PSU are the Big10 Conference Champs......oh boy

Not sure if you follow along or not, but I find trading for a living has a millions parallels with football. Take this year as an example, JoePa and the Nittany Lions, which over the past couple of years couldn't win more then about two games in a row. There were even rumors and some whispering about maybe it was time for JoePa to go "Joe-b-Gone". But he stayed true to himself, his programs, his style and this year came roaring back to number 3 in the country.

I guess that makes him a Dandy Lion again........hope you get the pun on this one....oh yea, my daughter who went to PSU and my brother who also went to Happy Velly are having a field day with how UT is now looking inside it's soul for some answer.....

See the flower, it's a dandelion.....get it.......Dandy Lions.....ok, banging head on deck.......ROTFL.

It's window time in Tennesseeeeeeeee

It seems that everything comes by the truckload only, but it's window time in Tennessee.....


They are loaded on the bobcat, strapped down and hauled across the bridge...not sure why no one wants to just drive across by oh well......we placed OSB on the bottom and back of the forks in order to protect the finish of the windows...


Once they made it over to the house, it was time to just pick them up and carry them, at about 500 pounds per window, this is not for a weak minded souls for sure.


Some of the rooms have arched windows to match the deck on the second level and also the arches beams in the great room. This is the formal dining room were 3 sets of these arched windows now call home.


The billard room, on the other hand, have windows with transcends above them and a square corner top.....POOL anyone?


As each window was installed, they were covered on both the inside and outside with plastic sheets. The reason is, with the woodcravers still on site and spraying, which I will show tomorrow evening and also since the roof is not on yet, I didn't want any rain getting on the inside framing and make water stain marks.


I was proud to see the cherry picker being used as a lift instead of a crane finally as they continued to place windows on the third level.


The weather seal is a tape that is applied over the nailing strip attached to the window frame, then the Tyvek is placed over that and then another run of tape is applied over that. This makes for a good water tight seal around the windows.


Not sure who he is talking tooooooo....but my teenager daughter were never on the phone as much as he is....guess another load of something is on it's way now....(ROTFL). Each window is checked before it's taped in to make sure it's level, and plumb and square and before I come along with my level....hehe.

If you remember The Original Hollywood Squares and its comics, this will bring a tear to your eyes. These great questions and answers are from the days when game show responses were spontaneous and clever, not scripted and (often) dull as they are now. Peter Marshall was the host asking the questions, of course.
Q. Do female frogs croak?>
A. Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water long enough.

Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be?
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes.

Q. You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man
or a woman?
> A Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.
>
> Q. According to Cosmo, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he's married?
A Rose Marie: No, wait until morning.

Q. Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
A. Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.

Q. In Hawaiian, does it take more than three words to say "I Love You"?A. Vincent Price: No, you can say it with a pineapple and a twenty.

Q. What are "Do It," "I Can Help," and "I Can't Get Enough"?A. George Gobel: I don't know, but it's coming from the next
apartment.

Q. As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you'll never forget.

Q. Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
A. Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Q. Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during the first year?
A. Charley Weaver: Of course not, I'm too busy growing strawberries.

Q. In bowling, what's a perfect score?
A. Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.

Q. It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics, what is the other?
A. Paul Lynde: Tape measures.

Q. During a tornado, are you safer in the bedroom or in the closet?A. Rose Marie: Unfortunately Peter, I'm always safe in the bedroom.

Q. Can boys join the Camp Fire Girls?
A. Marty Allen: Only after lights out.

Q. When you pat a dog on its head he will wag his tail. What will a goose do?
A. Paul Lynde: Make him bark?

Q. If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
A. Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.

Q. According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A. Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army.

Q. While visiting China, your tour guide starts shouting "Poo! Poo! Poo!"
What does this mean?
A. George Gobel: Cattle crossing.

Q. It is the most abused and neglected part of your body, what is it?
A. Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused but it certainly isn't neglected.

Q. Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?A. George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.


Q. Who stays pregnant for a longer period of time, your wife or your elephant?
A. Paul Lynde: Who told you about my elephant?

Q. When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A. Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car, the rest is up to him.

Q. Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
A. Charley Weaver: His feet.

Q. According to Ann Landers, what are two things you should never do
in bed?
A. Paul Lynde: Point and Laugh.

It's Timber Frame time in Tennessee.......

Load after load of timber framing materials were delivered over a two week period....then hauled to be hued or to be stained.


These are part of what is called a "hammer" assembly for the roof system, they were stacked everywhere we had an open spot.


At one point, we even made to stain them on another floor because the entire first floor was being used to stain and varish pieces. Here they are building horses so the gips could be stained and varished.


We are using a product called English Chesnut to stain the timbers...it is brushed on and then wiped off....let it dry and repeat the process.


These are pieces for a small roof over each of the windows on the third floor. They will be bolted to the house from the inside, then pinned and pegged.


The main rafters over the great room which will hold those arches have been hued and are waiting to be moved over to the sanding area. You can see the pile of shaving from all the hueing that is going on.


And everyday ....all day....sanding ....sanding....and sanding........


Inside the garage materials continue to stack up waiting for there turn at being stained or varished.....the stuff is everywhere.


Even the housekeeper quarters has been over run with materials for the great room, these are the post to hold the arched rafter system ready to be moved into position for placement.


Everyday ....all day....the sanding just keeps going on.....but the end is in sight and the timber frame crew is about to arrive, right on schedule...so the next couple of days or weeks will bring out the design of the house.....fingers crossed that the changes we made after fire work out......


These braces are the last of a whole list of materials going into the great room ceiling, but it's the last of this list......I will have the pics soon of these pieces being installed........hang on baby....

The First Thanksgiving
In the year 1621, one year after the Pilgrims arrived here, they decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune.

They had observed thanksgiving feasts in November as religious obligations in England for many years before coming to the New World. The Algonkian tribes held six thanksgiving festivals during the year. When the Indians sat down to the "First Thanksgiving" with the Pilgrims, it was really the fifth thanksgiving of the year for them!

Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto, Samoset,and Massasoit,and they brought ninety of their immediate families to join them for a celebration. The Pilgrims were not prepared to feed a gathering of people that large for three days. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied the majority of the food: Five deer, many wild turkeys, fish, beans, squash, corn soup, corn bread, and berries.
Captain Standish sat at one end of a long table and the Clan Chief Massasoit sat at the other end. For the first time the Wampanoag people were sitting at a table to eat instead of on mats or furs spread on the ground.

So this Thanksgiving day, let us all join with our families and friends. Let us all join hands and bow our heads in prayer. Thanking God for this great country we live in, and all that He has given us......I wish you all a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving Day!

The Golden Arches......

In record time, these arches showed up....the first time around they took 7 months to be make and then they were not right. But all is forgiven when they showed up and had the correct radius and length. The four arches came in from Montana along with other parts but these are the hardest ones to get and at a cost of $38,000 per rafter......this will be the most expensive single item in the house.


Which presented another problem, how do you trust someone to hand hue them and believe they will not do something that can't be straightened out. It took us just over 3 months to get them and would hate to have to call for another one.....


So we had them practice on other side and end cuts before they went to the arches, but it worked out just perfect......


Next came the sanding to make them look 100 years old after they were stained and varished. The guys didn't think much of wearing a dust mask or earphones on the first couple of days....but this operation went on for 16 days....everyday...all day.


Every day....all day it was a sanding festival.......


Then came the real fun part, moving them in the garage area to have two coats of stain and 3 coats of varish applied. These arches are about 600 pounds each.


Once the arches were finished being sanded, then it was on to the ridge plates.....12x12 and 30 feet long with a 45 degree cut on one side...now these dang things were enough heavier and there were 4 of them.


Sanding every day...all day!! We burnt up a few sanders but the Makita sanders were the only ones that made it all the way.....16 full days. Black & Decker and Skil didn't make it.


This is the final ridge plate ready to go into the garage area for staining, just waiting for EVERYONE to take a 2x4 end which we placed under the beam to lift it......tall ones in the back....short ones in the front and the average Joes in the middle........

Information on Internals and other toys......here is some!!

From: "a trading friend"
To: dbolze@yahoo.com
Subject: Linda Raschke lecture - archived copy
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 12:49:19 -0500

Hi Dennis
Just a thought.... you may like to mention in the blog the archived presentation by Linda Raschke - the 1st of 3 lectures she is doing for MarketVu. This is available at http://www.themarketvushow.com/
and is free for viewing. This lecture deals with trading tricks in the 1st 30 minutes of the day.
She also did a 2nd one last week dealing with trading Breakouts. She has the Powerpoint slides on her site, but I have not seen the full audio-visual program available yet.
Her work certainly helps provide some insight into many of the things you discuss about your trading.
By the way, the house looks wonderful. What a great time of year to be building with the color and all.
Best wishes............

I received this email giving me a heads up on things out there for those who would like addtional information about the internals. So I went and took a look see, and if you click on the picture and look in the upper left corner under "address" what does it say.......ROTFL.......then I clicked on the presentation and guess whos voice is the intro......
SCREAMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........

Seriously, I have been a student of LBR for a number of years now since 1997 and her work is solid and if you can attend one of her workshops it would be money well. This is the only workshop that I found true value in after attending maybe 30 and buying all the crapola out there for about 2 years until I found my holy grail....by the way......I have given you, in this blog, all the pieces of the holy grail including the secret sauce if you have read along and actually spent time working on it......I am surprised to some degree that no one has figured it out yet.

So let's build a roof..........

I bought a cherry picker so the guys could have a safe way of working off the ground, however it appears to have turned into a crane as they moved the roof trusses that were not burned in the fire up to the front of the house.


Once we moved them in place it was time to start putting the roof on....:)


A house just doesn't look right without a roof, RIGHT????


As soon as Yankee, which is an interesting name since he is about as red reck as they come without a sheet.


They drove two nails in the center of the roof trusses to try and balance the weight of the trusses as they used a hook to lift the trusses.


AND away they went one at a time........hip hip hooray.


One at a time, they were set and nailed on top of the outside walls and braced against each other.


You can see the braces at the top of the trusses, these also served as spacers.


It wasn't long before all the trusses were up, the last 3 were not placed because of the fireplace hasn't been extended pass the roof system yet. As soon as the posts and beams are set, it will be extended and all the trusses will be set then.


As soon as the trusses were set, they finished framing out the bathrooms and walk in closets.


Then the bedroom wall was popped in place and the right side of the house is ready to be sheeted. I am not trading until Monday and hope to have all the pictures update by then....they are a bunch as we are working overtime everyday to beat the weather......it's cold and snowed today.....BUT HEY....it lookin good!!!

XBox - 360 at midnight........

PRESS RELEASE, REDMOND, WA. November 21, 2005, 20:54;


AT midnight tonight, Microsoft will release the new XBox-360 gamer for the general public to buy. Also it has been learned that Microsoft will be releasing it's version of the popular I-Pod later in the month. This reporter, at great risk to himself, was able to see this revolutionary device and get a photo before security was called. After crawling thru an air conditioner vent and out running 8 Dobermans and jumping over 3 walls I was able to get clean away. It must be a wireless thingie I guess, but wonder where the batteries go?

Getting ready to re-set the tree.......

Sometimes, I felt sorry for the rockers as the stairway guy tried to spark them out back when he installed his beams. Then the wood carvers were working on the posts and beams on the second level and sand dust was everywhere. Now this crew is shooting nails at them....ROTFL.


Because of the theater or theatre, rotfl, we raised the floor on the second level by two steps. This means the half the bar area, lounge area in addition to the theater was raised so you walk straight in without any steps. They are working on making sure the giant tree will have a place to set and stays stable.


But it wasn't long before the Adventech was installed along with a base this time for the tree in case it's a little shorter....


Then they moved in the theater room, now if this was a double wide we would just call it the TV room and be done with it...but this ain't no double wide.


Glued and screwed every 6 inches is the rule of the day, and this device is great for getting it done...ASAP.


The open space is going to be a wrap around bar, we will start working on that just as soon as the roof is on and dried in. We have to pour a half inch surry to level up the floor from the fire. So stay tuned this is going to be a wild bar for sure......:)


The front area will be bean bags, will stuffed sofas on the next two levels with a popcorn and soda fountain off to the left. The way this room is going to be built out will be like nothing you have ever seen........Starting after Xmas it appears now.