On The Road Denver Edition: An Unexpected Update

Dateline Denver, Colorado: August 24, 2011

So, this olelongrooffan is still in the Mile High City and things are rapidly progressing on the project which brings me here. 

Meanwhile, all four of my brothers are down in the Sunshine State dealing with yet another woman, this one in the form of Hurricane Irene. This olelongrooffan is really bummed that I am not there with them as I have Hurricane Supplies. Well, regardless of how famous and somewhat fatalistic the Bus is these days, I am sure we will all hook up once again.

Now this olelongrooffan asks for a bit of your indulgence here as I share yet another hurricane related story.

It was 1992 and the Hurricane was a dude known as Andrew, to my recollection, the last Category 4 hurricane the Sunshine State has seen. My not yet conceived daughter's Mom and this olelongrooffan were in France with some fantastic friends visiting a sister and her then husband. My Mom and several of her friends were down from the Sho-Me State enjoying our Naples home; thejeepjunkie and his family were living in the greater Fort Lauderdale area; and this olelongrooffan was in western France oblivious to the fact a Cat 4 hurricane was headed for south Florida. So Andrew decides to pay south Florida a visit and my Mom and friends head north to MickeyMouseLand to ride the storm out. thejeepjunkie and his family decided to evacuate to our home in Naples and end up partying like rock stars with my buddy Dr. Dudley and his family. I wake up that fateful day to my brother in law telling me a Cat 4 just hit South Beach and was heading towards my place in FantasyLand. Well, needless to say, this olelongrooffan was stressed more than Brad Keselowski with Carl Edwards on his tail. I mean my aged Mom and friends were in harms way, thejeepjunkie and his family were in the eye landfall area and no communications were available for me to contact them.

So what is an olelongrooffan to do? Well Counters, my doctor brother in law hooks me up with a couple little blue pills (I'm not talking Viagra here) and we four vacationers in that wonderful country caught that previously scheduled afternoon flight to Paris.

Yeah Counters that's right. I evacuated Hurricane Andrew to Paris, France. And know this olelongrooffan will forever tell the tale of how I evacuated Hurricane Irene to the Mile High City, no matter how premature that evacuation was.

Yeah, that's how I rock.

And that forbidden white masking tape was still on the windows of that home when I sold it!

Meanwhile back in Denver,



Big J spent the entire evening after his garage slab was poured spreading abundant amounts of H2O across it in an attempt to prevent the concrete from cracking.  So far success is showing its presence.



The next phase for his efforts was spraying out the interior of the Port Royal to evenly coat the fresh drywall with a base layer of paint.



Yeah, this olelongrooffan was able to capture yet another image of my feet during yet another image taking process.



During the same image taking process, I captured a shot of the window I had installed earlier.



Note the paint particulates in the air on this interior shot? Needless to say I beat it the h*ll out of there rather quickly I might add.



In the meantime, this olelongrooffan was out and about and captured these two beauties on Sheridan Street just around the corner. A '63 Ford longroof country sedan as well as a '65. The '65 is for sale for a mere twelve hundred bucks. Good thing for all of us that twelve hundred bucks is not in my possession on this road trip.



So after the fumes had cleared it is now time to for Big J to lay down his first ever floor tiles.



And, much to his, and my, pleasure that experience was an extreme success. Laundry room done, now on to the kitchen.



And that kitchen will be painted one of these colors prior to that flooring being installed.



Meanwhile out back a super huge garage is being installed and I don't believe these garage framers suspected they were going to be on a tree trimming crew before it was all over. But that worm drive circular saw works excellent as a chain saw.



Two white guys got the roof raised and the sheathing on the rafters in less than two days.



Yeah, room for Big J's BMW X5, girlie's Volvo X70 and my current Denver based Taj Mahal inside Big J's only requirement for his new Port Royal. Pics on Saturday!

Now if those of you Counting Along With Me will note, all of this construction based activity is super fantastic as it allows this olelongrooffan to return to the hurricane laden Sunshine State to resume some of my previous activities and I sure look forward to it once this project has come to fruition.

But if you have, in fact, been Counting Along With Me, you will remember the sighting of these two old cars that reminded me of my Dad, TheGentlemanFarmer, just a few short weeks ago, also here in the Mile High City.

Well, on my return from yet another visit to the big box retailer that loves the number 48 NASCAR racing team, this olelongrooffan spotted this



lovely offering at the intersection of Pecos and 38th street, just a few blocks from Port Royal.

And the fact this olelongrooffan was able to spot the very same old Mercury ragtop driven by a youngish bearded and pony tail bearing dude with his even more youngish daughter in the passenger seat really allows this olelongrooffan to

Celebrate Life.

On The Road Denver Edition: The Anatomy Of A Colorado Concrete Slab

Dateline Denver, Colorado:  August 18, 2011

As those of you who have been Counting Along With this olelongrooffan will remember I am spending some time here in the Mile High City working with some buds, no pun intended, renovating their new to them home.



And if you happened to have read my last blogpost, you will remember this is what the backyard of the Port Royal looked like after someone had stolen that Teva filled dumpster.



Well Counters, yesterday afternoon at about Japanese Dental Appointment, you know tooth-hurty, this bobcat comes rolling around the corner from the alley out back and commenced to tearing that formerly nearly pristine backyard all to h*ll.



As you can see in the previous image the subsurface of that backyard was filled with all sorts of junk, chunks of concrete, asphalt and I don't know what all. But there was no septic tank! Once that skilled skid steer operator had reached clean soil, those no longer needed dump trucks were dispatched elsewhere and the backyard was then set at two distinct levels. One level was recessed for the garage slab and the other was set at nearly the preexisting elevation and set aside for the outdoor living area of the yard.



The operator of that skid steer then attached this device and penetrated the earth around the perimeter of the slab location to loosen the soils so he could then



dig the footer portion of this monolithic slab with the bucket of that Bobcat.  This olelongrooffan has most recently seen this same feat performed with shovels by a crew filled with individuals of the Manuel Labor persuasion.



Once those footers were excavated, the form boards and grade stakes were installed.



Seeing this guy on his hands and knees using a 2 x 4 as a rake to even out this subgrade reminded me of a great story.

Go ahead and refresh that cocktail...I am.... then on with that memory.

And here it is.

Around about eleven or twelve years ago, sh*t, this olelongrooffan is getting old, anyway I was living down in FantasyLand and looking for a new place to hang my hat. That Sunday I was hanging with an old friend and meeting some new friends at their pool in a swanky area of town. Some of my new friends, Terry and Debbie, were getting buzzed as we all were and were bummed out as they had to leave to show "The Little House" to some potential tenants. We started talking about the Miami style bungalow they owned adjacent to their "Big House" and it sounded extremely desirable to me. I mentioned I would be interested in renting it from them and the pool party continued on in full blown mode.

Anyway, I ended up getting that place, cleaned it up, painted it with some design assistance of my at the time girlfriend and it turned out super cool, if I do say so myself. At the time I was working for a pretty high end building contractor and we had a model home on our hands that had been around for a while.  We found a buyer for this multi million dollar home but the buyer wanted a different paver brick driveway installed. My boss balked at the $5,000 cost but finally relented so we could move on from that spider web filled model home.

Those pavers? Well they ended up in the front yard of "The Little House" awaiting installation. Terry finally got around to finding an installation crew comprised of a bunch of Manuel Labor's friends. As they were installing those paver bricks, the lead guy used a machete to sharpen a carpenter's pencil to mark some cuts on those bricks.

Terry looks over at this olelongrooffan and made the comment, "A Mexican Utility Knife." To this day we still call a machete that and we laugh about it every time we see each other.

Well Counters, you have seen, in the above image, a Mexican Yard Rake. And like that utility knife, this olelongrooffan will never look at a four foot long 2 x 4 the same ever again.

Now you know why I mentioned you should refresh your cocktail for that story.

And finally after that diversion it's time to get back to The Anatomy Of A Colorado Concrete Slab.



So the slab area was prepped and the the wire mesh installed in an attempt to prevent future cracking.



The footer preparation is a bit different than this Sunshine State based olelongrooffan is used to but it appears to be effective here in this climate.



So in the meantime, this olelongrooffan had to run an errand and while out and about a 65 Ford F250 stepside was spotted out in the wild. All ya'll can read more about that sighting here.



Shortly after my return to Port Royal, the slab inspector showed up and approved the efforts provided by Manuel Labor and his crew and now it's time to



hang with Carroll Shelby's infamous creation.



The foreman of the concrete finish crew showed up and started watering down the dry soils we have here in the Mile High City as there has been no rain here since the first couple weeks this olelongrooffan arrived.



Got Concrete?



The crew to finish the concrete was running a bit tardy



so the concrete truck drivers started filling those footers with that rapidly hardening, in the truck, mix.



The finish crew finally showed up and got the job done and we now



are ready to get some walls up on that garage and that is an excellent reason for all of us here at the Port Royal to

Celebrate Life.

On The Road Denver Edition: A Port Royal Project Update

Dateline Denver, Colorado: August 16, 2011

This olelongrooffan has posted previously about the progress of the project which brings me to the Mile High City.

Well over the course of this past few days things have moved along rapidly thanks to the abilities of Big J and Girlie and we have been able to schedule the required subcontractors in and get their portion of this project completed.



On top of that Teva filled dumpster, the drywall dudes piled the remnants of their phase of renovation while



this olelongrooffan finished up trimming out those newly installed front windows. Once that was completed, one of the drywall dudes came out and mentioned they needed a couple more boxes of "hot mud" to help in their attempt to straighten out the crooked *ss walls in this 110 year old home. So this olelongrooffan set off, once again, to that big box retailer that loves Kobalt tools so much to get them some of that "hot mud."



On the way back to the Port Royal, Big J's name for this project, I spotted this ole Dodge truck parked out front of a boutique beer joint resting comfortably as its mascot.



When I returned, I was able to capture an image of the nearly completed kitchen area of Port Royal,



and out back I noticed that someone had come in and stolen the filled to the brim mini dumpster as well as the fence that formerly traversed the rear property line. That can only mean one thing. Garages R Us must be on the way.



However, in the meantime, this olelongrooffan will be reinstalling the mail filled mailbox out front. And those two occurences really help this olelongrooffan to

Celebrate Life.

On The Road Denver Edition: Just For thejeepjunkie and the Bus

Dateline Denver, Colorado: August 15, 2011

As you can surmise, this olelongrooffan is still in the Mile High City and spotted something today I know thejeepjunkie and the Bus would appreciate.



Frequent Counters may probably remember a post I did way back in January about a couple of trailers thejeepjunkie had acquired through somewhat dubious means.



The intent of thejeepjunkie was to restore that old U-Haul trailer and tow it behind his yellow CJ2a when he takes his family to the beach on Sundays. It will work great once it is done and all of his beach cr*p will fit in it nicely.

However today, while out and about near the big box retailer that likes Chad Knauss so much, this olelongrooffan spotted a much more appropriate one to be used behind that 2a.



To bad I can't fit this in my checked baggage on my flight home. FYI jeepjunkie, it is at Mile High Jeep Rebuilders on Federal Avenue near downtown Denver.



Spotting that toy trailer and the fact drywall is finally being installed at my project house is an excellent way this olelongrooffan can

Celebrate Life.

On The Road Denver Edition: The Blowout Edition

Dateline Denver, Colorado: August 14, 2011



As those of you who are Counting Along With this olelongrooffan may recall, I have spent that past few weeks out here in the Mile High City helping Big J and his girl renovate their new to them 110 year old home.



While out here I have been able to do some pretty cool stuff and see a boat load of cool old cars and trucks,



some of them are even topless.  In addition to seeing all that stuff, touring Coors Brewery, seeing Tim Tebow in action, hitting up a great concert, this olelongrooffan has been



hanging with Tripod, a really cool mellow little puppy dog.  While I'm not a huge house dog fan, this one is extra special and a fun companion.



Not only that but I have also been tearing a bunch of cr*p up and filling that mini dumpster to capacity.



I also removed a bunch of windows and



installed some new ones. Big J is finishing up the electrical phase of this project and Girlie is cleaning up the remainder of the fence and helping fill that dumpster as this olelongrooffan is taking a break and getting this up for your, hopefully, enjoyment.

Life hasn't been all fun and games though. A serious tragedy occurred yeasterday and this olelongrooffan is still pretty bummed out about it.



See that Teva sandal in the fence filled dumpster? This olelongrooffan has been wearing those suckers for nearly 15 years and yesterday while picking up the drywall for this project at the big box retailer who loves Jimmy Johnson, this olelongrooffan suffered



a serious blowout on the strap of one of them and no amount of duct tape would repair it.

Those beloved Tevas will be spending the remainder of their days in the Denver county municipal dump and this olelongrooffan will miss them dearly.

However, the fact that Filmore, my mobile Taj Mahal here in Denver, was parked just outside the door of that big box retailer and contained a back up pair of shoes for this olelongrooffan allows me to really

Celebrate Life.