MOVIE: Rize

I was grazing the fields at Block Buster when I came across this title. Interesting cover. Interesting caption: "A visual miracle!" Since it wasn't directed by Uwe Boll, I gave it shot. (Uwe, by the way, is most likely the worst "Director" to ever put his stink on a movie. He's like an Anti-Midas, anything he touches turns to shite!)

At first (for probably half the movie, actually!) I thought it was a very straight-faced mockumentary. Maybe I'm a very sheltered geek. Or maybe I'm far too crackerfied to really know anything about "West Coast" social movements. But I've never even imagined there'd be a style of dance developed by a clown, who was looking to make a defying statement against the 1992 L.A Riots. Not only did it get aptly named "clowning," but a radical fringe group of clowners broke off and mutated the style into "krumping." It sounds like science fiction and I kept looking for the punch line. ("Ha! You fell for it!) But the social movement of clowning and krumping are completely authentic, and well documented in Rize.

Without the slightest bit of sarcasm or persnicketiness, I will admit it was a tremendous pleasure to watch this movie. I was hypnotized! By the people. By their stories. By the amazing development of this sub-culture. And especially by the seemingly impossible moves displayed by everyone in the show.

On top of the incredible content, the direction is perfect. The pacing flows extremely well. The musical score is phenomenal. And it is all pulled together with such precision that the movie seems to create itself without any outside influence or support. How this slipped past everyone's radar is beyond me. I can only imagine it is due to the obscurity of the subject matter being so far beyond anyone's usual interest (outside of California) that it was a complete sleeper when it hit the theaters.

I still can't believe I'm writing about this movie! I still can't believe it isn't fictional! I want more. I want to see parts two, three, and four. I want to know what happened once the cameras stopped rolling and all these people had to go back to their lives.

I want a sequel!

Knot here

At two in the morning, the sound of a coconut hitting the floor is not a good thing. When it is quickly followed by "owe... owe... owe!" you pretty much know something has gone wrong somewhere in the house.

This something happened to be Liam falling out of bed and clonking his head on either his bed frame, or the floor. Neither of which is particularly soft.

To further complicate the matter, somehow he managed to hit the BACK of his head. And the resulting knot (click picture to see where it could be found) was the size of a lush, full grown strawberry.

He whimpered a good bit. Cindy babysat him until he drifted back to dreamtown. Then she (I SWEAR!) checked him every two hours to make sure his motor functions and mental facilities were still intact. I don't know exactly how she ascertained his abilities at 4AM. But I have no doubt she did it, like clockwork, every two hours. Meanwhile, I slept.

It made for a good story in the morning. And Cindy's already planning to wrap his bed frame in large, cushy towels.

If she could, she'd pad the whole floor. Just in case!

This Olde House - Touchup work

I suppose this is why people don't do their own renovation work: a constant list of "touchup" work.

After I came home from my adventure in Doe's workshop, I was motivated to check some items off my list. So I spent the next three or six hours working on the dining room.First I had to re-spackle the crown molding. The initial batch had sucked into the nail holes and I wasn't happy with the pre-painted appearance. So I went back over every hole with fresh spackle and a razor blade, to get a thin layer right up against the rest of the un-nailed wood. And a couple of the seams (between two pieces of crown molding) really didn't please me. So I sanded them (again) and applied even more spackle.

While I was waiting for that to dry, I went back over several gaps in the caulking. Seems that the new crown molding is still settling and some of the latex seals had pulled apart. So I went back over those.

By the time I was done with the caulk (my second lap of the ceiling) the spackle had dried. I sanded that down as smoothly as possible and gave the seams some extra love. (Click on the picture above for a zoomed-in image of what I mean. The nailholes were gaping before, but barely visible. And the seam is much smoother. After my third lap of the ceiling, I think a coat of primer and two coats of paint will render everything invisible.

Since I was in the mood, I went ahead and cleaned up the last small items related to the new tile in the dining room. The "threshold" between the tile and the original hardwoods (in the living room) needed to be re-glued. I put a couple of lines of "Liquid Nails" under it and put a chair on top, to hold it down. And since the threshold (the unpainted wooden thing in the picture) wasn't snug against casing (the white wood in the picture) I put a line of wood putty in the small gap, rendering it almost invisible, unless you know what to look for. And there was a really large gap in the tile, next to the casing. You could see down to the foundation. So I brewed up a small batch of grout, and filled the larger gap. After a day or three, it will have dried completely and will match the rest of the grout. Click on the image above to a zoomed-in image.

And finally, I sanded the drywall in the kitchen. Maybe three boards worth. No pictures of that, since it is waaaay boring. And knowing my luck, I'd only manage to get fine white dust in my camera.

Meg was a huuuuge help today. She vacuumed up the dust with my Shopvac and helped dispose of all the stray spackle. Collecting it like pale snow on the floor.

The end result is that the dining room and the kitchen are completely done. They just need to be painted. And Cindy's going to bang that out this weekend....

Lost and found

My father and I picked up some of my grandfather's tools today. In thirty plus years, I never stepped foot in that workshop without Doe being present. No one did. His shop was hallowed ground. Nobody dared to trespass.

It smelled of oil and sawdust and rusting iron. Everything quiet, completely still. Behind us, a storm brewing in the sky. Dark clouds. Cold wind. Somewhere, in the long hereafter, Doe watched intently. We could feel the weight of his stare. We bore it sullenly. Trying to be respectful to the memory of everything he build in there.

I'll inherit a few of his tools. A ban saw. A drill press. Maybe a router. Some pipe cutters. An ax. And a bunch of C-clamps. I also saved some potential museum pieces, including a vacuum tube tester and set of WWII headphones.

I look forward to working with my grandfather's tools. To channel his spirit through the wood and metal and see what he can help me conjure.

But as we started to leave, I noticed an odd jumble of tools dangling off a peg on the wall. Everything browned with age and smothered in dust. But the first two pieces stood out from the rest. Hung at odd angles. Hinted at something.

"Let's go," said Dad, walking toward the truck.

"Hold on a second, " I said. Dad turned around to see what I'd found. "Check this out." And I picked up those first two pieces. Held them up, in front of me. Slowly corrected the angles.

"The compass and the rule," I said.

"The sign of the Masons?"

I nodded and smiled.

When I got home, I asked Meg to pose them. Holding them the way I held them for my father. So he could see the symbol.

. . .

My grandfather left those two tools there on purpose. They sat waiting, patiently. A decade or more. Temping the person who found them to grasp their meaning.

Today, I did.

I found them, Doe.

And even though we're separated by a veil death, I know you're smiling, because I solved your final riddle.

Gym time

I don't do "New Year's Resolutions." I do goals. I've decided set a goal of losing 15 - 30 pounds by Father's Day. That gives me six months to get down to 185 - 200. We'll likely be in Destin, FL, for a long weekend around Father's Day. And I want to look good without a shirt. So there's my goal.

To reach that goal, I'm going to watch what I eat even more than I usually do, and double my cardio efforts. I'm also going to chill out on the protein a bit. There's a lot more size on my shoulders and arms and chest, but I don't want to be "big." I just want to be fit. So I'm going to chill on the mass doses of protein. I'll see how that plan works for a month. If it doesn't give me any results, I'll hire some professional help. And I'll still have 5 months to lose the chub.

So I started off with a killer workout today. And a 3.5 mile run on the treadmill. My shirt was drenched, as if I'd been hit with a bucket of water. And I feel great great great!

Six more months of this?

App Wrestling

So I spent the better part of four hours putting together a 28 minute collage of recorded video from Good Morning America. Four hours of my time, maybe eight hours of lapsed time. Half of it was spent waiting for the final version to render. And of course if I didn't get it right, I had to edit it and re-render it.

I started off using six or seven different applications. One to edit it. Another to render it. A couple of others to try to convert it to a smaller format so it wasn't ungodly huge. The RAW file (the complete two hour episode of GMA) was about 5.5Gb. My first "edit" cut it down to 28 minutes, but the output (an .avi file) was something like FOUR GIGS! No idea what the heck happened here. I crossed swords with it a couple of times, but it kept winning. I'd try to smoosh with other products, but the smallest I could get it was like 500Mb. A good bit smaller, but still waaaay to huge, especially considering it was only half an hour of video.

Finally, I stumbled across Adobe Premiere. Waaaaaaay more complex than anything I've ever used. But once I produced the final clip, I was able to compress it into a web-friendly format. And it got uploaded for my August 29th entry.

I like the program. I was getting really sick of app wrestling. I'm going to try to use Premiere some more, and post additional videos. So hoooopefully it is the start of something new.

I just pray it doesn't take me so long to grind out projects!

Iowa Unleashed

Tonight's caucus results rekindled my excitement about the 2008 "Presidential" race.

Two complete surprises: 1) a state which is 97% white gave the first nomination of a black man for President instead of giving it to a white woman, 2) Dr Ron Paul received twice as man votes as Rudy Giuliani.

Yeah, yeah. Huckabee this. Huckabee that. Whaaaadevah! I'll leave it to the puppet masters in the mainstream media to report on the obvious tripe. Sure Romney outspent Huckabee. But Iowa is a very fundamental Christian state and Huckabee is a fundamental Christian. I would have been MORE surprised if Huck did NOT do well there.

And while I'm happy to see that the issue of race was put on the backburner, the bigger point is that it was done in order to show that the voters REAL CHANGE! Every other word out of Hilary's mouth is "change," but it's a sham. A fabrication. She is a firm member of the establishment and would do little (if anything) other than perpetuate the continued deterioration of our country. Need proof? She says she wants to "change" health care, while receiving more than three-quarters of a million dollars from health care lobbyists. How does she expect me to believe she's going to do anything to "reform" the industry that is pouring money into her campaign. With the results of Iowa's caucus today, I think it is safe to say I'm not the only one who doesn't trust her.

At the other end of the spectrum, I was floored to see that few people were willing to cast a vote in favor of the fearmongering stupidity of Mr 9/11 Giuliani. Seriously, the man should change his first name to "9/11." He got half the votes of the most under-reported candidate in the race, Ron Paul. I know Rudy didn't aggressively campaign in Iowa, but I'm hopeful that is a good sign of things to come.

Anyway, my main man Ron Paul gave a great showing and Hilary didn't. Everything else fell on deaf ears at Chateau McD.

Thank you, Iowa. THANK YOU!

Fatty McFatArse

By my standards, I worked out pretty hard most of last year. And I drank a ton of protein shakes in order to add mass. So it should come as no surprise to learn that I've gained more than ten pounds in 2007.

I went from about 202lbs to nearly 215lbs!

As a refresher, I graduated from high school (1989) at a whopping 140lbs. I was around 160lbs when I met Cindy in 1994. I was 180lbs after we tied the knot and moved to Atlanta, GA around 1997. I have never weighed more than 207! And that was after Liam was born (1999), when I didn't care what I ate, what I drank, and I never did a lick of exercise. And I hovered around 190 for the better part of the last five years.

Stepping onto that scale and seeing 215 gave me a microsecond seizure. My eyes rolled up in my head. My brain started to shutdown. I couldn't breathe. My legs began to buckle.

And then it passed.

I realized: I'm working out with weights I thought I could do. And I'm running distances I never thought I could run. My clothes feel comfortable. I think I have definition and curves where I never had anything other than bones.

But I don't like that scale sneering TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN at me. Don't like it one bit. I'm going to put some braincells to it. Gonna come up with an attack plan. Put a hurtin' on ol' Fatty McFatArse.

I'll never see 140 again. But I'm gonna move south of 200.

Double ouchies

YAR! The pain! THE PAIN!

I cut my nails too darn short. Now, every time I drum my fingers or try to pull open a beer, I get a sudden jolt of sweet sweet agony. I kinda liked it, the first hundred times. But it lost its charm very quickly and now I'm mad at myself for getting too aggressive with the clippers....

And to make matters worse, I have a second ouchie. A painful bruise on the meaty underside of my right foot, just forward of my heel. I stepped on a rock while barefootedly hauling in groceries last night. And every step since has been a nasty one.

So this week, I can't operate large machinery and I can't run the Boston Marathon. What's a man to do?

ARRRRGH!

Domestified Daddy

I don't remember where I saw this project (click photo to enlarge) but I have been dwelling on it for a while. It is pretty much just individual servings of hot chocolate in a nice package, gussied up and presented as a Christmas gift.

I cobbled together the pieces a couple of weeks ago. But with Meg in the hospital and my Grandfather's demise, we couldn't get to it as soon as I wanted.

This afternoon, I pulled out all the parts and explained the plan to the kids: 1) I pour two bags of cocoa into a cellophane code, 2) Liam adds three scoops of chocolate chips, 3) Meg adds three scoops of marshmallows, 4) Cindy twists the open end, ties it with a red ribbon, and 5) Adds a label with instructions and all of our signatures.

It went really well. The kids enjoyed it. Cindy and I enjoyed it. It was a fun family activity. And by the end, we made two dozen little bundles of Christmas joy.

I'm going to take everything to work tomorrow and divvy them among my cohorts. They'll probably think Cindy twisted my arm and made me do it. Little do they know it was my own domestified idea.

Year's End

In review, it has been an odd year. The kids have been doing well. Cindy and I have been doing well. I have a new niece. Cindy's nieces returned to the Coast. And we've been making crazy amounts of progress on the house.

But everything seems to pale next to the series of losses that have scarred the year for me. My friend Stanley Cline died. My cohort MacArthur Wright died. And last week, my Grandfather died.

So that's how I'll remember 2007. A swirl of personal successes spangled red by unexpected departures.

Welcome, 2008. I've been expecting you.

MOVIE: Charlie Wilson's War

It is a good sign when Cindy doesn't sleep through a late movie. And Charlie Wilson's War kept her awake the whoooooole time.

Stellar cast. Excellent acting. Well-written dialog. Good pacing. All around great flick. Well worth the price of admission and I know there will be numerous awards in its future.

I was glad to see the movie allude to the fact that America trained and armed the Mujahideen to fight the Soviets, but created a new generations of enemies by "not finishing the job." We left the fragile, still-wounded country to fend for itself. Then the Taliban slithered into the void, to fill the Afghan people with hatred towards its former ally. And the rest is history.

So, just a touch of self-righteous liberalism. But not enough to spoil the mood.

In closing, I do have a confession to make. I thought the male co-star was Dan Akroyd.
I was happily surprised when Cindy told me it was Philip Seymour Hoffman. Loved his character, too! His best role since Capote. I would have went to the theater just to see him. The rest was gravy.

Santa's Leftovers

Santa came and left several surprises. First, the kids both got a reindeer Webkinz. I think that makes 8 pets for Liam and 6 pets for Meg.

Here's a picture of their displaying the newbies.





Next, Liam rocked the house with a new electric guitar. It is a pretty cool little axe, too. It has different cartridges that let you play different genres of music. And you can hook it to any relatively modern television that has a red/yellow/white input. So, Liam's new motto is: have grooves, will travel.

Here's a snap of him getting ready to shred.





And wee Meg, recently returned from her Medical Tour of Gulfport Memorial, received a Hannah Montana wig and a nifty karaoke microphone, among other things.

Here's a photo of her preparing for her first appearance with the new gear.

After we went through all the findings at our house, we went to my Grandmother's house for a few more presents and lunch. Then over to my parents house, for the next round of gifts.

I was supposed to go with everyone to my Father-in-law's house, for the final round of presents. But my allergies or sinuses fired up, and I all but collapsed in bed for a couple of hours. I slept while Cindy and the kids went without me.

In the end, it was a good day. The weather held out for us. The families all came together. Everyone was happy, given the situation. 2008, here we come.

My wee lass

Meg was sick for a couple of days. The first day she threw up several times and couldn't keep anything down. The next day, she barely ate and threw up again. Yesterday, Cindy took her to the pediatrician. He said Meg had lost too much weight too quickly and was very dehydrated. So we had to admit her to the hospital, to keep her from deteriorating further.

The first day was bad. She was very lethargic. And didn't speak much. She wanted to be home. And didn't like the fact she had an IV in her arm and they had to draw blood (for tests) from the other. I don't think she ate that day, either.

On the good side, they pumped her full of fluids. There were TONS of presents from schools and nurses. And they had plenty of games and books to keep her entertained.

By the end of the second day, she was eating a little bit. Her color had returned. And she was talking again (mostly about going home.) I managed to catch her smiling. (Click picture to enlarge.) That's her bed and her Mommy and her new pink bear. I forgot what she named the bear, though.

Just as Liam and I were wrapping up, the doctor came through. He said, "It wouldn't hurt to keep her one more night." Which Cindy and I clearly took to mean: Her labs are close, but she isn't normal, we'd like to keep giving her fluids over night and we'll send her home tomorrow morning.

So that's the plan. One more night for Mommy and Meg. We'll all be together tomorrow.

This Olde House - Part 8

We've had three pallets of tiles sitting, under tarps, under my carport, for the better part of a month. We bought them early, when they were on sale. They've been taunting me ever since. Daring me to try and put them in place. It all came to a close this weekend.

The tiles are done!

These things are eighteen inch, "roman stone " tiles. That translates into "very heavy and cumbersome." A six pack easily weights more than forty five pounds. Seriously, the large weighted plates at the gym weigh less! And there are three hundred square feet of them to put down.

In the process of putting them down, I learned several valuable lessons: you always have to mix the mortar the same way to keep it consistent throughout the project, sometimes the floor isn't perfectly level, and you have to vary the thickness the mortar to in order to get the final product to be level.




Fortunately, the dining room is fairly square. And the back wall lines up flush with the kitchen walls. So there really wasn't aanything overly complicated involved in getting the pattern in place.

Only really had to cut about twenty pieces. Six along the arch to the living room. Two along the hallway. And the rest along the cabinets in the kitchen.

A day and a half for the tile. Half a day for the grout.

I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Cindy loves the final results. That makes it worth the time, effort, and cost.

This Olde House - Pre-fab corners

The corner pieces are all in place along with the crown molding. I've been caulking all the seams. Fun stuff, caulk. I usually manage to get more of it in the correct place than on my fingers. But I still had to carry an old towel on my shoulder to wipe off the excess. And every half hour I'd end up scrubbing my hands.

The first picture is in the dining room. The molding on the RIGHT side has been caulked. I also spackled the nail holes. Look along the ceiling on the LEFT side. It isn't caulked yet. When I first put up the board, I thought, "I don't need to caulk that." But the difference is very noticeable afterwards. I still have to shim the large visible gap between the molding and the corner piece.

Second picture is also in the dining room. Again, one side is caulked, the other isn't. Again, noticeable gap between the board and the ceiling. Yes, I'm nailing the board every foot, or so. But I'm putting this on a pre-sprayed ceiling. The popcorn helps create the gaps. I'm still considering scraping that popcorn off. I really hate it. It screams, "I'm old!" Of course, there's still a noticeable space by the corner piece, but it isn't too severe and I'm just going to caulk it. No shim for it.

Last picture is in the living room, with painted walls. The lesson here is: don't paint until AFTER the caulking is done. (Actually, we painted before any of the molding was up.) Much of the wall in the picture will have to be repainted. But I think it demonstrates how I went around the whole corner piece and made sure to fill in every bit of space.

The last picture is a bit fuzzy, but on the left side, it shows where I had to sand down the seam between two boards. There's some excess spackle still hardening, but I'm 95% certain the seam will be invisible once I finish sanding everything down.

Some primer in a few places, a layer of paint on everything, and I'll be done up top.

This Olde House - Part 7.5

The floor of the dining room is next. We were expecting to find a slab when we lifted up the old carpeting. Instead, we found bricks. Raw, untreated bricks. It only confirmed our suspicion that the dining room wasn't a part of the original house. Perhaps it used to be a porch or patio or something. And later they enclosed it. But they never covered it with anything other than a nappy rug. And they certainly didn't level it. The only reason I didn't put a wooden sub floor is because the area is far from level. I would have had to cut every board to a custom angle. And I mean EVERY board. So Cindy did some sweeping and I took the day off to supervise the efforts to get a solid, level floor in the dining room.


The cement truck arrived late. And instead of a front loader, it was a standard back loader. So the guy had to backup, onto my lawn, and angle a clean shot through the window. We were hoping to use a front loader and extend a couple of chutes through the window. But, as I've said, you gotta do what you gotta do. And the driver expertly damaged my yard while getting the chute in place.



It was rapidly apparent to me why I didn't want to tackle this project myself. Concrete isn't a forgiving or simple medium. The guy who worked it had a slow, mellow gait about him. He'd eyeball the pour and shout a couple of instructions to the driver. Surprisingly, the "driver" actually does a good bit of work throughout the adventure. He adds water to the mix, operates the chute, and does a good bit of cleaning. In addition to smoking endlessly and chatting it up with the guy smoothing the poured concrete.



After a while, they had the room filled and seemingly level. Then it was about an hour of smoothing. And an hour of cleaning. By the end, there was no apparent seam between the old floor (in the kitchen) and the new floor (in the dining room.) If nobody had ever seen it, they'd never know it wasn't part of the original house. And that is fine by me.

Next, on to the tiling...

This Olde House - Part 7

Time to get back to the floors. I've been avoiding this part for a while. Part due to the work I'd have to put into it. Part due to the price. In the end, I accepted the fact: you gotta do what you gotta do. So I set to work prepping the kitchen floor.

As a recap, the floor used to have large Spanish tile with inch-wide grout lines. I put in six hours of labor to jackhammer it up (as well as having my spine surgically replaced!) And there were still maaaaany rough spots. According to my tile guys, I can't have rough spots. I have to get rid of them.

One method is to try to use the jackhammer, again. The other method is to use a "floor grinder." My new spine didn't need to be replaced, so I thought the "grinder" would be the path of least resistance. Oh, stupid, stupid me! As far as I can tell, the "floor grinder" is really just a floor buffer with thick charcoal bricks loaded onto the buffing wheel.

While using the grinder, three facts quickly became apparent: 1) This thing kicks like a pair of pissed off pack mules. (It actually got away from me once, swung around, and plowed into my ribs, where it left a distinctly painful and apparent bruise.) After I finished, I was completely drenched in sweat and felt as I had worked out for a couple of hours! 2) While brutal to use, it is muuuuuch quicker than using a jackhammer, 3) It leaves a major mess. It was easy to see where I had ground down and where I hadn't, because there was a blanket of powdered cement on top of the finished areas.

By the end, the whole process took about four hours. One to prep. One to grind. Two to clean. I like to think that I actually learn from my mistakes. So I made sure I wouldn't get a quarter inch of dust on top of everything in the house by walling off the kitchen with a plastic barrier. And I put a layer of plastic on top of all the counters.

I think the precautions spared me another verbal assault from Lady McD. Once I shop vac'ed the floors and carefully extracted all the plastic, there was almost nothing left to clean. Almost.

So it is on to the next stage...

This Olde House - Part 6.50

Three weeks of downtime due to Cindy's lack of faith in my abilities to install the boards. Mostly she objected to my use of corner pieces. Since Cheryl (her best friend and our interior designer) didn't approve of them, Cindy didn't want to accept my decision to make use of them. To be honest, their aesthetics come second to their ease of use. If I put them in the corners, I only have to cut the boards to length (to go flush against the corner pieces.) I don't have to cut the angles and I don't have to cope anything. It is much much much easier to use corner pieces. And it actually looks pretty good, even in my opinion. But Cindy wouldn't let me do it without her Dad helping and approving of everything. Thus, a thousand bucks worth of boards sat untouched for almost a month.

Eventually, however, my father-in-law (Robert) came to my rescue, blessed the operation, and we got down to it. He put in the corners, while I started to cut the boards to length. It really isn't rocket science. The process is just a repetition of the following: measure the distance twice, measure the board twice, cut the board cleanly, try to put it in place. If it fits, nail it. If it doesn't fit, cut it down until it fits, then nail it.

The first photo is me, cutting a couple of boards, with my brand new mitre saw. Absolutely luuuuv that monster. Dual bevel. Compound. 12" slider. Even a laser sight on it! It's an early xmas present, from my parents. Love it. Love it. Love it. It made this whole adventure eighteen times more exciting.

Second shot is an example of the corner pieces. They aren't primed, like the crown. Just raw wood. Notice that we didn't paint up to the top of the wall? Would have been a wasted effort, since the crown covers it. Anyway, Robert nailed them into place and then I'd get the boards cut to length. They butt right up against the corner pieces. Flush. No complex angles involved.

Cutting angles suckdiddlyucks. A lot of boards and time get wasted by cutting the angles wrong. Time and boards are worth money. I hate wasting time. And hate wasting money even more. Corner pieces to the rescue!

Couple of action shots. Next on my "to purchase list" is a nailer. Robert has a nice finishing nailer, but I'm inclined to get a cordless one from Dewalt. The cost of buying my own is about the same as renting one twice. I've little doubt I'll need a nailer more than twice in the next year, so I'm going to let my credit card cool off a bit, then buy one.

Today, we only had Robert's. I've used a finishing gun before. And now, forever more, I'll never do it without a finishing gun. Much much much much much muuuuuuch easier with the nailer. It cuts the time and effort down by an order of magnitude. Without it, we would have been hammering for hours, and likely doing a lot more damage to the wood. With it, we did almost all of the crown and floorboards in the living room in half a day.

The dining room is next, but I have to get the floors settled. And in the meanwhile, I'm going to crank out the casings on my own. But I think we've made plenty of progress, and I couldn't be happier.

Onward and upward.

This Olde House - Part 6

I like demo work. I like construction work. I even like some of the mundane work, like painting or sanding. What I don't like is: spending money.

(After all, I'm doing most of this work myself in order to SAVE money!)

Had to spend a LOT of it, today. Painful. Very painful stuff. Didn't like it one bit. But it had to be done. I want to make everything look good. And that's not free, or even remotely close to cheap. So I dropped almost a grand on boards. BOARDS! Crown molding. Casings. Floor boards. (Not to mention plinths, rosettes, corner pieces, primer, caulking, and spackle.) And that is for just TWO ROOMS!

I literally filled up my car with boards and had to stack some on top. Click the images to get a better view. The first one is funny (at least to me) because of the overhanging pieces and the fact that there's a reflection on the side of me taking the picture. But I like the second one, with everything spilling over the tailgate and the back filled with all manner of parts. By myself, it took me two hours to pick out everything and get them loaded. That alone was a good days work. But there were miles to go before I slept.

(sigh)

I think Lowe's ought to be giving me frequent flier miles. And hand-writing me "Thank You" notes.

$1000 for boards? Blood suckers.

This Olde House - Part 5.75

Just a minor adventure this time. My father and I took down the old ceiling fans and replaced them with a couple of new ones.

It was one of the easiest legs of the race we've run, yet. We took our time and got it right the first time.

Notice the lack of crown moldings and baseboards and casings around the doors? That's next on the list.

Thanks, Dad! You're one hell of an electrician. This project would be impossible and I could not have done it without all your time and efforts. It's a shame it took us so long to find something we could do together without arguing.

Mind Over Matter

On the heels of his surprise last night, with the burrito, Liam pulled off another major coupe, tonight.

At his karate class, the instructor had a little competition. All the students had to walk their feet up the wall and support themselves with their hands / arms as long as possible.

I was hoping Liam wouldn't be the first to fall. And he wasn't. I was hoping he'd make it half way through the pack. And he did. I thought he would give up before all the really big kids, higher ranks and older than he. But he didn't. I didn't think he would win. He did. I was all misty-eyed as he lasted longer than anyone else, including this one girl easily twice his size and several years older than him.

Liam wasn't the biggest, or the strongest. But he put his mind to it, and he won. Toward the end, when it was just him and the last girl, I could see his little arms shaking. But he clenched his eyes and fought through it. He won.

Through sheer determination, he beat everyone else. He beat them all.

Something new?!?

It must be a decidedly cold day in Hades (some folks call it Hell, I call it Hades!) as Liam took it upon himself to eat something new! We were so shocked, we had to get photographic evidence (click to enlarge) of it and record the event for posterity.

Believe it or not, but that's Liam eating a burrito! A first, for him. And a huge relief for us. Maybe he'll eat something other than burgers and chicken nuggets by the time he goes off to college.

In the background, as surprised as we are, is Baby Bear. I dunno what game she was playing, but Liam seemed to think she was a character from that vilest of cartoons: Sponge Bob Jackleg. She's got her faerie jammies on, and god-only-knows-what in her hand, and I'm betting she was probably singing something.

(For the record, Meg's already tried burritos. She didn't care for them. But she does like a freshly made cheese quesadilla!)

This Olde House - Part 5.5

Time to say goodbye to my new friend, The Dumpster. I certainly couldn't have done it without him, but it is time to part ways. (Has it been a month, already?)

Most of the visible bones are either jack-hammered pieces of tile or ancient wooden slats that framed the living room and dining room. Buried in there somewhere are the antique, 1960s gas heaters as well as several deep maroon wood panels and dozens of plastic Powerade bottles. None of it will be missed. All of it is destined for landfill.

The departure of the dumpster marks the highpoint of the construction. We've done most of the hardest parts. The rest is cosmetic. Finishing the walls, finishing the floors, nailing up the crown molding and the floor boards and the casings. Caulking. Sanding. Painting. And then we can rest.

Goodbye, my friend. You don't have to go home, but you've got to get out of here.

This Olde House - Part 5

So the next big project is the floor in the kitchen / dining room. Liam is modeling the existing tiles. By themselves, they aren't bad. But the grout lines are nigh on an inch wide, so they collect dirt like stink on a pig. Combine that with the fact that we've removed the wall between the two rooms and plan to unify the flooring in both of them, and the inevitable conclusion is: the tile has to go. And of course, I am the one doing it. With my charming assistant: Boo Bear.

The empty spot Liam is standing on (above) was formerly a cabinet. He's facing where the wall used to reside. With such a massive gap already leering at me, I started there.

Liam fired up the camera and snapped a couple of action shots as I began the adventure. It is a bit blurry but that is how it began: a twenty year old weight belt cinched around my waist, knee pads bearing my bulk, and a thirty five pound jackhammer chattering away in my fists.

At first, it was really really cool. I love power tools. And I absolutely love the personal application of destruction to the world around me. High carnage means high energy from me. I gnawed through the first dozen tiles in fifteen minutes. Last weekend, it took me and my father together almost an hour to do it. Today I'm doing it by myself in minutes.

I'd knock up several tiles. And as I'm shifting around the floor, Liam hops to it. He's picking up the big pieces and throwing them into the wheel barrow. He's pushing smaller pieces into a pile with the broom. He's snapping pictures. Answering the phone. It's amazing. And I actually have a problem keeping up. At least for the first hour.

By the second hour, my charming assistant was running out of steam. I was holding my own, but the buzz was beginning to fade as the bones in my hands began to grow numb. We started to figure out shortcuts to help ease the burden. Liam grabbed a little shovel and filled up the wheelbarrow in scoops rather than one piece at a time. And I started to get a feel for the proper angles for the hammer.

By the third hour, we were half way done. But Liam had jumped ship. He put in a good couple of hours and was an enormous help. So I let him head to the front yard and play with the neighbor kid. But one last photo before I fly solo. Notice the diving line Liam is straddling? And the shovels? And the full wheel barrow?

When I had to do it all myself, I would hammer up an entire row of tiles, fill the wheel barrow, haul it outside, and shovel everything into the dumpster. It took about half an hour per row. And there were six rows to do.

Around the last hour, Mom came over. She bathed the kids and took them to dinner. With everyone out of the way, I pushed through and finished the whole kitchen. But I could barely move by the end. My hands had no feeling, my arms were like rags, and I could barely aim the hammer. I think it took me half an hour to do the last six tiles. And Mom came home just as I was shoveling the last of the debris.

Then she dusted for two hours.

And then Cindy came home and dusted for two hours.

And then I had a stiff drink and prepared to sleep like the dead.

Kudos for Kiddos

Meg & Liam both go Bayou View Elementary. Seeing as Cindy is the school nurse, I guess you could say she goes there, too.

Today, they officially announced they had been awarded the US Department Of Education's Blue Ribbon award. Only four schools in all of MS received the award. Bayou View was the only elementary school among the four, the rest were high schools. So out of the entire state, only BVE was the only Blue Ribbon elementary.

We moved here because of the quiet neighborhoods, the proximity to a good school, and the short trip to all the Grandparents. (Gigi is only a little more than a mile away!) Knowing that the kids' school received one of the highest honors in the nation makes it that much better.

Good job, kids. Great job, teachers. The whole school has set an example that the rest of the Gulf Coast needs to follow. In the wake of Katrina you proved that where there is a will, there is way.

Remembering Roamer1

Stanley Cline would have turned 32 today. He shared a birthday with another famous Georgian: Jimmy Carter.

I sent a couple of Instant Messages to the folks who knew him. Maybe somewhere in the ether, he felt the karma of our thoughts nudging the memories of him. It is still so unreal to have lost him. I get odd calls from strange area codes, and I think: "I'll call Cline to see where that came from." But Cline is dead. Somebody asked me today, "Which are the Top 5 cell providers in the US." And I thought to ask Cline. But, Cline is dead.

I visited the ghost of Stanley for a little while. What we have left of him. Scrolled through his Live Journal page. Trying to figure out how we arrived at this point. Adam said Stanley's house was completely normal. Nothing out of place. No notes. No signs of foul play. Did we miss something? Were there obvious signs we should have seen? I don't think so. I still don't see it, if he left something on his blog.

Stanley's website is gone, already. But I found copies on TheWayBackMachine. It isn't the same. But it is all we have left for remembering Roamer1.