General Stuff

That last post chronicled Vicki's and my visit with Sam out at his pond on the first, and then a visit with much of the Leith clan at Mom & Dad's on the 4th (I think Ryan and Kristie made it in there, too, from Sunday evening). Aunt Pat came up from Florida to visit everyone so we used that as an excuse to gather. Cousin Dawn and her husband Marty came down (Dawn still takes a good picture, doesn't she?) Julie and Guy, and Uncle Eddie and our other Aunt Pat. Tom, Betty, Joel, Jeff.... I had fun with Jeff playing a few tunes on the guitar and dulcimer. Jeff "gets" music theory better than I do and picked up the dulcimer pretty quickly.

I took Monday off and patched woodpecker holes on the back of the house and re-painted that whole side of the house -- most of it was on the chimney. We need concrete siding. Well, I did use autobody putty for the patching material. That's pretty hard stuff. Anyway it looks much better now.

Last Thursday we went down to Cooper's Landing. It was a beautiful evening, and my guitar instructor Lee Ruth was playing and I'd never seen him perform. He plays a lot of river songs, and his own songs have a certain warm quirkiness about it that matches his voice well. The sunset over the river was beautiful, and provided some good light on Lee which just completed the picture -- I think I was able to capture the mood quite well. I love the sunlight on his old Martin -- I think it's a D-18, and it's probably about 50 years old and it shows it. The sunlight helps visually marry the two subjects and might give an idea of what it sounded like as well.

There's a trailer-kitchen down there, like those you find at a fair where this Thai lady cooks up Thai food... we had Thai BBQ, which frankly tasted a lot like American BBQ. Not that that's a bad thing. There was a nice Thai cucumber salad, though, with hot peppers in it that was unique and went well with the ribs.

Let's see, I added a couple of shelves to the workbench in the garage to stash things like my coffee cans of random fasteners and some odd tools in boxes -- hole saw, mitre box saw -- things that don't hang well on peg board or take up too much room in a toolbox drawer.

Sarah and Mark & family just got back from Colorado, and she sent pictures because she is cruel and heartless and loves to taunt me. Actually, I appreciate hearing from an old friend and I always appreciate mountain pictures. She and I go back to our college days where I spent my time unfortunately too captivated by her roommate to fully appreciate her. She helped me through a fairly rough period in my life after I graduated and was always a good friend. It's good to have her in my life again, however peripherally. And she seems to share our love for the mountains. *sigh* Mountains. (Photo by Sarah)

Vicki and I went through pictures this weekend, culling ones we didn't want anymore and organizing some of the rest. I went through my old ones and found a few pictures of Sarah in College. She was always very photogenic -- and then there was me. So here's a gooofball shot of us back then. (I'm pretty sure I was pointing her face at the camera so she wouldn't hide it). Yeah. The cute one is Sarah, in case you're wondering.

We also ran across this great old one of Vicki with quite the glamorous hair do. Never knew she ever had it that way. And she said all the guys were after her roommate. Huh. Strange guys. I saw her room mate and I know which one I would've picked (hint, I'd remain in a married state if I told you).

Last night I decided it was time to fix the drip edge/gutter situation in front of the garage. Whoever installed it installed the gutter on the wrong side, and a lot of water from the roof ended up running down behind the gutter, causing an annoying cascade out front whenever it rained. Taking it apart was cake, but I soon figured out why they did it that way (no, it was still wrong but they did it that way because they were too lazy to fix the problem and do it right). The drip edge was longer than the gutter and wouldn't fit inside. So I had to cut it. I still had quite a bit of trouble getting it back up behind the drip edge and had to have Vicki come out and suffer the 100% (not exaggerating!) humidity and mosquitoes. It was only about 73 degrees outside, but the dewpoint was also 73 and absolutely no sweat would evaporate. It was not raining and yet I was very quickly drenched. Needless to say, a shower was in order after that ordeal. But it's done (except I need to re-patch a seam on the corner with some caulk when the gutter dries out.)