Had a flat tire...

On my way to my Dad's I hit a huge hole in I-75 where a chunk of concrete popped out of the road. About 9 miles later I noticed the van in front of me had a left rear flat tire. I flagged him as I passed him. Then 2 miles later (just shy of the Mackinac Bridge) I noticed my same tire was also flat!

Turns out there was a huge gash made in the tire wall, having to replace the whole thing.

A picture from later in the day, after Dad's curtain hanging project.

Always fixing something

The wife's 2001 Pontiac Montana needed a new wheel bearing. When I had it apart, Adam notices the tie-rod end was shot, so replaced that too.


Did you know the axle nut is bigger than 32mm but smaller than 34mm? I didn't!

Christmas at the farm

Drove up to see the Rudyard Ross's, Dawn and Rachel followed at their own pace (long story there!)

Chains on!

Got the chains on the tractor again this year. Figured out the one side was so hard to get connected because it was missing two links! Must be a joke in there somewhere!

All the kids were home for Christmas

Couldn't ask for much more. But we got it!



Especially that TV in the background!

Twas the night before Christmas

The tree and the stockings are all set to go!





Notice it didn't take too long for the entertainment center to get cluttered up!

My annual baking of the HumpUps

Some family member's favorite date-filled cookies:

Dawn's belated birthday present

This is her gift from her mother. I kinda like it too!

Gettin' a Christmas tree

It's that season again...

La Senorita for Dawn's Birthday dinner

Mary joined us for dinner at La Senorita to celebrate Dawn's birthday.

Flooring @ Dad's

Two day, two guys, 5 rooms floored.
We put down Trafficmaster Allure Tile flooring from Home Depot:

Starting my own project

I intend to take this wood


and put it here in our living room and see what happens...

Got a chance

I got to go see what my brother and Dad have been working on while I was working out of town: the solar panels are up:


The 10Kw backup generator is installed:


The batteries have a box, vented to the outdoors and are connected to the charge controller:


From the right, the charge control system, the 2500 watt 110v inverter and generator transfer switch:


And (left-most) connection to the house:


They've got it all connected except the backup generator auto-start, controlled by low battery voltage.

The details are:
6 Kyocera KC130TM (130 watt, 12v) panels wired in 3 pairs then paralleled to a Flexcharge Charge Controller (Charlevoix MI 547-9430) This goes to a bank of 12-6v NAPA 8144N (115min @ 75amps) lead acid batteries, 3 groups paralleled of 4 in series.
The inverter is from Outback Power Systems and supplies a maximum of 20amps at 120v to the house.

Pretty cool to have power in the house!

Back home!

After a solid 3 weeks of preparation and a week on the road, got a presentation off my 'to do' list at work. Haven't had any time to get to my Dad's all month!

Oh, No!

Got a call this morning that Rachel was feeling sick at the hotel after the marching competition. I took her to the Dr. after she got back to town where we learned she officially had the flu -- probably H1N1 (swine flu)! Joy.

Marching Northmen!

Took the day and went to watch Rachel march in a competition at Jenison, MI (west of Grand Rapids). They put on a great show, the last one I am able to see as I have to be out of town next week.

They took second (the only 2nd they got this year), though they are #1 in my book!
They competed against the same school later that evening in another competition and won there!

Back from a weekend of rafting!

Tom & Deb joined Gerald & I for a double upper Gauley White Water Rafting adventure. The last time I went was two years ago with Tom & Jim.

You can see more pictures at Leisure Sports Photography. Once you click there and give them your email, come back here and click this link to jump directly to #89. We have shots 77-90 (IMG_2374 - IMG_2386).


The food was awesome, the weather was perfect, the company was pun-tiful, Tom was the only one to go floating, and Jackie was a great guide!


Oh, yeah, the White Water Rafting on the Gauley was top notch as well!

My HTML picture repository can be found here.

Off grid supplies have arrived

Dad called to say that Bob has delivered all the expected supplies, and that solar panels are now hanging from the tractor shed.
Still a lot of assembly to go!

Finished that weatherizing window trim

Just in time to leave town for WWR in WV in the morning!

Day at Dad's

His garage door was installed today, after which we completed all the sheeting inside. Ready for the solar hardware!

We started the day in the house, where we got the downstairs bathroom paneling at least half up, then stripped the hall ceiling, ready for tile to be installed.

From what I understand, the hall, bath and entry room ceilings along with the remainder of the bath and entry paneling need to be completed before we are allowed to start on the flooring. Then comes appliances, toilet and carpet. Seems SOOO close!

Block wall assembled

Fri Sep 11 07:35:04 EDT 2009

Another Bridge walk year -- and fun in the park!

Rachel and I joined about 49,000 people walking over the Mackinaw Bridge, then spent the afternoon at Thunder Falls. As we were too busy having fun, neither of us was being a shutter bug, so we don't have pictures of the gigantic body slide (how did she talk me into going that high?) or the climbing tower.

Wood cutting day

Got Rachel to try out Gerald's chainsaw.
She had a pretty big grin on her face!

2 days at Dad's

We finished the peak, insulated the shed and got enough OSB on to have the 7'x7' overhead door installed this coming week.



We also ripped out the original 3' high north retaining wall and replaced it with a 6' high beefier wall on Saturday.

Of course, with 2 blocks to go, a Universal joint failed on the skid-steer, giving Gerald something to work on while the rest of us continued working on the shed:

At the end of the day and all blocks installed that we had:

There are more blocks on the way to complete the wall.

Mackinaw City with family

Spent a rainy day with family. Adam drove up and Mary drove down to join us for what was going to be a day on Mackinaw Island, but changed to shopping and dining in Mackinaw City instead.

Back from OKC

It was a 9-day stint.

Fixed that dishwasher (again)

We put in a new 2nd stage filter, but determined the true cause of the arm not spinning correctly was the double-ended screw that holds the arm down. It had backed out a turn or so, causing the arm to be held up, pressing the inner spinner arm upwards to the bottom of the overall cover, restricting the rotation.

Wall painted; Mailbox up

A project that got a boost was David's window, digging out and painting the brick, trying to seal out the water.


Then, I got a hand (or two) to put up the mailbox.

Tinned the roof

Got the long (north) side of the building roof tin on the garage with Dad. From the drive, it looks so much better!

Day of haying

Helped put 1533 bales in the barn with by Dad and brother.

PHS Band calendar

I am toying with making a sharable calendar for the upcoming Petoskey High School Band program. The steps:

• To subscribe to this calendar go to (or create) your Google Calendar account (http://calendar.google.com)
  
• Under "Other Calendars" in the "add a friends Calendar" enter the public address of the band's calendar: 539dl115arq8n0ua5qmvqn4d08@group.calendar.google.com
  
• Once it is in your list, you can go to the "Settings" option beneath that, then "Notifications"
  
• From here you can indicate the types of update messages you need, as well as set a reminder. These updates and reminders can be directed to your email address or a SMS device (text messages to a cell phone)
  

Check it out:

Happy birthday me!

I managed to make the 9 hour drive home after working for a week in Wisconsin.

While out there, I took a couple rides around on my bike, putting on 35 miles in two days. Check out the map I made:

Tractor garage sheeting completed

The last couple days were not good haying weather, so Gerald & Dad were able to get the walls up and sheeted with trusses on top. Today Dad and I got the trusses stripped, eaves faced and Gerald showed up to help finish the sheeting.

Then I took the time to hang the dining chandelier, which opens up the room without all that scaffolding in there!

Ceiling fan up!

Fixed that darn kitchen outlet problem too! Seems someone put drywall over the outlet to the stove, so I couldn't get the circuit to actually work until I rewired them. Luckily the bathroom paneling isn't done yet, so I could just remove the drywall on the other side of the wall and fix the problem that way.

Got the lights upstairs (bedroom and 3 closets) installed and tested. Downstairs bedroom is all put together as well. Moving right along!

A bunch of zeros!

Start electical, worked on paneling

I intended to work on outlets, but Dad couldn't hay, so we worked together on hall paneling.

With the exception of 1 piece, the hall paneling has been completed. Took a while to figure out and make the odd 'wall' to make it possible to finish the doorway from the hall to the basement.

Hey! That darn ceiling is DONE!

The ceiling in the great room is finally completed!

When you add it all up, it was only 5 1/2 days of work, but it was spread out over the last 7 weeks!
What's next you ask? Well:
- upstairs and downstairs bathroom paneling
- outbuilding, walls, siding, insulation drywall, doors, etc
- outlets, switches, lights, etc
- flooring and trim throughout

So you see, there is quite a bit left to do before the open house and big move-in!

Another day of installing outlets

When I got there, I took pictures of the progress on the garage/out building which will house the batteries and control system, some 200' away from the house. Also big enough to store a tractor, needed for all the northern Michigan snow to come!

2-1/2 day paneling bee at Dad's

From Sunday afternoon through dinner on Tuesday, just the two of us got the east gable end wall completed and the ceiling within 6 feet of the peak.

From the bottom of the stairs facing south and up:

On the stairs looking east:

From the balcony looking north:


Dad also got Ron started on a cement pad for the solar out-building/garage, as well as hired someone to help move the finish carpentry work along (banister and window trim for starters).

And (as the little tractor is at the farm for some raking duty) Dad figured out the regulator was defective, so now the charging system is working again!

Happy Fourth!

Watched the huge turn-out in P-town for the parade and attended the fireworks in the evening:




I didn't know we needed to start them so young!:




Our little pyros in the park