Sand Sculptures, Sheds, and Shopping

We got up this morning, and after the disappointments of yesterday, we decided to get out of town.  We knew that if the Inspector wanted to come to our house, he could do so without us being here.

We traveled to Clearwater Beach to view their Pier 60 annual Sand Sculpture competition.  The theme this year was musical groups and musicians.  The event was totally under a big tent, complete with ever-changing colored lights (which screwed up some of my pictures, which is why many of the following are in black-and-white) and appropriate music.  We thoroughly enjoyed the artistry and the sculptures.  The ten artists took ten days to create some of the following:

Jimi Hendrix

Grateful Dead

The Doors

The Beatles

Glen Miller Band

The Beach Boys

Part of the competition was for "amateurs"
to display their work.  Of the seven in that part
of the competition, this sculpture is my favorite.

Once we were finished with the sand, we returned home just in time to see the Inspector parked in front of our house.  Rick drove around the block to avoid speaking to him, and we returned home after he had left.  Thankfully, he signed off on the patio.

Last night I suggested that since we had the small slabs on the north side of the house, perhaps we could put on just a little storage box to hold some of the items in the garage.  We did some shopping and decided that one of the small, plastic storage boxes would be enough to alleviate some of the congestion in the garage.  Rick wants to put in elfa shelves from The Container Store to better organize the garage; however, elfa is expensive, so those shelves are not in this year's budget.

We traveled to three different Lowe's stores before the found the Suncast storage box that will suit our needs.  We need to add another small concrete slab in front of the other slabs we poured to hold the new storage box, but we will be able to add on to the slabs quite easily.  When we ordered the storage box today, we also ordered 13 bags of Sakrete... and we actually got it on sale at only $1.78 a bag.  That is even less than the concrete that we ordered a couple of days ago for our now defunct shed slab.

We both are sick of the red tape that this City uses to get money out of every building project in town. Do we really want to use a plastic box instead of our large shed?  No, but the smaller box on the north side of the house will not clutter the yard, will not be seen behind the fence from the street, and will not need the approval of either the the city permit office nor the inspectors of the city.