A new kitchen and new friends

The past 10 days have been way busy. I finally finished the school year and on the last day,which was filled with meetings in the morning and playing poker in the afternoon, I was counted as a "no show" to a meeting while attending another. I don't even know why I'm mentioning it except that it pissed me off to be doing what I should be and having my "boss" think I'm blowing off work. Vel anyvay...

So the new kitchen... here's before sort of. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures before the demo started- but you'll get the idea.

Okay, so let's just add a little...

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!Bam!

New quartz countertop, swanstone sink, faucet, under cabinet lighting, "over the sink" light, and a Colorado slate backsplash. Lots of work, work, work- but it was worth it. Leslie designed the backsplash layout and it is very cool with pewter accents. I ran the tile saw, Leslie's mom and step-dad helped out in a huge way doing a little bit of everything.

Like the title said, I made some new friends lately too:

I met this "guy" in my backyard. His name is Butthead. He's about four feet long and hard on mice and small rabbits.

Finally, I met these guys at Leslie's graduation party. Their names are Dino and Swen and they are members of a Swedish rock group called Onyourputer. Very friendly and obviously "artistic". They told me the names of some of their songs and their latest release includes the singles, "Dude", "Play my glockenspheil", "Oh no, it's baby poop", "Can I fix your sink?", "Seven bikes and nowhere to ride" and my favorite "Quit touching me there!"

Another One Bites the Dust

See ya! Jerk!

Intentions

Can we say "single digit days?" Oh yes- nine- count 'em. My plan for my first Monday off from school is simple: I will sit in my driveway, in a comfortable chair, drinking coffee and waving to people driving to work. I suppose I will wave to my wife as well since she will still be working at that point. I'll get her to take a picture before she leaves and post it the same morning. I may as well- it's not like I'll have to go to work.

16.5

After today, which will be over in about 3.25 hours, I will have 16.5 days of school left before I get about three months off. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! At a point, time is worth much more than money.

Things have been really busy. I've been doing lots of yard work and it's paying off. My back yard is starting to look like a golf course. This time last year it kind of looked like a construction site. I'm most proud of my front yard where we have a really nice perenial flower bed that I've been working on since last year when it was pretty much a giant wad of lariope grass. I really need to post some before and after pics of that.

I've been turkey huntingand mushroom hunting.

Zero luck on either, but it's good to get outside in the woods in spring. There's a lot going on out there and it's a shame if you don't take a morning to check it out. I missed out on seeing any of that stuff for all the years I raced bikes. That was fun, but it's a nice change to get up, head out to the woods and watch everything going crazy coming to life. One interesting thing that I found last weekend when I was hunting was the fact that turtles can apparently see pretty well. I was walking kind of underneath this ledge of rock and moss. I got about 10 feet away from it and I could hear something making it's way through the undergrowth. I stopped and waited to see what it would be. Here comes this turtle doing his thing.

He stops and just stands there looking right at me. I wasn't even moving. Then he turned about and started heading away. He stops again and basically looks over his shoulder at me. He kept taking a few steps and looking back. It was weird.

I also thought of Butthead this weekend. I was looking for mushrooms in the woods and a 4.5 foot black snake kind of popped out and surprised me.

I taunted him with a stick for a minute until he looked fully pissed and started rearing up. Speaking of Butthead, I think I saw a photo of him at a race recently. Must be off the diet.