This year has been crazy on so many levels. As if the Rona virus, tyranny, a stolen election, riots, and everything else wasn't enough, it was record levels of hellish heat in Phoenix, as I already stated in previous posts. Well it finally ended and we can come out of our houses. I thought that after finishing my BS I'd have more time to relax this fall and Thanksgiving break but then project 2020 came up.
A few months ago I was outside watering my trees and noticed that a lot of dirt is going through the chicken wire wall holding back the dirt for the in-ground trampoline. I already knew there were problems with the way Derek built this thing but was starting to realize it was worse than I thought and I couldn't ignore it much longer. The trampoline is only a foot away from two of our block walls and on the other side two of my trees were sinking. When my dad came out here he noticed the block ring around the trampoline dropped about 2 inches on one side. I was planning on taking care of it myself but my dad being the guy he is decided to volunteer himself to come out and help me with it before Thanksgiving. My dad told me it would probably be cheapest to go with concrete but I thought retaining wall blocks would be easiest because I could stage them before he got there and make the project go faster. I couldn't have been more wrong. I'll get more into that below.....
First a brief update on everything else going on. We hadn't been to California since New Years due to their lock downs so we finally went in September. My dad has been very busy helping everyone else with their stuff, including tiling Adri's floor in September and then planning on coming out for my trampoline project. He spent two weeks up north doing a free job for my cousin, was busy doing tile at my sister's house, and he's always on the go. My sister was taking a weekend in San Diego with her husband for their anniversary so I decided to go out there and watch her kids, let the kids see their cousins, and try to help my dad out a little with some stuff around his house. While out there we learned their lock downs are even worse than ours when we had to eat in the parking lot of our favorite Mexican restaurant. Nothing like enjoying a fine meal next to oil slicks in a parking lot. Our governor is an idiot, but their's takes it to a whole new level.
When we got back we had some issues at work and I had to work 11 days straight, odd hours, day and night. It sucked. During that time my dad's computer blew up so after my eleventh day of work I drove out to Riverside alone to try and fix his computer that night. I think that was my shortest trip to Riverside ever. Got there late at night, had some cocktails with my dad while working on his computer, slept an hour or two, worked on it more, had lunch, then left by noon. I was back home just 24 hours after leaving. I didn't get his computer fixed in time so I had to take it with me. The next week my sister came out here. After no family time for months we've been seeing each other quite a bit lately. After they left it was two weeks til they were back for Thanksgiving.
To add to the fun I have, well had, two hernias that were starting to really bug me. I didn't obey the lifting restrictions after the last hernia surgery which was a lower inguinal and I think that is what caused me to get an umbilical hernia. I've known about it for over a year but the doctor said to hold off on surgery for the time being. Well I couldn't take it anymore so when I went for a follow up he found I also had a lower right inguinal hernia. I had surgery on both this week. I didn't want to get myself in the same situation as last time so I delayed this surgery for a month so I could get all my projects done around the house and get into a situation where I can actually go 6 weeks without lifting.
Our trip out to California. Took the kids out to Oak Glen. After planning our trip there we found out my nephew's girlfriend's family owns Annie's Orchard. So we got cuts in front of the hour long line for food.
Halloween 2020. This was down the street. I think this is from Children of The Corn?
Dean is hilarious. He gets very shy when he's excited about things, like his Mickey costume. He wouldn't make eye contact while trying to hold in his smiles.
A couple blocks down some neighbors dressed up like Tiger King Joe and Carol F****** Baskins.
When my sister came out in early November Natalie and I took a night away for our 12th anniversary and went to The Boulders in Cave Creek. Here we are at a restaurant called The Spotted Donkey. I got a Mexican Mule that was very interesting. A cocktail with cilantro in it.
On to project 2020. This was spread out over a couple weeks so you get to see all my pictures in order of when everything happened. This was the first stage. I had 210 63 pound blocks delivered on four pallets and had to move them to the back yard by myself. Did I mention I had a pending hernia surgery? Yeah, it sucked. I got this done about ten days before my dad came out.
More blocks.
I busted out the leaf blower to cleanup all the mess from the blocks on the driveway. Zach thought it was funny when I turned the leaf blower on him.
In between project stages. It was finally cool enough to take the kids shooting. I bought Adri this HK for her birthday but she hadn't really been able to shoot it. We went shooting on her birthday but it was so hot and there were bugs so she only got to shoot a couple rounds. So this time I took both Adri and Zach. Zach is still too small to shoot. No the rifle did not have a round in the chamber when I took this picture. I'm ugly, not stupid. When those guns are ready to fire I'm all over those kids. Zach was unable to hold the rifle and fire without me holding onto it as well.
Adri on the other hand is ready for shooting. I was going to buy her first gun when she turned 8 but ended up waiting til she turned 10. I think it was a good decision. There's a lot more development in those two years. I'm not just teaching this kid how to aim and pull a trigger. I'm teaching her all about how to handle her rifle. Her first shot she blew an old pot in two. Then hit it again and again. And that is when she realized she doesn't have to reload like a bb gun and she went crazy and started kicking up a bunch of dirt. This kid has a lot of potential being that she is a lefty that can shoot left and right.
Dean being a handsome little man.
Natalie's friend decided to take the kids on her birthday so we could take a day out. We went up to Jerome for the day to check out the winery owned by the band Tool's frontman. I don't think Natalie was all that impressed. Arizona wines are dry so it wasn't really her type of wine.
An old mine shaft in Jerome. We could hear the rocks fall down the shaft for about 8-10 seconds and then it was just too deep.
The mine compared to the Empire State Building.
That's a deep mine.
Dean being Dean. This kid loves flashlights.
Back to project 2020. This is the day before my dad came out here. As you can see Derek really half-assed this thing. He had the chicken wire touching rebar and galvanized steel which caused rusting. Then he tried to hold it all together with PVC pipe.
This is where the block had dropped 2 inches on one side.
My dad came out on Monday. I had to work Monday-Wednesday. Normally I can get time off with no problems but this is the one week were they needed me. My dad said no problem. He thought he would still have this thing prepped and ready to start putting the first set of blocks in concrete by Tuesday morning and be done by Wednesday. Well this is Monday night.
I had ordered these big bags called Bagster. They hold 3,300 pounds of material and a big truck with a crane picks them up. It's something like 30 bucks for the bag then 130 for the first pickup and 105 to pickup each bag after that. I should have planned better. My dad warned me don't remove too much. Well I should have known by the nearly 14,000 pounds of block, 4 tons of gravel, 1 ton of c-mix, and 500 pounds of concrete that two bags wouldn't be enough.
Tuesday morning Natalie comes in my office while I'm on a call and tells me my dad needs me out there asap. At that time my friend Heath was over helping out my dad. My dad tells me I need to get a trailer because even a couple more bags is just not going to be enough. So I took a few hours off work and got a trailer. Heath happens to own a vacant lot and told me to just dump all my dirt on his lot. I managed to get 2 loads filled up and dumped before getting back to work. Then Heath took a load and had another load filled up by the time I got off work. I took two more loads over to his property that night before returning the trailer. I think I probably dumped 13,000-15000 pounds of dirt on his property. Needless to say it was a good call by my dad to get the dump trailer. The trailer cost me $150. If I would have done more bags I probably would have needed another six or seven costing me close to $1000. Not to mention there was nowhere to keep them for 5 days until pickup.
Late Tuesday afternoon.
Early Wednesday morning. My dad is a machine. The guy is 60 and in much better shape than I am. He can throw around 94 pound bags of concrete while the 63 pound blocks were taking a toll on me. Here he is getting the first set of blocks put in.
Wednesday night.
Notice all that is left is the top ring of the frame. The legs and feet were badly rusted out so we tossed them. The blocks have a one inch lip so the top of the wall is 7 inches back from the bottom. So we went to Home Depot to get some steel plates and rent a welder. The plan was to weld the trampoline ring to the plates then glue, drill and screw the plates into the block. The problem is the welders you can rent at Home Depot don't have enough heat to weld the steel. The galvanized was melting but not the steel. My dad was out there half the day on Thanksgiving trying to get the welder to work. I called my cousin and he said to stop wasting our time and hire a welder.
The Friday after Thanksgiving we found a welder. The family had plans to go up to Flagstaff for the day and my dad was going to ditch us to stay behind for the welder. I rescheduled the guy for Saturday so my dad could come up to Flagstaff with us. I'll get back to the final project later. I had to wait a day so everyone else can wait to see it too.
The plan was to go to the lava tubes on the west side of Flagstaff. My sister got up there in her van and there was a couple inches of snow so they decided it would be best to find somewhere else to go. So we went to Sunset Crater on the east side of Flagstaff and did some hiking. I've been wanting to go to the crater for years. It was actually on our itinerary for the last day of vacation in 2015 but after 27 days on the road with the kids we decided to just skip it and go home. Finally five years later we made it to the crater.
In some ways the crater was similar to Craters of The Moon, which we did during 2015 vacation, but I think Craters of The Moon was better. Even so Sunset Crater was really cool and I'd like to go back for more hikes in the future.
It was pretty damn cold when we got there. It was 38 degrees, windy, and snow on the ground. After we ate lunch the wind died down and it was actually bearable weather for hiking.
This was a cool part of the trail with a staircase going down the lava.
My and Aubrey.
BFFs. Behind them is a volcano covered in black lava rock/sand. It's cool but like I already said there was a much better lava dune at Craters of The Moon.
Dean is a funny little man. He is always shy with Grandpa at first but once he warms up to him he won't leave him alone. On my last post he was sitting next to my dad eating his breakfast with his face nearly on his plate staring at his food so he doesn't have to look at Grandpa. Then an hour later he's sitting on Grandpa's lap. Well the same thing this trip. Once he was hiking with Grandpa he didn't want anyone else. After we stopped for a break I asked if he wants to go with me or Grandpa and he chose Grandpa.
About 18 miles down the road from the volcano we went to these ruins.
It's annoying how much our phones spy on us. I didn't post any pictures from the ruins. I didn't check in or anything. Well the next morning I get his ad on my Google feed.
Onto Saturday morning. We had the welder scheduled for 10 am. He didn't show. I started calling at 10:15 and it went to voicemail. Finally he texted me back at 10:30 saying his truck won't start and he wanted to reschedule for Monday. I call BS. Why wait until 10:30 to notify me when he had to leave at 9:30 to get there? So my dad told me to tell him to pound sand and we'll find someone else. I really didn't think we would get someone there that day. I wasn't having any luck getting anyone. After 20 minutes of calling around my dad gets this guy on the phone and hands it off to me to give him directions. The guy is 76 years old and didn't have a smart phone so he had to write down how to get to my house. An hour later he is there and going to town on the welding. This guy had been welding since he was 14 and it was obvious. He did a really good job and an hour later we were ready to place the trampoline on the block. After welding my dad hit all the welds with flex seal so they don't rust.
And here is our finished product. I noticed the trampoline is now tighter too. With all the rusted crap out the way we got that ring tight before having it welded. Zach's friend said the trampoline is bouncier.
Grandpa is a local hero.
Dean is very excited to have his trampoline back. He tells me every day "Grandpa fixed the trampoline".
Monday during my lunch break I went outside to watch Dean on the trampoline. I heard the Bagster truck pull up so I ran to the front. Dean got scared and ran inside. I picked him up and took him out front and he was still scared with me holding him. We all stood there fingers crossed that the bags wouldn't break. If they break they don't clean them up. You buy a new one and reschedule a pickup. Luckily our bags did not break.
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