Before I forget, wanted to comment on the horrific number of bugs along I-5 on my weekend trip. This is the worst I've ever seen it, and I've seen it pretty bad before. Had to physically scrape the windshield every 20-30 miles so I could see out of it at all. At one well-lit fuel stop the bugs were swarming around the lights so densely that you couldn't see through them. It was like huge brown clouds suspended from the rain awning. These were little bugs so they could swarm much more densely than the grasshopper plagues I've encountered before (two years ago along I-5 and several years back driving across Kansas). The grasshoppers also messed up the windshield pretty bad, but being larger bugs, they had more moisture content so the wipers plus some windshield washer would clean them up after about five sprays. The spray didn't do a thing on this trip. I had to use the ice scraper.

Didja' ever stop and wonder precisely the circumstances which led to the revelation and widespread cultural adoption of the phrase "There's more than one way to skin a cat"(?) I'm hoping it was some adventurer on an African safari because otherwise the implications are deeply disturbing.

Today's lesson - Stucco 101. I'm starting small so that I'll have mastered it before I make too many visible mistakes, in contrast to building the (first phase of the) retaining wall where I could afford a few mistakes because of the fact that they would be covered by stucco. But now that I'm starting the stucco, there's not a lot of room for error. I better learn fast but luckily this is one of my better traits. My first discovery is that I might have to forego 'troweling' it on and just sling the first layer on and smear it around by hand. I watched the guys do the front retaining wall but they were trying to impress me with their troweling technique and the stucco is cracking badly after a year. This seems to be one of those skills (like sex) where if you aren't making a sticky mess you're not doing it right.