Here's another one of my videos

This one is a tour of my basement. I'm not one to throw away stuff worth anything. That mentality has caused me to fill my basement with 30 years worth of mostly crap.

Sigh................................

sigh – verb
1. to let out one's breath audibly, as from sorrow, weariness, or relief.
2. to yearn or long; pine.

I'm alone this weekend. Lori went up to Connecticut to visit her brother and go to a million acre yard sale they call "Brim". Okay, it's not really a million acres, but hundreds for sure.

My son slept at his girl friends house last night. That's fine, but with Lori away, there went our chance for snuggling in different rooms. Why couldn't he have chosen next weekend for that?

sigh – verb
1. to let out one's breath audibly, as from sorrow, weariness, or relief.
2. to yearn or long; pine.

Nothing like a good, fresh cup of coffee in the morning!

We woke up last Sunday and I put on a pot of coffee. Lori and I like to sit in bed in the morning after we're done snuggling with our laptops and a fresh cup of coffee. She made the muffins poured I poured the coffee. Sounds good doesn't it?

Except when the half & half is spoiled.



Have a great weekend y'all!

Chapter 4: Basic Training - Part 3

The next story in the continuing saga of BTExpress' army adventures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once everyone had arrived in basic later that week, SSG Temple called us to formation in front of our barracks. Temple asked us if there was anyone in our platoon that thought they could kick his ass. No one spoke up at first until one guy raised his hand. Temple called him to the front.

Temple got in his face yelling and screaming that "... who did he think he was? Asking him "...if he thought he was a tough guy?" All kind of thing like that. The guy stood right up and unflinchingly said, "...yes." Temple asked him "...if he thought he was so tough, to come with him behind the barracks and try!" Then off they went.

HOLY CRAP! Was that guy crazy or something. Temple was about the toughest sounding guy I'd ever seen and he was sure to kick the guys ass. We all stood silently listening for the sound of a fight, but we never heard anything. A few minutes later they both came out from behind the barracks looking just like they did before this whole thing started.

The guy stood next to Temple with both of them facing us. Temple told us that he was our Platoon Leader and in charge when none of the NCOs were around. He wrapped a blue arm band around his upper arm that had three stripes on it. This arm band signified his position.

Platoon Leader SGT Dallas Cook











Temple instructed Cook to choose one man to be his assistant. He would also get an arm band, but with two stripes. He choose this man.

Platoon Leader Corporal Robert Cleckly











Temple's choice of these two men made for problems sometimes for basically two reasons. They let their positions go to there heads and turned into a couple of first class pricks. Also because these two guys were black. Remember this was 1968 and racial tensions were running quite high in the USA at the time. And since out of the 56 men in our platoon, 8 men were black. The rest were either white or some other nationality.

On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major American cities for several days afterward. The Washington, D.C. riots of April 4–8, 1968 erupted with the April 4, 1968 assassination of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil unrest affected at least 110 U.S. cities; Washington, along with Chicago and Baltimore, was among the most impacted. Then on April 11 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

One evening just before bed, Cook began walking up and down the center aisle with his dick hanging out of his boxers stroking it as he walked. Truthfully, it was huge! He asked if anyone wanted to get fucked or blow him. Everyone was afraid of him, so no one said a word and just tried to ignore him. Then he jumped on a few bunks, including mine acting like he was trying to fuck you. He didn't do anything except laugh, make humping motions and stroke his dick. When he got tired of playing the game, he stopped and went to bed.

That night I was suddenly awakened when my bunk was pushed over. My arm was between the foot locker and the bunk when we hit the floor, but I didn't get hurt. We were pushed over by Cook and his partner in crime Cleckly. They knock over one or two more bunks too.

By then everyone in the barracks had woken up. Someone woke up Temple and and he came running up the stairs to see what was going on. Cook and Cleckly were ratted out immediately and the two of them were taken to the company HQ. Temple asked if anyone was hurt, but no one was hurt, just shaken up. We were told to straighten things up and go back to bed.

The next day during morning formation, Temple made Cook and Cleckly apologize, but that was it! Well, except that they weren't allowed out of the company area for a while. No one thought that was fair, but Temple said since there was no real harm done, it would just be dropped.

Power Washing & Retaining Walls

If you remember, I've decided to fix up the old homestead. I was going to remodel the bathrooms first, but the contractor that was going to do the work, seemed to have disappeared. Getting someone to replace him, that will charge a reasonable price, is easier said than done. So that leaves me with a living room full of bathroom fixtures.

Since the bathroom projects have been put on hold for now, I decided to start working on the outside of the house instead. The list of things to do outside seems endless. I'm sure the list will grow, but here's what I'm doing so far.

1. Rip out a lot of the over grown shrubbery
2. Take out old walk ways in front yard
   
3. Transplant rhododendron to back yard
4. Trim shrubbery in entire yard
   
5. Power wash the house
6. Build retaining walls in the front of the (house
7. Repair front stoop, cover stoop in slate to match roof of house and replace hand rails
   
8. Plant new shrubbery, plants & flowers in the front
9. Install shutters by all the windows (I'll do this myself)
   
10. Repair the small amount of miscellaneous damage to the siding around the house
11. Replace the driveway. This will have to wait until I sell my boat, which is hopefully soon.
    

Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4 were completed last Monday. Part 5 was 90% completed last Thursday. The guy missed the side of the house above the garage and the foundation. I told the owners of the landscaping company and they will have the guy come back and finish the job. It really made a big difference.



Friday morning two guys showed up with the stone for the retaining wall. They didn't finish Friday and were supposed to come back on Saturday, but Saturday they never showed up. They did come back today and finished.

The truck has a pallet of stone and a load of top soil to put behind the retaining walls.







While one guy digs a trench for the first couple of courses of stone,......







......while the other guy starts unloading the stone from the truck.








The building of the retaining wall starts.








This is the smaller of the two walls. I didn't like the selection of stone that was left, so told him to call his boss and tell him I wanted him to get a second pallet of stone, which he agreed to do. They were a lot better.





Here's the finished retaining walls. That bench on the stoop is new too. It was on sale at the hardware store for $29.95, so I got it. It's made out of cast iron and an unknown-to-me type of wood. Lori thought it would look good there. She also picked out the purple flower next to it. Guess she couldn't wait. LOL


There were a lot of left over smaller stone that I didn't want used for the retain walls. Today the guy asked me if I wanted him to use it to build small walls to outline the flower beds and bushes elsewhere in my yard. I told him sure and showed him a few places I thought it would look nice. I had to run a few errands and was gone for a few hours, so let him decide what to do. I was pleasantly surprised with what I found when I got back.

This is the fence by my side yard on the south side of my house. I think I'll plant a few rhododendrons here.







This is the beginning of the low wall the guys built while I was gone. I never expected they would do this much, but am very happy the did. I really like the way it came out. Maybe he went the extra mile because I gave him my old lawn self-propelled lawn mower.




This is the fence behind my house. The house behind me is for sale if you have $600,000.

Edit: $750,000........... That just means my place is worth all that much more. :-D




Here's the rhododendron they transplanted from in front of my stoop.







And the low wall continues around and ends at the edge of the deck. This is the hedge near the shallow end of my pool.







I really, really like the way this project is progressing. I wonder how much my property value will go up after this part is completed?

(Look at the post below this one for the before video of my house and yard.)


Edit: Here's a video of the place now.

Want to see my yard?

I took a video of my place the other day right after the landscaper ripped out the old shrubs and cleaned up my yard. It's over 7 minutes, but stick with it, you won't be disappointed. ;-)

July 4TH HNT

Happy 4TH of July Y'all!

Lori and I celebrated the 4th of July with a two-person pool party.

We put on our suits and Lori made the gin & tonics, then I hosed off the solar cover on the pool.

Like my new bathing suit?





The first dive of the 2007 swimming season.








How'd I do baby?








Ahhhhh, nothing like fresh local strawberries!

(Lori snuck this shot as I was drying off in the kitchen.)

My official HNT pic!

Check out Lori's post for a bit more nekkidness!

Happy HNT!