12/30/10 (18:43)
  • bowl season has been decent so far this year. arizona lost as expected. it's plausible that the pac-10 could only win one of their bowl games this year. i think the most likely victory is stanford over va tech. washington and arizona are both outmatched and you already know how i feel about oregon. of course i'd like it if they all won, but that's fairly unlikely.
  • i've had this week off and have been working on catching up on all sorts of things. recorded a bunch of ask this old house episodes to dvd for my archive which is nice. also closing in on my 300 movies a year goal. also working on getting all the stuff finished around the house. at this point all we need to do to finish up with the kitchen is to prime and paint the trim around the exterior door and paint some of the baseboards. shouldn't take much longer and then we will have finished the foyer, kitchen, and bathroom. it'll be nice to have four areas (those three plus the garage) 100% done.
  • next year's big projects are basically all in the back of the house: the utility room off meryl's art room (called the animal room because it used to smell like an animal lived in there), the bathroom (which we will likely expand and open up into the bedroom), and the laundry room (which needs flooring and trim).

  • 12/27/10 (19:47)

  • the ncaa continues to show its values and where its priorities are with the recent crack down on osu players. it's one of those cases where two wrongs actually make a right: 5 osu players sold jerseys, etc. for personal profit and were caught. everyone knows you can't do this, no one reasonable thinks it's right. so the ncaa punishes them by suspending them for 5 games (too much) next year (huh?). not the upcoming bowl game, but next year. pryor may leave for the nfl this year which would make his suspension worthless and if it's such a big deal why wouldn't they suspend them for this year? the answer is money, as usual. vegas would have a fucking fit if 5 players were taken out of the bowl game all of a sudden. there's a lot of action in the hopper already and the bowl game would take a serious hit if the suspensions were to take affect this year. so they did the thing they knew would make the most monetary sense - defer punishment until next year. worthless assholes.

  • 12/27/10 (12:17)

  • dad came up for xmas eve and we had lunch with sarah. that was an event.
  • xmas day meryl and i stayed in and watched movies all day. that's our new tradition and it's fine by me. had chinese food and snacks; it was grand.
  • yesterday we did some work around the house. got the cabinet trim up in the kitchen, and worked on some more finishing touches in the bathroom like installing the vent to the exterior of the house. would have loved a 4" diamond core bit for that, but i made it work without one. we should be able to finish up the kitchen/bathroom/foyer before the end of the year. we worked on our 2011 goals list and it's a lot, but doable.
  • after house work we went to the movies for a triple feature. 3 films for the price of one. i'm now at 99 movies in the theater for the year and only have a few more movies to get to 300.
  • niners ended their season yesterday. singletary is gone today. i think it's the right move, but i don't necessarily love it. i'd like it if he could stay on as defensive coordinator, but that's a tough pill to swallow and the dynamic of an ex-head coach in the locker room would be weird. we have no continuuity at the qb position or the offensive coordinator position and that has been our undoing for the last several years. figure those things out and we could be a playoff team. jimmy raye was singletary's downfall. if he had kept martz i believe we would be in the playoffs this year and singletary would still be in charge.

  • 12/23/10 (18:00)

  • today was a day off at work, but i had to go in to let the carpet cleaning crew in. also did nine hours of slate patio repair. the front patio area is looking pretty good now. hopefully i'll get in there again in the next month or so to do the back patio which has more fundamental problems. it's really nice having my own rotohammer and tile saw.

  • 12/21/10 (17:15)

  • bathtub glass enclosure was installed today. looks pretty nice.
  • work is slow this week. hopefully it doesn't rain on thursday so i can get some work done on the slate patio again. we'll see. now that i have my own tile saw and rotohammer i can do it on my own schedule which is nice.
  • sarah is supposed to come over to make some fudge tonight. i think i should schedule these things earlier so that they start when i want them to.
  • we had a couple issues with the bathroom sink, but the manufacturer has stepped up in a big way to make sure that things go smooth from now on so that's really encouraging. assuming they follow through, porcher will be a brand i can recommend for the foreseeable future.

  • 12/20/10 (12:03)

  • was listening to npr today and they were talking about the don't ask don't tell vote. the most fascinating moment came on this exchange with a caller and neil conan and had nothing to do with the policy. neil: "where were you when you found out about the vote?" caller: "ha. i was on facebook, actually."
  • i don't think most people would find these two lines of interest at all, but it was telling to me. this guy actually thought that he was at a real place called facebook when he heard the news. he didn't say "i was at home and i found out by looking on facebook." am i being too literal? i don't think so. if someone asked me where i was when i first heard the news i wouldn't have said "i was on npr, actually." i would say "i was in my truck driving to home depot. i found out while listening to npr." facebook is an actual place to some people; pretty pathetic.
  • the entire house has been a learning process and the bathroom hasn't been any exception. several things that i look back at and think "i would have done that differently." we have another bathroom to do so hopefully i'll make different mistakes when the time comes for that one.

  • 12/19/10 (14:22)

  • trying to get odds and ends done this weekend while meryl is gone. haven't been entirely successful. getting stuff from my personal list checked off, but haven't been as good on the house stuff. keep getting thwarted at every turn. frustrating.
  • i don't have much problem with wikileaks. they seem to be doing the job that reporters don't do anymore. i think assange is getting a bad rap because governments don't like him. whatever happens with him and his "sex by surprise" case, i hope that wikileaks sticks around.
  • i said years ago that michael vick could be really great if he was on a team that knew how to make an offense for him or if he learned how to become a prototypical pocket-passer. it seems he's found a bit of both in philly. i believe in redemption. he did his time. all the more power to him. rod blagojevich is a worse person in my book.
  • rain has been off and on this weekend. windy too.

  • 12/16/10 (20:10)

  • pretty rough day today. everything i did fought me all the way. would have liked to get the bathroom all done (except for the door), but things didn't work out. used the wrong bits to drill through some tile (turns out i had the right bits in the garage, but didn't realize it) so that took a long time and didn't get great results. hopefully the escutcheon covers the back-splayed tile. several other things with the bathroom trim stage also weren't working out. not even going to bother to detail them here as no one cares.
  • got a message from my boss that a shelf i put up fell down so i went into work around 530 and fixed that.
  • was supposed to make fudge with sarah today, but that didn't pan out.
  • yesterday i took the nabcep test and did ok. we'll see if i pass. if not then it's $100 down the drain.
  • hopeful that this weekend i'll finish up the bathroom and get started on the kitchen.

  • 12/12/10 (10:51)

  • going to the niners game today. it's a must win for them to stay alive. shocking that they still have a chance, but they do. it'll be only my third pro game ever. saw the rams play the falcons once when they were in la. then i saw the raiders play the bengals (think that was the matchup, but i remember it was the game that effectively ended bo jackson 's career).
  • the bathroom is useable now. need to get the shower up and running, but have to wait for the enclosure anyway. making progress.

  • 12/11/10 (22:30)

  • meryl had work most of the day so i worked on my own. got the sink and toilet installed. there were a few issues with each (one supply line didn't work, drilling through the tile was a pain, incorrectly installed the faucet (forgot the escutcheon), etc.), but they're pretty much done now. had to take a couple trips to home depot as well.
  • the good news is that i listened to a lot of music which was nice. i don't listen to as much music as i used to and that's too bad.

  • 12/09/10 (11:50)

  • door by kitchen has had problems ever since we had it stuccoed. i'm wondering if they waterproofed it correctly. also not thrilled by the door itself. i shouldn't have tried to stucco the area below the door myself because they just went over what i did and it looks kinda crappy. basically that entire side of the house is an eyesore to me and i'd like to have it redone by real stucco guys.
  • got some quotes on the putting in a glass shower enclosure. likely to be way more than i want to spend, but meryl's pretty set on the idea and i admit it will definitely look nice.

  • 12/07/10 (21:03)

  • hortencia came over to study for the nabcep test with me today. not looking forward to that test so hopefully i pass it the first time around because i don't think i'm going to take it again.
  • we finished the bathroom tile. things are moving along pretty well lately. still need to figure out the stain color formula for the entry way trim. also need to install all the fixtures in the bathroom and trim the kitchen, but hopefully we can finish that by year's end
  • working on updating the pictures right now.
  • been watching the up series from beginning to end lately. 35up is next, seen it and 42up before, but don't remember them. 49up is out and new to me, but is also 3 hours. yikes. wish they had an edit that didn't recap everything from the previous installments. i understand that each one was made as if you were watching it for the first time or hadn't seen the others for 7+ years, but it's the dvd age now so we can watch them whenever we want so maybe 56up will be trimmed a bit.
  • busy as usual. hopefully only have another year of this before i can relax again and get back to watching movies, etc.

  • 12/04/10 (09:38)

  • haven't written in a while.
  • thanksgiving was so-so. did a lot of work and running around during the break. thanksgiving is a bad time, too, because the ride to and from la is usually packed so you have to leave real early/late in order to miss the traffic.
  • we finished the kitchen backsplash the other day and it looks pretty nice. still need trim and the pass through in the kitchen before it's done.
  • worked on the bathroom on wednesday. it's coming along. hopefully just another full day of tiling. the trim around the tile looks pretty sharp. it was an additional cost and took more time, but i think it looks pretty nice.
  • movie goal is far off this year. doable, but i have a lot of flicks to watch to get to 300.
  • NABCEP test is on the 15th so i have to start studying for that a bit too. class, work, house, movies, college football, end of year awards for webpage...tough time of year for me.
  • slept wrong the other night and my neck has been stiff the last two days.
  • meryl's working on painting her brother's apartment this morning so hopefully i can catch up on movie reviews and get a little work done.
  • uninspired by the potential auburn/oregon matchup. would have much preferred to see boise state in the mix, but i guess that wouldn't have happened no matter what. since i was old enough to remember my parents told me that life isn't fair, but it never completely settles in because hope is one of those emotions that never fully goes away (for better or worse). maybe that's what becoming an adult is about - completely abandoning hope and fairness for the reality that those are mirages.

  • anyway, i don't see oregon winning the game because auburn will have enough time to figure their offense out. oregon has also been fairly unimpressive of late. would have been nice to see tcu and auburn lose so oregon and stanford would be #1 and #2. what would they do then? they could have had two rose bowl matchups (pac-10/big ten) - oregon vs. wisconsin and stanford vs. ohio state. that would have been funny, but it wouldn't have happened.