Sept 11th

I hadn't planned on making a pot for today.  Today is my first anniversary with my bride.  The church we got married in was only open for this day because no one seemed to want to get married on this day.  We viewed it as a way to bring the day back to the good.  Something positive on a day that is so sad and emotional.  On this day 10 years ago I was working second shift as a conference call operator.  I was still asleep when the first plane hit.  One of my roommates came and woke me up and told me something was happening and I needed to get up.  As we sat in our living room watching in shock I still knew I had to get to work.  Work was strange that day.  On this day came one lowest moments as an operator.  A call was put on my schedule to call 4 people and connect them to a conference.  the first three numbers were 212 area code.  I got ring no answers from all three.  I then dialed the last number.  On the last number I told the person that answered that I called the other three numbers and didn't get an answer.  He then asked me if I knew where those numbers went too.  I said 212 is New York, he said, these numbers go to the World Trade Center and then hung up on me.  I felt so low at that moment.  I don't know these people, I don't know if they lived or not.  I pray often that they did live and that the man I spoke too forgives me and understands that I was just doing my job.  After this I was moved to lead a call that was lines connected to a conference keeping communications up following the president.  Where he was, if he was on the ground, in the air, where he was heading.  It was interesting, but I couldn't wait to get back home and get this day over with.  I think of  this every year on this day.  I was hoping I could replace these memories with new memories of what I did leading up to marrying my bride, but they're burned into my mind.  I'm so happy to be celebrating my anniversary with my bride today, but sadden at what happened on this day 10 years ago.  My bride and I have decided that we will spend one of anniversaries in New York in remembrance of those that lost their lives on that day.

The Rentals

Here we are once again, me on my side of my blog writing, and you on your side of the blog reading.  I had a good weekend, I hope you guys did as well.  My parents came into town for their yearly vacation so my bride and I spent the whole weekend trying to entertain them.  I don’t know if they’re trying to pay me back from when I was kid and lived with them or what, but they sure have become needy and demanding.  We had to have constant entertainment for them, and they seemed to always be hungry.  No lie, my bride and I are in the kitchen cooking dinner and from the couch we hear, “I sure am hungry, we don’t eat as late you guys do.”  I’m cooking as fast as I can mom, I’m sure you don’t want to eat your chicken raw, I hear bad things can happen.  One morning I’m in the kitchen making breakfast, my parents walk in and proclaim that they’re ready for breakfast.  I tell them that we’ll be having cinnamon rolls and they are almost ready, so they decide to just have cake for breakfast.  Then when I pull the cinnamon rolls out of the oven, they say, well I wouldn’t have had cake if I knew you were making cinnamon rolls.  Really folks?  Was I really this bad and annoying?  It didn’t even stop with food, a picture was knocked off of a wall, we hear it hit the floor so my bride and I go to investigate thinking a cat has done something, what do we find? Our picture that used to be on the wall stacked on a bookshelf, I know our cats, they don’t stack.  It would have taken just as much time to hang the picture back on the nail.   I half expected them to give me the, “Are we there yet” when we went out Saturday!  The other times they have come to the house they came to help us move, do some yard work and meet my bride’s dad.  Apparently I’ve learned that when they come there needs to be tasks laid out for them to do or else they’re going to get bored!  Apparently they see my house as their house as well, because my dad got up from the table, turned on the weather channel and promptly feel asleep.  Welcome home dad, welcome home…
I really do love my parents, and I’m very thankful for everything they’ve given me, so don’t think I’m just off bashing my parents.  It was just to the point of being comical this weekend with the goings on that just weren’t expected from my parents.

Cha-Ching!

I hope everyone had as good of a weekend as I did.  Nothing special happened, I just didn’t have to work.  Well I guess I did have to work, just a different type of work, yard work.  A while back I had my old push mower die on me so I had to get a new one.  Well I didn’t really know what to do with my old dead mower so it just sat behind the shed letting the grass grow up around it.  (And yes I did do redneck fixes on it to keep it running as long as I could, but it finally just couldn’t take it anymore.)  Well, my bride has been on me for a while, I guess about 2 years, about getting rid of it. Since I was in the yard working yesterday it seemed like the perfect day to do something with the old mower.  I’ve heard rumors about people cashing in scrap metal for money so I thought there had to be some big bucks in this.  I tell my bride, we’re cashing in this old mower and some other scrap metal and we’re going to have ourselves a date night!  We load up our old rusted and holey fire pit, some random car parts that I’ve gotten out of the ditch from in front of our house, and the old mower.   I just know in my heart that I’ve got at least 40 dollars of metal in the bed of my truck.  I pull up to the scrap metal place beaming with pride and thoughts of big bucks.  I back up to the scale and we start unloading.  I’m watching the weight increase on the digital screen, 75, 90, 124 pounds!  JACKPOT!  We’re going to Western Sizzler tonight, put on your fancy blue jeans, and a shirt that doesn’t have a hole, we’re living the high life!  Aw man, I just can’t wait to have all these bills counted out into my hand.  I’m doing the old Cha-Ching fast food commercial dance in my head.  Now, my bride has stayed in the truck for all of this, and her window doesn’t roll down, if you remember from last week, so she has no idea what’s going on.  This is going to be the surprise of her life.  I walk inside the place to settle up my tab and end up having the biggest surprise of my life.  We went from Western Sizzler to sharing a Happy Meal at McDonald’s.  I walked away with a hole whopping $7.20, I spent more in gas driving to the place than I made.  Talk about a blow to your ego!  The ride up there was filled talking of ways to spend this money!  Now I have to get back in the truck and hand over a 5, two 1’s and two dimes?  Ouch, I’m never going to hear the end of this one.

There, I fixed it

As of May 2nd, I became the proud 100% owner of a 2005 F150.  That’s right the last payment was sent in and the truck is mine after 6 long years of making payments.  The last three May’s in a row something has happened to my truck that has cost us a lot of money.  With the last payment being made and the truck officially mine, I had a feeling that this May was going to be the worst May of all.  I was on pins and needles all month, and on June 1st I was happy to report that nothing happened to the truck!  Well Sunday August 7th, my luck ran out.  My lovely bride rolled down the passenger side window to talk to a friend, and as she rolled the window back up we heard a loud, CRACK followed by a POP.  My bride thought the window broke, but I knew what happened, because a few Mays ago the same thing happened to the driver’s side window.  The pulley system that rolls the window up and down snapped and so the window fell down inside the door.  The last time I had to get this fixed it cost me 360 bucks.  With my bride’s birthday coming up and our first anniversary looming , I really wasn’t too hip to dropping that kind of cash to fix a stinking window.  What to do, what to do…  I know I’ll get my redneck on!

I started this repair job off the right way, at Home Depot!  What redneck can’t fix their car with building supplies bought from the home depot?  I knew to fix the window properly I’d need two small C-Clamps and four rubber washers.

I didn’t take any pictures of me taking the door apart, so the next photo is of the C-clamp in place.  I raised the window to its shut position, I then positioned the C-clamp on the track right below the bottom of the window on the right side of the door.

One side down, now to the left side track.  This side proved to be a bit more difficult due to there being no space for my hand or clamp at the bottom of the window.  Again tapping my inner redneck I decide this is nothing that a scrap piece of trim and a coping saw couldn’t fix.

So I cut two pieces of the trim, one to be the stop for the window, and the other make a wedge to keep the stop in the track and in position.  Next I took my handy C-Clamp and clamped the trim in place.

Now for the fun of putting the door back together.  Because I’m left with this hot mess.

First I need to put the moisture barrier back in place.

With that done I bring the door panel back and take a look at it.

I snap the door pannel back in place after returning the hanging door handle to his home.

Then I need to hook the wires back to my electric door controls.

And snap them back into place.

Next the speaker needs to be put back into his hole, making sure I have clearance around one of my C-clamps. (Something I probably should have done before this step)

Lucky for me there was clearance, Clarance.  I Returned all the trim, and the job is complete.

So, there you go, if you have an F-150 that has the window break like this and don’t want to spend the money to get it properly fixed and you don’t like the look of ducktape on your car, follow these instructions and you’ll be good to go.  Other than the gallons of sweat I lost, the R rated words that were dropped and the skin and blood left inside my door it’s a pretty simple process.  Just don’t forget to put a sticker on the door that says “winder don’t work”.

Weekly Report

I know I’ve already posted one blog this week, but below is my weekly report lead in.  I hope you enjoy.
Afternoon ladies!  I hope you enjoyed your weekend.  I enjoyed my weekend, but it was a busy one.  Let me drop some knowledge on you about this guy named Cas that sends you a report once a week.  I’m not a guy that has ever been around the childrens much, never really even been that big of a fan of the childrens.  I’ve lived 32 glorious years without the childrens, and plan on living a few more sans the childrens.  But this last weekend, my beautiful and loving bride, volunteered me to help her babysit two childrens for some friends of ours so they could go off and enjoy their anniversary.  Seeing how I’ve never really been around the childrens before, I had no idea how much work they are!  Sweet Baby Jesus, Toy Story, and Harry Potter 15, these childrens never stop!  I thought little kids liked to take naps and go to bed early!?  Apparently, not so much… Wow, I gained so much respect for parents, because “Mr. Cas”, as I was called all weekend, is way too selfish and lazy to be having the childrens right now.  One of the main reasons I agreed to this “adventures in babysitting” was because our friends have a pool, and “I’ve got to get me one of these!”.  So in my head I envisioned me sitting in or around the pool for 2 solid days.  Well it rained for two straight days, so Mr. Cas was stuck inside playing Wii games while trying to remind myself that they’re just kids take it easy on them.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to sit at the finish line of Mario Cart and wait while the other drivers aren’t even half way through with the first lap?  All jokes aside, I had a great time with the childrens this weekend.  It was definitely an eye opener for me though.  I’ve got my work cut out for me when it’s my bride and I’s turn to have the childrens. 
That was my weekly report, if you read this post as being negative please note that it was written for comedic value, even if I failed horribly at being funny.  Having childrens is a challenge that I’m totally looking forward too.  The more time I spend with my bride, and around these childrens, the more I realize I’m ready for some childrens of my own, as long as the childrens is singular and a girl. 

Here is a picture of me with the childrens

*sidenote, I try to drop at least one random Will Smith movie or quote into each report...

Product Review

I almost feel like a real blogger posting a product review!  This is probably going to be a surprise when you guys read what I’m reviewing.  I’m reviewing our cookware that we got as a wedding gift.  We got Calphalon’s Contemporary 12 piece set.

I’ve been a stainless steal cookware person my entire life so I didn’t know how I felt about this black hard-anodized set.  Most of my reserve was based solely on the look of the cookware.  To me pots and pans should be stainless.  That’s how I picture chefs cooking, that’s how I pictured myself cooking.  I quickly got over this when I had to wash the pots.  When they say non-stick, they mean non-stick!  It’s amazing how everything just falls right off these pots.  The pots aren't dishwasher safe, but that’s ok, I don’t like taking up valuable space in the dishwasher with huge pots, bowls, or other large items anyway. 
We’ve added some other pieces to our set, another 1.5 qt and 3 qt sauce pan, a 13 in covered skillet, and a square grill pan.  I love the square grill pan.  It’s awesome for quickly “grilling” chicken and pork, it even puts the grill lines on the meat!
The one major downside to this cookware is the lids.  The handles on the lids get super hot and can’t really be removed with the bare hand.  It gets a little annoying always having to reach for a hand towel or oven mitt to remove the lid to stir. 
So I’ve gotten over the lack of shine on my pots and really embraced the non-stick aspect of this set.  We still hope to add some more pieces, we’d love the double boiler, and the Panini press, but we really don’t have to have them right now.  And to be honest, I’d really like to add some of the stainless pieces from this line so I can still have a little bling.

Where have I been?

I'm sure no one has wondered where I've been, but too bad, I'm going to tell you anyway.  I've been working away, doing nothing too spectacular.  But part of my job is to do a weekly report.  At the start of the report I've started writing little lead ins that I try to make humorous.  Apparently since I've started doing that I've been neglecting my blog.  I've posted a few of my lead ins into my blog just so I'd have something posted, but no one knew that's what I was doing.  But now that the cat is out of the bag I figured I'd post another one.  This is my lead in from my report sent on July 5th.

Welcome back from the long holiday weekend everyone.  I hope everyone enjoyed their 4^th of July and are back at work typing with all your fingers.  I can just picture how much fun the first 4^th of July was.  George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Ben Franklin, Davey Crockett,  and Paul Giamatti hanging out around the pool, knocking back some brews, grilling some meat Davey C rocket had killed that morning, and telling stories about their wild and crazy youth.  Those founding fathers of ours were having such a great time that they decided to declare every Fourth of July Independence from work day, which was later shortened to Independence Day to better fit on the calendar then shortened even further to ID4 to fit on the cover of the moving picture history book of the greatest Fourth of July ever when Will Smith stopped the Alien invasion.  Those Brave men had the foresight to know that all future generations would enjoy a day off of work in the middle of summer to drink adult beverages, fire up the grills and hang out in and around bodies of water.  George Washington, being the prankster that he was, thought it would be funny to light some explosives in the air to scare the other guys.  While he did scare them, the sight and sound of the explosion was such a beautiful ending to a beautiful day it was decided right then and there that every fourth of July be ended with a bang, thus creating our tradition of the fireworks spectacular. Thinking like this is what has made our country the greatest country in the history of countries.  Ask yourself, does Rome have a 4^th of July?  What about France?  I would bet my paycheck that if you looked at the calendar of any other country they skip straight from the 3^rd of July to the 5^th of July because only America is great enough to have a 4^th day in July.  So God Bless our founding fathers, God Bless America, and God Bless, *company that this report is for*