Hi, everyone. Did you miss me? You know that I've been insanely busy when I completely let slide the most consequential presidential election in a century. Needless to say that didn't go the way I had hoped it would. I'll get more into that later.
So, do you want to know what had me so busy? I hope so, because I'm about to tell you.
At the end of October last year I retired from MoDOT after 30 years. I actually enjoyed much of my time there, but the place became intolerable of late. I'll get into that later as well.
There was no time for lying about. We had a December 7 closing date on our house in Westphalia and all the stuff we'd accumulated during our 17 years there had to be moved. No movers for us. I'm too tight for that. Making 3 or 4 trips each week we packed everything to the farm in Lesterville.
And that brings me to the main reason that I've been on extended hiatus. We've been living in the old farm house that I grew up in while working frantically to get the new house finished up. I don't want to bore you with the details, but the only internet at the farm house is via cell phone on an old 2G tower. Imagine trying to drink a thick milkshake through a tiny little straw. You get the picture.
But things are MUCH better now. The new house has excellent DSL and we just spent our first night in it. That's not to say that the work is done. Not even close. I'll be building the kitchen cabinets and making the hardwood flooring myself and that will take months. We have the basement partially finished and it's quite comfortable, thank you very much. We'll live downstairs until the upstairs is finished.
I did want to recognize the excellent work of my contractor, Mckinley Construction. The guy is a real craftsman and the most honest contractor I've ever worked with (and believe me, I've worked with a lot of them.) I'd recommend him to anyone, particularly if you are interested in a log home. Here's a short video I made for him. Take a look. You'll be glad you did.
Fingerpost will be evolving over time to something more personal and less political. I won't promise not to rant from time to time, but I'm tired of trying to jar people from their lassitude. It'll be hit-or-miss because I still have an insane amount of work to do on the house and the farm, but I'll be around from time to time with pearls of insight.
See ya.