I’ve Been Working on the Railroad

Andrew and I went up to the pet store in town to get some dog food for Daisy this week. There is a set of railroad tracks that run directly behind it. We can often hear the train’s whistle as it goes through town from our house.

When we pulled into the parking lot, Andrew saw these vehicles up and down the tracks. We stood there and watched for a minute before I realized just what they were doing. They had already come through and unspiked some of the rotting or cracked railroad ties and pulled them out from under the rails/track.

Right in front of us was a crane-like vehicle taking new ties and placing them off to the side to replace the ones that they had pulled out. Both of us stared in wonder as this machine did its work.

We walked down the side of the building and along the tracks (on a sidewalk) and came to the next contraption. This thing was behind the crane and was basically making sure that there was a pathway for the new ties to slide under the rails.

A ways down from that thing was a bigger vehicle that slid the new ties into just the right position. It would slide it under the rails and tap it into place.

Behind this vehicle were a group of guys all doing something different. One guy would toss the thick metal plates on top of the new tie and make sure the top of it was free from rocks. Then the guys behind him came up and with their machine put in the new spikes to hold the ties in place.

Andrew was in heaven! He loves watching construction-type stuff. He just couldn’t get enough of what they were doing. He watched in fascination at this whole process. I’m sure if I wasn’t watching the clock (because I had to get home to get ready for work), we could have stayed there all afternoon. I hoped that there might be an old railroad spike laying around for us to grab, but we couldn’t find one and really didn’t want to get too close to the tracks.

I told him that we had to get into the store to get the dog food. He told me to hang on a minute because he wanted to get a picture. I couldn’t resist grabbing my phone and getting my own picture of him snapping a photo of the crane.

It is a total coincidence that he has on a shirt that has bulldozers, excavators, and construction vehicles on it! It only makes this picture more special.

I’m so glad I got to share this moment with him.

Another Example of My Not-So-Superior Brain

A little backstory, first.

You may recall that last summer they tore up our street, and sidewalks, and almost every one of our front lawns. My front lawn was where they wound up parking all of their bulldozers, excavators, and even their Port-a-John. They told us that when it was all done things would be back to the way they were “or better.”

When they were done, they put my walkway bricks back, however, they were not level. They also moved the sidewalk close to the street, so now the walkway didn’t reach the sidewalk. All winter and well into the spring they had the seed/hay on all of our lawns. Honestly, some of my neighbors lawns look good. Mine, however, was patchy and a mess.

As I mowed recently, I noticed that there were huge clumps of clay and a lot of rocks in the soil. Well, I guess they didn’t have real dirt to put back, because most of my lawn was rocks and clay. No wonder it wasn’t growing back! So I took matters into my own hands.

I decided to borrow my father-in-law’s rototiller and I was going to rip the whole lawn up. The plan was to till it up, get some good soil and lay it down with seed and fertilizer. Over the weekend I started that project. This is how my yard looks currently.

Because of the rain, I have been unable to get out and drag it so that I can get the seed down. That is still to come. So let’s talk about my stupidity.

I get out the rototiller and get read to work. I have never used one before. I know enough to know I have to set the little digger/tiller things to the depth I want and when I pull on the handle, they will go to work. I look over the control levers to get a feel for what is where. I see that the handle, once engaged, will make the tiller move forward. There is a lever to pull if I want it to go backward.

I start up this thing and I begin to walk behind it. For some reason, I don’t feel like it is really working with me. As a matter of fact, I feel like I am pushing it. I finish my first row and start the next one. Again, I feel like I am struggling with this thing. The sweat is pouring down my face by now. “What the heck is going on?” I think.

My wife is watching me and offers to do it. I am not about to let her do this. If I am struggling with it, I certainly don’t want her to. I get down to the end of the third row and my shirt is now soaked with sweat, the sweat is rolling in my eyes, and I am out of breath. From where I am I throw the thing into reverse. That is when I realize the wheels are not working. I say, “This thing is suppose to be going in reverse.” My wife says, “Well, the hub is spinning, so I don’t know.”

All I can think is that I have broken my father-in-law’s new rototiller. I pull the reverse lever again and I look at the wheel. Sure enough, the shaft is spinning. (Are you getting ahead of me?) This is what I see when I let go of the reverse lever:

Do you see the problem? Once I did, I laughed and could not believe how stupid I am.

You see, the way that wheel is right now is the way it needs to be when you are just moving it around while you are not working. In order to get the wheels to move with you, you have to pull the pin, slide the wheel forward, place the pin through the wheel hub AND shaft, and bingo!

All of a sudden, the work became a lot easier! It moved forward when I wanted it to and backward when I needed it to. Of course, on the fifth row, the flood gates opened and it pour rain on me. That was the end of night one with the tiller. I was obviously able to get the whole thing tilled, but now I need to wait until the rain stops to finish the project.

This is a fine example of what happens when a typical guy like me says, “I don’t need to read any instruction manual!”

Weekend Business

My last blog was a “throwaway.” I’ve had a lot going on, yet I was struggling to find something to write about. I stepped away for a couple days and now I have a few things worth sharing.

We Have a Street!

They finally blacktopped the street this weekend! They finished the driveways and sidewalks a couple weeks ago. They were out yesterday laying the final coat.

Of course, every one of us now has that “hay” on our lawns in hopes that it will grow into grass by next spring. They better be back to lay our walkway bricks back down. They took them out to dig up our yard and they are still stacked next to our porch.

Puppy VS Table

Those who have been following this blog know that before Ella was born, we turned our dining room into her room. The huge dining room table was moved to the basement for a bit. We brought it up for a short time, but with all of the toys and such in the living room, we took it back downstairs.

The kids have a little picnic table they eat at. Well, the puppy can jump up and grab all their food, so I mentioned that the old table should come back upstairs so the pup couldn’t jump up there. Sam reminded me of how big that table was and how we hardly have room, so we went out and bought a smaller table, which works fine and doesn’t take as much room.

Putting that table together was project #1 this weekend. Naturally, it is all put together with those Allen wrenches. The instructions said not to use power tools to put the table and chairs together, but I did anyway! I cannot stand what those wrenches do to my hand!

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like ….

My wife decided that since Halloween was over, it was time to put up the Christmas tree. So I dug through the boxes and such in the basement and found the tree. I drug it upstairs and put it together. No ornaments yet, but I did string the lights.

With the puppy, the cats, and the kids, I had to find a way to keep them away from and out of the tree. Sam reminded me that her dad bought us this play pen type thing that is meant to keep babies in when you’re outside. The tree fits perfectly!

Book Ordered

Finally, Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges gets a book! My pal, Geoff Dale has completed it and it is now available. Larry, Moe, and Curly all have books, and I cannot wait to read this one. He was, as the title proclaims, much more than a stooge! He starred in many solo shorts and appeared in many Abbott and Costello movies. This should be a very interesting read!

Testing, Testing

I haven’t talked much about it because I’d been so busy with other things (a poor excuse), but I have been back in my Bible classes. Over the past week and a half, I worked on tests for two classes. I was so glad to see that I passed both of them. Just started a third test today, and will chip away at it over the next day or two. Praying for similar results. I won’t be but a couple more weeks and I move on to the next semester.

Upcoming

The next Turntable Talk topic has been selected and I will be participating in it again. I’m not quite sure what angle I am going to take, but hope to know soon.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for reading

Two-riffic Day!

I had the day off yesterday for my son’s birthday. It was such a great day with the family.

He is all about tools and the construction vehicles that have been outside, so that was the “theme” for his birthday.

My dad sent him a tool box earlier this week. It had some cool tools in it and he was loving it! Without seeing one Three Stooges movie, he’s already showing me he’s going to love them.

When I came home Tuesday, I put together his birthday present so he could get it first thing in the morning. It’s a cool Mickey Mouse Tool Bench.

He also got some “power tools” that we got from Sam’s Club. They really look like Bosch tools and they all make noises. The drill actually lets you drive a screw in and reverses to get them out. He figured that out on his own. He is loving this!

Sam’s coworkers told her about a cool place north of us. It’s like a big McDonald’s Play Place. Slides, zip lines, and more. He was in his glory going through the tunnels.

They even had a rock wall for him to climb.

We played long into the afternoon and then made our way home. Sam’s mom picked up Andrew’s birthday cake. We were going to go pick it up and bring it home, but then Sam’s sister said she had a gift for Andrew and she’d meet us at their mom’s. We wound up eating cake and ice cream there before finally calling it a night.

We don’t often get days together as a family, so Andrew’s birthday was extra special. It was a really great day.

In my blog yesterday, I posted on of the photos from his 2nd birthday shoot. Our photographer captured this amazing candid that I cannot wait to hang on the wall. This very well can be one pose that I have them do every year ….

I am thankful that the Lord blessed me with my wonderful children. I am so happy to be their dad.

Wednesday Randomness

The last few posts have been all about books, so I figured I would just toss out a bit of an update.

We Have Curbs

The road project is almost done! We have curbs! We should have a street soon and hopefully sidewalks and the rest of my driveway, too! This headache cannot be over fast enough!

I’m on the Google!

A good friend of mine is getting ready for a trip to Italy. He’s been learning a bit of Italian in preparation for the trip. Because he is my friend, and as weird as I am, he decided to Google whether or not the School House Rock songs from the 70’s were available in Italian! When he did his search … who popped up??

THIS is why we are friends (among other things)!

In over 5 years, I’ve never noticed!

Andrew will be two in less than a week, so Sam and I took the kids to get pictures. We also did some family photos.

In the 5 years we have been married, and all of the pictures we have had taken, we’ve never printed them out to hang them. Sure, we have some that we had done on the wall, but there are so many that need to be hung.

Sam told me how she wanted to redo a wall in the living room and we began to go through photos to see which ones we wanted to hang up. As we talked, she said we should probably patch the wall and maybe repaint. The following conversation took place:

Me: You know what we should do?

Sam: What?

Me: When we paint, we should make one wall a different color.

Sam stared at me like I was growing a third eyeball.

Me: What?

Sam points to the wall next to me and says, “THAT wall IS a different color!”

I turned and looked. I swear, it did not look different! The way the light hits it, I never noticed the two being different.

Me: No it’s not!

Sam: YES, it is!

So I get up and walk over to the corner where the two walls meet …

Me: Well, how about that!? It really is a different color!

Sam just stared at me in disbelief.

Yes, we have lived together for 6 years. I never noticed!

Wish Me Luck

I should know tomorrow what the results of all that ADHD testing shows. I’m hoping for some answers!

They are the sunshine of my life

I love the fall whether, even if it does feel more like summer. I just love spending time outside with the kids!

“Get Off My Lawn!”

The construction continues on our street. That in itself is bad enough. They have pretty much ripped out all of the concrete from the street itself. They had removed all the sidewalks from the other side of the street early in the project. This week, they began ripping up not only our sidewalk, but our driveway.

They began doing this about 90 minutes before I had to leave for work. Naturally, I wondered if I was even going to be able to get out. Thankfully, they did lay down some sort of gravel type mess to create a way for our cars to get in and out.

We knew they’d be coming up the driveway a bit. What I didn’t know was that they were going to rip up half of my front lawn!

They had to be sure that the pipes leading to the house were copper and not galvanized. You would think that someone would have some sort of notes on something like this, right? Well, the construction guys told me that the city has NO blueprints whatsoever about our street. They don’t know where pipes are, gas lines, etc… This sort of explains why they keep hitting them while they are digging I guess.

“Plans? What plans?!”

The hole they dug in my yard is no laughing matter. It’s deep. And this picture is when they were about half done with it.

And you know, why not kill the rest of the grass by just piling the dirt you are digging up on top of it?

I can only hope that they dug up the mole – or moles – that were making tunnels under there earlier in the year!

I did give myself a chuckle, though. As they were checking the water pipe, I remembered the Three Stooges short “A Plumbing We Will Go.” In that short, Moe tells Larry to find where the water turns off. He ends up digging up the lawn. In one scene, his head pops out of the grass and he says, “I’ll find this thing or else!” and then goes back under the lawn. It cracks me up every time!

I guess I should be happy that they are working outside on the pipes and not inside …

Gratitude and Laugh on Me

I would like to take a moment and thank each of you who commented, reached out via email, or texted me regarding my last blog. Your love and support means a lot to me and my family. Knowing that so many folks are thinking about us truly warms my heart. I will be sure to at least post an update when I can.

The Joke Was On Me – But The Water Wasn’t

Sam was asleep because she had worked the night before. I laid the kids down for a nap and jumped in the shower to get ready for work. I grabbed my cup and razor, filled the cup with hot water and put shaving cream on my head. I began shaving when the water pressure got suddenly low.

I started to question whether I had put clothes in the washer. Nope. Did I start the dishwasher? Nope. As I pondered these things, the water stopped completely.

I stood there waiting for a minute and no water ever came. At this point I growled a few choice words and shaved the remainder of my head (Thank goodness I had water in the cup to rinse my razor!). I got out of the shower mumbling and cursing. I knew that I could pack a bag and shower in one of the patient rooms at work, so I gathered up everything and tossed it in an overnight bag. I walked into the bedroom and told Sam we had no water and I didn’t know why.

Of course, I had a very good suspicion. I threw on shorts and a t-shirt and took all my stuff to the car. The construction workers were digging down the road and I figured they were responsible. As I began to walk down to them angrily, I saw a truck from the city driving down the road.

The passenger window was down and as they passed me, I shouted to the passenger, “What happened to my water!?” They stopped the truck, got out and said that the morons working on the street had once again hit a water line. They apologized and said they’d get right on it.

For the record, they have hit the gas lines three times and this is the fourth time they have hit a water line. We are once again under a “Boil water” advisory. I can only hope that this will be the last time we have issues, but the truth is, they are not even halfway done.

Now that I think about it, I should have went outside in a towel with shaving cream on my head to cuss those idiots out … but I like my neighbors, so I didn’t.

Random (and cool) Act of Kindness

As you know, they are working on our street. They are ripping up the water and sewer lines and working on a new water main before resurfacing the whole road.

This morning as I was cooking breakfast Sam took Andrew outside because Consumers Energy was out working on something. They had two of their diggers out and Andrew is fascinated by the “Big trucks.”

As they stood watching, one of the workers walked up to Sam. She told him that Andrew loves watching and he asked if he’d like to sit in the digger. He said yes, and the man walked over and turned the machine off and put Andrew up in the cab of the digger.

He was in heaven! I guess he was loving being in there and then looked at Sam a bit scared and said, “All done.” He went back to Sam, who was kicking herself for leaving her phone in the house. She said it would have been such a cool picture.

The guy told Sam that when he was a kid, his dad took him to a building site or somewhere where there was construction going on. A man asked him if he’d like to get in the machine. When he said yes, he got a huge thrill. The man told Sam that it was a core memory that he will never forget. He said, whenever he sees a child watching them work, if he is able, he always tries to let them sit in one of the machines. He hopes that it will become a great memory for whoever sits in it.

Sam didn’t get the man’s name, but kudos to him for being such a nice guy and offering up a once in a lifetime memory for others. I wish I could extend my gratitude and let his bosses know what a great employee they have!

Random “Crap” (Pun intended)

The work that they are doing on our street has been more than annoying. We’re having to park on side streets because we can’t get to our driveway. Our mail is not being delivered because the mail lady can’t get to our street. Whatever happened to “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds!?” Oh, and Amazon called Sam to tell her they couldn’t figure out how to get a package to the house. It’s insane!

The thing that I’m not really happy about is the new lawn decoration that the construction crew has placed in front of my house ….

I understand that the workers need one of these, but is this really where it needed to be?

Of course, the kids thought it was awesome. Sam actually had to tell Ella that she needed to stay out of it! Urgh!

I already have to use earplugs for noise. I suppose I will be needing nose plugs for the stink, too.

Funny Thought

I thought other bloggers and folks who use social media would chuckle at this. Saw this on the net earlier:

“Remember when people had diaries and got made when people read them? Now, they put everything online and get mad when people don’t!”

So true!

Weapons of Mass Construction

It is going to be a LONG 4 months!

We’ve known for some time that they were going to be working on our street. It began loudly on Monday morning. We were awaken by someone using one of those big cement saws to slice a line at the end of our driveway.

They went up and down both sides of the street cutting lines on all the driveways. From the looks of things, they may be ripping up half of our front yard, too. That remains to be seen, but there are all kinds of those flags across the lawns of my neighbors and me.

The other day, I woke up after dreaming I was flying in a World War II fighter plane. Think about the sounds that are made by the machine guns ……. got it? That’s what I was dreaming I was hearing. Nope. It was just the sound of a HUGE jackhammer pounding holes into the concrete!

That, of course is just the beginning. Then you have the “claw” that comes by and rips up the concrete block by block.

They were taking the blocks and dumping them in piles all along the street, but it seems like they got rid of most of them as they have made their way down to our house.

The kids certainly have loved sitting out on the porch watching the “big trucks” go up and down the street.

This afternoon, one of the drivers saw the kids on the driveway and honked the rig’s horn for them. They got a kick out of it.

For me, it has been a challenge to sleep during the day. Even with earplugs, I can hear the ruckus. At times, I can feel the ground shake as they are working. It hasn’t been fun. Today, we could feel the ground shake as they dumped these big pipes outside the house.

I guess what I don’t understand is that they are literally going all the way down one side of the street and tearing it up. We have three blocks on our street. To me, it would make sense to do from the main road to the end of block one (both sides), then from the end of block one to the end of block two, etc… Doing it this way has been one big mess.

We got a letter in the mail saying that we’d be allowed to park on the side streets where it is usually illegal to do so. That sounds good in theory. I’d do it, if there were big piles of gravel and dirt all along those side streets. It just seems like they really didn’t think things through.

Since starting on Monday, they have hit the water lines a couple times. Our water was off and on and off again. We are boiling water just in case because they never said if it was ok to drink it yet. They’ve also hit a gas line and they shut the gas off for almost a day. Thankfully, they came in and relit the pilot light on the water heater and furnace for us.

I really feel bad for my one neighbor. They just sold their house and will be moving within a month or so. They want to have an estate sale. I wonder how they are going to get people to come when they can’t even access the street! And how are they getting moving trucks in and out of there? Moving out is bad enough for them, and moving in will be bad for the new neighbors. Urgh!!

This is supposed to go on through November! I sense a lot of sleepless days for my wife, my kids and me.

By the way, I hope the port-o-john doesn’t find its way to my front lawn…..