August Was Hot

How Hot?

So hot some people did crazy things.

Some Evolutionary Patio Pics From July, 2009

Just some pics from the month of July dating back to 4th of July weekend when the mass quantity of gravel was delivered, to the following week when the patio sand and blocks were dropped off on palettes. Too bad it's 102 degrees now, otherwise we could be using the patios!

Truckin' Dirt, Smackin' Dirt, Rollin' in Dirt

The wall was looking really good until last Saturday, when it was time to put more dirt behind it to build up for the patio. Check out the loaner truck from Teopfler Construction that Jonathan borrowed. He and Midori gifted me about 2 yards of dirt they didn't need. I helped them haul it into her backyard to backfill her addition; they brought it to our house to park it in the front yard and tip 'er back.

Had to dismantle 5 courses on the front wall to make it happen.


Here's Jonathan using the big gas powered packer (Owhrrr-owhrr-owhrr!) doing the smack down on the dirt pile.

And today, I just need some quiet time after a stressful day yesterday, so I'm working at home taking care of some personal stuff, and here's a shot of my office today; the dining room table with the Nanawall wide open. Birds singing their songs and the cooling breeze flowing through the house. Squirrels darting, Wookie dirt-rolling and oblivious. I likeit.

Wall! (Eeeeeee!)

It's been a few trips to the Home Depot over the past month or so to make it happen, but that pile of dirt in the front is finally enclosed and ready to be further backfilled.

Meanwhile, Jonathan's been remodeling Midori's house and they have two yards of dirt they'll be "gifting" me next weekend, so one step closer to an actual patio in the front yard.

Now we just have to decide what to make it out of. More concrete pavers? Poured concrete? Stone? Tile? Ipe? Merbau? More decisions; again. Oy.

Is That a Plumbob In Your Pocket...

Or are you jonesing for some fresh orange juice?

I was at the Home Depot buying some stakes and some string to put up some level lines and measuring lines to build the footings for the patio walls, and I thought I might need a plumbob. But they were like $12, so being the cheap guy I am, I figured I'd be able to find somethig around the house that would suit the purpose.

So I open the kitchen drawer, and boom- what do I see but the pefect item- the plastic juicer thing. That's it in the picture showing me exactly where 172" is from the face of the house.

Mission accomplished yesterday; after all the string pulling and plumbobbing, it was 20 sacks of concrete,the hoe, the wheelbarrow, and me, just going for it. (Owhrrr-owhrr-owhrr.)

Man Cave Somewhat Operational

Kian just turmed 15! So today is the first time he's had his buddies over to hang in the burgeoning Man-Cave. Rock Band rocks.

Meanwhile, Heather was preparing to make her fabulous Italian Hunter's Chicken Stew and looked under the sink and found wetness. Lots and lots of wetness. Looks like the Hans Grohe faucet has sprung some kind of a leak. I've fixed sinks before, but I've never seen one quite like this one, with four supply tubes coming out of the single base hole. So we've called a plumber for tomorrow night, (saves $50), and we probably won't be cooking tonight.

However, Jonathan's coming over, and he says maybe he can fix it. We'll see!

Someone Else's House

We've been at Mt Baker all week enjoying some excellent spring skiing. Here I am waiting for Michelle Quackenbush, trying hard not to get sunburned. :)

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New President!

Happy Inauguration Day all of you. What a day. What a speech. What a country. What a big sheet of black plastic.

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Santa Brings More Whiteness & a Big Box

Unbelievably, it's still snowing here. My friend Mike B, whom I went to school with from 3rd grade to 8th grade and lives a few blocks away, agreed with me that this is the most consecutive days of snowfall and snowy roadways that we've ever seen here.

It's supposed to warm up a little bit, but tonight and tomorrow night are still supposed to be below freezing. The way it looks now, I'm thinking the driving conditions will still be a little tricky for the next couple days, and walking around is going to be real yucky.

I had to go out to my car late last night to get some stocking stuffers and had to walk on top of about 6 inches of rain saturated sloppy snow, that sometimes held, and sometimes collapsed under my weight. Yuuuuk.

But the good news is that Santa dropped off a huge box in the basement last night. I know there's packaging fluff and air around whatever's in there, but it's still pretty darn big. His elves are coming tomorrow morning to put what's inside onto the wall where the old TV can be seen in this photo. So even though it'll be yuuky snowy outside, we'll probably be in the basement for the time being.
Heather's supposed to be working from home tomorrow too - doesn't have the day off like me....it's sure to be a productive day. ;-)

Merry Christmas to all of you citizens and citizens-elect out there; and I hope the New Year brings you much peace, happiness, prosperity, love, and whatever it is your heart desires.

Thicker Blanket

About eight inches total fell last night, and more is still falling right now on Sunday evening. Kian was doing his snowboard school clinics yesterday at the pass, and opted to stay the night up there thinking we'd be able to pick him up sometime today. Unfortunately, with all of last night's snowfall, the DOT closed the pass in both directions early in the morning, and he was ostensibly stuck up there, maybe for days! He was not happy, insisting it was certainly worth risking vehicular wreckage and personal injury to try and get him home tonight.

Fortunately, the ski clinic teachers all needed to come back into Seattle tonight, and the DOT opened the pass just long enough for Kian and his buddies to get back into town tonight, and we picked them up at Issaquah late afternoon.

Meanwhile, four inches is supposed to accumulate by morning, and temperatures will be in the upper 20's overnight. Should be fun driving into work tomorrow morning. Maybe.

White Blanket In Wedgwood

Woke up to partly cloudy skies this morning, after an inch thick blanket fell overnight, so I had to get out into the 25 degree air to see how well the insulation is working. Neighbor Brandon was out already with his almost year old daughter Zoe as the sun peeked out over the top of the unknown neighbor's house.

Brandon had new attic insulation blown in a few weeks ago, so he had to check out how well it was doing too - looks like it's doing about as well as ours, though the deep texture of our roof certainly shows up more.

I think Richard and Sarah haven't insulated yet, and their bedroom is at the front right of the house, judging from the amount of missing snow from that part of the roof. Of course, that could also be just from the overhanging branch. too.

Here's our house - nice coating of snow at 8:45 in the morning still. Only a couple more weeks until the days start getting longer again! Makes you long for a meaningful pagan holiday, huh?

It Is Cozy

The teapot is fabulous- as Heather says, it gets a real good workout constantly. Coffee, tea, more coffee, we LOVE IT! Thanks so much - (you know who you are).

Pagan solstice holiday tree was erected and trimmed with the boyz last week - moved the kitty chair to the basement, leaving just the one up here that I get to fight over with Wookie now for napping rights.

Congratulations to Howard Bra'ai Shapiro on getting his Green Card!!!! Wish we could go to Santa Fe to celebrate with he and Lori. In the meantime, it's supposed to get into the 20's tonight, a high of 30 tomorrow, and the snow falling tonight will likely not melt, so when it gets to 18 degrees tomorrow night it'll make for fun driving into work on Monday. Oy!

Two Weeks Later.....

Happy Holidays!

That's three parties in three weeks. Today, Heather's Whidbey Island Book Club, three members anyway, came down for yummy chicken and goodies, while I did the WAC and visited with buddy Jonathan.

Little bit of snow tonight- turned up the radiant heat upstairs to 68 degrees - it's nice. Spending the evening reading in the living room listening to swing music on NPR. Very domestic, huh?

Nice tablecloth, too, eh? The florals are cotoneaster and rosemary from the backyard. That hangy-down glowing thing below the hatbox is reflection of the living room lamp.

Ahhhhhh...........................

Missions accomplished. Open House went off without a hitch, my mother-henning about whether or not we were putting out enough food were totally unecessary; H's judgement was right on, though due to my concerns she did get about - 0h - maybe a gross more paper plates than we really needed.

And people brought many bottles of wine and bubbly, Antonio and Graca brought Casasa and a Caiparinha "kit", but John went to the QFC and got a dozen limes so we didn't need the mixer. There were maybe 55 to 60 total visitors throughout the afternoon, at times it was just about standing room only in the living/dining room, and the house really performed beautifully.

Heather played Vanna White a half dozen times demonstrating the Nanawall, and we stopwatched the magnetic induction stove a number of times during various demos - steam appears at about 27 seconds and water starts to boil at about 50 to 60 seconds.

Thanks to all of you who came and made it a most memorable event - and to thouse who brought a little something, and a special thanks to Jon and Midori for staying after to help us clean up- and we went to Tempero afterwards for more Antonio and Graca fun.

Happy Holidays!

Day After Turkey Day Before Open House Day

Good morning, all. H and I went to the WAC yesterday with Brother Tony for the low maintenance turkey fest. Yuuuuum. And H selected an excellent beaujalais nouveux to accompany. Afterward, Tony treated us to the new animated flick "Bolt". Haven't laughed so hard at a movie for a while. Best character is "Rhino", the advenurous hamster; had me ROFLMAO big time.

Check it out.

Today it's all electrical work and cleanup. Off to the salt mines. Have an excellent day, and hope to see you tomorrow.

Gutter Dwellers

The gutters were installed the day before Thanksgiving finally. You'd think that people who install gutters understand the basics of plumbing. Like "Water flows downhill.", and "Put a drain at the low spot." While the guys that did our gutters mayt have known the former, they really had no clue regarding the latter.

Evidence the photo below. You see where the downspot is in the foreground? Guess where the low spot was. (Hint; red circle.)
You may even see the pronounced slope toward the outer corner in the photo. There were two such places on the job. Both times they tried to tell me that the fascia (the wood trim on which the gutter is mounted, a.k.a. "gutter board") was crooked. Yeah, right. Steve's work is imperfect. Sorry dude; you are so wrong.

They grumbled, but they went up and fixed the problem in both locations. I don't understand how people can do such things.

I had to stay home and wait for them and to watch them to make sure it was done right, so I called my associate at work to tell him I'd be late, and he said he had the same thing happen on his house, but he didn't catch it until later when it rained and water was coming out of the outer corners instead of going down the downspouts.

Here's a shot of them in the backyard taking the whopping 5 minutes to fix the problem.

Food!

On Sunday, Heather made oatmeal for the boys. Oh; and bacon. In the oven. Ever cook bacon in the oven? Absolutely the best way to do it.

Sunday night, she got to make the first dinner meal in the new kitchen; lasagne. Yuuum.

Monday night after work, Heather was coming home late, so I got a chance in the kitchen. Pasta primavera. Yuuuuum. What a great kitchen. And magnetic induction is absolutely hands down the best cooktop system in the world. Ever leave a burner on accidentally? If this cooktop doesn't sense a ferrous iron pot on top of the burner, it shuts off automatically. And talk about quick response; wow. I've never ever had a gas stove, but this thing behaves the way I've always imagined a gas cooktop would, but I think this is even faster. And no fossil fuel! (Unless of course the electricity's coming from a coal-fired plant, which it's not. Seattle's old coal fired plant is now the Zymogenetics building on Lake Union; saw it fire up once on an extremely cold winter day in 1976, that's it.) So if you're going to remodel, go magnetic induction all the way.

Last item (besides the final lighting) that needs to be working in the kitchen is the range hood, or as Heather called it the other day - fume hood. From her days as a PhD chemist.

That's it for now; have a great day.

Sunny Fall Day; Yard Cleanup

Morning brought blue sky and sunshine to Wedgwood; tee shirt and shorts weather for some, like Kian here in the backyard, helping me and Daniel clear out construction debris. That's been one of those things that we've been itching to get to as soon as we have the time and decent weather, and voila, Sunday, no appointments, and Heather's station wagon with a tarp draped all over the back.

The final product today is as you see in the larger photo. Most of the detritus ended up either in the clean-wood-and-yardwaste truck (two loads) or the landfill truck (just one load). Whole bunch of yardwaste in the yardwaste bin for pickup this week too. Can you see where the bocce court will go?

Heather's making lasagne in the new kitchen now; the first real meal being created in there.

Here's a question for you, just to see if anyone's really reading this stuff. You ever take a shower and in the middle of it just lay back in the tub and let it fill up around you with the shower raining down on you? Not me....

Wow; First Cooktop Food!

Heather got some pots and a pan that will work on the induction stovetop yesterday, and used it for Kian's oatmeal this morning.

Notice the clever cropping that meets H's request to not be in the picture, but still captures the awesome action of the oatmeal event.

Nudder Pitcher

Just because you said you wanted one and I happened to have the bberry on me (such a rare moment!)

Welcome!

The third Hubbardton Forge sconce arrived yesterday; I put it up this afternoon - that's it to the left of the front door. I'll hve to take that one down to change the light bulb too, just like the other two. :-(

And Heather, after conspiring with Mary, selected rosemary for the planter in front of the pilaster to the left of the entry, so she picked up a new variety that you can see sitting in the planter now. That'll be huge in no time, I'm sure.

Temporary Lido Deck in front of the living room door for now - there's plenty of block stacking in our future. Have a great evening.

Another Pic

Jonathan came over tonight, just to see our cat Wookie!

Another shot

Those bookshelves still have some room in them, too!

Some Pics

Here's a peek at what it looks like from where I've been working this afternoon, just 'cuz somebody said they wanted to see some more pics (you know who you are...)

Where's Waldo?

More like "Where's Michael?" Haven't posted a thing in - gosh - five days! I actually haven't rushed home during lunch to answer questions or check on progress for - gosh - three days (if you don't count last week too)! It's been positively relaxing. I worked out on Sunday morning, Monday after work, Tuesday after work, and tonight was tennis night - I haven't been on that kind of a schedule for at least four, maybe five months. Makes me think we're actually done.

But we're not. The two front wall sconces flanking the patio door to the Lido Deck arrived last week, so I installed them on Sunday. The third sconce, for the entry, should arrive tomorrow. The four pendant lights, apricot colored cones with bright tiny halogens are ready for installation too - they're from Tech Lighting, that awesome company that makes the main bathroom fixtures - and they use their proprietary "Freejack" system that brings power down the skinniest of cables to the lamp, and it just screws neatly into the housing on the ceiling. Ingeniously elegant and simple. So I'll certainly be installing those babies this weekend.

Meanwhile, Heather's back in full swing working at the office, working here at home into the wee hours (she was after all gone for a whole week, so she needs to catch up), so things are pretty much back to "normal" again for her it seems. But there are still some things we need to get unpacked and put away, like the spices, and all the stuff that's staged in Heather's new office, which by the way still doesn't have power. I need to figure that one out this weekend too.

We moved our open house to Saturday the 29th, the Saturday after Turkey Day. Sent out an official evite to all our friends whose email addresses we know, but unfortunately we don't know our neighbors' addresses, so we'll have to notify them in person. That's all our thumbs-up neighbors of course.

Oh; I also put together one of those Rubbermaid pre-fab sheds for bicycle and tool storage in the back yard last week. Got to put the door handle and padlock hasp on it though. This weekend. Yeah. It's back to home-improvement on weekends, baby.

And I'm sending Steve and Pete to all my friends because those guys are the absolute best.

Ciao for now; I'll maybe post again on Sunday evening perhaps.

Connected!

This entire project, I've never been able to post a blog entry from the project site; there's been no internet connection. Not so any longer. The neat little curly queue of cable is from Comcast, finally providing internet access, and that box on the left is Qwest- phone access. Back to civilization!