I am running for US Representative in the Fourth Congressional District of Kentucky

No someone hasn't hacked my timber frame blog.  I am running for United States Congress.  If you have followed my blog over the years, or if you just found it this week and spent the last 20 hours of your life reading every post, you have a pretty good idea of who I am.  I believe in freedom, independence, responsibility, teaching, learning, and building things that will last centuries.  No challenge is too big, and no setback is ever permanent.

Our federal government  has a scarcity of leaders who are willing and able to address our nation's problems.  I am not a typical politician, but I know I can help our country.  A 10,000 foot survey of this race (I study everything before I jump!), reveals that I can win it.  I have been raising money, consolidating support, speaking, and meeting people for eight weeks.  The momentum is building.  The election is on May 22nd.

For more information, please visit my campaign page:
 ThomasMassie.com
If you're compelled to help, please donate at:
 https://secure.thomasmassie.com/
Or if you're just curious, like this facebook page:
 ThomasMassieforCongress

I have a great on-topic blog post to add some day about the synthetic stucco we chose that solves the moisture drainage issues inherent with synthetic stucco.  And another about the Eco Gen 6Kw backup generator that is finally wired up and working.  Those will have to wait until at least June.  In the mean time, please follow my campaign on facebook or at my campaign site.  With your help, I could be blogging about solving the problems in Washington DC, next year.  Thank you!

About to start back up on tower stones...

Quick update

This is my first house update in a while, and my first blog entry from the iPad... Since I have a day job now, there's very little time for working on the house. The stone mason has been laying up the stone on the retaining wall for the past few days. The family and I have been collecting the stones for him from the creek, woods, and the little quarry that I abandoned a couple of years ago.  Between yesterday and today, I estimate we collected about 5 tons of squarish stones so the mason can get started on the east retaining wall.  In the very middle of the stone pile below you can see the stones have more of an orange cast...  these are from my old quarry.  The stones with the greenish cast are from the creek. I started out as a purist, so every stone on the house itself is laid just as it came out of the ground (sedimentary stones have grain like wood).  On the retaining wall, I told the mason he could lay the stones sideways.  This makes life easier on him and me.  I have fewer stones to collect, and he can lay up a wall faster.  He is using corrugated wall ties to hold the 4" stone veneer to the 8" concrete block.  He is careful to include enough orange stones so the retaining wall will match the house wall. The block wall is full of rebar and concrete, and is anchored to a "deadman" in the ground just beneath where my son is standing.  This and the curve in the wall should keep the wall from ever leaning or falling over. (and FYI, the iPad stinks for creating formatted blogger content!)

Pimping my Blog and Promoting a Great Man for President!

Ron Paul is going to run for President.  To show the world that you support restoring freedom, liberty, and common sense to our government/country, please consider donating to Ron Paul's May 5th, 2011 Moneybomb!!!  In a single day, on May 5th, we're trying to raise as much money as possible for Ron Paul's campaign.  Check out these links if you want to help:

A link where you can pledge.

The Facebook Event... click "Attend!" please.

Ron's site for contributions on the day of the Moneybomb.

If you're undecided or open minded about this coming election for President of the United States, then please at least watch Ron in the Presidential debate on May 5th!  Go Ron Go!  For those that say he can't win... don't forget that his son, Rand, just won a competitive race for US Senator here in Kentucky!

During the successful campaign for Rand Paul here in Kentucky, I had the opportunity to meet his father, Ron, twice.  This was one such occasion:

...and yes, I will one day again add house updates to my house blog!  I've been so busy with my new job as County Judge Executive in Lewis County that I've had no time to work on the house.  Soon...

Took this one while deer hunting with my boys....

Baffling septic problems... and a baffle realignment

About a year after we moved into our house, our drains quit draining properly.  I opened the cover to our septic tank and discovered that the floating sludge in the tank was blocking the inlet pipe.  I used a mattock and punched the floating sludge down into the septic tank and everything was fine... for about a month.  But the problem kept re-occurring at the most inopportune moments.  The solution was always the same... open the septic tank (blecch), and use the mattock to move the sludge away from the inlet pipe.

Today I decided to fix this once and for all.  I surmised that something was wrong at the septic tank outlet... causing the water and sludge in the tank to raise to a problematic level.  I dug up the outlet cover and peered into the tank.  Yep, something was amiss.  The outlet baffle was cocked upward, keeping the effluent in the tank about 3 to 4 inches higher than it should be.  (see photo above)

before the fix

The pipe from the septic tank outlet to the leach field had settled into the soft ground about 3 inches (while the septic tank stayed put on solid undisturbed ground).  The fix was to cut the old elbow out with a battery powered sawzall, add 3 inches to the vertical portion of the outlet pipe, and reattach a new elbow.

after the fix

This allowed me to reset the horizontal outlet pipe to be truly level.  Everything seems to be working fine now.  Some septic systems have an inlet baffle, and I might someday have to add one of those... but for now, I'm going to see if this works for several years without an inlet baffle.  For what it's worth, you never want to operate a septic tank without an outlet baffle, as this would fill up your leach field with floaters.  Here's what the working outlet baffle looks like now (notice the water line in the septic tank is 3 to 4" lower than before).

I found this web site to be a great septic system debugging resource: http://www.inspectapedia.com/septic/tanktees.htm