What is a little rain.........

Even when it rains, it is just beautiful to see mother nature unfold before ya. When it rains we move down to the first floor and continue to work on different areas down there..


They continue to move higher with the stack stone.


Even as another 10 ton of rock is being delivered.


And higher they go, if you double click the pic you can see strings hanging down this is make sure the walls are plumb as they continue higher. Also the "Z" shaped wooden boxes on each side is where a 14x20 doug fir beam will go in place as soon as it comes.


We have a studio type apartment on the first floor for a number of reasons, either one of the kids will live there....or if the time came for a health care provider or even someone is just visiting for a few days or a week they can stay in the studio.


On days that it rains, they work on doing the beams, we have 6x12's going one direction with 4x8's going the other. Here they are notching each one at a time so it fits just right......and level. Before each beam is actually set, the end are stained to match the beam so if there is any shrinkage you won't see a white end.....


It won't be long, if it keeps raining, until the beam work is done.....but they are calling for sunshine tomorrow........

Just a little late, but still gettin it done

The artist that is doing the stairway system is a true artist and I believe doesn't understand flow charts or work schedules. Anyways, about four weeks after we past their opportunity of just sit their post and beams they came ready to work. First they had to drill holes in the wood beams and insert their posts.


The guys were real happy to have to lift these post up and see if the holes were drilled straight.....what do you want to bet there were....????


Well after they tired to set the beams, they had to pull them back up and adjust the holes......instead of drilling them on the ground with a press this took about an extra hour to fix..


Once the posts were plumbed, he had to weld it to the base plates. The key word in the that last sentence was "WELD", now where there is welding going on there are sparks and sparks can lead to fire.......SO neverless to say, we poured water over the welds and watched it very closely for HOURS.........


Once the posts were welded in place, we used the cherry picker to set the beams.....max lift on the cherry picker is 600 pounds.....beams were 850.


What is the difference between using a crane and a cherry picker? Well a crane lifts and lowers by using a cable/drums system that is very smooth. A cherry picker doesn't and is very jerky. But we worked the beam over and lowered it into place.


The dang thing jerked up and down, while they tired to set it.......


When they came over and measured the areas for the stairs on each level they must have thought we were within an 1/8th of an inch......they were ....we weren't. It took a hammer and chisel to get this beam to fit.


Once the beam on the second floor was set, they started putting on the 2x's and tie in the stand for the tree and finish the second level floor system. You will noitce that those rockers were out of there during this process.


But it wasn't long before the last post and beams was welded into place and right after Thanksgiving we will be getting the iron stair threads system for all the floors........

Happy Halloweenie

A good trading buddy of mine sent me this photo, well actually a whole email of them but this is from the Land of OZ.....and we ain't in Kansas no more....
Happy Halloween everyone.

You want a gift???????

"If this is the most excessive house you have ever seen", ya'll need watch exteme houses on HGTV sometime.

I realize when we were all born, our moms and dads spoon feed us, told us when to go to bed and when to get up. What to do and what not to do, eat those peas and sit up straight, make sure you have clean underwear on before you go out, you never know if you will end up in the hospital and yada yada yada.

Then one bright and sunny day, you went out into the real world and got a job. This time it wasn't your mommy telling you what to do, but your boss and his boss. What time to come to work, what time to go home, what to do and what not to do.

Then you fell in love and married the perfect soul mate (being political correct) and they started making you breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now they, did your laundry instead of mommy, and told you to go the store and here is the list and yada yada yada.

So all your life you have had someone else holding your little hand and taking care of you, wiping your nose, telling you when to go to lunch and making sure you picked the kids up at soccer.

Each of us, when we are born have a "talent", and some will take that "talent" and expand on it and leverage it to the Nth degree. I know of a grand mother that sings to her grandkids that 99% of the professionals out there would have to take a back seat for sure. But that is not where her "tatent" lays it is teaching second grade.

Each of us, have a "skill" that we learn during the course of live, some will take that "skill" and expand on it and leverage that to the Nth degree. A "skill" is something that is learned and not just born with. We all know people who have a great "skill" and can do amazing things.

Then we have a thing called a "gift". A "gift" first must be given and then it has to be received. Let's say I give you a piano, but you do not use it and it sits in the living room collecting dust, what value then does this gift have....well it doesn't have any value. In the blog over the past 9 months, I have given out ideas about how I trade, things that others either don't know about or are not willing to share, if you have not taken the time to look into these ideas then what value have you found.....most likely none.

On several occasions, after being busted on by anonymouses, I even went so far as to challenge them to a trading completion, but found no takers. The profits from these completions were to be given to charity....WHY? Because if someone, was good enough in their trading to take up the challenge, then they themselves would be in a position where money is not a driving force anymore, after all what is 10 or 20 thousand in the end......most likely anonymouse, your trading account.

I did find your comment about, "Why aren't you giving the money to them and living more modestly?" interesting. Yes, I am building a new home and providing income for 22 people and 14 are married with kids and I pay them well. So about 47-48 people are being provided for. Then we have all the suppliers, salesmen, delivery drivers, building inspectors, security guards, plumbers, heating and air, electricians, roofers, the list is endless at times that all are counting on me to provide them with income.


Give money away, you got to be kidding!!!! Last week we were at a Young Life banquet and gave away $5,000.00 which out of 106 people the highest single individual donation, we also support them monthly, this one time donation here was to help with last years budget short falls....




I had to paste this letter in two parts so it was large enough for you to read. But it is from MAW, remember them???? I am not sure how many wishes my donations were able to fill...one.....a couple......half a dozen? I am not sure how many kids that Young Life have been able to turn around, I do know of two here locally from my kids sharing stories. I'm not sure how many kids have learned to read early in their lives that will make a difference from the books they receive monthly from the Imagination Library, but I hope it's alot. I'm not sure how the bears that were released from the bear center are doing. I'm not sure how the ASPCA is doing after we rebuilt the entire complex for them, but I know it made a big difference. I'm not sure how the young adults we are helping get thru college will go on to be leaders for our future, but I'm hoping. I'm not sure how the single mothers we help out from the women's shelter, by baby sitting and other things, are doing but we are stilling hoping.

I give more money to charities each year then 92% of all Americans make. Why, because I know my "talent", I developed my "skills" and I understand where the "gift" came from and will not allow anyone the opportunity to take it back. Are you protecting your "gift" from the elements.....rain, mildew or is it just sitting in the livng room collecting dust.

There will always be people that are straving and homeless...for a number of reasons and it doesn't brother me at all. If you ever able to make enough money in the markets, then I suggest that you give it all away to them and rent a double wide, actually I think maybe a pup tent would be better. I wish you well, because it also appears to me by your post in the comments section, that you want others to still spoon feed you trades, because that is how you live....waiting for everyone else to tell you to eat your peas, be to work on time and yada yada yada...I guess you want the secret sauce also.............

FOOT NOTE: Where can we see where the Duke of Wood has given a dime to MAW, he likes to boost about how much his room has raised. Well, subtract my donations in HIS name and you have about 2/3 left. Some where around 800 was the high, and he talks about thousands coming thru the room each day and one person made 1/3 of those donations......think about it for a change. Where can we see where you have given anything to anyone for any reason, I doubt that will never happen and that is why we are not in those rooms anymore. Not because we were kicked out.

Thanks HC-ed...what a day

So they we were, most of us were either short or were not in a trade as the market was selling off. There was a new low for the day in the prem when the tiki and tick spiked...so we had three spikes with a new prem low......for a cover, Oh that was the low of the day by the way.

The ER started to rally and I was looking for symmetry to short again, hey it worked since lunch time on Wednesday and I just got used to shorting any rally. Then HC-ed posted that he was long and I was thinking....OK, what the heck is he seeing that I am not, why would someone even think of going long here, what is this guy smokin now and so on.

But then as I was scanning all 9 monitors for a clue WHY, I saw that the ticks had been below zero and moved up to 400 while price held....then the ticks pulled back to zero (or just a little below..OK) and formed a TAZ.....Then I said to myself....DANG...HC-ed might have a nice winner on his hands. So we leaned into it, but since it was a counter-trend trade we didn't lean hard.....

Then the rally just took off, as everyone in TradersHaven was having a good time with this trade, and I busted a little on HC-ed. It wasn't long before we had a new prem high without the tiki or tick spiking and I covered at 630.60....SO thanks again for making me think.....:)
We did make a little joke about the inverted ghost that I highlighted for this long.....but no one really trades them and makes money......well at least no one that posts trades live that is.

By the way, the 50CCI gave us another ZLR to go long....nothing better then an energized bunny..........and with time and price we held to 12:03 and 635.00, and talk the whole process in the chat room.......now that is GREAT TRADING EVERYONE!!!!!!!!

OF COURSE, the secret sauce indicator had the rally pegged all day.....all day...more on the later, get some sleep!!!!!

Working hard everyday

As they set the floor joists on the fourth floor, you can see that we had covered all the finished beams on the third floor. It doesn't take long to set them as we had already marked the walls where each joist went.


At each end of the joists, there is a 2x4 nailed to keep the joist on the straight and narrow. Here we check each one to make sure they are level and plumb.


Adventech was bought over by the crane as we set those joist so we would not have to spend time carrying them up to the fourth floor.


Screwing the floor down took less then a full day, the stiff backs and end braces were installed as soon as the joist where set.


The timber framing for the third and fourth level need to be hand hued, now this would take two guys about 2 weeks to do, so the woodcraver bought this little device up to try and copy that look.


After three days of testing, they started chipping away at the main fourth floor beam supports....mainly because you can't get close enough to see any mistakes...:)


Each of these support beams are 28 feet long, and it didn't take long for them to finish each of the sides.......BUT, if they mess this up, we will be set back about 2 months until we can get more of these beams from MT.


THIS IS A HARD HAT AREA.......OK. now you might think that someone got to close to one of the guys that were sanding those beams.....but I'm telling you, Boomer thinks it's a hat....Ok


That was until Thumper told Boomer he looked stupid and it wasn't a hat....ROTFL

Trading is an interesting experience

We had been testing an idea that just uses the internals to trade with....along with our secret sauce, now available in the lobby to the first 20 traders who contact me by email, this is a once in a lifetime offer as I am going to release this exclusive, private, personal mother of all secret indicator. I have made a small fortune trading with this indicator, so dont wait until it's gone. Email me now and turn your life around.

Traders from all over the world have been using this exclusive HF system, here is what they say:

"It has turned my life around, I have been trading for 20 years before I found the HF system and nothing compares to it", Jimsy from Canada.

"I wished I had found this before I bought into that other system", Susan from Florida.

"I have bought every system out there and this one is by far the best, it's like magic printing money all day", Donald from Florida.

When the bars at the bottom are red from our exclusive secret sauce indicators we are sellers in the markets....when the one bar turns green we use the internals to find a cover. So we know which way the market is going......100 percent of the time....ORDER NOW BEFORE IT's WAY TO LATE...

What a beautiful day on the hill....

Every day the view is just awesome, as the weather keeps changing. This is the view from my new office when we move in...tell me this wouldn't fire you up.

The rockers are moving at about 120 square feet a day, and should be done before Thanksgiving with the outside of the house. The scaffolding was setup to help with the exterior framing and Tyvek, this is also being used to lay the stone.


It looks good, the color is a little off in the photo, this is called Eastern Stack.
The little retaining walls are for the heating unit and generator to sit on.


Not sure what goldens see in brown sand but Thumper acts like a 3 month old pup around the stuff and looks like she doesn't want anyone to play in her sand box including Scooter. Actually they play in the sand every chance they get.


The city water department came by and replaced the water meter housing the other day, you can see the first didn't do well during the fire. It was discovered that only a 3/4 inch water line had been installed, so we are upgrading it to a 1.25 inch pipe for the house and also for the sprinklers systems.


Of course, according to Murphy's Law, if you installed something it would be in the wrong place later. So the transformer was exactly in the middle of the house and the front door. The fire also damaged the box so we decided to move the dang thing down the road so it's out of the way.....anyone got $3,100.00. Got to love it.


After a ditch was opened to pull the electric lines back, new pipes were installed and when they had to make a bend, this little heater was used to warm up the pipe so they could bent it anyways they liked....:)


Sevier County Electric showed up at 7:30am and by 1:00pm the guys had replaced all the pipes and were about ready for the electric company to come back and hook us back up again. The inspector rolled in the same day, and put his stamp on the box and we ended up moving the box and only being out of power for 31 hours. The 4 generators we rented were returned ASAP so we didn't go for 3 days....rent for 3 is like renting for a week....


A 1,000 gallon propane tank was placed underground, we had to cover it with sand, (WHERE ARE THOSE GOLDENS AGAIN) instead of dirt or 57 stone. The reason is, dirt or stone can markup the surface of the tank and cause it to rust. So two loads of sand were delivered and spread all around the tank and packed in. They will be installing the T-1 and phone lines on the 1st....so things are moving fast now.

The war of the rooms is still raging.

Of the three room that trade the CCI with their special sauces, it seems that the biggest one is still dropping. Once at over 800 and fat and happy is now dropping by the minute while the other rooms are holding steady.

BUT, one has to believe that a reason could be, the post at 10:22:03 asking Rover if he is still long while the market is selling off from the open ...now down over 6 points.....that could be one reason......

OH WELL, great trading everyone...

Tennessee stack stone .........let's get some mortar and get started.

Some things are behind schedule because of the fire and some are still on schedule.
We had the stone masons scheduled for the middle of October and they showed up right on time.......mixer and all.


The stairways are going to have real stacked stone and we were ready for them including the stand for the 46 foot tree....


And so down on the first level is started, one stone at a time with 20 percent flats.....


Just about ready for scaffolding...since they will be going up about 26 feet to the third floor level......the white form board in the back is because the gunite folks were not able to do their job correctly.....but that is another story. You can see the clips that they are using to tag the stone to the walls.....


Meanwhile up on the third floor, they are busy working on the beams in the formal dining room. I am beginning to believe the house is being built with a chain saw more then anything else....


They use a Genie lift to help set everything that is heavier more then I am.....the dining room will have 4 beams in the ceiling.....hand peeled and they look just perfect.....so far..


Down on the second level, the wood workers are busy sanding and working over the tree posts and beams so they can give them several coats of Sikkens stain/sealers.
The stair is going to cost over $160,000.00 and more on that later. Here the guys are setting the steel posts for the stairway system....


Once everything is in place, Jeff will weld each piece in place, the funny part here is he wants everything to be within 1/8th of a inch......Just wish we could have gotten it within 1/2 an inch......rotfl