Al's 420 John Deere.

I went by Al's yesterday, and somehow got involved in getting his old John Deere 420 running. It had been sitting for quite a while and didn't have spark, but once I traced down the bad wire splice, the old girl fired right up. The steering is wore slap out...so much so that if you turn to much to the right, the wheel just spins! The engine runs great though, and it's got pretty new rear tires, so it pulls like a champ. I was able to pretty much un-rut his drive in an hour or so. There aren't many pictures of the actual work being done because one of us had to stand on the blade to make it cut into the hard Georgia clay. Although that thing looks like a box blade, it's really made for cleaning the monster chicken houses that are all over down here, so therefore it isn't very aggressively angled, and doesn't have ripper teeth like a normal box blade does. We made do, and had a pretty fun evening messing with the old tractor.

New dust mop.

Ok, at this point it is obvious that I have no say-so when it comes to pets around here. It seems as if the phrase "no more" means "ok, that's fine...the more the merrier." Anyway, we got another dog. Her name is Coco. I can't figure out who named an all white dog Coco, but she is two years old, so we aren't going to change it. We've only had her a couple days, but she seems to be fitting in well with the rest of the zoo.

Dad commented that if he knew Arick was coming he'd have shipped some of my goodies with him. I thought of the same thing and tried to call him back 5 minutes after he called asking if he could come, but couldn't get him. It turns out he was already past Jefferson City when he called!

By the way, if anyone wants to clue me in to what caused this unplanned vacation, I would appreciate it. I'm not getting much out of him, he still seems to be in good relations with his girl in Missouri, so I'm thinking witness protection program.. One thing I learned from dad is that in this family, you've always got a place to go. I'm not sweating it, and not really pushing for info, but I am curious. Of course, it may be something I don't want to know. Anyway, if anyone wants to drop me an email and let me know what's going on, please do.

What the cat drug in...

Arick called last night and asked if it was cool if he came down. This happens about once every two months or so. I guess this time he was serious! I talked to him last night at around 9:30, and he showed up at the door this morning at about 8:15! So, if your wondering why Arick hasn't come by, it's because he is in Georgia.

Some weekend stuff.

Ok, I guess I'll start by saying how happy I am the the Soprano's are back on. About the only series that we watch around here are on HBO, and those bastards make you wait two years between seasons. It was damn sure a good first episode though.

We had a rather full day. We talked Lyndsay into learning to ride the bike minus the training wheels. She is doing pretty good for the first day. Deb worked on Celeste and Brittany's hair, the kids played, and I started tearing up the front yard. The plan is to nuke it with Roundup, till, then plant cetipedegrass. I've got a while to work on it though...Centipede doesn't get planted until May or June.

That's the news from the front lines.

Weekly update.

Yeah, I'm loopy again. My back got progressively better all through the weekend, but is back to worse than bad tonight. My doctor said that the surgery that would fix it is something I may want to do when I'm 60, not when I'm 40. He said if it isn't better in two weeks I'm to get an MRI done. From the x-ray he says degenerative spine disease, arthritis, and bone spurs. Sheesh, that is enough.

Other than the back issues, things have been fine around here. I've been trying to help Deb with things that we've always had kids around to do until now...dishes, vacuuming, that sort of thing. I've got to say, I have NEVER done this sort of thing, at least not since I was a kid and trying to get some allowance. It's worth it though because Deb appreciates it. Lyndsay is more than happy to help do the things she is capable of. We did a little tractor work Saturday...ironed out the driveway, a bit of mowing. Sunday I went out to help Greg put a heater core in our welding instructors Dodge dually. That one really sucked.

I'm finished with my projects for this quarter, so I've been doing either things I can come up with, or stuff my instructor Rick needs done. Mostly gun parts, though we don't advertise what they are when we are working on them! Both night instructors work at the Ft. Benning marksmanship unit building Olympic class rifles....if you think I'm not picking their brains nightly, you'd be wrong.

This pictures are just some things we've taken in the past week.