Ugh. I hurt today. But more on that later.

This was the first weekend that I was fairly busy. Normally it just involves Teresa and I going out to her mom and dad's and doing some grocery shopping. Saturday morning I finally got a haircut. Last time was 5 months ago just before a friend's wedding. After that, Teresa and I went to Green Bay. I wanted to check out Fleet Farm since I had never been there before. I think that's my new favourite store. They've got everything from clothes to boots to toys to home furnishings to tools. I bought a new insulated flannel jacket for $20. Part of my reason I like that place is that they have big and tall sizes. Teresa went to a bead store and got some beads for Barb's birthday necklace. I know Barb reads this but that's the only idea gave me for her birthday so she's getting that even though it's going to be late. :P We rushed home from that in time to go out on a double date with some guy Teresa works with and her sister. We had supper and went out to a bar in the middle of nowhere to see a band called Kyndred. They were pretty good but the bar sucked. It was a smokey hellhole. There was no ventilation so the smoke just hung in the air. My eyes felt like they had sand in them all night and I smelled like an ashtray when we left. I think there were maybe 6 people dressed up there.

Yesterday is the reason I hurt so much. A friend of mine's brother was given a house and had to move it off the property. The house is a genuine log cabin built in 1897. The walls were all made from trees cut down to length and width. I found how it was built to be very interesting. Most of it was all done by hand with an axe. The corner joints were all dovetails and were cut very accurate. In the middle of the walls, there were 2" handmade dowels to keep the logs from moving in and out. Those holes for the dowels were also drilled by hand and each log ranged from 8-15" in height. All the logs were cut to pretty accurate thicknesses as well by axe. Inside the house, the floors were all hardwood and it was 2 floors. The only bad part was that the wood pieces were all about 12" long. It's really too bad they were such small pieces and so time consuming to save or else we would've saved them for the new location. The wood was beautiful. Some of it was bird's eye maple, some was oak, other pieces were unknown to me but were still VERY nice. I felt bad dumping all of that but I couldn't think of anything to use it for. Anyway, back to the house. Under the hardwood were saw-cut planks. Under those were more logs used for trusses. These just had a flat surface cut on them (again by axe) to nail the planks to and cemented on the ends to the foundation. Running the length of the house under the log trusses were 2 10" x 10" saw-cut logs. The foundation was about 3' thick, made of what's called fieldstone (cement and large rocks together). The guy who is moving the house was removing linoleum from a closet on the second floor when he found that they put down a layer of newspaper before putting it in. He found a page with stock market values from 1955 on it that he's going to compare to today's prices (assuming he finds anything that's still around). Yesterday I found a 1928 wheat penny.

All of the second floor and most of the first floor walls and floor were removed before I was asked to help. Yesterday we removed about 4 layers of log walls, the rest of the hardwood, the floor, the planks and the trusses. This is why I hurt so much today. I sure each of those logs weighed at least 150 lbs each. We had to move them from the house foundation to a pile about 20' away to await transportation. That's next weekend. Joy. Last night I could hardly lift my arms. Today isn't much better but my forearms don't hurt as much as they did yesterday. They felt like they had exploded under the skin a few times yesterday. It seems to mostly be my biceps and shoulders today along with the back of my legs. I also got a dandy blister on my left big toe. I didn't even notice it until I sat down to watch TV last night. I went to bed at 8:30 last night and slept until just after 7 this morning.

In other news, I found a new comic that I like just about as much as Red Meat. It's called Cyanide and Happiness. Some are a bit twisted and not funny but most of get a hearty laugh out of me. Also, Firefox 2.0 is out. Get it and delete all the Internet Explorer icons from your computer.

Also I forgot to mention Barb's birthday present in my last update. She sent me some delicious cookies. I'm not sure what was in them but I pigged out on them just after opening the box. If your birthday or special occasion is coming up, I suggest you get her to make you some instead of getting a gift. You WILL like them.

So that's my update for today. Enjoy.