Productivity?

Trying to get my Anklecast for June ready, and I wrote myself a 2145 word story. Probably sucks quite a bit, but if you want to hear it, tune in tomorrow...or at least next week sometime, when the new episode hits.

Flagstone Patio

We finished up our flagstone patio yesterday. It's been quite a long, drawn-out process to get from beginning to end, but we finally made it there. Let me see if I can manage to tell you the whole story.

Last spring, we went to Costco for our usual weekly grocery shopping. In the lobby, they had a display of various types of flagstones one could purchase from them. It's a display they put up every year at the same time. My wife had seen it many times before, and an idea had built up in her head that she would like a flagstone patio. Now that we'd moved to a new house, we had a need of some sort of patio in our backyard. So, the stars aligned, and we started on our journey toward flagstone patio ownership.

We borrowed a trailer from my sister and used it to haul two tons of stone to our house. We rousted all the kids out to help us unload them one stone at a time, and re-stack them in the garage. We hired a contractor to do our backyard for us, but didn't include the patio as part of the deal. Instead, we marked out the spot that we wanted the patio to be, and told him to put the lawn in around it.

I think we expected to do the patio last year, before fall ended, but our contractor took a lot longer than we expected to finish our backyard. What we did manage to do was get the posts for the pergola that would go above the patio put into the ground. Then we had to call it a year.

We were pretty bummed, because the two tons of stone was still in the garage taking up space and making us unable to use the garage as a parking space. My wife got fed up with scraping the ice off her windows in the morning pretty quickly.

In a fit of chivalry, I went out and spent my whole Saturday morning re-stacking the rocks closer to the wall to make parking in the garage possible for her, but it turned out that her van was longer than I'd thought possible. She still couldn't park in the garage...but my little Fiat could. Chivalry backfired on that one.

Eventually, spring came around again. While things were still wet and soft in the backyard, we went after it with the shovels, excavating the place we'd marked off for our patio. My wife said that her internet research had told her to dig at least nine inches down. She kept telling me I needed to dig deeper and deeper. And then later when it was time to fill the hole back in, told me I'd dug too deep.

Once we'd finished excavating, my wife ordered the road base we needed to pack into the bottom of the hole:

And the sand that would go on top of that road base:

The stinking place that delivered it to us refused to dump anywhere but on our driveway or the street. It was against their policy to drive around and put it into the hole where we needed it, supposedly to avoid liability if they break a sprinkler or something. I wonder if I could hold them liable for my medical bills from my back going out while hauling the dirt. We took the dirt, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow to the place in the backyard where it belonged.

Luckily for us, a friendly neighbor saw us doing this, and volunteered his services, and more importantly the services of his bobcat to get that dirt to the backyard. So, that gigantic pile of dirt made its way to our backyard in a few short hours. Unfortunately for me, we had way more road base than we needed. The pile rose several feet out of the hole. So, the wheelbarrow couldn't be put away for good. Instead of moving the dirt from the driveway to the patio hole, I had to move it from the patio hole to the empty lot beside our house.

Spring break rolled around, and somewhere during that week, I finally finished flattening the hill out. We were ready to tamp it down, and get going with the sand and the stones.

We rented a compactor machine, and I drove it around the patio's footprint for a while as it pulverized the dirt into place. Once we had that taken care of, it was time to start bringing in the sand, and placing the stones. The wheelbarrow came back into play, as we shoveled it full of sand, and pushed it up the hill from the street to our backyard and dumped it. Then we started placing stones.

Like when you're building a puzzle, we placed stones all the way around the outside first, then started putting them in the middle. It wasn't long before we realized that we didn't have nearly enough stones for the gigantic patio we'd marked off. I wished that I could run and grab our contractor and have him just put grass over everything, but it was too late for that. Instead, we needed more rock.

As luck would have it, it was springtime again, and Costco had their flagstone display up. We went and bought another two tons. Only this time we didn't have my sister's trailer. Instead my oldest son and I loaded the rocks one by one into the van at Costco, then unloaded them one by one to our backyard. I think my son was starting to wish he was back at school his spring break was turning out so rotten.

We kept at it, putting rocks into place as if they were puzzle pieces.

It was difficult, considering that there was no guarantee that the pieces we had would actually fit together. my wife and I split the duties. She seemed to think that my skill with fitting the rocks together was better than her own, so she assigned that detail to me, and spent her time leveling the rocks that I had placed for her.

Eventually we placed all the rocks, and we brought up a few wheelbarrows full of sand to put between the stones we'd placed and fill in those cracks. It looked pretty good.

Except for the fact that we still didn't have enough rocks to fill all the space yet!

And when we went back to Costco, they'd sold out of all their stone. We didn't know what to do. If we found stone somewhere else, it probably wouldn't match the rest of the stone we'd already used. And that was if we could find it. It sure wasn't available at Home Depot, or some place like that. All we did know was that we were done for now.

I was glad to be done for a while. I'd worked so much that every muscle in my body was complaining. I needed to go back to work to get a vacation from my vacation.

Then a miracle happened. A few weeks later, Costco got a new load of stone in. We rushed right out, and bought another ton...and loaded it one rock at a time into the back of the van again. Then transported it back to the house. I spent a few nights puzzling those rocks together until the hole was filled. Then, my wife spent a few more nights leveling those rocks off, and finally, we filled the cracks with sand, and we were done!

I think it turned out really well. It'll probably need some more sand in the coming weeks, and again and again over the coming years too. Then of course there's that pergola that needs to be built above it. But, for the time being, we're done. We're going to sit back and enjoy it for a while before moving on to any more big backyard projects.

TGMG 159: Podcasting - The (Ugly) Truth

Yo, there's a new That Gets My Goat up. You oughta check it out.

This is something of a meta-cast about our shows and ourselves. Man, I really wanted this episode to come out before now. But that damned Avengers movie...sigh.

Okay, this is what they used to call "a very special episode" of Blossom. We're gonna talk, Rish and me, about how things really are, when it comes to our writing, and when it comes to our podcasts (together and apart). An intimate conversation, as though no one else was listening. This shit may get real.

To listen, you can find it on the podcast feed or you can right-click HERE to download it. Or, just push the play button down below. Problem solved.

Nasal Regurgitation

I've come to realize that I'm just not very good at living. Every so often, like as in a few seconds ago, I manage to somehow while chewing get food up into the back of my nasal passage instead of down my throat where it belongs. How the hell does one do that? I don't know, but I'm good at it. Getting the food out is not very pleasant either.

Uh Oh

Oh crap, a huge chunk of my tooth just broke off in my mouth. Calling the dentist now...

Whoops?

Oh, man. I just saw THIS ARTICLE today and now I have to wonder, have I been shooting myself in the foot with all the stuff I've been doing on The Anklecast? Do I need to:

Neon Highlights

Saw Avengers again over the weekend. Anyone else notice that Black Widow's costume has glow in the dark blue accents all over it? I wonder what those are all about, they never mention it at all in the movie as far as I noticed.

  It will surely make for some fun with EL wire for cosplayers, though.

Casting Star Wars

I took a mosey on over to the Delusions of Grandeur podcast to hang out with Rish Outfield and Marshal Latham for a while. We talked about the latest casting news for the upcoming episode 7 Star Wars film that is in production.

Head over and subscribe to the podcast to get the episodes delivered to you automatically. Also, you can click the play button below to listen to the episode.

Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Time for book two in Robinson's Mars trilogy, Green Mars.

This book was more of the same, which is good, because I really enjoyed the first volume. It tells the story of the people who settled Mars, and their struggles to both terraform (or fight the terraforming of) their world, and to free themselves from the yoke of the earth-based companies that are calling the shots in their lives. The first book finished out with a revolution, but it was a failed revolution. The transnational companies that pull the strings on Mars put down the revolution, and killed many of the characters we'd been following through the course of the story.

This time around, the Martians change the way they go about things. The revolution is planned carefully, and not rushed into without forethought. And things go better in many ways.

The terraforming is also progressing at ever higher and higher levels. By the end of the book, Mars is definitely a green world (although the word green in this book has more meanings than just color. It also counts as a political philosophy, and I don't know if it's quite green in that sense of the word just yet). And, the next book is called Blue Mars, which they are well along the way to achieving as well. It's probably a rosy outlook on how easy it would be to terraform Mars, but it still fires my imagination. The idea of Mars as a smaller, redder version of Earth really excites me.

Now, I did say this book was more of the same, and I meant that. It is still as hard an SF book as I've probably ever read. Sax Russell becomes a major point of view character in this novel, and he is one of those scientist-type characters that should probably never be the point of view character in a novel. Pages upon pages in this book are devoted to his scientific musings, and laypeople like myself will just plain not understand much of what he has to say. Sax goes through a lot in the story, and changes significantly too. So, in the end, it was worth it, but be prepared for lots of in depth science talk in this book the same way as there was in book one.

Again, however, this book was enjoyable despite the incomprehensible science. The first book was very dark. Things went very poorly for people on Mars. I always thought the deal with trilogies was that the second book was supposed to be the darkest one, then the third book was where all the troubles were resolved on an up note. In this series, it's not that way. Book one is the failure where things look darkest. In book two, things look up in pretty much every way possible. And I can only assume that book three will deal with the aftereffects of all the changes book two brought us. I guess I'll see when I get to that one.

For now, however. I recommend this book the same as I did book one. In fact, I recommend it even more, owing to the more positive note it strikes. Of course it would be worthless to read without having read the first, darker book. So, you have to take the bad with the good. After all, you can't know that sweet tastes good without knowing that bitter tastes bad. At least that's what they say. Who says that? Well, those guys over there.

So, my next book...well, it should be the next chapter in the WWW trilogy from Robert J. Sawyer, but I'm just too into The Expanse right now, so I think I'm going to go ahead and read book three of that one, Abaddon's Gate. I'll get to the other one soon enough. It's not going anywhere. Don't judge me.

Anklecast 26: One Million Miles

I shipped my pants pretty much the whole month of April through. I'm going to turn it around, however. It won't be my condition forever. Novel writing time is coming up, and my story is starting to burn away in my mind. I'm getting excited about it. But I've got to make some changes to make this novel thing succeed.

I talk a bit about that, and I have a special surprise. Normally I don't do stories on here, but I wanted to show that I can turn things around, so I did one this month. It's a little bit of flash fiction called "One Million Miles." If you like it, let me know, and I'll try to do one more often.

Oh, and something I've never had before but will in today's show is a listener question! A listener sent me an MP3 file of their question, and I answer it on the show. That'll be fun too. All around good times today. Hope you enjoy it.

Music for the story was "Despair and Triumph." And my regular music montage is "Crossing The Divide." Both are courtesy of Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com.

Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.



Related Links: That Weight-loss Blog That I Was Talking About That Dean Wesley Smith Blog Post That I Was Talking About

Fresh Apples?

My 3-year-old loves apples, but he doesn't get very far each time he eats one. I can't bear to toss them out when so little has been eaten though. So most apples I eat these days look like this.

 

R. 080-T In The Flesh...Er, Metal

I'm really getting excited about making some costume armor from EVA foam. I've decided that I will make some for the three-year-old, and, as long as it doesn't prove to be too much of a monumental undertaking, I'll make some for the rest of the family. We'll wear them for Halloween...maybe to a convention or something too. I wanna do something like this"

But, to educate myself on the process, I'm going to make R. 080-T. Soon, there will be a physical world version of 080-T that we could use in a video podcast. Rish wants me to document the process on my blog, so watch for it, coming soon...as soon as enough money builds up in the paypal account for me to buy a heat gun at least.

 

Echoes Of Smithing

I've been discovering Echosmith recently, and all I can say is that this is a good song.

Children: Our New Hope

I was on the Delusions of Grandeur podcast with Marshal Latham and Rish Outfield the other day. We talked about sharing Star Wars with our kids...and Disneyland.

Head over and subscribe to the podcast to get all the episodes delivered to you automatically. Also, you can listen to the episode right now by clicking on the play button below.

TGMG 157: That Gets My Age of Ultron

A new That Gets My Goat up on the feed!

Oh, that movie came out. Sure you heard about it.

Rish and I rushed out to see it, then we rushed to podcast about it. Spoilers abound, as well as gushing and nit-picking. See you on the other side.

You can find it on the feed or you can right-click HERE to download it. Then again, you could just click the play button below and listen immediately.

Siskel and Ebert vs. Simon

I was on the Delusions of Grandeur podcast the other day, a new podcast that Rish Outfield is doing with Marshal Latham. We talked about critics of the Star Wars movies, in particular the judgments of one John Simon.

Head over and subscribe to the podcast, also click the play button below to listen to it right here on the Big Anklevich blogspot. What convenience this modern age provides!

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together

It's the first of May, first of May! Avengers watchin' starts today!