Senior Olympian Sprinter

  Progress!!     The biggest piece of the kitchen puzzle is complete.  The stove and tile are in and everything is operational and in use.   We are pretty happy with the result and are now learning to cook on a completely different stove.   I have the new cupboards in the living room in their boxes for the last section to be completed around the frig.  It appears that will happen this weekend.   I need to get finished so the rest of my life can continue.   I have been on break from remodeling at home for a couple of weeks.  In the mean time, we have been getting our gardens in shape, painting the new fence at the veggie garden, changing the brakes on the car, mowing and anything else that would happen after work.   One thing that has not been happening is running.   Oh, and for a weekend away, Linda and I headed to Chicago for three days to help one of kids do some building.  A...

    We are right in the middle of the second kitchen remodeling project.  Spending money like water and it is going to be really nice when we get finished. I am on the regular list at Home Depot and Lowe's.  The top photo is the cabinets (sans doors) in place to make sure everything fits and establishing how much subway tile we need to put on.  The second shot is the new tile just hung and waiting for it to dry so we can grout.   I have been spending a lot of time getting the plumbing, electrical, ventilation,  dry wall and paint ready for the tile and new stove.  The red Bertazzoni  6 burner with griddle -dual fuel - will be here in two weeks and I want the place to be ready. I was talking with Linda about the number of kitchen remodels and this is my third major remodel of a kitchen.  I have only owned 5 houses!! Enough, next place better have a good set of cabinets and not need a major job, this is not my career--fi...

My experience with the hollow core auger did not go well, it was your basic failure.  I "thought" the dirt under the house could be augered out into my little wagon and hauled off, thus eliminating the need for buckets and a lot of sweat.  But, my thinking of saving a lot of work for my mining project was a failure.   So I disassembled the auger and it is laying in the yard.   The dirt I was removing was a little too wet and it would just ball up and get mashed into the pipe and stay there, I could not figure out to make it any lighter or bulkier so it could be moved.   I will try again this summer when I am bored with my other projects.   In the mean time, I have removed 26 yards of dirt to date  and the crawl space is not quite luxurious, but I can get to the utilities under the kitchen and that is what is needed. The kitchen project is in full swing. I visited my Dad's brother who lives in Maryland.  I have never bee...

,, I would explain how I loaded this picture today, but I would be too exhausted to blog.  This shot is from umbrella 63 at the Holiday Inn Resort and Casino in Aruba in the Palm Beach area.    We are spending the week and having a very relaxing stay. This is our first trip to Aruba, and probably not our last.   The weather is very warm with very intense sun and brisk winds all day.  The wind is from your back as you look at the water and ranges from 20 to 40 mph in a rather steady manner.  You must keep your stuff nailed down or it is gone! The wind is a blessing for keeping bugs and mosquitoes away, but it annoying because you cannot leave anything lay around.  The beach is clean and well kept with blue water that is warm enough to swim and cool off.  It also an open beach so there is a steady stream of walkers and running coming by all day.  Something for everyone to watch. The resort is full of East Coast folks with families, couples...

The new dirt auger covered to keep it dry The kitchen remodel project really warmed up the last week.   I ordered a grain auger from the local coop to convey dirt from the crawl space to the yard.   I finally got it installed last weekend and ran some dirt, but it was Valentine's Day and spending it underground was not in my best interests. I does speed up the process immensely, but I still need to figure out how to load it a little slower.  I overheated the 1 HP motor a few times and it will kick out until it cools off, dirt is definitely harder to mover than animal feed.    I also made a trip to Atlanta and made a stop at IKEA to pick up half of the cabinets we need.   Now, I have way more than I can do in several months and we will start chipping away.   We also found a really neat exhaust hood for our stove.  Futuro makes a Mimosa model that is very stylist--Italian of course-that is paintable.  The ...

I keep forgetting that people like to read my blog and I have been slacking.  My bad. This 'off season' if you can call it that, I have been doing more long distance running on the treadmill and weights for the legs and upper body. I try to get in some training at least 3 days a week, but no more than 5.  Rest is very important for us old timers.   So far so good.  No real injuries from running. I did have a really sore left hip last week that was self induced.  I wrapped a rope around a very heavy piece of pipe to get it "out of the way" and I moved it OK.  But two days later the top of my hip was really mad and caused me to skip a couple of my running work outs.  Back to normal now.  I ran a mile last night at 8:34 pace on the treadmill and then did some leg weights.  So I think I am healed up. I am staying in pretty good condition and my fitness is good.   I have been slowly inching up the speed on my treadm...

I was in Mexico for 5 days this week for a Sales Meeting at an all inclusive hotel on the beach in Puerto Villarta.   Perfect weather and gorgeous scenery from the seventh floor of the hotel over looking the bay.  I did do three workouts while in town.  I had to take advantage of running in sand.  It whips your butt and makes my knees real mad, but I can burn some serious calories.  My second running workout on Wednesday used 1025 calories.  I was gassed at the end, I had burned a lot of calories.  My knees were sore the next day, but the rest of me was fine.  For that session, I ran on the beach and then returned to the hotel by the street just inland a block or two.  I was running and discovered a very nice all weather track and public activities area.  I got in a couple of laps for  fun and continued on. There was even a few kids working on starts with their blocks...great to see that.  I was out of energy at that point, low...