Shedding My Winter Fur

Check this out. People say i look 10 years younger without a beard. I took a few picks of the transformation. Shave and a haircut...........

HAH! that's funny right there. I did this on Friday night with the help of Juju. I can cut my own hair with the electric clippers, but my wife gets so much pleasure from it, i let her do the cuttin'. here is the real photo of my clipped noggin.

I personally like the furry me, but spring has sprung. I better never rob a bank. i just gave up all my disguises.

Update, Update, Update.

Wow, it's been a few days since i posted and i have a lot to write. i may break this up into a few posts so it isn't so long... here we go.

Thursday's poker results.

12 players + 1 re buy = 13 buy-ins x 500 chips = 6500 chips

1st place - Hanging Chad - 80

2nd place - Hatches - 30

3rd place - River Farbo - 20

Hatches strikes again. another second. She was way out-chipped 1500 to 5000. i whispered in her ear to play strong, she had nothing to loose....she did. She went all-in every other hand and got Chad to fold a bunch of times. She doubled up once and just as she was getting some steam behind her, chad went all-in she called and lost. CRAP! I stayed around 500 all night, got a pocket pair of 10's and lost to a AJ when a J hit the river. they don't call him "River Farbo" for nuthin'. It was a coin toss as to who would win, but i still got rivered.

Friday was an early night for me. I do Angelfood Ministries for my church once a month. Here is how it works. You pay for groceries ahead of time for $30 and in the middle of the month, you come to our church and pick it up. It is usually around $70 worth of food. Since it is a ministry and not a government program there are no "qualifying". if you eat and have $30 you "qualify". I go to bed early on Friday night, Up at 4 am on sat morning and drive over to the Goat's to get the box truck. Meet my bother-in-law and drive to another city (not far away) to meet a semi-truck full of food. there are usually 6 to 7 churches that split the food. We load up the box truck with 3 others from church and drive back to our church to distribute the food. We usually arrive at our church between 7 and 7:30 with another crew to offload the food into our gym to distribute. we distribute between 9 and 11 and then have lunch. Juju and Cooter came down and we left for home around 12:30. juju dropped us off and ran some errands. I wasn't feeling tired but fell asleep on the couch after i put cooter down for a nap.

at 6 pm we went to meet a friend of ours who adopted a baby from China. It is a sad story with a happy ending...kinda. Our friend Lori went to China last month to meet her baby she is adopting. to make a very long story short, a few days after getting her little girl "Kat", the poor little thing came down with meningitis and had some brain swelling. she lost her sight and hearing and her muscles stiffened-up. Since her adoption was only for a healthy baby and not a "special needs" baby, she had to "un-adopt her". My some miracle they found another adoptable baby "Mei Mei" and after a 1 1/2 month stay in china that was supposed to be 2 weeks. she and her new baby Mei Mei came home. Lori is making sure the Kat is going to and Institution where she will be taken care of. She met some really nice people in china that are making sure it will happen.

there were tons of people at the airport to welcome her. she was one of the last people to get off the plane. we were all so excited we were welcoming everyone off the plane. i heard someone say they thought there was a serviceman on the plane because of all the people at the gate, but got confused when they saw the "it's a girl" sign. lol. they just had a puzzled look on their face and shrugged their shoulders. Here are a few picks.

Here is cooter meeting Mei Mei for the first time. they are about the same age 1 1/2 years. the size difference is crazy.

One Floor Down, One to Go

the second floor is on. here are the pics.
this is lil' AJ. it was his first visit to our new house.
today was the anniversay of the death of juju's dad. it's been eight years.

I met her in the summer of 2000 just after her dad died. i never met him, but everyone tells me we would have got along. we all had dinner at the goat's house. juju's sis and 2 bros families and of course Buscha. hey, i just noticed juju fixed the date stamp. horray.

juju's bro went to his baby's (pooker) termination hearing this week. since the mom and dad are AWOL. he had to go and let the judge know his and his wife's intensions to adopt Pooker. he said it was all of 2 minutes. we will probably have to do the same thing as cooters parents are gone too.

turnbuckle came over to the new house to get a feel for the HVAC runs. it looks like it will be pretty easy. i was kind worried as there is a big LVL (beam) down the middle of the house that will block any possible runs from one side to another. i think we figured it out. so all is good.

Almost There

well, we almost have the second floor done. the joists are up and finishing the decking will be tomorrow. then the 2nd floor walls and roof. the house will only be a story and 3/4 as it was too much money for us to put on a full 2nd story. but there will be 4 ft. outside walls, then the roof.
the 4 ft walls will make more usable space upstairs as the roof won't come right to the floor level. View from the front of the house into the kitchen.

View from the kitchen to the front of the house. next to the ladder are the back of the stairs.

Cooter was very talkative today. It is garble-speak, but a lot of it. when we got home he went right to the TV to turn on his Singing babies DVD. the thing is creepy. Babies mostly sitting on the floor in while superimposed backgrounds go by. oh, the creepy part, they superimpose singing mouths over the babies to make them look like they are singing the nursery rhymes. it is CREEPY, but cooter loves it. he tries to sing along and that is very CUTE. He was falling asleep while watching it. la, la, la (head bob) la, la, la, (head bob). so juju gave him a bath and a buba he fell asleep instantly. the goat has him tomorrow also. today she had cooter and her 4 year-old granddaughter JJ. the goat said she was very tired and going to bed early. Only cooter tomorrow and it is supposed to be warm outside. she can canvas the neighborhood and show him off to her friends. lol Cooter will be 18 months old this month. 1 1/2 years, boy time flies.

we finished the taxes abot 9:30 (why wait til the last minute). My bad, as i just couldn't get into it the past few years. juju took the reigns and finished them. i looked them over and then she made me efile'em. we used taxcut and i took the survey at the end and gave them a bad review. i had them subtract the cost of the efile from my refund, but they added a 30.00 charge. some kind of fee for the fee or something like that....they double dipped.........so instead of charging me 45.00 like the box said it was 75.00. what can i do? i waited til the last minute. CRAP. well, it's done. maybe since i complained they will give it back to me. ha, that is wishful thinking. i got the oil changed in the blazer today. when i got out of work my oil pressure gauge was all over. i assumed when i got the car that the guy got the oil changed with the inspection, maybe not. it is sure purring a lot quieter. now i just need to get the radiator leak fixed and i am all set.

I have this bad (or good on some cases) habit of turning off my "personal stuff" brain and turning on my "work" brain at the door at 8 am and turning off my "work" brain at 5 pm. the good part about this is i leave my job stresses at DeSign Stone Signs, the bad part is i never remember to call the garage to fix the car or do any personal stuff that need done during my lunch or any other time from 8 to 5.

Monday's House Pics

here are the pics of the house.

the center wall is complete and the back door to the deck is framed. they still need to level the top of the outside walls in the back section, then finish the joists and decking.

This is the view from cooter's room into the kitchen, the "hole" is the pantry opening. to the left of the hole will be cooter's closet.

the rafters came on friday...all we need is a complete second floor to get them started.

i hope they will finish the 2nd floor tomorrow.

It was a good weekend. we went to the bank on Saturday to beg for more money with all our cost overruns. we got a few strings pulled and got what we needed. Thanks Dave, Carla and ErieBank! Sunday morning juju taught confirmation. cooter and i stayed home, and played.

Cooter is very tired right now and is crying at the littlest things. i have never really seen him like this. it is really kinda funny, but i try not to laugh. juju just put him to bed and i don't hear a peep. cool. we met his new day care provider on sunday afternoon. she is very nice and i hope it will work out. she has an opening and cooter's cousin already goes there. unfortunately her opening isn't til next week, so cooters gamma and uppa and the goat are picking up the slack this week. he goes to the doc's on wed to get his foliculitious checked and his 15 month shots. the rash is all cleared up. the goat is taking him for shots. go goat.

Work is crazy busy on the aluminum sign side. we have a huge job for a bank going thru and we got another one today for a governmet job. when it rains it pours, but this is a good pour. I spent a majority of the morning doing a literature box label and the afternoon doing drawings.

the work wife borrowed the goat's box truck to move to her new place this weekend and from what i heard it went well.

Poker Night & The House

Poker night and here are the results.

13 players + 5 rebuys = 18 x 500 = 9,000 chips

1st - Calypso Jim - 90

2nd - Hanging Chad - 50

3rd - Cutter - 30

4th - Snakehead - 10

I got to the final table by sucking out on McScotty's AA vs. my 10-10. spiked an 10 on the river. A two-outer. Later, I came in 6th, but had a pretty cool comeback.

I lost a huge hand on a nut flush draw with 2 guys going all-in ahead of me. I had to call about $700 (with $760 in my stack) as the pot was huge (about $3500) and i.....had the nut flush draw........$700 to win $3500, a no brainer. of course, i missed it and was left with $60. Well, i double and tripled up a few times, bought some blinds and i was up to $1500. Still lower stack but more than capable to cover $100 - $200 blinds. went back to about $700 and went all in hitting middle pair (8's). My caller unfortunately hit top pair (J's) and put me out in 6th place. I played pretty tight again tonight, but really never got much to play with. i never got any painted pairs all night, just 10's a few times and some low pairs. bought some nice hands betting in last position with multiple players in the pot. my only real boo-boo was maybe calling the nut flush hand, but the pot was too big to fold. I am very good at hanging around with a small stack. i do it on a regular basis. the only problem with that is you can't push the big stacks off any hands. you always have to pay attention who you are in the hand against. Monster stacks will call anything hoping to hit, as they can afford it.

today's lesson..."pot odds". no matter what your hand is, never call a super large bet unless you are getting 3, 4 or 5-to-1 odds on the money you need to call. ie. if the pot is $200 and someone bets $1000, you need to pay $1000 to win $1200. you are risking $1000 to win $1200. you may think wow, you double you money, but unless you know you have the best hand the risk doesn't match the reward. if 4 players bet $1000 the pot is $4200. it is worth the risk, even with a lesser hand, as you can win 4x what you are about to bet. there is my lesson on "pot odds" today, kids. the bigger the pot, the more risk you take. smaller pot....smaller risk.

Here are the house pics for today. not alot to write home about. I think there were only 2 guys working all day today. 75% of the floor down, but still no 2nd floor above the back (as seen in the pics). not sure of the weather for tomorrow. a few drops on the windshield as i was coming home from cards tonight. I was supposed to rain for the past 2 days and we have only see about 20 min. of precipitation in that time. we are pushing our luck.......

Raisin' The Roof & Lowerin' The Floors or Who Let the Floor Out?

not much change from the outside, but let's take a look see in the back.......

Oh Snap! where did the floor go?

Well, today we lowered the floor, but not on purpose. as the contractor was ripping the many layers of flooring off in the kitchen the floor "shifted and dropped". it seems all the existing joists were cracked their whole length and when they were tugging the flooring the joists separated, dropped and started cracking. a few heart attacks later, the basement was cleared and the demo on the floor started. we were going to have to jack the floor up as it was unlevel anyway. so now instead we get a new floor. the good new is it is much brighter in the basement. seriously, where the ladder is, was a block wall that is no longer needed, the crack house bathroom in the corner is gone and they will be able to lift out the hot water and and monstrous furnace very easily. I may even be able make a decent new bathroom down there too....eventually. the back filling was happening as i got there. the roof trusses comes Friday, and they may even be ready for it.

More bad new today. Cooter's babysitter informed us she can no longer watch him as she recently had wrist surgery and it is not healing well as expected because of always lifting the kids. Crap. it was gonna be a sweet set-up. the old babysitter was only a few blocks from our new house. it never works out like you plan........however, we may have a new hook-up, and even better, new sitter is on juju's way to work, not mine. heh, heh, heh.

even more bad news, juju's brother's got a bill from his attorney (he and his wife adopted a kid, "Pooker" and are using the same attorneys as us for "Cooter") for $1500.00 for the newspaper ad they had to post to try find the father. We are on our second try, as the judge didn't like the wording of the first. that is $3000.00. I am expecting a letter any day............CRAP!

Work is pretty busy. The aluminum sign division of or company is so busy that the shop in on 2 hour a day mandatory OT and Saturday. Even the guys in my department go to the "other side" and put in a few extra hours a day. we are doing a big job for a bank and are under the gun to get everything done and farmed out to get installed by Memorial day. The foam side of the company is pretty busy also. we had a bit of a lull last week, but "Main St." was on the phone talking to ton of customers this week and the drawing bins have been full. Mostly because i am still working on extrusions for the aluminum side. hopefully i will have all the final drawings done tomorrow and will be able to help my "work wife" with the drawing bins a little more.

Joists, Joists, Everywhere

Here is the view today, some more joists, probably about 2/3 done.

again the date stamp is a month off. i gotta fix that.

Front ViewView from front door. stairs in the center, great room on left and hallway on right. stairs are open on both sides (at least til the walls already there).
View from the kitchen looking toward the front door. View from standing in cooters bedroom. master bedroom beyond wall above date stamp. this side of wall is "everything else" laundry, master bath and master closet, cooter's room and 1/2 bath. seems a lot to fit in that space, but i got it all figured out. lol

more rain forecast for wed. hope they can put some decking and plastic up tomorrow.

Cooter would not go to sleep tonight. he finally crashed a 9:30. He was outside all day playing and his babysitter assured me he would sleep soundly. NOT. he slept in the car a bit while we went to the new house and then picked up Turnbuckles car at my parents. (we left it there when we got juju's new car last week). but was awake when we got home and never stopped til 9:30. the fresh air must have made him crazy. we think the poor little guy has allergies. his nose is running clear. Zyrtec time.

Weekend Update

A pretty uneventful weekend, as weekends go. Got mad a juju sat. morning as she took one of her students to a "prom show". After throwing her back out Friday, i didn't think she should be doing anything but resting. as much pain as she was in the day before i wouldn't think she would want to risk re-injuring it. Her mother warned her it was her body telling her to slow down and she ignored it. Then me feeling a bit like an unpaided babysitter as I was with Cooter all day last sat. as she scrapbooked, let's just say we had a "difference of opinion" on what her saturday priorities should be. I'll admit I was probably jealous, as i think of the weekend as "familly time", whether we do something or just hang out. not that i mind chilling with my kid, i would just rather chill with the both of them.
anyway, my aunt stopped by in the afternoon and she and i went over to the new house to check it out. the rain damage wasn't as bad as i thought i would be. She hadn't seen it without the roof.
all of juju's stuff in the basement was wet, but not damaged as most were in rubbermaid containers.
The family went to lowes later to pick out a front door and stop at the new house again.

Sunday was church then home. juju went shopping in the afternoon. cooteer had a crazy sleep schedule. didn't take a nap until 3pm after getting up at 7 am. a 3 hour nap and back to sleep at 10:30. Up at 2 am til 4 am. weird. (thanks for getting up with him juju) he always sleeps through the night. the only thing i can think of is he ate at odd times and maybe that threw him off.

oh, sunday night coother did something cute. juju was putting sleeves on scrapbooks and there was a pic of grandpa. Cooter pointed to him and said "Uppa" and kept repeating it. when juju took the page away to put it in the book he stared crying. she gave it back to him and he would point and say. "uppa" again with a big smile on his face. he has his own kiddie scrapbook called "Who Loves Me". it has foam pages with plastic picture covers and lots of family photos in it. juju put a big pic of grandpa in it for him. he took it to the babysitters today...."uppa" all the way there.......

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Nothing new on the house today. It rained.........all day. crap. i got a wet, wet house.

Juju threw her back out this morning bending over to pick up the newspaper off the front porch.
I has been bothering her for a few weeks, but that was the straw the broke the camel's back... pun intended. she called off work. Poor Juju, she was miserable all day. she has muscle relaxers and pain pills and steroids. She better not get all looped up and try to bench press me. lol. On second thought.........

i took cooter to the babysitter and got bagels at Wegmans for the work crew. We all take turns bringing breakfast items on Friday. We also have an unwritten rule that if you leave during the day or come in late, you bring food back. there are only four of us in the office and a Burger King next door. It usually gets covered. Wednesday is usually Chinese day. A fantastic guy (I.T.Tom) picks it up for the whole place. all the offices and/or shop guys are included. I usually eat half and save the rest for Thurs. or Fri. 6 bucks for 2 lunches. Screw you BK, although a side salad, 4 piece chicken nugget and small fries ($3.18) are a good deal also. Mix'em all together and you got yourself a Chicken Salad with Fries. Want it spicy. get the spicy chicken sandwich and toss the bun, (or eat it, a mayo and lettuce sandwich is sometimes nice.) cut up the pattie and you got Spicy Chicken Salad. I know, i know.....the crap i think up from the dollar menu even amazes me! As sophisticated as my BK mind works, I usually brown bag it, as I love leftovers and can whip a nice lunch up in a few minutes before i run out the door with cooter.

I think we will take it easy tomorrow. i am not sure of the weather, but if it is nice I may start my yard work. I usually keep a pretty nice yard, but with the baby last year we got way behind. I may have to tie-off cooter a tree or something to get myself out there this year. I won't push it though. I am uaually the one with the bad back and we don't need 2 of us down for the count.

We were supposed to go out to dinner with Julie's brothers and their families tonight , but i took juju to the chiropractor instead and cooter to juju's sister's place. when we were done we went back to get him and mooched dinner from babysitters.... they had leftovers. Cooter got tired around 8:30. Started pushing buttons on the stereo, dishwasher, remote, etc. and crying every time i told him no and gave him a tap on the back of the hand. He just kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it. He must like pain! we got home it took him all of 2 minutes to fall asleep after his buba. he still keeps saying "uppa" for "papa" every time i get his coat. it is soooooo cute.

my brake light came on in my truck, but i think the emergency brake is just getting some slack in it. i can pull it forward and the light goes out, but hell if i know how to tighten a brake cable. i am amazed i figured out as much as i did. Dollar menu....i got it covered, cars....not so much. lol

The 2nd Floor Begins

Here are some shots of the house today. i just got home from poker and it has started raining. CRAP! Stuff is gonna get wet. oh, well. the date stamp is messed up on the camera. grrrr.....

The Front 04/03/08

This is the view from the kitchen. it isn't super wide, but it is the whole length of the house. this will be one big "great room" on the right and bedrooms and bathrooms and utility room on the left. An outside shot of the "great room". them is some big winders.

Here are the poker results for tonight:

13 players - 6 rebuys = pot was 190
4th - McScotty - 20
3rd - Whitey - 30
2nd - Me- 50
1st - Hatches - 90


Yes, the student beats the teacher and I had a ton of chips on her. Heads-up is any ones game. I don't think i played aggressive enough against her. Caught a bunch of med. pairs on the flop and couldn't pull the trigger when she made a big bet. Nice game Hatches.
I didn't really bluff much tonight. i didn't get a really big chip lead til the end. I have noticed that a lot of the guys who don't cash on a regular basis are not "position players". which means they only play their cards and don't take into consideration what order they are in the betting. I will toss a Q-10 in first position, but raise with it when i am the dealer. The reason being i have "position". I can see everyone make their moves before i decide on mine. Even if i don't hit the flop (and everyone checks) i can bet double the blind. about 1/ 2 the time i take the hand as no one hit and everyone folds. even if only one guy calls my odds to win the pot just got a whole lot better. now i am against 1 player instead of 3 or 4. i threw away a bunch of med. to low pocket pairs tonight. i would always get them in first or second position. Med.-low pockets are a strange animal. the pot need to be worth it to see a flop, if i was last , or even near the end, in the betting and there are already 2 or 3 guys in the pot i probably would have called. it is worth playing to see if you can spike a set with 2 or 3 other players. 3 to 1 odds is good enough risk to take a stab at trips. they will never see the set coming and you can rake a nice pot. there is nothing better then someone betting into you when you have trips. I played pretty tight for the most part and won some big pots (which i hate being in). Did some bullying at the end of the game to keep some low stacks from winning the blinds. I read somewhere that being in the blinds is overrated. dealer and right of the dealer are the prime positions. the blinds only bet last pre-flop and first to act the rest of the way. the dealer acts last the rest of the way, so the closer you are to the dealer when he is on your left, the stronger your position in the betting. betting last is always an advantage.

that is about all for today. i attribute the low turnout at poker to the nice mid 50° weather.

No Roof Over My Head

well, today the roof came almost completely off. here are the picks.
the second story decking will start tomorrow and hopefully the roof in the days to follow.

The Front.

A pic for the northeast corner.

Northwest Corner.

Southeast Corner.

Southwest Corner. that little piece is the only roof left. (the dumpster is full)

We picked up juju's new car today and the ginormous fridge. My mother-in-law owns a catering business and has a box truck with a lift gate. We don't really use it for catering much, but it sure comes in handy to have a relative with one of those. the move was a piece of cake after moving a ton of crap from the guys garage to make a path for the fridge. We made a stop at my brother Moose's garage to store the thing. the stupid handle for the freezer fell off as we where moving it. I hope that isn't a sign of things to come. It didn't break. it was just loose and the "brain surgeon/fridge owner" grabbed it by the handle to lift it and it "popped off". crap. Overall, it looked in pretty good shape. On a positive note, there were some free taco bell sauce packets and papa john's garlic butter tubs in the meat tray. unfortunately juju made me throw them away. Any of you who know me, know a have a "butter problem". check the November 23rd log. Thanks for helping move the fridge "Turnbuckle". you are a fantastic brother-in-law.

Cooter did a pretty cool thing today. i asked him if he was ready to go to gramma & papa's house. i went into his room to get the travel bag and he walked in with his coat in hand saying "uppa, uppa" (or papa in cooter speak). it was VERY cute. His first word was "light"..."light", he is fascinated with them. loves to flip the light switches up and down. a close second was "up", hence "uppa" for "papa". He seems to understand a little more of what you say every day....except for the word "no". lol. Back to daycare tomorrow, now that i know he is not contagious.

work was steady again today. nothing exciting to report except i finished my extrusion drawings for the owner, then back to drawing "DeSign Stones".

Tomorrow poker. don't wish me luck. i'm defending champ. BTW the new playboy came yesterday with a professional poker player "spread". i honestly have never heard of the girl, but i wouldn't mind "going all-in" on her, if you know what i mean. lol

L8R

Hey Kids, Listen to your Mother

I took Cooter, yea that's right "cooter" he is our 15 month old, to the doc for his rash today. i am sick of "boy" and "wife" already. from now on the "wife" will be "juju". still not thier real names, but less cold. anyway, cooter has foliculitous (plugged hair folicals), at least that is the guess. the doc has never see it that widespread. usually it is a small "blotch". he got anibotics to clear up the infection. the doc didn't seemed to concerned, so i won't be.

we were down a man at work again today "main st." was sick. i have to get a filling at the dentist tomorrow morning and the work wife is leaving early. we seem to be a unhealthy group lately. BTW this morning the temp was 65°...tonight 30° and snow. WTF! work was busy, even without our main sales guy. the drawing bins always had something in them. there is always something to do, even if i am not drawing signs for quotes. We are a spin-off of a bigger company, spun at the beginning of the year. there are many drawing borders to change to the new company name and always new designs and things to try. i am also working on some aluminum extrusions for the main company, but i am finding it hard to get them done, with all the work for the new company and missing persons in the office.

here is where the title at the top comes in today. i am going to post a few pics of the house. today the sheathing went up on the addition and the dormer was cut out... the dormer with the skylights. the skylights my mother kept harping on me to tell them to save. sorry mom. they are smashed to bits. not the end of the world, and i don't know if i want "used skylights" back on the new roof. but i didn't listen to my mom and now i don't even have a choice to use them or not. crap.

I ate dinner at the folks, parmasean chicken, a great meal. my mom can make some good parm. chick, potato salad and cake rounded out the menu. i ate too fast, as usual, and got a bit of a belly ache. cooter fell asleep in his high chair, poor little guy.

Juju bought a new car today, a 92 passat and a used fridge and groceries. car used, fridge used, groceries new. she found the car at a local car dealership. they are friends of her brother. the 24 cubic ft, bottom freezer, black fridge. it is a few years old, she saw it in the paper, went to see it and i am picking it up tomorrow. she is the queen of the bargain shoppers. now all we have to do is figure out how to pay for it all. lol we still need eveything else for the kitchen. we will have to go to a kitchen store and have them lay out a few scenarios for us. not sure if we want a wall oven and cooktop or an all-in-one. as the contractor said, "come take pictures every day as things will change very rapidly". he was not lying.

well, it is 9 pm and i hope cooter sleeps through the night. i am going to bed as juju watches the biggest loser...not a fan. i usually watch the end to see who gets kicked off. my biggest loser "girlfriend" Brittnay got kicked off a few weeks ago. so there is really no reason to watch. she said before she left that when she comes back for the final show she will be "steamy hot" guess what Brittnay, you already are. SNAP!