Canada wrap-up part deux

 Swimming at sunset

 Reeves caught another minnow

Uncle Steve instructing the boys on the finer points of hazardous behavior, 

although he did move the 5-gallon container of gas well out of range before the show

Canada wrap-up

The second shift: Shanosky, Horn, Vernot, Crome

Young boys and explosives

The finished product

Still a small space, but feels a little bigger after the renovation

The new bunkie gangplank

My summer vacation...or lack thereof

Our family's summer vacation trip to Canada was canceled at the last minute due to an unexpected water leak. When my brother arrived at the cottage 2 days before we were all scheduled to fly in, he found the cottage had been flooded by a leaking toilet valve. Although this should have been discovered by the person who opened the cottage and turned on the water, it wasn't. It leaked profusely for around a full week before it was discovered by my brother. Everyone except me canceled their plane tickets and vacationed elsewhere while my brother and I completely gutted and renovated the bathroom. It was not a fun week.

This is what the bathroom looked like within a few hours after I arrived. The first step was to strip out all the buckled flooring down to the subfloor, remove all the fixtures, and then cut out all the wet and moldy sheetrock. In the picture above I hadn't yet cut out the sheetrock, but everything else was gone. We opted to leave the toilet in until just before I laid the new floor. Wise move.

As the old saying goes, "You can take the boy out of California, but you can't take California out of the boy." Here is a California style restroom which served the needs of the Californians while I removed the toilet and laid the new floor. I couldn't get that new floor laid and that toilet installed fast enough.

Here is what the bathroom looked like after about 4 days of work. It still needs final paint, fixtures and trim, but my brother and his friends can handle that in the coming week.

There will be a full sized mirror above the vanity when all is said and done. I also wired in a new GFI protected outlet next to the sink, since it was lacking in the previous bathroom.

The new floor went down fairly easily and looks great. The bathroom is the nicest room in the cottage at this point – far superior to the previous bathroom that was installed. We did notice a number of technical deficiencies in the previous bathroom which we corrected during the renovation. I should have a few photos with all the paint, fixtures, mirror and trim installed in the next few days, and will post them once they arrive.

 Tim's boys spent half their time in our recently acquired 4-person paddle boat. A neighbor generously donated it to us as he was trying to get rid of things that he really wasn't using anymore. Both boys had a blast pedaling all over the cove and around the island without adult supervision. This vessel isn't pretty (unless you like pink boats) but is very stable and makes a great fishing platform.

The boys had never set off any fireworks before, so on one of my trips to the local Home Depot, I stopped at a questionable little roadside fireworks stand/gas station/Taliban hangout and bought a box of fireworks. We (they) set them off that night in celebration of Canada Day. They were pretty excited (look at their expressions in the above photo) that their crazy Uncle brought home the contraband and gave them a quick lesson in how to safely detonate the explosives. Tim shot some great photos with his new camera of the boys setting them off that night, so I'll post those once they're sent to me.

After the week of renovation, I flew to Ohio where I picked up my daughter's car, and drove all the way back to Texas the following day. It was a pretty quick trip, and I made the 1,150 mile drive in just under 15 hours. The only way I could have made it in less time would have been if I were wearing Astronaut Diapers. I'll leave that to the Californians.

This just in from our Field Office in California...

If this is the case, we are now classified as a Holy Shrine over here at the HornHaus. Somebody at the HornHaus' only comment was "Holy Shit!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/dog-butt-looks-like-jesus-photo_n_3436086.html

Taylor has a new chair

Taylor auditioned earlier this spring for a position, and was just offered a chair in the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. Their representative informed her today that they would be sending her a contract to sign. A contract?

Kids these days...

http://www.gdyo.org/

The past 30 days...

Been a little busy around here lately, hence no blog updates. 

Here's a little of what we've been up to.

We recently attended the year-end band banquet at a moderately fancy hotel. Below are some pics.

Here are 3 of the Directors involved with the band, meticulously arranging the band's winnings from this past year. The band basically swept all the competitions, bringing home a bevy of impressive hardware. It's no wonder the other schools in Texas have it in for Marcus. Nobody can compete on their level.

 Full-frontal hardware view.

Taylor was called up front and presented with numerous awards for her accomplishments this past year. There were only 4 other students out of the entire band that matched her accomplishments. NONE of them were Drum Majors, I might add.

Just so you know, Taylor has been selected as a Drum Major for the coming academic year. And here are some of her accomplishments this past year: Regional Wind Symphony, Regional Orchestra, Advancement to Area, Texas All State Band, Outstanding Soloist at Solo and Ensemble, Performed at Midwest in Chicago in December.

 Receiving awards.

  Receiving more awards.

 Receiving more awards.

  Receiving more awards.

We are currently fostering 2 puppies for the Humane Society. They were rescued by a college student, and turned over to us. It was a little challenging since they were so young. They required bottle feeding when we first took them in. It would have been much easier of I was currently lactating...but thankfully, I'm not.

 This is what they do most of the day.

 Ready to pee and defecate on anything that is NOT in the crate.

This wooden fence has been my project over the past 2 weekends. I'm adamant about getting rid of the cobbled together electric fence that has been our method of keeping the horses in the pasture the past 10 years. Lord knows I have absorbed more voltage than I care to remember – or even CAN remember, for that matter (the fence puts out 10,000 volts). I mean, who wants to instantly urinate or defecate in their pants when their leg accidentally brushes against the hot wire? I'm done with that. We have indoor plumbing and I'd prefer to take care of my business inside the house, not inside my attire, thank you very much.

After digging the first 5 post holes with my tractor, the damn governor decided to call it quits. Since parts are a little hard to come by for a 1957 Ford tractor, I had to dig the rest of the holes by hand. This is not fun, people. After about the 20th hole, that 10,000 volt fence and soiled drawers began to look like a pretty attractive alternative to digging more post holes.

We had rain last night which has suspended the fence operation this weekend. I was hoping to finish it today, but it's going to have to wait. Once this run is finished I have about another 20 holes to dig to get to the far side of the property. I'm trying to get the tractor running for that section. I'll post a few pictures of that effort the next post. Since the tractor is so old, it's not easy to find anybody who knows how to work on 'em. I'm a do-it-yourself kind of guy, so should have it back in the game by next weekend.

 I also stopped by a tractor show several weeks ago and got some advice from the old timers on fixing the governor on my tractor. I spotted this odd 3-wheeled tractor while I was there. Never saw one like this before.

Alissa is about half way through her summer internship at this point. She was quite proud of her participation in one of the latest Reinvention Dayton stories. She's having a great time. We're both very proud of her!

Until next time...whenever that may be.

Texas to Ohio and misc.

Alissa and I drove up to Ohio last week where she'll be doing a summer internship with Julia Reichert. I flew back the following day. It was a nice ride up, and after leaving Nashville we made a quick side trip to visit the birthplace of the last true (and honorable) Republican.

I remember as a kid standing in this same spot, marveling at the huge Oak tree that was growing since Abe was a boy. Sadly, it died in 1976.

Abe's boyhood home. I'm sure the man had a little difficulty getting through the front door.

The 30 acres of bottom land that Abe worked as a boy. Gorgeous area. Stop if you get a chance and pay homage to the man that served as the final exclamation point to the Republican party.

 Alissa's new digs for the summer.

My first house. Still love this place.

Stopped by the memorial tree on the third anniversary of my friend's passing. Not an easy day.

The Bush Library

With all the boot-licking coverage of last week's rewriting of history, this photo was nowhere in sight. 

Melissa Stockwell, the first female U.S. soldier to lose a limb in Iraq, reading the Pledge of Allegiance at the opening ceremony of the Bush Library which is, unfortunately, located on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. I think the look on George W. Bush's face says it all. And, no hand over his heart, no salute...nothing. What a "patriot."

Bush declined the invitation to attend Margaret Thatcher's funeral a couple weeks ago. The stated reason? Scheduling conflicts. The real reason – a tribunal has found that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are guilty of war crimes. Many countries now believe that they should be held accountable and stand trail in The Hague – just like the rest of the world leaders who have been accused of war crimes.

Roxy is a needy dog

The Humane Society sends us all the problem dogs. They know we have a pretty solid pack of resident dogs who don't put up with much in the way of bad behavior, aggressiveness and similar nonsense. 

Reader, meet Roxy, our newest foster beast.

They think she's a black lab/greyhound mix. This girl spent a good bit of her youth on the streets hanging out with the local riff raff, and picked up most of the bad habits which put those dogs on the street in the first place. We broke her of her worst habit, jumping up, in the first few hours she was with us. The biting and snapping is close to being solved as well.

Now that she's learned who's boss, she wants to get up in our face constantly. I can hardly get any work done with her around, as evidenced below.

From the Police Blotter

With big city life comes big city crime. I was reading the paper last night and ran across the following item. A stark reminder that we need to remain ever vigilant!


"A resident on E. Dallas St. reported a drive-by pooping after 
witnessing a man in a white pickup truck stop in front of her 
house and let his large dog out to defecate in her front yard. 
After the dog had finished his business, the man loaded it up 
and drove off. Police found the evidence, but were unable to 
locate the culprits."


You just can't make this stuff up.

It's a dangerous world out there, reader. Watch your step.