Moon Over the Lake

We went to the Woodlands today to do some shopping and have dinner for my 61st birthday.  We went to Landry's Seafood at the Woodlands Mall and had a very nice meal.

When we arrived home, there was a full moon over the bay behind our house, and the adjacent photo was taken from our back porch.  It does not do justice to the beauty of the sight.  We see essentially the same sight from our bedroom window, but my attempt to photograph from the bedroom failed.  I am going to get my good SLR digital camera ready for the next full moon and try to get a better shot.

Y'all Come Set a Spell!

When we were planning the house, there were three features I wanted: a metal roof, a screen porch, and a porch swing.  All are matters of nostalgia from my childhood.  Many of the several houses we lived in when I was a child had metal roofs and screen porches.  I love the sound of rain on a metal roof and a screen porch is a great way to enjoy the outdoors without fighting mosquitos.

The porch swing goes back to my grandparents' home.  My grandfather had a porch swing that I enjoyed using when he was not in it.  One time I was sitting in Paw Paw's swing eating a bowl of jello (raspberry as I remember).  I got the swing going a bit too high and tumbled out of the swing into the yard with the bowl of jello.

That is the intro to my deja vu experience.  Last Saturday evening, we invited friends from Huntsville (he is a professor at Texas A&M at Texarkana) to dinner at an Italian bistro in Trinity (yes, you heard me right, and it's very good).  We stopped back to show them the house and "set a spell" on the porch.  After about a half hour of gentle rocking in the swing, the mounting bolt came out of the ceiling and we crashed to the floor.  The bolt hit me on the head and caused quite a bit of bleeding, although it was not a serious wound.  The framer, who swore he knew where the 2"x12"mounting boards he had installed were located, had mounted it for me a couple of days before.  Apparently, he slightly missed the boards.  Luckily, I and not my friend was on the end that fell.  It is now remounted, and I am warily watching it for a while.

We bought the swing at a local hardware store early in the spring, and I had to assemble it, which was straighforward.  We bought four matching rocking chairs as shown in the photo, and I have assembled two of them.  The assembly was not quite as easy as the swing since glue and fitting spindles into pre-drilled holes were involved.  It was not difficult until I got to the runners.  The holes were not precisely drilled, and I had to shave the spindles and the holes with my pocket knife and use a hammer to make them fit.  But they seem to rock just fine.  Only two more to go.

Generator

Because we were in a blackout in Michigan for three days, and our area was hit fairly hard by Hurricane Rita, we decided to install an auxiliary generator.  Most new homes in this area have generators.  The 18kw unit can be seen in the adjacent photo.  It operates on propane and starts up once a month automatically for testing.  The propane tank, which was shown in the previous post, is just outside the picture on the left.

The guys in the picture are the builder, Philip, in the yellow shirt and two guys from Consumers Gas.  They are probing for the pipe that runs under the driveway to the house.  Luckily they found it.

New Propane Tank

We chose a gas furnace for the house since electric heating is more expensive.  Cec also wanted a gas cooktop.  However, natural gas is not available in Riverside.  That leaves propane as the only choice.  So we rented a propane tank and had it set out by the barn.  It holds 200 gallons max, and at the present price of $2.80 per gallon a fill-up costs $560.  Not too much more than a tank of gasoline, eh?

The man in the photo is Don, who is a retired aeronautical engineer.  He accompanies the builder on his rounds on most days and helps out when he can (such as installing drawer pulls).  He is a great guy, and we look forward to seeing him when the builder comes to check on his subcontractors.  He was invaluable in helping me sort out my TV and sound installation.

The propane tank was the last item required before we can move in.

TV and Internet Installed

The builder helped me install a Peerless wall mount and 52" Sharp Aquos LCD HD television above the fireplace.   The Peerless has arms that extend out about 2' from the wall, which permits easy installation of cables on the back of the TV.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the retracted mount protrudes from the mounting surface by several inches.  To compensate for this I had a box built into the wall above the fireplace.  When retracted, the TV fits almost flush with the wall.

We chose Dish over DirectTV as our satellite provider.  I was initially looking at DirectTV since they are said to be better for RV use, but it turned out that I did not have enough wires installed in the attic (I had two) to bring their signal into the house.  Each TV and the DVR requires a separate cable to the antenna.  However, Dish uses a multiplexer that lets them use only one.

We already had a Phillips 37" HDTV (now in my office) and we had several HD channels on Comcast in Michigan.  However, I was not terribly impressed.  Initially, I was thinking about foregoing HD service, but I learned that there is a Smithsonian channel available only in HD.  So I got the HD service, and I am really happy I did.  The Aquos HD picture is far and away better than the Phillips.  Dish seems to be the leader in HD channels, and they have HD for most of the major channels.

We also now have DSL Internet service provided by our local telephone company, Windstream.  It seems to work very well, although DSL is not quite as fast as cable.