Too much work!

Well after a week of sudden hard work, I was done. Today I took as truly the day of rest. Hope to be back at it again tomorrow.

Measure thrice, cut once!

Today Morgan and I woke up to clear skies and sunshine. I made us my world famous pancake, egg, and sausage breakfast. Then we sharpened a pencil and broke out the tape measure and level. This was were the fun began. We threw around different options of heights, depths, and relationships, attempted to figure out a schedule, and even made the remodel more complicated. With a baby on the way, I better get working. So this picture is one of the last you will see of the old bathroom. Stay tuned for changes to come.

Rained all day Today!

Got rid of a bunch of concrete at Sunrise Excavating today. Tired, hitting the hay.

Clean Shave!

Today I was accused of being long-winded on my blog. I like to tell stories and they happen to become long; what can I say. So this is my razor, I shaved today, nicked myself a half a dozen times, baby smooth here and there, liked it. Goodnight.

Sewer repair.

Today I spent eight hours on a mini excavator digging up my whole backyard. I have ditches and holes everywhere. There is roughly 160 feet of ditches ranging from 2 feet to just over 3 feet deep. I have dug the ditch from next to the house all the way straight back to the fence in the alley. This will house my sewer line. I also dug a ditch for power to the garage and for gas to the house. And if ditches were not enough I had 12 tree stumps to remove, one concreted in pole, two concreted in fence posts, and about 15 feet of retaining wall. The trees varied from the ones that I could have kicked out to some real buggers. The last one was a old walnut tree with a stump showing roughly 18” in diameter. This one took several sawzalling attempts at some tree sized roots and a bunch of prying with the bucket. It finally came out and then it was so big I almost got the tractor stuck in place because of it! I also took out the pole that the satellite dish was on; so no tv. But before I took the dish off the pole I took its bearing with my built in electronic compass in my fancy watch. When I pulled the cap off the fence and stuck it up there, I took a reading and lined it up, went inside and to my amassment the satellite worked! Well eight hours on the tractor was probably worth over a hundred or two digging by hand; not to mention I am not soar. Definitely worth it!

Digging to China!

Today I started digging my sewer drain line. I dug for a few hours and saw the kayos first hand of our sewer line. When we bought our home we were required to get a video view of our sewer line to purchase the house. When we watched it, it seemed to snake all over the place out towards the ally. Well it does. It runs right, left, right, right, and who knows where. Luckily I am replacing it; this is just waiting to clog. It is all the old Orangeburg pipe (also known as "fiber conduit"). Back before we bought the house the previous owners hired some people to put a new drain line in; but apparently they did not go that far. So after a few hours of digging, Morgan and I decided that we will be renting a small excavator tomorrow and I will be digging all day. Thank God for heavy equipment.

BMX?

Today I laced up my first bmx bicycle wheel. I had heard that a friend of mine had destroyed his back wheel on his bmx bike. His old rim was black with black spokes. He ordered a chrome hoop for it regrettably, but money was key. Today I was down at the bike shop and saw his bent up rim sitting there waiting to be revived. Then my journey took me to Seely’s Cyclery and what did I find; a chrome bmx hoop. I then got one of my great ideas: put that hoop on his hub! I took that hoop back down there and tore his rim apart. But there was my first hurtle. Noel and I didn’t know if he wanted to reuse his rim tape. So right at the same moment we were thinking this a guy showed up with a destroyed mountain bike rim. He was throwing it away, I asked him if I could have it and there I gained my nipples for the spokes! I then painstakingly pulled out all the spokes and put the new hoop on. I then realized that out of the 36 spokes he only had 24. So I laced in one side normal and found another used spoke in the trash and laced the other side with only 7 spokes. I tensioned the wheel to semi straightness so as to not overload the flange with only 7 spokes in it. Actually it came out pretty strait and Nick could actually maybe possibly get one tail whip out of it without killing himself. Well tomorrow morning Nick will receive his present and unknowingly he is now sponsored by Seely’s Cyclery for parts and littlejim for his mechanic; but in fine print in the contract he must spend at least 25% of his time on either a 26” or 29” mountain bike. Oh, and don't forget your reflector; it could save your life.