Sunday

While Maria lay in bed, still drunk from last night's party, Nate and I got up and did some yard work. Last year we bought an umbrella, but the stand wouldn't support it. It's one of those that hang out away from the base and needs lot's of weight at the base to keep it from falling over. It say's it needs 160lbs on the base. Last year, we threw heavy items from the garage on it, but it never looked right. This year I was determined to try my hand at concrete and making a really heavy base for it. I framed it up and mixed the concrete earlier in the week, made it all around the base and then Maria, Nate and I put our hands in it. However, 2 things were clearly evident. First, I know nothing about concrete and don't have the tools to make the top finished nicely. It was a pretty ugly finish. Second, Not sure why, but the concrete cracked. I think it's how the weight distributes on the base and the amount of concrete I had or something. Maybe I had too much water or it didn't dry thoroughly. Anyway, it looked horrible. So I decided to try and finish the base off in redwood to help hide the concrete.
The above picture is early in the base development. We had moved the base to where we think we want it. Very heavy, added to the cracking. Then Nate joined in and we got it almost finished before we ran out of scrap redwood I had laying around. I'll need to make a trip to the hardware store to get the final pieces and finish it off.


Sun afternoon, met Brad and Shawn for lunch at BJ's and then we played a round of golf at Timber Creek. Not one of my shining moments, shot a 105. I really need to practice, especially before league starts on Wed. Came home, played some Call of Duty: World at War, it was double points weekend, stayed up way to late.