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Eric G. Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining me today.

I'm Eric G. Wow, guys, I tell you what, I can't believe we're cruising into the middle of January already.

Time is flying by for me right now, which is kind of wild.

We'll talk about that in a little bit.

But I wanted to share with you something that happens here locally.

A lot of you guys are not in my Portland regional area, so some of this stuff is funny and sad at the same time.

But I wanted to share it with you because it's been in our news here, but probably not in the national news.

And I think we can all relate to project costs going overboard.

Wow, I thought my kitchen remodel is going to cost X and it cost Z.

And I tell you what, I've been watching this happen real time here for the second time around in my time living in the area.

So between Portland here and Oregon and Washington and Vancouver, Washington on the north, Portland to the south, we have this old, over 100 year old bridge that goes over there that's literally built on wood pilings, goes across the Columbia river.

And we have been poorly attempting to replace this thing for decades and it needs it.

If there's any kind of an earthquake, that thing's landed in the water.

There is no question.

I don't think there's a debate about that.

But this one was wild.

It's kind of like a construction.

If you watch it from the eyes of construction, you just shake your head.

So last December there was a public hearing on the interstate bridge replacement project and government employees who have been working for years to replace the I5 bridge over Columbia river told a BI state committee.

So what there is, there's some a group that kind of talks to the Oregon people and the Washington people that keeps it going together.

So they had a meeting and they went, yeah, we don't have the current numbers.

We were supposed to have them by now, but we don't have the current project numbers.

Sorry about that.

And they kept going.

We have some really great journalists in our area and they dove down into this project.

Staffers first said back in 2024 they were planning to release the new cost estimates two years later.

They just, we're sorry, we just don't have the numbers now.

These journalists dug into this.

Come to find out.

Oh yeah, they had the numbers.

They just didn't want to put it out for everybody to see them.

And so they actually had updated and highly detailed cost estimates back as far as August 15, which is pretty wild.

So they lied to everybody and then turned around and said, oh, by the way, this project that we had figured out was going to be on the high side, be at $6 billion.

It's now $13.6 billion.

So there's been cover ups.

This is just like a 48 Hours mystery here.

Watching this go down.

Am I surprised?

No.

Because we spent hundreds of millions of dollars probably eight years ago doing the same process.

And it's complex, it's convoluted, it's.

You've got Oregon wanting to put light rail on it and Vancouver's don't send your homeless people over here to on the light rail.

They've been battling with the, I guess I would call it the Coast Guard because there's lots of stuff that happens up river.

So the bridge has to let things that, you know, it's a drawbridge now but, or a lift span bridge.

But the thing is they were trying to make it over the top.

I know that the new plan isn't going to match that, so they haven't even announced that yet.

But I tell you what, my answer, and no one has ever looked into this was why don't you build a tunnel, dig under the roof.

If you could go from on a train underwater from, and drive on a highway from England to France and back under the English Channel, you should be able to go into the river.

And yes, they can.

But I think if they did this correctly.

But again, this is just another one of those things of government failing us on that one.

They just don't know how to build stuff and stay on any kind of a budget.

Have things gotten more expensive over the last few years?

Absolutely.

But it's absolutely insane.

So think about this as if you're watching.

It's kind of getting sporty.

It's.

Think of it as a large kitchen model that somebody's trying to do at scale and all of a sudden your $50,000 kitch remodel came back from the contractor and went, oh yeah, I didn't tell you that couple months ago that yeah, it's gonna be $125,000, not 50.

Sorry.

Pretty wild.

Anyway, enough of that little rant there, it's just kind of interesting to watch.

I know that's not home improvement, but this next subject is.

And I wanted to have a great, honest talk with you guys about it.

I'm also curious to see what you're going through because I'm gonna be.

I wanted to talk to you guys first before I start doing this on social media, because I'm going to follow, because I know other people are going through this as well.

But when I was going through my divorces last year, had to get my house sold, all those things, I was pushing my body probably a little harder than I should have.

I had damaged my shoulder years before mountain biking accident.

I dislocated my left shoulder, broke collarbone, broke ribs below it hit the ground hard when I was racing back then.

Am I doing that now?

No.

But I think when I did my cedar ceiling, you might have watched on the around the House Northwest show.

That pushed me over the edge.

And then after hurting it there, what did I do?

I moved.

And just getting everything packed up and moving, I think I did it.

So I'm gonna be going in next week for surgery.

They're gonna do a rotator cuff repair.

I have to reattach my partially torn bicep and take out some areas there where they've been.

Where the bone has been building up from where I broke things in the past and is now pinching off nerves and tendons.

So I got a pretty good surgery coming up.

So don't be shocked.

I'm going to be covering this.

Just my steps going through this on social media.

You'll get to see it go step by step.

I'll do the best I can with it.

It's going to be interesting to try to do that because, yeah, it's going to be a battle.

I will be in a sling with that left arm immobilized for about six weeks.

We'll see how long that goes.

And then, yeah, I'm going to be three months, probably three and a half months before you'll see me out there doing any heavy building projects, which is okay.

Cause I kind of had a feeling this was gonna be coming up.

So I've been doing a lot of more design related projects you'll see coming out later this year and doing that.

But I will be down at the Kitchen and Bath Industry show in February.

I will be down doing that.

So if you're somebody out there that wants to meet up down there, I will be in Orlando, Florida that week and I might even go out and See Daytona since I guess what I was hoping to hit some roller coasters out at the theme parks out there, but I guarantee you that the safety personnel at those theme parks are gonna see my shoulder immobilized with a big brace on and go, you ain't going on those rides.

So I might just pop out and go.

We might go out and watch over the weekend before.

Might go watch Daytona race or something like that out there.

Since the Daytona 500 is an hour away.

Might be doing that.

If you guys are doing that too, let me know.

I'll be out there in the middle of February for that.

So I'm not going to slow down, but I'm just going to show you my progress and what we're battling with health wise.

I'm feeling really good.

I do have on my head for all the people out there that have followed the money pit that Tom last year, I think it was last year, yeah, early in 2025, he was the host.

He went in for a routine surgery and didn't come out.

But I know I'm in pretty good health so I should be okay that way.

And always a slight concern going in for something serious.

I've been through way bigger surgeries before, so not really a big deal.

But I wanted to give you a little inside baseball there.

So my year in 2026 is really healing.

It is going to be getting back in shape the way I want to be and I'm heading right that way.

I've lost what, £80 in the last two years, so I've got about another 25 or so that I want to lose in there.

And I tell you what I'm probably feeling, other than this shoulder, I'm probably feeling better than I have in 20 plus years.

And now that I'm doing a much better job at taking care of myself and there's been some battles on that too.

And maybe we'll talk about it with some of the.

What the doctors are like, ah, we don't test for that.

And then I go online and talk to an online doctor that I pay for out of pocket, basically, and wow, they go, wow, we should have run these tests.

So there's a lot of good stuff that I've been doing in which I feel good about, but I wanted to share part of that journey with you.

So this is one of those things.

I just wanted to give you a heads up.

We'll see it out there.

If you have any questions, tips or anything like that, feel free to send them over to over.

Just head over to aroundthehouse online.com and you can message me over there.

And that goes right into my inbox and I'll get back to you.

But shouldn't affect the show schedule at all.

It's really gonna be out for a day surgery, take a couple days for rest, but I'm planning for that, so I should be good.

And all of you out there that are newly joining us, I just absolutely love us.

We added so many stations this last year.

Since we're talking about the Money Pit, with them coming off the air and closing down that show, we gained a ton of stations out there, which I absolutely love.

So we've got a bunch of new people out there.

So if you're listening to the weekend show and you notice that we give out our information probably a little bit more than we have, that's just to get those new people up to speed so they can find us and get to be a part of the around the house family.

Lots of great stuff.

And if you're looking for some more content, if you are a contractor out there, take a peek.

Listen to us over there at the around the House Pro Insider podcast.

We've got that, which is cool.

So a lot of great stuff going on this year and I'm excited for some new video content and doing some other projects, so stay tuned.

But yeah, you're gonna see me with the left arm immobilized.

And if you want to watch on social media, on the those pages, you will see me giving out information on what's going on with me and part of my journey of getting back into shape, back into health, and fixing this darn shoulder that I busted up pretty good.

All right, guys, I got a ton to get done today.

Happy midweek.

Hope everybody's having a great week.

We're hump day today, so I like that.

You know, when in debt out there, be great to your neighbor, have fun, pay attention to the news.

And one thing that I'm really trying to follow is on social media, none of us are going to change anybody's minds.

So we were very tribal out there.

So sometimes those arguments aren't even worth having on there.

So smile, be kind.

If you feel like you're getting overwhelmed with that, tune it out for a day.

It I've had to do that where I'm like, ooh, not going on for the rest of the day.

And sometimes that's the better way to handle it with all the madness of things, no matter what side you're on.

Have a great rest of the week, everybody we'll see you on Saturday with a great show ahead.

Thanks for tuning into around the House.

I appreciate you guys make sure to.

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