Blog Count

Two Followers man that is depressing.

Not that I am writing all that much either. Sorry about that.

I had the luxury of attending breastfeeding classes over the past month. Let me be the voice of reason to any other male saying don't GO!! (unless of course you want to keep your marriage intact.)

Needless, to say it was a painful 3 hour lesson. Half of which was spent practicing holding a stuffed doll to my non-existent boobs. If I ever do opt for that sex change, now I know!

This industry should model something after defensive driving courses. Have the material presented by some comedian, while dad-to-be are sipping brew, and mom-to-be can drink..milk? Anyways, this whole subject would be better presented in a comedic fashion. Although the wife will say I'm just juvenile it could be some pretty funny material.

New addition

We have a new birthday in the family today or tomorrow...depends on how hard Jackie pushes ;)

Pond Project

So the pond is about 98% complete at this point. I recently finished the upper "waterfall" basin and put the aluminum trim work up.


Everything works well. I connected the plumbing, and after having a few inital leaks everything seems to be patched up and working fine. I like my new filter with UV light, it does make a noticable difference in the clarity of the water.

We have planted some herbs in the lower level including, jalapenos, dill, a cilantro substitute (better in our climate, some arugula, and a spinach substitute.

The fish did like there new home for awhile. It appears that when we bought more of the newbies they brought with them a case of ick. So to date, we have lost 4 fish, including our two eldest, which we are sad about, because they had made it all the way through the construction phase. We have chemicals in the water now to combat that, but I'm not really sure how many more fish we might lose.

America, America where are you?

Most of my chat's stem from things I've seen. Recently, I've seen two rather disturbing articles. One article showcases American spending to that of government spending. To think that Americans spend more on any 1 of the following pizza, alcohol, smoking than we give to NASA. Now some of you might think shooting people into Space is a waste, and I'm not here to argue that point, but abstractly NASA is the epitome of American engineering a science talent...and well..you can see how much we care about that.

http://thelaunchpad.xprize.org/2009/05/comparing-budgets-nasa-v-united-states.htm

The other article, was a Nightline piece outlining "Made in America". Everyone knows this is a problem, so much so that we usually brush it off with a chuckle. This is a seriously sad state of affairs when you start to see the numbers or product lines. If China were to stop sending us import (oh let's say they choose to start a war with us), we'd be dressing our people in fig leaves. 90% of Walmart would be empty.

American's need to wake up and smell the coffee! This is not good people. We waste our talent and money on stupid shit (like drugs, smoking, Social Security) that do NOTHING to advance America. If we redirected a fraction of that money we'd be off foreign oil, still a technology and manufacturing superpower. But for now, like, we have Britney Spears...totally

Who's reading me??

I've had several people comment on reading my blog (or lack thereof with new content) which I was a bit surprised to hear. I thought I was talking to myself, hence, the lack of new posts.

To those of you remaining in the shadows join my blog as a follower. It's painless and it let's me know you care. (and I should keep talking to myself) :)

Who am I?

Was browsing the web trying to figure out what's next in my career path. A thing I find myself doing more and more. Came across this PersonalDNA profiler so I took the test. This isn't the first assessment test I've taken and I usually agree with them. And they usually say the same stuff, but none the less they are still fun to take and to share with friends.


My personalDNA Report

Cloudy Skies

Man it's been a rough past couple of days.

I started off Mothers day weekend with a trip to the ER for stitches after mowing over a rock that decided to puncture my shin. Mothers day was nice, we had a good time with the ladies. Over the weekend I was reviewed on my liquid dynamics courses by leaving the pump off in the pond. A little bit of vacuum later, and my yard was a waterpark of siphoned off pond water. Oh, and i had just bought new fish. For those pet lovers out there, don't worry..the fish are ok, but they ain't exactly staying in the luxury resort that once was.

So anyways..turns out the drain failure was a good thing...one of the support boards in the back came undone under the pressure and needs repair. I used a pocket screw (per the great carpenter Ty's) recommendation...which seems to have pulled through. So...I get to crawl under the patio tonight... yay!

Room to Expand

So yesterday was a very busy day. I posted the pool table on Craigslist, for a steal price of $500, and wound up taking less than that. But I don't care because it's gone!! And man did it open up that space that it was sitting in. We have already rearranged the entire house and it's just great. We were both shocked with how quickly the whole process went down, I posted it Monday by Tuesday the buyer had movers in and everything.

I'm not going to miss it. We pretty much used it for holding mail, car keys and groceries. Now, though we are needing to decor, so I think we are going rug shopping.

Things are ramping up around here getting ready for Jackie's baby shower (another good reason to have the pool table gone.)

On the pond front, I have spent the past couple of days not working on it. Sunday I helped Nick and Reggie on the house hardi-siding. (The house is really starting to take shape. It's going to be a fabulous house when it gets done.) Monday I acquired a 10x13 foot sheet of rubber pond liner. Today I spent about an hour calling around looking for a bulkhead fitting (to run the PVC drain pipe through the liner, without leaking). With that done...waiting for a nice warm day to install the liner so it will be super flexible. Since that is probably not going to happen soon, plan B is to strong arm it into place, my speciality. :)

Rain Rain go Away

In Texas that rain is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we haven't seen it in eons, a curse because it always happens when I don't want it to. And since the world does revolve around me..

Anyways...the pond build is on hold for now due to rain. So I took the chance to take some pictures and get caught up on my blogging.

So the pond I was going for something a little more contemporary in styling. I opted to use simple pressure treated pine, ideally I would have liked to use an exotic like epe but since I wasn't sure how this would shake out I went for the low-budget figuring I can always swap out the boards (ha!).



So here is a top view. There are actually going to be three sections. Two of which are framed out in this photo. The bottom box (right) is going to be our herb garden/planter. The upper box (left) is about 80% swimming hole for the fishies. If you look to the back of that same box (upper) you will see the beginnings of a square framing. That section will come up about another 12" and will be formed into a small basin featuring a spillway (aka waterfall) into the main body of water.

This is the view from the yard. Again, shooting for simple contemporary design. There current are no seams or screw holes visible from the front. I did opt to interlock the boards for a more solid frame. (which makes for ugly corners) This is going to be hidden beneath a 2"x2" steel angle iron. (You can see my test piece on the lower left) I like the steel angle iron because it rusts. I'm still on the fence because I could always put copper, aluminum or any other metal there. I think I like the steel though.

So...whats next....plenty...I have to finish lining the interiors to keep the elements off the wood as best as possible. The pond body is a whole new world of hurt needing a special liner and getting rid of all the wrinkles. Then I still have to trim everything so that it looks nice and finished. Then comes the plumbing, electrical...and fishies.. I hope those little punks like all the hard work I am doing for them.

Following this Blog.

For those of you that are new to the blogging world, you can keep tabs of everytime I post something by "following" my blog. There is a little box on the left side of the screen that you can click on.

Honey Do's

Well today marks the last day of my Mandatory Time Off (MTO). On of the many corporate responses to cut costs in this current economy.

It did allow me to get plenty of things done around the house. We got styling new doorknobs for all the doors in the house and some new light fixtures outside. On the big patio project front, I installed the electrical boxes for the fans outside and made even more progress on the pond. The main structure of the pond is now complete a veener of pressure treated 2x6's. I am now "lining" the "veener" with 1/2 inch hardie board to protect the wood from moisture AND extra rigidity so that it doesn't bow out once I start adding water. Hopefully, it will all be done before the baby shower!

Blog-o-rama

Time to get on the bandwagon in the blogosphere. I currently run a blog at work, but seeing as how that is internal, I doubt any of you have read that one. Not that it's much good anyways.

Seriously though.. Until I find my path of "blogging" my intended target audience "you" is mostly friends and family. Consider this my attempt to keep in touch..cause I know I am bad at it.