Independence Day...
Most folks just refer to it as July 4th. Picnics, parades, fireworks. And so it has become, a celebration of an event, the magnitude of which escapes most people. Risking life and limb, and, most assuredly, neck, that brave assemblage of men, with broad stroke of quill, declared they would no longer toil under the reign of a foreign King, no longer be subject to the taxes and tariffs imposed by the crown, would dare to speak of freedom, of liberty, of Independence... and set in motion the formation of a Republic. Not a Democratic society, but a Republic. It is that solemn event we celebrate today.
Perhaps those men of '76 celebrated a bit behind the closed doors after the ink of the last signature was blotted dry, but I think the weight of their actions must have been overbearing. How many sat up that night, thinking of the consequences they faced if things didn't work out. I sometimes wonder how much ale, Sherry and wine was consumed that night, both as a toast to the fledgling nation and just to calm the nerves..?
Perhaps one day we will celebrate a second such event, when the thumb of our own government has pressed us down with it's weight for too long and for one time too many. Can we be so bold and brave as our founding fathers? Can such words be wrought in our own way and for our own time? I wonder less if they can be, than if they will be...
So, while enjoying your friends and family today, take a minute to raise a toast to those bold few who shouldered such a weight so that you can have what you do today.
God bless those brave souls and God bless America.


go ahead, make your day...

YAY..!


I lurves my new Mac!


go ahead, make your day...

too many books...


there are now fifty seven running feet of book shelves circling the upper stratosphere of the living room... and there's still hundreds of books with no place to go. we loaded them up last night and ended up culling three boxes of books that we're going to offer to friends and family at our July 4 party, there are still boxes of books upstairs we haven't even looked into yet, not to mention the boxes of tomes stashed in the attic... I can see expanding the shelving into the dining room when I remodel that again next year. or maybe a shelf in the reading nook off the kitchen. or maybe set into the upstairs wall facing you when you are coming down the center staircase. or maybe we just need to get rid of more books. we haven't even thought about the vinyl, cd's, dvd's and vhs tapes, not to mention the hundreds of bound and slip cased magazines...
I set aside my collection of antique books about New Jersey, my collection of Battle of Monmouth books and my NJ history books, which will be taking up residence in the bookcase over the mantle along with my collection of Molly Pitcher memorabilia, so those thirty or so books don't even figure into the equation. Nor do any of my building, wood working or tool books. Or my model railroading and train books...
by the time we went to bed late last night, the living room looked like a second hand book shop after a 4.8 temblor... I guess we'll finish sorting it out tonight.
So, the Mac is still sitting in the box in the dining room, maybe I'll get to that by the weekend, so further reports will be sketchy at best. Be well, have a great 4th and remember, please, why we celebrate on that particular day, and what those great men did and the risks they took to form this great republic. Would that some today might have the balls they did to stand up to the tyranny we now face...


go ahead, make your day...

to busy...


working on latest living room project to hook up new Mac. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Actually, it's been sort of refreshing not having internet access for a while, I haven't been pissed off in over a week... now if I could just stop listening to the news.


go ahead, make your day...

greetings...


I am still alive, unlike certain notable and notorious others who have slipped the surly bonds over the past week. I have been sans computer at home, because Microsoft XP has played a prank on me. The product key supplied with the program disc is somehow now invalid and after the last round of automatic updates, it insisted I re-enter the product key and it will not allow me to use the program because it won't recognize it. After doing battle with said mega-monolithic-arrogant corporation for the past week, who want me to purchase a new product key, I am happy to announce that tonight I will be hooking up my new quad-core Mac Pro. Fuck you, Bill Gates.




go ahead, make your day...

remodeling update...


over in Tilling By Moonlight.


go ahead, make your day...

the doldrums...

My life these days consists of my boring commute back and forth to work, anxiety and grief while at work, getting up at four in the morning to lay some paint on the pieces of the shelf brackets I've been working on, painting pieces of the shelf brackets after I get home from work, drinking various forms of alcohol, dropping pain killers, passing out, getting up at four in the morning and doing it all over again. I'm taking a four day weekend so I can build a jig for assembling the shelf brackets, play with the drill press for hours, pre-drilling the holes and counter sinks for the mounting screws and the screw buttons, then assembling the seventy five pieces into twenty five brackets. Then I get to mount them to the walls, cut, paint and mount the ledger strips to support the back edge of the shelves. Then rip the plywood for the shelves, paint it, add the edging strips and put them up. And then, after that, we can stock the shelves with the hundreds of books we have stored all over the house. And the hundreds of CDs and some of our more treasured vinyl. Then it's on to the built in book case over the mantle, then the mantle, then, because I can't find a door that I like that we can afford, I'll probably make an Arts and Crafts style door, stain and hang it. Then paint and install about three hundred and sixty feet of cove molding to seal the gap between the sheetrock I put between the exposed beams in the ceiling and the beams. And replace the existing ceiling fan with an Arts and Crafts style version. Then I get to finish re-roofing the front porch roof, rip the old porch ceiling out, re-run the electric for the new porch light, add a drop for an outside outlet and put the new tongue and groove bead board ceiling up. Then replace the wood on the outside of the nine windows on the front of the house. And restore the transom over the front door so it works again. And make the wood shutters for the inside of the three double hung windows in the living room. And wire in the radiant heating system in the living room floor, which means I have to gut the closet under the center staircase. Then build a new wine rack for the closet. And then I get to start the dining room, for the second time. New Arts and Crafts style paneled walls, new flooring, all new trim, a corbel ceiling, a new door for the closet under the stairs and the built in china closet and book cases and window seats across the front wall. And a new dining room mantle. And shutters for the inside of the windows, to match those in the living room. And then, the new kitchen cabinets and counter tops. And new flooring and radiant heating system. And new windows in the reading nook off the kitchen. And a new Dutch back door and wooden storm door. And on, and on and on...



go ahead, make your day...