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Today I had a dentist appointment, since one of my teeth had been hurting for the past 2 weeks. So Kenny and I drove to my dentist in Van Nuys. Ok, that’s not exactly around the corner form where we live, but I really like that dentist. As much as you can ‘like’ a dentist. I knew that I had most likely cracked a filling on one of my molars, but somehow I had a feeling that there would be a lot more wrong than only that. And boy was I right.
I know that the one molar that I had broken off about 2 years ago had to come eventually out. I never got around to have that done. And it never bothered me that much since the nerve on that tooth is pretty much dead anyways. The only thing that makes that tooth hurt occasionally is the infection that’s going on around that tooth. The tooth next to it has a really deep cavity, needs root canal work done and capped off with a crown. The tooth with the broken filling, requires also root canal work and a crown. And to top the entire thing off, I need some deep cleaning work done to remove all the tartar build up. I had the option to have the tooth that’s hurting right now pulled, but the remaining molar still would need root canal work and a crown. That might be the cheaper solution in the short run, but in the long run it would be the way more costly solution. I also had the choice of having it all done in one appointment or slowly over time. Kenny and I talked it over and we decided to have it done all in one appointment just to get it over with… and I will be knocked out for that appointment. Here’s what I will get done tomorrow:

• Extraction of 1 Molar
• Root Canal Work on 2 Molars
• Temporary cap 2 Molars
• Deep Cleaning and Tartar Removal
• Having 2 Crowns made

With the price of the anesthesia included that dental work will cost $ 10.000. Can’t say that I’m happy about that, but on the other hand being constantly in pain isn’t a solution either… and I’m really looking forward to getting rid of all the tooth ache. And for 10 K that are better the best 2 crowns that ever made it in someone’s mouth!!

Today Kenny’s Mom and stepdad were going to visit us at our new house, since both of them couldn’t make it to the house warming party. The house still looked pretty good, so there wasn’t that much work to do. Kenny started cleaning the house and once I got up I did some finishing touches and the house was ready to go. Around 1 pm Kenny’s Mom and stepdad made it all the way out to the vinery in Agua Dulce, where Kenny picked them up with my truck. We really wanted to avoid them having go up the our dirt road with the RV. We showed our house and land to them and both of them really liked the house, the paint colors and view. That always makes all the month of remodeling and painting worth it. We then hung out with them for a couple of hours before the left on their road trip up north. The most  surprising thing was how Daisy was behaving… She was actually socializing with Josie (Kenny’s Moms Maltese). Who would have thought that… as Daisy doesn’t get along with most dogs. Apparently the older Daisy gets, the more social she becomes. All in all it was a fun day and it was great seeing Kenny’s Mom and Stepdad since we haven’t seen them in a while.

I then uploaded the video ‘Oil Spill’ to my YouTube Channel. That are some of my thoughts about the big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This video is an impromptu video… me talking to the camera with no preparation and without any script.

Click here to check out my YouTube Channel or watch the video below!!

Today Kenny and I were working on miscellaneous things around the house. First up was Hughes Net.
Some of you guys might remember that we got our ‘High Speed Internet’ through satellite via Hughes Net. Well to make a long story short it works sorta. It might be high speed internet, but the connection quality leaves something to be desired. On top of that you can’t use it for Skype calls at all. Paying about 120 bucks a month for that just didn’t seem to be worth it. And our local ‘Canyon Wave’ which is free to us, since the tower sits on our land, has a way better connection quality. Ok it’s not high speed internet, the speed is just a little below DSL… Well you can’t watch streaming video… you have to wait until it has loaded about 1/2 of the content… but I’ve gotten used to that.
In the last few month the expense for Hughes Net didn’t seem to be justified anymore. So we decided to cancel our 2-year contract with Hughes Net prematurely. In order to do that we had to pay them a penalty of 400 bucks. You can recover about 200 bucks if you send modem, power supply and radio transmitter of the dish back. So today we removed the radio transmitter. This was also Kenny’s first time on the roof of our house. So Kenny was up there removing the radio transmitter according to the instructions that I read out loud from below. Actually the instructions sound way more difficult than they are. It turned out to be pretty much a piece of cake.
Next up was weed removal. Considering the amount of weeds and the amount of land we own… pulling it by hand is just not feasible. Of course you could just use a weed whacker to keep the weeds somewhat in check. So we looked into different solutions. The thing with chemical weed removers is that they are not only harmful to your pets, but the are also getting introduced into the ground water table. And especially if you get your drinking water from your own well, that’s just not a smart idea. So we finally found some complete organic remedies to remove weeds. Most of them are based on vinegar. So we mixed it up and sprayed a ‘test lot’ with that remedy. Now we’re waiting and see what’s going to happen. I will keep you guys posted on that progress.

Later that day I found the first snake on our property. I wouldn’t have seen the snake, but Daisy got way to overexcited so I took a closer look and found a snake about 4 feet in length. I’m not quite sure what for snake it was, but I’m absolutely positive that it wasn’t a rattlesnake. After showing to snake to Kenny, we left the snake alone. It’s just part of living in the ‘boonies’ !!

We have been having a leaking Irrigation Line in front of the water pump shed for several days… and today I finally got around to tackle the broken Irrigation Line. Check out the video blow to fin out how that went!!

Today I finally got around to check where the smell underneath the kitchen sink is coming. Watch the video to find out how that went !!

We got up early today and started cleaning. Kenny started cleaning all the rooms while I was doing all the floors. Kenny started in the Guest room, then guest bathroom, kitchen, living room, dining room and TV room. Then the master bathroom and master bedroom before finally finishing with the office. After that we put up “Before” pictures of major changes we made to the house, we had gone to Target the day before and printed out some 5×7 photos. We weren’t able to put up the ‘Jason Palmer’ prints as it would take so much time to get them just right and we didn’t want to do it half-ass.

Both Kenny and I got done around 11:15am and I needed to get cleaned up as well. So I went to get ready and Kenny went outback and started to set up the back deck and clean off all the chairs and tables. Once that was done with that we started to get the beer and soda ready as well as the chips and dip. We were ready!!!!

First person showed up around 12:30ish and then it was as steady flow of coming and goings. In all we had about 25 people show up. Couldn’t ask for a more beautiful day, it was in the high 70’s, there was a slight breeze (that disappeared for a while) and not a cloud in the sky. Everyone that came loved the house, loved our paint selections, loved the decorations we chose, loved the remodels that we did… it was a great feeling to knowing all that hard work we put into this house really paid off and we worth all the blood, sweat and tears.

Folks really liked the “Before” photos, so glad we came up with that idea. And of course the backyard was everyone’s favorite as we have one of the best views and it was so beautiful outside.

All in all it was a great house warming BBQ.

I’d like to Thank all those who Trekked out for the event. It’s quite a drive but well worth it.

You can see more pictures on Kenny’s Facebook Page!!

Today Kenny and I have a ton of things to do. We were finally having our house warming party after 1 failed attempt back in Feburary when it was rained out. This time around it looks to be sunny and beautiful outside.

We’ve done a ton of work on the house and it’s finally feeling like a home. We still need a few things like rug for our dining room and a coffee table for our living room but for the most part things look good. Today we focused one big thing and lots of small things. We knew we were going to wait to do the big cleaning tomorrow morning so today Kenny worked on finishing up our “Star Trek” plate wall (it turned out GREAT). Kenny worked on the ‘Jason Palmer’ prints and putting them into their frames (which was a pain in the butt because they had to be just center). I started to prep the hardwood floors and get them ready for their good cleaning tomorrow. We went shopping one last time for air blower, weed whacker and a few other items. I kept putting off the large project because I wasn’t looking forward to doing it.

Finally there was nothing left to do and it was getting dark so Kenny tackled the one big project in our office. When we painted a few months back we left an entire wall white as a friend of Kenny, Greg Aronowitz, is going to paint us a Star Trek Mural. Well he’s such a busy guy and just hasn’t had the time to do it and we’ve been looking atthis white wall for 8 months and since it was our housewarming tomorrow we decided we were going to paint it… so while we were out we purchased a gallon of the accent color in that room and started to paint. The hardest part was pulling the 2 desks back and trying not to break anything. Kenny had about two feet of space between the wall and desks. It was tough trying to maneuver the ladder in such a small space and also not step in the paint tray. What was crazy is that the easiest part of the job was the actually painting and when Kenny pulled off the painters tape the line were actually in good shape that I didn’t feel we needed to repaint anything (I was so excited).

Later that night we went shopping for the BBQ, had to pick up hot dogs, hamburger, beer, soda and a much of other sides. There were 26 yes invites and 13 maybes so we bought food for 40 just to be on the safe side.

So all we have to do now is put up the ‘Jason Palmer’ pictures and do one final cleaning of the house before noon tomorrow.

Kenny and I went shopping again, seems like this is all we do on weekends, but we needed to find some borders for some picture frames that we got the previous week for Kenny’s ‘Jason Palmer Art’ for our TV room. While we were out Kenny wanted to see if we could find some night stands for our guest bedroom.

We started at Ikea as we had looked everywhere for night stands and couldn’t find ones we liked. After walking through the entire store we found some very cool night stands that we both liked. Next we purchased a side table lamp. We want something a bit funky and found a really cool sphere light. We also picked up some round candles for our candle sticks that are sitting on our mantle.

After that we had lunch/dinner at Chevy’s then headed to Michael’s to get the borders for the picture frames. There are six pictures so we opted to get three dark green and three dark blue borders for the picture.. they should compliment them well.

Today Kenny and I headed down to my Kenny’s Mom’s place for Aunt’s Joyce’s 50th Birthday party. Mom didn’t want to do an “over the hill” party so instead she did a Hawaiian theme since Aunt Joyce loves Hawaii. Kenny went out the day before on his lunch and picked up a few “Hawaiian” shirts so we were set.

The party was a lot of fun, got to see lots of family that we don’t get to see very often. Got to spend some time with Kenny’s Aunt Linda who we see very rarely and of course it’s always nice to spend some time with Kenny’s nephew Kenobi. And hanging with Mom is always great as we don’t get to do it as often as we would like.

We didn’t get to stay as long as we would have liked.. Kenny’s mom lives two hours away so that’s four hour on the road already and Daisy can stay in the house for about 9 hours before she has to go outside.. so we stayed for about five hours before heading out.

It’s always fun spending time with the family.. maybe it’s because we don’t do it very often so the time we do spend together is very special.