Ground Broken!

We took off at the end of last week to be at the property for the ground breaking, but traffic, rain, and road construction slowed us down enough the we missed the actual first breaking of the ground. This ended up not being a problem at all as we were glad to see the progress, finally!!!!!

This is what we walked up the lane to find on Thursday, the footers are poured!


Check out the size of the Live Oaks compared to the Port-O-Let

On Friday we returned to the property to see them completing the foundation, Awesome!




Perfect placement by Mother Nature on this palm


It was time to celebrate a little afterward with our good friend FC, after all he is partly responsible for this happening. We fell in love with this part of the world the first time we came down to visit!

One final visit out to Cedar Key for dinner and a sunset before we start heading north











Now the project is underway and I'll (and sometimes we'll) be making trips back down to check on the progress!

Weekend Update #4

Not a lot to share this report.

Harley and Me - The weather was absolutely beautiful so we put a few miles on the bike again, just over 150 miles total. Rode the bike into work today because we're likely to get rain the next few days.

Hops, Hops, and More Hops - The hops are over loaded with cones and should be ready to harvest soon (I'll try to get some photos). The plants themselves don't look so good because the Japanese Beetles had a feast on the leaves, but the cones are a plenty!

That was about it. Hopefully we'll be heading to Florida soon to witness the official ground breaking and footers being dug and poured!

Weekend Update #3

Let's start with Friday on this one!

Friday at work: This past Friday had to be one of the best days at work that I have had since before I moved to China! Sorry I can't be any more detailed than that here, but let's just leave it as one for the record books!
This only got better when I received a call from our builder, which leads to the next subject!

The Home: The builder called on Friday evening and let me know that he was able to be there when they did the geological survey of our property. The expert's recommendation is to start building!!!! The sink hole thingy, in their opinion, is an anomaly caused by heavy rains due to a small crack in the lime rock shelf that they couldn't even see on the Ground penetrating radar. the shelf itself runs across the entire property about 20ft down. They see no threat to the site that we chose to build on! The builder is going to line up the mason's to start working on the foundation and the clock has started, Hooray!!!

Harley and Me: The heat this past weekend was pretty stifling so we didn't put in too many miles. What we did do was meet up with our friends and rode to a place called Charlie's Throttle Stop for lunch. I had the opportunity to try the "Sweet Southern Burger" which is a cheese burger using a sliced "Crispy Creme" donut as the bun! It's totally wrong for you , but oh so tasty!

Chillin' with Lightnin': Sunday was spent inside with AC just chillin' and doing laundry to get ready for the week ahead.

Weekend Update #2

This past weekend we had some hot and humid Florida style weather which led to some pretty vicious storms.

I met up with our friends Julie and Rick to try to go to the Schutzenfest at Kolping on Saturday. After this blew in we decided to wait and give it another try on Sunday!
We tucked the bikes in out of the hail zone just in case!


Much better
Obviously before I talked them into trying the limburger cheese!



Release the hounds! (sorry for the blur)











It was a fun time and would have only been better if Lightnin would have been here too. She'll be flying back into town tonight and I can't wait to get an update from her on the situation down in the G of M!

Gulf Oil Update, They Capped the Well!

Hip, Hip, Hooray! They capped the well!

Yes this is still only a temporary fix and there is still much work to be done, but it's still the best news we've had in the past 88 days!

They'll have to vent it somehow to relieve pressure before they make the final tap into the vein with the relief wells or else the pressure on them would put us right back where we started.

I'll be watching intently until it's capped off permanently!

PS: From Lightnin

All-

There will be many pictures and maybe even a video or two when I return! It's been an awesome experience to work and mingle with the locals to see first-hand the extent of the devastation here in the Gulf. I'll get back to ya'll after the 19th! Take care!

Weekend Update!

Not much to report, but here goes:

Gulf Oil Crisis - If you watched the news then you probably know that they are trying to place a new cap on the gusher, let's hope this one works! Lightnin is still down there doing her part to keep the clean-up crews safe. If you get CMT then hopefully you caught the Jimmy Buffet benefit concert last night.

Lumber Dave (Who's this Jack guy?) - Saturday morning I had a chance to help out our friends Julie and Rick stocking up on some firewood! One of their neighbors had dropped a bunch of trees, pulled them out of the woods and dumped 'em in a stack. It was sort of a game of log climbing, twister, and "chess with a chainsaw", but we cleared out quite a little bit of the pile of logs. Next comes splitting and rumor has it that we'll pit man against machine!

Harley and Me - The weather was nice enough that I was able to put in a couple of hundred miles again this weekend. Unfortunately with Lightnin down at the G of M I'm temporarily without "Helmet Cam" capability so I didn't get any photos.

The House - Looks like we'll get the geological survey completed in the next couple of weeks, so depending on the outcome we might actually do ground breaking in about a month!

That's about it for this past weekend, I'll try to get some sort of photography to add to next weekend's update.

Update on the Gulf Oil

Lightnin hasn't been able to get on line to send pictures from her camera, but she has been able to send a few from her cell phone/camera. the quality is not as good on some of these, but you should be able to get the idea.

Here's Lightnin sporting her stylish safety gear, but more importantly is to look over her left shoulder (to the right in the picture) and you'll see the "Floating City" where most of the clean-up personnel are living during this operation.

Schmoopy's restaurant in Dulac, LA; evidence of the flooding caused by the storms over the past few days

Here's a mural on the wall of a building near Grand Isle, LA displaying the sentiments of the area.











That's what I have for now! She's hoping to get some pictures of the "Sandboni's" that are being used to help clean up the beaches.

My Source(s) on The Gulf Oil Crisis

Some of you may already be aware, but Lightnin has been deployed to the Gulf of Mexico to do what she can to help keep the workers performing the clean-up efforts safe from harmful exposure!

I'm proud of this for several reasons the most compelling is because she is able to at least do something to help!
I don't think I can remember a time when I have felt so frustrated at the fact that I do not have the ability or opportunity "Do" anything about a situation that will likely directly affect me in the long run. So it feels good to know that at least Lighnin has been given the opportunity to "Do" something!

I also wanted to share some photos of oil that washed up on the shores of Fort Pickens Beach, near Pensacola Beach. (These photos were provided by another source who will remain anonymous at least for now)

The pen as a reference hlps to determine the size of the globs found, I'd estimate this one to be about the size of a human hand
This bottle demonstrates how the crude will coat and adhere to just about any surface
















I'm afraid that these are merely small signs of what is to come for the Gulf Coast!

With my sources spread out: Lightnin in Louisiana, Anonymous on Pensacola Beach, and my good friend FC covering the waters around Cedar Key, I should be able to keep you all posted on what's happening where over the next few weeks.

Fourth of July Weekend 2010

This 4th of July please remember to fly your flag proudly to display our Independence. Take time to remember those that have given the ultimate sacrifice tho preserve our freedom and the American way of life. Give thought to those who are currently out there performing their duties to protect it!

Have fun, celebrate, and be safe!

God Bless America!

Oil and Nails

Well it looks like the oil has struck one of the most beautiful coasts on earth, Pensacola Beach, Florida. They now estimate the flow at 100,000 barrels (4 million gallons) a day, and since we're now at day 67 that means that 268,000,000 gallons of crude oil has spewed into the Gulf! Even if they get the flow of oil to stop the devastation is going to be irreparable. My heroic wife has volunteered for deployment to the area to try to help and I may just check with my company to see if I can work from long distance and join her in the effort.

In other wonderful news: I went to ride my bike into work this morning and lost the rear tire due to a nail! The good news is that it was just the tire; I wasn't to the interstate yet and very close to home, so now I'm waiting for the truck to come and take the bike in. It was due for the 10,000 mile check-up anyway and I was planning to get it into the shop next week, I just wasn't planning to have to pay for a new tire too! Happy Birthday to me!

Goodbye Aunt Mink!

How do you measure the worth of a life?
I don't think you can in monetary terms because so much of a life's worth is less tangible and yet much more impactful.

My Aunt Mink was married to my favorite Uncle Walt (well he is my only Uncle Walt, but he is still my favorite) and they were preparing to celebrate 60 years of marriage this coming September. She was the Mother to three of my cousins, Grandmother to 5 Grandchildren, Great Grandmother to several Great Grandchildren, and an Aunt to the rest of us cousins and our offspring.
Is this how you measure the worth of a life?
I think this is part of it!

Aunt Mink was a fun person who truly cared about all of her children which includes the entire list above. She was quick with a witty comment, a loving hug, or a stern word depending upon what the particular situation called for!
So how do you measure the worth of a life?

I think the way to measure it is by how many lives that person touched and influenced in a positive way. It is also measured by how many laughs they generated in themselves and the others around them. It is also measured in the void that remains when they leave this world for the next!

If we take all of these measures into consideration then I think that her nickname "Mink" says it all about the worth of her life; it was Rich and she will be missed deeply!

The Rest of the Trip

This was actually supposed to go out on Monday, but Blogger was not letting me uplaod photos for the past couple of days!


Saturday morning I met up with my buddy FC and had breakfast at Bill's BBQ. I know, "BBQ for Breakfast?", but they have a real breakfast with home made sausage, grits, and eggs; and it was good! After that we headed out to the property walked around a little, checked out the sink hole a ibt for depth, etc, then headed back into town so FC could get some stuff done before JR's graduation (Congratulations JR!).
We didn't see much except for this evidence that there's gonna be a pig roast comin' up soon!
















With my work completed I now had some time to hang out with the locals that will soon be our neighbors. I had heard that there was going to be a benefit ride for Cystic Fibrosis that was going to end up at a place I've visited before the "Brick Grill". They have good sandwiches, wings, burgers, and fried green beans. Anyway, I headed up there and spent some time checkin' out the bikes and listenin' to the band. It was hot, hotter than normal for Florida even (100F actual temp), but it was fun!

Here's a few of the bikes I saw:
Those are gator skin seats!
A customized "Rocker"
Custom chopper















After that I headed out to Cedar Key to get some of Tony's now world famous clam chowder. It was awesome, as usual, and I ordered some of it to ship back home; it should be here Wednesday, yumm!
I had selfish reasons for ordering it to ship though because the disaster still swelling in the Gulf is headed that way! I heard that they are going to open scallop season early just so they can get one last harvest in before they get wiped out! After hearing this I found myself just sitting at the end of the pier of Coconuts staring out at the water and the islands and thinking how absolutely beautiful this area is and how tragic this loss is going to be!

Here's just a few things that will likely be missing the next time I come down:

Oyster beds

Mangroves


Oyster beds around the islands; the clam beds are submerged by the tide here, but they'll be gone too! The wading birds, herons etc. (not pictured here) will be gone and the list goes on and on! It makes my stomach turn every time I think about it!


From there I headed east to Jacksonville to meet up with my good friend Jesse, who I met while we were both living in China. He showed me around town and we stopped in as his favorite Irish pub, Lynch's Pub. Good food and good beer, plus some unexpected entertainment. I can't really describe the interesting thing that happened, but it was as if a tornado blew past us in the form of a tiny, phsyco-evil little blonde. Jesse summed it up best as a DBV (Drive By Verbal). Now she wasn't angry or evil at us, she just for some reason thought Jesse and I needed to hear what she had to say and it was strange, angry, intimidating, racist, and wrong on so many levels and yet strangely entertaining because it came out of nowhere!


Here's one of the bridges on the way to the beach

Believe it or not this is one oak tree

This is the Jesse Ball DuPont Treaty Oak, and it's huge and amazing! The branches bent down and went into the ground and sprouted new branches from there. JBD was one the first actual tree hugging environmentalist because she bought this land that is now a park just to preserve this tree when Jacksonville was becoming urbanized!

It was a little dark so I also tried a couple with the night vision, but they came out a little blurred
















After that it was back to the hotel so I could at least get a couple of hours sleep before I caught the 5:45am "red-eye" back here this morning.

I'm not sure when I'll be headed back there next, but I'll be running down and back a few more times while the house is getting built!

Success at Last, but With a Twist of Course!

I'm down at the new homestead this weekend and had a successful meeting with the builder and the title office to get things rolling, FINALLY!!!!!

Of course for some reason we still have to pay for the sins of our ancestors because there's just one last trial to surmount before we can actually get the build started, a sink hole on the property. Can you guess where it is? Yep, close enough to where we wanted to set the house that we now need to get a geological survey to see if we're OK there or if we need to move to another spot on the property!

Well just like every other trial we have come across in this life of ours, and there's been a few, we shall endeavor to persevere!

Here's a few shot of the property sans unwanted water oaks, poplar oaks, and assorted scrub brush(of course the jungle is trying to reclaim the land since last year):

This is looking back down the drive to the road from the clearing

As you enter the clearing this is a view to the left

That's our builder walking out in front of me (chasing the snakes my way to be funny) Check out the size of the live oak next to him! These babies are estimated to be over 300 years old!

The tall green stuff is Dog Fennel and it's over 6 ft tall! (Dad- You remember this stuff?)

One of our 14+ palms

As we were leaving we saw this juvenile barred owl testing out his wings

Momma owl was watching us like a hawk!

And the classic sunset shot from my hotel balcony (come on you knew I had to take this one!) ;-)











Well that's about it. Oh the sink hole, no I didn't forget.


Just for reference that is a size 14 boot there so you can figure out the circumference of the hole!








I bent down and yelled Nihao down into it and about 2 minutes later I heard a familiar Beijing voice yell back: "Hey Nihao, is that you Dave!" ;-)
Possible litigation, you bet! How about "Failure to Disclose"!!!!!


The heat, humidity, adrenaline rush and then decline have taken their toll so I'm about done for tonight. More to come tomorrow!

More Views From The Road

I planned to post these last night, but we got hit with a vicious thunder storm! Don't get me wrong our nick names come with good reason, we love storms with both L&T, but this thing shook the house, washed the vehicles under the carport, and then left us without power from 7pm to 1am so basically Mother Nature said: "No blogging allowed!"

So here's where we left off:

The long road ahead

Field of dreams, well ok dreams of crops

Someone with horse power got bored

The cockpit

Hang on, it's a little curvy
















That's about it for this segment of Lightnin's helmet-cam, but there's plenty of summer left!

Memorial Weekend Riding

The weather here was hot but dry for the entire weekend, so we decided to put some miles on the bike and tour around the area a little bit. We ended up logging close to 300 miles!

Here's shot of a barge heading up the Ohio River as seen from the Sunset Grill on the way to Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. It's just past the 1/2 way mark and a good place to stop for lunch.





Here's a few shots courtesy of Lightnin's manual helmet-cam.


If you notice this one is actually facing behind us, pretty clever work!

The Mayor of Rabbit Hash was not available, but the Sheriff was, and yes both elected officials are actually dogs!







The sun is sinking down and my eyes are getting droopy so I'll try to post some more of Lightnin's helmet-cam shots in another post.