just don't have any walls that big. The maps looks like this:

So that was yesterday. Today I started taking my Epson 7000 apart to see if I coluld fix it. It's a really old 24 inch roll feed color printer, I want to use it to print vacation and car pictures to hang in my office and at home in my den. More progress on that tomorrow.

I took the vette home today. she's advertised on craigslist and autotrader, so I figured I'd wash her down inside and out and detail her real nice and fix / tighten a few things. So I got the pull handle reattached to the screen that covers behind the seats and started vacuuming. Well, I whacked my bad thumb on something hard enough to knock off half the scab!!! OUCH!!! THAT HURTS!!! Call me wimp, but I packed it in and went upstairs.

I found some tutorials on Microsoft Expressions web designer, so I'm trying to learn that so I can re-design and add to my webpage. BTW, my webpage is http://www.jimragtop.com/ It's all about my car, but it's very very old. I need to redo it to add n ew stuff on the car, and I want to put sections in for our travels, and also a section for this house.

Did I mention I live in a REALLY COOL HOUSE?
Hmmm, I'm annoyed. The house pics are on my wife's computer, which I cannot seem to access from my laptop. I think I'll go get em copying to the server,which I can access, while she's down in the backporch smoking. When she comes back, she'll say "Why's my computer dogging so bad?"
and I'll deny any knowledge. :)

ok cool, gottem. Our house is what's called a "Timber Frame." It's kinda built like a barn or an old fashioned church. The framing is heavy timber, joined with mortise and tenon joints secured by hardwood pags. The frame is then skinned to form the shell, but the frame remains totally exposed on the inside of the home. Here's a pic of the main frame for the great room in all it's naked glory.

If you are counting, that structure is mostly made of 7 by 11 inch lumber. Some is bigger, the bigest peices are 7 by 13 inches. The longest is 24 feet. The room defined by that frame is 55 feet long, 24 feet wide, and 24 feet tall. It's one big open room in the finished house, containing the living room, dining room, and kitchen.
When installed, that was 60,000 pounds of oak.

There is not a single metal fastener in that structure.
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shopping

tonight I'm shopping. The eastern slope of the rockies looks like a really cool place to be. Awesome scenery, big city nearby, very cool.

K found one, you can buy a 35 acre mountain top 15 miles from denver for $400,000!
Found a bunch of others that look cool. one 4 acre property off i70 north of evergreen that looks specially cool for running a business.

These places are right next to Denver, yet they are way out in the country, in the forest, in the mountains.
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So... what's the point?

This page was intended to discuss my current need to be somewhere else, to remake my existence in another place. My wife thinks I'm having a mid life crisis, she is calling it "manopause."

Really though, that's not it.

Part of the problem with writing this is so far it's mostly people I know who are reading it. They know (as do I ) how good I have it, how little I have to complain about, how much we have been blessed. Still, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of paying the interest  on  3/4 mil of mortgage debt. I'm tired of trying to keep a 4000-sf home clean. Tired of weeding seemingly endless perenial gardens. Tired of getting what's left over after paying my employees. Heck, I'm tired of having employees. 

And I'm really really tired of living in the flatlands. Corn on the right, beans on the left. Smack dab in the middle of the nations breadbasket, highest landmarks are trees and buildings.

I need to be nearer to the mountains. The outdoors. Something other than endless flat lands.

I need to simplfy my life. I need my wife, my kids, my Camaro and my motorhome. A much smaller house with a much bigger shop. LOTS more leisure time, lots more family time. And some good friends to share it with. The rest of it, well can I be done now?
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Court of HONOR.

Hey Hey, I did make it back in time!!!

In case you've missed it, my youngest son Brian is 12 and in sixth grade. He is a proud member of Troop 40, Boy Scouts of America, located inyorkville, Illinois, and sponsored by our local American Legion Post.

All my boys were Cub Scouts, Brian is the first to stick with it this far. He tells me he will get his Eagle, I'll be the proudest Dad in the world if he does. In the meantime, I'll be the proudest Dad in the world anyway.

Scouting is really wonderful stuff. Troop 40 is very into it and has a great group of families. To see the older boys, 16 and 17 YO's, who have stuck with it, is truly awe-inspiring. These are some serious good kids. Aware and intellegent, into the outdoors, not afraid of a hard days work, and happy to help the younger scouts and proud to be their example. While their peers are doing drugs, ditching school and getting in trouble, these boys are living these words:

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

Several times a year They hold a "court of honor." Achievements are recognised, and merit badges and rank advancements are awarded. This was the first court of honor where Brian was recognised. He got a double rank advancement, earning both his scout and tenderfoot badge. He was one of 2 boys in his year to do so, many of the other nine who joined the troop last February, have not even earned thier scout badge yet. He also got 2 patches for a campout and summer camp.

Again, I am very proud of my son.

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Good Morning from the UP!!

I think. This eastern time kinda sucks at  first. But the bed was ok, the alarm went off, and the shower was great. Actually had water pressure. Lots. Hot  too.

The coffee is down the hall, but also very good.

So as soon as I hit post, I'm out the door and off to the  "Hoegh Pet Casket Company" in Gladstone, MI.  Yes, there really is such a place, and they really do make pet caskets and ship them worldwide. I'll try to get a pic friom my phone. The warehouse is kinda creepy, endless 20 foot tall stacks on miniature caskets!!!

ttfn
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Annoying weekend

I'm up here in the econolodge in escanaba michigan. Had to give up a quarter of my weekend to be ready to work up here tomorrow morning. Just the last straw in an otherwise mostly annoying weekend.

But first, a thumb update.

Saturday I took the bus to the nearest dump station, at this nasty old campgound outside of yorkville. That was my first mistake. Second was not taking a minute to wipe the rain off the backup camera...

Wait for it...

Yup, you guessed it, I backed the damned bus into a bulldozer trying to get close to the dump hole because I couldn't see because I was lazy. Actually it was a loader, one of those big ones that bend in the middle and have a buckt 10 feet wide and tires 5 feet tall. There really needs to be something stronger on the ends of the bus besides fiberglass.

On the good side, I did get the smurf doors finished Friday night.

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technically challenged commenters?

I did set it to allow "anonomous" but you don't want to do that cause I won't know who you are...

Select NAME / URL and just leave the url blank.
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Long day.

I had a lot to say tonight, but I'm just too damned tired, it's been a busy day. I took a bunch of pics, but am too lazy to resize em and post em. I did finish the smurf doors. I did take a new thumb pic. I did not injure myself on any power tools today. I'll post more tomorrow, but for now, I wanna read Team Camaro and rv.net, and go to bed.

Oh yea, I changed the setting so you do not have to log into google to comment, so let's hear from you!!!
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Good Morning world!!!

It's cold and rainy, but at least it's SATURDAY!!!
I slept late, till almost 8, so now I gotta get to it, get dressed and start working on those smurf doors. Busy busy day planned today.

Almost forgot, yesterday we listed Carol's studio for sale. Kind of a bittersweet thing. We just can't afford to keep it, but we (especially she) love the place, it's a very cool house and property. It could be a long time before it sells, but still it's the first step in winding things down and moving to Denver!

I had the WEIRDEST dream last night. I dreamed Danielle was getting married! In the backyard. It wasn't my backyard here, but yet it felt like home. Mark and I were working on a Camaro (it wasn't mine or his, but it "felt like mine") in the garage while everyone was getting ready. The property was full of decorations and people, and Sandra and Carol were flying around helping Danielle get ready. She was maybe 20 in the dream, and she looked totally beautiful. Her beau was a canadian guy her age. I woke up just as the ceremony was starting. It was all very weird.

Ever since I used Chantrix to quit smoking, I've had vivid dreams and remembered them. I quit over a year ago, and only took chantrix for a month, but the dreams keep coming, once a week maybe? I like the dreams, but at this point it's kinda like an acid flashback!!! I never used to remember my dreams, they would fade out within minutes of waking up.

Happy Saturday!
Jim
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Canada is another country.

Someday soon, I'm gonna take some time and talk about the real premise of this blog, why I am taking the time to write it. But not tonight. It's late, I'm tired, and I forgot the good laptop at work, so I got no pictures and I hate the keyboard.

So a quick life update. I took the bus home, hoping to get her winterized and parked in the barn for the winter. No, not my barn, I rent part of it for storage.

I put 2 coats of poly on the second side of the smurf doors, so a lil sanding and one more coat on each side and they are done.

And for today's topic. Us ugly Americans really do need to remember that Canada is another country. A real country, not just that vacation resort up north of here. They have poeple there who call themselves Canadians (imagine that!) They're a lot like us. Even to the point that they love their country, just as we love ours.

So, when I ask my friends to pitch it all and join us and ours to carve out a new cooler life somplace else, doing what we always wanted to do rather than whatever livelyhood we happened to fall into, I REALLY need to be aware of exactly what I'm saying. This is not like running down to the local convenience store.
For some, Denver is not just a place, it's another country.
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Boboli!!!

Years ago, we used to make home made pizza's using Boboli crusts at least twice a month. We'd all get together in the litchen and make out own pizza. Then Brian went into his "I don't like pizza" phase, and the past few years we've skipped the Boboli.

The past month or so, Brian hads again become willing to eat store bought pizza, and today when I said "we're making Boboli, what do you want on yours?" He said "peperoni!"

So we all gathered around the kitchen counter and made us some fine pizza pies.

That was some FINE EATIN!!!
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New toneau cover!!!

When I first bought my truck in 04, I fixed her up with a BedRug Bed liner, a set of black chrome bed rails (don't recall the manufacturer) and a Toneaumasters rollup toneau.

The BedRug is fabulous, 5 years and 140000 miles, still looks like new, sweeps clean with a broom always, and the trucks bed underneath it looks like it never left the dealer.

The rails are still there, and serve their purpose of providing a solid attachment point for cargo tie downs. The black chrome faded the first winter and looks like crap, but it hasn't gotten any worse. Next time will get em powdercoated.

The toneau died about a year ago :( After getting caught in the rain last week with some expensive cargo that it woulda covered, I ordered a new one. Toneamasters seems to be out of business, so this one is a Genesis by Lund. It's the same style, rollup black vinyl, the bows roll up with the cover, it pops into spring loaded latches in the rear and the sides secure with velcro.

Installation is cake, took less than an hour, even with only one useable thumb.

The rails go on first, they clamp to the sides of the bed with those 3 clamps.

They look like this when they are on, you can barely tell they are there. The strap is the release to unlatch it.

The front bow comes with the rolled up cover attached. It secures to the side rails with 2 bolts. and that's it, all done.

I like this type of cover. Smooth and clean when  it's on, and east as sin to roll up out of the way. I use my truck for work and have occasion to carry some pretty big loads. Thos fancy hard covers won't work for me at all, and the snap ons, while cheap, are a pain in the neck. These rollups are highly recommended.

If you look close, you'll see this is a Silverado SS.

It's an 04, when they still had all wheel drive, 4 wheel disk brakes, and 4.11 gears. They took a standard silverado 1500, and put a complete escalade drivetrain in it, along with an upscale Tahoe LT interior, leather seats, bose stereo, the works.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I like my truck. 136,000 miles since november of 2003, heck that's 6 years ago! She's on her second set of tires brakes and shocks, and I had to change one front hub. Everything else but oil and filters is still original. and she still goes like a bat out of hell, and will flash the tach over 6k at the touch of a toe on the go pedal.

The thumb is still there. Covered in hard scabby stuff. Hurts a bit still. Healing I think. No pic today.

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Tieing up the loose ends

After a bunch of short posts these last few busy days, let's tie up the loose ends.

We had a great lil b-day party for Brian, live on webcam of course. He got a bunch of cool presents including a werewolf costume and a new bike. The cake looked like Scooby-Doo, and I had 3 pieces. Our friends in BC-CA watched on Webcam, and Danielle called me, and Brian got to talk to Shelby for a while.

I'd mentioned yesterday that I went on a field trip with Brian's class. I am after all the official "field trip Dad" and I go on most. Here's a few pictures from yesterday.

Yes, we really did bury Tory in the corn.

And yes, Danielle did get her braces on today. It's ok sweety, they won't be there forever, and I still love your beautiful smile!

And finally, here's today's thumb update

A tough pic to take, by myself on a cel phone. Not focused very well I'm afraid, sorry. I've left it open the last couple days, and it's pretty much covered over with hard black stuff. I'm still not sure of it's better to put a bandaid on or  leave it open. If it's covered, all the hard black stuff goes away, and it just looks raw and gross.

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Brian's Birthday!!

Our lil Brian is TWELVE today!!!
Their makin us crazy wanting to do presents, so more later.
Here's a pic of the birthday boy

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Braces?

Today was a great day!
I joined my son Brian (11) and his class for a field trip. We went to a autumn thing, got lost in a corn maze, burried a lil girl in corn kernels, had some great fun!

My friend Danielle is goin g for braces today, I'll need to call her, and also to get an "after" picture.
Here's a good before pic:

Well, I remembered wrong, it's tomorrow. I'll call anyway.

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Sunday Night continued...

The pizza was good, and I got that first pair of smurf doors up. Those lil toy closets in the "billiard room" have been door free for nine years. Now the left side is done, and tomorrow I'll get to staining and varnishing the pair for the left. Thanks to my good friend Rob for making them.

It was good to make a lil run in the Camaro. Been awhile. No, it's not too cold to have the top down.

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Back from IOWA!

And my first favorite niece Cheryl in now a MISSUS!!!
Can you imagne such a thing, I mean "how'da thunk it?"

Since "I" am not getting old, how could "The Next Generation" be "mature" enough to marry?

It was a GREAT WEEKEND. Those of us who refuse to be old partied late Friday night, some were even doing shots of Jose Quervo. Jose went down smooth, too. I'll maybe have more on the weekend, perhaps with pics, later or some other time.

As usual, I'm busy as hell. How do "Professional Bloggers" with thousands of readers and sponsors and ads out the yingyang, people who are nowhere near as whitty or articulate as "yours truly" find the time?
I think they must be closet couch potatoes.

So, in a few minutes, I'ma gonna cruise my ole Camaro Convertible out to cop some pizza. (pic of Camaro here):

After dinner, I'll be in the "billiard room" putting up the first pair of smurf doors.

The webcam will be on, so if you want to see what a smurf door is, login at htto://www.Jimragtop.com:12000
Username team p/w camaro
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quickie today

Well, I missed yesterday, I took a thumb update in the orning but never got it posted...lol.

But Hey, that's because it's a very busy and very special weekend!

Cheryl is getting married, and the whole family has travelled to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to enjoy the festivities. Cheryl is our oldest neice, and the first of her generation to marry. Last night we partied pretty hard, some perhaps a little too hard. My wife has all ready  told the entire hotel all the details, so if you're interested, ask them.
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Birthday wish?

For my birthday, I'd like one or two stools so I'd have something to sit on in my mancave.
You know the ones, bar height, black leather swivel seats, either a nascar, NHRA, or craftsman theme.

Ya see, it went like this... You remember those doors from yesterday, right? I use varathane water based poly on all my woodwork (ding ding!) The first 2 coats  kinda build a base, but they also raise the grain a bunch. So then I smooth em out with some 00 steel wool before putting on the final coat.

That's where I am now. I just finished rubbing on both sides of door one. Without being able to switch hands (see  previous posts for info regarding unintended collision between thumb and table saw blade) it gets kind of tiring. So I go in the house to sit for a few, and babble-boy-Brian, who's at the dining room table doing homework while watching TV starts babbling at me about some TV show.

The only way to stop this and get him back on homework is to exit.
So here I am with my laptop out in the mancave, with nothing to sit on.

The webcam is on. More comments is you wanna know the password. Help me out here, I know this blog is new, but still, I don't wanna feel like I'm typing to myself.

OK, back to work.

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Almost Friday...

I just thought I'd pop in a quick thumb update before I head to work.
It's looking kinda juicy around the edges this morning. No sign of infection, so that's good.

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Happy Wednesday!

Hi all, and Happy Wednesday!

First, a thumb update. As you may recall, my right thumb had an incident involving a table saw last Thursday mornig.
Well, I've left it open since yesterday morning, and it's all congealing nicely. Scabbing over, more or less.
Here's the pic:

The last few days I've been working hard on some doors. I got 4 of the 6 sealed and stained a few days ago, and today I got 2 coast of poly on both sides of all four. Tomorrow hopefully, I'll sand em smooth and put a finish coat on one side, so they'll be almost done.
My wife is always after me for "never finishing a prooject..." well, the 4 smurf doors will finish off the basement billiard room, and the 2 closet doors (see pic above) will almost finish off the guest room.

See the cute lil mini closets, that's where the 50" tall "smurf doors" go. Those openings have been open since we built the house...
9 years ago. 'Bout time I got that done.

I broke down and ordered new back tires for the vette today. She's been laid up since May, I got a small hole in a sidewall, tires were worn out anyway. I do need to sell the car, anyone needs a 1993 Corvette, let me know. 96k, dark green, tan interior, all the options, automatic trans, glass removable roof, 26+ MPG on the highway, new back tires. $11,000, emaill jimm1968@att.net

Again, this fine car is for sale, for 11k. These late C4's are really fine cars, they ride good, have great power, you can drive em every day (I have, really, except in snow) If you keep a light foot, she'll give you great mileage, even around town it's rarely below 20 mpg. And of course she's still a Corvette. Great looks and handling, 300 horse LT1 small block under the hood. Goes like stink when you put your foot in hard. Email me at jimm1968@att.net for ore info.

Last thing for today, had some weirdness with the motorhome. The battery's like to get "light" after a while, even though I always hit the disconnects, so today I went out to check things. Chassis battery was completely dead (expected after sitting since labor day) and the house battery had just enough ooomph left to get the genset cranked up.
I figured I'd turn on the furnaces and heat her up a bit, I'm worried about the plumbing, haven't winterized yet. The furnaces didn't go. The propane detector was chirping, I reset it, still chirping. Light for "propane on" was lit, it wasn't screaming, just giving a chirp every once ina while. Furnaces did not go at all. Stove would light fine. Water heater did not. Plenty of power with the genny going. Gonna hafta work on that soon . Also gonna hafta winterize the plumbing and find a place to park her for the winter. Sadly, camping season is done.

Wife says if I want people to read this I gotta be funny. Wuts funnier than sticking your thumb in a power saw?
check out my webcam at http://www.jimragtop.com:12000/ If you comment, maybe tomorrow I'll tell you the password.
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Tuesday....

Hi all, and happy Tuesday.

First, a thumb update. Here's a pic from the morning of the tenth

Someday I'll  figure out how to format this thing, in the meantime, sorry...

I've been bandaging the thumb over night, and when I  get up it's all raw and puffy like in the pic above. Then I leave it exposed all day, and it gets all crusty and blackish like the pic below.

And here's the offending power tool, wicked, isn't it?

Carol just got back. She went to Dekalb to visit our oldest son... He's in jail. Being held in lieu of bond, charged with breaking into people's cars and stealing their stuff, to get money to buy drugs no doubt.

That's really all I want to say about that right now. He's been out of my house for a while now, and he's not coming back. We're not bailing him out. I'll never understand mothers... Jake can still get to Carol, He causes her such pain that I bleed inside for her. But I won't bend, I  just won't. We've heard all this before. We've been talked into bailing him out before. He's promised to stay away from his worthless friends and quit ruining his life with drugs, before.  A buncha times. No More.
This time he has to fix himself.

I REALLY want to move to Colorado. That mountainside is looking really good right now. Carol (my wife) is scared to death, she thinks I've lost my mind. In an ideal world, Mark and Sandra would join us. We'd make a living building cars and "improving" motorhomes. We'd travel. We'd raise our kids way better than the world we're attached to  lets us now. That's gonna be a tough sell though. They've always just collected a paycheck. And their from another country after all. It's a lot to ask, and I can't push. My golden goose in Chicago is dying. But I know I can do it again. It sure would be nice to have some more help though.
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Mark and Sandra's visit

Moved from the old blog, originally posted last Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009

For the first time I can remember, I've done nothing on a Saturday.
From 10AM to now, I've just done nothing.
Exhausted. I can just imagine how Mark and Sandra feel.

This started last week when Mark .L.W asked me to look at a car for him. The car checked out, and I borrowed a trailer and brought her home.

She's a 78 Camaro, backhalved, tube chassis and full cage, certified for 8.50, and including a dana 60 / four link setup and some monster hoosier slicks.





And Mark and Sandra started talking about a marathon drive from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to yorkville, IL to pick the beast up.
This being Canada's Thanksgiving weekend, they snatched a couple extra days off, hooked the trailer to the pickup, and hit the road.

Meanwhile, it was decided by my better half that since we were having guests, we had to have a guestroom.

So we got to work cleaning out Brians old room, painting it, p;utting down the hardwood flooring, wall paper border, and quick buying a bed, bedding, and curtains.

This all went pretty well, except for that small incident Thursday morning when I knida got my thumb too close to the table saw blade while ripping the last row of hardwood floor. Nasty business, but I'll survive.



So Thursday afternoon, Mark and Sandra clattered into my driveway.

It was kinda funny. I'm checking my watch after the last phone call, looking out the front window... Finally, I call him again, and ask :didja get lost or something, u should be here?" And he says "Look out the kitchen window, we're in your back driveway!"

So Thursday we hang around here, Mark washes both our trucks, while I stand around with my thumb bandaged and leaking all over. Carol fixed a lasagna for dinner, and we all get to catch up a bit. After all, it's been almost 3 months since our west coast vacation together.





Friday, we got the car and all the parts secured and loaded, and around 1:00 we took off to show our friends the great city of Chicago.

We had lunch at Portillo's, and then drove downtown on Archer Avenue. we drove around Midway Airport, and through Chinatown, finally heading north up Lakeshore Drive.

We did a brief stop out by the Adler Planetarium, great skyline views there, but the wind was blowing hard off the lake so we didn't stay long.

Next we parked by Illinois Center and walked into Millenium park to check out the bean.

After that it was off to That Great Street, State street, and into the store I still call Marshall Fields, in spite of all the new Macy's signs.

It was still raining pretty hard so we drove up to Water Tower Place and found some parking. We didn't get too much time there, but the rain did stop so we decided to hoof it to the resturant.

After fabulous Ruth's Chris steaks with all the trimmings, we went outside to find the weather had mellowed considerably. We walked back downtown to see Buckingham fountain put on the hourly showw. At the same time, we could see the fireworks at Navy Pier too.

That 2 mile walk back to the car helped get dinner processing properly, and we didn't stay up talking past midnight.











And finally, around 10 AM Saturday morning, our good friends saddled up and headed west for Canada.

Mark and Sandra, have a safe trip back. Thanks for coming to visit!

Due to popular demand, here is the thumb.

It's actually healing nicely, I left the bandage off most of the afternoon/evening, and it's getting crusty and not oozing anymore.

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