Garage doors [s]

Fed up with the garage door that opened into the dryer (pictured below), I bought a replacement that would open into the side room. I went with a steel exterior type.



I bought a second for the garage-to-outside door, this one will be a challenge because it requires a dog door.

Then caulking and trimming on both.



The sod is still alive. The black bamboo should eventually grow alongside the railing in the left part of the image. In the same planter, under the deck, I put the large jade bush I got from SFS nursery.


Thanks to Jon, I have plywood up in the master bathroom so it's time to think about fixtures.



Shower head, body sprays, done. Price Pfister had a nice diagram illustrating the closed loop plumbing necessary for body sprays.

Master bath [p]

The master bathroom is progressing steadily.



If I can reroute the water pipes to their new home in the cornered-off section, I can finish the plywood paneling (then roofing felt and monkey board). The 45 degree angle opens the shower up quite a bit and should make it easier to add body sprayers. It won't be quite as glamorous as Jeff's suggestion, which is regrettably too wide.



I've been through numerous sketches, this is the working plan. I can draw on experience for the shower room and sink. Installing a tub would require a new drain, something I haven't done. Thankfully the area is easy to get to, rather than being under the house or in the slab. Additionally the sink line can be used for the tub, so that's nice. Whatever the case, the tub won't be part of the first pass.

The window adjoining the skylights adds a ton of light to the room, I'm going to need to do some research into acrylic for this. That will lend to possibly installing a small partition to prevent overspray from hitting the toilet. And I'd like to find a sliding door inset with translucent acrylic for the shower room.


I was browsing Lowe's site and found quite a few soaking tubs up to seven feet long.



Removing the closet really opens up the room, to say nothing for how much it imposed on the bathroom - when there was a bathroom. Taking out the flimsy structure revealed a 6' x 4' nook, and that even some of the exterior walls were not insulated. The nook is pretty useless but does beat the attic for storage. Hmm.

One year [s]

So the little one had is first birthday this weekend. Cuteness abounded, and was equilibrated that night when his pops and friends went to see Zombieland. Great movie, I'd recommend it to anyone. It's funny, gruesome, and doesn't try to shoehorn too much meaning into a horror/comedy hybrid.



After a year of skimming, I've put up a net to catch most of the leaves upwind of the pool.



I bolted a steel cable to opposite ends of the deck to manage shear forces, but lacking help I haven't been able to tension it yet.



I pulled the rest of the drywall and plywood super-subfloor. Beneath that was some very thin acrylic that can stay. It's all been green sealed. Capping the shower revealed that the leak, it was at the soldered section at the topmost L-bend.



The interior walls weren't insulated, I took the opportunity to amend this for thermal and acoustic reasons. Small spaces were filled with foam, as was the area surrounding pipes since I hear the foam is superior to fiberglass.



So I'm thinking a main shower head aimed at 45 degrees so I'm not right next to the wall with six feet of unused bathroom space. The new wall should make plumbing the thing a bit easier; more space for the extra knobs and piping required for side sprayers.

Pre-Halloween [s]

Broader fov [s]

My 20mm f/2.8 came today, the one with the 62mm diameter. Doctor Daddy wants me to shoot his kid's first birthday party and the 50mm and 105mm won't cut it. The plan is to foreshorten the crap out of them (below) so they all look like bobbleheads. That's cute, right?



The 20 will likely be my default lens, good for shooting renovations, people, and events.



Speaking of renovations, I've started on the fiberglass insert in the master bathroom. Jon and I learned form the first one that you want to detach the edges first since they're the most solid parts. Though you still have to rip it apart, piece by piece.



I've cleared the rocks out of the top terrace, irrigated it, and tossed on some seeds.



The middle terrace is still greenifying. Also I've patched the various holes made from reducing electrical boxes and carelessness.



Monday is the day one at work. There was some casual celebration.



My next vehicle is going to be a truck. But that's only cause the ft86 is a year away. That'll round out the dream stable: Itie sport bike, high power tourer, beater truck, and light rwd with low miles.



This week is my first head to head with Jon. He was apparently so overcome with confidence in seeing the schedule that he drafted two kickers with the same bye week. He's either still optimistic or unwilling to spend $5 on a trade.

Said by R: '... and then let me homestead on your land.'

Normally I outro with a cute puppy photo, but I found something cuter.

A few events [s]

Wednesday was Settlers night. There was great anticipation as we finally cracked open Cities and Knights. The expansion adds considerable complexity to the game, it's a little intimidating at the outset, but is great for playability. The development capabilities in the expansion add quite a few options up front, but they also change as progress is made. I am simultaneously excited for- and fearful of the inevitable Settlers/Seafarers/Cities stratorgy.



Connie won. I was a couple resources from a last-to-first comeback when I handed the dice to her. Jon was held at twelve of thirteen victory points for a few rounds when his dominance was (at last) recognized. Curt was not far from the finish either. On account of our newbiness to the expansion, the lack of a dominant force/quick winner, and some very 'contemplative' turns, it took five hours to resolve the victor of Catan. That meant 02:30 on a school night. It never really dragged, unlike Risk or Axis where you can finish a pint before your opponent has decided which three territories he'll invade.

I burned about a quarter of my amputated overhang that night. The wood was particularly poppy and there wasn't a shortage of embers on the wood floor. No housefires or burn marks on the highly laminated (not laminate) surface.

I stopped by Dixieline's home furnishings showroom because their kitchen and bath selection is pretty good. I was optimistic, Home Depot just doesn't have much variety and any store that specializes in such fixtures is overpriced and/or requires install. My original goal was to find a pedestal sink that would mesh well with the tight confines of the downstairs bathroom.

Unfortunately the only inspiring ones were ultra modern, and that would clash pretty badly. I took a liking to the Xylem Essence and Europa vanities because they were very slim and had no cabinets. I liked the Essence more and could even tolerate the countertop vessel, but doing a wall-mounted faucet did not appeal. I settled on the Europa with a one-piece white china top.

Joe sold it to me, he didn't mind discussing the options with me and wasn't pushy, but unsurprisingly all of his knowledge seemed to come from the catalog.

It wasn't until the invoice was printed that I was informed there was a $100 handling charge. Joe seemed to expect unpleasantness and meekly suggested that it was offset by their 25% then 20% discounts (which I intuitively know means 45% off list price!). Anyway, that bs was enough to deter me from returning but I was still okay with the bottom line and went ahead with the order. Joe told me it'd arrive within a week.

Then Thursday I (Jon) called and was informed the sink top was back ordered and they should have originally told me two or three weeks. I cancelled the order and was told there would be a restocking fee but they'd try to get it waived because my arrival date was wrong. I pointed out they couldn't well charge me a restocking fee on something not in stock and made the impression that I wasn't going to put up with any more bs. Joe called me later to confirm.

Unfortunately, for future projects this leaves me with Home Depot and the internet. The former has limited supply, the latter offers only jpgs to suggest the quality and consistency of the merchandise.



I headed over Expo to see if they were still open; the place is in the final stages of Circuit Citying. Selection was pretty limited, but they had a few vanities not unlike the Xylem one for a pretty good price. The only tops available were black glass, which I decided against based on style. I did snag an independent sink drain (rather than the one that comes with the faucet) and after the install I'm very happy with it. It's easier to install, looks better, and is of better construction.



The final pull from Expo was a sturdy shelf probably used for stocking small items. Now it's holding up Rob's big ol' crt tv and the sound system pilfered from Casa Morelos. No more bleeding clutch cables without some tunes or Futurama dvds.



Today we took Jon's xr to Plaster City way out on 8. Ty attended, so did Erik and Ian with their big Hondas. The barbecue was a challenge to secure, but very clutch for the grilling of sirloin burgers.



The terrain was a significant contrast to the previous excursion, tight trails were replaced with 360 degree mobility, packed dirt was replaced with sand.



We navigated terrain, ran a small oval course, hill climbed, and did some jumping.



A few more photos can be seen on flickr at the moment.

A few more shots of the carnage [s]

There are a few wires to dispose of, all in due time. The couch is a bit off the wall to center its occupants more and provide a space for the woofer. Um and I'm terrible at pillowing couches.



I brought the tripods home from my office so I had a bit more snapping liberty.



Dixieline was closed today, grumble. Still, I put the head back.



Surf board rack with wifi. Duh.

Truth in 24 (6)

• Rides (7): The speed night mainstay is a powerful road car that features a wealth of modifications such as blowers, bottles, death proof roll cages, and chaingun turrets. The LeMans circuit is a departure, for sure, but not one that dances off into the fairly land of f1 and the lot where cars - to paraphrase Ferdinand Porsche - should win a race and then fall to pieces. Nay, LeMans racers have to run strong for a contiguous day and have been a testbed for the development plenty of commecial technology.
  Truth in 24 showcases the fastest and least recognizable of the series, the prototype class. These machines are purely designed for function and tend to be a crap shoot for aesthetics. I would have found myself salivating considerably more had they focused on the classes that consist of 430s, 911s, S7s, Corvettes and the like. But that experience may have been ruined every time a LMP breezed by on the outside of a hairpin.
  So while there's little variety or focus on the cars you might actually see in the parking garage at your local hospital, they look good, sound good, and require no increased frame rate or cgi to knock your socks off.
  
• Authenticity (10): It's a documentary. You can't get a whole lot more authentic without jumping formats. Of course I'm accepting the characterization of Peugot as evil. But if they weren't evil they wouldn't have made their cars looks so evil.
  
• Femmes (0): I think I spotted a few in the crowd. For something created by nfl films and shown on espn, I actually expected a few umbrella girls.
  
• One Liners (7): The authenticity and female content aren't a surprise, but the prevalence of quotables was a shocker. None are so cornball to be as memorable as 'danger to manifold' or 'my hand gernade', but they're excellent within the context of the story. The lecherous lead engineer of the Audi powerplant has a few, such as the observation that his turbo diesel is quiet and sexy, in contrast to the 'normal' perception of sexy as involving screaming. Shudder.
  Then there are a few - often through thick accents - that draw a chuckle while you're watching, such as, 'Drive home like grandma'. And then the prophetic, 'It always rains at LeMans'.
  
• Action Sequences (7): I'll start with the 3/10ths empty part of the glass: no martial arts, Mexican stands-off, or nos explosions. The 7/10ths is a tasty blend of Fine Driving, high speed camera clips, mishaps, and flying cars. The carnage is actually Tetrised into the storyline so it doesn't feel like a nascar commercial. And most importantly, the movie draws on so many sources of footage that the coverage of the track, cars, pits, is very complete. It doesn't hurt that you can watch some impressive shots and know it wasn't cooked up by a supercomputer cluster or remotely control car.
  
• Star Power (6): Paul Newman and Steve McQueen show up in a few homage clips, the rest are racers.

7+
The Fast and the Furious (7.7): Genre-defining, quotable, unreal
Gumball Rally (7.5): Still relevant
Initial D (7.1): Cult, riveting, but give us some shine
Thunderbolt (7.0): Over the top for better and worse
6+
Days of Thunder (6.7): Pretty good but not very pretty
Ronin (6.3): Left in the briefcase: girls, rides, one-liners
Mad Max (6.2): Brutal action, no frills
Truth in 24 (6.2): Good, but too much truth for speed night
5+
Redline (5.7): Fantastic if watched in a foreign language
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (5.6): Sexy, but unfulfilling
2 Fast 2 Furious (5.3): 2 flimsy
4+
Driven (4.9): Succeeds in everything unrelated to cars
Death Race 2000 (4.0): If only they were just racing across town
3+
Movin' Too Fast (3.3): Well, it has cars

Multiple fronts [s]

Now that the downstairs floor is done, the floodgates have opened.

• Media room: Ty helped me return the couches from the upstairs. I affixed surround speaker mounts to the walls and tonight added some extender cables so there weren't wires in awkward places. The next step will be to change them to coax for a safer journey from the amp.
• Downstairs bedroom: It's slated for rental, but couldn't be until the floor was taken care of. This needs touch up paint and moulding, but it's close.
• Downstairs bathroom: Everything came out for the grinder. Sunday I primered and painted. I trimmed the walls and shower today, so now it's time to find a pedestal sink. I'm thinking maybe I can snag something from Dixieline that isn't horribly overpriced.
• Downstairs hallway: This could use a layer of paint, but the task isn't quite as small as the bathroom.
• Garage: Now that I'm not avoiding pools of drying epoxy, I can rededicate the car hold for vehicles and saws while the side room becomes storage once again. I'm thinking dark red walls in the garage, but leave the ceiling white. I snagged a couple sample colors and will be looking into that one. A big, awesome workbench is in the near future, but more immediatley I have to find a shelf to hold the sound system which as been pretty clutch so far.
  

I didn't have hot water for a couple days. The pilot went out, it would relight with the manual override button pressed but would wink out as soon as it was released. The internet said the termocouple was the likely culprit, it shuts off the gas when the pilot is cold for obvious reasons. I was happy to hear Depot carried Honeywell universal thermocouples.

No dice.

I called a repairman. He walked out five minutes later with the burner working and an empty generic thermocouple package in the trash. Stuff you, Honeywell, and your unnecessarily long 'universal' thermocouple that produces signal below my valve's threshold.



My blurry faced friend dropped by with his kid.

A couple fun one liners:

• For some reason I'm attracted to bikes.
• I love it when you take hallucinogens and help me pick fruit.

Anticipation is high for:

• Fast and Furious, released Friday, its first installment still tops the leaderboard. Obtw, even though the post is backdated, I just published the reviews of Gumball, Ronin, 2F2F, FFTD, DR2000, and Movin Too Fast. There are a couple flashes of brilliance in those reviews, not so much in the movies.
• I finally remembered to replace the propane.
  
• Connie bought lots and lots of Settlers of Catan.
• The White Lambda may return. This time, it could be personal.
  

Yard, tile, library [s]

One of these weekends I'll mortar some brick bases around the pillars. But at least I have a well supported deck.





Jon went after the tree that most overhangs the pool.



The hammer drill made short work of the downstairs tile. The next step is to grind off the thin set. If all looks well tomorrow/Thursday, I'll look into concrete stains.



Rfq has been graciously mailing contributions to the library which so far consists of engineering and mba texts. He's a shoe-in for having a collection named in his honor, but perhaps not the entire library. Should I become party to any groundbreaking bookshelf designs, I would be obligated to name the structure appropriately.

Squeezing in [s]

Tonight I snagged a 60" mirror for my 59" wide bathroom. No big deal, I've always said that drywall is for suckers.





There's some stuff to be done. Pictured above: thermostat, non-kitchen cabinet knobs, caulk for seams, wire nuts and wire strippers for copious electricals, finishing nails for door trim and base boards, doorbell chime to be hidden somewhere because they're all really ugly, garage door opener to get wired onto the bike.





I like the configuration with the soft couch facing the fireplace and the futon and coffee table in the kitchen area.