Memories

I watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" last night with the boy. I look forward to watching it every year. This is going to sound corny but, I felt some sort of torch was passed. Another notch in my life. I remember as a young lad getting excited about Christmas specials that aired on television. My mother would allow my sister and I to ignore our bedtime and stay up to watch the various shows. Rudolph, Frosty, The Grinch... etc. And, here I was, allowing my son to stay up past his bedtime to watch. The holiday season, for me, was always an exciting time in my childhood - as I'm sure it is for most everyone.

One story that I always remember is the year that my sister and I started opening up presents before my parents were awake. The rule was, that if we awoke before my parents, we were allowed to get into our stockings and play with whatever was in there. Usually, Santa would leave such things as candy, playing cards, matchbox cars and trinkets. There would always be one tiny present that was wrapped and my mother had always hoped that it would keep us occupied for a while. Well, this particular year, my sister and I decided that we could open up our presents to and from each other. Our reasoning was, that mom and dad wouldn't care. They didn't buy these particular presents, so why would they care? This was all taking place at about 5 - 5:30 in the morning. There was no way that we were going to drag my dad out of bed that early. So after a period of time as my sister and I sat under the tree admiring the few things that we had opened up, we began to talk about opening more presents. We kept rationalizing why we needed to go ahead and open more presents. Don't ask me what those thoughts were but, suffice it to say... we started opening things one at a time. We started with the smallest items first and then progressed to the bigger things. We were so excited that the thought of what my parents might say was far removed from our minds. Sometime later, when we were halfway through, I heard stirring in my parents bedroom. My mother came out and turned on the lights. We had been caught red handed! Thinking back to it now, who else would it have been? Who would break into our house, unwrap only the presents to my sister and I and leave? Mom was not happy. She did a little bit of yelling. I kept thinking to myself... Hey, hey, hey - Take it easy Mom. This is Christmas. We get yelled at every other day of the year. We don't need this now. This is the most wonderful day of the year and you're ruining it by yelling at us. It was obvious that she was not thinking along the same lines that I was because she sent us to our rooms. How could she send us to our rooms? For God's sake woman - it's Christmas! Anyway, we laid in our beds, wide awake, until she came and got us an hour and a half later. All my dad said was "What did you do that for?"

Okay, one other quick story. One year my sister and I begged for ten speeds. All autumn long, we kept bugging my mom and she would say "Ask Santa". Finally, Christmas Day arrives. We run out to the tree and there they are! New ten speed bicycles! Although, wait a minute! What's this? Why would Santa do this to us? These bikes are hideous looking! Disgusting yellow in color. Who in their right mind would paint a bike canary yellow? Sis and I were not happy. Now, you have to realize that the only lighting was the blinking colored lights from the tree. My sister and I sat in silence for the next 45 minutes, waiting for mom and dad to get up. We were trying to decide on how to tell them that they needed to take the bikes back and get us a different color. Mom came out first and turned the lights on and we couldn't believe our eyes! The bike were really red. Don't ask me how but the lights on the tree had distorted the color on the bikes. How they went from red to canary yellow is beyond me. My sister and I were, at times, ungrateful little shits.

What have you been doing?

Where did the last week of my life go? I find myself asking this more often then not. Not specifically referring to last week, but to time in general. Things get so crazy sometimes. You spend all of your youth wanting to grow up and once you get there you long for the life you had with no responsibilities. I know, I know, it's just a fact of life you say. True, it is. I often wonder how many other people out there have a life that parallels mine. I will be poking along, taking care of all the things I need to do then BAM! I have more things thrown at me than I can handle. Now, to be honest, I bring most of it on myself and furthermore you would think by this point in my life that I would have learned how to properly manage my time. I wonder if I'll ever learn to just say "no".

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the wife's family. We were in charge of bringing butternut squash. I'm no fan of squash and have never cared for the way it has been prepared in the past, so this year I decided to "kick it up a notch" and buck the trend. The traditional way to cook butternut squash is to halve it and cook it till tender. Then scoop it out and beat it like mashed potatoes. You can add some spices and maybe some brown sugar to liven it up, but it just doesn't do it for me. We found a recipe that cube's the raw squash and saute' it with shallots. You then add chicken stock, brown sugar, various spices and cook it for about ten minutes. At the end you add some balsamic vinegar and pepper it for taste. In theory it sounds fairly easy but, have you ever tried to cut raw butternut squash? It's not an easy task by any means. To top it off, we had to make it for fifty people. Now, we didn't know how much to make. We guessed at 24 servings and there was over half of it left over. Either there was so much food that everyone took a smidgen or it tasted like crap. The wife had to remind me that it was squash... who goes back for seconds, for squash? I'd like also to talk about the wonders of sugar and butter. If you add enough of either ingredient or both, you can make any dish edible. Case in point - sweet potatoes. I have never cared for them. To me there is nothing "sweet" about them. One of the wife's cousins prepared a dish with sweet potatoes and tons of butter and sugars. It was topped with some crusty combobilation of pecans, brown sugar and something else crunchy. It was served as a side dish, but I went back to it at dessert time. It was heaven! So tasty! I think that the sweet potatoes really are used as a filler for the recipe because their original flavor was no where to be found - thank god. The fried turkeys were a hit with the Cubans. One of the turkeys was consumed before it was completely carved. Vultures.

I spent the better part of last week finishing up a contracting job and then spent the rest of the time working on our siding project. The gang came over yesterday (Sunday) and then today, two of the cousins came over in the early afternoon. We finished tonight. Well, I wouldn't say we are finished but, the installation is for the most part complete. There is a two foot wide section on the back corner behind the chimney that need to be done. I can handle that on my own in about a day. The front around the door has yet to be finished - we haven't decided on the material to be used yet. I have some trim work to take care of around the garage door and under the overhangs. Then, the whole house needs to be caulked and painted. So, it's far from finished, but the battle of the installation is over. Check that off the list.

Monday morning...

Ahhh yessss.... It's Monday morning. I'm drinking a strong cup of coffee while the boy is watching his daily dose of Sesame Street. I finished "A Walk in the Woods" Saturday evening. It was a good book but, I did envision a much different ending. Without giving away anything to any prospective readers of the book, I will say that I am more than impressed with Bill and Katz's accomplishments - as it relates to the trail. I've been perusing the various websites on the AT and have found them very interesting. I've specifically been studying the Georgia section and realized that there are close to 100 miles from the trail head to the North Carolina border. My thoughts have been to try a few day hikes and see how I like it. I really haven't been hiking since my days in Wellsboro and I never did anything more than day hikes. Of course I've been having grand thoughts of being a thru-hiker, but they are just dreams in my head. Wouldn't it be great to say that you walked the whole trail? I'm finding, that since I've been a part-timer, that I've had more time to think of other things to accompish besides work.
It's going to be a busy week. The wife is off for the week starting tomorrow and I'm going to take advantage of that. I will probably work on one of my contracting jobs one day this week and then devote the rest of the time to my own project here at home. One of the wife's cousins is coming in from Orlando and wants to take the boy for the day on Wednesday - we said, "Have at it!" Wednesday evening the family is having our annual injection party. No, it's not drug related. We inject the turkeys with spices to marinate over night before we fry them. The wife's uncle is in charge of frying and has, at times, fried up to 16 turkeys on Thanksgiving day for family/friends. Usually, there is one traditionally cooked turkey and one fried to feed our family, but this year we are going to experience the "Cuban Invasion". There are going to be over fifty people at Thanksgiving this year! All the relatives from Miami are coming and they've decided to fry four turkeys for us alone. I can't wait... what a feast it's going to be. I can taste it now... mmmmm. It's quite an experience walking into the wife's Aunt and Uncle's house on Thanksgiving Day. You can hear the noise as soon as you get out of the car. The laughing and cackeling. You walk in and spend the next half hour greeting, hugging and kissing everyone while they are talking to you in spanish. I do a lot of head nodding and laughing. I haven't got the slightest idea what they are saying. I usually retreat to the back deck where the beverages are kept. I will find the wife's cousins from her mother's side, who are New Englanders, and spend the day with them, because we can actually communicate. It's a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to the festivities.

Karma

It was a beautiful day in this part of the world. Sunny skies in the upper 50's. As far as the project is concerned, I'm on my own this weekend. The family had conflicting plans, but we're on for next week. I decided to get started on the right side. I worked about half of a day yesterday pulling off the aluminum and I installed a few sheets of plywood before it got dark. Today I continued with the plywood. I'm only lacking a few sheets and that part will be done. I'm going to finish tomorrow with getting the house wrap installed - that way it'll be sealed up in case it rains before next weekend. This side is taking longer for a number of reasons. Number one, I'm working alone. Then you have the fact that all the utilities come in the house on this side. The phone, electric, tv cables and some networking cables that I had run for various rooms in the house. I ended up cutting channels in the brown board and concealed all the wiring. It's going to be very "clean" now. The other thing that has been slowing me down is a couple of bushes that are around six feet tall. The branches were everywhere that I needed to be.

I went out last night with my wife's cousin. Usually once a month he and I partake in some alcoholic beverages at a pub called the "Dunwoody Tavern". It's a typical bar, but the atomosphere is agreeable to us. We sit around and talk like two old women. Last nights conversation centered around his purchase of a new Toyota Tundra. He's been talking about this for some time and finally decided to do it. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous... it's a beaut. It's a black four door with grey leather interior and an awesome tire/aluminum wheel package. Now, here's a funny little thing that happened after we left the pub. We decided to go back to his house because, he had some food he wanted to give the wife and I. He works for a specialty food company that sells to various markets here in Atlanta. His biggest account is Whole Foods. He constantly has a garage full of food and we're not talking about cheap junk. We get to his house and he fills box after box for us and as we're getting ready to leave he says he has two five gallon buckets of paint that he wants to get rid of. The paint was left in the house when he bought it. There is so much construction going on we decided we would hit a site and throw it in a dumpster. We throw the buckets in the back and head out. I'm thinking we're just going to go a few miles and find a place to dump it. We're heading down some back roads and I hear the buckets bouncing off the sides of the bed. I say "Take it easy, this is a brand new truck". I'm thinking to myself that there is going to be dents and scratches all over the place. Well, after five or more miles we find a deserted site. It was a future home of a Wachovia Bank. We pulled into the parking lot next to the dumpster and I jump out. I get to the back of the truck and am horrified to see that there is paint EVERYWHERE! White on black. I yell to him to get out and take a look. He had a few choice words and said "What do we do now?" Fortunately, we were only a few miles away from my house and it was cold out. There was no way that the paint was going to cure in that weather. When we arrived at my house he got the hose out and started spraying and luckily it just washed away. What a Jackass.

Blogger Boogs

I changed over to Beta and now my script for "Recent Posts, Archives, and Links" are messed up. I don't even know what Beta means. It took me hours the other evening just to get links on my blog. My template didn't have them so some how I found out how to install after messing with it. Now this. Damn Mo Fo's!

I tell ya... it's a bunch of scrap!

I took another truck load of aluminum siding to the scrap yard today. I'm thinking that I will have to make just one more trip after next weekend. We're going to make the final push this coming Saturday and Sunday to complete the installation part of the project. We received a letter today from the homeowners association concerning our lack of "approval" from the architecture committee. My wife had inquired at the front office before we even started the project as to the neccesary requirements. The very woman that sent the letter today told my wife that replacement of siding didn't need to be presented before the committee. However, she did inform my wife that we needed to have the paint colors approved, which we had intended to have done from the beginning. She basically told us to stop work until the paint colors are discussed. I wrote her an email immediately, explaining what she had expressed to my wife and that we would be continuing on with the project to finish it. I also reassured her that we would get the committee's approval before painting. As an extra, I sent her two photo's of the front of the house - before and after. I explained that the differences in looks at this point are minimal and that the changes will come after it's painted. I'm not upset with the woman - she's got a job to do. The various committee's throughout the neighborhood are, in fact, looking out for everyone's best interest. It hasn't been our first letter and it certainly won't be our last.
The same thing happened some years ago right after we moved in. We wanted to take down some pine trees that were right next to the house. As most people know, pines are dangerous. Pine are brittle and their root system is shallow. Again, the wife made the neccesary phone calls and a committee member actually came out and approved the removal of various trees we were concerned about. He marked them with ribbons. About three weeks later we had a company removing the trees when a gentleman, in his car, came to a screeching halt in the middle of the street. He jumped out and came running towards us all the while screaming "Quit cutting!" I asked the wife "Who in the Hell is that?", she responded "That's the idiot that approved the removal." She led him back out into the street and told him that he, himself had given his approval. He told her that he didn't remember. She in turn showed him the ribbons still on the logs laying on the ground. He sheepishly got back in his car and took off. You know what the problem is here? Well, I'll tell you... nothing is written down. Everything is verbal. We are slowly learning that we need to get everything in writing from the HOA.
On another subject, the wife and I saw "Borat" on Saturday night. Without hurting anyone's feelings I'd like to say that while I laughed at different scenes, I didn't think it was "all that". I don't know, I guess my expectations of laughing nonstop for an hour and a half were a little unrealistic. The wife said it best "It was just to over the top for us". I guess that means I'm an old f*ck. After the movie we ventured over to Barnes and Nobles, grabbed a cup o' joe and spent a few hours browsing. I bought the boy a book on going peepee and poopy on the potty. I asked a woman if she could direct me to the section of books on going to the bathroom, preferably with well known characters and she gave me a blank stare. Actually, she looked a little repulsed. Finally, after an awkward moment or two and more of an explanation from me, a light bulb went off in her head. She took me over to three shelves, full of books with characters guaranteed to magically make my kid go poop in the potty. I settled on Caliou as the boy really seems to like that show. I then searched for books on hiking the Appalachian Trail. I found a number of factual books but I kept coming back to a book I had seen a number of times before. It's called "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson. It's a humorous look at the author's hike from Georgia to Maine. I'm about 70 pages in and I like it. I've been thinking lately about the trail because the start of it is a mere 5 miles from Amicalola Falls. It's the same park that we took the boy to a few weeks ago when we went to the pumpkin farm. From what I gather Bill started his hike in March '96. The book has been out for quite a while so, many of you may know about it already. I'm a little slow about these things, like I've said in my profile - I'm an occasional reader.
Let's see, what else? I worked on the front of the house, around the door, on Sunday. Today, I went to the scrap yard, took the boy to the doctor and then took him to the park. The doctor's visit was for the boy's lingering smoker's cough. He hasn't exhibited any signs of sickness in the last week and a half with exception of the cough. The doctor said it was just lingering effects of previous colds and it will eventually go away. He did get a flu shot that he wasn't expecting, but was happy with the bandaid that was provided to cover his wound.

Taking a break, but still working.

We've decided to take a break this weekend from the siding. I've got a house that I've been working on that is closing at the end of the month and I need to focus on that for the next week. I had the fixture package delivered today and I have decided to work there tomorrow. I took the boy out to said house today because I needed to meet the lighting company. The house is approximately 5500 sq. ft with a full basement that is unfinished. He had a ball running around - inside and out. I found him in the rear of the house studying some ladybugs. I am always amazed at what kids find fascinating. As adults, we don't give bugs a second thought... usually, they're "pests" to us. There's always a new learning experience for kids.

Civic Doody

I voted this evening. It couldn't be any easier for my lazy butt. Our precinct is located around the corner in our neighborhood elementary school. I was listening to Sean Hannity on the way home from work. He was blabbering on and on about voting machines not working and voters being denied and turned away unjustly. A few thoughts came to mind. Number one was, why can't a reliable voting machine be built? We can send a man to the moon forty some odd years ago and we can't build a simple voting machine. It's not like the machine has to clean the house or even figure out the square root of 3006775. All it has to do is display the candidates and tally the votes... it can't be that hard - can it? The second thought has to do with the candidates that felt the need to bombard our house with phone calls. All last week, in the evening, it was never ending. I would come home after work and find 4 messages from some guy telling me that old Sonny Perdue was a crook and that I needed to vote for Guy Smiley. It was funny that today I took the boy to school and when I came back home there were 3 messages in the span of twenty minutes telling me to get out and vote today. When will the politicians realize that the "mud slinging" and endless phone calls/mailers do nothing more than piss me off. Talk about the issues you damn educated idiots!

More of the same.

This was taken mid morning on Sunday. We accomplished what we set out to do, which was finishing the front and working on the left hand side. That's me with the blue hat, the wife's cousin to the right of me and the other wife's cousin down below cutting the siding.



I took this photo this morning. We are still debating on what to do around the door. One thing that we're going to do is lower the light. It was too high before. Hardiplank makes a product that is in the shape of cedar shakes that we are considering. My contractor friend came by on Friday and I picked his brain for ideas. He suggested stacked stone, with an inlay of sorts - possibly round or half moon shape. We just don't know what to do with it. We also need to work on paint colors. The Hardiplank comes with a primer already installed and the wife actually likes that color. The Homeowners Association has an approved colors book for us to look at so we need to make a decision on that. The photo also shows a pile of aluminum siding laying in the grass. Last Monday I took my first load of the siding to the recyclers. They are paying 50 cents a pound and I had 180 pounds. We will have approximately 3 more truck loads to get rid of so it's working out well... the scrap money is covering our costs for all the food that we're providing our worker bee's. Speaking of which, we had a feast yesterday evening - surf and turf. The wife's Aunt and Uncle returned from their trip at the beach with fresh shrimp and grouper. It was delicious! We had all sorts of seafood delights. The menu consisted of clam chowder, three kinds of dip - clam, shrimp and fish, shrimp, steak, grouper with bruschetta, corn on the cob and salad. There was so much food we didn't even get to the dessert of apple pie and ice cream. It was the perfect ending to an exhausting weekend.

Progress... slow but sure.

This is what our house looked like in mid July. As you can tell it is a typical house built in the late 70's. The siding was aluminum with minimal trim. The reveal on the siding was only 4" which gave it a very dated look. The paint was the original and we made the mistake of pressure washing it after this photo was taken. It looked horrible! A few years back we had a contractor friend of mine replace the back deck and while he was at it we replaced the siding in the rear because it was in such poor shape. (aluminum dents easily). Finally we have decided to do the remaining ourselves.
The second and third photo were taken yesterday morning (Friday). This is what the neighbors saw for most of this last week. This is the left side and front with the aluminum removed, 1/2 inch plywood installed over the brown flake board and then house wrap stapled over the plywood. You can tell in the third photo that the lower part of the front is done but, the top half has not been touched. My wife's cousin came over and helped me all day yesterday to complete the front so that today we could start on the actual siding... it's all in the preparation!

This last picture shows the wife's two cousins slaving away while she supervises on the right. This was late in the afternoon today. We installed the trim and drip cap on the bottom and corners. Then we trimmed out the windows with brick mold. After all of that the actual siding can be seen installed. The wife's two cousins along with her mother (she watched the boy and made dinner) were invaluable today. Without them we certainly would not be where we are with this project. Tomorrow we are really going to push to have the front done and try to see if we can get a few more pieces put up on the left hand side.


We are seeking energetic able-bodied workers. If you aren't doing anything on Sunday and you have just been dying to help install siding - COME ON BY! Tomorrow it's all you can eat Shrimp!

No title

I woke up early this morning thinking about the days work that lies before me. The wife took the day off so we could have three solid days of working on our siding project. Luckily, no rain is in the forecast. I'm trying to fomulate a game plan into completing the most amount of work in the least amount of time. Today, I'll be working alone for the most part. The wife's cousin may come over this afternoon depending on how his day goes. On Saturday and Sunday the whole gang will be back to help. The wife's Aunt and Uncle are returning from their stay at their beach condo in St. Augustine with a carload of fresh shrimp for dinner on Sunday - that will be a treat to look forward to.

Thanksgiving is only three weeks away. With this current project and the holidays approaching, it's going to be an extremely busy end to the year 2006. My holidays, now in the present time, are so different from the days of my youth. For starters, I'm not a kid anymore. Then there's the fact that I don't live in northern Pennsylvania with my parents. My wife's relatives are all about family. Coming from Cuba, it's their culture. Not to say that my family was not but, it was just different. I'm so wishy washy - for so much of my life I wanted things to stay the same but, at the same time I embraced the change. The funny thing now that we have a child is that we have our own ideas, our own traditions, our own way of doing things. Is it normal for a man to just assimilate into his spouses family? I mean sure, I miss my family. I do have great memories of the times we had, especially at the holidays. I don't know, it's so different now. My wifes family - is my family too.

For some reason this morning my I'm having a hard time trying to formulate my thoughts - this is not uncommon for me. I'm like my Grandfather in that respect. His mind always raced at 150 mph while his tongue was in a school zone. So, if you can't follow what I've written above, don't worry, you're not alone.

To put it straight out there - I'm looking forward to the holidays.

Halloween

It took some effort but, the boy went trick or treating last night. He didn't want to wear his costume, a giraffe that Grandma had purchased for him. At school yesterday they had a Halloween party and a parade in the parish center for all the kids. Evidently, per the teacher, it took some doing to get his costume on. He just didn't like it. I don't think it was so much it being a giraffe... it had to do with the giraffe's head being in the hood and the long sleeves. The boy has had a problem lately with pants and long sleeve shirts. He has gone the whole summer with shorts and t-shirts and now it seems he doesn't like the restrictive feeling of fall/winter clothing. The costume was basically a furry set of pajamas with a tail and a head/hood. We begged and pleaded with him to put it on and he wanted nothing to do with it. Finally, when the kids started coming to the door he got excited and wanted to go out. We just got his costume on when another group of kids came to the door. Before we knew it he was out the door following the kids to go to the next house. The wife ran after him and met up with some neighbors and walked around with them and their kids. She came back about twenty minutes later and then I took him for a little while. He was insistent on carrying his own pumpkin filled with candy and walking on his own to each house. He kept telling the other kids how he had a pumpkin with candy and "Happy Halloween Kids". We went to five or six houses and then returned home. He was excited about all the candy but, exhausted from the day of fun.