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.