Represent the N.O.

Sarah and i found this wonderful Fleur de lis flag in the french quarter during my birthday weekend that would replace the American Flag we had been flying out front of our house. Today i put the flag on the pole and found that if i were to display it correctly (hanging straight out) the flag would drag the ground and be in one of our flower pots. The reason this was not an issue with the American flag was the American flag pole went upward and not outward so it did not drag the ground. So I naturally decide to install a new flag holder higher up on the wall so we could display our Fleur De Lis correctly. Long story short, as with everything i do it was harder than originally seemed. I drilled holes for the plastic screw reinforcers, but the hole was to small...apparently I'm a bad gauge of size cuz i worked my way up 5 sizes of drill bits before the reinforcers finally fit. After putting the new flag mount up and putting the flag pole in it...I realized that because the mount was made of plastic it was going to bend a bit from the weight of the pole and flag causing the flag pole to a have a downward slant....I fixed this by bowing out the bottom of the mount...it worked pretty well so far!

HELP EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER

Sarah and I walked up stairs yesterday (Monday) and noticed that our silverware drawer was on the counter in about 4 pieces...So of course i got my welding glue out and put in back together...after it was done drying i put a few nails in for good measure...All is well with the silverware drawer. I then noticed that the stove exhaust hood looked like someone sprayed grease and nastyness on it and let it sit 30 years....so i did what i could to clean it...i took out the exhaust fan and wiped it as clean as i could....however while installing in back into the hood i dropped it and the fan broke off....woops!! Now we really need a new exhaust hood...HELP EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER ...and oh yea our printer leaked black ink into its inerts and gears and will not work anymore. Also the vacuums we have are used everyday to vacuum the whole house (every girls has a different room to do) so of course the cheap $30 wal-mart vacuum stops working after a month...so we a need a new one of those...

Extreme home makeover if your reading I'll make a list for you:
New stove exhaust hood
New Printer
New vacuum
New Couch (ours is old and ugly)
New computer (ours is like a cat, it works when it wants to).
Sarah wants a new sink
I want the cleaning supply closet to not leak from the ground anymore when it rains.

Hanging the Hammock

I bought a hammock a few weeks ago for an insane price ($10) at target on clearance. Sarah and i decided the front porch was a good place to put it. Well that was the easy part...The hard part was standing on rickety ladder reaching as high as I could to screw these huge hammock screws into the ceiling of the porch which is pretty high. Well i hung it up good, then tested it and it looked like a bowl. So i spread it our more and found i needed more chain...Off to Lowes i went...I found some chain i liked and asked a man with a lowes jacket on to cut me 2 feet...He said "we only sell it in liner feet"..to which i said "of course" (act like a man). Well he cut me "2 liner feet" of my chain, and wrote 2 liner feet and the item number......so i went up front to buy it...The man at the register said he didn't know how to ring linear feet up....So a girl worker came over and said "we don't sell that in linear feet" to which said, "hey the guy back there put it on the bag i just want 2 feet of chain" So she pulls out her tape measure and measures my chain.."THIS IS 2.6 feet, are you trying to steal!?"....so i said how about you charge me for 3 FEET of chain and i go home....So she did...and my hammock is now hanging on the porch... :c)

Im now prepared for manhood

Thanks to my best friends in the world I am now ready to be a man....Yesterday i recieved a package that despite having my name on it Sarah began to open...I said "that has my name on it" she said "you don't order books". Well said Sarah! But i insisted it might be for my birthday (JULY 27...still 2 shopping days left)...so she gave it to me...Inside was a How to book on how to fix a house. I searched the receipt for a name and i found one of my best friends name...Kelly....I was so surprised and excited...I can now do almost anything around this poor old house..Thanks Paul and Kelly!!!

If Van were a horse he would be shot

Let me say yesterday was not the day to be our Ford 2002 E-350 Van (trying to give the poor van some respect by using his full name). First of all he must sit out in the hot sun all day long....and what do we do when we finally pay him some attention...we blare his radio, turn his A/C all the way up and race through the streets of New Orleans...narrowly missing cars and dumpsters parked on the side of the street (Matt at least misses them). Well yesterday while we were on our way to the office...4 girls in tow....Sarah at the Helm...We noticed a car in the middle of the street we are trying to turn on...That does not stop our poor Van...he trudged through between the middle of the road car and the car parked not so innocently on the corner of the side of the street. Well He won! Kind of...He tore the side mirror from the parked car (on the corner) and kept on going...well Sarah Yelled "WOAH BOY" (not really but figuritivly) and the was drawn to a halt. Matt hoppped out the handle the inpending danger of damaging a car in New Orleans. Matt went looking for the owner inside a local bar/wing place while the owner somehow got past Matt and found his car...Needless to say he said words that i can not mention and complained about how people have no respect and they keep going after they hit people. Well i calmed him down with my Boys and Girls town training (Verbal de-escalation)...and gave him the office info, because he was not going to get our house info (we live 60 yards from scene of accident). Meanwhile Sarah is talking to the Police on the phone and i tell the man the police are on the way to write a report...Well the man leaves the scene and while we are waiting for the police the Van gave up and died. Matt tell the girls to go home and he will fix the problem and wait for the police. Matt ends up catching 2 different pairs of jumper cables on fire and not even seeing the police when they show up. So the police call Sarah and Sarah meets them at the shell station across the street. the police say, "well the man left so you lucked out, we can not write a report". Yeay no ticket for Sarah...but we later find out the man has been calling the office all day long saying "when am i going to get my mirror fixed!?" Glad he does not have our number..HAHA....
Well the Van sat at WOW bar and wings until late at night despite a call from the maintenance man at 3:00pm asking where the van was so he could get the tow truck there...For all we know WOW got a tow truck to tow it...Not our problem anymore we have been promised a loaner van till ours is fixed...it hasnt shown up yet but we have hope.

Knock Knock..sorry can't open it...

Last night we had an incident involving some of the girls, so rules are starting to be increased and precautions are being taken. The way the house is organized there are 3 bedrooms in a row on the right side of the house. The first one is separated from the second with the bathroom...But the second and third are connected by a door that is supposed to remain closed, because the rule is that you never enter another persons room...Well the house was running smooth and we thought everyone were friends so we left it slide when the girls would crack the door to say hi to each other....well following the incident i nailed the connecting door shut....it was a cool experience for me...cuz i had to pretend to have man knowledge again and got the biggest nails i could find and nailed them in sideways...and guess what...it worked!! Score one for the Matt man....Let just hope they don't figure out they can walk around to the front door....uh ohhh....Maybe they should just all have a cages...Just kidding...Be praying for our girls though that they will respect each other enough to not attack each other or talk behind each others backs. They need to focus on their treatment.

Hanging Pictures

Sarah and I came one step closer to making our house feel like a home. We bought some cool prints from wal-mart. You buy the print that is vacuum sealed on cardboard then they have cheap but nice frames that just hold in the print with little metal prongs around the frame.....they are pretty cool, and cheap for a lot of pictures. We got 7 5x8 prints for $1 each and the frames were $2 each....Then a big one for $3 and frame for $4. They are Van Gogh and Monet prints and make the living room look
brighter....We found a little and big print of "jazz" stuff that we have in the office...we are looking for more, cuz every wal-mart has a different selection.

How to break into your apartment

First step...Find a key in the office that you think is a key to your apartment...Put it on your key ring and leave the other keys in the apartment...Close door.

Second Step...Try to open the door with the key that you think is a key to your apartment...Find that it doesnt work and ask Sarah for her keys...Find that hers are inside the apartment just like yours.

Third step....Try to open the door like a Pro with a credit card....realize your no pro at opening doors with Credit cards...

Forth step... decide to knock out the joint pins on the door frame hinge and take the door off the hinge....WHAT A FUN IDEA....heres how to do it: Bang on the pins from underneath with a hammer and nail from the office.....















Ask Sarah to help you lift the door off the frame...walk through doorway...get keys and put the door back on the frame...total time 45min....















Oh yea that was on our day off...... Fun way to start your morning :c)

Cook out!!!

Sunday July 15 I decided that despite the thunder and rain i was going to grill for my family...I began the adventure by opening the old grill on the back porch...its a very nice and big charcoal grill that just had not been cleaned...hmmm...EVER...So my first job was to clean it....I took the grill (the part the MEAT goes on) and rubbed them down with aluminum foil (thanks Brother)...Which works very well...but hurt your fingers and hands after a while...Next they got rubbed down with an SOS pad...After this there was not much more i could do to clean them...so i took them out to the grill and layed them on the storage rack below the grill....As i was setting them down i saw a flash of light, Heard a loud boom, and did not feel so good...all at the same time...Sarah says she thinks the lighting hit somewhere around me..I think it scared the wellness out of me...I'm alive either way...and despite Sarah insisting that i not grill...i did...i had just put 2 hours into cleaning the bad boy...i was going to grill...so i went and got the lighter fluid out of the garage Pyramided my charcoal and sprayed them down with the lighter fluid...Then i got a do what every man enjoys..LIGHT IT...POOF... my grilling had begun.

The Yellow Box (DANGER DO NOT OPEN)

So i was dared to open the Yellow metal box....So i did...inside I found lots of things that are in fact associated with danger...But it was not as fun as old bombs, or other fun things a man could dream up....Inside was:
a Large can of Gas
3 almost empty lighter fluids
some paint stripper
and a few other item like these

I was excited because i needed the gas for the new landscaping adventure, and the lighter fluid for the cook out we just had on sunday (i actually opened it on sunday when i cleared enough stuff away from it to open it). I am slightly concerned that this box does not seem to act as a protecter from the element....and it invites human contact....How can anyone resist "DANGER DO NOT OPEN!"....Its like putting a sign on it that says..."Everything you have ever dreamed of inside...please open!"

The roof is leaking

When we got home from the van adventure we found that our ceiling was leaking along a 2 ft line. Our couch was soaked in 4 spots where the drips had fallen. I retrieved Sarah's 3 ft planter from atop our air condition system outside (no plants in it yet) and Sarah grabbed some pots. We constructed a water catching system that we hope not to have to replicate, but if we do we will record with a picture for the blog. We sent another fax to maintenance to fix the leak in the roof. Well day before yesterday they picked up the van to go fix it, and today i get a call from "Brad at maintenance" and he says he wants to come check out the leak. I assume he refers to the van radiator leak so i assure him he has our van and he doesn't need to come here to see it. He then told me the van was in the shop and he was not sure when it would be done, but he was coming for our house leak...so i told him to come on over. Next thing i know my ladder (everything in the garage is mine according to me) is hitting the side of the roof and up climbs "Brad" to bang on the roof, sounded like sawing and who knows what else. He then came inside and looked at the ceiling and told us he hoped they got it this time. Then while he was washing his hands i offered him a water....to this he responded...."no I have one in the car, every good southern Louisiana man knows to always have cold water on him at all times". LOL what a cool guy, hope knows that cars get hot in "southern Louisiana" and turn your cold water luke warm...EWW....

The Van is leaking

Last Saturday (7/14) Sarah and I decided to take our girls skating. Out into the rain we go. I equipped every girl with a partner with a umbrella or an umbrella. First stop was ACE check cashing to cash one of our girl's check. Well the van began to shake as if it is going to shut off, as we pulled into the check cashing parking lot. When our girl ran in with her check i hopped out and checked out the engine. I did what every man who doesnt know what else to does. I checked the oil. Sure enough it was low. So i got some oil from inside the van (not sure why it was in there) made a funnel out of old mapquest maps and poured in the oil. I started the van and let it sit so the oil could circulate (thanks Dad). So off we go about 1/2 mile down the road and the van begins to shake and lunge, the oil and service engine light turn on and i find a place to stop quickly. Out i hop to check the engine, remembering i have already checked the oil and the only man knowledge i have left is look at the engine for a minute pretending to know what your doing, then look under the car. Upon looking under the car i find a stream of liquid coming out. Granted it is Raining while I'm looking under the car i took in to account it might be air condition condensation or rain water. So i did the old fashion check...stick your hand in it. The fluid was hot/warm and smelled and felt like radiator fluid ( i stopped short of tasting it.) So i made the decision to get the car home (or as far as we could get) before it got any worse (we were to far to walk comfortably in the rain, and in a bad neighborhood to leave the van, it was the weekend and the maintenance people work during the week so it would have had to sit there all weekend). Well we made it home at the vans crippled top speed of 15mph as it streamed, and lunged down the road, but we made it home. We walk into the house ready to fax our maintenance request. And there is our couch in our office being soaked from a leak in the roof.

Landscaping

So this man came by a few days after we moved in (beginning of July) asking for our Assistant who had been running the house since the other Family teachers left (about a month). We wanted to speak to her about mowing the lawn for us. Well i asked him how much he charged and he just kept asking for our assistant. I took it as a sign i needed to use the lawn tools i found in the Garage.
So i dig out (literately) the first lawn mower and go to work on the yard. Then i went around with the weed eater, all the time trying to be careful around the cars parked on the street, random huge holes and indentions in the ground and trees and bushes. About halfway through the backyard i ran out of gas. So i dugg out the second mower, finished the back yard and was finished about 2 hours after i started...feeling very proud of myself.

UPDATE!!!
Recently i noticed that the front yard was going to need my expertise again. Well today July 18th the man came back asking for our assistant. I informed him again that she does not work as often as she used to. Well he decided to talk to me today. He stated that he had spoken to our assistant a little while ago and she stated our business was low on money and an Old man down stairs was going to be mowing the lawn now. He then went on to say "i saw that the old man had cut it but he did a &*%#$ (bad word) job....It looked like *%$#*!" At this point i simply shook my head and as the man went on and on about how bad the yard looked after "the old man" (ME) had cut the lawn. So the man left and i turn around and there is Sarah and one of our girls rolling on the ground laughing. Funny stuff :c). Guess ill try to do better next time.

Search for the Key to the Garage

Upon inspecting and cleaning out the office i found literly 213 keys...Most of which no one knew what they went to. I sorted them into 4 catagories, "small", "medium", "large" and "this looks like something I've seen before". In the"this looks like something I've seen before" I found some extra keys to the house so me and sarah didnt have to continue to share 1 pair of keys. YEAY!
Next i found a paper that boasted that it was the key guide (it was like an old treasure map to me). It had numbers and where that number key went. I then walked around the house treasure map and bag full of keys in hand. Half of the keys didn't work anymore and i labeled the ones that did.
But here is the treasure...I discovered the Garage key (storage shed in the back yard). I popped it open and found that 6020 is apparently the storehouse for...lets see...EVERYTHING....I found 12 bags of clothes, 6 boxes of clothes, 5 vacuums, 2 lawn mowers, a weed eater, boxes from past family teachers, a huge ladder, a big yellow boxes labeled...DANGER DO NOT OPEN....and tons of other stuff.

Work up till now

Welcome to our house! When we first moved in I noticed that i could see air all around our apartment door, so i wanted to fix it. I walk down the street (3 stores from my front door) to the hardware store and buy sealer strips that i installed around the door. But i still saw air...Thus i put up another layer. First problem solved!

Next thing i saw while trying to hang up a coat rack was that the wall next to apartment door is either rotten, or not made of drywall. Either way i had to put loads of cement putty in the wall so i could hang up the coat rack. Sarah and i came down stairs the next day and it had fallen again. Second problem unsolved!

Next the Office needed mini blinds. So i pulled out my drill and screwdrivers and it was completed. They are still up so i say problem solved!

I have replaced about 12 light bulbs, i got mini lights for my tool closet in the apartment and the supply closet in the office.

That is the inital repairs i have made to 6020.