Month: April 2006

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Easter Weekend part II

It’s clear how we spent the first half of the weekend putting up fence. Grandma was kidn enough to take the two youngest Saturday so that we wouldn’t have to work around them. She brought them back bright and early Sunday morning to participate in Easter at our home. How she managed to get Maria up and dressed I’ll never know.

We did our completed the basket and egg hunt in due time, made breakfast then crashed from the prior days activities.

Still Easter evening was yet to come.

Easter at grandmas, it’s another one of those times of year when we all get together, hang out and pig out.

This year (2006) was no exception. We started late in the day so that we all could attend to the things we needed to do like putting in fence posts.

We arrived at around 5:15pm. About oh, 30 minutes later than we planned but that’s typical when you have 4 kids, one of them named Maria, to get dressed and ready.

We showed up and everyone was doing what we do best, eat. We joined right in. The Honey-Baked ham was excellent of course as were all the other things people brought. We played basketball and tossed a Frisbee. The kids played in the playhouse and on the play ground stuff.

Finally it was time for the big egg hunt at grandma’s house. The kids had a blast as usual. Maria is a championship caliber egg hunter. Hands down, I don’t think there is anyone between the ages of 5 and 10 that can beat her.

We all had a good time.

Not that I’m biased or anything but I have the cutest nephew on the planet.

All Full Size Photos are in the gallery: Easter-2006 Gallery

Enjoy.
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Barn Ground Breaking [Day One]

Whew, it was a very productive day. I am spent and sun burnt. I am a true red-neck now.

My man from Tractor Supply showed up bright and early, but he didn’t beat Charlie’s Crew, although they hadn’t really started. After the storms last night the ground was nice and soft and the fog was so thick you couldn’t see 20 feet in front of your face.

We unloaded the poles and fence, and I waited for Charlie. I don’t think I have enough poles. In fact I know I’m 10 short but, this doesn’t look like enough.

The fellahs got busy by 8:30am, squared everything up and were digging holes with Bakers BobCat. Charlie originally told me he was going to rent a dingo but hey a free loaner BobCat is always better than anything you have to pay for.

It didn’t take but a couple hours to get things looking serious.

The Bobcat started acting up, it started acting like it was starving for fuel even though the gauge read full. Apparently there’s a fuel hose thing that goes to the bottom of the tank which goes bad or drops in the tank. We kept having to top it off.

Once Charlie got his holes dug I decided it was time to learn how to use a BobCat and dig some holes for the fence.

We knocked out about 30 posts plus another 10 or so holes today. Only another 60 or so? more to go?

Michael was a huge help with the fence, in the afternoon Claudine chipped in a hand and in the late afternoon Maggie did too. We started to get a system down and it was moving rather quickly. I think we set 7 posts in the last hour or so.

It’s coming together very, very well. We’re putting up standard no-climb wire horse fence with a top ‘sight’ board. So the horse will be able to see the fence. It’s going to look really good when we’re finished.

I’ve created a new Gallery for ‘Barn’ Photos Here so we can keep track of the progress. It’s not going to happen over night but it will happen fast.

By the end of the day Charlie and crew were *almost* ready for trusses:

They could have been but they cut out early on account of this being Easter weekend and all.  With some luck we’ll have trusses ready on Wednesday or Friday.  We won’t get back to the fencing until the weekend after next though unless we find time during the week.

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Barn:Ground Breaking Update

Well, the spot is marked:

DSC_2579.JPG

Halsey-Meyers had dropped off the first load of goodies (though it was after this photo was taken).

Tonight I purchased 50, 4″ 8 foot treated posts, and 15, 5″ treated posts, as well as 400 feet of no-climb horse fence. With luck I’ll get to use the “Dingo post-hole digger” tomorrow after the guys are done setting the posts for the barn to set a few fence posts.

posthole.jpg

At a minimum I hope to set the corner posts to get things started. The posts came from Tractor Supply, I was surprised that they actually stocked them in quantity. At the store near me there is a gentleman named “Tim” that that works there who is going to deliver them tomorrow morning. $40 bucks, was reasonable to me. I’m not sure how many I could get on the landscape trailer but I’m sure it would take at least two trips.

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Now this has got to stop!

Tiger apologizes for ‘spaz’ comments. Yeah, you read that right. Read the whole thing here.

This is ridiculous! So over in the UK, the term “spaz??? is considered a derogatory term for persons afflicted with spastic paralysis.

Guess what? That shouldn’t matter!

(A) Tiger isn’t from the UK

(B) Tiger wasn’t playing golf in the UK when he said it.

(C) He was referring to himself when he said it.

(D) Nobody important cares!

Stop it people, just stop it. I’m almost 40 years old. I called people a “spaz’ when I was 8 years old. I’ve “spazzed??? myself on more than one occasion, oh and I’ve played golf like a “SPAZ??? too. (note spaz with capitol letters, that should really get some paralyzed UK people all up in arms).

Webster (or dictionary.com) defines spaz as: One who is considered clumsy or inept. The verb spazzing is to be clumsy or inept. That’s what Tiger meant.

Even growing up I knew that, or rather that it was short for spastic, “of, relating to, or characterized by spasms.

Grow some skin people. It’s not like he said I played like a “Serial Killer about to take my 9th victim???, even if he did, why would we care about offending serial killers?

All these people who were offended by Tiger using the word “spaz??? to describe his crappy golf stroke throughout the final holes, I have a few words for you that you might be familiar with:

Whiner, bellyacher, crab, curmudgeon, malcontent, sourpuss, grouser, and grump.

Put the word “Spastic??? in front of any one of those and you’d have a pretty good phrase that adequately describes what you are for even whining about this.

Tiger doesn’t need to apologize, he doesn’t need to explain either, hell I shouldn’t have too but apparently someone does.

95% of the world knows what he meant and he didn’t mean to offend anyone. If he did though, it wasn’t vulgar, nor offensive by mainstream standards. So suck it up.

It’s getting to the point where celebrities, sports figures, just about anyone can’t say anything at all without offending someone. Get over it, before you ruin everything, ya bunch of spazzed out sissies.

TigerSpaz.jpg

Oh, and if in the picture above is how he putted, then he was right, that’s a spaz stance. But he’s Tiger, and he’s the pro and he’s on the tour and if it works for him, then Go Get Em Tiger.