If I were a cat, I'd be a sphynx cat.

Mt. Matt Independence Day

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:30:25 GMT

I wanted to post, to the best of my recollection, the events that occurred between June 26th and July 5th.

Truth be told, there was very little drama, actually. oneandonlymatt came to get me at work around 3pm on Friday June 26th. We drove up to Asheville and arrived at Mt. Matt around 7pm. We spent the rest of the daylight hours setting up the canopy that would become the kitchen area as well as the bathroom tents. When the sun started going down, we went to Ingles to buy the first round of food for the week. With only coolers for food storage, we knew we would have to make several trips (this was actually the first of four).

Around 10:30 or 11pm, the first of our victims...I mean guests...arrived: mtn_hermit. We hung out and talked for a while, but I was in bed by about midnight.

The next morning, June 27th, we got up and started working on the foundation, which still hadn't been finished. Our original goal, way back when we were planning this trip, was to have all the foundation done by the build week. Alas, that was not to be. Our friend Chad didn't arrive until about 3pm that afternoon. He managed to get his tent set up just before an afternoon rain shower that stopped us for about 20 minutes. The skies cleared up again and we got back to work. I believe we finished the wood posts that afternoon and started on the joists. We broke for dinner, which was pasta and Italian chicken sausage I believe. Then Matt and Chad played Detroit Lions Tailgate Toss - a crazy game played with things that look like goal posts and "bolos" - two tiny footballs connected by a string. You throw the bolos at the goal posts and try to wrap them around the rungs. I think you would have to see it to understand. When it got dark, we built the first of many fires for the weekend and Matt and Chad played some music.

On Sunday, June 28th, we spent even more time working on the foundation. I believe we got all of the joists on and worked on squaring the thing. mtn_hermit left around 1pm that day to head back to Atlanta. Dinner that night was burgers, as I recall. Matt's brother was originally supposed to get there on Sunday night, but he ended up not leaving Detroit until Monday morning so he was a day behind. No problem.

Monday through Wednesday seem like a blur to me. I know that Jim made it there late afternoon on Monday. Matt and Chad went to Home Depot to get more supplies that day. I know that Chad had signed up for the Pool tournament at the local Marshall bar, Longnecks. We had been actually afraid of Longnecks but it turned out to be a really cool place with great beer and beyond fantastic desserts. Oh, I remember - on Monday the Home Depot didn't have any trucks available to rent to Matt and Chad had to go back on Tuesday morning to get all of the wood that wouldn't fit in the element. Jim and I went to the grocery store while they did that. I stupidly forgot my wallet and Jim had to pay for the groceries, but Matt paid him back. He was really excited about the complimentary watermelon that we got for buying more than $50 worth of groceries. I made steaks for dinner that night with a potato recipe from a camping recipe cook book that was pretty good. We also got all the plywood up to the worksite so we could finally finish the foundation. I do remember that when we were done working, we debated tarping everything but we looked at weather.com and it said 0% chance of rain ALL NIGHT LONG. Well, at 3:15am, I woke up to an insane thunderstorm. Lots of lightning and thunder. The thing about staying in a barn with a metal roof, though, is it always sounds worse than it really is. At that point, though, the damage was done. We checked the plywood in the morning. It had only rained for about a half an hour so it was just wet on the surface. Matt, Jim and I went to Lowe's to get box fans that we plugged into our generator and dried out the plywood. We lost half a day of work, but we quickly recovered. Chad left around 1pm on Wednesday and then Jim, Matt and I finished squaring and securing the floor. Since it was just the three of us, we decided that was a good night to go into Asheville proper. We went to Barley's Taproom for Pizza. We had wanted to walk around, but we were exhausted so we headed back to the land and went to bed.

On Thursday, July 2nd, I had one really big job to do: I got to screw in the entire sub floor of the house! It needed screws every 12 inches along every joist and ever 6 inches around the edges. We had put in a few screws the day before just to secure it down, but now I was going to spend the morning drilling screws into the whole thing. It wasn't really hard, just tedious. Coincidentally, my drill matched my tank top so the photos of me screwing the floor make me very happy. Once that was done we could *finally* start on a wall. We framed out the front wall (with the door opening) and got it all screwed together. That night, our friend Rob and Dann were supposed to arrive late, but they got a late start and, like Jim, they didn't leave until the next day either. So, I made dinner of more pasta but with meatballs this time. The meatballs were so good! We had another fire and went to bed early.

On Friday, we worked on the second wall. That morning, around 11am, reikimaster and thunder24 arrived at Mt. Matt. They were staying in town at a Bed and Breakfast that they stay in often. They started helping with the back wall. Around lunchtime, lerg arrived as well. He set up his tent and everything and we got back to work. We divided work up - reikimaster and thunder24 were on measuring and cutting. They were in charge of all the studs which needed to be 74 inches. They cut all of them for both walls. Matt, who had been working nonstop all week, had a brain meltdown while he was trying to measure the first of the two long walls. I'm sure all the numbers and measurements were just swimming in his head. lerg stepped in and volunteered to run the measurements. I went down to the barn with Matt for a break while we left our crew cutting and measuring. reikimaster and thunder24 had to leave around 5 to go back into Asheville. With lerg's help we finished marking the measurements on the top and bottom plates of the first long wall. Jim did all the small measurements and cuts of the bracing and window pieces. We called it a night and decided to go into Downtown Marshall for dinner at Bacchus Bistro. Dann and Rob were driving in and would be there sometime around 10. When we got back we built a fire. Eventually, Dann and Rob arrived and we hung out and they set their tent up in the dark. Most of us went to bed at a respectable time, but Jim and Rob stayed up with the fire until 6am. They burned every scrap of wood that we had cut and even went hunting for more.

Amazingly enough, both of them were up and running pretty early the next day. reikimaster and thunder24 came back around 10:30 and we started assembling the first wall. We measured out and assembled the second wall as well. Then our friends billwheaton and Susan arrived around lunch time. They got their camp set up and it was finally time to erect the walls! After we got the first couple of walls up, radiantbaby and justben arrived. Our whole crew helped us erect all four walls and finally there was a real sense of accomplishment. I was so proud of everyone working together. We did good work!

reikimaster and thunder24 had to leave again after the last wall was stood up and secured into place. We wouldn't see them again, so there were hugs all round. We all gathered back at the barn for dinner. There was, however, an equipment failure and the beer-butt chicken we were going to make was not going to be cooked (a gas line problem with our Big Easy Oil-less turkey fryer caused the problem). lerg took me on an emergency food run when we grabbed a couple of rotisserie chickens, a package of fried chicken and some cole slaw. We had to abandon our chicken at a dumpster. I feel bad for it. The dinner turned out to be really good (we already had hotdogs that we were making anyway). After dinner we built a fire and played some Music. Dann and Rob were in Superfiction with Matt back in Detroit and are now in a band called The Troubled Ones. They brought things like a tambourine and bongo drums. Other folks brought their own drums and billwheaton even brought his mountain dulcimer. We played a mix of Dann original songs as well as some covers. We were singing along and playing along and a good time was had by all.

Sunday was spent with everyone going home, mostly. Matt and I had to close up camp - including the work site and the barn/camping site. We didn't leave until about 3pm.

I would honestly rank last week as one of the best weeks of my life. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Photos

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:28:32 GMT

I will post a complete recap of our building vacation, but in the meantime I wanted to share pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

Also, lerg posted many great photos on his flickr page too: http://www.flickr.com/photos/akalat/

Narcissus...that's me...

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:03:29 GMT

I've seen this posting on a few friends' LJs. Thought I would pop it on here. I won't be around much after this week as we are going up to Asheville to build the Tumbleweed Tiny House. Thought I would see what people write before go so I feel super good about myself:

There's been an accident, and my memory's been wiped. I have no recollection of who I am. Tell me about myself. What do you know about me? What kind of person am I? What are my likes and dislikes? How did we meet and how long have we known each other? Is there one thing in particular that stands out about me? Tell me who I am.

Post this in your own LJ to see what people say about you

More progress and more photos

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:58:54 GMT

I just wanted to stop by and post the link to flickr for more photos.

This weekend, on Saturday we took the two 16 foot 4x4s up the hill to the build site. I was going to help Matt carry them but he said it was just easier if he did it himself. I followed him to make sure we didn't have any problems. That didn't take as long as I expected it to. Then we took the dremmel tool up and measured the bolts and brackets and cut off any excess bolt. The bolt can't touch the wood, so we had to trim them a bit since setting them in concrete isn't an exact science. once we did that, we could put down the brackets and level with washers. We didn't have the right ratchet so we had to go to the brand new Lowes in Weaverville. We got as much done as we could. Just as we were finishing up, it started to rain. A little thunderstorm directly over Mt. Matt, but the skies were blue all around. We waited until it seemed mostly done and took our showers and then went to Lowes. We got a few things and then went to dinner in Asheville. (Thirsty Monk for Steak Frites...YUM). We came back and watched some of John Adams, which is really good by the way.

The next morning we woke to more rain. We knew we couldn't do much and checked Weather.com for the hour by hour forecast and it didn't appear it would stop until about 11. We did the only thing we could think to do...we went out for breakfast. When we got back we went back up to the clearing to level and do the temporary braces for the 4X4s. We got the brackets tightened down and it looks really good. We didn't have time to cut the 4x6s that make up the posts, so that will be among the first jobs for next week.

I also sprayed the heck out of the poison ivy with Round Up. I will kill that stuff!

That brings us to next week. We leave on Friday for our week long building extravaganza. Different friends are coming to help over different parts of the week. I am so looking forward to it!

Check out the latest photos.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

Go Buy It!

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:00:47 GMT

Tomorrow, Among the Oak and Ash release their self titled debut album. Go buy it. It will be on iTunes and Amazon.

I have been a fan of Josh Joplin for many years. I am so excited about this project.

Go buy it. You have no excuse!

Got my camera back

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:20:40 GMT

This is just a quick post to share the pics from the last two trips. We finished the last concrete pier on Saturday. Even though we mixed the concrete by hand, it was MUCH easier than doing all 7 of the other ones.

We also did a lot of work on the land itself. I didn't get pictures of that. Matt did a lot of weed-whacking. I opened up armageddon on the poison ivy and then made a nice wood pile for the fire pit. For the first time all year, I feel ready to host people. That is a very good thing, since people are showing up in two weeks!

Here are the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

And this is how the rest of our weekend went...

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:51:32 GMT

So, we last left our heroine watching oneandonlymatt cart 30 bags of concrete up the logging trail to our Tumbleweed Clearing. Well, after that we made some lunch (we had brought steaks and brussel sprouts for dinner on Saturday but decided to go out instead, so I made them for lunch instead). It was just the fuel we needed. We took ourselves back up to the clearing and started mixing and pouring concrete. It took a couple tries to really get our stride, but we did. We had to find a relatively flat spot for the mixer (harder than it sounds) so Matt had to carry each 80lbs bag of concrete from where he had dumped them to where we had the mixer - about 10 feet or so. By the end of the night we calculated that he had lifted and carried 2400lbs. I was in charge of water - one gallon per bag and we mixed two bags at a time. Then we would fill a bucket and take it to the sonotube and pour it in. Since each sonotube was a different size, the number of bucketfuls differed drastically. Despite our best efforts, we did run into a time issue. We had worked all afternoon and the sun was starting to go down. We really wanted to finish it all, but we had to leave one tube unfinished. We did get the anchor bolts set in the remaining 7 tubes. Next visit, we will have to mix some concrete by hand and finish that last tube, but we figure we can make that happen.

So by this time it was dark and we had to get the ATV back up to the clearing and cart everything back down. We made two trips of stuff essential to return to the barn and covered everything else with tarps. Then we packed up our things and our car and started home. We didn't leave Marshall NC until 11pm Sunday night. My original plan was to sleep in the car and sleep when we got home and go to work at my usual time, but at 1am I realized that wasn't happening. I left a message and said I would be in later in the morning. I hate doing that sort of thing, but I never do it so everything was fine. Matt was really tired at that point so I took over the drive at Tallulah Falls in Georgia and finished the drive all the way home.

In our rush to get things finished up, we forgot to cover the last sonotube. And I also discovered that my camera didn't make it back to Atlanta with me. That meant, it must not have made it off the mountain. I emailed our neighbors who are very gracious to us and asked if they would help us out and cover the tube and find the camera. Both of these things have been accomplished. That means no pictures until after the 14th of June, but I think you can all handle the anticipation.

We will have a post and pier foundation in time to start the build over the week of 4th of July. Hooray!

work work work, that is all we ever do

Sun, 31 May 2009 17:13:42 GMT

oneandonlymatt and I are up at Mt. Matt working on the foundation for the house. We have been very pleased with our progress and are planning to stay as late as we need to tonight to get all the cement done. (Hooray for good weather!)

We got here on Friday night and went straight to bed. On saturday we got up intending to do everything but realized there was only so much we could do. So, we made really good progress. We got all the tools up to the tumbleweed clearing. We measured all the sonotubes so we could cut them. We did that with a water level which is my new favorite tool. I enjoyed water leveling as much as I enjoy creating flow charts. You may not know that about me, but I love making flow charts. Then we cut all the tubes. Crazy thing about the human brain. When you look at them they don't look even remotely even but sure enough they are level. Crazy optical illusion. Once we got all those set up and leveled we back filled the holes to brace the sonotubes. And that ended up taking most of the day. We had originally brought food to make but we decided that it would be way too late to start pouring concrete since we really couldn't stop once we started, so we went in to Asheville. We went to Hannah Flannagans and had a couple of beers and some yummy food. When we got back to Mt. Matt we fell right to sleep.

This morning, we got up pretty early and went back up to the clearing. We set up the batter boards and tied up the strings to make sure we have everything level and square. Right now, Matt is taking the concrete up to the clearing three bags at a time on the ATV. It is working very well, but there is little I can do for this process, so here I am. Once he is done with that we will eat some lunch and then it is concrete mixing time. Matt did already deliver the water and cement mixer up there as well. We decided since the weather is so perfect for it, we would stay and do this work as late as we had to. That may make for a long and miserable day at work for me tomorrow, but I'll work it out. It is all worth it to have the Tumbleweed house!

I have taken some photos and will take more. I'll be sure to pop those up on flickr when we get home.

A little Augury...I mean Augering...

Sun, 17 May 2009 21:43:42 GMT

So, back to building. This weekend we were joined by our faithful friend Chad who really loves helping us with our project. And the goal for this weekend was digging the holes for the concrete piers and then pouring those piers. Well, the weather conspired against us and we were only able to dig the holes, but I still call that a success. It was a lot of hard work. We weren't able to stay late today because it rained pretty much all day and rain and concrete don't really mix. Well, they mix all right but not the way we would prefer.

Check out the new pics on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

May 9th and 10th Asheville Update

Mon, 11 May 2009 21:24:58 GMT

We were, as you may imagine, up in Asheville again this weekend. We did a lot of work. I don't have any pictures this time around, but I promise there will be many more to come.

On Friday, after work, we stopped at Red Sky Tapas near our house for a leisurely dinner before driving up to North Carolina. Because of that, we didn't arrive at Mt. Matt until about midnight, but that was fine as we went right to bed. We set an alarm for 7am.

At 7 we got up and made breakfast and got ourselves ready and then headed to the Home Depot in East Asheville to get the materials for the foundation. We also had to rent a truck from them. We bought a ton of 2x6s and several 2x4s and a couple of 4x6s. We also had to buy 6 pieces of exterior grade plywood for the foundation floor. AND, on top of all that (literally) we bought 30bags of concrete - each weighing in at 80lbs. Phew! We loaded that on the Home Depot truck and took off for Mt. Matt. Now, the "rent me by the hour" home depot truck is a Ford F350 Super Duty but they cap the payload weight at 3000lbs. I understand that, for their insurance purposes. The car is also equipped with an Overload Sensor that emits a loud honk if the car has too much weight on it. When we started the car at home depot, we had no problem. However, when we tried to stop for lunch on the way back to the land, the horn sounded and would continue if we tried to put it into any gear other than drive. First of all, we know how much the cement weighed, but the wood was the variable. We were guessing it was about 600 which would have been exactly 3000. Even if it weighed more than that, the truth is a Ford F350 Super Duty could certainly handle that much weight. So, we ended up whipping through the drive through and heading back to Mt. Matt. We stopped the truck at the end of the driveway and then quick like bunnies we pulled all the wood off and four bags of concrete before the horn stopped. Seriously, we know for a fact that it can hold more than that - the scale on the truck must have been tweaked way up.

So the sky was starting to get dark and we got concerned about the rain, but we couldn't move the concrete up into the barn until we had finished putting together the trailer for the ATV, so we had to punt and we covered all the concrete with plastic tarps and hoped for the best. We were pretty worried as the storms rolled in. We stayed in the barn and put the trailer together all the while cursing the rain and praying that the concrete would be okay. The rain stopped and as luck would have it, everything was just fine.

We could only load 4-5 bags of cement on the ATV trailer at a time, so Matt started the first load. I couldn't live any of them, as you might guess. I could see that the getting up on the truck and then getting down off the truck was going to be a real struggle. So, I volunteered to go see if our neighbor was home and if he could help because if someone could pass them down off the truck then the job would go faster. They came up to help and it we got all the concrete up to the barn. The ATV was having some problems with stalling to Matt is going to have a look at that in the next couple of weeks since it is a pretty important tool to building the house up in the clearing. While they were getting the concrete in the barn, I started taking wood piece by piece - that was about 15 trips. Then they put the plywood on the ATV trailer and strapped it on to take it up to the barn. We really owe them for their help!

After all that, Matt and I got cleaned up and left to take the truck back. We ended up at Sante Wine Bar for dinner. It had been our intention to hang out in town for a while but after sharing one bottle of red wine and eating a super tasty dinner we decided to go back to the land. We got back and put on a movie (The Bridge - the documentary about suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge). We did end up falling asleep, but it wasn't the feel good hit of the summer anyway.

We decided to sleep in on Sunday and when we finally got up we went back up to the Tumbleweed Clearing to do our final staking for the foundation. Matt had bought the Fat Maxx Laser Level to help with the job, and help it did. It does look like a dalek, though. We got everything staked out and feel really good about it.

The next step is to pour the concrete piers for the foundation. This is a very important step and it is very dependant on the weather. We plan to do it next weekend, but we have to keep a watch on the forecast. It isn't the kind of job you can start and stop if it rains. In any case, we will get that part done sometime between now and the week of 4th of July when we are building. Even if for some crazy reason the deck part hasn't been built by then we can start the week off with that as it shouldn't really take terribly long.

It is so exciting to see this coming together!

Thanks for coming along with me on this crazy journey!

JJ Abram's Star Trek

Fri, 08 May 2009 13:29:43 GMT

I loved it! I really loved it.

I thought it started out strong right in the action and got you right off the bat that because of situations in the future and the use of time travel, things would be different. Essentially, tabula rasa. Right from the beginning the lives of our beloved characters were very different, but very believable.

I thought that acting was stellar. I liked everyone involved. "Guy Who Played Kirk", I can't remember his name and don't have a minute to look it up, did a great job and I liked his not-likableness from the very start. I thought that Zachary Quinto had a lot of the Spock nuances down very well. I loved Simon Pegg! And I loved "Harold" as Sulu, and I didn't think I would.

I also liked the use of non-humanoid aliens throughout the movie. I thought the special effects were great. I loved Nero's ship.

I also loved that they didn't undo any of the horrible things they did. That they didn't put it all back together and tie it up in a neat little bow. I think that JJ Abrams did a great job with this movie and it may just take the Star Trek mythos into a whole new generation (but not a Next Generation).

Best. Thing. Ever.

Fri, 08 May 2009 02:12:35 GMT

X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Movin' Out

Sun, 03 May 2009 12:24:36 GMT

I've just had two days in a row of drastically different entertainment. So here is what I have to say about them. There will be spoilers, so don't click if you don't want to know.

Overall, I really liked it. I have always thought that Hugh Jackman has done well with the Wolverine character. The only thing that has ever bothered me about his portrayal is that he is *WAY* too tall to play Wolverine. But, I tend to look past that because I think he acts the part well. I thought it was pretty true to the Wolverine origin story, for the most part. One of the criticisms of the local newspaper was that it didn't have enough star power. If that was their only criticism, I don't think it was something that needed to be criticized. It didn't have a hug cast of big A-Listers but it had a great cast of near-A listers that I think did a great job. I absolutely loved Kevin Durand - I thought his portrayal of The Blob was quite excellent and would have liked to seen more. I thought Liev Schreiber was great as Sabertooth, however my favorite time period for Sabertooth was the early 90s where he had the big humpty back and lots of fur and spots. I was kind of hoping he get a little more animal as the film went on. And, I really want to mention Ryan Reynolds. He started out the movie great - very funny character. That it why his transformation into Deadpool kind of rocked my ass. I thought he was fantastic.

So that leads me to my last bit of information about this movie. The entire reason I went to see it was because of the introduction of Gambit to the movie universe! Gambit has always been my favorite marvel character of all time. I know, I know...some people think he is a big pussy, but have always liked him. I had heard a rumor a while back that they really wanted Josh Holloway for Gambit and since that time I have thought there wouldn't be a better actor to play him. In fact, I think that Josh Holloway might have been born to play Gambit. I guess due to commitments with LOST, though, he wasn't able to do it. Enter Taylor Kitch. I liked him all right, I did. My expectations were high so it is hard to meet those. And maybe, just maybe, since Taylor Kitch is so young they can still bring Josh Holloway in to play an older Gambit some day. What I LOVED about Gambit's character in this movie was the very first fight scene between him and Wolverine. It was made of awesome. But what does concern me is that "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" seems to be inconsistent with what the story of "X-Men Origins: Gambit" would be. They needed a character for this movie so they just plucked one out of the marvel universe and stuck him in there with little regard for his own history. Maybe, at some point, they can fix that. With Josh Holloway.

Last night, we went to see Movin' Out at the Fabulous Fox Theatre here in Atlanta. It was my birthday present from oneandonlymatt. I got all dressed up (except I couldn't wear the dress I wanted to and had to wear a longer dress to cover up my poison ivy!) and went out to dinner and a couple drinks before the show. We went to Flip, a gourmet burger restaurant in town. It was pretty good. Matt had the lamb burger, which looked great. I had the smoked salmon burger, which was great. It is served cold with a herbed cream cheese spread. The fries were especially good. Then we split a bottle of Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence (chocolate Belgian beer!) and a Krispy Kreme milkshake. Seriously, it was a doughnut in a milkshake. Then we drove over to the Fox and parked and we had quite a while before the show, so we walked down to Gordon Biersch and each had one more beer. We watched the Kentucky Derby there. Wow, what a race. I haven't seen a race like that...well...just about ever. Then we walked back to the Fox and got our seats.

Now, Movin' Out isn't actually a musical. So if that is what you are looking for, this might not be for you. If you don't like musicals theatre at all, this one *really* isn't for you. It is really a Rock Ballet! There is a band including the main narrator "Piano Man" suspended above the stage playing the Billy Joel songs arranged into a cursory storyline about friends from New York - Brenda, Eddie, Judy, James and Tony. The men go off to the Vietnam War and the second act is about them coping with that event in their lives with it all wrapped up in a neat little bow at the end. I thought it was very nice and very well done. I liked that fact that some of the songs chosen were not typical hits. I loved "Summer, Highland Falls" and "Captain Jack". Overall, if you are a Billy Joel fan or a fan of concept theatre, you may want to give this one a try.

Happy Birthday, Piglet!

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:06:29 GMT

I can't believe she is 8 years old! It doesn't seem like we've had her for nearly that long!

Latest Building Update

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:20:48 GMT

oneandonlymatt and I went back up to Mt. Matt this weekend to keep working. The project focus for this weekend was marking out the area for the foundation.

We got up to the land on Friday night after work, which put us there around 11pm. We set up camp and then watched the final episode of BBC's Robin Hood, Series 2. It was probably the worst written and acted episode of all of them, and that is really saying a lot because none of them were really good. I have no idea why, but I was really invested in that story. I feel like such a dork.

We slept until 10am on Saturday. When we got up, we had a quick breakfast and started to work. We loaded up the ATV with steaks and string and all the tools one would need to get the foundation area set up. Matt drove up to the Tumbleweed Clearing and I headed up the new northwest passage that we cleared. We spent some time planning but apparently took a little too long and broke for lunch before we got much done. When we got back to work, we were on the clock as we had made dinner plans with our North Carolina Neighbors. This led to some arguing, which didn't help our case for time but we finally decided to stop for the day after getting the front wall area and the two sides pretty much strung and leveled.

As it turned out, it was a good thing we stopped then. We went back down to the barn and took our showers and started to get ready when a sudden downpour started. We waited until it was over when we walked down to our neighbor's house. The four of us went into West Asheville to a Latin Cuisine restaurant called Tomato Kitchen. We sat out on their patio which was gorgeous. The food was fantastic and, of course, the company and conversation were great.

When we got back to the barn, we were pretty tired and we decided just to go right to bed and wake up early. We got up about quarter after 7 and started out the morning by putting together the trailer for the ATV. We got that most of the way finished and went back up to the Tumbleweed Clearing to get some more parts of the foundation area set up. We got one line of stakes set up for the concrete piers.

At 11am we had the car packed up and were ready to head back. We needed to make a stop at the Neighbors' place because a tree had fallen across the road. The Element could get under it no problem, but it will become a problem. Matt and John tried to pull the tree down with John's truck, but that idea didn't quite work out. We finally decided that we would just call in a professional next week to get it take care of.

Now we are home. Matt went to the Bruce Springsteen concert tonight.

I uploaded a couple of photos on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

???

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:16:47 GMT

Why would I want to go the extra mile? If I go an extra mile, I am going to be one whole mile past where I really need to be. That is pretty significant. If I am trying to go home and I go an extra mile, I end up at Publix. I like Publix and all, but it doesn't have my cat or my bed in it. Going the extra mile just seems like a lot of unecessary travel, especially when you've never actually reached your intented goal. How is that better?

Adventures in Camping...at home!

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:24:01 GMT

I was on my way home last night when I turned down the final leg of my trip. Halfway down the road, the road was closed. I turned around in the cul de sac like everyone else. A Range Rover behind me decided this whole event was apparently my fault and started to drive very aggressively and he zipped around me at the stop light blocking my ability to turn left to where I wanted to go. I turned right and headed in a big circle to get home. I called oneandonlymatt and told him I was trying to get home. He said our power was out. It had been out when he got home at 5. It was 6:15 when I called. When I finally did arrive home, Matt was putting the important contents of the freezer/refrigerator in a cooler.

Figuring there wasn't much else to do besides wait for the power to come back on, we went about our normal Monday night - sushi and grocery shopping. Neither Fuji Hana nor Publix were experiencing power outages. We didn't have much to get, nor did we have the space to store it with the power being out, so it didn't take long.

We got home, put everything away and then got ready to settle in. We got out the flash lights, put on our warmest PJs and decided to watch two DVDs in bed on Matt's laptop. We watched the final episode of "Stephen Fry in America" (Thanks, radiantbaby - we liked it a lot) and then another episode of BBC's "Robin Hood". By then, it was 10pm and the power still wasn't on. The automated system at the power company had said it would be on around 8:30, but those systems are hardly ever truthful. So, I set the alarm on my cell phone and went to sleep. Piglet was under the covers keeping herself warm and by consequence she was keeping me nice and warm too.

I dreamed that the power went back on, but when I woke up in the middle of the night it hadn't. At 4am, the power did go back on. Then I dreamed that because of the power outage I didn't wake up until 8:30 and was clearly late for work. But that didn't actually happen either.

Project: Tarleton

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:13:07 GMT

The Tumbleweed Tiny House blog has a post about a guy in British Columbia who just built a Tarleton. This is the model we are building in North Carolina this summer. It is so cool to look at all his photos. oneandonlymatt said it even answered a lot of his questions about the construction.

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/build-it-yourself/wills-tarleton/

Literal Ton of Work

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:35:00 GMT

We got an absolute ton of work done yesterday. onandonlymatt, our friend Chad and I went up to Mt. Matt on Friday night and set up camp. We got up early on Saturday and Matt and Chad went into Asheville to rent a DR Brush Mower from a rental place. They brought it back and got right to work. They cleared the entire meadow behind the barn. It looks soooo good. Then the mower broke (the battery died and the guy at the rental place just told them to jump it when they called him to tell him it was dead). We borrowed jumper cables from our neighbors and used the battery pack that we use for our power up there to jump it. It worked and they took it up to the Tumbleweed Clearing to get that prepped for building. They wanted to do two more spots (the lower clearing and the ridge) to make camping areas but since they had to deal with the battery they ran out of time. But we are very happy with the progress that did happen. And we can clear the other two spots with our chainsaw and weed-eater, it will just take a little more time. Then we came home last night instead of staying in Marshall. Today, Matt and I are not doing much of anything.

Enough babbling from me. I'll let the photos do the talking. I took a million of them and they are now on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

Things I would like to say but can't

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:51:38 GMT

1) Sending me your resume more than once in one day does not help me find you a job any faster. If you send it once and I am unable to respond within the first hour, please don't send it again...and again...and again.

2) I don't just have an unlimited number of available jobs that I can place you in. Our clients request certain skill sets and either you qualify for the job or you don't. Arguing with me does not make you qualified for a job you are not qualified for.

3) If you are applying for a "receptionist" position, make sure your resume doesn't say your objective is to get a job in "accounting", "real estate" or anything else that isn't "receptionist".

4) If you are currently making $0.00 an hour and I offer you a project for a few days making $10.00 an hour, why do you say no and tell me it is because it doesn't pay enough. I completely understand if you just have other things going on, but to say it is because of the pay makes no sense to me. Never has, never will.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY oneandonlymatt

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:38:41 GMT

I wanted to pop on to wish a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the most wonderful oneandonlymatt -

I love you so much! You are the best partner in the entire universe. I miss you when you're gone. Have a happy happy birthday!

Yet Aother Asheville Update

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:27:11 GMT

We went back to Asheville this weekend. We have been there three weekends in a row and are going back next weekend, too. The good news is we have made a lot of progress on the barn. Moving forward, we are stopping all work on the barn to concentrate on the tumbleweed house and then we can get back to the barn. So, that means the wall cladding will have to wait. I am okay with that decision.

This past weekend we went up with mtn_hermit for a birthday extravaganza and work weekend. He helped Matt finish the ceiling, which was pretty quick. We also delivered the ATV up to the land. We started on the wall but a miscaluclation will cause us to start over. Luckily, we had only started a small test wall.

Here are some Photos of our adventures this week.

Our Mighty Mountaineer with Lofty Aspirations

View from the Tumbleweed House, once it is built

The Spring

We also went into Asheville to celebrate our birthdays, since all of us had one coming up. (Mine was Sunday, of course. mtn_hermit on Wednesday and oneandonlymatt on Thursday.) We had dinner at The Thirsty Monk, which was divine! Steak Frites! I can't stop thinking about them. Then we ended at Sante for dessert. Yum.

Barn Room Update

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:27:48 GMT

Just a quick post about our weekend because I don't have much time. We did some more work on the barn room. The problem with a room that has no straight lines or angles is that it is hard to make things straight. We started out not worrying about it but them Matt's OCD kicked in and we took down everything we did last weekend and started again. Truth is, he was right and it is much better.

The ceiling isn't done yet. Along the seams of the flashing will be 4 inch battens in a dark brown stain to match the dark brown that will go on the walls.

The ultimate purpose of this room will be 1) a place to camp while we finish the tumbleweed house and 2) a studio for music, or writing or whatever creative endeavor we would like to pursue.

We got something neat...

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:58:13 GMT

So, we were in a quandary about a situation at Mt. Matt. Where we are building the Tumbleweed House is up the logging trail on the hill. The Element was unable to up that trail. For the most part, we can easily walk up to the cabin site. We do not want to build a road of any sort up there and we don't want to buy a pickup truck. Part of the reason was bought a mountain was to keep it natural. But, while we're building we'll need to get building supplies up the trail and once the Tumbleweed House is built we will need to get some groceries and such to the house as well.

oneandonlymatt called me today and he purchased a solution to this problem: http://www.polarisindustries.com/en-us/ATV/2007Models/Hawkeye/Hawkeye4x4/
It is the green one!

Due to the current economic climate, we were able to get a great deal on it. It was at a dealer on consignment. It was bought really as a utility vehicle not so much a recreational vehicle. We are also going to get a small trailer and, the best part, we are going to get the trail mower hitch. This will help us a great deal to keep the meadows clear.

I am SOOO excited about it. I need to get a super cool helmet.

Gratuitous Piglet Pictures and a They Might Be Giants Video

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:15:15 GMT

She's not a real Doctor but she is a real worm.

She likes to play the drums...

Apparently this is a video made for the Nickelodeon show "Ka-Bam", which I have never seen. I just love the song.