Nathan Veldhoen

In correlation with the upcoming art show in Calgary on Friday the 17th I am chucking up a free high rez wallpaper image of my trip down in Oregon Coast  . I will also attach a full rez image as well that can be downloaded and printed off at a maximum of 24×36 inches. Which is pretty freaking huge.

Oregon Coast

high rez image here–right click and save.

wallpaper 1280×1024

Finally my patience of waiting for a free or super cheap hot tub paid off.  The best part of this is how it got moved and placed on to my deck.  Six dollars sayz my neighbors think I am crazy…read on..?

After digging out  80 loads of a dirt hillside and making more room for a few trailers at a trailer park we found a hot tub in one of the neighbors backyards hidden in the back.  After inquiring, the owner wished to get rid of the tub for a few hundred bucks.  So……… game on.

Here is a shitty video shot with my blackberry of lifting the tub onto the trailer….

Hot tub at my house on a dump trailer

Tools to get it off the trailer

This was the longest part after I figured a way to unload it by myself. Getting the spare tire off the trailer so the tub wouldn't catch on it...

Test Dump to check my angles. (tub still strapped)

The rig for the tilt and dump of the tub.

Off the trailer and just need to pull the truck ahead.

Bam. I placed all the 2x4's on the ground so I can push it into place on my own.

Boom, Still have to hook up and make sure I didn't crack the freakin thing.

Ah Mondays, my favorite day of the week.  The day you wish it was Friday, especially when you are feeling a little hung over still from Saturday.  That also means I don’t feel like doing much after hour work.  I usually spend my time looking around the net looking for cool shit to read, but I gotta have some new music to keep from getting board.

I was over at rhymesayers checking out what’s happening over there.  The lucky people in Calgary had a tour stop of Atmosphere and crew this weekend. I’m kinda choked that they skipped Vancouver , ah well… I am sure the show was amazing, even if the flames just got kick outa the playoffs.

Another cool thing that I love about this label is that they do an amazing job of spreading their music and videos around,   from Youtube.com, to keeping up their artists’  myspace pages loaded with  playlists.  They also have a  few songs for download, as well as streaming video right from Rhymesayers.com.  I am kinda hooked on Rotten Apple by Mac Lethal. He might not like me saying this but his style reminds me of Eminem,  he has a more realistic angle then Eminem. Good beats, and good lyrics.

Lithium Lips, Slow Down Baby, and Shotgun are a few that top my list

Check’em out.  Heres a pretty good video, that I applied to my weekend too.

Check out rhymesayers tour dates here.  I see P.O.S. will be doing the Vans Wrap Tour, so there might be an appearance from others artists when they hit Thunderbird stadium in Vancouver, BC this summer.  I see 3oh3 is back on, but that’s for another day.

I haven’t added any updates on the house in a while, so I figure its time now.  As the sun tries to come out and the weather starts to warm up, its time to start getting the outside ready for BBQ season.  I’ve done quite a bit of changes in the front and backyard already and haven’t really blogged about it but here is a start of what happened today.

Trying to keep things on a budget is always a challenge.  Keeping things under budget is even tougher, especially if you don’t want it look cheap and most importantly want it to last.

I have some little secrets that a lot of people don’t normally think about.  So here we go.  I wanted to add a little shed to the side of my house, and if I had enough concrete, add a little retaining wall for the kitchen window for the tenant to clean up the side yard.  If you  are tight on money, one my secrets  get your lumber for free.  I just finished a job which had a lot of form material left over.  There are many job sites which have  left over lumber, scraps, bent pieces or they just don’t want to haul it away.  All you need to do is ask.  Sometimes they’ll even help you load it.

I will also use, used lumber to build my shed.  If you find a good pile or site, tell’em what your doing and they might have more for you.  Just looked for a site, complex or building that has a few guys working and ask’em if they have any used or left over wood.

Once I had all the wood loaded up, I formed up the areas that I wanted filled with concrete.  When I was done I wanted to place the concrete as soon as I could.

Here is the second secret.   If you figure you need anywhere from 2 or under meters of concrete you might be able to get it for free.  Call the  concrete companies to see if they have any left overs, or loads set back.  I got lucky on the day that I wanted pour and had some come in 45 minutes.   A slow day is sometimes the best day to call,  on a busy day they might have some extra a few blocks away.  Concrete doesn’t always get all used up!  This is a savings of anywhere 300-500 dollars.  You would be surprised at how much concrete goes to waste.

Lastly, if you know a guy that knows how to finish concrete, a case of beer usually works.  I didn’t have to do that since I can do it on my own.  So this part of project cost me nothing.  I will keep you posted on the rest of the project.

8x12 pad at 4 inchs, roughly one meter of concrete

Heres the small wall, for extras

Music is key for me to get things going esp. when you have to huck redbull nights that turn into redbull mornings.  Buck65 is a hip hop dude from Canada.  I’ve  seen him a few times and the last time was at the pemberton music festival.

The point of all this…. well on his site if you search around you can get almost 3 hours of free music that I have listen to 3 times over now.  Its fuckin amazing.  Apparently he has a show on CBC radio 2 now as well as touring.  Hes a crazy dude.

Link