I'll be able to buy that new Rubicon Jeep when....

Hey Little Girl....

...you want some candy ??

So Depressed...

I went to vote this morning. There were 9 positions up for election. The most depressing thing was that only two of the positions had anyone running in opposition to the encumbant. Where has the democratic process gone to?

Practice Your ABCs

Damn Right !

I think this is taking things a bit too far....

Water gun drawing = day of vacation for 2nd grader

The graphite was threatening my child.... Oh, the horror !!!!

Someone out there should have a good title for this one, but it escapes me at the moment.

The Achromatic Man Group ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey

Now You Know Why My Wife Loves Me So...

Just Plain Wrong!!!!

HillaryBilly

Busted Ankle

I got these nice bruises from spraining my ankle the other day. I guess this will delay my shed move a few days/weeks...

Inside of ankle


Outside of ankle

Outside shot of ankle

Change of Plans

In my quest to do good and be honest, I have run into a snag. As I was filling out the paperwork for obtaining a building permit for my new shed project I called the county building permit office and inquired as to what the setback requirements were for my property. According to the county (Hanover County, VA) planning/zoning commission, my shed needs to be 25 feet from the property line. As it stands now, I have 17 feet from the property line to the intended back of the shed, where the cinder block is embedded in cement.

There are a few things that I could do to rectify the situation: 1) Move the shed forward 8 feet, or 2) move my existing 12x12 shed to this spot and move it 4 feet forward, and build the new shed where the old one was, or 3) apply to the planning commission for a variance to allow my new shed to be less than 25 feet from the property line.

I asked the planning commission to send me the packet for applying for a variance. After reading over the process (the process was going to take several months) I was about to apply for the variance until I got to the last page, fees. To apply for the variance was going to cost $600 and certainly did not guarantee that your variance would be granted. I decided that it was not worth going that route.

I could simply build a 12x12 shed and move it 4 feet further forward but I really wanted a 12x16 shed.

So that leaves me with the last idea, move the existing shed to the site I just spent $400 clearing (rental of the backhoe) and building the new shed where the old one is now. There are no setback rules that would affect me where the existing shed is sitting, so that's a good thing.

Next post here will be the steps it takes to move a 12x12 shed from its old location to its new location. A move of about 75 feet or so.

Before I do that, I will need to do a little bit of additional work to get things ready. First, I will need to place 2 more cinder blocks 4 feet further forward where I had intended to build the new shed, as seen in the videos below. This will be the base for the existing shed once its moved there. Next, I will need to get some schedule 80 PVC pipe 4 inches in diameter to use as rollers under the shed while I move it. Then get all the stuff out of the shed, jack it up and put the rollers under it and drag it to its new spot. I have a winch on the front of my truck that should make this a bit easier.

More video to come....

Its worth the extra money...

What the hell is it going to look like...??

This is a look at the end towards the house. The upper part (the Loft) will have about 7 feet of headroom. Total height of the structure will be about 16 feet from bottom to top. I think I am going to modify the bottom door a bit so that it is off-center and 5 feet wide, using two sections. That way I can get the riding lawn mower inside if I need to.

How to build a shed, part 3, the foundation, final

Here I show the layout of all the blocks for the foundation. There are a total of 6 blocks, all set in place with cement, and leveled with a level and my new toy, the Stanley FatMax SP1X.

How to build a shed, part 3, the foundation

Here I pour cement around two of the blocks that will comprise the four corners of my new shed. The dimension of the shed will be 15 feet 10 inches, by 11 feet 10 inches. I am not making the shed 16 x 12 for a reason. I will explain that later as the siding goes up.

Plumb Bob, Square Plans

How do you know if your shed is going to be a rectangle or a Rhombus ??

Attention Shoppers !!! New Gadget Alert !! Proceed With Caution !!

Stanley FatMax Laser Level. A bit hard to see the "line" mode image but very visible when in single point mode. Sweet!

Recently Seen Slogan

Together We Can "Do It" Yourself.

 

What ??

 

http://www.jspurcell.com/

How to build a shed, part 2

Today is "back hoe" day. I dig out the two stumps from the two trees I cut down. Then I level out the area and ensure that water will drain off the area properly.

How to build a shed, part 1

Here I will show you the progress on my new 12x16 shed that is going up next to my house. This is part 1, site clearing. The next post will be site grading WITH A FREAKIN BACKHOE!! I can't wait to see the damage that I cause using that thing!!

I don't think this is a strange request, do you ??

GEICO is EVERYWHERE !!!

Recent trip to a Chinese Restaurant.  Yes I know, I do hate chinese food, but Dawn was paying....

The Birds and the Bees

A father asked his 10-year old son if he knew about the birds and the bees.

"I don't want to know," the child said, bursting into tears. "Promise me
you won't tell me."

Confused, the father asked what was wrong.

The boy sobbed, "When I was six, I got the 'There's no Easter Bunny'
speech.
At seven, I got the 'There's no Tooth Fairy' speech.
When I was eight, you hit me with the 'There's no Santa' speech.
If you're going to tell me that grown-ups don't really get laid, I'll have
nothing left to live for."

The two people I'd most like to hang out with in a bar

Anthony Bourdain Online
Les Stroud Online

More of the same...

Goofing off in Seattle at the AREVA DTS User's Group

Cold One

Then it's OK not to pay my bill this month...??

Sorry, We are closed for repairs

My Son's Art Project -or- Why He Almost Didn't Make It To His 3rd Birthday

Most of my trials and tribulations occur far from home on vacation, hence the title of my Blog. This tale is a bit closer to home. In our driveway actually.

I was out in the front yard washing Dawn's VW Jetta and Dillon was wandering around the yard playing. We once had a reflector, mounted on a 3 foot fiberglass rod, that was driven into the ground at the end of our driveway. This reflector was used to mark the edge of the driveway where it met the main subdivision road. There is a culvert there and it is very hard to see where it meets the driveway at night when you are backing out of the driveway. Also, it drops down quite quickly and deeply so you don't want to get your wheel stuck in there. The kids kept pulling the rod out of the the ground and using it as a sword as they played in the yard, so eventually the reflector got broken off and the rod was now a permanent 3 foot long "sword".

As I was washing the car, Dillon was talking and playing in the front yard with me and I could hear him walking around our cars. We have 3 vehicles. A 1995 Ford Ranger 4x4, a 2002 VW Jetta Diesel, and a 2004 Ford Explorer. I got to a break in washing and was wondering where Dillon was because he was so quiet. He was 2 and a half at this time. I walked around to the other side of my truck and found Dillon making a beautiful picture using the fiberglass rod IN THE PAINT ON THE SIDE OF MY TRUCK !!!!

Aaaaarrrrrrhhhhhh!!! I completely lost control. As I walked around the truck I discovered that his "art" work went all the way around the truck and no panel on the truck was spared. I had scratched paint ALL THE WAY AROUND!!! The truck is red and the scratches went all the way thru the paint and the primer was showing thru white so the "art" work was CLEARLY visible.

Here is just 3 pictures of the truck after it got turned into an "art" project.

Here is the passenger side door (click for larger image):


Here is the rear of the passenger side front fender:


And here is the front part of the passenger side front fender:


The other panels of the truck looked similar.

The estimate for getting the truck repainted was around $1600 dollars.

Gotta love kids....

I had comprehensive coverage on my truck so I thought that it might be covered but I was highly doubtful. I called the insurance company the next day after my blood pressure returned to 145/98. I called and said that I wanted to submit a claim on my insurance. Here is how the conversation went:

Me: I want to file a claim.
Ins. Company: What type of claim? Fire, auto, theft?
Me: Auto
IC: Was it an accident?
Me: No.
IC: What type of claim then?
Me: Vandalism.
IC: Really? Do you know who did it?
Me: Yes.
IC: Did you file a police report?
Me: No, do I need to?
IC: Well I'm not sure, but usually we require one. What happened?
Me: My truck got the paint scratched up on every side of it.
IC: Oh my. You said that you knew who did it. Who was it.
Me: My 2 year old.
IC: (there was complete silence on the phone for about 5 seconds, then.... a burst of laughter that lasted a good minute long). After she calmed down and regained her composure she said that she completely understood and that I would need to get an estimate of the damages.

It turned out to be less damaged than what I first feared. It ended up being that just the clear coat over the paint was scratched, and that is what the white lines on the truck were. Once the scratches were buffed out, the paint was fine and it did not require a new paint job. The total repair bill was around $300 which the insurance company paid for and DILLON GOT TO REACH HIS THIRD BIRTHDAY !!!!

I took the fiberglass rod to the dump the next day.

Monster Spider

Another joy of living in the country.  This was in my bathroom when I got up to pee one morning...

 

The Bloody Amusement Park ...

Whatever you do, don't go to DisneyWorld in August. The heat and Humidity are oppressive, to say the least. This adventure has us in this very place in August of 2005.

We are out and about in Disney seeing the attractions and riding the rides. We smartly opted to get the 2 place kiddy cart so that we didn't have to hear the kids say "can we go back to the hotel now?" after a mere hour in the park and spending BOATLOADS of cash for entry into the park. This turns out to be a good choice since we manage to get thru most of the day without too many such complaints. As the day progresses into afternoon the inevitable thunder storm cropped up as is typical of central Florida "The Lightning Capital Of America". Don't belive me, see This Link.

As the rain set in we huddled under the entrance way to one of the gazillion gift shops in the park and waited for the lighting and rain to ease up a bit. The lightning moved on but the storm looked as if it was going to stay awhile. Dawn thought it would be a good idea to go and buy a few rain ponchos for everyone to wear so we could stay a bit drier and we could move on to other attractions. I stayed in the alley way leading to a set of bathrooms while Dawn went shopping for the rain gear.

Dillon was standing up on the front of the double kid cart/stroller thingy and Dana was still sitting down inside. I was standing close by the cart but not particulary paying attention to what the two of them were doing. I suppose that Dillon was making Dana angry by standing on the front of the cart and was maybe stepping on her feet and he moved about fidgiting. She decided she had had enough and pushed Dillon off the front of the cart with her feet. He was standing on the cart with his back to her at the time so he was facing away from the cart when he fell forward. There just happened to be a concrete statue of a Disney character about 2 or 3 feet away from the cart and this is where Dillon landed, face first.

He started to scream immediately and my attention was drawn to him instantly. When he got up off the ground he was bleeding from his lower lip quite badly. I think it is just the nature of inner mouth injuries to bleed inversely proportionally to the actual damage done. It looked as thought his tooth had cut the inside of his lower lip and since he had his mouth open screaming, blood was everywhere and at first I thought that the cut was on the outside. Instinctively I picked him up and held him in my arms to comfort him and to get a better assesment of the bleeding. Here is where I start to get bloody. Blood is running out of his mouth along with a fair amount of drool while I comfort him and at about this time Dawn gets back with 4 ponchos. Her first words: "What did you DO TO HIM!!!???". I explained the situation and we went to seek a first aid station with me still carrying Dillon in my arms.

We find a first aid station not too far away and Dillon is still a bit upset and crying. Below is a picture of him as we try to get a better look at his lip in the first aid station. Notice the drop of blood on the arm of his sleeve. Most of the blood does not show up on his navy blue shirt.


After a bit of calming by Dawn, the nurse on duty was able to see that the injury was not anything to be worried about but wanted Dillon to be seen by a local Dentist just to be sure that no permanent damage was done to his teeth. With the major trauma over with, the nurse took one look at me in my once white tee shirt now covered in blood and thought it would be a good idea to clean the shirt before I went off to visit more of the park. I guess it would not make a good impression of the park to see one of the guests covered in blood...


Ok, well not that bad, but we had to do something. The Nurse got out the peroxide and took a whack at cleaning up the blood but there was just too much for the peroxide to handle. She decided that she should just get me a new tee shirt and send us on our way. So, I got a brand new Disney tee shirt out of the deal! Dillon was seen by the dentist the next day and everything turned out OK other than the big fat lip he had for several more days. Later on, as we were trying to figure out just how he fell off the cart, Dana confessed to shoving him with her feet....

Something Smells Phishy

"Please enter your notes password."

"Warning: This is not a prompt for your Notes password."

Then what the hell is it?

The Chin Implant....

This story has us returning to the same trip that "The 'Arm' Incident..." took place. This happened just a few days after arriving in Arizona as we were returning from dinner one night at Tommy Bahamas

The family was walking home from the restaurant, and we were on the Westin property where we were staying for the week. Dana was to my left, Dawn and Dillon were on my right as we walked down the sidewalk. We came upon an intersection in the sidewalk where we could either keep walking straight or we could turn right. I was planning to continue straight. Dana, whom was still on my left side, thought we were going to turn right. At this point she was about a half step in front of me and when she turned to walk right, she tripped over my foot as I stepped forward to continue walking straight. Is all this making sense? Basically she crossed in front of me and I accidently tripped her.

She fell forward and landed face down on the sidewalk. When she hit, I heard a cracking sound and thought that she might have hit her nose or forehead on the sidewalk. She immediatly started crying and was very slow to lift her head up from the sidewalk. As soon as I saw her raise her head there was already a bit of blood on the ground and I knew we were in trouble. At this point I was still behind her so I could not quite see what had happened but instinctively I placed my right palm under her chin and felt blood all over her face. Remember the "Arm" incident from my previous post? That kept me from using my left arm. Then as she started to stand up she started coughing and trying to spit something out of her mouth. It was more blood and pieces of something. I still had my hand under her chin because I realized that it was her chin that was bleeding, not her nose or her forehead. When I looked at what was in her mouth I found out that it was pieces of a broken tooth! Now I was thinking that she may have broken her jaw... Her chin was bleeding quit a bit and she had a rather long, 2 inch or so, cut on the underside of her chin.

We hurridly walked, with my hand still under her chin to suppress the bleeding, into the lobby of the hotel and asked the desk clerk to call an ambulance. He suggested that we call the house doctor that was on the property and we agreed. By now, we were covered in blood and I wonder what the other hotel guests were thinking? I had been keeping pressure on her open cut for about 10 minutes and it was finally starting to coagulate enough that I could get a better look at the cut in the light of the lobby. It didn't seem to be too bad but it would definitely need stitches. The house doctor came rolling up, yes that's right, rolling up on a Segway. Cool!! He had his doctor's bag strapped to the front of the thing and within minutes had a bandage affixed to Dana's chin and was giving up directions to Paradise Valley Hospital.

The interesting thing was that the doctor admitted than the wound needed to be closed surgically but he noted that Dana might stand the treatment better and would perhaps heal more aesthetically if he used "SuperGlue" to close the wound. We debated the issue and agreed that since the cut was near the front edge of the lower side of her chin that it would be better to use the "glue" treatment. This only took about 2 minutes to apply the glue and wait for it to sufficiently harden.

It healed very nicely but the ER doc never found where the pieces of the tooth came from. When we returned home, our local dentist found, and pulled, the cracked tooth as it was a baby tooth and she would loose it eventually anyway.

Here is a picture Dana in the hot tub keeping her chin above water, like the doctor told her, the next day. You can "barely" see the cut under her chin.

Country Living

The "Fringe Benefit" of living in the country. You get to see lots of
wildlife, up close and personal. This was right beside our front door when
I got home from work one day.

Tangier Island: Not So Inbred After All

Here are a few pics from my trip to Tangier Island in the upper part of the Chesapeake Bay. Thanks, Don!

This is your captain speaking. Welcome to "Virgin Chesapeake" airlines. Please secure your window latches and your seatbelts as we begin our ascent to 3000 feet. You are allowed as much luggage as the plane can get off the ground. Please feel free to bring along your favorite zippo and machete. You never know how the natives will receive you once we arrive at our destination.

Looking at "Downtown" Tangier as Don jockies the plane around on the downwind leg.

And here we are on final approach to Tangier Island. Notice, at the end of the video clip, the amount of grass in the parking area. We were mowing the grass with the prop. You see the guy in the golf cart? He is the entire airport workforce. He is the tower controller (with a hand held radio), he is the ground attendant, and he is the fee collector for parking at the field.

Too many kids...

Husband and wife are waiting at the bus stop with their nine children. A blind man joins them after a few minutes. When the bus arrives, they find it overloaded and only the wife and the nine kids are able to fit onto the bus.

So the husband and the blind man decide to walk. After a while, the husband gets irritated by the ticking of the stick of the blind man as he taps it on the sidewalk, and says to him, "Why don't you put a piece of rubber at the end of your stick? That ticking sound is driving me crazy."

The blind man replies, "If you would've put a rubber at the end of YOUR stick, we'd be riding the bus, so shut the hell up."

Well I'll be darned...

That eBay thingy works. My prop sold in just a couple of days for just $8 less than what I paid for it brand new. Sweet!

Well, I dun did it now....

My first EBay listing: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/4-Blade-alum-prop-14-x21-pitch-Solas-mercruiser-RH-LN_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ26456QQihZ014QQitemZ330158765768QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

I'll let ya know how it turns out. Anyone need a boat prop?

The "Arm" Incident...

Stardate 4/1/2005. Coordinates: 37.51.321N, 77.44.415W.
Dawn says: "We are leaving for vacation tomorrow so go take the trash out, I don't want that in the house when we get back in a week, It'll smell to high heavens". She was right, but I'm male, so I resisted. I countered: "Can't we just leave it in the outside trash can until we get back, it won't stink up the house out there?". No.

So off to the trash I go with the trash to the local dump. For those of you that are more suburban than us rural folk, we have to take the trash to the local community dump, no one comes and picks up our trash.

Dawn is off taking Dana to Brownies and she had Dillon along too. So I'm at the dump with the big 50 gallon trash can in the back of the Ranger 4x4. Instead of opening the tailgate and sliding the can out the back I decide to just lift the can out from the side. I put my right hand at the top of the can and my left hand at the bottom, arm straight out. I then lift the rather heavy can up mostly with my left arm and just guiding with the right arm and I feel this rather odd sensation run up my left arm. It was kinda like hitting my funnybone on something, not all that painful but somewhat uncomforatable. I put the can down on the ground (I actually got it out of the truck) and stood around shaking my arm for a few seconds trying to figure out what just happened. I then picked up the trash can and dumped it and put it back into the back of the pickup. It was then that I started to notice something strange...

When I raised my left arm as to flex my bicep muscle, I had no bicep anymore. It was gone! Or rather, I should say, it was misplaced! Instead of being centered between my shoulder and my elbow it was more like 1/4 then way from my shoulder. Furthermore, as I held my arm at a 90 degree angle and tighened my bicep, the muscle did not raise up in height as you would expect, but rather the skin around the elbow just looked like someone was pulling it towards my shoulder from the inside. It was really freaking me out. I tried to call Dawn on the cell phone but she did not have it on so I drove home to see if she was home. She was not but I got in touch with her via cell phone and told her that I needed to get to the hospital because something had gone horribly wrong.

Did I mention that we were about to go on vacation? We were headed to Scottsdale AZ for a vacation during our 6 yr. old daughter's spring break from school. We were suppose to catch a flight out of Baltimore, MD on Saturday at around 6 AM and it was now around 6 PM on Friday afternoon. Well it looks like we are going to have to cancel our vacation....

I head to the hospital while Dawn heads home to get the rest of the packing done and to get the kids to bed.

I get the the hospital and wait for a while, then get moved to a bed in the ER. It's now around 10 PM. More waiting and waiting and the attending doc sees me and I explain what had happened and he thinks that its just a bad tear in the ligament but he needs some xrays to futher diagnose the injury. More waiting. All this time I am amazed that it is so painless. Really. It is just a bit sore and I still have full use of the arm. I can lift things, I can pronate and supinate (how many other blogs have you seen those two words used on??). The only thing I notice is that there I can't lift as much weight and that I can not supinate (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/supinate) as well as before.

Finally the xray tech retrieves me and we go to the xray room for a few REMs of radiation. Back to the ER room to wait for developing of the film. Then more waiting for the xrays to be read and for the ER doc to get the prognosis.

Finally, the ER doc is the bearer of good news (not really). He says that I need to see the Orthopaedic doctor in the morning so that he can get me in for surgury right away. I tell the doc "the only way I am meeting with the surgeon is if he just happens to have an office in Scottsdale, AZ". He chuckles a bit and stares puzzled as I attempt to explain the whole situation. I tell him my plans and that I have just spent $1300 on non-refundable air fare and that its got to be REALLY serious for me to cancel my vacation plans! Remember, I'm not in that much pain and my arm still works, just not 100%. I can still raise a 12 OZ. cold one with it so how bad can it be? He is shocked at my revelation and says he needs to consult with the surgeon that night to see if that is acceptable behavior. What were they going to do to me, tie me to the stretcher? He comes back in a few minutes later and says that the surgeon says that it's OK to wait but the longer I wait the more difficult the reattachment will be.

Thank goodness. I'm outta there but it's now around 2 AM, I have had not sleep, and I need to wake up around 3:30 am to drive to Baltimore....

Pics of arm the next day as I am laying in the sun in AZ. Notice the nice shade of yellow and purple as the bruising gets going good. The ER doc gave me a sling to wear but it was more hassle to wear and the good it did, so I'm not wearing it in the photo (click for larger version):

Here are some pics the day of surgery (click for larger version):

And after the surgery, when the cast came off, this is what was underneath. The mark of Zorro! Note in the far bottom right of the image are the letters DS, my first two initials, so that the surgeon does not forget which arm to cut on !!! (click for larger image, caution, proceed on an empty stomach):

Read about the procedure here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1906570

Or Here: http://www.baylorhealth.edu/proceedings/20_3/20_3_ranelle.pdf

David and Dawn's Outdoor Adventure

Scene 1:
Setting: Somewhere in the Virginia Wilds....

Dawn: Are you sure this is Montpelier ? I think we are LOST.
David: Damn right, I never get lost! I've got a Dell Axim x51v PDA with an On-Course blue-tooth GPS receiver powered by a double-sized Lithium-ion battery. It's running the latest patched version of Memory-Map'sPocket Navigator utilizing the latest downloaded Marine navigation charts from "http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/Raster/download.htm". Hell, I have better than 3 meter resolution once I get a fix with my enabled Differential GPS locator !
Dawn: This doesn't look right. Something's wrong. I STILL think we are lost!
David: Quiet woman, I think I hear something....

Scene 2: Deep in the Great Dismal Swamp

David: There it is! The lizard I have been searching for!
Dawn: That's not a lizard, you idiot!
David: It is too!. Its the elusive Greater horned Giant Eastern Salamander "Plethodon Glutinosus". I got an A.S. degree in Biology from Thomas Nelson Communitity College (locally know as "Harvard by the Highway"), I should know what I'm talking about!
Dawn: "Should" is the operative word here.
Dawn: David, that really looks like a .....
David: Quiet!!! You'll scare it away....
David: Now, just move a little bit more forward and I'll have this noose around his.... Hey, don't you know how to drive a boat! We'll never get anywhere until you get that outboard actually "into" the water!
Dawn: Shut up maggot. It's your boat after all, I can't help it if your equipment is a little short...
David: Almost.... Almost.... There I've got 'em!

Moments later.....




SUFFOLK, VA An 11-foot (3.30-metre) bull alligator tore off a man's arm and swallowed it, wildlife officials said.

Trappers killed the alligator and recovered the severed arm from its stomach but doctors said it was too badly mangled to try reattaching it.

The injured man, David Aherron, was listed in fair condition at Shands Hospital at the University of Southern Virginia, where he was "in good spirits," a spokeswoman said. They didn't say which kind.

The alligator "lunged up and grabbed ahold of his right arm and severed it just below the elbow," officials said.

Trappers harpooned the alligator and hoisted it to the bank, where a sheriff's deputy shot it in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun and killed it, officials said.

"I physically slit the alligator open, reached in, and I could feel the victim's arm in the stomach," officials told Reuters by phone. "I was able to sever the stomach and pull the victim's arm out."
The arm was recovered about 90 minutes after the attack, he said. Paramedics took it to the hospital but it was too badly damaged to be reattached.

Aherron will need hospital care for at least several more days, said Dr. Larry Chidgey, who operated on him.

"The biggest risk now is infection," Chidgey told a news conference. "He will need additional surgery to try and make sure there are no other dead tissues present that could lead to infection."

He said Aherron was alert enough to describe the attack when he arrived at the hospital.

"He did recall that the alligator obviously grabbed his arm, there was a twisting type action," the doctor said.

Aherron told wildlife officials he did not see the alligator until it attacked.

Story by Jane Sutton

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

My Brother-In-Law (BIL) Story

Here is my BIL story.

My BIL invites my wife and I out on their boat on Labor day weekend at Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke, VA. On the boat are: Him, his wife, his daughter, me and my wife.

Well, we spend most of the day running around the lake kneeboarding etc with no real issues. But as the day wears on it starts to get dark. Dark enough that he needs to run his running lights. So he turns on the lights and we start heading back up the river to the boat launch we put in at.

My BIL starts to get hungry and grabs a bag of chips and is munching away while driving. Being the nice guy that I am, I offer to drive the boat while he gets something to eat. Note that I had not been at the helm prior to this.

We continue up the lake and not two minutes after I start to drive, I turn around to see a flashing blue light coming up from behind the boat. I'm thinking "this can't be good...".

It turns out to be the Fish and game warden. After I stop and shut the motor off, he, the GW (game warden), says that he stopped me (remember that I was the one actually driving) for not displaying the proper running lights on the boat. Turns out that the bulb was out on the front of the boat, which we could not see from the helm.

So, the GW starts investigating the other equipment on the boat. Everything on the boat is in order except a very small tear in one of the life vests, but we had plenty to go around so that was a spare one anyway, so he tells us to throw it away when we get back home. So far so good, but this is where it gets interesting....

The GW asks me for the boat's registration and I turn to my BIL and he says that its in the glove box. He opens the glove box and out falls a loaded .38 revolver. Holy crap, you should have seen the look on the GW's face. I was petrified and the GW places his hand on his own gun and asks to be handed the gun. Once he has it and unloads it he asked if my BIL has a concelled carry permit for the gun. My BIL's answer "Nope".

Here I start thinking "someone's going to spend the night away from home tonight" if you know what I mean...

Then my BIL continues to search for the registration. He finds it and hands it to the GW. The name on the registration is not my BIL's name. Hmmm, the GW has got to be thinking "stolen boat, and weapons on board". Not good.

My BIL says that he bought the boat about a month ago (it was really about 3 months before) and that he just has not gotten around to getting the registration changed over into his name yet.

So let me recap: Faulty equipment (no running light, bad life vest), weapons, and no valid registration, and I was driving the boat for a mere 2 minutes when this happened.

What do you think the outcome was??

Well, to my utter disbelief, I (remember, I was the one actually driving) only got a ticket for the bad registration. He let us go on all other charges.

I went to Roanoke court and fought the registration charge, and since my Idiot BIL had by then got it registered in his name they dismissed the charge, and my BIL finally got his concelled carry permit.

Talk about "pucker factor" !!!

St. Lucia Trip from Hell....

This took place just after 9/11/2001

OK, so we drive up to BWI on Friday night and spend the night. Uneventful.
We were suppose to get to the airport 3 hours prior to our departure time of 7:00 AM but since the AA ticket counter did not open up until 5 am they said show up at 5:00. We showed up at 4:45 and the line was way, way, way, way long. Down the terminal, down the hall, turn a corner and down another hall,...etc. Get the picture yet? Well, when the ticket counter finally opened, the lines moved fairly quickly but when we got up to the counter at about 6:20 the lady said that the flight was "delayed" due to a part on the plane being broke. Wonderful I said. Plane did not leave until noon. Try to occupy a 2 yr. old for 7 hours at an airport... where is the Bar ?

OK so now we are on the plane. (The broken part turned out to be the flight navigation computer, so I am glad they got it repaired.) Naturally we miss our connection in San Juan, so more waiting at an airport....Are we having fun yet ?

Got to St. Lucia at 9 pm (were suppose to be there at 2 PM). Dark, can't see crap. The next day, Sunday, a tropical depression envelopes the island all day. Great, what a smile I have on my face ! Monday the weather clears up enough around noon to hit the beach. OK. Finally Heinekens poolside. This ain't so bad. Paradise. The resort is beautiful.

Let's take a land and sea tour of the island on Tuesday I say. OK, cough up the $180 for the both of us (Dana is free, gee..). Tuesday is bright and sunny, and sunny, and sunny, and sunny and HOT! Must be about 95 with a heat index of 105. We climb aboard a small van with about 6 or 8 others and we decide to sit in the back where there is more room.

Bad Idea # 1.

The trip is suppose to go by land for the first part of the day, then we transition to a catamaran for a ride back to the hotel. In anticipation of going on a boat Dawn decides to take some motion sickness medicine.

Good idea #1.

We take off and it soon is apparent that there are no straight/level road on the entire island and furthermore, the A/C unit in the van is woefully inadequate! I start to get a bit woozy and look over at Dawn and she is turning green but did not want to say anything since she is pre-supposed to motion sickness to begin with. Well, I speak up to the tour guide mentioning that we are getting a bit ill back in the back and to crank the A/C up on full. It already was on full. Uh-ohhh.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

About 5 more miles and buckets of sweat later, Dana decides she has had enough. Up comes the Banana she ate about an hour ago, the milk she washed it down with and the Amoxicillin she was taking to combat a cold she was getting over.We stop the van and disembark to a shady spot on the side of a mountain that only a mountain goat could love. We strip Dana down to just a diaper and try to cool her off while Daddy tries, unsuccessfully, to cleanse the van of Dana's deposit.
Dawn carries plastic bags in the diaper bag so we put all the puke filled dirty clothes in there to keep the smell down !!

Good idea #2

Dana seems OK now so back in the van we go.

Bad Idea # 2.

I request different seating arrangements and to open the windows to get a draft going across Dana to keep her cool. Another 5 or 10 miles of the Bob Bonderant school of high-performance driving and Dana decides to see what else she consumed for breakfast.. Lovely. Are we continuing to have fun yet? I take my T-shirt off to catch the Exorcist-like emanations from her mouth whilst yelling "STOP!" at the top of my lungs. We pull over to the side of the road, this time, luckily in something that resembles a town. We decide to bale.

Good Idea #3.

The tour guide calls us a taxi and we head back to town. The tour bus keeps going without us. At this point, I am beginning to think that with the smell, I don't want to be in that bus anymore, anyway.

RETURN TREK, PART I

So. We are headed back to the hotel, windows down, plastic bag under Dana's chin, life couldn't be better... 10 miles down the road and a strange sounds starts to emanate from the front of the vehicle. What's that I wonder as we charge head-long down pikes peak at a blistering pace? It seems that the left front tire has decided to depart this world for a better one. A flat.... Geez. We stop near the grazing cattle and dung piles in a hairpin turn on the side of the mountain and attempt a tire change. Interestingly the hydraulic jack used to jack the van up won't fit under the Van. I decide to see how Dawn and Dana are as they have moved away from the cattle seeking shade and a clear dung-free puking zone. I spy Dawn holding Dana horizontally, mouth pointing downwards, as Dana imitates the "human water faucet". Can this get any better? Yes, it can. Keep reading.

RETURN TREK, PART II

Off we go again. How did he get that jack under the van? Anyway, we continue and about another 10 miles or so I again hear a weird sound from the front of the van. Could it be? How is that physically possible? What are the astronomical odds of that occurring in anyone's lifetime? Had I bet on this, I surely would have lost the bet. But....NNNNNNOOOOOOOO not today, not in our state of being, not in our state of greenness. Another flat ! Same place, the left front, except this time the driver keeps on driving ! Does he not know that we have a flat? Is he just hoping this nightmare will end just as we are? Hmmmm. We pass a rasta-man on the road and the driver yells something incoherent out the window to him. Yes he reply's, you do have a flat. He jumps in and we head down the road with more weight and a tire that is still flat. We have no spare... What to do? We drive on the flat with what surely is a spectacular display of fireworks as the rim races down the asphalt road showering pedestrians with sparks. OK I am exaggerating here a bit but really, we just keep going ! Finally we get to an auto shop, the tire gets repaired, we get some alka-seltzer stuff (called Eno) into Dana and we are again on our way. Of course, Mr. Rasta-man is "sponsoring" a group of kids to go to some neighboring island for a soccer game (or was it Cricket?) so he hits me up for some sponsorship money. I hand him my wallet and say "I don't need the gazillion dollars in here, you take it". OK, he is happy. Now he hits me up for lunch money since he "helped me find the Eno" in the grocery store next to the auto repair shop (he did let me wear his shirt into the market since I was now just in swim trunks and tennis shoes. The locals are quite modest. Refer to previous paragraph for reason why I had no shirt on). I assume that this is some sort of shirt-rental fee and again turn over my wallet.The rest of the trip home was uneventful. Dana was much better as soon as she hit pavement that was not moving.The rest of the trip was spent poolside or on the beach. We got to see very little of the island. I did go on a mountain bike ride thru the "rainforest" which turned out to be quite disappointing.Oh well. I guess I will be calling the pediatrician and asking about motion-sickness medication for Dana before our next big adventure. Poor kid.....