One more week!

Five more days of classes! That means that it is time to give it my all. I have been waiting for this week to come for a long time.

Unlike many of my other semesters, I am in a different situation this year. Usually I am a "finish strong" person because I NEED to finish as strong as possible. This semester I am going into both of my finals with a strong B average. Both of them have potential for an A in the class, one more than the other. Most of the time I have a C in something that I have to do a lot of work to get straight. This time I took care of business all semester long!

For everyone finishing up a long semester, good luck, take care, eat healthy, and be smart!

And to those of you graduating like the all intelligent "Heh-hi-ca" CONGRATULATIONS!

Three more trees down

Despite a couple of "no shows" this weekend we still managed to knock down the last three DANGEROUS trees. This time we had 4 people. No women or little children were involved. Two of the three trees didn't even get cut with a saw until they were on the ground. We just pulled them with the tractor. How did we get a rope in there? I am glad that you asked. Being the smart people that we are I used my fishing pole with a weight on the end of the line. I cast over the limb I wanted to and let the line drop to the ground. We then tied on a heavy string/rope. I reeled that line back over the limb, then we used that to pull up the big "bull rope." The bull rope can pull 7,800 lbs. With 250 ft of that the tractor was no where near harms way. Like I said we pulled down two of the trees like that. The last tree wasn't so rotten. We still put a rope in it to "guide" the path. So now we have no worries about trees falling on our houses.

Sorry no pictures from this one. I figured they would look just like the ones from last weekend.

Are you bored?

Google homepage can be "personalized". Mine has always come up with a calendar and the weather. This morning I was looking in to other "gadgets" (as they call them). The first thing that I see come up is a game, Pac-man! Of course I put that onto my Google homepage. I have been trying to master it while taking breaks at school. It seems to be a little more difficult than i remember it. You should try it though, it can definitely take your mind off of school/work.

Exciting afternoon

Today I was getting ready to cover up the septic tank in the front yard. I am putting two pieces of sheet tin (galvanized) over the septic tank to replace an old rusted "lid" that rotted out. Those sheets of tin have been covering the hole (on top of the ground) for a couple of months now. Finally I made the time to play in poop and bury the lid. I picked up the tin and started digging. About 5 minutes later I noticed that there was a snake just chilling there. It was right on the edge of the hole and had been taking cover under the tin. I had the shovel in my hand (obviously) so I transported it to a bucket to play with later.
I know, I'm accident prone, I do not need to be playing with poisonous snakes. I had to keep it show I could show my neighbor when he got home.
I thought that it was a copper head, then I thought it was a baby rattlesnake (because of the yellow tip tail). When I started making it mad it was shaking like a rattlesnake, so I just assumed it was. I just finished looking at the Louisiana poisonous snakes and saw that it was NOT a rattlesnake. It was a little cottonmouth. How do I know? - Same pattern, and it says under a caption of a young cottonmouth, "Young Cottonmouths have yellow tipped tails."

All better

Today was the eighth day with the stitches. I thought that was long enough. Since they told me 7-10 days I figured I would take them out after I was done messing around with those trees.

FIRE

Here are a couple of pictures that show just what fire can do to wood.

Around 5:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon.

Around 8:15 p.m. Sunday night.

Around 5:30 p.m. Monday evening.

The big logs left over are what we were using to hold the wood in the fire. Thats all that is left over, the four pieces that were on the outisde.

Hard Work (video)

Since Google Video is not cooperating I guess I have to just give you the web address and you can see it there.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8409840084474702867

Enjoy!

Please let me know if it is not working!

My (not so clean) burn pile

Well the burn pile did not stay clean for very long. We ended up cutting two pine trees today. Both trees were 80 ft+. We had both trees on the ground, cut into pieces, and on the fire all in about 5 hours. "We" included Amanda, my neighbors (including their two little girls), and myself. There was plenty of working going on when those trees hit the ground. We cut one, cleaned it up, then we cut the other one. It was hard work, but the yard is looking good.

My neighbor has been wanting to cut them for years now, literally. When I moved in to the house the trees had already been dead for at least 3 years. They road through the hurricanes two years ago, but they would not make it through another hurricane.

I have a video that I am waiting for Google to approve. Hopefully that will be my next post.

Pursuing a dream!

Wouldn't you think that not enough people actually pursue their dreams these days? I think so. I think that we get too caught up in "needing" to have the normal job that will take care of the family. I think that I need to be different. After I am done with my masters degree in engineering I am going to go to work long/hard enough to buy me a CLAAS Cougar mower. I saw it on Mega Machines last night. What am I ever going to do with a mower like? - that is what Amanda will ask me. I will tell you: I am going to get a contract with the State of Louisiana to mow all of the grass along the highway/interstate. If the state of Louisiana does not want for me to mow their grass I will go to every other state (except for Texas) and make the same offer until someone takes it.

This machine can mow 40 acres in one hour. It has a 45 ft wide cutting capability. It can hold 255 gallons of diesel. It mows at a speed of 15mph. It's top speed is about 25 mph on the road. Oh, and Sean, it has a Mercedes engine. Tell me that is not the ultimate grass cutting machine!

Most people will win the lottery and spend it on mansions, fast cars, etc... Not me. My first purchase would be a Cougar.


go to: http://www.cleanfix.ca/Ciougar%20Brouchure.pdf to see more pictures. This thing is AWESOME! Why couldn't I have put something like this on my wedding registry?

You might be the next victim!

Since my wife gets/sends emails while taking breaks at work, I have been blessed with this wonderful idea! I promise you that I will spend the money on the post-it-notes. I would love to be the one who does something like that.

I will first make sure that the glue on the back of the paper has no effect on the paint of a car.

LSU takes action

In response to yesterday's shooting in Virgina, LSU has started taking actions on the situation. They are looking to start an "Instant Text Message" system. They want to be able to send a text message alerting all students/faculty/staff about any kind of emergencies.

My thoughts: You know that number one on my list is the cost$$$. They are going to have to spend a lot of money to be able to set up any kind of system with these capabilities. Where are they going to get this money, more student fees? State Money? Federal Money? Where? One way or another the people (me and you) will have to pay for it. Why? Because of stupid people in the world who want to kill others for crazy reasons. I understand that preventive measures are great to have, but what can a "instant" warning do for a situation like that? I think that it may even draw more people to that area. I do not see how LSU's idea will help out the people on campus. I think that this is only proves that LSU did not ignore what happened. People like to see actions taken and it might even comfort people, knowing that they will be warned "instantly."

Feel free to leave you honest opions.

Google Maps

Amanda pointed out something that I thought was quite funny. I would like for everyone to take the time to go to www.google.com. Search under maps, get directions, and type in from New York to London. Get those directions and look at line #23. ENJOY!

Still learning the hard way!

Remember how I was talking about learning from experience. Well, even though I usually learn the hard way, I still have a lot to learn.

This morning I was waiting on Amanda to get ready for church. I was bored so I went and took the car out, I had everything of mine ready to go. I was still bored so I thought that I would go ahead and play with the new wireless router that we just got. It was in one of those nice plastic packages, you know the ones that are impossible to get out without some kind of sharp object. I am sure that most people know that I am allergic to sharp objects (ie: axes, rocks, ice skates, television corners, glass, knives, nails, etc...). This morning I had an allergic reaction to a knife. Did I break out in hives? No, not really. I broke out in a deep red blood. (Again those of you who do not want to know, just stop reading) I was just about to get to the end of the plastic when the knife came off the plastic and hit the top side of my hand. I knew immediately that I was cut. I went into the kitchen and told myself it was not going to need stitches because it was kind of overlapping itself. I could just put pressure and it would heal just fine. WISHFUL THINKING! It was bleeding like crazy. I had to tell Amanda "change in plans, we have to go to a hospital to stitch me up." She did well, she knew where to go and everything. About two weeks ago we went to a different Wal-mart down the road. I noticed a Lake After Hours. I said "that's good to know where that is" and it was a good thing to know. So I was blessed with two stitches in my massive cut. Way to go me!

Here are some pictures to better describe the story:

This is my solution to the problem, HEAVY DUTY SCISSORS!

Personalized M&M's

I am sure that most of you have seen the commercials for the personalized m&m candies. I was thinking about getting some made for Amanda. One of those "just because" gifts. The price was a HUGE factor in my decision. I was thinking it would cost something like $10, at most. So last night I went to check out how it is done. I get to the price and see that it is $11.99 for a 7 oz. bag. BUT, you have to buy a minimum of 4 bags. That brings the cost to a WHOPPING $47.96 for 28 oz. of candy that has writing on it. I love my wife, but I just cannot spend her hard earned money on that.

Homestar Runner

WHAT IS WRONG?

I was just thinking about Homestar Runner because I told Derek "Marshmellow" like 15 times and it made me want to go to www.homestarrunner.com. There is just one little problem about that. My computer is not bringing up the site. Is there something wrong? Is the site not working anymore? What am I suppose to do? I cannot believe that I am not able to see the site. Will someone tell me what is going on, PLEASE!

Allergy Shots

Like most of you know from my previous post, Doctor Visit, I am now having to take allergy shots weekly. Today I went for my first set of shots. I went to the LSU health clinic because it is cheaper than getting the shots at the Doctor's office. It would have been $30 just for the doctor to administer the shot. At LSU it is $8 for the shot. That is not including the cost of the serom that they are shooting into me, that is just for them to stick the needle in me. They say that I have to be given the shot at a medical clinic just in case I have a severe reaction to the shot. I cannot believe that it is going to cost me $16/week just for this shot. You would think that I could make the decision for myself whether or not I want for the shot to be taken in the care of a doctor or not. Of course being the cheap person I am I would rather save the money and give myself the shot. On the good side of things I am no longer struggling to breath. I guess I am going to enjoy the day when this stuff is able to build up the immune system. It is a lot easier to complain about the money when I am feeling good. I do remember saying, "I will pay anything to feel normal," while I was having such a rough time with the allergies.

Easter Weekend

What a weekend for Louisiana. I cannot believe that the weather was so crazy. I was not expecting that after having such a good week with the warm weather. It was so nice being able to work out in the yard for an entire week. I wish that I could do that forever. I think that I am going to drop engineering and go for the "I will clean up your messy yard" job. I do not know where most of you were for the holiday but I was in the Lafayette area. I was in the Wal-mart on Saturday and walked out to lots of sleet. It was coming down like a hard rainfall (except frozen). Then I found out later that while it was sleeting like that in Lafayette, it was snowing in Sunset, just a couple of miles north of Lafayette. That is something else. It's a good thing that we have "Global Warming" otherwise we may have been snowed in on a day like that.

I hope that all of you enjoyed the weekend as much as I did. Back to work now.

The burn pile

I have had the same burn pile at my house in Baker since November, I think. I have burnt a lot of wood in that one spot. At one time I had a pile of coals burning for seven weeks straight. I would burn a lot during the weekend and come back the next weekend and just turn the coals and throw wood on the pile and there would be fire. It is fair to say that pile stayed very hot for a long time.
Anyway, today was the day to clean up that pile. It was a large pile of ash, nails, and other objects that did not burn. I thought that it was going to be an easy going project. I was wrong. I decided that I was going to use the great trash can that the city of Baker provided for me to haul off the ash. It worked awesome. There is nothing better to haul stuff through the woods than that can. I could not believe how durable that thing is.
Everyone knows that I like to measure my work by the weight moved. Like my garage project, most likely well over 10,000 lbs. For my ash project; I am assuming the unit weight of ash to be 120 lbs/ft^3. (The unit weight of dirt) I hauled approximately 240 gallons of ash. One cubic foot is about 7.48 gallons. So by my calculations I hauled 3,850 lbs of ash. That seems high to me, but when I think about how long it took me I believe my numbers.

Here is a picture of how I rigged up the "trailer." You can also see how clean the ground is where the burn pile was at.

The new computer

Someone was wondering why I had been going to www.dell.com. This should explain why.


Amanda and I bought a new computer last week. We wanted to be able to have the convince of a laptop computer. I need it for school, she wants to surf the web and watch tv in the living at the same time. All good reasons to get one right?

Dell seemed to have the best price. Especially after the $40 off since I am an LSU student. So far I am liking it. It is a huge help having it at school.

Cuttin' Grass

What better to do on spring break then get the yard looking good. I still do not have my riding mower working right. It has been in the shop for 4-5 weeks now. They are no good people. Do not go to G&L in Baker, they will take forever to fix the simplest thing. Anyway, I have been using my push mower to cut the yard. It takes almost exactly 2 hours to push it. That is just the main yard though. I also cut the back part of the property with the push mower. Being that it was very over grown it took a lot longer. I probably spent at least 6 hours on it. There were a lot of sticks that I had to stop and pick up and all of that mess. But hey, that is what I love doing. I am getting in shape doing it too. My yard is going to look great when I am done with it. A lot of people who knew what the yard was like before we moved in are VERY impressed with what I have been doing. I would have to say that a compliment like that can definitely encourage me to make it look great.

Box Turtle

Saturday morning I was brushing my teeth and looking out of the window. Something in the grass caught my eye. I just saw some kind of movement. Then I noticed the turtle. I kept it for a little while, long enough to show the neighbors. Their girls were not very into looking at it. It was just another animal to them.
When I was a little boy, wait I still am, when I was young I always had turtles in the back yard. I even made my dad bring home a horse trough from my grandmother's house. I kept many many turtles in that thing. I would go out with Justin and catch turtles and bring them back to the house. I would keep them until they either died or they bit me, which basically goes back to the first reason. I can even remember one time when my dad was coming home from working in north Louisiana he told me there was something in the back of the truck for me, it was a turtle. He stopped on the road and picked up the turtle just for me. It was so special. Another turtle memory was when me, my brothers, and I think my cousin Philip went to Henderson to go knee boarding. I wanted to go catch a turtle from over there. We went looking for turtles first. I never did catch one but when we were leaving the canal my dad hit a log and the motor hit the boat and put a hole in the boat. Which means that we could not go knee boarding. Nobody liked me for the day.

I hope that you like the picture.