My life is normally pretty boring. Get up. Go to work. Come home. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
But today… that’s all changed…. because…
I’M A WINNER!!!
I twisted the cap on my Vanilla Coke, and sure enough, I won a 1 liter bottle! It said so inside my cap!
My life is going to change now… I can feel it! Things are going to come my way because I’M A WINNER!!!
My glorious week of vacation is over.
We applied paint vigorously to the upper back side of the house last week. I had to replace all the facia on the south side because water had gotten into the boards and ruined them (T1-11 made in the early 90’s wasn’t exactly good). We did, however, install rain gutters this time… so that should take care of the problem in the future.
a photo taken fairly early in the project – I only fell off this thing once
Now to paint the lower section of the back, inside the deck area, the floor of the deck itself, the sides (replacing fascia on the west side), installing gutters on both the east and west sides, painting the east, west, and north sides, and gutters on the front.
I expect to be done sometime in 2006.
We did have a massive thunderstorm on Tuesday. I had to stop everything and run inside, as we experienced 77 mph (124 kph) winds. Unfortunately, they ripped the shingles lose on the top 4′ (1.2 meters) of the south side of the roof. After things calmed down, I collected my shingles from the street and neighbor’s yards, climbed up there, and put them back on (I’m missing one). I’ll be calling today to find a roofer to re-do the entire roof (there goes the hot tub fund!).
I’ve taken the week off from work (my first week off that didn’t involve a surgery since 2001).
I’ve collected a bit of vacation time (230 hours to be exact) and have more coming. Where I work, any vacation time over 240 hours at the end of the year is lost… gone… done. So, it seemed like the thing to do.
I’m spending my time painting the house. It’s needed it for a few years now, but with my back being what it is, I was lucky just to make it out of bed each day. Standing on a ladder wasn’t on my list of things to do.
We’ve set up a “scaffold” on the back of the house. It’s not really a scaffold, but rather, a set of giant friggin’ shelves from a warehouse (the kind you stack pallets on). It’s scary as hell, but actually very stable (and a lot bigger than a normal scaffold). It’s also heavy beyond belief and takes about an hour to tear down and put back together.
As it’s currently 92 degrees (33.3 Celsius) and climbing… I’m done for the moment. We’re going to take the afternoon off and take our youngest to a movie.
And speaking of my youngest…. he turned 13 on Sunday. We had a little party for him and a nice dinner (grilled steaks). He made quite the haul and everyone had a good time.
I also got to see my friend, Mike, who moved away a number of hears ago. 🙂
I’ll take some pics of the house and the scaffold (aka: Death Ride 2005) and post them later.
I was going through my hits… seeing what websites are linking to me (and which ones are hotlinking to my images), when I ran across this page.
They were making a comment about a post I had written where I asked the question “What percentage of the parts used to build a Harley are actually made in America by American companies?” The author of the other site feels that buying an import (or motorcycle built by an American plant owned by a foreign company) takes money out the pocket of Americans.
Not a chance.
I replied with this:
While it’s true that America, the country, benefits from the sale of Harley Davidson Motorcycles, the same can be said of all motorcycles, regardless of where they’re manufactured.
Motorcycles made on foreign soil are subject to a tariff upon entry into the United States. Then there are the people who make a living by unloading those motorcycles from the ship. Transporting them to locations all over the country also generates revenue that goes directly into the pocket of Americans. There are dealerships who sell these machines and service technicians who work on them. Let us also not forget the companies who make after market parts for all those metric bikes. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry with most of the money staying right here in America.
Companies like Honda are finding it advantageous to manufacturer some of its bikes here in the United States. With 8 plants and over 20,000 employees, a very large amount of cash flows directly into the pockets of Americans in the form of wages and benefits. By September of 2003, Honda had made a capitol investment of $4 billion dollars right here in the US.
It would be impossible for Harley Davidson to keep up with the demand for motorcycles in this country if it was the sole source, and millions of American riders would be unable to enjoy the open road. The sale of these foreign motorcycles places much needed dollars into the pockets of Americans.
Metric bikes have extremely high quality and value for the dollar. They’re affordable to the masses in comparison to Harley Davidson and offer a very large variety in style.
I personally ride a 2000 Yamaha Royal Star Boulevard and am the author of the blog you referenced above (although I’m a “he” and not a “she”).
Of course, somehow it mangled what I wrote when I posted it (using single and double quotes kinda blew things up)… so I’m going to look like some sort of smacktard.
I think the real issue here is that many Harley riders are rather elitist. “It doesn’t matter what you ride… so long as you ride a Harley” seems to be the opinion. I can’t begin to go over the number of times that I’ve caught shit for riding an import from a Harley owner.
My usual tactic when this happens is to point under their bike and say “Is your bike leaking oil?”.
They look every time! 🙂
My youngest son finally hit’s the teen years on Sunday (fathers day).
He doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve ordered a few parts for his PC.
He’s also getting my old video card:
If you’re looking to get him something go go along with the PC candy, he would like the following:
He did ask for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (XBOX ), but I will personally kick the ass of anyone who buys that for him 🙂
We’re having the party on Sunday… I’ll cook steaks. Be there!