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Showing posts from 2014

Backyard Deck Approved and In Progress

FINALLY! The backyard deck got approved by the HOA. We have been working on the approval since September. The contractor started the work today. He dug the post holes and had to jackhammer the rear stoop. They only charged us $300 to remove the stoop. I think he undercharged us since he worked on it from 10am to 2pm. Did I mention that Lowes came in with the best price? They use a third party contractor so I hope that he gets paid well for the job. The deck will consist of redwood decking, a railing and a stairway leading down the side (by the sliding glass door). Here are a couple of pictures taken after they left. I will post more as the deck progresses.  

Brrrr, It's Cold!

The overnight temperature was negative 15. Fortunately I was in a nice warm bed at that time. I had to go to the store this morning and my car thermostat said it was only -2 degrees. I would have taken the Wrangler but somehow Michelle got all of the instrument panels to read in metric. Time to dig out the owner’s manual :(

Snowmobiling Mission Complete

3:45am wakeup call! Need to hit the road by 5am…which means 5:30 am Michelle time. Winterpark is only 82 miles from home. Much better than going from the bay area to Tahoe! We figured that it would take at least 2 1/2 hours to get there since a lot of people going skiing over the Christmas holidays. It turned out that a lot of people decided to sleep in so it actually only took 2 hours to get to Winterpark. This included a stop at Starbucks for caffeine. Since we didn’t actually have to arrive until 8am, we had time for a recon downtown and look for a place to eat lunch. We decided to eat at Smokin’ Moe’s. As the name implies, this is a BBQ joint. We actually ate here a couple of years ago during our first snow mobile trip. Good food. A little pricey but what do you expect in a tourist town? There wasn’t a lot of people so we were able to check in, grab a helmet and insulated suite. We already had goggles, scarf and baklava. We bought some kick ass gloves at Cabella’s a coup

Mom's Birthday Card

I was just making sure that my GoPro camera was ready for the snowmobiling trip and found some video that I took while painting the new house. I guess that I didn’t film the whole painting process. The living room and kitchen are painted (several colors). There are some still pictures of the kitchen so you will have to look at earlier posts to see them. While waiting the house, we remembered it was mom’s birthday the following day. We took advantage of the tools at hand and made mom a card she will never forget. Here is the building process:

Snowmobiling Tomorrow

Snowmobiling tomorrow! Need I say more? Time to shovel the driveway. Travis! Get your ass back here and shovel the drive!    

Our Christmas Dinner

Not only did we have a White Christmas! We had a smoked turkey for dinner. They have nothing to do with each other. I know that. I mixed some butter, sage, oregano, rosemary, garlic and salt etc together and rubbed the glob under the skin of the turkey and all over the skin. Seven hours in the smoker and viola! Dinner is served. We also made fresh cranberry sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy. NO rolls (dammit) or Michelle’s kick ass stuffing (dammit, dammit, DAMMIT). It was still good. Our stomachs will attest to it under oath.       Oh, and Michelle (and I) made baklava (our first time)….must say, it is fucking good!

Merry Christmas!

Well, since the family decided that we were not worthy of their presence (and presents) this year, we are forced to spend Christmas alone and unloved. You would think that after all the time effort we put into the annual Christmas calendars we would at least receive a Christmas card. At least Sam, David and Shaela remembered us. We thought it might be nice to drive out and surprise everybody at Joan’s house Christmas Eve but the weather forecast quickly changed our mind. Right now, we would be stuck somewhere in Nevada or California in a snow storm. We were really going to go but the weather is just not in our favor. Damn Joan and her ladder! We are expecting a good foot plus of snow in the mountains in the next couple of days. The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend (a high of 18 degrees but clear) so we decided to go snowmobiling this weekend. We booked a four hour trip in Winterpark, CO. The lady who took our reservations talked us into a snowmobile upgrade (600CC Yama

Christmas Lights (Video)

See, I told you that I would post a video for our Christmas lights. Yes, the video quality is poor but you have to remember that it is dark outside. A little off topic here, actually, way the fuck off topic here but make sure that you watch “The Walking Dead” tomorrow night. The episode is the mid season finale and from what I have heard (I hate reading spoilers), it is going to be a doozy. If I had to guess, Carol is going to die (she is pretty messed up in the hospital). I would prefer if Beth bit it as she is pretty much worthless (sorry Beth). Most of the deaths cause one of more of the characters pain and I am sure it is going to be Daryl that is going to suffer. Hey, I may be wrong and really hope that I am wrong as I think Carol is one of the best characters on the show. Go Carol! Sorry, back to the video….enjoy

Christmas Lights!

It has been several years since we put up Christmas lights on the house. So, we made yet another trip to Lowes and (Michelle) found quite possibly the most expensive lights they had. I will have to admit that they are cool. Three color LED Bulbs that randomly change, sparkle and chase. The picture below does not do it any justice but look forward to a short youtube video here in the next few minutes. I know that nobody actually reads this blog and that I am speaking to myself here but nonetheless, I will be posting a video shortly. It is not quite dark enough outside to take a video. We decided not to put lights up on the second story. One, it would be a bitch getting a ladder up there and two, I don’t want to be another statistic at the local hospital. Joan already took care of that for the family. Sorry Joan, I really do hope that you are feeling better and we both wish you a speedy recovery.

Nice Sunrise

Unfortunately I had to work the day after Thanksgiving. The day went by pretty fast and we got to leave early (3pm MST). Before I started my day, I went out on the front porch to enjoy a cup of coffee and was surprised at the beautiful sun rise I was greeted by.

Another Grand Idea

Even though we have a rather large house, we lack space for things that we had in the old house. Either that, or we have too much crap. Instead of buying yet another shelving unit for our DVDs, we decided to pick up some basic shelves and mount them on the basement staircase landing wall. This was the brainchild of Michelle. I think that it looks really good and the Star Wars poster adds a little zip to the visual experience. The poster was my idea and Michelle seconded the motion.

New Furniture

Finally! We found a couple of chairs and couch for the new house. We have been looking for weeks. The search can be compared to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Too hard, too soft and just right. Actually, there were other considerations like, too tall, too wide and most importantly, too expensive. We ended up a Sofa Mart (which is part of Furniture Row). If you are not familiar with Furniture Row, the store is like a little strip mall and are all connected inside. The stores include Oak Expressions, Sofa Mart, Denver Mattress and Paul’s TV. One stop shopping. Kind of interesting that Sofa Mart was the first place that we looked at. The best part is that the salesman don’t bother you. No pressure. However, they are always willing to help and and are readily available when needed. One thing that is cool is that you can change the material on virtually all of the sofas and chairs for no additional cost. The lead time only increases by a couple of days. We ended up going with

Finished (finished) Basement

Since we will most likely be getting a new couch and chairs this weekend, it is time to move the existing couch down to the basement. While we are down there, I will re-wire the stereo and hook up the surround sound speakers. I won’t bore you with all of the details but it took us most of the day to get the basement just right.   We had another dilemma, where to put all of the DVDs! Michelle got a great idea and thought we should put up some shelves on the landing leading down to the basement. Good call honey! A quick trip to Lowe’s to get some materials and about a half hour later we ready to admire our handy work. I must say, we are getting really good at putting stuff on the walls. We rarely make additional (un-planned) holes anymore.   Now, we need to do the same thing with all of the CDs that we have. I foresee another trip to Lowes in the near future.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Since half of our street is still under construction, the doorbell didn’t ring a whole helluva lot. We still have a shitload of candy. Most likely it will be here at Christmas so bring your stockings and we will fill them up.

Aspen Ridge, Colorado

As in the past, we woke up Saturday morning and decided to take a road trip to Aspen Ridge in Buena Vista, CO. Aspen Ridge is, as the name implies, a mountain ridge consisting of a bunch of aspen trees. Our intention was to photograph the fall colors before it got too late in the season. Guess what? We were too late (again). The trip to “the ridge” took about two and a half hours. www.traildamage.com stated that Aspen Ridge was just outside of Fairplay, CO (about 90 minutes away). They lied (as they usually do). Don’t get me wrong, the site has great information but typically the site is a little vague on how to get there, where to turn and what to expect. That being said, the site is the IMDB of off roading. On the way to Aspen Ridge, we rarely saw trees with any fall colors remaining and were hopeful that we would get to see some when we reached our destination. We took state highway 285 south and exited on Chaffee County Road 307 and followed the lame instructions to Aspen

The J Geils Band, Sunrise and Sunset

I was listening to The J Geils Band today and decided to google them to see if they are actually going on tour. Yep, they are. They just announced a ten date tour in the northeast. Hopefully they will make it a bit closer to Colorado. The last time I saw them was on the Freeze Frame tour back in 1982 (or ’81). U2 opened up for Geils and actually got booed. Bono got grabbed off of the stage and he way crying like a bitch….”help me, help me”. Before that, they threw their (only) album out into the crowd. The album was thrown back a couple of minutes later. Ha! They still suck (U2) if you ask me. Here is a nice picture of a sunrise taken this morning:   Now, here is a picture of a sunset taken this evening: Okay, it is not really a sunset but the sun is setting but you can’t see it.

House Painting 101

We spent the past weekend painting (most) of the downstairs. After we (Michelle) decided on the colors that I was going to apply to the wall, we headed off to Lowes. I think Lowes and I are on a first name basis by now. It only took two days to paint the living room and kitchen. We have to do a second coat on the garage entry way (we ran out of paint and energy). Here is few shots of our (my handiwork). Joking aside, this was a team effort. Michelle got all of the edging done and it looks great! My arms are tired from pushing that roller all fricken weekend.     Did I mention that we will be painting the downstairs bathroom as well? Stay tuned!!

What? An Update??

Sorry that I haven’t updated in a while. With all of the trips to Lowes, Ikea, American Home Furniture, Best Buy and Mikes Camera (had to order some 20” X 30” Canvas prints for the walls you know) it has been hard to actually sit down. When we actually sit down, we catch up on our shows (SOA, The Bridge, The Strain, re-watched the last season of The Walking Dead etc). Speaking of The Walking Dead, if you are not a fan, you suck. Just kidding. If you have never seen single episode, watch the first to last episode of season four (look at the flowers, Lizzy) and you will see why it is one of the best shows on TV. Waiting for Game of Thrones to come back on as well as Justified and other shows that you probably have never heard of. So, quit sucking and watch The Walking Dead. Okay, here are a couple of pictures to show what we have been up to. As soon as I get done watching football today I may add some more. I doubt it but it if it keeps you coming back for more, I am all for it.