Nothing wakes you up better than crashing down on the floor with your cup of coffee spilling everywhere! So let me explain... It is absolutely gorgeous down here this weekend. When I woke up I made some coffee and went out on the front porch to enjoy the weather. There I was sitting on my swing listening to the birds chirping, soaking up all the warmth and sipping on coffee when WHAM, BOOM, CRASH!!!! The swing comes slamming down!!! I'm on the ground still holding my cup of coffee wondering what the heck just happened..... I quickly realize that the swing broke and I'm wearing half of my cup of coffee! Great way to start the day huh???? I guess I have a new project now.... Putting that thing back up properly this time.

I spent the last two days digging out that ditch and MAN!!!! All I can say is I'm exhausted!!!!! I first started grading the slope.

Then I started digging out the bottom of the ditch for better water flow.

I realized that if it's just going to be me and a shovel then it's going to take not one weekend as I thought but more like 3-5!!!! This is real manual labor!!!!! I don't think I could make it on a chain gang.... I'd give the prison guard all the money I had to just shoot me and tell anyone who asks that I was trying to escape.

So spring is right around the corner and you know what that means!?!?!?!? It will be warm enough so I don't have to wear 3 layers of clothing because the house is hovering around 55 degrees!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!! All right!!!! I need to come clean about this heat thing...... In my last update I stated that I turned the heat off. The first thing anyone wanted to talk about was how I was doing with the heat off. Well I did have it off for a good month and a half BUT I had to turn it on last week..... I couldn't take it anymore! I was going stir crazy!!!! I was like Jack Nicholson in the Shining. Slowly going insane and saying REDRUM over and over again!!!!!! I had to turn it back on for the sanity of not only me but my family too.... I thank everyone for their support through this grueling trial of endurance but I felt I let you down in the end..... Spring also means yard work!!!! I need to spice up the front yard...... At this point I am not going to worry about the back.... I'm all about curb appeal!!! My parents tell me about that show all the time..... They say "Andy..... You won't believe what we saw on Curb Appeal last night! They transformed this house that looked like a place where drug deals go down into this beautiful, cozy bungalow that looks amazing from the street. You need to do that to your place." Sometimes I think that all problems in the world can be fixed by a home improvement show or Dr. Phil... At least my parents think so.....

OK! I drew up a sketch of what I want to do to the front yard.

As you can see. I'm a 32 year old man but I still write and draw like a 4th grader. Either way, I think you get the gist of what I want to do. The first thing that I am going to start is the drainage ditch that separates my yard and the street. It needs to be graded off so it looks better and water flows properly. Originally I planned on laying rip rap, the stuff that people but on the shores of their lake property, but that's pretty pricey. So I decided to lay some fast growing ivy instead. It should only take a few years for it cover it all. Here's a picture of the ditch.

I'm probably going to start tomorrow on getting it all graded off.... I don't have any heavy machinery to help. Although they are clearing the lot across the street and they are using a big old front shovel machines!?!?!? Maybe if I trade the guy a case of beer he will grade it off for me??? HMMMMMM Something to ponder tonight??? But if that doesn't work out then it will be me and a shovel..... Can you say 'pulled muscle'??? I have no doubt that it's going to be one hell of a workout! OH WELL!!! That's why there is Goodys pain powder and beer!!!!!! Talk to you later.

MERRY FREAKIN' CHRISTMAS!!!!! It's me again!!! Hope every one had a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious new year!!!! Yeah I had to google "Mary Poppins" to see what the correct spelling of that was. Well it's winter and I am sitting here at my computer thinking of stuff that I have done to the house the last time I posted an update. WHOW!!!! As Joey on Blossom would say, I haven't posted anything since September.... Let's see!?!?!?!? My alma mater ASU won the Division 1-AA championship in football and I was there! $20 bucks for a ticket!!!! WHAT THE!!!!! It only cost that much to see my school win it all!!!! NICE!!!!! Heck! My friends who went to Virginia Tech or LSU would probably have to pay at least $1000 to see their teams in a championship game.
Cofer and I cruised over to Chattanooga, TN to catch the game. It was great! It was like college all over again. Road trip!!!!!! It was so cold there that we didn't have to worry about the beer getting warm. Like the hat? I may look like a tool but it sure does keep my ears from freezing off. Also the high school I went to, Charlotte Catholic, won a championship too! Things are looking good for me when it comes to football. This is the way I see it, my H.S and college have won championships so it's only natural that my Bills will win the Super Bowl in the next couple of years to complete the trifecta. Tell your friends you heard it first on 1-13-2006 by a wise man. The Bills will win it all!!!!!

The one issue that has been killing me this winter has been this DAMN gas bill!!!!! Alright people! You ready for this????? My last gas bill was $150!!!!! WHAT THE CRAP!!!!!! Honestly. I almost had an accident in my pants when I saw it. I cannot believe that a single guy in a 1700 sqft. house can use that much. Now I know they are filing us all full of this "due to the hurricanes gas prices will be going up" but this has to stop. Get this! The first thing I did when I saw the bill was go and shut off the heat!!! Look!!! I just took this picture of me working on the computer. Look at all of the stuff I have on!!! HE HE HE HE HE!!!!

Here I am watching TV. I knew this 32 degrees rated sleeping bag would come in handy someday!!!

You think that's funny. Look at what I wear when I go to bed....

That's right! Hat, long sleeved shirt, fleece, PJ pants and wool socks! The coldest it has been since I have turned off the heat is 45 degrees!!!! YEAH! That's cold!!!! THANK GOD I don't live up north! The cops and paramedics would kick down my door after I hadn't shown up at work for a few days and find me frozen in my bed! Go ahead and laugh but I will not pay that much to heat my house. Besides, it's only me. Now if I had a family it would be totally different. I would have no problem paying that to keep them warm.

I have been on my energy conservation crusade for the last couple of months. For Christmas I asked for and received a programmable thermostat! NICE!!!!! I have also installed those insulated foam pieces in each outlet and light switch, made a piece with insulation to go over the opening to the attic too.
I also checked under the house to see if anything needed to be re insulated. I found a few areas where there was NO insulation at all. I went to Home Depot and purchased some new insulation. Check it out!!!! Remember when I wrote about going there all the time when I was fixing the place up? I said "I'm there so much that the check out lady knows me by name. Too bad she has never seen a dentist. She'd be alright lookin'." Well I have an update on her. She is still kickin' it there and she has a new hairdo!!!! BUT! Her teeth still look like a 19th century chimney sweepers. I'm sooooo going to hell for that one but it was a great analogy. Anyways!!! I put on my coveralls, gloves and my head lamp and went under the house. Don't worry.... I didn't find any dead bodies. I did all the sections that were missing insulation and fixed everywhere the old stuff was hanging down. I also went and replaced every light bulb with a fluorescent one. I know this doesn't effect my gas bill but it saves energy and money. So I went ahead and did it.

Christmas was good to me. Mom and dad had a few pictures framed for me. This one is of our family tree.

These are prints of my Uncle Jim's pictures he painted and a killer letter he sent me when I was in college 11 years ago! It is one of the best letters I have EVER received. You see the $2.50? At the end of the letter he said "Here's $2.50. Go and take a big breasted woman out to a dinner and movie on me. P.S. Keep the change" CLASSIC Uncle Jim!!!!!!!! I know to some people reading this that might not be funny and kind of sexist but you had to know him... It was all in good humor. DAMN I MISS HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My house has turned into the family art gallary... I have pictures from my uncles from both sides of the family. This one was from my great uncle Reed. It's a picture painted at the McBride farm in Ohio. It's about 50 or so years old.

This was done by my uncle Kevin. It's exactly what you would have seen looking out of my grandma Cawley's kitchen window 30 some years ago. Matter of fact, today it looks the same! WHOOPS!!! I forgot. They tore down the house right next to the church. But everything else looks the same.
I was giving the house tour to my best friend and his wife. Almost every room had a picture someone in my family painted and he goes to me. "Dang McBride! Your family is pretty talented... What happened to you?" What the heck can you say to that?

I also received a swing and some rocking chairs for the front porch.

Here are all the pictures I have left over. Have a great day..... I'm off to enjoy the High Life with Miller and wash my car....




The welcome mat is always out. I live down in Lancaster, SC. I'd put my address down but there are too many freaks out there..... Email me or call and we can set up a time for you to stop by and we can have a cold one on the front porch and ponder life's mystery's or debate who was a better frontman for Van Halen, Sammy or Dave.

Well I think this is going to do it for the site. I have done almost everything I needed to.... The house is up and running and I am one happy camper! I hope everyone who checked out my site enjoyed it..... It was hard work but it's all worth it. I know I made some jokes about mom and dad doing most of the work on this project but it's in good fun. I realize that I am one lucky S.O.B! What a minute!!!! Did I just call my mom a b$#ch???? YICKES!!! Seriously, I am very fortunate to have parents who worked thier butts off to get this place the way it needed to be. THANKS MOM & DAD!!!! To all who helped I want to say THANK YOU!!!!!! I am now an official home owner. I look forward to spending all of my Saturdays mowing the yard, asking people to please take off thier shoes before coming in, cringing everytime one of my nephews drop thier sippy cups on the carpet and last but not least yelling at the neighborhood kids "Hey you punks! Get off of my grass". I leave you with pictures of the place when I first saw it to what it looks like today.

AHHHHHHHHH YES!!!! Did you think I forgot about you??????? They just installed my cable modem!!!! I AM BACK ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB!!! LOOK OUT!!!!! I took today off because the cable company gave me the "Well they will be out there to set up everything between 8-12" speech. Gotta love the it. Actually the guys came out around 9:30 and had it all set up in 15 minutes. I cannot believe how much my life depends on the internet! I do almost everything on it, banking, paying bills, news, shopping. It's as easy as my date for senior prom! KIDDING!!!! I didn't even go to prom. Well I'm all moved in. I official spent the first night here last Sunday, 9/4/05, and it was great! It is sooooo quiet at night except for this yappin' dog across the way..... GEEZ!!! That thing sounds like it's being tortured by one of Saddam's secret police on the west side of Baghdad..... Enough about the dog. In the last week I have been unpacking stuff. WOW!!! I have found things that I forgot I had. Some of the boxes haven't been open for almost 6 years. It's like Christmas morning everytime I open another box! This is the day I moved in. Nothing was unpacked yet.
 
HE HE HE HE HE!!!! Hey check out Big Ron's back!!!! That's sweat!! I didn't think it was that hot???

HOME SWEET HOME!!!!! Well moving was not that bad. I picked the truck up Friday afternoon and that night my best friend Boike came over and of course mom & dad helped too. We had that baby all loaded up in less then 2 hours. I went to bed around midnight. Woke up bright and early ready to get into my new house...... We all went down there about 9:30AM and unloaded. Heck! That only took an hour!!!!

HELLO CHARLOTTE!!!!!! YOU READY TO ROCK?!?!?!?!? Well Bristol was a great time!! Cofer is a great host and I always feel welcome at his place....... If you like NASCAR do yourself a favor and go to the Bristol night race....... Good stuff!!!

So here is the plan.... I have reserved the U-Haul for Saturday. Actually I'm picking it up Friday and hopefully having it packed up for an easy trip down to the house to unload. I'm itching to get to the new McBride Shangi La..... I'm packing my car up with stuff so I can go to the house after work and unload it. The U-Haul is for the big stuff, refrigerator, sectional and other huge items.....I will have the place ready to go this weekend...... HOLLA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The PBR's are on ice!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm heading to Bristol for some beer drinkin' and hell raisin'!!!!! Isn't that a ZZ Top song????? My old college roommate lives up there and has tickets to the race this weekend!! GIDDY UP!!!! NASCAR is great fun!!!! SWEET MOTHER MARY! If you like to people watch then you need to go...... Let's just say that they come out of the woodwork...... I swear that there are people who save up all year so they can go to the race. Tube tops are a must, preferably ones that they 'DAYTONA BEACH SPRING BREAK 85' ... So there will be no work done to the house this weekend. Big Ron comes back from China on Saturday. The poor guy will be beat...... He just boarded the plane for home 2 hours ago.... That's right I said 2 hours ago, and I am writing this at 10:00 pm Thursday night, and he is not touching the ground at Charlotte Douglas Airport until Saturday morning!!!!! You do the math to see how long that will be...... God knows how many time zones he'll be going through..... The last thing on his mind when he gets home is doing some work at my place.... I don't have any new pictures for you. But I can tell you that all the carpet is in and we are ready to move everthing in!!!!! I hope everyone has a great weekend and let's hope that I'm not this guy at the race........



HE HE HE HE!!! Don't worry we poked him with a stick to see if he was alive before we took the picture!!!

HOT DOG!!!!!! The carpet is in!!!!!! HE HE HE!!!!! I can see you all now saying FINALLY!!!!!! Jamie did the finished touches this afternoon. IT LOOKS GREAT! As soon as he left I started moving things in. Of course stuff I could carry. I've come to realize that I'm not 21 any more...... I carried in a bed, night stands and a few nick nacks. That is all I did tonight. Not sure when the move day will be. Big Ron is in China until Saturday and I'm headed to Bristol Friday. I might need to take a day off during the week and do it then.

So this has been bugging me since I bought the place. The previous owners had quite the little entertainment system. They had two satellites, cable TV and of course a phone. They had it so they just had wires everywhere around the house. That had to go. This is what was left by them.


The madness had to end! So I went to Home Depot, as I do every freakin' night, and bought a electric box and a PVC pipe. Consolidation is the name of the game!!!! I'm happy the way it turned out....




A little bit cleaner look. I'll be planting a bush there too. That will conceal it even more. I also took my friend Aaron's advise and replaced all the dead bolt locks. Being a foreclosed property I would really hate the previous owners unlocking the door and beating me to a pulp because I took thier house.

THIS IS MY ROOM AND I CAN DECORATE IT ANYWAY I WANT!!!!! Welcome to my garage!! This is how I see it. I'm a single guy and my thinking was, "Well who cares what it looks like as long as it fits my needs." That's changing. I don't want to be that guy that you know as soon as you step foot in his house that he's single. You know what I'm talking about. A big ass TV on top of two huge DJ style speakers. A Lazy Boy and a picture of a woman only wearing a bra holding a beer with a caption reading "Man's best friends". I knew that the garage was all mine to decorate because unless you are a guy who can appreciate working on cars and drinking beer you're not setting foot in there. Getting it in working order was a dream for me! This is my first. I have either lived in an apartment or at someone else's house. I knew this day was going to come. I've been planning it for years. I was always collecting and saving stuff to decorate my garage ever since I was a teenager. WHAT THE CRAP!!! That's almost 20 years ago!!! GOOD GOD I'm old!!! HELL! I should just go and get a hip replacement and a membership to AARP while I'm at it.... As you can see, there is still furniture that will be going into the house as soon as the carpet is ready. However that did not stop me from setting up my workshop and tool cabinets.


I set up a killer sound system too!!!! It's made up of old stereo equipment I have had since I was a kid and stuff I found..... Look! See the CD player on the top? That was the first one I had. Mom gave it to me on Christmas day 1986! It still ROCKS! I bought the amplifier when I was in 7th grade. I thought I was this HIFI bad ass back then. I think it was $250 and I had to mow a ton of yards to save up for it. HE HE HE HE!!! I went online to see if I could get a manual for it and found out the company no long exists! FOLKS!!!! I smell a collectors item!!!! I found the speakers up in my brother's attic the day they moved in. The previous owners left them. Their lose!! SUCKERS!!!! I know I said this earlier but THEY ROCK! I also put up some old beer signs I had when I worked at a beer distributor for a short time, YUCK don't get me started on that debacle! I have some nice Mustang anniversary pictures and some old Earnhart posters. YEAP! This baby will be looking good when it has the Mustang sitting pretty in it!!!

Well Big Ron is off to China for a week. So that leaves mom and I. She was not sure what she wanted to do with the kitchen. One day she wanted to paint it. The next day she wanted to wallpaper it.....WOMEN!!!! GEEZ! Well she finally made up her mind. Wallpaper it is. So we cruised over to Lowes and picked some up.


Yeap! That's my feet propped up on a chair watching her work. What a trooper huh!?!? Actually I was taking a break from working out in the garage. It was like 114 degrees out there!!! As a guy down in Talladega told me, "It's hotter then the hubs of hell!" Whatever that means... Anyways, she finished one of the walls and will get it all up tomorrow. The place should look great.
During last week I showed the house to my friend Joe. I told him that the refrigerator I was getting is black and the dishwasher and oven were almond. He said that almost all companies make dishwashers so you can just reverse the front cover of them. They are either almond or black. So while I was eating lunch I started to look it over. Sure enough there were two plates that I just simply turned around and wa la!!! I have a black dishwasher!!




I did some more stuff this weekend but DANG!!! My bed is calling me. I'm beat. I guess being outside for the last two days when it was 100 degrees will do that to you. I'll tell you all about my other projects tomorrow.