Adventures of Old Dave

2011-10-22T22:50:00.000-05:00

Time to Work on the Car Again

We had to retire the Old Blue Goose that my daughter drove. She was a good old car but just had too many expensive issues to fix. We donated her organs to the U-Pull-It junk yard and acquired a '96 Corsica with lesser issues. When we bought the car, we knew it would need some TLC. The front brakes were replaced and then there was a wheel issue. Can anyone see the problem? Anyone? Anyone?

Yes, you are correct. Two lug nuts are missing. Not only are they missing but the studs are twisted off.

After two hours of repair, the problem is once again under control with all five lug nuts tight and the tire is secure.

Unfortunately the very next night while on the way to Walmart for a poster board for her school project my daughter had this happen. It blew out the back window and crunched the fenders so much that the back doors couldn't be opened. Since this was an old junker, I expect the insurance will just total the car then it becomes what is the car worth. With 180K miles, I don't think it will be worth much. My daughter went to the ER and she only had bruises and they gave her pain pills. She's still stiff and sore with pains around the ribs.

Once again we are down to one car. Depending on reimbursement we get for the car from the insurance company will determine whether we can get a car right away or have to save awhile to purchase another.

Now the next thing is to fix the kitchen sink that started leaking. Nice. I better get to it so see ya next time I have a free moment to blog.

2011-06-13T08:06:00.007-05:00

Joplin Missouri Tornado

Most have heard of the tornado that tore through Joplin Missouri on May 22 in late afternoon. It was a mile wide and stayed on the ground for two miles. This tornado was one of the most destructive single tornadoes on record. In its path only total destruction remains. Television reports and video snippets do not begin to give the perspective of the magnitude of destruction from this massive tornado. This picture is one snapshot of what is a mile wide and two miles long. Nothing was left undamaged in its path. It was hard to imagine how anyone lived through this destruction but story after story has been told about how lives had been spared.

In the background you can see the now famous St. John's Mercy hospital. This is a nine story building that was virtually destroyed from the power of the tornado. The windows were blown out and the tornado was able to generate enough lift on the building to twist the building four inches off the foundation. In the fore ground, you can see what happened to many cars in the parking lot of the hospital.

This is a picture of one of the service trucks of the hospital. I would say that it is a standard 26 foot straight truck. This truck I would guess was rolled up the hill from the hospital and hurled against this tree. The massive power from this tornado literally wrapped the truck frame around the tree. On the right side you can see the back tires and on the left side you can see the cab and front of the truck.

This is a picture of the backside of the tree with the bent frame. That had to be one tough tree to stand strong against a force like that.

This is a closer look at the truck frame bent around the tree.

Here is the temporary care facility that is maybe a mile from the destroyed hospital. The camera couldn't capture the entire facility and this is only about half of the unit.

The overwhelming magnitude of destruction of property and the emotional trauma to the families in this situation was personally very emotional at times. To hear the heart wrenching stories of total loss or death in the families gave me a totally different perspective on what's important in life.

More later. In the mean time be safe.

2011-05-10T22:30:00.007-05:00

Alabama bound and not bound

Here are two of the vehicles in our Alabama convoy. We, 30 folks, expecting to be deployed on Monday May 2 to or near Tusculoosa, Alabama. We staged these two vehicles as well as another flat bed trailer with a ScatTrac (similar to a Bobcat) with front end attachments to move and pile trees. We had loaded up 120 gallons of drinking water, a portapotty, two generators, a small freezer, and many coolers to carry food. Our chainsaw trailer was ready to go as well as a large tent trailer with tables and chairs. We were staged and ready to go for a fully contained independent crew. The word came from above to hold fast and wait another day until details could be sorted out. Tuesday came and went as well as Wednesday. Thursday the word came that we were to stand down for now. Many factors went into the decision. It seems that because of all the TV coverage every man with a chainsaw that was any where close to the area piled into their vehicles and headed toward the area of concern. Search and rescue were still going on as they tried to find the missing people. Power had not be restored and home owners were not allowed into the areas of devastation yet. Our crew needs to have signed permission to work on tree removal before we can do the work for liability purposes.

We diverted back to a building project in Burlington Kansas that we originally had intended on doing electrical work on Monday May 9th after having to unload all the chainsaw stuff and reload these two trailers with electrical stuff. Upon arriving at Burlington Kansas to work on electrical for a new church multipurpose room, we found no roof yet. Ah, electric and rain water just don't mix. After spending a day trying to find some thing to do, I just returned home. So even though it was a disappointment, I am quite certain there will be great opportunity to serve in the coming months.

Thank you for your prayers. Even though it looked like they were not required, it could have been quite eventful if we had deployed and had the flood waters block our trip back home. So for now we will have to be vigilant in prayer for those that are struggling to survive through the tornado stricken areas and now the flood ravaged areas. I have received word that in the flood areas the rats and snakes are invading the living areas of the shelters to avoid the flood waters. Pray for those in these areas to be protected from all dangers known and unknown.

Thank you again for praying for our safety. I truly believe we were not in harms way because you prayed.

2010-11-21T07:43:00.002-06:00

Replacing a Fuel Injector

This little engineering marvel is what is known as a fuel injector. It's purpose when working is to spray fuel into the engine at just the right time to be ignited and produce power to wheels of the car and cause movement. At a cost of $180 it's an expense that has to be reckoned with when trouble comes from this part. I can tell you that when it sticks open a profuse amount of smoke is generated from the tail pipe and no more than 100 miles can be squeezed out of a tank of gas. After searching out other ways to replace the little jewel which included junk yards and internet sources, a new injector arrived via UPS for a cost of only $85 and installation plans began.

The internet is a wonderful thing. Research can be accomplished on just about anything possible. That goes for mechanical proceedures as well. After much time spent on how to replace the tiny little part, I was armed and ready to attack the job with confidence and vigor. As you can see this part is not exactly right on top fo the engine ready to be plucked out and replaced. After much contemplation, deviation from the recommended proceedure was decided and a saving of time perhaps as much as 4 hours was accomplished. Oh, yeah.

When working on car things, invaribly things will be dropped in the process. This project was no different. Even though care was taken twice a socket was dropped. Now when this happens one can only hope that what's been dropped doesn't come to rest on a part of the engine that is inaccessable to human hand. So as the socket bounces it's way downward my breath was held and a celebration dance in the middle of street overcame me when I heard the socket hit the ground under the car.

It was a very good day and in the span of maybe 2 hours wrench bending time the little fuel injector that couldn't was replaced by one that could. The moment of truth is always a nerve racking moment. As the key turns and the starter spins the engine the second it catches and sputters to life chugging and shaking as the gas lines pump there liquid up to the injectors, a feeling of accomplishment spreads over me as the engine smooths out and runs just like it should. Yea, another mechanical accomplishment done. Thanks Dad for all those times we worked on stuff together. I really was watching and learning even though it didn't look like it.

2010-11-16T06:01:00.002-06:00

Kansas City Chapel

The chapel in Kansas City really caught me by surprise. My mind's vision of a chapel was a some what small place where folks go to pray and meditate on God's word. This however is huge compared to what I had envisioned in my mind.

Our team's task was to work on the electrical and get the heating system working as cold days were coming soon. Ron had the job of working in the boiler room which was pretty tight. Getting everything wiried up was a difficult task as all the wiring had to be inside conduit. All the curves and bends to make this happen turned out to be quite challenging.

The outside crew was given the task to run the conduit from the main breaker panel to all five of the airconditioning units. Once again bending and anchoring skills came into play. This was a two week project that I only could stay for one week.

My task was to help plumber with the insulating of the water pipes. Once again I was high up in the attic and crawl spaces known only to plumbers and electricians. I floated around and got involved with drywall, actual plumbing, and some electrical work. Our crew was 24 one of the largest in a while.
.

The outside distribution boxes were definitely a challenge and took most of the time for our crew during the first week. Fortunately the weather co-operated and gave the outside crew fabulously warm days to accomplish their task. By the end of the first week most of the outside conduit was complete. I have no doubt that by the end of the second week heat was available to the building.

It's really great to be able work a group of Christian guys. I've learned a lot about team work and added tremendously to my work skills. It's actually helped with many projects back on the home front.

I hope all you readers are well.

2010-11-16T05:48:00.002-06:00

Dryer Repair

Don't you just hate it when your appliances let you down. My clothes dryer has been faithful for 15 years and never has been a problem. But on this fateful morning while drying clothes I noticed there was no heat in the drying process.

With screw drivers and multimeters I dove into the heart of the dryer. Thinking that it could be a number of things, testing began. The culprut, the heater element, finally showed itself by testing open. A run to the appliance parts place netted a new part with the departing of $50.00. Now if I had been a true pioneer I would have just reconnected this wire heating element somehow. I figured I might as well buy a new part as it probably would just break in another place soon.

By the end of the day all was once again well and clothes were drying.

Don't let those appliances get to down.

2010-11-16T05:24:00.002-06:00

Building a door

My friend Al gave me a call and asked if I could help with closing in a archway and installing a doorway. Of course I was excited about the challenge of it all. The frame work was first on the list. We were well on our way to accomplishing this three day task by the first day's end. For an experienced carpenter it would have been probably a one day thing but for amateurs it takes a little longer.

Always with Al and I there have to be runs to Home Depot. Maybe that's why it takes three days instead of only one. We have a wonderful time with the building projects that we get involved with. With only a few modifications we are able to install the prehung door. Nothing to this stuff. Right?

By the end of the second day things were starting to shape up. With the door installed and the drywall in place, we could concintrate on the mudding and taping during the finishing process. This is my least favorite thing of any project and Al did most of this part.
By the end of the third day the door was all in place including the trim. A good coat of primer had been painted on and the door was ready for a final coat of paint. With only just a few things left to do I had to leave and get ready for a trip to Kansas City to help with the building of a college chapel.

Challenge yourself with projects.

2010-11-14T20:48:00.003-06:00

Vern's Tree

My ex co-worker and good friend Vern had a tree issue. He lives by the Elkhorn river in a wonderful development. During the spring it's not uncommon for the river to rise up above normal. This year the river was higher than usual. With the sandy soil and the water level several feet above ground level it caused the large cottonwood trees to basically just lay down.

It's always a challange to know exactly what a tree under tension will do when cut. It could roll one way or another and I've seen where the stump will pop upright when the trunk is cut away. Extreme caution is required when working on a tree of this size as one small mistake can be hugely disasterous.

I really thought that this was going to be one of those times when the stump would pop upright as the crack opened up wider and wider as the mighty Stihl saw that I have affectionately named "Big Bertha" continued to chew it's way through the water logged trunk. I must say that it was exhilarating to be a part of this project.

During the course of cutting up the tree trunk, there's a fine line between knowing when to saw up and when to saw down. For me it's always a given that the saw will get pinched and need to be removed with wedges. I haven't completely learned how to cut through a log without getting wedged a time or two but I'm working on it. With a little help from my friends I made it through the day.

Victory finally comes to those that are persistant. By the day's end we loggers were sasified that we had accomplished what we set out to do. Cut the tree and saw it up in chunks. It was a great day of hard work and success.
Once again the mighty Bertha showed she reigned in tree sawing. She's been a great asset to my tool set. Many times I have been able to help with trees because of her ability to make short work of big jobs.

Have a great day and be safe.

2010-09-04T17:00:00.004-05:00

Syracuse Kansas

Syacuse Kansas is a town that's about as far south and west in Kansas as you can go. It has a population of 1824 with 2594 in the entire county which is 998 square miles of land. Yeah, Syracuse is about it for miles and miles. The closest town with civilization (meaning a Lowes or Home Depot) was 52 miles away. What does one do with a weekend to while away in Syracuse Kansas. The one and only theatre had one screen with one showing on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I believe it employed maybe three people, one for the ticket booth, one for the snack bar, and one for the projector. When entering the seating area, a sign was found that said, "Please let us know if we need to adjust the sound level." I wanted to bring that sign back to Omaha and post it in some of the theatres here as the sound level can be just a little high at times. When the time arrived for the movie to start, there were no trailers of movies to come, there were no advertisements for the snack bar, the lights just dimmed and the movie started.

This is the building we were working on. In about six weeks the construction went from a concrete slab to the building up, the inside walls built, the electrical wiring done, and the drywal mostly completed. All the inside work was completed with volunteers at only a cost of a few meals and a place to sleep for our crews and a place to park their motor homes for the framers and drywallers.

Here was home away from home. Not bad actually. I've had much worse places to sleep than this when on mission trips. It was airconditioned, a deceit bathroom and those with computers could pick up the free WiFi from the bowling alley across the street.

Here's how I spent the week. This is a picture of me in the attic of the church running in MC (Metal Clad wires). I'm actually laying on my side while doing the work. I sure got ribbed about being up in the attic laying down on the job.

This would be the sound booth switches which is where the other end of the wires that I was working on in the the attic go. This is just the power wires there still have to be the load wires, as it's called, which would go to different sets of lights, the baptistry, and anything else electrical in the sanctuary. The sound booth is the hub of everything in the sanctuary. So the next time to pass by a church sound booth this is was is behind the drywall surrounding the booth.

We had a great time even though the group was a small 7 people this time.

2010-03-24T16:42:00.006-05:00

Central American Road Warriors

Day one
Of course there's always the last minute scramble to get the last minute things packed into the vehicle and head out on the road. This trip was even more so as time grew short the white flag was raised and it was declared we were ready to leave. John picked me up at my house and we headed out I-80 to begin the "Great Central American Adventure." We stopped for fuel in Wichita, Kansas and kept on trucking South to the border. We stopped in Dallas , Tx about 1:30am at the not so nice budget motel, but for two wild and crazy guys all we needed was a bed.

Day two
We were up and on the road again at 9am. Power bar for breakfast, peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and hamburger Pizza Hut pizza for supper. We made it to Laredo, Tx this day and stayed in a some what better motel than the last night. As we fell asleep, visions danced through our heads about crossing the border in the morning and leaving our country behind. The real adventure would begin.

Day Three
Today we met up with Victor (on the left in the above picture) and Julio (third from the left). Victor is the pastor in Nicaragua that will be receiving the van. Julio is a business man in Nicaragua and raises chickens to sell eggs. He has 78,000 chickens and harvests 58,000 eggs a day. More about that later. The person taking the picture was Greg an Amercian missionary that lives with his family in El Carmen, Mexico.

We crossed the border after eating a Mc Donald's breakfast and acquired the necessary paper work to travel through Mexico with the van and contents. Pastor Victor had a thought that maybe we should try to transfer ownership of the van to him at this point in the trip. It had never been possible before but Victor just had a thought to try again. All were surprised when not only did they say yes, but was completed relatively quick. This turned out to be a very good thing later in the trip. So with everything in order we started down the road toward El Carmen our first stop on the trip.

We arrived in El Carmen in time for the evening conference meeting of the 55 year anniversary celebration of the school there. We ate some kind of soup with big red chips. Central America, as I have learned, it big on soup. They even have soup for breakfast. The weather there was a bit chilly. Houses do not have heat so when the temperature drops to the 40s, it's cold. The church service found everyone bundled up with stocking hats, gloves, and scarves around their face because only tarps covered most of the doors and windows. I could see my breath during the service.

John, I, and another guy that was there for the 55th year celebration bunked down in an old motor home for the night. Of course, it didn't have heat so many blankets were used to stay warm. At the last minute an electric heater was given to us to take the edge off the inside temperature. The great adventure had definitely began.

2010-03-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

Day Four
We left El Carmen about 11pm and arrived at Hildago in the morning. Victor, the pastor from Nicaragua, wanted us to experience his favorite breakfast. He had grown up in this part of Mexico and this was his favorite breakfast. It started with a bowl of soup. It was broth with what looked like chic peas in it. Then we progressed to a chicken that had been wrapped in a cactus leaf and buried in the ground with hot coals overnight. A tortilla was used to pinch off a wad of chicken and then flavoring (hot sauce) was sloshed on the tortilla. It all went down good as did many more cultural meals eaten on the journey.

In the afternoon we visited Pastor Victor's Mom and went to the town's market. We tried on many hats and wandered around looking at all the interesting things that were being sold there. Just about anything imaginable and some not imaginable could be bought there.

Upon arriving a Pastor Luis's house, a pastor that John has known for 20 years, we were invited to partake of chicken with some kind of red sauce on it. After that we were taken to a Mayan Pyrimad.

Two hundred fifty three steps later our huffing and puffing group made it to the top. We saw another pyramid and many foundations for other buildings as well as a terrific view of the land for miles around the structure. As you can see in the picture there were many peddlers with many of Mayan trinkets for sale.

Day Five
We stayed over night in a hotel. In the morning we attended Luis's church and of course all four of us had to give a testimony about how we came to bring a van to Nicaragua. John preached the Sunday morning sermon. One of Luis's sons decided to spend time in Nicaragua with Victor and Julio. Now we are a merry band of five headed into the wild territory of Central America. After church service and lunch at Luis's house, we bid John's friend goodbye and continued on with our journey. We traveled through the afternoon and all night to reach the Southern border of Mexico.

2010-03-24T15:30:00.001-05:00

Day Six
Upon nearing the border of Mexico, we stopped at a beach front cafe to allow those that had driven all night to rest. We had a breakfast of seafood soup. While the others slumbered in hammocks with the warm ocean breeze wafting across them, I took advantage the time and went wave jumping in the ocean.

The technique of wave jumping is to position yourself at just the right distance from the rising wave to be able to dive into the curling wave. Every so often a good four foot wave will come along and a great thrill comes as it crashes over the top of you. It's a great way to spend the morning. I have been able to do wave jumping a couple other times but never thought I would get to again. This was one of the many highlights of the trip.

We tried to see some big ocean ships but the public was not allowed in to see them. We ate at a Burger King for lunch. In Mexico the double cheese burger comes with two patties of meat, a slice of cheese, a slice of ham, and two strips of bacon. Along with that one could order up fries with melted cheese and hot peppers on them. Since this was a once in a life time trip, I was going to immerse myself in all the culture I could. So one order of cheese burger and cheese fries coming up.

We got as close as we could to the Mexican border and bedded down in a hotel for the night. Since we were headed toward Nicaragua, Pastor Victor's sister-in-law met us at the Mexican border to get a ride to where we were delivering the van. This was a real asset as she knew English and Spanish really well and could interpret for us when needed. Now we are a merry band of six traveling through the countries of Central America.

Day Seven
We were up and eating a breakfast of pastry things with some kind of milk to wash it down. This would be the day we enter Guatemala. Upon reaching the border many people were scouting out the American van and trying to see through the tinted windows and look at what was inside. We were flagged over into what looked like a compound lot until our paper work could be completed.

Crossing a border in Central America is not like crossing a state line in America. In Central America, one must cross a border to leave on country, travel about a half mile, and cross the border into the next country. So it's double the trouble to go from one country to the next. All paper work, passports, and things in the van must be checked leaving one country and then again when entering the next country. Of course each country has a tax for you to be in their country so it has to be paid upon entering or leaving as well. Leaving Mexico was not a problem and we expected to be in El Salvador by night fall.

Because of a new computer system crashing and the needed paper work for the American van seven hours were spend in the 95 degree sun waiting to get across the border into Guatemala. We took a short tour through the black market shops in the little border town and in less than a half hour everyone in the town knew that there was an American van with two white guys in it sitting in the border compound.

Finally we made it across the border but the race was on to get to El Salvador before the border closed. We did not want to stay in Guatemala. About 30 minutes down the road we came upon a tree across the road. Julio the Nicaraguan business man was driving. Without hesitation he swerved across the road, out onto the left lane shoulder, sped around the tree, and booked on down the road. No one mentioned the incident until the next day when Pastor Victor said that it most likely was a trap for us to get robbed. Because of the quick response of Julio, nothing happened. We did make across Guatemala, but didn't make it before the border closed.

We staid in what they call an auto motel. An auto motel is a motel with a walled in locked at night compound area for your car. The motel rooms are inside the compound area as well. All this led me to believe it was not a nice place to be. We got the last two rooms. One for the sister-in-law and one for the five guys.

There was no concern about running out of hot water in the shower because there is no hot water. A shower in Cental America consists of a pipe from the wall with a shut off valve. The water is either on or off. It keeps people from taking a long shower that's for sure.

2010-03-24T15:00:00.000-05:00

Day Eight
We had expectations of getting to our destination today as we packed up and got in line to cross the border into El Salvador. We stopped in El Salvador to eat at Wendy's. El Salvador uses US dollars as their country's currency which made it easy to buy the lunch.

After lunch we headed toward the Honduran border with hopes to make it through Honduras before the border closed. We did have to wait a couple hours to get into Honduras.

The border didn't smell the best and this was a common sight as we waited to cross into Honduras. Even a pig wandered through rooting in the trash pile by our van. The road sides look like what we would call a dump. When the trash piles up too high some one just sort of piles it together and lights in on fire. I guess that's one way to get rid of trash and plastic bottles. I'm not too sure about what it does for air quality.

We had to take a courier with us through Honduras. His job was to see that we didn't unload anything along the way. They wanted to be sure that what we entered the country with would not be unloaded in the country and go out the other side. Of course we had to pay for the couriers wages and for a hotel room on the border because it was to late to come back. Even with the courier with us we were stopped four or five times in the two hour crossing by the police checking to see who we were and where we were going. Every country we went through there was a tax to enter the country and sometimes to leave. This tax was any where from $20.00 to $40.00 for the six of us. We did make in time to cross out of Honduras but when we tried to enter Nicaragua we ran into a snag.

Because we were carrying many things with us the guard at the border didn't have the authority to allow us to enter with all the things we had. We camped in the parking lot. We ate junk food for supper and had a great time. We had to sleep in the van. One in the rear seat, one in the middle seat, one in the driver seat, and me in the passenger seat. Pastor Victor and Julio slept on the floor of a storage room with only a blanket and a pillow.

Day Nine
Upon the arrival of the official that could allow us to enter Nicaragua, we had to pull everything out of the van for inspection. By this time we had plenty of stinky clothes in our suitcases so they didn't poke around too much in those. In the end a tax of $40.00 was levied on the used computers and we were on our way.

A few miles down the road we stopped for breakfast in a unique cafe.

This was an open air restaurant with the food prepared over an open fire in the kitchen. I had some kind of black beans, rice, and scrambled egg mixture. While eating you could see the men chopping up the fire wood used to cook with. This was in a big open area to the left in this picture. Chickens were roaming through out the entire area and occasionally one would wander through the restaurant.

Back on the road again we knew the long road trip would soon be over. One last stop before we reached our destination would be at Julio's house. He showed us around the chicken egg farm.

This chicken egg farm has 78,000 chickens and harvests 58,000 eggs a day. This is a picture of just one row of chicken cages. There are four more and other open pens as well. It's one of four largest chicken egg farms in Nicaragua.

After the tour of the chicken farm we were honored guests of Julio and ate a special meal prepared just for us. I'm not sure about what it was as I didn't recognize anything in the soup. I think it was fruit and mystery meat of some kind.

Upon arrival at our destination, we all were glad the trip was completed and looked forward to a nice shower. That was short lived as the water goes off at the most odd times in Nicaragua. This happened to be one of those times. Each household stores up water for just such occasions. With a five gallon bucket of water setting in the shower, a splashing of water all over the body could be accomplished. Then soaping up and rinsing in the same splashing method competed the shower. Nice.

Old friends came to visit while we rested during the evening. I got to visit with Oscar and his wife. Then a good friend Norwing took me to his house to meet his wife, baby, and family. It was a good reunion.

2010-03-24T14:30:00.002-05:00

Day Ten
This was a day to rest before leaving for Costa Rica to come home. We visited the Finca (farm) that where John's coffee grows.

The plants are recovering from a severe trimming. Usually they are much taller than what you see here, but every three or four years all growth is trimmed back for the fresh growth to improve the production of the plants. This also is known as shade grown coffee as bigger trees shade the coffee plants. Of course I brought home coffee from the Finca to enjoy.

This was our only day in Nicaragua and we packed our stuff and we left for Costa Rica this evening. We found a place by the ocean to stay which had a nice pool area to with big screen TV to wind down the day.

Day eleven
We awoke in time for a walk along the shore of the ocean to watch the birds dive into the water for fish I guess. Then we packed up once again and made our way to the airport in Costa Rica where we climbed aboard the plane and sped away to Chicago. We arrived with plenty of time to make to the next fight to Omaha and the trip came to an end as I strolled up the drive some where around midnight.

There's no place like home. There's no place like home. (Clicking heels)

2009-12-07T22:03:00.004-06:00

Orange Texas

We worked on the same church as in August. It was just a little cooler in October than August. Ah, well, it was a lot cooler. Last trip I was up and down ladders installing junction boxes for emergency lighting and exit lights. This time I had the task of church attic electrical conduit installation. The task was given to another guy and me to run the conduit from the first floor main fuse box up through the second floor into the attic. This first picture is the general area where the conduit had to come up into the attic. Over on the other side of the vertical supports. Ah, yeah, it's pretty small.
Now all that has to happen is to squeeze my somewhat rotund body into the two foot space and connect the conduit from below. That's after we figure out a way to bring it up through the teeny tiny little space between the ceiling joist, the roof rafter, and the tile block outside wall. Oh, yeah and we needed to drag a saws all in there to cut the pipes to fit once we get them in place. That was a real strain for sure.

Once up in the attic, we then made the 150 foot run to the other end of the church. This is the area above the sanctuary. Of course where our conduit was run there was no flooring so we had to be on constant alert not to step through the ceiling.

Across the entry way of the church and down to the junction box for the sound booth. All together we ran a 2 1/2 inch conduit of about 200 feet with four 90 degree bends and two 30 degree bends. That's the maximum allowed in a conduit run. I've really learned a lot about how electricity gets to the plugs. It's not quite as simple as it would first seem.

My team buddie and I finished up the week mounting junction boxes and pulling wires into those boxes. The big conduit didn't get wires pulled through it on this trip.

All in all the trip was a success and one more trip should finish up this project. Then it will be on to the community center. I won't be back on a trip until next year. By then they may be working on something else. Whatever it is the learning experience continues.

2009-12-07T21:25:00.004-06:00

Fishing in Wild Horse

After a grueling 8 hour drive to the lovely and senic Wild Horse reservoir, we set up camp on the shore. Being close to the water has it's advantages. It's not far to go fishing.

This guy took the record for most fish caught on the trip. Well of course he had a great advantage with his spark plug weights that would allow him to heave his bait out farther in the lake than anyone else.

First was poles in the water then came breakfast each morning. We were truly rough and ready camping in the wild of northern Nevada, 70 miles from the nearest real town. Temperatures dropped into the 20s at night and rose to 70s during the day. It made for cold tent camping and all agreed that next year we will have tent heaters.

Most of our time was spent along the shore fishing and telling stories about past experiences. We were the great white fishermen.

By the third day we had caught our limit and started eating fish to be able to keep fishing. By the end of the day we were so stuffed with fish, we decided to come back a day early. We had caught probably 30 fish and had to eat enough to make us legal at 20 lake trout. We also caught two catfish one about 5 pounds and the other 7 1/2 pounds. In addition to that we snagged a couple wippers which are a cross between a couple fish.

All agreed that we need to do it again next year. I've been researching bait launchers so look out spark plug man cause Nebraska Dave's coming back with new ideas.

2009-11-27T15:41:00.014-06:00

Old Rose

Old Rose was a Rosebud Tree that stood tall and mighty. She displayed her best colors in the Springtime for 44 years in Old Dave's backyard. A few years ago she became home for a dreaded carpenter ant colony. She tried her best to hold up her arms toward the heavens and continue to be the best Rosebud tree she could be. Those pesky ants finally caused a limb to succumb to the continuous gnawing.

Then another branch bit the dust as Old Rose started showing her age. Most Rosebud trees live to a ripe old age of 25 so in Rosebud tree years she was well over 100. Most Rosebud trees don't get much taller that 25 feet, but old Rose towered up to 40 feet.

It became obvious last year that old Rose was suffering and needed to be cut down. With Mighty Moe, the little electric chain saw that thought he could, the process of cutting down Old Rose began. When the last branch was to be hewn down, a little help from friends made the task easier and quicker.

After the last branch came down the task of removing the stump began. A good friend took on the task of stump removal and over the course of several months, he dug, sawed, and chopped on the root system of Old Rose. Finally we called up Big Burtha, the newly aquired Stihl 460 Magnum chain saw, off the bench to dice up the last parts of Old Rose's stump.

Go Big Burtha

In a matter of less that an hour the last of the stump was removed and we celebrated with fried rice, wantons, peanut butter chicken, and other Chinese delicacies at the Hong Hing restaurant.

My stump removing friend

Old Rose will live on in the memories of those that enjoyed her beauty and those that helped to bring her down. All that's left is a hole of victory where she once stood in royal grandeur for so many years. Thoughts have been given about what will become of the space where she lived and those thoughts have been leaning toward a memorial fire pit to warm the hearts of those that sit around the cracking fire telling stories which may just be about the glory days of Old Rose and how she lasted so long.

Long live the memories of Old Rose

2009-11-25T22:50:00.002-06:00

Cove Baptist Church August brought the opportunity to be a part of a team that headed for Orange, Texas to help with the wiring of a church. The church had three and a half feet of water in the Sanctuary from hurricane Ike. Since all the wiring below the water line had to be replaced and the church was over 50 years old a total rewiring to bring it up to code was in order. The team staid in Vidor and ate morning and evening meal there.
Noon meal was at the fellowship hall of Cove church which was on higher ground and didn't get any water damage. Snacks at 10:30am and 3:30pm were top notch as well as the noon meal. I always come back from a trip with at least 5 pounds more than I what I left with. But that Southern food just tastes sooo good. I expect it sends my cholesterol up a point or two but I'll deal with it when I get back home.

My job this time was to put rectangle holes in the walls for the alarm system monitor and emergency lights to be mounted. It required up and down ladders all day long. Texas in August is hot hot hot and extremely humid. So working up on the ceiling in a building with no power which meant no airconditioning and only a few fans to keep the air moving was pretty exhausting by the end of the day. A good high cholesterol meal and nice shower really hit the spot.

Mounting electrical boxes for the exit signs was another ceiling job. You would have thought that I'd have sweat off a few pounds, but every two hours the church people wanted to feed us. I didn't have heart to say no. :) Between this trip and the next trip in September that I didn't go on we rolled out about 6,000 feet of metal clad electrical wire.

2009-11-25T22:16:00.004-06:00

My Cousin's Patio

The next project of the summer all started with a phone call from my cousin. "What ya doin'" was the question coming from phone on my ear. My response to that question is almost always, "I don't know what am I doing?" She says with an excited voice,"I am going to build a patio in my front yard and need dirt. I was driving down the road and found a sign that says, 'FREE DIRT.' Can you believe it. Free dirt." Well that lead into loading, hauling, and unloading FREE DIRT.

The project expanded into a two week project of hauling, rocks, sand, gravel, and flagstone. I'd never laid a flagstone patio before so it was definitely a learning experience for both of us. We planned and talked and planned and talked then we would dig and shape and talk and plan some more. The two of us together almost made a half a landscaper. But with a little time and wisdom we made it through the building of the patio.
We learned a lot about leveling the patio. It only took a couple days to figure out how to raise up one end to make the patio level with the sidewalk.

Steps and plants finished off the patio. It will take the rest of the summer before the yard damage around the patio fills back in with grass, but by next year it should look as if it has been there for years. My cousin went on to a couple more big projects, but I didn't get to help with those as I had other commitments.

2009-11-25T22:08:00.003-06:00

Helping out a friend

The next project of the summer was to help out a friend. She wanted to sell her house and this area was a mud eye sore for sure. She saw my poor man's patio and wanted to know if I could build her a small retaining wall to eliminate the eye sore in front of her house. Well, you know me. I accepted the challenge and obtained the details of how she wanted it to look and set out to aquire the materials. In about three days the project came together and really turned out great. Hopefully the next owner will enjoy the wall for many years to come.

Working at my Sister Pam's house

2009-11-25T20:57:00.002-06:00

Las Vegas Work Crew

Everyone knows by now that my sister's husband, Ewald, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in January of this year and lost the battle here on earth in May but now dances with Jesus in heaven. Ewald's sister, Rosie, came to spend many weeks with her brother during his last days. Her husband, Steve, started the task of repairing a kitchen floor but soon it bloomed into an extreme home makeover both inside and out. Weeks extended into months as the project just expanded daily. Family and friends came to help from all parts of the country. Projects that had been in progress for a decade were being completed in a systematic way under the supervision of Ewald's brother-in-law, Steve.

The two sheds beside Pam's house were completely filled side to side front to back were sorted through with save, throw, and give away piles mounting up. Upon completion of emptying these two sheds, one was torn down and taken to the scrap heap and the other was moved to a new location. Pam bought a new tough shed which replaced those two sheds.
New windows around, with trim, and caulking were installed. Amost everything was either replaced or fixed to work properly by time of Ewald's service.

This is a sample of the group that came to help with the refurbishing of Pam's house and yard. We would all decend on the Casino every morning to eat breakfast. By the time everything was finished, we had our special place in the dining area for our group. We just figured they wanted to keep us away from the rest of the paying customers as we heckled each other and the waitresses as well. All was in good fun and they excepted it as just that. This picture was taken close to the last day and was really kind of a sad day as things began to wind down.

2009-04-11T16:10:00.000-05:00

Vidor Texas Feburary 2009

In February of 2009 a Nebraska team of 6 particiated in a trip to Vidor Texas to help rebuild what we thought was going to be an old nursing home. Our plan was to rewire the facility to allow it to be used for following teams as a place to eat, sleep, and spend non working hours telling tall stories about other trips. When we arrived we hooked up with about 40 others who came to help with the wiring. We found that plans had changed since we left. The building we were to work on was filled with asbestos and had to be removed before we could begin working. So plan "B" was to wire a new church facility in the same area.

Each morning we gathered in the center of the facility we were wiring to receive instruction, teaching, and encouragement for the day. This was the largest team that I have been on. We stayed at a church that was a center for meal distribution after hurricane Ike went through the area. Our sleeping area was several modular buildings about the size of single wide trailers which were filled with bunk beds. Our shower facilities were two remodeled steel shipping containers with 6 showers and a washer and dryer in each one. Meals were provided by the cooking team of three that was part of the team. Among the team members we had one EMT and one nurse.

Here is a picture of two of the team members. On the right was big Jake and he has a height of seven foot four inches. On the left is shorty and he has a height of four foot eleven. We just thought it would be kind of funny to get a picture of the two standing together. Big jake didn't need ladders much. He'd just reach up and work on anything he wanted on the ceiling. It was real interesting to watch people as he would amble into a Mc Donald's with the team. Almost invaribly someone would want a picture with him. He even got his picture taken with a girls soccer team at one stop.

2009-04-11T16:09:00.000-05:00

This is one of our team members wiring a breaker box. These boxes do not come all put together. There are lots of assembly required before hanging them on the wall. We had well over 100 circuits to wire and several boxes were required. In the five days we worked over 7,000 feet of wire was installed and half of that required conduit. Each circuit was wired to a portion of the build and conduit had to be run to a junction box in that area of the building. From there the different circuits up to four would be dispersed to the plugs and lights for a couple rooms or walls. The large team was broken down into smaller teams each with a person in charge of the smaller group. Each smaller group was given a designated area to work on in the building. We saved the church several thousand dollars by helping with the wiring.

2009-04-11T16:08:00.000-05:00

This is what's known as a crawdad tower. The crawdad burrows down into the water table which lies about 8 inches below the grass and builds a tower from the dirt removed from the hole. The church yard was filled with towers from the crawdads.

2009-04-11T16:07:00.000-05:00

I decided I was gonna get me a crawdad just for fun. I dug up many a hole but never seen a single crawdad. The local people thought it great entertainment to watch how this old Nebraska boy hunted crawdads. I'm not sure how they catch em there but my method was definitely a bust.

2009-04-11T16:06:00.000-05:00

The wires that were installed into the conduit pipes to the junction boxes were up to nine individual wires that had to be pulled through the pipe. The proceedure required a stiff fish wire to be pushed through the pipe out the other end. Then the wires were fastened to the fish wire with tape and as the wires were pulled through the pipe they were continually gooped up with some kind to slick stuff to make them slide through the pipe easier. It was quite a process to watch for sure. I learned quite a lot about electrical wiring.

Mexico Trip

2008-12-29T12:19:00.000-06:00

Hey,
I cracked the code of the Easy Share camera and pulled out the Mexico trip pictures. The secret was in the sequence of events. First the camera must be connected to the computer with the camera off. Then when the camera is turned on it really doesn't turn on but accesses the computer and begins an automatic hand shake with the computer. Then low and behold a download wizard pops up and asks the question, "Where do you want to store your pictures?" How easy is that?
This is what the work sight looked like when we reached it on the first day of the project. It was nothing but a hole in the ground with a cement foundation to place the block walls on. The dirt there is quite sandy. I'm surprised the walls didn't cave in while we were working on the blocks but they seemed to stay in place pretty good.

By the end of the first day we had completed about 2/3 of the block walls. The blocks there are a little different then here in the States. As you can see they are narrower and have three holes instead of two. I think they are a little lighter than the American blocks and weigh in about 30 to 40 pounds each.

This would be the cement mixer. Yup, you just pile it on the ground, grab a shovel and start mixing. This is a teeny little batch made for laying the block. When the lid for the tank was mixed we started with 80 five-gallon buckets of sand, ten bags of cement, and numerous buckets of water. Three shovelers mixed the huge batch and two wheel rickety barrows were used to move it, move it, move it. We got to move it, move it, move it.

Sometimes the blocks had to be custom fit which required skill, strength, and a accurate eye. Right. You can see a number of broken blocks laying around the site that didn't quite line up with my accurate eye. The structure in the background is the actual community center which will have a second floor when completed to house teams like ours. I learned a lot about laying block on this trip.

Old blocker layer Dave

2008 November Neuavo Laredo, Mexico

2008-11-29T13:13:00.000-06:00

Well, guys I did it again. I inadvertently left the memory stick out of my camera and now I have more pictures stuck in the camera and can't get them out. I'm not sure what the issue is this time so I'm just moving on with the information about the Mexico trip.

We arrived after traveling through Houston to Laredo, TX to a balmy 70 degree weather. The pastor where we were going to work met us within a few minutes and before we knew it we were in the country of Mexico. The border guards had no problem letting us into Mexico, but as we crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande river the line coming back into the States was miles long and not moving. Pastor Jeff said that it took sometimes 3 hours to get through the border guards and back into the States. It took us a miserly hour and a half when we returned.

I am used to sleeping on church floors under adverse conditions so when I found out that we would be staying at a Holiday Inn Express with soft beds, warm showers, and flush toilets, I simply rolled my eyes. Little did I know what I was in for. That soft bed and those warm showers were indeed refreshing at the day's end.

Wednesday morning we hit the work site bright and early. Well, maybe about 9:30 am. That was after breakfast of scrambled eggs and pancakes. They had Mexican food as well which I sampled. Mexican people have refried beans and rice for every meal. It just didn't seem quite the thing to gulp down when trying to wake up. Besides the only bathroom at the work site was out behind the cactus. Everything in Mexico has stickers or thorns especially sand burs. I think they were on steroids. Anyway our project was to build a fosa. Not up on your Spanish heh. We affectionately called it the dookie tank. In English it's called a septic tank. The pit was already dug and a foundation for concrete blocks had been already poured. One of the team members was a seasoned block layer of 18 years. As I looked around for the place to mix the mortar for the blocks, Mark the block layer, pointed at an area in the dirt and indicated that eight 5-gallon buckets of sand from that pile over there with one bag of concrete mix was the beginning of how to mix concrete the Mexican way. Upon finishing that task, scooping and turning the mixture until the concrete was mixed with the sand. OK, now where is the hose with water. A chuckle came from Mark as he pointed to a concrete structure about 8 foot wide, 12 foot long, and 8 foot deep. Mark told me to take a bucket and dip water from the water tank. So once again 5-gallon buckets were used to lug water to the Mexican concrete mixer. Now the procedure was to keep turning the mixture while adding water until your arms fell off. Well maybe just short of that. With the mortar made, now it was time to lug the blocks, lug the mortar, lug the boards to slide the blocks down in the pit. I got real good and lugging.

Thursday it was pretty much the same as the last day. We finished up the block walls just as darkness fell which was a good thing as there was no electricity at the work site. In fact our total work site tool inventory was 3 hammers, 3 shovels, 1 saw, 2 rickety wheel borrows, and a few concrete finishing tools. I learned a lot about block laying. I learned the consistency the mortar should be, I learned how to break and make blocks fit, and I learned that laying block is hard work.

Friday it rained, so we had to switch gears. The weather there rarely gets too cold and many houses don't have heat, glass in the windows, or doors that seal tight. Therefore when the temperature falls into the forties at night that's really cold there. This day we loaded up a 5-gallon construction site beverage cooler with hot chocolate, bags of black turtle beans, bags of rice, and bags of corn flake breakfast cereal and headed out to neighborhood houses. In Mexico, one never goes up to the house unless invited. To enter someone's property, you would have to stand by the road and holler out to be invited on the property.

Our team leaders had the first of the two meetings. The church area was two tents put side by side with rented card tables and folding chairs. This meeting was on Marriage. At the end of the meeting, it seemed odd to me that as the Pastor wrapped up the meeting two kids were wrestling in the dirt at his feet while dogs of various breeds were sniffing out the area for food crumbs. Quite different from church here.

Saturday we finished up the dookie tank by putting a lid on the tank. This time we mixed up 40 5-gallon buckets of gravel which were placed in a huge ring. Five bags of concrete were emptied on top of the gravel. Oh, by the way, did I mention the bags of concrete were 110 pounds. Now that's quite a lug for this old boy.

Saturday night was the second meeting with a teaching from the leaders of our team on The love of God. Every meeting this pastor feeds the people because many really don't have much to eat and are hungry. There were about 50 people with maybe about 30 kids. So huge pots of beans, rice, and meat mixture stuffed in a tortilla by the hundred count were handed out.

Sunday we visited a orphanage and, of course brought food. We stayed about three hours and played Duck Duck Goose Goose with the kids. Always the Americans ended up in the middle. After the orphanage we hit the market place to buy Mexican artifacts which many were made in China. Imagine that. I bought a couple blankets and a wooden truck that I'm pretty sure were actually made in Mexico, but I would count on it.

It was certainly an eye opener to see such poverty only 15 miles from the border.

2008 November Iola Kansas Flood House Rebuild

2008-11-29T12:58:00.001-06:00

Hey, drywall cutter dave here.
I left for Iola (eye-o-la) Kansas on the 9th of November to help replace drywall on a flood house. The house was moved from the flood plain and put on a new foundation. When we arrived there all the drywall throughout the house 48 inches up from the floor down had been
removed. Our mission was to replace the drywall and mud the cracks. Two drywall mud guys were on our team. By the end of four days our mission was complete and not only did we get the house done but we finished drywalling the double car garage. The decision was made to come home a day early which was OK with me as it gave me an extra day to get ready for the Mexico trip.

We bunked down in a church basement in Iola. Several churches in town of different faiths brought us food. It seems every time I go on one of these trips I bring home a little extra tonnage. Those church ladies really know how to cook. We made the Newspaper of the little town of Iola. One of the team workers actually got his picture in the paper.

A friend of mine has a house that I am kind of the first line of defense. She's a traveling nurse and so is out of town a lot. Last Spring a hail storm came through and damaged her outside unit for the cental airconditioner. When she heard that I would be in Kansas, she wanted to know if I could pick up a central airconditioner in the Fort Worth, Texas area that she found on the Internet. I could hardly say no to that. Ricky, my truck, hadn't been on a run for a while and likes to think that he is a big freight hauler like the big trucks. So Thursday night about 7 PM, Ricky and I hit the road for Texas. We hit the outskirts of Ft. Worth about 3 AM. We found a nice spot and snuggled in for a snooze. We were up by 7 AM, gassed up, Mc Donalded up, and freight loaded up and on the road home by 9:30 AM. We dashed through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and up through Nebraska to home in 11 hours. Both Ricky and I fell asleep, he in the garage and I in my bed, with memories of the work week and travel dancing through our dreams.

Nevada Fishing in September 2008

2008-10-18T08:28:00.001-05:00

Nevada Fishing

Here's Dad and Lad enjoying fishing together in sunny northern Nevada. As you can see we don't exert ourselves too much. I learned everything about fishing from my Dad. It took years of training to become the expert that I am.

This is the catch of the day. We tried to weigh it but the scales didn't work right. It said only 2 pounds, but then the smallest fish of the day only weighed 2 pounds as well. We took a guess at about 4 or 5 pounds. It's still the biggest lake trout I've ever caught.

This is the most interesting catch of the day. I was just sitting minding my own fishing pole like in the first picture. Wouldn't you know right in the middle of a good fishing story this bird come swooping down and hit my fishing line, tumbled into the water and started flopping around. My pole headed down the bank toward the water. With cat like reflexes, I scrambled down the bank to intercept the pole just before losing it in the water. The now frantic bird is trying to fly away so the fight is on between fisherman or would it be birdman and bird. The bird is up in the air but can't maintain altitude because of one wing being tangled in fishing line so comes falling down into the water. Flapping the wing doesn't get the line loose but does make for an interesting time at the fishing pole end of the line. After a minute or two of intense fighting the situation, the bird kind of gave up and considered himself dead and allowed himself to be reeled in to shore. With the help of my Dad and Brother-in-law, we managed to cut the creature loose and set him free. I don't think the bird even hit the ground. As soon as he was set free, he took off at maximum warp speed and was clear out of sight in a matter of seconds.

After the excitement was over my Brother-in-law turned to me and said, "I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that before." We all had a good laugh and will most likely be talking about that catch for a long time.

You just never know what will happen when old Dave goes fishin'

Louisiana September 2008 Part 1

2008-10-06T07:25:00.000-05:00

I'm still nursing an aching muscle or two from the chainsaw crew that I was a part of last week. We went to a small town called Denham Springs, LA. There we hooked up with a man called Link who had a beastly old boom truck. With the help of this truck we lifted 40 foot tree trunks off of houses that the trees had fallen on top of. I found my niche with a 460 Stihl chainsaw that had a 36 inch bar. With this saw we cut the tree trunks in 8 or 9 foot chunks to come within the weight limit of the scat trac. We usually piled these trees up either by the road for pickup or in the woods to rot away in peace.

We slept in a house owned by the hosting church and ate food prepared by the hosting church. All in all it was a terrific trip with lots of hard work.

The biggest tree we worked on came on the last day. It was a 60 inch across the stump, 100 year old, oak tree. Lightning had struck the tree and bored a 3 inch hole right down the middle of the tree all the way down into the roots. We hooked a 100 foot rope about half way up the tree and tied it to the boom truck. When the tree gave a crack Ron, the cutter, ran and the truck driver gave it the juice. The tree fell right where we had planned to fall. That's always a good thing.

Earlier in the week on a much smaller tree that wasn't quite the case. They left me in charge of cutting down a much smaller tree. Well, the rope came off the tree and the tree strayed off course. The tree christened a home made flower pot. The tree fell smack in the middle of the cut in half water heater. How ever the good news was that it missed the cable TV wires. The cable man had just left, so it wouldn't have been a good thing to cut off the cable right after just getting it fixed. I can just see this Cajun lady chasing me around the property because I had cut off her just fixed cable TV. If you get chased by a Cajun you can be assured it isn't with a broom. Guns abound in Louisiana. So I for one was glad to see the wires remain intact.

I was seriously thinking about hooking up with another team that was coming to the same area and staying another week, but maybe it's a good thing for me that never happened.

There is so much left to do there and news coverage has subsided due to elections.

Louisiana Chain Saw David

2008-09-27T07:28:00.000-05:00

Denham Springs Louisiana

Hurricane Gustau was born on August 26, 2008 and hit the Gulf coast on September 1st. Although it was only a catagory 2, it was huge and powerful and caused much tree damage in Louisiana. This was just one of the trees we cut and moved from property and buildings. We are trying to get a plan together to best remove the tree safely.

2008-09-27T07:27:00.000-05:00

Here's what we were looking at. Much of the work we did with tree removal was from buildings. Most of these trees were Oak trees with an ocasional Walnut tree in the mix.

2008-09-27T07:26:00.000-05:00

Here I am all dressed up in the chainsaw gear making short work of the tree on the storage shed. One thing stressed was the safety gear and safety proceedures. The orange chaps woren were special in that if the chain saw should hit the chaps the material in the chaps would instantly get caught up in the saw chain and stop the chain from moving. The helmut woren had face protection and ear protection attached to the helmut. It was a little hot under all the stuff, but we all drank lots of water and rested often.

2008-09-27T07:25:00.000-05:00

Here's the whole crew taking one of our frequent breaks. The trailer you see us sitting on carried the Scat Trac that you saw me standing on the lift to saw the tree in the previous picture. We worked a total of 6 days cutting up trees with a 16 hour travel day on each end of the trip. We traded off drivers so the ride wasn't too bad. Then at the end I had another 6 hours to get back to Omaha. It made for a long day coming home.

2008-09-27T07:24:00.000-05:00

This is one of the trees I had the task of cutting into firewood lengths. The saw I'm using has a 36 inch bar and as you can see it's just barely making it through the trunk of this tree. I learned a lot about cutting and using wedges. This was a Oak tree and took the better part of a couple hours to make about 10 cuts through the tree trunk. It wasn't all cutting time. The temperature was in the 90s and many breaks were taken.

2008-09-27T07:23:00.000-05:00

This was our crowning glory for the trip. The tree was probably 100 feet high and we measured 60 inches across the base after the tree was down. It had been hit by lightning and blasted a 3 inch hole right down the core of the tree all the way into the ground. The home owner was afraid that the tree would fall on the house because of the weakened state.

2008-09-27T07:22:00.000-05:00

Here you can see the hole that was blown down the trunk of the tree. The lightning, as you can see, has discolored the wood from dark near the hole to lighter farther away from the hole. A man named Link had a beasty old boom truck to lift the tree chunks off of buildings took a slice of this tree home to make a table out of it. I make the comment to him that the hole in the center would make a good place to put an umbrella. He laughed and said, "Naw, that hole is to throw the empty crawfish shells into the bucket under the table when eating crawfish. Ah huh, different place, different culture. So far I haven't had the delightful experience of eating crawfish.

2008-09-27T07:21:00.000-05:00

Here's Link and his beasty old truck that he bought off the internet because he wanted to hual some big rocks. It just happened to have a boom on the truck. I sure was a huge help for us as with our tree removal.

Well, that's about it for this trip, but there's always another coming up.

Greensburg Kansas Part 3

2008-06-10T08:09:00.000-05:00

Greensburg Kansas
Heading Out

Here's the rig we pulled to Greensburg. The church that put this trailer together is in Tekamah Nebraska with a total membership of 27. Amazingly this trailer was loaded to the gills with equipment. We had a generator to use along with many ladders, drills, crow bars, etc. Dale one of the guys I went with said that every time they take this trailer out to help with a disaster trip it comes back with more stuff in it.

High in the Sky

One of the things we had to wire was a light on each end of the attic with a junction box and a switch. Here I am up high standing on the ceiling rafters wiring in a light. Quite a bit of my phone company safety training came into play. Such as in this situation I almost with out knowing it will make a three point stance. The most stable stance is a three point stance. Two feet and one hand or two hands and a foot or in this case hip lean with two feet. Safety is always a given in these projects.

You got to love California Girls.

I don't have any pictures for this little story because I didn't think it would be appropriate for an old gray haired geezer taking pictures of 18 year old California girls. I have to tell you my perspective of California girls has drastically changed.

When the contractors built the house we were working on they laid in the sewer line to the house but didn't connect it to the sewer line for what ever reason. They also didn't put a cap over the pipe leading into the basement so when the 4 inch rain came it sucked about a foot and a half of mud into the basement. Soupy, mucky, stuff. You get the picture.

The second day we were wiring on the main floor a group came from California church to help. They had skills in cement, roofing, and general contracting work. Along with this group came kids from their youth group of I'd say 17 to 24. Half were girls and half were boys. They split up some went with roofing crew, some went with the cement crew and the rest were to clean the basement up. The only way to clean out the basement was to scoop up the mud with shovels and put it into 5 gallon buckets. Then set the buckets out the basement Egress window. Then someone from above would hook the bucket with a long rod with a hook on the end, haul it up the window well and dump the slimy sludge.

It was decided the girls would go to basement and the boys would do the hook and dump from outside. I'm listening to the planning as I'm working a junction box near the basement stairway knowing what's coming next. You have to understand these California girls came to the job site with dangly little ear rings, designer finger nails and nice looking clothes. They trudged down the stairs to have a look at the basement and with big gasp the words, "OH MY GOD" came out of their mouths. A few moments of silence then, "OK let's get busy". Never once did I hear a complaint or negative word all day.

At the end of the day those California girls came up out of the basement looking like they'd been in a mud wrestling match. They had mud head to toe. Mud in their hair and all over their faces. You couldn't tell what color their clothes were. They grabbed a hose and started hosing each other off.

Next day here they come again. They were put to work outside moving dirt around the foundation. While I was wiring a porch light out the back door, here I see one of the girls with her dangly little ear rings and designer finger nails running a Bobcat moving dirt up against the foundation.

So when it comes to prissy California girls with their dangly little ear rings, their designer finger nails, and their fancy looking clothes, don't let that fool you. They are tough, rugged, and aren't afraid to get dirty right along with anyone else.

Greensburg Part 2

2008-05-21T11:53:00.000-05:00

NEBRASKA CREW

Dale on the left pastor's a little Southern Baptist church in Tekamah Nebraska, a little town just north of Omaha. Dean on the right is retired and lives in Fremont Nebraska. We saddled up about 2:00 PM on Mother's Day Sunday and headed out across the plains of Nebraska and Kansas. The drive was enhanced by the conversations and the beauty of spring time in the midwest. Field after field of wheat was lush and green. Oil wells that I didn't know existed were pumping away in the Kansas wheat fields. Dean explained how the oil was pumped out of Kansas from the shale rock as he had worked on the pumps before retiring. We arrived at Pratt Kansas where we would sleep each night at about 10:00 PM.

HARD AT WORK

We hooked up with another three people from the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Association. These three were the leaders of our team as well as being in charge of other projects going on in the town. We had the job of doing the electrical wiring in the house we were working on. Now I've attempted wiring before but found that there's a better way. One night we actually had a class on how to wire three way switches and how to trouble shoot circuits that just don't work quite right. Touch, that's the Master Electrician that was in charge of all of us, explained how to connect wires together that would identify the wires on the other end of the circuit. This trip was not just a working trip but a learning trip as well.

SITTING DOWN ON THE JOB

Wall sockets that I'm working on here were pretty simple, but it really got interesting when working on a double gang switch box that had a three way switch and switches connected to a ceiling fan, regular light, and night light in the bathroom. It really intrigued me and because of my background in electronics I started catching on to the pattern of wiring by the end of the week. One thing I learned is that when wiring a house the blue print is just a suggestion. It's up to the electricians to actually decide how and where the wires are connected to the different circuits. Lots of rules go with wiring, like a staple to hold the wire no more than 8 inches from the box and then every 30 inches after that and every wall that is 24 inches or more has to have a electrical outlet, then there's only four wires in a junction box, arcfault circuits go in bedrooms, and ground fault circuits go in kitchen and bathrooms.

Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks.

Greensburg Part 1

2008-05-21T11:44:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of Greensburg Kansas after the tornado passed through the town on May 5th 2007. Picture in your mind all the debris gone with a sprinkling of house building and you have what the town looks like today. Only a short time ago has the new water tower become functional. Yes, it blew the water tower down. The tornado had such power that it sucked the stadium lights for the school sports field right out of the ground concrete and all. It also slurped up all the water in a pond. What intensified the damage was how the tornado passed through the town and stalled then backed up through the town again then forward over the town again. In a sense the town was hit by 3 F5 tornadoes in a matter of minutes. What used to be a little quiet Kansas town of 1500 is now mostly deserted except for the volunteer workers and a few contractors.

My connection was with the Southern Baptist disaster relief association. Three of us went from Nebraska. We hooked up with three more in the town of Pratt about 30 miles from Greensburg. The First Baptist Church in Pratt let us use the church to use as a base station. We slept there and great disaster stories were told until late night hours each night.

Each day went something like this: It was up at 5 O'clock to read my bible and pray for the day, hit the road at 5:15 AM with a stop for coffee before leaving Pratt, breakfast at 6:30 AM, prayer and devotion at 7:15 AM, and at the job site working by 8:00 AM. We broke for lunch at Noon and back to work by 1:00 PM. We were done for the day by 5:45 PM with cleanup at the job site. We had dinner at 6:00 PM and traveled back to Pratt by 7:00 PM. Clean up and showers were done by 8:00 PM. Then we sat around and told disaster stories until all hours of the night. It was sweet dreams until 5AM and then do it all over again.

Friday was an emotional day for me. As always I don't want to come home. We left at Noon and I finally made it back home by 11 PM. It's about a seven hour drive, but we stopped for gas and dinner at York, so it took a little longer.

The Baptists take a team down to Greensburg every month, but because of being gone to Sherry's, my oldest daughter, wedding in Vegas I will miss June. There's always July. This is truly what I am supposed to be doing. There's just nothing like being able to help someone that you don't know get back into life. There's nothing like sleeping on the floor and eating food in the temporary food building. There's nothing like working until you just can't wiggle then shower in a portable shower trailer outside in the church parking lot. There's nothing like no TV, e-mail, computer, cell phone, or any other technological things. Well, I did have a cell phone but it was off most of the day and I only used it to call home, Mother-in-law, once a day to let her know that I was alive and well.

2007 Bridge City Church Building

2007-05-02T18:21:00.000-05:00

Bridge City Work Crew

Leaving home in the wake of a storm was a little apprehensive, but the decision was made to forge forward. We blasted through rain most of the day. Kansas City gave us a break to put a new battery cable on one of Larry's daughter's cars. Then it was to the pastry shop for most delicious pecan pastries. With a bag of pastries and a cooler with pop, water, and sandwiches we headed out of town for our destination for the day, Texarkana. We bedded down about 9:00 PM after getting our grub at the Cracker Barrel.

I sprang out of bed at the crack of dawn, well ok, would you believe 8:00 am. I took my morning constitutional walk and ate the quite adequate breakfast of Oatmeal, waffles, breakfast cereal, fruit, milk, juice, and coffee. Ok, all I had was a bowl of Frosted Flakes, juice, and coffee.

We set out on our journey with bright sunshine and climbing temperatures. Five hours later we arrived at our destination somewhere around 6:30 PM. We staid in the house that we worked on the last time we were there. It really finished up beautiful. The design is a southern type house with a full length porch with four ceiling fans and rocking chairs to finish off the charm.

The next day we were in the truck and moving toward Bridge City at 6:30 am. We did a breakfast stop at the DQ which became part of the daily morning routine. We hit the job site about 8 am. The first day we stepped into the church to take an inventory of what we could work on. The proper drywall was not yet there. We needed sheets for the ceiling which were 5/8 inch firerock. This firerock proved to be a issue for sure. Because of the 24" ceiling joists the extra thickness was needed and for fire requirements the firerock was needed. Firerock has some fire retardant ingredient mixed into the regular mixture to help with preventing fire. It make the rock much heavier than regular. That added to the ceilings of nine feet and the rock being 12 foot long made for trying lifting up to the ceiling.

The first day we put fiberglass insulation into the outside walls and some of the inside walls for sound proofing. We met Pastor Samuel the pastor of the church. I for one was glad to end this day as the itching began about noon and increased the rest of the day. It carried over into the next couple of days before relief began to come.

The next day we hit the site with thoughts in mind of what we would accomplish. With scaffolding in place and two men on high in the sky, the cutter began measuring and cutting the drywall to fit the ceiling joists. First the ceiling and then 1/2 " regular drywall on the walls. We broke for lunch and got after it again.

My job was to help with the measuring, cutting, lifting, and carrying. By the third day my arms were beginning cramp up by the end of the day. I slugged down a quart of Gator Aide, two bananas, and a couple vitamin C pills. The next morning I was good as new and ready to tackle that firerock again.

By the third day we were finished with the front foyer and entry way. We had made our way through the front office rooms.

By the end of the fourth day we had made our way through many of the Sunday School rooms and hallway.

The fifth day we decided to take a day and hit the lake to do some fishing. So while the storm raged on in Omaha Nebraska, I was getting a sunburn on Sam Raeburn Reservoir in Texas. Now I hadn't taken anything to fish with so this is where the story gets really good. The last day we drywalled a church member named Jeff helped us for the day. In the afternoon Larry let it leak out that we would be open to a day of fishing. All most immediately cell phones flared up and filled the airways with plans to make it happen. Drywalling shut down for the day.

We vaulted out of bed at the early hour of 4:00 am and hit the road by 5:00 am. Jeff came with his boat. It was a Javelin Renegade 20 with motor of 225 horsepower. Oh yeah it made the boat scream across the water. I don't think it had to be in the water to actually move. The prop could be a propeller in the water or propeller in the air. Either way we could move from one spot to another really fast. It was wonderful. A real guy experience.

Anyway we found what should be a good spot and Jeff let me pick out a rod from his assortment of old rods. Each had a artificial lures attached to the line. Jeff had his 6 or 7 special rods to use with all different lures attached so he could change quickly from one to another. I picked out what I thought would be dead beat rod and lure and had plans to enjoy the scenery and boat ride. Jeff on the other hand had intentions of catching the lake record at any time. Larry in the rear was casting and cranking as well. I stood for a while then sat in the seat in the boat. I would flip the bait in the lake and crank it back toward me as I enjoyed the splendor of the tree covered banks and awesome weather. To my surprise I connected with a fish and began slowly reeling in the bass. I really had no idea what size it was until I got it up near the boat at which time it began the under and around the boat scenario.

Jeff saw the my rod bending and asked, "You got a fish?"

I nonchalantly said, "Yeah, I think there's one on." I knew I had something of size, but I just wanted those southern boys to think it really wasn't a big deal to catch a big bass.

I had to get up and chase the fish around the boat a couple times. I watched Jeff as I cranked the bass toward the boat. Upon first sight, he dropped his rod on the deck and scrambled to the center of the boat gasping out, "Man you got a fish." He helped me get the fish into the live well and immediately called the other boat in our party to tell them we had caught a good sized bass.

A few more casts and a couple fish more of smaller size, Jeff called on the phone again and said, "Dang these Northern boys are kicking our butt." Jeff did get his justice by catching a bunch of bass in another spot, but I held onto the biggest catch of the day.

Oh I forgot to tell you that the lure I was using was old, had rusty hooks, and one barb was missing on the rear hook. Five pounds exactly.

We headed back to Texarkana on Saturday with the notion of staying over in Kansas City and attending IHOP service before heading back home. Calls home revealed that I-29 was shut down to traffic. The closer we got the more it concerned us about getting back to Omaha. When we hit Kansas City and found out the roads were open, we decided to scat on home because we didn't know how long it would take. Turned out we drove the speed limit all the way back to Omaha and the roads were in excellent shape.

So ended another successful trip to the zone. There's still a lot of damage that needs repaired from the storms of the decade.

Left ear right brain

2007-04-07T22:05:00.000-05:00

I had quite the experience this evening. Now we all know that men are like waffles and women are like a plate of spagetti. Men work in one box at a time. When the trouble is solved they go to the next box. If the problem can't be solved, they move on the to next box. Why waste time on something that can't be solved. Women on the other hand are like a plate of spagetti because every thing is all connected, touching and everything is effected by everything. They can take care of the kids, while making dinner, while watching TV, while writing a book. Also I've learned recently that most men are right brained logical thinkers. According to those that study this stuff the left ear is connected to the right brain so to be sure a man understands he must hear what's spoken in his left ear.

I talked with my cousin, Julie, earlier this week. During the conversation of solving the world's troubles we were jumping from box to box. No problem because I'm educated about how this all works. However I forgot to put the phone on my left ear. So in the middle of the conversation we jumped into a box where she invited me to hear one of friends sing.

What she said is not what I heard. What I heard was "How would like to go.....blah blah blah blah..... FRIEND SING... blah blah blah..... ROSE THEATRE ...... blah blah blah blah blah..... OPERA ....... blah blah blah blah. I responded with sure sounds like fun." So I tell my social club group about how I'm going to the Rose Theatre and hear my cousin's friend sing Opera. They were impressed for sure. Oh yeah, I'm the cultured man of the hour.

Here's what Julie said. "How would like to go hear my friend sing at a concert at the Rose Theatre. She's had opera voice training." Hmmmmm, not quite the same is it. No it isn't. What we were going to see is Julie's friend sing at a Inspirational Black Gospel Concert. Well, that's pretty close isn't it? Just kidding. Everyone had a good laugh all night about the culture I was getting. It was culture all right but not opera culture.

And so it is with left ear right brain. Or maybe with Old Dave is was brain disconnected.

Always remember laughter is good medicine for the soul. Especially if it's about yourself. There's a lot of good material when your with me that's for sure.

2007 Las Vegas Trip Part 2

2007-03-26T10:46:00.000-05:00

It seems that I can't go anywhere without getting involved with a project. My oldest daughter Sherry wanted some help with her bathroom. For those that have been readers of my adventures for a couple years you will remember my episode with a bathroom the time I was there a two years ago. This is a different bathroom off the main bedroom. It was just a simple shower replacement. .......................Right........ When is anything simple for me. The drywall was off the wall area around the shower. All we had to do was pull up the shower floor pan and put down a new one. Then replace the drywall with green board, a water resistant drywall for bathrooms, and put title on the wall and floor. Simple enough don't you think.

The first order of business was to pull up the shower pan. It should just pull up as there are no screw connections or fittings. It's just compression fit. Well, it didn't. So we drilled a couple holes and used a jig saw to cut around the drain and pulled the pan up and off. Yea, not were gettin' er done.

But wait something doesn't look right. The pipe under the shower drain has holes in it. Big holes. Like most of the pipe is gone. That's right it had rusted out and needed to be replaced. Not a problem you say. Just take the pipe out and replace it. The connection into the water trap looks a little funny. Oh my gosh. It's lead and the connection doesn't have threads. It's put together with hot lead.

Now we need a sawsall tool to cut and replace the entire trap. We did that of course in speedy time. Now all that's needed is a couple pipe wrenches to take the last part of the trap off the pipe that goes under the floor to the sewer. OK, were all set. Wrench under the pipe to keep it from twisting and wrench over the pipe to take the end off. Pull up. Push down. Hmmmm, this pipe is awful looses under the floor. The pipe had been cracked for years and was only held on to the sewer by a thread. By me fooling with it, it broke off to the sewer line. So what started as a simple project is now a full blown remodel adventure.

I began by breaking up the floor and getting to the problem area by scooping out the sand down to the broken connection. It was just as I thought. BAD. We still needed to get one end off the pipe to be able to put a new trap and drain on for the shower pan. Remember that far back. The least of my worries. Or so I thought. We stopped the destruction......aaaaa......repair for the weekend. I took the pipe with instructions about what I wanted to a machine shop. I wanted one end cut off and that end to be re threaded. Just a simple task don't you think. Well, the pipe turned out to be brass and had to be special cut then single point turned on a lathe for threading. What ever that means. It took them an hour and a half to do the job. Burned up two days, but was well worth the wait as the only other way to fix this was to replace the sewer line part which would shut down the other bathroom during the operation.
Anyway, got the pipe back, got the necessary things to repair the break, got the energy to get started, so we tackled the project with real enthusiasm. This was not your normal repair job. Do I do anything normal. With a little Louisiana ingenuity and some Nebraka "Get er done" mentality, I came up with a plan of repair instead of replacement. First use Gorilla glue on the pipe seam to set the pipe back in position. Let the glue dry over night. The next day wrap the sewer broken connection with twine and dump the remaining bottle of glue over the twine. When the glue was dry, cover the hole pipe and sewer with a tube of roofing tar. Then bury the whole mess with a bag of super strength concrete. I guarantee you that connection will not leak or move ever again. So just be careful when you ask old Dave to help with house repair. It could end up being a full blown adventure?
So what started as a simple bathroom remodel did indeed turn into a full blown adventure. It turned out good in the end. It actually drained water when I finished up. That's a good thing......right.....

De Ridder Louisiana 2006 Part 1

2006-06-26T02:03:00.000-05:00

Hello, Wandering Old Dave here,

I have been home for awhile so it's time to start sending out reports about what's been happening the the life and times of Old Dave. I have some catching up to do and want to start with the trip to Louisiana.

This is a team picture of the group that went to Louisiana this time. The two people that I'm standing beside are the founders and chief leaders of Rapid Response the organization I'm under when I go on these trips. Ken and Joni have been to just about every disaster starting with 911. They have been to the tsunami in Sri Lanka and the earth quake in Pakistan. They go more to the international disasters. This was about 6:30 AM and we all were excited to be leaving once again to work disaster relief.

This is a nice park we stopped at to have a lunch of sandwiches and fruit. Once again the food on this trip was excellent. We had Louisana hospitality to the max. For breakfast each morning people would bring home made biscuits and jam, pigs in a blanket, and boxes of donuts. Like I really need donuts. I already carry about a 30 pound donut around my middle. I sure didn't want to offend anyone so I did the best I could to stay fed well. I like to think I was keeping up my strength for the hard work at hand. However the scale sure didn't think so when I returned home. We stayed over night in Texarkana. There was a Huddle House across the street from the Motel which is good in a pinch when there isn't a real Waffle House around, but I didn't go there because the Motel had an excellent breakfast with make your own waffles. However I did get in quite a lengthy morning walk as is my custom on these trips. I just couldn't help myself when I walked up on a young man and woman struggling to unload a sofa. It's just in my blood to help people move stuff. I had to offer to help and they graciously excepted the offer. So miles away from Omaha, I can still find a sofa to move before breakfast. I little farther down the road people were packing up a truck and looked like they were seriously moving an entire household of furniture, but (sigh) I just didn't have the time to vounteer to help with that one. It did look pretty interesting though.

We only missed a couple turns on the way to De Ridder which turned out to be more an adventure then irratation. At least for me it was, but then everything for me is an adventure. We chugged in to home away from home Sunday afternoon. Our accommodations were in a real live FEMA trailer. My space consisted of a six foot bed placed along one side of the trailer. It was about 2 to 3 foot wide and had head space of about the same while laying down. Half of the bed space was tucked behind a bathroom wall so when I crawled into the space all that was seen was the bottom part of my legs.

The bathroom was about as big a postage stamp. Maybe the stamp was bigger. To squirt yourself off in the shower I had this sensation to keep ducking because the ceiling was about 6 foot and again about 2 to 3 foot wide. There was no turning about in the shower and if you tried it just caused a person to stumble around and make quite a racket which entertained others in the trailer. One other member on our team took the fold down sofa and our team leaders got the dinky bedroom. Are you getting the picture that this was a small trailer. I always thought that a FEMA trailer was like a trailer house. Not so. A FEMA trailer is a plastic toy looking tow behind your car travel trailer. It's been said in Louisiana you don't want follow to close to FEMA when they're towing a trailer somewhere in order to avoid the plastic parts that flying off while in route. I imagine we are probably the only Nebraskans that got the full body experience of living in a FEMA trailer. I just can't imagine anyone with a family living in such cramped spaces for months.

The house we worked on the second trip to Louisiana has been completed. This is a picture of the house. The inside has panelling on the walls and beautiful ceiling titles for the ceiling. It turned out excellent in every way. Those that finished up the house did an awesome job for sure.

This is the Pastor's house that we worked on this time. It was about 3,000 square feet I think with a magnificent set of double doors for the main entrance and 20 foot high ceiling in the entry way and a vaulted cathedral ceiling in the living room. More about that later. A fireplace against the back wall with tons of windows gave a view of the woods in the back of the house. Such a joy it was to see this house going up. The inside of the house had framed walls and a pile of dry wall when we arrived. Our task was to get as much done as we could in five days. The Pastor said that he would be real happy if we got the upstairs finished in our time there. Little did he know what lay ahead.

De Ridder Louisiana 2006 Part 2

2006-06-24T04:45:00.000-05:00

Here we go. The first day and the ceiling of the first room goes up. This sheets have to be shoved up a ramp to the upstairs before many times being cut to hit the rafters or studs.

Here you see Larry and Pastor using their heads to hold up the dry wall. With screw guns in hand they begin the task of fastening the rock to the ceiling. I on the other hand will be seen in many photos lingering in the background. My task became pretty much to cut the dry wall and get it to the guys to hang. Also being the chief gopher. You know go fer this and go fer that. I did wield a screw gun a time or two but mostly for me it was just muscle work.

We are cruisin' now. The ceiling's up and the walls are being screwed to the studs. Once we got the routine down it seems to move right along. Each of us found our niche and worked at it with vigor. Who know how many screws were used over the course of the five days. We took a count of the dry wall and came up with about 280 sheets of dry wall they we hung. Some of those were the 12 foot sheets.

Here I am measuring the last little piece of dry wall to the cover the wall above the door. You will notice throughout the trip my feet were solid on the floors and not hanging walking or bouncing around on planks. My Momma didn't raise no fool. All of the guys I worked with were very much Wild at Heart kind of guys. I love being around those kind of guys because they are fearless and no challenge is to big. I on the other hand am a kind of Purpose Driven life kind of a guy. We really fit together and work together well.

Here's another shot of me working on that last bit of dry wall. Aaron is making sure that it passes the scrutiny of his eagle eye. I and Aaron had a good time while on the trip. I really do have fun working, sweating, learning, and Oh yeah eating when I'm on these trips. Most of all I like making new friends and once I've made a friend it's kind of forever. Sometimes it may be a while between e-mail or letters, but I do like to hear about lives and tell people about the goofy things that I get myself into.

DeRidder Louisiana 2006 Part 3

2006-06-23T04:30:00.000-05:00

The next project would be the entry above the staircase and above the front door.

This would about 18 feet above the main floor. It's quite the challenge and I was really wondering how in the world we would get the dry wall up to the ceiling which is the first to be installed. Watch and learn.

Oh, yes that is planks nailed on top of 2x4s toe nailed into the studs of the walls. These planks are about 10 feet up and have a tendency to bend and sway as these guys walk and lift the dry wall panels up to the ceiling. Not a task for the faint of heart. As you can see wild at heart Aaron is really enjoying the art of walking the plank. Where is old Dave? Why he's behind the camera. Nice and safe and has a purpose.

There goes the second sheet with a little help from the workers. The muscular handsome guy in the dark shirt is the youth Pastor Vic from sunny California. It's quite the story about how he came to Louisiana and became the youth Pastor of a church in DeRidder Louisiana. The other handsome fella in the very clean Omaha shirt is Ken Smith the founder of the Rapid Response. Ken spent a couple days just checking out our project before cruising off to other areas of Louisiana to do what ever founders do. Just kidding. Ken was checking out areas to send later teams. He returned later in the week to check our progress.

This is really using your head. Aaron and Pastor Ken are holding up the dry wall sheet with their heads while putting screws to fasten the sheet to the ceiling. Yes, the pastor of the church in DeRidder is also named Ken Smith.

Well, finally the last sheet goes up and a big sigh of relief at least for me that everyone is still safe and sound.

This the best picture of the day. The guy that's looking at my belly with the look on his face of "Holy Smokes look at the size of that belly" is Captain Larry the leader of this rag tag bunch of sheet rockers from Omaha. "It's all good" and "A good mud man can fix that" were phrases used very loosely throughout the week. There's just something about working with a group that works hard and still has a good time.

DeRidder Louisiana 2006 Part 4

2006-06-22T04:59:00.000-05:00

I have this routine I do in the mornings when on this trips that I started with really the first trip. I usually get up about a hour before the rest of the group and head out the door for a walk in the countryside. It was a little hard in Nicaragua, but I still could spend the time getting ready for the day. There's just something about being able to walk and listen some inspirational music. It sets the day when the first part is just appreciating what God has created including watching the animals starting the day.

Old Dave is thinking pretty hard about something here. I'm praying that he is getting that measurement right. I learned how to scribe a sheet of dry wall with only a tape measure and a utility knife. It still requires a skill that escapes me. I tried it a couple time with out much success so I went back to slower chalk line and straight edge method. I guess it takes a little more practice.

Here a good shot of the landing upstairs in front of the one of the bedrooms. There were two bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms down stairs. The sheet of plywood you can see in the lower part of the picture was actually a fabricated ramp used to slide up the dry wall sheets from the lower level. About 100 sheets were hand lifted and slid up this ramp for the upstairs. You can also get a grasp on the height of the living room ceiling. This was about a height of 20 feet and required us to use some regular scaffolding.

We rocked the upstairs so fast that the downstairs wasn't quite ready so we grabbed some insulation and started insulating the next room. The down stairs had 10 foot ceilings so to keep the seams down to just two we used 12 foot sheet rock which was 5 foot wide. Sheet rock is installed horizonally which being 5 foot wide would be a perfect fit for 10 foot ceilings.

Here is an awesome picture of Pastor Ken and his wife Sandie. This was such an honor to help with building a house for these two. They give so much of their life to helping others it is just a awesome thing to be able to return some of the help they need to complete their own house.

Whew, I'm really beat. Been liftin' rock all day and my dogs are barkin'. I think I've been in Louisiana too long. I'm starting to pick up on their phrases and culture. The thing is I like it. All three times I have gone there I've wanted to stay longer. The week just seems to fly by and when it's time to leave it's hard to believe that it's time to go home.

DeRidder Louisiana 2006 Part 5

2006-06-21T05:46:00.000-05:00

Let's get started with the living room ceiling. The scaffolding is up and it's time to stuff the insulation in the ceiling. This shot was taken from the landing in front of the bedrooms upstairs.

Here goes the first sheet of rock on the living room ceiling. Grunt grunt grunt. It was a strength, skill, know how, and planning. You don't see me in the picture do you. My purpose driven life directed me to be on the camera with skill, strength, know how, and planning.

Here we are putting up the second layer of dry wall on the ceiling. Double screws were in order to make sure no sagging or falling would happen. This was probably the hardest part of the house to dry wall next to the entry.

Hey, I finally found my job. It's nice and close to the floor. The closer to the floor the better for me. When this floor is finished a railing will keep bodies from flying off this level. Hopefully.

Time for some R & R. One day we knocked off at 5 PM which was a short day for us there. We usually worked from about 9 AM until sometime around 9:30 or 10 PM. We would then sit on the porch and see who could outdo each other with the most impressive story. I have to say those Louisiana boys have some terrific stories and they are awesome story tellers. You know how I like to hear a good story. It just doesn't get any better than to end the day with a good session of story telling. Anyway we got to endulge in a genuine Louisiana meal and then spend some time fishing the pond stocked with Prim a hybrid fish and catfish. I caught a good sized cat and others caught an assortment of fish. Since we weren't going to eat them, we just turned them loose.

The night ended with a chance to take the 4 wheeler for a ride. I sped off up the road with cloud of dust surrounding me. This 4 wheeler was a super ride. It had the power to give the feeling of riding a rocket. When I was in Nicaragua we rode the 4 wheelers along the beach by the ocean and that was fun, but I tell you this machine was much more powerful than the machines we rode down there. I only have ridden one more scary than this machine. When I was a part of the pit crew for the race car, the driver of the car had a racing 4 wheeler that was not much more than a frame with a motor and wheels. Now that baby would rocket you around the track just by breathing on the throttle.

The week was now nearing the end. One more day left then it would be home again to get ready for the next trip which would be Canada and fishing for the big one. But that's another story for later.

DeRidder Louisiana 2006 Part 6

2006-06-21T01:44:00.000-05:00

Here you can see the eating area that I frequented. It was here that we ate our meals morning, noon, and most evenings. We did have a meal at the local equivalent of Texas Road House with buckets of peanuts and baskets of bread.

The front porch became the gathering place to take a break or snack. In the evening after the day ended, this is where the tall tales were told. All of absolute truth so help me God. Many memories have already happened on this porch and the house isn't even completed yet.
This was the last day and in this picture is Pastor Vic, Captain Larry, and his wife Cindy. Pastor Vic cooked up the best barbecue ever which included all the trimmings. With our work completed, our hearts were saddened to think about going back home. One week is just not enough. Here is one last look at the feasting table that served us well. I carried some tonnage back with me from this table. It was around my middle and only now have I removed it from behind my belt.
So when the disaster has happened and workers are in short supply, who you gonna call?

What's up for May "The planned trips"

2006-04-16T09:28:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,
I'm on the go again to De Ridder Louisiana. I'm going with a Rapid Response Team to help with building a house for the Pastor there. It's the same area as the last time I went. Last time we worked on building a house for a widow in the church of the Pastor on who's house we will be working on this time. My juices really got going when I heard about the team being formed. I really do feel a full time calling to respond to these trips. I believe I'm on a journey in life to be doing this full time in a couple years. What a wonderful season of life this is for me.

We will be leaving on May 13th and returning around May 20th. Our team will be considerable bigger than the three that went the last time. I believe it should be at least 7 or more this time. We really hit it off with the locals there the last time and I'm certainly ready to return to help with the construction.

About a week after I return from this trip, I will be leaving for another week. I heard about a disaster in Canada that needs a lot of attention. I heard that the water there has too many big fish. I will be on a response team to remove as many big fish as we can. So if you feel like you need to send support to can write the checks made out to me.

I hope you realize that I'm just kidding. I am going on a fishing trip to Canada. I love to fish, but I have never had a chance to actually go to Canada before. I've sent a lot of time in Minnesota very close to Canada, but never made it across the border. That should be a good time for sure. I'm not sure how many are going on this trip, but I'm guessing at least 4 or 5.

This is a picture of the place we are staying. It is located on the shore of Crooked Pine Lake known for walleye, northern pike, and slab black crappie. There might even be a catfish or carp as well. What am I thinking. Forget that thought.

Here's a sample of what can be pulled out of the lake there. I think I need to have more than 6 pound test line on my Zebco. Oh my, I'll have to get something bigger than a jig to fish with. The possibilities just boggle the mind.

Anyway that's what's going on in May for me.

Tell me about what's up in your life for May.

Always going Dave

Las Vegas Move Part 1 "The Bus Ride"

2006-04-05T01:14:00.000-05:00

I have been out at the farm horsing around. Seth has another horse in training with the intention to be sold. The trainer was in Texas and required a 4 day trip to get the horse there. I watched the farm while Seth was gone.

The teenage Phillies were a little better in behavor this time. I used some wisdom and let Molly bring the girls back into the barn the first two days. From a distance away, I studied every detail about what she did and discovered that I was in error about my methods. I would enter the pen and catch the young horses when what I should have done was stand on the outside of the corral and let them frisk around for awhile. When they were ready to be caught, they would come up to the gate and stand waiting for the lead rope to be attached to the halter. The second thing was the order of bringing in the colts. One would go absolutely bananas if she was left alone in the corral so she had to be taken in always second. Never first or last.

This week and last I've been helping a good friend with house preparation to be sold. He is installing a bathroom in the basement and has in mind to replace the kitchen cabinets and the vinyl flooring.

I've been working on the den some. The room is cleared and ready to have the floor covered for protection when I paint the ceiling. The room will get a total make over. Wallpaper on two of the walls with brick paneling on the other two. Some new skin covering for the doors and of course a new light fixture. I would like to vinyl title the floor, but I don't know about that yet.

Anyway finally to the Bus Ride. I rose up with inspiration and full of energy on the day to start the journey to Beaufort South Carolina. The internet bus site said to be at the bus station two hours early. Since my bus left at 6:00 AM, I figured that 4:30 AM would be soon enough and ordered up a cab to arrive to take me to the station at 4:00 AM. Upon arriving at the bus station at the desired time of 4:30 AM, I find that the station doesn't open until 5:00 AM. It was a good thing that the weather was not typical Nebraska weather and was quite pleasent for 4:30 AM in the moring.

There was a little confusion about which bus I was to board and I almost missed the departure, but made the bus and settled down for the day and a half ride to sunny Beaufort. This leg of the bus ride was not extremely crowded and most of the riders settled down for another snooze. At about 9:00am the TV screens lowered down from the overhead luggage racks and Ghost Busters followed by The Natural were the in ride movies.

Somewhere in the middle of Iowa we stopped for about an hour and a half break for lunch. Unbeknownst (my made up word- it means I didn't know) to me I was to transfer onto another bus here. Once again at the last minute I became aware of the transfer and made the connection.

This next driver was Brandy a real story teller and kept me facinated all the way to St. Louis. Not only did we hear stories about when she lived in Alaska, and shot an Elk in Montana, but we got the local history as well. She pointed out such places like the cliff that Hiawatha jumped to her death over a man with her eyes rolling. She pointed out the town park where President Lincoln and Douglas had their debate during the election. She showed us the oldest prison in Iowa. She told us about her Harley that she rode in off hours. It was awesome.

The next leg of the trip left St. Louis about 6:00pm and headed out across Illinois. I was certainly glad I didn't have to drive through the contruction zone again. We whizzed through the night darkness toward the next transfer point in Nashville. I listened to a CD given to me about how the internet works. It was a facinating program about bits and bytes flying through the internet galatic cyber bit stream. It was all about packets and overhead and ...... well lets just say that it was really cool for me. It kept me rivited all the way to Nashville. Arrival time was about 1:00am.

So there I was in Nashville in the middle of the night with about two or three hundred other tired people. This was the only place that had a security check if you would call it that. Everyone leaving on a bus must have a tag on their luggage that indicated you had been checked. When my turn came, I lifted my backpack up on the table and rolled the suitcase up to the guard. The guard unzipped both looked inside then zipped them up and said, "You got any knives, guns, bomb making material, that sort of thing?"

I said, "No."

He said, "OK you're good" and proceeded to attached the checked tag. Then to my surprise both me and the luggage went back in the packed waiting room with full access to outside the terminal. Hummmmm, just a little different than Airport security.

Time to board the bus. Being the good midwest mannered boy that I am I let others go first and get on the bus before me. About three in front of me the bus driver says, "Bus is full take the next one" and closed the gate doors to the bus. Now, I'm thinking what does that mean like take the next bus that arrives the next day or what? Well, it turns out the next bus was 2 hours away. Ugh another 2 hours the the crammed bus station at now 2:00am. We won't go into what the bathroom looked like with that many people in the station. I was certainly getting my bus savy on the next bus headed for Atlanta. I elbowed my way in line and defended my place in line with vigor. I made it on the packed to the max bus headed out of town around 3:30am with the slim hope of making the transfer in Atlanta to Savannah.

Upon arriving at the bus terminal in Atlanta, I drug my luggage up the bus terminal ramp and prepared to find the next bus to Atlanta when over the speaker came the call, "Last call for Savannah, gate 6." Scurrying over to the gate I managed to get through the door just before the door was shut and locked. Down the ramp and on the bus I trotted just in time to head out of town. My stay in Atlanta was supposed to be about 3 hours, but turned out to be only about 30 seconds. I was just glad to be back on schedule and headed for the final destination of Savannah.

The driver of this bus was alergic to everything and kept purging the bus with cold air at the hint of any type of smell good or bad. This leg of the ride was pretty uneventful or maybe I, just being tired, slept most of the way. I arrived at the Savannah station Lydia picked me up and we headed out for Beaufort South Carolina and the next part of the moving adventure.

Las Vegas Move Part 2 "The Trip"

2006-04-03T04:22:00.000-05:00

Waking up the next day brought many adventurous expectations one of which was picking up the truck. The truck Lydia had rented was a little 10 foot truck. We arrived at the pickup point at the designated time. The lady behind the desk asked, "Do you have a washer and a dryer, cause this truck doesn't have a ramp you know?" I said, "Yah, we got a washer and a dryer, but we'll get it in the truck somehow." She proceeded to poke around in the computer and shuffle through the papers on the desk. Finally, she laid out the papers and the normal routine of sign here, initial here began. On completion of the proper paper work, we jumped into a golf cart and boogied around back to pick up a dolly for the move. We sped out in the yard where the trucks were and pulled up in front of a truck. I glanced at the truck and turned to the rental lady and said with a puzzled look on my face, "This isn't a 10 foot truck is it?" She looked at me and said, "Oh honey, you really need a ramp if you're going to be moving a washer and dryer so I upgraded you to a 16 foot truck for no extra charge." This turned out to be a huge blessing. This was a brand new truck with only 3,000 miles on it with an engine that toted us up the hills and down the hills at 70 MPH. What a joy it was to drive such a truck. We got the truck back to the house and the packing began. By noon I suspected that we were in trouble with the 9AM check out time the following day. As we moved on into the evening and night I knew for sure that we would not be having any sleep this night. About 7PM Lydia informs me that we needed to unhook the satellite TV. OK no problem just pull off a few cables in the back of the receiver and unscrew the cables from the wall receptacle and we're good to go. Lydia said, "No we have to remove the cables out of the house and leave it just it was when Eddie and I moved in. OK not a problem a few staples here and there and it's a done deal. Lydia says, "No, I mean everything has to be removed even the dish as well as the pole in the ground out back." Now those of you that have read the story about moving my Mother-in-law's flagpole with the concreted in bottom can certainly understand the thoughts dancing through my head at sound of that comment. The silver lining in this project was I got to go to Walmart to buy a spade to dig out the concreted in dish pole. Upon digging around the pole in preparation to pull it up out of the ground I ran into ....... you guessed it ROOTS. Man, why did it have to be roots. I found a saw in the stuff to be moved and sawed out the roots . Finally, after a few minutes of blood, sweat, tears, a grimace, and grunt out popped the pole. Only one little dab of concrete probably not more than 50 pounds on the end of the pole was all that held the pole in the stable position. My goodness sakes alive when I put my Mother-in-law's flagpole in the ground I put close to 200 pounds of concrete down the hole to keep flag jitter from happening. This was a piece of cake compared to moving the flagpole. I was right the next morning found us still cleaning up the floors and making sure everything was out of the house. At 9:45, the task was done. Total evacuation was complete. With the house check completed we headed out to Lydia's friend to leave some furniture that she didn't want to take and some of Eddie's clothes with her. Eddie would be picking up his clothes to take to the barracks when he came back from the short sea duty. By noon we were getting hungry so lunch was in order. After being up all night and eating lunch at noon, I knew we would probably make it out of town and be too tired to drive much farther. I was surprised when we actually made it 100 miles before Lydia came on the walkie talkie and informed me she couldn't go any farther. We bedded down for the evening and night. And thus ended the first two days of moving, but hey we were on the way with only 2300 more miles to go. The next day we headed out through Georgia, Mississippi, and into Arkansaw. We made about 900 miles that day and 700 the next day. We ended the third day by getting through Amarillo Texas. What a ride it was through that town. By this time I was feeling quite comfortable driving the truck. We hit the town of Amarillo just after dark. We are whizzing through the town following the signs to stay on I-40 and some how I ended up in the outside lane going through what looked like some kind of construction zone. There were big concrete dividers placed on the lane line on my left side. To stay in the middle of the lane put the left side of the truck only a foot or so from the concrete dividers. All these big towns drive at an incredibly fast speed. I have no idea what the speed limit was but I was cruising along at about 70 just to keep up with traffic flow. Much to my surprise a huge flatbed 18 wheeler with some kind of machinery strapped down on the bed came inching up beside me and decided to snuggle up real close to his lane line on my right side. There we are flying down the highway in the middle of town with one side inches away from a cement wall and the other side inches away from the big boy's mirror. I looked straight ahead and did my best to just keep brand new Penske (Truck Rental's name) in the center of the lane. With white knuckles and beads of sweat popping out, I praying, "Lord just get through this town. I promise never to sin again." It's truly amazing what I will promise to do when I'm praying for the Lord to bale me out of whatever situation I've gotten myself into. I made it through the town of Amarillo and heaved a big sigh of relief. I was truly glad to end that day, but little did I know that the next day would be scariest yet to come.

The morning of the 4th day we headed out across the plains of New Mexico right into the teeth of a storm. The wind was no less than 40 MPH angled at 45 degrees across the highway. We headed into the hills so the wind would be blasting in gusts. Then it began to rain and not too far down the road driving snow began to fall. By noon we were driving along thick ice covered roads with still a cross wind. Sometime right after noontime we ground to a halt and could see nothing but stopped cars and trucks all the way over the horizon. After about an hour or so, the line began inching along until we passed the crash site. A big 18 wheeler had mashed the back bumper of a little white job clear up to back of the front seat. Once past that we spun up the speed to about 55 or 60 and headed once more toward the ever decreasing space between us and our destination.

When we stopped for gas, I asked Lydia if she wanted to stop for the day and hope the next day would be better. Her reply was just as I thought it would be, "Dad we're from Nebraska. We know how to drive in this stuff."

We stopped in Gallup New Mexico to gas up and eat up. We stopped to gulp down some Mc Donald's finest quizine. Only in New Mexico could you find on the menu at Mc Donald's a Green Chili Hamburger. Yum Yum good. Chase it down with a shake and you got yourself a real deal of a meal. Leaving the town of Gallup posed some what of problem as the entrance to the interstate required starting from a dead stop at the bottom of a hill of maybe a quarter mile and bearing off to the right to enter onto the highway. The problem was the snow had been packed down to the point of ice up the hill and of course everyone was spinning and sliding trying to get up the hill. I wasn't going to get stuck on the hill by driving up behind a spinning car and then have to stop and be stuck like the rest of the town's citizens. I got some irritated looks as I patiently waited for the hill to clear. When the road was clear I mashed the accelerator to the floor and flew up the hill without ever so much as a spin. I guess Lydia was right. We're from Nebraska. We know how to drive in this stuff. We barely made 200 miles that day. The next day we made the Arizona ride to Flagstaff with much better weather and a lot easier driving. With out final destination in sight for the day, we left Flagstaff and headed toward Las Vegas only a short 5 hour ride. At Kingman, Lydia headed toward Las Vegas the shortest way to get to the apartment at the 2:00PM hour for signing rental papers. Because of 911 trucks are not allowed to go over Hoover dam, so I pealed off and took the hour longer route across the bridge to get to Las Vegas. So with the 2400 mile trip at an end the fun will begin unloading.

Las Vegas Move Part 3 "Las Vegas"

2006-04-03T00:28:00.000-05:00

The new home waits to be filled with stuff. The first floor apartment made me feel good. I can’t remember the last time I helped move out and into a place for someone with no stairs on both ends. With the lease signed and all the instructions of the complex given, unloading began. Many neighbors around the apartment volunteered to help with the unloading and I took one up on his offer. As it turned out he had been employed as a mover a few months prior. What a blessing he was.

Marty across the street had the greatest gift of gab and we, of course, hit it off right away. He also had a truck and was on the way to help someone move something. Sound familiar?

We got everything unloaded except the washer and dryer which was going to my oldest daughter.

Oh my I can’t believe we got all in there. We carried a little less load than this as the back few tubs were dropped off at one of Lydia’s friends for Eddie to pick up later. They had mostly clothes. My grand daughters came over to help Grand dad unload the truck. We had the greatest of time carrying things into the apartment. Darkness shut down the operation because none of the utilities were turned on. We hit the Panda Express, a Chinese fast food place, for dinner and each of us went to the proper place to sleep. I staid with my sister, Lydia and Bradley went to the apartment and slept in their new home.

The next day the electric was turned on, the cable TV was on and the modem for the computer arrived in the afternoon.

Lydia wanted to purchase a computer desk and a TV stand. So we went to Walmart. Oh yeah, did I ever tell you that I really like Walmart? Anyway eventually the two items were bought and brought home. Flatbox furniture. I love flatbox furniture. With a little grunting and sweating, the computer desk was assembled. The TV stand was another story. It came with no instructions of assembly and Lydia ended up piecing it together after I left for home.

My dad’s 82nd birthday was on the 14th of March and we had a gathering of just the immediate family to give my dad sort of a “this is your life” thing. I learned about how my Dad noticed and fell in love with Mom and about their early years of growing up and early years of marriage.

The next day was the final day in Las Vegas and ended with a special buffet dinner for all family members at the Railroad Pass Casino. When my family gets together there always seems to be lots of laughter and story telling and you know how I love to hear a good story.

The next day I few out of Las Vegas headed for home. I arrived in Denver and needed to switch planes. With only 30 minutes to get to the next gate I hot footed down the corridors and arrived at the gate only to find people everywhere sleeping. They were sleeping in chairs, on the floors, up against the walls everywhere I looked I saw snoring people. Finding one awake, I asked, “What’s the deal here?”

He replied, “How long you been here?”

“I just got here. Why?”

“Well, I have been here all night trying to get a flight out of here. It’s the end of Spring break and everyone’s been trying to go home. I’m heading to Dallas Texas, but I just want to get out of Denver, so I just took the next flight out to anywhere and Omaha was it. I’m hoping to get better connections from there.”

Oh great, I thought, I’m going to spend the rest of this day trying to get back home from Denver. The announcement came that the plane had been delayed for one hour due to mechanical problems. We were closing down on the end of the hour and still no plane at the end of the catwalk. Then the announcement came for all those waiting to go to Omaha at gate 6 the gate had been changed to gate 35. All the sleepy-eyed people began the journey to gate 35. Upon arriving the electronic sign gave information to a fight to Amarillo Texas. Amarillo, I certainly didn't want to go back there. The announcement came across the speaker for those going to Amarillo go to gate 6, the gate we just came from. Smiling inside, I thought, we just high jacked the plane going to Amarillo to get to Omaha. So what had been a many hour delay for most of the people was about an hour and a half inconvenience for me.

I arrived into Omaha about 5:30pm and scooped up my luggage and ambled out to catch a taxi. By 6:45pm I was home and this adventure came to a close as turned on my favorite Thursday CSI show and promptly fell asleep. Waking a couple hours later, I crawled up the stairs and fell back asleep with thoughts of the last couple weeks roaming through my mind.

2.22.06 De Ridder Part 1

2006-03-01T01:04:00.000-06:00

Here is a picture of the first day's work. As you can see the house is being built up on pillars. The first day was spent preparing the pillars for the floor. The last part of the day was spent actually putting the floor on the pillars.

The Pastor of the church, the youth pastor of the church, and some of the youth were helping with the construction this first day. I learned a lot about house construction during this trip. Larry the team leader was a good patient teacher.

During the last step of the construction of the floor, a double layer of half inch plywood covered the floor joist. The plywood was laid down and stapled into the floor joist. One of the sheets of plywood was laying on the joists ready to be stapled down when I stepped on the sheet. The sheet moved slightly. It was enough to slide off the support joist and flipped up which caused my left leg to plunge down into the three foot space under the floor. This in turn lunged me horizonally forward toward the exposed center floor beam.
Now the good Lord watched while I was being formed in my mother's womb and looked down through time and thought to himself, "this boy is going to fall off things, run into things, jump off things, fly through the air at things, and just generally try to damage himself so I better give him extra bone density, a hard head, and instints on how to fall and roll.

So there I am flying horizonallly through the air toward the center beam with all eyes on my antics. Luckily my old football instincts kicked in and I threw up a fore arm to protect the body from blockers. Just as I got the forearm in position, bam, I hit the center beam and my arm slamed into my chest. Being used to such things I stood up shook my self off and started back right where I left off. Everyone was kind of thinking that I should have broken or damaged somthing. The pastor of the church asked several times if I was OK. My reply was, "Oh yes I'm fine this happens all the time. The good Lord made me pretty durable and assigned me a legion of angels to watch over my dumb stunts in life." He wasn't quite convinced and later in the day made me lift up my shirt to check for bruises. None there but a couple days later, still checking, the Pastor discovered some slight brusing on the forearm.

This is a picture of the completed floor with the Mother-in-law's trailer in the background. The land where the house was to be built had a trailer off to right of the this picture that housed a son's family. This was where Ms. Jenelle was staying while the house was being built. Ms. Jenelle's trailer was completely destroyed in huricane Rita.

2.24.06 De Ridder Part 2

2006-02-28T01:51:00.000-06:00

Old Dave Working on the Fuse Box

The first order of business was to wire up some plug-ins for the air compressor. The fuse box as you can see was mounted on the pole outside in the yard. Upon opening the lid about a gallon of acorns came rolling out from inside the box. It's a wonder we didn't find a fried squirrel. It had been awhile since I fooled with electric circuits and after a couple tries it actually worked.

Pastor Vic and Old Dave

Pastor Vic, the youth pastor, and I are about to fire up the air compressor. Yes that's the plug-ins just hanging out of the fuse box. It's pretty loose in Louisiana. No inspectors, no job quality people, no hassles, just, get-er done mentality. I like it. With the air supply flowing, let the nail guns commence shooting nails.

Laying out the Floor Supports

Houses in Louisiana are built on pillars. The leveling process took the better part of the first half day. Each line of pillars had to be leveled with a string line as well as squared up before the house supports could be placed in position. Things went pretty well and as you can see the supports are going in place here.

Putting on the Floor Decking

This is where I kind of got in trouble by stepping through the floor and flying through the air with the greatest of ease. Things went well after I got that out of my system. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful.

2.24.06 De Ridder Part 3

2006-02-26T03:34:00.000-06:00

Ms. Jenelle's Trailer

Here is a picture of what's left of Ms. Jenelle's trailer. The hurricane twisted and buckled the trailer in the middle. Her son removed the trailer from the spot the house was to be built on with a huge logging machine.

Ms. Jenelle's Salvaged Things from Trailer

This is the total sum of what she salvaged from the trailer after Rita blew through. It's not known if the appliances are working or not at this time. They were just believing that they would.

Road leading to Ms. Jenelle's

This is the road leading up to the property for Ms. Jenelle. There were three dwellings on this property. One trailer housed Ms. Jenelle's Mother-in-law. One trailer housed her older son and family where she was temporarily living. She, of course, had the trailer that was a total loss. The other trailers seemed to weather the storm pretty good.

Ms. Jenelle's husband died some time ago. She had defeated cancer, but was now fighting a second round of cancer. More than one day while we were working on the house for her, I could see her standing off a ways from the work that was going on with tears in her eyes. She had never lived in a house. It's always been in a trailer.

2.24.06 De Ridder Part 4

2006-02-25T03:52:00.000-06:00

First wall going up

This first wall was a land mark. It was the first of many walls both interior and exterior. I had learned some about construction when I built my little storage shed last spring. This project honed my skills for construction. I loved playing with the nail guns and the skill saw. Yes, power. I like it.

Side Walls up

This was still part of the second day as we continued to erect the walls. A house was beginning to take shape right before our eyes. I began to learn about how to put the sheeting on the walls before setting them up and how to square up the walls after they were up. I probably learned more about construction on this trip than any other trip.

Interior Walls are going up

We were hefting in the 2x4s to assemble the interior walls. Wall construction became almost second nature by this time. We were starting to come together as a team and really getting some work done. It's really cool when that starts happening. It was a fun time as well as a time to really get to know people in another part of the country. These people here are good hard working people. Most of the people in this area work for the logging industry in some fashion.

Many people helped with the construction of the house over the course of the week. We expected that on Thursday which was Thanksgiving day to probably only be just our team from Omaha. Imagine our surprise when many people showed up to help because of having the day off from work and wanting to be a part of the project that was happening out in the woods. It ended up being the day we had the most help.

After the day ended at sundown as usual, we returned to the motel and did a quick cleanup and went to church for a Thanksgiving feast. We had deep fried turkey with all the southern trimmings. After the meal, we all sat around and listened to the Pastor tell stories about the hurricane and his trip to New Orleans with a truck full of food. Fascinating tales told by the Pastor who was great at telling stories. I just love to listen to someone who can tell a good story.

2.24.06 De Ridder Part 5

2006-02-19T04:26:00.000-06:00

Main Roof Support being placed

This is early morning start time. We usually got on the site to begin work at sunrise which was about 6:30 to 7:00 AM. In this picture we are starting the day with erecting the roof rafters and putting up the main roof support beam.

Rafters are up

This is early afternoon and the roof rafters are up. Now comes the plywood to cover the rafters on the roof and then the roofing shingles. It was quite an experience to be a part of actually building a house.

Windows are going in

This was the last day. As the roof shinges were going on the roof the doors and windows were being installed. Thoughts about siding and interior wall coverings were beginning to emerge. As the sun went down on the last day we felt we had accomplished quite a bit for the five days of construction.

Team Photo

This is a photograph of the our team with the Pastor of the church and Ms. Jenelle with her youngest son. From left to right in the photo are, of course, me, Cindy, Larry, Ms. Jenelle's son, Ms. Jenelle, and Pastor Ken.

When I first met Pastor Ken, I noticed that he was a fun loving trickster. On the second day, I couldn't help myself, but to break the ice. Pastor was using a sawsall to cut out the openings of the windows and doors. I sneaked up on the other side of one of the doorways he was cutting and nailed a 2x4 in the path of the saw. As he cut down the side of the doorway, he hit the 2x4 and the saw started bogging down. He went around to lean out of window that he had cut to see what was the matter and saw the 2x4 nailed in the saws path. With a puzzled look on his face, he sighted down the side of the house to see me peeking around the corner waving at him with a smile. I knew he would catch on right away. With a glint in his eye, he informed me that the games had begun.

The next day about mid day, he started talking about the wild donkeys in the woods around the building site. I didn't really think anything about it. He kept talking about how when he was a kid they had played pin the tail on the donkey and ever so often the conversation would come around to donkeys. I didn't catch on. Later that day when I removed my tool belt I found a big piece of rope unraveled and made to look like a donkey tail with a hook tied on the end clipped to the back of my belt. I had walked around all afternoon with a donkey tail hanging from the back of my tool belt.

The next day when the pastor started talking about the poison vines in the woods, I wasn't quite so gullible. He said that it would turn your skin orange. Well when my hands came up orange, I knew something must have been up. He had poured orange chalk dust in my gloves to try to convience me I had come in contact with the poision vines. I on the other hand would mention the wild donkeys and he would quickly start twisting around to see if I had given him back the tail. I had him checking all day and didn't have to anything.

During the week I noticed they had this thing with the young boys of the church called wrestling you down. All during the week the Pastor kept saying he was going to wait toward the end of the week after I was tired out and wrestle me down. Now wrestling down was accomplished by sneaking up behind the person and quickly grabbing them in a bear hug from behind, lifting them up off the ground and both falling to the ground. So on the last day after everything was loaded up we were standing around recapping the week. The Pastor was deep into one of his stories when I sneaked up behind him applied the bear hug and wrestled him to the ground. I think when he recognized who it was, he had mercy and let me take him to the ground, but the people from the church thought it was the greatest and we all had a good laugh over it. It was a fitting way to end the time there.

I hope to go back again to see the finished house we started.

2.16.2006 Prayer Walking the Nicaragua Way

2006-02-16T05:17:00.000-06:00

Nicaragua Dave here,

We are in the process of assembling some 600 pictures from the trip and I will have access to them soon. My camera, however, is still unavailable for use.I have a story to tell that I don't think we have pictures of anyway and is probably one of the highlights of the entire trip.

One morning the guys were invited to be a part of a group of men that pray through the town we were in and neighboring towns. I really didn't think anything much about getting up at 4:00 AM to do some praying cause I do some of my best praying at all hours of the night. So here we are at 4:30AM piling into a van to meet the group of Nicaraguan men set to pray through the neighborhoods. So like I said all the Americans piled into a red van and drove up to the church which would be the starting point.

There sat a slightly used truck. Ah, Ok a greatly used jalopy pickup truck with a 3,000 watt power generator lashed on the rear. Toward the front of the pickup box setting on top of a specially made platform sat giant speakers along with the electronics to run them. It was a pretty awesome sight to see the power house PA system mounted on the back of a pickup truck powered by a portable generator.

So at 4:30am, they started up the generator, plugged in the boom box as the input to the PA system with Christian music and cranked up the volume. Wow, my pant legs vibrated to the music. Unbelievable. Off we went down the street with about 5 or 6 Nicaraguans in the back of the truck in front of us and us Americans following behind. A microphone was passed around to the men in the back of the truck to preach short Jesus loves you type messages through the PA while the music blasted away. We moved down the street away from the church with a plan to go to a neighboring town some 3 clicks away. We pulled out on the road and headed toward the town. The truck in front speeded up and a cloud of blueish black smoke billowed out the tailpipe of the truck with the aroma that would rival sniffing an oil can. I have never in my life seen so much smoke come out of one little engine. The could became so thick that we could barely see through the fog. We made it to the next town and slowed to a crawl which seemed to diminish the smog spewing from the truck in front.

Now we've reached our destination with the music still blasting and with the mic still being passed around, we slowly made our way up and down the streets of the town. Every city in Nicaragua has a city square in the middle of the town. We made our way to the city square and the truck in front stopped and the men piled out of the truck. I thought we are going to prayer walk the city around the town square. Awesome, I could get into that.

The next thing I know a lug nut wrench appeared and there they were lifting the side of the truck up off the ground while a skinny little guy slid under the truck and put a jack under the back tire. A flat tire. So there you have it tire changing the Nicaragua way. I just love the way things are done in Nicaragua.

The tire came off and what do you know there's no spare. So the tire is thrown up on top of the red van and at 5:00 AM we pounded on doors to find someone to fix the tire. Can you imagine that. I guess the Pastor thought it was probably too much for us Americans to digest and we were brought back to the house we used as home base to catch another couple hours of sleep before breakfast.

The rest of the story was told to us by the Pastor later that day. When we left to get the tire fixed, the music still played on and the messages still were given. Upon arriving back with the fixed tire, a crowd had gathered around the truck and was listening to the music and messages. The people of the city wanted to know if they could come back every day.

I tell this story not make fun of the Nicaraguan culture, but show how different the mentality of the people are. Here in the US the cops would have been called and people would have been hauled off for disturbing the peace. In Nicaragua, it just a natural way of life and a blessing. Man I just loved it there.

Many of the houses we painted were nothing more than something slapped together from scrap tin with black plastic vinyl hung up for interior walls. The floors were dirt. Most had nothing more than a single light bulb hanging in the middle of the room from a electric cord run over to a neighbor's house. And yet almost every place we painted always gave us something to drink or eat. We blessed the food and drink to keep us from getting sick. I drank everything from cold coffee to coke in a bag with a straw. No not that kind of coke. Fountain pop is sold in a little plastic baggie with a straw through the knot in the top of the bag. Sometimes, the locals will just chew a hole in the corner at the bottom of the bag and drink the fluid that way. It's not too difficult once you get the hang of it.

Pictures next time. I promise.

Nicaragua Dave

Freight Hauler Dave Part 2

2005-04-03T05:43:00.000-05:00

Hey,It's me freight hauler Dave and Ricky. That's right were taking a load to the East Coast. Let me tell you about some of the experiences I had along the way

Ricky with his load of freight.

We, Ricky and I, left Omaha about 7:00 AM on Monday April 18th and headed out to Kansas City. Then taking the by pass we were on our way to St. Louis. 7 hours into the trip we are closing down on the great town of St. Louis. Just at the point of complicated maneuvers from one interstate to another then right away to another, a city police car comes racing past the traffic flow with lights flashing and his siren blasting. Sure enough another mile down the road a wreck had shut down the entire side of the interstate. So now three lanes of interstate traffic including 18 wheelers were funneled down the river front streets of St. Louis. I could have slapped the rump of one of the Clydesdale horses as I passed the Busch Brewery and then touched the Arch on the other side of the road.

Anyway the mapqwest directions are now out the window and I'm driving freelance through the heart of St. Louis along with a bzillion other cars and trucks. As we stopped and stopped and stopped and went at an incredibly slow pace, I began planning my strategy to get back on the interstate I needed to get across Illinois. Following the signs I managed to get back on course after a good hour to hour and a half. Ricky and I were just getting up to interstate speed when what to my wondering eyes did appear but a road sign informing me that for the next 27 miles the road would be under construction. They weren't kidding either.

It took another 7 hours just to get through St. Louis and Illinois. Right around sun down I am crossing the Ohio River. I didn't know that this river was so big. It's probably close to a mile across where I crossed. The Lord blessed me with a view of the big golden yellow sun setting on the river. I didn't think it a good idea to be fussing with a camera on a bridge in the middle of three lanes of traffic. The trees were to tall to get a good view of the river and sun after leaving the bridge. That will have to just be a memory picture.

Now Ricky and I are in the great state of Kentucky. If you have never been through a Kentucky bug storm you just haven't lived. I'm talking bugs big enough to give Nebraska birds a run for the money. When they Kathunk on the window it leaves a 3 to 4 inch splat. After 30 minutes, I had to stop just to get the bugs off the windshield. As we made our way up away from the Ohio river valley the bug storm ceased and we sped our way to another great state of Tennessee.

I noticed that Tennessee must love to blow up things because almost every exit had a permanent year round fireworks store. I made it to Nashville about 10:00 PM and needed to stop for gas. I'm feeling pretty good and am thinking about just continuing on into the night but I'm not sure. So I throw out the fleece. Lord if you show me a place to stay for $25.00 then I'll stop. Well, wouldn't you know a mile or so down the road is a big sign sticking up for $25.99 a night. I wheel my rig off the next exit and find a station to fill up with gas. While I'm filling up, I'm beginning to notice that there sure was a lot of loud rap music coming the other cars in the station. As I begin to take account of my surroundings I would say that I was probably the only white guy for miles around. So I expanded my surveillance to the surrounding neighborhood since the 25.00 an night Inn was just up the street. Well, let me say that north Omaha would be probably considered somewhat of a resort area for these folks. So I immediately got back in touch with the Lord and said, "Lord, I said for you to show me a place for $25.00 as a sign to stop, but I only said I would stop if You showed me a place, that doesn't mean that I have to stay there does it?" Now I know some of you would be thinking that I'm really on the edge of bargaining with God. I also think He gave me this gray haired wisdom for a reason as well, so I packed it up and skidalled out of there. Down the road a few more exits I found a place for $35.00. It was called, the Knight's Inn. So Warrior Dave spent the night at the Knight's Inn. I thought that just as much a sign as the $25.00. So Ricky and I bed down after in one day being in 6 states (Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee) and crossing over 3 major rivers (Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio), we considered it a good day.

This is actually a picture of a place similar to the place I staid, but this picture was obviously taken on the way home without our load.

So the next morning Ricky and I are up bright and early. Ok, it was 7:00 AM, but the sun was shining brightly. I had my terrific Continental breakfast of Fruit Loops and toasted white bread with a coffee chaser. We on the road again heading toward Georgia. Georgia I see has a definite love for the waffle house one is never more than 5 minutes away from a Waffle House. From Nashville to Atlanta the interstate is a continuous 6 lane interstate. As we get close to Atlanta it gets to be 8 lanes then 10 lanes then 12 lanes. I think at the biggest point it was a full sixteen lanes wide. I going through Atlanta about 10:00 AM so the morning rush must be over, but there were tons of traffic just the same. I'm trying to be the good Christian and drive the 55 MPH speed limit. I didn't mind the people flying by me and giving me the dirty looks and I didn't even mind the blast on the air horn from the trucker, but the last straw was when an Atlanta City Police car went cruising by with the flow of traffic and gave me a scowl. So I'm thinking, "OK, I will speed now and repent later." So there we are whizzing along at 65 to 70 MPH with the Atlanta City PD right in the middle of the pack. Very strange place this Atlanta.

We think in Nebraska that people cut us off in traffic. We have no idea what a cutoff is. The first time a car squeezed in the space in front of me with 2 feet between my bumper and his and the same for his front bumper and the car in front of him, this old Nebraska boy's heart skipped more than few beats. As I looked around at the flow of traffic it seemed to be normal driving for these parts of the country. Out of the eight lanes of traffic motoring along the outside two lanes of traffic seem to always be the no choice exit lanes. It gave me a new perspective of the traffic sign "Slower traffic keep right." I get the distinctive feeling that since they want the slower traffic in the right lanes, that it means if you are going to drive slow, get off.

Right outside of Atlanta, Ricky and I stopped to have lunch. He had 87 Octane and I had a nice southern fried chicken lunch. It was so nice to be able to order up two vegetables of choice to be fried Orka, and grits and not have the waitress think I was a weirdo. Cherry coke, one of my favorite drinks, came with real cherries in the drink. I love to listen to those southern gals talk. I had to have my waitress explain the daily specials again just to listen to her talk. All this would have been enough, but icing on the cake was to hear in the back ground lunch music Bill Monroe's version of "Blue Moon over Kentucky". For those who haven't a clue what that means, Bill Monroe is considered the Father of Bluegrass music and Blue Moon over Kentucky is one his classic Bluegrass songs. I just got to love these southern states.

After making it through Atlanta, the rest of the drive was a piece of cake. I arrived at the Piggly Wiggly store in Beaufort at about 3:00 PM on Tuesday so the trip took about 1 and a half days.

To be Continued

Freight Hauler Dave Part 3

2005-04-02T05:24:00.000-06:00

It's me freight hauler Dave. I must clarify some things about the last episode. The first was about Ricky. Ricky was not a newly acquired friend that was traveling across the country with me. About a year ago I bought a new Ford Ranger and named him Ranger Rick. Together Ricky and I have hauled and moved almost every thing imaginable.

The next thing was what exactly was the freight and where was it to be delivered? The freight was a load from my house to be hauled to my daughter in Beaufort South Carolina. This freight included a 2 cushioned love seat, 2 boxes of dishes, a sewing machine, a box of cook books, a box of various household utensils, some baby items, and a prom dress.

Ok with that out of the way let's pick up where we left off.

I made it to Beaufort and found my way to the Piggly Wiggley store. On the way to Beaufort I discovered that my cell phone was on the fritz. I could hear people talk to me, but they could not hear me. What a bummer. I had to resort to calling with a phone card. Finding a pay phone these days can be quite a trick. With the popularity of the cell phone being what it is, the pay phone is almost extinct. So I called up my daughter to tell her that I made it to town only to pick a pay phone that I could hear her, she could not hear me. This is really getting old. Luckily there happened to be another phone right next to the defective one. Finally I get a call through and they directed me to meet them at Walmart. Now you know how I love Walmart, so I'm thinking this has got to be a good place if there's a Walmart here.

One little side note about Georgia. Those folks really know how to build a shopping center. Those that know me also know that Lowes rates right up there with Walmart. Well, in Georgia, I drove past a shopping center that had Walmart and Lowes right next to each other. Ooooh my, nirvana. It just doesn't get any better than that.

So we meet at Walmart. It's such a strange thing to think of Lydia with a family, but there they are the three of them cruising up in a Dodge Neon. Hugs around are in order and of course a squeeze for Bradley. Some light Walmart shopping and then we wind our way through the South Carolina roads to the base housing. There it is with guards at the gate and every house exactly the same for as far as the eye can see. After being there I discovered that the base water tower was only a couple blocks from their house so I could find my way back to their house from almost anywhere by looking for the tower.

It was a little comforting to see Lydia cooking in the kitchen for the family and taking care of the baby just like a real mom. I didn't ever think that she would able to take care of a household, but all those things that I could never get her to do at home she was doing. I guess she really was paying attention after all. So for those in the throes of raising teenagers there is hope at the end of the teen years.

During the 7 days I spent at the Young family, we did many things. We went to Savannah Georgia. This is one of oldest towns in the United States. Mixed among the old Southern homes were businesses like Long John Silvers and Burger King, etc. Every so far there were beautiful city parks that were tree covered and many benches to sit on. One could almost see the old time Southern families there with their picnic baskets and kids running through the park having the grandest time. We hit a couple malls one of which looked like two Oak View malls connected

Of course Grandpa had to buy a couple things for Bradley and family. Bradley got the grandest high chair ever. This baby reclined, had toys fastened to the sides with plastic straps, and a slide in musical activity center for the tray for Bradley to play with while waiting for dinner to be prepared. Oh did I mention that this contraption had a five point seat harness. Dale Jr., race car driver, would have been proud that the kid would be fully protected in the event of a crash.

For the adults, I bought a flat box wardrobe for the bedroom. Flat box furniture requires assembly skills, instruction deciphering, and above all patience. Lydia wanted to have she and Eddie assemble it by themselves. It was comical to listen to the banging and "oh craps" from the back room as they assembled it. After it was assembled, Eddie and Lydia were still talking to each other. That was always a major accomplishment for me. You know women always want to read the instructions. We guys don't need no stinking instructions. Just give us a bucket of bolts, a hammer, a screw driver, a pair of pliers and let the assembly begin.

The week flew by too fast. The day came when I had to leave the fair state of South Carolina and head north to North Carolina to a Bluegrass festival. So again hugs and farewells were given all around. As I head out of town I ponder over the fact that Lydia is no longer my baby, but a grown up mom and the road becomes a little blurry from the teary eyes.

The Adventure continues soon

Freight Hauler Dave Part 4

2005-04-01T04:58:00.000-06:00

The vacation was winding down and I was savoring the memories of the last couple weeks.

Heading out of Beaufort S.C.

In North Carolina, the roads are awesome. Once off the interstate roads they become two lane black top roads that twist and wind up and down back and forth through the hills. The shoulders on the roads are about a 1/2 a car width wide. Then trees so thick that one can't see 10 feet from the road. Some of the trees are hanging out over the road. Really cool driving. I couldn't take my eyes off the road long enough to snap a Ricky Cam picture. What's a Ricky Cam you say. That's when the camera sets on the dash and periodically a picture is snapped. Anyway those that had occasion to pray for my protection and safety while I was gone on vacation I have to say it worked. The first morning as I was traveling the 30 miles on the black top windy road to Merlefest in the early morning hours, I had an experience. I was headed down a hill with a curve at the bottom to the left. The trees and the curve were blocking the view. Upon hitting the bottom of the hill and rounding the curve there in front of me about couple hundred feet away was a big freightliner in my lane passing a little while car. All three of us had a split second to react so I hit the brakes and got off the road on the half width shoulder a far as I could and the little while car did the same. The big freightliner snaked right down the middle of the road between us. I was sure glad to have a clean pair of underwear along that day.

That's North Carolina up there ahead.

Well, it's time to head back home. I filled up Ricky with 87 Octane and grabbed a couple sandwiches, a big coffee, and a diet pepsi for myself. I'm anxious to get home so it's a mad dash to make a 24 hour trip from there to here. Ricky has a about a five hour tank so it was a real challenge to have my bladder keep up with Ricky's tank, but I did a pretty good job. Every stop was about the same. Fill up Ricky and drain out myself, grab the sandwiches and drinks and head out on the road. Set the cruise to 70 MPH and five hours later do it again.

Good Ricky Cam shot of the Appalachian Mountains in N.C.

We make it across North Carolina and blew through Tennessee. We hit Kentucky and beat the bug storm across the Ohio river. I was able to get a fairly good shot of the Ohio River while I was whizzing over the bridge at 65 MPH by snapping a shot out the side window.

Ohio River shot on the way home.

Somewhere in the middle of Kentucky, Ricky and I made another stop, but Ricky insisted since we had just hauled a load of freight to the East coast we just had to park in the lot with the other freight haulers. Shhhhhhh, don't tell him he needs to grow up a bit.

Ricky parking with the big guys

I'm really thinking that I'm a genus because leaving on Sunday morning would put be close to St. Louis about 9:00 PM on a Sunday night. Traffic would be slow and I could shoot right through the 20 mile construction zone easy as could be. I was right I hit the St. Louis area at just about 9:00 PM and you would think the construction workers would be fast asleep dreaming about Tonka Trucks. But NoooOOOOoooo not in Illinois they love their construction. That's right, 9:00 PM on a Sunday night they have dust flying from sawing holes in the road, jack hammers busting up concrete, and dump trucks running up and down the closed off portions of road all the while I'm creeping along at an incredible speed of 5 MPH. Once again I creeped my way through the Illinois construction zone near East St. Louis. So at 11:00 PM I was headed out across the fruited plain of Missouri on highway 70 toward Kansas City. While passing through St. Louis I gave the radio dial a twist and came up with sock hopping with the early 60's oldies program. Cruising and singing along with the windows down kept me awake and heading toward that comfy bed in Omaha. When the St Louis station faded out beyond hearing, I twisted the dial again and found......oh my heart be still..........a community college station having a special Bill Monroe Bluegrass show.

We hit Kansas City about midnight with visions of being home snuzzin' by 4:30 AM. After getting around the K.C. bypass and heading toward St. Joe the my eyes were toast, full of sand, and the eye lids were really dropping fast. I was really gettin' tired. So rather than being foolish, I tapped into that God given wisdom again and wheeled my rig into a rest stop, threw back the seat, and immediately fell into a deep snore for about 3 hours. It's amazing what a little snoring and big jug of truck stop coffee can do. Finally home at 6:30AM and I hit the bed and finally came back to life about 5:00 PM and this vacation went into the history books.

This adventure is completed
The adventure called life continues

3.1.2006 Cowboy - Carpenter Dave

2005-03-02T01:26:00.000-06:00

This is probably the season I enjoy the most. New life is springing up all around with plants and animals.
Here is the latest two new arrivals on the farm. I've been spending some time grooming the horses. I have been blessed by being able to relate to the animals and spending time with Seth.

Last Friday I spent part of the afternoon riding one of the Geldings at the farm. It's been close to 40 years since I sat in a saddle. The horse I learned to ride was a neck reined old mare that my sister bought when I was in High School. I would ride the horse from time to time to fetch in the cows out in the pasture for milking. This horse I rode last Friday was a different deal all together. He was a full of spunk snap bit reined horse that had to be held in a tight grip or off we'd go at full speed. Although he was broken for riding he still would get skittish when he would hear a sudden noise behind him. It made for some exciting moments when suddenly a quick side step happened. My hip sockets said "OK, that's quite enough for today" after about a half an hour.

One Wednesday a friend and I were having breakfast at our favorite expensive restaurant..........Burger King. I was explaining that I really would like a storage shed, but the ones available at Lowes were really cheaply made. We conjured up and idea to just buy the materials and make one. HGTV has "Design on a Dime" and "Design for the Sexes", but my friend and I have "Design on a Napkin". So a few days later we loaded up Ricky and came home with the materials. The 50 2X4s, two 3/4 inch 4X8 exterior sheets of plywood, ten 5/8" 4X8 sheets of exterior paneling, ten 1X4s eight foot long, 2 1X4s ten foot long, five sheets of 4X8 roof underlaying, three bundles of roofing shingles, ten 6"X12"X 4" cement blocks, and various sizes of nails made Ricky's rear springs compress down to the frowny position. I think normal springs are in the smiley position.

Ah, there's just nothing like the smell of burning clutch from backing up the driveway. Not to be concerned, Ricky survived the ordeal with strength and endurance. He even received his first battle scar from scraping a bundle of roofing on the side fender and wears it proudly as a sign to all that he's not just another pretty truck that only sits in the garage and never works to earn his keep.

Those squished down tires you see are not from being under inflated but are from being overloaded.

The floor is up and one side wall now built

Here it is nearing completion. The neighbors have been inspecting each step and putting on their stamp of approval. They think it should be a community shed and of course the kids of the neighborhood think it would make a great play house. I'll probably be puttering around with it most of the summer. I still need to get the trim on and get it painted. It now has a door and a peak over the door, but I still need to get the peg board up inside and various supports for the floors exterior perimeter.

I'll be heading out for South Carolina to visit my daughter, Lydia, and her family including Bradley my grandson on April 18th. Bradley is of course the greatest grandson on this planet earth. He's full of laughs and giggles and can keep this grandpa entertained for hours.

Over the last two years I have discovered that I enjoy bluegrass music. It just so happens starting on April 27th the grandaddy of all bluegrass Festivals called Merlefest in Wilksborro North Carolina will be happening. I have been accepted as a volunteer to direct traffic in the parking lot for 4 hours on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It's gets me a free pass to the rest of the day's activities which start at 8:00 AM and end around Midnight. All the major bluegrass performers with be there. Were talking big name guys. It should be a good time for sure.
Cowboy-Carpenter Dave