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wonderaz
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Ahhhh wonder's first blog.
I blame Simon.
This is a house blog. Since I do get asked on occasion about it, I should blog it.
History
I lived in Sedona for almost 30 years. Nice town, picturesque and all that. Got real ritzy as towns like it do. Aspen, Arizona I call it now.
I have owned a couple of houses in Sedona. The first was a 2 bedroom stucco in the middle of town that I paid the princely sum of $48,000 for... it's worth around $350,000 now. I sold it way back when for $56,000.
When prices started climbing everywhere, I was looking around for someplace interesting but before I knew it, the prices went through the roof. Worse here than most other places. I realized I wasn't going to find anyplace in Sedona that I could afford and like so I headed south.
I put a few places in escrow, good deals but not exactly what I thought I wanted.
Then I found this place.
It's in Cornville, the next town south of Sedona and just downstream on Oak Creek, the creek that actually makes Sedona so spectacular, Oak Creek Canyon and all.
Oak creek meanders through Cornville and at one point makes a long horseshoe. A road called South Aspaas Road (a dutch name I was told, just like Sedona) runs down to the end of that horseshoe. Down there was 20 acres that used for pasture for horses belonging to Georgia Frontier, now deceased, the owner of the LA Rams. A buddy of mine bought the property when she was through with it and divided it up. I had first shot and bought 3 acres at the bottom left of the creek's curve, right across from Little Sugarloaf, a small steep hill that is State Trust land. No one will be building across the creek from me, the last people that did, did so over 800 years ago. Their ruins are on top of the hill and it is protected by state and fed. Yay for me. If you Google it, the map shows a street at the bottom called Oak Bend Dr. That doesn't exist and my property is to the east of it.
My land is 5 sided with the back line to the middle of Oak Creek. We have the best beach for a long ways either direction. Not big but a real beach, sandy with easy egress to the water. Most of the creek around here has a drop off bank. if we walk across the 10 acres in from of our property, we can get in the creek and tube around to the beach, about a 20-25 minute float. Mostly lazy with a few small rapids and beautiful. Sometimes the Great Blue Herons will let you float right past them without flying off.
The land is alluvial silt. Fairly flat and mostly 25+ feet above the creek. This stuff is a nightmare to drive on, worse than sand for bogging down in.
Mesquite trees dominate with a few flowering desert willows along the upper bank of the creek. I wish we had some big cottonwoods but we don't. Grasses grow where the mesquites are thin.
Big Al and I designed the house. The first house was about 3800sf plus garage. Very nice place. Then we decided to also build a smaller house that we could rent out. Theeeeen we decided to design the smaller house first, build it and live in it while we built the big house. And Theeeeen we decided that the big house was ridiculous and incredibly unaffordable and that we would be smart and build the smaller house and be happy in it and forget the bigger house.
The house is 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bath, separate kitchen and a combo living/dining room.
None of the bedrooms are big, the master bedroom is only 12.5x16 and the other two are close to that size. We didn't want a big bedroom and the closets are large enough to hold all our clothes so we won't be cluttering the bedroom up with chests of drawers and such.
The master bath has a jacuzzi tub and separate shower and you walk between the walk in closets to get to it.
Another full bath off the living room and a half bath in Little Al's room. There was a shower in her's but I eliminated it to give more room in the kitchen. She is going off to college anyway.
The laundry is off of Little Al's room, basically in the middle of the house. I hate them in the kitchen or garage.
The kitchen is not too large, big enough for the chef though. Large walk in pantry was a must. Big window over the big 3 compartment cast iron sink, custom made (by me) curly maple cabinets with orange marbled resin flagstone counter tops (by me). The counters will also be 3 inches taller than normal.
Living/dining area is around 28x16. Wood burning stove centered between the two on the kitchen side and a foyer off the living room. We already have the dining room table, Alligator Juniper, built it when I had the furniture business.
The front door is going to be trick. Alligator Juniper door, 7 foot by 4 foot at the widest point, hinged top and bottom because the sides of the door are curved/freeform. Reverse jambs in Juniper trunks on either side with the bowed out door hinging in on opposite sides of the hinge point. The natural hole in the center of the door will have a fused glass insert.
I'm already working on that. The wood for the door is cured and slabbed and we start shaping and pinning it this next week.
Floors are marbled slab concrete. Pex lines will be run to heat the floors in the winter. I just got the manifold for that. I also have two 4x8 solar water panels for heating the floor. Only the living, dining kitchen and baths will be heated. The bedrooms will start out marbled slab but will eventually get carpeted. There is no sense in heating a floor that is getting carpeting.
The house is being built out of....
That's a whole nother blog methinks.
3-23-09
Rastra, that's the stuff the house is built with. It's 20% concrete and 80% Styrofoam. the blocks are 15"x10"x120" You can see them best by clicking on this http://www.rastra.com
The Rastra units are stacked and glued with some fierce expanding glue they supply. Rebar is run horizontally and vertically and when grouted, it's one strong wall. Huge R value too.
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Ahhhh yes... it seems like it was only 84 years ago that the first official car bomb went off.
Wait, it was 84 years ago. 40 dead and close to 300 injured right in good ole NYC.
It seems like that city has been blown up a lot.
So what do I suggest we all do about it?
Blow up Iran? no
Invade Belize? well yes but for other reasons
Elect a Democrat? NO!!
What I suggest is to leave the City. If you live there, move. If you don't live there, don't move there. This is the best way to defeat the terrorists.
Please don't move to Arizona though, move to Kansas.
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To be politically correct, we will omit any possibly offensive words from the news.
A very special bit of news for this ********* season is that our favorite fucking freak, Jacko, has become a Muslim (it's politically correct to say Muslim) and has joined his almost as freaky brother, Germaine, as a member of the Nation of Islam (it's politically correct to say Islam) or whatever Farrakam's boy's club is called.
I had no idea that white guys could join that group.
Did you know that the average human supposedly shits about 2 feet worth every day?
Can you save that up?
Like, every Saturday blow out 14 feet?
Usama Bin Ladin is still missing. Why has no one put his face on a milk carton?
Tony Blair has become rather 9-10 so the British are digging Diana up.
Did Dodi know that she liked bacon?
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*John Muhammed is found guilty!!! duh
*Bush likes protesters!!! ummm
*Souffle contest at the Asylum!! (everybody pm melon)
*Points are back but they are now called something different!!
*Asylum resturant now open in Jerome, AZ!!! ferreals
*Blair may become new Sec of State when Bush gets a second term!
*Rush appeals to listeners for understanding and a hairpiece!
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Our dear Dingle will be institutionalized later on today. We will post a report on his status once he has sobered up enough to be tranquilized and the doctors can assess his mental state. Film at 10.
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Tomorrow is the day that 225 years ago, give or take one or two, that those silly colonists sent a little note to the British Royal Family that they were to basically piss off. The Brits, humorless lot that they are, replied by shelling the hell out of a few towns and then, to top it all off, sent a bunch of guys dressed up in scary red coats (with tails) and big assed ole hats to march up and down the roads so the silly colonists would use up a bunch of their ammo shooting the shit out of them from the trees and shrubs along side the road.After awhile, the Brits tired of getting all shot up and cruised over to India so they could sit on elephants and kill tigers, which was much more fun than getting shot up by the silly, sneaky colonists.Left to their own devices, the colonists just ran amok and years later completed Disneyland which made them the most powerful nation in the history of the Universe according to themselves.And that is pretty much the whole story.Happy Co-dependence day, America!!!!
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The Asylum has been asked to join the Witness Relocation Program. We will be receiving a steady flow of new members who for various reasons, will be making up shit about themselves. These people are not necessarily criminals but we would ask that you do not hold that against them.There will be the occasional sudden disappearance of some of these members and it is requested that you pretend like they never existed.Now, back to your regularly scheduled programs.
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Wandering around as I occasionally do, I happened upon a site that kind of grabbed me. At first, I thought Fat Willie's House of Links was a site where I could order some good old pork sausage but found out I would have to settle for more Italian food. Go click on the link on the Asylum Extra list in the first column, he just might change your whole outlook on fat willies.
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Well, good ole Anti is finally recovering from his near fatal cpu meltdown. I went cruising and found the little phuker is well on his way back to explaining to all of us just how incredibly phuked up it all is. When you post in the forum, try to watch your language for the next week or so. He is giving a virtual tour to the kids from the CrackBabiesRus Online Daycare. Help him make a good impression as Anti is truly trying to turn over a new leaf.
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Seriously! All you have to do to win it is be there to collect the money on January 1, 2150. According to the AP, two scientists have established a trust fund to see if someone can live to be 150 years old. One of them figures that with modern technology, that this could happen. the only catch is that you have to be aware of your surroundings. That puts Spooky out of the running, I'm afraid.
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