ocean city snow

Interesting work day friday. I dont know the umber of continuous days I have been working, but I think it hit me on Friday that it had been too many. Things were not flowing for me and I was struggling to make good progress. I said to Andy, "man we should go camping, just load up and go." We both agreed that it would be nice and went back to work. I continued to day dream about some great adventure for the better part of the day. Later that day about 2 pm Heather and the kids came around on their walk to visit with their dad and Andy asked, "Do you guys want to g o to Ocean City?" The reply was a resounding yes from all parties. I dropped my shovel and exited the trench and called Hollie to inform her of the new plans. And that was that. I spent the rest of the day getting ready for departure........
Hadden testing the water proofness of his boots

HARMONY flashing a goofy smile

The Vanagon and whatever you call our setup
oh, it snowed

The weather spaced itself out perfectly for us to have a fire and hang out

And to run around on the beach. Poor foxy had to stay on leash, she is injured.
Its a bit strange too that you can drive your car on the beach at high speeds...knuckleheads abound!

The Galley in the vanagon was in full flight

Of course....

That is one nice setup those Sorters have

Everyone took there turn wearing the vacation glasses

washed up

UDO was bouncing off the walls off leash until the cars started coming. He is feeling much better and putting weight back on. I am stoked about that.

Proof the weather was god enough for a bon fire. Hadden prefers to slowly tan his marsh mellows, while Harmony goes for the quick burn method. Both techniques yielded killer smores.

It was a quick trip, and great to get away. It was just what we needed and really got my fire lit to get back out on the road again. I think Hollie and I will be hitting the road again this year for a long one....stay tuned.

pictures of progress

Okay, here are some of the new developments on our little project up here. The ditch. 2920' long, just about 10 football fields in length, its 3'+ wide and 3'+ deep, and its bedded with washed sand. That was a lot of work. Even with all the big equipment we have access to here, I used my John Deere 2210, a shovel and a rake for 75% of the work. The initial hole was dug with the Excavator, an amazing machine and fun to operate, but it doesnt leave a very clean hole...hence the shovel! So, the ditch is done and the 15000 volt cable and 2 transformers are in place. $22,000.00. WOW, the thing I dont get is we did all the work!!!????
So what else is going to go in that big utility ditch? Cable? NOPE! we called about putting in cable, even though there is no service out here and Comcast wanted $43,000.00 to drop their cable in the ground, plus the cable would have to be boosted every 400'. Scratch that. Phone? Nope! Qwest wants us to trench an additional 1000' all the way to 101st ave to tie into the main phone cable. their fee is much smaller, but there is now way we can go another 1000'. so it looks like we will be crossing our fingers for new technology.
Here is what we are thinking:
Dish for the television and internet. We currently use Wild Blue for SAT internet and it is less than stellar. Download is alright, but upload is turtle pace. this is where the rub is. VONAGE has a wireless VOIP phone, but our upload at this moment wont support the phones min. upload speed. So, we will have to rely on cell phones as our primary communications and its not great coverage either. So come on technology! if anyone has any ideas about our communication crunch let me know!
Below are some pics of our progress:


hollie chucking big rocks out of the ditch

andy on the backhoe

15000 volts.

brrrr......its cold

watering hole

end transformer

hadden pitchin' in

back filling the turn to the Remote temp power

voltage artery

we are well on our way.

Random post

ME AND MY FOX

I really just wanted to post this picture so that Matt Shriver could see how sweet foxy is. For some reason, Foxy wanted to eat Matt alive when he was out here. Sweet girl! Udo, my boy is not doing so well right now. He has lost a lot of weight and the vets are scratching their heads. I hope this blood test reveals something useful that we just had! Udo is 51lbs right now. He is usually 70lbs. all this weight loss happened since the 14th of December. SAD!

2008

Well, we brought in the 2008 with some .30-.06 's and some gasoline! Our new neighbors put on quit a show. The xmas tree goes out in this show too. Lee and Christeen, and their 2 children are really nice folks and I thank them for having us over for the show. We had a good time out there! Tradition? you bet, they do it every year.

I CANT BELIEVE MY EYES!

yup, that is a building permit. I finally got one. I dont even know what to do now! Well, I kind of do. First thing is to button up the utility trench and get the power and phone buried. Then hope for 24 dry hours to put in the foundation. Then Septic tank, then frame the walls, second floor joists, frame more walls, ceiling joists, roof stuff, electrical, plumbing, finishing, move in.
how does that sound. I am shooting for April.

C&H

That is Hollie and I at lake Tapps doing our usual xmas day stuff. Its nice, hang out with a big family and do nothing all day. perhaps drive some golf balls off the dock in to the lake, but not much more.!
Well, that is about it for now. I will try to get some trench pics up. If you have been following this blog then you know I have a previous trench post...well, this one is going to make the first trench look silly. thats right silly. 2917ft silly, 3+' x 3+' silly.