Map time!

Posted on by David Maxwell

I have spent a little time on the Maps page recently. It has been nice to look through all of my old pictures, but also a little sad. One thing is for sure – I have a ton of photographs to sort through. There are plenty more to delete. I use Picasa which I really like for organizing, but Google has of course discontinued it, because that is what they do to cool products. I am rather passively searching for a replacement. Ideally one with more editing features that isn’t too complicated. Anyways, the Ile de France, India and Nepal, and Spain maps are now live. Each pin leads to a gallery. All photos are unedited. Hopefully at some point I will become skilled at image enhancement. They aren’t necessarily my best or favorite pictures, just some that I selected as representative of the areas. Looking through all of the photographs was surprisingly tedious. My goal is to have all of the maps done within a month or so.

Restaked.

Posted on by David Maxwell

The above picture shows a beautiful building site punctuated by a multitude of small orange stakes marking the boundaries of the house and garage. There is a chance that the footers will get dug tomorrow, but I’m not getting my hopes up. But it sure would be great if it happened!

I spent a bit of time at the farm today, continuing to clean up the property and crush things with the tractor. The weather was perfect and it is nice the the ground is finally dry. The forecast for the next couple of weeks looks decent. The cold would pretty much seem to be gone.

Graded.

Posted on by David Maxwell

Progress is slow and inconsistent, but still present. On Monday the surveyors came and staked out the building envelope. Yesterday our friend Grant  used his brand new track loader to grade the site. He moved around a lot of dirt with an efficiency that Annie could never match. Hopefully the surveyors will return tomorrow to lay out the exact locations of the footings. Then digging, pouring, laying block, framing, roofing…

Quick trip up the mountain.

Posted on by David Maxwell

We actually didn’t end up going to Monteagle until yesterday (Saturday) morning. Things got a little hectic on Friday night and so it was better to briefly postpone. The drive was uneventful – I took my typical route of the interstate to Manchester then Highway 41 up to Monteagle. It was a pretty drive, as usual, but not yet as green as I was hoping for. We didn’t have much of an agenda other than relaxing and of course visiting the goats on campus. We drove to see them and it was really cool because they actually left their big, round bale of hay and came to check us out. That thrilled Liz and she took lots of pictures and videos. I also snapped a few photos with my phone.

We had lunch at the Mountain Goat Market and really enjoyed sitting out on the porch. The afternoon was spent reading and napping. We went to Lake O’Donnell for sunset. I used my new camera for the first time and really enjoyed it. I haven’t put the pictures on my computer yet, but will try to this evening.

We returned to the Mountain Goat Market for dinner and again enjoyed the serenity of their patio. Being there is always so nice and relaxing. We went back to the cottage and read and talked some more until bed time. This morning I woke up at the crack, but it was super overcast, so I didn’t go out to photograph. We took it pretty easy through the morning before coming back to Nashville. I have no idea when we will be able to return to the mountain, but I hope it won’t be too far from now. Of course it will be a little more complicated with the coming third member of our party.

 

Papery party.

Posted on by David Maxwell

Today has been a thoroughly unexciting parade of paperwork (and alliteration, apparently). More in the figurative since though, as it was mostly online/computer type stuff. I updated my expense spreadsheets for the house and nascent business, paid a couple of bills, and really organized a lot of files and folders on my computer. I also did a lot of cleaning and organizing on the condo. Mostly boxing things up. On the fun side, I was able to start setting up the two external computer monitors that Liz got me (for free!) from her office. And yes, they know that she took them. They are 23″ Asus full HD screens. Not top of the line by any stretch, but still quite nice. And free. I’m not sure if my laptop will support running both at the same time. One is connected via an HDMI cable, while I ordered an HDMI to DVI cable for the other one from Amazon. We’ll see if that works. I promise that I am done with acronyms for this post.

This evening we are headed up to Monteagle. There is a chance of thunderstorms this evening and tomorrow morning, but other than that the weather should be glorious. I hope to hike some, relax, read, take a lot of pictures, and eat at the Mountain Goat Market. There should be lots of pretty blooms both on campus and in the parks.