Measure twice...

Friday night, Tracy & I went to Pedraza's... again! Good stuff....I highly recommend it. Afterwards, we went to a candy store on Main Street and had gelatos....yummy! (I'll remember the name for a future "Good Eats In Keene")

On Saturday, we went to Ashley's graduation from the New England Culinary Institute. She is a completely amazing pastry chef!!! The fantastic deserts she creates give huge Mouth-orgasms! I know success is going to follow her wherever she goes. What a feast the school put on after graduation, too.

Also, I got to chat with Jared, Ashley's boyfriend, un pocito en español. I forgot that he speaks Spanish. It made my day. Real chatting ... not just canned phrases from conversational class.  Just a little chat, but it was cool for me.

 

After we got home, Mom & Dad brought the kids back. They watched them all day and took them to the Gilsum Rock Swap. We decided not to cook, nobody felt like making anything, and so we went out for pizza at Amicci's. I DO love that place! My favorite eating establishment, by far, in Keene! Good People, good food, and comfy atmosphere. They even changed the TV channel when a non-kid friendly show came on. Very cool!

On Sunday, I finally accomplished some chores that have been nagging at me for months... I fixed the leak in the sump pump room, the leak near the dryer and the light fixture over the dryer.

About these repairs...measuring for a living has it's benefits....and you' ld think that would would carry over to plumbing. "Measure twice, cut once," the old saying goes.  With me and plumbing, it's more like measure 4-5 times cut, re-cut, take apart, do over, sweat like a pig, swear, jam the dam thing in and have it look all crooked, finally finish and get it to work without leaks, and then bother me for ever after that it's not perfect.  At least it's done, and it really doesn't matter esthetically anyway.  All our plumbing is old and I'm sure I'll get more practice. I actually like putting the pipes together and soldering and what-not.  The pain in the ass part is that it is repairing existing stuff and there's always water, always it's hot and humid, nothing ever has a standard measurement, it's always located inconveniently and there's always toys and junk in my way. And of course. the measuring thing.

By the time I got to the light fixture, I was ready to be done. I took it apart and found the metal clip had come off from the light bulb screw holder. I could have gone BACK to Home Depot and bought 2 fixtures, so I could also fix the stairwell light, but at 4:00 PM, tired, my arm aching and being drenched with sweat, slime and basement debris, I decided to solder the dam thing with a blowtorch, a 10p nail and some plumbing solder. Perfecto! The stairwell can wait.

Afterward, I went out and weeded and thinned carrots in the bog that was once my garden, in order to relax. I came in when the rain got a little heavier. The garden has such a healing quality.

To continue with the relaxation mode, I decided to make a good dinner...Tacos Pescados, Frijoles charros, arroz mexicana y maíz asado con Tajin y mantequilla. Qué rico!! Tracy went and got Bear claw ice cream at Stuart & Johns (another future "Good Eats" episode) for desert.

We watched the next installment of True Blood and a new show -"Hung" (eh) and then went to bed

 

The weekend finished very nicely!

Surveying

I've been in the office all week so far...OK, it's raining anyway! (again)  I think I'd still rather be outside, finding stuff, lost treasure, boundary corners not recovered in 100 years. I love taking a pile of deeds, some old plans, USGS maps, Tax maps and any other stuff I can find and piecing it all together...solving the mystery of where a line or corner should be. The best is when, after coming up with a good hypothesis of where these pins or fences or stones or old trees should be...I spend a day outside and find all (or most) of the stuff. Then we do our field survey and measurements and confirm what I thought and draw up a plan to record it. Where else can you work and get paid to go on treasure hunts, and then use that info to help people, and then record what you did in a place intended to preserve your work for posterity.

I think I'm a pretty good surveyor, I love surveying, and I know I figure stuff out that goes past others, sometimes. There is still so much left to learn...so much law, so much theory, etc. I guess it's another reason that surveying is fun....there's no break in learning...EVER. I don't think you can ever know it all....the licence is "giving the right to practice surveying"  and I'm practicing all the time...I know practice wont ever make perfect, though.

It would be cool to be old someday and be looked upon as one of the THOSE surveyor's, the guy everybody goes to and still calls with questions...the one whose plans everybody regards as gospel. The one who future surveyors would like to emulate.

Then there is being a manager and running a surveying business. I know I'm probably a horrible manager...for me, it's a good thing that the team that I have working for me are sooooo good, very autonomous and also very devoted to doing a good job. They make me look good! Of course, not being a very good manager is probably half because I really don't like being a manager or boss...although in reality...everything I ever do, I end up in that kind of position. I guess probably it's also true that I would rather work for myself than for someone else. 

SVE gives the best of both worlds in that regard. Yes, we have an owner of the company and vice presidents, etc, but as far as running the survey department....I'm left to my own devices. Autonomy with a big brother who has your back. I think my best strength is that I can get people to rally around me, people who are very good or better than me at doing what I need to get done,  and I can get them to do it.

Of course I'm feeling high right now because we just sat down and got a real good handle on a pretty tricky boundary problem...up till this morning the direction was kind of loose....I'm pretty sure now that I know what I HOPE to or WANT to find. Will we find it? I'm pretty confident that we will...or if we don't ...no one else can either. (fingers crossed)

I ate Churros...

Went to Pedrazas again on Saturday night, just Tracy & I. I had the Veracruz plate; a grilled shrimp, mushroom and veggies plate with refritos, rice and tortillas...¡¡Qué rico!! Tracy had enchiladas mole poblano. For desert, she had fried ice cream and I had churros. Churros are little fried-dough like strips, with cinnamon and honey and a little blob of whipped cream. Wow! Soooo tasty!

Last Week

Here are a couple snaps of my outside office last week, summer is here and I am loving getting out and working in the woods again. I really don't care for working inside or at the computer too much...I just get cranky, anxious and depressed. I've know for years & years that I'm an outside person... I always seem to have to rediscover that after a prolonged period of office work and feeling like crap.

At least this office is pretty mellow, comfortable and easy to work at, kind of like working out of your own home, what with a kitchen, 3 bathrooms, a shower, a spare room to keep all my gym stuff and to work out in, and a huge office of my own (doors windows, skylight)

The survey section is the whole second floor; my office is through the little window above the entrance you see by my truck.

When I was 10, this was a barn and a wonderful artist and her family lived in the house in the front. We came here once a week with my cousins for art lessons for two summers. Ironic that I now practice my Art here in the same room.

Found it...

The lost blog template

Pues...I had to rebuild the blog...it seems everything got screwed up, but here it is, back to how I want it...maybe a little different.

The new workout

Met with Acea yesterday and went through my new workout with him at the gym. He's a cool guy and the workout is awesome! I was beat after just a try out run through, yesterday, but I was zooped up, tambien. The good - Luuuucy, I'm Home, je je; sore muscles; sheepish grin; nada más de estresado; I'm starving; kind of workout and zoop.

Can't wait to run through it again on Thursday.

El jardin & The next Project

Almost everything has sprouted except beans and onions. Now that the garden is going, probably the next biggie on the list is finishing the post & beam shed and putting a roof on it. I'm still debating on splitting out my own pine shakes from the big tree that fell, buying cedar shakes at Home depot for $60, or trying to find some slate shingles that nobody wants. My choice is slate shingles, but they are hard to come by.

They tore down an old college buildings next door to the office at SVE, in order to build the new student center...( I surveyed the site and we laid out out the student center building piles...I have been doing all the surveys for the College for the past 10 years...it's awesome, since I'm an Alumni....I feel I am part of the college...but anyway) and I even asked if I could have the shingles, but before I got an answer, the demo crew smashed them. What a waste.

There's really not much left to do for the shed...just the roof, once I get the materials, the floor on the southern end and maybe siding (haven't decided on siding it or leaving it open.) Then I'm going to move all my old woodworking tools, draw-horse, etc out there for a small wood shop.

Summer's the time for physical exercise for the body and a break from all the mental exercises.

Hey what happened to my blog

Here's a funny PIC from a trip over to VT whilst I discover what has happened to my shit.

 

It says Mexican food, but I don't know...

Last weeks projects

The garden

I finished putting in the garden this last weekend, except for black beans and potatoes. I hope to get them in this week. I tilled the garden with my new/old rototiller that I got last year. A great story goes with all the goodies that came with the rototiller - another time maybe)

I tore down the old fence and gateway, which were just little black birch poles and totally rotten.

I cut up a couple 8" maples and birches that fell during the ice storm into 6' lengths and then split them with maul and wedges for fence posts. I cut down a couple young beech and made my garden gate/arbor. This year the arbor is going to have annual flowers, but next year I'm going to put in grapes. The chickens were still getting under the fence, so I cut up an 8' section of a 15" pine that fell, and using maul and wedges again, I split out planks and put them along the downhill side at ground level, where the chickens were causing the problems.

I tried out a new idea for planting this year...centered around a teepee structure in the middle. I planted pole beans and cucumbers to grow up it and a bed inside of lettuce, which after 5 days, has already come up. The beds around the teepee have tomatoes, basil; kale, jalapeno's and lettuce; carrots; onions; parsley, lettuce (again) and Swiss chard. I have a zucchini and yellow squash plant at each front corner. The rear of the garden is traditional rows, first sunflowers, then a row of hills of Big pumpkins, butternut squash and pie pumpkins; then potatoes; then 2 rows of black beans for soup and refritos. I'm hoping for something cool looking as well as a summer food source.

The trellis

I also built a trellis in our Buddha garden at the patio. The clematis and hydrangea vines weren't really climbing too well on the ugly cinder block chimney. The trellis kind of hides the chimney and now the vines are climbing. The picture is dated two weeks ago, the clematis is already almost to the top and there are tons of flower buds.  It's going to be pretty.  

Monadnock Waldorf Grade 5 class trip - Cape Cod, MA

Jeremiah's class went to a Camp for the week for his 5th grade class trip. They studied a whole bunch of stuff related to botany and the various habitats the Cape offers. Tracy went as a chaperone while Grace & I held down the fort.

Here's a crazy class photo. Jem is on the far left