Not everyone agrees with my BEP love...

A few weeks ago I professed my love for the new Black Eyed Peas song "I Got A Feeling". Cracked.com posted this recently....



Black Eyed Peas Have Officially Written The Worst Song Ever -- powered by Cracked.com

(Tried to embed the video but something isn't working!)

Lee....in about 24 hours from now....

I think this way about myself but since Lee is buying and selling homes tomorrow, I thought of him.

Original from http://xkcd.com/

Look What I Made...

Since summer was delayed for me by about 5 weeks, I decided that I wanted to start things off with a bang and build something in the workshop.

Looking through an old book, I found plans for a hammock stand. Since we clear cut the back yard, there has been no place for the hammock to go, so this project made sense to me.

I decided that if we could get the materials for under $40 I would do it.

DAY ONE

So on Sunday, July 26, we went to a nearby Lowes and priced everything. I needed a total of 6 2x4s in two different lengths, a variety of carriage bolts, 3 dowels and some lag screws. Logan was a supreme help in finding everything and Nan and I did some quick calculations and decided to go for it. Total price upon checkout was $37.22.

That afternoon, I cut all of the boards to the needed lengths. I also went ahead and made all the needed joint cuts. All of the miter cuts were straight forward (either 45 degrees or 25 degrees....the latter of which was slightly trickier since my saw has defaults at 15, 22.5, 31.6 and 45 degrees!)

The lap cuts were harder, since I do not have either a table saw nor a band saw and I needed to make a total of eight lap cuts. But, at the end of the afternoon, I had all the cuts and had bolted together one of them to make sure things looked okay....and they did!

DAY TWO

I started the day by finishing off the four main struts and tightening all of the bolts. That turned out to be the easiest part of the day.


It was time to connect the arms and to do so I needed to drill 1/2" wide holes for the dowels to go through to add support. The first couple of holes were sketchy, but I eventually got the hang of it (with the help of a drill extender that I did not know I had!).

Today was a purple shirt day!

Once I got one side finished, Haley and I added the braces with a series of lag screws.


Haley and I took a break to attend a bookmaking workshop at the Burnham Library with Jon Chad from The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction. (It was a blast. I'll blog about that later.)



When we got home I finished assembling the hammock, but discovered that imperfections in the wood and my measuring meant a trip to Lowes on day three to exchange the two hanging bolts I bought, as they were too short.

DAY THREE

This day consisted mainly of returning a few pieces of hardware and figuring out what exactly I needed. We also bought two 18 inch sections of chain to help hang the hammock, as it is rather short. I also hand mitered some of the ends of the arms to allow them to sit more flush.

All in all, it took about eight to ten hours of actual work. I'm not too disappointed in the final product.

A View From The Roof

Last week I finally got up on the roof to fix the leak near the main vent. It was relatively straight-forward work. Here are the views from the roof of our house...I might add them to Google Earth at some point...

There is Nan on the deck, as I look to the south west. The fake chimney looking thing is what I needed to fix.

There is a smidgen of the pool and Nan's garden area to the south east.

Here is the whiffle ball field to the north east.

A tighter shot of the pool area and Logan and Haley!

The swing set looking due south.

Due east.

A blurry shot of the north (I think this was the first one I took and was a little shaky!)


It's me in my bright yellow working shirt...in case Google is using its satellites while I am up there. Nan wanted me to write them a message but they haven't rephotographed the area in 6 years so I did not bother...

"You say it's your birthday..."

Six years ago today, I met Logan Mock. Up until we met, he was known as "Peanut". If I remember properly, when we told Haley that Nancy was pregnant, we said that the baby was the size of a peanut and the nickname stuck, right up until he was born. Since then, he has always been Logan.

We gave him the middle name Richard after my grandfather. As each year passes since we lost him, he becomes bigger and bigger in my memory and I hope my boy inherits all that was good about him. It's a lot for Logan to live up to but he tries, in his own way, every single day.

He is my son and I love him so much. He has his mother's smile and his sister's great sense of comic timing. He is such a little dude and a great pal.

I love you, Logan Richard Mock. Happy Birthday.

Maybe Facebook Isn't For Me!

So, maybe, just maybe, these Facebook quizzes are a little out of control....

"It's Easy To Lose Sight Of The Fact That Everyone Makes That Kind Of Play All The Time..."

Thanks to his vaunted grace and tremendous skill, Yankees captain Derek Jeter was able Tuesday night to make a pop-up to shortstop look as routine as it actually was.

"Look at him effortlessly settle under that ball and close his glove around it as it falls slowly in," gushed Yankees radio announcer John Sterling, who also had the privilege of broadcasting Jeter's catch of a soft humpback liner in 2002.

Later in the inning, Jeter made an easy play look difficult with that jump-throw thing he doesn't need to do.

From xkcd.com

The text, when hovering over this image, read "Hey, what are the odds-five Ayn Rand fans on the same train! Must be going to a convention." I think you could substitute so many things for "Ayn Rand" and it would be just as funny.

Greatest Video Ever

Using Wordle.....

Here are the lyrics to "I've Got a Feeling" by The Beatles (and a heads up thanks to smacky...follow his BLOG or him on TWITTER) in a cloud via Wordle. Wordle recognized "Yeah" with uppercase, as a different word than "yeah" in lower.

Woot Shirt

You may have heard about Woot, an awesome deal-a-day website. Well, Woot Shirt is one of their sister sites. One shirt a day, every day, $10 with free shipping!

Here is today's offering!

Robocopper

Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling" Lyrics

Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling" Lyrics

I gotta feeling...
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling...
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling... (Woohoo)
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling... (Woohoo)
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good good night

Tonight's the night
Let's live it up
I got my money
Let's spend it up
Go out and smash it
Like Oh My God
Jump off that sofa
Let's get get OFF

I know that we'll have a ball
If we get down
And go out
And just lose it all
I feel stressed out
I wanna let it go
Lets go way out spaced out
And loosing all control

Fill up my cup
Mozoltov
Look at her dancing
Just take it... OFF
Lets paint the town
We'll shut it down
Let's burn the roof
And then we'll do it again

Lets do it Lets do it Lets do it Lets do it

And do it And do it
Let's live it up
And do it And do it And do it
Do it, do it
Lets do it Lets do it Lets do it

Cause I gotta feeling... (WoooHooo)
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling... (WoooHooo)
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling
Tonight's the night (HEY! )
Let's live it up (lets live it up)
I got my money (I'm paid)
Lets spend it up (Lets spend it up)
Go out and smash it (Smash it)
Like Oh My God (Like Oh My God)
Jump off that sofa (Come On! )
Lets get get OFF

Fill up my cup (Drank)
Mozolotov (Lame)
Look at her dancing (Move it Move it)
Just take it... OFF
Lets paint the town (Paint the town)
We'll shut it down (Shut it down)
Lets burn the roof (Woooooo)
And then we'll do it again

Lets do it Lets do it Lets do it Lets do it
And do it And do it
Let's live it up
And do it And do it And do it
Do it, do it
Lets do it Lets do it Lets do it
Do it, do it, do it, do it

Here we come
Here we go
We gotta rock
Easy come
Easy go
Now we on top
Feel the shot
Body rock
Rock it don't stop
Round and round
Up and down
Around the clock

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Friday, Saturday
Saturday to Sunday

Get, get, get, get, get with us
You know what we say (say)
Party everyday
Party everyday
Party everyday

And I'm feeling (WooHooo)
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling (WooHooo)
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good good night

Woohoo

Smart Notebook 10 Training Manual

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Smart Notebook 10 Training Manual

View more documents from Steven Anderson.

Whactcha lookin' at Rocko....

U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy caught admiring Brazilian junior G8 delegate Mayora Tavares’ ‘backside’ when the two leaders were taking their places for a family photo-op with junior G8 delegates at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

I know things are never what they appear but this makes me laugh anyway...

This just makes me laugh...