Before and After Photo of back fence project.


We’ve had ton’s of projects and family stuff going on this spring.  In reverse chronological order, above you’ll see Abi and Madison posing in the strawberry fields in Carlsbad during our Daddy day yesterday.  We picked strawberries, went shopping, to dinner, frozen yogurt and saw Hannah Montana’s movie.  What a day.  It’s pretty safe to say we were all exhausted by the end of the day.

Yesterday Mike and I think we finally nailed down the baitpump issue that has been hanging around since early this year.  We need to get it out on the water and test it to be sure but I’m 99% sure we’ve got the issue nailed.  I hear the Yellowtail have been showing 5 miles off of Oceanside so next weekend we are going to go test that theory.

I reaffirmed for myself and Justin and Mike as witnesses that I suck at and should never be permitted to play golf.  Let’s just put it this way 15 holes, 12 lost balls, 1 driver in 2 pieces.  Nuff said.

Madison had her spring musical.  She did great, remembered all the words and wasn’t a bit shy (not that I’m surprised)  I finished part two of my fence replacement project.  This was the toughest section as it was on a hill, 130’ long and had several trees and some concrete to contend with.  Thanks to a gas posthole digger, air nail-gun and Mike and Justin the project was finished in a single weekend. 



I got the landscaping redone in the front yard as well.  I didn’t have a great “before” picture but there wasn’t much to look at.  It looks great now and a new drip irrigation watering system will help cut down on water usage.

Dad and Marijanne came out to visit so we got to do some touristy stuff we don’t necessarily take time out for.  I took Dad fishing and while we didn’t set the world on fire or anything we did manage to get enough fish for a nice Ceviche (recipe here) and a fish dinner.  We had a pelican following us around most of the day until we filled him up with whitefish.  He left happy, but had a bit of trouble on the takeoff with the half dozen small fish we tossed to him. The girls did lots of projects with Marijanne.  It was a really great visit.

Photo Caption: Marijanne, Madison and Abi design their own shopping bags.(Above), I show off Dad’s Sculpin (poison fins so he didn’t want to hold it) (Top Left), Dad posing with his buddy the pelican. (Bottom Left)

I built a new home theater streaming box for downstairs based on some free software I found online XBMC.   Awesome application and the price is right.  I bought an inexpensive MSI-Wind PC ($140) from NewEgg, threw some RAM, Compact Flash and hard disk I had laying around and viola.  Awesome home theater PC.  True it doesn’t have the horsepower to play HD 1080p but it looks great for my digital movie collection of 720p stuff.  I’ll write up a more complete set of specs and instructions later.