Gulfport MS....and a helping hand.

It was a pier for people to enjoy fishing from....that was then, but this is now.


It was a nice home on a quiet street, that was then, but this is now.


It was where they were going to raise their kids, that was then, but this is now.


It was where they bought a home to retire, that was then, but this is now.


They call this being mudded out. Where they strip the entire inside of the house down to the 2x4's. Wash it out, let it dry and then start over. One night Bryon called and asked for a favor, he wanted to know if I would help buy some insulation because the church was going to Gulfport to help out. I told him to fill up the truck and have Lowe's call me which they did....and they had a big truck....ROTFL.


Bales of that pink stuff......and bales.


This is the building inspector in charge of my new house, Jay is his name and he took off 5 days, without pay to go and help. Afterwards he said he would much sooner inspect it then have to install it.....


This is Chris and his wife cutting the drywall, he is a police officer for Sevierville and also took time off without pay as did Lori.


DJ works at the local bank and is now a drywall finisher......Lord help them all.


Not to bad for a bunch of "VOLUNTEERS" I would say.


They worked from sun up to well after dark, so you had to get a quick 15 where ever you could I guess.


People talk sometimes about how kids today are blah blah blah.......but there are a lot of kids who go beyond anything most adults are willing to do.


The lady cooked for the crew, good ole Tennessee cookin....anyone for some fried green tomatoes?


Thanksgiving day was sent working until the meal was ready at a local church, anyone and everyone could come an enjoy Thanksgiving, it didn't matter who you were or from what walk of life.


They had to find a spot to eat Thanksgiving dinner, because the church meeting room was full. But what is Thanksgiving really about other then sharing and enjoy the company of your friends and neighbors. These three guys play on the same football team at GP High School.


As some worked inside on the drywall others where outside working on a new roof.


This in not a glory job at all......ever have to shovel shingles?


As the week came to a close, the inside and outside of the house was better then ever........a nice lookin house.


Where would you even start on repairing this home?


Even today the casinos are still shut down and no one is working on them.


An apartment building, only thing left are the metal stairs, the rest is gone including everything that the tenants owed.


Even if the casinos were open, you couldn't get to them. They said that the state highway department put up "Bridge Out" signs and have not been back since.


If you double click on this pic, you can tell it's a MCD, right. But the restaurant is gone.....zip...nothing.....NO McRib FOR YOU


He is 81 and she is 74, with hearts of gold.


They were able to rebuild the lives of two couples in 5 days......


Just a group of people, taking time out of there lives over Thanksgiving to travel hundreds of miles and live in campers, sleep on the floor, eat on the ground, work they behinds off is what makes them heros to me. Oh yea, I chipped in a few thousand bucks for insulation but that doesn't hold a candle to what they did. I even kind a feel guilty about not taking the time to go myself now, even with my problems over the past 5 months, their problems are so much bigger.....

I have been thinking about the word "purpose" lately....and also the word "choice" once I figure them out.....I might share some thoughts.

Ever have one of "those" years........

Even Phillip is having one of those days....well ever since the LSU game would be a more accurate. But they will re-group and get back up to speed soon. Can't believe that the college football season is about over for another year. Deleted TS, and got the old copy back up and running....the heck with TS upgrades.

Ever have one of "those" days

The first bar trade worked again the ER, but I traded the ES today and got nailed. But that's Ok, I will just wait for my next trade setup.....either the ideal setup or the scalper and get it back. Then Trade Station 8.1 version 3.006 decided to crap me out.....it locked up.....then when I restarted the computer the $^^&#*^!)$^!^$^(^ thing would not verify and everytime I tried, it kicked me back out. By noon time I was on hold for over 30 minutes until I got someone to talk to.....but I couldn't understand what he was saying (any one speak English any more) so my blood pressure went to 368 over 140.

So I decided to go up on the hill and forget about trading for awhile, but it wasn't much better up there today either. The gas guy had ran pipes for the 3 outdoor firplaces...just on the wrong floor. The fellow putting a plate together had a problem because the house is 1/2" off from one end to the other, just enough to mess up the joint and we will have to put in a splice......and that is something I don't like at all.......I want 100% perfection. It rained last night and the rocker who are working on the back of the house had the stone from an entire wall slide off......well at least the top 4 feet that messed up the bottom 8 feet.......so they have to remove everything to fit it.

Ever feel like you are the only one having problems? Not sure, but somehow they can always find me...

The last beam arrived, a few weeks late...but....

I ordered 5 beams 26 feet long and at least 24 inches at the butt end, but they could only ship 4 at the time. Last week they delivered the last one. So we called for a crane, the 100 ton one because of the length needed.


The beam belonged on the second floor and we are up on the fourth floor framing, so we had to drop the beam thru the deck joists.....never a dull moment.


I bought a Genie lift after the fire instead of renting another one, but the beam was 1,400 pounds and the Genie lift can only handle 800 safely. So we had to rent another lift to get the beam up in place.


In order to get the beam close to the wall they had to remove the OSB and make little ramps......:)


Up the ramp and then down the ramp as the Genie lift moved tight against the outside wall so we could lift the beam in place.


It's a tough job being a supervisor.....rotfl.


Because I am a little nuts about tight fits, everything is cut exactly if not just a little longer. So they had to make sure the beam went up straight and one side didn't get ahead of the other. It took 7-8 times to get the beam up in place and cut correctly, but once in place they strapped it and screwed it to the floor joists and the exterior wall.


Then these red cedar quarter cut post had to be cut and fit into place. There was a branch near the top that had been broken off when we removed them from the field. So the woodcravers cut a nice little something to dress it up.


Well there wasn't any room to make adjustments, so they notched the back of the post in order to slide it into place. This doesn't sound like much but it took over 2 hours for each post, set it up, slide it in, back it out, lay it down and recut it, then set it up, slide in, back it out, lay it down and recut it....on and on.


But with a little time and patience, it came together.


OK, with a little help from a chain saw too.......before anything can be put together the end and sides have to be stain or finished instead of setting stuff and then try to make it look right. You can see the bottom of the beam has been stained before the post was set......Time and patience!!

Well it's BASKETBALL TIME IN TENNESSEEEeeeeeeeeee

The new floor is in place and it's now called "The Summit" with Pat signature on it.....new carpeting, fresh paint and a new men's coach. So it's BASKETBALL TIME IN TENNESSEEEEeeeeeeee.


This is a picture from the team's room, the NCAA rules forbid the showing of any locker rooms along with some other rules.....this picture is also from the game between UT and UCONN and a total sellout at 23,483 and the house rocked that night.
These are three of the six NCAA championship trophies in the case....


This is Drake's second seasson of going the games, just glad we don't have to carry him all the time....hehe. We always arrive early and enjoy dinner in the Ray Mears dining room.


Hey it's ROCKY TOP TIME.......and the band plays it about 10-14 times during the games......Rocky top, you will be home sweet home to me.....WOOOOOOOO.....


Gatorade paid good money to have this cooler sit exactly at this spot, so when they show Pat you see the cooler in the back.....got to love corp America. During a time out, Pat gives the girls some clue as how to stuff it down their throats......we won by 53 points.....


Even the ball people have an assigned location, we had to sign forms from the NCAA, SEC and UT in order to have these seats that we wouldn't spit, yell and treat the refs with respect.......can you believe that.....rotfl....GO VOLS!!!!!!!!!

First bar trade....Again and again.

Well, Thanksgiving is over and it's time to get back to business. The first bar trade was a no brainer today as the market opened and dropped into hell even a blind bat from Alabama could have gotten this one. The spread was red and only got worse as the day wore on.
The 50CCI ZLR started to kickin about 10:40 and just kept working into lunch. The 50CCI ZLR had a few problems after lunch but half of those did not trigger according to my rules for that setup.......

Were you going long today, well I just have to say....THANKS for the order flow.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving, we sure did, great time busting on the kids and watching a little football. For those of you who know us personally, well my loving and caring wife did it again, she got up early to put the ham in the oven and then went back for a cat nap. Along came 1:00pm as the family gathered in the dining room and kitchen to help out. The rolls were fluffy, the mashed potatoes were whipped to an inch of the their lives and the gravy and great, the corn and peas and even the sweet potatoes were prefect. Just as we sat down to eat, I heard an unpleasant sound coming from the kitchen, so I got up, walked over and looked in and saw a beautiful ham sitting in the oven.......a beautiful "cold" ham sitting in the oven....it seems my loving and caring wife forgot to turn the oven on......who ever said living with a BLONDE was easy.

So as the kids said grace....it sounded like this.
God is good....God is great....Thank you for the food except the ham, AMEN..... Then we all had a good laugh and started in.
That makes 15 Thanksgiving dinners in a row with a small error in judgement, but we still love her just the same. Anyone up for a ham sandwich????

The Woodcravers are almost done......

We found 10 red cedar trees out in a field that were about to be burned because some contractor was building another subdivision, one is about 150 years old and these trees are just amazing. We peeled them and then the woodcravers came in and polished them up....but it took weeks for this to be finished.


There are beams in the billard room, exercise room, formal dining room along with the bar area, each one had to be cleaned up......every one of them.


The red cedar tree that is about 150 years old and measures over 33 inches at the base had an branch sticking out that looked reallly odd....BUT no problem, said the wood craver.....we can carve an......................


Well we have this guy working on the house that smoked something during the 60's and maybe even into the 70's. Brandon was carving away as Carl walked thru the second level and without even looking up or slowing down....just said to Brandon......"Hey, those are great eyes on that pineapple". We all lost it including Brandon.


But it only took a couple of days and the funny looking branch actually started looking like something.....Anyone know what happened to Hoot anyways!!!


When they started to work on the deck rails, I also went postal on them, why you ask....well simple. The fellow is about 16 feet above ground and working and standing on about 16 inches at most. When I asked him about a safety device, he gave me some lip about he didn't need no sticking safety devices.


So I asked him how many kids he had? "Two" he replied. So how many of them were planned? "None", he replied. As you can see he is now wearing a safety device....a rope.


He ended up spenting just over 4 days out there brushing the rails and spraying them with a sealer.


And spraying....and spraying....and spraying...it took 6 coats to get the deep rich color I was after and 11 5 gallon buckets of sealer/stain.


This will be the view coming out of the theater (TV ROOM), there is an elevator over to the left side.


This pic may be a little to dark, but the posts (Trees) and log beams are stained and it's is just so great looking.....I can't believe how it turned out this time.