...not quite dead yet. Going to be adding some new stuff soon. Just been a little overwhelmed by work and stuff lately. Got some pictures I'll be adding in a couple of days, too.

I never did like the jalousy windows in the house, and I think there were probably 4 different types of windows in the place when I got it, so I signed up with Sears home improvement to replace them all. I got all except one of the windows (8 of them) done, and the dude should be done with them this afternoon. I didn't do the one in the garage since I eventually am going to expand it, and I am planning on replacing the one facing my nearest neighbor's house with glass block or a prefab glass block panel because it looks right into their house, and vice versa.

Got some pictures in the gallery - house section.

Here's a late news flash. Right before I left on the trip I just came back from to Dublin and Venice, one of the 36" tires on the Suburban decided it didn't want to go to the airport with the rest of the truck... Well, the good news is, I now have the correct lug wrench in the truck to fit the metric nuts, and a block to put my short-ass jack on so I can actually get it far enough off the ground to change a tire. My eternal thanks to the Good Samaritan dude who stopped and helped me change it on the side of I-95 on a Sunday afternoon in the sun. Got some pics --->>>Oh, the ugliness! I'm going to be getting a pair of the same tires to replace the one that blew and have a matching spare. Expensive lesson learned - make sure the local hillbilly monster-truck dudes don't overinflate your huge-ass tires. At the end of the day, it's my fault for not checking them sooner - they were a little bouncy with 35+ PSI in them.

Oh yeah, you don't want to be anywhere around the (considerable) reach of a 36" tire tread flapping in the breeze after the sidewall lets go. The tread came loose much like a big-rig recap might and beat the shit out of everything it could reach before it wrapped itself around the axle and locked what was left of the tire. Big-ass tire tread - 1, cool exhaust - 0. Same results for rear quarter panel, wiring for license plate light, and damn near the stainless braided brake line.

Another revelation. I finally remembered how to fix the 'photo gallery' link at the top of this page, so now it's working again. Now, if I can just avoid screwing it up again somehow...

I also added an 'email' feature to the weblog, so if you see something particularly earth-shattering here someday, you can now email it to your friends, your mama, or even your mama's dog - if the dog has an email address.

That's all. Have fun with it!