All praise be alumaloy

Resting and watching the awesome Alumaloy infomercial again... The annnouncer chick is soooo into her job. Haw haw.

More stumps

Went to DSV's this morning and ground about 10 or 15 more stumps to make the best of my rental dollar. Yay. Now i am tired.

Grinding' the stumps

Spent the day grinding stumps. Rented a Vermeer SC90 stump grinder from Home Depot for the day. Ground 4 stumps at MEW's and around 10-15 here at home. Worked ok, would have been nice if the wheel diameter was bigger so it would dig deeper without bottoming out on the chain guard. The hearts of the freshly cut cedar trees were pretty hard to grind. It is still quite a workout shoving the machine around during grinding.

Game 2 = Win

We won game 2 with 7 to 6 score. Here are pics of our new jerseys.


Update 10/30/2004: This site should have a larger picture of the insignia
for which you can also buy a matching thong

I need one of these.

Maybe i could get rich at $200 a pop.

GMC is still broken.

Got a new instrument cluster and now my buttons don't work on my steering wheel. Next plan is to bring it back monday and leave it overnight again.

GMC is staying at the shop overnight

Apparently the alternator light being on all the time is a bad instrument cluster. One is on order and it will be replaced tomorrow.
The clunking intermediate shaft is on nationwide backorder (i guess i wasn't the only one with a problem), so when it comes in I will have to go back to the dealer. They will call me..... um... ok.

Cool Java 3-D tool

JavaView is cool. It has many examples, one of which is a model viewer you can feed .obj files such as the ones found here and here.

GMC is getting repaired

The big GMC is getting repaired today. The alternator idiot light was on all the time in a half dim state. Probably a leaky diode. Also getting my snazzy new recalled stainless steel tailgate cables so my tailgate doesn't fall down when I am loading a prize winning hog for the state fair.

Singing senator wannabe

This guy is running for senate. I recommend listening to this ad with him singing a modified world war 1 ditty. Try some of his other ads also.

Playing "toss the cat" in zero G

Nothing more amusing than tossing a cat while in zero G. (requires Quicktime movie player).
Supposedly it part of an USAF training website.
Found out about it on Boing Boing.
Update 10/26/2004: The link to the cat tossing movie was removed from the airforce site. There is now a copy here.

Some jokes

Person 1: Knock knock.
Person 2: Who's there?
Person 1: Control freak.
Person 1: Now you say "control freak who?"

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Q: Why can't engineers tell jokes timing?

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How many kids with ADD does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
LET'S RIDE BIKES!

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A duck goes into a bar and asks the bartender, "Got any grapes?" The bartender says, "No. This is a bar and we don't sell grapes." The duck leaves.

The next day, the duck goes back to the bar and asks, "Got any grapes?" The bartender says, "I told you yeaterday. This is a bar and we don't sell grapes."

The following day, the duck returns and asks,"Got any grapes?" The bartender loses it. He grabs the duck by the neck, and yells, "I already told you twice! This is a bar! I don't have any grapes! If you ask me again, I'll nail your beak to the floor!"

The next day, the duck goes in the bar and asks, "Got any nails?" The bartender sighs and says, "No, we don't have any nails." The duck says, "Good. Got any grapes?"

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more here.

Congratulations Amy and Wilford

On their big day.

Brush moved, Stumps pulled, Deck waterproofed

Took six car trailer loads of brush from the front yard to the back yard. Pulled a few stumps with the big GMC.
Waterproofed the decks and the car trailer with Thompson's water seal.

First Hockey Game

The Cedar Brewing hockey team played last night. We were victorious. 1 to 0. It is good to have Steve back.

Some fun online games sites

Too much work or homework?
Here are some decent online game sites (be sure to use your popup blocker if you have one):

• clevermedia.com
• ultimatearcade.com
• gamegarage.co.uk
• and more in the games & toons section here
  

Watch your mouths

Or you will get hairy or impotent. Wonder if they have jobs in the USA for swearing at cups of water or have they all been outsourced.

New Job Same Company

I applied for a new job within my same company. Should get to work on a new lab and all kinds of stuff. Hope it is funner.

"It looked fresh...."

"It looked fresh. It did not smell and it had not been pecked over."

Hockey fans...

The wait is almost over... you too can see the first Cedar Brewing B-league old-man hockey game on Oct 24 at 7:15. Of course we don't know when our second game is, but that is normal dealing with this rink.

Niece & Nephew M & Z stop by.

M & Z came up for the weekend. We fed birds, looked at fossils, saw a bald eagle and hawk, cooked weenies and marshmallows, played Yahtzee and had a pretty good time.

Farm Accident reports

reports of accidents with tractors and skid loaders etc. Picture index and the home page. Just pictures of the tractors, no dead bodies or anything.

O' Sola Armoire...

Pictures of the new armoire are here. Also shown are the old armoire that is now downstairs (thanks to Master Po's help) and the new buffet.

Lumberjack and hosta fotos

See uncletravis be a lumberjack when trying to clear out some more parking space. Also a picture of M's hostas.

Happy birthday to Linda

Wish Linda a happy birthday if you see her. If you are looking for gift ideas, you might get her an accessory for a black one of these.

Armoire is in the living room

The giant cherrywood computer armoire from K's Merchandise is in the living room. Might get ambitous someday and put some pics up here.

Cornation complete

My crown is in. Unfortunately is not a nice pimp gold one with a diamond stud. But it will do for chewing things.

Handy gadgets

Get all your assorted gadgets here.

Contrails from space

A cool picture on jet contrails from a satellite foto.

Mmmm pizza

Master Po and Sandy stopped by tonight to help move some furniture and even brought some delicious Tomaso's pizza. Thanks very much for both.

Timberrrrrr.

Just like an angry beaver, the Stihl chopped through a few more trees today. My brush pile is enormous and is in the front yard. Gotta get a burn permit so I can complete the carbon cycle. Still have about 5 small trees to go. M did a good job driving the jeep to pull the two big trees away from the power line today. All the stumps are cut to ground level. Need to get a stump grinder sometime so then can dig around in there with a skidloader and dump some rock and make more parking as well as better access to the back yard. So a few more trees to chop then can maybe work on the driveway some more.

I'm a lumberjack

and thats ok. It made me tired. Cut down about 4 or 5 cedar trees. Only one tried to go the wrong way into the power lines. Luckily 100ft of log chain and a jeep can pull over a 1/2 sawn tree. Now there is a big pile of brush in the front yard and a large stack of logs. Got about half of what I wanted to chop done.
M got to scoop a trailer load of mulch from the Cedar River Garden Center on her flowers and went to the craft show.
The Stihl 310 worked just fine. It is a bit heavier than the old poulan, thus helped to make me more buff for hockey season. Later I might skip and jump.

More Lowe's info, make no mistake... this is a big one

Looks like the Lowe's will be full size according to this article.

Lowe's standard store measures 116,000 square feet, costs almost $17 million to build and $5 million to stock. Such stores' sales average about $33 million per year. The new stores cost about $12 million to build and $3.5 million to stock. Average sales are projected at $20 million to $25 million.

from the Charlotte Business Journal. talking about small and normal sized Lowe's

Here come the Lowe's Here come the Lowe's

Lowe's is apparently coming to Cedar Rapids. Hopefully it will not be a small market store like Home Depot put in. The poor ex-home depot employees currently in Tennessee with surely rue this day. Spose'd to be a 116000 ft store on Blairs Ferry by Wal-Mart. Sposed to start in March and open in October. Surely this is lightning speed compared to the new Menards that is not open yet. (thanks to Clif for the info).

If you own a chcken and a dog....

This might be the early warning signs that something like this might be in your future..... Be careful.

Happy fiscal new year.

Another year, another year of reduced benefits. Happy new year.

Extra: Furniture kit has all of its pieces

Yes, the last furniture kit had all its pieces and was successfully assembled last night. Loose the pigeons.

Spaceship one probably wins the X-Prize

Appears it has completed its second flight in 4 days.
Here and here has info.

Busy weekend

Weekend highlights:

• Friday it was fiscal new year's eve. To celebrate that and the upcoming hockey season, the Cedar Brewing hockey team (who should be named the C.R.Thongs) had a nice party friday night.
• Saturday morning went to Hoge's Then & Now to a big farm equipment auction. Only thing I got was a sunburn because it was free.
• Saturday night went to Lets Dance and danced a lot and watched Tracy Byrd in concert. It was loud but was pretty good.
• Got up Sunday and went to see Willy. Was in Des Moines but didn't see the Colossal Colon either (I missed its appearance in CR)
• Today is the new fiscal year. I am so excited.
  

Keep up with slang

Want to stay up with the kiddies, just go here.

Yummy for your tummy

Show your protest of the world, eat out of dumpsters.