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 Just checking in...

Coolest New Equipment Announcement you need to know about

This is something big, in a small package!  I just heard about this from my wife who saw it on a news program yesterday.  The newest old technology married to new technology to create a super efficient camp stove that serves hot water in just over four minutes and can charge your cell phone or other USB devices.  How cool is that!  Look at the BioLite stove!

I have shamelessly lifted this image from their web site for you.  This little beauty sells for $129 on the BioLite web site and they have a home model, not yet available for sale, that is being developed and distributed in third world nations where over 3 billion people are cooking on open fires and suffering from the effects of smoke as well as the inefficiencies of wasted fuel, etc.

The ordering process is very long because these things have proven so very popular, but I want one!

Finishing the remodeled bar room

Laura and I have been remodeling a lot of different areas of our home and this has provided us with opportunities to divest ourselves of many things that have been squirreled away and forgotten in remote closets and storage areas.  This down-sizing will continue as we work toward completing our latest remodel project: the BAR.

Yup, we've made a bar from the combined areas of a fourth bedroom/sun room.  That area had been almost lost to storage of "stuff" and we have reclaimed it for a more entertaining use.  The walls have been cleaned of wallpaper and repainted and the window trim has been repainted.  The exterior door has been replaced, as has the flooring with new vinyl.

I still have to build the actual bar, but the plans have been settled and we are working towards an old west style with some modern flavor; including the use of ice and electric lights.  I have been collecting posters and things that will add to the ambiance to enhance the atmosphere.  It will definitely be a fun place and we hope to add a dart board and maybe a pinball machine, someday.

I found this really interesting article online this week about another person who is going lean and getting rid of stuff in his life.  I encourage anyone to re-evaluate the hold some of your possessions have on you and look at getting rid of some your stuff.  I find that the best part is getting rid of so much stuff that had been clogging the space.  It's so open and light and usable now.  This is going to be great!

Wow, lot's of NO activity

I just realized that I've not posted for a long time.  However, life has intervened and we have been dealing with a lot around here.  We have managed to finish laying floor in the remodeled sun room, soon to be bar, in the community area of our home.  This is the first time that we've managed to remodel an area for purely selfish and fun reasons.  The area will include an actual bar with a dart board, bar stools, a lounge area, as well as neon sign and a sliding glass door to the outside deck.  The deck may not survive because it's age is pretty advanced and the wood is pretty split and cracked.  However, we think it may be possible to replace the poisonous treated wood with a better synthetic composite material that will age better, tolerating the sun and extreme conditions.

I also realized that there are more people following this blog than any of the others that I've started and feel an obligation to those of you that have recognized that maybe there may be value in reading some of the ramblings of a confused mind.  Sorry to have left you for soooooo long without a post.  I will try to be better prepared to encourage the minimalist in us all.  Sadly, many of the bloggers that I had been reading have fallen by the way side and are no longer posting their contributing opinions of which I found so much impetus for motivation.

No matter.  I forge ahead, solitary figure on the landscape of minimalism, fixed on the goal of divesting my life of the many "treasures" acquired during another period confusion and aspiration.  Most recently, I have been trying to convert a saddle and a outside/weather proof sound system that I've found no real purpose in holding on to, so I am hoping to offer on the alter of minimalist divestiture.
Wish me luck.  Hey, thanks for stopping by and checking in to keep me on task.  Hope to see you again.

Opps, too long

Been way too long since my last post but we have been struggling with some health care issues here at home, including a broken tooth I suffered last Friday night at 10:00 pm, while eating popcorn.  I have scheduled periodontal surgery June 1st to correct a problem. THAT'll be fun.

When I told my daughter that I'll have to quit eating popcorn, she compared my popcorn addiction to a crack head needing a fix, and joked that I'll have trouble keeping my pledge.  Oh well, I hate the dentist more than I love my popcorn.  Actually, I like my dentist, because Dr. Joe is great.  But, I hate what he has to do for me when I have problems.  So, Dr. Alfred will do the prep work for a new crown that Dr. Joe will finish.  I am pleased to have such a great team to fix me.

Sorry to have been absent from here for so long, but life happens.

Plans for the changes around here have not progressed very much.  We are still planning to remove the back deck in preparation of working towards the tiny house. And, we'll be replacing all of the fencing around our fields this fall as well as an automatic waterer.  Lot's to do...

Family Blog?

I'm still waiting for the last panel to the shower enclosure that I broke last week and it should arrive any minute/day.  I double checked all the caulk lines and everything else is ready for installation of the final panel.  Hey, it's not like I'm standing at the front door, wrapped in a towel, waiting for the UPS man!

My sister texted me yesterday with a great idea.  She was thinking about starting a family blog that would enable each of us to post news about our lives, post stories from our youth-growing up together, and maybe share recipes and other fun stuff.  I'm pretty psyched about this because this would be a perfect use of blogging, in my opinion.  It is unclear if she would make this a public blog or "by invitation-private" blog.  This will be fun.

Tempered explosion

On Saturday last, as I put the last screw into the frame of the shower stall, I twisted the screw hoping to drive it flush to the metal frame.  Instead, I succeeded in driving the last screw into the corner of the tempered glass panel behind the metal frame and that was when the glass panel exploded into a million bits.

In that last frozen minute, while the sparkly diamonds of glass were still suspended in the air, all I could think about was, "I didn't just do that!?"  Glass in my hair, glass in my shoes, and all over the floor-shower-hallway...what a mess.  After sweeping up the mess and vacuuming everything to be sure I had every piece of glass, I found the phone number for customer service.

I called them today and was informed that the replacement panel will be shipped from mid-Ohio in seven to ten days.  So we wait,...I had already pressure tested the plumbing and everything is set.  As soon as the panel arrives, the bathroom will be complete.  Boy, do I feel like a big fat dope.  Just one little turn of a screw and everything changed...