Music Music Music

I love music. I have many interests, (too fucking many, ask my wife) but music is up there in the top 5. I play, or used to play, the drums. I always have the radio on in the car. I used to listen to music at work but I'm not allowed anymore because people in machine shops are fucking babies, but that's another rant altogether. So in my shotgun approach to life, I bounce around from hobby to hobby and back again. I'll be really into photography (hence the name of this blog), and then the new CycleWorld shows up in the mail and I'm all tweaked on motorcycles again. Well this past weekend was Lollapalooza. I've been to Lallapalooza in the past but I missed it this year out of sloth/poverty. That brings me to the latest hobby hop. I'm working on the garage, preparing for the final move and I hear a report from Lollapalooza on the old walkman and Richard Milne starts talking about the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. THE PIXIES AND DINOSAUR JR.! O.K., now I'm pissed. I knew there were going to be 60 ish bands there but I heard names like Liz Phair, Weezer, etc.... who gives a rats ass. Dinosaur Jr. is one of my all time faves. They were actually disbanded and J. Mascis had a new deal with a new name blah,blah,blah...Well apparently the original lineup is playing some dates and might start recording. Man, I feel left out. I checked out the full lineup and there were some cool bands playing I would have loved to see. Oh, well I would have baked my brain out there anyway. After all it was a for sure 102 degrees. On a lighter note, someone hooked me up with a kickass Sansui 7070 reciever for the house so I can put Pop's old 5050 in the garagemobile. If you know what these are you will think this is cool, if you dont, forget it. Nerdy stereo shit. I'll put up some music links when I get a chance. In summation, I am ready to rock and roll children. And rock and I shall.

The Nerd Bird and terminology update

Our man Wade supplied us with some bitchin aerial photographs from the Nerd Bird. The Nerd Bird is Wade's powered parachute. We've got a before and an after. The before picture is from Februaryish. Also, I looked up the sole/sill plate difference as I'm sure everyone was real worried about it. Yeah, all two of you who read this. So, a sill plate is the board that contacts the sill or foundation of the building and the rest of the structure sits on top of it. The sole plate is the bottom board of the wall that sits on the floor. For a garage like mine or Bill's, the terms are pretty much interchangeable. For a house, you would have the sill plate with the floor joists sitting on top of it, and then the sole plate sitting on top of the joists.
Whatever, I know no one gives a crap.

Picture of a monkey

Chimpanzee with a Glock. Need I say more?

Dirt is not dirt cheap, or why I hate mulberry trees.

Garage update. The point of this blog was not for the garage but it's such an interesting project, for me at least, that its become the garage chronicles. That's okay because it is pretty much all I think about at present. So, now for the boring stuff.
The concrete is dry enough to work around/on, so I started backfilling. I put a drain tile around the slab and ordered 12 tons of good ol' Indiana limestone. The tile (a plastic tube) is to keep water away from the foundation. Water bad for structure. GRRRRRRR. Sorry lapsed into frankenstein. Anyway, the tile needs to be surrounded by gravel so I put 12 tons of gravel around the slab. I shoveled quite a bit and Amy was a huge help also. Malcolm sat on the slab and watched. He's not lazy He's an infant. I needed stone to bring the driveway level up to the front of the slab and the initial pile I ordered wasn't enough, so I ordered another 5 ton. This stuff is $14.00 a ton. That adds up fast when you need all that stone. Of course I need to cover all the stone around the slab with dirt. Pulverized black dirt is also $14.00 a ton. Dirt cheap my ass. It's looking good though.
Oh, yeah the mulberry. I don't actually hate mulberry trees, just this particular one. I have one in the front yard that's pretty cool. The mulberry tree in question is growing up through the fence along the driveway and is hanging over the driveway. In the past, this was a place for birds to hang out, eat mulberrys and then poop them all over the cars parked nearby. I know they do it on purpose-sadistic bastards. Ok, I digress. The mulberry tree is hanging over the driveway enough that it will be in the way of the garage rolling up onto the slab. I didn't kill the tree or anything I just cut the branches that blocked the safe egress of the garagemobile. I'm not into indiscriminate tree killing. I dont hug em' either, don't get any ideas.
There is not really much left to do before moving the garagemobile (I like that term, garagmobile). I'm going to add a sole/sill plate. I dont really know if the term is sole plate or sill plate. I'll look it up. I'm going to add pressure treated boards to the bottom of the garage. That is one 2x6 all the way around for a little support/bug deterrent/piece of mind.... Tonight I bought the lumber. New bundles of treated lumber are always super wet, so I stacked em' on the slab to dry. I'm not sure when to move the garage, the concrete guy said a month. I'ts been a week. The truth lies somewhere in between. More to come....

We've got mud

With the vacation over it's time to start working at the garage a little more frequently. Last night the concrete came and we poured the slab. Thanks Justin. I was a little nervous about the concrete as I ordered just enough. Luckily we were ok and the floor looks great. Justin worked his ass off finishing. It rained on the slab last night late, but I dont think it will hurt it and anyway will keep it cool and not cure too fast. We need an inspection and then I can start backfilling. All the pics of the garage on this blog, so far, have been taken by the lovely and talented Mrs. Monroe, by the way. Thanks Amy.

Garage progress

I've been on "vacation" all week and we got a ton of work done on the mobile garage. Last Sat. we tag teamed the forms (don't forget Bill's building a garage too, remember Bill?) and made huge progress. By Wed. We were ready for pre-pour inspections. On Thursday the inspector came by and was ready to red tag us both. Luckily, Bill and I married the coolest chicks on the block and they set him straight. Green tags all around-rockin' good news. Last evening we pulled a post from my fence so the 70,000# concrete truck (it's not a cement truck, cement is an ingredient) could drive around my back yard and further fuck up the lawn. This would be in addition to the 5 dump trucks that shoe-horned themselves through that 10' wide gate. The post (remember the post?) had 3' of concrete and a good 2' more of post below that. That baby was in there. Thanks to Bill and the big ol' jack. Soooooo..... bright and early this mornin a construction crew and a big red concrete truck showed up and we commenced a shovelin'.
All went well and the floor looks lovely.Thanks for the samiches Amy. It's got this cool fiberglass mesh to strengthen the concrete and it sticks out of the floor. Fuzzy. We're gonna pour mine on Monday. I cant wait to get this garage set down on the new floor. I'll get the pics up soon.