Brake replacement 101

After a local company quoted us $150 to do a brake job on our car, we decided to spend $50 and 15 minutes to do it ourselves. Plus, I learned how to replace brake pads. It's so easy, I think I could even do it again -- unsupervised!

See some photos of this project.

Work, work, work

Robin still runs around like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, although not 24/7 like he did when we were at Dry Tortugas. He now has a crew of guys and they are getting a lot done!

See some photos of Robin and crew working on a road project and working (eating) at another special event. (Our friends who were visiting from Dry Tortugas and I tagged along. It was fun.)

Salvaged shipwreck

Under the cover (and safety) of darkness, Robin and an entire cast of characters from contractors to archeaologists to co-workers and volunteers (like me), helped move a 10-ton remnant of a shipwreck from the 1600s.

Robin's day started out at 5:30 a.m. to load the "vessel", a process which took about 12 hours.

To move the 17-foot wide load down a 22-foot wide state highway, they had to secure special permits and sheriff and police escorts. This was a task far safer to do in the middle of the night instead of during the crazed traffic of life on the Outer Banks during high season.

At midnight, we began the 90-mile, 15- to 35-mph journey down NC 12. Despite a police escort of 6+ vehicles and an entourage of paparazzi-like media (all more of a cluster than a help), we made it through a couple of torrential downpours to arrive safely at Hatteras Village around 4 a.m. We made it back to our house around 6 a.m., concluding Robin's 24-hour-plus workday.

See some of my photos.

See some great video and more from a local news station.

The little cabin in the woods

Earlier I blogged about us hitting the motherlode. We've been spending some time out at the winery riding our 4-wheelers and working on food plots. The grapes are really loaded right now. Harvest time is in a few weeks. I hope to document that and the bottling process (if it doesn't coincide with our Alaska trip). We're planning to spend a weekend in the little cabin soon ... maybe for our 3-year anniversary!

See some photos of the vineyards and more.

Spamtastic

While we were at my mom's, we managed to squeeze in a tour of the Spam Museum in Austin, MN. What a great place! Who knew they make 12 kinds of Spam? They even had Spam trivia, pack a Spam, a movie and all sorts of stuff. With more than 16,000 square feet of Spamtasticness, you could spend hours there!

We bought a can of turkey Spam (thinking it was healthier than regular Spam) and I tried it for the first time. It was better than I thought.

See some pictures from our Iowa trip and some of the other projects we've been working on, like building a boardwalk (I used a nail gun for the first time), reroofing our shed (no Robin, you can't call that stuff Black Mamie anymore), putting in food plots for deer (don't even ask) and more.

How to skin a bluefin tuna

First, you need to be strong. These things are big. Their skin is really, really tough and you have to strip it off, muscle it back and have someone hold onto the fish while you do so. They don't carry these things, either ... they tie a rope on it and drag it around!

Check out some photos of how to clean a bluefin tuna.

Turtle porn

Robin and I took the Suzy Q out fishing Sunday. Wow, what a beautiful day. It was calm and beautiful with blue skies and blue water. Robin caught a dolphin ... not the bottle-nosed kind but the mahi-mahi / dorado kind.

We saw some pretty incredible sea life, too. At one point, we spotted all kinds of splashing going on. Now, you wouldn't expect to see something like that in the middle of nothing 10-15 miles offshore. We took the boat over to investigate. It was a pod of 50+ bottle-nosed dolphin feeding. What a neat sight.

When we were heading back in, we saw something really huge in the water. We took the boat over to investigate. It was a gigantic sea turtle, probably about 8 feet long.

Still on our way back in (it takes about an hour to go that distance in our boat), we saw something else weird in the water with lots of splashing and commotion. Of course, we had to check it out. Right there, in the middle of the whole wide ocean, a couple of sea turtles were gettin' it on. I am sure they were thinking, man, there's a whole ocean out there and you have to come over here?!?

It was pretty cool to see ... even better than last year's shark porn because I wasn't in the water and scared.

See the photos of turtle porn.