Nueva Casa

I swore I'd never do this again. After we built The Fortress in Round Rock about 10 years ago, I said never again. We'd buy only existing homes ("used houses", as they call them in Texas).

Never say never.

We're trying to work out all the complicated details of marketing / selling our existing house (where we've lived for the past 5+ years), building a new house about 6 miles west of here, and getting moved from old house to new house without anybody going postal.

The picture above is a rough representation of the plan we've selected (note the front porch!). There will be a third garage bay on the side, and the whole plan may be flipped to better fit the lot we selected. There are a few interior changes to the standard floorplan as well... We need to move the water heater from the garage to the attic so I can have the 23 ft of space necessary to park my F250 4X4 inside for a change. We are also converting the upstairs storage / optional bathroom to an office.

The benefits to this move are many. I won't have to spend my summer ripping up carpet and laying hardwood floor. We'll be a little further away from the traffic and crowds (for a while). The aforementioned 3rd garage bay. A built-in covered patio. Bigger lot for kids/dogs to romp. And a brand-spanking-new Katy ISD high school that will open a year before Connor gets to 9th grade (currently known as "High School #7 and Stadium").

We aren't really downsizing or upsizing, but "modernizing"... with a better floorplan, walls pre-wired for plasma/LCD TVs and sound, and a more "dog-friendly" / "grandkids-friendly" environment.

It is still not a sure thing that the planets will align for this move to happen. We have to sell the current house for "enough" to make it possible. Back in the olden days (i.e. 8 months ago), I understood the real estate market and mortgage requirements. I have no clue how much that has changed. We're about to find out.

With a little luck, this will all be over by August. Until then, I'm going to need to keep some Scotch handy.

Hasta escribo otra vez.
Big S Ranch

Connor's Guest Blog Post

(The following blog was written by my 8-yr old son, Connor. He typed it into my iPhone while we were at the Rodeo on Monday.)

I'm at the rodeo waiting for it to start,and watching horses running around. There are several horses here that I'm watching. And there is a cage of cows, sheep,and other things too.

There are people sitting in chairs,and the time is 6:34PM on the clock right in front of me. There's about 200 or 500 people here so far. And for some reason the horses disappeared when I was writing this.

There is a roof that opens and closes, which is already closed and will stay closed. The rodeo will start and end March 3-22.

The horses are now exiting the big door right now. And now there's trucks coming out behind the horses.

There are people trying to catch a calf and win money. Now people are trying to not fall off rampaging horses. So far no one fell off.

Someone just fell off. He stayed on 6.5 seconds and needed to stay on for 8.0 seconds. Now another guy fell off after 8 seconds.

It is 7:46PM.

Town and Country

The dichotomy of living in Houston, Texas is that you're always a little bit country and a little bit rock-n-roll.

In this past week, I was heavily into conferences, presentations, Mexican legislation, European Union directives and other such stuff.

I was also in hot pursuit of a Ranch Hand grille guard (brush guard) for my F250 pickup truck.


And we were looking at new homesites out by Fulshear, Texas. Feeling the need for more elbow room.


On Friday, I was thrown in the middle of a major issue involving BP on one side, and Halliburton & Schlumberger on the other. Solved it to everyone's satisfaction by noon, by the way.

This evening I scored 4 tickets to Darius Rucker who will be at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo tomorrow. I even shined up my boots.

The dirty little secret is that this feeds both sides of my bi-polar personality. I like wearing the suit & tie, but I also like the boots, jeans, and gimme cap.

We'll try to get some pics from the rodeo tomorrow.

Peace, out.
Big S Ranch

Burglary of a Motor Vehicle - My History

This past week, some ne'er-do-wells attempted to steal my F250 4X4 Crew Cab Diesel Truck. Since they were unsuccessful, and since they stole my K.I.T.T. Knight Rider GPS, the deputy recorded it as Burglary of a Motor Vehicle. Yeah, right. It took me 15 seconds to remove the last tumbler from the busted ignition switch and start it with a screwdriver. They were 15 seconds from stealing my 3 1/2 Tons of Black Fury. A pox on them.

This is the fourth time in my life that I've had a vehicle burglarized. This is the first time they tried to take the whole damned thing. In any event, it got me thinking about the other three times.

First Event: 1982
One morning in the Spring of 1982, while living in Des Moines, I went out to start my car for work. I turned the key. Nothing. Then I noticed the hood was up about an inch.

I raised the hood and saw a gaping hole where the starter used to be. But three things made me laugh. One - This was a 1974 Plymouth Gold Duster with over 100,000 miles, so the starter was going to fail sometime soon, anyway. Two - The thieves left the starter bolts in the transmission bellhousing (making replacement of the starter MUCH easier). Three - They didn't even cut the positive battery cable that connects to the starter. I figured they needed that starter much worse than I did. I half-expected to find a $20 bill and a thank-you note.



Second Event: 1986
One morning in the summer of 1986, while living in Shawnee, KS, I went out to start my 1985 Mitsubishi Tredia, to go to work. I saw a gaping hole in the dash where my stereo used to be. Grrr. One $50 AM-FM-Cassette Stereo gone. Then I looked in the passenger seat, and laughed. There on the seat was the Joe Jackson "Body and Soul" tape that had been in my stereo. The thief took the time to check my taste in music and, finding it inferior, declined to STEAL MY FRIGGING TAPE!



Third Event: 2003
One day in the summer of 2003, while living in Katy, TX, I went to our ranch (yes, the Big S Ranch) in Williamson County. On the ranch, we stored a 1950 Ford 8N tractor that I use to mow the pasture. This day, however, I noticed something amiss. The radiator grill and radiator cap were missing. This is a big deal because they were both 50+ year old original equipment pieces. Very hard to replace. What was worse... in the process of prying off the grill, the thieves poked three gaping holes in the radiator, rendering the tractor unusable. I was not laughing.

Today, the tractor is in my garage, still awaiting a new radiator. I'm doing a complete repair-and-repaint job, in addition to the new radiator (and grill and cap).


Moral of The Story
Shit happens. With each of these tales (including the current attempted truck theft), there was a sunny side. A bright side. A "Don't let the bastards get you down"side. Sometimes this bright side is immediately obvious. Sometimes it takes years to reveal itself. Don't let the obviously bad stuff get to you. Instead, look a little deeper and see if there is a brighter, lighter, or funnier side.

Signing off for now,
Big S Ranch

Hero Dog Stops Truck Theft!!

This is our old dog, Shadow. We have had her since she was about 6 months old. She's now about 11 yrs old. She looks to be a Belgian Shepherd, but we don't know for sure. We just know that she's a bit nutty. She goes bonkers at the slightest hint of thunder, fireworks, or a loud cough. Recently, she's abandoned digging UNDER the fence in favor of eating THROUGH the fence. I keep a supply of fence pickets and Quickrete in the garage for just such emergencies.

Last night, though, she proved her worth and may have justified the cost of all those fence repairs.

About 4:30 AM, Shadow's incessant barking woke me up. Chuy, our 100-lb lab, was asleep in The Boy's Room (as usual). I walked downstairs, turning on lights as I went. The barking stopped.

Since I had a 7AM meeting, I stayed up, got ready for work, and walked out the door around 5:30.

When I got in my truck, I noticed old parking receipts all over the floor. How odd, I thought. These are usually stored in a compartment in the visor. Then I tried to put the key in the ignition and found this:

Someone had tried to steal my truck! The Beast! My 3 1/2 Tons of Black Fury! How DARE they!

We called the sheriff and filed a report. The deputy said two other F250 diesels were hit in the neighborhood between 4:00am and 5:00am this morning. He said it looked like they were startled and left the job 1/2 done.

Evidently, Shadow was barking at the thieves. When the comotion woke me up, the thieves ran off when the lights came on in the house. Good dog, Shadow!

No, they didn't get my truck, but they did get my K.I.T.T. Knight Rider GPS. Rats.

Today, I got the truck fixed (I used a screw driver to start it). Then I installed motion lights by the driveway, and bought The Club for my truck.

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