Picture for dad from welding class.

This will probably not interest anyone but dad.

After two weeks of running stringer beads on the TIG, I decided to start working on some tasks tonight. I'm starting to get the hang of the machine, but it IS like the Cadilac of TIG machines. This one wasn't the best of the night, but the best one is now in the locker...it passed. This one didn't pass because of the cold start on the right where it balled up a little bit. It is really nice to be able to adjust the heat on the fly.

 See, I told you this wouldn't interest anyone but dad!

A Busy Sunday.

I was able to get Deb and Lydsay out at the crack of dawn (to them.....11 a.m.) and we finally got the garden planted. It was cool and windy, and now there is a frost warning out for tonight. I wonder if the tomato plants will make it?

Celeste came over this afternoon with the baby, so her and Lyndsay wanted to stay in the back yard....so since I needed to stay out there anyway, I went ahead and dug the trench for my electrical wiring for the shed. I talked Deb into helping me fish it up into the house panel, her pulling from inside the house, and me pushing it up from the crawl space. All I need now is a big breaker for the house panel, and a sub-panel for the shed and I'll have electricity. I went ahead and ran some phone line and cable while I was at it...might as well have all the comforts of home out there. Oh, and the TV was a request from Lyndsay.

My current project.

Here is what has been keeping me busy for the last week. There were several things I needed to do before I could start moving my "stuff" into the new shed. The first thing was to wire it up for electricity. I've done all the wiring, though haven't dug the trench needed to get the power out there yet. Me and Lyndsay built the bench, then put a piece of pegboard up in front of it. I used simple wallboard for the rest of the walls where needed. Basically it is just there so I can hang pictures and stuff up. Today we started moving things from the old shed to the new one.

Taking a stab at the 6.

1. If you could ask any question of the head honcho of AOL about the recent journal concerns, what would your question be?
I wouldn't have much to say, because I didn't realize there were any concerns!
2. How many journals do you visit regularly in an average week...or...if you use a blog aggregator service like "Bloglines," how many journals do you have in your subscription lists?
Only six or so.
3. Back in July, I asked which of the Seven Deadly Sins (pride, envy, gluttony, anger, greed, sloth, and lust,) you were most guilty of. Now, it's time to pat yourselves on the back and figure out which one you are the least guilty of.
Glad I missed the one where he wanted to know "most guilty". For this one, I'm going with "sloth".
4. Recent reports indicate that some pharmacists are refusing to sell their customers the controversial "morning-after pill" when the customer prevents their prescription. Should pharmacists be allowed to refuse to sell a medication for which a customer presents a valid prescription based on their own religious beliefs?
Well, I'm not so right wing about this.I think the guy might need to look into another line of work if he refuses to fill a prescription based on religion. I guess he'll probably not be filling viagra or cialis prescriptions either, just to "nip the problem in the bud", right?
5. Take this personality test: What type of personality does it say you are? ENTJ Then go back to this page, click the link that matches your results. Read the description: how accurate do you think it is about you? I believe is it very accurate. Damn shrinks!

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #50 from SpringsNymph: You've received an unexpected windfall of $50,000. What home improvement would you spend it on? I would probably go ahead and buy this place from the church, put a roof and new siding on it, and let Deb decide what needs to be done inside.

Got the shed in place...fun stuff!

What a fun morning! I got up early, and tried using the Dually to yank this thing up the hill...no dice. Didn't have the traction to make it happen. Then I got Deb up, hooked the tractor to the front of the truck...still not gonna happen. At this point I'm starting to get a little bummed out. So....I used my old buddy Rooster's trick, which I'm sure he got from the Ancient Egyptians directly. Jack that baby up and put some poles under it to lessen the friction. The shed had sunk in a couple inches overnight, and this helped get things moving. I only had to do this trick a couple times, because once I got up the hill, the little tractor really got some traction and carried the front wheels all the way up! The tires did a number on my yard, but hey, the shed is in place. Deb was snapping pictures when she wasn't spotting for me. We had to thread the thing through my fence poles, and some trees. And, you can tell by the blue shirt, all this was on company time...how could I think of switching jobs?

The new shed has arrived.

It took a month to get built, but my new storage shed finally arrived this morning. As you can see, he has my neighbors loaded on there as well. These are built by menonites in south Georgia, and are really well built. Here it is coming into the drive:

And here is a better view showing the front of mine:

Now the good part. My 10 foot gate is to narrow to get the shed through. So I tell the guy to drop it next to the fence line and I'll pull it where I want it with the tractor. "How much does it weigh?" I ask the driver. "3500 pounds" he says and I start thinking I may need a bigger tractor. Sure enough, my little baby Deere won't budge the damn thing. It did probably look cool with the front end pointing to the sky like a minature Super Stock Puller. Debbie had already left with the big truck, so at the moment it sits next to the fence in the backyard, waiting for me to come up with some way to get it to it's final spot. I hope to hell the truck can get enough traction to drag it up into the back yard!

Broken DSL! The horror....

Well, I didn't realize how long it had been since I made an entry here. The past week has been pretty hectic with school starting back up and the Macon locals rolling out. Deb has been working until at least seven, usually nine every night. So Friday evening we are sitting at our computers, listening to Opie and Anthony (Funny stuff, let me tell you) when everything just comes to a halt. My surfing, Deb's card playing, and the webcast audio of my new favorite talk show. I figure it is a problem with our local phone company, and it is 11 at night, so what the hell....call it a night, they'll fix it in the morning.

So Saturday arrives....there was a big drag race in Reynolds, so I only had time to check it right quick. Still out. No biggie. Spent the day checking out the car show, swap meet, and some good all Ford drag racing....because after all...who wants to look at a damn Chevy anyway? Oh, yeah...uncle Don..but that is about it. And I figure the only reason he does is either a head injury none of us know about, or because it makes for some good arguments when he talks to folks with enough common sense to buy Fords. Anyway, I didn't get home until 6p.m. and there was still no internet! This is getting serious.

We have a true privately owned phone company in this little town, and I figured my chances would be pretty slim of getting any tech support on a Saturday night...wrong I was. Evidently whomever contracts the DSL has that covered. After having me change a bunch of settings that I knew wouldn't fix the problem, the tech support guy concedes that my modem is dead. Being hard headed, I didn't even hook up a phone line to dial on with AOL until last night, and that was to check out a tractor for dad. Man, I remember when getting on at 56k seemed pretty doggone fast.

So here I sit. Monday morning, waiting on Bruce, the phone guy, to drop me off a modem. The cool part is that even though I haven't talked to them yet, I know I'll be his first stop when he hits the rode this morning. The phone company folks all know I actually use this thing for work sometimes, and I'm sure our total logged on hours are way beyond anyone else in town. They tend to take care of us when a problem arises. To me, having a locally owned phone company is pretty cool...and this is only the second time in the year that we've had DSL that is has had a problem.

And besides, things could be worse...for the first two years we lived out here, a 28.8 connection was as fast as it got.

Back to shool...and more gun porn.

Alrighty, I'm officially back to school. It was good to catch up with the welding shop guys after spending two quarters "across the street" doing core classes. I was planning to take a day class this quarter, but because of Macon local channels coming online, it looks like I'll be taking the extra class at night. That means four nights a week at school. That is going to get old fast.

And I've taken another picture of the latest mistress for another web site, and thought I would share here as well. I just got the grips in the mail today, and had to do a couple glamour shots for the guys at 10mmtalk.com.

And here are a couple of my running buddy riding around with her "hubsband" (thats how she says it) and my "grandaughter".

You say it isn't raining today?

Wow, the sun! I had forgotten what that looked like. I can say for sure that the garden is getting put off for another week, unless I decide to plant rice, because my plot is a mudhole at the moment. It rained last weekend, then I had a couple nice days while in Chattanooga, then it started raining again Wednesday night and didn't really quit until late last night. Today it is very windy, but hopefully that will dry the yard enough for me to mow it.

Deb told me last night, "You need to update your journal, sir." Well, with that sort of formalities I figure I better do as I'm told. So, I sent her off to work, and Lyndsay is still sleeping (at 11:49! She takes after her mother), this is as good a time as any to type a bit.

I left Chattanooga Thursday morning and was able to hit a couple new gun stores on my path back home. Found a really nice one in Fayetteville, only about an hour from here, that is Class III....full auto baby! That is good to know so when I do all the forms to buy a silencer, he can handle the transfer. Most Class III dealers have rental machine guns you can try out, but this one doesn't yet.

Friday I went down to Albany for a meeting/class concerning the local roll-out for Macon. It looks like I'm trading my normal drive to Montgomery for a lot more rides to Macon. This really isn't such a bad deal because the house isn't really that far from the western edge of Macon's territory. There will be a total of four field supervisors covering an area half the size of the one I normal patrol by myself. I can't imagine this mission is going to be that tough.

School starts back up on Monday, and this quarter I'm back over in the welding shop! I'm pretty damn happy about that, because all the core classes were starting to bum me out. I'll be TIG welding and they've recently gotten all new TIG machines, so I'm pretty excited to get to work.

After a long battle, I think Best Buy has finally given up on me. The money they were offering me wasn't much more than I make now, and the salary would have basically had me topped out for that position, so I told them to keep it. They did call back everynight while I was up north bargaining with me, but in the end I think it is best to stay where I am. I'm at the base salary for this job, with lots of room to go up.

Well, I think I'm going to get the kid up, and go do some yard work.