Highlander Owie

If I had a camera, I'd take a picture of the Highlander. Tues. night I backed into Ander's car parked by the bricks in the driveway (in the right place). I guess I was on automatic pilot and did the usual swing out of the garage. Fortunately I only scraped the Buick, but bashed in the bumper cover on the Toyota. Grrrrr. Part is ordered and will be fixed promptly and noone to blame but me.

bunch o' snow

We got hit with an early storm that's hung around for 3 days. Tape measure says 18" and still comin down. Everythings closed today. Got a couple hours on my new Craftsman snowblower!

broken foot

so if you have not heard the news by now i am now the proud owner of a broken foot.
here is the long version of what happened:
on wednesday morning i was getting ready to go teach and since anders and i were out of coffee and we were feeling too lazy the night before to go to the store and buy some more i decided i'd make a cup downstairs before i left. (they have a nifty one-cup-at-a-time-deal) the staff was in the midst of setting up a new show in the gallery. since the kitchen (where the coffee is) is on the other side of the gallery i had to cross the boxes, art, and whatnot laying around... the lights to the gallery space are also across the gallery but in the opposite corner of the kitchen so i didn't bother to turn them on. made it to the kitchen and on the way back i stepped on a broom-handle/ dowel they were using to paint with, landed really bad on my right foot, went into the clinic and turns out its fractured in a few places on the 5th metatarsal (that's the outside of your foot between the pinky toe and ankle) i am in a walking boot and on crutches for 6-8 weeks, we re-xray nov 3 to see if it has been healing right. the good news is that i am not in much pain, just sore arms from hopping around on crutches.
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tomorrow i go back to teaching at all of the different schools, which will be interesting because i can't drive and not all of the schools are handicapped accessible (and i teach on the 2nd floor at washington and lincoln) anders and grandma will be driving me around, so thank you to them for helping me out!

also, sally who works at the art center's husband broke his leg a few years ago and they bought a lightweight wheelchair (so they could go on a cruise to mexico!). she brought it in for me to use today which is helpful because i don't have to do as much hopping around.

spooky

It was fun to have Laura and Anders here for the weekend. We learned how to play Settlers of Catan and carved up a few pumpkins. I played my best but was bested by Anders in the board game. Further, I was credited as an underachiever in the pumpkin department - disappointing my fellow carvers.  The seeds were salted roasted and consumed in short order.

Happy Photos

Here are a few of my favorite pics I have taken since I got my Canon SX110 IS Camera this semester. Rocco (our roomate) is in a photog. class and he's been teaching me a few things. Hope you enjoy! (more to come later)

ps. I gave them titles just now, because I felt like it. And it helps to see each picture as unique. If you have better titles. I'm all for it. I don't have all the good ideas after all.

Mother Goose and her eggsThe Sunday Afternoon Slumber

The Night Patrol

Fight or Flight

Sniff

Wary Watcher

Crouching Grasshopper, Hidden Dragon

Starry, Starry Streetlights

Manpri/Moustache Midweek

Starting Small

Punch Brothers

My Precious

Michael: One-tooth Rocco: "How" Indian Joel: Lion

Dying Flames

Alive

snow

just wanted to let everyone that it has snowed 3 of the past 4 days in jamestown. nothing sticking, but this is not okay with me.

Stage project

I'm working on a fun project at church...the last of the renovations this year. We're doing a joint project with an other startup church who rents space from us. We have a basement room we're wanting to have for multi-use; smaller kids programs, coffee house, music, movies, drama, etc. The other group knew a desiger who was willing to provide us with some free ideas for the stage area. I'm attaching the renderings for his designs. We'll have a 50" plasma in the window opening, hanging speakers, and a tech booth, for projection, sound board, mics, and stage lights.

Here's a video a guy did featuring some of the work. He made this video taking a photo every minute for a couple days of work. About 80% complete, should be done this week. I'll send a final photo then it's all complete.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTNFEbg2-Fw

Black Canyon Vultures

Julie and I took a quick overnight trip down to Black Canyon of the Gunnison last weekend. The aspens were changing and we happened to see big congregation of Turkey Vultures hanging out. Isn't that red hairless head attractive? With a 6 foot wing span it was really cool to see them gliding around the canyon.

mrs. art teacher (or so they say)

I wanted to share some of the class work I have done with my 3rd-6th graders in Arts After School at the Art Center. It's fun but EXHAUSTING!

frisbee golf

Joel and I played 36 holes of disc golf last Saturday. What a great sport. I also had to include the shot of our friend Erik. Such an intense throw.

What's the deal with the blog? It's slowing down big time. C'mon!

A DECK AGAINST TIME

There have been a couple of requests for a blog update on the deck. (Thanks for sending the most recent photos Carol).  I found a shot from July 2004 of the old deck before we had completed the retaining wall to the west or before we were really using that as a walking path to the boat dock.  I'll upload a couple batches of photos.

 I did a bit of photo retouching in the last two photos to show how I think the bench will look once all of the posts are cut short, and how the landings might look on the east side when that is completed next summer.

my buddy came to town

My friend and old roommate Andrew came into town this past weekend. He's currently working as a computer programmer back near his home near Ohio. He came in Friday, and we cooked some lasagna and had some other friends bring some salad and dessert (brownies). The meal was delcious and we spent the evening playing Settlers of Catan. I'd be surprised if anyone knew about this game. Let's just say it's a strategy game that lasts longer than Risk. hahaha.


Saturday was pretty awesome because we went north to Tellico Plains (about 1.5 hrs away). We enjoyed some cliff jumping and waterfalls.

This is the spot we went cliff jumping. The waterfall is on the right side, and you could actually sit down in the river and slide down the waterfall into the pool below. This spot is called Baby Falls.

We got there in the morning so after some sliding and cliff jumping, we grabbed the lunches we had and headed down the road to the 4th biggest waterfall in TN: Bald River Falls. (see below)

As you can see the weather was gorgeous. After lunch we ended up climbing up and standing underneath the gushing water. It was pretty incredible. We found a cove where we could stand behind some of the falls. It was loud

Toilets

Ordinarily I would not be blogging about toilets, but we had some requests for photos of the completed bathroom project at the lake. Our friend Larry Glasser gave us a remnant of vinyl flooring, Mom had a flooring guy tear out the old carpet and install the vinyl on Thursday, and this weekend Tom and Austin put it the new low-flush, "comfort height" toilets. New rugs on sale at Kohl's complete the upgrade. It looks very nice, should be easier to clean, and will make time spent in there so much more enjoyable!

On a related note, Tom also installed the new toilet in Mom's lower level bathroom in town last night. This gives him a PR of three toilets in one weekend. Not a record he's planning to break any time soon!