Her Side Funnies

This post follows Slipforming, part 17 – Turret’s Syndrome. To see a complete index of slipforming posts, click here. For an index of comical posts, click here.

Ken Bogart, who lives in New York, was inspired to build a slip-formed stone home and has graciously agreed to be guest interviewed for this blog. Following is an informal interview with Mr. Bogart. He promises he will start his own web page for those who want to explore more possibilities with rock homes. Thank you, Ken, for sharing your story here. When his website becomes active, I will happily provide a link to it.

Dani: How did you decide to build a slip-formed home?

Ken: I saw your house on Tom’s (Elpel) web page. My wife thought the idea was crazy until I showed her your story, and your home, and then she was all for it. She even bought me the cement mixer for Christmas and said “Go for it.”

Dani: Wow! Only a fellow stone home builder can appreciate a gift like that! So, what size is your home and how long did it take you?

Ken: It took me two summers to complete my 32′ x 48′ house. I worked my full time job during the week, and built mainly on weekends. Usually the weeknights were spent gathering stones.

Dani: That is fast! Especially since you were working full time, too.

Ken: It seemed to have taken forever! How long did it take you to build your house? Your house is so much bigger than mine, it should have taken longer to build. I love the looks of your house. Those turrets are beautiful, and it really sets it apart from anything out there. You went up one-and-a-half stories with stone. What were you thinking! When I got up to the first story I had gone up far enough for stonework.

Dani: (Laughing) My dad told a friend that I would get smart after laying a couple feet of rock. He suspected I would realize rocks are heavy and quit. After we were setting rocks 14 feet above the ground, dad maintained I never did get smart. That said, I was not holding a full-time job at the time, as you were. My rock work was done in two seasons, but I did run the “seasons” long—from April to November.

Ken: Mine was two summers of laying stones. The first summer didn’t go very well and I got frustrated with the process. The stones weren’t right, the concrete oozed out, it was kind of disheartening. After thinking about it over the winter and reading and researching and thinking of different ways to make it better the second summer went great. I very much enjoyed it, and would do it again, and I may someday on a smaller scale.

Dani: Did you have any help on this project? (more…)

This post follows Some girls ruin all the fun.  To see a complete index of slipforming posts, click here. For an index of comical posts, click here.

My husband was diagnosed with brain cancer this summer.  July 7, 2011 to be exact. It’s tough to be funny when one gets news like this. In the interest of keeping this blog column upbeat, I want to offer some insight into one of the highlights of this discovery.

Ken’s work colleagues sent a care package. They are a bunch of computer geeks, and Ken was supposed to travel to California to work with them this month, so they bought a Tickle-Me Elmo doll and photographed Elmo in a variety of poses representing Ken at work. Suspiciously, most of the photos involved Elmo and snacks, Elmo goofing off in the file cabinets, or Elmo playing videogames.  Hmmm.  Anyway, they also sent the Elmo doll—a sort of challenge, I guess, to see if we could return pictures of Elmo, duplicating Ken at home in his new life.

We decided to put Elmo through cancer treatment along with Ken. Elmo got to sit in the ambulance, ride in a wheelchair, sit in a waiting room, look at an MRI, hug a model brain, and have his blood pressure taken. We will stop short of radiating Elmo…some jokes always get taken too far.

Interestingly, of all the gifts of food and flowers, it was the Elmo doll that proved the most distracting. Son Ben plotted for each new photo, which was a welcome diversion from being an 18-year-old hanging out in the cancer ward. (more…)