Mongo Deck

Living in Colorado it tough on wood decks due to the dry climate. It is especially so for our patio deck since it faces to the South and West and just gets pounded by the sun. I've tried the "really good stain with 6-year warrenty" which lasts all of a year or two ... and then the deck looks like crap again. So after 7 years, we're going to replace it with stamped concrete - I pumped about it! ;-)
Here's the patio deck design for it and hopefully, I won't have to do any concrete cutting after this is done ... ;-)

North Pole Polar Bears

My wife works for a wildlife adventure travel company which sends people on churchill polar bear tours - Wendy says (from first hand experience) they are pretty darn cool. I haven't been on that trip ... although I did get to go on an African Safari a while back. So my dad Emails me these pictures which are described as coming from the USS Honolulu (a Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine) that was in the Arctic Circle about 280 miles from the North Pole. Here's a few more pictures of these North pole polar bears. While I'm sure the sub crew was pleasantly surprised to see 'em, I wonder what the polar bears thought seeing a big black object coming crashing up outa the ice. Not something you see every day! ;-)

Hulkin' Lemonade Stand

The kids have been bugging me for a while to do a lemonade stand so we did one today ... although technically it was a limeade stand ... or perhaps hulkade stand. ;-) Read more at the URL above, but needless to say, it was a huge hit ... and we even made 9 bucks!

Hulkin' Lemonade Stand



Correction: Limeade Stand!



Happy Customers watch Kyle burn out the Juicer

VirtualEarth is cool!

Google Maps is pretty darn cool as it allows you to not only map a location(s), but also generate a satellite/aerial picture with a click of a button. Microsoft just released their Virtual Earth response and it's darn cool too - very fast/snappy (so far at least) and even works well with Firefox. The satellite photos of my house are from the drought year of 2002 when my grass didn't grow too much. This stuff is just fun to play with and still amzes me what we can do at our fingertips.

July 4th Neighborhood Parade a Hulk'in Success

I mentioned earlier the upcoming neighborhood parade and it was a lot of fun again. See all the pictures and read the whole story on my neighborhood parade page

Steamboat Springs Cattle Drive

For the 4th of July weekend, we went up to visit our friends Jon, Wendy, Alden, and Woody the Wonder Dog. My friend Jon - who has a great Steamboat Springs blog - sells Real Estate in Steamboat Springs. Some places he thinks would be a perfect for us and the kids areMarabou Ranch, Wild Horse Meadows, or One Steamboat Place. I've always liked that part of Colorado (great ski area) and it's beautiful in the summer. And while geared toward tourism, it's still a "cow-poke" town as we came upon the Steamboat Springs cattle drive - I wonder what a herd of polar bears in Churchill would look like! ;-) Click on the image to see a blow-up of the cattle drive.

Kyle thought doing a "giddy-yup" was kinda fun, while Dirk loved racing down the Alpine Slide.

Dirk's First Bike Ride

A milestone in any kids life is their first bike ride. Wendy and I had worked for quite some time to try to get Dirk interested in riding a bike without training wheels, but we were just giving ourselves back pain from leaning over all the time. So Wendy signed him up for one private bike lesson ("I heard she's real good") and he came back, showing he could walk his bike and "glide" on it for a few second - i.e. coast downhill with his legs hanging out - I'm thinking big deal. But we go out the next day ... and by golly, Dirk gets it. While he looks a bit unstable in the picture below (click on it for a larger image), he recovered from this position and by the following day, he was able to start himself and bike a 100+ feet. The $75 bike lesson seemed a bit extravagant, but turned out to be money well spent. Now Kyle, the younger brother, has asked (insisted) that we take the training wheels off of his bike as he wants to learn! ;-)

We're visiting friends in Steamboat this weekend (I fired up the radon gas test in our basement) so I have to somehow fit Dirk's bike into our Toyota Sienna XLE minivan so he can practice and/or show off up there. Way to go Dirk - Mom and Dad are very proud of you on your first bike ride!