Christmas, Drywall and Mud

Merry Christmas to all and to all..................."I see one with my name on it!" Christmas was a blast this year with gifts traveling in from all over the country and the usual gluttonous amount of foods. We did our regular "take-down-the-decorations-and-argue-about-the-tree" day. I am a bit of a, well let's say a hard-core traditionalist when it comes to Christmas trees; they are made of wood NOT PLASTIC!! During last year's post-Holiday sales frenzy Cheryl purchased a FAKE tree for the price of a real one. Makes good financial sense right? We can save every year. No mess, no lights to string (it's prewired), easy to set up and a free Ginsu Knife that cuts an aluminum can and a tomato. BUT IT IS STILL PLASTIC!!! It smells like PLASTIC, not a pine.

It is an issue I will have to accept, for now..... So on we go..... We also ventured south to visit friends in Graham and continue the Psycho Cookie decorating tradition, we did Christmas Eve with our adopted farm family plus this year we added a spouse of one of my coworkers who was on duty. She showed up with two gifts for our boys as she and her husband have not started a family. Well they hit it out of the park delivering two double barrel Nerf shotguns. Seen below as the two new additions to the Nerf arsenal. I added a "green laser sight" to the 6-shooter but the boys think it gives me to much of an advantage so it seems to have been removed and hidden.

HOUSE UPDATE:

When we bought our first house in Sultan, Cheryl and I decided to save a few bucks and have the builder leave the downstairs unfinished. It was a good financial decision (Waaaaay better than a FAKE PLASTIC TREE) but whoa boy we learned a lot about drywall. Twelve foot ceiling sheets ARE HEAVY, and just because a little mud is good it doesn't mean a lot is better. (Stop laughing, it took a long time to sand it all away.) So on to the current house. The drywallers hung the house in one day and followed the next with a skim coat of mud and tape. PUD, after having us move a rather large decorative maple, hooked up the power and now the heater is drying the mud and heating the structure to prepare for a second coat of mud. It takes a few days to heat all the wood and suck out the moisture. So as of right now the house is sealed up and the heater is cranking. We are having a meeting with the builder today to hammer out the next few steps. It is all going quite well and the time table is right on for completion some time in April/May. Look out for an invitation to a house warming party where every guest will be asked to bring a cement cutting torch or saw an help remove part of the HUGE ribbon foundation strips left from the triple-wide. (jk)

Tony

Forcible Entry and house updates

This month, as part of my probation with Edmonds Fire department, I was assigned to teach a short class on Forcible Entry. It’s when we have to break into a structure through doors, windows, walls or whatever is blocking our way. If we have to go in for a known rescue we are not as delicate as when we have to go in to put out a fire or secure a means of egress. (See: http://www.vententersearch.com/) It is an art form at times and we are using tools that don’t lend themselves to intricate work. Often times we will be forcing an exterior door and in the process rendering it useless if not in pieces. The goal is to keep the door in one piece so, if we need to, we can close it and keep the fire behind somewhat contained. It doesn’t always work out that way. Especially with some of the older wooden doors or the heavy gauge metal doors set in concrete walls. The wooden doors have a tendency to splinter on impact leaving you with a pile of over sized toothpicks. The metal doors are set in an unforgiving wall and are so reinforced that we have to deform the door to get the lock to break and oftentimes it takes a large radial saw to just cut the lock out. Windows tend to just get broken. The problem with all this is when we are dealing with a fire. Air holds 32BTU’s per cubic foot (see post on June 27, 2009) and if you allow air to reach a confined fire it gets fed and grows. So controlling the ventilation profile of the structure can be crucial. This exact thing is what caused the deaths of many Firefighters in a South Carolina furniture store last year. They had uncontrolled ventilation allowing a lot of air to reach a starving fire. The fire grew explosively engulfing the Firefighters.

As firefighters it is our job to make every effort to learn these skills and understand their effect on fire behaviour. So to help me teach this class I build a visual aid with the assistance of my 2nd grader, Gabe. As you know Cops like donuts and Firefighters like ice cream. But who in their right mind can deny a gingerbread house.

The pretzel ladders were an added touch. But for the sake of the class I added one factory and one double hung window, outward and inward swinging doors, a slab type overhead door and a roll-up door. The marshmallow dude on top with the chainsaw ventilating the roof was a bonus. It was a great visual aid and kept the attention of my class.

On to house updates......... Cheryl and I picked out cabinets(link to business), granite counter tops and a few other detail items yesterday during a whirlwind tour of Georgetown in South Seattle. The granite color/pattern is called "New Venetian Gold". It is a lighter color with tons of accents. The color compliments the rest of our kitchen really well and as an added bonus it hides dirt and water marks too. The cabinets will be faced with a knotty alder similar too this sample but without the center raised part.

We are going with a butcher block top for the island. We have seen a few and really like the look. Most of the doors are hung and the electrical should be done this week. I will be creating a video of both floors to document the wall innards so I don't cut anything important or dangerous in later years if I need to get inside a wall.

.........See Ya, Tony

Cool ice crystals on the back porch...They even turned out in the photo. Another frigid morning. KAVU! It is hard to imagine there is any moisture left in the air.

Tony

Okay okay here a couple shots

For crying out loud I take a few days to rest my weary fingers and man alive the responses are heaping. So, like, stop. Well maybe not stop but to for crying our loud take a gander at the windows and siding...

The colors will obviously be different but the place is really starting to take shape. I am on top of the mobile freezing while taking these shots. There will be a wrapping cement porch under the left-hand side overhang where the entry faces the driveway. We are also planning a textured-stained-stamped cement patio reaching into the yard from the double-door "hole" seen in the picture above. the electrician is currently wiring the the place. Insulation should be going in soon.

The siding is almost done and all the windows are in. The doors are shrink-wrapped in the garage and will soon be installed. We are rethinking the driveway for more parking and a possible turn-around spot.....hhhmmmm.

Love you all and thanks for all the emails and building ideas,

Tony

When the Earth Moves

For the most part we have all felt an earthquake. Okay so maybe that is an inaccurate assumption, but for those of us who have felt one or been through a significant quake there is this amazing feeling of complete and total loss of control. This isn't just a wind/rain/snow storm you can take shelter from, as a matter of fact taking shelter might be the worst thing to do. Anyway, my thoughts are on Earthquakes because I was woken by one this morning. At least I thought I was. Around 3am something woke me up. A kind of feeling similar to the sensation of riding over a hump on a roller coaster, or when on a swing as you start to swing back with the added moment of fear like when the elevator you are in reaches the bottom floor then kind of "bumps" or "jumps" moving just an inch or so. That was the feeling that woke me up from my dream of being a Superhero (I was the Green Lantern.). I was kind of excited to feel the shaking, but there was nothing. I was actually bummed, not to mention wide awake. I lay there for a moment waiting for aftershocks, or at least the secondary waves of the quake, thinking thoughts about collapsing buildings and destruction, typical 3 am thoughts, but nothing happened. (Must have been the stale nachos I ate at 11pm.) I made a mental note to check the USGS website for the most recent quakes when I get up.............then I finally fell back to sleep. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/ So this site tells me it was indeed just the nachos, because the last quake in the area was yesterday around Mount Saint Helens, and the latest nearby quake was Nov. 30th, 6 miles SSW(SouthSouthWest) of Sultan. Okay so no quake today, yet. Now for the Earth Science Lesson: Earthquakes are the vibrations sent out by the movement of the Earth's "crust". If you are close enough, and the movement is shallow enough, you experience the movement itself. I think of it similar to being in the center of those cool frozen action photos of a single water drop hitting the surface of the water. The center gets hit and the circumference experiences the waves. The movement we experience is quantified by the Mercalli Scale in a way we can communicate the effects. The actual intensity of the shaking is measured by the Moment magnitude replacing the older Richter Scale. The vibrations are classified, in a simple explanation, into P waves and S waves. P waves are "Primary", or compression waves, causing the up and down motion and that "sick to your stomach" feeling that woke me up. People have described these waves as seeing the pavement ripple up and down. S waves are "Secondary", or shear, waves felt by the side to side shaking. The S waves do the most damage. The waves travel at different speeds through different mediums (rock, sand, water, congealed bacon fat) causing a time lag between them. (The link at the top of this paragraph has a veritable cornucopia of information about quakes.) **************************** Okay the family is waking and I must help with the morning activities.....Later I will post more shots of the house and the NEW WINDOWS that were installed yesterday. Tony

House Updates

The roof is on....

the fireplace is installed...

and my car fits in the garage that is for Cheryl's car.

We have already sold the mobile to a couple who lives in teh Lake Stevens area, no to far away. Cheryl listed the home on Craig's List and it was replied to with in minutes. The first folks who responded are the buyers, way cool.

Tony

House Updates

Here's the roof going on...

They actually finished the top half of the roof today and will knock out the bottom half tomorrow. It looks great.

Here are a couple video walk throughs....

Down stairs.......

and upstairs.

Tony

Trusses on the house

The trusses arrived yesterday and are being installed today...woohoo!

I threw in the one with the view just for fun. Tony

Wallace River Fish Hatchery Tours

Today was day two of the Wallace River Salmon Hatchery tours for this season. The boys went through the annual training last weekend and were very ready for this year. Jon and Gabe both had the opportunity to help in the egg/milt harvest demonstration, Gabe spoke at the anatomy station and Jonathan roamed around and answered random questions. I got to go into the river to collect fish for the day. Buddy and Chris, the "fake brothers" helped. Here are some pics. and vids., enjoy. Tony.

P.S. For those of you who made it this far in the gallery of pictures, here's a treat. While we were fully involved in the tours this pair of salmon, let's call them Ying and Yang for short, decided to break the rules and spawn in the holding pen. Now usually the pen is prepared with a very sandy bottom to keep the fish from spawning (they look for gravely areas, as you can see). The past floods have washed away the sand and left the normal river bottom gravel and rocks. So nature took its course and they spawned before our eyes. We called a tour group over to witness the event and they were enthralled, as they just finished the tour station on spawning. So those that paid attention knew what they were watching. Ying and Yang circled for a few minutes and then deposited eggs and milt right there not five feet from shore. My video shows the female dropping eggs although it is hard to see the small eggs while the male circles above her; she even turns on her side and "kicks" some sand and gravel over the redd (egg nest). The male released his milt within seconds of my video ending, figures.

Walls and floors

The walls and second floor are going up

I left for work and there was just a pile of lumber in the driveway. I come home and the pile is gone and this is what I find, way cool! We are now able to walk the house and get a really good visual of what the finished product will be like. the engineers got rid of the post in the downstairs are and the above third photo shows HUGE glue-lam replacing it. the heavy rains of the last few days slowed things down a bit but it was nothing a good squeegee couldn't handle. Sam and Gordy are taking advantage of the dryer weather to knock out as much as possible. I cant wait till the trusses get here.

Tony

Recognizing Beauty

When was the first time you recognized beauty? The definition of beauty is not the topic it is when you became aware of it; in a person, art, nature, math, whatever. When were you first hit with the, "Wow, that is really something." feeling. The deep stirring of appreciation of something bigger than yourself. When did that first happen? I can remember sunsets in So.CA as a child. I remember the intricacies and patterns of my mom's cactus garden. But the first time I can recall thinking of beauty; of contrast and boldness, of simplicity and visual impact, the deep wow that seared the image in my mind was in Connecticut as a child, a young child. We lived on Beebee (sp) St in Naugatuck right next to my Grandma's house and in between the two houses was a large lawn, it seemed to go on forever. In the back center of the lawn was a tall tree. I don't remember it ever having leaves but I do recall the emotions stirring inside as I stood at its base and peered up at its naked branches silhouetted against a cloudy sky. The image will forever be in my mind, the dark scraggly branches fanning out against the white winter clouds. Simple and beautiful. I think I was four. My boys are starting to appreciate beauty in nature especially sunrises and sunsets. They will point them out without prompting now-a-days. It is great to be a part of the "I think it is beautiful, what do you think" game with them as they discover beauty. Tony

Short Construction Update

Hello all. Things are going well with the house as you can see the sub floor is going in. Right now we are awaiting our third inspection. It should happen tomorrow, should.

Things keep plugging along and once the sheets are on the rest should go really fast. We are kinda racing the rains but even so it will all be good and dry, eventually.

It is construction and we are really in no hurry. The boys have created a short BMX track around the site including the gravel pile woop-de-doos, off road dirt/mud tracks, a jump and a grass track landing area. Best done barefoot with no head protection just before we leave for school in the morning. That's the part that makes the parents happy, RIGHT!!

Everybody's healthy; no swine, bird or horse flu.

More creative post in the making.......

Tony

What is in a ( - )?

Hyphen, dash...

–noun 1. a short line (-) used to connect the parts of a compound word or the parts of a word divided for any purpose.

–verb (used with object) 2. hyphenate

dash 13. the mark or sign (—) used to note an abrupt break or pause in a sentence or hesitation in an utterance, to begin and end a parenthetic word, phrase, or clause, to indicate the omission of letters or words, to divide a line, to substitute for certain uses of the colon, and to separate any of various elements of a sentence or series of sentences, as a question from its answer.

All well and good when you are talking about language but what about these examples? What is in a ( - )?

Okay, some of you may go the wrong direction with this but what I am getting at is this: what is the value of the (-)? What wonderful, terrible, sad, joyous, mundane, bizarre, incredible, and moving things can be found in the (-). I want my (-) to be meaningful, to be remembered, to be recalled as, "Yes, that is how it should be done." After all, the two dates before and after are just singular days, what is the length of the (-)?...39 years, 81 years, 77 years, 23 years, 17 years, 19 years? So much can be packed into a (-). This isn't to think about the second date this is a reminder to think about the (-). What are you doing with it? What are you making it? How will it "change the world" or just your cul-de-sac? Will it have intrinsic value beyond the world's view? Will it be out there for all to see or will it be hidden and private? Will it have a large section for others or will it all be for you? After all it's just a (-), a simple punctuation mark, a slip of the pen, a modest dash, and yet it's use and placement can change things. (See Eats, Shoots and Leaves or Pain in the English for more of the same.)

Off to make scones for my kid's teachers,

Tony

Study Break: AKA "Motorcycles at the Farm"

Here are a few pics of Gabe and me blowing off some steam at the farm...

Gabe took a tremendous spill when he was closelined by a wire. He was full throttle crossing the bridge and hit a fence wire across the face opening on his helmet. He was lifted off the bike flipped upside down and landed on his face. Two scrapes and a flooded engine was the final score. So we had to ride together for a bit. He actually crashed again on the rough dirt and when I caught up with him (two pictures above) I asked, "What did ya hit?" As in what part of your body was hurt. Gabe's reply, "The ground."

We went out to the far reaches of the pasture to the stream to explore. I wanted to try and cross the muddy stream but Gabe thought the mud was to deep.........later on I discovered Gabe was right. And after the "Hike of Shame" back to the house, I humbly admitted my blunder to a round of laughter; Cheryl, Gabe and Scott.

We had to go get Papa Scott and his handy 6-wheeler to pull me out.

I guess it pays to listen to the little ones when they REALLY know what they are talking about. I didn;t go over the handle bars but the stop was instant and the mud was indeed to deep, thick and gooey for my machine. It was still a really fun time and the bike still ran great.

Tony