Better week on one front at least

So had a pretty decent week on the sporting front. My basketball team won again on Monday night despite being 0 for 20 something from 3 point range where we are usually pretty good. Even got a dunk in the game:) Was cutting through the lane and got a pass from my teammate with the intention of taking it up strong to finish. Must have had my Wheaties that day cuz I was able to catch it and go straight up one handed for the score. Also come to find out that my teammate that grew up about 20 minutes away from me knows my sis, Carrie, and they've even gone to a concert together, small world. Tuesday and Wednesday had some of my best nights ever hitting in volleyball, even beating one of the top teams in our league. Thursday we had our end of season dodgeball tournament. First game I played, threw three balls and got three people out including the last person. Had another game where it came down to me against 5 people and I took them all out. Played real good, but ended up in 4th. Double elimination, lost the first time to the defending champs who won again, and then lost a close one to the 2nd place team which we had actually beaten for their first loss of the night earlier on. Good times though.

Sent the ol' resume in to a couple places and just waiting to hear back now.

It was 75 degrees here yesterday, breaking the old record by 4 degrees. Then snowed 3 inches overnight and was in the low 30s today with a cold wind, go figure:)

Well that was fun...

So we had a bit of wind this morning. 40 mph sustained, 72 mph gusts (thank you National Center for Atmospheric Research, conveniently located here in Boulder). Another company had their fence blown over, but ours was fine, so everything appeared to be ok when I got to the site. As I am setting up for the day a guy comes up to me and says some of our blueboard (1" styrofoam insulation that adds an R-5 value that we get from Dow for free) is in his yard. So I'm thinking, a couple chunks got blown away, no big deal. I take a closer look, an entire bundle (72 4x8 ft sheets) gone. They were wrapped in plastic to hold it all together, but somehow it must have gotten ripped on something and the blue foam carnage began. 2304 sq ft of foam scattered over a 5-6 block area. Of course, that is just the area we searched during our cleanup. I did see a couple pieces across the highway 5 blocks away in some evergreens. After that line of trees though, there is nothing east of there for the foam to catch on, so who knows how far away some ended up. All told, it took about 8 of us just under two hours to catch it all and bring it back to our trailer to store it out of the wind. So yeah, fun stuff.

More pics of the little ones

The two of them




Told you he doesn't mind where he sleeps

Been a while

Aidan isn't picky about where he falls asleep


Mom and Ella taking a siesta


How not to shim a window. Pic is a little screwy because my computer still doesn't like to read my memory card too well. The middle and right side of the window had just about as many shims.


Recent snow fall. The Lumina is buried off to the right. Actually had to shovel off the car before work that day.


Since the last update, not much new has been going on (hence it's been a while). Went home for Christmas for a little over a week. Got to see baby Ella for the first time, most easy going baby ever. Sleeps through just about everything (a must with big brother Aidan being the noise-maker extraordinaire that he is) and doesn't seem to get upset too often. Aidan has become quite the talker since the last time I had seen him before I moved. He was a little too unsure of me to give me a hug when I first saw him, but was more than eager to introduce me to Lightning McQueen and the rest of his cars from his favorite movie.

Since coming back, things have been pretty busy at the site. We rented a boom lift for a week or so to put up all the high stuff (sub-fascia, soffit, fascia) that would have been difficult or impossible to do with scaffold or ladders. A little testy at times, not so fun when the wind picks up and you are bouncing around 20 feet in the air, but overall worked out well. The plumbing has passed inspection and the mechanical is just about done. Electrician should be done within a week or so. We continue to plug away at little stuff and put on siding when we can, though the weather this week might limit that. Current highs are topping out around 15 or so, but the site is kind of exposed and windy, so we get quite the chill.

On a good cold note, got to go snowshoeing for the first real time last week up at Rocky Mountain NP. Was a lot of fun, though the trail was a bit heavily used and compacted, so only really needed the snowshoes in certain spots. Planning on going some more and would like to do a hut trip at some point before the winter is over if anyone wants to come out and play in the snow...Unfortunately, no pictures from the trip due to the camera batteries dying in the cold.

Currently reading the book "Marley and Me" by John Grogan, about a family and their excitable/destructive lab. It's a pretty good book, up there with Bill Bryson's on my list of fav's, so definitely recommend it.

Videos

On one of our volunteer days, we had a pair of communications students come out and shoot some video at our site. You can check it out here. The girl doing the talking is actually from Des Moines and did her undergrad at ISU. Of course that initially caused me to kick her off the site, but then she told me that she would go to Iowa City on the weekends and liked it better there, so was allowed to stay. Anyway, I make two appearances (i.e. the star of the video) Just don't blink cuz you might miss it.

This next one I found utterly disturbing.

Lots-o-snow

So, apparently it snows here in Colorado. Got about 6 inches or so the other day and have another 2-4 coming tonight and tomorrow. That's just down here in Boulder, couple feet of the white stuff up in the mountains. Would have made for a good opportunity to go play up there, but those plans got called off following a rough day at the gym playing basketball. Managed to pull a hamstring, sprain an ankle and turn my left knee and hand into an interesting shade of purple. I remember the hit that caused the knee, but really have no idea about the hand. Nothing too serious, just the kind of things that make the idea of learning to snowboard/fall down repeatedly learning to snowboard not sound so good. Probably should also learn to stop after the first injury instead of trying to break some sort of record.

At work we are running out of indoor things to do, so will either be out in the cold or slowing down quite a bit. Either way, have another week and a half before the affiliate shuts down for Christmas and will be heading back to Iowa where I'm sure the weather is nicer this time of year...

Last couple of weeks

Just the slab, walls off to the left on the platform we made


First floor walls up


Where things stand now. Notice the scaffold on the right. I will spend the next several weeks taking down and putting all of it back up again for the siding, then repeating the process when we paint...fun


And of course, baby Ella

So, the last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful. At work, the house went from the slab to having the roof framed and sheathed in about two and a half weeks. I'm still convinced we could have done it in not much more time by doing an impromptu blitz build of our own given that we have around 100 volunteer groups on our wait list, but oh well. About half-way done with window installation and have all the siding set to be delivered on Tuesday. Will still be outside a good chunk of this winter putting all of that on. Am putting together a slide show of the building going up. Have been taking pictures every so often from the same spot across the street. Have it on power point, will try to figure out a good way to include it on here.

Outside of work, went and saw Bob Schneider down in Denver a couple weeks ago. Great show, played every song you could ever want to hear and some I hadn't heard before. Had our first snowfall down here last week, a good 5 inches to wake up to. Though that didn't compare to the 21 inches the night before of my new niece Ella Elisabeth. Good segway huh? Speaking of which, bout got run over by 4 guys rolling around on some segway scooters through downtown a couple weeks ago. And an even better tangent...Back to Ella. Not sure anyone reading this doesn't have all the details already, but if so, 8 lbs, 21 inches, born 1:34 am last Tuesday. Will get to see her when I head back for Christmas.

Other random thoughts. Next session of indoor sand volleyball starts this week, so can close my eyes and feel like its summer again. Only downside is that they like to have the end of the season tournament on Saturdays, doesn't fit so well with my Habitat build schedule. Christmas wish list: this kind of money: when I ran into the segway scooters was going to check out a new townhome that our mechanical contractor is working on to see how they used air to air heat exchangers that we are thinking about using. Long story short, this 3 story townhome a block from my place is being sold for 1.4 million...to someone who won't even live in it. Apparently they have a daughter that is starting at CU and they wanted to have a place to stay when they come to visit her. I am pretty sure I will never live in that kind of financial world.