A few favorite things and memories…

These are a few things I’ve always kept hold of over the years…. The wooden pocket knife and camp knife my dad made me.  My big bird and Playmobile solider.  My David bracelet I got from the sauerkraut festival in 2nd grade. My first (black) and second (white) pocket knives.  I even have my name badges from some of my early jobs.  There are other things there too, and more in the drawer to my workshop desk that was my dad’s table in his office.  Maybe I will dive into some of the details in upcoming blogisodes. :)

I guess I’ve always been a sticker guy…

I was looking through some of my old memories and found this from my sixth grade era! Fun to think about me carrying this around in my bag, trading with friends for three years! It’s well loved and mostly full! Pigs, Superman, the gospel, and all kinds of other variety throughout the pages. It’s fun that it started as just a simple notebook. 

138 year old Morgan Silver Dollar :)

It was cool that Julie found this for me in her Nanny’s things when going through them recently.  It was mounted on a belt buckle so I carefully removed it and added it to my collection.  I have a ring made from a 1921 also.  I even have a matching 1921 silver dollar to go with it. It’s interesting to think about life back in 1888 and what one of these could have bought you back then…?

Do you know about the Omega Speedmaster and the moon?

It was selected in the mid-60’s after a heated competition.  They had to have a reliable time piece for the planned moon landing.  Back in the day, they timed their engine burns with what they could wear on their wrist!  The current Speedmaster Professional is that watch.  It has an acrylic crystal since they didn’t want glass in space that would shatter instead of just crack.  The case back (shown here) is inscribed appropriately.  

Interestingly, Swatch (yeah the plastic watch folks from the 80’s shown in the lower right pic) just partnered with Omega to come out with this nod to the Moonwatch called the Moon Swatch.  Pictured in the middle (case back lower left).  It’s just a cheap quartz, but I still had to put my self on a waitlist for one! Fun and cool! I remember swatch being all the rage.  $25 watches people were paying hundreds for to get them first back in the day.  They still seem to be able to generate the same hype hahahaha.

I have my network looking for an old, used Speedmaster reduced triple date so see if I can get a “real” one…

Lots of mushrooms this year

The wet summer means we have lots of mushrooms on our property this year.  This was a big batch that popped up out of a tree root system along the border between our driveways. Julie looked them up, they are either choice edibles or toxic… That’s the problem with many of the yummy variety. They look just like ones that are a definite no-no… Our policy: if it’s not obvious, don’t try them…! 🤪☠️

I’m getting my speed ladder in less than two mins

1:55 in this case.  It’s nice to be able to do all of them, now I am just working on getting smoother and faster.

Next up on the agenda…

We had a chance to paddle around on the pond and test out Johnny’s John boat.  We had a blast and it worked nicely.  Then we moved a chair into their place and rotated the wheels on his “new” car.  A fun and productive day for sure.

The before and after.

We were pretty happy with the way it turned out. It’s gotta be WAY better than it was before we started.  Hopefully it’s water tight and we can tackle repairing the dining room ceiling plaster next. 

It was a day of proud papa moments and full hearts❣️

I’m just a gopher these days…

…and maybe a foreman.  It was fun to watch the boys helping each other out.  We tackled a couple vents too, just to make sure they were up to snuff while we were already up there.  In the lower right, I’m just sitting in the shade waiting for my next assignment.  They said it looked like I was over there playing in a sandbox, haha!

Lower left is me “go-foring” up a blower to clean everything off before we re-sealed it.

The work begins on Johnny’s chimney flashing

First they had to strip off the old sealant and pull the nails that had worked their way loose.  It’s fun to see Andy and him diving into a project together.

Figuring out the work for the day…

Last weekend the boys all gathered to help John with his leaky chimney flashing.  It was fun to see that Andy broght his measuring tape along and was ll prepared to help.  It’s crazy that he’s had this since I first started buying him tools as a child.  Probably from the 201–2012 timeframe.  He’s replaced some of the guts a couple times.  It’s “survived” some pretty big drops and really starting to show it.  But it still works.  It looks like it might just fall about soon…?!

King of the dogs…

Fun with Andy’s truck

It got lettered recently so John and I stopped by to see it and grab a few tools for the day’s adventure. John geeked out over the layout.  Andy showed us his newly built pipe stock storage and his “door jammer” which holds the automatic lock open when he is going in and out of the trunk constantly on a job.  He even built a place to store it on the side of the stock bin.  Inventive!

Fun working through our new Kendama tricks

Andy likes to keep tabs on how I’m doing.  He cheers me on, and also gives me little tweaks to improve my consistency.  It’s kind of impressive how he can watch me for a minute and tell me what I’m doing wrong, then all of a sudden, I’m lacing it.  I’ve gotten to where I can reliably get through all my tricks in three tries or so.  Speed ladder, here I come…

Just my Jeep in a nice setting