First it's Huck Finn, now it's Tag

We live in sad, sad times. CNN reports that a shool in Attleboro, MA has banned elementary students from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.

This is downright pathetic, sad, and upsetting. I don't want my kid to get hurt any more than anyone else, but is this going to protect our kids, or is it going to foster the idea that human contact is bad, and lawsuits are good? And it's just another excuse for kids to not exercise, get fat, play video games, and die early.

Lord knows, Blockades certainly would have been out of the question. I recall getting hammered numerous times, and I seem to recall my dad saying, "serves you right" when I got a black eye. I also vividly recall getting a scratched cornea when a rogue snowball hit me in the eye. That led to a doctor's visit, some meds, and perhaps a day off from school, but certainly not litigation. Sad, really really sad.

The Gashleycrumb Tinies

My friend Paul sent me the link to this. A warm, family oriented children's tale and classic of literature, perfect for Halloween. Enjoy.

Carrying the torch for the younger generation

I mentioned the YMCA Adventure Princess program in an earlier post. The father-daughter bonding begins. But speaking of bonding, I'm finding this program to be a great opportunity to disappear into my workshop. And yes, Natalie gets to join me on this one....

Our tribe of 15 father-daughter couples needed a torch for the upcoming campout. The torch consists of a long straight tree branch, with a large steel coffee can mounted on the top, along with a smaller can inside. In the smaller can is placed a roll of toilet paper, doused in kerosene, and lit on fire.

Needless to say the construction of this torch was something I wholeheartedly volunteered for. After all, I already own a table saw, a router, and about 300 extra feet of electrical wire, so surely I could come up with the perfect solution for building this torch. I felt the need to make Red Green proud, discovering all kinds of creative uses for duct tape.

The real challenge was mounting that inner can. I didn't want to screw it to the outer can, for fear of the kerosene leaking and causing combustion of a small child. Duct tape was too flammable (sorry, Red), and hot glue would melt. So hmm, how to mount it.

First I considered expandable foam. But no, the can says expandable foam is highly combustible. I thought, gee, maybe I could cement it somehow. Two minutes later, after browsing through home renovation leftovers, I came across a half-used bag of floor tile cement. There'ya go. Mixed up a batch of that, poured it in the big can, set the smaller one into it, and voila.

The next step is to paint the can in our Adventure Princess Tribe's colors, and rig up a remote detonation-I mean, remote ignition device so that we can "light it up" just like that scene from LOST.

By the way, as a footnote, it looks like we're one step closer to inventing transparent aluminum, so that our Captain Kirk and his team can transport whales back to the future

Painting in our free time

As the parent in our household responsible for going to work each day, sitting in front of a computer for hours and hopefully bringing home a paycheck a couple of times a month, I have a somewhat narrow view of what it must be like to be a stay-at-home parent. On the rare occasion where I do get to stay home, I tend to be ultra-productive. The kitchen gets cleaned, the bills get paid and, heck, I might even find some time to build a custom armoire in my workshop complete with inlays and dovetail joints. So why is my wife so stressed about this stay-at-home thing? What's the big deal?

Well for one thing, there's the parenting part. If I was a stay-at-home dad, my six-year-old would still be in diapers. My three-year-old would weigh about seventy pounds, after having been raised on nothing but pizza, crackers, and bag after bag of goldfish crackers. The two of them would be completely illiterate, but know every line of every episode of the Simpsons. Yes, being a stay-at-home parent is a full time career that takes a level of expertise for which I am totally unqualified.

This is the point of the story where I give my wife credit for the amazing job she does. She keeps us fed, she keeps us clothed (well, them, anyway - she doesn't shop for me). She's a brilliant teacher, as demonstrated by the fact that my six-year-old daughter's favorite word is pulchritudinous, and she even knows how to spell it. Okay fine, so I come home and the kitchen's a mess, but when my kids both graduate from Harvard on full scholarships, become successful doctors, and fund our retirements, we'll hire someone to clean the kitchen.

I was reminded of the massive responsibility and effort this parenting work takes only recently, at the tail-end of our major home renovation. We had several coats of paint to apply to various rooms, and I just didn't see how or when it was going to get done by me, working eight hours a day outside the house. I only half-jokingly said to my wife, "boy it would be great if I came home one day, and the family room was totally painted." After she was done pummeling me with her copy of Oprah Magazine, my wife proceeded to explain why I was completely off my rocker to think that there was even the remotest of remote possibilities of getting a room painted during the day with the kids awake. The conversation went something like this....

Lovely Wife: "How can you possibly think that I..."
Daughter #1: "Mom, can I have a snack?"
Lovely Wife: "Sure honey, let mommy finish first. So how could you possibly think that I..."
Daughter #2, yelling from upstairs: "MOMMMMM!!!!"
Lovely Wife: "YES????"
Daughter #2:"My unicorn is in on the shelf!"
Lovely Wife: "One second! ....possibly think that I would have..."
Daughter #1: "Mom, I don't know what I want for a snack"
Lovely Wife: "Well, when you decide, and when I'm done talk..."
Daughter #2:"MOMMMMM!!!! I need a tissue!"
Lovely Wife: "....think that I would have time to pa..."
Daughter #1: "Can I have goldfish?"
Lovely Wife: "No, you just had dinner. Have some fruit."
Daughter #1: "MOMMM!!!! I have a booboo!"
Lovely Wife: "Coming! I'm sorry honey, you were saying something about sending me to a spa?"

Happy Birthday, Thing #2

A couple of people informed me that my posts don't seem to provide much in the way of detail about my younger daughter, what's-her-name. Yes, the now-three-year-old, sweet and lovable, exceptionally opinionated toddler that currently rules the toy room with an iron fist. So, in an effort to provide equal airtime, here's a Jessica update.

As mentioned above, she has reached the golden age of three, today in fact. I'm currently traveling in Minneapolis and attempted to wish her a happy birthday when I called home earlier, but being three years old she had no real interest in speaking with the disembodied voice coming from the telephone handset as she was too busy arranging her Fisher-Price farm animals by order of date obtained.

Last Saturday was her party. For six months before the event, if you asked her where her party was going to be, she would authoritatively proclaim, "I'm going to see Chucky!" That'd be Chuck E. Cheese. Ah yes, Chuck E. Cheese. Processed, overpriced, high-fat fun for kids of all ages. There's nothing that makes me itch more than spending an hour at Chuck E. Cheese. But I seem to remember that when I was a kid, my parents never took me to CEC's, and I only dreamed that it was some sort of Taj Mahal, a magical place on the order of the Wonka Chocolate Factory, where animatronic wild creatures smothered you in piles of magical gold coins that made all of your dreams come true. And I'm sure that's how Jessica sees it now. Either that, or she sees it as "the place with the ball pit". Frankly, in our circle of families it's well known as the place where your kid gets to catch her first cold of the season.

Jessica is definitely the second kid. She will spend hours playing by herself, unsupervised, with a set of blocks. She graciously accepts hand-me-downs, and doesn't insist on having the pink Dora plate with her afternoon snack. Unlike her sister she hasn't been read every book in our vast library seventeen times. Sometimes I wonder if we've been unfair, having spent countless hours paying focused attention to her older sister, educating her on everything from the alphabet to power tool recognition, only to not have time for the same effort with our second child. But Jessica's no slouch. She already knows the important stuff, such as how to manipulate her father, how to tantrum until we give in, and how to wait until the very moment we sit down to ask for a second helping of raisins.

Here's a perfect example from a while back. After dinner, I was tossing dishes into the dishwasher when she pitter-pattered up to me and asked, "Um, dad? Daddy? Daddy? Dad? Um...dad?"

"Yes?" I responded.

"Can you play with us?"

"Not right now, I'm washing dishes."

She then waddled back into the playroom to proclaim to her sister, "He said YES!!!"

This is true. If you reread the above, you will see I did, in fact, say yes. Not to the question she asked, but that doesn't matter now, does it? She got me on semantics.

Happy third birthday, Jessica. It's gonna be a big year. Preschool, separation from Mommy, and being forced to poop in designated locations are all part of your to-do list. So enjoy it while you can!

Now THAT'S Co-branding!

Yesterday at the supermarket, we came across Lego Eggos. Yes, waffles in the shape of Lego pieces. The marketing lackey who thought this one up deserves a raise.

Of course, my daughters seem to just want to stack them rather than eat them. Go figure...

Not all gun nuts are in the South

So here is an article about a lawmaker in Wisconsin who wants to introduce legistation that would allow teachers to carry concealed weapons in shool, citing how this seems to work for schools in Thailand.

Thailand. "Where officials have been waging a bloody fight with Muslim separatists for the last two years..."

Now let's think about what just happened in the Amish schoolhouse in PA this week (forgetting for a moment that it's an Amish schoolhouse, and the Amish wouldn't carry a gun anyway). So the teacher owns a gun. Probably keeps it in her desk drawer, because you can't conceal it under a skirt too well. A gunman bursts in. The teacher is at the blackboard. The gun is twenty feet away in a desk drawer. Seems pretty pointless, and chances are good the teacher is gonna get shot in the process of diving for it.

And I think about that teacher in high school that tossed an eraser at my nose when I gave a dumb answer (I deserved it, and never once thought about a law suit) and wonder just how many unstable teachers there are that really shouldn't be toting guns in the first place.

Rejuvenation.com

I came across this company called Rejuvenation on the web while I was searching for a match to our kitchen drawer pulls. Rejuvenation sells period-style light fixtures. They seem similar in concept to the store Restoration Hardware, in that they make new stuff that looks like classic old stuff. But the stuff they sell is gorgeous (albeit pricey). I recommend ordering a catalog. Check them out at www.rejuvenation.com.

Oh, and I highly recommend considering the bat light.

Home Depot Rebates suck

Can I just take a moment and whine about Home Depot's rebates? Yeah, it's well known that companies do rebates simply because they know not everyone is going to fill in the right info or even bother to send them in, and odds are they will make money in the end. I have to say that Home Depot does a great job of making their rebate program the biggest pain in the rear possible.

About six months ago I bought a Rigid shop vac for $40, minus a $20 mail-in rebate. I mailed it in, as instructed. A few weeks later I got a letter saying I didn't follow the directions, and failed to include the bar code from the box...the box I threw out at least a week before. Since the box was gone, I had no way of proving that I sent it, even though I remember doing so. I was screwed with that one.

So as part of the renovation we bought several new kitchen cabinets, which resulted in an offer of a $200 rebate. I was very, very careful to follow the directions precisely AND make photocopies of everything AND scan those photocopies into PDF form. After over a month, I thought I would check into the status. Home Depot conveniently has a web page you can go to in order to check on rebate status and, go figure, my $200 rebate wasn't even listed. Oddly enough, the $20 one for the shop vac was. So I then tracked down my paperwork, and emailed Home Depot with the PDF copy of my paperwork. In response, I got a letter saying they couldn't use what I sent them because the scan of the receipt covered over some of the rebate form. Fine, so I re-faxed my original paperwork so they could read everything.

Now, three weeks later, Home Depot's website lists the $200 rebate submission. TWICE. And today I received both a letter in the mail and an email saying "we received your submission, and you have exeeded the maximum number of entries per household. Duplicate submissions cannot be honored." On the web site, one of the two entries has that statement on it, the other says it's still being processed, expected completion another three weeks.

So how come they can take the time to DENY a request, sending a paper letter and an email out, but they need another three weeks to send me my two hundred dollars?

I think I'm gonna start acting like that kid from Better Off Dead, chasing the CEO of Home Depot on my bike with the snow ski attachment, yelling, "I want my two hundred dollars!" the whole way.

Soduku

Having never seen one before tonight, my 6-year-old daughter completed her first ever Soduku puzzle, without help, after only about 5 minutes of instruction. Sorry to beat my parental chest here, but I'm flabbergasted.

I've become a Princess

With entry into kindergarten comes the right of entry into a special secretive cult known as Adventure Princess. This is a group sponsored by the local YMCA with the goal in mind to provide opportunities for fathers to bond with their children. Natalie and I have joined this Adventure Princess tribe, along with about a dozen other local dads and their kindergarten-aged daughters.

I don't know who's more excited, her or me. I mean, what's not to get excited about? There's campouts, hiking, biking, canoeing and other outdoorsy stuff. There's crafts (okay sure, but I can find reasons to bring tools), and monthly get-togethers with other dad/daughter couples. And all with no moms allowed.

Good thing. I've been trying to convince my wife to go camping for about 7 years now. After our last experience, tent-camping in northern PA, where it dropped to 32 degrees at night and the spiders in the shower wanted to get friendly, she swore she'd never camp again.

In the end, this Adventure Princess thing is all about bonding with my daughter. I'm sure that during those overnight camping trips there will be several episodes where she'll need to mop my fevered brow as I go through Blackberry and laptop withdrawal, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. And I'm sure it will make for some good blog-fodder.

Blockades

As I sit in front of the Mac listening to my younger one singing "twinkle twinkle" from her crib into the baby monitor at the top of her lungs, while the wife rests comfortably upstairs and the elder child snoozes with her Little Mermaid book perched atop her snoring nose, I figure it's a good time to catch up on a few things. As I mentioned in a recent post, Natalie has started Kindergarten this month. It's a new world, people. gone are the simple worries, like who's gonna be snack mom, or is she going to poop at preschool, or will she catch a sniffle from a fellow classmate. Now we're into the real stuff. Is the bus going to make it to the school without spontaneously combusting? Will her classmates accept her? Do we really have to sell all that freaking holiday wrapping paper and overpriced stale popcorn to our unsuspecting neighbors just so her class will have the funding for that fabulous class trip to Cleveland?

As Natalie gets into her kindergarten groove, I am starting to see obvious traits of my own passed down to her. I'm also starting to see ways she's as different from me as peanut butter is from, say, sidewalk chalk.

There are the regular reports of her visits to the school nurse. Yup, that's a piece of my DNA double helix. So far, the most minor visit was for a raging case of chapped lips. The most urgent was for a bleeding hangnail. Again, just like her dad. I always was a bleeder.

She's different from me in one very, obvious way. After attending "dessert night" at the school tonight, which is sort of a kids/parents social hour to meet the teachers and other families, I realized that main difference.

My daughter isn't a nerd.

I mean, okay, maybe I wasn't the biggest nerd in the world at school (Guys, you shut up now - there was worse, you know there was!), but I was by no means a member of the A-list. Oh sure, being the token Jew of the school I had some notoriety, and I was one of the select few that the potheads would come to asking, "um, duh, so you're smart 'n stuff, right?" But heck, the only varsity letter I got was for golf team. Really. But I DID have a solo once in choir. And I was one of the first to come to class wearing parachute pants. Does that count for anything? No? Anyone?

But as I watched Natalie interact with the other kids, I realized she's quite the little leader of her posse. A couple of kids came in pointing and mouthing to their moms, "there's Natalie over there!" as if she was some sort of a cool version of Condoleeza Rice. I realize now that if and when she brings any sort of social concerns to me, I will be completely out of my area of expertise.

Throughout the evening, Natalie and her gang expended the usual energy running in circles in the school gym. I suddenly had flashbacks to "Blockades".

Blockades, a game that was often referred to as "Kill Scottie", was what my own group of friends played every day at recess. Within seconds after the end of third period we were outside, and without debate were immediately separated into two opposing teams. The object of the game was simple.

Kill Scottie.

Scott, whom I remain friends with to this day, was the non-elected defacto leader of our our own little schoolground government. But it was a government with little in the way of politics, few if any issues, and no opposing forces to protect ourselves against. Each day was spent with one simple goal in mind. Half of us would chase our leader in an attempt to beat the crap out of him, while the other team tried to protect him by putting up a blockade. It was simple. It was pure. There were no referrees. No instant replays. No out-of-bounds. And rarely any injuries. Just good clean fun. And perhaps it was the reason we all did so well in Social Studies class.

The final electrical inspection

So we had our final electrical inspection a week or so ago. Same guy who did the rough-in inspection which, if you read my previous post about it, you know was nothing but a tallying up of all the outlets, switches, etc I was putting in and a bill based on the total number.

Well, the final inspection wasn't much more than that.

The same guy came to do the final, though he had absolutely no recollection of being at the house before. The one thing he did remember was that I'd said a pro electrician did the subpanel work (the dangerous stuff). However, he remembered it as the pro having done all the room wiring as well.

Funny, I never had the opportunity to clarify. Perhaps that's why the final was done so quickly.

He spent all of 5 minutes at the house. He checked the GFCIs to see that they tripped correctly, and plugged his little tester into perhaps 5 other outlets (mind you I put something like 75 into the whole new space). He never looked at a light, at a switch, or at any of the wiring. He didn't even so much as glance at the 240v circuit running the heat/AC in the bedroom. For all he knew every one of those 75 outlets were on one circuit (they aren't, not to worry).

So, a lot of things bugged me about this whole inspection thing, above and beyond what he did and didn't do.

First of all, it's code that every outlet and light in a bedroom needs to be on this silly "arc fault" breaker that causes the circuit to trip if you plug an appliance in while it's running. He said arcs in the bedroom were the most common cause of house fires. so why is it that he doesn't require me to rewire all the outlets in the bedroom that weren't part of the renovation? And I must say I have never heard of anyone setting fire to their house while vacumming the dust bunnies.

Next, there's the fact that every outlet in the kitchen needs to be 20amp instead of 15amp. I guess this is so I can bring my table saw up from the workshop and run it in the kitchen at the same time that my daughter overcooks Cinnabons in her Easy Bake. Okay fine, but why did he only care about the two new outlets in the kitchen, and not the other eight that already existed (and are 15amp)? and why did he insist that the outlets in the "dinette" area, ones that will quite likely NEVER have anything plugged into them, be 20amp?

And why don't sheep shrink in the rain?

The fact is, if all this stuff WAS necessary during an inspection, then my little electrical project would have cost perhaps twice as much, so I'm not complaining. But I do have to wonder what this guy did to earn my $180. Yes, I know, his NOT paying close attention was probably worth every penny.

Now if you will escue me, I have to go fix my keyboard. The letter between A and D no longer work. And urpriingly that letter only appeared twice in the lat entence. It broke during the previou paragraph and I had to cut and pate the letter from elwhere to complete the blog.

Make it tough to write "he ell eahell by the eahore".

ee you later.

Something old, something new

Yes, yes, I know, let's keep up with those posts shall we? Sorry, every spare moment has been spent rearranging my sock drawer. Really. This past weekend my parents came in, and Dad and I installed closets. Which meant we finally could transport all our last-in-style-in-1981 collection of parachute pants and leggings into the depths of new closets not to be found until we move.

When my parents were first planning on coming in, I told them it would be a light weekend project-wise. Not a whole lot to do. Plans change quick. Closets, kitchen cabinets, doorway thresholds, and mower repair became the agenda items. Not a moment's rest for the handy.

Speaking of kitchen cabinets, we made one minor change to our kitchen design that resulted in a world of improvement. This layout was bugging me...it looked too much like a bunch of unfinished boxes sitting against a wall. Well, I had an old above-the-fridge cabinet destined for the mudroom, and just before we started to hang it Dad and I thought, "hey, why can't this go above the fridge? Well, a few sketches later, we came up with this. A dramatic improvement. Now, if we could just decide on countertops.

Yeah, I mentioned mower repair as well. Last week I pulled it out to mow the lawn (duh) and as soon as I started it, the transmission belt that runs the self-propel mechanism fell off and got dislodged between the transmission and the mower deck. Dad and I decided to do the guy thing and, wratchet in hand, take apart the mower in hopes of repairing it. Two hours later, with every bolt, nut, and e-ring removed, we still were unable to reach the belt, and I asked him at what point this becomes an exercise just to see if we could dismantle every last piece of the mower in order to fit it in the garbage can. Dad felt we had not quite reached that point. Approaching the third hour, we found the magic bolt that allowed us to get the danged belt back on, and 45 minutes later the mower was running again. Of course, it's been raining since, so I have no idea if, when I actually attempt to mow the lawn again, the blade is going to fly across the yard and lodge itself into my neighbor's peach tree.

Are we done YET?

Well, while everyone and their cousins were hopefully taking a long weekend and relaxing before the start of the fall christmas shopping season, we took advantage of our four days off and made a ginormous step forward. This weekend we passed several major renovation milestones, ones that from the beginning I felt would signal the return to almost-normalcy.

On Friday, I emptied out the basement, the office (formerly the dining room), and the guest room (formerly our master bedroom) in preparation for a Rug Doctorin'. Then, we rented said Rug Doctor and shampooed the carpets. All hail the Rug Doctor! Four months of dust, caked-in drywall mud, paint droplets, and grime washed away. Horay, the carpets are beige again (note the sarcasm...I always hated beige). By the way, if you're thinking of buying one of those Bissel steam cleaners for your rugs, don't bother. Why pay a couple hundred bucks for something that barely works when for once or twice a year, for $29, you can rent a Rug Doctor? This thing will suck the heat shield tiles off the space shuttle from thirty yards. And the best part is you get to give it back, rather than having to clean it and store it in your own closet.

On Sunday, I installed shelving in the bathroom closet. Okay, not an exciting undertaking, but it DID involve two trips to Home Depot. And besides, I played golf that day, so that's why so little got done for a Sunday.

Today, Hilary and I spent about eight hours rearranging crap. We emptied out the pile in the dining room (there's a TABLE under there?). We brought the contents of the basement BACK into the basement, in some semblance of order. We (and this is major) cleaned the garage, and got BOTH cars in there!!!! now THAT'S a milestone!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I forgot to mention move-in day.

A week ago, the carpets were installed in the new bedroom and the reading room. Thus, it was time to move in. First, the big stuff. My neighbor Jim came over and helped move a loveseat and a two-hundred pound elliptical machine up the stairs into the bedroom. The couch was no problem. The elliptical almost killed us. Whomever buys our house some day is getting an elliptical thrown in as part of the deal, cuz I ain't moving it again.

Two days later, the furniture made it's way in. Seven years of dust under the dressers was uncovered, vaccuumed up, and vaccuumed again but the room looks great, and we are very happy with it. Well, mostly. My wife, the same person who doesn't allow me to keep a watch in the bedroom because the ticking keeps her up at night (even if it's in a drawer, I kid you not) discovered that the heating/cooling unit in our bedroom makes a slight clicking sound when it cycles on or off. This unit is much like the ones you see in hotels, a stand-alone electrical unit that blows a fan and turns on the hot/cold as needed. It is a well-manufactured, powerful, and quiet system, but note what I said above about the watch. I received several "toldya so's" throughout the night, and as a result did not get a very peaceful night's rest in our new bedroom. Well, a month from now she'll never notice it.

I have more to tell, especially about the electrical inspection, but for now, here's the latest pics.

Excercise your right brain

Wanna keep either your right brain or your toddler busy for a while? Go here.

The BabyKeeper

I can't decide it this is the most retarded thing to hit the baby stores yet, or actually a good thing, but I lean toward the former. Let's think about this. Imagine you're in a store (without a baby) and decide it's time for a pit stop. You tend to expect that there will be a coat hook inside the bathroom stall, right? One on which you can hang your jacket, perhaps your shopping bag, perhaps your umbrella so that nothing except the soles of your shoes and the folds of your dropped pants touch the germ-ridden floor.

Now add a baby to the mix. Do you tell little Jasper to stay put, right by the sink, don't move, and don't stare at anyone's wiggly things at the urinal? Do you invite him into the stall with you, hoping he won't actually pay attention to your business? Oh, wouldn't it be just easier to hang him on a hook for safekeeping?

My mother hung me on a hook once.

Once.

The first day of kindergarten

It's time. It's happening. It's the big event. The day the giant pile of money I've been giving my town's school district finally goes to good use. Natalie starts Kindergarten Monday.

This evening my wife and I went to "curriculum night." This is the Lamaze class of kindergarten. The session where the nice lady stands up in front of all the proud new parents, and teaches them to breathe in and out, breathe in and out. It will all be ok. You can do this. We may need to use the foreceps on you, but it won't hurt that bad. And if worse comes to worse, we may need to surgically remove your child from your womb, but it's time for you to set her free. For she is now a kindergartener.

My wife and I, joined by our neighbors who also have a daughter Natalie's age, piled into the car and headed to the elementary school to join other first timers while various grandmas watched various kids. As we wandered the halls of Peebles Elementary, we were taken back to our own early years...reminders of our kindergarten accomplishments, cubby holes, yellow buses, and pencil boxes. Personally the only thing I really remember about my own kindergarten experience is getting hit in the eye with a rogue snowball, being sent home with an earache to the house of a mom I didn't know, and thrusting Matchbox cars through tunnels made of cardboard bricks. Okay, so the kindergarten experience didn't really stick with me so much. But the experience is obviously for the parents. As we sat in the back row of folding chairs in the gymnasium and listened to the principal speak, I scanned the room for the other dads like myself. In the crowd I saw future "guys night out" club members, T-ball coaches, and power tool lenders. Up on the screen, I saw Powerpoints describing learning methods, rating systems, and guidance counseling recommendations. I sat and wondered if my parents had to sit for two hours in uncomfortable chairs like ourselves and learn about all this, or if they sent me on their merry way in a happy bliss over the fact that they finally got me out of the house for a few hours a day.

We learned that, in kindergarten, our children would learn algebra. They'd learn sign language. They'd have opportunities that I not only didn't have when I was a student, but I don't even have as an adult.

When the kindergarten teacher talked about her goals for the children, and how she wanted to ensure a safe, warm nurturing environment, and about how she would wipe their tears when they got off the bus missing mommy, the wives wept. Most of the dads looked at each other with emotionless shrugs, secretly trying to keep it all in. But one thing was for sure. In those emotionless shrugs, one little bit of feeling leaked out.

Pride.

The Bracket Racket

I blogged a week or two ago about shopping for a rack I can use to hang the plasma TV on the wall.

So, I bought one on eBay for ten bucks. The rack arrived and looks completely sufficient to do the job, but it turns out that it did not include bolts that actually fit the back of my TV (even though the seller said it would work). I called Panasonic, and they were very helpful and very specific in telling me I need 4 M8 bolts with a 1.25 thread pitch, 45mm to 55mm in length.

So first I emailed the seller. He replied back telling me he had some of those and would mail them out to me. Great, but I'm an impatient person, so I checked Home Depot. Turns out they have a drawer full of 1.25 thread pitch M8 bolts, in 40, 50, and 60mm sizes. But they were out of 50's. Grrr...

Then I called my local Trader Horn, "Your Favorite Store". For those who don't know Trader Horn, picture a KMart back in the late 70's or early 80's. Now take away clothing and toys, and add hardware and building products. This store, until last month, had only one credit card reader, at the service desk, for all 7 registers. Tehy still use price tags. No bar codes here. It's so quaint. But where else can I buy one screw? I love it. So anyway, I called and got a guy in the hardware dept. When I told him what I wanted, he replied with, "hmm...45 to 55mm, huh? 'Bout how long is that?"

I replied with, "umm...a couple inches?"

"Lemme go check."

He came back and said, "yeah, we got M8 bolts. They come in either rough thread or fine thread, and they're 'bout 2 inches long."

That didn't help me.

Meanwhile, the envelope with the bolts arrived from the eBay seller. At least, the envelope did. For some reason this guy thought it reasonable to put 4 machine bolts into a #10 envelope and toss the envelope in the mail. Instead I got an empty envelope with a hole in the bottom. I emailed him back, but haven't gotten a respose. Gee. Wonder why.

So my wife realized there's a good old fashioned hardware store a bit north of us. I called the store to see if they had what I wanted. The guy went and checked, came back to the phone and said, "yeah, we got three...How many you need?"

Ugh.

Luckily it ended well, in that he found a 4th on the floor under the shelves. I would expect nothing less from an old fashioned hardware store.

You done yet?

A lot's been done in the past couple of weeks. We painted the bedroom. Wednesday the kitchen floor was put down. We have a toilet now. Yet, there's still so much to go. Everyone keeps asking me, "so is it almost done?"

Depends on how you define done.

We're using the new family room now. but the light over the table is a simple bulb currently. We've got the new kitchen floor. but there are no countertops on the new cabinets. The bedroom and the old family room are awaiting carpet, and the dining room contains piles upon piles of temporarily stored crap. We've got buit-ins to build, dining room wiring to do, more painting, and lots of cleaning.

That's just the obvious stuff, and that's also just the inside. There's grass to plant, construction stuff to clean up, yada yada yada.

So yeah, we're almost done. But really, I'll call it done when we rent a Rug Doctor and shampoo the dust and grime out of the carpets. It'll be done when we've moved into the new bedroom, our office has become an office, and our canned goods no longer have a need for temporary refuge in a sweater box under the bed. It'll be done when I no longer get up from the computer desk and hit my head on what was once the dining room chandelier.

This weekend was a productive one. Our new family room couches were delivered, some college dude came and took the old one off our hands, and a custom-ordered area rug arrived. Unfortunately they all came in that order, making logistics somewhat of a concern. But we like the end result.

In addition to the deliveries, I managed to start Mantown this weekend. Mantown is my workshop. My castle. My refuge. My fortress of solitude. The place where I'm planning on spending most of my time once my kids hit their teenage years and start having "female" issues. Every guy needs a Mantown in their house. When my sister and brother-in-law renovated, he decided last minute to build his own Mantown by taking over a corner of the basement, framing it up into a box with a door, and sticking about 75 electrical outlets on the wall so he could charge his cell phone, camera, volunteer fire department gear, and cordless cigar humidor. With mine, I made sure to include an escape hatch, the double door that sneaks me out to the back yard and around to the driveway where I can make a quick getaway. So this weekend I built myself a workbench and shelves, and began hanging tools on the wall. I had the foresight to tell the builder not to hang drywall in there, but rather hang pegboard directly onto the studs. It was a moment of brilliance. Every square inch of wall space can have tools hanging on it. It'll the anal retentive woodworker's dream. Heck, I might actually even build something in there. But let's not get crazy.

Another question often asked of me is if there were any good horror stories during the build. Well, other than the water leak on the morning of July 4th, it's gone quite smoothly, oddly enough. Everything's been in budget, even. Although I have to say the plumbing's been an adventure. From the kitchen sink clogged with whole grains to the toilet that leaked as soon as it was put in, I'd say it could have gone better. But no, there's been nothing devastating, no horrors on the order of a Romero film.

Today and tomorrow are Bob The Builder's final days on the job. Installing trim, doorknobs, and window hardware. Cleaning up tools, insulating a crawl space, and hanging the shower door. He's got just odds and ends now. Pretty soon we'll be able to move furniture in. And that's when I find out who my real buddies are. I still haven't figured out how we're getting a 300 lb. eliptical machine from the basement up to the 2nd floor. I wish we still had that crane.

I succeeded in not blowing myself up

Okay, after installing 75 or so outlets, switches, and fixtures over the past three months, I managed to squeak by with only one potentially deadly explosion. Not all bad for an unlicensed non-professional, I think. And considering the plumber just called me as he was installing the shower faucet asking me if I knew where the direction book was (he needs directions? He's a plumber!!), I figure I'm doing ok.

So last night I was wiring the under-cabinet light in the dinette. The hockey puck-shaped light screws to the underside of the cabinet and plugs into a surface-mounted outlet. This surface-mounted outlet has a metal case with what I found to be a rather sharp edge. The edge must have pinched the black wire coming from the wall because when I hit the switch after I installed it, BANG! sparks everywhere, and an outlet that looked like it'd had a face-off with Elmer Fudd's musket. Back to Home Depot.

Speaking of which, I'm even more a regular there. I'm like Norm from Cheers:

Mornin', everybody.
Miiiike!
Hey Mr. Daninhirsch, what's cooking?
Me, after blowing up an electrical outlet last night.
(insert laugh track).

Where'd I put that extended warranty?
So here's some information that's more a note to myself than anything else, but may be of interest if you're shopping for furniture. We bought couches over the weekend at Macy's Furniture. Included (for an additional $129) was their fabric care warranty. For 7 years you are covered if you get a stain on the couch. You call a number, and they suggest how to clean it. If you can't clean it, they come out to try. If they fail, they replace the upholstry with the same stuff. If that fabric is no longer available, you get your purchase price back on the furniture. Now here's the interesting bit. After 7 years, if you never use the warranty, you call a number and they give you the $129 back as a gift card to Macys.

I'm putting in an appointment for August 5, 2013 into my calendar....

Nice rack
At last it's time to take care of the one thing this who renovation has revolved around...hanging the TV on the wall in the new family room. Having done no research whatsoever, I happened to be in Best Buy the other day and, while there, picked up a "universal flat panel TV mount" for $80. It came in a box that was about a foot long. That was a mistake for two reasons. First, it turns out that the center point where the TV will hang is in such a place that this unit would only touch one stud, so I needed a wider model. Second, it turns out that Panasonic places their mounting holes on almost the complete outside corners of the TV, and this bracket wouldn't even come close to reaching the corners of my 37" screen.

So when all else fails, read the directions. I pulled out the TV manual, and it said to check for a certain model of mount designed for the TV. On Amazon, that mount was almost FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!

Scared for a moment that the whole purpose behind the entire renovation was a failure, I began surfing eBay for alternatives.

Gotta love eBay. There are TONS of mounts out there, ranging in price from nine bucks to over three hundred bucks, and probably even higher. but they are all designed for my TV, and sold direct from the manufacturer (or so they say). I couldn't find much difference between the $9 one and the $200 one, so I tossed a bid in for the cheaper one and it's on its way.

The dumpster is gone!

Whoopie! Just thought I'd mention it. Oh, and the chipmunks that were living underneath it are pissed!!!

Bad customer service, part II

So here's a fun followup to the flooring order debacle. We hit the point where we are ready for the new kitchen floor to be installed. When we last left off, I told "BOB", the scheduler at the flooring store, the couldn't install yet because there was a wall in the way. He said give him a call as soon as we are ready, and he could have the installers there within the week.

So on tuesday AM, I called and got Bob again. I got one sentence out, and he told me he'd have to call back because he was swamped. Okay fine. The rest of the day went by and I didn't hear back, so I called him again around 4:30. He was perfectly pleasant and said, "let me get in touch with my installers and I will call you right back."

Never heard from him the rest of that afternoon. So I then let Wednesday go by, until 4:30 when I called the store again and got someone else. I asked for Bob, and the guy said, "he's in the bathroom, can I have him call you right back?"

Okay fine. But never heard from him.

This morning, I called John, the sales rep who came to the house (the guy who successfully got the other flooring delivered for me). I told him that this guy Bob has done an excellent job convincing me he's an idiot. So I asked John to get the install scheduled and to have someone, other than Bob, call me back. I told him I did not want to hear from Bob again as I was done dealing with him.

A half hour later the install was scheduled for next Wednesday morning.

I've worked at a flooring store during high school. I manage a customer service team for a living. This is basic simple stuff. How dumb can someone be?

Meanwhile, I've been hearing stories about the allegedly nightmarish service at home Depot. Let me just say that that is nuts. Home Depot has been awesome through this. we've gotten kitchen cabinets, a shower door, and several other things special ordered with only one minor, quickly-fixed mistake on the manufacturer's part. We are getting carpeting through them. The day we were at the store, the salesperson took our info and told us that "the measuring guys" would call us first thing wednesday morning to schedule an in-home measure. At 7:30 that morning, they called, said they would be here between 9 and 11. They got here at 9:30, with a really cool proprietary laptop thingy in hand. As he measured, he entered dimensions on the laptop and it automatically drew an accurate picture of the room. He told me HD would call back to set up an install by Monday. I have complete faith that they will.

My kingdom for a bronze toilet handle

I have a question for the folks on the show Trading Spaces. How, exactly, does one transform a room in 48 hours, AND expect paint to dry?

Last night I put the third coat of paint on our family room (now called "the reading room") walls. The first coat went up about 6 days ago. I would love to see one of those rooms redone by the folks on Trading Spaces and see just how bad the paint job is. The camera may add ten pounds to anyone on it, but it also hides a lot of paint on the ceiling, bubbles, drips and bumps.

I also installed three new kitchen cabinets and sealed the grout on the bathroom tile last night. So it was a slow evening. I keep having to remind myself that we have no hard deadline, and even though the sheer volume of items on the renovation to-do list seems to be enough to employ a team of 12 for 6 months, it can and will be done. Granted exercise, social engagements, and basic hygiene must be pushed aside for now, but it can be done.

I'd like to take a moment to submit some suggestions for those of you thinking of redesigning a bathroom. The one thing we learned through all this is that if you want your bathroom to have a specific design or look, you can't just "go with the flow" picking out the shower, faucet, etc whenever the builder calls for it. It is in your best interest to select everything at the same time, buy it, store it in the garage, and stop shopping. Like most products these days bath fixtures have begun following the same scheme of planned obsolescence that iPods do. A decade ago, brass was in. Last year, brushed nickel was all the rage. Now, it's oil rubbed bronze. But don't blink, because bronze is about to succomb to the power of copper. Now isn't that ironic. Copper. The same stuff that runs water through your walls and gets hidden because it's so ugly, is now used to make beautiful faucets. Pricey ones too. We're talking kids-are-going-to-community-college pricey.

When the build started, Fred the plumber told us we needed to pick a shower. So we got a shower, after mulling over design and color. Then he needed a shower faucet, so we went down the brushed nickel route (cuz it was the style at the time). Later on, we decided on a floor....and cabinets....and lighting. Suddenly the brushed nickel look wasn't the look we wanted, and we decided we needed to consider bronze. So now we have a bronze faucet and a brushed nickel shower head. DEAR GOD. Ty Pennington's gonna kick my ass. But wait, that brushed nickel trim on the shower door....does it balance things out, or make the situation worse? And what about our toilet handle...can you get a bronze toilet handle????

You know, the heck with it...I'm gonna get the fish tank toilet.

I want to ride my bicycle....

This renovation has been an all-consuming, exhausting project that has at times caused me to forget about things like work, family, and showering. However, either through my own self-realization or with a good smack upside the head from my wonderful wife, I am getting better and managing to take a step back and enjoy the important things in life.

Yesterday was one of those important things, a majorly proud moment for daddy, up there on the list with a kid's medical school graduation, marriage, and Nobel Prize acceptance. We took the training wheels off, and Natalie is now an accomplished bicycle rider.

She and I took a jaunt over to North Park, which I believe is named not so much for it's park-like setting but it's quantity of massive and generally unused parking lots. Natalie donned her Disney Princess elbow and knee pads, buckled her Disney Princess helmet, hopped on her "Foxy" bike with the purple tassles and sparkly paint, and and I ran alongside her, holing her seat and explaining the scientific principles of balance and velocity. Within minutes, my hand moved from her seat to her back. Seconds later, I had only two fingers just below her neck, showing her I was still there. In another moment, my hand was gone, and she was still vertical. And laughing and screaming hysterically with the thrill of new-found freedom. I continued to run alongside her, sweating profusely and barely keeping up, giving her this tip and that tip and reminding her about handy things like brakes. Finally I stopped running and Off she went, into kid-hood, her training wheels, tricycle, and stroller all distant memories.

Within minutes she graduated to the next stage of bicycle riding...chatting incessantly with others while riding around. A seven-year-old girl was also riding her bike in the same parking lot, and the two of them bagan talking to each other about the colors of their bikes, the meaning of life while they rode. Yack yack yack....until finally the inevitable happened. Too much talk, not enough paying attention, and they both crashed into each other. They got up and laughed about it, and took off for more.

Enjoy it, Natalie!

Flashbacks through carpeting

Last night we had the pleasure of ripping up the carpet in our old family room. This was a gray berber carpet with absolutely no life left in it anymore, in a room that's been used as a playroom, an office, a living room, a potty-training room, and a general dumping ground for all things Fisher-Price.

As we ripped it up, I was reminded of a Simpsons Episode, where Homer comes across a box of baking soda in the fridge and bets he can eat the whole thing. "Wow, the absorbed odors of a million meals," he says. Almost immediately, Homer is overwhelmed by the flavors of meals past, and has some interesting hallucinations. We hear a sound bite of Johnny Cochran's famous "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" slogan, and see a hamburger with fries floating against a techno background of computerized numbers. Nixon's resignation speech accompanies some disco music, a mirrored ball and a pie. Finally, as we hear Neil Armstrong take his famous first step on the moon, a meatball sandwich bobs above a psychedelic background. The sandwich starts spinning, and we are transported back to the present, where Homer lies in a stupor on the kitchen table, with baking soda foaming out of his mouth and nostrils.

As we ripped up the festering mess of a carpet, we were reminded of the time Natalie puked. Of the time the sippy cup of milk leaked. Of the juice spills. The leaky diapers. Oh, the memories. Good times, good times.

And no, we were not greeted with hardwood floors underneath.

(credit to snpp.com)

Abandoned...

Bob informed us that he was done, for now, until we got around to painting rooms. He said he'd come back once we've painted and finish the trim, and the little things. Things like door handles, faucets, shower doors. But I'm thinking this is what it's like when the kids go off to college. Suddenly it's silent, and no one around to clean up the mess except ourselves. But like that proverbial freshman back with a load of dirties for the washer, Bob will be back with a laundry list of things to do within the next week.

Speaking of dirties, our current decorating motif seems to be a bit of early post-Katrina, without the mold and wetness. Every room is beyond disheveled. It's like we just moved in, but the movers didn't bring in boxes. Instead they just backed the van up to the front door and dumped. as I sit here in our former dining room, now office, I look behind me to see our KitchenAid mixer stacked on top of a DVD cabinet, along with a six-pack of Coke, a telescope, a baking dish, a drafting board, notes for the plumber, and a fake plum. and that's just in the corner. In the new dining room, all the furniture is more or less in place, but the contents of the china hutch cover every square inch of the dining table.

And those are the neatest rooms.

We've got a long way to go.

Progress amid chaos

Okay, so I've been out of touch for a while. It's been a non-stop, insanely-paced week. my parents came in, and we tackled a huge number of major projects this week. We:

-installed the floor in the family room
-installed the floor in the dining room
-Wired all the switches and light fixtures
-installed the tile floor in the bathroom
-painted the family room
-painted the bathroom
-installed the bathroom cabinets
-worked with Bob to stain the trim and dig a drainage pit
-moved a whole lot of furniture around

Electrically, I only managed to nerf up one circuit, hooking up a couple of outdoor lights without remembering to deal with the switch wire. Oh well, they are fixed now. Dad also made a challenge for himself when he discovered he wired the lights in the mudroom in such a way that would have made Thomas Edison go, "huh?" After an hour of pondering wiring diagrams, he finally came up with a way to get them successfully wired and we were done.

So, about the flooring. A lot of people asked about the fact that we decided to put a laminate (think Pergo) floor into the family room and dining room. In the end, I have this to say. It's about as hard to put in as I expected, and much harder than the ads say it is. In the ads, you simply click the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle. In reality, you need three people and a minor in geometry. You also definitely need a miter saw AND a table saw. The stuff looks fantastic once it's in, and it's certainly a lot easier than a hardwood floor. It's also extremely durable, and really, really slipperly. My kids love careening into the furniture.

Paining the bathroom and installing the bathroom cabinets gave us a real sense that we are close to completion on this. The bath looks awesome. Can't wait to poop there. Should have a sink and toilet by aug 5th or so. Of course, we ended up selecting a really nice set of bronze wall sconces, which means the brushed nickel faucet I bought on clearance needs to be returned for one that matches the sconces....and of course we'll probably spend three times as much. The cabinet was a close call, in that once part of it was 24" wide and 24" deep, and the door frame is exactly 24" wide. If it had been a more humid day, I think the wood would have swelled too much to get it in the room.

Meanwhile, we've moved into the family room, and are emptied out the old dining room to bring the computer up desk tonight. Progress!It's now sunday night, Dad and I are completely exhausted, and I need to go to work tomorrow. Thank goodness...I need the vacation. While we made tremendous progress this week, the house is still a complete disaster. Imagine moving into a new home, but rather than using boxes you simply put all your belongings into a dump druck, dumped on the floor of your new home, then covered everything with drywall dust. That's what it looks like here.

But it looks like we're on schedule to host a LOST premiere party in September. In fact, there might even be seating by then.

One last note of thanks to my 12-year-old niece Tova. My parents dragged her along, and we put her to work. "Amp Girl", as she's known by those in the electrical world, was given the tasks of testing circuits, laying flooring, and painting. She worked like a dog. Funny thing is, she told me her mom (my sister) wouldn't let her do anything when they renovated their house. Sucker. Little did they know what a good day laborer they had in the family.

Really Poor Customer Service

So we purchased our family room and kitchen flooring a couple of weeks ago through a local flooring company that has this "shop at home" deal. A salesman came over with his floor samples and we bought directly through him. We purchased an in-stock laminate floor that we would pick up and put in our family room ourselves, and also purchased a replacement vinyl floor for the kitchen that would be professionally installed. We told the guy that the kitchen floor couldn't be installed until August when a wall was taken down and new cabinets were installed.

So a day after we place the order, the store calls us to ask if they can come the next day to install the floor. We tell them no, and explain the above to them. Okay, so the sales guy failed to tell the store the part about waiting until August. No biggie.

Yesterday, the installer called our house to say he was on the way there to install the vinyl, and needed directions.

Huh?

So I called the store back. Before I could ask anything, the guy who answered the phone asked if there was ANY way they could install today, so as to not mess up the schedule, and not to worry, the guy is a totally trustworthy born-again Christian, and blah blah...

When I finally got a word in edgewise I told him that he couldn't install not because we weren't home, but because there's a WALL IN THE WAY.

Meanwhile, the in-stock laminate floor we ordered for some reason still wasn't at the store to pick up after over a week. Each day I would call the store, and they'd tell me "tomorrow." Early this week, I called the salesguy and asked him to check into it. Yesterday he told me it's in the store warehouse, ready to pick up. He said the warehouse guy put his hands on the order, and it's definitely there.

So I called the store back to find out how late they were open, and the guy at the store tells me the order isn't there. I not-so-politely told him to get his butt on the phone with his sales guy and tell me something that actually makes sense.

Today, I called the sales guy once more, and dropped the L-bomb. I told him if he didn't have the order available for pickup by noon I was canceling the whole thing and going to Lowes.

An hour later, the flooring was delivered, free of charge, to the house. This entire time (two weeks), it was in a warehouse in Penn Hills, about 20 miles from here.

Later this afternoon, I got a call from the store, informing me my order is in and ready to pick up.

Sad. Really, really sad.

So, what have we learned?

The following is a feeble attempt to provide some advice to those thinking of attempting their own renovation. This is not a step-by-step, but rather a list of things you might not have known about, or would be surprised to hear.

Have an architect in the family
Lucky for us, my dad is a retired architect. Granted he's probably responsible for this project happening in the first place because, if it hadn't been for that damned home improvement gene he gave me, we'd probably have bought a new house by now. but instead the sawdust in my veins caused me to convince my wife that renovating was a good idea. Let's hope I'm right. So far it's about 50/50.

Whatever it costs, you don't have enough
Some say a figure of $100 per square foot is a good rough figure when you start planning. I'd say that's not far off. But then you go to Pottery Barn, or a custom cabinet maker, or that place that sells the showers for ten grand, and all bets are off.

Turn your garage into Ikea
There's no avoiding it. You will lose at least one garage bay due to temporary relocation of crap. Stay on top of it. Don't let it get disorganized, because the moment you do you will need something at the bottom of the pile. So why mention Ikea? If you've shopped at Ikea, you know that browsing the showroom involves following a single pathway through the entire store. Use that same concept in your garage. No matter how packed it gets, make sure everything remains accessible even if you have to wander through a maze to get there. If you let stuff pile up, that wall sconce you need will be under the three-hundred pound sofa table.

Use every cubic foot of space you have, creatively.
Think about it. You have a home that needs more space. so what's the first thing you do? Make your house even smaller for the next few months. Couches get moved to the basement, toys get stacked under the crib, dogs get tethered to the piano. It's chaos. And then, when the builder asks you at 9pm on a Thursday night if he can tear down that wall in the kitchen tomorrow, you've got to find even more storage space at the last minute. Just where do you think you're going to put that collection of cow-shaped tea kettles, bub?

Here's a real example. I had to stash our entertainment unit away to make room for the demolition of a wall. So the stereo cabinet got emptied and stored in a corner next to the piano. which, by the way, is behind two couches and an ottoman. The receiver is on top of the stereo cabinet, and the speakers are on top of that. The 400-disc changer got stashed in my daughter's closet. The VCR went under our bedroom VCR, making the TV rest only inches from the ceiling. The DVD player is under our bed. The TiVo, well, that's still connected to the TV, but sitting on the floor in the hallway. The trick is to a)remember where you stashed everything, b)keep it a livable space, and c)don't expect that you will ever be done finding places to stash stuff. If Carnegie Mellon University taught me only one thing, it's that living in a two-room dorm with three fellow students, all of whom came to school with more crap than your average Wal-Mart, forces you to get creative with storage.

Get a Home Depot Rewards Mastercard
This isn't a Home Depot store card, but an actual Mastercard. A point back per dollar spent, plus 2 points for each dollar spent at Home Depot. We've done well with that. As have the good folks at Home Depot.

Get one of these
I came across this tool, the Skill iXO palm screwdriver, at a Home Depot sale. It's incredibly useful. Worth every penny.

Get a portable accordian file
You have no idea just how much paperwork is involved with this. Bids, receipts, special orders, estimates, brochures, swatches, catalogues, photos, sketches, drawings. If I hadn't thought of setting one of these up from the beginning it would be chaos. And making it portable means I can take it to Home Depot with me so that, when I come across a great sale on bathroom tile, I can whip out the sample of the bathroom vanity color to compare it against.

Another advantage of this is that you always know what you've spent, and can compare against your budget.

The disadvantage of this is that you always know what you've spent, and can spend many sleepless nights wondering how you're ever going to pay for it all.

Murphy's law always applies
As we began tearing down a wall this past week, we never once thought that there might be, say, a heating duct inside it. Naturally, there was. And if you think that last thirteen-foot piece of wire is enough to reach between the last two outlets, it will of course be six inches too short. And If you are handed a set of vinyl siding samples with three price ranges, the only good colors will be in the more expensive range.

If you're planning to replace your carpeting...
...consider potty-training your kid before the new carpets go down. It's a perfect opportunity.

Eudora Enamel

Natalie hit a major 5-year-old milestone this week when she lost her first tooth. She was so proud. Of course this sort of thing is as important to a 5-year-old kid as completing construction of the first space shuttle was to NASA. It's no small accomplishment. So naturally, we celebrated in style.

Natalie was looking forward to the tooth fairy. During the days leading up to the big loss, she would wiggle her tooth back and forth, each morning exclaiming over her toast that she thought it wiggled just a little bit further today than it did yesterday. It finally came out in the middle of lunch at Rotelli's Pizza. The waitress kindly provided her with a little take-home salad dressing cup to carry it in, which Natalie cradled like a young ring bearer cradles a wedding ring on a pillow.

That night, we explained to her the rules of a Tooth Fairy visit. Natalie had to go right to bed, with the tooth tucked under her pillow. In the morning, the tooth would be gone, and in its place a gift in exchange. You see, the Tooth Fairy uses the teeth she gathers to build her castle. And, while the going rate of construction is about a buck a square tooth, a new kid opening up a new castle building account got an extra bonus with that first tooth (can you tell we've been dealing with this renovation a little too long?).

While we were explaining all this to her, my cell phone suddenly vibrated. Or, at least Natalie thought it did. I proceeded to have an imaginary conversation with our local Tooth Fairy, who was calling for directions to our place. When I asked the Tooth Fairy for her name, she told me it was "Eudora Enamel". She also told me that, although her castle was complete, she was looking for more teeth to build a hot tub and would be willing to pay a little extra for some prime Pittsburgh Chompers. She explained that I should lock the doors, but make sure nothing was in the way of the fireplace because that's how she would get in. I told her to be careful, because the chimney's been raised about 4 feet higher because of the renovation, and I didn't want her cracking her skull open in the dark.

After Natalie went to bed, we sat down in front of the computer and made up a nice pink envelope, with a picture of Eudora and a personalized message ("keep on brushing!") and snuck a few bucks under her pillow. The next morning, our little hockey player was beaming with pride, toothless grin a mile wide, waving her envelope in the air. She told us that at first she didn't believe the tooth fairy was real, wbut when Eudora ACTUALLY CALLED, well, she knew everything was kosher.

Progress, Setbacks and you wanna tear that down when??

This July 4th weekend was spent mostly twisting wire. I went room to room, installing outlets. 32 to be exact, with about eight more to go, followed by a variety of switches and light fixtures. Considering that an outlet takes anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes to wire depending on the number and guage of the wires coming into the box, I'd say that's pretty mediocre progress.

My worst fears were realized this weekend, when we had one of those violent 12:15am thunderstorms. As the lightning flashed and the rain streaked down, the only thing I could think of was, "is it dry in there?". You see, from the beginning, we found that the corner where the addition hits the rest of the house (the corner just to the left of the pile of drywall being loaded in this pic) presented something of a challenge for us. There's not a lot of area for a gutter to be hung and rain from both the new roof and the old roof all flows to this corner. As Bob was building the structure, that corner was constantly leaking to the point where I thought the floor was going to cave in.

So as I lay there listening to the rain, I figured I would sleep better knowing we're all dry.

We weren't.

Even after the roof was up, the siding was hung, and all was sealed in, we found that there was still a leak. Not a bad one, but is there such a thing as a minor roof leak? So the buckets came back, the towels and rags were laid down, and in the morning I called Bob.

I gotta hand it to Bob. In the pouring rain Tuesday morning, he and his roofing guy climbed up on there to inspect. But first, while standing in the pouring rain, he lit a cigarette. John Wayne woulda been proud. Anyway, he had a hunch as to what the problem was, so he spent all day Wednesday tearing it up and redoing it.

On the progress side, we also ordered flooring over the weekend, as well as some new kitchen cabinetry and bathroom countertops. but then we get into a whole chicken/egg scenario. What goes first? The floor? The paint? the cabinets? These all need to be worked out. Meanwhile, Bob is pushing to get this done, cuz he just got awarded another job.

Speaking of which, he called me Wednesday night around 9pm asking if he could tear out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room the next day (today). One one side of this wall is the fridge and a cabinet. On the other side is currently a bookshelf, the stereo cabinet, the TV, and a crapload of temporarily relocated toys. In the wall are various electrical wires. There was about 3 hours of unwiring, storing, and relocating work to do. I told him he had to be f'ing kidding me. So that happens Monday.

It's weird. We're really down to the wire now. As of today the siding is done (pictures to come), and the drywall finishing begins. Then Bob's got to paint the ceilings and prime the walls (which we will then paint) and after a few minor chores he's outta here. but then that's where WE come in. We're doing the flooring. We're installing light fixtures. We're getting the furniture. We've got a long way to go.

The dust settles

This weekend was a big one with the addition. It was drywall time. Nick and Paul, two Italian, round, and very, very sweaty gentlemen spent the weekend hanging all seventy-six sheets of drywall in the entire space. They arrived Saturday, 8am, did the mudroom and workshop in about ninety minutes, and promptly left for the day because Nick had a leaky toilet emergency back home. They swore they'd come back on Sunday to finish. The next morning arrived, and there they were. They spent the next ten hours working, sweating, and sweating some more, and did the whole danged thing. Now our kids love to run around the new space yelling at the top of their lungs, to see how loud they can make the echo sound.

Speaking of kids, Nick and Paul got a good kick out of them Saturday morning as the kids ate breakfast. Natalie and Jessica were playing the "I love you" game. This is when They say, "I love you sissy" back and forth to each other over and over again, and throw in a few for mommy and daddy. Something tells me they watch too much Barney. So Nick and Paul, the Sweaty Italian Drywall Hangers, got in on the game with lots of, "I love you Nick! No, I love you Paul! You complete me Nick! You make me love myself, Paul" for the next hour.

Or maybe the kids had nothing to do with that. who knows. I've never met these guys before.

So as the dust settles (literally), we prepare for more dust. The next stage of the game is taping the drywall. For those who don't know, taping involves spreading the white goop (that's a real term) on all the screw holes and joints, sanding it down, and repeating twice more over a period of a week until the walls are ready for priming and painting. This process creates an unbelievable amount of dust. Can't wait.

On another note, it seems I'm a regular with the Ladies Of Home Depot. In the past two months I've been to HD virtually every day. Yesterday I passed by the kitchen and bath section, and one of the ladies at the design counter yelled, "Hey Mr. Daninhirsch, what's it gonna be today?". A few minutes later at the special services counter, a woman looked at the address on my paperwork and said, "oh, you're doing the big addition!"

I once read an article, in Business Week I think, that stated part of Home Depot's business model is that they expect to get $21,000 of each customer's money in the customer's lifetime. I think I'm starting to see why.

Ugh! Nosebleed!

It was Memorial Day. Our friend Paula was having a BBQ, so we spent the afternoon there, enjoying the festivities. Eventually the time came to leave, so we hit the road for the five-minute drive back home. Halfway into it Natalie announced, "Jessica's nose is bleeding!"

We turned around to see this torrent of blood streaming from her face. Her shirt was crimson, her hands were covered in it, her car seat was streaked. My wife reached back to see what she could do, and I soon pulled over, slid back the van door, and attempted the old clamp-n-clot on her.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to hold the nose of a two-year-old for more than two seconds?

Well, after what seemed like a day but more likely was about a minute, we decided it just wasn't stopping. conveniently, we were only one block from the local hospital, so we decided a visit to the ER would be in order. Besides, bringing in a kid covered in her own blood was worth moving to the front of the line, no?

Thirty seconds later we were in the parking lot, and as I took Jessica out of the car I noticed the gushing seemed to have stopped. However, we were already in motion, and just decided to continue in to the triage area.

We spent the next 45 minutes in the waiting area, wondering if we should just say the heck with it, chalk it up to your basic nosebleed, and leave. Just as we were getting up to leave, the nurse called us in. we then spent another half hour again wondering if we should just leave, and as we got up to leave the doc walked in. It's like they were watching us.

So after almost an hour and a half, the diagnosis was a nosebleed. That's one afternoon we'll never get back.

Oh and what reminded me to write this was the bill from the hospital. While we are only liable for the $50 ER fee, the total bill to insurance was $364.50. For a nosebleed.

Some movie reviews

I've been meaning to catch up on a few movie reviews. As always, I try to review movies for the purpose of letting parents know whether or not they are appropriate for small children. I'll avoid getting into the details of the story, but instead focus on whether or not you, as a parent, will survive the afternoon without being dragged from the theatre by a disturbed toddler. Two outta three ain't bad...

Cars
Pixar's latest flick is a lot of fun. Zero scary characters, lots of jokes both for kids and for adults (including a vast number of inside jokes), and astounding animation. It's educational, as well, teaching kids everything they need to know about Nascar, the history of Route 66, and cow tipping. If you go, make sure to stay through the credits (ALL the credits) for some extra treats.

Over The Hedge
This movie was a blast as well. It was totally unexpected how good it was. Since some of you may not know what the story is about, I will summarize by explaining that it focuses on a group of small forest animals who wake up after a long winter's nap to discover that their home has been surrounded by urban development. Discovering that there's no food left to gather because there's no woods, they are convinced by a visiting racoon that there is a virtual Xanadu just over the hedge and into one of the developments, where suburban dwellers throw out more than they actually use. The movie is incredibly well written, the animation is crisp and clear, the music and jokes are fabulous, and there's even a lesson to be learned about urban sprawl and waste.

I do have one complaint about Over The Hedge, however, which is that the racoon starts off the movie being threatened with death by a big mean grizzly bear. The bear, played by Nick Nolte, is unnecessarily scary for little kids, and its lines were badly chosen ("If you don't come back in a week, I will catch you and KILL you"). The writers could have achieved a better effect making him more comical, while still getting the same point across. And they would have avoided making parents have to hold their kids down to keep them from running out of the theatre. But if you kid starts to run, hold him down, the rest of the movie is more than worth it.

Skip this paragraph if you don't want one small spoiler. I have to say they stole one of my running jokes. At one point an animal asks his friends what this big new thing (the hedge) is in their forest. Another answers with, "I don't know, but I will call it 'Steve.'" That's my line. I call everything Steve. Steve's gonna be the name of our next dog. Our kids and the rest of the theatre had to hush my wife and me after that, as we were laughing way too hard and no one really knew why.

Chicken Little
We rented this yesterday and previewed it before deciding whether to show it to our 5-year-old. After viewing, we decided against it. This is a very amusing, goofy movie that adults (especially SCRUBS or Zach Braff fans) will find very funny. But there's a lot of scary stuff. Animals panicking, aliens with spinning razor blades chasing panicking animals, and screams of death and dispair (though no one dies). Too bad, it's got some really funny stuff in it. If your kid can handle some mild violence, then this movie shouldn't be a problem. But if they still can't handle that opening scene in Finding Nemo, forget it.

Our Green House and Arnie Palmer's Poop

Boy, the things that can happen when you go away for a week. I schlepped the wife and squirts to CT for the week to visit the family and, while we were gone, Bob The Builder had the run of the place. As a result, the house changed color and some walls are now missing.

Bob started hanging the new siding, the color of which we agonized over for days. We were determined to replace the gawdawful baby-blue siding with something a little nicer, but didn't want to go with the tan, beige, or otherwise generic color that most of the other houses in our neighborhood have. We also didn't have the budget to go with anything pricey like James Hardie siding (made of concrete..never needs to be replaced or painted. Beautiful stuff), and certainly weren't about to go with the pink stucco look of our neighbor's house. So we opted for green. Which of course was the most expensive of the samples Bob gave us.

On the inside, Bob ripped out the kitchen walls to open up the new space. When we came home to see it, we were somewhat awestruck. Suddenly it's real. We've got a huge living space! And, oy, a lot of flooring to put in and furniture to buy.

But the real fun happened yesterday. A truck came and delivered seventy-six 12-foot sheets of drywall (yes, that's 76 sheets). I need this truck. Its boom was able to pick up the sheets, carry them over the corner of the house, and pass them through the hole in the third floor without ever leaving the driveway. That would be really handy for getting the kids off the swingset and in for dinner.

By the way, I've been meaning to tally up the wiring project. Turns out we put in 1300 feet of wire, and about 70 boxes (outlets, switches, etc). Once this is all said and done, I think I'm going to start doing lectures on how to properly budget for a home improvement project, cuz the magazines don't do the subject justice. For example, yesterday we went to the local bath gallery in search of a sink, toilet, and shower door. I was stunned to find out that a door for our $350 shower would cost $890. Luckily we found a nice one several hundred dollars cheaper at Home Depot, but that was still six hundred bucks.

Toilet shopping was fun. My wife had no criteria really - she just wanted something with a seat that would automatically lower when I left the bathroom. That aside, it was up to me. Turns out there are a few basic criteria, to finding the right toilet. First, do you want a round bowl, or an elongated one? My wife couldn't understand the benefits of the elongated bowl. I had to delicately explain why the extra space in an elongated bowl is handy. For guys, anyway. Well, at least for me. Ya know what I'm talkin' bout? Do ya? Am I right? Yeah man....

Sorry anyways, the next question is height. There's "standard height", and "right height". Right height is about three inches higher, allegedly saving you squatting effort (and thus valuable time), shortening the target distance, and perhaps keeping your legs from falling asleep when you get engrossed in a good story in Reader's Digest. The drawback supposedly is that toddlers' legs tend to dangle. Well, screw 'em, this is my throne, not theirs.

The last characteristic is how many golf balls can flush down the toilet in one shot without clogging it, or what I refer to as the "Arnold Palmer Crap Quotient". And believe it or not that number tends to be in the mid twenties. Now I'll tell ya what, the day I crap 25 golf balls is the day I stop eating my mother's stuffed cabbage.

Kaddish For Fez

Alas, Fez the gecko has passed. It happened quickly in the night. We think. Or perhaps it happened days ago. geckos don't move much, really. He coulda been dead for days.

We're currently visiting the family in CT, and staying at my sister's house. This morning, as I was finishing up my shower, I happened to look out the window to see my twelve-year-old niece Tova walking across the back yard with a small box in her hands. She seemed to be searching for something. My first thought was she was looking for bugs to feed Fez and his lady-gecko-friend. But then I saw Tova's dad following behind, carrying a shovel. Uh Oh. Any time a dad with a shovel follows a kid with a box, it can only mean tragedy.

I quickly threw on my clothes and shoes and headed outside, in time to witness the first shovelfuls of dirt being laid atop the cigar-box coffin containing Fez, the gecko with a sex drive that knew no boundaries. Tova then disappeared around the corner, came back with flowers and laid them atop the gravesite. She finished it off with stones, spelling out Fez's name in the gravel. It was all very touching. Tears flowed, we said Kaddish, dads thought about wasted money on gecko surgery, and older sisters thought about weirdo younger sisters. A classic tale.

It seems that, after Fez had impregnated Art again last week with twins, Art decided she's had enough of this trailer-trash, stay-at-home-mom lifestyle. Evidence showed that she offed Fez by burying his water bowl, forcing him into massive dehydration. Whether there was an insurance policy to collect, or perhaps another younger, peppier, and perhaps richer gecko with even bigger testicles off to the side, only time will tell. But it meant the end of Fez, and most likely another trip to the pet store for dad.

Here lies Fez.
Fez was a gecko.
A gecko with big balls.
Huge balls. And an inside-out-ass.
Father of three.
Husband to Art.
Fez lived a good, but short life. Got his groove on at least twice.
Rest in peace, Fez

A stress free vacation

While the cats are away, the mice shall play. At least I hope not. We're headed on a week's vacation to see the family in CT, thus giving the mice (if there are any left) and the ants the run of the place. While we're away, Bob The Builder is going to be insulating, ripping down the walls of the kitchen, hanging drywall, and hanging the siding. We'll be lucky if we can find the right house when we get back.

Head Shop?

This is great news. Our new bathroom vanity will be delivered on Tuesday. Looks like I'm gonna spend a lot of time in the bathroom....

A washing machine for humans

You know, this thing makes a lot of sense. We do it to our dishes. To our clothes. Why not to ourselves? Most importantly, I think this would reduce a lot of bath-time stress in our house. Instead of the kids splashing around, arguing about who gets the Ariel Mermaid doll, thrashing around in an attempt to avoid removal from the tub, and tracking wet throughout the house, we could just lock 'em in one of these and walk away. Come back ten minutes later and a day's worth of sunscreen, ice cream sandwich-stained fingers, Crayola-painted knees, a dribbled Hi-C would be gone.

Make sure to check out the first-hand (translated)account from iSpot.jp. It's very amusing.

Happy anniversary, honey, I got you an electrical inspection!

Yes, today's our 8th anniversary. Thanks to everyone for your cards and letters. We'll just assume they were late coming through the mail and we should see them in the next day or so.

So we made it through the itch year, unless you count the addition to the house as the itch. One big itch. So anyway, I took today off to finish the gruelingly long project of electrical wiring. When I felt I was close to being done, I called the number my electrician had provided me to set up a meeting with the electrical inspector. I figured he'd give me a time in the next several days. Well, it so happened that he was about five blocks away from the house when I called him, so he said, "sure, be there in a minute."

That was a good thing. It got the inspection out of the way with no time to stress about it. You see, this electrical project has been fairly daunting. I'm no electrician, but I've picked up tips here and there, and my dad and I felt we were up to the challenge of wiring the whole addition ourselves, leaving the heavy-duty dangerous stuff for the electrician. So as mentioned in previous posts, we spent an entire week mapping out wiring routes and schlepping to Home Depot, spending hundreds of dollars on wire, romex connectors, boxes, light fixtures, and the like. At first it felt pretty crazy. Every time I whipped out the HD Mastercard I felt like this whole project was just bleeding us of money. But after a while, it was water off a duck's back. Eh, another hundred here, another hundred there. All told, we're into the electrical for probably twelve hundred bucks. Meanwhile, most of the advice I got from the electrician when I called him was, "oh, I wouldn't have done it like that. Yeah, the inspector might have a problem with it" Gee thanks. Next time, a few more specifics please.

So back to the inspection. What a racket. This guy shows up, I explain the whole project and what we did, and start the tour. He asked me where our grounding rods are. I said, "our what?" He said grounding rods are pounded into the ground several feet from the house, and a ground wire is run to them from the circuit panel. I told him this house was built during my Bar Mitzvah, so I couldn't even guess where they would be. Somehow he accepted that as an answer and that they probably existed. The whole tour took all of ten minutes, most of which time was spent counting the number of outlets, switches and lights we put in. I assumed that was to make sure there weren't too many on one circuit. Wrong. It was to determine how much to bill me for the inspection. You see, the base inspection price of $80 includes X number of "boxes", and for each additional there's a separate charge. So in total the inspection was $125. Hey, that's almost the price of a box of wire. And after a week of worrying if the wires were stapled neatly enough, or if they were stapled far enough away from the face of the stud, or if there were too many circuits or not enough, or if the right kind of wire was used in the right place, he looked at none of that. Just counted boxes.

In the end, he told me I need to make one small change. You see we're moving the kitchen table into the new family room area, making it sort of a dinette. That was a bad thing to tell him, because it means that any outlets near the table need to be 20amp instead of 15amp (which means running a thicker wire). It seems they think perhaps we'll be making smoothies, playing with our daughters' Lite Brite, and powering a generator simultaneously at the kitchen table, thus drawing too much power to our table while we drink our smoothies. Dang. I shoulda told him it was just a family room. Well, could have been worse. I could have told him about the nuclear accelerator I was planning on building in the workshop, but I avoided that subject.

Another milestone that occurred today was being able to retrieve our collection of pots, buckets, and tupperware from the new space. Bob The Builder completed the roof, so it's no longer leaking every time it rains. And believe me, I know EVERY place that it's been leaking, since it's rained almost every day for a month now.

Latest varmint

Boy, between robins, geckos, and mice I'm not sure if this blog is about parenting, renovation, or hunting.

The critter of the day is ants. No big surprise. Summer is about here, and the house is wide open due to various missing walls and such. We're currently being visited by some of the largest carpenter ants we've ever seen. Their size makes them easy to kill, but I gotta wonder. Why is it that you never see ants come from one location. For example, I killed one on the kitchen countertop, one on the stove, and one on the closet door. Scan the room...all clear. Then all of a sudden, there's one in the middle of the floor. How did he get there without me seeing him walk across the room? he wasn't there a second ago. Does he have a teleporter? Was he beamed here from some alien planet in another dimension? It's al very mysterious.

The construction news of the day is rain. Rain, rain, and more rain. We seem to have a good drenching thunderstorm once a day at least. Every plastic bin or unused kitchen pot is serving double duty in the new space catching drips. I've begged and pleaded with the builder to do the roof and siding next, so I can stop stressing about it. I'm starting to dream about gathering two of every animal. We've got our first windows in, and Monday is a big day - the day Bob breaks through the hallway, creating a door to the bedroom. This means that not only do we no longer have to enter the new bedroom via the window, but it also means that Hilary can no longer sleep in when the builders come at 7:30am, because they're gonna be entering the work site from just outside the bedroom door.

It's a damned shame...

Throwing away a perfectly good superhero like that....