Fire is #1

So, we have a fire place and Amy had been bugging me to make a fire. I finally got some wood and gave it a try. But for some reason I could not get it going....I still don't understand. I think the wood is bad. I am not kidding, I tried everything. Finally I gave up and bought a 2 hour fire log, lit it an put a wood log on top. It worked ok but the wood still durns like crap. Lame...