Month: March 2007   (from newest to oldest)

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Spring Flood

The aftermath of a huge downpour.Soon after I completed Phase 1 of the Dry Creek Bed, we got an incredible amount of rain incredibly quickly. I saw reports of between 6 and 8 inches in just a few hours. Water was filling all the ditches, rushing over the road, and washing my carefully placed river rock down to the very back of my property. Scariest of all is that the front yard was so flooded, that water rose onto our porch, coming right up to the front door threshold. So not only do I have to do a lot of reworking of the creek, but I now plan to do some excavating to make the front yard drain better, to avoid the possibility of the house getting flooded if we ever have huge torrents of rain like that again.

Filed under: Home Improvement  •  No Comments
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

New Speed Test Site

I used to use Speakeasy.net for my Internet speed testing. I have recently discovered Speedtest.net and it has some pretty cool features, including a history of your testing. Below is my most recent result. See if your connection is as fast.

Filed under: Tech  •  1 Comment
Monday, March 19th, 2007

Dry Creek Bed Phase 1

Dry creek bed from the topSpring Break means another huge landscaping project. This year, we put in a 200 foot long dry creek bed. We are at the lowest point on the road, and we’ve had a problem with water draining through places we don’t want it to. We’ve finally decided to show nature who’s boss and route the water where we want it to go. This involved raising a low area, and more importantly, digging a trench. Luckily I was able to borrow a Bobcat skid-steer loader early in the project to get the basic shape of the trench started. This was incredibly helpful to getting the project going, and since I had never driven one before, it was also a rather fun learning experience. I was also able to borrow a neighbor’s excellent Kubota tractor, which included a front loader and a box blade. This allowed me to complete the trench and was also instrumental in hauling and spreading the “river rock” gravel base and Brazos cobble stone top layer.

Digging the trench Trench dirt used for fill The topsoil has been spread

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Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

Tried my new Golf Clubs

I got some new golf clubs for Christmas: A set of TaylorMade V Steel fairway woods, 3, 5, and 7. “7-wood”, you ask? Yep. I’ve finally admitted that I’m old, so I’m happy to have this “old man” club. I haven’t hit a good shot with my 3 or 4 iron in years, and now I won’t even have to try. On Spring Break, I finally got a chance to try the new clubs out. I’d been waiting since December, so I was very anxious. I teed off with the 3-wood and it seemed to go nearly as far as my driver normally did, and it was definitely easier to control. I hit the 7 wood at every opportunity, and was very pleased. It goes 170-180 with little effort. I hit it on a couple of par 3’s where it was really too much club, but I just couldn’t get enough of it. This has turned out to be an excellent Christmas gift.

Filed under: Bruce  •  No Comments
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

New Denon AVR-887

Our new A/V receiver: The Denon AVR-887.Our new A/V receiver: The Denon AVR-887. It has HDMI switching for future use, but more importantly for now, it has high-def component switching and lots of digital audio inputs. This allowed me to get rid of 2 manual switches that my setup previously required.

Filed under: Home Theater  •  No Comments