My First Post!

Chirstmas 2005 Card

I've uploaded our Christmas 2005 Christmas card here!

Prinderalla and the Cince

I found it! A Spoonerism I heard almost 10 years ago - quoted by memory and with a straight face at a ward talent show. In an effort to make this available via the web and to make my own copy (not to mention the practice typing) I duplicate it below, although I do not know the author - so if you know please email me.

Prinderalla and the Cince

Tonce upon a wime, there was a gretty little pirl named Prinderalla. She lived with her two sisty uglers and her micked wepstother. They made her flub the scroors, wean the clindows and do all the wirty dork. Wasn't that a shirty dame!

One day, the cince proffered an oclamation that all the gelibigle irls were inviteded to a drancy fess ball. Prinderella didn't have a drancy fess. All she had was a rirty dag, so she cat down and sried.

Along came her gairy fodmother who turned her rirty dag into a drancy fess, hice into morses, and a cumpkin into a poach -- but she warned Prinderalla to be home by the moke of stridnight.

Prinderalla pranced with the dince and at the moke of stridnight, she dan rown the stalace peps. As she dan rown the stalace peps, she slopped her dirpper.

The dext nay, the dince proffered another oclamation that all the lung yadies were to try on the slass gripper. It fidn't dit the two sisty uglers because their tig boes fidn't dit in the slass gripper. It fid dit Prinderalla because her tig poe fid dit -- so she parried the mince and they lived appily ever hafter!

The storal to the mory is: If you want to find your prandsome hince, be sure to slop you dripper.

Hells Kitchen Fire

Last week we had a great wildland fire. What started at 6 acres ended up in burning over 600+ acres! So I got to put out a lot of fire.

And as a bonus had a great view of the fire operations from a ridge overlooking the fire. I've uploaded the pictures and movies here.

This was the first time I've taken pictures with my new $99 camera - so they are not as good as the could have been. And if you would like you can download the zipped up file from my website.

Check back later - I will try to add some blow by blow details later.

My New Floor

Over the Labor day weekend I labored to install a beautiful new hardwood floor.
Thanks to all those who helped we got it done in 3 days!

Dale helped me get started by cutting up and rolling up ALL of the carpet before I could say anything Thursday evening. Before I knew it we were down to bare floor and there was no turning back now!

Friday afternoon I rented a Floor nailer and got started by first laying out a short row of boards from one side of the room to the other, just to get a "feel" for what the floor would look like and how much would need to be trimmed of the last row.

I decided to start my first row at the front of the house down the hallway and entranceway. This meant that the trimmed boards would be along the back wall covered by furniture - and I didn't need to reverse lay the bay.

Sven and Nicole came to help because they are interested in doing hardwood for their home. In this picture you can see Joylin, Dale, me and Sven working our way down the hallway.

The biggest difficulty was discovering mis-milled boards. Some boards appear to have been milled too narrow by 1/16". At first I didn't discover these boards until the next row had been nailed in and the next board - no matter how hard I tapped it (best to use a white rubber mallet) would leave the 1/16" crack. I would then need to remove the board and the preceding row - carefully removing the floor staples and then searching for a board of suitable length so I didn't mess up the ends.

Of course the most difficult is the finishing touches. For example I discovered I was 3/4" short of the hallway bathroom tile when I needed to by 1/4" away. My plan was then to caulk the space between the tile and the wood with caulk the same color as the grout. To make up the difference I used some scraps and via the table router cut a new groove allowing me to slip a 1/2" board in between the final board entering the bathroom and the rest of the hallway.

Thanks to my Father in law, all the trim is back in place - and the stairwell landing is finished although I don't have any pictures uploaded yet so come back soon...You can see more pictures here!

Lets get this Started

Well, I decided to try out Google's blogging service called Blogger. It's free, and it makes my website look nicer, so I thought I would give it a try.

I've also installed some image viewing stuff - so come back soon!