Month: June 2010

  • Of Grasshoppers

    Student: I’m surprised I’ve made it this far.
    Master: You aren’t alone.

  • The Little Miss Project

    Amy had but one wish for her birthday…a clubhouse. And she received basically one present…a pile of lumber for a clubhouse. We are building The Little Miss by WoodManor.net. Below are the timelapse videos of the first two days of work. I cannot give you these 20 minutes of your life back. The audio at the beginning of the 2nd video corrects rather quickly. The best parts of each video are the last two minutes so skip to minute 6 on the first video and minute 10 on the second.

    This weekend's projectWeekend project gravelWeekend project footersWeekend project- foundation and floor

    Stopping for the night Weekend project day 2 - one half wall


  • The Little Miss Project

    Yesterday of a 27 step plan, we completed steps 1, 2, 3, and 4.

  • Weekend Project

    Stopping for the night
    You can see the beginnings of the front porch and the front door.

  • From last night’s receiving

    Them: "When I was a child, I drove a mini-bike into your house."
    Me: "Oh, so that’s why I have foundation problems!"
    Someone else: "I lived in your house for 6 months."
    Another person: "We once drove a car into the sinkhole in the creek."

    My house has a colorful history.

  • Happy Birthday Amy!

    What an amazing eight years!

  • Making a girl’s 8th birthday wish come true

    Amy has her mind set on a club house for her 8th birthday (tomorrow!).

    The Fantasy

    On Saturday morning, Ty Pennington and his crew from Extreme Makeover Home Edition show up with a bobcat and the materials to build The Queen Anne or the Spoiler. By Saturday evening, a portion of the yard has been contoured, landscaped and become home to Amy’s new playhouse in which we celebrate her birthday inside.

    The Reality

    Saturday I build the Little Miss by myself leaving landscaping for a different weekendlifetime. Sunday afternoon, we celebrate Amy’s birthday inside and around her clubhouse.

    Cathy’s fear

    The construction will be delayed and problematic and Amy will go without any semblance of a birthday present until the end of the summer or worse.

    The Wishful Desire

    Any volunteers want to grab hammers and shovels and help me put this together in one day on this coming Saturday? Does beer and pizza still work in exchange for labor?

    And you can bet there will be a timelapse of the build.

  • Of Being Dad

    File this under things that make me twitch.

    Tommy, in a phone call to me: "By the way, my laptop hasn’t worked for the past week and a half or so. Says something about no bootable media."
    Me: "Did you install anything recently or drop it?"
    Tommy: "No but there are two screws missing on the bottom."

  • Of Being Dad

    File this under things that make me twitch.

    Tommy, in a phone call to me: "By the way, my laptop hasn’t worked for the past week and a half or so. Says something about no bootable media."
    Me: "Did you install anything recently or drop it?"
    Tommy: "No but there are two screws missing on the bottom."

  • When your wife is the mayor

    When every place you check in has your wife listed as the mayor, it means:

  • you and your wife need to spend a little more time apart
  • you probably don’t have as much money in the bank as you thought you did
  • Cathy, Zane, Chris, Ryan and Shane are the only people in Knoxville using Foursquare
  • Past the point of no return

    When you are still awake at 3:15 in the morning, you begin asking yourself stupid questions like, "I know I’ve been awake for 20 hours. Can I make it another 21 hours before going to sleep?"

  • Today’s Deep Thought

    To begin something, you must start somewhere.