i.need.a.holiday...[part.three]

[monday | day.three]

so monday morning i was a bit groggy as i awoke to the sound of the sander going... i looked at the time and it was only 7:50, so its not like i slept in, but obviously the folks had to be leaving for the airport early and were ready to get to work. so i quickly got dressed and staggered downstairs to review the situation. karen was working on sanding the trim we'd gotten finished on the shelves the day before while allan was getting read to start cutting more trim and anne was already working on more crown touchup. maybe i had overslept...

anyway, i jumped into the action and soon allan and i had gotten back into our routine for measuring, cutting, and attaching the shelf trim. by this time we were getting pretty comfortable working side by side, holding boards for each other to hammer or screw in, anticipating what the other would need next... [this will come back into play later in the story... thanks for that mom.] well the day seemed to go by pretty fast in general. i dont know how long we were working on the shelves but it certainly seemed to fly by and before we knew it we'd finsihed the remaining trim and decided to get started on the doors. the more important being the backdoor in the shop. so we got all of our materials and tools together and made our way up to the shop to get started. first we had to remove the plywood covering the opening and then the much more difficult task of removing all the existing trim and door surround that was starting to rot in some places and was going to have to come out either way if we were going to fit the new pre-hung door into the opening. well after double checking we discovered that the masonry opening was only an 1/8 of an inch larger than the new door assembly so we took a sigh of relief and got started on the demo.

first we attempted to remove the door frame on either side of the door, but were having some difficulty getting it out. soon we realized the threshold was locking it in place, so we removed it first. the threshold came up with no effort at all - im still not entirely sure how it was even attached, i think we found one nail in the whole thing... after getting it out of the way we were able to pry the frame out on either side much more easily, however we were still running into some issues with the frame header locking them in place at the top. after trying a few different approaches we were able to pry them out on either side however we started running into some snags. as we pulled the door frame away from the masonry opening, the brick and mortar behind it was starting to just crumble away. apparently the door frame wasnt the only part of that opening that had gotten some damage over time...well there wasnt too much we could do, but we attempted to minimize the amount of brick we were loosing from the wall as best we could. by the time we got the frame out on either side we'd started a nice little pile of rubble, but the majority of the opening was still intact. however, at this point a new problem had arisen... how exactly were we going to mount the new door in this opening?? im still not entirely sure how the existing frame was attached on either side, again i saw no nails to speak of as we were prying it off, its almost as if the whole thing was just wedged in place. how secure... anyway, there were a few places in the opening where we found that there were blocks of wood set into the brick and mortar but they were randomly placed and pretty limited in size, not to mention about 3-4 inches inset from the edge of the opening as it were. those blocks of wood were our only real option as far as we could tell for mounting this thing, so we'd just have to figure out how to make it work later. at the moment though, we still had the header of the frame to remove and it wa being a royal pain in the ass.

it turns out after we started looking at this thing from the outside that this was definitely not the original door. in-fact, we could now clearly see that the original lintel for the door was much higher than where the frame stopped... someone had "shrunk" the opening at some point along the line and the actual opening was 8ft tall! we could have bought the cheaper/taller door at home emporium after all! grr... well we debated the option of returning the one for the other at this point, but decided that time had past, and we needed to get this door in place as fast as we could. well soon the girls emerged from whatever it was they were doing downstairs and announced that they were going to home depot to return the vent cover [it hadnt quite fit the opening once we got it up there] and asked if we needed anything. by this time after a lot of effort and some creative circular saw tricks by allan, we'd managed to tear out most of the header mess of the door and were getting the girls input on whether or not to remove another piece of wood that was creating the old doors actual structural header. after a little discussion we decided to remove it and told the girls we didnt need anything and they were off on their way. well, as they started downstairs i second guessed myself and remeasured the masonry opening - and its a good thing i did! we were now at about a half an inch wider than the new door assembly after removing the old frame and we were going to need something to shim the gap. well we had some door shims, but even a shim on either side of the door was going to leave a lot of empty space so i raced downstairs and caught them just as they were leaving. i asked if theyd get us some 1/4" hardboard to put on either side of the opening to shim it up and also give us a much cleaner surface to work with and gave them all the measurements for the cuts id need them to get. they agreed and were on their way as i returned up stairs and allan and i started to remove the remaining member and cut the lathe and plaster on the interior of the wall that was covering the top of the opening.

after a couple of attempts we got that done well enough, and had a fairly clean masonry opening to work with. so after collecting our thoughts and assessing the situation with the wood blocking we decided our best option was going to be cutting down some 2x4's to fit and then shimming them with whatever plywood we had available so that they would fill the depth and be flush with the opening edge. well.. after a couple of tries we found a method that seemed to work well enough and got 2 of the new blockings in place... and this is where things went a little awry... the 2x4's we were using were basically crap scrap that was laying around and they were very knotty and rough. also we were using both scrap 1x3 and some 3/4"mdf scrap that we had lying around the shop to fill the gap. well we'd figured out a method of pre-drilling so as not to split the 1x3's and then i had some 3.5" galvanized deck screws we were securing each layer of blocking back to the wall with. well on multiple occasions this assembly method had been giving us some problems... as i said the wood was knotty and crap and the screws didnt want to go in nicely... we had to force them. well, as we were working on the 3rd board allan was holding this time round while i was trying to drive the screw and for either the screw being obstinate or us hitting a knot, the stupid drill jumped on me and went smack onto my father-in-laws finger.... ef. it got him right in the cuticle between the nail and the flesh, so im sure it hurt like hell, but he didnt make much of a fuss other than obviously wincing when it happened... so anyway, he went to clean the wound while i dug out our band aids and ointments and then he dressed his wound. it didnt look too bad, but im sure it didnt feel great [hence my mother-in-laws comment about the finger splint in post No. 1... i sure hope its nothing serious!]. either way, we quickly got back to work, hoping to finish up the blocking before the girls got back. and as it turned out we did. but only a couple of minutes passed before they showed up with our hardboard and we got right back to work.

about 5 minutes went by and we got the first piece of hardboard screwed in place when the girls came and stole my drill to screw in the new vent cover. so allan and i relaxed for a few minutes and then a few more and decided to see what was taking so long. well, they were having some issues so i stepped in to help them finish up and get us back to work. a couple of minutes later we had the vent in and allan and i started screwing the other piece of hardboard in. soon after that we were ready to try putting the door in place and moved it into position and started removing all the packaging. now id like to say that the door went in with no problems at all, but if youve been following this story, im sure you know thats never the case... well we were able to fit the door in the opening, but the hardboard on both sides was wedging it and it wasnt going to open like that. so we quickly removed the hardboard from one side and tried again. well it wasnt wedging anymore, but there was still a sizable gap and the door was quite wiggly. soon the girls showed up to investigate - having finished whatever it was they were busying themselves with - and to make us aware of the time. it was getting dangerously close to time for them to be getting ready to leave so we better hurry it up. well with their assistance [possibly a few too many hands?] we eventually got the door into a "good enough" place and put a couple of screws into it. after a lot more messing with the thing and the shims and what have you, we managed to get it securely in place and opening smoothly. its still a little skewed, but its in better shape than i would have expected [better than our other doors, haha!] and while we will have to drill out the lock holes in the frame a tiny bit, its in pretty damn great shape! =]

satisfied with the door situation they were leaving us in, the in-laws quickly got themselves ready and gathered their things and before i knew it we were hugging and goodbye-ing. at this point i also discovered what else the girls had been up to that day. they had finished all the molding and then had moved on to the shelves as well. they had sanded, filled, and even painted all the face trim and they were just drying now - and looking pretty awesome! outside, theyd also picked up a bag of mulch at the depot and had prettied up the bottom tier of the planter with the flowers as well... ah those girls. ;]

well everything looked great, and while the in-laws seemed to think we didnt get as much done as we should have over the weekend, karen and i saw that 3 and a half huge projects on our list had been finished and we were greatly enthused and very thankful! [not to mention run ragged at this point as well...] so as we waved goodbye to the car we discussed how we were going to finish the door - which neither of us wanted to do right then. we were "too pooped to poop" as my mother says, and really didnt want to do anything the rest of the day. however there was still a gaping hole above the new door and tons of open space around the frame as well so we were going to have to address it in some way before the day was over... but not necessarily right away. i was pretty hungry and it was definitely lunch time, so we had lunch and watched a movie while we relaxed a little and got recharged to finish the door in some way.

after the movie we trudged back upstairs to assess the situation and soon after we arrived it started lightly raining... okay, its definitely time to do something. karen was really anxious to play with the special window & door expanding foam the girls had bought so she started filling the cracks while i thought about the big hole at the top where the transom will eventually go. after karen got to play with the foam for a while i decided it looked like fun and i needed a turn so she shared and i got to fill some cracks as well - and i think we both got enough of it on our hands to discover that this crap doesnt come off for anything... [it actually did come off two days later in the shower after the oils in my skin finally did their thing and loosened it up enough to scrape it off...] after foaming sufficiently and watching it grow the rain was starting to come down a little harder and i decided to just cut some mdf to cover the gap in the door and then screw in some plywood to cover the opening. well it didnt go exactly as planned - but close enough, and we covered up all the remaining gaps with some plastic and painters tape to try and seal it all up as best we could. after that we were definitely done with project-time and were ready to do as much relaxing as we could for the rest of the night in preparation for the week ahead. so we watched some tv, snacked a little, and passed out early.

--fini--

and thats the story!

hope you enjoyed it, and i hope you enjoy the pictures im posting on the album site as well!

click here to see them.

i.need.a.holiday...[part.two]

[sunday day.two]

id say we were all pretty wrecked from the work of the day before, but again everyone was up bright and early around 8am getting their coffee buzz and revving up for the day. obviously we were quite ambitious in our planning the day before [if you'll recall the list of anticipated projects...] and we didnt quite get to cross everything off our list on day one. so while we casually put some finishing touches on the projects from day one we discussed the "revised" anticipated projects for sunday and monday and assembled our lists for the store.

per revision our was starting to look as follows:

sunday. we were anticipating finishing the crown molding up for good after getting the little remaining additional length of crown from the depot, and then the girls were going to start caulking, filling, and painting all the crown. after the crown was finished for the guy part, we were going to move on to bookshelves. we werent entirely sure how quickly they were going to go, the first attempts that karen and i had made towards cutting and assembling the face trim had been very slow and very rocky, and i was expecting much of the same. given the lack of estimation, we werent sure how fast it would go, but we were sure we could get it done on sunday and move on to bigger and better things. additionally, karen had done some searching online both the night before and that morning and had found a few different options for fill for the planter and we were going to attempt to get a truckload of dirt to unload into the planter on sunday as well. then, after we'd finished those projects and still had all this energy pumping [hah. hah. hah.] we were planning to install the first of the two doors that needed replacing and that we were going to pick up at the home depot today - and at some point we were going to have to go to home depot obviously. then add in a few meals, and that should pretty well round out sunday.

monday. well the folks-in-law had to leave for the airport a little after noon if they were going to make their flight, and since we were going to get most everything finished on sunday anyway, it should be a pretty light morning anyway. so we were anticipating for monday to just be finishing up whatever painting still needed to be done and then installing the other door that needed to be replaced, piece of cake, no biggie. after we'd conquered that freaking crown molding, how hard could it be to install a few doors anyway? and allan had plenty of experience installing doors after ike's rebuilding, so this should really be smooth sailing. we were set.

so after looking at the anticipated projects and deciding our course of action and after karen made a few phone calls to dirt people we decided the first thing on our list was going to be picking up a truck load of dirt, then home depot, then to the house to unload everything [which included the dirt and filling the planter with it] then on to all the inside projects for the day. so after a coffee refill and checking the directions we loaded up and headed out to pick up our dirt. can i just take a moment here to say again how awesome craigslist is? free dirt, can you beat that? haha, anyway, so we arrived 5-10 minutes later at this guys house and he was out in the front yard working and waiting for us and waved us in. after briefly telling me where to back the truck up and after a couple of tries to back it up without destroying the guys yard [he had nice grass, but the curb was pretty tall and the yard was inclined so the truck needed a little coaxing and tlc to accomplish this little task...] we were unloading the shovels and making our way to his backyard where he had a HUGE pile of dirt. apparently hed been cutting the front yard of his house for some 5 or 6 months now and where it used to be sloped up to the porch level hed been cutting it down to the base of the stairs and planting garden and bedding all the way around. so if thats too abstract for you, just imagine an "L" shaped area about 6 ft wide around the corner of the guys house and about 3-4ft deep. thats... a lot of dirt. he said he must have moved at least 50yards over the last 5 or 6 months, lordy... anyway he had tons of dirt free for our taking and luckily a few buckets and a wheelbarrow we could borrow to load with, so we dug in. well, it turns out this particular person was quite the gabb-er and quite friendly, so while we worked he jabbered our ears off about his house, his landscaping, his trees, his kid, his dog, his current lack of work situation, and im sure about a dozen other things i didnt overhear. i feel for anne... wow... she was doing the "easy" [as she put it, not me] work of shoveling and this guy was on her hip the whole time, while the other 3 of us took turns shoveling, and lifting the full wheelbarrow and buckets into the back of the truck for dumping. i cant say for sure how long we were there, but it didnt feel toooo long by any stretch. maybe a half an hour to an hour? i dont know, i was concentrating on sweating and getting dirty, not the time. so anyway after oh, 20-30 trips i guess, we'd pretty well filled the bed of my 8ft long-bed truck pretty well and i decided it was time to stop. i didnt want this dirt spilling out in an avalanche when we opened the tail gate at the house, so we'd hit our threshold for the load. after thanking the nice man and his son we loaded up and decided it was time for a quick lunch break on our way to home depot.

at this point karen and i knew where we were in the area and pulled over a few blocks away in a little shopping center with a half dozen food options and we decided on wendy's for lunch. as always it was a pleasant little meal [although they must have screwed up our order 5 times... lord...] and when we finished we had satisfied bellies and were ready to get a move on. next up was the depot, so we headed in that direction. although, before we got there we decided to take a quick detour to the home emporium to see about what the had to offer in the way of salvaged cheap doors. they did have quite a selection of doors although the vast majority of them were fixed doors [not operable isnt really what we were going for...] and the few non-fixed they had were about 8ft tall, about 6 inches larger that our opening so.... not so much. so we left there and made the short 2 black trip to the depot and got started on our list. this time around the home depot trip took a little longer, even though we split up into teams to try and cover more ground, faster. oh-well... seems thats just the way trips to the depot go. so at least an hour later, probably more, we finally departed the depot with both doors and necessary accessories [like hardware for instance - although they were pre-hung, so it was just doorknobs and locks for the most part], a replacement vent cover that wed had to remove to put the crown in, our additional stretch of crown, and a few other odds and ends [like some flowers that the girls decided we needed to pretty up the planter... dirt aint pretty enough for em??]. so we made our way homeward bound and before long arrived. at first there was someone parked blocking our unloading spot, so we temporarily parked elsewhere and unloaded as much as we could [home depot stuff] and then luckily the people with the vehicle showed up and relocated it for us [and we met some new neighbors apparently] and then i was able to back the truck right up to the planter. with the tailgate open we were about a ft from the edge of the planter so unloading should be pretty simple.

although things that should be simple, rarely are. not that the unloading and filling of the planter was overly difficult, just not as easy as we'd have liked. there was only room for 2 people to shovel at a time without hitting each other so at first we took turns doing that, then after filling the lowest tier of the planter the in-laws had a spark of genius. they decided that since the dirt was going pretty quick [although the whole process was going much slower than id hoped. filling the truck went pretty quick, but unloading was taking much longer... weird...] that we better come up with some other filler for the bottom back half of the planter so that we'd have enough dirt to finish the job [or at least get us close]. so in a stroke of brilliance they decided we should make a few trips to the backyard and fill the bottom of this thing with rubble from our still large pile in the back. it really was a fantastic idea, i dont know why we hadnt thought of it before! so we took a break from the dirt and started making a few trips to the back yard with whatever containers we could find to haul with [i.e. trashcans and our recycle bin, lol] and started filling the planter. well after about 10-15 heavy loads wed filled about a third of the back of the planter and decided we were done and it was back to the dirt. so for a while karen and i shoveled while the folks got to take a little rest, then anne started doing other yard stuff and soon allan relieved me and i got to take a little break. haha, and then the rain started.... at first it was just a little then it was a pretty good downpour of fat rain, but they were so close to finishing unloading that they didnt stop so i got quite a show from the porch as they shoveled the remaining mud into the planter, lol! well, by the time they were finished the planter was about 95% full had even planted their flowers in the mud, and mostly they were all very wet. so after rearranging the truck they washed out the back for me and soon enough we were all headed inside where they all found dryer clothes and we got started on phase 2 - the interior.

well... at this point, it was starting to get pretty late in the day, id say it must have been around 3? so allan and i decided to start with the remaining crown molding. after our experience from yesterday we were hoping it would go much faster today, but the last bit we had included the stupid rounded corner of our stairs and that was quite a pain in the arse to work around. after trying a number of splicing options and trying to figure out some way we could segment around the corner we gave up our attempts in sullen failure and decided to just make it a square corner and hope that the gap created by the rounded corner wouldnt be too unsightly. well, after we got it on there and finished the rest of the second piece of the crown all the way around we were frustrated as hell with all the pieces that didnt go our way, but we were very relieved to finally be done with the crown! woohoo! and while we had been working on that, the ladies had been busy painting the window trim for the two diamond windows in the stair and they were looking very nice [and im supposed to mention to my mom that they WERE able to clean the bottom diamond window from the outside and it looks a million times better now!] as well as finishing second coats of paint on the shelves and letting them dry and whatever other odds and ends they busied themselves with [im really not entirely sure, allan and i were just a touch distracted...].

by this time it was getting late and it was definitely time for dinner. so we started working on that. we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and the girls made annes famous baked beans and some potato creation of karens, and we had a very satisfying dinner indeed! i might be a little biased, but i thought that everything turned out quite superbly and i was very pleased with my dinner. =]

well after dinner we were all pretty exhausted but there was still daylight so we felt a little guilty not working and started working again pretty soon. the girls started doing their caulking, filling, and painting of the crown molding while allan and i got started doing the face trim for the shelves. after figuring out a few tricks to measure and cut these things we got ourselves in quite a pattern of assembling them and before we knew it wed gotten the entire left half done and a pretty good start on the second half for tomorrow. but. it was getting late, and we were all wrecked, so it was off to bed for all the workers and we'd tackle whatever we could monday morning before they had to leave for the airport.... and with that, day two is concluded. and since i promised i would, heres a few pictures for you to show off just a little of the work we finished on days one and two. ;]

...crap.... my internet is being stupid and its not letting me put them on here... so youll just have to go to my picture album website to see them... sorry =/

i.need.a.holiday.after.my.holiday[part.one]

so when i last left you all i was in the middle of the weekend. well a lot of time has passed since then and my memory of the details of sunday are foggy at best. the only real excitement i can recall is that our closet collapsed sunday night at about 11pm and i had to fix it on monday. it was quite an annoyance, but everything is fine now.

the real excitement happened over this last holiday weekend. as i mentioned in the previous post, the in-laws were comin to town for a visit and we'd been preparing for their arrival. so friday night after work i cleaned house some more and set up the 2nd floor bedroom for them so they could have a little privacy on the 2nd floor with their own room and own bathroom. [theyd still have to share the only working shower, but its a big step up from practically sharing the same room with us - see: the circus coming to town...] anyway i got things pretty well prepared for them and then after karen was finished with school we went to the store and got some window treatments for the room so that the room wouldnt be completely open for the world to see. we spent the next couple of hours putting those up - a task that proved more difficult than id have liked, and the heat in the house was not working in my favor either... [this is actually going to be a bit of a consistency for the entire weekend... it was HOT] well at some point we finished and snuggled up in front of the tv for a while and before we knew it the cell phone was ringing and the in-laws were at the front door. well it was around 12:15am from my recollection and this was actually a little unexpected. wed been informed earlier that day that their flight had been delayed at least an hour, and they actually showed up earlier than originally planned... so not entirely sure what happened there, but we exchanged hugs, showed them to their room, and let them retire for the evening after all their traveling.

[saturday day.one]
well we were anticipating getting some house work done this weekend [i believe we may have discussed in brevity what projects we anticipated the night before] so we were all up pretty early and getting ready to start the festivities. after everyone had their coffee and breakfast we decided on a plan of action and then started putting together all of our lists. the days projects were anticipated to include, but werent limited to: home depot/lowes for materials & supplies, the grocery store to stock up for the weekend and the week to come, finish the bookshelves once and for all, put up the crown molding [caulk, fill, paint, and touch up as required], and if there was time get started on painting a few small areas that were still in need of some tlc. anticipated items for day 2 were to include replacing two doors, getting dirt and filling the planter outside, and then moving on to more painting and landscaping in the backyard. day 3, to be determined.
well, obviously we were a bit eager and thinking we could get quite a bit done, so we soon set off for the depot to pick up the few items we needed.
at the depot we got a little side tracked looking for some items that they ended up not having, but we were pretty good about staying on the list and without too much delay left the depot and headed to lowes to see if they had the missing items. well, they did, however we ran into a little bit of an assistance snag [in that the guy assisting us was pretty well worthless] and resolved to let anne [thats mom-in-law] stay at lowes to finish up while the rest of us walked next door to biggs to get started on grocery shopping. soon we were filling the basket with all the usual weekly items and then allan [dad-in-law] pulled out the envelope of coupons that mom was insisting we use, and we worked on those as well. i cant tell you exactly how long it had been, but it must have been close to an hour when mom finally popped into the grocery store as we were getting the last few items and checking out. apparently the worthless guy had been quite an ordeal, but eventually shed gotten what we needed and mom and i decided to go get the car and bring it around while karen and dad finished up with the groceries and we could all load up.
soon we were in the car and headed back home, anxious to unload all the new goodies and get started on the projects for the day. after unloading and having a quick bite to eat we were ready to get to work and split up into teams for the weekend. dad and i would do most of the guy stuff - measuring, cutting, heavy lifting, installing, that sort of thing - and mom and karen would take care of the lighter [although still just as important and just as labor intensive] work - like caulking, filling, painting, doing homework [that was karen specific] and supervising the guys [obviously the most crucial and time intensive task]. well we decided to start with the crown molding for the guys while the girls took down all the shelves that still needed to be painted and got started on that.
we were pretty confident as we got started on the crown molding because, well, how hard could it really be? its a 45degree miter for a 90 degree corner, right? thats what it was on all the base molding, and that went pretty quickly when karen and i did it, so this should be just as straight forward logically. well we took some measurement and got our crown out, got the miter saw hooked up and decided that just in case we were off a little on our measurement or cuts we better start with the smallest corner. so we set the miter, measured out boards and cuts [not just once, but twice] and climbed the ladder to bask in our glory.... and thats where everything went wrong. hahaha, as we stuck the wo pieces together we soon realized that they werent just a little off, but in fact were a mile off. the angles didnt line up at all, wed totally forgotten about the crown tilting out and having to cut back. crap, these were going to be compound angles. not only were we going to need the 45degree between the boards, we were also going to have to cut back at a 45 degree so that they would lean out - right? so we tried that method. calibrated the saw accordingly, made our new measurements, cuts, and then climbed back up the ladder... nope. what? but its a 90 degree angle, and this is half of that and theyre tilted at the same angle, so why isnt this working?? well we were a little befuddled at this point and had no idea what was wrong, so i came to the conclusion that since they were tilting out maybe that cut the angle in half again, so it was half of 45, so 22.5. that makes sense, right? alright, we had a plan, wed figured it out, we just didnt completely wrap our minds around the geometry the first two times, no biggie, we were still fresh afterall, the weekend had only just begun. so we re-calibrated, re-measure, re-cut again [at this point having gone through 3/4's of a piece of crown] and back up the ladder to see our succe...s&%$. that wasnt it either. and there was no discernible rationale for what angle we could possibly infer as the difference between the two. well now that we were quite frustrated and scratching our heads [which between the two of us - a masters in architecture and a real life head of scientific research - is saying a little bit i think] we decided to find the d.i.y. beginners books that mom had gotten us when we first bought the house, lol! well when those didnt turn up [weve misplaced a few things in all the rearranging and moving things around, but im sure theyll turn up soon] we opted for the advice of the internet. after a little searching karen found some website that had a table listing the various angles necessary for cutting crown molding - none of which made any logical sense whatsoever from a 90 degree wall angle and a 45degree bisection of that angle, but... whatever. so we found the numbers we thought we needed on the table, set our saw appropriately, re-measured the cuts again and then.... no. still not right... wtf?? so we consulted the website and chart again and it turns out theres two types of crown, one tilts at 45 degrees, one tilts at 38 degrees [where did these people come up with this stuff??? why 38 degrees??] and we apparently had the 38 degree variety so that came with a whole new set of angles. so we went back to the saw and comically enough, discovered that the new angles were actually pre-marked right on the saw all along if only we'd known to look for them, lol! apparently these are the "typical" angles for cutting crown.... anyway, so we remeasured [now having completely gone through a whole length of crown] and got ready to install using our handy new air compressor and nail gun that karen and i bought some time back. we tested the cut pieces and this time it worked! woo hoo! we were in business! i still have no clue how they came up with the angles that make these things work, but i also have no desire to sit down and try to work the geometry to figure it out either. lets just say that a master carpenter somewhere along the line was way better at this stuff than i am, heh.
so we glued the pieces up and stuck them where they were meant to go and got the compressor kicked on until we ran into a little hiccup - we were missing the one little connector between the gun and the hose. #$^*@.... so we sent karen to the hardware store around the corner while we measured and cut the next piece in line and by the time she got back we were ready to install. after trouble shooting the nail gun and getting everything in place we shot the first couple of nails and soon we were moving right along. the first two pieces went up no problem and then the 3rd we ran into a little snag. it was an outside masonry wall and the nail gun was not going to cut it. so we resolved to cut and mount a nailer first, then after a little more work we had the crown in place attached to it. well by this time we were starting to get the hang of this and it started to go a little faster. measure, cut, glue, nail, countersink... we got into a pattern and before long we'd installed all of the crown on 4/5's of the entryway. however, we ran into a little snag... we ran out of crown after all that trial and error on the first piece, haha! so we decided instead to move on to the second piece of the crown [we were doing a two piece type, for those of you that dont know, floor and crown molding can be a variety of combinations of pieces and any number of sizes]. these were just going to be flat against the wall like the base molding and were a much more simple measuring and cutting situation after the insanity of the crown. well... while wed been doing all this, the girls had painted all the shelves and were letting those dry, then had moved on to installing some pieces of glass that were missing in our front and back door - to make them much prettier - and then had even started filling and painting the trim around the two diamond windows in the stairwell and priming the rest of the stairwell to paint to match the entryway. well around dinner time we were all pretty gross from sweating all day [did i mention it was HOT?!] and were pretty hungry, so we decided to go to the comet for some mexican food and some hot salsa we'd told the in-laws about.
by the time we finished dinner it was getting pretty late and we'd only gotten most of one project done, so a little frustrated with our progress the guys finished as much of the crown as we could without the extra we needed to buy the next day and before long we were all exhausted and called it a night.

sorry, but my lunch break is over, youll just have to stay tuned for pictures and the rest of the weekend!!

spring.cleaning

so obviously by the title of this post, youve already discovered that we went on a swimming expedition with sharks this last weekend. ;]

no, not really, im just pulling your leg. well, figuratively anyway. no this weekend we kept ourselves quite busy actually and it all started on friday...

[cue the harp as we flashback]

[friday]

well friday during the day was just a normal day, but friday night was the fun stuff. at some point earlier [i honestly cant remember when, could have been that week or the week before, beats me] my wife had caught wind of a party at the cincinnati art museum based on one of their current exhibits - surrealism. well, being the party animal that she is and having the affinity for surrealist are that she does, she was quite intrigued by the prospect of an art museum surrealist party, and once she looked for more information and discovered there was also to be dancing, drinks and catering from one of our favorite restaurants - the teak [http://www.teakthaicuisine.com/] - and a fashion show on top of all that... well. she was going, with or without me. so eventually she talked me into it [which didnt take too much, i could see how she was glowing with excitement, and im not one to kill her little dreams] and so we planned on going.

well, friday night was the party. it was supposed to start at 8pm which was fine with us, i usually get off work around 5:30pm, so that should give us plenty of time to do whatever we needed before then. well things got a little more complicated when on wednesday or thursday our favorite friend, amanda [manda], invited us out to the fore-mentioned-on-occasion wine tasting at whole foods. well, we were quite torn, we havent been able to go in a few weeks now, maybe more than a month. so we really wanted to go, but they start at 6 and we had a party to get to at 8 and then there was traffic to consider... so we were going to play it by ear.

as it turns out, when friday afternoon came, i didnt end up getting off work till nearly 5:45 so we decided it would be best to not go to wine tasting [sorry manda! we still love you!] and instead went home and got spiffed up for the party. well, it didnt take us too long [more for karen because it takes her a little while to squeeze into her extra-tight-sexy-jeans sometimes, heh, love you sweetie!] and by 6:30ish we were ready and decided to do a little dinner date pre-party. well we discussed it and decided it had been a while since either of us had been to deweys [http://www.deweyspizza.com/] and we love their salads [and well, obviously the pizza] so we decided that would be a nice little date spot for the evening.

deweys was delicious as always, we decided to share a big greek salad [the wife's fav!] and then split a build your own calzone with pepperoni, canadian bacon, black olives, and the various cheeses and sauces that come loaded inside. well, dinner was quite satisfying for me, karen felt it was cold, but i tasted her half and it was hot to me, i think shes having temperature issues or something... after dinner it was about 7:30ish so we decided to get on over to the party a little early and beat some of the crowd [if there was any.] soon enough we were parked and heading to the door where we discovered a short line had already started, so we got in line and started in on the nights festivities.

we stood in line till the started letting people in at about 5 till 8 and it moved pretty quickly for us [we were maybe 15 people back] and before we knew it we were in. well my first judgements of the party were a guy singing opera in the lobby quite loudly as we waited [im sorry, did i say loudly or obnoxiously?], some acid-trippy lights they had playing on the ceiling in the lobby [lame-o] and from what we could see down the corridor there were spraypainted styrofoam and hanger centerpieces on a few small tables [gag me...] so i wasnt really in the best mood to start out. call me judgemental, but i wasnt enthused so much at this point. well, after we got our drink ticked and the caterer met us at the door with a huge tray of chicken screwers, i decided things might not be so bad, haha. in the main hall there was a dj playing some much better music than the dude singing and it drowned him out completely, not to mention there was a full bar waiting for us, and the chiken scewer was awesome... so i was in better spirits soon enough. =]

well we got a drink and wandered out to the courtyard where a lot of people were gathering to enjoy the weather, drinks and more catering that was floating around. we stayed there for a little while and tried some spring rolls that had something in them i couldnt quite place but were quite delicious and some beef skewers that were a little sweet for my tastes, but quite perfectly cooked.

after finishing our drinks we decided to hit the gallery and see the acclaimed exhibit. it was pretty okay i guess, there were definitely highs and lows [as i guess could be expected with most any art exhibit] and we actually saw a few quite famous pieces which was pretty cool. on the low side though, i hate going to an art gallery and having to look at a bunch of paintings that look like kindergardener work that is claiming to be fine art. i understand that some people think that painting in this manor is a valid way of expressing something or other, but in my opinion it just looks like crap and i dont go to an art gallery to see that. not to mention we were in a surrealist exhibit which is a rough genre in the first place. theres an extremely fine line between surreal and well, just plain bad art... and since when is jackson pollock surrealist? just thought id throw that in there... not sure what his work was doing in this show... at any rate, we viewed the entire exhibit and enjoyed ourselves, but noticed that the number of people was steadily increasing as time went on and soon it was getting a bit stifling from all the body heat. so we finished up and decided it was time for another drink and some fresh air.

after standing in line for at least a half an hour in the mass of writhing party attenders we finally had our drinks and had also been visited by the beef scewer and sushi fairy while we waited. [the sushi was actually quite subpar based on our past experiences with teak's sushi. its usually excellent and this was very, very disappointing...] so we ended up back outside where it was nice and cool out and enjoyed our drinks for a while before checking our watches and realizing it was almost time for the fashion show. 10:30 already?! wow, the night flew by. so we went back inside and waded through the sea of people and tried to go up to the second level to find a good viewing place for the show. well we found a pretty decent spot on the stair landing and were just waiting around until we were kicked out of our spot by a currator because some dancers were goingt to need the space, blah blah blah. uh, bummer... so we moved away and looked for another spot, found one, then were kicked out of it. grr... look around, find another, yet again! kicked out of our spot! well, at this point, i was flippin hot, i wanted to just get the ef out of there and ditch the whole stupid thing, but karen begged my to stay and calm myself down so we found another space amidst the chaos in the middle of the main floor where i was sure wed see nothing. and waited. and waited some more. and then eventually they started playing some music and a girl in the middle of the room started dancing - quite obviously something choreographed. so all eyes were on her and as the music hit a certain timing, a bunch of people in the crowd around joined into the dance... okay, i get it, i guess thats kind of cool, but lets not get carried away, theres a ton of people standing around and this chick almost kicked me in the face just now.... but no, they didnt stop, every so many beats more people joined in, and more, and more, and we all kept getting smuched further and further back into the walls and had more and more near misses with elbows, feet, head, you name it, to the face... at this point i was very annoyed... but karen was enjoying herself, so i sucked it up and watched. well after that song finally ended 20 minutes later [okay, i might be exaggerating, but you wouldnt want to have peoples appendages flying round inches from your face either...] there was some other dance/skit thing [terrible. absolutely.] and then finally they brought out a makeshift stage for the fashion show. so at this point we were ont he front row of the fashion show which was cool i guess, but it was presented by students from the fashion department at karens school... and well... out of the 15-20 ensembles presented there were maybe 3 that were cute. most of them were just awful. these kids need to have their fashion priveledges revoked and subsequently all of their work and probably their own wardrobes set ablaze.

anyway, after the "fashion" show we called it quits for the night. karen had had a great tie and was beaming smiles, so i was in a better mood as we made fun of all the tacky clothes and the models/students who were alittle too exhibitionist for their own good. all in all it was a pretty good night, we had some fun, and then went home and crashed.

[saturday]

well saturday was rough when the alarm sounded at 6am... we'd gotten to bed somewhere around midnight and 6am was cruel to say nothing of torturous. why 6am you ask? well ill tell you [because thats obviously what this is all about, eh? yeah... i totally have conversations with myself whilest blogging, its weird i know, but youre still reading so obviously entertaining to some degree as well...] karen and i had volunteered on saturday morning to participate in a community service project. basically our church was participating, along with a dozen others in cincinnati, in an annual event called "go cincinnati." for those of you from a&m, think big event lead by the churches and youre spot on. for those of you not from a&m, essentially they got together as many volunteers as they could and then we all were to go out to homes, shelters, underfunded churches and programs, and just help out in whatever way they needed. mostly this tends to involve landscaping or painting or cleaning of some kind, but as it turns out you got to sign up for your preference and there was a little area called "artistic painting" and since my wife was the one that actually signed us up online after i told her i wanted to participate... guess which type of work she put us down for? haha... yeah. well apparently one of the underfunded churches or daycares or something or other needed murals done, so we were in the group that painted "murals". now i put that in quotations because they were muralist in that they were quite large paintings and were designed to be this gaint piece that told the tory of creation, however they were on 7 different large canvas panels and well... that really not a mural in my mind. anyhow, so karen and i spent the day painting. we got day 5 of creation which has something to do with the fish and the birds and we had a lot of fun. i discovered that i am quite terrible at painting [although this is nothing new to me, just a reinforcing of earlier knowledge. im much better at the arts that have ore control and less... lets call it expressiveness, lol.] but karen was a pro and cleaned up all my messes and in the end we had a pretty nice panel. 

[karen's cell phone photography is quite impressive i think.]

so when we were finished it was around 12:45 [we finished a little early because the event ended at 1]. well, after the working part they had set up a giant lunch for all the 6500 volunteers, the homeless, and whoever else decided to show up at one of the big parks in downtown. there was going to be over 1000 #'s of pulled pork, and sides to go with it and if that wasnt enough it was being prepaired free of charge by 10 or 12 [i cant remember which now] of the top chefs in cincinnati. so that was really cool... however, logistically it was going to be a nightmare. we know the park in question and there is no parking around it, only street parking which would fill up in about 2 minutes, not to mention 6500 people in one park waiting in line and such... well... karen and i arent really big crowd people [if you hadnt caught on to that by now...] so we decided to obstain but instead get bbq on our own because it sounded really good.

we headed over to city bbq [http://cityqbbq.com/], our bbq spot in cincy, and had a very nice lunch. even more nice because instead of 6500+ people crammed into a small space it was just us and like 2 other couples enjoying our lunch in their giant restaurant. =]

well at this point the day gets a bit less interesting. after lunch i got a haircut a few doors down, then we got some coffee at starbucks a few doors down again [because we were out and needed a few more bags of the stuff] then went home and exhausted from the day so far and lack of a good night sleep the night before we passed out for a nice long nap. around 4ish we got up from the nap and then my wife decided it was time for spring cleaning and we spent the rest of the day and night cleaning the house from top to bottom. eventually, around 9ish i think, we stopped and had dinner and watched a little west wing season 5 [yeah baby!] before going to bed.

now ill be honest with you, it wasnt just spring cleaning we were doing - although it was definitely that time again - but also my in-laws called us up last week or the week before and informed us that they were planning an improptu visit to cincinnati over the memorial day holiday weekend so we were also preparing for their stay. the house had somehow, although im still mystified as to the how in question, managed to get in a nice disaster and was definitely not in parent approval shape. im still searching for the evil culprit[s] that destroyed our beautiful home and caused us so much pain in cleaning it, so if you hear anything make sure to call me and let me know where theyre hiding. ;]

well, at this point, my lunch break is over, so we'll have to do sunday and monday at another time. although, theyre less about spring cleaning...

hope you all had a great weekend and are having a nice week as well. if you havent done so yet you need to go check out my brothers blog and pictures, his house is damn near finished now and i think they started it like last week or something? its getting built CRAZY fast!

adios!

unanticipated.productivity[two]

as promised...

[sunday]

so sunday morning i didnt get up quite as early, not sure when karen got up, but i know it was before i did. after all the day before's activities i was pretty tired and slept like a rock. so around 9 i drug myself out of bed and stumbled down to the office to see what the wife was up to. again she was busy studying and doing homework and we discussed the days agenda. well she was planning to go to studio a little later in the after noon and the weatherman had threatened rain in the afternoon earlier in the week, so it sounded like we had a few hours in the morning to get stuff done before we did our own thing for the evening. well, after thinking about what we'd gotten accomplished on saturday and how easily the planter had been going together i decided i wanted to go ahead and finish it sunday morning while karen was around to help and we had the good weather and then she could go to school after and i was planning to go see the new star trek which karen was a little iffy about anyway - so it worked out pretty well really. =]

so after deciding on our shopping list we both got dressed and filled our coffee cups and got ready to go. well, while karen was finishing getting her things together i wandered outside to review our progress and started tinkering with the fence posts that were still remaining. they were these two lone pole awkwardly standing in the "front yard" and were bugging the heck out of me so i started to mess with them until the first one actually started to come loose. well more encouraged i fought with it a little more and then it just slid right out, perfect! well now even more encouraged i started messing with the second one in the same way and before long it too gave way, although not quite as cleanly. instead i managed to tear it out leaving a small portion behind, but low enough that it was sufficiently submerged... eh, good enough. well not long after id placed the two poles on the side of the house karen was wandering out the door in search of me and was pleased to discover id gotten the poles out. so far, this was already starting to be a successful day.

so we piled into the truck and headed back to home depot to get the remaining supplies for the planter. we needed a few more timbers, more of the giant nails, and we also decided we'd better get some weatherproofing to put on this thing or we were just going to have rotted wood next year. well the wood and nails went easy enough. we got 3 times as much this go around, so it took a bit longer to load up the cart with, but we managed on our own without bugging the lumber guys that were no where in sight anyway. after getting all our lumber supplies we went down to the paint department to find some weatherproofing and soon enough i found exactly what i was looking for - thompsons waterseal advanced. id used it once before and knew that it worked well and had an easy application, so i was satisfied with using it again. anyway, now that we'd bought everything we went to the check out and made another nice dent in our checking account... oh-well, its just money, right? heh...

well after we checked out we made the drive back home and had a quick early lunch on the porch before getting started unloading. well, as we were lunching some woman pulled up behind my truck and made my life a little more difficult but still manageable between the two vehicles for unloading. anyway, i was hoping shed move it soon, so i decided to go ahead and get the weed whacker out [finally charged] and tackle the yard before getting to the construction. well it worked well enough in my opinion, although it had been some time since id swung one, all those muscles that had been well trained in the past snapped right back into action and i quickly and easily had the whole "yard" trimmed. so while i was doing that, karen had the broom out and was sweeping up the mess i was making and then we raked the yard and shoveled up all the mess. well at this point i was ready to get started on the real work and the woman was no where in sight and didnt seem to be leaving anytime soon, so i just sucked it up and started carefully unloading over her car [which to be honest was pretty beat to hell anyway...]. well im pretty good and never had an issue with her car or the truck, although it did take a few acrobatics with these huge timbers from time to time, but whatever. anyway, as i got started measuring and plotting everything out karen got to work applying the waterseal to what was already put together on the ground. before long i had drilled all the pilot holes i needed and cut to size all the members for the next level and karen insisted i let her coat the bottoms of the timbers before i installed them. well believe it or not, this was the point when i decided we'd better get the camera out and document a little of this, so its not quite the end of day 1's progress, but its close enough, so heres the first progress picture [see yesterday's post for the "before" shot].

[progress.one]

so you should be able to make out pretty clearly where the fence posts used to be, and this is the first layer of planter after its weatherseal coat and you can even see one of the bottoms she was working on standing vertically on the porch. at any rate, moving on.

so we started to assemble the pieces of the next tier as karen finished applying her waterseal coat to the bottom and after a little elbow grease we soon had that tier finished and were ready to start the next. ill tell you though, this time around i got some longer nails to drive through two tiers worth and after they made it through the 4inches or so of pre-drilled hole they were a uh... bugger and a half to drive the rest of the way. and given the number of them i was using to tie everything together it took a little time and a lot of tiring muscle to get the stupid things in there. however after they were secure the end result was a pretty damn rigid construction that was well worth the effort. as far as i can tell, this thing aint goin anywhere. =]

so soon enough i got started measuring, marking, cutting, and drilling on the next two tiers [with occasional assistance from my beautiful sidekick who is quite the pro at holding for me] and we were getting those put together as well. well... i had kind of promised the wife that she could leave at 1, and when 1 came we'd only just finished the second tier and she was getting a bit perturbed with me - not to mention sick and tired of applying weather seal. so i asked if she could give it just another half hour and she agreed, so i started measuring on the final tier. well, this time around half the assembly was strategically already cut when getting the others cut to size, so the cutting was actually quite minimal. all we needed to do was notch the tops a little so it would fit under the porch ledge and then drill the holes for all the fasteners. well... notching was a little easier said than done, especially with the chainsaw and the members definitely wanted to move around a little. but we got it one and no one lost any limbs [or even came close really] but by the time we got that finished karen had had enough and was ready to be taken to studio, she had other things to accomplish that day. so frustrated, we cleaned up all the tools and i took her to school only to return home and get them all back out so that i could finish this project once and for all. and at this point we took another progress picture before i took karen to school, so heres that little update.

[progress.two]

so you can see how all the tiers are stacking and going together now and its pretty obvious the color difference between where the weatherseal had been applied at this point.

well, by the time i got home it took me about 5 minutes to drill the rest of the holes and assemble the remaining parts and that was it! construction phase complete! so i cleaned up all the tools and then got started applying the weatherseal to all the remaining wood. it was pretty interesting to see the reactions we got from the neighborhood as they passed by, i must say. we live on a pretty main street and almost everyone that passed by as we were putting this thing together had questions or comments of some kind for us. it was pretty entertaining, haha. well as i put on the final touches of weatherseal i was pretty pleased with myself, but starting to feel the sun... i was definitely getting a little more sun that usual. but i was so close to being finished! so after completing the planter i got out the new seeding and started spreading it throughout the freshly cut "yard" and not long after i was sweeping up and finished with the entire project.

so at this point i took a few more shots, and heres your final progress shot for the day.

[progress.final]

so now all we need is some soil to fill it up the rest of the way and then we can start planting some flowers or grasses or whatever we end up putting in this thing. the problem is that the front of our house is north facing, so im afraid we might end up having to get mostly shade plants, but thats an issue for a future time.

well after getting cleaned up and showered and what not it was getting close to movie time so i called mom to tell her happy mothers day and around 4:30 i left to go drop the truck off with karen at school. well... things didnt exactly go as planned at this point. i should have timed it a little better, but by the time i got to school and helped karen load up some stuff it was pretty much 5 and the movie was supposed to start at 4:45. damnit. well there was no way i was going to miss the beginning, so i decided id just go to the showing at 7:30 instead and after rethinking her schedule karen decided shed come along after all and we spent another hour or so at her school while she finished up some studio stuff, then went home for dinner and then at about 7:10 we were at the theater and i was excitedly waiting for the new star trek to start!

well i loved the movie, it was absolutely incredible. no not a huge trekky by any measure, but i have seen all the original movies and was excited to see the prequel. well it was definitely a great movie and had everything i hoped for and more. theyve even managed [as hollywood always does] to open themselves the opportunity to start a whole new franchise of star trek movies with the new cast if this one does well [which it totally will!]. so im pretty excited about that. this was probably my favorite star trek yet, although thereve definitely been some really good ones in the past as well. i think this one is just more generationally appealing to me and i can really relate to the production value a little better than the late 70's versions, although they were definitely awesome for their time. =]

anyway, after the movie we headed home for the night and i got some laundry going and then sat down to blog. my mind was racing from the weekend and for some reason i had plenty of energy so it seemed appropriate to blog while i waited for the laundry to be finished. anyway, by about midnight i was finished blogging, karen had passed out a half hour to an hour earlier and the laundry was done so i turned in for the night.

and well, that was our weekend!

hope you enjoyed the story and the pictures, and feel free to check out a few more shots of the construction on my web albums if you feel so inclined.

hope you all had a great weekend and a happy mothers day, and have a great week!

unanticipated.productivity [one]

so when last we parted, i mentioned that we didnt really have anything planned for the weekend. well, as it turns out, that was partly a lie. unbeknownst to me, my wife had already started quite a list of errands for saturday morning that would in turn breed an entire weekend of activity. 

so lets get to the guts shall we?

[saturday]

so saturday morning we actually got up kind of early, i still dont know why, especially considering id been up past midnight watching battlestar and karen had dozed off somewhere around midnight herself. either way, we were both awake at around 7:50 if memory serves, and while she went down to the office to work on some homework i watched another episode of battlestar, hehe. [ive only got 8 episodes left of the series and im on pins and needles! is there really not going to be a 5th season??? theyre just going to start this new series, caprica, told through the eyes of two cylons?? im in utter disbelief... i must be in for one hell of a series finale...] anyhoo, around 9ish i ventured down to the office to inquire about my wifes ongoings and discovered she was already planning our day out. so we both started getting ready and then somewhere around 10:30 [i think] we were getting on the road to start our list of errands for the morning. 

first up was a stop at the hardware store to return some items from studio that she didnt end up using. after that, a stop at the bank so karen could get some forms notarized for something or other and put them in the mail. after the bank it was around 11:30-ish and we were both decidedly hungry so we popped over to the panera bread next door for an early lunch. i had the egg salad and karen had some chicken panini of some kind - both quite delicious. and on the way out the door, we could help but stop at the "window of guilt and shame" and select a few mouth watering pastry deserts for the road. i dont know about you, but that window should be outlawed, i have no where near the self-control to pass that up, and it would be much better for me [and by me, i mean my wasitline...] if the powers that be stepped in to put a stop to the madness... but i digress.... after lunch the next stops were the library - for karen to return some items shed checked out for studio, the rec center... well, thats obvious, then onward to the depot and the grocery store. actually, come to think of it the bank didnt open till 11 when we went there first and so we decided to do the library and rec first, then the bank and lunch, but i dont suppose the order is terribly significant at this point.

well the first couple of stops going as planned, and we were feeling pretty pleased with our success for the day as we headed on to get more errands done. soon we were pulling into the oh-so-familiar home depot parking lot full of that depot anticipation. [which from my experience is a pretty good mixture of excitement for all the goodies we'll find and dread for the number at the bottom of the receipt...] well the reason we were there was that the "front yard" had become quite overrun with weeds in the last few weeks and after a few weekends of rain they were getting to be quite tall. so we'd about had enough of it and with a good weather weekend in-process we decided we better take advantage of it. so the plan was to get a small lawn mower and possibly some grass seed, and also we were going to look at the possibility of a new door for the second floor shop at the house [see posts on karens studio project vs. my missing door] ao it turns out that the cheapest lawn mowers that they carry are the old wheel blade kind that you push, which is exactly what wed anticipated getting, however even those run for 100 freakin bucks, and theres no way in hell im paying that. so we considered our options and opted instead for a small rechargeable weed whacker. considering that our "front yard" is about 10ftx15ft [if im being generous] i didnt think a small battery powered weed whacker seemed all that unreasonable. especially since it was only a moderate 30-something bucks. so after picking up the weed whacker and explaining to karen why we'd need an extra spool of line even though it said on the box that there was line included... [women...] we headed to the garden center to find us some seedin. well right inside the door they had exactly what i was looking for - scotts turf builder plus with weed killer and advanced hydrating something or other - 15 bucks for 1000sf... haha, ive got 150sf, so that might be a bit overkill, but its the smallest bag they carry, hahaha. so we got that and after having some conversation i convinced the wifey to head over to lumber with me to have a look at some timbers for a planter i want build in the front yard at some point. no commitments, we didnt have to buy anything, just looking... right. ;]

so we looked, and found these really cool rough cut 6x6 timbers for a very reasonable price and the wheels in my mind started turning. as we left the timber section discussing our options and debating the financial practicality of it all we strolled through the door section. at this point they had to pull out the paddles and revive me from the floor as we discovered that the least expensive door they carry with any kind of glass is almost freakin 200 bucks! ha! no thank you... well, after that catastrophe i convinced the wife we should have another gander at the timbers [that project seemed a lot more inexpensive now, haha, these were only 14 bucks each!] and as we debated the possibilities and the design details, we decided we could try out a few timbers and build a small planter and see how it went. so excitedly we got one of the guys to help us pull down 3 timbers [they were on one of the higher stacks and well, they were big.] and as he helped us and i had him check the quality of each timber for cracks and splits and what not, he inquired about our project. well i told him we were going to build a planter and he told us about some other items on the next isle that we might be interested in. so he walked us over to the next isle and pointed out some 1/2 inch rebar landscape spins, and a bunch of giant galvanized nails that would probably be useful. well, i was quite excited to see all of these goodies and quickly re-assessed our design ideas in my mind and decided we would definitely be needing to acquire these items, heh.

well soon enough wed loaded up the items wed need to investigate the planter and found our way to the checkout counter to do our daily damage. i dont remember now how much we spent, but im also not sure i want to. at any rate, i was very excited to get going on the new project and was ready to skip the grocery store altogether. however, my wife being the pragmatist of the moment insisted that it was on the list and was an actual necessity [unlike my pipe dreams] and convinced me it would be getting checked off the list next. so i seceded my opposition and reluctantly drove over to the grocery store to get it off the list. 

well after not too much longer we were pulling up to the house and unloading all the groceries and while karen put some of those away i got started unloading the home depot stuff. well after wed gotten everything unloaded and found all the necessary tools we jumped into constructing the planter and getting some yard work done. the first thing we did was to go through the yard and pull all the tallest weeds that we could and dispose of those. after that i started moving some dirt around to fill the hole in the middle of the yard and try and level out the area that we were planning to build the planter. at this point i cant remember the order anymore but there was some raking, some more weed pulling [as the weed whacker charged and charged and never finished charging on saturday...] and then at some point we made the decision to disassemble the chain link fence in the front as well. we'd discussed doing this a number of times and were both in agreement and now seemed as good a time as any to do it. so we managed to get the chain link down and only the pipe posts remaining and were satisfied as we moved on to the construction of the planter. well since these timbers were 6x6 and rough cut anyway i decided the best way to get them to the size we wanted was with the chainsaw [which worked like a charm! shockingly so in fact.] and then we drilled out holes for the rebar and pre-drilled holes for the nails. before long we had the timbers in place and we were driving the rebar and fastening the thing together. come 4:30 or 5 we were finished for the day and had a small planter constructed and had even relocated a small pile of dirt in the front inside of it. so the yard was really starting to come together and we were quite pleased with ourselves for the day. 

at this point we decided to take showers and get cleaned up and then at 7 we made our way over to one of karen's professor's house for a small studio dinner party. they had a pretty cool house and some amazing views of cincinnati and we had a good time. it was one hell of a dinner party and there were a lot of people to mingle with, im not sure how they pulled off the food, but it was delicious and we had a really nice time. 

so by the time we pulled up to the house around 10:30/11pm we were both pretty exhausted and soon passed out for the night. 

and with that, im going to call it a night myself, and we'll continue the story of sunday for another time. =] night!

the.before

alright, so this isnt actually from this weekend, but if you can imagine a forest of 2ft tall weeds in here, then its close enough. [note the hole in the middle of the yard to the left of the center of the image. its the black spot and its probably about 3 ft in diameter and a ft deep - give or take]

dc[part.thrice]

[sunday | 5.2.09 | day.three]

sunday morning was another groggy morning, but we managed to get up at a similar hour to the day before. after showering and getting ourselves ready we headed down to breakfast again. as with saturday we werent disappointed, although i think we both had a little less breakfast overall this time around. they didnt have the burritos, but there were scrambled eggs and sausage and most everything else from the day before.

after breakfast we quickly grabbed our stuff for the day, plotted out our stops and were on our way. well, no sooner did we hit the lobby door than we realized today was going to be a little different. it was lightly drizzling out and we didnt have an umbrella or ponchos or anything else to protect ourselves with. so after exchanging glances we pressed forward and made our way to the metro stop. luckily, the rain wasnt heavy and the temperate outside was moderate enough that we werent getting soaked and frozen, but we were getting damp and chilled a little, oh-well.

soon enough we were on the train and headed to our first stop, federal center s.

as we got on the escalators and slowly rose out of the depths we were a little disheartened to find that the rain hadnt magically ceased during our 15 minute subterranean reprieve. so after glancing at our maps and trying to find our bearings karen grabbed a free newsprint of some kind from a nearby dispenser and we set out in what i thought was the right direction. as i mentioned before the subway maps vs. street maps are a little difficult to rectify from scale and abstraction, so it turns out we were heading a little off course at first. soon enough though we realized my mistake, corrected and before long we were across the street from our first museum of the day - the national museum of the american indian.

id seen pictures of it at some point before so i knew what the building looked like, but it was definitely cooler in person. from what i remember the idea behind the design was a symbolic representation of the cave cities in the southwest so its got some really fun geometry. inside is a huge domed atrium space with an oculus and there are various different exhibits and gift shops on all the levels. we visited a couple of the exhibits which were pretty interesting to see, and then did a little research on my native american heritage. im some very small part potawatomi and am officially registered with the tribal rolls, and was curious to see what the national museum had on my tribe. well, sadly, they didnt have a whole lot. it took quite a bit of digging but we did find a few pages in one book in one of the bookstores that gave a brief synopsis of the tribes origins and then in one of the displays there was an actual artifact about beading, but other than that, ziltch. but i thought my parents would get a kick out what we did find, so theres a few images in the albums. thats alright though, the main center for the potawatomi is in oklahoma now and while i havent made it to see what theyve got yet, i plan to someday and im sure its much more in depth. anyway, we spent quite some time at the american indian museum - hoping it would stop raining, however, by the time we were ready to go... it hadnt.

so we headed back out into the rain and soon found a vendor with umbrellas so we bought a small one - probably should have gotten a larger one in retrospect - and huddled together as we made our way to our next stop a few blocks away, the smithsonian museum of natural history. i was really looking forward to this one because wed seen some posters of an imax film about dinosaurs that looked pretty cool and also something about a giant squid on display. so after getting ourselves thoroughly dampened and our feet thoroughly soaked after sloshing our way over, we made it inside and found ourselves in the midst of hundreds of people, a large majority of which were children who were having a good time but were definitely a little obnoxious. anyway the first thing i wanted to check on was the imax times and prices and as it turns out they were charging like 10 bucks per person and we really werent prepared to pay that price. so we decided to just see most of the exhibits instead and made our way through the museum. the first area we went through was the ocean stuff and got to see all kind of cool artifacts. they had huge lifelike models of different marine life, and a ton of real skeletons and stuff that were preserved for study. we really enjoyed ourselves and took a ton of pictures.

after the marine stuff we went on to the dinosaurs section and looked through all the fossils and skeletons of the dinosaurs they had on display - again a lot of pictures.

after the dinosaurs we went through the space exhibit and then the geological formations and saw all kinds of crazy rocks and gems and stuff. they even had rocks with hair! it was pretty crazy. the last stop we made was to see the hope diamond which was currently on display - karen REALLY liked it... hah, she wishes! after another trip through the ridiculously-over-priced gift shop we were getting hungry and had seen just about all we wanted to that day, and with the rain and all... we decided to call it a day and go find some food.

so we found the nearest subway station and headed back to the hotel to see if we could find a dining guide of some kind and figure out lunch. well... after consulting the internet and our brochures we found that not much was open on sunday in the area we were in and settled on a little deli/bakery - au bon pain - just down the block from our hotel and had a nice little lunch. they had some really great macaroni and cheese that we shared as a side and all kinds of little pastry goodies for dessert. after lunch we were both pretty exhausted and since it was already about 3pm and still raining we decided to head back to the room for a little relaxing, some tv, and a nap. well... the nap ended up being a little longer that we expected i think, and around 8 we woke up and decided to have a quick order-in dinner before calling it a night. we had a very very early morning on monday and it was going to be a loooong day, so we decided it was better get our rest. after confirming our shuttle pick up to the airport [because really who wants to change trains a dozen times at 3 in the morning?] we drifted off to sleep before getting up again at 2am and making the trip home.

as for the trip home, it went just as planned, was very uneventful, and after napping on the plane and landing back in cincy we got the truck from parking and were on our way straight to work and school. and thus, our trip [and the story] is complete. its actually been a pretty short week by comparison to our "vacation" but im looking forward to the weekend. we dont have any real plans yet for whats going to happen this weekend, but if we do anything fun or exciting ill be sure to fill you in next week.

hope you all have a fantastic weekend and a happy mother's day!

dc[part.two]

[saturday | 5.2.09 | day.two]

so we got up at about 8:30am [although quite stubbornly and with much difficulty given the night before...] and got showered and dressed and then went downstairs to the continental breakfast around 9:30am. it was actually a pretty sweet breakfast, they had just about anything you could want and the best part was the breakfast burrito fixins! i had a burrito and a bagel with some oj and diet coke while karen sampled just about everything there was, lol! i think her eyes were a little bigger than mine, but she tried everything and seemed to enjoy it all.

after breakfast we visited the little brochure kiosk in the lobby and got some free maps and then headed to the room to gather whatever items we'd need for the days excursion and then soon headed out. the short 3 block walk to the metro was nothing this time around and we were feeling much more confident as we purchased our tickets from the machine and routed our trip through various stops and train switches. maybe 15-20 minutes later we were on the escalators at judiciary square and were delivered directly to our first stop, sweet! we knew we'd be close from the map, but theyre a little abstract and difficult to gauge exact location proximity to anything, and we were lucky enough to emerge from the subway directly at the front door of the first museum on our list for the day - the national building museum. well before we went in we took a second to look at our surroundings and it turns out judiciary square is a pretty cool little plaza with some fun landscaping features and statues. at the present time there was some kind of ceremony going on in the center of the plaza but we decided to walk around the extremities in the in the tree-lined paths to check things out for a few minutes as discreetly as possible. well, as much action as was going on center-stage and the fact that the city seems pretty used to tourism, no one paid us any attention as we looked about and snapped a few pictures before heading into the museum.

so when first we entered the museum what struck us both was the grandiose of the main atrium space. this thing was effin huge! it must have been at least 5 stories high with these huge columns that went all the way up to the clerestory [er... little windows near the ceiling, in layman's...] in addition to that there was a pretty huge fountain in the middle and the width and breadth of this thing... lets just say you could have probably but a few of our house's [which is pretty huge to be honest] in this space and still have room to spare without batting an eye.

anyway, we went to the information desk to inquire about tours and whatnot and then decided to just start visiting the exhibits on our own [the next tour didnt start for an hour and a half]. the first exhibit we saw was called detour and it was about all these popular tourist spots in the norway countryside. it basically chronicled 17 or 18 spaces that were designed as lookouts or viewpoints in a video presentation and then after the video there were a series of architectural models and boards of some of the places from the video. the models were freakin sweet. as someone who has built a number of architectural models in my day i had a serious appreciation for how well built these things were and was a little enamoured with the different techniques that were used. it was a really cool first experience for the museum and i was looking forward to what was next at that point.

so the next stop was a photography exhibit by some architectural photographer that was geared towards 9/11 aftermath in the form of a juxtaposition and comparison of interrogation spaces, worship spaces, and government spaces from all the various cultural viewpoints. it was an interesting collection, although after a little while it all started to look the same and the clever ironies started to get less and less clever as you saw more of the work. but maybe i was just distracted by the random gallery attendant who took an interest in my tattoos and decided to ruin my experience by talking to me for most of the duration of my visit while i was TRYING to concentrate on the artwork. at some point i just started nodding while he was telling me stories about his cousin the marine who got in trouble all the time and was kicked out after 6 months, yadda, yadda, yadda. karen totally abandoned me while this guy chewed my ear off for 15 minutes. punk.

anyway the next exhibit we saw was about architectural detailing in different materials - stone, metal, brick, etc. and it was kinda cool, but a little boring. at this point wed already been there a good hour and i was getting antsy to see all the other million stops on our list for the day so we made a quick trip through the gift shop to see if anything jumped at us [nothing did, hah, not for those prices...] and then we made our way to the exit. so the next stop on our list was "the mall" where there are tons of museums, monuments, landmarks, memorials, and what have you. its pretty much the tourist hot spot of d.c. where the smithsonian and all the famous stuff is. well, it was either back on the subway for a couple of stops or just walk the 6 or 7 blocks over, and considering how nice the weather was out [overcast and cool - perfect for site seeing!] we decided to walk. well it was actually a nice walk and we went through some nice garden plazas and government buildings [which make up like 75% of the downtown area from what we saw, lol!] until we got to constitution ave.

at this point we were a little awestruck by the mall. at one end you could see the capital building, directly in front of us was the national art gallery, in the distance the washington monument towered over the treeline and there were a half dozen other museums within eye-shot. it was a cultural enthusiasts dream come true, haha, and being the nerds karen and i are, we were basking in all its glory. we decided to venture towards the capitol building and then around the national art gallery to its entrance to kind of get a full view of the area before going in to the art gallery. it was pretty cool seeing the capitol building, even from the distance we were at, and i was really digging the architecture of the national art gallery as well. by the time we made it around to the front of the gallery we both got distracted by these awesome triangular shards jutting through the adjacent plaza and had to investigate them further.

we took a bunch of pictures and came to find out there was actually a restaurant or something under the plaza that these shards were skylights into so we took the long way into the museum by going underground, through the restaurant to check the shards out from the inside, and then through this really freaking cool l.e.d. installation before actually arriving inside the lower level of the art gallery. and right there in front of us, a serra! awesome! this was really an enjoyable day so far! we floated around the gallery for a little while before deciding we wanted to take the tour of the sculpture garden about an hour later and decided to grab lunch at the garden pavilion before it started. so we walked over there and had a really delicious lunch at the pavilion before trying to find the tourgroup. well as it turned out we asked an official looking woman where the tour started and she was the guide so we were in the right place! and if that wasnt cool enough, it turns out we were the first people shed actually given the tour to in almost a year and we were the only ones that showed up that day, so we got a very one on one personal, and casual tour of the sculpture garden and karen got to ask all kinds of questions for a project she had in her museum studies class. it turned out to be a really fun tour and she was extremely knowledgeable of the sculptures.

by the time we finished the garden we were both starting to feel a bit tired. it was around 2:30pm at this point and we'd been on our feet for hours already, but there was still so much to see! i wanted to try and see the washington monument, the vietnam veterans memorial, and the lincoln memorial while we were in the area that day, so we got started walking - not sure if we'd make it. the first one we saw was the washington monument. it was really freakin huge and everything youd expect - although in a much less immaculate condition than you always see in pictures. up close you could see that there was some history to this thing and it had been around for some time. well, being the nerds we are, we took the opportunity to take a bunch of fun shots of karen with the monument - like you do at the leaning tower of pisa or the like - haha, it was a lot of fun.

knowing how much we still wanted to see we made our stops short for the rest of the day and tried to just get to everything as quickly as possible. so after circling the huge block that the monument was on we came across the wwII memorial and checked it out, then were on our way again towards the vietnam war memorial. eventually we arrived but it was absolutely overrun with tourists, kind of a bummer and pretty typical of the day so far - there were so many people there!, so we tried to take a few pictures before getting out of the people soup and making our way over to the lincoln memorial nearby.

well after seeing the lincoln memorial, which was pretty cool, but again CRAZY crowded, and making a quick pit stop - we were done for the day and decided it was time to head back to the hotel. well, at this point we were pretty far from any of the metro stops so we could either walk to the closest one, or about equa-distant, just walk back to the hotel - so we decided wed just suffer through and walk back. luckily we were in pretty close proximity to the white house at this point so we were going to make sure to go by it on the way to the hotel.

on our way to the white house we actually just happened past the AIA headquarters in d.c. which was kind of a cool random accident and then sure enough we saw the whitehouse. and wow, that was an experience, it was pretty cool.

we also saw an armed guard carrying what must have been a freaking grenade launcher/assault rifle/rocket launcher or something. ive never seen a gun that big in my life, he could have taken out a tank with that thing! we definitely didnt mess with him, haha!

anyway, after the white house it was only another 4 blocks to the hotel and soon we were relaxing and resting our poor feet for a while, and while we were doing that i got in contact with my friend lauren who lives in dc and i havent seen since senior year at a&m and made arrangements to go to dinner with her. well, not long after talking to her we saddled up and trekked back to the metro for another ride on the subway. this time we went down to alexandria virginia to meet up with lauren and ended up having a pretty great time with her. we had this authentic-y spanish meal with these little snack sized portioned meals [the name of them escapes me... tapas?] and a lot of catching up. it was really fun to see her again, but by the time we were done eating we were EXHAUSTED and ready for bed. lauren actually volunteered to give us a ride back to the hotel [only about 5 miles away, the area is pretty dense] and after a couple of wrong turns we eventually got home and crashed for the night.

- end of day two. and again, im out of time, sorry!! -