September 30, 2006
I woke up from a nightmare at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. I haven't done that in a long time, but dreaming that you're about to be ripped apart by a pack of wild dogs with no chance of escape kind of shakes one up, ya know? No biggie, because the alarm was set for 6am anyway. I had things to take care of before the cabinet guys showed up at eight.
Guess who *didn't* show up again today? If you said "[expletive deleted] electrician", then give yourself a cookie.
I made sure that the dogs were penned up out of the way and let the cabinet guys into the house. They were in for a long day, because they have to be done before Monday when the floors get done. As soon as they arrived I took off to run a couple errands, one of which was picking up some plumbing parts for a leaky sink drain upstairs.
When I got back, I found out that my neighbor Mike had called. We had sort of made plans to install a laundry tub in my basement today. He was ready to do it, so we headed out again, right back to the big generic hardware store and then to it's equally big generic hardware store competitor across the street. Before long I had purchased a sink, faucet, and more various plumbing bits.
Mike does this stuff for a living, so I was looking forward to learning something new. In just a few hours we had rerouted the washing machine drain, installed and plumbed the sink, tapped into the hot and cold lines and run new to the sink and relocated the washing machine. I also made another run to the hardware store for a length of copper pipe and also found the lint socks I needed.
The aforementioned lint socks were the reason for this whole exercise. Our basements have a floor drain but no sump, and every couple of years the drains clog from the lint that flows out of the washer with the rinse water. By routing the washer drain into the laundry sink, I could fasten a lint sock to the end of the hose and it would catch all that soggy fluff and keep my drain from clogging. The lint sock looks kind of like a chainmail condom (probably $15.95 from Adam & Eve), and attaches to the hose with a zip tie. After two loads of laundry, there is already visible crud that was captured. Every month or so I'll throw it out and put a new one on, they cost about a buck apiece.
I did make one more run to the hardware store for an extension length of washing machine drain hose.
The cabinet guys were here until 7pm, and one of them will be back tomorrow for a while to finish with the last couple base cabinets. I sent a bag of tomatoes and jalepenos home with them tonight. My neighbor Mike got a bag too.
In totally unrelated news, one of the dogs has horrible gas. We're talking EPA-alert caliber dog farts. We think it's the new dry food they're eating. The plan is to switch back to the old stuff and see if that helps, because I keep expecting guys in white hazard suits to burst into the house and start to decontaminate the whole area.
Part of my movie order arrived today! Expect some reviews in the near future. Cringing won't help, stop being such a wuss.
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09:04 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Once upon a midnight dreary,
while i pron surfed, weak and weary,
over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'.While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark,
suddenly there came a warning,
and my heart was filled with mourning,
mourning for my dear amour,"'Tis not possible!", i muttered,
"give me back my free hardcore!"
..... quoth the server, 404.
404, even more evil than 666 according to some.
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05:56 AM | category: Square Pegs
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September 29, 2006
The very beginnings of last night's thunderstorms were rolling in (the worst of it brushed by to our west, there were tornados north of us as well). I was taking out the trash and saw a couple neighbors standing outside. They filled me in on the fun-in-progress.
Seems that the guy living across the street was teaching his daughter/wife/girlfriend (unclear) how to drive. As she was coming down the street, she hit two parked cars. Hard. Hard enough to knock the bead of a truck's tire off the rim. As she tried to back out, she almost hit a couple more parked cars. By this time, someone had come running out of their house and was yelling that they'd better not move that car. The police were called.
Two large groups of people stood around under umbrellas in the rain for several hours, first waiting for the police to arrive, and then as each told their story. As the cops finally drove away, the groups glared at each other from opposite sides of the street. This may not be over.
PS. My phrasing "large groups" may sound odd, but is explained by the fact that both groups are hispanic. I've noticed that the homes in our neighborhood that are owned by hispanics tend to have a lot of people living there. That is merely an observation.
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05:32 AM | category: Square Pegs
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September 28, 2006
If bees leave curses, we are so screwed. More on that farther down, after the boring crap that you couldn't care less about.
Today most of the rough-in electrical work was accomplished. Of course, this means that the drywall crew will be here again tomorrow to patch all the various holes that must be cut when running wire. As a consequence, the cabinet installation will now start Friday and be finished Saturday, no matter how long it takes.
Bright and early tomorrow morning the electrician will arrive to finish up his bit on the main floor, and then descend to the basement level to swap out the main electrical panel. Wire has already been run for that, so it's a straight exchanging of parts that should take about four hours.
One interesting discovery was made by the electrician downstairs. He cut a couple of holes in the ceiling in order to run the wire to the panel, and over by the back wall of the house he discovered honeycomb. Old honeycomb.
Years ago, we had a bee problem where the little bombers were crawling into a crevice around one of the outside window frames, and into the wall itself. We'd have bees in the house all the time and couldn't figure out where they were coming from, until we finally we caught several emerging from behind some interior window moulding. I leaned down to look closer and my hand went through the drywall and into a beehive. They were as surprised as I was. We quickly blocked the hole by covering it with a large trash bag taped to the wall, and then plans were made. I started off by fogging the hell out of the opening of the hole, and then leaving the fogger on inside to get to as much of the space as possible. We closed it up again and repeated several times over the next day. As the bees left in a hurry, we found the spot on the outside frame that they were using to enter and I fogged that entrance too. Next I caulked that entrance up good and tight.
I wound up replacing a good two foot square of drywall where those bees had eaten the back away until it was damn near paper thin. When I cut the wall away, hundreds of dead bees fell out. No more problems after that.
So our walls are full of old honeycomb and thousands of mummified bee corpses. Lets just hope that we don't have the insect equivalent of those WWII Japanese island soldiers still living in there, waiting for their chance to get even.
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05:15 AM | category: Square Pegs
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September 27, 2006
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1. Livid.
2. Enraged.
3. Bewildered.
4. Missing.
A. Wife.
B. Prime Contractor.
C. Electrical Contractor Dispatcher.
D. [Expletive Deleted] Electrician.
Lots of work done yesterday. None of it involved electricity in any fundamental way.
The kitchen, dining room and bathroom drywall is finished. The kitchen and dining room are now painted (except the trim). The floor is fixed where the old walls were and the heat/air vent is relocated.
Everyone is waiting on the electrician now. Nobody knows why they didn't show up yesterday, not even their boss. Cabinet and appliance installation has been delayed by a day, and will now take place Thursday, Friday (and Saturday if needed).
Liz raised hell with the appliance people. Our refrigerator was backordered and so I set up the delivery date for just that on October 10th. When Liz called to confirm that everything else would be delivered yesterday, they told her that the fridge wouldn't be available until later in the month. We just gave away our old fridge to one of the construction crew, so this wasn't acceptable. After dealing with Liz for a while, they magically "found" a refrigerator in their warehouse for us. Same model, same options, same style. They even delivered it yesterday with the rest of our stuff.
I wonder if someone else is wondering where their fridge is. It's probably bad juju on me, but right now I don't care.
All the cabinets were delivered and are now stacked all over the living room. Installation must wait for the [expletive deleted] electrician. The dining room is full of shiny new appliances.
I'm trying to keep a good humor about this, because really, it hasn't been too awful bad. If this goes on another day though...
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September 26, 2006
On Sunday the new floor guy came out and took measurements and gave us an estimate. The estimate was within our budget, enough so that we were able to replace *all* the carpeting in the house instead of just the main floor and one stairway. They can't do the kitchen/dining room/bathroom/foyer install on Friday like we were hoping for, but the crew will be out Saturday and finish up on Monday. Carpet will be done in a couple few weeks.
The [expletive deleted] electrician didn't show up again today. Turns out he called in sick and nobody bothered to let us or the general contractor know. So tomorrow (hopefully) the electrical work on the main floor will be done and on Wednesday the main panel gets switched out.
Today was more drywall work. The drain pipes in that wall got re-routed. The bathroom floor was taken up and the existing vanity removed. Partly because the schedule is slipping and partly to save a few hundred bucks, we gave the go-ahead to just paint the kitchen and dining room walls white instead of the blues we had picked out.
I patched nail holes in the stairwell heading to the basement, and will probably start in on the ceilings tomorrow in the stairway, hall and living room.
Tomorrow is going to be a big day all around. The cabinets get delivered (but have to be set in the dining room while the [expletive deleted] electrician does his thing. Which is going to cause the drywall guys to have to re-do some of their work, which means the painters will have to re-do some of *their* work. The appliances are due tomorrow too.
There's a reason why you hire a general contractor to deal with the individual tradesmen, and this is it. We're staying on top of things, and every time we talk to the general contractor we have a list of questions and issues. But this guy is paid to deal with the scheduling crap that happens with every project, and as far as I'm concerned he's worth every penny (and he's earning it too!).
I wish it wasn't happening, but it is kind of reassuring to see the pros go through the same kind of unexpected project futz that we do-it-yourself'ers do. There's nothing more annoying than getting into the middle of something, and then having to run back to the hardware store to pick up a part that you didn't know about or expect to need.
I'll keep blogging the renovation progress, as much for us to look back at in the future as for you to be enthralled over. Heh, right.
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September 23, 2006
There's only one thing you could call it: the "Lazy Ass Susan".
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04:22 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Every project has unexpected glitches and gotchas, and day 2 was our day full. For progress, drywall was put up to cover the places where the ceiling and wall used to be, the pantry entrance was opened up, and the dining room carpet was removed. Also, work sorta started in the bathroom in that the medicine cabinet was carefully removed. I'll be recycling that to the other bathroom, because it's in better shape than the one upstairs.
As for the problems, most of them are minor, and all are already dealt with. The electrician goofed up his schedule and couldn't come out on Thursday and Friday as planned. He'll be here Monday to get started by replacing the main panel for the house.
The plan for those two drain pipes in the pantry entrance wall is even better than the one I expected. They're going to lower the joint to almost floor level and reroute both pipes back flush to the main wall. They'll still protrude, but not very much, and the cabinets can be modified to hide them.
The biggest problem was with the guy we were working with to do the floors. He screwed up big time. He lost all of our paperwork, so not only doesn't he know what we picked out, but none of it got ordered. The estimates and orders all happened a few months ago, and what with the packing up the main floor, we can't find our copies either. On top of that, he suddenly can't meet our schedule. Very unprofessional.
Last night Liz and I went to his place of business to straighten things out. He wasn't there and couldn't be located (out on a call - "somewhere"), and his clerk was the singularly most unhelpful person I've ever dealt with. We walked out and went looking for an alternative.
We did find one. We found equivalents to what we wanted from the other place. The guy will be coming out Sunday morning to do the measurements and give us the estimates. He *might* be able to do our schedule (ideally, kitchen floor installation happens next Friday), but because this is so last minute we'll understand if it can't happen right then. Carpets will get done in a few weeks.
Cabinets get installed starting Tuesday, and appliances show up then too (except for the fridge, which will show up two weeks later - backordered). Countertop templates happen on Thursday, floor on Friday (fingers crossed) and that's all written in sand.
We're making progress, and this is the normal kind of scheduling problems that I expected, so we're not stressing too much about it. In fact, every time we run across one of these little speedbumps, we just look at each other, grin from ear to ear and say, "we're getting a new kitchen!"
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04:46 AM | category: Square Pegs
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September 21, 2006
Where the peninsula and soffet *used* to be
I told you that the cabinets there were going into the basement. Thanks to our prep work clearing the move path, those cabinets were in the basement less than half an hour after they started.
The dining room carpet is still there, and as you can see that little odd pantry opening is still there. Like all renovations, you always run into something unexpected, and this one is ours (if this is the only one then we're getting off lucky). There are two drain pipes in that odd little wall that nobody knew were there. If building codes allow, I expect that they'll lower the pipe joint about six inches to fit beneath the countertop height and fit the cabinets around it. That's my guess anyway, we'll see what the experts come up with.
For all the progress made, the room (and house) is remarkably clean, almost as if they vacuumed and dusted afterwards.
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07:14 PM | category: Square Pegs
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September 20, 2006
Here are the "before" pictures, pop-up style.
This peninsula of cabinets shown in these first two pictures creates a pass-through bar between the two rooms. It's outta here. The floor cabinets and countertop are going into the basement to replace a couple of old card tables that we've used forever for folding laundry. You'll notice the square holes in the soffet, those were cut by the contractors to see what was inside the wall before finalizing plans to remove it.
Here's a shot down the length of the kitchen from the pantry. The fridge will be moved so that it'll be directly to your right from where this picture is taken.
In most houses with our floor plan, this room is a big ass pantry. The previous owner did this to the doorway and put a small built-in table and benches for a nook for his kids to eat. They had three sets of twins, so they needed the space. We converted it back into an open pantry as shown here.
The plan is to completely open it up so that there's no "doorway" left. The new cabinets will extend into the space and around the back wall, creating a butler's pantry. Lots of countertop space for things like the food processor and bread machine too. The fridge will be sitting to the left of the opening, with a new cabinet next to it.
I took more pictures this evening of the first day's progress. I'll post 'em tomorrow night.
Posted by: Ted at
09:06 PM | category: Square Pegs
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September 19, 2006
Posted by: Ted at
07:45 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina came in at number 3. San Fransisco is number 2 and Seattle is number 1.
I don't know about Raleigh, but it doesn't surprise me that the two biggest moonbat concentrations are products of our esteemed institutions of higher learning. They keep telling the rest of us how much smarter they are, and we're just too dumb to realize it.
Explain to me again why it's bad that North Korea can reach the west coast with their missiles?
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05:09 AM | category: Square Pegs
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And as you drove down the road, each of these lights pointed in a different direction, making your vehicle look like a 70's-style disco ball on wheels. Your lane was illuminated. The lane on either side of you was illuminated. The shoulder of the road was lit up. You shined into my rear view mirror. Heck, you shined into mirrors two lanes over.
Maybe that was your intention. Maybe you spent time carefully adjusting each and every light for maximum coverage, so that everywhere you drove, you were enveloped in a giant ball of blinding glare.
I think though, that the simpler explanation is probably true. You're just an idiot.
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04:54 AM | category: Square Pegs
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September 17, 2006
Me: You know, I was thinking...Wife: Uh oh.
Me: Well, we're getting a new refrigerator, and I thought that it would be the perfect chance to resurrect Nog Watch.
Wife: No.
Me: It was one of the most popular Rocket Jones features.
Wife: No.
Me: Think abo--
Wife: No.
Sorry. I tried.
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07:49 PM | category: Square Pegs
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September 13, 2006
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04:49 AM | category: Square Pegs
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September 12, 2006
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05:11 AM | category: Square Pegs
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In this one, they want a representative who will "demand" that China, India, and a couple of other countries all stop subsidizing their industries in order to steal American jobs.
Maybe as a good faith gesture, we should close all those Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and Volkswagen manufacturing plants in the US. After all, we're stealing jobs from their workers.
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05:05 AM | category: Square Pegs
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September 01, 2006
I've gone out back to lift a large tree branch off of the back fence, and there's an even bigger one out there now that I'll have to saw in half to move. I don't feel like standing out in the rain with the saw, and it's straddling the fence, not actually on it, so it can wait until Sunday.
Mother Nature is saving me big bucks by bringing down that Maple piece at a time. At some point I'll have to hire a tree company to take down the main trunk, but it'll be like taking down a telephone pole at this rate.
I noticed another big tree snapped off about 30 feet up down by the creek. Ernesto must be muy offended because I called him a wuss.
Posted by: Ted at
05:31 PM | category: Square Pegs
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