Life

Today I went to the lakehouse to begin laying tile. I put down a new product under the tile rather than the standard board. Here's hoping it works like its advertised. I helped my neighbor lay tile but never really did it myself. It's fairly easy but messy.

I'm a bit of a pack rat. I save almost all paperwork and never seem to throw anything away. I think I have almost every pay stub since I started working for the Congress back in 1988. That's important because my dentist has been sending me a bill for $400 since early summer. Recently, they resorted to writing nasty notes on them about sending the bill to a collection agency. I hadn't paid it because I knew I didn't owe them the money but was probably a bit lax in letting them know I didn't owe them the money.

On Friday, I went in and sat down with the gal who handles payment (she isn't a very pleasant person to begin with but she was actually fairly nice considering she regarded me as a scofflaw). She pulled up my records and I told her I didn't owe them any money. She clearly wasn't going to take my word for it so I glanced at the computer and saw that they charged me an extra $100 for each of the four teeth I had work done on. I had my estimate (because of the pack rat thing) and showed her and she immediately recognized her error and credited my account. No complaining, she just did it. However, I suspect had I not had that paper from 2008 she wouldn't have been so nice about it. And I wouldn't have known why exactly I didn't owe the money because truthfully, I didn't know why I didn't owe it I just knew I didn't. And that logic doesn't work well in a court of law.

This is a yurt, the new facilities at The Wilds that you can rent and stay in. $325 for this unit and it includes dinner and breakfast for two along with a tour. Not a bad price considering what you get. The Grand Yurt is a $100 more and its off by itself and is larger.

Here are some photos from my visit to the Wilds. It was a great trip. We first got in a Land Rover and went to see all of the animals. We drove right up to some of them but were careful around the rhinos. Then we saw the Yurts, tentlike structures that you can rent for overnights. We dropped our stuff off at the lodge and went fishing, where I caught my 6 pound, 23 inch bass. See photo below. Then it was back to the lodge for steaks, etc. and some crazy dice game that ended up being fun. I went to bed after 1:00 and it wasn't fun getting up at 5:45 for my drive to the airport. But, it was worth it.

Here is some homemade tabasco sauce I made tonight; I guess I should just call it hot sauce. My tabasco peppers came in great and about 10 of them have turned red. This photo makes it look a orange but its definitely red. I'll keep mashing them as they turn (there's a bunch still on the plant) and adding vinegar until they are all gone.

My Habanero peppers that I strung together to dry in the basement. I hope it works.

Here is the first completed closet and its in Jack's room at the lake. I put some scrap wood on the floor and put the transition piece in place. The shelves turned out very nice. I'm really pleased with how these came out. Now we need to figure out what we are going to do for a door.

Henry on his first day of school. He went with his pirate shirt. As suspected, I didn't get emotional. I guess its because I consider last year his first year in school, even if it was at a private school .

Some photos from my visit to Dominion's wind farm in Benton County Indiana. There's a short video clip at the bottom. I'm always amazed at this sight. I clocked it, ten miles from when I first saw them until I was under one.