End of school

Only a few more days of school left. We attended Luke’s 8th grade band concert last Wednesday and his graduation on Monday (22nd) night. The concert was quite pleasant for his 200 piece 8th grade band. He played baritone for two years and then switched to tenor sax over last summer. Now he wants to buy his own bass guitar. The graduation was a little long, especially with all the screaming during the 20 minute slide show at the end. Luke attended a dance afterwards.

As I figured, #1 son is smarter than his old man at least when it comes to school. We received his ACT scores the other day . . . he got a 30. I think I scored a 21 or 22. The max is 36 I believe. He’s thinking about taking it again. My guess is that it’s because his long-time friend Max scored a 32. We’ll see. The SATs are coming up in another week or two.

Added fireplace photos

I added three photos from the fireplace remodel (check them out in the photo album area) . The fireplace start photo is just as I was getting started, the fireplace work photo is of course the work in progress, and the now photo was taken just a few weeks ago. Most of the work was done over a year ago, but I never took a photo of the nearly complete cabinets. Definitely a neat project.

We were all painting the interior this weekend. I painted the ceiling on Saturday, and most of the walls on Sunday. We moved the furniture back into the painted room and ordered some pizza and watched a movie tonight. Boy do things look different. We would like to wrap up the painting this week and get going on the floor.

Update on metals, kids, house

Remember a while back I was marveling at the high prices of gold and silver? Well, I looked again today and the prices have risen further. Gold was $420 one year ago and is now right at $700. Silver was $7 one year ago and is now at$14.30. Platinum was $880 a year ago and is now $1240. Just seems crazy to me.

Paul played a chess tournament this last weekend and came in 4th place. 

Luke’s soccer team won this last weekend, 3-0, improving their record to 3-4-2. Hopefully they’ll be at .500 after the last game this weekend. We’re trying to get into a tournament which takes place on the Air Force Academy on the weekend of June 2, 3, 4.  His 8th grade graduation date is set for May 22nd.

Joshua took the ACT recently and has the SAT in a couple of weeks. He’s still interested in being an engineer in nano-technology.

All three boys were reffing soccer games last night.

I shot the ceiling texture and wall texture this last weekend. Not sure I’m totally happy with it, so I might touch-up a few places yet. Otherwise we’re ready to start painting. Yahoo! We’re getting close.

What a bunch of . . . .

Two-and-a-half years ago I was driving home from work going east on Research Parkway. It was cold and dark as the time had already changed making for one of those, “can’t believe it’s dark already” evenings.  About two blocks east of Highway 83 I come across a pick-up truck pulling a trailer stopped in the right-hand lane. It’s one of those Chevy 1500 series two door pick-ups and the trailer has a large (more like gigantic)  plastic water tank on it, plus a lawn mower, leaf blower, some rakes and ladders.  There are two guys standing there looking a bit helpless, and amidst the 10 or 20 cars of traffic I manage to move over and stop in front of their truck and turn on the flashers. I get out to talk to the two guys, who are both Mexican, and I ask them what’s wrong. One doesn’t speak English and the other . . . just barely. He says that they are out of gas and would like for me to take him to a gas station. Well, the truck’s flashers don’t work and having the truck stalled there in the dark was creating a bit of havoc for the rush-hour commuters. So, I tell him that I’ll tow his truck and trailer to the nearest gas station. I get out my 20,000 lb. tow strap and trailer hitch shackle and hook up his rig. The guy who can speak some English gets in my truck and his partner steers their truck. We go about two miles and get into the Albertson’s gas station which happens to be on Union and close to home. I pull them up to the pump, disconnect and we say goodbye. I didn’t think much of it.

I think that this illegal immigration stuff is getting ridiculous, and it made me remember the story above. If you’re pro legal immigration, but not pro illegal immigration, you’re labeled as anti-immigration or worse . . . a racist! What a bunch of BS. People living in our country illegally, protesting for rights? What the heck! I can certainly understand being able to make a decent living in our country, which is nearly impossible in all of those socialist leaning countries south of the border, as a good reason for coming here. But, to make demands on us when they don’t show any respect for our rule of law seems outrageous. What say you?