Interesting couple of days

Good morning,

I am writing from the desk at the Lakeshore Motel, with the view of Ice Lake through the window in front of me, in Iron River, Michigan. The lake is dead calm and it is just becoming light. The lake is clear of ice now, except for a small part on the other side of the lake near shore. Some of the lakes still have ice on them here, but it pretty much is the slush ice and will not last much longer. I have no idea what the temperature is, but it is not supposed to be too cool today, something in the 50's I think. I can tell you that the wind speed it 0 mph from no direction. The sky is fairly clear and it too is just waiting for sol to appear for another day. It is so pretty out the window, that it really is hard to look at what I am doing, or write this for that matter. My minds I tries to look at the view as would have been when white man first saw it. Then I bet it really was pretty!

We arrived at the motel about 4:30 P.M. earlier than I thought. Checked into the motel and after unloading, went uptown to eat a "Alice’s Restaurant" for supper. Since the Happy Italian Restaurant is no more, we are on the look for a replacement. Alice’s is also an Italian restaurant. It was closed, just as it was the last time we were here a few weeks ago. Dang! So we set out to look for another, and it seemed those which had interested us in the past were all closed for the day. We did find a mom-and-pop version of a fast food joint. We went inside but it was not to or wishes. Ended up at Mr. T’s, just down the road from here. The food is good there, but we wanted to try something different.

This morning we have scheduled a meeting with the realtor, Jeff, about 10:00-ish so will see what happens from there. Boy the emails sure are a useful tool. Set up our stay here at the motel as well as meeting Jeff. Jeff and I have corresponded often since meeting him last July. Email and the web are impressive tools. Always think of my Dad and how I think he would have enjoyed computers and what they can do.

The meeting with the Bishop and pastor went very well and longer than scheduled, but I expected that. I think it may produce fruit in the future. At least I hope it does. Some of the things that pastor has been saying and doing have really put folks off. He has been too aggressive too many times. Folks want to be led more than pushed. Myself included. Even though several others had also told him of the problems, he really didn’t hear/understand them. I think he heard the message yesterday. Hopefully loud and clear. I think he genuinely had no idea of what was happening within the Family of Grace. Jim was very gracious in the handling of the situation, as I expected him to be. I like Jim very much and have worked with him in various situations in the past. I really leaned on his friendship and position to get this meeting. I hope and pray it works.

While I was in Jim’s office, Margriet was in the Recourse Center at Synod office, trying to get something together for our friend Dan, who is in prison, as a Bible study of some such for him. His first request in a letter sometime ago was to be involved with LSM. After doing much thought and picking of other folk’s brains, we really didn’t come up with a way to do that. The other alternatives are to get him a workbook type study from a publisher for him to do, or write something for him to complete as a correspondence type of course. I think it will end up as something of a combination of the correspondence and written "class" for him. Another task I see on the horizon. Margriet did a lot of looking and reading while there and I think really enjoyed herself. As always - give her a good book and a chair, she’s happy as a clam.

Leaving a restaurant after eating lunch yesterday, I banged my left knee into the car parked next to ours. It was a pretty hard lick too. I think the knee hit the tire and my jeans pretty much stayed in one place while my knee slide on the denim. There is a large "rug burn" on the knee cap and a bruise. It was an adventure sleeping, trying to keep the sheet off of the keen cap. It is not something serious, but sure is irritating.

This has really taken a long time to write this morning as I have been watching a couple of ducks swim by, about 10' from the shoreline. I can’t remember what "brand" of duck it is, but do recognize it. Will have to do some looking when I get home again.

Time to get a-going.

April 19, 2007 (7:50am)
41º F, Sunny, N wind 2 mph.

Good morning,

We are back again. Got home about 7:30 P.M. last night. A very long and tiring day. The upshot of the day - we made an offer on the house south of Crystal Falls, Michigan about 3 miles on the end of a dead end road! The house is located in Mastodon Township. I told the realtor that a couple of dinosaurs were moving in! Margriet got a bit grumpy at that, but the realtor and his staff had a chuckle.

The process was rather tedious. For some reason, Jeff forgot we were coming. He left his home with the word that he was heading to his office, but wasn’t there. The gals in the office kept trying to get him on his cell phone, but it was turned off and forwarded the calls to his messages to voice mail, but he didn’t pick them up. We were to meet him at 10:00-ish but when it was after 11:00 A.M., one of the gals suggested she run out with us and Jeff could come later. Jeff’s "noble assistant" took us out last time, so she knew the routine. The gal from the agency listing the property, Punner (she had her given name, Julie, legally changed since everyone called her that), was out of town. Eventually we did make it out there and took a detailed look around since last time we kind of skimmed the surface..

What we found was more work needed than we saw the first time. Not that it was unexpected really. The main house is pretty much set up for extending warmer weather living, not full time year-round living. There are some short comings in heat, insulation, and plumbing needing attention. Of course we will find more, hopefully not many, more things needing attention as we get into the project. The most important part is that the main house was built starting in 2004 so materials are not old and needing major attention - yet. The guest house, was the main house for some years until the apparently decided to build the main house as a permanent home, but the man died too soon for that to happen. The garage/shop building also was built in 1999 I think. It does need some attention also, but not something that is impossible.

The house has a 200 amp service, the shop has 100 amp service, and I think the guest house also has a 100 amp service to it. The wiring seems to be solid, but crudely installed, as is the plumbing. Both the main house and the guest house have their own septic systems. There appear to be two wells, right next to each other, one is the normal 6" casing and the other a 10" casing. All three buildings are set up for wood heat, the shop having an 8" well casing for a chimney! The wood, hot-air, furnace in the basement is not at all adequate. That will be one of the first changes made - to wood fired hot water, with an outdoor boiler. The exterior of the house has not had any finish applied, so that will probably be the very fist thing on the 2-DO list. Don’t like no rotten logs!

So today I work on some computer problems, WordPerfect is not totally right. (Had to restart this a couple of times, so is much later now.) Causing some problems with other programs too. At least you have an idea of what we are doing in our continuing adventure. I will include pictures as soon as I can get the edited a bit.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris ><>