We’ve been working on the yard for a while.

Back in ’02, we had a pretty plain yard that sloped down from the street to the house. It was a pretty good slope and I hated mowing it, so we decided to install a retaining wall and terrace it.

Oh man… did I have bad timing.

Right after we started the project, my back gave out. I spent the next 3 years having surgeries and the yard just sat there… a giant mud pit covered with weeds.

This year though, I’m feeling better and we’ve started up on it again. Here’s a photo show of what we’ve done so far (click the thumbnail to open the images in a popup window… click them again to make the popup go away).

Mouse over the thumbnails to read a description.

2002 – 2003

We don’t have any pictures of the next step, putting in the foundation for the retaining wall and the isntalation of the retaining wall itself, which happend tward the end of 2003. If I did have pictures, they would simply show the yard covered in black plastic… for two years. Yeah… my neighbors loved me.

I do, however, have a few pics for your viewing pleasure of where we’re currently at in 2005. We purchased some Iron Mountain pavers and 3 tons of brick to create a path (along the drive way) and a patio (in the lower part of the yard). Hopefully it looks good when it’s done.

The brick came on the 3 pallets shown on top of the pile in the garage. My wife and I decided on Saturday to get them in the garage before the neighborhood hoodlums decided to grab a few of them and insert them into the neighborhood cars via the windshields. We took 2 bricks from each pallet and started making a stack (to mix the various pallets and therefore keep the color consistent).

I helped for about an hour until my back got angry at me. My wife kept going for the next two hours. Then I came back out and we finished it. Good times!

Of couse, there’s still a ton left to do. We need to dig about 5 inches down where we plan on placing the brick (a path along side the driveway and the whole lower yard will be a patio). Then we fill it with 4 inches of gravel (compacted) and 1 inch of sand. Then we can finally palce the brick.

We hope to be done with this little project sometime before July of 2042.

I just wanna say one thing first….

I HAVE MY STAR WARS TICKETS FOR THE 7:30 SHOW TOMORROW NIGHT! I’M MORE GEEK THAN YOU ARE!! NEENER-NEENER-NEENER!!

Well… I’m glad I got that out of the way. And now, to the real deal:

About 4 posts ago I told you that I had ordered new pipes for my bike.

They came today.

I inspected them at the dealer, making sure that the chrome was good and there were no obvious defects, then raced home to install them.

The instructions were vague at best, but I managed to get all but one on after a couple of hours of messing around (I’m a computer engineer… not a mechanic, damn it!). It was when I went to slip on the last pipe that I noticed a problem… they didn’t come with gaskets.

“No problem” I thought to myself, “I’ll just call the dealer and get some”.

Riiiiiiight.

For those who havn’t ever had the pleasure of dealing with a motorcycle dealer, let me enlighten you:

Generally… they stock nothing and employ people that used car lots won’t touch.

After calling every dealer in the Spokane area (as well as northern Idaho), I knew I was defeated on the “quick fix” approach and resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to order them. At the low, low price of $17.99 each (and I need 4), it will take me another $77.79 and a week to 10 days to get them. I pulled out my credit card and read the numbers like the sheep I am.

The old pipes are back on so at least I can still go for a ride if I desire… so life is still good.

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Today was the day to search the stock xchnge (a very cool source of royalty free images for non commercial use). I pulled down 7 more images for the header… all of which are very cool.

Oh… and a special thanks to Stephen at pixinstock.com for allowing me to use one of his images (the cigarette machine).

Next on my list of things to do: Trash Calvin’s cubicle!

One of the guys I work with, Calvin, is having a birthday. It is one of those that includes a “0” on the end. So… I got black wrapping paper, balloons, etc to nail his cube with. Should be fun!

I’ve just upgraded to the latest, greatest build of wordpress. Hopefully I haven’t messed things up.

Take a look, poke around, and if you find a problem, email me at:
bio at pixelthugs dot com (you can figure out how that works)

Hopefully, this will fix a few issues I’ve been having (there are about 170 bug fixes in the new version).