Yes Honey, That Is A Firetruck In Our Driveway!!!

This might take some explaining. My friend bought a firetruck at a public auction. No, this isn't his first, but the previous ones are sold and gone. No, he's not a collector, just impulsive. Yes, I drove it home for him and it's going to be stored here for awhile. The other details just take up space.

But it makes a great playset for the kids....
I need to fill it up with water and start spraying. That's a lot of horsepower going into that pump, it should be used.

The Girls

Here are Emma and Marlee. I found them up in this tree. Poor tree.
And here are Emma and Cailin teaming up make the elliptical go faster. Yes, the TV helps motivate. I'm thinking of powering the tv off of it so you can't watch it unless you're burning the calories.

Catching Up

It's been awhile since I've found time to post. But I have been a bit busy. Let me catch up now...

First, last Sunday my buddy (as in dive buddy, climbing buddy, keep me alive buddy) Jason and I climbed and brought four trees down in pieces at his bro-in-law's house. I need to get goggles like he has. Here he is ready to start the day:

We've also bought a new LCD television for the sunroom. Mainly so we don't get bored on the elliptical. However, Erin has this thing about wires running down the wall, so I needed to run some sort of conduit through the wall. Of course, things got ugly as it used to be an exterior wall and out came the sawzall. Who's afraid now???

We considered getting cable after all these years, but when the little rabbit ears picked up decent digital channels, we decided to go all out and install a real antenna. Now we're picking up loads of channels, including all the major networks in HD.

While I was up on the roof, it was time to reshingle a couple spots where plumbing vents used to come through but had been temporarily sealed with ziploc bags and electrical tape (5 years ago). It was way overdue as when I touch them they disintegrated into dust. Ah, nothing like roofing at sunset -- when it's 30 degrees out.Look who came home during my mess....

Today I finished the roofing and among other things washed Erin's car and the van. The truck and yellow car were last week, so all are relatively clean. Most haven't seent a hose for about 6 months or so. But the temperature kept dropping, and you can see what happens when the car you are washing starts to freeze:
Now we whip out some pizza's for dinner, drink a couple bottles of vino and watch LOTR. Talk about your perfect weekend.

I Love February

It was 70 degrees and sunny here today. The last vestiges of ice are still hanging on in the corners of the ponds and lakes, but the thaw is in full swing. I'm sure we are going to pay for it in a couple of weeks with a blizzard dumping a couple feet of snow. Wow, I can only hope. The best of both worlds! Anyhow....I took advantage of the weather to fit in 30 min of running:


Yes, I did take a picture of my running shoes upside down. And no, I didn't feel like rotating the picture before uploading. I drove the route when I was done to see how far I had gone, turns out it was a bit shy of 3 miles, but it did have hills. I've got a long ways to go to get back to high school cross country shape.

Harry Potter 7

Little Miss Emma pulled this polaroid photo out the other day. I had forgotten about it, but you can see that they're a bit smaller back then. We went to the book store for the release party on the night of July 20, 2007 to wait. If memory holds, Emma went home with mom before midnight but Cailin and Marlee stuck it out with me until the end. Marlee even ended up with her picture on the front of the local community newspaper.

Quotes of the Day

I was reading an article on how the Auto Industry is losing its clout. Some of the quotes have been sticking with me through the morning, so I feel the need to share them...

"Usually they would send in their engineers to the [California] Air Resources Board. There they'd work it out nerd to nerd."

"I think your position is yesterday forever."

Website Is Updated!

www.daverin.net is finally updated! Check it out. Even Emma and Marlee got into the spirit and designed their pages. Hopefully as they get older they can add a little style to my minimalist web design style.