Painting the Rent House

 Sarasota, Florida

 We're back for at least six months in Sarasota. I have a week scheduled on a sailboat in November to dive the Bahamas, but that's about it for awhile. The last time I went on that trip in 2013 I gained ten pounds because of the great food and unlimited free rum....Yo.Ho.Ho!

We swooped across Oklahoma; spent a week in Conway, Arkansas and then another three days in Atlanta before coming back home. This dog belongs to Bruce and Felicia. .His name is Aloysious....Bruce is a highly decorated Navy SEAL Captain. We killed four bottles of Pusser's Rum over three days and he explained why a Poop Deck is called what it is....My favorite Aloysious is Aloysius Lilius (1510-1576)  doctor, astronomer, philosopher and chronologist; the "primary author" of the proposal that, after modifications, became the basis of the Gregorian Calendar reform of 1582.

 Aloysious proposed that every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the year 2000 is That pretty much straightened out the messy rotation of the Earth about the sun. However, every 40,000 years, we will have leap year on years divisible by 400 and that's close enough for awhile..

We had broasted chicken at the Buffalo River. The Buffalo National River flows freely for 135 miles and is one of the few remaining undammed rivers in the lower 48 states. The river changes  from running rapids to quiet pools while surrounded by massive bluffs as you cruise through the Ozark Mountains down to the White River.

We spent a little time with some beautiful young friends in Conway who call us Uncle Bob and Aunt Carol. With any luck, they should be here to see some amazing changes in the 22nd century...

We took a dip in Norfork Lake up in Mountain Home, Arkansas. It's ridiculously overfilled at the moment.

The Buffalo has some very scenic carved cliffs.

Somehow this shot of our two oldest grandchildren on Hadrian's Wall in England made an appearance in my Conway Album.

So how did I end up spending a week painting a rent house? Jason and Carolyn are young professionals who have acquired ten of these since 2007. They rent then to University of Arkansas students and others (and they allow pets). This particular house had four bedrooms, a big living room, a long hallway and a complex kitchen. Apparently I have acquired a reputation as a frustrated house painter who grooves on covering ugly sins with a fresh coat of paint....this is not entirely untrue...the act of physically renewing and old structure is much more satisfying than building a clever database, lying about financial results or making a Citrix server relational database application available to 500 users...anyway...Jason asked me if I wanted to paint a rent house and so I said "sure" and sacrificed a t-shirt, shorts and some sneaks for five days of rolling beige...Carol also did some work on the house Jason and Carolyn are renovating....here she is countersinking nails on woodwork before  painting trim in the new kitchen...

Taos or Bust

 Mountain Home, Arkansas

We're camped in an Army Corps of Engineers campground on Lake Norfork in northern Arkansas.

I can hardly believe we've spent eight nights here. We'll wait one more than to let tropical storm "Bill" amble out of our way.  It's dumped a pile of rain here and a lot more on our path west though Oklahoma.

We go down to Conway with Paul and Diane and help Jason and Caroline a little with the remodeling projects. They've found some amazing stuff on Craig's List including a deeply discounted $8,000 bathtub that looks like a futuristic giant egg, a stove, a refrigerator and an entire unused gym basketball court floor.

One day Mrs. Phred and I drive up to see the little known Bull Shoals Cavern. It has been inhabited by Indians, Confederate soldiers, moonshiners and trout farmers...the trout farming thing flopped because nobody wanted to eat eyeless, albino rainbow trout.

Paul, Dianne and Chris running hard oak pieces though a planing machine.

You can see the seam where the basketball court floor is joined together...it's a really nice floor, new since we were here last June...

The kitchen we were working on last year is mostly done except for a couple of minor trim items.

Jason at work.

The Bull Shoals cavern has every type of limestone formation found in any cave in America including the rare "boxwork" formation which is only found in one other cave in the U.S. (the Wind Cave in South Dakota)...we've been there too...I forgot to get a picture but here's a hyperlink

More cave pix....

Mr. Phred making blueberry pies....

Kilroy was here

Mountain Home, Arkansas

During WWII, this particular graffiti began to appear wherever the American G.I. advanced in Africa, Europe and the Pacific. Although it was not known originally where the phrase came from, one explanation was provided by James J. Kilroy, a New England shipyard welding inspector. According to Kilroy, The shipyard riveters at that time were paid by the rivet. At the end of the day they marked the last rivet installed with chalk. Less ethical workers might erase the chalk mark of the previous worker to be paid more. To counter this, Kilroy would write "Kilroy was here" on each chalk mark. These markings were subsequently discovered in many ships and landing craft when sealed compartments were accessed for maintenance. The inaccessible locations and ubiquitous frequency  of the markings lent an almost supernatural air to them, and soon the icon (borrowed from a 1938 British cartoon) and phrase was everywhere that the army went.

Our friends have invited us to stay in an extra house in they own in the woods in Mountain Home, Arkansas. It feels odd and a little confusing to be rambling around in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home after nine years of living in a 300 square foot motor home.

 This weekend we went down to Conway to help their son-in-law Jason and daughter Caroline a little in the new home they bought. It has six acres and about 4,000 square feet of space with a pool and a tennis court. It was a sadly neglected short sale and another casualty of the great recession.  We worked on the kitchen rebuild and ate some good burgers, watermelon and key lime pie.

They are gutting the old kitchen, putting in a tile floor, new ceiling and lighting as well as installing new cabinets and appliances.

Like everything else, the tennis court is going to need a little work to bring it back.

The neighbors had called the pool "the black lagoon"...They pumped it out, scraped up a lot of black stuff with snow shovels and pressure-washed it...

I got to take about a six mile walk early Sunday morning....it went past the University of Arkansas School of Business...their mascot is the razor-back hog, I think...

I had my own graffiti during my travels in support of Vietnam in the Pacific Rim. It was on a rubber stamp and green ink pad that I carried in my flight suit....the stamp was meant to be ironic...it said

KILL A COMMIE

 FOR CHRIST.

 Perfect for restroom stalls in officer's latrines...Perhaps there is a god...if so, One still wonders how it would feel about the general human practice of making war in its name?