New Roof

Guaranteed to last about twice as long as I will. I'll have to let Casey and Deanna know - they will be in their mid eighties when it needs replacing???

Truck arrived this morning with the ingredients for our new roof! I'm guessing that truck held about 1/4 of the total cost of the roof?

The dumpster they delivered (below) looks like it would hold pretty much the whole house? Looks to be about 8 feet high, about 7 feet wide, by about 24 feet long. I think that works out to about 50 cubic yards? That's a lot of stuff! And the crew will have to remove all that from the top of our house, haul it to the dumpster which has 8 foot sides, carry all that plywood, rubber, shingles, ridge vents, etc. up there, and install it. I'm thinking that Highland Contractors will earn their money. We'll be paying it off for the next 5 years.

These guys put a roof on Mom and Dad's garage in two hours from arrival to driving away. I'm not sure how the math will work out, but based on the cost, they should be done by Friday night???

They will insulate the attic sometime after that.

Mechanical Giant in Human Form!

Below is a photo of an old newspaper clipping that I got from a friend who knows my interest in Automata, and other things mechanical. A huge mechanical man made near here in Tonawanda, NY in 1900 --- "This curious counterfeit of a real person was designed to pull a carriage from New York to San Francisco ......" From the New York Hearld - September 9, 1900. I have posted a quite large image so you can click on it and easily read the story. Picture is not quite as big as I wanted it, but is readable. If you want a larger image, comment below, and I'll send it to you.

The link below added a couple of days later after I heard from a friend. Additional information about this "walking" figure. Turns out the carriage pushes the man rather than the man pulling the carriage, but it still seems like a very cool thing. After all, aren't all automata fake at their very essence? For me, it is the ability to fascinate and make us think that is the essence of automata!
More information from my friend and automata enthusiast Dug North

Mercury gets a pedicure?

Originally standing atop a smokestack at the Kimball Tobacco Factory in Rochester, NY, Mercury was moved to a new location in 1973 - now on the Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company in downtown Rochester. Today Mercury was the object of some attention by a couple of workers swinging on a big crane. I'm not sure if it was just an inspection, or maybe some cleaning? Repair? If I find out, I'll amend this entry! Click the link above for more info on the Kimball Tobacco folks, and on the statue and it's history. Click on the pictures to embiggen!

Ellison Park

I love my weekly rides around the area with my Mom! Dad goes grocery shopping, and Mom and I take a ride to someplace, and get to talk, share stories, and enjoy each other's company! Mom's confusion about things prevents a lot of stuff, but on these rides, we become close, and get to set aside some of the problems, and just have fun. Sometimes quiet, sometimes chattering away about most anything, sometimes sharing stories from our past. Always feeling close. Yesterday we went to Ellison Park, and mostly just sat in the car watching nothing happen! The tree stump - above, and below - remnants of a very old willow tree. Past it's prime - a lot like Mom and me, but still with a wonderfully tangled and complicated beauty!

Thank you Mom!

Click on the pictures to embiggen!

My Spinning Top Show!

I got to do my spinning top show again on Tuesday, and as always, I asked the teacher to take some pictures. Instead of the usual 2 or 3, I got a whole bunch - most of them quite good, so here are a few, and you can go to my Picassa page to see more - link below! I love doing this, so if you know of any groups of kids of any age or height, check with me about doing my top show! I have a ball, the kids - I repeat - of any age, have a lot of fun too, and they learn some great stuff without any effort!Above - me trying (unsuccessfully) to stack one spinning top on top of another??Above - my special "calm the kids down" trick. Most of my tops require snapping the fingers, pulling a string hard, throwing the top, or some other energetic method of getting the top spinning. This one just glides off the end of the twisted string very gently and silently!Above - spinning a large Japanese style top in the palm of my hand!
Picassa collection for more top show pictures.

Braddock Point Lighthouse

On Sunday we took an old fashioned Sunday drive along Lake Ontario. Sort of figured that Lighthouse Road must have a lighthouse, and sure enough! This is The Braddock Point Lighthouse from the shore side --- below is a view from the lake side borrowed from an old web site when the lighthouse was for sale (1.9 million) back in 2005? Originally built in 1896, and restored between 1990 and 1998, with the light re-lit in February 1998 - an official Coast Guard Aid to Navigation.

The Camera?

My friend Rick Shannon looked over that picture of my ancestral family, and concluded that something very much like the camera above was used to take it...... probably on a glass plate? Rick knows more about photography that pretty much anybody, and as a collector of stuff, happened to have one sitting around that I could take a picture of! Thanks Rick.

Check out my Great Great Grandfather's Blog!

That's my great great grandmother and grandfather above.

Henry Cadmus Olney, and Sarah Esther (Hill) Olney

That's Henry's 1886 diary above.

I will be putting my Great Great Grandfather Henry C. Olney's 1886 diary on line in blog (http://henrycolney1886.blogspot.com/) form, starting at 12:01 AM January 1st, 2009 - 123 years after his analog version was created. You might enjoy it. Mostly in picture format with photo's of his original diary pages. His handwriting is pretty good, and the photos came out clear. I'm also adding comments and side information as I go. I'm trying to stay ahead, with each picture posted ahead of time with a scheduled publish time of the first day of each 4 day spread.

The first two days and my intro have been posted!

Yard Tree

Yard trees are trees that no self respecting sawmill will tackle to make lumber. Growing in the yard means they may have nails, clothesline pulleys, fencing, etc. embedded in them. Sawmill operators don't like that because such things can take out individual saw teeth, or sometimes the whole blade! This one was huge. Located in an old city neighborhood near our studio, it reached probably 100 feet or more. Somebody will haul away these huge trimmings, hopefully to a place where they can rot and go back to mother earth to nourish more trees!

And I complain about having to get my hip repaired?

I talked about my friend Dave Halter the other day. Just in case you were skeptical about my story of a 72 year old one legged contractor ----- here he is --- on the roof. Almost done with the basic replacement of about two thirds of the deck boards, and about a quarter of the structure below. I've got a feeling this roof will last longer than the original! There was evidence of about 15 layers of roofing, and at least two other times that large portions of the deck and structure had been replaced. Dave has had about two thirds of his left leg replaced - about 2 years ago, and while most folks would consider this a chance to sit back and relax, and perhaps complain quite a bit, Dave is up there on my roof hammering away at what he does best! He did take an afternoon off last week ------- to go canoeing!

I think I'll just go ahead and get that messed up hip joint of mine replaced, and go on making stuff! Sitting on a roof looks like a lot more fun than sitting in an easy chair!
Thanks Dave --- for the roof and for the lessons!

Garage progress??????????

We had our garage re-roofed not long after we bought this place, but leaking began again not long after, and we put off repairs too long! Turns out we had about 15 layers of roofing on there, including somebody putting another whole layer of plywood over about 12 layers and then going on from there???? All the layers trapped moisture, and a lot of the garage tried to return to nature via the rotting process. Dave Halter (of Dad's new porch fame) and a helper are doing the work.... can't wait to get the bill? Did I mention that Dave is 72 years old (give or take a few) and has one good leg, and another one made of plastic, metal, and other miscellaneous stuff. The other day he asked if I had a screwdriver around to put his "kneecap" back on. It gives me the willys to watch him go up and down the ladder --- I make it a part of my daily schedule to not be here at the beginning and end of his day on the roof! I'll post pics of the results later, and maybe a pic of Dave and his cool leg!

Is bigger always better?

Just exactly how can the future be bigger? I can sort of understand a longer future, and I think I'm all for it. Bigger? I'm not convinced!

Speaking of the future ---- I'm attempting to actually publish this in the future - 12:01 pm tomorrow if this works.... on the other hand if you are reading this, it is not the future for you? I'll be clicking on the publish button at 8:34 PM yesterday?????? This is just plain weird!

Farm Days!

The Dansville Dogwood Parade featured quite a few vintage tractors. Here are a few of them especially for my Dad and my friend Bert! (As always click on the pictures for bigger clearer views) Not sure what year the Allis-Chalmers model above is from, but I suspect in my lifetime. The other 3 are a bit older than me! I remember going the the State Fair a few years back with Bert. We spent quite a bit of time in the "antique" farm equipment tent, and were a bit dismayed at how much of the stuff we had worked with in our younger days!