Work on Gymnasium underway

Well, it seemed an eternity waiting for the contractor to begin work on the gym roof. But that time has arrived. About 2/3's of the roof has been removed. The roof has been steadily leaking for 15 years (we have owned it for 3 years). The principal tells me that they struggled with roof leaks throughout his tenure. We had actually looked into the prospect of demolishing the entire gym and putting up a morton building. That option turned out to be at least $20,000.00 more than putting a whole new roof on. We elected to tear the entire barrel-style roof off, and install new roof trusses that spanned the entire 55 ft. width of the building. We went for a 4 in 12 pitch. We're going to sheet and cover with 50 year green shingles. This is going to be a dramatic new look. We will be capping off the chimney, installing new gutters and soffit, and vinyl siding to cover the vertical spaces created by the trusses. I will be renting a man-lift later and reinstalling the lighting.

As you can see, we are not ready to celebrate, but opening the gym up and letting it air out has done wonders. The bats appear to be gone, and the musty, humid, moldy feel and smell is history. Yeehah! Stay tuned; I will be posting additional pictures in the near future.

Vacation Gone Bye

It was quite a vacation. Hot and humid! It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. My honeydo list is the same length as when it started. However, it was the best of times because my brand new great grandson, Hayden David Mathew Kress, made his debut into this crazy world. He was born one month premature, and was life-flighted to Saint Francis hospital in Peoria where he has just done wonderfully. There is a good chance that he will be coming home on Wednesday.

Had another pretty cool, howbeit not quite so significant addition to the family as previously mentioned. Found this 1979 Ironhead Sportster, and had to take it home to play with it. The trike is cool, and safer to travel around with Rosebud. But, I had to have something that I could terrorize the neighborhood with.

And last but not least, I finally painted the fenders for the trike. I started out with great intentions of two-toning them, and then double pinstriping them with two other colors to match the front fender, but I gave up on those ideas. They turned out pretty well though, if I do say so myself.

I am hoping to get a quote, this week, on replacing the roof on the gymnasium and moving forward with that project. That's the last great hurtle that has to take place before the winter hits.Well, that's all for now. Take care and God Bless!

Vacation Time

Well, the plant is shutting down for two weeks, so let the vacation begin. It isn't the time that I would typically choose to take my vacation, but I can use it. The weatherman says it's going to be in the 90's, and muggy for most of it. I have a honey-do a mile long. Normally, I wouldn't be all that concerned about a honey-do list on my vacation, but again, there is someone in the hospital - ergo we are not going anywhere.

Tiffany, one of our grandchildren, is about to deliver. She has been trying to deliver a month early. They have had her in a hospital bed, pumping her with magnesium, for a week now. She is not allowed to get out of bed now. We are apparently going to have a baby Monday, if not sooner. She has had steroid shots to help develop the baby's lungs. The baby is over 6 lbs. now, and he wants out.

In the meantime, I hope to paint the trike's fenders, put a new ceiling in one of the bathrooms, build a kitchen island, put a tile backsplash in the kitchen, build an appliance counter, close in the chimney I took out, and wire up the motorcycle trailer. And in my spare time, I need to clear out a room downstairs, so I can prepare for installing the Endless Pool. Other than that, I am looking for a relaxing two weeks.

Rosebud is Home at Last

What a miserable 4 days over the July 4th weekend! Rose went into the hospital for surgery to remove the kidney stones. Last year, she had stones the size of nickels and quarters. The Doc ultrasonically blasted them, but unfortunately not all of them were pulverized, and those that were left began to form, like a pearl in a clam. Well, to make a long story short, they put a tube in through her back and into her kidney and removed 8 stones a little bigger than rabbit turds. They left the tube in her for 2 1/2 days, and she was not pleasant to be around. Once they removed the tube, she got better almost instantly.

I brought her home Sunday afternoon. She is doing very well. A pastoral care group from our church has been bringing meals over in the evening, and tell us they will be doing it for 5 days. Bless them! They have brought over some wonderful food. Rose hasn't eaten much, but it hasn't stopped me. She did eat lasagna yesterday. Nobody could have passed that up!

We did enjoy the 4th at home. Only saw the fireworks on TV, with the occasional burst in the local neighborhood. Someone in the neighborhood decided that 10 o'clock at night was too early to dispense with the celebratory mood, so he continued to blast the neighborhood until midnight. You gotta love those that don't work, but can afford thousands of dollars for fireworks! Thank God, when he attempted to carry on the tradition the next night, he apparently ran out of noise makers at around 9:30 pm.

Tuesday, back to work, and the day topped off by a "not guilty" verdict for poor pitiful Casey. What a country!

Demo of ways to use Photobucket.com

Hey Bro!
I thought you might find this helpful when wanting to link to photo albums. Here is an example, using free Photobucket of linking to an album I created with a few pictures of the Gulf Oil Spill last year:

You can click on this link:

Gulf Oil Spill 2010

OR:

You can just embed the slideshow into your blog as such:

You might have to hit the F5 key once or twice to refresh if you want the slide show to play within your blog window. Also, sometimes when you go away and come back to this blog, you need to click on the title of this blog, so the slideshow knows what day's blog you are at. In other words, it's not going to go into the slideshow if it thinks you are on yesterday's blog.

How's that?!!! Choices, choices, choices!!!

Both will provide what you need. Not difficult to learn and the price is right. This way, you don't have to sign up for Facebook. You do have to tolerate a bit of advertising on the Photobucket website. But, this site is legitimate and has been around forever.

Love ya Bro!

Posting for Canton, IL. Cruise-in

Hi Folks. Just an update to my last posting. Here is the link to the Canton, IL. Cruise-in on July 17, 2011.

Enjoy!

Canton Cruise-in

Went to the Canton, IL. Cruise-in last night. What a great selection of vintage cars, trucks and bikes. Going to post a lot of pics up on my web site as soon as I get the gumption. So, check out the web page later at Http://www.wingnuts-haven.com.

There was actually a car that went with this!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

Ever have one of those days you can't decide was a good day or a bad day. Well, I had one of those yesterday. It started out great with a call from my best friend in High School and while I was in the Army. We hadn't seen each other or even spoke for over 35 years. A wonderful start to the day; and things began to change.

• When I stopped by to see a friend, I looked down and there smack dab in the middle of my brand new trike tire was a roofing nail. I didn't hear any hissing, but I wasn't about to pull it out until I got home. When I did pull it out, yeah; you guessed it! Hssssss! I had only one radial tire plug, so I had to make it good. I think I did. I plugged the tire, trimmed it off, tried a little water on it, and it appears to have fixed it. Was still up this morning; I am optimistic - sort of.
• I come out the back door of my schoolhouse to check on the tire that I just fixed, and I see a young man standing between the dumpster and the building, holding a burning matchbook in his hand, which he drops to the ground when he sees me. I say to myself, "This isn't good." I am thinking that he planned to light my dumpster on fire, which would have destroyed the two plastic lids, not to mention the adjacent brand new vinyl windows on the schoolhouse. I grab the kid, and he wrestles away from me and runs toward his bike and begins to make the great escape. There are still questions to be answered, so I run after him, stumble, and with one great leap of faith, actually tackle him - bicycle and all. He is obviously not all there, and has a very difficult time distinguishing between truth and lies - lies that I actually think he immediately convinces himself are true. When the sheriff's deputy arrives, his dad pulls behind him shortly thereafter, and we all have a talk for about two hours. I didn't press charges, and actually came away from the ordeal, feeling sorry for the boy, and his dad who is trying to straighten the kid out, who had been living with his mom, in let's say, a less than ideal home environment. His dad is at the end of his rope with the kid, and doesn't know where to turn. Been there; bought the T-shirt. Needless to say, another night that I don't get to bed early.

The weekend before last, a couple of friends from work, and myself, converted my 2008 FLHTCU Harley to a trike with a Frankenstein trike kit. I was really leery of converting the bike, since I'm too young for a motorcycle with training wheels. But, I've got to tell you, "I'm having a blast with this thing!" I haven't painted and installed the fenders yet; and I still have to rake out the front end, but I think I'm going to like it. I've had more compliments, in one week, since I put this together, than I've had for the past three years!

It looks so BAD that I am reluctant to put the fenders on it. Oh well; have to at least see what it looks like with them on.

This is my first go at blogging. Got the idea from my best friend that I just reconnected with after some 46 years, as a way of keeping in touch. We'll just have to see how it goes. Will this site really be a "safe haven" or a shipwreck? Only time will tell.