Yesterday was actually a pretty busy day. Unfortunately we didn't take that many pictures because we had our hands full, but I will recount the day's activities none the less.
In the morning Pa and I ran over to Uncle Steve's house and assisted with the harvesting of a very large oak tree that fell on the North side of his property. To put this into perspective, Steve took a 32in saw and it failed to cut all the way through it in some spots, and it was solid most of the way through. So as Pa and Steve played with the gigantor pieces, Sam, Ian, Bill, Beth, and I worked on collecting all of the firewood sized pieces and hauled them up the hill. At the end I even got to play with the chain saw, which I haven't done in a few years (a nice reprieve from pushing paperwork).
Anyways after a few hours of slaving away with that we reached a stopping point and proceeded with souping up my ride. About a year ago a Jeep got in a fight with the tail end of my pickup. Considering the condition of the rest of the truck I just took the money and never fixed the mutilated bumper and trailer hitch assembly. So we took it over to Steve's chop shop and here is some of his body work... excellent if I may say so myself.
Here's what she looks like now. (This picture was actually taken at Grandpa's house this morning.)
Now, that license plate, let me tell you! That is a fine piece of engineering from the Herzog Institute of Technology (H.I.T.)
As mentioned before, this is "ghetto rigged." We drilled a couple of holes in the license plate to mount screws in order to fasten it to the sheet metal, used a zip tie to help stabilize it and mounted the license plate light on the right hand side. (you can't see the hot glue and electrical tape holding that part together, it's rather commical.) Bottom line is this: It works and it was free! Kudos to Uncle Steve and Dad for their help on that project.
Well, after all that the kids went to the fair while Dad and I went gold prospecting. But before going it seems that everyone felt inclined to have a nap attack. The below picture is Grandma sneaking in for the kill, needless to say she had mercy and let her man servant live. After all, she needs someone to take care of the house chores.
Once we made our way on the trail Dad used is metal detector for a while on the way down until we made our way down to the stream an then started panning for gold and being eaten by mosquitoes. They didn't seem to bother dad as much, but both of my arms feel like bumpy, itchy roads from all the bites. Anyways, we didn't find much; all unrecoverable flakes, too small to bother with. We both had a good time, aside from the mosquitoes. After a few hours of being eaten we called it quits and trudged our way back through the forest of poison oak and got cleaned up for dinner.
Grandma and Grandpa are regulars at Jessie's and Friday is Taco night. So Steve and Michelle met up with us and we all enjoyed a evening of fine dining. It was all topped off with some strawberry cake, which was exceptionally good! In fact Steve, Michell, and I ordered a slice and once Pa caught sight of it felt compelled to order one too.
The evening was quietly ended with a game of chess between Pa and I. And let it be known that I defeated him! Sure, he beat me on the next game, but I finally beat my old man at chess and that's all I need. Haha, it was a real good time. Anyways, things are coming to a close (still one more day) for the 2011 Clan Gathering, but it has been a grand adventure that shall be continued for many years to come.
-Markus Out
