A man in Topeka, Kansas, decided to write a book about churches around the country. He started by flying to San Francisco and started working east from there.

Going to a very large church he began taking photographs and making notes.

He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall and was intrigued with a sign, which read “Calls: $10,000 a minute…”

Seeking out the pastor he asked about the phone and the sign. The pastor answered that this golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to heaven and if he pays the price he can talk directly to GOD.

The man thanked the pastor and continued on his way. As he continued to visit churches in Seattle, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver, Oklahoma City, and around the United States he found more phones with the same sign and the same answer from each pastor.

Finally, he arrived in Iowa; upon entering a church in Plymouth, Iowa, behold – he saw the usual golden telephone. But THIS time, the sign read “Calls: 35 cents.”

Fascinated, he asked to talk to the pastor, “Reverend, I have been in cities and towns all across the country and in each church I have found this golden telephone and have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I could talk to GOD, but in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute. Your sign reads only 35 cents a call. Why?”

The pastor, smiling benignly, replied, “Son, you’re in Iowa now … You’re in God’s Country … It’s a local call.”

(Thanks, Ron!!)

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Now playing: Head East – Never Been Any Reason
via FoxyTunes

So yeah, I’m still in the middle of working on the family room floor. I’m in a bit of a stopping point right now. Nothing serious, I just have a few other things to get done. Today, we got some throw rugs at Menards; non-skid throw rugs, that is. Placed them in front of our couches and they look pretty good. Also got three other non-skid throw rugs for the base of the stairs, the entry from the garage and the entry from the patio. However, KC decided she wanted the landing done with the same laminate wood flooring that I’m using in the basement. Well, we call it the “landing”; we live in a split foyer which from the entry to the house you can go upstairs or downstairs – you enter to the “landing”.

Well, I *THOUGHT* I could get it done in a day. I definitely underestimated the work to do here, but have like 95% of it done. The worst part of the whole thing was there were two, yes *TWO* layers of linoleum under the carpet that I had laid there. The carpet had some stains so it definitely needed to be replaced and the laminate wood flooring is a good choice. So I started mid-morning. Forgot the “before” pictures, so here’s the early pictures with the linoleum up. One side has the sound deadener down.

So after a few hours of work (and lunch and dinner in there as well!!) here’s the result:

As you can see, I have one piece of quarter-round and the “cap” at the edge of the stairs to put down yet. I want to paint at least 2 more coats of black paint on the edge of the stair tread, so it won’t be until tomorrow afternoon that I’m completely done, but HEY! I’ll be done with that!

Happy Birthday, Grant!!

So yeah, it’s been a while. I’ve been doing a lot of little things. Since my computer desk is actually attached to the wall, I removed the legs and put in angle support braces. I also cleaned up the cables and set up cable management ties and such under the computer desk. Now there’s a lot of foot room under there, even with my server and the under-desk file cabinets:

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I also got more of the floor done today. Zach came over and helped me out, which was great@! We got the rest of the main area of the family room done, as well as one of the closets. Of course, Zach brought Laura over! Zach also had an ulterior motive: he wanted to see how the laminate wood flooring went together and learn the secrets of how it went together and how to clean up small errors, and he accomplished that!

So I’ve got one closet left, and it poses a problem because I’ve got some support wood directly on the existing carpet. I’ll need to redo that, hopefully without having to empty the closet. And I also have the computer room to do. Of course, it’s only about 10′x10′ so it should go pretty quick, once I move the five drawer lateral file in there. And then, of course, the baseboard trim and the door casing trim.

Happy Birthday, Brenda!

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Now playing: Randori – Suprise Me
via FoxyTunes

I missed it! Happy Birthday to my blog! Eight years ago on November 5th, I typed my first entry into my blog. Wow! Eight years!

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Now playing: Saving Abel – Drowning (Face Down)
via FoxyTunes

We have enjoyed the redneck jokes for years. It’s time to take a reflective look at the core beliefs of a culture that values home, family, country and God. If I had to stand before a dozen terrorists who threaten my life, I’d choose a half dozen or so rednecks to back me up. Tire irons, squirrel guns and grit — that’s what rednecks are made of. I hope I am one of those.

• You might be a redneck if: It never occurred to you to be offended by the phrase, ‘One nation, under God..’
• You might be a redneck if: You’ve never protested about seeing the 10 Commandments posted in public places.
• You might be a redneck if: You still say ‘ Christmas’ instead of ‘Winter Festival.’
• You might be a redneck if: You bow your head when someone prays.
• You might be a redneck if: You stand and place your hand over your heart when they play the National Anthem.
• You might be a redneck if: You treat our armed forces veterans with great respect, and always have.
• You might be a redneck if: You’ve never burned an American flag, nor intend to.
• You might be a redneck if: You know what you believe and you aren’t afraid to say so, no matter who is listening.
• You might be a redneck if: You respect your elders and raised your kids to do the same.
• You might be a redneck if: You’d give your last dollar to a friend.

(Thanks, Ron!)

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Now playing: Kid Rock – Amen
via FoxyTunes

Well, I just *HAD* to do it! I’ve started another project at home. About 15 years ago, I put carpet down in our family room downstairs. It was a light carpet and a great change from the dark carpet that we had. I had also drywalled the family room – it had walnut paneling and was very dark overall. Well, the carpet has been spilled on, peed on by our dog, tracked on by anyone and in general just got very dirty. Even our steam cleaner couldn’t clean it any more. I have thought about this for several months and I’ve decided to go with laminate flooring. The stuff that interlocks and floats. There was a great deal at Menard’s so I ponied up and got the flooring. It was only 69 cents per square foot. So I bought 24 packages, which will cover 480 square feet (I hope it’s enough). One of my biggest dilemmas was that I don’t have the space in the house to move everything out and put down the new floor, so I have to do it in sections. I’m working from west to east, which means the longest runs are first. Now, on to the pictures.

Here is how the carpet looks. It’s supposed to be a uniform color, but as you can see, it isn’t.

I started in on this on Sunday. First thing was to rip up the carpet. I had glued it down 15 years ago, but the actual carpet came up fine. I was not looking forward to scraping up the excess glue and pad, but then Tim at work said he had a good tool for this. As it turned out he was wrong – it wasn’t a good tool for scraping up this gunk…. it was the PERFECT tool! Here’s the floor with the carpet, pad and glue removed.

So after taking up the carpet, I laid down the vapor barrier and noise deadening pad. Then I laid out the planks.

Well, I had my brother Al over to help me lay out the planks. If you notice in the pictures, I had them attached to make one long plank. Well, after a lot of finagling I finally figured out this didn’t work. Al and my wife will both say I was very frustrated. I was short and snippy with them during this process. Well, after viewing some You Tube videos from Lowes and some other flooring companies I found I was doing it wrong. So I went out to Menard’s and got the tapping block and end bar tools to actually do the job right. And I went about taking apart the work Al, Casey and I did to re-do it right. And now it looks *MUCH* better!

More progress pictures to come!