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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