House Progress

09. December 2023 · Comments Off on House Progress · Categories: Colorado

I thought as we are about half-way through our house build, I’d share an update.

We moved to Colorado on September 21st, in time to see them break ground on our new house. Since then, we’ve visited the build every day to watch it grow and capture pictures on progress.

It’s really been amazing to see each stage, we are really enjoying watching the house come along, but in truth we just want it finished now so we can move in.

The projected date of completion is end of February, so we are guessing we will be moving in sometime in March (hopefully).

The phases (up to now) have been:

  1. Dig big hole! (the house is two story, but it’s a finished basement and first floor – they call them “patio homes” here).
  2. Pour foundations.
  3. Add forms and pour sides of basement.
  4. Paint basement walls with waterproof “stuff”.
  5. Add plumbing that will be below the floating basement floor (and connect to sewer).
  6. Add framing for floating floor.
  7. Pour floating floor.
  8. Frame the house – this includes the first floor, all walls and the roof.
  9. Install heating and air-conditioning – this is called HVAC and consists of the furnace and all ducting around the house.
  10. Install all plumbing – pipes and waste to all bathrooms and the laundry room.
  11. Wrap house – this involves adding a waterproof “wrap” on all the walls the roof.
  12. Pour cement driveway, front porch and patio.
  13. Install windows and doors.
  14. Add siding – this depends on the type of look you purchased, our options were “Colorado”, “Cottage” and “Farmhouse”. I liked Colorado, but Lisa liked Farmhouse, so we got Farmhouse.
  15. Install all electrical wiring, this includes 110v’s to all lights and outlets, 220v’s to laundry room and kitchen and garage and all lower voltage cabling for internet (yes there was a LOT of that).
  16. Add roof – this was delayed as there is a shortage of roof shingle, but it came in on Monday, they started the roof on Wednesday and finished Friday.

That’s where we are!

The next step is we have a pre-drywall walkthrough (scheduled for Thursday 14th), after that it’s drywall, cabinets, bathrooms, flooring, lighting etc. and of course paint the outside of the house and finish the front with brickwork.

To try and share the progress to date, I created this animated gif. But it’s really big, so give it some time to load (can take a minute to download), if it doesn’t work let me know lol.

Living in Colorado

17. October 2023 · Comments Off on Living in Colorado · Categories: Colorado, General

So we arrived in Colorado nearly a month ago and have moved into rental accommodation near our new house – that is still being built.

I’m going to capture a load of pictures of the house build and will post some images in the coming month, right now it’s basically a hole in the ground. They are currently working on plumbing and will finish the floor next week and start framing.

Bizarrely, we’ve been told that the house will be finished by the end of February – which is great, for us it can’t come fast enough.

For the last month we’ve spent most of our time learning the area, finding out where the shops are, and testing out a load of restaurants for when visitors come and see us.

So far everything has been fantastic, the weather is amazing (hot) and the sky is pretty much blue with sun every day (nothing like Washington State).

Every now and then we get an amazing sunset, and tonight was one of those moments. We jumped int he car and drove a mile to our new house and took the following picture from what will the front of the house, looking out the Study French doors (basically by our front door and porch).

Now you won’t believe me when I say there is no photoshop here, this is what it looked like – I’ve NEVER seen anything like this and wanted to share the view with everyone, hence the posting tonight.

Enjoy…

And look for more postings in the coming months.

A New Adventure

09. August 2023 · Comments Off on A New Adventure · Categories: Colorado, Photography

It’s kind of funny. My last posting on this site was back in 2017 and I led off with “It’s been quite a while since I last posted…”

Well after that posting life got really busy, work was manic, and I pretty much stopped taking pictures.

However, this year two interesting things or life events happened.

  • Firstly, I turned 60 – so I’m officially an old fart! At least that’s what I consider myself.
  • Secondly, I retired.

I’ve worked non-stop since I was 16 years old. Working numerous unskilled jobs in my youth until I joined the British Army at 20 and served 9 years.

After that I fell into software engineering (it was just a hobby until then) and ended up working for Microsoft where I stayed for 22 years!

So, I now find myself with a LOT of free time, for the first time, well ever!

That said we are still super busy. With retirement comes the opportunity to move somewhere new, and leave the Pacific Northwest (Redmond near Seattle) behind. We’ve lived here for 20 years and fancy a change of scenery.

After a number of trips, we’ve finally purchased a house in Colorado in a small city called Erie. The city is 14 square miles and has 30,000 residents, so MUCH smaller that Redmond in Washington.

Right now, we are prepping to sell our Redmond house and plan to move to Colorado in mid-September 2023 – a month away.

Both Lisa and I are SUPER EXCITED. This is a new adventure, and we can’t wait to start. We will miss our Washington friends of course, but the world is a smaller place these days and with James our son still living in Washington we will be back to visit.

One of my goals is to learn everything I can about living in Colorado, we are right between Boulder and Denver and the scenery and views are just spectacular, I’m looking forward to getting the cameras out and sharing our new State.

Our new house is currently being built! It won’t be ready until March so we will move into rented accommodation while we wait, so we have no pictures to share.

However, I did take this picture outside the house, bit of a teaser, I’ll share more when we get there.

Let’s see if my next posting is less than 6 years away

A Year Playing With Harley’s

08. October 2017 · Comments Off on A Year Playing With Harley’s · Categories: Motorcycling

It’s been quite a while since I last posted on the blog, so I felt I should explain what I’ve been up to.

Well firstly, work has been particularly busy, I won’t go into details here as this is a place I don’t discuss work stuff, but for a number of months I was working on a pretty important project that required long days that ate into the weekend. The good news is that’s all over.

The real “distraction”, that’s kept me away from photography and posting pictures, has been my Harley Davidson.

I owned a Harley around 14 years ago and had a couple of accidents. In both cases the fault was my own and Lisa and I had a conversation about how if I continued I’d probably kill myself. So, after a couple of years I sold the bike.

Being totally honest, I did ride the bike way too fast at the time, so it probably saved my life.

Anyway, time went by, and I got older. Last year I was driving my sports car around town and realized I was doing 5 miles below the speed limit. Clearly, something had changed.

So, I decided to try again (turning 50 could ironically have saved my life!)

As I have a thing for Harley’s, I convinced Lisa to let me buy a new one for my 53rd birthday. I went to the dealership and picked the bike I wanted. Everything was looking great. That is until one month later when Harley Davidson announced and released their new engine.

By this time, I had ridden over 2500 miles on my new bike – that was just by hitting the road at weekends and evenings.

But I really liked the idea of that new engine and after a long discussion with Lisa, I traded in my 2 month old motorcycle for another one.

This new bike was a Superior Blue, 2017 Harley-Davidson Street Glide Special with the new Milwaukee Eight Engine.

Now, what you need to know about Harley’s is:

a) They are stupidly expensive
b) You can “accessorize” the bikes
c) Harley Davidson sells the accessories for a ridiculous price

I think you get the idea.

It’s usual for Harley owners to customize their bikes to make them unique, and of course, as a keen Harley owner, that’s what I wanted to do too.

So, what did I want to do?

Well, my Harley came pretty chromed up! Yet the craze at the moment is to black bikes out (or “murder” them out). I’d seen a few bikes that looked like this and they looked super cool. So, I liked the idea of that.

I also wanted to add more power (yes, my 1750cc engine just wasn’t big enough). Oh, and I wanted a better seat, new handlebars and better speakers (my bike has a radio, GPS and connects to my iPhone).

Now I won’t lie, this shopping list was going to cost , but I figured I’d take my time and do it slowly, so it didn’t hurt so much.

Well “the best laid plans of mice and men” are rubbish as we all know, and here I am one year later and everything is done!

I literally have every part I could buy on the bike – much to Lisa’s delight.

The good news is, the bike is done and here’s a pic so you can check it out.

I should point out that I’ve also purchased stretched saddle bags too. They were delivered but damaged , so I sent them back and am getting some new ones painted. They should be here by the end of the year,

I should also explain that while Harley do provide a ton of accessories, they don’t do “EVERYTHING” in black, so I took parts off and got them powder coated black to finish the job.

To keep costs down, I did most of the work myself. I got a load of tools and saved myself thousands in dealership costs. The good news is a I learnt a ton and now know my bike REALLY well.

Just so you know, the last year hasn’t been about customizing a bike. It’s actually been about riding a bike. I’ve travelled over 7,000 miles so far (9,500 if you include my other bike), all on weekend trips getting out and exploring the Pacific North West.

So, it’s done right? Well, kind’a. You see I can’t completely customize my bike and leave it the same color now can I? So, I’m going to get it custom painted. Don’t know when, or what color, but once complete I’ll share the results.

You are probably asking yourself as you read this, ok Tony, you have a nice bike, but WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

That’s harder to explain so I’ll post another blog posting soon to try.

Just for info’s sake, here are pics of my other two Harleys, the first is the pic of my original bike 14 years ago (that was a Road King Custom), and the second was the bike I bought last year that I kept for two months (sorry Lisa), that was a Fat Bob!

Museum of Flight – Again…

27. May 2016 · Comments Off on Museum of Flight – Again… · Categories: General, Photography · Tags:

I know I’ve been to the Museum of Flight a few times, and yes I know that I keep taking the same pictures.  But here’s the thing, I don’t care, I love the place 🙂

Last weekend we went back again as we had family in town and as usually it was fantastic.  Of course many of the plains remain the same and some don’t change position but it’s always to try and get a different perspective or a new shot.

As usual I turned up with a tripod (much to the frustration of other photographers who didn’t bother) and got some great shots.  In total I took 400 pictures (or just over) and out of those ended up with 50 I really like.  I won’t bore you with all 50 here :-), so I just picked 10 to share.

We also went to a new “Space” exhibit and went inside a space shuttle – which is huge!  Unfortunately they don’t let you go in the cabin (which would have been fun) but it’s still pretty impressive just how massive the thing is.  We also went into Air Force One, or at least the version of Air Force One that Kennedy used.  I always think it’s fun to check out where Jacky O took a crap 🙂

The cockpit image image is actually Air Force One and this came out well when you consider I shot this through a perspex screen.

They also have a great bridge that spans the major road by the Museum, that links some of the buildings together, and while on the bridge Abi did one of her cheer moves (called a Scorpion I think) so I shot that and like the image with the bridge disappearing behind her – so at least that’s a new pic.

There was also one pic where I lied on the floor looking straight up – people were walking past looking at me like I’m an idiot (which of course I am), but the image came out great – love that one too.

Another one I liked was a closeup of an Engine.  It’s a pretty old engine full of brass pipes and tubes but again came our really well.

Anyway a really nice few hours out, if you haven’t been I really recommend it.

« Older articles
Newer articles »