coffee....cigarette....morning

nothing altogether too spectacular to report since Tuesday. Wednesday was uneventful. Thursday i came home from work, cracked open a beer (Henry's, on sale), turned on some tunes (Pink Floyd's "Animals") and headed out back to dig out the rest of the concrete footings the previous owner sunk in the ground to anchor a swing set. they need to be demolished and re-buried before i can fix the rest of the yard. first things first.

maybe today i'll get over to Jason's and borrow his hammer-drill to weaken those bastards up before i bust 'em into gravel. gonna have to hit my pops up for some grass seed and weed killer, since he's got access to all that stuff now. with my pitifully small backyard it can't take much of either to do it justice. also need to get out to the gravel boys and fill up my truck bed with something to throw down in the dog run. and get something to retain it with. smells like a trip to the hardware store.

which all costs money. gotta get on top of the bills this month before skipping out to NY for a well-deserved break in the action. just BARELY made the house payment on time, using every bit of the grace period to make it happen. someone at the bank mentioned tying my credit card account into my regular one for overdraft protection; i asked them about that a bunch of times over the last couple years and was always told it couldn't be done- go figure. whatever; next time the mortgage payment's due and i don't get paid at the right time, i can just pay the bill and worry about it later...which might come in handy at the end of the month.

after diggin' up the backyard it was time to watch game 4 of the NBA finals- great game. the Pistons played like world champs. Ben Wallace was flat amazing. the Pistons set the NBA record for least turnovers in a finals game, and outscored the Spurs by around 30 points- the Spurs only led once, in the first quarter, by a point. after that the closest they got was -8. maybe Loren will get out here to watch the deciding game; depends on how the rest of the series goes.

Loren was supposed to be here this weekend, but in typical end-of-school-year fashion, everything resembling a schedule has gone to hell, and he decided he wants to hang out with his mom. so be it. the only thing i have truly planned for this weekend is watching tomorrow's Pistons/Spurs game- should be a good one; the series has become a best of three contest; San Antonio won the first two at home, then got soundly trounced in the next two in Detroit (well...outside of Detroit).

i do have some chores to catch up on, and i should get over to Dad's to wish him a happy father's day tomorrow. maybe i'll borrow his pressure washer and hit my fence and deck while the weather's not too great. that would be the smart thing to do....dunno if i'll prove to be the smart one or not.

the aforementioned great gal (see earlier posts) called me up Thursday; she's been as busy as i have. nice to hear from her- i'd pretty much given up. it was khoul to see her, but i stayed over there pretty late, and it cost me some sleep i could have used after a full day of work and a few more hours of manual labor in the yard- i paid for it on Friday. not to say it wasn't worth it ;)

we ran out of parts early in the day, and i got elected to tear down the old shed behind the shop. broke out the cutting torch and demolished the steel frame (i forgot how much fun it is cutting steel with a torch), then broke out a bunch of concrete the hard way- with a big steel bar- which made better progress than i imagined it would; the concrete wasn't overly thick. next i'll have to level the ground (leaving a little slope since some wet work is going to get done in there), and build a simple form and pour a pad (something like 6'x16') to build the new shed on....if someone else doesn't get assigned the project when i'm back to running parts again. then it's gotta get framed and roofed and sided. fun project if i get to see it through- doubtful at this point. when putting the torch away, the guy i was working with underestimated how heavy the tanks were, and dropped them....i saw them going over, right beside me- frkn SCARY! you've never seen someone jump away, turn their back, cover their head, and shrink up as fast as i did. BANG! they hit the ground solidly on the sides of the tanks (damn lucky, as they were on an incline and could easily have snapped the regularors off). again we got lucky, the tanks survived intact and the regulators didn't seem damaged. needless to say, i tried to impress upon the guy how dangerous it is to drop tanks. this shop isn't great about safety with tanks in the first place- but this was just a bad move by an inexperienced guy.

Friday night Nichole & Chris invited me over for some grilled steak- which was excellent. thanks guys! it's always nice to see those guys. i really should get over there (and to Melissa & Jason's) more often. not to mention down to see my folks. Chris broke out his humidor and we had a cigar after dinner- always good. nice to see my nephews too! Cole was a little worried i had Chowder with me, but for nothing since Chowder was holding the home fort down.

ok, when i'm bored typing it's a good sign it's time to walk away. no one's likely to have read this far, and that means no one's likely to see me say
PEACE