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Showing posts from 2008

Suddenly It's Christmas

Weird weather

I am siting here using the computer, expecting to lose power at any moment...TV says big storm headed to me w/ rain, hail and 60 Miles per Hour Wind !!! Sixty Miles per Hour !!! Holy Guacamole. This is way stronger than a tropical storm, I think hurricane starts at 60 mph. update;;weatherman wrong as usual. storm not so bad and center already past us. but it looks like another one is over New Orleans now and headed here later today.

New Cement Tile Floor

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Click photos for bigger view. We started work on the tile floors this past weekend. Very exciting to see this finally happening. Our Mexican crew, headed by Roy, started laying bathrooms on Sunday. Today the big living/kitchen area got started. The name of the tile in the Lv/Kit is Surf "Agua" . It comes in other color schemes too. The tile have all been crammed into a storage container on the property and they weigh so much that it has been next to impossible to locate individual patterns to send to people as samples and such. Now I will have some room in there to find stuff.

Short Christmas List

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One thing, here it is: Well, two things, I'd like 2 of these for new living room. In leather por favor. Check w/ me about color. Maybe a pale blue. They'd be perfect w/ the floor in there. The Peel

Best Turkey Ever

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The recipe that I think makes the best ever T'day turkey was first in House Beautiful about 20 yrs ago. This is a recipe from Gene Hovis--Uptown down Home Cookbook. Gene Hovis was a black man from the Carolinas originally and made it to top social circles in New York by way of food. His obit is here in NYT It is the best turkey I know of. Marinate is : 2 cups soy sauce 2 bay leaves crushed 6 juniper berries ( I have some nice ones from Penseys Spice) 1 tbs. dried rosemary crushed 1 cup sherry vinegar 1 cup white wine 1 cup honey fresh ground pepper 1 tbs poultry seasoning 1 lg onion chopped 3 or more cloves garlic crushed or minced Combine all marinate ingred. in lg saucepan and bring to boil for 5 min, cool. and I marinate it in a big cooking bag tied up tight around it and placed in a big bowl so I can rotate it over a day or two. Marinate at least 24 hrs, rotating bird. Remove from marinate and let reach room temp. preheat over 350 F Pat bird dry and rub w/ butter and peanut o

Couple of Quick Things

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1. Tell any school teacher that you care about to sign up for www.donorschoose.org because if Google does what it did last year (and Yahoo the year before) they send out thousands of Xmas gifts where the receiver gets to go to this site and fund a school teacher's project for $100. 2. If you use your camera to review and delete images off your camera's data card (SD, etc) one at a time while it is still storing the remaining images on the card, you shorten the life of the card. I read this on Photo.net or PC World or some reliable source, can't remember where but it was recently. 3. If you have any extra rechargable camera batteries do not store them uncharged. The life of the battery is longest if you full charge it and then store it. The charge will dwindle over time, but the battery will take more charges and last longer than if you stored it uncharged. Seems weird, but the last I bought had this warning with it.

November Notes

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I am sorry that I have no time to add amusing stuff to this blog anymore...maybe this time next year. Evey moment of my waking time is needed for stuff I have to do. Today is Sunday and I used a hose attachment to squirt water on the exterior of the new house as high as possible to see if there are any skipped or missed places in the waterproofing sealant...there are. I would wet an area dn then take a photo really fast before it evaporated. I can reference the photos tomorrow spraying from the man-lift as we have one more day before it is picked up by the rental company., We had it for 2 months this time, I probably should have bought one ! I think I have sold the crane..YEAH !! One of the equipment listing companies that is used to large dealers listing their stuff for sale, Equipment Trader, or maybe it is Machinery Trader, anyway, the first listing is free. I only needed one. They had something like 22 pieces of equip. in my category (rough terrain crane) but I got a call the firs

DR Photos

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A funny sign at a local gym on the road between Santo Domingo and Punta Cana . Photos from the tile factory and some installations of their product. A link to Villa Lagoon Tile is good to place here ! Now photos of Santo Domingo that I took the first day. We stayed at a lovely all inclusive place in Punta Cana. Some of these photos are from Santo Domingo, I'll put those first. The coast all along Santo Domingo has rocky coral inlets and little caves. The water makes a big splash in some of them. These photos are from restaurant of typical food and fun music and dancing. The walls has photos of Pres. Carter eating there and others of Brandgalina. Matt Damon too. We were invited to a fabo luncheon at the home of our host's parents. The tables were set in a small tent on the front yard that faces the Caribbean. The food was, hands down, the best we had on the trip. Got to visit an architect's weekend home whihc is this incredible three story tree house in palms on the beach.

more from the DR

internet still difficult. big resort but some of the biz center's computers don't work properly, we show up forgetting the tiny slip of paper w/ our 24 minutes of access code , so just one thing afer another..so only answering urgent email. The beach is fabulous, there are a bunch of Russians here. It is a fam trip to get a bunch of Russian travel agents excited about sending vacationers here I suppose. They dont smile much and they dont communicate at all w/ us. Today we saw people from Korea, and a lot of German speaking people. Last night we had dinner in the reservation only japanese restaurant. definately not Benihana , was kinda funny actually....food mediocre at best. this huge AI resort (all inclusive) is owned by a Spanish an and the food is basically without seasoning, which is what I experienced in Spain. hese places are located in an area where all there is are huge AI rsorts..so wandering about looking for local estaurants is not much of an option. but the archite

Dominican Republic

Great trip...have seen a lot of very nice tile installations and taken a lot of photos. Our little group of tile showroom owners and interior designers is a super group of folks. We are on our own now at this HUGE all-inclusive resort. I have about 2 more days. I was all scared of coming here before I came , from reading forums, mostly at www.dr1.com but so far, it is wonderful. I'd come back in a heartbeat. Of course, it helps that I am hob-nobbing with the elite here !! A fabo lawn party on the coast was just the best. I took a ton of photos but will have to wait to get home to upload them. I have taken a lot of photos of great tile installations in ancient and new construction for the website and established much better biz relationships for obtaining and selling my tile. I see numerous trips to the DR in my future !!!

Greetings from the Dominican Republic

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Trip went fine getting here. Airports are never fun but it wasn't too bad. Nice hotel right smack dab in the center of a 3 million people city...Santo Domingo. I am going to try to upload some photos if the hotel will let me use my USB thumb drive in their computer. Later on I may pay for the 24 hrs of wireless, but I have not yet. Wasnt sure I had brought my laptop power cord, buty found it this afternoon. Anyway, everything great here so far. Lots of horn honking. Reminds me of Jerusalem in that respect. Tonight is the tile company cocktail reception. Slept late and then had a big breakfast at the hotel buffet and omlet bar, lots of tropical fruit. Then walked around mostly along the shoreline drive. Then to the pool for some reading and short nap, now in the business center. This hotel is great. Hotel Santa Domingo. Climate here is about like Gulf Shores when we left town. Warm sunny days, cooler nights, humidity like Alabama. Friendly people so far. Well it does not seem to rec

Carlos Santana's Next (possible) Career

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...on Friday the rocker said he sees himself one day heading up a church in Hawaii..."I'm going to stop playing when I'm 67 and work on what I really want to do, which is to be a minister, like Little Richard," he said to Rolling Stone. "I'm not sick of what I do, but I find that God gave me the gift of communication even without my guitar and with the ability to get people unstuck with certain sections of the Bible having to do with guilt, shame, judgment and fear." Read more...

Adorable, smart beagle dog

Sure makes me want a doggie.

Bon Secour Auction

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Big bankruptcy , big auction. Bon Secour Village here on the Intercoastal Waterway...first photo is the proposed marina part of this huge development that was even to have public schools located inside. Second photo is what the marina looks like now. Bon Secour Village Auction

Curved Cornice is Up

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Cornice is in place and getting last back-fill today. DAC-ART steps are almost complete on the south side. The area over the central panels lacks the decorative effects.

Redneck Fire Alarm

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Thanks Marti for this clever idea. It looks lovely in your home.

Ship wreck

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After these last 3 or 4 hurricanes in the vicinity, this old ship was tossed ashore. People said they saw it back in 1997 and has made occasional appearances over the years. Now it is a big attraction on Ft. Morgan beach, just down the road from me. It is located between mile markers 5 and 6. And it is way longer than it looked on TV and in the newspaper. The boat had burned to the water level and what you see now is the part that was underwater still very much intact, blops of hardened molten metal and lots of charcoal where the fire was. Doesn't this look like a one of the spooky ships from the Pirates of Caribbean movie ?