Now that your unpacked and got to test drive the area for a bit, encountered some locals and yokels, and hopefully some actual people that moved to the area from your home town or state its time to list the likes you have of your new or semi-new, or heck if the area is your native home than by all means and ways list what you like! Y'all got it? Well here goes!
Weather! You like or not!
Year round flowers!
Long springs!
Longer Autumns!
Shorts year round! For the hearty ones that is.
Variety of sub divisions to chose from!
Snow is a neat event versus a ho-hum not again event!
No rust on older cars! Amazing if your from the Northeast!
Can fish year round without cutting holes in the water (ice) for us North Easterners!
Pretty country side is usually only 5 minutes or less from where you live anywhere in the triangle.
People R People. No matter what they say!
Day trip to Mountains!
Day trip to Ocean!
And in a lot cases no trip at all to the many lakes, ponds, river, and streams that spot the area!
Good food can be had by all and more is always welcome irregardless if they are called viddles or pickins!
Out away from the city lights the sky at night explodes with the many stars that fill the emptiness of space with the occasional flying star to catch a dream or two on!
Groceries can be cheaper but we all have to eat!
Sure it takes time to get use to this place, remember the place you came from was called home and that is never a easy place to replace! But give it time, explore the area and get involved and this place too will be your new home not only in name but in feeling!
May the triangle, RDU, RTP, Crossroads, the Quay, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Apex, Raleigh, Durham, Zebulon, Oxford, Mossisville, Franklinton, Youngsville, Chapel Hill, Henderson, ...seems like I am forgetting somewhere.
...????......Oh yea! and Cary, be with you!
Oh Tarheels! I forgot to number the above as I did say I would count thy ways!
Weather! You like or not!
Year round flowers!
Long springs!
Longer Autumns!
Shorts year round! For the hearty ones that is.
Variety of sub divisions to chose from!
Snow is a neat event versus a ho-hum not again event!
No rust on older cars! Amazing if your from the Northeast!
Can fish year round without cutting holes in the water (ice) for us North Easterners!
Pretty country side is usually only 5 minutes or less from where you live anywhere in the triangle.
People R People. No matter what they say!
Day trip to Mountains!
Day trip to Ocean!
And in a lot cases no trip at all to the many lakes, ponds, river, and streams that spot the area!
Good food can be had by all and more is always welcome irregardless if they are called viddles or pickins!
Out away from the city lights the sky at night explodes with the many stars that fill the emptiness of space with the occasional flying star to catch a dream or two on!
Groceries can be cheaper but we all have to eat!
Sure it takes time to get use to this place, remember the place you came from was called home and that is never a easy place to replace! But give it time, explore the area and get involved and this place too will be your new home not only in name but in feeling!
May the triangle, RDU, RTP, Crossroads, the Quay, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Apex, Raleigh, Durham, Zebulon, Oxford, Mossisville, Franklinton, Youngsville, Chapel Hill, Henderson, ...seems like I am forgetting somewhere.
...????......Oh yea! and Cary, be with you! Oh Tarheels! I forgot to number the above as I did say I would count thy ways!
Wake Forest, Gosh its a pretty nive place to live!
Posted 03-09-2009 at 08:59 PM by dansdrive
Wake Forest, NC. located in Wake County NC. Some call it Wake's Forest of the Triangle....Ok maybe that's just me. But if you come from the North East, Wake Forest seems to fit. It has some rolling hills and many farming areas.
It has a small town feel but close to Raleigh, you could be down town Raleigh, depending on time of day in about 15 to 30 minutes. You can be at the Virginia border in less than an hour.
It has old Historical homes and some new subdivisions. It certainly worth a look see if your looking and seeing the area. It has transplants from New Jersey, New York, and many other NE State and Mid West and California and....well you get the idea people from all over this great country now calls Wake Forest home!
C'mon down, over, left, or right and check it out you may just like what you see.
It has a small town feel but close to Raleigh, you could be down town Raleigh, depending on time of day in about 15 to 30 minutes. You can be at the Virginia border in less than an hour.
It has old Historical homes and some new subdivisions. It certainly worth a look see if your looking and seeing the area. It has transplants from New Jersey, New York, and many other NE State and Mid West and California and....well you get the idea people from all over this great country now calls Wake Forest home!
C'mon down, over, left, or right and check it out you may just like what you see.
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Friday March 4, 2011 and its 39.6 degrees outside TGIF'ing it up to 56 degrees. So we got that going for us. Hard to believe its Friday already. This week went by almost as fast as the prices at the pump have been going up and up and up!
Speaking of up it reminds me of the time my friend and I went up in a small aircraft. After a Saturday morning football game a friend of a friend said he could get us all rides in a airplane for $5 each. $5 in those days was not easy to come by, we were 15 years old at the time and still on bikes. So we rounded up the $5 for each of us, five in all and pedaled our way to a small private airport. Our friend introduced us to the pilot who gave us a quick spiel on flight safety. Other than the friend who got us into this plane none of us were ever in a plane before.
So we strapped ourselves in this 6 seat small plane and off we went. We speed down the runway and before we knew it the plane was up and so were we. He took us for about a 20 minute ride that seems to last only seconds. He took us over our city and than we landed. He did make the plane dip and bank a few times to, well, scare us I guess. But we had a blast! We thanked the pilot for the ride and we pedaled our bikes home.
I remember walking in that Saturday afternoon and Mom asking me what I did today. I simply said playing some football hung out with friends and the day seemed to just 'fly by!'
Quote of the day from Mark Twain:
" The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be? —it is the same the angels breathe."
Happy Friday and may your weekend bring you to new heights!
Posted 03-04-2011 at 07:50 AM by dansdrive
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Monday March 7, 2011 and its 33.9 degrees outside in route to 61 sunny degrees. Yesterday evening thunderstorms are gone all gone I tell you. They didn't last long nor did they have a lot of lightning but the thunder was impressive. That was the cold front and boy it did drop after it went through. We sure needed the rain. Unlike the time growing up when our town was flooded by a tropical storm.
The flood came in several waves and was not broadcast as it would have been today. The mid morning hours the dikes protecting our town had failed and water rushed into the city faster than Big Boxmart shoppers flood into the store when it opens on black Friday! But by mid afternoon the water level seem to be holding about 100 yards or so away from our home. It was a summer night and we did not have air conditioning so all the windows and doors were open. It was about 9PM when we could hear screaming outside louder than our TV. When my Dad look outside he said the water was only about 20 feet away from our home and people were stranded in their homes...how did this happen when the water level seemed to stop earlier in the day, none of my neighborhood got evacuated and now water was up to our home. People were helping people get out of their homes in waist deep waters. So my Dad said we got to get out, so we packed up what we could and headed out. Our home sat higher than most because of the contour of the property and our driveway had a hill to get down to the street. So my Dad loaded up the cars and backed them down into the street. By this time the water was up to our home and my Dad's car had water halfway up the wheels by the time he hit the street in front of our home. He got both cars out of the driveway and we headed one block up to my uncles house. No warning, no evacuation, nothing. This is surely something that would not happen today. It was eerie watching the water come up to our home with everything imaginable floating on top of the water. People wooden stairs to their homes, tubs, wood of all sorts, plastic toys, basically anything that floated did! Being the flood waters eventually stop in our backyard a lot of the things that floated filled surrounded our home when the water receded. We lived over a mile from the river and people had fish in their basements when the water finally receded.
So we got settled into my uncles house and to me and my cousin it was like a sleep over and we never gave a second thought to the flooding. Than at 5:30AM a Police Car siren were blaring outside my uncles house and a helicopter was hovering over our neighborhood telling everyone that there was a mandatory evacuation as the water is continuing to rise. So we got to repeat the process of evacuating once again, this time to my other Grandmothers home that was far away from any flooding. I remember outside my cousins house that morning looking down towards the city center and seeing nothing but black smoke billowing high into the clear summer morning sky. It looked like the whole city was on fire! It was a crazy week and an even crazier summer recovering from the great flood!
Quote of the day from Tom Dempsey:
" The hurricane flooded me out of a lot of memorabilia, but it can't flood out the memories."
Happy Monday!!!!!!Posted 03-07-2011 at 05:22 AM by dansdrive
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Tuesday March 8, 2011 and its 39.9 degrees outside heading up to a sunny 60 degrees! Good lawn growing weather especially when it is freshly fertilized.
This is not just Fat Tuesday but its busy, busy, busy, Tuesday so short post today but with a long Happy Tuesday to all!!!!
Quote of the day from Vince Lombardi:
"Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence."
Happy Tuesday and be confident in all you do!
Posted 03-08-2011 at 08:33 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday March 9, 2011 and its 40.5 cloudy degrees outside and the temps to hit 58 under those same cloudy skies today. Today is also Ash Wednesday the state of the Christian season of Lent. Ashes is what I received this morning and lent is what I started after those ashes.
Growing up in a Catholic family and neighborhood for that matter was the time of the year when we got out as kids early on Friday to attend the Stations of the Cross at 3:30PM. We went to a public school and they actually let us our early, about 15 minutes so we could walk down the hill to attend the Station of the Cross at one of the local Catholic Churches and there were a lot of Catholic Churches in our city. A lot have since closed I am told and more are destined to close. Our neighborhood had a Syrian Catholic Church that would bellow out on Friday evening prayers in Arabic. As the church bells rang on Sunday's and Holy Days, during lent the Syrian church would ring out their prayers for lent. And best I could recall no one complained. It is just the way it ways and people respected each others beliefs and values. Imagine that?
We coexisted as a community because we were in it together and grew up as friends, there was not a lot of movement in or out of our neighborhood. So the friends you had starting kindergarten with were pretty much who you graduated High School with. You knew them, their parents, their siblings, their relatives (who typically lived only blocks away), and you hung with them, fought them, and fought for them. That was just the way it was.
So what changed? Obviously more has changed than stayed the same. I'm sure there are direct correlations between neighborhoods of old and their morale fiber and neighborhoods of today. Its always sad to get news from the old neighborhood that turned into a high crime area complete with drugs and transients. Maybe that is what the correlation is, maybe its just our coming of age as a society where we care more for animal rights than human rights. We care more for helping ourselves than our fellow person.
Quote of the day from Benjamin Franklin:
"Those have a short lent, who owe money on Easter!"
Happy Wednesday and Ben did have a way with words didn't he?Posted 03-09-2011 at 07:26 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday March 10, 2011 and its 57.1 raining degrees outside heading up to a rain soaked 66 degrees give or take a few degrees. Change of severe weather is slight as well this morning. Rain is welcomed being it has been so dry for us. Speaking of dry, that is what it was for several weeks after our town flooded.
The dryness let the mud that coated everything to dry out to a thick crust of mud. That was super hard to clean up. They took fire hoses and washed down the streets clearing the mud. Than as people came back to their once flooded homes they started to throw out to the curb all the damaged good they had. Piles in front of home were almost two stories high. The city would come with front end loaders and dump trucks to haul all the stuff away. The trash quickly filled up the landfills.
I remember talking a walk with my Dad a few days after the flood and we headed down to the river to see the destruction it caused. We went down a street where the flood wall had burst ed and the homes were all smashed together like someone had a hand on both sides of several homes and clapped. Smashing the three story homes into each other like a collapsing accordion. We finally got up to the river that was now within its banks and were amazed to see all the swirls on top of the water. The fish were jumping like I had never seen before. Literally thousands were coming up as if to celebrate that the water was back to the way it ways. Just an amazing site. That summer was one I would never forget from the all the clean up we had to do to getting shots in each arm for typhoid and tetanus. For several days our arms hurt like heck.
It also was a time to witness our country turn on to help us flood victims. Food, clothing, and water, was pouring into our community like no one could believe. It was amazing even for a pre-teen lad like myself at the time to witness. We had more army helicopters in our skies than Vietnam had I think. Near where we were staying with relatives while we were waiting to go back to our home was a staging area for the military. It was a big empty flat former coal back that was perfect for this armada of helicopters. They would take off and land continuously around the clock during the aftermath of the flood. Once they were done with that field that used it to store trailers that the government gave out for people that had no home to go to. I can remember seeing those trailers arriving and lined up as far as the eye could see. All sized from the small tow behind camping trailers to the 70 foot mobile homes. They seemed to appear out of no where but we knew there were some people working really hard to get them into our town for the people to use. That was an amazing summer.............
Quote of the day from Richard Nixon:
“Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”
Happy Thursday and never let a set back or two alter your course to the goal!!!Posted 03-10-2011 at 05:40 AM by dansdrive
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Tuesday March 15, 2010 and its 43.4 cloudy degrees inching up to 55 degrees. Today in Roman history is the day Julius Ceasar heard, "Beware of the Ides of March" in his pending demise. March was not quite so dire in the old neighborhood. It was the month to fly a kite or two.
It was always a challenge in the neighborhood to find enough open space to fly a kite. I remember in elementary school we would have a project each year to build a kit and see if it would fly. Some did and some did not. We use to have to build them from scratch, no kite kits it had to be from household stuff. The box kits were always the coolest. In the spring it was not uncommon to see string hanging from trees, roofs, and power wires. Today unless your at the beach you don't really see kids flying kites and that is sad............
Quote of the day from Lauren Bacall:
"Imagination is the highest kite one can fly!"
Happy Tuesday and pray and give to our Human brothers and sisters of Japan.......Posted 03-15-2011 at 07:55 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday March 16, 2011 and its 48.1 wet degrees outside to give way to a bit of sun and 68 degrees. That is well.....March-ly nice! Speaking of March and madness it has begun! Brackets are at the ready, water cooler talk is increasing, and as the say the balls will bounce where it may!!
Which reminds of the time my cousin and I spent a Saturday working as we normally did but this day would be one to remember. Both of us were 15 at the time and did not drive yet. So we would get dropped off at our bosses house and he would take us to the job site. This particular Saturday he said we need to clean out his Father's garage who at the time lived next door to our boss. In our city the homes were close together and shared driveways. His Dad's house had a detached two car garage behind the house. Our boss said he had some errands and would be back soon. No cell phone at this time so no way to call him if we wanted/needed to.
So we began to clean out the garage and it was filled with all the stuff garages are normally filled with and none of it was cars! We got to decide what was junk and what was not. Our boss kept a lot of his Electrical business stuff in the garage as well. So we spent the morning throwing stuff out, moving stuff, looking through stuff, and occasionally goofing off. Lunch rolled around and no boss, so a couple blocks away was a store we could get something to drink and lunch so we walked there each got a sub and a gallon of lemon aide and headed back. We finished our lunches and pretty much had the garage cleaned out. We found a old basketball in the garage and he had a hoop hanging from the garage so we shot baskets, played some 1 on 1, shot more baskets. When we were all played out we basketball we found an old football which was not fully inflated but worked just the same.
We tossed that football up and down that driveway, up and down the street in front of the house and eventually lost the football on top of the garage roof. It was not coming up on 4PM and still no boss and no word from him....we literally ran out of things to do so we sat around completely bored. We were making $2 per hour to do nothing so it was not all bad!
Then as we were sitting in the garage looking down the driveway we seen a cop car pull up in front of the driveway. Out from the back of it came our boss.....that seemed strange. I vividly remember he had his arms in front of him with his jacket wrapped over his hands in front of him. He said boys you are going to have to find a way home I won't be able to take you today as we noticed the jacket was over his hand cuffed hands......
So we called our parents and they came and picked us up and that ended our Saturday workday.... Fortunately for us as we stayed employed by him and our boss nothing ever really came of that hand cuffed day. I worked for many years after that for this boss right through college and never had a day like that again!
Quote of the day from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"A little integrity is better than any career!"
Happy hump day and never lose your integrity in work nor in life lest we all collectively suffer much!Posted 03-16-2011 at 05:52 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday March 17, 2011 and its a dark 43.6 degrees outside only to lighten up to a clear crisp 70 sunny degrees. Sweet! That my friends is the good news and lately there sure seems to be a lot less good news around the world than bad news. The bad news is running wild in almost every part of this globe of ours. In these troubling times I am very thankful for my faith and family.
Faith and family can sure help put things in perspective. Perspective has been a real good thing to have lately. I can't remember a time in my life time that so much was going on around the world, from widespread Middle East unrest, to Japanese earthquake / tsunami to nuclear disasters all in rapid succession, to labor unrest spreading across the US like wild fire, to a YouTube video showing a school bully getting his.......sometimes its just sensory overload!
With all the forms of communications we have at our disposal today to get our news, weather, sports, etc., I for one cannot get into these social media tools like Facebook or twitter. I am not interested in knowing what my favorite actor, sports star, or person of the month is doing as I'm sure they are not interested in what I am doing either! Must be a generational thing as younger people cannot do anything without updating their Facebook page or rush to read a Facebook update from one of their many, many 'friends'......in my generation a 'friend' was someone you seen everyday, you spoke to with words and actions, and the update was via phone but mostly face2face. Did I have 100 friends in some address book on some database, NO! But what I had was 4 or 5 buddies that I called 'friends' who were there when needed, who shared my ups and downs as I shared theirs. We played real tag and not text tag. We worked in our parents gardens and not some virtual farm on a computer screen. We saw the world from a few city blocks and from a classroom that connected us to the outside world.
The world was a pretty amazing thing as it is now but today it seems to be amazing because of its upheaval and suffering and not its wonderment of nature and human spirit and that is so sad...
Quote of the day from Albert Einstein:
"The discovery of Nuclear reaction need not bring about the destruction of mankind anymore than the discovery of matches."
Happy Thursday and I hope Albert was right! Today is a good day as any to discover and cultivate your faith!Posted 03-17-2011 at 05:54 AM by dansdrive
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Friday March 18, 2011 and its 72.4 degrees down from a high of 85 degrees. Was a picture perfect Friday. Spent the evening working on the yard, trimmer some more tree branches, cut up some dead trees I cut down in the winter, did some planting and sidewalk work. Watched some of the NCAA games on and off and than just chilled around the fire pit. The fire was burning brightly tonight but the rising almost full moon was bright too.
It never seems to amaze me the conversations that come up around an open fire pit. Its generally about current events, schools, family, and how everyone's busy day went. No radio, no TV, just the occasional cell phone call or text....Grrr! Two hours slip by before anyone really realizes it, a log or two on the fire and as the wood provides energy to the burning fire so it adds energy to the discussions.......just plain nice.
The world moves at a much slower pace seemingly when sitting around a nice warm glowing outdoor fire.
Quote of the day from Jack Handy:
" Somebody told me it was frightening how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared. "
Happy Friday soon to be Saturday!
Posted 03-18-2011 at 09:38 PM by dansdrive
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Monday March 21, 2011 and its 51.4 degrees ratcheting up to 73 degrees. The weekend has come and gone much quicker than the 32 college basketball games that seem to go on forever. My picks went up in smoke like my camp fire on Friday and Saturday night! I enjoy watching college basketball almost as much as I enjoyed playing it in High school that is and coaching it up through high school level. What I don't like now is there are to to to many time outs and stoppages of the game....good gracious each team gets 5 times outs and two 30 second time outs, TV gets time outs at under 16, under 12, under 8, under 4 minutes, and several times a game the referee's get time outs to check the monitors for, 'was it a 3 or not?', 'was it a flagrant foul or not?', 'how many seconds should be on the clock?'....what is next? Did the guy in Section 2, Row BB, seat 5 order the Miller Light or Bud Light....better go to the monitor for that one!
I did manage through all those games and time outs to get things done outside. I redid a stepping stone sidewalk from my back porch to the side gate. I cut some more branches along a walking path on our property. I extended the boarder so that I can order about 7 TON of stone to increase the size of the parking area off the end of the driveway. Need to do that before the heat comes. As Artie Johnson use to say on the show 'Laugh-In'.....'Holy Sweat!' Also, got to plant some shrubs and re-plant some others we moved. Also, got to watch that over-sized moon rise in the evening sky above the campfire. Did seem all that much bigger than other full moons and actually seemed smaller than some full moon in the fall of the year. But if they say it appears bigger than as Dean Martin so nicely sung, 'That's Amore!'
I also got to read more of a new book I started by Bob Schieffer, titled simply 'America'. Its a book about all the commentaries Bob made at the end of his 'Face the Nation' TV show. Its really a great book IMHO. There are many commentaries that hit the mark about America today that were written by Bob in the late 1990 and early 2000's. One that caught my eye and is worth repeating here was one he added that was written by a 18 year old girl back in 2004. Its very insightful for a 18 year old but than again back during the days of our founding fathers the young shaped the country the world calls America. So reading this little paragraph says more about our young people than the ones we see each days on the local and national news....she writes to the question of
"If I was President",
"If I was president, I would remember what it was like to live with two hardworking parents barely eking out a living day by day, I would remember that there are always two, maybe even seven, sides in an argument. I would remember in times of war to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to ponder if it is truly worth the price to inscribe that many names on a wall once more. I would remember what it's like to stand on a beach, staring at the ocean and feeling completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I would remember how it felt to watch the second tower collapse live on television. I would remember and swell with pride at being an American."
By Emily Nemeyer. See Bob Schieffer, Amercia. Page 90.
What a fantastic way to cap off and hard working weekend and to recharge for the week ahead! My quote of the day is Emily's words above...please re-read them and reflect on the fact that a young person wrote them.
Happy Monday and may you forever swell with pride at being a hard working American!Posted 03-21-2011 at 06:02 AM by dansdrive
Updated 03-21-2011 at 06:13 AM by dansdrive -
Tuesday March 22, 2011 and its 66.9 degrees heading up to a sunny 83 degrees. Hmm...it is 83.9 degrees currently as I just got back to my post for the day. Nice when a plan comes together or should I say a forecast!
Speaking of coming together that is exactly what happened the spring and summer we worked on a new / old home. We were doing the electrical wiring in a very unique home in the middle of seemingly no where. On this mountain top back in Pennsylvania. The builder was someone out of the 1800's complete with long beard, corn cobb pipe and wire frame glasses that he use to wrap around his ear to stay on this face.
Our first trip to the job site was a memorable one. We went to retrieve our bosses car from the side of the dirt road that lead to the home site. You had to cross a stream to get there and up a mud road as it was spring in Northeastern PA., and our bosses car was up to the running boards in mud with a flat tire!
Of coarse the tire in the truck was flat! So we jacked up the car as best we could we were covered in mud (which was the cool part of this repair operation) and headed out to get the spare fixed. The look on the garage workers face was priceless seeing us come head to toe in mud with a flat tire. and these were the days when gas stations had repair bays in them and not soft drinks and lottery ticket counters. Anyway I digressed, we got the tire fixed and got back to get it on the car.
However, the car was still bogged down in thick mud, our boss must of tried for hours to get the car our himself the night before and blew the bald tire out trying. Well, got some boards and some carpets, well they were actually the cars floor mats and we got the car out. This car looked liked it was used in a demolition derby, and that was before it got all the mud on and in it! Driving it back through the creek did wash a fair amount of the mud off from underneath it so we had that going for us. We should of known from this encounter how this project was going to go.....more to come about our other adventures on this spring and summer home wiring in the woods job!
Quote of the day from Roy Orbison:
"I maybe a living ledgend but that sure don't help when I have a flat tire!"
Happy Tuesday and may your tires always run on the round sides of them!Posted 03-22-2011 at 02:13 PM by dansdrive
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Wednesday March 23, 2011 and its 50.6 degrees outside belowing up to a windy 84 degrees today, maybe a record even in temperature that is not wind speed. Which brings me to the house in the middle of no where we worked on.
After the bosses car was back on the road and staying out of the mud we headed back to the lot where the house was going to be build. The lot was perched on the top of this hill and was to be located in an open farm field. It was surrounded by trees and was at least a half mile from the mail road. Secluded, private, obscured all came to mind when one got to this home site. Anyway, we had to install the temporary electrical service so the ace 18 century builder could start his work. This gentleman did not believe in power tool with exception of a chain saw. He did seem to like the chain saw.
His customers were two Professors from the local college. One was a history professor and the other a professor of something or another. They wanted a unique home and unique was what they got. The only way this home was visible to anyone was via helicopter or plane flying over. So one Saturday we installed the temporary electrical service. Than it was a matter of weeks to wait for the electric company to actually run wires up that service.
The other thing that was interesting about this home was the builder bought a couple of old barns to get the wood to build the home. This home was going to be three stories and the southern exposure side was going to be glass from floor to the third floor. The structure of the home was large 12 inch by 12 inch timbers from the old barns. For our ace builder who did not use power tool it was a challenge. Labor was cheap and plentiful. He would get kids from the college that were history majors to help. Him and the boys he hired erected the frame of this house with block and tackle, hand drilled all the dowel pin holes that help it together. All the beams of the house were going to be visible from the inside. The floor beams were cut trees from the property where they sawed two flats on each side of the tree. Here he used an large saw hooked up to a tractor that powered it.
From an electrical standpoint the house was nightmare to wire as there were not a lot of places to hide the wire and these people were adamant that no wires could be visible. For us that was just grand! The builder would take his chain saw and notch out where he wanted the wires to run within the house. Which leads me to nearly the first disaster we witnessed on this project. The builder was upstairs cutting notches in the second floor for our wires when he hit something with the chain saw. We were on the first floor and heard a screeching yell and than silence. We rushed up stairs to see this builder white as a ghost of what we could see of his skins as he always wore bib overalls and had a long bushy beard. He was sitting in one corner of the room and above his head was the dangling chain saw stuck in the second floors ceiling. The chain had broken and came off the saw and passed over his head and buried itself into the ceiling above him. Fortunately for us and mostly him he was unhurt, scared but unhurt. Over the years of doing electrical work I witnessed a number of almost accidents and some accidents. This one however was on the almost side!
Quote of the day from Benjamin Rush in 1788:
"Tis done, we have become a nation."
Happy Wednesday and learn something new today or remember something old to make it new again!Posted 03-23-2011 at 05:36 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday March 24, 2011 and its 53.5 degrees outside after some big thunderstorms last night, but the temps will be rising up to 69 degrees today which will be the warmest for awhile! Last night we got pummeled for a brief period with big time hail! Only lased about 30 seconds just before the heavy rains came down but was enough to cover the back deck about 50%. Speaking of 50% that is as it seemed the amount of the deck our 18 century builder was playing with on that eccentric house!
One day we arrived at the job site to the sounds of blaring opera music and no one to be found so we thought. Well up on a second floor beam was our builder laying out on the beam. We did not know if he was injured or what. She we yelled and yelled but to no avail. Than we saw movement and he got up and came down the ladder and said he was meditating up there.....as we thought to ourselves, 'Yikes'. One of the other interesting things about this home was in the basement. The owner bought the bars from and old prison cell and installed them in the basement! I have never since before nor since an actual prison cell in ones home.
As the home progressed through the summer it was really taking shape. Once the internal structure of the home was in place and the windows were installed including the large three story panes of glass on the south side they started the internal construction. All of the 12 inch by 12 inch old barn timber were visible inside the home. The great room that had the three story glass in it has facing the windows a large fireplace made from field stones they picked from the creek that went through the property. The fireplace with it stone three story chimney was pretty cool. The floor in that great room was sheet of slate. That great room led into the kitchen / Dining room which had the sliced timbers they cut from the property with sheet rock for the walls which was the only building material that was modern and we could actually hide our wires in them! For the lighting fixtures that hung from the ceilings, our ace builder sliced channels in the beams to hide our wires in with his trusty chain saw. Based on this 'hide-n-seek' wiring method much more linear feet of wire was needed that was for sure. But I guess if you can have a working prison cell in your basement what a few extra boxes of wiring cable.
Another interesting feature in this home was a left that was up in the third floor above the great room. The interesting part of this loft was the staircase that went up to it. Off the second floor this staircase went straight up to the loft. The staircase was more like a ladder than staircase. With no railings, at least while we worked on the home, it was a scary climb up to that loft. One day me and my cousin found out exactly how scary it was. As the home was coming to somewhat of completion, I am not sure it was ever finished, we have to go up and put in the receptacles and lighting fixtures. We headed up to the loft to start there. We got up there after a few trips of bringing up the lights and ladder and tools up this staircase of a ladder with no railings. So we were between 25 and 30 feet above the great rooms slate floor, in other words a very hard surface hoping we would not fall. Anyway, we finally got up there and started to work but heard this buzzing sound. Buzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzz.... Hmmm, strange. Got stranger when my cousin moved a roll of insulation which happened to act as a great place for bees to build a nest. Now that the bees homes was disturbed they were pissed with a capital 'P'.
Luck was on our side that day as we booked down that ladder / staircase so fast that I don't even remember touching any of the steps! We escaped with only a few stings. But that was close. Lesson learned that day always carry a can of wasp spray in the car, you never know, you just never know.......
Quote of the day from Bob Schieffer:
"But if you don't enjoy doing something, you'll be miserable no matter how much money you make."
Happy Thursday and remember adventure is only a project away so get out and start that project to reap its adventure benefits!Posted 03-24-2011 at 06:01 AM by dansdrive
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Friday March 25, 2011 and its 44.7 degrees outside with the sun trying to peek out to raise the temperature up to the forecast high of 60. Looks like it will be a tough task to get up that high today! Tough task was our mission in wiring the house in the middle of nowhere.
One of the challenges we had was installing the electrical box in the ceiling of the three story great room. The owner wanted a large chandelier to hang in the center of that room. Back in those days we did not have the luxury of the motorized scaffolding units. We did have scaffolding that was set up for the mason's to stone up the fireplace and chimney in the great room. But it just did not go to the ceiling. So our 16 year old intellect and fearless spirit figured out a way. We move the scaffolding to the center of the room, place a few planks on the top of it. Than we hauled up a step ladder that would get us to the ceiling to install the electrical box to hold this great big lighting fixture. I remember crawling up the scaffolding to get to the top and than start my climb up the step ladder. The higher I got on that step ladder the shaker it got. Here I was almost 30 feet above the floor on a make shift scaffolding and a step ladder on top of that. Nice! Would I do that today, nope! That is the stuff they make YouTube video's about today! Did we get the job done successfully, yes, yes, yes! Thank goodness!
Quote of the day from Eleanor Roosevelt:
"Beautiful young people are acts of nature, But beautiful old people are works of art!"
HappY FridaY and may your weekend bring you peace, happiness, and a taste of being a teenager again!Posted 03-25-2011 at 09:13 AM by dansdrive
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Monday March 28, 2011 and its 36.5 degrees outside heading up to a projected high of 44 degrees with a few flurries and ice crystals mixed in today. New there is a Monday forecast....cold, cloudy, with chance of wet / snow / ice mixed in! Yowsers!
Speaking of snow that was something we did not have to worry about when we were working on the house in the middle of nowhere. What we had to worry about was rain as the bridge over the creek to get to the house was not yet built. Signs of the first drops of rain and we were out of there with fear of getting stuck on the wrong side of the creek sort of speak! Fortunately for us that never happened. But something a "bit" more ominous did happen.
Our boss never had a problem buying new tools, in fact he seem to be a shop-a-holic when it came to buying tools for us to use. When we started this house he went out and bought a 1/2 inch variable speed drill. Corded of coarse as cordless drills were only something we hoped for back then. Anyway one Saturday morning my cousin and I stopped at our bosses garage and picked up the supplies we needed and the brand new drill. Nice came to mind! We were easy to please back than.. Our boss was going away for the weekend and left us the instruction on what he needed done that weekend. So, we loaded up our car and headed to the house in the middle of nowhere. It was about a 25 minute drive to get there and after a winding up hill drive we would make a left on this hard to see dirt road. We would cross one wooden bridge and than the road would split into a 'Y'. We would take Yogi Berra's advise on 'Y's' in the road and take it... We would bear left at the 'Y' head down a little hill and drive through the creek and than go another 1/2 mile to the home site. By this time the home was fully enclosed and we were doing some internal wiring. Your truly put an auger bit into the new variable speed drill and began to drill. Drilling through those 12 inch x 12 inch old barn beams was not an easy task, variable speed drill or not! Well I drilled two holes and this drill was the cat's meow! It was the bark in the dog! It was the trap in the mouse? OH no! The drill was running at full speed but the bit was not turning!!!!!!! It broke, the bleep in bleep new drill broke! Ka-put! Holy Snike-es! This new drill was broken and how were we ever going to explain this to the boss....so we took the drill apart and found the broken part. A pin broke holding the main drive gear onto the main spindle shaft....(That was technical jargon for 'we are in deep ship...water, now )
Anyway we decided that we must fix this drill so into the car we went to head to a place we can get a pin. We rushed out of there so fast we left our tools at the house and left the doors un-locked....we took off down the dirt road and did a Duke's of Hazard jump over the creek and down the winding road back to civilization. My cousin was driving and the tires were literally squealing around every turn. We saw a hardware store and pulled in but to no avail. We did ask the clerk for a phone book so we could look up a service center that repaired this type of drill. We found one but on the other side of town so we headed over to it. We got there explained our dilemma and with a quick check of a catalog the store clerk said the drill was still under warranty and if we leave it with him he will order the part and in a week or two we would get the drill back.....WHAT! A week or two, we would be digging ditches on our bosses property if we told him that.
So with all the dignity we could muster up on this beautiful Saturday now afternoon we loaded the once mighty turning drill into the car and headed back to the job site....but as luck would have it we were close to our favorite Mc Donald's and had to stop for a Big Mac meal. Almost every Saturday or Sunday no matter were we were working we would take off to this Mc Donald's for our Big Mac meal, why....not really sure. There were Mc Donald's all around our area but this one was the one, it was also a time when we could eat a Big Mac a day and never gain an ounce! And as Archie and Edith would sing, "Those were the days!"
So after our Big Mac attack we headed to the job site and finished up what we could get done without a drill and locked up and headed home for the day....all I had to do was figure out how I was going to tell the boss I broke his brand new variable speed, better than slice bread, cooler than the vette he always wanted, drill! UGHHH!
Quote of the day from Mary Lou Cook:
"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risk, BREAKING rules, making mistakes, and having fun."
Happy Monday and what will you do if you break your bosses drill today?Posted 03-28-2011 at 06:34 AM by dansdrive
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Tuesday March 29, 2011 and its 54.4 degrees outside the sun filled window marching up to 58 degree forecast high! Pun was intended! Speaking of intended, that is what I got when we told the boss of our drill breakdown.
We intended to tell him Monday afternoon when we had electrical shop class....yes our boss was also our electrical shop teacher. He had a business on the side that taught is not only in the classroom but also in real life hands on experience. Not many classes will do that! Anyway, as we arrived to our afternoon class I knew I had to tell him that we had a bit of a problem Saturday. I had all Sunday and most of Monday to think what I will tell him. I had three options as I saw it, the truth, that it just broke, lie, that I knew nothing about it, or just keep quiet and say nothing.
I asked my cousin what he thought and he said just be yourself and look dumb...ah words from a family member.. So before class we went up to his desk and before we could say anything he said; 'you know that drill I bought it broke already, I went to use to Sunday and it doesn't work." Was I hearing this correctly, he knew it was broke and he thinks it happened when he used it on that Sunday. Eureka! The clouds have opened, the heavy burden was lifted from our shoulders, we did not have to say the drill broke under our watch........
But that was not the right thing to do, so I told him it broke Saturday when we were using it. He was fine with it and eventually got it fixed for no cost as it was covered under warranty. All was right with the world!
Many more stories came from that house in the middle of no where and may share them as I remember them. More than the stories are the life experiences we received. Now I am intrigued and must Google Earth that area to see if the house still stands today.
Quote of the day by Benjamin Franklin:
"Net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones."
Happy Tuesday and did you do the right thing today?Posted 03-29-2011 at 10:31 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday March 30, 2011 and its 43.0 degrees outside heading up to a rainy 44 degrees.....1 degree higher than the current temperature...? Heatwave I tell you! Heatwave! Glad I wore short sleeves today. Good thing it won't get to 45 degree or I'd have to crack open the tank top!
Speaking of tank tops...where in the world did the term tank top come from anyway......well it came to 'fashion' pun intended in the late 1960's but its true 'straps' were founded back in the 1920's where women's swim suits were one piece and sleeveless and the swimming pool was referred to as 'tanks'. Hence the name tank-tops! That my friends is your obscure fact of the day! Don't you feel 'cooler' for knowing it?
Now back to our house in the middle of nowhere, I did go on line and try to find that home and not a whole lot from a satellite's birds eye has changed over the years but I was unable to pinpoint the home and could not remember the road it was on. So I shall keep searching for it. The house had a unique footprint so I'm sure I would know it when I seen it albeit from high above it.
Quote of the day from Muhammed Ali:
"The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life."
Happy hump day and from the man that said flys like a butterfly and stings like a bee was a darn good fighter and from the above quote a darn good thinker!
Posted 03-30-2011 at 05:35 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday Match 31, 2011 and its 41.1 degrees outside heading up to 49 degrees. Rain in the forecast on the doorstep of the end of March. End of another month already. What a month it has been for current events.
From the Middle East unrest to remove Dictators of nearly half a century to rumblings and shaking in Japan to be followed with waves of water only to be followed by meltdowns or at least the talk of meltdowns. To our side of the world where Protest and sleep-ins in Wisconsin to Anarchist that took over a peaceful march in London. Good thing this month had 31 days in it, as it would be hard to fit it all in a month with say 28 or even 30 days!
So as we close out March we wonder what April has in store for us. More of the same or less of the same. Either way with our ability to instantly stream news stories one thing is for sure, we will instantly know when news happens. With the instant news reporting the context seems to have get lost in the speed. Not everything one sees is actually what is going on. Snap decision are made based on five, ten, or thirty second sound bytes or video clips. We seem to instantly cast judgments without pondering or even collecting the facts...
Just imagine for a moment if our founding fathers had instant news capabilities. How would that have changed our Republic? It was sometimes up to four months before Benjamin Franklin in Europe would get direction from back home on his next moves asking France for money to fight the War and England on ending the war. This lapse gave time for Benjamin to think of his next moves and to try to anticipate what his next letter would say from back home. It made him a true statesmen who had to live with his decisions one way or the other. There was no easy exit for him where a plane would swoop down and fly him out of the country almost instantly!
I for one am looking forward to turning the page into a new month with all the hope and anticipation for a more peaceful and prosperous month. As they say, 'hope is eternal and sometimes an eternity to realize!'
That my friends is my quote of the day, by author unknown on this March 31, 2011.
Happy Thursday and remember most things quick and 'instant' are rarely what they appear!Posted 03-31-2011 at 05:55 AM by dansdrive
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Friday, April 1, 2011 and its 4 degrees outside and heading up to 6 warm sunny degrees! April fools! Had to get it that one in early. Actually its 47.2 in route to 61 sunny degrees. Its Friday and not a day to soon!
It has been a busy week so time seemingly flew by, but lots had to be done and time seemingly was not long enough. A true dichotomy. But what did not get done this week will wait till next week and so on and so on and so on.......
Reflecting on the so-called modern office work environment people 'work' from the office, their home office, on the road and at the airport. Our offices have become virtual for the sake of speed and productivity. We communicate with one another via phone, text, video conference, and last but not least, actually face2face. We need data from people that use to be in the next isle or building or state who are now in the next country or continent. We use to not think twice about the time in Asia or Eurpore yet today we have calendar programs that put meetings on our calendars based on our locations time zones....how cool is that? Today work can happen continuously around the clock on a project that has multinational team members. We created new worker types and named them Project Managers, we even decided that this new profession should be accredited and sanctioned. People spend much time and money to become certified as a Project Managers. In the end they are communicators, they fill in the blanks when one team hands work over to another team, they are the ones that pick up the phone and speak to the individual team members or the teams as a group. We have come a long way haven't we?
Quote of the day from Scott Allen:
"A project is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it"
Happy Friday and what a perfect way to end a non-perfect week!Posted 04-01-2011 at 10:47 AM by dansdrive
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Monday April 4, 2011 and its 56.5 degrees outside getting ready to roar up to 84 degrees today! Ladies and Gentlemen start your thermometers! The weekend breezed by faster than the winds of Saturday and sweet puffs it was windy! This weekend was devoted to the outside, didn't necessarily start out that way but sure finished up that way.....Bonfire and all!
I like to peruse Craigslist after the morning paper for a bargain and I found one.....an individual was doing a total yard renovation and were removing all their shrubs, from the small to the large. Well I grabbed my trusty shovel, pick, tarp (for the truck) and dash to the address given. The ad was correct and the work was quick. I had all the shrubs and bushes unearthed and a few trips from that address to mine and the transplantation was about to begin! (I bet you thought I was going to say ...the transformation was about to begin!, keep up now... Anyway, I have a large piece of property that is mostly el-natural but can always use some more shrubs and alike, here and there and mostly right there, well now over to the left, more...more... ). So almost all the shrubs were transplanted by early afternoon. Still have a couple left over awaiting that perfect spot or pot to adorn their beauty! So that was weekend part one.
Part two was to make some bird houses and a bird feeder. I found this neat bird house design made from a single ceder fence slat. So I got a couple of them and followed the directions and with a cut here and a screw there and some glue all over everywhere, we now have a few blue bird homes dotting our property. One has a front porch and another is complete with chimney. As quick as I could put them up the blue birds were in and out of them like Walmart shoppers on Black Friday! Once they were up it was time to turn my saw blade on my bird feeder design. With all this whirl wind of activity going on our Lab was content with just laying around on the driveway or the garage taking it all in. Oh the life of the dog!
Anyway back to the bird house. I actually started the bird house during the week but wanted to 'get 'er done', this weekend. So with some more glue, screws, and sawing, and painting it was complete. Now to figure out how to hang it and where to hang it. Had some old chain stored away for the perfect time...well the time was perfect for the chain that is. For the moment the bird feeder is stuffed with bird seed and hanging in a temporary position. The final hanging place for the feeder is T.B.D. Yesterday was an absolute picture perfect day, oh yea almost forget in between the shurb-erizing the yard, and woodworking 101 I did manage to get some planting done in the garden! Trying Asparagus this year. Planted the Garlic and Swiss Char staples. In a few weeks the tomatoes and peppers will go in! Zucchini too! What's an Italian garden without Zucchini? Not an Italian garden I will tell you that.
One other thing that blew me away this weekend is Google maps. My old hometown that I grew up in is filmed at the street level. You talk about taking a stroll down memory lane. Jumping Lizards! I walked the old neighborhood to and from the old school I went to and parks I played in, at least the ones that were left. This google map app is amazing, I can zoom in on homes, areas just as if I was walking down the old stomping grounds. All that was missing was the people and voices of the past. Sure some things have changed but for the most part it was like walking down those streets decades ago. Utterly amazing. Check out Good Maps and see if your hometown was filmed, if it was you will not be disappointed!
Quote of the day from Benjamin Franklin:
"Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a large ship!"
Happy Monday! Smile till your teeth dry out today!Posted 04-04-2011 at 06:20 AM by dansdrive
