Here’s what the situation in Iraq is really like. Democracy, indeed. What a disaster.
Hrmm. So the debate is tonight, which interests me a little bit—I’d like to watch Kerry destroy that other guy, but since it’s going to be so tightly scripted, I don’t think it’s worth watching. Instead, I’ll shut off the TV and ignore it.
Here’s a sketch of what the house could look like without the enclosed porch. Since I did this, Jen and I agreed on different pillars (square, perhaps tapered in sort of a Craftsman vibe) and larger windows on the sunporch (over on the side, first floor.)
Album of The Day: Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism. Thanks to Shelly, I am totally hooked on this album. Nate tried to get me into DCFC about three years ago, and I was not into it. I think the Postal Service opened the door, and now I’m going to grab the back catalog.
Up until 1:30 freelancing last night, and back at work at 8:30am. I feel swell.
The roof estimate comes in at about $1,500, which is somewhere around what I figured. While not great news, it’s better than being told the whole thing is shot. So the floors will wait a little while longer.
Overheard at Dinner. The setting: a whitehaired dude sitting four booths down from us at the restaurant down the street suddenly exclaims to his table:
“The difference is, George Bush never threw his medals away!”
It took all my strength to resist yelling back, “At least Kerry earned some medals.”
Activism. Last night there was a meeting at the elementary school across the street about a proposed road-widening not too far from our house. We’re near a major north-south artery off the beltway, and the State Highway Administration wants to three-lane one of the feeder roads, citing accidents and public safety as their major reasons. Living on a highly trafficked state road already, the idea of opening the area up to further congestion does not appeal to me. I’m one of the weird folks who believes that wider roads don’t ease congestion, but promote higher speeds and enable more traffic to back up. I believe in alternative methods for “safety”.
We’ve been in the house for a year now, and we’ve only met a handful of our neighbors. I don’t think we’ve offended anybody on purpose; we don’t let our dogs crap on their lawns, shoot bottle rockets at their windows, or mow the lawn naked. The “community association” in our neighborhood seems to be run by people who aren’t predisposed to welcome new arrivals—they held their annual picnic two weeks ago and never bothered to invite us, or our friends who live across the street. (Just wait ’till I put my “Kerry For President” sign on the front lawn.) So it was interesting to see all of these people together in one room.
The meeting was as you’d expect: one tired-looking state official fielding questions from a room full of frightened residents, with the occasional whitehaired man shouting rambling statements at him. Jen and I filled out our opinion cards and listened to the rabble for a while before leaving; I decided to sign up for the community organization south of us so I have some connection to the opposition (I’d say the room was 95% against, with four or five people timidly raising supporting hands in an informal poll) and the neighborhood. This should be an interesting foray into local politics.
We’re in the middle of making plans to have my sister Renie join us this weekend for a much-needed break away from her job, and I think we’re all getting excited. There are some tentative plans for IKEA, possibly some Home Anthology, and a lot of refreshment.
Update: Looks like Renie’s going to need more than a few drinks- her asshole company just laid her off. We’re going to see if she wants to come south a little sooner than Friday. That makes a combined four five layoffs for the Dugan family in the last five years. “Recovering economy” my ass.
Lucky Break. It turns out that our atrium windows are ½” away from being standard size—I was able to find an off-the-shelf storm window at the Lowe’s for $33 to button up the side of the house. That’s much better than $130/ea. I was quoted for custom-built versions, and I can work around the missing half-inch.
This morning my cellphone went off as we were getting ready for work at about 8:45. I’ve been calling all over creation getting quotes on different stuff for the last couple of days—not because we have the money, but because somehow knowing how much things will probably cost is one step better than not knowing how much anything will cost and having the great unknown hanging over our heads like a black cloud of doom.
Anyway, I’ve been playing phone tag with roofing contractors for a few months now. Getting a roofing contractor to come out for a quote is hard enough; on the food chain of home improvement contractors, roofers are below sewer plumbers and above housepainters and therefore not the most reliable of fellows. (Being a working plumber implies that you went to trade school and probably apprenticed under somebody. Getting a job as a housepainter is easier than robbing a 7-11, less dangerous, and provides as steady a supply of weed as a short-order cook, but without the available pool of single waitresses.) Slate roofers are smarter than the average roofer, in that their trade is skilled (I’ve laid asphalt shingle, and it ain’t rocket science) but more in demand, because there aren’t a lot of guys who are good enough to do it and also smart enough to convince people to pay what it costs to do the job right, so they’re harder to find. When the phone rang this morning and he told me he was outside, I threw on my jeans and ran out in socks to talk with the guy. He was really personable, got up on the roof and put in some temporary patches over the slow leak on the southwest corner, and gave me the straight dope: about 60 slates are in need of repair. At about $5-7 per slate, that’s not a bad per-material cost, but the day it’ll take to fix everything will be the major hit. I fear that the flooring may have to wait until we take care of the roof, but I know I’d sleep better this winter with a solid cap on the house.
Friday night I installed a dehumidifier ($139 from Sears) in our steaming, fetid basement with a hose going directly to the drain. I also put stringers in the linen closet and blocked out where the pass-through medicine cabinet will be, while adding at least four inches of dust to the upstairs bedrooms. Saturday I finished up the major part of my consulting gig, then returned home to continue on the closet. Jen was out of town, so I stopped over at the neighbors’ for some pizza and beer, which was a lot of fun. Sunday the skies were blue again, so I continued the housework, stopping only for a visit with Dave, who dropped off a loaner bass cabinet for me to play with. Thanks Dave!
Boy howdy, do I feel like crap today. Too much red wine last night.
Quote one for the downstairs floors is somewhere between $1,800 to $2,400, including the kitchen floor. Higher than I was thinking, but still reasonable. I guess to have it completely done in three or four days would be worth the extra money. We’ll keep you posted on quote number two.
Jen: They had better say they like this, those bastards.
Me: Perhaps you shouldn’t refer to your clients as “bastards”, baby.
Jen: …Well, they’re not clients, they’re friends, so I can call them bastards.
Wow. After something like five years of refusing to do any kind of print work in Quark, it’s frightening how many of the key commands I still remember.
I put up a very basic page early this morning attempting to outline some of the projects I have in mind for this endless money pit house of ours; it’s extremely incomplete and basic, but is a step above the seventeen dogeared, smeared slips of notepaper I have floating around my messenger bag, which don’t make any sense a week after I’ve measured, sketched, and noted on them.
Am I really this boring, or did you guys forget how to comment?
I’m mucking about further with the HTML behind this page; it’s slowly crawling towards 100% XHTML compliance (don’t even bother trying to validate this page- it’ll explode.) bits and pieces here and there are getting rewritten, then rewritten again—the calendar over there on the left is a good example, and it’s still not done. Originally I had intended to build around a new redesign, but I’m going to stick with the layout I have for the time being and get it to where I want it to be.
Cash. My mother gave me a subscription to Vanity Fair a few Christmases ago, because she’d see me bogarting her copies when Jen and I were heading down on to the dock to swim. Truthfully, I was looking for reading material besides Better Homes, which I’d never read, and The New Yorker, which I already get, because I never bring reading material when I visit. I find the magazine a strange hybrid of fawning starlust and lurid true-crime stories of the Rich and Famous (seriously, how many people have been murdered suspiciously in the Hamptons? And do I really care? I’ll never vacation there, and sure wouldn’t consider it now, given the apparent homicide rate.) Still, between the profiles of über-rich asshole society figures and glossy Bruce Weber photos of young rich Hollywood stars, there’s the occasional nugget of goodness. This month, there’s a profile of the strange, fruitful collaboration between Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin, which is worth the price of the magazine—I was a latecomer to the music of the Man in Black, but have grown to enjoy his early work, which makes the last five albums of his career stand out in greater relief, and highlight the genius of the work they did together. I’d link you to the article, but Condé Nast has a dumbheaded anti-Web policy where they don’t post anything online that I can find.
Wax On, Wax Off. Today we have a fellow meeting us at the house; he’s going to give us an estimate for sanding and finishing the first floor and stairwell. We decided, because it’s mainly oak with a decorative inlay, that having a pro do the first floor was the best course of action—that, and the fact that it’ll be done in a weekend as opposed to a month. Hopefully the quote will be low, the timeframe will be soon, and the job will get done quickly.
Huh. International has gotten back into the business of building pickup trucks… sort of.
I made a monkey for Jen yesterday—more specifically, I made a monkey for Jen’s friend Jean-Paul and his wife Sharon, who are having a baby very, very soon. This is but one of the ideas she’s working on for an announcement, and I liked it so much I thought I might share it with you here. Because monkeys are cool, and monkeys with bows in their hair are that much cooler.
The weekend’s activities were productive, in direct opposition to last weekend. Saturday I did some onsite consulting for a friend of a friend, rebuilding an eMac and getting it ready for a migration. Sunday I got the rest of the front windows scraped and primed, then worked my way around the side to the doctor’s office and atrium windows. Sunday evening I put a bunch of hours in on the other consulting gig I’m working on, while watching the Star Wars special (AKA a 2-hour infomercial: Buy the DVD!) that was on cable last night.