Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Tyla’s first birthday surprise this year was staying a night at Treehouse Point. It’s a local bed and breakfast made up of a bunch of individual treehouses. It’s pretty difficult to get a reservation, but somehow I got lucky and snagged a spot in the Bonbibi which is their newest treehouse.

Our room was barely bigger than a double bed (or was it a queen?) but it was exceptionally nice inside. There was power and a small heater which we obviously didn’t need. We spent the evening relaxing down by the river and reading our books.

At breakfast the next morning, we were chatting with one of the lady’s who works there. She said that Animal Planet has been on site quite a bit lately filming for a new reality show called Treehouse Men. The guy who builds the treehouses is apparently quite famous in the treehouse community and the show features his work. I think that the facility also serves as a school for people who want to learn to build these structures. It could be an interesting show so you might want to check it out. It’s currently scheduled to air on 8/22 after the finale of Tanked.

It was a very unique night and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. If I had to nitpick I’d say it’s unfortunate that they are so close to a fairly busy road. It would be more peaceful in a different setting but they can’t very well pack up and move! If you’re interested in staying, you might want to make reservations now. I’d bet they’re going to get a lot more busy once the TV show airs!

I wrote a couple months ago about the renovation I oversaw of the house on the church property. The final step in that project was fixing up the landscaping, but we wanted to wait for nicer weather. The big day arrived a couple weeks ago and Tim had a great plan laid out for us and a bunch of nice plants picked out. The main projects were taking down two small trees, removing a bunch of bushes, taking out a huge out-of-control rhododendron, and moving a LOT of rock from the planter area to the church driveway. We rented a Dingo to help move all the rock and rip out the stumps and that ended up being the best decision of the day. There’s no way the work would have been finished with out it! I posted a bunch of photos at the end of this Facebook photo album but here is a before and after photo that shows part of the area we worked on.

Tyla’s company operates a booth every year at the Kirkland 5k and they encourage their employees to run. This year Tyla, Chelsea, Nancy and Megan all ran. Tim and I watched from the side of the road and snapped some photos.

My wisdom teeth are a mess. I started typing out the details in this post, but really it’s just gross. Suffice it to say that many dentists and oral surgeons have taken a peek inside my mouth but since I wasn’t having any pain at the time, they reluctantly decided to just leave well enough alone. One of them is starting to cause some trouble and thankfully it’s one that they think they can get out of my mouth so this morning I’m having done. The oral surgeon said he didn’t want to attempt it unless I was under full anesthesia and I happily agreed to that. Hopefully I’ll come out of the surgery with only a little pain and none of the nasty potential complications. I’ll be out of commission for a couple days though. Bring on the soft foods and video games!

Maybe Tyla will bring a video camera along in case I act like this kid:

PS. Happy Birthday Mom! I got you bloody tooth remnants.

For the last couple years, I’ve been the property guy at church. Normally it’s just small tasks and general upkeep, but late last summer, I started a huge project. The church received a very large anonymous donation designated for remodeling the house that’s on the church property.

In the past, the house has been used as a place for our Pastor’s to live, a place for our teachers to live, and extra space for classes and events. It has been falling in to disrepair and that seems to have accelerated the last couple years since no one was living there.

I gathered a bunch of input from people who had lived there before and other congregation members, got bids from two contractors, and finally signed a contract. There’s way too much to cover here, but this is a small subset of the improvements we made:

• New trim and doors throughout
• Interior and exterior paint
• Complete kitchen remodel and all new appliances (except the fridge)
• Combine two bedrooms into one master bedroom with walk-in closet and move bathroom entry to be a master bathroom entry
• Add four windows in various places
• Remove existing exterior door from kitchen and replace with sliding glass door
• Refinish hardwood floors and add new carpet in master bedroom
• Reconfigured guest bathroom and added a full bathtub and shower.
• Added a paved driveway

I was responsible for drawing up the basic plans and work item list, but from that point I handed over the reigns. Our general contractor was Jim Lawrence of Lawrence Construction Company and I highly recommend him. We’ll hopefully be giving him a call in the future for some work on our house. He finished the project quickly and did a lot of the interior design himself which removed a lot of decisions from my plate.

It would be much better if we had more “before” pictures, but here’s comparison of the old kitchen and the old kitchen to give you a little taste of the scope of this project.

Every year flies by faster than the one before. I look back on a long list of great experiences and some missed opportunities as well. But all in all, it was another good year and it reconfirmed the fact that I’m blessed way more than I deserve. This website might be a bit of a silly hobby, but it’s times like these when I’m very happy to have it around. It’s fun to look back through the year and remember all the things we did!

The first big trip of the year was up to Whistler for skiing with Jay. We just missed a big snow storm and ended up with high winds and icy conditions, but we still had a good time. Tim, Chelsea and Tyla came up for one night too which made it even better. Soon after we got back, the four of us headed through Stevens Pass to check out the Cascade Quest dog sled race.

I took a peek into the world of homebrew electronics when I built an LCD readout for my Media Center TV. The Arduino platform was very impressive and I have a couple more project ideas if I can find the time to work on them.

In March we began the seven month journey to our new home. Even when I bought the condo in 2006, I knew that I would eventually want something bigger, but the condo was supposed to be a stepping stone. The economics of it didn’t work out as planned, but we did eventually end up in a great new house. The first project was moving a bunch of our stuff into Tim and Chelsea’s garage so that we had more room to stage our home. They were a huge help throughout the whole process! We cleaned up the house, repainted the orange living room back to beige, and put it on the market in April. Every morning we had to leave the house in perfect condition in case a prospective buyer stopped by.

April was our first anniversary and we celebrated by heading out to the San Juan Islands for a stay at a bed and breakfast. It was a working ranch for rescued animals. We were given free run of the property and Tyla was in heaven petting all the goats, horses, sheep and dogs.

For Memorial Day, we camped with Tyla’s family at Grand Coulee Dam. While our last-minute campsite left much to be desired, the area was very impressive. I’m continually amazed at the incredible variety of terrain we can access with a few hours in the car. In April we drove a couple hours and ended up on a beautiful island in the Puget Sound. The next month we drove a few hours and ended up in the middle of a desert. And oh yeah, we drove through a big mountain range to get there. I love the Pacific Northwest!

In June we headed to Kanaskat Palmer State Park with a group from church. The weekend was fun, but right before we left we got word from our realtor that we might be receiving and offer over the weekend. That was on my mind for much of the trip. It didn’t pan out, but after dropping the price a little the following week, we received an offer! Even though it wasn’t quite as much as we hoped, we came to an agreement and the packing process began in earnest.

Between the time we accepted the offer and the day we closed, we were only at home for two weekends! It was a lot of work to cram into a short amount of time, but it all went well. With the help of a lot of friends and family, most of our belongings went into storage. A few more things went to Tim and Chelsea’s house and we moved into Logan’s apartment. Logan, we can’t thank you enough for opening up your home to us!

In the middle of the packing process, Luke, Rachel and David flew out to Washington for their summer vacation. After they left, we flew out east for our summer vacation. It began with a couple days in New York City and then ended with almost a week in Maine at Camp Ticawa. Thanks to the Abendroths for once again making us feel like family!

We closed on the sale of our home a few days after returning from vacation and then headed south to SeaQuest State Park for another camping trip. We picked this park because it was so close to Mt. St. Helens. The volcano didn’t blow and we had a great trip! This year-in-review contains never-before-released material because I apparently never blogged about that trip!

We spent a lot of time in August and September with our realtor. Typically we would look through piles of houses, pick a few to go see, and then we’d meet up with him after work to check them out. We saw a lot of instant duds and a few that made us think. I’d guess that we saw between 40 and 50 houses before settling on our current place in Woodinville. The purchase process was anything but smooth, but through it all we felt like the Lord wanted us to be in this house so we pressed forward.

Dad, Mom, Uncle Dean and Aunt Sandy came out for Labor Day weekend. By that point we were pretty sure we were getting the house but we couldn’t take them inside yet. Instead we took them on a whirlwind tour of the area including Boeing, Deception Pass, Red Hook Brewery, Mt. St. Helens and Canon Beach. I always enjoy playing tour guide and showing off this part of the country!

Church kept me very busy this year. I play the piano for our Monday night services sometimes and I’m also the property deacon. In addition to normal upkeep and repairs, we had a very large donation come through to renovate the house that is on our property. I gathered lots of input, drew up some plans, hired a general contractor, handed him a check and cut him loose. That project should be finishing up in about a month and I think the end product is going to look amazing! I’ll have to post some more information about that project once it’s done. You can spot a few photos on the church’s Facebook page.

I’ve been doing this blogging thing for so long that I completely missed the 9th anniversary of this blog in July. Roughly 10,000 unique visitors came to the site in 2011 and about half of them came back for more. Some probably came to find about one of my dozen Windows Phone apps. I’ve sold over 1000 of those this year, and while it doesn’t even come close to compensating me for my time, it’s fun to know that others enjoy my hobby.

When we look back at 2011, we’ll probably focus on the house, but we sure had a lot more going on than just that! What will be the big story of 2012?

Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

Every year Tyla and I try to buy a Christmas ornament from some memorable point in the year. This year we bought an ornament at the top of Rockefeller Center and another when we stopped in Maine. I started posting about them last year and I think I’ll continue this ever year.

	Technically this wasn’t from a trip during the past year. I put this ornament of Oskar in Tyla’s stocking last year.
	It’s a bit hard to see in this photo but this is the ornament we bought at the top of Rockefeller Center. I’ve been up in the Empire State Building a few times but Rockefeller Center was first from me. It was a magnificent view made all the better having my beautiful bride by my side.
	What other ornament would you get in Maine? We picked up this lobster on our way to Ticawa.

We had more than ornaments to add to our collection this Christmas. Last year Tyla’s family got us a bunch of Thomas Kinkade Christmas village pieces. This year Tyla arranged them on the hearth but I think next year I want to get a table set up for them and get a train to go around the village. There is a train set that is made to go with the village (hint hint!)

This weekend you couldn’t turn on the TV or open up your internet browser without seeing a flood of information about the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Whether it was worthwhile coverage or just the media grabbing for ratings is for you to decide. But since this blog is a bit of a journal, I thought I should write down my experiences from that day…

I was in my senior year at Purdue and it was going to be a big day. It was the start of a two day job fair out in Memorial Mall on campus. John Deere had recently told me that although they wanted to hire me after my internship, they couldn’t because of a hiring freeze. That put me into a bit of a tail spin and I felt that I really needed to come out of that job fair with some solid options.

The first I heard about the attacks was when I went down for breakfast. One of the ladies who worked there was a friend of Grandma Hinkle so we always had a little chat when we saw each other. She told me that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, but since she didn’t seem too concerned, I didn’t think much of it. I was picturing a little Cessna that had an accident or something along those lines.

I took the food back up to my room and flipped on the TV. That’s when I saw how devastating it actually was. A few minutes later, I watched the second plane crash and then the towers crashed.

Looking back now, I don’t think I realized how big of an event this was. It doesn’t seem possible now, but watching on a little TV screen with so many unanswered questions, it didn’t bring the same feeling that it does now. I knew it was a big deal, but I had no idea who was behind it or what would follow in the coming years.

So I suited up and head out to the job fair armed with resumes. The first thing I noticed was how quiet campus was. Purdue has one of the busiest airports in the Midwest (in terms of touchdowns and landings, mostly from small planes), but there wasn’t anyone in the sky. When I got to the job fair, it was a bit chaotic. Some company employees were on the phone with their loved ones or their home office trying to figure out if they should stay or go. The armed forces booths were being hurriedly packed up. Trains seemed to be the transportation of choice, but people from the west coast were left wondering if they should just start driving because the train tickets were quickly snatched up.

A majority of the companies stayed at the job fair. I ended up getting a few good interviews that resulted in some job offers, but in terms of world events, that was far from the most important thing that happened.

Later in life, I would meet people who were actually in the city at the time, see a lot of friends head off to the ensuing wars, and visit the site of the old towers a few times. It still brings back a wide variety of emotions and I can’t see that ever changing. I wonder if this is how Pearl Harbor felt. Are they comparable? Was Pearl Harbor scarier for the average citizen because of the small amount of information? Was 9/11 worse because we had so many data streams coming in everywhere we looked? I think about people like my grandparents who lived through both of them and wonder how they connect the two events. I’ll have to ask Grandpa and Grandma about this at Christmas.

After writing that paragraph, I went back and read what I wrote on the day it happened. Most of my post seems to be about how this event was much worse than Pearl Harbor. I don’t know if I agree with that anymore, but I’m so glad that I took the time to write down some thoughts on that day. It doesn’t really matter which one was worse. They were both terrible in their own right.

I’ve included a few of the videos below. Posting images of this seems to be taboo in our culture, but I think it’s important for us to see it happen and remember back to those first few minutes of horror and confusion. Put aside your politics and just watch these…

While Luke, Rachel and David were here last week, we had a sunny BBQ up at Tim and Chelsea’s house. They made one of the most amazing lunches I’ve ever eaten: grilled carne asada, rice, refried beans, guacamole, salsa, and buffalo fries. Everything was homemade (except the rice I guess?) and fantastically delicious. We played cornhole and lazed around in the sun. Check out the pictures in the photo gallery (posted on July 1.)

This game goes by many names. Here are all the names I found for it as I looked around:

Norwegian Horseshoes, Laddergolf, Snakes, Hillbilly Golf, Polish Golf, Horseballs, Tower Ball, Bolo Golf, Gladiator, Bola, Snake Toss, BlongoBall, Ladder Toss, Bolo, Rodeo Golf, Dingle Balls, Bolo Polo, Cowboy Golf, Redneck Golf, Pocca Bolo, The Snake Game, Willy Ball, Ladder Ball, Slither, Zing-Ball, Snakes & Ladders, Hillbilly Horseshoes, Flingy Ball, Top Toss, Norwegian Golf, Monkey Bars Golf, Swedish Golf, Polish Horsehoes, Dandy Golf, Montana Golf, Lasso Golf, Australian Horseshoes, Ladder Game, Monkey Balls, Rattlerail Toss, Golfball Horseshoes, Arizona Golf Balls, Spin-It, Ball Dangle, Bolo Ball, Poor Mans Golf, Bolo Toss, and Testicle Toss

Whatever you call it, Tim and I made a couple sets the other weekend. We both love cornhole but it’s pretty big and heavy to carry around. The hope was that this would be easier to haul with us and just as fun.

While Tim worked on the PVC piping, I tried to figure out how to drill holes in golffballs without a drill press. I made one set with 6 Purdue golf balls that I got as a thank you gift from KenC at least 15 years ago if not more. I never used them for real golf because I didn’t want to lose them. They are now the coolest set of bolos ever!

We tried out the game on our camping trip this past weekend. I don’t think I like the game quite as much as cornhole, and it wasn’t as easy to transport as I had hoped, but we still had a lot of fun playing. I envision someday having a barbeque in our backyard with cornhole, ladder golf, and washers games going on. Maybe we need some sort of backyard Olympics event!