Alright, I'm back on the net and here are some updates.

First off, Mary made it safely back to the house on Thursday night and regretted ever leaving. See, the wife in the Yellow Hat left Curious Ben at the house unsupervised. Tuesday he was too busy to get into any trouble and went home without tearing anything up. Wednesday was a different story...

Wednesday Curious Ben came home and decided to venture into plumbing. Curious Ben doesn't know a damn thing about plumbing but that never stopped him before. So he shuts off the water to the house and removes his sink supply valves since they had rusted in place. He then discovered that he had bought the wrong replacement valves. Curious Ben shouted a few choice words and drove on to the Home Depot. While wandering around the plumbing section he got thoroughly confused and bought lots of stuff to make all his repairs. Once home Curious Ben installed his new valves (quarter turn ball valves, Ben may be a monkey but he knows a good product when he see's it) and removed the drain system. Since Curious Ben wanted to replace his counter tops he decided to go ahead and remove the sink. After removing the clamps from the self rimming flange (alright, curious Ben knows a little about plumbing) and cutting under the flange, Curious Ben pulled up on the sink. He pulled so hard in fact that the entire counter top triked to come up with the sink. After a bit of jumping up and down, shrieking in rage, and flinging poop, Curious Ben finally removed the sink.











So after ruining the sink, Curious Ben chunked it into the carport where it will reside until he figures whether to turn it into a planter or to use it to make a planting table.

Today I washed all my doors and drawers in the shower. I don't know if this is screwing up or not, but they were nasty! When you scrub a door and rinse it off, and the rinse water is dark brown, you had a bit of dirt and grease on your stuff. Glad I'm doing this now instead of finding out in a month or two that my paint is peeling off. I'm still using Zinser on my stuff and is working pretty well. I primed about half the doors and all the drawers, and the cabinet bases are about 70% primed. I still have quite a lot of painting and priming to do, but its coming along. I think I'll definitely be done before the end of the month.

I gotta tell ya, Curious Ben was glad to see the Wife in the Big Yellow Hat.

Now, about Saturday.

Mary had a baby shower on Saturday, thrown our friend Jenny. I understand that it was a blast. My mom, aunt, and grandma were in attendance. I was expecting the family to stop by the house on their way home so I busted my butt all morning cleaning up the house (and let me tell you thats a trick when your kitchen it torn up). Turns out my grandma wasn't feeling well so my aunt drove her back home. Then my own mother skipped out and ran back to the lake. So I was in a clean house, just missed my family. Had I known they would have been unable to stop by I definitely would have driven to the shower at the end to visit with them for a few minutes. Thats neither here nor there.

So I've got the house cleaned up and have no desire to do any work that will mess up my clean space. Turns out this was good. Mary, Jenny, and Betsy arrived around 2 o'clock (thank goodness I wasn't still in my underwear) with a load of loot from the shower. I oo'ed and ahh'd over the stuff, and I'm really getting stoked about some of the baby gear. My son will be one sharp dressed little dude. My mom got me a neat Jeep brand diaper bag, and its pretty awesome. Anyway, the ladies hung out here and we visited and joked around for hours. We ended up going to dinner and had a truly fantastic time. I enjoy my wife's friends very much and since they read this, I want to thank you girls for coming and for visiting. We both had a great time and really enjoyed your company.

Oh yeah, link for some fun. Jenny tossed this out early in her visit and we had it running through our heads all evening. If you liked Squeaky Deaky, here's another catchy tune for you.

The internet is for porn

Again, I look forward to your hate mail.

Update pending

Ok, my internet connection is getting spotty lately so I'm having troubles updating. Don't worry, I've got more photos and stories of me screwing up my kitchen. Should have something for you tonight.

You can do it, Home Depot can help you screw it up

Yeah, so if you've been reading this you know we ate our stupid pills two weeks ago and decided to remodel the kitchen. Let's all say it together now, "You little dumb ass!" Well, after a weekend of painting I have the following pictures to share. First person who says "you missed a spot" is welcome to come to Weatherford, pick up a brush, and fix it themselves.







And of course here are my darling helpers. What they lack in opposable thumbs they make up for in shedding and drooling. Plus they work cheap.






















As if all this excitement weren't enough to make me vomit at the sight of a Home Depot or Lowes, my best helper just quit on me. This picture was taken just after the words "Screw you, I'd rather hang out with geriatrics at a quilting bee than paint another cabinet!"




And with that she packed up and is leaving me tomorrow morning to spend a couple of days quilting with geriatrics (she doesn't threaten, she just does). So now I'm stuck here to fend for myself until Thursday night. Send help. Send help now! You realize that she's going to come home to find the house turned into a landfill and me eatting out of the garbage, wearing a loincloth and scratching my ass.

I miss her already.

For all you dog lovers out there

Squeaky Deaky!

Go ahead, click the link and turn up the volume. If you like that here's the link to the company ( Pet CD's ) where you can buy other tunes for your pooch.

If instead, you now have an irritating Caribean tune stuck in your head...


I await your hate mail.

Squeak Squeak Squeak!!!

Wow, my stupidity knows no bounds...

Right, so I started ripping up 25 year old linoleum on Monday. This stuff is old enough to get a good rate on auto insurance for crying out loud, which I have done to no end. I hate linoleum. Check that, I hate removing old stuck linoleum.



Yeah, that's me in all my studliness, dishing out a beat down on that linoleum. Note the contractor's grade knee pads? Yeah, I get freaky with those. It isn't everyday you see a fat boy with an industrial floor scraper and knee pads ripping it up, is it?










Hell, I look so good we're going for the reverse angle now. Too bad Mary didn't have the camera out when I mooned her, it was my best side. Anyway at this point I've pretty much scraped the floor into submission and left it crying in the trash bags. Yeah, I'm a bad man. At this point in the remodel you're too far along to stop and put things back the way they were if you change your mind. You are now fully committed to the project, and come hell or high water, you must finish.






So while scraping the floors, my wife, whom I love more than life itself, utters the dreaded, "WHILE WE'RE SCRAPING THE FLOORS, WE MIGHT AS WELL REMODEL THE WHOLE KITCHEN". I think at this point I pee'd a little. I must have been too long without sleep because I hear somebody say, "yeah, thats a good idea honey". Oh no, those words came out of my mouth! I just committed myself to a full kitchen remodel. My stupidity, raising the bar yet again.



As you can see from the photographic evidence here, we now have 3 major appliances residing outside of our home. I beleive, and correct me if I'm wrong, that we have just vaulted ourselves into the official status of White Trash. My next assignment is to get a car up on blocks in the front yard and chain a multitude of ill tempered baby eatting dogs to the bumper. Our new neighbor isn't so sure about us anymore.



So where are the dishes and food and crap we normally store in the cabinets?



Here,



Here,



AND HERE! Yeah, thats the new liquor cabinet. High class huh?

So the floor is pretty much ripped up, the cabinet doors and drawers have been removed, the dish washer and stove are living on the porch, and the fridge is living in the dining room. My stupidity seems to have gotten me in some trouble again. Yeah, I said again. Now if you've ever been to my house you know its a little strange. 7 foot ceilings, substandard wiring, you know, that sort of fun stuff. I had no idea how lucky I was living in ignorance. I removed the stove to find this.



Doesn't quite look up to code to me, what with the tape holding it together.



The spots you see on the floor are where the concrete popped out when I removed a tack strip. Nice huh? Yeah I've got to patch holes in my foundation for crying outloud. I really didn't want to do that, hell I didn't even want to know you could get holes in the foundation.

We also scraped the popcorn textured ceiling, and got drywall dust everywhere. I mean everywhere. This crap is on every horizonatl surface in the house. I'd post pictures of it but I can't find the camera in this world of white. When I stepped out of the house for a smoke, a girl walking down the street asked her mom what was wrong with me. I think I overheard the word "albino", and I can see that, what with the chalky skin tone and pink eyes from the dust. Nasty stuff. I was feeling pretty overwhelmed when I remembered I'm not alone in the voyage through hell. I've got a partner who's not so good with a hammer but is great at keeping me calm giving me a hand where she can.



There she is, the Juanita to my Paco, the Yin to my Yang, the Peaches to my Herb. My wife. She's sorta the reason, well actually she and the child she's carrying are the reason for a complete home remodel. If it wasn't for my wife I wouldn't be doing all this because I couldn't even try without my partner over there. And look at that butt! Nice huh? Honey I love you, although I'm not so fond of home improvement at the moment.

Alright, there's my update, enjoy it, and send all donations in the form of Home Depot gift cards to our mailbox.

Reasons to Kick Bob Villa in the NUTZ!!!

So this is my industrial floor scraper, razor scraper, paint scraper, and the worlds best gel filled knee pads.









This is my slab, and the crappy linoleum that refuses to go away. I hate this crap.






Seriously, I am soaking this stuff with soapy, hot water and have not had the best of luck relocating it to the dumpster. If I ever find that smug looking bearded a--hole named Bob Villa, I'm going to stick his head in a wood chipper that I bought at Sears and use his "I know everything" carcass to mulch my begonias by God!

My Nephew Is 9!

So this evening I meet my wife in the bustling metropolis that is Lipan. The reason for the season? Read the title of this post! My nephew is having his 9th birthday party. We played basketball in the pool, and I sucked it up pretty good. I've got the coordination of an epileptic ostrich, and the grace of a tree sloth on meth amphetamines. So after getting my ass handed to me we ate some burgers, blew out the candles on the cake, opened presents, and fed the mosquitos. Here is some photographic evidence of the good time that was had by most.



This is Tuffy, she gives us hope that our delinquent dogs can be as cool some day.




Swear to God, I am not pinching a loaf in the pool.





Here is the birthday boy, in all his soggy glory. Go Ty, we gonna party like it yo' birfday, yeah we gonna party like it yo' birfday!




My neices dog trying to drown itself. He's cute, but not so smart.







So anyway, we took some photos, visited with folks, and had a good time. Mary did make fun of me because my huge beach towel looked like a dress on me. She's just jealous 'cause some of us got it, and flaunt it!

Who Knows What Stupidity Lies in the Heart of This Man?

Hell, I do. So on my way home from work today I decide to stop at Lowes and pick up some tools and supplies for Operation: Quick, the Kids on the way, fix up this Death Trap! I go in and buy the usual stuff, industrial floor scraper, romex (12:2 for those in the know), pneumatic texture gun, carpet tack strips, pole sander, you know, the usual stuff.

After a quick dinner of Chicken Express I decide to try out my new heavy duty industrial grade floor scraper. Good idea? Nope, bad idea. It is apparent now that the scraper I have purchased is not so good for linoleum flooring. So we aren't starting on the right foot, but this will get better right?

You know those little razor scrapers that hold a standard single edged razor? Yeah, you do, you just aren't thinking hard enough. Anyway I get this little blade and begin trying to remove about 50 square feet of 20 year old linoleum. Imagine filling an in ground pool with a 5 gallon bucket and you realize that this is going to take awhile. So I slap on my knee pads (the good ones) and get to cutting and scraping. I think also that it would be a good idea to peel off the vinyl layer and then soak the underlayment with hot water. Thinking I'm onto something, my wife goes online to double check. Yeah, I'm following the right path.

So after four and a half hours of knee crunching, back breaking, hand bruising scraping and mopping, I'm only about 1/4 of the way through the kitchen. Next time I'm at Lowes I think a 5 gallon bucket of Turpentine is in my future.

The next time you have the idea to tackle that home improvement project on a Monday night, stop, sit down, put your head between your knees and take deep breaths. If the urge persists consume 1 to 4 beers until either the urge to work passes, or you incapacitate yourself, thus preventing that bad idea from becoming bad action.

There you have it, a glimpse into the stupidity that rears its drooling lazy eyed head every now and then and gets me in over my head. Tune in later this week when we discuss the proper removal of razor blades from the holder, and how to dial 911 without dripping blood all over the nice new phone.

Moving: Why burning all your stuff is a better alternative

Ok, I hate moving. I mean I hate moving the way the Arabs hate Israel. Not kidding in the least, I hate moving. I went to my dad's place on Friday morning and we got to loading up a pickup, a trailer, and a great big u-haul (which by the way, I hate u-haul almost as much as moving, but we'll get to that in a minute). We pack, and we load, and we toss a bunch of stuff in the junk pile. This goes on for several hours. I had arrived at 8:30am, my wife arrived at 2:30pm just as we finished loading the trucks.

I volunteered to drive the u-haul, I think it was this model. Anyway, Mary shows up and we pile in the truck. It does have cloth seats, it does have an automatic transmission, and is has a gasoline engine. I'm not a fan of putting a gas engine in a truck of this size, they are always undersized and don't perform very well. The u-haul confirmed this beyond the shadow of a doubt. Please recall that when moving, you generally have more bulk to move than weight. So we were hauling at the most 2 tons of junk in the truck and I'm being generous, it was probably only 3,000lbs. This means that we aren't loading the truck over capacity or anything. So off we go, air conditioner blowing, we're some what comfortable, but that is about to change.

The key to smooth acceleration, which results in your junk not getting tossed around in the back of the truck, is to gently and smoothly roll your foot onto the gas pedal. This was not to be. Our truck had a gas pedal that would bind up, so you'd either be stuck idling along, or kick your foot to the floor board and lurch forward. Mary was not a fan of this feature, nor the fact that the transmission shifted so hard it felt like we were being rear ended everytime it shifted up or down. She wanted to call my dad who was following us, and tell him to back off incase the tranny fell out. We finally make our way to the highway and I am literally standing on the gas pedal, and doing 45mph in a 65mph zone. This is called suicide, because you will be run over. I finally get the gimp truck all the way to 60mph. We are trucking now. A slight uphill grade looms before us and I floor the truck, so that at the crest of the hill we are only down to 50mph. I am not real happy about this thing and it gets better. Swear to God we must have had an anchor dragging behind us. This POS gets like 6 mpg. Had we been in a diesel I think we could have gotten a comfortable 10 mpg, and been able to maintain our speed. Instead we are stuck trying like hell to maintain 60mph. This means that on US 281 traffic backs up so bad behind our slow asses that it looks like we're leading a freaking parade!

Speaking of parade, ha ha. When you drive a truck that gets single digit fuel economy you need to plan your stops for gas. I think I can make town A, but the gas gauge tells me I can't. Well that's alright, towns B and C are between me and A. I'm close to empty and decide town B is next up, I'll stop there. I slow down on my way to town, ease on to the shoulder to turn into the gas station, and realize the station closed sometime back when fuel was only $1.49 a gallon. Well crap, on to town C. I think the gas station at town C must rely on stupid people driving u-hauls who delude themselves into thinking they can make the next town. On the way home, again I'm planning on stopping in town A, except they are having some sort of pioneer days parade that is about to start. Every gas station on the correct side of the street is full of people waiting for the parade, so I have to by pass town A for gas and go back to town C. My dad asks if I have a preference for this little 1 pump station in the middle of nowhere. Somedays you just can't win, and others your manage not to run out of gas, and that is close to winning when you are driving a uhaul.

Our truck was equiped with an am/fm stereo, at least it was stereo before the drivers side speaker blew out. So I'm wanting some tunes, but when I turn it up to a point where I can enjoy it, Mary's got bloor running out her ears. Great, now I can't even listen to the radio in the POS truck. After almost stalling this beast going up Chalk Mountain (and its a freaking automatic!) I look at Mary and exclaim,"Well it may be loud and crappy, but it sure is slow". At this point we kind of lost it and started making all kinds of jokes at our u-haul's expense. After 4 hours of loud, slow, kidney smashing, whiplash giving, driving, we arrive at our destination. I think I pee'd blood from that rough riding truck. Good lord I drive a KIA, which is a cheap Korean vehicle and it rides like a lexus on a sheet of glass compared to that truck.

Anyway, I managed to cripple myself while loading, driving, unloading, and spent most of the weekend shuffling around like an old man. We got my dad moved (for the most part, I mean we could have loaded the truck again with what was left) and I spent Sunday mowing my yard, again. Sorta disappointing, Mary and I had planned to go see a buddy's band this weekend but felt like crud on Saturday night. We'll have to catch him some other time.

Anyway, that was my weekend, hope yours was less eventfull, and u-haul free.

Happy Independance Day

So this weekend Mary and I cleaned out our laundry room and tossed out another load of junk. It is amazing the stuff you find when you decide to clean out a room. The worse part is looking through stuff and thinking, "why do I have this, and why has it moved with me the last three moves?" Anyway, the room was cleared out and I slapped on my knee pads to scour the base boards and scrub out some stains in the linolium (that isn't spelled correctly). Mary said I was doing a pretty good Cinderella impression.

I seem to be getting my events out of order. Saturday we didn't do a thing but sit on our butts. Sunday we scrubbed and cleaned. Monday we went and saw Disney's movie CARS. Must say, as a man of 29, I thought it was an awesome movie. After that we went to a Chinese Buffet, and it sucked. I won't name the restaurant because the service was good, the place was clean, and food was fresh and hot. It just didn't taste very good.

Today I got up and went to town to buy some gas, and then got started on the lawn. Must say, it does look good. I mowed, and then was interrupted by a nice rain fall of 1.5". We did get some pea sized hail, so I put Mary's Jeep under the carport. I then went out in the soggy lawn to trim and clean up. That was miserable. I got ambitious and decided to cut down a dead cedar bush (see previous post concerning bag worms, freaking worms). After all that I got cleaned up, grilled some burgers, and enjoyed my inlaws coming over for dinner. When it got dark, we sat on the lawn and watched the neighbors violate the burn ban by setting off fireworks. I'm so glad we got the rain though.

All in all I'd call this a good weekend, hope yours was as good or better.