In 2001, we lifted our house...




...built a new basement and reset the house, with a 16x16 foot recessed walkout...



...that overlooked a draw to the north.

Dug down with an excavator just inside the front wall of the walkout and put in a 100 gal plastic tank, filled with 4" clean stone (french drain) and laid a 6" plastic tile from the bottom of that all the way to the ditch to the north (120 feet or so). This, coupled with the 150 tons of clean stone under the foundation allows gravity to drain ground water to daylight...good plan, huh?

I was thinking pretty far in advance...but not far enough, as we built a pond in that ditch/draw in '05. While I moped around griping about the lack of rain for 18 months...the actual filling of the pond crept up on me and now, with the really warm temps after WAY much snow, the pond is within 6" of full pool (YAY!).



It suddenly dawned on me that I'd never confirmed the height of the emergency spillway in relation to the slab of my house! It SEEMED there would be plenty of fall...but I never actually CHECKED it.

Grabbed a buddy's laser transit and stick last night...my heart can resume beating because it's 42" from the top of the emergency overflow to the bottom of my slab...

When I mentioned this issue to the wife, I thought she was going to drive right over me with her car. By that time, though, I'd already confirmed what I KNEW was the case...the pond would NEVER impact our house (Thank Gawd!)

Didn't sleep much the night before, as they were predicting 2-3" of rain...was hoping I wouldn't wake up with a couple inches of water in our bedroom.

She's iced in, but I might try to get some pics tonight, showing near full pool.

(BTW...can't use Snapfish anymore...as copying the URL doesn't seem to work anymore. Need the IMG text from PhotoBucket.)

Whew! What a relief!

Matt, since you and I are the only ones allowed on the forum can I come over for bratwurst and Diet Dew?

Boy, you almost blew it. Now, your wife knows that you don't know what you are doing.

BTW, neat place.

It looks like you made a big improvement with the house, Matt.

Two nights ago I dreamed that I raised the dam on a pond and it flooded my septic system. I think pondmeistering is giving me a new class of anxiety nightmare to add to "being late to Math class."

Bruce, you back on the Diet Dew?

Well, Theo, she never ASSUMES I know exactly what I'm doing at any given moment. However, she KNOWS I'll make it right in the end...whatever it takes. She may not get (or even want) all the details and sometimes I'm glad for that.

Bruce: You're welcome any time and I'm all in for the Brats...you're on your own for the DMD. You could switch to Caffiene Free DMD...and then I'd really have to ask "what's the point?"

I'll stick with the high-test.

You're right. I just realized that I haven't had any DMD for 18 months.

JD, on the other hand........

Did your subconscious get a can out of the fridge? Did you manage to get your finger out of the pop-top ring before you opened it?

More importantly, have your teeth stopped glowing green in the dark yet?

Speaking of things that glow in the dark, has anyone seen this news story???

News story about green glowing pigs, really, i'm not kidding, the pigs glow grean, i wouldn't make up a story like that.

Half-way to "Green Eggs and Ham"

"...a new class of anxiety nightmare to add to "being late to Math class."

I always had the dream that I couldn't remember the dang combination to my locker, and would subsequently be faced with missing the bus due to not being able to get into my locker.

Then, later in life, I would dream that I hadn't been to a certain class (that I was enrolled in) all year long only because I somehow forgot that I was enrolled in it, and it was a day from the end of the year. Wait....was that a dream??

Then there was the dream about not being able to remember my schedule.

Really though, I had a normal high school and college life.

Bruce, I'm really glad to hear you're off the DMD. Stuff will mess you up bad, Man.

BTW, Matt, that looks like a paradise.

I really freaking out here, because I've had that exact dream a hundred times. And I mean EXACT.

What does it mean? Can anybody interpret such things?

You guys are really messed up. You should really try flying. It's much cooler, except the desperate fear of hitting the hi tension wires.

See, I could only ever really fly just above the rooftops of residential, single family dwellings, but no higher than that.

In have 2 substantial problems when I fly. The first is losing too much altitude during residential rooftop flying and ultimately having to land in the street in front of the throngs looking on in awe. The second was when I got a breathtaking updraft and went aloft well above the power lines. Getting thru them wasn't as much an issue as keeping out of the lines in my flight path as I ventured into areas that I was unfamiliar with. Hi tension lines just plain scared the beJesus outta me...but I wouldn't stop.

My main problem with flying is that my arms get tired.

---------------------------------------------------

Bruce, school anxiety dreams in all their varieties (late for class, can't find class, can't remember locker combo, can't find locker, can't find homework, don't have homework done, haven't been in class all year, and/or finding oneself in school disrobed from the waist down) are THE most common anxiety dream experienced in all Western societies (maybe even Midwestern societies). I believe it's because school is what stresses ALL of us before we develop the anti-stress middle-aged adult defense of not giving a flying fig.

In prehistoric hunter-gatherer cultures, the most common anxiety dream was being eaten by a leopard (or being eaten by a leopard after finding yourself disrobed from the waist down), as this was the most common stress point for individuals too young to have attained the anti-stress defense of already having been eaten by a leopard.

Same here. I used to have to lean forward, in the general direction of where I wanted to fly. Then it would start with my toes kind of brushing the ground until WHOOSH, I'd just start soaring--but never with any great altitude. Biggest problem was that when I'd get to the finish of the cross-country course and I'd lose altitude and then hit the ground just before I'd win the race. Then it was like my feet were mired in peanut butter.

SO frustrating!

I'm an expert in soaring. My only problem is landing in a throng of people wearing only my underwear.

Throng underwear?

Nope, I'm not Pinocchio in Shrek2.

I would agree with your theory Theo except that Bruce stated it was EXACTLY the same dream. If it were merely a similar dream then I think your stress theory holds up. But since it is EXACTLY the same dream there can only be one explanation......

Sunil and Bruce are twins.

Having shared a room with them for the weekend, I CAN report that they certainly have some similarities one would not notice over the internet.

...personification of the thread title

My gawd...did this thread go some WEIRD places, or what? Hate to think where it might have gone had it started off on a strange topic...

I never did have any of those odd high school or college dreams. I guess high school and college weren't that stressful to me.

I actually did miss every 7:50 AM English class for a whole semester. I went to the final exam and wrote a tongue-in-cheek commentary on why a person should never sign up for any class that starts at 7:50 AM.

The professor called me to his office and I figured, "I am going down hard". I walked into his office and he broke out laughing so hard I feared for his life. When he calmed down he said he gave an "A" on my final exam as it, "made his semester". My final grade for that English class was a "C".

That same semester, I didn't go to my Art Appreciation class because it was at the same time as "Star Trek" and the "Dating Game" were on TV. There was an "outside assignment" that was to do one art work that would make up half your grade for the semester. I welded various pieces of curved exhaust pipe into a "sculpture" and painted it gold. I got an "A" for the "sculpture" and a "C" for the semester.

After these two experiences I was much more careful about scheduling classes.

Where was the stress!