Let there be Lights….

I installed my new gigahooter and we’re back on the net.

We have electricity! No more dragging extension cords to the candy shop next door. The lights arrived 2 weeks ago, and Phil and the electrician put them up last weekend. The electricity was turned on Tuesday and the lights were turned on today. A took some pictures today and caught John Morey (the electrician) installing an outlet. When the flash went off, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Funny thing about electricians, they’re kind of jumpy.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, all I really wanted to do was barbeque. Speaking of BBQ, I took delivery of my pit last Wednesday. It’s an Ole Hickory Pit made in Cape Girardeau, MO. I made a trip over to Concan, TX a few weeks ago to visit a man who already has one. I was sold after our talk and I feel like I’m cheating a little with this pit. It is wood burning and propane and has a cook and hold feature with revolving racks. It can be mounted inside, outside, or through the wall. Basically, you put in the wood, and the combustion chamber ignites the wood and smokes the meat for whatever time you set. The cook and hold feature is nice because you can set the timer and temperature and walk away. If the wood burns down too low, the propane burner will kick in to maintain whatever temperature you set for the allotted time. After the time is up, the unit will cool down to 160 deg. F and maintain that temperature until you’re ready to pull the succulent, mahogany colored, smoky, juicy meat from the pit.

Aside from that, we put up a lot of trim this week to finish out the walls and karners. Shelli and Luci have also started sealing the floor. The sealer is nice because it gives the floor a richer color and a little sheen. One thing I forgot to mention was the amount of gum chewing the American Legion members must have enjoyed. We must have scrapped 6,220 pieces of gum from the floor. I left one piece in honor of the LGC (Legion Gum Chewers), so when you come and visit Holy Smoke BBQ, you’ll have to see if you can find it.

Oh, also, Emmy found a tarantula out in the driveway. I kept my distance. She did not inherit that ‘fondness for spiders’ gene from me.

New Post…

About time huh? We had some more bad weather come through this week and lightning struck my gigahooter for my internet connection. I have a new one on order and should be here by Tuesday. In the mean time, I’ll make my ramblings short and sweet and then run to the carport with the laptop and pirate the wireless internet from my Brother-in-Law (75 yrds away) without the gigahooter to post.

Basically, we finished staining the floors, Shelli painted some more, we put up a lot of trim, installed some new doors on the front, Trey finished the A/C stands and the units are up, and all of my kitchen equipment arrived.

Here are a lot of pictures. Fell free to ask questions and I’ll get back to you next week, unless I feel like surfing the net from the carport. Not much of a chance without bug spray. Those suckers love to hover around computer screens.

We will not be serving BBQ this Memorial Day weekend, but July 4th looks pretty good.

Porches, Porches everywhere…

Everyone else in town has a porch, why can’t we? Last Saturday we brought Ray Ross and his crew back to install our porch and awning on the front. I’m amazed at how much it improved the curb appeal. Ray is the man in the picture with the long gray ponytail that you expect to see riding up on a Harley. He and his crew do good work and we’ve picked up a few Ray-isms. For instance, you need to mayzure a board before you cut it. When you do mayzure, be exact. Tell me in inches and then how many little marks. Karners are tricky. Tell me what the mayzurement is to the inside karner or the outside karner, but don’t forget if you have some little marks. We borrowed Ray’s framing nail gun a few weeks ago and it started hissing a week later. Trey called him and he diagnosed the problem over the phone. Turns out the gun had blowed a seal. Ray is a good guy and he was kind enough to finish out the stage walls very smooth so that Shelli can paint a murial. There have been many comments on painting ‘Muriel’.

We also have one bathroom complete except for the final decorating touches. There is a lady by the name of Judy who works part time at the candy shop next door who is quite grateful for this completion, as we’ve had to use that bathroom from the inception of this project. She tried to ban Trey from eating at Tony’s Tacos.

We started staining the floors this week and finished up with the cleaning and staining today. There’s a heckuva lot of floor!