Summer Projects 2013 - The Mailbox

Our old mailbox post - many years of faithful service

We've had mailbox issues ever since we bought our house. First off, the house came with a nice red Nebraska Cornhuskers mailbox. So that had to go right away. The post still had issues though. As you can see, it was pretty old, probably the original one that came with the house in 1975. Sometimes the mailbox would get a little wobbly, and we'd get a warning from the post office, so we'd do a quick fix to keep it in place. We share a post with our neighbor, and they experienced similar issues. I think at one point, their mailbox was just on the ground for an extended period.

New mailbox post - fashioned from materials we already had

 
So this last summer, I believe on the day we returned home from our summer camping trip, our neighbor was fixing to replace it because the post office had issued her an ultimatum that they would not deliver any more mail until she fixed it by X date. So she had bought some materials. My super great wife went out and told her that we would help her. At some point we decided that we already had the materials needed, leftovers from various fence and porch projects of the past year. So we went to work on it immediately. We based the design on the previous post and it went quickly.

Finished product - ready to give another 40 years

We only ran into one sticking point when we found our drill wasn't quite powerful enough to secure the two posts together, so we had to go across the street and enlist the help of another neighbor who has a ton of tools.
 
But we got it up in one evening. We even had some leftover Quickrete so we mixed some up and made it extra secure. The neighbors were super impressed with my wife's construction and design skills although they didn't comment on mine at all. Maybe because I don't have any. Anyways, we are glad to finally get that project done!

Ingredients for a Cousins Christmas Eve

A 21st century version of Outburst.

Freshly baked buns.

Just add meat.

Grape salad.

Just add pecans.

A boy and a train.

Oh, yeah, and these are ready to go in the oven.

And much, much more!

Thanksgiving '13

No one does a relish tray like my family.

Bread and meat, what more do you need?

Fruit salad, of course.

I made this corn casserole. Isn't it glorious?

Roaster of gravy.

Thank you, Mr. Bird. You lived a good life.

The full spread.

I have to say, I liked the square plate. The portions are so linear.

Elaine's Pie Crust: A Lesson in Pictures

I'm skipping the part about mixing the dough because it's boring.

Also, I wasn't there for the dough mixing part.

I'm not going to bother with writing a bunch of text.

Just do what she's doing.

I think this fork part is important.

Perfection!

Review: It Happened in Wisconsin

It Happened in Wisconsin by Ken Moraff

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I checked this little winner out from the Amazon Prime lending library.

It's about a 1930s minor league team known as the Racine Robins, who aren't so much baseball players as they are crusaders seeking to right the wrongs put upon good, hard-working Americans by evil corporations. They don't have a manager, drive their own bus, and keep only enough of their gate to subsist on. The rest of the profits go to helping the poor and the hungry. And probably paying labor bosses although the book doesn't explicitly say so.

The writing is actually good enough in the first few chapters to get you interested in the characters and their backgrounds. But then you get to the halfway point of the book and realize that. . . nothing is going to happen in the book. It's just a vehicle for socialist propaganda. I finished reading it anyways, and I was right.

The book is narrated by a nameless member of the team, who by his account was a star pitcher although who knows because there was maybe three pages of actual baseball action in this book. He speaks retrospectively of the good ol' days when he and his best friends/teammates were out to save the world from greed. In present days, he's a sad old man in a rest home who passes the time perving over his young nurse.

I don't necessarily disagree with all of the ideals put forth in this book, but there's a reason in society why businesses aren't managed by the people, for the people. It's because it doesn't work. There's a reason teams have managers. It's because they would suck otherwise.

But in the author's well-crafted cheesy Wisconsin bubble, all the players are completely selfless and never seek their own interest! And of course, they are also all good enough to play in the major leagues, if only they were willing to stoop so low! And so, in the pages of this idealistic tale, it works perfectly! It's only fiction, after all!

(There are so many exclamation points in this book!)

The arguments against "the system" are interesting for awhile, but the author just continues to beat you over the head with them, again and again and again, until mercifully, the pages go all white. I'm assuming that meant the book was over and not that I was beaten into submission.

There's a subplot involving the narrator's lost love. But is it really a subplot when there is no main plot? That's a question to ponder on when you're not out organizing labor unions.





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Review: Slow Getting Up

Nate Jackson wrote a book about his football career. Never heard of him? Yeah, most people, even football fans, probably aren't familiar with the guy. He wasn't a superstar, or even a starter. He was a reserve wide receiver and tight end who saw most of his action on special teams. I was only familiar with him because he spent the bulk of his playing career in Denver. And honestly, the main reason I read it was for a peek behind the curtains of my favorite NFL team.

He writes extensively about the brutality of NFL life and the various injuries he suffered throughout his professional career, which began as an undrafted free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, included a season in NFL Europe, and ended with with the Las Vegas Locos of the UFL after he failed to catch on for one more NFL tour with the Cleveland Browns. And how he didn't want to stop playing despite the horrible beating his body was taking.


He makes a point in the book that fans become detached from the realities of football because they participate through a television screen. Think about it - you turn it on, watch the game, and then turn it off. It's very similar to any other television program. The characters disappear from your screen until the next time you turn it on - at what point do players become no more than a fictional being? I'm sure fantasy football and video games only contribute to this warped sense of reality.

Football is a violent game and that many of yesterday's heroes are suffering horrible consequences for their participation in the game. Some of them choose to end their lives prematurely rather than continue living with their damaged body. But. . . no one is forcing any of them to play. They could walk away at any time if they chose. Some of them do. However, the money is really, really, good, which makes it hard. There's also something about the thrill of competing at such a high level that many of us can't quite relate to.

Nate tries to explain why he kept pushing to play professional football, even though he had plenty of valid reasons to quit. I don't know that he's a great writer, but his insights make for interesting reading.

I'd recommend it for Broncos fans. I appreciated his thoughts on why the Broncos lost the 2005 AFC Championship Game loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, how important Gary Kubiak was as an assistant to the success of the Broncos, and the dangerous effects of John Elway Nostalgia.

It's a little coarse language-wise. I'm not sure why the authors of these behind-the-scenes NFL books feel the need to illustrate their tales with so many dirty words. Look ma, I'm an NFL player, because I can talk like one! It's one thing not to be able to express yourself without profanity verbally, but it's another to be unable to do it on a keyboard.

Walking in the Springs

Twice a year, I spend about a week in downtown Colorado Springs for work. It's kind of an interesting place. I brought my camera along the other day and decided to take a few photos for the blog. The first one is a picture of the side of V Bar. The colorful mural was added three or four years ago.

Here we have a picture of Phantom Canyon Brewing Company. It's an easy walk from our client and so we've often had lunch here through the years. We never refer to it by the actual name - we call it "the brewpub". They have pretty good food but I can't speak as to the quality of the brew.

 This statue is up the street from the brewpub - I'm actually not sure who it is supposed to be and I didn't walk over and read the plaque. I'm so lazy! Maybe I'll do it next time.

Street preaching seems pretty common in downtown Colorado Springs. Maybe it's common in Denver as well, although I rarely visit downtown Denver so I wouldn't really be the one to ask. I like that people often seem to stop and engage (argue) with the preacher.








This is the marquee at one of the night spots. Oh, if we only could have stuck around long enough for the Hootenanny! I'm sure it would have been epic.

And here's a shot of the intersection of Kiowa and Cascade. The church is St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral. It's pretty big.

So in conclusion, I'm not a great photographer. There were many other interesting things to see on my walk around the block (especially people) but I felt weird walking around snapping pictures. I guess you can't really have many inhibitions if you want to be a great photographer.