Merry Christmas 2014

The Cottings have been blessed for the year of 2014.

Mia has changed from cute little baby to a happy little girl. We’ve been very blessed at how healthy and happy she has been. Wendy took her to city parks most days during the summer. She’s shy in new places, but after she gets warmed up to it, she goes up and down the slides all by herself. She has come to enjoy being outside. Guess that shouldn’t be a surprise seeing as her parents met as backpacking guides.

Mia has a favorite stuffed animal black bear who she obviously named, Bear. She talks fairly well and has a surprising understanding of what we tell her. Mia enjoys having her grandparents (Jason’ parents) over most nights while Wendy is at work to help Jason. We are grateful that she gets to spend time with them.

Earlier this year, we learned that we will be having #2. His name will be Cody Wyatt. He is due sometime in mid-February of 2015. We are excited to be having a boy, and Jason is glad to see the gender ratio tip back towards the middle.

Wendy has been doing well with her pregnancy. Other than the annoyances that come with being pregnant, she and Cody have been healthy so far. For that we are very thankful. Wendy is still working for KidsCare as an after hours urgent care pediatrician. She is grateful that her job allows her to spend all day with Mia, and then go to work in the evening. She has been active with a Mom’s Bible Study group that meets every two weeks at our church and meet ups with her friends during the week.

Jason, despite his obtaining the necessary Firefighter and Paramedic certifications, has continued to strike out at fire department hirings. He will continue to apply as departments open up hiring again in the future, but frustration with the hiring process is mounting. In the mean time, Jason has decided to embrace being a stay at home Dad and the blessings that come with it. He gets to spend time with Mia and Wendy every day, something many husbands don’t get the opportunity to do. He sees his role as being the job God wants him in for now, and if God wants him in a firefighting position, it will happen.

Jason spent most of the summer building a raised playhouse for Mia. It has been a dream of his to build something like this for his kids. He has also been finding other projects to do around the house. The latest project is building an ~ 80 ft long stream in the backyard with a waterfall. We couldn’t afford to buy a house in the mountains next to a stream, so he’s bring a stream to the back yard. The biggest part of construction on it has been finished with more work to come once the weather warms up next spring. It makes for a nice soothing noise for sitting on the back porch that Jason helped build on the back of our house this summer. The old deck was rotting. The new deck is now covered and has built in benches. Jason’s backyard transformation project really hit its stride this year.

Our family got to go on a couple of short vacations this year. Mia got to experience camping for the first time when we went to the Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah. She enjoyed playing in the dirt in the campsite the most. We also did some short hikes with Mia riding in the backpack. We also went to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming later in the year. These two backpackers have had to transition from their hardcore backpacking beliefs to a more cushioned and more gear intensive car camping experience. Our campsite has begun to look like an REI catalog, but it was a worthy expenditure of our REI dividends.

We hope this finds you and your family doing well and wish you a Merry Christmas!

Jason, Wendy, & Mia

Cotting Christmas 2014

 

Planning out my computer network

I’m going to be making some changes to the computers here at home. As a Batman fan and a nerd, I have decided to go with a Batman them for the names on the network. Below is what I’m thinking about so far:

  • Wayne Manor – private wireless network
  • Arkham Asylum – guest wireless network
  • Oracle – new Ubuntu server
  • Batman – Pfsense firewall/router
  • Alfred – new desktop computer
  • ? – old laptop computer

Cotting Creek

This is what has been keeping me busy this fall. I began my construction of a water feature in the backyard. I won’t be able to finish it until next year when the weather warms up again, but I got this much of it done before the cold winter weather set in. I’ll write more when it’s done.

Alphabet and Number Blocks

Mia has begun to talk more and identify objects in books and in the world. I figured if she can say the word for a picture of a cow, she should be able to see a picture of a letter and make the sound for it. She has some books and things that have letters and stuff for learning, but none that I was satisfied with. For example, one book has all the letters of the alphabet with a picture and word that uses that letter. However, the letter it shows is just the lower case. I felt like she was missing out on something by not also having the upper case letter there. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and make something that I wanted her to have for learning.

When I had made the playhouse for Mia, I put in a wooden floor using 1×4’s. They were a little bit too long to fit, so I had to cut off a little bit on each board. I was left with a pile of squarish 1×4’s. I used these to make the blocks. I went to the local craft store to buy a set of letters and numbers. Then I went to the local home improvement store to buy the spray paint for the colors I wanted for the blocks. I used a hot glue gun to attach the letters to the blocks. I planned this out by making a table so that I got a good mix of colors.

Color table for blocksAlphabet and Number Blocks

Christmas Stocking Hanger

This is Mia’s second Christmas, and we bought her a stocking this year. We have two fireplaces in our home. The one upstairs, where our Christmas tree is, does not have a mantel to hang our Christmas stockings on. Wendy found a photo on Pinterest of an idea someone had made for hanging their stockings. I told her I could build something like that, so we went off to the local home improvement store to get the supplies I needed for this. Supplies list:

  • Fence boards
  • 1×4
  • screws
  • stain
  • hooks

It was pretty simple to build. The stain we chose didn’t turn out exactly like I had wanted. When I applied the stain, I intentionally applied it very poorly as the goal was to have a distressed look. The color looked more green than I had expected, so I took some brown and white spray paint and lightly applied it to break up the color. Below is the finished product:

Christmas stocking display

Midterm Voting 2014

Begin cynic rant.

What I’m going to say is going to make some people angry. That’s okay because I have to read a lot of other things that people say that get in my craw. First Amendment right (that’s free speech for those that don’t know).

Today, Americans get to participate in the illusion of choice. Choice that voting for one person over the other is going to allow their belief of what they want their government to look like will be represented by a politician. Afterall, we live in a constitutional republic right? Unfortunately, this choice isn’t like in The Matrix where Neo chooses between the red pill or the blue pill. Our choice doesn’t have dramatically different outcomes. Its more like the choice between a red M&M and a blue M&M. You get the option of getting to eat a piece of candy that has the prettier coating to it that you like. Once you eat it, there is no difference.

Unbelievable amounts of money get spent by candidates to get elected (or not) for a position that, according to the associated government salary, doesn’t make that kind of expenditure worth it. I am not convinced that most of those campaign donations come from average middle class working people. The reason people donate to a campaign is because they want their interests represented. Once a politician is in office, their campaign backers guide their decision making. This is so donors will give financially to their campaign again next time, along with other financial benefits that are hidden from the public eye. Seeing as how our country doesn’t have term limits, politicians make a career out of a position that was intended to be held by someone that represents their average constituent and then returns to normal life.

So you can get out there and cheer for your red or blue or green or what ever color team your person plays for. Regardless, who gets voted into office is going to be bought off to be represented by someone who has more money than that average politician’s constituent.

It always comes down to money. The ones with alot of it, get to have more of a say than those with little of it or none of it.

End cynical rant.

This is the first election where I didn’t see a single campaign ad or get a single recorded phone call asking me to vote one way or the other. Flyers in the mail got filtered directly into the recycle bin where they were never looked at or brought inside. Not watching live broadcast TV prevents marketers from convincing me to follow their ad. I didn’t sign up for a political party. I don’t sign up for free give aways or give customer loyalty programs my phone number. In the end, the only annoyance of the election I had to put up with were the ridiculous political signs all over town. I don’t read them, but I acknowledge that there is something ugly over there.

When it came time to fill out my mail in ballot, it was the first time I had seen most of the names on the ballot. Our state has a website set up for candidates to put up some information so voters can educate themselves before making a decision.

Some observations:

  • The candidates that don’t bother to submit any information for would be voters to find out about them get zero consideration from me. If you can’t get your S together enough to do something as simple as a simple bio and a link to your website, you have no business presiding over me in government.
  • The candidates that have a link in their profile to a website that no longer exists also get zero consideration
  • The candidates that only have a Facebook profile without a website get less consideration. Lazy.
  • The one candidate that claimed to have worked in IT but had a website that only loaded a blank page, got zero consideration.
  • The candidate that had a broken link to his website and only had a Facebook page which contained rants about the evils of vaccines, got zero consideration.
  • The candidate running for the Democratic party that did his best to hide his association with the Democratic party and only offered hope and change type promises on his website without details of how said dreams were going to happen, did not get my vote. He also claimed that as a state representative he was going to increase wages for firefighters and police officers. Last I checked those folks are employed by municipalities, not the state. Good luck having say over that. And by the way, how are you going to pay for that if you did get that changed?

All that being said, I still believe in an America where we are awesome. Better than any other country. And if you don’t like that, go pound sand. While our rights are being taken away like a lobster being cooked in hot water, there’s still no other place I would like to live. Except maybe the America of the past.

Building the playhouse

I wrote an earlier post about preparing to build a playhouse for my kids. This summer, I began construction on it.

During the cooler months earlier this year, I finished making some designs to use for planning and building. I already had an idea of what I wanted. I did some searching around on the Internet to find other ideas to get what I wanted. Since I live in an area that gets a fair amount of snow, I needed to make sure the roof was going to be able to hold a snow load. The roof pitch I found people suggesting for snow was a 3:12 pitch. I used this to help with the dimensions based on the area I had prepared in the backyard. I also looked up in our city’s building codes to make sure I wouldn’t need a building permit. According to their website, anything under 200 sq feet would not need a building permit. I had to make sure the design would fit within that number.

I took two semesters of an AutoCAD class when I was in college. I was able to find a free and open source computer aided design program (LibreCAD) so I could draw some building plans(treehouse-plans-PDF). Once I had some different views drawn, I was able to come up with a list of lumber that I would need. Since it was a decent amount of lumber that I was getting all at once, I had the lumber yard deliver it to my house. My little Nissan Versa couldn’t carry much at one time.

I called the utility location service to come an mark the underground utilities. It was not an encouraging layout as it had things running directly under where I planned to put the playhouse. I went ahead and layed out where I wanted my poles to go and began digging. As I got deeper, I used a hand trowel as I didn’t want to cut into something I would regret. I did not have a lot of experience with laying things out for digging and keeping them square. This showed once I got further along in the construction as not everything lined up as I had expected. If I were to do this again, I would have figured out how to do more to make sure my poles were measured more accurately.

I placed rebar in the ground to measure out where I wanted my poles. PVC pipe from previous irrigation projects was used to cover the sharp tips of the rebar.
I placed rebar in the ground to measure out where I wanted my poles. PVC pipe from previous irrigation projects was used to cover the sharp tips of the rebar.
Holes for poles have been dug
Holes for poles have been dug

By the time I had the lumber delivered, I had the holes dug for the poles. I decided to go with a two foot depth. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of how to place a pole without it being buried in the ground. Now I know about a bracket you can buy that lets you pour concrete and set the bracket in the concrete. The bracket sits on top of the poured concrete so that you can place the pole in the bracket to be secured. This gives the added advantage of keeping the pole out of the ground, preventing rotting of the wood. Since I wasn’t aware of this method, the poles I used are pressure treated 6×6’s. I bought some water proofing stuff used for the exterior walls for basements. It was a runny, black, tar type substance. I painted it on the bottom of the poles where they would be underground with the hope that this would keep the water out of the wood.

The bulk of the building materials I had delivered in my driveway. This was followed by countless trips to the local home improvement store.
The bulk of the building materials I had delivered in my driveway. This was followed by countless trips to the local home improvement store.

Since I wasn’t very good at squaring up the poles, I used the lumber I was going to be attaching to the poles to help with getting things square before I poured the concrete into the holes.

This was as I was preparing to pour concrete in the holes for the poles.
This was as I was preparing to pour concrete in the holes for the poles.

The angle iron shown on the front two poles was acquired by my father when he was working on a construction site. They were part of a tower for an antenna that was being dismantled. They are 1/4 in galvanized angle iron. These two pieces were sunk into the ground. Holes were drilled into the angle iron so I could attach them to the wooden poles with carriage bolts. I chose to do this as this part of the treehouse had the potential to bear a shock load. The wall here in the future is going to be a climbing wall with the potential of having a zipline attached to this side as well. Probably over engineered, but I was OK with it.

After the poles were set, I began construction of the frame for the platform base. I used pressure treated 2×8’s with the floor joists on 16 in centers. I used lag screws to attach the frame to the poles and joist hangers to secure the joists to the outer frame. I then placed more lag screws on the ends of the joists to further secure them to the frame.

Here the platform frame has been put together. The lag screws have not been put in on the end of the joists yet.
Here the platform frame has been put together. The lag screws have not been put in on the end of the joists yet.

Continue reading “Building the playhouse”

Gentiles

While Wendy and I were visiting in St. George Utah earlier, we stopped at a museum that is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If you don’t live in Utah, you don’t understand the cultural significance that the church, as they like to call themselves, has on living here. The missionaries that were running the tour were of course proselytizing during the tour. We got to talking about how we go to a Baptist church, Risen Life Church. It came up that there were no LDS families on our street. That is where we learned a new term. We live on what the LDS church calls Gentile Street. According to this missionary, there’s one in every ward. Wards are small neighborhoods around the ward/church building they gather at. Anyway, we thought it was a funny term.

Apparently, I’m liberal

My friends who are aware of my political leanings will find this funny. I made a comment today on a conservative Facebook page, The Weekly Standard, about an article referring to Ebola. I guess when you make any comments that are against the Republican talking points, you are to be labeled as the enemy. I was called an “Obama stooge”. I can’t imagine any point in my life when someone would have mistaken me for that role. It’s crazy. When I’m around conservative people, it seems like I’m too liberal. When I’m around liberal people, it seems like I’m too conservative. I guess this is what I get for not cheering on one of the two teams. Some people….