Seattle

I am back to "work" now. My first stop was Seattle so I went to visit Holly and Snider. They are doing great and have a nice apartment. Holly's car is very nice. They are enjoying the outdoors here in Seattle. They always talk about hiking and kayaking and stuff.

Tonight I fly to Shannon, Ireland then have 18 hours off and fly to Boise, Idaho. I get about 18 hours off then I fly back to Shannon. Then after about 24 hours I fly back to Atlanta, GA and am supposed to go home. It will be 4 Atlantic crossings in 6 days. I am not looking forward to it and am sure I will be tired by the time it is all over.

Lord willing I will be home on Sunday. I only get 4 days off then I am back to "work".

Green River Lake

We went scuba diving today at Green river lake. Here are some of the treasures that we recovered. The picture is of a boat bumper sitting in a camp style folding chair. This is one of three chairs that we saw in this cove. We also saw two sliding screen doors, a tire, a fire extinguisher, and two complete sheets of plywood. There were also tons of cans and bottles. I am pretty sure that houseboats tie up here and throw all the trash over the side.
We also used the metal detector to find the smaller stuff. The visibility was about four feet. Once we started digging around for whatever the metal detector was sounding on it dropped to zero. We were able to recover all this and a penny that isn't in the picture. The round objects are bottle caps and there are two lighters (one Zippo type and one disposable), and a D cell battery. I should have brought a bag down with me to put all the stuff in. I just didn't think about it. I will know next time. I also wanted to pick up the cans but we wouldn't have been able to even make a dent in the amount that was down there.
Taylor did better skiing today. She was able to get up almost every time and actually got to do a little skiing. She had a better attitude today and I think that was what made the difference. I think she actually WANTED to ski today.
Erin got up the first time and skied for quite a ways. I don't know how she does it but she says it is more comfortable to ski with her knees together like they are in this picture. She had her knees resting together most of the time.

Kerry and I skied a little too. We had a great time just sitting in the cove and playing in the water. I found some pool noodles at a dollar store. We have been looking for them since we bought the boat. I guess it is out of season for them now. They sure do make it nice to just float in the water. If you put one under your arms you can just float all day long.

Taylor almost caught a Bluegill with the fishing net. We didn't do any fishing today other than that. We had the poles but were too busy with all the other stuff.

Fishing

We took the boat out fishing this evening. I was able to finish up the trailer bearings and got the new tires put on.

Kerry is the only one that caught anything. She snagged a two inch minnow with her spinner bait lure. She also got a good bite with a bass but it got away just as she got it up to the boat.

We tried to catch some fish that were swarming near the surface. They looked like a needle fish or something. We checked it out when we got home and they are Spotted Gar. It looks like the only way to catch them is to use frayed nylon rope and let them get their teeth tangled in it.

We took some pictures with my cell phone but I have no idea how to get them out.

Erin got spacers to prepare for her braces today. Funny that I am going to spend more for her teeth than I spent for our Durango.

Only one more day till we head down to check out the Green River Lake near Campbellsville, KY.

More boat stuff

I put a Bimini top on the boat today. It will be nice to have it so we can get out of the sun on the long days on the boat. We are planning on being out all day on Saturday so we will have plenty of time to try it out. Yesterday we went and used the boat ramp that is about 12 minutes away and launched in the Kentucky River. It was pleasant to be boating up and down the river. There were only two other boats on the part of the river we were on.
I also had to replace the tires on the trailer. The tires had plenty of tread, in fact, they looked like they had never been on the road. The problem was that the sidewalls had weather cracks in them that were really deep. I was a little worried about taking it back on the highway like that.

When I had the tires off I gave the spindle a little spin and I could hear the bearings grinding. I guess it was time to change the bearings and repack the grease. Two trips to AutoZone and I had everything that I needed.
Tomorrow I will put this all back together and go get the trailer tires to put back on. We are going back to the river again and see if we have any success at fishing. The boat has been a little bit of work but we are still enjoying it. It is nice to have time to work on it when I don't need to be using it.

No work

I spent most of the day today beside the phone waiting on the garbage company to call and fax some paperwork. I am trying to rent a dumpster again so I can get rid of a lot of stuff from the basement and also rip down the roof over the back car port. I am also going to rip down the shed in the back yard so I can start parking some of the toys we have been buying.

Our fax machine is a little temperamental and requires the pages to be fed one at a time. Since I had to hang around and wait for a fax I spent the time surfing on Craigslist. I found a listing for a 2000 Dodge Durango 4x4 for 3700 dollars. Kerry and I had to go to the boat store and the dive shop in Lexington anyway so we drove the extra 30 miles to Richmond and checked it out. It was in really nice shape and I offered 3500 for it and they said yes. It has the SLT package and with the 5.9 liter V8 it should pull our boat with no problems. Kerry was excited about driving it home. It also came with almost a full tank of gas! That brought the price down another 100 bucks or so.

We appreciated Burt and Kim for letting us borrow the van every time we took the boat out but it will be nice to just grab this and go whenever we want.

Rough day

We made the girls try fishing today. Of course we didn't catch anything. We spent some time fishing, swimming, tubing and skiing. We also just drove around in the boat. It was a really tough day!
Erin's third time water skiing. She is starting to stand up a little straighter and actually got outside the wake. She didn't make it back in though.
Kerry snapped this picture at just the right moment. This is the most that Taylor was able to make it out of the water. She tried quite a few times though and that is all that really matters. This was her second time.
Kerry's a pro. Look at her cut to the outside! She cut back and forth across the wake a few times. I think we are going to have a lot of fun next summer!
I made it up on my first try too! I just got going good when the boat started to run out of gas. It is really hard to ski behind a boat that is stopping and starting. I still have a rib that is a little tender from last time we went skiing so I only did it one time.

The boat is running really well. I got it going 39 miles an hour today. I guess having one less person makes a difference. This is the first time that we have been out with just the family. I wish I had my scuba stuff because I really wanted to get under the water. I wouldn't have been able to see anything but I could have tried to find something with my metal detector!

Small project

I looked out the kitchen window and remembered that it needed a little help. I went and got my window stuff and pulled the window out. I removed the old glazing and the window pane. The glass wasn't broken so I only had to re glaze. I couldn't use my heat gun to make getting the old glazing compound out because the electricity went out when someone hit a few of the poles.
It is back in how and will last for a while. It is really just a temp repair because I still need to do the top sash and it all needs scraped and painted. It was fun to have a job that I could see from start to finish in a couple hours.

New project

I started cleaning up the basement. This is a shot of the tool shelves. I just put the two up that are to the right in the picture. I have just been putting stuff on the shelves for now and will organize it later.
This corner of the basement is filled with all the trim from throughout the house. I guess it could be considered Kerry's work area because she is the one that is in charge of all the trim.
This corner is where all my scaffolding, drywall lift, and ladders are. All that stuff is going to stay in that corner. Boxes need to be emptied and large tools have to be moved around.
This corner is the one that still needs to be sorted out. We had water get up to 3 inches down here and ruined some of the stuff we had stored. We still have to go through it and see what we can keep.
This is what I have pulled out of the basement so far. Mostly empty boxes. We had some old carpet down there and some pads that we got while we lived in Germany. Most of the stuff still smells damp from being in the water.

We rented a small dumpster that they will empty once a week. I am going to start filling it up as soon as it gets here on Tuesday.

Boat

We bought a boat. Kerry and I were talking about it and we never thought that we would ever own a boat but... we do now. I started talking about it so we could go scuba diving in some of the local lakes without trying to find a place near the shore that we could drag all of our stuff to. I was looking for any kind of boat that was cheap and could get us to the middle of the lake with our scuba stuff.

I found a boat on Ebay that was a 1971 Rinkerbuilt Runabout with a 1983 115 horsepower Johnson outboard. I won the auction and borrowed Burt's van to go pick it up in Jeffersonville, IN which is about 60 miles away. On the way home we went by the lake to see if it would run. Alas, the power trim wouldn't work so we couldn't get the engine in the water to start it. It turned out to be a relay for 15 bucks that I picked up at the local NAPA auto parts store. Tuesday we took it out to the lake and ran it around for a couple hours. It ran just fine.

Since it was a ski boat we decided that it would be a waste not to have skis. We went out and bought skis and a ski rope. We also had to get a tow rope for the tube that they threw in with the boat. It had a hole in it and they lost the plug for the inflation valve but I was able to fix that. Then we took our kids and Burt's kids out to water ski and tube.

After skiing and tubing we figured out that we needed a boarding ladder. We went to the marina in Lexington and picked up a boarding ladder and some smaller skis for the small kids. I also picked up new tail lights at Walmart for the trailer. On Saturday we were planning to make a longer trip to Dale Hollow lake that is two and a half hours away.

Saturday we went to Dale Hollow and did some scuba diving and water skiing. I also was able to use my metal detector under water for the first time. It was pretty muddy on the bottom when we were scuba diving but we snorkeled later and I was able to find 3 pennies and quite a few pull tabs from old cans.

We have had a lot of fun and we used our tax rebate check to pump up the economy. We did our part. It was nice to do something fun this summer since we spent most of it working on the third floor. I tried to upload pictures but they wouldn't take. Maybe I will try to upload again later.

I have to go to work tomorrow. I get to fly on United to London, England. Yee haw, 8 hours in a coach seat!