Bogieblog

Findage

I'm the #1 return for Indy Airconditioners - interesting!

Only #3 for Assholes Garage (need to work on getting that higher!)

And 3 for SSDB SERVICE IN WINDOWS XP - hu?

Kitty Call

Greeblie has a new addition to his household. Go over and introduce yourselves.

Just Call Me Spike

I just hate taking vacation days off work and working harder than if I'd gone to work! We have been working from 7AM until dark so I don't have much time to write. The yard is coming along fairly well.

Thursday was a backbreaking day as we actually got started on putting the railroad ties in place. The Wonderful Spouse did the final leveling of the 1st tier by hand and placed the first row of railroad ties in place. I got to drill two 3/4" holes in each tie and drive the spikes (re-bar) in place. The spikes were 16" long, and the ties are 7" thick; youcan do the mathe on how far I had to drive the spikes into the groundclay and rock. The first row of tiers went slowly since WS was very picky about them being level and straight (not a bad thing). The second and third rows went faster as we just made sure the front faces were fairly even. However, those railroad ties also got three spikes apiece in which we drilled holes through 2 ties in which to drive the 1/2" spikes. We traded off on drilling/spiking since the sledge hammer was getting awful heavy for me too handle by that time.

We got lucky since our neighbor across the street only worked a partial day and came over and helped up for a couple hours in the afternoon. This gave me a rest while I ran to the hardware store and bought another drill since the old drill was starting to crap out on us. Another friend came by about 7 PM and ran the machine until about 9:30 to bring in fill for the low side (the second side that needed a retaining wall). At that point, it was rake and level the fill, which WS did and I got to play rock girl for the fill that was being brought over.

Yesterday we started bright and early since the machine was to be picked that morning. WS used the bucket to fill in between the two tiers in front with loam (which a friend had dropped off Thursday afternoon). I raked it all in place - great fun since it was wet! After the machine was picked up, we decided we needed a break and ran into Concord for breakfast and other errands. When we got back, WS started working on filling in the second side with ties and I worked on building up the rock retaining wall around the driveway (another low spot in the yard.

We decided that it would be really nice to get another machine this weekend to finish up bringing in fill and spreading the rest of the load of loam. So, we called around and got someone to deliver a slightly smaller machine last night. We rejected one place because they wanted $200 to deliver the machine 30 miles - the place we went with delivered for $50, and the driver stayed late to make the delivery for us!

Today and tomorrow will be about the same; finish the railroad ties on the second side, build up the rock wall and spread fill/loam. It will be nice to get back to work!

And You Thought

That you had annoying neighbors. That guy wouldn't have lasted long in any of the apartments that we lived in!

UPDATE: The previous link wouldn't work because he is on the free version of Blogger. Try this link and scroll down to the Tuesday entry.

Yard Work

The machine that we rented (I, don't know - it's got a backhoe and blade on it), came in about 10:00 yesterday morning, so we got to work on some of the heavy duty stuff in the yard. Some places we have to dig down several feet, and some places we have to fill in a couple of feet. We (okay, Wonderful Spouse) got the first section dug/filled in, and ready for some railroad ties. Along the way we ran into some pretty good sized rocks. No surprise there - that's one of the reasons we rented the machine; rocks that are 150 pounds or less are no big deal to move by hand, it's the bigger rocks that give us trouble. We are building up the retaining wall above the driveway, as that is one of the low spots in the yard. My job is to tell him where the big rocks are to go, move the smaller rocks as he digs them up and wrestle them into their final resting place. I also get to run the laser level to figure where we are deep enough or if we have to fill places in more.

Right after getting the first tier ready for ties, it started to pour. We got in out of the rain and I decided it was a dandy time to start dinner. A half hour - and 3/4 of an inch of rain - later, dinner (chili frito pie) was done. That, of course was when everyone and their brother decided to show up and talk. We didn't get to eat dinner until about 9 PM, so we never made it back out to work on the yard. Today will be a long, hard day as the machine goes back tomorrow morning.

Geek Test

I didn't score as high as Greg did, but still managed a respectable 26.0355% - Total Geek. And as the pop-up says "the male to female ratio of geeks is 10:1. Therefore a 1% advantage is fair." Find out how geeky you are at innergeek (I killed on the reading material section).

Birthday Wishes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SIS!

Doings

We are both worn out from the incessant rain. It has rained since last Tuesday or Wednesday. 1 1/2 inches yesterday, by the trusty rain gauge (almost 1 3/4"). We decided to do something different than working on the yard; we just lazed around the house (okay, we made a few quick trips to other people's houses, but mostly lazed).

I read for a while while the Wonderful Spouse watched war movies on TV (I have forgotten the channel, but they had all American war movies in honor of Memorial Day). A friend came over and we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which another friend had lent to us over a month ago (yes, we are kind of slow). After our friend left, I made dinner while WS picked out another movie to watch. We have a large back-load of movies as we usually can't string together 2 consecutive hours to watch TV (and when we do, we usually watch NYPD Blue and CSI, which were taped earlier in the week).

The second movie that we watched was Star Treck: Nemisis It was pretty good except Captain Picard's clone had a dialect problem; sometimes he would have a faint British accent, then he would go into a faint Irish brogue (or maybe it was more Scottish - I'm not sure). I remember someone blogging about not having seat belts on the Enterprise. I am happy to report that Picard got a new chair with a 4-point seat belt after the ship was anihated and was being put back together (at the end of the movie). No one got to see this unless they got the DVD though, because it was on one of the deleted scenes. Of course that still leaves the rest of the crew to go flying about the bridge if the ship gets attacked . . .

We then watched the last 2 hours ofThe Horse Wisperer on network TV. So all-in-all, we had a very relaxing - if unproductive day.

Venomous Kate Doings

Kate had a hissing match with an upset reader who obviously thinks that she should take into account what he likes before she puts up a post (be sure to read the comments too). Fair warning: language can get a bit vile at times.

I'm with Kate; she has no obligation to write/not write something because it may offend someone. It's her blog, as far as I know this person is not paying for her blog (or a salary of any kind), and he always has the option to read or not read it.

P.S. Seems Wichi Dude agrees - he weighed in on the comments section before I ever saw the post.

This or That Tuesday

1. Do you prefer silence or do you like background sound (music, TV, etc)? I usually prefer silence, except it's never really silent at our house (dogs, cats and/or birds are always making some sort of noise).

2. Bathe/shower in morning or evening? Shower, in the morning

3. Sleeping in complete darkness, or with a nightlight on? Darkness (I can't see anything without my contacts in or glasses on anyway!)

4. Lay out clothes the night before, or just grab what's closest in the morning? Grab whatever in the morning

5. Hang up/fold clothes neatly, or just toss them wherever? My closthes are neat.

6. Work out at a gym, or at home on your own (or do you not bother with exercise)? Work out at home.

7. Talk on the phone, or via IM/e-mail? Email

8. Are you usually on time, or late? Early

9. Spendthrift or frugal? I don't think I am either of these (or maybe I'm both - depending upon the circumstances). There are certainly ways that we could save more than we do. But at the same time, we don't spend all that we have.

10. Thought-Provoking Question of the Week: You work with someone who is not in the habit of bathing regularly. The smell seems to be getting worse and worse! Would you: 1. try to do something about it, or 2. try to grin and bear it? If you said 1, what would you do? I've been in this situation and I let management take care of it. Of course the place that this happened, was a place where we worked seperately, not side-by-side. Actually I would rather work with someone with BO than with someone that douses themselves in perfume/after shave (which tends to dry out my eyes and make my nose itchy).