Friday, July 31, 2009
Late night snack
OK, so it's dinner. Steak, eggs, grits, and a little bit of horseradish. Better than anything you will get at Denny's...
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The List
Tara's parents are starting to wear out. If we could, we would bring the girls home tomorrow night. Anyone want to come help Thursday or Friday?
Back bathroom - door install
Pantry - door install
Laundry – sill install
Main bath - back splash
Front hall - remove swamp cooler vent
Front hall – drywall & texture
Main bath – venting for fan and plumbing
Laundry – Dryer vent
Attic Access – Install trim
Attic Access – paint 'door' – white
Back bedrooms – casing for windows
Master bedroom – door trim
Hall – white board trim
Hall – finish base board
Pantry – door trim
Kitchen – base board
Kitchen – paint
Pantry - paint
Fix tear in roof vent
Back bath – plumbing
Main bath – side splash
Back bath – side splash
Laundry – paint
Laundry – electrical panel door
Bedrooms – blinds
Front room - blinds
Back bath – paint ceiling
Back bath – paint walls
Back bath – door trim
Back bath – medicine cabinet
Laundry – install bifold
Laundry – cut big cabinet door in half
Back room – paint
Back room – Carpet transition to laundry/bath?
Laundry – move in washer & dryer
Back room – sliding door trim
Paint unpainted doors
switch & outlet covers
Back room – base board
Hall - shelving
Main bath - shelving
Back bath - shelving
Back room – Quilt rack install
Putty all trim nails
Front hall – trim
Front hall – paint ceiling
Pantry - shelving
Front door
Siding & Insulation
Sunday, July 26, 2009
4 hours...
Friday, July 24, 2009
Regularly scheduled program
Still not ready for a full compliment of children...
Thursday, July 23, 2009
House remodel update
- flew from here to Buffalo via Baltimore
- Ate a bunch of chicken wings
- Ignored my laptop for about 5 days
- Packed up Tara and the girls
- Drove to Indiana, visited Grandma Oaks - She seems to be doing well.
- Drove the rest of the way home
- Fixed a fairly high priority problem at work
- Got back into helping try to get the house going
Anyhow, the camera is back, I have some better quality pictures for everyone:
The laundry room and back bath are still the front end of a work in progress. It might get there sooner or later, we are getting closer to being able to throw drywall up.
Kitchen pantry - doesn't look incredibly exciting, it is just a big empty room. (Now with a light!) More to come.
I picked this carpet remnant out at the carpet place yesterday. The carpet guys came today to install it. They did a really good job. Drew came tonight and started throwing down the baseboard.
The little hall fits the dresser perfect. Just like I planed. The long famed prize box is on top. There are two more dressers to put in the hall, a job for tomorrow.
I drew a map for the kids when they get back. It's only half the house, but I think they can figure it out.
Tara and I went and bought doorknobs tonight. We have doorknobs again. We also bought fire detectors, which I installed tonight.
I spent about 5 hours today trying to fix the electrical in the main bath. It was kind of screwy. I ended up taking everything all apart after spending an hour trying to figure out what was going on. I traced every wire, which took a while, running back and forth turning the breaker on and off. I got everything working.
The bathroom, hall, and bedrooms only have a few small things things to do, hopefully we can have them all done in a few days.
Tomorrow's crazy electrical project? Trying to make some sense out of this.
Got work-work to do. Gotta go.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Book Review
Greg Cox
Back in the 80's, DC comics had this thing called "Crisis on Infinite Earths", where they tried to resolve the fact that they had gotten lost with all the alternate realities in their comics. They ended up having one Earth at the end, and kind of melded the characters they wanted to keep into the one place.
A couple of years ago, they revisited the story, I think mostly to try to boost comic book sales. (Why else would they do it?) Something called Infinite Crisis was the result. This book is a serialization of those stories. I didn't actually read the associated comics with this thing, sort of just followed the outline of the thing on the internet a bit.
The author does a good job of telling the story of the thing without having the associated pictures from the comics. Now I really know what happened with Infinite Crisis. It kept me occupied through both plane flights yesterday, I finded the book just after landing in Buffalo.
Lots of characters were killed off, DC afterwards jumped everything forward a year. Basically, the multiple Earths are brought back, and eventually the single reality and single Earth is restored again.
I thought the book was interesting to read, I actually prefer books like this to read, rather than comics themselves, I think, when the author does a really good job with descriptions and just writing the story out. It lets you picture what is happening a little better in your head than just looking at the comic itself. Plus you get the entire story all packaged up in one book. They did an audiobook dramatization of the book, it sounds like with a full cast, 13 hours long. That might be interesting to listen to.
Last year they did something called "Final Crisis", I don't really know what happened, maybe this guy will write a book...
What will Tom do next time he visits home?
Completely inspiring with confidence
I went down to the gate to make sure I would make my connection. I was told I would, so I eventually started wandering around looking for something to eat, since I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to do anything but get to my next gate in Baltimore. I got all the way down to the next terminal, almost went in to a place to get something, and decided to head back. A minute later (9:55am) I got a call from Southwest letting me know my flight was set for an on-time departure. Going between terminals, I could see a plane docking way down at the gate I was supposed to be in. I hurried back, they had an announcement on the intercom saying all passengers for the flight should come back.
When I got back there, the guy at the gate started explaining that the pilot reported a problem with the plane, the mechanics were looking at it, and they would update us when they knew more. 45 minutes later, they finally started boarding.
As we were boarding, the mechanics still were up to their elbows in the right engine. I tried taking a picture, but didn't get a very good one. One guy was doing something, and sending the other guy back to the truck for tools over and over. When we got on the plane, the crew was very careful to not say a single word about the functional condition of the plane.
We finally took off, and there was no trouble with the flight. I guess the mechanics got it right. As we were landing, one of the flight attendants got on, told the people with connections to Concord to get off the plane, and go right across the hall to get on their plane. She told the people with connections to Buffalo to go to Gate A2 (We were in B something) and hurry.
As I was hurrying off, I heard them announcing the boarding of my flight. I had to run to the gate to get on the plane, but I made it. No lunch. But also no mechanics.
It could have been worse. Last time they didn't bother to hold the connection for me, I missed the flight, it took about 45 minutes to get set up on another flight...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Optimism abounds
The girls have enough room, I think. Hopefully a smaller space will actually help them keep it cleaner...
Overly engineered bunk bed
We also now have a water softener. My hair feels so much softer already. And shorter.
The tankless water heater is also alive. I could have spent hours in the hot water tonight, and it would have just kept on going. And going, and going. No more cold showers. For anyone in the house.
I spent the better part of the afternoon making the second in a series of over engineered bunks beds here at the house. It needs a good sanding, but it is essentially built. No paint, that would ruin the charm, especially since the girls just draw all over the other bunk bed anyway.
The thing is completely solid. No movement. I added an extra feature, cross braces for the top bunk, to prevent a collapse do to jumping on the bed. Hopefully Emma and Lily like it.
Tomorrow? (more correctly: "Later Today?") I am headed off to work. I wanted to get some things done, but I imagine at this point that that stuff will get shoved out of the way to work on the problem we looked at tonight... At 2pm, there may be a bunch of people at the house to lend a hand. We have furniture to move around, walls to sand and mud, that sort of thing.
Home Run Derby
I recorded the thing tonight, to watch it later. (I was working on a bunk bed when the thing was running, and I knew I had work to do later that night, perfect for watching the Derby.)
Anyhow, turns out that the DVR had it set to record for 2 hours. I missed the full second and third rounds of the thing. 36 home runs. Almost half of the entire thing.
I guess I will have to block out the thing right now for next year...
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Unfinished Project update
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Not exactly firing on all cyliners
James and Mike worked more on gutting the bathroom. There is more to do, but they got quite a bit done.
At one point, this is what the bathroom floor looked like. (It's called a tessellation, and it's ugly.)
The carpet guys came to install the carpet I had for both bedrooms. Turned out that the carpet remnant was a little too small to fit in both rooms. I had to go get another piece for the other bedroom, but the installers had to go, they will come back Monday.
I went to Taylor's Carpets in Provo. It's way back out of the way, but the guy is really nice. He knocked down the price on the remnant for me as well. I think we will have to go back there again.
After the carpet went in the one bedroom, I put in the baseboard. I say that, but it turns out that what I was really putting in was the moulding for the windows, not the baseboard. A few hours later I ended up pulling it out and putting in the real baseboard. We will have to see if we can still use the window moulding I used or if I need to get more.
I started to put up a dry erase board in the hallway. We hope that maybe the girls will focus their energies on drawing on the whiteboard instead of the walls...
The plumber was here for a while today, his goal was to get me a toilet, shower, and hot water. Two out of three isn't bad, I guess. He says hot water definitely on Monday.
Rich came over and showed me how to install a new circuit breaker. It's less shocking than I thought it would be.
I was picking something up for the plumber this afternoon, I accidentally knocked the gear shift into reverse. I don't know what's wrong with me. I thought for a minute that I would either get run over or drop the transmission, or both. Neither happened, the truck isn't running any worse than it already was. (Seem to have a problem with first gear...)
I'll have to maintain a low profile tomorrow, see if the brain cloud passes.
The house will not be done by the time Tara gets back. I will have failed in my goal. It's a little frustrating.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Graduation for a man who may not toot his own horn
Tom may not tell anyone, we told him to update his resume at least, but he ended up getting an award for the highest test score average in his class, with an average score of 95% for all tests. Not bad.
Precious few days remaining
Yesterday we put down tack strip and carpet pad in the bedrooms. Today I hired a carpet installer to come in and install the carpet in the bedrooms on Saturday. It would have cost us $60 to rent the equipment we would have needed, it only cost $65 for him to come do the install. I figured that was a pretty good deal.
For a while the young men were mudding up the hallways and bathroom. I had been doing some drywall and just kept going while they were here so we could get a complete first coat in. They did a pretty good job.
Chad got the bathroom closet framed and the vanity put in, which is pretty good until you consider the fact that he also put up the drywall for the thing, and not all the wiring for the electrical is done. I was waiting on the wall before doing the electrical, went to Tom's graduation, and came back to fully closed walls. Chad is not solely to blame, I put the drywall up in the hall blocking off access to the switches for wiring. Chad was gone before I got there, I will have to break the news to him tomorrow...
The plumber is sure that the hot water will be back on either tomorrow night or Saturday morning. He also thinks we can do the demolition of the old bathroom on Saturday. I took another cold shower this evening, not quite as bad as last night, still pretty cold, but not as bad.
Tomorrow? Carefully removing select pieces of drywall to run wires, duct work for HVAC, sanding and more drywall mud, and general mayhem all around...
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Cold showers - Not a big fan...
Long story short? There is no hot water in this house. I tried to man up and take an ice cold shower tonight, but I couldn't quite do it. I tried, but it was cold. I knew I wouldn't be able to wash my head in that water.
I ended up getting a big bowl, filling it, and heating it up in the microwave for 5 minutes. The result? Sort of warm water. I washed my head with it, then soaped up with a wash cloth. I used all the slightly warm water for my head, so I ended up rinsing off in the cold, cold water.
Soon I will have a tankless water heater working here. No more cold showers in the near future.
I know what you are saying. "Didn't he grow up in Buffalo?" Yes, that's true, and I had to take some cold showers growing up, and I took some cold showers at the scout camp, and also a few on my mission, but I didn't like it. I prefer the slightly warmer than lukewarm, but not really scalding type of shower, unless I am really sore, then I make the water warmer.
If the hot water is not on tomorrow, I plan to head somewhere else for my water needs. There is a shower in my building, but we have to vacate before 5pm and can't come back at night. I could go over to the school gym...
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Really boring video
Monday, July 06, 2009
A touch of color
Double Stamp Monday
Today's victim was a server that has been having problems for a couple of years. I have been able to resuscitate it in the past, but not today. Today it died. Because it was supposed to be replaced this year, I didn't think it was worth the effort to replace the disks and rebuild the server. I took a short nap, and we all got to work moving things to alternate locations.
Luckily for Jess and I, John walked in this morning from his trip to Europe. We briefed him and went home. I got another short nap this afternoon before working on the house a little. Tonight I plan to get a nice long sleep in, tomorrow I'm back into the fray.
"Double Stamp Monday"? After my short nap this morning, I was pretty groggy. I had to stop in at the gas station for a drink. The gas station has a frequent beverage card, Mondays are double stamp days. Bonus.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Ten
Kenji and I ended up going to Home Depot to pick some stuff up. We did my traditional "futile attempt to cross to the West side of town during the Freedom Festival parade". I don't know why I always try that.
Anyhow, we got more 2x4, lights for the hallways, and a counter top for the bathroom. When we got the truck unloaded, Kenji helped me put the lights in. (It's a three or four hand job. I put one of those type of lights in our closet a while back, it took me about 4 hours and plenty of unkind words towards the light. It was much easier with two people...)
$DO || ! $DO ; try
try: command not found
I am still very tired, which is ok, since it is bedtime. I need to get plenty of sleep in the next 24 hours, I have to patch all our servers late tomorrow night. (Monday morning, really.) I hear they might have chips and salsa there when we get into the data center...