Healthy Coke

So when I am feeling all romantic and stuff, I take Emily to the Club to eat…Sam’s Club that is.  You see, I can buy 2 gigantic slices of pizza and two gallons of drink for something like $2.79.  We usually take an after dinner stroll around the…rice and beans aisle and just generally check things out.  Some stuff we just pick up regardless of whether we need it.  Stuff like brown sugar, canned peaches and tube socks.  Can you ever have too many tube socks?  No, I think not.  I just love the smell of brown sugar too.  If they made brown sugar cologne, I would wear it and I don’t do cologne.

Mexican Coke - aka Healthy Coke Mexican Coke - aka Healthy Coke

Mexican Coke - aka Healthy Coke

Anyhow, I have a few vices, mostly centering around sugar and sweet stuff.  I like pop and sugary candy in a bad way.  I guess I only drink 1 pop per day but I would live on it if I thought I could.  Corn syrup sucks, I know.  It’s in everything though.  Heck, it’s even in new car tires.  So, when we wander around in the Club, sometimes we ponder life and the future and stuff and I lament the tragedy that is corn syrup and how it is shortening my life.  As we toured around one time, we noticed bottles of Coke…glass bottles.  It caught my attention because I fondly remember walking after school to my Mom’s office in the court house in my hometown.

Mexican Coke - aka Healthy Coke Mexican Coke - aka Healthy Coke Mexican Coke - aka Healthy Coke

They had an ancient pop machine on the first floor that sold $.25 pop in returnable bottles and I loved drinking straight from the bottle.  So, I checked out the Cokes in the Club…and then I saw the price…24 bottles for $19!  Back in the courthouse, I could get those same bottles, already refrigerated for $6!   Emily was quick to remind me that my pop machine memory was from 30 years ago.  I guess inflation happens.  Still, it seemed silly until I considered the price I pay for corn-syrup filled pops at the gas station in the morning.  The bottles of Coke at the Club are the famous Mexican Cokes made with pure sugar – healthy Cokes, right?

Mexican Coke - aka Healthy Coke

Mexican Coke - aka Healthy Coke

We scooped up a case of the Healthy Cokes  and Isaac and I have been having one a day for…well, the last 11 days.  Yes, dear friends, there are only 2 left.  It looks like it’s about time to take my lady back on another date to the Club.  Only the finest for my woman!

 

By the way, sorry about all of the pictures…I was feeling so healthy that I just got a little carried away with the camera apps on my phone…

5 Comments

warren, November 15th 2011 | Tags: ,
Posted in Awesome, Fun

Product placements

My parents and brother and sister-in-law came into town this weekend to watch the kids play soccer and to help us work some on the deluxe shed.  We pretty much finished up the sub-floor before the visit so my goal for this weekend was to get some walls built…and that we did!

As we always do, we loaded up the van with the generator and all of our tools, drove to our place and unload them once again (I can’t wait to be able to leave some stuff up there!)  I didn’t notice it at the time but in looking over the pics, many of which my Mom took, I noticed that we were like a product placement extravaganza!  See how many different brand name/logo shots you see in these pics…it is like we were setting it up!

 

 

 

Anyhow, my brother brought a propane framing nailer and it was amazing!  I have never used such a beast before, but basically, it is a cordless nail-driving machine.  With a regular hammer, it takes, I don’t know, 5 seconds to drive a nail, another few to get the next nail and set it, etc  Each nail and swing of a hammer takes a lot of energy so things go slower with each nail one drives.  This nailer drives maybe 5 nails a second and I never got tired.  Incredible!

So, we discovered another crazy thing as we all worked away.  It looks like a cow must have gotten loose in the neighborhood.  The prints were from a hooved animal but they were far too big to be a deer.  It looked more along the lines of what I expect an elk print would be, size-wise but I don’t think there are any elk around here.

In addition to getting a lot of work done, we got to goof around together which was nice too.  We talked about a little bit of everything and nothing is better than working on a common goal!    We also got to see, once again, just how beautiful our WV mountains really are.  The leaves are coming along nicely and will probably be at their peak next weekend.  I couldn’t take a picture that did it justice but it’s just amazing!

See all of the progress on the cabin

9 Comments

warren, October 10th 2011 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Cabin, Family, Fun, Land, Nature, WV

The only reason I go there

There are many places I go to that really only have one draw.  If not for one or two things, I would never go there.  I am sure we all have those sorts of places.  In recent experience, two places in particular come to mind.

Walmart used to be a fun place to go and look at the latest and greatest stuff I would break and throw out in the next  few months.  I enjoyed looking at people and buying donuts or a bargain movie.  Lately when I go, however, I feel like I am in a Mad Max movie, only with long lines and even worse personal hygiene.  Walking through the parking lot really is dangerous now too.  In frustration, I guess, folks whip around illegally parked cars and older folks in electric scooters and put everyone at risk.  Cutting across lanes and general craziness make me hesitant to get near the place.

Sometimes, though, I have to go to Walmart.  We need this or that and the only place that has it is Walmart.  I have found a new stress-less way to get through.  I stroll past the lines that stretch for miles, find my item and then head for the ammo counter.  I own guns and like to shoot so buying ammo to plink at targets is fun anyhow.  I don’t like when folks check out at specialty counters if they are not buying items from that area so I always feel obligated.  Doggone it, I hate to buy ammo for my plinking habit, but in the interest of preserving check-out etiquette, I always buy a box of some ammo.

Emily needed a Valentine’s day gift last year, she got a frying pan and a box of ammo.  Kids need notebook paper, they get a bonus box of ammo.  I need a box of ammo, I get a bonus one to go with it!  See, it’s perfect!

Ok, so the other place like the ammo counter is the ball park.  Ever since my time as a little leaguer, I have hated baseball.  Really, I didn’t hate baseball until the one year when a preacher in town was the coach.  By association, I learned to hate baseball.  So, last night, my company went to the local minor league park and we all watched a baseball game.  The WV Power played some other team.  ”We” lost so I don’t’ even care who it was.  Come to think of it, I don’t care even if “we” would have won.  Anyhow, back to the story.  Abigail and I went to the game and we both had the same mindset.  We went to the game for the junk food…nothing else.  She had a hotdog and Dippin’ Dots and I had nachos and vinegar fries…and a half-gallon of Mt Dew.  When the food ran out, our patience did too.  We hung around awhile but 5 innings was all we could take!  The only reason I go to a baseball game is for fries with vinegar or a box of nachos.  If they had an ammo counter there….

I guess everyone has places that the go to that are less than awesome.  I just like to find things to make my time there bearable, if not pleasant. And with ammo or nachos as a reward, I have found much patience…

8 Comments

warren, August 31st 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Family, Food, Fun

Our car…the worm edition

So a few days ago, I told you all about the fun we had with crows on our honeymoon.  You may recall that my brother and a friend had put a bunch of birdseed into our suitcases as well as in the car.  By “in the car” I mean inside the car…literally.  There was birdseed in the dashboard, in the heater vents, down in the seats, floorboards, and even more in the dashboard.  Well, you get the point.  Anytime we drove around and hit a bump, even months later, birdseed would fall through the dash and onto the floor.

The start of the birdseed saga!

Jump ahead to our move to Kentucky for graduate school.  We were in marital bliss.  I suppose we didn’t see the world around us very clearly as we missed some obvious things…you’ll see in a second.  So, we were poor and all that but it was cool being married.  Emily seems to remember a rough few years as she attempted to train and civilize me.  Once she gave up, things got much better.  Anyhow, part-way through school, we moved to an apartment above a funeral home (more on that in another post!).

We noticed some wormy things in the backseat one day while unpacking groceries or something at the funeral home.  I didn’t think much of it.  I squished them and went on with my business.  Days later, we noticed them again…and again and again.  It started to get serious pretty quickly.

The car...already doomed!

I got a wild hair and decided to remove the back set of the car to see what was going on.  Why oh why didn’t I just remain ignorant?!  The entire back seat was infested with meal worms!  I don’t just mean there were a few crawling around.  Oh no, the foam in the seat was full.  The carpet in the floor was infested.  It was a regular larval zoo in our car!

I often deal with things like that with extreme overkill.  We had a Chevy Celebrity which, incidentally, was the best car ever made!  I loved that car!  Emily and I sanded the thing down in the weeks before our wedding so we could get it painted.  We wanted to make a flashy exit from the wedding ceremony.  Anyhow, back to overkill.  A Chevy Celebrity has maybe 30 sq ft of cabin space.  An insect bomb for a 2000 sq ft house seemed about right.  Makes sense, right?  If some is good, more is better!

On two separate occasions, I set off house-sized insect bombs in our little car.  The worms remained.  It’s a wonder we remained!  I am certain that a concentration of insecticide like that was not all that good for us.  After losing on the second bomb, I just re-installed the back seat and we looked no more.

How did we finally deal with the issue, you may ask?  Well, we traded that car in for a Chevy Prizm, the second best car ever made!  It was new and worm-free!  I blame those worms on the birdseed.  I have no doubt that the seed had meal worms in it.  They lived a good life for a couple of years on all of the birdseed in the car.  That wedding birdseed was the gift that kept on giving!

7 Comments

warren, July 21st 2011 | Tags: ,
Posted in Adventure, Awesome, Family, Fun, Nature

Coopers Rock

A few weekends ago, we went on a little getaway vacation to Coopers Rock State Park in Bruceton Mills, WV.  I was mainly excited for the cabin in which we were staying and the hot tub it advertised on the back deck.  Never did I imagine how cool the park would be.  More about that later.

So, we got to the cabin after navigating the Grand Canyon road back to the place.  The cabin itself was nice and did in fact have a hot tub.  The kids jumped right in as Emily and I unpacked and prepared for supper.  I am not sure why, but the power went out and we were without water or AC.  When you are not prepared, both are pretty important.  Anyhow, several hours later, it came back on and all was well…even the well.  We could shower and do dishes, etc.

On Saturday morning, we gorged on cheap powdered sugar donuts and Doritos then headed to Coopers Rock (it seems like there should be an apostrophe in there but there isn’t).  Little did we know, but there was a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the park.  The place was teeming with things to do as all sorts of groups offered nature talks, projects,  and hikes.

The kids built cool birdhouses and painted rocks.  We played on the play ground (where I tried my best to dislocate my shoulder).  We saw rescued birds of prey from the West Virginia Raptor Rescue Center and even got to touch a red tailed hawk who was very friendly.  It turns out, she was essentially raised in captivity so was not bothered by people.  The other rescued hawk and owl were not so friendly.  Still, they were awesome!

I think the best part of the park though, was walking the trails under the rocks.  We explored some and saw great rock formations.  The kids and I walked into a cave/tunnel and went all “Dora the Explorer”.  Abigail fell in the dirt and got muddy.  It was perfect and cool and a great time to be together as a family.

If you ever pass through the northern part of WV, stop in at Coopers Rock.  Its views are breathtaking and there is all sorts of fun to be had there.  It turns out that the hot tub was very popular, but it paled in comparison (for me at least) to the beauty of our state, just as it is!

7 Comments

warren, June 22nd 2011 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Adventure, Awesome, Family, Fun, Nature, WV

Fire the missiles!

Lest you think we are all work and no play when we go to our land in the country, I figured I should report on our war games…er…model rocket launching fun this weekend. We did work some but that bit seems like an old tune now. The kids were pretty much over the non-fun stuff so they explored some in the woods and found a new “hide-out” while I did the rest of what I had to do before play time. I have no idea what sort of cave, bramble or whiskey still they happened upon but they had an awesome time!

Preparing for launch!

Anyhow, we finished up with all of that and we headed to the top of the hay field to prep our launch area. There were a bunch of kids at the next house over so I think our position was as much an advertisement as it was anything else. So we launched a few rockets. It must have been the humidity or something because the nose cones were on so tight that they never discharged the parachutes. And what is a model rocket without a parachute as it heads back to earth? It’s a freakin’ bullet! Run!

Mission Control

Isaac and Abigail decided to invite the neighbor kids over and they brought some cousins so there were at least 6 kids…more targets! Just kidding. We were very careful to keep everyone safe. Everyone got a chance to push the launch button, which I thought would be the thrill. I was wrong. The real fun was racing across the field to recover the rockets! Who knew exercise was so fun!

The rocket!

10...9...8...7...

One boy said he had always wanted to launch rockets but his Mom wouldn’t let them (for safety reasons I bet!) I think I found our new role on the hill. We are the people who let you do all the stuff your parents won’t let you do!

Click to play the launch movie

(click here if your computer cannot play the movie above)

By the time we were through, we had a bunch of the parents up there too. We have met so many people and everyone has been so nice. I suspect most everyone confirmed that we are the unstable, crazy ones up on that hill. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing?

12 Comments

warren, June 20th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Adventure, Family, Fun, WV

Driving in the hay field

So yesterday, I mentioned that we went camping last weekend.  The spot where we camped is on the back side of our hay field which lays on a bit of a slope.  We drove both vehicles down to the edge of the woods and left them there overnight so we could have easy access to the junk that remained in them.

This was a month ago...before the grass really grew!

Since we knew it was to get hot, we decided to get an early start.  I am so glad there are no near-neighbors because I started the chainsaw at 6:30 am.  Anyhow, we packed up camp and planned to move the car and van to the end of the hay field where I am erecting my bear-deterring fence for the bees.  Emily started up the Subaru and drove right off though the thigh-high grass in the field.  The van did not fare so well.  The tires spun but the van never moved.

It was clear to me that we were not going to simply drive out so we had to go to plan b.  And then it struck me.  My friend Maria over at Chicken Blog sent me a cool book last year called Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do).  One of the things the book suggests is to let your kids drive a car.

So, I climbed out of the van and hollered at Isaac.  He’s 11 (and a year older than I was when I first drove a car).  I told him to get in and drive.  He looked at me with that, “Yeah right” look but I opened the door and pointed.  He climbed in and was terrified.  I think that was the proper response.  We did a crash-course on driving and then I went behind the van.  I planned to nudge it to get it moving while he drove it slowly and steadily across the field.  He started off ok, but when it didn’t immediately move, he gunned it.  White smoke rolled from under the tires.

“Dad, the speedometer showed 60!”  I have no doubt about it.  Isaac drove the car 60 mph in the hay field but didn’t move an inch!  We re-visited our driving lesson and on try #2, he successfully drove the van right across the hay field and up to the dirt road.  The boy was so excited and could not have been prouder of himself.  Although his friends did not believe him when he got back to school on Tuesday, he will probably always remember the first time he got to drive a car.  Sometimes a little (controlled) danger can be a good thing!

7 Comments

warren, June 8th 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Adventure, Family, Fun

Camping!

Holy cow it’s been awhile since I have posted. It seems like time is flying! I certainly need to remedy that. So, last weekend, the hottest weekend of the year (so far), we went camping on the bee farm. I had to set more fence posts in the ground and I have been itching to stay up and see the stars and listen to the crickets. You know, they say you can find the temperature by counting cricket chirps for 15 seconds and adding 37. I don’t think I could count fast enough to make a good measurement so I am sure that it works. It was hot!

Anyhow, I dug more fence posts and cut a bunch of trees and brush. The kids mostly read their kindles but they also went on a rock hunt. I told them I would pay them if they would find sufficient rocks to make a proper fire pit. I wanted to hear crickets and by golly, I wanted to smell like smoke before I laid down for the night. The kids were great. They actually dug some rocks out of the ground. I suppose they saw it as an easy way to make things happen fast…find huge rocks and dig them up…make Dad carry them to make for an instant fire pit. Well, they did a great job though my back may never forgive me after carrying some of their finds.

All of this is to say, we got pretty hot and sweaty outside working all day. Luckily, I bought that tank I mentioned in the last post. We had 35 gallons of water to set the concrete posts, cook and bathe. Of course, bathing was a relative thing, but we made the best of it taking a cold water bath at our campsite.

Oh, I don’t want to forget…on the way walking the path between the tent and the car (which housed the water tank), I happened upon a copperhead. He wasn’t wearing pants thankfully or there would have been two of us in a code brown status. I grabbed a shovel and went after him but he was headed for the woods too.

We finally got cleaned up and went to bed. Rather, we went to clumpy ground…it could hardly be called a bed (gee whiz have I become soft in my old age). I never did get a chance to really look at the stars.  Still, camping on our land was absolutely wonderful!  We ate mountain pies and roasted marshmallows.  We giggled in the tent and woke up groggy.  It was a marvelous weekend, stiff backs and necks aside.

There is lots more fun to report including driving the van 60 mph across our hay field…but you will have to wait until next time to read about that!

6 Comments

warren, June 7th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Family, Fun, Nature, WV

Milkshake mania!

My company recently bought a restaurant in South Charleston, WV which will soon be converted into office space.  As a part of the process, all of the restaurant equipment has to be sold so remodeling can begin.  This was a fairly large, well known, established restaurant so there is a ton of stuff in the building.  Lots of restaurant folks have been through the place buying things they need but I was very fortunate to be among the first round of people to get a shot at a few things.  Let me introduce to you my new best friend…

That’s right…in my kitchen, as we speak, I have an industrial strength, commercial grade milkshake making beast!  This, my friends, is the Hamilton Beach 94900 which is capable of bringing frozen goodness and delight to men, women and children alike!  The price was right and karma was with us so we scored a gem!

But before you get too jealous, let me take you back to its beginnings.  Mainly, it was gross.  The sanitary status of the machine was questionable.  In fact, there was still a chocolate chip and gooey icecream on the impeller when I received “the Beast”.  After much Mean Green and elbow grease, the milkshake machine was made whole again.

So, we have made several milkshakes with this thing and it is so much nicer to use than a blender.  It’s  faster to set up, faster to clean, faster to produce a milkshake and it makes smoother milkshakes hands down.  I love the new milkshake machine and I think it is a hit with the family too!

7 Comments

warren, May 18th 2011 | Tags: ,
Posted in Awesome, Fun

Our woods

We spent our time at the property on Saturday walking in the woods.  Our plan was to walk more of the property line as we still haven’t seen the entire place.  We did hike the better part of the boundary and discovered all sorts of excellent things!  Except for the constant chatter of kids, the sounds of the woods were magnificent.  Actually, the chatter wasn’t so bad either as the kids were having fun.

When I was a kid, hiking in the woods was not high on my list of fun.  I played in the woods a lot but plain old hiking wasn’t good for me.  I was so surprised that Isaac and Abigail walked the entire 2 miles in the woods with only a small handful of complaints.  Incredible!

We did walk the better part of the lower edge of the place and saw all sorts of beautiful flowers and animal tracks of all sorts.  There were too many deer tracks to even keep track of but the kids tried to identify every print they came across.

That's Abigail's finger...she's the brave one

We spooked a turkey and saw the biggest centipede the kids had ever seen.  We found just a little bit of poison ivy and a lot of slippery moss.  Squirrels barked and birds announced our path through the woods.  All around us was noise but it felt like silence.  It was marvelous walking in our woods and this weekend was the reason we bought the place!  I am absolutely positive that my blood pressure is still lowered because of it!

10 Comments

warren, May 2nd 2011 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Adventure, Awesome, Family, Fun, Nature, Thoughts, WV
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